My letter, to open Chetan Bhagat – (and to Kashmir)

Dear Chetan Bhagat,

Only because you deserve it achingly, I am going to pound your infamously silly article. Pam Pam Kher seems to have liked it and that conclusively confirms the room temperature IQ it is suffused with. Pam Pam Kher who, are you asking? Oh he’s Mr Weatherbee of moviedom. Mysterious things much like his symbolic pate have happened to him too early in life, including the fact he lived in Shimla and not in Kashmir and yet pretends otherwise. More on this another time. And in detail. That’s a promise.

Coming back to you, I know you write for lakhs of English-challenged vernacular readers and so I will try to write in an English that won’t leave you reaching for Sorbitrate. And because in general compehension, you are more the A for Apple type, I shall spare you the tedium of a long discourse to the extent possible through the painful intercourse I am going to be having with you right now. Accordingly, I am slicing your opinionated article into small pieces and will dance on each in the hobnailed boots of real history, hard facts and cold logic. Thus, below each of your muddled nuggets of hilarity, I shall respond in paranthesis, so as to maintain a respectable distance and insulate my views from your shite, while doing Swachh Bharat on them at the same time. Co-incidentally, that should also dumb-proof it enough for you such that your meagre mind is able to somewhat fathom whatever the dickens I am saying, provided your mind isn’t intellectually bonked beyond repair by then, and so that you are in a position to respond and make a fool of yourself all over again. Or at the very least, just say Bharat Mata Ki Jai to compensate for the absence of any meaningful rebuttal or rejoinder.

To open my clinical mutilation of your random rubbish, let me begin by saying that the dimwitted patronising tone in which you wrote (supposedly) to Kashmiris proves that pious cow dung resides in your intestinal brains and your rectal outburst with its obnoxious winds is the smelly result of that. It will be interesting if newspapers allow such unsavoury poop from your pen for long. Honestly, half the time, I prefer reading ads. But still, we would like you to continue to write columns, my dear Chetan. Afterall, as a nation, the one way we unite is by laughing together whenever you make an ass of yourself, whether by jiggling nuttily in dance shows or by dancing naked in the literary world. You see we want a united India and this is one simple way in which Chetan Bhakt and other Bhakts, aided of course by a rich sprinkling of Namo-mards (read my post about this species, at leisure). Besides the PM of course, who has replaced both Helen and Raj Kapoor, by the mere dint of his presence.

Preamble over, now brace yourself Chetan, for some exciting bestiality. A hardened Kashmiri is all set to take your candy heinie.

YOU BEGAN YOUR VAPID WIMPY ARTICLE WITH THIS: “I understand there is little pro-India sentiment amongst locals in the Kashmir Valley”

(WARMING UP TO YOU, HERE’S MY RESPONSE: And I quote: “The first political remark I ever remember hearing about Kashmir is: All Kashmiris are traitors . . . Where Kashmir is concerned, the average Indian often allows emotion to cloud history. So few people bother to recall that it was the National Conference men who fought Pakistani tribal invaders when they attacked the Valley in October 1947, while the Hindu maharajah and his largely Hindu court fled to Jammu in panic”.

Did you note Chetan B, how the dice looks when flipped?

That is, ask yourself: how pro-Kashmir India is, rather than the other way round. And what I put in quotes above, is not my fertile imagination. It is from a book called “Kashmir: A tragedy of errors”. I am certain you haven’t read it. That’s because it is a good book. It was written by Tavleen Singh in times when people stuck to the truth because they didn’t get a Padma Bhushan or a Padma Vibhushan or any other shan or bhushan for distorting the truth for some psychopath who doled out these thangamajigs with gay abandon to enthused asslickers. Still, I am not recommending that you read this book. It will be a waste of your time. First, you won’t understand it. And second, you are better off using your time profitably in writing (without reading) for Rupa publications with whom the risk of your books crossing our pious borders is NIL. Much like Rupa Underwear & Banyan. Or Rupa Subramanya for that matter.

 

Back to the issue of sentiment. Tavleen Singh rightly put the ball in the right court (you on the other hand usually misplace your pair) when she wrote a full and superb chapter titled “A history of mistrust” which spoke of India’s mistrust of Kashmir. So on the sentiment, you could have shown a modicum of obejectivity, had you not been fiddling your nuts in the wrong theatre. Anyway that’s a bus you missed. You can still redeem youself by reading your own writing and dwelling on the sentiment that you show for Kashmiris. It mirrors the sentiment of your ilk, my dear C Bhakt. The sentiment of Kashmir today, is a sentiment returned to you and your ilk. It is a payback. And what’s worse, you made short work of the sentiment of Kashmiris by sweepingly bullshitting in three backbencher-grade lines, when in fact that sentiment is what is really at the heart of the matter. But why you did so, is not difficult to understand. You simply don’t have any depth of understanding and in the very next para, like a typical Bhakt, you gave away your inferiority complex and the trader’s usual grouse against intellectuals in general, as you realeased some chick-shit droppings of the following kind.

