"Otherwise we are not so orthodox"

Apparently, good Indian girls don't do serious research in good libraries.

This newspaper reports that undergraduate female students at Aligarh Muslim University are not allowed to enter the better-equipped Maulana Azad Library and that even in the Women's College Library, students are allowed access to the reference section only. And what does the college princy have to say?

"Vehemently denying the allegations against the college administration, Bilquis Nasim Waris, Principal of the Women's College, said the college library was “equipped with what the girls require... Everyone knows that UG students don't need reference material and journals, they only need textbooks and even if they insist on reference material, our teachers can fetch those from the MAL and hand out photocopies,” she said.

Dismissing the demands for relaxing rules and allowing more freedom to the students to step out as “needless,” Professor Waris said the austere rules are only “to protect” the girls. She went on to elaborate: “We allow them to step out on Sundays. These girls are young and just want to go outside. These restrictions are for their good and to save them from wrong things. Otherwise, we are not so orthodox.”

Bah!

Come see me

Friends, strangers, countrymen and townswomen, come! The discussion with Shilpa Phadke promises to be fun. And you can ask all the questions you want. 

A leisurely stroll to the nearest thana?

At a recent meeting, retired Justice Hosbet Suresh explained Section 151 of the CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure). Essentially, you could be hauled off to the nearest police station if a cop thinks you are going to commit an offense, and you could be kept there for 24 hours.

A lot can happen in 24 hours. You could be forced to perform acts that leave you scarred for life, but which we cannot prove in a court of law. Or you could be obviously broken but the fractures and bruises may be explained away as an ‘accident’ — slipping in the bathroom, for instance.

Now, what is one to do about slippery bathrooms? What should we say to a woman who was seriously injured immediately after being handed over to the Chhattisgarh police? Apparently, Soni Sori, accused of being a Maoist, has managed to hurt herself while in custody — she slipped and fell, it is being claimed — after she was handed over to the Chhattisgarh police.

Her family — including her father and her nephew Lingaram Kodopi — has been hurt and hounded and the whole business has already been reported in the national press. Soni had appealed to the judiciary in Delhi, saying she fears for her life. Now what does one say to the honourable judges who saw fit to hand her over to the Chhattisgarh police?

And what does one say about octogenarians getting manhandled? Activist Kavita Srivastava’s 87-year-old father was pushed around when the Rajasthan police came calling while helping the Chhattisgarh police find Soni Sori. If Mr Srivastava was hurt, I suppose we’d have slippery bathrooms to blame.

(...) You might be set free and then arrested again. The poet Varahara Rao was arrested about 15 times. Arun Ferreira, who spent four years in jail as an undertrial, was acquitted but the police re-arrested him before he could even meet his family.

Read full piece here

City Nights 2 (a poem)

The city comes pouring out

of her mouth like sleek brown rivers
of discontent, her hands flat
against the pink café walls,
the round-faced waiter in his purple apron,
stunned.

The city pours out of her mouth -

colour of churning monsoon street,

bags under neglected coffee eyes,

soles of slippers that have spent the evening

in an old-fashioned cemetery,
colour of guts.

On her fleshy back, a hand
rubs in the city’s truth –
This happens.

At least once in your life, the city

comes pouring out of your mouth
until you are drained and your gut is a shocking pink
like the walls of a café where shaky first lovers 

sulk.

One of these days, past midnight,
it will all come true -

Everything will come pouring out of you.

Your big bum,
the beer towers you drink to fit in,
the hands that rub your back as you gag
over an alien sink,
loose knots of mustard hair,
dead phone batteries,
under-cooked mutton.

The city will come pouring out of you
and when it happens, you will smile
with your eyes shut tight,
you will say to the nearest friend –
This happens.
This had to happen.
It happens to everyone.

[Edited slightly after it was published in Verve (India) magazine]

(C) Annie Zaidi

Matrimania and more

Found a wonderful, insightful, informative piece about marriage, its past and future, and what it means to be single in our romantically crises-ridden age. The context and a lot of the research is from the USA but what the writer says and experiences will resonate with many of us in developing nations, particularly educated, urban single women.


