History’s saddest lesson. Will we never learn?

Say what we may, India's record of inter-communal co-existence has been atrocious throughout the last century. On every occasion, the slightest breath of suspicion would fan tension into a major conflagration. In 1926, for instance, Hindu Mahasabha's national conference in Delhi, the ambiguous government policy on allowing music to be played near mosques and the opposition within the Indian National Congress to the Bengal Hindu-Muslim pact - painstakingly steered to fruition by the Deshbandhu (CR Das) - conspired to spark off a nationwide carnage, in Allahabad, Bombay, Calcutta, Dacca, Delhi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Panipat and Rawalpindi. 'Music near mosques' has a familiar ring. It has been the recurring bone of contention, even as late as in Mumbai's post-Ayodhya (1992-93) riots. Is secular tolerance, I often wonder, a sheer sliver of a veneer over the Indian psyche? "The more the two sides try and call attention to their religious differences by slaughtering each other, the less there is to distinguish them from one another. They worship at the same altar. They're both apostles of the same murderous god". That's how Arundhati Roy described the Gujarat episode of this never-ending gory tale. (Democracy. Who is she when she's at home?) http://www.zmag.org/content/SouthAsia/roy-gujarat-democracy.cfm.

Wise and worldly? Or, other worldly? The Prequel.

Had we gone completely wacko or what? We almost ‘outsourced’ (as my friend Avinash laughingly described it when the Congress takeover drama was on a couple of years ago) our Prime Ministership – which my PC’s spell-check by the way insisted should be written as two words either ‘Ministers’ + ‘hip’ or ‘Minister’ + ‘ship’. At that time, we were also a search for India’s Child Genius. I had no problem with the former. (In my eyes, the erstwhile Italian au pair lady is a naturalized Indian citizen.) The latter in my book is sheer lunacy. The Hyperdictionary defines ‘genius’ as ‘unusual mental ability’, ‘a natural talent’, ‘exceptional creative ability’, ‘exceptional intellectual ability’ and ‘originality’. http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/genius. From the Child Genius Search promos I got the feeling that general knowledge and mathematical ability were the litmus test used by the ‘tele-hunt’. Genius cannot be hunted down, if you ask me. Like cream, it rises to the top. All by itself. The rest is Kaun-Banega-Krorepati clonemanship. What irked me most about the promos was the so-called kid genius wannabes strutting about hurling attitude with a capital ‘A’ at the viewer. Borrowing a turn of phrase from Dorothy Parker I would like to humbly submit that “This is not a show to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” Like what the anti-incumbency wave did to the NDA! Huh? http://www.quotesplace.com/info/browse/Dorothy_Parker.