Mallika Sarabhai's Toilet Musings

On September 17, 2011 when Narendra Modi began his fast under the Sadbhavna mission there were some who protested, some who said he was flexing his PM ambitions and some called it a 5-star fast. There was one 5-star human rights activist though who was busy doing something to prove a point. Yes! Mallika Sarabhai, the 5-star activist decided that she would feed poor slum children on that day to protest against Modi’s ‘5-star’ fast. I am wondering if that was the first time Mallika ever saw slum children from close ‘quarters’. You can usually tell human rights activists by their 'truck' – usually a very large blood-guzzling SUV.  A day later on September 18 Mallika was busy again hurling accusations against Modi of bribing her lawyers. Of course, her lawyers denied that. And then she got busy in leading a group of protestors to petition Modi about justice awaited in the 2002 riots. Then the fast was over! Modi went back to work and Mallika .. Oh I don’t know where or what she went back to.

A few days later that ‘whistler’ cop, Sanjiv Bhatt, is arrested and Mallika was back on the scene. This time she went a step further stating “even judges in Gujarat are influenced by Modi”. There are the usual SUV types like Shabnam Hashmi, Teesta Setalvad and others with Mallika with candles and balloons to support Sanjiv Bhatt. After a court battle for about 18 days Bhatt finally got bail and his family celebrated. So everyone went back and Sanjiv Bhatt went back to his family. And Mallika .. Aha! This time I know where she went and what she did. Yeah! Just like any other 5-star activist she went abroad. She dashed off to wonderful South Korea. Wonderful place to forget Modi, Bhatt and slum children. Well, didn’t quite turn out like that it seems. She had to confront the horrors of South Korean toilets. And that was enough to bring back strong toilet memories for her.

So Mallika writes the ‘Last word’in that magazine called ‘The Week’ and it’s quite appropriately titled ‘Flushed with confusion’. For all that money I could have told Mallika that her head was flushed with confusion right here in India. Anyway, let’s understand her toilet travels… I mean toilet travails… (quotes in blue).

“We were at a roadside stop, somewhere in the south of South Korea, in a very clean public toilet. I looked around the toilet stall. Behind the commode, around it, under it. No, there was no sign of a flush. By this time several other voices had joined in this chorus, each with an explanation, but no solution. At last a triumphant voice, “There is a button on the right of the door as you exit.” Phew. I hadn’t fancied leaving a clean toilet dirty for want of reading Korean”. Hmmm! Somewhere? Somewhere in South Korea? That rush to toilet must have been so bad she even forgot the name of the place. I think usually when we go into a toilet in a foreign country we carry some basic info. And discovering a flush button really can’t be part of the tour plan. But 5 star activists aren’t used to it and some poor soul had to shout ‘eureka’ there’s the flush button. Oh and I’m still wondering.. if finding a flush button would have been easier if one knew Korean I wonder how they decided the place was a toilet if it was probably written in Korean. Must be some intuition! 

Toilet House, The Museum, South Korea

Oh by the way, the Koreans (And I mean South every time I mention Korea here) absolutely love their toilets. Don’t believe me? Okay, you see this little house once belonged to someone. They had shaped it like a toilet and now it is some kind of toilet museum. I am not kidding, this toilet house is in a town called Suwon in South Korea. As a tourist Mallika should have cared to know this.. LOL!

“A few days later, in the even cleaner toilets of the offices of the Korea Foundation, the Korean counterpart of Indian Council of Cultural Relations, I sat on the toilet contemplating a series of graphics. One had wavy lines, horizontally placed. The next one had dotted lines, like upward moving waves. The third one had the same but moving downwards. Knowing a couple of my colleagues were in next door stalls I mused aloud about what they meant. Pat came a reply, “Whatever you try, try it while still seated, otherwise you will get a shower.” More cautious than is my wont, I refrained”. What a pity! The Indian Council of Cultural Relations must be pulled up for sending people to places without a guide on the graphic indicators in toilets. Wavy lines, dotted lines.. now thanks to Mallika, if I ever go to South Korea I will now try them while I’m seated. But wait a minute.. those were toilets in ‘offices’ so it does surprise me why they’d have showers in there to be warned by Mallika’s toilet neighbours. I, for one, haven’t seen showers in office toilets. Alright, maybe the Koreans thought there might be special Indian guests who might even consider taking a shower while being in the toilet in their offices. Quite possible hahahha!

