When Poodles Rage

It is interesting how dramatically scenarios and equations change. Smita Prakash of ANI tells Arnab “We are all culprits as we did not hound Vadra for 10 years”. For the record and for the sake of history, an ANI reporter accosted Robert Vadra at a 5-star hotel in Delhi where the latter was testing some new gym equipment (or inaugurating as they say). He asked him a gentle question about the gym and health like throwing a dolly to Chris Gayle. Then, to an alarmed Vadra, he asked him a question about the fraudulent land deals in Haryana. An angry Robert De Vadra did a Robert De Niro “You talkin’ to me?” monologue with #AreYouSerious and #AreYouNuts. It’s just that there was no mirror in front of Vadra to tell him how ugly he looked. As he did his routine, an angry Vadra also knocked down the mic that the reporter was holding up to him. That was enough to send the entire media into a tizzy. The fire alarms went off. Everyone was up at around 11pm in the night on November 1 to rant about the attack on media.

SoniaG’s poodles had suddenly found the courage to talk and rant about Vadra’s misbehaviour. Of course, this is the first time any of these poodles got anywhere near 6.66 inches of the man. I need not add that the most to rant were none other than Arnab Goswami & Co on TimesNow. Imagine their luck and delight on dull news-days when the goose drops golden eggs like such an incident from heavens. On the other hand the Congis cannot tire of telling people Vadra is a private citizen who is being hounded by media. Hounded? That’s what Gandhi family stooge Diggy would have us believe (so too their spokies on TV):

This is the first time I have ever seen a media person in the last decade confront Vadra or ask him a question and the Congis would have us believe he is being “hounded”? Vadra had misbehaved but he only knocked down the mic in anger. This is the same media who defended the offensive, vulgar and violent behaviour of Rajdeep Sardesai at New York:

Rajdeep not only abused members of the crowd at NY but physically assaulted one of them. The entire HATO alliance came to defend this street-thug, including the union of snakes that passes as “Editors Guild”. By condoning Rajdeep’s conduct the media has no moral authority to talk about the misbehaviour of Vadra as an assault on the media. Mind you, Vadra just knocked off the mic and he didn’t assault the reporter (Smita Prakash confirmed that on TV too). As long as the media defends Rajdeep there is no reason they can claim any moral authority to complain about assaults on reporters (in this case it wasn’t so). Vadra is a national scumbag who is the perfect example of crony capitalism who recognises that his family and party had turned India into a “Banana republic”. It will take a while for this country to return to a normal democracy. The CAG has also recently reported on fraudulent land deals benefitting him abnormally. If properly prosecuted, there is no doubt Vadra belongs in jail.

Of all the channels TimesNow was the one screaming the most. Therefore, they must be reminded how their cowards behaved when the revelations of fraudulent land deals first came to light. They were spying on Vadra like cowards from a good distance. They were scared to get anywhere near him while hounding all other politicians. This is what I described in “Arnaboxious: The Witch Hunter” (October 2012):

Smita Prakash claims bravely that the media didn’t do their jobs for 10 years on Vadra. Also remember, when the Tarun Tejpal incident came out Arnab also claimed they also didn’t discuss Radiagate but covered-up for the criminals. Around the same time Vadra’s deals were coming out who was Arnab hounding? A certain Nitin Gadkari! And Arnab did a 19-part witch-hunt of Gadkari to distract and cover-up for Vadra’s deals. Cowards! SoniaG’s poodles had a vested interest in hounding Gadkari against whom all allegations have fallen flat. Who ordered these poodles to hound Gadkari? Let me repeat what I had quoted in October 2012:

“Apparently, a strong word was conveyed that they should leave Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law well alone. Ministers, including I&B boss Ambika Soni, are said to have reached out to the media houses, gently suggesting that further interest in the doings of Robert Vadra and his multifarious business activities would be most unwelcome”.

