It’ll be a Good Year, A Seer has So Ordained …

It’s that time of the year again: fir trees, white-green-plastic-flown from Norway; piped carols in stores; Santas at supermarkets; iridescent lighting on skyscraper facades. We’re spending Christmas in Hong Kong after several years and I am glad. It’s gorgeous at this time, the city dressed up to party! A ferry ride from Kowloon to HK island in the evening is a must do if you are here – the usually impressive HK skyline gets a twinkling-lights facelift. And then there are the fireworks!

It’s also the time for parties, meeting friends and catching up with family and therefore, invariably, time for copious conversation as well. So while you may want to brush up on your talking skills – I recommend How to have a Beautiful Mind by Edward De Bono – you might also like to have some shayrs up your sleeve, to be artfully slipped into chats as a sequitur, rhetoric, irony, metaphor, euphemism …

You know how it goes: pub and poetry, shayr and sharaab, Ghalib and ghazal!

Why Ghalib, you might ask? In the pantheon of poets you could summon anyone from Rumi to Faiz – this party is certainly one where the more the merrier – but Ghalib, like Shakespeare, has opined on every topic under the sun, from art to zephyr, bazeecha to zulmat. He has trawled through tulips and thorns, death and destruction, love and anguish, life and longing, and come up with shayrs that plumb our universal humanity. Ghalib has wit, passion, rhyme and meter and the ability to reveal the universe in two lines – pray why would you go elsewhere? As Ghalib himself said:

Hain aur bhi duniya mein shukhanwar bahut achhe,

Kahte hain ki Ghalib ka hai andaaze-bayaan aur.

Be there many poets in the world,

But Ghalib, it is said, has a diction that is singular.

Ghalib is handy, and how.       

Amongst the topics of conversation will likely feature the important events of 2010, farewell to the present year, and hopes and wishes for 2011.

Let’s start with the highlights of 2010: Haiti earthquake, Pakistan floods, Chilean miners, Dubai property crash, the PIGS Euro crisis, CWG scam, Tea Partiers, Assange and Cablegate, World Cup, Winter Olympics in Canada, eruption of Eyjafjallajokull and Mount Merapi, the BP oil spill, Nobel Peace Prize and China, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, North Korea’s shelling of South, US-China currency tango …

Ghalib can be deployed with dexterity in any confabulation around the above topics. Witness:

• US-China interaction: Wen Jiabao could aptly tell Obama

Har ek baat pe kehte ho tum ki tu kya hai,

Tumhee kaho ki ye andaaze-guftagoo kya hai?

To everything that I say, your retort remains: Who are you?

Pray tell me, what kind of conversation is this?

Obama could in turn salvo the above shayr to the Tea Partyers!

• The scam masters of India; or Kalmadi, Raja & Inc.

Hazaaron khwaahishen aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle

Bahut nikle mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle.

Thousands of desires, each worth dying for,

Many a wish have I realized, yet I yearn for more.

• And the ennui and resignation of Indians is best summed by:

Raat din gardish mein hai saat asmaan,

Ho rahega kuchh na kuchh ghabrayen kya

Day and night the planets are in motion

Something will work out, why worry ourselves

• The dalliances of Messrs Berlusconi, Putin & Tharoor

Ishq ney Ghalib nikamma kar diyaa,

Warna hum bhi aadmi the kaam ke.

Love has rendered me useless Ghalib,

Otherwise I was a person of much worth.

• BP’s desperate attempts to mop the spill while the Gulf of Mexico perished

Chipak raha hai badan par lahu se pairaahan,

Hamaari jeb ko ab haajta-e-rafu kya hai?

The garment sticks to the body with my blood,

What use is it darning the collar now?

• PIGS countries tell the European Commission

Unke dekhe se jo aa jati hai munh par raunaq,

Who samajhte hain ki beemaar ka haal accha hai.

A smile lights my face when I sight her,

And they take it to mean all’s well with blighted me.

The Greeks could tell Merkel the same!

• Chilean miners

Zindagi apni jab is shakl sey guzari Ghalib,

Hum bhi kya yaad karenge ki khudaa rakhte they.

My life took such a turn Ghalib,

That I realized there is a God who shaped it thus.

So how was 2010 overall? Eventful, insightful, we won some, we lost some – a year like all the others! Time to bid farewell then, and ring in the new.

Hum ko maaloom hai jannat kee haqeeqat lekin,

Dil ke khush rakhney ko Ghalib ye khayaal achcha hai.

The realities of Heaven are known to us Ghalib,

But to beguile the heart, it is a good thought.

            And here’s a handy one for 2011:

Dekhiye paate ushaaq buton se kya faiz,

Ek Barahman ne kaha hai ke ye saal achha hai.

Let’s see what blessings the desirous get from the unresponsive ones,

A seer has ordained the year will be a good one.

December 27 marks Mirza Ghalib’s 213^th birthday. As a writer I am indebted to him for the manner in which he reveals himself anew with every fresh reading of his work. When I first encountered the following shayr –

Aate hain ghaib se yeh mazaamin khyaal mein

Ghalib sarir-e-khaama nawaae sarosh hai.

These thoughts, Ghalib, are heaven-sent,

My pen is the scribe of the voice of Gods.