Japanese Toilet signs

She mentions a diplomat who had problems with a Japanese toilet. A what? Yes, a Japanese toilet. So for her benefit and that of the diplomat I’ve put up what is a Japanese toilet guide that is pretty common. Then she goes on to narrate some more experiences, some of which I prefer to censor but I couldn’t help picking on this particular experience of hers: “Then there are the automatic sensor devices. At Paris airport, this meant getting up and sitting down on the pot several times till the sensor kicked in. I tried getting up and down straight, sideways, by jumping out of the sensor’s eye.... Finally it worked, but I still haven’t figured it out”. Up, down, straight, sideways? I have imagined Mallika is a dancer and also the daughter of a famous danseuse but I certainly can’t imagine her dancing in a toilet just to get the flush going. And she says she still hasn’t figured it out. Well, there are a lot of things, like the lies, that is hard to figure about Mallika too. Of course, I don’t think the toilets of the world are in a conspiracy against her though.

And finally she says: “If my readers are surprised at the topic of this week’s column, let me tell you why these thoughts come to mind. A five-star deluxe hotel I have just checked out of, had nothing at all—no bum shower, no mug, not even the possibility of reaching the tooth glass and the water at the basin without twisting your back. Was this a plug for the (toilet) paper industry, I wondered. Or just one more way we stupidly ape the west?” No Mallika, no one is surprised at all. And not everyone stupidly apes the west. Some of us have even lived in the west without aping them. Look at the bright side Mallika, the 5-star hotel you visited could well be the equivalent of the no-star slum that goes through such things every day. You face such toilets some exciting days in your life… they do that all the time.

Okay, so next time I travel abroad I won’t ask for a travel map or guide but will first seek out Mallika and get toilet tips from her. Well, so much for our 5-star activists! Their hearts bleed for justice, for slum children, they want to see Narendra Modi hanged and what not. But they can’t even flush their own bullshit down without dancing in the toilet!

Sanjiv Bhatt Needs A Bonfire, Candles Not Enough

On Tuesday night (Oct 11) it seems gas balloons burst on being singed by candle flames outside Sanjeev Bhatt’s house. It scared the small crowd there, Bhatt’s father-in-law fell down and rumours of a blast had a short life. Hard to fathom what the candle light activists were doing with balloons. I suppose gas balloons are symbolic of the gas bags that have pronounced Bhatt completely innocent of any crime and a victim of a witch-hunt.  Never mind. All the candles in the world are unlikely to end Sanjiv Bhatt’s troubles soon.

So who are these gas bags? All the usual suspects, of course! There is Teesta Setalvad, Shabnam Hashmi, Mallika Sarabhai, the leaders of the pack. All three are established and exposed liars. One can sympathise with Mrs.Shweta Bhatt (Sanjiv’s wife) and understand her dismay on these events. But instead of taking saner counsels to work for her legally she has allowed gas bags to holler and shriek mindlessly in defence of her husband. The three angels on her side have acquired so much disrepute that anything they now utter is suspect.

Shweta stated that her husband was not a criminal and does not have a history of offences. That Bhatt was being treated like a ‘terrorist’ in custody. That his life is in danger. She writes to P. Chidambaram and complains about the threats. None of these seem a natural response but more a tutored act that has all the ingredients of a drama that the media so loves. The story of Sanjiv Bhatt is not that of a ‘whistle-blower’ as the media so dearly likes to call him. It is an extraordinary case of how and why an IPS officer chose to reveal information and file affidavits against Narendra Modi, nine years after the Gujarat riots of 2002.