YOUR DROPPINGS: “Sure the experts will jump on me now. Experts who made the Kashmir problem their fiefdom. However, if the problem were indeed solved, how will these people stay relevant”

MY SWACHH BHARAT ON YOUR DROPPINGS: Are you confessing the current dispensation has no experts? But Pam Pam Kher and his fellow aggrieved KP accompanist with that frog-mating-call voice think they are experts. Otherwise Arnab Goswami wouldn’t invite them alongwith some RSS types to “debates” would he? Or are you saying Goswami only invites people of his own wavelength nowadays. Otherwise tell me which expert are you referring to? How do experts gain by speaking FOR Kashmir? If anything, don’t they face the risk of sedition charges? Have you heard of Arundhati Roy, you poor thing? Don’t panic! I am not embarrasing you by asking you if you have read God of Small Things. Hey! Now don’t panic more! Just because I said ‘small things’, doesn’t mean it’s about you. She too was a fiction writer, but a Booker winner and her books were published internationally by . . . well never mind. And then there was JNU, decidedly unfamilar ground for the frugally educated HRD Minister. There too, you put your foot in your mouth making me wonder how many feet you have and how big your mouth is.

Back to your mousy article. It gives the typical Sanghi Hindu-Muslim combat flavour when you let loose this flurry of long suffered constipation. The pains of ancestral paritition and consequently, retributive upbringing are easy to find.

YOUR HURRIED CONSTIPATED RELEASE: You begin with the desire to illuminate (ignorant) Kashmiris about Kashmir!

(MY RESPONSE AS A LAXATIVE: Like a tattered underwear you present the history of the origins of J&K. Some rubbish to the tune of: “Pakistan attacked”, India called for help by Kashmir’s ruler. And bingo “J&K became part of India with riders.” Tell me Chetan, were you born fully? Or were you abbreviated?

I don’t know if your wikipedia research threw up any reference to a book called “Flames of the Chinar”. No, again but I don’t think your reading it is a good idea. Because it was written by a gentleman named Shiekh Abdullah and he was too tall for you in every respect and quite beyond your reach or grasp. Forget you Liliput, he was infact beyond the reach of the Delhi leadership at that time too, so much so that they put him behind bars for as many years as Nelson Mandela. And then suddenly released with no reason for either action. This man was loved and adored by Kashmiris. If you were a Kashmiri (unlikely given the unfurnished penthouse ie. your head) you would have loved him too. Children loved him too. Children are intuitive you know. That’s why they loved Nehru too. Old people loved him as well, everyone loved him. Only Delhi had a problem. But is that new? Delhi has a problem with everyone, all neighbours, all border states. The poor army, the helpless army, has to implement the rubbish and shoulder the blame.

But anyway, this is how the events are played out in the book. “Sensing danger, the Maharajah collected all his valuables and fled to Jammu. The officials scampered to Jammu behind the Maharajah and the entire admistration was left in the hands of the National Conference . . . The National Conference asked people to collectively donate their weapons and the use of their vehicles. Training sessions for volunteers were organized. This was the beginning of the People’s Militia of Kashmir”. And so you jerk, Kashmiris fought against Pakistan. Did you get that? And the ‘Hindus’ (if you like) in India were in harmony. For, in those days, the BJP did not exist and the RSS continued to do their PT and nothing more just like they do today. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you hotly disagree. But I wonder which of you Bhakts could have equalled a Shiekh Abdullah then. You are more like the Maharajah who tucked tail and went for a slimy underhand negotiation.

And do you know C Bhakt, Kashmir eagerly sought help of India then. And it wasn’t a part of India. I swear it wasn’t. Nobody knows when it became ‘integral’. In your dreams perhaps. You see Bhakt, work in progress cannot be called work completed. Back to the point: the big concern was Gandhiji not wanting Indian troops to go to Kashmir because “the Maharajah has still not signed the formal accession and any movement on the part of the Indian army was considered illegal”. By the way, ask yourself if you were Kashmiri and your Maharajah ran away with valuables leaving you to face war, how legitimate would you consider that Maharajah. And would even think him fit to sign any accession on your behalf? Back to the story, which you skipped completely and thankfully. So they pleaded and pleaded to Gandhiji who finally relented. And the army was allowed to move to Kashmir. You see C Bhakt, the army does what it is told to do because it was always apolitical till a fellow called VK Singh proved that narrow minds and pea-brains could rise to the top in nearly every sphere in this misshapen nation, now deeply steeped in the throes of Kali Yug. And that he clumsily even soiled the smart unblemished fatigues of the army is no surprise. Now, as aptly articulated by the Tavleen Singh of then in those Padma Bhushan scarce times: “by and large people tended to view the state through only one prism: Hindu-Muslim relations.” But the stance of Shiekh Abdullah and the response by Gandhiji made a number of “prominent Indians describe Kashmir as the symbol of India’s secularism.”

