Obliged

(A short story I wrote last year for the Commonwealth Short Story Competition. I did not win anything.)

I hated having to take the bus on cloudy days. I'd have to share the already precious space with all those who would have, on a regular day, taken their two-wheelers to work. Just a hint of rain and they would cram in with the rest of us regulars.

You could always see how crowded a Chennai Metropolitan Transport bus well before it arrived at the stop, from the characteristic tilt in the direction of its doors, thanks to the weight of the humanity packed inside and that hanging onto the window rails from outside. Today, the tilt looked more precarious than was usual. I was going to be late. As the bus stopped, half the people packed into the amalgam of heads, elbows, shoulders, arm-pits and sweat got off to make way for a third who needed to get off at this stop, still stuck inside, treading on anonymous toes, fighting their way to the doors. This was followed by the customary swell of people who elbowed their way back in. Youngsters were generally expected to travel on the footboard or hang from the window rails. I suppose most of them liked the thrill, the danger of falling underneath the wheels and the exhilaration of the oncoming rush of air. It certainly beat all the sweating on the inside. 

One of them recognized me. A fellow regular. He moved over a bit to reserve some space on the hand rail for me to hang from. Camaraderie. I declined, with a thankful nod. I was too well rounded to be hanging off of anything for an hour. I let that bus pass; and the next. I was going to be late, what was half an hour more? Two more buses later, I got onto one that was relatively uncrowded. Small wonder that - it was well past nine. A couple of stops later I even got a seat. As its previous occupant got up, I dropped my bag onto the seat before anyone else got to it. It was like a flag. I claim this seat in the name of...

As if on cue, one of those senior looking types hobbled onboard. He shuffled along the aisle, to stand right next to where I sat. 

I bit my lips in frustration and started assessing what the social norms mandated under the circumstances. There was a couple in the row behind me. The woman was at the window and her husband on the aisle seat. He did not have to give up the seat beside his wife to another man, even if he be old, I reckoned. The person sitting next to me, at the window, seemed middle aged; he looked at me expectantly. I looked away. The two seats in the row in front of me were occupied by relatively young professional looking fellows; probably late for work like me.

I could feel several eyes on me now. My neighbour coughed, pointedly. I stayed put. I could see both fellows in the row before me getting restless too. They were as obliged as I was to get up. 

Several expectant moments passed.

The chap in the seat right in front of me finally relented. He gestured the old man onto his seat. He then took the spot vacated by the old man, standing beside me. I did not need to look at him; I could smell his smugness. I could feel his eyes looking condescendingly down at me. I decided to meet his 'holier-than-thou' look with my steely gaze. I turned to face him. 

He got off at that stop.

Comforting the Dead

Have you ever had occasion to listen to the monologue of a relative, typically a senior, about how we  Indians are inheritors of such a glorious culture and how the West, supposedly in an advanced state of moral decadence, must look to us for guidance in spiritual matters. Well, I often seethe with rage when I hear such vacuous statements, especially in light of an experience that I'll remember with disgust for the rest of my life. This is something I have only shared with the closest of my friends, simply because the recollection of it fills me with revulsion. However, after a recent discussion with friends, I realised that a lot of Indians have had to undergo ordeals similar to mine for no good reason. Probably, if we talk about it, and condemn it for what it is, things might start to get a bit better.

I was born into a Hindu Keralite family. Both my mom and I were born and brought up in Chennai so we are really more Tamilian than Keralite as concerns most things (our Tamil is better than our Malayalam, for example), and we celebrate Pongal as well as Onam at home. It was only when my grandfather died, I came to understand that in matters of death, your ancestral roots are sacrosanct and there is simply no other way the last rites could be performed than how your ancestral tradition dictates they be.

I remember the day I got news of my grandfather's passing away vividly. I had to rush back home from college. I was so distraught that my room mate, Rijesh, afraid of letting me out of his sight, took the pains to accompany all the way to the railway station (situated at quite a distance from my college in Calicut) and made sure that his father was waiting to receive me at Chennai, expecting quite correctly that people at my own place would be caught up in the frenetic activity that typically follows a demise in the family. It is a gesture I will never forget.

What happened between the time I got home up until the next day when we cremated the body is all a bit hazy in my memory. There were elaborate rituals. Prior to the cremation, there was a lot of walking around the body and the strange act of putting rice and water into the mouth of the corpse. I am not sure if people in my community acknowledge how disturbing this really is. However, that pales in strangeness and morbidity compared to what was to follow.

