Who will watch the watcher?

Who will watch the watcher?

In Latin it is: quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Meaning: Who will watch the watchers themselves? This Latin, like Sanskrit, is a dead language that refuses to lie down quietly. It pops up every time someone tries to get to the root of a thought, and so here we are, bitching about watchmen who can’t be trusted to do their jobs unsupervised, and Latin it is that has already, in the BC period before the AD, put it just so.

The duly elected watchmen meanwhile, nominally led by one aged person in sky blue turban, recently called in a bunch of the most arthritic editors in the burg, and complained non-stop, albeit in a barely audible monotone, that the media acted, he implied unfairly, but then he would, wouldn’t he; as judge, jury and hangman, in an atmosphere of the greatest “cynicism”.

As Head Watchman First Class Duly Elected For Two Concurrent Terms Like Predecessor With Half Bloomed Rose In Buttonhole, Blue Turban was aggrieved; because said arthritic Editors Khap were wilfully refusing to excuse his ilk for non-performance, despite neither blue turban nor any of his band being issued with a “magic wand”.

The arthritic editors did what they do, and put in the blue turbaned one’s observations on the front page of their newspapers with large banner headlines and no complaints of their own. If they had been permitted their TV cameras, they would have done likewise on the box, in a muzac-inspired-elevator-monotonal-loop-without-end, at least for a few 24x7s to come.

This watching of inefficient watchmen is definitely the theme of the season, with the right hand checking up on the left, and both hands trying to adjust a variety of knickers in a twist; and the reason is because there is a general lack of credibility all around. All the truth tellers seem to have gone/long time passing/long time ago etc. Maybe the Pied Piper of Hamelin led them off the cliff or every last one was taken into the forest and shot.

One Pontius Pilate, from those very Latin speaking times, the best known hand- washer of all time, meditated on truth as Christ, of BC and AD and Christianity founder fame, stood bleeding in front of him.

Christ was bleeding from having just been administered a horrific hiding by the trained in the techniques Roman havildars, dressed rather better in scarlet, than our men in wardi, who are nothing to sniff at in the hiding skills department though. They beat Christ for not answering questions properly, for answering them in monosyllables interspersed with unintellible Aramaic, yet another dead language like Avesta Pahlavi in our neck of the woods, topped by some vague superciliousness which suggested Christ had someone looking out for him from the upside of the cloud cover around Calvary that day. (For further information and graphic details, kindly download The Passion of Christ made by Mel Gibson, the award winning Roman Catholic, duly praised by the German Pope. Said film was made moreover, when Gibson was dead sober).

Meanwhile, the Jewish High Priests, Christ’s unworthy Opposition, bayed for his blood in Pilate’s courtyard, because Christ had cleaned out all the shops from the temple corridors, in a spectacular MCD cum men in wardi style operation, while chastising the very people who were thus braying, no baying, for the rest of his unspilt blood.

Now Pontius Pilate, being a fastidious sort, knew he was looking at an innocent man in a crown of thorns when he saw one, and so he passed the buck, in good Indo-Italian bureaucratic tradition, to Herod, who happened to be a Jewish Roman administrator with fetching ringlets and kohl rimmed eyes, (but the cosmetic treatment is definitely another story); so that he could take a call on the called for crucifixion of Christ.

Herod did. Mel Gibson made the gory movie. And crowned it with a drunken anti-semitic rant, much after the fact mind you, but the public put two and two together, made a resounding four, and steadfastly refused to believe old Mel when he said he had nothing against the Jews.

But where were we about the watchmen, and indeed where are we about these guys who won’t do their jobs?

(702 words)

30^th June 2011

Gautam Mukherjee

Miracle

A miracle is a secret unveiled

It's an inspiration

Come timely

To the rescue.

Every eureka moment is not reserved for the Archimedians of this world

Everyman gets his-

But you need to be alert to catch it.

And if you have faith

In a mystery called living

It comes along right on cue

To give you just reward.

Miracles are not for knowitalls

They have to work it out for themselves

Since they believe

If anybody can

They absolutely can!

But to the rest of us

It is given-

This bit of grace

For we be humble, seekers, believers

Virtues all

That we may not be aware of

Preferably-

But since we're

Not afraid to ask for help-

So

We're protected by the hand of God.