The one lesson that is lost on many activists is that whatever the media crooks hype usually turns out to be a huge propaganda of untruths. The SC order on September 12 sending the Zakia Jaffrey case to the lower court stunned many of these media mullas who had hoped the SC would rap Modi. It didn’t happen. Latest information also suggests that neither the SC nor the SIT had considered Sanjiv Bhatt’s affidavit in the SC. This only means that his affidavit does not contain reliable evidence against Modi. The motive of Sanjiv Bhatt to come out of the blue and file that affidavit incriminating Modi in the riots must remain under serious question. It doesn’t help that some Congress politicians have been revealed to have lent him support in his misadventure.

This document herechronicles the extraordinary history of offences by Sanjiv Bhatt. He is not the whistle blower or the angel that media has tried to portray him as. But he suits the huge anti-Modi industry propelled by the three stooges (Teesta, Shabnam, Mallika) and comedy channels like NDTV, CNN-IBN and TimesNow. It would also appear that much prior to his affidavit in the SC, Bhatt would probably have been extensively communicating with these activists. Since the exposure of fake affidavits of Teesta Setalvad the media didn’t really have much to shout about against Modi. The Bhatt affidavit gave the campaign a new lease of life for the anti-Modi propaganda.

It is not just Sanjiv Bhatt but the law will sooner or later catch up with Teesta Setalvad. Here’s more from DeshGujarat: Public prosecutor S.V.Raju says “.. Bhatt’s allegation against Modi was simply to divert the attention from the main offense he had committed. Raju also said that adding involving the names of Modi and late Haren Pandya in affidavits was to attract media attention….Bhatt had suppressed the fact that he had approached the Supreme Court for bail on the very next day of his arrest on October 1. The bail plea was later withdrawn from the SC registry on the same day and Bhatt’s lawyer Syed placed the fact on record only after filing bail application in local court here on October 3”.

And if that is not enough a case of murder has been registered against Sanjiv Bhatt for a custodial death in 1990 in Jamnagar (Guj).  The Jamnagar court will soon file a charge-sheet against Bhatt and other accused policemen in the case. Still, the defence for Bhatt continues to pour from none other than Team Anna. This Team Anna is slowly turning out to be a political tool for unknown elements. Suddenly, its member Shanti Bhushan announces Modi is the most communal person and he is willing to defend Sanjiv Bhatt as a lawyer. Bhushan goes on to add “Bhatt was being persecuted only because he had filed an affidavit against Modi”. No sir, he is not being persecuted, he is ACTUALLY being prosecuted. And as a lawyer, this moron should let the law prevail instead of  making political statements about the Congress or the BJP or Modi.

As for the media the best comment yet comes from Rajeev Srinivasan in an article at Firstpost. He describes how this cottage industry of hate and manufacturing consent operates: “Then there are the various characters who keep popping up like jack-in-the-boxes. The Fiction-Writers Posing As Journalists. The Activist Accused By Witnesses Of Tutoring Them To File False Affidavits. The Angry Dancer. The Police Officer 1.0. The Police Officer 2.0. That Police Officer 1.0, who was once the media’s favourite, has trashed Police Officer 2.0, its current favourite, does not seem to bother the media at all”.

Sanjiv Bhatt has spent 12 days in jail and is still fighting for bail. Whether he gets bail or not a long legal battle awaits him. Candles will not be enough, he may well need a bonfire.

Hate Engineers

Believe it or not, in four years since 2007 an average of 25 women have been added to the imaginary number of women gang-raped in the Gujarat 2002 riots. That is how Shabnam Hashmi churns out figures. Now, Shabnam Hashmi is an activist extraordinaire, a media pet and an expert on communal issues. No matter what the discussion she will invariably come up with and link the issues to Ayodhya, Gujarat riots and Narendra Modi. Her world becomes complete with these three topics.

In 2007 Hashmi wrote an open letter to Narendra Modi about 300 women being gang-raped who are yet to get justice. This was in response to Modi’s offer of shelter to Taslima Nasreen in Gujarat. Taslima, being hounded by her own country Bangladesh and later by Bengal and the Indian govt, is a muslim writer whose writings have angered her community. You may carry on accusing Modi of a thousand things but what could possibly be wrong with such a gesture? But then for the likes of Shabnam Hashmi Modi represents the punching bag which keeps their careers and their NGOs funded. Now the lies that the NGOs peddled have already been exposed over and over again yet Hashmi continues to dangle hate through numbers.