After the aforementioned preliminary rituals, the body was subject to the fires of the electric crematorium. There was an ensuing wait for around an hour. After this, all the menfolk of the family, or to be precise, the male descendants of the deceased, which in this case happened to be my uncles, my cousins, my brother and me, were required to sit down, one after the other, in turn, next to the remains, and sort out the bone fragments.

Yes, you read that right, sort out the bone fragments! The priest conducting the service told us that my virtuous grandfather's soul would reach salvation only if his remains were assembled in an earthen pot, in the right order: bones from the lower body at the bottom of the pot, bones from the torso in the middle and the bones from the skull, right at the top. I hate to have to recollect the incident but I vaguely remember mulling over a piece of bone, trying to figure out which pile it ought to be sorted into. My brother was fourteen when he underwent this ordeal. The youngest of my cousins was no more than seven. Yes, I wanted to weep bitterly. I also wanted to throw up. But most vividly, I remember the anger I felt at the insensitivity of this barbaric culture I had inherited, that subjected grieving human beings, still reeling from the shock of having lost a loved one, to such a morbid ritual. What I hate most about it, was that the memory of that incident would taint the loving memories I have of my grandfather, for the rest of my life.

Compare this now, with the "decadent" practices of the West, where typically, when a person dies, there is a service conducted, where all the loved ones assemble to make small speeches recollecting the happy memories they shared with the deceased; where they play the music that the deceased used to enjoy and read poems he was fond of; where they even share a joke or two, lightening the pall of gloom and grief hanging over the mourners, even if it be only for a moment. Even if you be one of those "proud" Indians disdainful of "aping the West" in lifestyle changes, I wonder, if you'd agree that there probably are some instances for which, even we, as proud of our culture as we are, ought to take a leaf out of others' books to conduct ourselves with.

I submit to you that any of you reading this, simply by virtue of the time that you live in, know more about the natural world than your ancestors ever did. Probably, if we stop aping in blind faith, what our ancestors did, and open ourselves to making our lives better in our rituals as we strive to do in our embrace of other modern innovations and creature comforts, we'd probably realise, that rituals surrounding death, ought to comfort the living rather than the dead.

Undermining Parliamentary Democracy

If you live in India, you could not have missed all the din about the Jan Lok Pal and Anna Hazaare's fast. Now, while there is overwhelming public support for Anna Hazaare and his team - the so called 'Civil Society', you will not find it hard to locate voices of dissent among the intelligentia who decry Anna Hazaare's tactics as blackmail and undermining of Parliamentary democracy. We cannot undermine the power vested in our elected representatives (despite the fact that we are governed by a Prime Minister who is not, and a Cabinet, most of which are not, elected by the people.)

At the very least, they implore, refer the draft to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Lok Pal, a select committee of supposedly upright Parliamentarians chosen to discuss and deliberate the bill at length and provide recommendations to the Parliament.

Well, I don't know of any statements emanating from any of the Civil society members that actively undermines the sanctity of Parliament. However, I am about to do just what the title of this post suggests.

Let us look at the sanctity of the 15th Lok Sabha - the hallowed house of our elected representatives and then, the list of members in the Parliamentary standing committee on LokPal.

1) A third of them are have criminal records!

Yes, you read that right. As per a report released by the NGO 'Association for Democratic Reforms' (ADR), 128 MPs, a whopping 28.14% of our Parliamentarians have been charge-sheeted in criminal cases. 55 among them have been booked in cases of a serious nature, i.e. charges that include attempt to rape as well as attempt to murder. It gets more interesting. 41 of those tainted MPs are from the INC that controls the ruling UPA coalition. Is the opposition any better? Nope, 42 BJP MPs are among the illustrious 128 listed above.

2) They hardly work!

As per the 'Citizen's Report on Governance and Development (2010)' released by the organization 'National Social Watch', the number of sittings in the Lok Sabha was a mere 64 days and that with the Rajya Sabha, 63 days. The number of bills passes witnessed a decline from 47 in 2008 to 41 in 2009, with both the houses of parliament having spent less than one-fifth, of the total time, on legislative business. This is considering that official working hours on the days that they do work are from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and again from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Comfy, no?

3) Oh! How wonderfully representative they are, of us!