The full report on how Gadkari was hounded to cover-up the crimes of Robert Vadra during those days is recounted in this report by Sunday Guardian:

That’s exactly what all the channels did. They went after Gadkari to cover-up crimes of Vadra. Don’t let these scoundrels and poodles in media tell you they have morals or principles. Even the lame Hartosh Bal blurted out on TimesNow, during the discussions on #AreYouSerious, that the media ignored Vadra earlier because of how Congress funded many of the media outlets. When Rajdeep held a discussion to defend Vadra, Dr Subramaniam Swamy pointed out journalists shouldn’t pretend or behave so “innocent” because there are quite a few that have benefitted indirectly from deals involving DLF and other land deals. In particular, Shekhar Gupta passed off DLF chairman’s bribery without batting an eyelid when the DLF chairman KP Singh stated : “Can you run a property business without bribing… In my terminology, what I call bribing, is in two parts: One, where you give money to somebody to facilitate quicker disposal. Second, you give money, if somebody asks you, to do a wrong job. Now in my terminology, bribing is to do a wrong job, which I have never done in my life”.

I need not add KP Singh of DLF was rewarded with a Padma Bhushan by the Congress govt. Rajdeep, ShekharG, Barkha Dutt and many similar journos were also rewarded with Padma Shris. Suddenly, these poodles are finding their voices against Vadra. It only means one thing; the Congress is on its death bed. Else these poodles still wouldn’t dare rant about Robert Vadra.

News Traders & Interviews

In recent times the one series that comes to my mind on tough-talking interviews is BBC’s “Hard Talk”, especially with its first presenter Tim Sebastian. He anchored the series for nearly seven years. Tim was skilful in asking the toughest questions without intimidating or screaming at his guests. When he didn’t get an answer he pushed the question further but never appeared bent on demanding the answer he “wanted to hear”. In addition, he had a good voice which added pleasantness to the hard questions he asked. In India some like Karan Thapar imitate Sebastian but KT comes out with a scowling face, growling voice and distinct unpleasantness. Others like Barkha Dutt, Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai conduct interviews with a pre-set agenda which becomes very evident to the viewer apart from the fluffiness of their show. And if, by mistake, someone did give an interview to C5M Sagarika Ghose, I would have to categorise that person as a moron too. It is in this context that I have assessed some of the best interviews this election season to be of Narendra Modi by Rajat Sharma of IndiaTV, Sanjay Pugalia of CNBCAwaaz and Smita Prakash of ANI News.

To set the record straight, Rajat Sharma’s “Aap ki Adalat” is NOT a typical interview. It is more of an entertaining chat show. The Adalat does not, naturally, make any adverse pronouncements on the guest. Therefore, some media folks cribbing against Sharma’s show (calling it fixed, scripted etc) neither understand it, nor the context. Even Ajay Maken had to fall into the silly crowd and play the fool:

What made Sharma’s show a high-TRP hit is that watching Modi in any show itself is a pleasant experience for most people. He exudes hope, positivity and speaks the way only a man with tremendous commitment, wisdom and work-experience can. Only his opponents and detractors, who will rant even if Modi walks on water, will deny that. Thus, a Modi interview is now a bigger challenge to an interviewer as compared to interviewing some other politician. Even when Madhu Kishwar merely got a “conversational” recording of Modi which was aired on NewsX the typical green media-morons reacted stupidly. It wasn’t an interview by any measure but more like a documentary presenting the Modi-side of the story on 2002 and other issues. The reason for ridiculing that film is that idiots like Rajdeep, Barkha, Saba Naqvi (a frequent flyer on TimesNow) believe that Modi would have told a different story had they interviewed him. That’s how idiotic their bunch is. Modi uses the term “News Traders” for this sorry lot of losers who neither have any morals nor any journalistic principles. Let’s look at two of the recent interviews of political figures; one of Modi and the other of Raj Thackeray.

There may hardly be an interview where the interviewer doesn’t feel “I forgot to ask that question” or “I should have asked that question differently”. Some of it comes out of poor homework. While the overall interview was fair, here’s a quick look at the Smita Prakash (SP) interview and you’ll see how she goofs up on multiple issues (6.30 mins):

00.17 What’s your strategy against Kejriwal? That’s a lame question and maybe it wasn’t worded properly and it got a simple answer from Modi. I’m sure SP would want to think how she could have rephrased it.

00.30 SP says RahulG talks about women’s security and of Gujarat being an offender in that regard. Now, questions like “he said, she said” are dumb because political opponents mostly say stupid things about each other. It needs some data digging before posing such a quote. Naturally, Modi easily dismisses it with Congress having 7 among top 10 state govts where crimes against women are high.

