Bizarre Happenings: Scoop, Spook and Coup?

Coup in the largest democracy of the world? India going the Pakistan way? 'Impossible', 'Operationally not viable', 'Absolutely stupid', 'Alarmist', 'Absolutely baseless'— cried dignitaries at the topmost level, military experts and journalists belonging to various groups and channels all over the country.  We said a few days back bizarre happenings in a country ruled by a weak coalition are bound to continue...it has continued. 

The morning cup of tea yesterday was definitely not at all a pleasant experience for the high and low of the country as they looked disbelievingly at a national daily newspaper. The story covered the full front page of the newspaper. The story was supposed to be a scoop that supposedly spooked the Raisina Hill for a monstrously possible coup. The story, kept under wraps for more than two months for the sheer implausibility of it, reported happenings on the night of January 16-17, 2012 concerning troop movements towards the national capital Delhi. Two units of the Indian Army—mechanized infantry battalion from Hisar (Haryana) and elite Parachute Brigade from Agra—started marching towards Delhi on the night of January 16, 2012 without notifying the Defense Ministry or the Government. Morning on that fateful day General V K Singh—Chief of Indian Army—filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the Government on his date-of-birth dispute.

The story went on saying that the troop movements sent the power corridors into a tizzy and frantic efforts were made to halt the movements. The story cited shockingly poor Government-Army relationship and high-level corruption lobbies as the main reasons for such unfortunate situation of a near-coup in the country. The newspaper stood by it story despite all the negative reactions to it mentioning highly credible sources.

Bizarre! But why—the common people may ask. Well, in our country nobody starves for reasons or justifications as if democracy has endowed it all on them. Opportunities are bountiful for the interested, particularly at this juncture.

And who? Guesses are not that difficult to make. India has been a country of vested interests and lobbies. They resent any attempt to change the system, they resist any righteous movements, they make it a policy to malign right-minded honest individuals and they oppose or try derailing any attempt to prosecute the corrupt. Like the middle agents rob the farmers of their rightful dues every season, brokers move around in power circles to grab the lucrative supply contracts in various departments and institutions. One may very well imagine the immense possibilities in such a huge and strategically important institution like the Indian Army. The Army Chief having a clean image and trying hard to free the system of corruption is bound to face the most horrendous resistance. Therefore, such lobbies can go to any extent to discredit the patriotic Indian Army and malign the Government-Army relationship.

Only one thing is becoming very difficult to accept. How could a group or a lobby—whatever the power or clout it enjoys—take the most prestigious national newspaper on such a monstrous ride?

What’s next? 

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Bizarre Happenings and Politics of Turmoil!

Eating Under Threat!

If you have already given up the smoking and drinking habits you have hardly done enough. You find yourself in a greater and debilitating dilemma about what to eat or drink or what not to from the fast diminishing options. If you thought only plain simple fats had been making you fatter all the years, now you had to worry about trans fat too.

If you have loved the fast foods now is the time to go slow. Fast foods are also called junk food. You must be aware what junk food is. Well, it means foods without having enough nutritional value, but scoring high on fats, salt, sugar and calories. You must never fall prey to the mouth-watering smell and taste these foods have.

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a public interest organization of India, had only the other day come out with its devastating report on junk or fast foods. All of such foods or soft drinks marketed in India by the multinational companies contain much more trans fat, the worst kind of fat, than is advisable as per the international standards of around 2 per cent per person per day, the report says. Just one serving of any such foods like a burger or a plate of noodles or a packet of chips finishes off your quota of fats for the day and as far as sugar intake is concerned it robs you of your sugar quota for two days. Your dream of doodling with your noodles has just about turned into a nightmare. Now, you must look to other options.

Switch over to the traditional foods? Well, what are they? Maybe your glass of steaming hot milk! No! It contains or may contain pesticides thanks to the CSE again and to make matters worse other studies had reported that more than seventy percent of total milk supply in India was adulterated too. You come up with the next viable option—fruits and vegetables. No again! The CSE says all these contain untenable proportions of pesticides due to the increasing use of fertilizers by the farmers. You have to undertake a fresh start to find fresh fruits and vegetables.

Inevitably you turn now to the meaty options. While the red meat has always been a red signal for you in recent years the options of fish and chicken appeal more to you now. But the problem here is that you cannot devour them raw. That is to say, you need some amounts of oil to make it cooked fit for you. The CSE had already made it difficult for you by pointing out high amounts of trans fat or unsaturated fat in all brands of edible oil. Now you must launch yourself on an exhaustively original and creative search for your food options.