I'd strongly recommend that all single people (men and women) read this article. All five, lengthy pages of it. Parents of single people are also strongly advised to read it too. Two very short extracts from the article are here, below:


"When I embarked on my own sojourn as a single woman in New York City—talk about a timeworn cliché!—it wasn’t dating I was after. I was seeking something more vague and, in my mind, more noble, having to do with finding my own way, and independence. And I found all that. Early on, I sometimes ached, watching so many friends pair off—and without a doubt there has been loneliness. At times I’ve envied my married friends for being able to rely on a spouse to help make difficult decisions, or even just to carry the bills for a couple of months. And yet I’m perhaps inordinately proud that I’ve never depended on anyone to pay my way (today that strikes me as a quaint achievement, but there you have it). Once, when my father consoled me, with the best of intentions, for being so unlucky in love, I bristled. I’d gotten to know so many interesting men, and experienced so much. Wasn’t that a form of luck?

All of which is to say that the single woman is very rarely seen for who she is—whatever that might be—by others, or even by the single woman herself, so thoroughly do most of us internalize the stigmas that surround our status.
Bella DePaulo, a Harvard-trained social psychologist who is now a visiting professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is America’s foremost thinker and writer on the single experience. In 2005, she coined the word singlism, in an article she published in Psychological Inquiry. Intending a parallel with terms like racism and sexism, DePaulo says singlism is “the stigmatizing of adults who are single [and] includes negative stereotyping of singles and discrimination against singles.” In her 2006 book, Singled Out, she argues that the complexities of modern life, and the fragility of the institution of marriage, have inspired an unprecedented glorification of coupling. (Laura Kipnis, the author of Against Love, has called this “the tyranny of two.”) This marriage myth—“matrimania,” DePaulo calls it—proclaims that the only route to happiness is finding and keeping one all-purpose, all-important partner who can meet our every emotional and social need. Those who don’t have this are pitied. Those who don’t want it are seen as threatening. Singlism, therefore, “serves to maintain cultural beliefs about marriage by derogating those whose lives challenge those beliefs.”"

Also:

"The matrilineal Mosuo are worth pausing on, as a reminder of how complex family systems can be, and how rigid ours are—and also as an example of women’s innate libidinousness, which is routinely squelched by patriarchal systems, as Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá point out in their own analysis of the Mosuo in their 2010 book, Sex at Dawn. For centuries, the Mosuo have lived in households that revolve around the women: the mothers preside over their children and grandchildren, and brothers take paternal responsibility for their sisters’ offspring.
Sexual relations are kept separate from family. At night, a Mosuo woman invites her lover to visit her babahuago (flower room); the assignation is called sese (walking). If she’d prefer he not sleep over, he’ll retire to an outer building (never home to his sisters). She can take another lover that night, or a different one the next, or sleep every single night with the same man for the rest of her life—there are no expectations or rules. As Cai Hua, a Chinese anthropologist, explains, these relationships, which are known as açia, are founded on each individual’s autonomy, and last only as long as each person is in the other’s company. Every goodbye is taken to be the end of the açia relationship, even if it resumes the following night. “There is no concept of açia that applies to the future,” Hua says."

Read the full piece. It will do you good. It will do good to all those around you. 

Why I support the auto-wallas this time

Auto-rickshaw drivers deserve to live in clean surroundings; they deserve to eat fruit; their children deserve to go to good schools. And it is true that for this to happen in Mumbai, a household needs at least Rs 25,000 a month. So, now that one of the auto unions is demanding that much money, I understand. I even kind of endorse their demands.

... If autorickshaw drivers win this battle, domestic workers, motor mechanics, balloon-sellers, writers (do I hear a hundred Amens?) will follow. Why shouldn’t a truck driver make Rs 25,000? Why not a teenaged girl who sews tinsels on dupattas?

What I find interesting is that even the state seems to value drivers above other kinds of workers. Paycheck.in, a website with information about current wage rates, has published data from various states. It shows Indians who drive ‘public motor vehicles’ are entitled to more money than those who build roads. Which is strange, isn’t it?

In Maharashtra, the minimum wage for a driver (included under ‘Public motor transport’, I’m guessing) is around Rs 7,000 (rounding off figures). This places them a bit above film production workers. Also above attorneys, barbers, bakers, weavers, typists, carpenters, security guards, and those who work with chemicals, or in saw mills. Unskilled hospital workers (who are exposed to serious health risks) are entitled to only about Rs 5,000.

As for farm workers, they were guaranteed Rs 120 per working day (in 2009), or a monthly salary of Rs 3,120. And I wondered who decides these things. Why should a bus driver make more money than a farm worker?

