Illiberal ignominy

All it took was one tweet – for his employer to sack a man from his star job, to lose his reputation, to fall into the abyss of (il)liberal ignominy. I’m writing about Atul Kochhar, the celebrity chef based out of the UK. 

Twitter was abuzz with outrage heaping (and rightly so) on Priyanka Chopra for a role in the recent episode of Quantico. The recent episode of the television drama showcased a scene where PC thwarts a plot by “Hindu nationalists” to “frame Pakistanis” ahead of the summit on Kashmir. Stop laughing, now! Notwithstanding the obvious massive holes in the plot, the protagonist foils the plot by finding out ‘rudraksha’ – the sacred chain worn by the “saffron terrorists” – a term conjured by the despicable likes of Chidambaram, Diggy Raja and the clique serving & protecting the Italian queen and her dynasty called UPA. 

Coming back to the episode in the discussion, there couldn’t be anything irreconcilable with reality than this. With 25165464616 terrorist attacks directly indicting the involvement of Muslims in all corners of the world, and zero of Hindus, the makers of the series didn’t think it will a travesty of reality to present this twisted plot. Nevermind! It’s (f)art and pardonable and they have the freedom of expression and all other sundries. But for an Indian actor PC to accept this role doesn’t seem too innocent. It’s not like somebody pushed her to do it. She would obviously be aware of the script and willingly she would have donned the role. 

After backlash in twitter, PC apologized and said she was a ‘Pround Indian’ while she should have actually apologized to Hindus if she has chosen to apologize. This again prompted various reactions. One among them was that of Atul Kochhar’s. 

Let’s see the veracity of the content of Kochhar’s tweet. He was indeed wrong about the number of years he quoted, which he corrected in the subsequent tweet. The attempt of the Islamic invasion of India had started way back in the 7th century; there were initial setbacks but were eventually successful in invading India. This is a part of recorded history - from Alberuni to Firishta, and other Persian & Arabic historians. But since India is a Shariah-compliant country, and whitewashing of Islamic history in India is a state policy, a vast majority of the people are not aware of how bad was the Islamic invasion of India. 

This is another matter and let's keep that aside. How did the fiberals of India react to this? If you can't take a guess, keep this as heuristics - whenever there is a conflict between Islam Vs anything, the fiberals take the former's side. This episode was no different - all in the day's job of the fiberals. One went a step ahead to flagged the tweet to the employer, JW Marriott which severed its ties with him. He was constantly harassed, threatened, and was made to apologize. Finally, he had to delete his twitter account. All these just for a single tweet. Fiberals deliberately tried to destroy the career of a man for just speaking out his mind. These are our self-appointed guardians and purveyors of free speech. 

This episode brought out a well-known fact - the self-proclaimed 'liberals' of India don't give two hoots for the principle of free speech. They stand for a party, religion, tribe etc. per their convenience but never for the principle. If you think they stand for "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", you are in for a big disappointment. As Joker says in the iconic movie The Dark Knight - "their morals, their code... it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble". The self-same people never stop virtue signaling, shouting from the rooftop that the democracy and "liberal values" are under threat.

Second, if you are too vocal and have gained considerable fame and are politically incorrect in social media, it's good not to advertise your employers. Or even better - be anonymous. Because the first place they want to hurt is your livelihood. 

Lastly - in India like in the contemporary West, actors are accorded a high status in the society and their opinions valued. It's people's stupidity that keeps the actors on a high pedestal in the society. Actors' opinion should be confined to acting allied topics, not beyond that. We have seen how incoherent, uneducated an opinion can be on issues of national importance when you see an Aamir Khan, a Kamal Hasan or the latest a Prakash Raj. Clueless about the lurking realities, yet showing missionary zeal to preach and educate the nation. Nana Patekar summed it up in this short clip. 

In ancient Rome, actors were accorded low societal status and more importantly, Romans gave actors pariah rank in the society because "they are faked by profession" as NN Taleb puts it. Roman emperor Julian prohibited Pagan priests from attending theatre so that actors don't get the elevation in their status in the society because of their presence and attendance. Perhaps the Romans went too far but we have a thing or two learn from Romans.

The curious case of Arun Shourie

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." This is a quote of Harvey Dent in the popular DC comics superhero movie Batman. It describes the questionable nature of heroism through time, the fall from grace of a celebrity or a well-known public figure. I never thought there will come a time when a person like Arun Shourie would fit the description. 