Did you get that Bhagat? And I am not even taking you into the sufi entry of Islam in the Valley. Because that will be too heavy for you. ISIS is what you might call it, as you have in your fatuous article. But do you know that till as recently as 1988 (before the problem became full blown), even temples in Kashmir had muslim flower sellers in their premises? That muslims preferred Kashmir pandit teachers the most, given their wisdom. Fat chance you have of seeing that in most of the sub continent. So cut your holy patronising drivel about the virtues of India.

SOME MORE LITTER YOU LET LOOSE: “Instead of two parents (how, you nut?) as planned (by whom, you duh?), J&K became nobody’s child and an orphan. (Wah!)

(MY QUICKIE: Who told you Kashmir was looking for any parent? And who told you that any parents produced J&K? Honestly, are you a burro?)

THEN YOU GIVE SOME GYAN: “Pakistan took advantage and used the factor of Islam. Indian army tried but it is difficult to control terrorism that co-exists with a civilian population”

(“MY NEXT QUICKIE: Bhagat, do you know there were orgnaizations like JKLF who weren’t interested in Kashmir joining Pakistan. They wanted an independent Kashmir. And it started with that and not with Pakistan. Can we blame your verbal dystentry on Pakistan too? And which terrorism does NOT co-exist with a civilian poplution, pray please tell me? And was the LTTE not wiped out? And Punjab? So isn’t there clearly something deeper here than what your economically invested mind has been able to fathom?)

OUT OF THE BLUE, IN YOUR ARTICLE, ONE LONE LINE HANGS UNCONNECTED TO ANY OTHER: “Hence the Indian Army and India only got a bad name in the Valley. Thus the ‘we hate India’ slogans and perenially unsolved Kashmir problem”

(MY STUNNED RESPONSE: Bhagat, of all that I have ever heard from you, here is where you were your analytical best. You haven’t arrived at the causes and have suddenly prescribed later, ‘options’ and ‘solutions’ none of which address that dangling dicky above.

Then out of the deep blue YOU SUDDENLY FART OUT: “the question is what is a Kashmiri youth to do now”

(AND SO HERE’S WHERE I AM FORCED TO TEAR YOUR TATTERED JOCK: Do you know you lamebrain, that how old a young Kashmiri of age 25 in 1989 is today? 52 years old. What youth are you talking about you blockhead? Have you set foot in the Valley? What employment opportunities did you see there, in case it was a curfew-free day? NAME ONE! What is the lowest temperature you have ever lived in? Do you understand harsh winters and their economic impact? Can you even imagine, you bovine, the psychological impact on a child brought up right up to his old age drowned in the fog of killings, rapes, disappearences and curfew? Have you seen pictures of Kashmiri women wailing? Would you like it if your mother did so, you patronising piece of shitty fluff! Don’t you dare trivialize this issue. It is not an effing dance show or a book worthy of toilet paper. Use your tomfoolery where it works, Bhagat. Kashmiris are known for their brains and that makes them the exact opposite of you. And who the hell are you to prescribe ‘solutions’ to Kashmiris? Are you a human being or a unicorn. Kashmir is a conflict zone you ninny. It isn’t a place for the likes of you to leak your wordy diapers. The least that anyone is expected to do is to be sensitive if not anything else to the unending decades-long genocide and misery. If you cannot be senstive and know nothing, the least you should honestly do Chetan B, is to apologise for your anal harangue.

But in all your fetid diatribe, it is this didactic dross you let loose on women’s rights that really tops your shit pile.

THE GARBAGE YOU HEAPED: “Another issue is women’s rights. Half of the valley’s people are women (that was bright, Chetan!) Given the hold of fundamentalist Islam, their rights would be curbed under both the independence and Pakistan options. This half of the population would be better off with India. Or do what women want not matter”

(HERE’S MY CUFF TO YOU: That you are completely daft is no longer a question C Bhakt. Are you suggesting conversion of Kashmiri women from “fundamentalist islam’ to ‘Hinduism”? And when you say ‘or do what women want not matter’? You know what they want you fool? They want their missing children to return. They want their rapist to go to hell and be punished. They want prosperity. They see Hindus as fundamentalists. And you are the living evidence of one. Do you realise Bhagat, the option 3 that you recommend has now been applicable for 7 decades. AND HAS FAILED!

