words & symbols

Authors Note : With all due respect to my Grand Uncle, Late K C S Panicker, this blog has nothing to do with his Series of Modern Contemporary Paintings titled Words & Symbols ( a picture below  of which is self explanatory - for those not conversant with Modern Indian Contemporary art and artists of the famous Madras School)

The Words and Symbols in my Blog are evidently based on recent Political events back home in India, more specifically, the result of the results of the New Delhi Elections - 

words & symbols
Words & Symbols that wont be welcome at Congress HQ or No 1. Race Course Road, till the next Elections at least :

• -  Aap :  Sonia has requested all juniors,  including her son, daughter and son-in-law to do away with the respectful word and may now call her using Tu or tum or you.
  
• -  Baapu :  Mahatma Gandhi can no longer be referred to as Baapu.
  
• -  Nazia Hassans hit from the 70s, "Aap jaisa koi" has been declared seditious
  
• -  Rajesh Khannas hit film "Aap ki Kasam" has been recalled by the censor board
  
• -  R K Laxmans cartoons have also been declared Anti Poor and thus banned from all schools and public libraries! ( However sources not wanting to be revealed have said that the old guard of the BJP have adopted R K Laxmans Common Man due to a strange resemblance to one of their stalwarts. We also hear that the BJPs Presidential Candidate has thrashed these rumours. )
  

  

  R K Laxmans "Common Man"

  
  
• -  Mangoes are no longer Indias National Fruit and can only be referred to as "Mangifera Indica".  The Hindi word for Mangoes may no longer be used. The fruit has been banned from being served at home and at office. We hear a visiting MPs Driver has been dismissed for suggesting he loved Aam(Mangoes).
  
• -  Note: An attempt was made to nominate 'Parthenium Hysterophorus' to replace the Royal Mango as Indias vegetative symbol, but that was soon scuttled, and the paper torn up by Rahul at a Press Conference.
  

  

  PARTHENIUM HYSTEROPHORUS (Commonly known as Congress Grass)

  
  
• -  Aaplause, Claaping, Aapreciation,,,,,Aapathy, Chaapathi,,,  And other words that may remind the electorate of, and promote the "flash in the pan" political party AAP, that Rahul so very much wants to now emulate, can hereby no longer be used in their presence.
  
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• -  Ravinder Jadeja has unceremoniously been dropped from the Indian Cricket team when No. 1 Race Course Road heard that his nickname was Jhaadu!!
  
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• -  The City Sweepers Association were ecstatic as everyone of them had been given a vacuum cleaner each.  All their earlier implements were destroyed.  
• 
  
• -  Rahul had gone one step further and  passed a new promulgation calling it the Access to Cleaner Technology for The Urban and Rural Poor Bill where everyone in the country would have access to a Vacuum cleaner if they agreed to destroy their jhaadus (brooms).  India HAS to set a modern example, he had said.

- However, we hear the Sweepers have since gone on strike realising that these modern implements need electricity, something they haven't had,  to run. 

• -  And Breaking news, We just hear Rahul has attended another Press Conference and torn up the proclamation and has vowed to find a solution to provide an alternate to the Broom in the near future ( before the 2014 elections). We hear that it may be an Act to Provide Electricity to all Sweepers - before 2014 May!!
  
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• -  He added that All Congress leaders have been banned from making Sweeping remarks. ...…..
  
• The story continues....
  
  Ram
  Engrossed watching the Memorial Service For Tata Madiba Nelson Mandela… 
  Banjul 10th December, 2014
  

An Ode to the Aam Aadmi Party

From my Facebook Page, after Arvind Kejriwals Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) surprised everyone at the Delhi Elections trouncing both the incumbent Congress as well as the overconfident BJP.

The Congress party lost virtually everything it had, and the BJP - despite claiming a Modi effect, got lesser votes than it did when it lost the elections last year!! 

Suddenly every one is seeing things differently... Mirror images, reverse swings..
No Cricket
All about the Election Ticket
About Political Fame
About a Partys' Name
Who's AAP?
No one knew!
Whatsaap?
Broom?
And few said " a chatroom"
The movie PAA… (AAP in reverse)
The Movie MAA ..(Similarly AAM in reverse)
A few took this a "guessical" chance
"No No, Were not talking about the Bachchans"
Political Partys
Not Kitty PAArties

AAplause
PAAuse
Broom, Vroom,
Dhoom, Doom
Sweep, Weep
Ho Ho Ho
Its us the people of the Mango

This DESH will be
No more Cagey
With this Fiery man Kejri
Nothing hidden behind his firewall
Enough is Enough says
Mr Kejriwal,
And we ask, Who?"
We the people( Tum ya tu)
Now respectfully AaP
The Aaposition shouts ShaddAAP
Everyone smiles, engages ,
Sending smses, emails and Whatsaap messages
... Huh...
This Bharat is going to change
(Nothing to do with Julian Assange)
But a simple ( symbolic ) man
Who challenged political greed
Set up a new Breed
Of people,
Similar to one who sat under the Pipal

(Not that old  Biddy
From Ralegaon Siddi)
But the Original, The One,
Not the bounder
We speak of The Buddha, the Founder 
Of a society that shun 
Want & Lust.

And to end this ode,
I must
Switch off from a poetic mode
Say SalaAAm
Aam Aadmi Party
We Pray you're here to Be.
Ram
Hope there is reason beyond this rhyme.
December 10th, 2014 as the Delhi Election goes into a possible Presidents Rule and as Anna Hazare goes into another Hunger Strike trying to regain lost ground..