– I took it to mean that Ghalib had claimed his writing was of a standard that was of the Gods. Not unusual for a man who was aware of his genius and entirely unaffected by false modesty. However, subsequent readings over the years have revealed to me another facet – one in which Ghalib states that he is a vessel for the divine discourse, channeling what he is receiving from the Heavens above. Remarkable humility, Mirza Nosha, for one who is regarded as the greatest Urdu poet. 

Salutations my friend on your birthday!

And to all my other friends, wishing you a Merry X’mas and a very Happy 2011. It’ll be a good year, a seer has so ordained …

The Multiculti Oil Opera, starring the Janus face of United States

Air and radio waves, undersea cables, printer’s ink have all been in a frenzy since 28 November 2010 when the website Wikileaks and five major newspapers published leaked United States diplomatic cables. The documents detailing correspondence between the US State Department and its diplomatic missions worldwide have laid bare the hitherto well-sheathed world of diplomacy to reveal one of intrigue, deception, games, and gossip.

The cables from the Riyadh desk alone would be sufficient to stage a psychedelic multi-star soap opera that crisscrosses the world at a thrillerish pace. Act I opens with a wealthy sheikh imploring his American patron to “cut off the head of the snake” which is their common enemy and is “unbalanced, crazy even” as he races to develop a nuclear weapon. Thereafter, the sheikh’s oleaginous neighbours join in chorus – the enemy “is Hitler” who “wants to restore the Persian empire”– and advise the Americans that “Iraq was unnecessary, Iran is necessary”.

In Act II, the enemy President finds the US “a country that is overstretched and in difficulty as a result of too many commitments” and commands that “Iran’s centrifuges are working day and night”.

The final act sees the Americans wanting to “engage” the enemy, a stance that makes its European and Arab allies skittish. They fear, in turn, that “the US is preparing to take commercial advantage of a new relationship with Iran” and might “strike a grand bargain without prior consultations”

Religious differences, deep distrust and disparate motives crackle through the narrative as the players dressed variously in jellabiya, thobe, suits, and head scarves shoot off their mouth, exchange surreptitious glances, spy covertly and woo overtly – a multiculti oil opera delivered for easy consumption in the globe’s first language, English.

The Finale closes the saga of greed and ambition on an ominous note as an oleaginous party intones: “Any culture that is patient and focused enough to spend years working on a single carpet is capable of waiting years and even decades to achieve its goals. The worry is not how much we know about Iran, but how much we don’t”.

Curtain Call. Thunderous applause. Ain’t it some?

FYI: Instalment 2 of the Multiculti Oil Opera is work-in-progress until Julian Assange decides to pull the plug, again, of the leaky US cauldron.

What! You can’t wait; the suspense is killing you?

Julian’s got Interpol, the Swedish Sergeants, the British Police, Mastercard, Paypal, even Amazon on his case as the US persists with arm-twisting its cronies worldwide to muzzle a man who has dared to speak. Haven’t you learnt anything from the Iranians – patience, focus, carpet-weaving, take your pick.

That the US is persecuting Julian Assange is in no doubt. As he said in his article, they are focusing on Wikileaks since it is young and small while the 5 established newspapers – The New York Times in US, Le Monde in France, The Guardian in Britain, Der Spiegel in Germany, El Pais in Spain – which published the cables as well are old and large.

Assange is not popular with the Americans. Look at the vitriol he has attracted. Sarah Palin has called him a “terrorist”. “The CIA should have already killed Julian Assange,” says John Hawkins on the Right Wing News site. William Kristol, former chief of staff to vice president Dan Quayle, asks, “Why can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are?”

Recently the US has also exhibited its particular brand of righteous rage with China over its treatment of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, who is a dissident under house arrest. China has barred Liu from attending the prize ceremony in Norway. In response US lawmakers have gone ballistic: "China should be ashamed and China should be embarrassed to be in the company of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Burma." At the ceremony Speaker Nancy Pelosi will represent the US and her presence “would send a powerful message” to China’s democracy advocates.

However, the US’s shimmering avatar of Defender of Democracy & Human Rights has lost its sheen. A decade after 9/11 the world knows better and the world has moved on. If the cables reveal one thing, it is that the US practises a cloak and dagger diplomacy commanding its diplomats to spy on host nations and steal personal human material and information; arm twists allies like Sweden which hides from its Parliament that it shares intelligence with US; and ensures Britain fixes its Iraq enquiry to protect “US interests”.

And Wikileaks is just one source.

Naomi Klein in her brilliant book, Shock Doctrine, has already detailed how the US has historically used an overt model of capitalism and democracy to upend governments in pursuit of its own covert interests. Its playgrounds have included Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998. You can add Iraq and Afghanistan to the list.

On an Oprah Winfrey show post 9/11 a grieving American woman asked: Why did they hate us so much? It is a question the Americans and the US government and lawmakers need to ask of themselves as they quiver with outrage at China, calling it names, while simultaneously hounding a journalist who has used the same freedom of expression that they are espousing worldwide.

The world can see this disconnect, this schizophrenia, and its time the patient sat himself down for some soul searching. Introspection would help connect the dots. It could begin with A for Afghanistan.

The world does not hate the US. What should concern the US more is if its economic downslide and the simultaneous growth of BRIC will render the world indifferent to it. As the prescient Ghalib said: bekhudi besabab nahin Ghalib, kuch to hai jis ki pardadari hai.

The indifference is not without cause, Ghalib

There is a reason why the disconnect exists.