And it is laughable when you patronisingly talk to Kashmiris saying Kashmir is better off on womens’ rights with India. India? Really? Of dowry deaths? Rampant rapes on a daily basis? Bride burning? Of sati? Of shaving heads of widows? Of the Nirbhaya infame and shame? Of khaap panchayats? Of honour killings? Of women who are beaten for entering temples?

In contrast, do you know, crimes against Kashmiri women by Kashmiri men are next to NIL? Do you know? You level of putrid thinking revolts me.

You are like a cockroach in a jar of cookies. You cannot improve and do not know who is ugly – the cockroach or the cookies. Do you know you dork, who exactly is accused of human rights violations and atrocities against women in Kashmir? That is the only ‘option’ for Kashmiris you pompously state?

Now answer this you insensitive twerp: would you leave a female family member within reach of soldiers in Kashmir in the night? Try it. Armies rape you nut. They do, in every conflict zone. Read about it in one of my posts.

Okay, Chetan B, let me say this. Only Kashmiris will decide what they want. No one else will or can. A genuine believer in democracy necessarily believes in the right to self determination. And those who condemn martial law in the neighbourhood are right in doing so, but they must equally condemn army occupation anywhere.

On your lack of objectivity vis a vis India, do note the Indian government has delivered nowhere, and so why will they deliver in Kashmir. See Chetan it is thick-skulled of you to glorify India when you know we live right here and know the deep mess it is in. The mess that makes headlines every damn miserable day. We aren’t foreigners, have you forgotten. By your own indulgent reckoning, aren’t we that fabled ‘integral part of India’.

So do bear in mind that when you screw up in JNU, Hyderabad University and others, you forgo the right to talk about any campus in Srinagar till you admit you are incompetent in all campuses. When you riot all the time and notably in Ayodhya and Gujarat, you forgo the right to lecture on Islamic fundamentalism. When you create the LTTE, you garner no sympathy on cross border terrorism by someone else. So stop whining and just fight it. The world is full of terrorism, but the common thread is that it is all funded and is at the behest of some nation state or the other. So put a little disclaimer on your little flagpole. Finally, when nearly every border state in India is in the dumps and has a problem, then that state is not the problem. The common problem is New Delhi. Accept it before it is too late.

Either Kashmir is an integral part of India or it isn’t. It can’t be both. Seven decades is long enough to conclude. That equals nine generations of Kashmiris living in torment. And if Kashmir is an integral part of India, don’t bitch about it all the time. Instead fall in love with it. Afterall there is nothing more beautiful here anyway! And stop treating it like enemy territory. Because then it will become one, like it has. And it will return the compliment. The ball, like I said, cannot be put in the wrong court.

And if Kashmir is an integral part, then be a man, admit to failure, take responsibilty, and course correct with concrete positive action not stupid sloganeering and symbolic self defeating patriotism. History has proven these are the only options. Remember one day, even the highly armed British left. They simply couldn’t drag it any more and had to yield to the will of the people. So you can treat time as the window of opportunity to win people over. Or you can treat time as that commodity which will soon run out. Your attitude to Kashmir will determine the outcome you have chosen. And you gave a pretty poor account of that. These Chetan B are the real ‘options’, not what you defecated in The Times of India.

Remember, Kashmir has contributed intelligentsia to India. The freedom struggle had many such doyens from Kashmir, the foremost of them being Nehru (but you are a Sanghi and have no clue of this great man too). Even the Indian Army prides itself for its fighting JAK rifles that has soldiers from Jammu & Kashmir. But you Chetan B, don’t seem to know even that. You talk to Kashmir like a dumb step Dad talks grudgingly to his smarter son with bitterness and outdated telltale inferiority. The orphan my dear Bhagat, is you. You don’t belong to Pakistan and you don’t belong to secular India. You belong to an uncivilized yellow knickerbockered tribe that can neither hear the bells ringing nor tell where the sound is coming from. Dumb is the short word for you Bhakts. But boy it echoes lengthily all the time.

Now I turn to you C Bhakt and offer you customised ‘options’ that YOU could use:

If you hate Kashmiris like it seems you do, then these are your options. One, try and curb your ineferiority complex. Kashmiris are mostly superior to you and your ilk in intellect. But intellect was never your trip anyway was it.

Two, don’t enter Kashmir. Don’t touch it. We don’t like you either.

Three, don’t be obesessed with someone you don’t like.

Lastly, before I forget!

You made some fascinating fuss about Kashmir being land locked and surrounded by hostility. My dear C Bhakt, so was Switzerland in two world wars, surrounded as it was with rabidly warring countries, like the duo here. Kashmir shares all the other characteristics with Switzerland too. And Switzerland has been prosperous forever. Kashmir is more inspired by that model than anyone else’s. And so stuff your stupid ‘option’.

And now go. Write some shit somewhere else.