You would think, if you believe what you are taught in Civics classes, that the average Indian politician is a true representative of the 834 million impoverished Indians getting by on less than Rs. 20 a day - a true son of the soil and toil. Well, think again. 300 of the 552 members of the Lok Sabha are crorepatis. A significant number among those are dollar millionaires! Now, there would be nothing wrong with that one may say. After all, it augurs well to elect the most successful among us to power. Point taken. However, things really start looking awry when you look at the affidavits filed by the candidates prior to the elections. You can examine them at the excellent site myneta.info. Take for instance the case of the illustrious Lalu Prasad Yadav, who, despite having only been a career politician all his life, has declared assets to the tune of over 3 crores. Or take the more glaring case of M.K.Alagiri, the incumbent Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers, who has declared assets worth a whopping 19 crores. I'm still searching for the enormously successful legal enterprise that M.K.Alagiri ought to have spearheaded for such windfall returns. No, these aren't the Mitt Romneys of India and don't delude yourself into thinking otherwise.

4) What a thoughtful electorate we have!

The National Social Watch report, (see above link), on analyzing the performance of Lok Sabha MPs found that "the performance of members inside the Lok Sabha had no bearing on their popularity or otherwise among the electorate. Among the top 10 performers in the 14th Lok Sabha, only 4 have managed to return to the 15th Lok Sabha."

Another illustrative fact is that the electorate of the country has managed to increase the percentage of MPs with criminal charges by 17.2 percent and the percentage of MPs with serious charges by 30.9 percent in the new Lok Sabha.

The democratic system has degenerated to a scheme where the politicians beguile the poor for votes with promises and botched implementations of populist schemes for the poor (including freebies like the case of doleing out colour TVs and laptops amongst others as witnessed in Tamil Nadu) and once elected, cozy up to the rich Corporate magnates, granting them enormous access and leverage at the the cost of national interest. The real losers in the entire bargain are the middle class, who are left holding the smaller end of the stick, in every interaction with the government.

5) Things would be better if you stopped blogging and tried changing the system!

I am sure they would. However, do you have any idea of the perils involved in getting into the political fray? I am talking about risks to life and limb, quite literally. When I was a teenager, I happened to witness the gruesome sight of a man with a severed limb, being chased by a mob from the opposing party, right outside our school which was an election center. You don't have to look far to find tales of gruesome ends that some independents with promising prospects came to in elections in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. If not as an independent, which major party would you recommend that I seek the backing of? Suggestions, people! This is the plight and dilemma of the quintessential middle class citizen in a system dominated by thuggery, nepotism and dynastic politics. We do not have real political choice (we are reduced to picking the bad from among those worse) and cannot reasonably hope to run for office ourselves (without backing from the existing realpolitik). The middle class, of what is touted as the largest democracy in the world, live in what is, as far as they are concerned, an oligarchy.

6) The illustrious standing committee will sort things out on this bill!

Here is a list of the members in the Parliamentary standing committee on LokPal. While it is remarkable that 3 of the members (Lalu Prasad Yadav, Harin Pathak, and S.Semmalai) already had criminal records of a serious nature against their names (click names linked to affidavits of each), as if that weren't bad enough, news is breaking as of this writing that Amar Singh has been charge-sheeted in the cash for votes scam. I think its telling that we cannot pick even a handful of MPs from our Lok Sabha, who are not tainted. Or is this by design perhaps? Have the powers that be deemed that there must be adequate representation from tainted MPs to adequately represent the similar proportion of parliamentarians who have criminal records against their names?

The next time a supercilious acquaintance starts extolling the sanctity of Parliament and how Anna Hazaare's movement is misguided, thrust this post in his face.

Also, tell him that you support the Jan Lok Pal movement knowing fully well that:

a) It undermines parliamentary democracy (look at where 65 years of that has led us)

b) It primarily benefits the middle class (we are in the midst of a class war and this is our way of taking back lost ground).

c) It would create a body so powerful that it can turn dictatorial (at least in a dictatorship, we'd know whom to blame and we'd have no compunctions to revolt).

Harold Camping - the Genius and Instrument of the Abrahamic god

So, as of this writing, its 21 May 2011, 8:00 p.m in Israel, the hallowed Biblical ground zero, and the only possible place based on which any time reference in the Bible could have been specified. So, the blog-osphere and tweet-osphere and the great plains of Facebook are of course abuzz with derision over him have gotten his doomsday prediction wrong - and for the second time!

