Biting the Bullet

That sound; that damn sound. That's how it begins for most of us.

Motorcycling in India is broadly classified into two. The boys who ride plastics and men who ride the Bullet. This image was cultivated carefully by the Royal Enfield Company fanning masculinity as an equivalent of a huge monster that wakes up the neighborhood when it comes roaring in. Our superstars who rode it into battle the villains and the legend of how the Indian army ordered a batch of Bullets to patrol the Himalayan ridges eventually gave the bike a status of manhood.  

A typical bullet tripper

Then came the age of Indian trippers. Not the weed rolling, pot smoking type but the kind of leather clad guys who tie up huge bags, a couple of petrol cans and ride to the far corners of the country in seek of something. They invariably choose members of the RE stable, primary due to their seating comfort, high torque in low gears and most importantly because it looked cool. People frown at you if you ride into Spithi valley in a Splendor but on a Bullet you are one of the tribe. Bullet clubs popped up and soon the roads were choked with bullets. And the kind of morons^TM who swap a well-researched and built part of the bike like the silencer with the kind that deafens a rock because that makes you look hip.

No one popularized Bullet than Lalettan

A relative of mine, who lives nearby had a Bullet when I was in school. I used to wake up in the morning listening to his attempt to start the machine. Upon starting its roar used to give me goose bumps and when I ride my bicycle I used to imagine I was upon that magnificent machine. I tried my best to convince my dad to buy one but he progressed from Bajaj Chetak to Honda Activa to TVS Victor and then onward to four wheels.  Unlike me he was a practical man! My first chance to get my hands on a RE came in 2009 when I cleared my dental graduation. My parents have offered to buy me a bike and they were sure I would opt for a Bullet.

Real life cops with their ride

 Surprise! I went and bought a Yamaha FZ. I gave my reasons as it was economical, better engine, and less cost but the truth was that I was scared of riding the bullet. The guys I saw at that time riding the bullets were either policemen or the kind of people the policemen chases or occasionally chases the policemen. I being neither of them did not want that kind of albatross around my neck, hence a humble Yamaha.

Stuff the Army daredevils do with their Bullets

Couple years down the lane RE revamped their models, introduced the new efficient, economical and better constructed UCE engines. They boasted of the build quality of that of the Japanese plastics, the royalty of British heritage and as an icing on the cake RE was taken over by an Indian company. I am too much of a patriot and had grown some balls by that time so need to buy one ASAP. I began the war for a Bullet at home but my parents simply ignored me stating that I had my chance and I blew it, now if I want a Bullet make my own money and buy it. Well if I had my own money, why should I ask them? Indian parents logic!

The kind of shit I hates

It took me another 5 years to buy my dream bike. In 2016, I had saved enough money in between paying the education loans for a Bullet. As I always wanted I bought a silver Electra and fell in love with her at first sight. I call her 'The Spirit' and my wife suspects that she is more of a mistress than a motorcycle for me.  I give her regular baths, dusts her almost daily, services her on date and of recent my toddler son shows the equal or even increased vigor than me toward her. The service amounts are atrocious, the maintenance costly and the risk of stalling pretty high still every morning rain or shine, I take my time to caress her engine to start, enjoys my commutes to work and look forward during my job to ride her back. I know I am in love!

My Beauty

One year have passed, most of her rubber tubes have been replaced for failures of them means that I will be trapped on the road with an immovable behemoth. Yesterday I noticed the paint flaking off from the battery covers and rust creeping in under a few nuts and bolts. It’s just those wrinkles you get when you grow old, but on the bike all you need is to buy a new part and swap it. There as good as new. Whenever she refuses to start on a particularly cold morning, I just remember of the good time we had climbing up the misty hills of Idukky or burning the tarmac under a hot Tamil sun. I never swear at her but gently coax her to sputter and let her heart roar out her love to me. 

For another commute, for another adventure.

Stages of my life. Teenager to Colleger to a Bulleteer.

The Dead Tree Collection

A tree that stood for years, weathered the seasons, provided shade for may a scorched traveler, provided home to our winged friends and finally axed down in the shade of our greed. Sometimes we fell a tree to make our roads wider, some for better manicure of the land, some to support our aching backs and lazy butts but a few fortunate trees do not die when the axe falls upon it but be born again. Every book we read is the afterlife of a tree. I like to believe that its the soul of the tree that provides us with the warmth of emotions we feel when we read a great book. In honor of all those great beings who sacrificed their lives so that we could travel great distances, meet exciting individuals, participate in ethereal gatherings, I will call my new blog deadtreecollection.blogspot.in

I am an old school reader. I prefer to read hard copies of books instead of the E format. I am not against kindle, computers or my mobile and will read form any of those if the occasion presses me, but in my preference, the physical book always triumphs. I know that more I read the book, more trees need to be felled, yet I cannot think of shifting to E books yet because I love collecting and exhibiting the books I have read. Maybe one day my son may take up reading as a passion and be happy that Daddy have made a formidable library for him.