01.45 Congress says Modi spends 10000 crores on marketing himself. This was the dumbest of the lot. It was dumb also because SP is quoting Congress again. Modi tells her not to pass off a Congress question as her own unless she believes what they say. The awful truth that comes out of this question is that media folks don’t really understand what can be marketed and what cannot. They also do not understand the difference between advertising and publicity. When a villager in UP talks about the “Gujarat Model”, it’s because some friends or family members have been telling him stories about Gujarat, through their transactions and experiences. You cannot market a bad product for sustained period of 4-5 years. The Gujarat story is being talked about for many years. “Experience” is felt and related to others. For instance, did it take Sanjaya Baru’s book for people to believe SoniaG was the backseat PM who was clearing files? Most people knew MMS was a puppet without any book or document. They see it, they hear it and they sense it.

05.25 This is not only dumb but even alarming. SP says many feel the High Court may not accept the SIT report that has been accepted by the lower court. After the same SIT report SC did not find any merit to intervene. How on earth did SP or anyone derive or conclude HC may not accept the SIT findings? Such moronic speculation is passed off as a question. Modi went past it but it actually deserved a spanking.

In general, I think SP was overawed with getting a chance, probably unexpected, to interview Modi. She asked him if media would be under threat if he became PM and he explains no editor or reporter has ever been thrown out of Gujarat in 14 years of his CMship. Also, it’s the media darling Kejriwal who has held out such threats. Ironically, SP happens to be a “news trader” and I say that in a good sense. As far as I know, ANI News, of which she is an editor, does not run a channel of its own but feeds news videos to news channels. Their basic business is selling news to news outlets. Maybe she lacks the experience of interviewing top leaders but in the overall context she did a good job. But what one would really like to see is questions on how Modi will deal with important issues; say, like the Naxal problem. A question that asks him to outline in 2-3 points how he will turn around the economy, create jobs and so on. Instead, it is more of the same “he said, she said” type of interviews that the media sells. The other interview of the week simply has to be the worst of the year. Here’s Rajdeep with Raj Thackeray (6.12 mins):

Rajdeep’s interview with RajT came on the back of one already done by Arnab Goswami. Right from the start till the end Rajdeep’s questions are a bundle of absolute BS. Poor body language, arrogantly waving hands and fingers at the guest, jumping out of the seat often are all signs of a moron who has forgotten his job. Not just that, Rajdeep believes RajT is a joker who is just to be ridiculed unlike SoniaG who he worships. I am no fan of either of the Senas but once you have a guest as an interviewer you treat him or her with a certain amount of respect. I have called Rajdeep the “Father of media-filth” and he gives us proof again.

00.15 Rajdeep keeps asking if RajT’s objective is to defeat SS or to help Modi become a PM. Even after RajT says he wants to help Modi become PM Rajdeep keeps trolling him. RajT’s answer isn’t wrong. He says clearly backs Modi and not BJP. It is morons like Rajdeep who don’t get it that RajT may not have backed someone else from BJP in the same manner. Rajdeep keeps repeating “Modi and BJP” are the same. They are in the same party but they are not the same candidate. Clearly, Modi gets a backing that others like Rajnath or Advani may not have received from RajT. It seems this doesn’t go through the head of Rajdeep.

02.10 Rajdeep tells him “log kehte hai”, people say “Raj bhokta hai” (“Barks”). Now what kind of extreme moron would use language like that with his guest? Only a third-rate filth from the lowest gutter would do that. And Rajdeep says “log kehte hai”. Well “log” also say Rajdeep is corrupt, he is a Dalal and got his 52-crore bungalow by corruption. Oh wait, that’s not just “log”, it was one of his ex-employee who said that.

02.32 RajT is absolutely right when he points out Rajdeep had built his own ‘political party’ AAP, which flopped in 49 days. Everyone knows that! “Log” kehte hai Rajdeep was and is a pimp for the AAP party. He was the one who awarded an IOTY to Arvind Kejriwal. His channel was the one who gave maximum air time to AAP. So while pimping for AAP Rajdeep thinks he has the moral authority to question the future of RajT’s party. Naturally, RajT cut him to his pygmy size and put him place for his political pimping.