I seem to be the lone voice of dissent amid all the derision. I think Harold Camping is a genius. A true and obedient instrument of the Abrahamic god.

For one, this guy is a Civil Engineer; not just a mediocre one from some little heard of online college like evangelicals generally are. No, this guy holds a degree from University of California, Berkeley, no less. Believe me, I once knew a girl in school (NOT in the biblical sense of "knowing" a woman) who went to University of California, Berkley, and she was as brilliant as she was gorgeous. She even bagged a medal in the International Maths Olympiad while at school. Well, she did not really know me, but thats an irrelevant detail. From that one data point I have, I can quite confidently conclude that people who go to Berkeley, and stick around long enough to finish a degree, must be nothing short of brilliant.

Also, do you have any idea how meticulous engineers are with their calculation? I do; I am an engineer myself and I've worked with them and I'm telling you, the good ones, especially those from Berkeley, go over their figures with a fine comb. He is as unlikely to have made a mistake in his 'Biblical calculations' as I am of mustering the courage to ask my aforementioned high school crush out on a date.

Secondly, this guy is a civil engineer. Jesus was a carpenter. Anyone else see the connection? (Hint: Both of them build stuff. I mean really 'build'- like fashioning real metal and wood stuff, not build like that lame ass 'Build' button that you find in your IDE, that compiles textual code into native binary or bytecode for an interpreter.)

Finally, and Camping cannot be anything but the ingenious, sort of Machiavellian, servant of the Abrahamic god, who carries out his master's bidding to the T. You see, anyone who is Christian or has ever read significant portions of the Bible (two sets, that are by and large, mutually exclusive), would know about the several, several instances in the Bible where it says that, the world at large, will not know about the onset of the end of times.

"For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape."

- Thessalonians 5:2-3

"But of that day and hour knoweth no [man], no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe [were], so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."

- Matthew 24:36-37

Now, anyone who thinks that Harold Camping does not know his Bible properly, is completely ignorant. Have you seen how thumbed this guy's copy of the Bible is (refer image below)? Hell, it looks older than him, and that is saying something, considering that this guy is so old, that he couldn't have possibly believed, deep down, that the 'Kingdom of god' would come in his own lifetime. No the real reason is something much more profound.

The Real Reason:

In the past 40 years, evangelical Christians have reclaimed the religious space in America, back from the void in the 60s where Time Magazine once published a cover, with the title 'Is God Dead?' The 'End of Times' prophesies as found in the book of Revelations and other places in the Bible are one of the key aspects of evangelical proselytizing (other than of course, the other two, which are that, "God hates fags and abortion doctors" and "God loves the Republican party and the NRA" .

The evangelical renaissance and its dissemination of rapture related propaganda is so rampant in fact, that one former vice Presidential candidate and potential Presidential candidate for 2012, from the Republican Party of America believes that the rapture will occur in HER own lifetime. Can you even blame her for asking America to "drill, baby, drill" for oil, brushing aside concerns about global warming, which as far as she is concerned is not a concern, given the short time the world has anyway.

Now, evidently with all this attention that end of times prophesy is getting in America, god evidently must be feeling quite uncomfortable. He is supposed to send his son down to earth, when everyone is least expecting him to. I mean, here is a hypothetical conversation between Jesus and god:

Son: Dad, is it time yet? Do I go down there now?

Father: No

(After a while...)

Son: Is it time yet?

Father: No

Son: But you promised!

Father: Jesus Christ! Stop pestering me dammit!

Son: Er... Dad you can't do that...

Father: Do what?

Son: You can't take my name in vain.

Father: What?... Oh, no, I was actually addressing you young man...

Son: I am like 2000 years old, Dad

Father: Goddammit, I am over 13 billion years old

Son: Wait, you mean you weren't around before the Big Bang?

Father: Er.. well its complicated. Anyway, you can't go down to earth right away since there are too many people expecting you to come down to them anytime now.

Son: So?

Father: Well, that means that biblical verses that talk about armageddon sneaking up on the humans like a thief in the night will be rendered null and void.

Son: Who cares? That verse wasn't from the gospels that chronicle what I preached when I was down there. It was some smarty pants fellow, Paul, who had nothing better to do than write long rambling letters to people in far off lands.

Father: I divinely inspired him to do that. If I don't fulfill my own prophesies, I am going to look like an idiot.