In the last year I have read around 40 books among which I had listed 30 or so in my goodreads.com account. I went through my old library car and found that I have read an average of around 40-45 books every year since my 8th standard in 1998. So it can be safely assumed that my total non academic literature journey have crossed the 700th milestone in the last year.  I have occasionally reviewed a few of the books in my facebook page and in my other blog finalloaf.blogspot.in but recently I have been thinking of making a blog exclusive for book reviews. I also plan to widen the scope of this blog into reviewing movies and series based on books in the future. 

In the beginning, I will be doing most of the reviews myself but is planning to include some avid readers to widen the reach of this blog as the reading community themselves will be benefited along with upcoming authors to whom this will act as a  publicity medium and a constructive criticism site. 

I request all my readers to support this blog just as you have supported my previous blog :)



Edit: I have decided to merge my two blogs for the sake of convenience into one. So all the posts in this blog have been shifted to the  original blog acynictalks.blogspot.in which I hope will be updated as much as my schedule permits. I like this title a bit too much so will not be deleting this and maybe use this for some other purpose later on.

Fallacy of the Fourth Estate.

The world of politics is governed and run by the cooperation of the three estates of power. The legislature frames the laws of the land, the executive makes sure they are followed and the judiciary looks into grievances. All three of them acts alone, in cooperation and in occasion as antagonists to each other. They are vested with limited power and with an ability to act as a check to each other if the need arises. Then we have the fourth estate, the news media or the press.

Traditionally the fourth estate included all means of mass communication including but not limited to visual, literature, radio, computer aided news distribution etc. Even though not formally recognized as a part of the political order, the fourth estate holds much influence over the society and in occasions determine  the direction of the general thinking as a whole. With the advent of social media, a part of the fourth estate including blogging, Facebook, Twitter feeds etc have been further moved to the fifth estate which is still very much linked with the mainstream media as the public generally considers them one and the same. In my narrative, when I mention media it will be the mainstream including print, visual or auditory. It can also include the online editions of the mainstream newspapers, but not the ones run by a group or an individual from his bedroom; those will be called as social media.

 Story No 1

In 1994, an eminent rocket scientist was named in a spy scandal. It was said that he along with a colleague leaked sensitive data to a couple of ladies from Maldives who in turn passed on the information to our arch rival's guard dog the ISI. The scandal rocked the state of Kerala and captured the imagination the people. There were stories of sex and spy, of Russian and US involvements, sabotage and so forth. The scientist in the eye of the storm was the one who lead the team pioneering on the works of cryogenic rocket engine which as I understand uses liquid fuel for flight. These liquid fuel engines are necessary for longer duration of flights with heavy loads while the solid propeller ones headed by the great APJ Abdul Kalam found its principal application in our military arsenal. In that time only the superpowers had such a technology and ISRO was on route to develop it. Then the spy scandal happened, the scientist was arrested, allegedly tortured, humiliated and the entire work went down the drain. The scandal eventually snowballed to the the resignation of the then chief minister K Karunakaran.

By 1996, the CBI team came to the conclusion that there was no evidence of any malicious activity by the above said scientist and in 1998 the court quashed all cased on him. The technology he helped to develop powered our satellites to the Moon and then to the Mars and very soon will help the first Indian to reach space in an India made rocket. The poor man was insulted, isolated and shunned by the society. He lost the prime of his life for the crime he did not commit.

 Story No 2

On the fine morning of May 20th this year Kerala woke up with the story of how a brave young girl, a law student defended herself and her honor against a self styled Godman who tried to rape her. The general conscience of the story says that the Swami who was the spiritual guide of the girls family misused his position of power and influence to sexually exploit the girl since her teens. He hid behind his aura of spirituality while he drained the family of their finances. Finally on the faithful day the swami ordered the girl to his room and in the darkness tried to assault her. She with defiance grabbed hold of the fruit knife and swing at his mid region and chopped off his manhood. Not completely but 90%. I am not making this up, I have read the same words in a news paper. She then rushed out, ran to a senior lady police officer who was her neighbor and called up the police helpline. They rushed pronto, put the swami under arrest and rushed him to the hospital where they sewed up his injured part. They media space exploded. There were screaming news headlines, shattering break news, flashing scrolls. The TV set was set alight with the vocal bombardment of the four column debate thing, feminist, men-nist and all their ilk screamed for the swamis blood. The collective of Kerala from the Chief Minister to the crook in unison congratulated the girl and vowed swift and apt punishment to the attacker. The media frenzy galvanized the population of not just the state but of the nation, it was glorious.