"A Hazar Anna Hazares" revisited : The Aam Aadmi Effect

The Anna Hazare Blog was originally written in 2011.. when a whole lot of activists, yogic tantriks, disgruntled civic servants and politicians and a whole lot of people got on to support a seemingly senile yet principled person. However now, two years later, Arvind Kejriwals Aam Aadmi Party ( The Common mans party or Mango (English for Aam ) Peoples Party :-) has just created history. Before the elections, Anna Hazare tried as much as possible to distance himself from Arvind Kejriwal claiming all sorts of malpractices committed by Kejriwal. Ex Delhi Policewoman, distanced herself too. The Yogi of course ran away much earlier, disguised as a woman, thankfully never to be let onto the stage of the AAP.

In a complete reversal of the sentiments written in the earlier Blog, today Anna Hazare seems senile. Pathetically trying to run and clumsily clamber onto a missed bus. Tripping and falling in many peoples reverence for this Gandhian who seemed to want change, but not the power. Now that the Bus has moved out of the park, he seems to clamour for credit.

He tried to puncture the bus halfway through the critical phase of polling, and yet the AAM Bus moved on.

As I read through my earlier Blog (quoted below), I too realize how wrong I was then.

One character in that Blog turned out to be the real hero and the real Hero in that blog turned out to be the joker. Will he be the villain of this story now?

I admit that I was wrong then and I have become a fan of Arvind Kejriwal over the last few months.

Will he be able to control the masses and the asses who want to board his bus?

A debate is on right now on NDTV with Nidhi Razdan trying to eke out controversy over Prashant Bhushans rider to the BJP.. while a ticker tape news bulletin reads that Anna Hazare has gone on his nth Fast unto death … Coinciding with the AAP Bus departure, seems he has decided to board at any cost!!

The memory of a million Gandhi topis(hats) inscribed "I am Anna" have not so mysteriously become "I am Aam Aadmi" cementing a certain but positive shift in the  movement.

Am I too an Aam Aadmi?

The 2011 Blog :

I often wonder how many of us had heard of Anna Hazare over 6 months ago? ( I can of course practically see those intellects stand up, saying that they knew of this Gandhian from Ralegan Siddhi - in typical 'Silencer' ( the fourth and only idiot in the now famous Three Idiots) fashion!! Well I hadn't heard of him. The first mental visual when I heard the name, was that of a blonde spouse of a Cricketing hero. This is typical of the current mental state I am in. I've been trying to practice thinking 'out of the box', that the thought process starts with the most bizarre, furthest out of the box thoughts. Others laugh. I've got used to me. Thus, once convinced that Anna Hazare was indeed a Gandhian, following principles of Non-violence, making a serious effort to fight corruption, my mindset about the person changed. only to be rudely shaken back, into a box, when lo-and-behold, there stood alongside him, the usual suspects - politicos in orange garbs, tantrics wielding political microphonic megaphones, and of course with some brilliant actors too. ( I refer not to the presence of Aamir Khan, whom I genuinely admire, but to the theatrical skills of former employees of TATA Steel and the Indian Police Force, respectively (without respect!) The antics and drama, brought to the forefront of a genuine fight against corruption, have made this make Anna or Team Anna look terribly monologued! They look like the "Lagaan" cricket team at practice. All running like headless chicken! Making mockery of a genuine Indian concern! A Billion people, plagued by corruption, yet living with it in as though in a marriage (An Indian Marriage at that!! No morally acceptable separation)! I read this in a friends comment on the same subject. You realise that a vast majority of us who have just heard of Anna Hazare, feel some sort of empathy. Millions of us. Yet we seem impotent in being able to effectively do something about it. The standard rhetoric is - If you want to do something about It then cast your vote! Or Join Politics. UGH. Well, until we start Overseas NRI voting for the first option. The second option - not an easy one for many of us who don't play games! The first one is a one time option for a full term and thus makes no sense! It would take a tremendous effort to make any change during the tenure. And that's where the problem with our democracy lies. The incumbent politician rakes in the most he can till the next election. The Hazar Hazares will scream and shout, go on hunger strikes. Can they make a difference? Will they be able to reduce corruption? Or are they going to replace an entrenched corrupt system with another one? The more one sees the hanger ons and the dramatists alongside, the less the Hazar Hazares will be seen behind the real Hazare. 

Nairobi, Enjoying the wonderful climate ...from Indoors!! October, 17th, Wednesday, 2011

Why …Why is it so difficult to say Goodbye

Tata - Madiba - Nelson Mandela

How does someone whom you have never met,
Someone you don't even know
Affect your life in a manner so different
No Pomp No Glamour No Drama
Yet a story so deep so touching
As though a family member

Madiba, we thank you for showing the way
to lead with conviction, without a war
but a battle so strong that
Far away brutal supremacies
bowed down and join now
to revere your humble, simple yet
powerful personality

We celebrate your life
now that you have gone
we knew you not
we touched you not
yet why why why
is it so difficult to say goodbye.

I honestly don't know in what way I can say that Nelson Mandela has affected my life. But I do know that like an aura,, a dream.. the smile in his eyes, the wrinkles on his face… seemed to always speak to me. Remind me of a person, who was so much like our very own Gandhi and yet lived his life in front of us, Real and Present. Having led South Africa to freedom from Apartheid, freed the anger of a brutal regime and soothed the hurt, and moving South Africa forward seeking solace rather than revenge… His voice choked my chest and continues to bring tears to my eyes, while we celebrate with South Africans.. lilting chanting music in the background… in true South African manner

Thank you Madiba, Tata, Nelson Mandela..
Without knowing me, you have made me try to be a better person!
Ram Mohan
5th December 2013