25th June 2011

Gautam Mukherjee

Copyright Gautam Mukherjee-2011, All rights reserved

Regret

I don't know how

I can be on a journey with you

When I should have been stopped outside the airport

By misgivings.

But here I am

On the plane in a big wide seat

Next to you-

Bravely going with-

You and me together.

I did it for nothing worthwhile

Unnecessarily-

Apologising for

the long ago

That time years ago

When we were much too young.

Should never have brought it up

Not now anyhow

In this large sardine can with seat belts,

With carpets.

And you

How do you do it

Turn yourself upside down and inside out

like that?

I was just talking about long ago

Just to show good faith now that we're going together

Again, and flying off somewhere together

Like lovers will.

But I've touched a raw nerve

Surprise surprise

With

Almost a forgotten thing.

I think I have no chance at all

Of living with you now-

Not happily anyhow

Everything blighted by yesterday

And me just not the same

I can't be turning cartwheels like you

To me its ancient history

Life is too short to hold grudges like this

But you, you must be joking

But obviously you're not!

How can I endure being raked over the coals again for a betrayal then

What am I doing here looking forward

Unwilling to endure what turns into what neither of us want

So I must get off this plane!

I run, no lurch, to the door

After brushing past your convulsed body

How can you feel so much

It was just so long ago-

But this thing is moving

On its little wheels

Eerie

But

The ground is shifting, the lights outside slipping by

I find the doors are armed

On this very big aeroplane

There-

and now as I stumble back to my seat

Before the Steward or the Air Marshall comes for me

The lamps inside are dimmed for take off.

I don't think there's going to be any leaving right now

So I must-

Must sit by you and be singed by your sorrow

And watch our tomorrows burn.

There's

No place for today, its like I who hurt you then has died-

And I'm just a ghost sitting next to you.

And all this because

I've invoked the past

Like an ass.

Pity though that-

This is not a train

And there is no platform to slope off into

Before this thing picks up speed to hurtle through the air.

13th June, 2011

Gautam Mukherjee

Copyright Gautam Mukherjee- 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Bob Dylan turned 70

Bob Dylan turned 70

And made nothing of it-

If he celebrated the milestone

He certainly didn't tell us about it...

But everyone else did a review

Of his songs, his life, his peaks and troughs,

This is

The Protest King

The times changing, hard raining, idiot winding...

Teaching the Beatles to smoke maryjane

Before he shed that persona

To try on another

And a few more along the watchtower

But he's been prolific

And we've spent time together

In our little lives, running in parallel

As if, and because-

He is something of a foot-rule

Even if he insists on not being there for any of the labelling functions.

II

Our pols had it coming-

Never listening to any Paul Revere running through their Lutyens

Bungalows-

What a bungle has them crumbling

They didn't think we had it in us-

Just sheep, sheep

But even sheep can baa baa off in another direction-

If someone shows them the way

Pols can see that sometimes, pols do see,

But they forget

Being very kicked with themselves.

This hubris thing is age old but refuses to teach

Just a virus that hides so well

That a pol, a powerful one mind,

Can't even tell.

But it's true

They see but learn nothing from-

Watching

Nehru fall flat on his face in 1962

From which he never really got up.

Indira Gandhi gone, come back, despatched-

Rajiv Gandhi thrown out, then despatched-

Even Shining India gone, at least the attempt to appropriate it-

And the guy who thought up the slogan

Duly Despatched!

But pols in their dress up spotless white

Like to live in denial.

They've become sleek, sly, too-clever-by-half

Rich, very rich

They have lots of white clothes but no idealism at all

Just a smirk in its place,

And a side-pillow in their beds to make like someone's in it

While they're off playing truant-

Out rooting for opportunities

Opportunities-

They have very gainful work,

But not for you and me-

They root and wallow

In the power trough

And that kind of thing takes money honey

Just that and more of that-

And nothing more-

III

Anna Hazare says

The Public

Will teach them

Sahabat-

This means : The Right Way

Literally

Sounds, or might have sounded

Innocent

But

It actually implies, in delightful Bambaiyya

That there'll be a bit of straightening out happening

Whether they like it or not.