In any case, I’m sure farmers wouldn’t mind getting a pension, same as autorickshaw drivers. I certainly wouldn’t mind one.

Read full piece here

Gallantry in the Versovic Veerana: A midnight frame

I was pretty spaced out during the ride back to the station. While hailing the auto-rickshaw, I hadn't even looked at the driver's face properly. We never do, do we? All I remember was that he was aggressively bearded. And that his auto gave me the full benefit of the city. No distracting music. No cricket commentary or news. No conversation on the phone. No horns.

Midnight Andheri vroomed past - engines, hammering on construction sites, yellow headlights that always seem to me more like a loud sound than a painful sight. And hooting. That unmistakable hooting sound of men trying to get a woman's attention.

I was too spaced out to notice at first. The blinding yellow, the shadows of men curled up at roundabouts, the loopy daydreams had been distracting me. But when the cat-calling continued, I looked up and saw them. About eight of them, sitting-standing on the back of a truck. They sat with their legs dangling out of the lowered 'gate' at the back. Semi-bare legs. One of them wore short shorts - a crimson red. Another wore a red t-shirt. With the light in my eyes, I couldn't see much more.

Workers, perhaps, packers and movers. Or friends of the driver, hitching a ride to somewhere after a hard day at work. I looked at them for a minute and then looked away again. A traffic light. Both vehicles stalling, engines working hard.

The whoops and hoots grew louder. They had noticed me looking. They wanted me to look again.

It gets tiring. Them wanting to be looked at. I could look. Then they would hoot louder. Then they would nudge each other and say, "Look, she's looking." Then they would make a gesture, perhaps it would be obscene. Perhaps, it would amuse me. Then I would feel insulted.

I wasn't yet feeling insulted. But now it was impossible to slide back into that trance induced by screaming yellow midnight traffic. I looked away, shifted so that my face was in the shadows.

As if that mattered. They weren't hooting at my face or my clothes. I was covered neck to wrist to ankle. They were faceless men themselves, tired working men, but they saw a woman and wanted her attention. And   I didn't want to give it to them.

I couldn't. You never can. How can any woman in this city - any city - give a group of random men the attention they obviously want, and hope that the situation will not worsen?

I did the predictable thing. Lowered my eyes, shrank somehow, counted down to when the light would turn green. The light turned green.

But even a small truck is a large thing. On a road reduced to a ribbon by massive infrastructure projects, it is hard to ignore. And so we travelled that way for a while - me in the auto, behind the truck, and the men calling out - not words, just sounds. Looking at me.

There is something awful about being looked at in this way. It seems preposterous even when there is no danger. You want the looking faces to go away. You do not want their eyes on any part of you - not your hands, not your feet, not your shadow.

And then my auto-driver began to weave impossibly. First right, then left, then right, swerving sharply. He was going as fast as he could. Hooting sounds still floated in, but somehow, they seemed to have been deflected. Somehow, I felt less helpless.

As soon as he could, the auto-driver squeezed through a gap on the left, hit the accelerator hard and overtook. From the wrong side, yes. But finally, I was rid of them - the hooting, the looking.

Once we'd left the truck behind, the auto-driver slowed down. The night swung back into pools of yellow-grey and the hum of a hundred engines. I relaxed. I began to space out again. In a few minutes, we reached the station. I paid him. He found other passengers. I said, 'Thank you'.

I didn't really say thank you, though. How do you say 'thank you' for such things? For guessing that I'd feel bad about the hooting; for wanting to do something about it; for doing what he could without me having to suggest it.

I still couldn't see much of him as I alighted. All I saw was his beard. There was the slightest touch of grey in it. Or perhaps not. There was something about him that suggested greyness, as if he was on the far side of youth. Perhaps it was his silence, his wisdom. Perhaps, it was my silence, my wisdom. Who can say?

"She puts on the safety chain and opens the door a few inches. The broad shoulders turn. It is a familiar face after all. It is the face of trouble.

Seconds pass as her soapy hands fiddle with the safety chain. She should shut the door now. She should make an urgent phone call. Or she can talk across the chain, ask him what he wants. The safety chain clatters gently against the door as Sujata turns back to go into the kitchen.

The door hangs open."

[Extracted from a short story that has been published here.]

Crib

So I got into another crib-fest about Hindi films and how disconnected they are from ‘reality’. How our filmmakers have turned into elitist bubble-vermin, how the bubble shall surely burst, how it deserves to burst because films are media, and media has responsibilities. On and on.

