Pretty good to clinching…ISI ka naam evidence

When the national security advisor says he would be “hesitant to say that we have clinching evidence” against the ISI hand in the Mumbai trains blasts, it’s time to sit up and take note.
But no time, says our media. The truth is out there, and if the Mumbai Police chief says it’s those bloody Pakis who did it, it better be those bloody Pakis. So, get out and grab it, that bloody truth. No time for further introspection, the state of the bleeding notwithstanding.

It matters little here that the media would have grabbed the bloody truth from out there and trashed it down your gullet even if the Mumbai Police had not raised its bleeding fingers against those bloody Pakis. It matters even little that the Mumbai Police would either way have raised its bleeding fingers against those bloody Pakis, truth or no truth, as it eventually did.
The only thing, my dear Watson, is Mr Roy took so much time to raise his fingers and address the press conference.

You see, out here in India it’s easier to catch ‘terrorists’ than to successfully reap cotton. Just let the public anger simmer a bit and get a few guys from the ‘minority community’. No name-calling, just blame-calling, and, bingo, you have the terror network unearthed, unplugged and undone. Proof, evidence and such trifling things are, of course, not necessary in view of national interest.
Did Mr Roy, or Mumbai Police, manage to convince even a trainee reporter of any of their “findings” in that press conference? Lies, damned lies and garbage apart, the answer would be NO.
They traced a few phone calls, sure; tracked and arrested a few suspicious-looking men, sure; made them ‘confess’ to their ISI/SIMI/HUJI/LET/JEM/CAT/SCAN/MBA/BBA links (the last four are, of course, gibberish, but how many in our tribe would be able to spot that, given the surfeit of acronyms surfacing in our media about Pak hands?), sure. And then addressed a press conference.
Little wonder their version, oftener than not, do not stand scrutiny in court of law. Little wonder most of their witnesses either turn ‘hostile’ or are out of wits when the case is on.
Wrong I may well be, and wrong I sure do hope I am, but will someone please bat an eyelid, scratch the head a bit, murmur a few “but…” and ask some probing questions before reporting the police claims verbatim?
“We have pretty good evidence," says M K Narayanan now. And that’s as good a note to hum the shriek, a la Cuba Gooding Jr in Jerry Maguire: Show me the evidence.

Post-Diwali blues, on National hangover Day

Oh ho, hmm (background score: Mr Santa Strikes the Keyboard), after a long, long time. On a day with no newspapers; post-Diwali, of course. Life sounds a little less rosy; without those sounds, lights, fights, bits and bytes of P3 and such overtly happy images strung together with words.
Lucky, at least I don’t have a kid or a dog; or they would have had to do with old papers from the stack today. And, trust them, that’s no fun.
But — and here’s the inevitable poser for the day — why do all journalists in all newspapers in almost all cities need a daylong off to hit the bottle all together? (I go under the presumption that most journalists, save some irritatingly sane ones, do the only earth shatteringly ponderous thing worth every bit of their journalse on such holidays; i.e. sit in front of a bottle and see it go from full to half-full to, hic, fulltoo).
And why, pray, on the other hand, don’t TV journalists get a break? (I go under the presumption, of course, that most human beings, save some irritatingly insane ones, do the only earth shatteringly ponderous thing worth every bit of their sanity every day of their life; i.e. sit in front of TV, with the news channel switched on for lack of better entertainment, and wonder why those overworked characters putting together the item numbers on the news slots ask for more holidays. Both for themselves and us).
There was no cricket match on the telly today (to give them all a break on the National Hangover Day, of course), so I watched some TV news this afternoon while getting ready, nursing The Hangover and trying not to get late for office (all at the same time; my IQ level, as you can gauge from this testimony, is definitely not in the negative). There was haze all over; in the Delhi air, as reported duly by TV. Brillianto, methinks. Bring out the sting operation on Aeges mosquito now. I can almost smell the deathly opening score as the anchor describes the inhuman torture meted out to their whole tribe by blast-crazy Delhiites.
Suddenly sober, I rest my case.
(Background score: Oh Surreal, Oh Surreal, Mr Banta Gets Nariyal)