A Spent Force Multiplier
A funny thing has happened on the way to the Jantar Mantar forum, where Anna Hazare is presently holding court. Enemy No. 1 for Team Anna is no longer the Congress. It’s the media, particularly the electronic media. Since this fourth round of agitation began, print and TV hacks are being openly cynical, if not contemptuous, of India Against Corruption’s drawing power. The vibes, bad to begin with, have been made worse by some unhelpful language used by the Team against the media. According to the Team, “owners” have instructed their journos to ignore and rubbish the agitation. Publicity-hungry members like Kiran Bedi (she really is a loose cannon) have added to the deteriorating relations by their ill-considered remarks.
Why has the media turned against the sainted Hazare? Three reasons: firstly, the Team itself is split into three warring camps. One camp, the strongest, consists of Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan. They are keen to marginalise Anna Hazare and crown Kejriwal as the designated leader of the campaign. The second camp consists of the canny Hazare, fully aware of the game being played. He also knows he is the crowd-puller, but intellectually and ideologically deficient. Finally, we have the Ramdevwallahs anxious to keep their Baba at the core of the agitation. The jostling within these camps is hardly a secret. And it provides the media with frequent “breaking news”. Besides, like the rest of the country, there is a sense of fatigue with an agitation that has lost its way.
Team Anna was built by the media. It is the only weapon in their armoury. While the government quietly watches the self-destructive impulses of a movement initially motivated by a noble cause, the Team would be well advised to recall the aphorism, “Those who live by the media, die by the media.”
Waiting It Out
Am I the only one slightly bored with the Olympics? The opening ceremony, choreographed by Danny ‘Slumdog’ Boyle, has rightly drawn praise for its tasteful and imaginative rendering (would Pratibha Patil have agreed to being cinematically dropped by Agent Vinod for the inauguration of the Commonwealth Games?) of Great Britain’s history and culture. Alas, the Games itself does not send the pulse racing. I have been trying with some effort to get involved in judo, cycling, fencing, archery, pistol shooting, yachting, weightlifting et al. So far I have not succeeded. And while it is undoubtedly true that excellence in these disciplines requires precision, dedication and virtuosity, watching the competitors, from the viewers’ point of view, is less than absorbing. As spectator sport, at least half the events at the London Olympics are one big yawn.
Of course, things will become more compelling when the track and field events begin next week. We’ll get an opportunity to see world records broken by athletes like Usain Bolt. Till such time, it is difficult for the viewer to stay glued to the TV.
The Hills Wag
Whenever I escape to my modest cottage in the downmarket part of Mussoorie, I make it a point to spend an evening with two of my oldest buddies. Ruskin I know from my Debonair days, when we were both charged with obscenity in a court of law for printing Ruskin’s delicious and subtly erotic short story The Sensualist. In case you are curious, we were honourably discharged. Ganesh Saili, I got to know later, and he, like Ruskin, is a treasure-trove of information of things big and small in sleepy Mussoorie. You’d be surprised how much gossip, most of it reliable, floats around in the Queen of Hill stations—and Ganesh knows the best of it. Gossip-mongering, as I have said before, can be hugely relaxing and entertaining if you are in the right company.
All that talking-up is to plug for Ganesh’s recently published Gupp & Gossip from the Hills (Niyogi, Rs 395), which contains everything you wanted to know about Mussoorie but were too afraid to ask. The British, who came up with the concept of hill stations in India, preferred to conduct their illicit amorous and non-amorous adventures in cooler places. The present natives are carrying on an old and honourable tradition in fine style.
Grey Matter
For those of you who think I’m a dirty old man professing to read soft porn in the cause of journalistic duty, I’m happy to report that the publishing phenomenon I mentioned in my last Diary, Fifty Shades of Grey, lies on my bedside table unfinished. I read the first 250 pages avidly, then the fantastic mutual orgasms, the sadomasochistic bonking and the awful writing got tiresome. The heroine Anastasia Steele’s favourite phrase is “Holy shit”—which gives you some idea of her limited vocabulary. I’ve still got around 200 pages left. I intend to leave them undisturbed. Is there hope for me?
Last Week...
I discovered a new word, ‘Chillaxing’. An amalgam of chilling and relaxing, it was used in a book to describe British Prime Minister David Cameron’s habit of taking time off—and stuck.
Vinod Mehta is editorial chairman, Outlook, and its founding editor-in-chief; E-mail your diarist: vmehta AT outlookindia.com