Then I thought, but what about ‘media’ media?... Thinking about the information put out by the ‘national press’ has goaded me into making a list — a list of things to write about that are guaranteed to make various groups of people fear the nation and her institutions, including the fourth pillar of democracy. Here are some items from that list:

Write excessively about a visiting skinny blonde who wants to sell us hand-bags. Do not write about Gopalgarh (Bharatpur) and the firing in which at least 8 people died and 23 were injured.

... Do not ask what the home ministry hopes to accomplish by allowing the Border Security force (BSF) to arrest alleged Maoists, and the Central Reserve Paramilitary Force (CRPF) the power to interrogate them.

Avoid asking why Lingaram Kodopi is wanted, or why Kopa Kunjam was arrested. Do not ask who will be granted powers to undo interrogations that go too far.

Respond to the public’s need to figure out the new Facebook. Do not respond to the public’s need for more public transport.

Read the full piece here

Talk about feeling good!

At its most literal, sadbhavna translates to ‘good feelings’. Now who wouldn’t want Indian citizens to have good feelings for each other, across the tragic, screaming borders of caste, language, religion, sex? And if a democratically-elected representative wants to fast for a few days in the hope of fostering fine fellow-feeling etcetera amongst the electorate, there is nothing wrong with that.

But the thing is, good feelings can only come to those who are feeling good about themselves and the people they must deal with. I can believe, for instance, that Narendra Modi is feeling good. Good things have happened to him. He’s been CM for nearly a decade now. Everybody tells him that he’s good at administration (which might not be the same as being a good person or citizen or leader, but that’s another story).

However, there are other Indian citizens who are not feeling so good.

For instance, the Basumatarys from Kokrajhar in Assam. There are allegations that the deaf-mute wife was gang-raped by SSB (Sashastra Seema Bal) soldiers in front of her husband. That was earlier this month. A police complaint was filed, but I haven’t heard of any fresh reports on whether the armed forces are doing the needful: making arrests, trying the accused, punishing them. The victim — and the village, and in fact, all of Assam — wants to see some kind of justice getting served. But until that happens, it would be stupid to expect them to feel ‘sadbhavna’ vis a vis the SSB.

Also, for instance, the people of Karcha village in Chhattisgarh. They can’t be feeling too good after the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl... State home minister Nankiram Kanwar of the BJP shamed himself by asking why the dead child was out at night in the first place (...) It is hard to feel good about such ministers. Indian women will find it hard to forgive the BJP for not making him step down for this shameful attempt to protect alleged rapist-murderers by blaming dead children.

Read full piece here

Hail and Farewell

Since her murder, there have been allegations that evidence was tampered with. There is talk of exhuming Shehla’s body. There is talk of powerful BJP leaders being involved. Senior BJP leaders have also not said anything about the case, nor asked BJP-affiliated politicians to step down until their names are cleared in connection with Shehla Masood’s murder. They are instead taking out a ‘rath yatra’ to stop corruption.

One of the last few things Shehla did was fast — in solidarity with Anna Hazare. But despite his ‘victory’, when faced with the murder of a real person doing real things to combat corruption in her own state, Team Anna has been woefully quiet. Hazare himself is busy making statements about how Sonia Gandhi should be like Indira Gandhi. Perhaps he slept through the Emergency. In any case, nobody is fasting to bring the government of Madhya Pradesh to its knees, forcing it to investigate all instances of corruption that Shehla had pointed towards. Nobody is gheraoing the homes of BJP MLAs.

And I’m thinking, how quickly they fade — our little stars of truth that come tearing through our thick smog of violence and corruption. How quickly they fall, burn out, disappear into the dark night. She has been dead for less than a month but Shehla Masood is already fading from public discourse. The media hasn’t taken her investigations into corruption any further.

Some of her activist friends are trying to keep her work alive. Shehla had been working with a group of students to create a sort of ‘RTI leaks’ — a web resource for all information collected through any RTI application filed across India. It sounds like a very good idea and I hope the website lives and grows, for all our sakes.

Which reminds me of another poem where the lines went something like: They died that we might live — Hail and farewell! — to those who, nobly striving, nobly fell…like kings they died.

Read full piece here

Self-loathing and the Middle class

I patiently waited in line. Five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. Finally one auto trundled up, and was promptly hijacked by people right at the back of the queue. We all sighed, shuffled, mumbled. The same thing happened again, then again.