We are the bosses and not the politicians, says Anna

(It's always some old frail guy that sounds strong in this country)

And it also sounds good

It sounds

Like a long lost melody to our ears-

Poor side-lined Anna, they wish,

They've tried to stymie him from the moment he started in Delhi

They wanted to know

From under which rock in rural Maharashtra

He had come forth, and why-

Who put him up to it-

Was it Pawar?

Is that why Anna went after Pawar?

Just to put up a smokescreen.

And how much it would cost to send him back-

Can't be very much-

Penniless old codger like him-

You can probably flatter him flat for free!

And so

Zo

The fat cats in dazzling white

They thought they'd done his movement in

Naive little social worker

What was his equipment

To deal with-

With age-old smear, divide, renege, quibble, denigrate-

Worse, can do much worse

Have tools of the trade

Must confuse him under his Gandhi cap

That and make him feel

Insecure, unsure, lost.

Who does the old fossil think he is trying to do a Gandhi cum Shivaji

In this day and fun-filled age?

But the whited ones didn't really work on their homework

Did they?

They just hoped it would all go away

Didn't they?

Because

While they were sniggering up their sleeves

At their own fiendish skill

Enter or is it re-enter

Baba Ramdev.

It's a second coming, the cavalry for Civil Society and the Aam Aadmi, snatched out of the Congress grasp

A round two for the anti-corruption movement

It's definitely Reel 2

With the Establishment reeling

Testy rhetoric and disinformation notwithstanding.

This circus

Has the Government running-

They want to co-opt this one

They want their pet Swamiji, their own in-house

Okay, in-coalition, anti-corruption mass movement

they don't want to have it loose

Or seeking comfort in the BJP's arms

But if that doesn't work

They'll heap ridicule and sow doubt

To try and pry it loose

Civil Society was not meant to be so exacting!

But it it may be already too late

The Pols seem lost

Particularly the ones in power

Rather than Anna

Who can see his way just fine

They might benefit from a spell in Tihar

For a year out of every three

Maybe

To get used to it

Or at least

To keep their instincts sharp-

Sharp or not

This really is a black-bearded nightmare in saffron for them

Ramdev's articulate, folksy-

Apparently celibate-

Still

Much too young, popular, vigorous, risen from the masses-

Listened to by the classes

shudder shudder

What can be done

What can be done.

He's

Not an Anna dissenter-

That kind of simple thing is left way behind -

Anna's on his bandwagon too, and God only knows how many are in the queue.

So there's no room to manoeuvre here

Nothing to do with the myth-making mode

And all that apparatus to spread distrust.

But they need to get used to it

This is

A force multiplier

With lots of grass rooted feed-

From the fields

And the other side of the aisle.

Ramdev might want to show the politicians how to rally-

Having gone to all this trouble and expense

And give them a little instruction

About Ram and his Leela

While he's about it.

We will all watch and listen

Learn

How to

Gather a crowd-

Bussed, trained, housed, fed when they're not fasting,

But still not so much rented as inspired-

It's a Swayamsevak rumble in the urban jungle

Under the TV cameras.

What fun-

Yoga, Alternative Medicine, Politics,Philosophy

Jokes

And lots of undulating solar plexus action-

Athens could be listening- no not today's broke and unionised bunch-

Hanging on to their EU address by the skin of their teeth

But the ones out of the misty past-

In robes and spiral ether-

A bit like Ramdev maybe, seen from 2511.

Supported

Like the Odyssey the Iliad the Mahabharata

By a Cecil B De Mille real cast of thousands

before digital.

Plus plus

Every-

Fed up citizen from the sticks

To force multiply the straw-hatted baseball-capped set-

And their outraged convent school accents-

The Hazare show at Jantar Mantar

Was the show opener alright

But

This might well be the main act.

Besides they're going to use Ram Leela and Jantar Mantar too

As if they were their city residences.

IV

India is on its destiny jag

Which is much better than our politicians would have us believe

Complacent bunch

That didn't even care

When the Judiciary

Took over their work

And disciplined them like delinquents

On probation.

The pols should have woken up then

At least then

But they just kept on doing their opportunities

For more business as usual

But now that the common man's

Got up

Talking about being sick

of being duped-

Its different

From the abstraction

Which

Like a hologram

Was easy to walk through.

3rd June, 2011

Gautam Mukherjee

copyright 2011. All rights reserved. Gautam Mukherjee