There are many pointing fingers towards a utter lack of regulatory laws or enactment of only weak and ineffectual laws in India regarding showing and labeling of fat ingredients on branded foods. Due to this lacuna the multinational brands allegedly put up labels showing zero trans fat content in their products just to derive the marketing advantage. To make things more complicated no one is asking the street vendors and country eating joints as to what are being used and in what quantities in their hot selling dishes.

And what about the Indian society standards with a high hospitality quotient and a seemingly unending stream of parties, get-together and congregations. You can control your own kitchen to some extent no doubt, but you just cannot walk up to the hosts or organizers and demand to know the trans fat content in the food served—that too free.

Cynics would tell you to choose or reject as per your judgment hardly knowing the fact that you are fast running out of options. For the time being it seems a free mind, a daily routine of strenuous physical activity and moderation is the ideal menu for you. Maybe your favorite or compulsive rice-plate at your favorite canteen is also okay!

Movie ‘Agent Vinod’: Gripping Espionage Thriller!

Saif Ali Khan’s most ambitious movie ‘Agent Vinod’—the title borrowed from the spy flick made in 1977--got released all over on March 23, 2012. The movie in its second week has not yet been declared a hit and its business is not overwhelming. It has earned quite a few bad reviews and caustic comments from Indian movie goers. The mood for the film seems to be biased, per-conceived and downright unworthy.

In fact I too was misled by a prominent review and was happy not to have already booked for it. But a few others made me confused and I finally decided to watch the movie to judge for myself. I took the risk on April 1^st itself, but was pleasantly surprised at not being made an April fool in the slightest.My wife also confirmed the same sentiment. 

Agent Vinodis a hardcore spy flick which is also a rare genre in India. Though the title is borrowed from the Agent Vinod movie made in 1977 this not a remake and there is no resemblance in the storyline or its dress and style codes. While Mahendra Sandhu became a household name in the key role of spy Agent Vinod that became a surprise hit, Saif Ali Khan in the same role in a more stylized, intelligent, well-structured and complicated version is still struggling to establish his new found identity. 

The basic plot of the movie is a nuclear bomb being taken to its destination and its detonator transferred in the innocuous garb of Omar Khayyam’s Rubbaiyat through an extraordinary auction.  Murder of a colleague takes Agent Vinod (Saif Ali Khan)—a secret agent from an Indian intelligence agency—to Moscow with the only clue of code ‘242’ and after shootouts with the suspect Abu Nazer ( Ram Kapoor) gang Vinod follows leads to arrive in Morocco. There he confronts David Kazan (Prem Chopra—the baddie of the classic era of Hindi cinema) and his mysterious beautiful assistant Dr. Ruby (Kareen Kapur). After a series of intrigued conflicts laced with wry humor Vinod discovers the enormity of the auction and finds himself in hot pursuit of the elusive Colonel (Adil Hussain). 

Through high-paced action, twists and turn the movie takes you on a global tour starting from Afghanistan, Moscow, Russia, and Morocco and through Riga, even Somalia, Cape Town, Karachi to finally climax in New Delhi and London with shootouts, Hitchcock-type suspense at times, breathtaking car and auto-rickshaw chases and extraordinary locales. Apart from keeping you engrossed it never even allows you to think where it is leading you to. Seemingly unconnected scenes will remain so for you if you do not follow the well-knit and intelligent script. Brilliant cinematography and razor-sharp editing add to the pleasure of watching. When you finally feel it is all over in New Delhi you are taken to London for another shattering climax. Mystery concerning the characters of Dr. Ruby, the Colonel and Mr. Metla gives you the suspense treat and surprises. At one or two points you feel there are link breaks, but you can think it over only after the thrilling fare is over! 

Agent Vinod in no James Bond, no Bourne and not even Mahendra Sandhu. It is a most positive addition to the Indian spy film genre. It is not a typical Bollywood fare and maybe that is the reason why it is going over the heads of many movie goers. Maybe the marketing and publicity strategy for the movie was wrongly conceived projecting Saif as a funny and joker spy forgetting his path-breaking performance in Omkara. His punching-the nose-of-an NRI that was seen as a publicity stunt definitely did not help his movie. But eventually Agent Vinod is set to score high.

Kudos to director Sriram Raghavan who gave us slick flicks like Ek Haseena Thi and Johnny Gaddar earlier. We hope he will go on making sequels to Agent Vinod.  We fail to understand why people of Pakistan should miss out on this tremendous thriller that talks of better relations between our two countries rather than defaming Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

                                                                                                     NSNE8ZQF8VST (For Technorati)