Finally, one gent stopped a freshly hijacked auto by planting himself firmly in front of it. He asked the hijackers to vacate the auto and wait in queue like everyone else. The hijackers were a family including an elderly gent, and some women. The gent began to plead that they should be allowed to go first because, “We have ladies with us.”

This argument didn’t go down well. Angry little murmurs went up: “What, we’re not ladies?” and “We also have ladies with us.”

The old gent began to shout. His next argument was: “If I die right now, who’s responsible?” In other words, he was possibly hypertensive, and if we made him get off, he might suffer a heart attack.

He shouted louder at the protesting man who was trying to enforce the queue system. This younger gent then trained his guns upon the auto driver. “Make them get off.”

The auto driver, keenly aware of his precarious position, stared into the night, silent. The elderly gent, sensing victory, asked the driver to drive away. The younger gent, sensing defeat, shouted some more at the driver, began to abuse him. He said, “It’s really the (insert strong language) driver’s fault. Why do these guys allow it?”

I’m glad the driver drove away then. I sensed the younger gent was tempted to hit him. And there was a likelihood that others would join in.

And then I remembered why I mistrust the middle class.

Read full piece here

Truth and reconciliation in the context of corruption

Last week a writer-friend, Vivek Tandon, called me to discuss what should actually be done to combat corruption. He thinks we need a ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ commission — something along the lines of what they did in South Africa after they finally got rid of apartheid. In the corruption context, this would mean people being given a chance to confess their corrupt acts and redeem themselves.

They would return their ill-begotten money (whatever remained of it), perhaps pay fines, but would not be jailed for corruption-related crimes dating back to… Well, the state would fix a cut-off date, and no further acts of corruption would be tolerated.

I’m not yet sure about the workability of such a commission... Still, I like the idea of Truth and Reconciliation. It assumes that corrupt people are human; that they want to return the morsels they have wrongfully stolen from the mouths of malnourished kids; that millions of bribe-takers lie awake at night, longing to confess but afraid of being sent to jail. Can’t fault the idea for a lack of optimism.

Corruption is often unforgiveable, especially in poor nations, but Tandon argues that corruption is an intrinsic part of the culture we grew up with. We are taught to use ‘contacts’ to ‘get work done’. That’s how we get confirmed train tickets, or driving license we don’t deserve, or construction contracts, or environmental clearances. We are taught that only idiots pay taxes. Just like millions of us spit, spit, spit everywhere, undeterred by the law or exhortations in the name of public health. People do it not just because they get away with it but also because they have always done it, and seen others do it.

Read the full piece here.

Readings in Mumbai

Now that the new book is out, we shall be doing a series of readings across various book-stores (and perhaps at some institutions too). This space will be updated as and when new events are finalized. Please do come. Physical invitations are not necessary, so anyone interested in the Good Indian Girl (and why would't you be?), come along for a chat.

One:  Kitabkhana
[Address: Ground Floor, Somaiya Bhavan, 45/47, MG Road, Fort, Mumbai]
Time: 6 pm
Day: September 3 (Saturday), 2011.

Snapshots from the city of waves

I headed towards the autos queued outside the domestic airport and carried my bags to the front of the line. As I got into the first auto, a white-uniformed fellow with an I-am-a-somebody demeanor leaned in, blocking the exit. He said: “Hundred rupees… If you get a pre-paid slip, you will have to pay a hundred and fifty.”

I snapped something about using the meter, and then tried to alight. White Uniform stepped back, saying, “Okay, okay. Meter…”

Later, I asked the driver how much I owed him. He tried to overcharge by 10 rupees.

I looked at the meter and took a deep breath. One part of me was saying: Forget it. The other part said: “Don’t add to a culture of financial misdemeanor.”

So I pointed to the meter. He stared at me sullenly and said, “I waited in line at the airport a long time.” I retorted, “So I pay because you have to line up?”

I wanted to say other things — about how you have a better chance of being treated with respect if you act like you deserve it; how cheating becomes a way of life; how this is a vicious circle of blame and powerlessness; how I too wait in line for autos but do not charge a premium for it. But I didn’t say any of this.

Two days later, the road was blocked by another Anna-people rally. Tricolour flags etcetera.

I was in an auto and the driver was twisting this way and that, peering at the junction. He mumbled, “Now are these Anna-people headed right or left?”

I had to smile. Big question, that one. Are they headed right, or left?

