New Chowk, Classic Chowk

New improved Chowk looks like it will be fun. Forum is back, chat is on and maybe we can have a re-run of the lunacy that took over forum last time around, for just a few days though. Some of the more, how do we put it..., eclectic aspects have been discreetly tucked away.

So, in keeping with life as usual, with a trip to the Valley, (Silicon, not Kashmir) put back due to bad weather and other such vagaries of life and circumstances, time to reflect. Time to spread the word on Chowk again. Time to analyse and look forward.

In a way, this article has also been prompted by the fact that I haven’t written for a long time, anywhere. Oh yeah, stuff on cars and computers, that doesn’t count. This is where the action is. Meet somebody at a party, big guy from the sarkar, and he says, hey, your “provocative” stuff on Chowk has mellowed down. Mass mail the new Chowk, viralgate the url, and pat comes a response from an otherwise absolutely sane cousin, hey chump, why are you writing for a Pakistani propaganda site?.

Is this, then, a site for Pakistani propaganda, which weak kneed pinkoes from India like me frequent? Am I a weak kneed pinko, to start with? Here, then, goes:- I used to wear a uniform. Most of my family wears or wore a uniform. If required, I shall wear a uniform again. And if it has to be aimed at the Pakis, so be it. But, ad interim, ad nauseum, since many of my near and dear ones got bopped off by the Paks (or the LTTE. Or our own rebels. Or militants. Etc. ,and more etc. does it matter who fired the bullet as long as it had ISI written all over it?) I think I have a right to some common sense statements.

And these are:- (some flippant, some serious, but then, is war serious or flippant?)

1) There are no solutions, and there are no problems. There are simply too many people with nothing much to do. The two countries must, therefore, insist on continuing hostility as a means to solving the population problem, as well as thumbing their noses together at GATT and WTO. They should announce at Davos, jointly, that henceforth we will all brook no interference with the Kashmir issue and shall fight it out amongst ourselves using only locally made weapons.

2) Force so-called secret service and intelligence department people from both countries to sit through Microsoft Power point presentations every day on subjects as important as: role of the government in designing better nachos to alleviate poverty on both sides in the Rann of Kutch. For this members of the government will spend 2 weeks in Atlanta, Trump Tower before discovering that the Taj Mahal is the snazzy museum in Hyderabad, Deccan, called Salarjung.

3) Exchange Karachi bus drivers with Delhi bus drivers. Here it is pertinent to point out that our bus-driver’s God comes out of a bottle, thank you. Since Karachi’s bus driver’s Gods come out of a chillum, we may have a problem. Not knowing how to drive a bus is not a problem. When done with killing on the streets, these drivers can race up on either side of the roads to Kargil, dodging artillery shells for practice.

4) Control over the funds for soldiers needs to go into the hands of opposing armies. I have been told about the grace and solemnity with which soldiers on either side eventually exchange dead bodies. Nothing that I have seen or heard of diplomacy can match these occasions. Let us start a “contrarian fund” on Chowk itself. Pakis pay for dead Indian soldiers families and Indians pay for dead Paki soldiers.

5) Bring more Indian names on board. Indian need not mean only Hindu but at the same time if I write as “V. Malik” then people will throw stones at me for not playing cricket properly, either. So, indicate current city of residence with the names on the masthead, everywhere? I mean, Safwan Shah is also the name of my meat seller in Khan Market, New Delhi. And he sells jhatka meat, not halal. What would happen if he were to go on Chowk and extol the virtues of his pork chops, delicacies with the South Delhi set? True.

6) Remove fresh discussion of religion from Chowk for a finite period of time. However, if anybody needs to have to discuss religion here, then only with full identity out in the open. Wear it, flaunt it, sure, but have the guts too, no? While we are at it, ban cricket also. Let us be the first sub-continent site to do so. Any bets we won’t?

7) Bring in a section on Indian and Pakistani films. Make Chowk the absolute final word on Indian and Pakistani movies over the Internet. Anybody, but anybody, ever wondered who the owner of a cinema hall was, what his religion was, which country he came from? Initiate discussions on whether Madhuri Dixit wore falsies (she did) or wears them now (she doesn’t).

8) Put up the largest possible gallery on soldiers who died in the wars between our countries. A joint gallery. Get in touch with their families. Find out if they want to be driven by revenge or by common sense?

9) Insist to our governments that if we have to wage war against each other, then we need to do it only with arms and ammunition manufactured by us,ourselves, not imported. Have teams of observers from each other’s side maintain close watch on this.

10) And finally, arrange to buy stock-lots of Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” and have them delivered to armed forces on both sides, in as many dialects as possible. Die and fight laughing.

Come on Chowk! Or do we have to all move to Dubai to learn how to live together?