03.06 On reporting only violence from MNS and not Assam violence against Biharis, Rajdeep is so bamboozled it is simply unbelievable. The moron blurts out “Listen to my double standards”. That is how drunk he is and unaware of what he is uttering.

03.31 Rajdeep says “log kehte hai” RajT is a nautanki and dramabaaz. There isn’t much to say for this except that Rajdeep has nurtured the biggest nautankis in the media; Kejriwal and the Category5Moron Sagarika. Both are ingredients of the nautanki of CNN-IBN. I think Sonia’s poodle already knows this. “Log kehte” hai Rajdeep is a “bika hua news trader”. I don’t think many will disagree.

Those were the two contrasting interviews of the past week. Clearly, the interviewer looks better with Modi because he calmly answers questions. The corrupt news traders like Rajdeep and Sagarika were earlier screaming “Modi doesn’t take questions”. Now they are mourning Modi is doing a media blitzkrieg. They have reached a “saturation” point as mentioned in the interview. Rajdeep and his ilk are stuck in 2002 and their brain died that year. The extra-ordinary claim that Rajdeep makes in his interview is he is not a public figure. That should explain his irresponsible behaviour throughout his TV career. When the editor of a TV channel believes he is not a “public figure” you know he has thrown out accountability and responsibility long back. That one single claim by Rajdeep explains who is a “news trader” and who is a real interviewer or journalist.

   

Horse Sense & The Macaulay Putris

There is nothing in the life of George HW Bush that would account for his rise to the office of US President. A successful WWII pilot, a successful oil-businessman he had almost no political victories to speak of. He didn’t win the nomination for the presidential election of 1980 either. But GB had something; he had ‘horse sense’. He tagged on to Ronald Reagan for a long time and was picked for the latter’s VP candidate. It is as Reagan’s follower and VP for 8 years that GB finally got elected as president. “Many people assume that success in life involves "trying harder". Nothing is further from the truth”. That’s the publisher’s line for the book ‘Horse Sense’ by marketing gurus Al Ries & Jack Trout.

From Hollymonroe.Com

The most successful people are those who "find a horse to ride": the one idea, the one company, the one thing, or even the one person that can propel them to the top. Most of our media celebs ride these horses; either political or business. Lately, some of these female celebs have been quite aggressively helping us understand how Arvind Kejriwal’s agitation is a class-war. A war between the elites and the middle-class, between the Macaulayputras and middle class! Just one problem; these MacaulayPutris keep imagining these elites are other people and not them. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that they are indeed the MacaulayPutris and elites and nothing about them qualifies them as “middle class”. Buckle up…

“At the traffic lights - where our cars came into enforced confrontation with poverty - and we saw a small hand stretched out for alms, or a disabled man trying to wave a red rose or a magazine at us, imploring us for help - we would barely look up from behind our over-sized designer sunglasses. We would, in fact, sink back into the plush leather of our seats and be extra determined that the story of India would no longer be told in picture-postcards of poverty”. Barkha Dutt: “Writes of passage” Hindustan Trolls  April 13.

So you see, most Indian middle-class people wear designer sun-glasses, drive cars with plush leather seats. They ignore the beggars and the disabled selling magazines or roses at traffic junctions. Mind you, the only place a “middle class” lady like Barkha can now eat “Gol-Gappas” is at the PM’s party. Not on the streets like “upper-class” Indians. Let’s hear another similar heart-breaking story.

"The moralistic virtuosity of Team Anna rankles many of us. We who have made our compromises, we who speed our cars when we see beggars approaching, we who roll up our car windows when vendors sell us agarbattis at traffic crossing, we don’t see children who are rag pickers, night soil lifters and tea vendors. We are morally, spiritually, physically depleted, exhausted and blind. This revolution that Kejriwal talks about isn’t for the likes of you and me. We have made our compromises". Smita Prakash: “Who has the stomach for a revolution?” MidDay August 6.