I asked the white-haired driver what he thinks about Anna Hazare. He shrugged.

Full piece here

To read, perchance to have fun:

It is the result of the joint labours (and loves) of myself and Smriti Ravindra. It is ready for scrutiny, and judgement, or whatever else you might bestow upon it. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting The Bad Boy's Guide to the Good Indian Girl aka The Good Indian Girl's Guide to Living, Loving and Having Fun. The book can be preordered (heavily discounted) on Flipkart.

Look, laugh, nod, think

Here's a short video put together in the context of the book. If you have responses, or comments, they are most welcome here, or over at the Zubaan blog. If you want to respond at length, come up with your own note/ essay/ video/ musing-in-some-new-format and we will link to it.

The lathmaar school of management

People, you see, have problems. And even if the problems are not of the state’s making, the people still expect the state to intervene.And when it comes to corruption, they are truly furious and justified in their fury because they confront corruption mostly via state-controlled agencies. So they are mistrustful of the government when it claims that it will tackle corruption on its own.

The mishandling of the Ramdev situation in Delhi is still fresh in their minds, and threats that Anna Hazare would be treated the same way have just caused a massive, public upchucking.

That’s how these protests appear to me — an outpouring of disgust. Friends have been calling from other cities to say that their staid, smug middle class neighbours are marching in support of Anna Hazare. They are probably upset about food inflation. Or insane real estate prices. They are not really supporting Hazare’s version of the Lokpal Bill. They can’t, because they haven’t read the draft nor thought about its repercussions.

I have, and I disagree with it. Police and judicial reforms are far, far more pressing. Yet, people support Hazare because they need a rallying point. They need to express their disgust. But how does the government deal with public disgust? By flexing its judicial and administrative muscles! By throwing a colonial-era law book at their faces!

Read full piece here.

Seeding sovereignty

Wiktionary defines sovereignty as the state of making laws and controlling resources without the coercion of other nations. In other words, we are sovereign only if we use collective resources to our own advantage. So, here’s a question. Does food qualify as a resource?

Yes? What about traditional knowledge? Yes? Do I hear you say that it is imperative that India holds on to her strengths in the food department?

But food comes from seeds. And seeds… Well, there’s a seed floating around nowadays that is not ours. We don’t own the knowledge and fertility that’s embedded in that seed. Foreign corporations do and they won’t allow us to save a fraction of the crop for using as seed next year. In fact, corporations like Monsanto sell expensive seed with built-in ‘terminator’ technologies, so that the crop is useless for re-sowing. Does that spell ‘justice, liberty, equality’ to you?

...

So farmer groups, under the banner of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), decided to celebrate Quit India Day (August 9) by asking Monsanto to get out. They want the state to stop GM crop trials and work out a system of seed self-reliance instead. They’re denouncing the ‘bio-piracy’ that blocks access to seeds through ‘collaborative research’.

You may or may not agree with the ‘Quit India’ call, but remember that seeds can be contaminated, or destroyed. Crops can fail again, and again. Famines can happen. Terrible famines have happened during colonial times and one reason was that farmers couldn’t choose what to grow.

Read full piece here.

Do you accept it?

BSY posed for photographs — holding one edge of the resignation letter while the Governor held the other — smiling confidently for the cameras. He insisted he would be back in the CM’s chair within six months. There was a lot of bluster andshowbaazi. Looking at the photos, it seemed as if he was resigning in protest.There was no sign of shame, no sign that the CM had to be shoved out after allegations of massive corruption and nearly weeks of wrangling with his own party bosses.

This last week, some citizens certainly have realized how much they loved BSY, and how acutely they would feel his loss. These would be people who gained from illegal mining and are now scrambling to squeeze out the last few thousands of crores, while they still can. Whilst power was brokered in Bengaluru, they snuck out iron ore by the train-load despite a Supreme Court order banning all mining and transportation of iron ore in Bellary.

Reportedly, 49 lorries were caught transporting ore from BMC (a firm rumoured to be tied to the Reddys). District authorities in Bellary also seized 7,448 tonnes of iron ore in two rakes (each rake has 58 wagons). Another 1,000 tonnes was seized at JSW Steel Ltd, coming from Mysore Minerals.

Meanwhile, in Bengaluru, I was wondering whether it was safe to step outside if the new CM was someone BSY couldn’t trust to shove back into oblivion after six months. What would happen to those of us who were out having lunch, buying veggies, travelling in buses?

Read full piece here