Son: So, when will it be time for me to go down there? I need to pick what to wear and all that sort of thing you know. I need sufficient notice.

Father: Wait, I am cooking a plan up with this fellow, Harold Camping... lets see how it goes.

You see? Thats what this thing is really about. What if when everyone realises that Doomsday is not today, and are laughing about having lost any sleep over it, god (and Jesus) strike the next day, on May 22, when no one any longer believes the end is at hand. See what I mean? Or the next Saturday, May 28.

Or, better still, get Camping to predict another doomsday, and this time over, everyone is going to laugh him off, and bam, god picks that day to start Armageddon off. Its bloody brilliant, I tell you.

If Harold Camping makes another prediction, I urge you take him very seriously. Or not, depending on whether you are expecting or dreading the rapture, since if you do take him seriously, god will have to postpone the start of the "end of times" again. In any case, don't you agree that Camping is a genius?

Disagreeing with Islam (Politely)

Living in India, I am gagged by Section 295(A) of the Indian Penal Code, which prevents me from criticizing religion. Hence, I will be treading on eggshells here, keeping the list of adjectives I employ to the bare minimum while pointing out politely, why I disagree with Islam being a religion of peace and love. I am doing this so that I can simply link to this page, when someone starts chiding me for my general disdain for Islam rather than having to engage in a lengthy debate with my detractors; especially those secular minded people who take up a defense of Islam without having sufficient knowledge of the Quranic verses.

Moderate Muslims may even go so far as to accommodate adherents of all faiths as being believers; I however, am an atheist, a disbeliever, a 'kuffar' by definition. Hence, the following verses are certainly applicable to me.

In order to avoid inviting any hate mails (or worse), I am not going to comment on any of the following verses. The translations cited below are of the respected Pickthall version. If that does not suit the reader's fancy, each of the verses are linked to the excellent quran.com that has various other versions of translations and transliterations of Quranic verses, so that I am not accused of misinterpreting the text. The website also allows for easy browsing of the chapter its taken from so that I am not accused of taking a verse out of context.

Finally, it is a fact that the Quran devotes more verses to what horrors await a disbeliever post judgement day, than it devotes to any other single topic. I am not perturbed by these verses and hence will not be listing them below. I am only bothered about those views it advocates for its adherents that will affect their interaction with me in this temporal world.

3:28 Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoso doeth that hath no connection with Allah unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them, taking (as it were) security. Allah biddeth you beware (only) of Himself. Unto Allah is the journeying.

3:118 O ye who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance of) their mouths, but that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the revelations if ye will understand.

3:149 O ye who believe! if ye obey those who disbelieve, they will make you turn back on your heels, and ye turn back as losers.

4:89 They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them,

4:101 And when ye go forth in the land, it is no sin for you to curtail (your) worship if ye fear that those who disbelieve may attack you. In truth the disbelievers are an open enemy to you.

4:144 O ye who believe! Choose not disbelievers for (your) friends in place of believers. Would ye give Allah a clear warrant against you ?

5:80 Thou seest many of them making friends with those who disbelieve. Surely ill for them is that which they themselves send on before them: that Allah will be wroth with them and in the doom they will abide.

9:23 O ye who believe! Choose not your fathers nor your brethren for friends if they take pleasure in disbelief rather than faith. Whoso of you taketh them for friends, such are wrong-doers.

9:73 O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites! Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey's end.

9:84 And never (O Muhammad) pray for one of them who dieth, nor stand by his grave. Lo! they disbelieved in Allah and His messenger, and they died while they were evil-doers.

9:123 O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him).

25:52 So obey not the disbelievers, but strive against them herewith with a great endeavour.

66:9 O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey's end.

Suprabatham with Beer

This post is about an incident that occurred recently. I stay with folks I work with, and one Saturday evening, we decided to wind down with a few beers. Nothing fancy mind you, just 4 people and beers chatting into the night. As a teetotaler, I am able to recall the event more vividly than the others.

Let's begin with full disclosure. We were chatting away early into the morning, and we were indeed playing the music system rather loud. In my defense, I repeatedly remonstrated that the volume of the music be turned down lest we have the neighbours knocking on our door, bleary-eyed and angry.

However, it wasn't the neighbours who came knocking at 5.30 in the morning. It was the cops.