Damn! What’s with these two ladies and cars and traffic signals? Compromises? Read that as: “we have chosen our horses”. Don’t despair! I managed to find someone who doesn’t talk about cars and traffic signals. Instead, she talks about “Tits, Clits and Elephant dicks” and “The Vagina Monologues”. Who could it be but our very own Social Genius:

“No wonder this neo Macaulayputra now faces a quintessentially desi revolution, a revolt is brewing, something is stirring in the air. Kejriwal versus Vadra is as much a class war as it is a war against corruption, it is a war between an elite class—containing within it undoubtedly many many examples of excellence and achievement—and an aspirant class of dhartiputra for whom the moral crusade is sharpened by class anger…. Hindutva rage against so called “English speaking secularists” has been manufactured as not just rage against those who are supposed to love minorities but against those who are perceived to be members of a left liberal aristocracy who practice vote bank appeasement in order to maintain their own political and social monopoly of public life". Sagarika Ghose: “Vadra vs Kejriwal: This is also a war about class” FirstPost October 10.

There you are, it’s not just class wars but also Hindutva rage against ‘English speaking secularists’. That’s from a woman who wanted ‘female orgasm’ to be a Constitutional right. We get the humour, of course. For her and the elites, the Hindutva folks are the biggest enemies who are constantly in the “manufacture-rage” mode. All three, Barkha, Smita and Sagarika seem to forget they are indeed the ‘Elites’. They are indeed the MacaulayPutris who seem to trigger the middle-class outrage being channelled by AK. Why do their writings smack of so much hidden guilt? Barkha has umbilical ties to Hindustan Times. Smita is the daughter of a Principal Information Officer of GOI. Sagarika is the daughter of a Doordarshan director and her relatives include judges and ambassadors. All very “middle class” eh?

All 3 women seem to be obsessed with Kejriwal and class-wars. Coincidence? Would these women have gotten to where they are any differently from Vadra or Kejriwal? Not in terms of multi-crore deals or anti-corruption fights but in terms of position and influence. And all three are stupidly, terribly wrong about AK too. They’re either simply too dumb or unwilling to see how AK got where he is and they confuse his war as one of class.

By reports AK first approached former president APJ Abdul Kalam for his IAC movement. A Prominent TV panellist told me Kalam said “I’m all for this anti-corruption thing but I love eating so don’t ask me to fast and blast and all that”. AK then approached Narayana Murthy of Infosys. NM’s response was: “Look Mr.K, we must evolve our social structure supported by a massive overhaul of our systems which bring in investment and expands our capabilities to compete in the world and take progress to the grassroots without upsetting the balance in our industrial position in the world which can badly impact the morale of both the govt and the people as also our fight against corruption and our methods must be secular without offending the rightwing, leftwing, centrists, media, politicians or neo-nazis”. Got it? I’m sure AK must have returned from NM with his head spinning. So he went to Anna Hazare. AH was known for anti-corruption agitations and fasting. AH was willing. AH was willing to fast and be the face of AK’s movement. Ride the right horse! Can you now imagine AK carrying out his IAC on his own? He was more or less a “nobody”, not even 20 people would have turned up for him. Picking Kalam, Murthy or Anna is what’s called Horse Sense. Vadra, the national son-in-law, is the horse that DLF rides as do many other business entities.

Consciously or unconsciously Sagarika luckily picked a horse too. The moment Rajdeep Sardesai got to head a channel of his own she was Deputy Editor at the channel. You think anyone else would have expected that? Out of the blue some guy called Ashutosh Varshney was a panellist frequently on NDTV. Except for stray comments here and there I hadn’t heard of this guy before. Well, what do you know! Before you could say ‘horse’ he had turned Barkha into a ‘Sabbateur’. Er.. That’s my description of someone on a sabbatical as Barkha now claims to be at Brown University under some fellowship. Varshney is Director, Brown-India Initiative. Wait a minute! It could be the reverse too. It could have been Varshney horsing around. The two can decide which one it was. Of Smita, I don’t see a new horse to identify and I hope it stays that way.

Most people in public life in India strongly rely on horse sense. It’s not a bad thing and not a bad route to the top. Think Ahmed Patel, think Rajiv Shukla and make your own list. Some, unfortunately, take it to the level of slavery. The entire clan and cult of Macaulay Putris and putras are essentially outcomes of such horse sense. Calling themselves ‘middle class’ is another of way of somehow defending their elitist guilt. 

Note: Responses of APJ Abdul Kalam & Narayana Murthy to AK are imaginary and shouldn't be confused for real.