 

On Sunday,  September 25, Narendra Modi was to hold a huge rally at Vastral on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Obviously, he would make some political statements, but where was Shabnam Hashmi? She was right there in a predominantly muslim locality asking them to boycott Modi’s rally. What was her charge? Well, here’s what DNA reports: “Hashmi talked about the 400 women of 2002 riots who were allegedly gang-raped during the riots and were yet to get justice. She also talked in abusive terms about the Muslims who had attended Modi's Sadbhavna fast.”  So, from the charge of 300 women gang-raped in 2007, according to her letter to Modi, the number has now risen to 400. Such is the power of lies that are used to spread hatred.

The original accusation of 300 women, or any number, being gang-raped has not been backed by any evidence. Those lies already stand exposed. Now Shabnam Hashmi peddles more lies by throwing up a number of 400. Her letter of 2007 also accuses Modi of women being treated badly in Gujarat. Well, I don’t carry numbers or statistics but I am sure Hashmi can see only one state in India’s map and that is Gujarat. Safety or Crimes against women is altogether an issue and has little to do with her hatred for Modi.

Hashmi didn’t stop there, she went on to shower contempt on those who attended Modi’s Sadbhavna event: "We want to stop this politics of hate and you people don't feel ashamed in going to Modi's fast with the skullcap on your head? You posed for photographs with him after taking Rs200 to Rs500?" she said, referring to the chief minister in derogatory terms.“We will not stop anybody who wants to go to the Vastral rally but they should understand that all this is politics. People of India will never let Modi become the prime minister."

Now whatever else the criticism of the Sadbhavna Mission there is hardly any sense or maturity in showering scorn on those who attended it. Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, Jains and more attended it. Yet, Hashmi goes on to lecture the Muslim community with the hope and intention of permanently keeping them from integration. I call it hate engineering! I guess throwing up vague, irresponsible statements is a significant feature of hate engineering. There is no other way to describe the acts of Shabnam Hashmi. Ironically, such hate-mongers camouflage their intent and acts with smart-sounding NGOs. Hashmi’s NGO is named ANHAD(Act Now for Harmony and Democracy). She is the founder of this NGO along with Harsh Mandar. Now Mandar needs no introduction for his campaign against Narendra Modi. He is now a member of the NAC. I think the right name for these fake harmony mongers would be ‘Been-HAD’ for the manner in which they spread lies to divide communities. I could even comically redefine Anhad as “Act now for hatred and disintegration”!

On the same topic but on a different note DNA carries another article by Girish Patel (September 21). The title straightaway indicts and convicts Narendra Modi: ‘Despite Sadbhavna Narendra Modi guilty under international law’. If you read the article carefully, there is no such international law that exists and India is not a signatory to the International Court or Tribunal. But the writer’s theory could well be a veiled invitation for activists like Hashmi, Mandar and Teesta Setalvad to attempt a misadventure. Fact is, Teesta has already been rapped by the Supreme Court once for writing to the UN about Gujarat riots and trying to internationalise the matter. I do not know much about this Girish Patel or what his persuasion is, but I can tell him that the International Court was created to handle cases from countries whose legal systems were dubious. By his article Patel clearly rubbishes the justice system of India. Whatever our shortcomings, India still has a fine judiciary that is capable of delivering justice. Just because verdicts don’t go your way is no reason to sling mud at our judiciary system. But that is how media crooks invent theories.

For all the talk of women’s rights and safety, Shabnam Hashmi had spewed venom on the Baba Ramdev campaign in early June 2011. Activists like her and some media channels threw so much mud that it emboldened the central govt to carry out a brutal midnight violent attack on a huge crowd of peaceful protesters at the Ramlila grounds. Many were injured but one woman, 51 year old Rajabala, was paralysed for four months and finally died on September 26. I wonder what Hashmi & Co. have to say about that. Your guess is as good as mine. After all democracy or rights or security is not the greatest concern for the hate engineers.