Arun Shourie is a very well known name in Indian intellectual circles for a long time. He has donned various hats - as an economist, a journalist, a public intellectual. In my assessment, he's an intellectual giant in his own right. There are many people like me who have hero-worshipped him for his intellectual clarity and prowess, elephantine memory, assiduousness, depth of thinking and above all the fortitude to take on any opposition single-handedly. 

The so-called "right-wing" in India is hijacked or seems to be hijacked by the RSS types of intellectuals (with all due respect to selfless social work it does). These RSS types don't have ideological clarity or moral courage to carry on their mission. Worse, they don't even know what their mission is. At the drop of the hat, they dabble and babble on fancy ideas like Akhand Bharat, or Hindu Rastra, but they don't have a roadmap or conviction to carry on.

The indefatigable Abhas Chatterjee described RSS thus - It is like a lifeless monster of enormous proportions rather than a throbbing little bee with a sting. By its sheer size, it is huge. But when it comes to achieving its stated goals, RSS scores low. When it 's about developing the intellectual ecosystem, the so-called representative of the Right-wing does next to nothing. Contrast this with the left and how it has captured the Indian intellectual climate. The left has had a grip over intelligentsia much before Indian independence from the British. This has continued after independence to this very day.

The left ideology and its derision for native culture have continued to this day through various branches of its ecosystem - academics, institutions, media and the likes. The leftist ideology has infiltrated everywhere, its torchbearers are ubiquitous under different cloaks which suit different scenarios and situations. There is a huge gulf created thus, where leftists are everywhere and no one to respond or call out their lies. This is where individuals like Arun Shourie stand out. It's individuals like this who have contributed to the almost non-existent right-wing discourse in this country and challenged the leftist hegemony wherever they could. Sita Ram Goel, Ram Swarup, Koenraad Elst are some of the prominent names on top of my head. Arun Shourie belongs to the same league (He's done some outstanding work as a journalist, a minister and an economist which is beyond the scope of this write-up).

My first book of Arun Shourie was Eminent Historians (I've read more than 4 of his books since) - He had dismantled lies brick by brick in an unabashed way. It is a treat to read any of his work where polemics is laced with scholarly brilliance and filled with a large number of citations and anecdotes. Enough of the Shourie I loved. Let's come to his recent statements and press conferences.

Ever since the run-up to the general elections started in 2013, Shourie passively supported Modi and shown his inclination to join the government in whatever capacity he could. But it seems Modi had other plans. After his stupendous win of 2014, Shourie was not offered any positions befitting his stature. Although in many people's opinion, Modi govt. could have utilized a person like Shourie, I personally think Shourie could have been an asset for a ministry like HRD or finance, but that's the way it was. It looks Shourie had nurtured ambitions and Modi's actions might have embittered Shourie.

This bitterness has warranted some of his recent statements - the government is managing headlines, its economic policies are directionless, falsehood is the hallmark of this government etc. Also, he was repeating the bunkum of the opposition which couldn't hold any water like minorities are unsafe in India in the current political dispensation etc. 

Naturally, these positions have endeared him to the "secular" media and politicians (He has already met dangerous and treacherous politicians like Kejriwal and Mamta) He has given interviews to NDTV more than a couple of times. The "seculars" will use him as canon to take a shot at Modi, nothing more than that.

In his most recent statement, he calls opposition to come together & quotes Lenin "to give history a helping hand" to defeat Modi government. O tempora o mores! A lifelong critic of communists and their modus operandi quoting, of all the people Lenin! Per se, there is no harm in objective criticism. But criticism which is engendered by grouse and pettiness is harmful and it is also unbecoming of a towering intellectual like Shourie.

In the lands of Cham & Khmer — Part 3 (The conclusion)

The final leg of our trip was to the place that beholds Angkor Wat, Siem Reap. Siem Reap is a small city in the North Western part of Cambodia. It owes its popularity as one of the most popular destinations in the world to Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat and many of the allied temple structures are very much ingrained in the cultural milieu of Cambodia — one of the examples of that would be the fact that it is adorned on the flag of Cambodia.

We came to Siem Reap from Hanoi in VietJet airways. It was a small journey of within 2 hours. The airport of Siem Reap is very small - it should be counted as the smallest airport I've ever been to. Cambodia gives two options for the tourist visa - On arrival and e-visa. We had opted for e-visa. This saved our time at the airport a lot. 

