Saturday 30 November 2013
Praise for my new book 'THE AVENGER' by the Indian Express
Fighting the good fight
Fri Nov 29 2013, 23:29 hrs
Author: Juggi Bhasin
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 495
Price: Rs 299
The Avenger by Juggi Bhasin takes up a year later after the events in The Terrorist, where Special Forces officer Suvir Suri faced his terrorist doppelganger, Murad, to a decidedly deadly climax. Now Suri has retreated to Himachal Pradesh to put a considerable distance between the world and his comatose lover and himself.
Meanwhile, in Delhi, a plane belonging to billionaire industrialist Suresh Jindal is hijacked while his daughter is on board and subsequently bombed, at the behest of the sociopathic Sikandar Khan, a Pakistani terrorist. Jindal prevails on Suri to avenge his daughter's death as well as foil Khan's machinations. The plot is a well-oiled, fast-paced machine, with Bhasin deftly providing backgrounds to his characters and situations without hindering the story arc.
The Avenger's characters are real and relatable — whether it's a sarkari babu's mistress, an inebriated pilot or a terrorist using homosexuality as a weapon — without coming under any moralist fire. The portrayal of contemporary India as a country besieged by financial scams, separatist violence, TRP-hungry news channels and politicians with agendas, is fairly accurate, making the book an engaging read, despite some over-the-top accounts of global terrorism. There's even an eerily au courant licentious episode between a senior and a cub reporter in an elevator.
THE OVERREACHER
Elevated minds in an elevator
hurtling to ground zero
Burnt your fingers with fingered passion
Ashes to ashes, intellectual dust to ashen passion
Time stops in a jail cell
Braid and unbriad the ponytail of excess
With all the time in the world.
Thursday 28 November 2013
Arnab Goswami's daily comedy show
Someone in Lutyens Delhi please send a drinks and dinner
invite to Arnab Goswami. The guy’s been cribbing on national television that
‘Lutyens cosy clubs’ ignore him, they have not been lynching Sex Bullet Raja –
Tejpal, and in the manner he has been crucifying him. Listen if the guy brings
you the most watched news and comedy show in television history day after day
the least he deserves is a drinks invite? Treat him to a whisky and club soda
and get him in the ‘cosy club mood’ and maybe, just maybe, he will spill out
the secrets of his genetic makeup that makes him the enfant de terrible of
Indian television? But till such time, ever day after Newshour, Arnab is heard
singing – ‘Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I gonna eat those worms, short,
fat, juicy, fuzzy worms…!’
Wednesday 27 November 2013
DO SEXUAL PREDATORS DESERVE A FAIR TRIAL?
One way of exploring this question is that we don’t start
frothing in the mouth discussing Tejpal but rather in the clear, cold, light of
the day we discuss the new awareness of violence against women sweeping the
country. The question to be asked is has the tide turned? Are women more secure
from sexual predators like Tejpal? Are we witnessing a generational shift in relationships
between Indian men and women? The short answer to these important and troubling
questions is, no. Far from it. As a matter of fact the ground reality could be
worse than any time before.
So then what about all the heated debates on television, the
din and fury of Vishaka guidelines, the formation of committees in the
corporate environment to tackle these issues head on. Ask the women who bear
the brunt and then you will know the real truth. Yes in many corporates these
committees are in place but let it be said that both the complainant and the
presiding authorities are extremely nervous and unsure of the efficacy of the
very system they only have set up. The biggest fear a woman complainant faces
is that very often when she complains and seeks redressal, it signals the end
of her corporate career. She becomes a pariah within her own organization (even
though she might win the case) and if she steps out for a new job she might as
well wear a placard around her neck saying ‘Stay away or be burned.’
Let’s step away from the corporate environment and take a
look at what’s happening in aam admi India. Violence and sexual assaults
against women in the comforts of their homes is at an all-time high. Women are
subjected to verbal and physical assaults and rapes not only by their depraved
husbands but very often by the father – in – law, the older brother of the
husband and certainly the mother – in – law also joins in. Sometimes grown up
sons are also not immune from this bestiality.
So keeping this background in mind how should we deal with
Mr Tejpal? Should we give him a fair trial or like in the Arushi case we build
up such tremendous, media pressure that no judge can afford to be lenient with
this man. Friends, at this stage, I am going to propound a theory which might
not be very popular but I think it needs to be told. Before I talk about that
let me say that first we must identify who are all the people who have formed a
lynch mob; people who are shouting themselves hoarse that Tejpal should be
hanged from the nearest tree.
Certinaly there is a sizeable segment of people who are
genuinely outraged and ashamed that such an alleged perversion was inflicted by
Tejpal in an elevator on the unsuspecting girl. But I promise you friends that
there are sizeable numbers of people also who in a day have become vigilantes –
the rent a hire knights, who are waging battle of crime against women. Many of
these people are the worst kind of perpetrators of sexual abuse and violence,
in the privacy of their offices and homes; some perhaps a bit more subtle and
the others blatant in what they do.
The Tehelka case is actually giving a fig leaf to these
people to hide behind; say one thing in public and practise something else in
private. Slowly but surely the lynch mob is gaining strength and we only have
to see history the way a lynch mob acts and the brunt of the results we have to
bear thereafter. In both 1984 and then in 1992, terrible crimes had been
committed initially but what followed after that was nothing short of barbaric.
It changed the political and social discourse of the country.
I suspect that something similar will happen if we go down
the path of the lynch mob. Tejpal will be crucified but all the other
perpetrators out there will smilingly appear on television proclaiming ‘we told
you so’ and they will all go back and commit their crimes with more impunity. That
is all that a lynch mob can do.
So then it is important that Tarun Tejpal is given a fair trial;
he is given every possible chance to explain his side of the story. We have to
keep this daily tamasha of lynch mob panels on television under check and not
influencing debate. Let the judge decide his fate objectively, without rhetoric.
If he is to be hanged then he is to be hanged in a cold, dispassionate way that
sends a chilling message to each and every one that such crimes will not easily
be forgotten or forgiven.
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