On 16th June, a news article much smaller in pomp and fond appeared in the third, fourth or the middle pages of few of the local dailies. The girl it seems have made a big 'U' turn. She have given in writing that none of the charges accused on the swami was true and he was as his attire projects, a saint. I don't know if money, threat or pure repentance have made this possible but it was a news worthy change. Yet there was no channel debates, no screaming headlines or breaking news and definitely no voice from the hordes which brayed for blood of the accused. To expect an apology for the tarnishing of the name will be too much even for the swami to expect but does he not deserve the decency from our media to telecast/print this development as they have done the first?

 Story No 3

February 20 of this year was celebrated as never before by the media with a headline of 'Popular actress kidnapped, molested and photographed'. It was the development of a story that would keep the TRP among the stars and be a cash cow for a long time. First came the manhunt for the prime accused and his henchmen and once he was apprehended came the speculation of the director of this operations. Since the day the identity of the actress was known, there was suggestions of the name of one of the most popular actor in Malayalam who might be the hidden hand. The initial frenzy continued almost until the case of the swami and the girl with the knife came up which then took up the mediasphere. But this story could not just simply die, for it was perfect. It had sex, popular names, a thick plot of conspiracy and lots of money to be made.

What is a swami and some unknown girl when compared to this?

Probably not what was offered at the jail.
Upuma & Banana

The case developed over the months, a letter of questionable integrity was found implicating the actor and the police which was recently been rubbed to the dirt over a few issues badly needed a morale boost. The actor was arrested, and once again the carrion crows descended into our living rooms.  We were privy to what the actor had for breakfast (it was uppuma and banana if you were wondering) which he didn't eat; his alleged role for almost all the crimes which happened in Kerala that may have the vaguest connection to movie industry. We even had people coming up claiming of their inside knowledge of the despicable acts the actor and his cronies perpetuated. All these were brought to us live, dead and decayed by the warriors in the TV set and the papers. The story continue to develop as I write this.

Meanwhile the nurses who went on hunger strike on the streets for minimum wages neither received the wages nor a spot in the media carnival for it was full of other sensational stuff.

I don't know if either the scientist, the swami or the actor is guilty. But in a land were the law rules, the scientist who has been absolved of all charges by the court must be treated in all means as innocent, though that will not alter the horrible timeline he suffered. The swami and the actor are still in the processing stage and their fate will be determined by the various courts of the law in due time as it must be in a civilized society. Our legislature have framed rules against the crimes they have or have not committed, the executive have caught them up and is in the process of collecting evidence against them and finally when the time comes the judiciary will assess the evidences, ponder over the arguments for and against and deem them guilty or not and punish them as seemed fit.

The Fourth Estate have absolutely no role in the process other than to inform the people of the developments. They are not the judge, jury or the executioner. The trial by media on every days debate hour is nothing but a lynching.

Like the crows that covers the carcass that floats down the river, we have a bunch of 'unprincipled showmen masquerading as journalists'. I don't mind the feeding of the crows but they disturb my peace and pollute my surroundings. They from being a nuisance have now developed into a kangaroo court of sorts.

A name that must have been said along with the ex president is now a name connected with a traitorous scandal, a person who may be in truth an actual spiritual person is a molesting monster and an actor who have entertained us for the last two decades a criminal who must be hanged, drawn and quartered.

A bunch of OB vans. Representative image

Not always the police is to be blamed for wrong arrests, falsification or evidence or so but almost always the quest for sensationalist news and mindless race to out do the other OB van results in breaking the cardinal law by which man need to be governed.

Innocent until proven guilty.

Pssssss......

1) During the ISRO spy case, the visual media was not developed as it is today. My memories are vague of how the public reaction was but on inquiring to the elders they say the papers and periodicals were full on in lynch mode.

2) I have selected these three cases to cite as they have captured our imagination like no other. I know there are thousands of other cases, but I had to limit to three.