Cambodians are very gentle people. In all our six-day stay, we did not come across a single incident of rudeness or anything of that sort. Perhaps the relatively soft nature of Cambodians has been taken for granted that all three of its neighboring countries — Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos — have tried to invade it at one point or the other. As per our guide for Angkor Wat the next day, Cambodia has a very restricted coastal line because some parts of Cambodia was occupied by Thailand. I'm not sure on the veracity of the claim as when I searched to know the details, google didn't yield any result on the same. 

Almost all the Cambodians I met speak English in Siem Reap. All the stores, hotels and even the small shops accept the US dollar. This was told to me by the Indian-origin Kenyan man I had met in Hanoi. So, I never bothered to exchange the currency to Cambodian Riel. I have to mention the omnipresent Tuk-Tuk. Tuk-Tuk in Cambodia is Indian equivalent of rickshaw but it is pulled by a motorcycle. They are cheap, comfortable and readily available in all of Siem Reap. 

Our tour guide gave many interesting trivia and snippets about Angkor Wat in particular and Cambodia in general. He said Khmer language and Kannada have many words in common. this was a shocker for me. I always knew Cambodia has some Tamil influence as I knew Tamil kings have traveled, ruled and built some of the monuments in this part of the world. But, I never knew this bit about Kannada. He said a few words like Ratri, Rajah, etc are common to both the languages. He said this is because Kannada traders, not kings traveled to Cambodia may be around 14th or 15th century and many of them married the locals and started living there. 

Siem Reap is filled with a lot of tourists. Tourism is one of the major sources of income to Cambodia. From the past many years, the number of tourists has been over a million. I learned that the Angkor Wat temple was abandoned,  attained the state of obscurity 15th century onwards after being the center of the capital of Cambodia from the 9th to 15th century. No one knew of the structures until a Frenchman discovered it in the later parts of the 20th century. It's only in the 90's tourists started pouring in. 

Touted as the world's largest temple, Angkor Wat is truly magnificent. the structure of the main temple is modeled on Mount Meru, the celestial mountain with 5 peaks which is significant to Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists. The temple structure is enclosed by a wide moat which is representative of the cosmic ocean. 

The main temple structure

Apsara Dancer

Carving depicting Mahabharata war

In front of the temple

Behind us is the Adi-Shesha, six-headed serpent structure which is found in many places in Siem Reap town

Once you enter the temple, you can witness the towering structures - some of them intricately carved to depict the scenes of Mahabharata, Apsara dancers, other epics - the detailing and the delicacy employed gives away the fact that it is indeed a work of a lot of skilled artists spanning over several years of time. 

There are other temples around Angkor Wat - Angkor Thom, Bayon, and Ta Prohm. The last one, Ta Prohm was featured in Angelina Julie's movie Tomb Raider. Bayon temple has a lot of Brahma-like big face carvings. (Cambodians say it's King Suryavarman) In Ta Prohm, giant roots have embraced the entire structure. It has been left as it is, uncut. Archaeological Survey of India is involved in restoration work.  

That's a huge root 

Near Bayon temple

The Bayon temple

Our group for the day consisted of us, an English lady, a German mother-daughter duo, the entertaining and informative local guide Phearom, and the rest Malaysians. It was a quite friendly and fun group.

On the way to Angor Thom 

Our group for the day 

The next day, we visited Tonlé Sap lake, perhaps the biggest lake in Cambodia. It is famous for two things - the floating village and the mangrove forest. It was a thrilling experience for me as I had neither seen mangrove forest nor floating village anywhere. I had heard there is a floating market near Saigon. I missed visiting that. This was a kind of compensation. 

Houses elevated to a certain height in the floating village

The Mangrove Forest - reminded of the sets of "Anaconda"

In conclusion: Vietnam is beautiful. When people asked me why 8 days, I had no answer. Now, I can say there is a lot to see in Vietnam & it's still not that popular with Indians say like Thailand or Bali. But it has all the reasons to be. It has something for everyone - the nature lovers, adventure seekers, history buffs, lovers etc.

Angkor Wat stands as testimony to the fact that what a dedicated, patient, creative, skilled above all devoted populace can do. Of course, with exemplary patronage which sustains all, which doesn't think of just immediate survival and sundry but a longlasting legacy of finer achievements for the future generations. If there are seven wonders of the world, this surely needs to be one among them.