As soon as we opened the door, they barged right in, and must have been quite disappointed over finding nothing interesting happening inside, except 4 people sitting around, 3 of them drinking beer - which we bought legally before the watershed mark of 11 p.m, and brought home to drink responsibly.

"Do you know you're creating a public nuisance with the music?"

"Well... er.. ok, sir. We'll turn it off."

As is typical with cops, they harassed us a bit, gave us some fatherly advice and left after eliciting a promise that we will not play music loudly - ever. Those of you who can read between lines would know what else must have transpired in between that caused their change of stance from aggressive to fatherly.

Anyway, once we were inside, I was contemplating about other sounds that one could hear in our block at 5.30 in the morning; sounds that were certainly louder than the music from our place:

• Bells being rung at the nearby temples.
• Speakers from one of the temples blaring out M.S.Subbalakshmi's nasal rendition of 'Suprabatham'.
• Muezzins from two mosques, slightly out of phase with each other, calling out the faithful for morning prayers with their unforgivably bad rendition of the 'adhan'; their voices often cracking at various points, making it even more punishing on the listener.

It has always amazed me how some of the most ridiculously bad renditions of religious music is hailed as beautiful by the faithful. I'm sure M.S.Subbalakshmi had a captivating voice in her heyday, (at which point she was quite a babe too, I must add) but the Suprabatham was clearly rendered by an old woman whose voice was well past its prime. Yet, I reckon that the religious are either oblivious to this because of their religiosity or are afraid of divine retribution if they admit as much.

As for the muezzins, I have wondered if their voices cracking hilariously mid-rendition distracts any of the faithful following them in prayer.

In any case, what I really wonder is, would we have been in as much trouble if we were knocking back beers with 'Suprabatham' instead of Pearl Jam blaring from our music systems.

Obama for Prime Minister

So, the American mid-term election results are out and as predicted, a wave of anti-Obama sentiments amongst the Americans has swept the Republicans to power. It appears, that its quite likely that Obama would be a one-term President (in fact, many in the tea-party support his impeachment even before 2012 if possible, if the placards they hold at their rallies are to be taken seriously.)

I see a silver lining in all this for India, and I think Obama's impending visit to the country is a good time to set the ball rolling. What I suggest is that we invite him to run for public office - here. While this might sound outrageous at first it will make perfect sense once I'm done, so hear me out here.

Lets examine his track record so far. Some of the promises he made prior to the elections were to pull out of Iraq, reform health care, reform regulatory practices and increase Government oversight of banks and corporations, put into action a new energy policy and engage constructively with the Islamic nations on the foreign affairs front. Here's the trouble that the Tea bagging republicans see with all this - he delivered on the promises. His overhaul of the health care system (dubbed "ObamaCare" by the Tea-Party movement) has been called communist and dangerously expansionist. This is despite the fact that what finally became law was a watered down version of his original proposal after Republicans filibustered it ("we owe atleast that much to out Corporate overlords!"). He has pulled most troops out of Iraq and is trying to push financial reform through the houses.

However, gun-toting, commie bashing and god loving Americans have woken up with a jolt ("Now, wait a cotton-picking minute! We don't want no Muslim Commie spook tellin us how to handle our health care!") and are censuring him for actually following through with his promises. Apparently, they weren't serious about all the demands with which they elected him to office. Now, they want to restore things to the way they were under the Bush administration ("Ah...those were the days.")

So
a) They don't want politicians who have intelligence, spine and integrity.
b) They don't want politicians who deliver on their promises.
c) They don't want politicians with Muslim sounding middle names.
d) They don't want politicians of foreign origin.
e) They prefer right wing radical scum bags who are in bed with well endowed special interest groups.

Do you see the opportunity for a wonderful trade here?

In India
a) We desperately need politicians with intelligence, spine and integrity (atleast one of these.)
b) We'd love to know how it feels to elect politicians who deliver on their promises.
c) We don't mind Muslim middle, first or surnames (our vice President is a Muslim afterall, and he's a swell guy, right?)
d) We don't mind welcoming politicians of foreign origin (the leader of our ruling party is an Italian by birth, and we get along famously with her, don't we?)
e) We have more know-nothing, right wing radical scum bags who'd work for the highest bidder, than we can count.

So, I suggest we trade. We get Barack Obama, and in return they can have as many of our scum bag netas as they want. Its a win-win deal. Obama for Prime Minister, ftw!