The Litter Mafia & Extraneous Noise

“The '57 meeting was about how we were gonna divide this country. This meeting is how we're gonna survive”.

Alarmed at the gang wars, murders and general chaos one of the mafia bosses decided it was time for a meeting of all the mafia bosses. So Joe Barbara took the initiative and organised a meeting for them in the sleepy village of Apalachin in the state of New York. It was the first ever general meeting of the mafia. That was 57 years ago in 1957. The agenda was how to divide the country and settle territories for the bosses, the nature of businesses to be held by each and set up new rules of the game so that there was peace among the gangs. Hundreds of mafia bosses turned up and flooded the little village with their cars and crews. The meeting barely happened as the police noticed the unusual traffic of cars from across the country in the tiny village and triggered an alarm. They raided the meeting, some bosses escaped, some were arrested and indicted. That was the first time that law enforcement in the US acknowledged the existence of the American mafia. The events have been comically represented in this clip from “Analyze This”   

I’m not aware when India’s first LitterFest was held but the more organised ones appear to have started with the Jaipur Litterfest in 2006. I call it LitterFest rather than LitFest as the mafia likes to call it because more than reading or transacting on literary work this assembly has slowly become a political platform. One will remember Girish Karnad, the Sickular guy, lashing out at VS Naipaul at the Tata Litterfest in 2012. Reason? Supposedly because of Naipaul’s “rabid antipathy towards Indian Muslims” and, of course, Naipaul had attended a meeting of the BJP. Karnad trashed Naipaul for 40 minutes over political reasons at what was supposedly a literary meet and particularly one which was meant to honour Naipaul. In the Jaipur Litterfest of 2013 another mafia member, Ashis Nandy, grandly stated "It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from OBCs and Scheduled Castes and now increasingly the Scheduled Tribes". For this statement there is case against Nandy but the SC has stayed his arrest. Benefits of being in the mafia! There is also the usual nonsense of inviting Salman Rushdie here and there and the Muslims in India going crazy and rioting.

Political opinions are inevitable no matter what the nature of a meet. But our Litter Mafia meets have been more of making political statements rather than of literary accomplishment. The other thing is most of the country hasn’t ever heard of most members of this mafia. So the organisers usually spruce up their Litter with non-literary figures as well, to add to the charm. This little group is not very different from the G-37 group of panellists that hogs our TV every day to scream about this or that. Most of them are, naturally, anti-Hindu, anti-BJP and anti-everything that is traditional India. They will fiercely protect their mafia members no matter what. Their members are above the law, as Ashis Nandy shows you. This lot has a generous mix of scumbags and dregs of society. I would describe their meets as “Where the dogs of society howl”.

The latest meeting of this mafia is the Times LitterFest organised by Bachi Karkaria (of the TOI group) and some Namita Devidayal. Among its members who will be on parade are the following:

Aakar Ahmed Patel, known for his classic works on Modi, Narendra Modi, English-illiterate Modi, Prohibition-lover Modi, Anti-beef Modi, Narendra Damodardas Modi, Failed-CM Modi, Polariser-Modi and NaMo. There’s eminent writer Jay Panda of the BJD. Kumar Ketkar who almost won a Booker Prize for his literary work. There’s Mani Shankar Aiyar whose profound utterances are nearly spiritual for this mafia. Cyrus Broacha, much known for his book “Bakra and the beauty”. Kunal Vijaykar of the “Gluttony works” fame. Rajdeep Sardesai – need I say anything? Rahul Bose, multiple award winning actor and often a guest of the G-37. Renuka Shahane, the lady from “Hum aapke hai kaun”. Ronnie Screwvala, Salil Tripathi, Shekhar Gupta, S. Varadarajan. Hold your breath – there’s Shobha De too, who keeps India clean with her broom and Persian glove. William Dalrymple – famous for falsifying recent Indian history. David Davidhar – for his work “My experiences with sexual harassment”. There was one more name but it was dropped from the pageant after the stupid, un-literary public spoilt the plan with their “extraneous noise”: Tarun Tejpal!

Some members are genuine writers that people would like to hear and some non-writers (like Cyrus Broacha) are funny guys that entertain. But, increasingly, such meets are focused on “survival” after political upheavals of the recent past. The very relevance of some members is under a threat. So Bachi Karkaria (BK) had to resurrect Tarun Tejpal, the rape-accused. The schedule for Tejpal was listed for December 5 and 6 as under:

First is Tejpal’s role as a moderator and then as a speaker on “The tyranny of power”. Oh well, TT should know all about the “tyranny of power” wrapped around his fingers. Ever since he was caught in the rape case some members of our media mafia have spared no effort to save and resurrect TT. The loss of an important mafia boss is a severe blow to the whole conglomerate. For them the law is an ass and it’s enough if TT decides to undertake “penance that lacerates” him. Some like BK vocally and openly want TT resurrected, some are not so vocal. Why do they want to resurrect this scumbag? Here’s the answer in a tweet from Sucheta Dalal:

You see, there are many media-mafia houses that boast of the TT’s of the world. It is unfortunate for them that one of their members was caught or trapped and it is their job to extricate him and restore his honour. That’s the mafia code. The rules that apply to this mafia do not apply to others, that is, you are guilty regardless of any case or court as long as this mafia pronounces you guilty. They are entitled to their hypocrisy and you have no business to object and, if you do, you are nothing more than intrusive extraneous noise that hinders their lofty lives. Take a look at these from Rupa Subramanya (read from bottom up):

BK appears to have had a soft corner for TT all along. She has been defending him from the time the rape case broke. So her deep desire to resurrect Tejpal is quite understandable. She had gone as far as equating the so-called “Snoopgate” issue, which the media used to tar Modi with, to the Tejpal case. Predictably, willful moronginis like BK forget that there was no victim complaining in the Snoopgate issue. The Gujarat HC has also dismissed the inquiry into that episode on request of the parents of the woman who was allegedly snooped upon. In contrast the noose around Tejpal seems to be pretty tight so far. Bosses going to jail does worry the mafia.  After her stupidity, BK finally realised the outrage and other participants pulling out of the Litter mafia meet wasn’t helping her cause. And the “extraneous noises” seemed to have forced BK to drop TT and she made an announcement on Twitter. Later she also issued a statement:

Regretfully? So had there been no extraneous noise BK & Co. would have gone ahead and grandly hosted TT. Nice! How do you get into such a club? How do you get into this mafia? You can be the best writer on earth but you cannot find a publisher to publish your book unless you find the right connections. Either that or you have to be a celebrity yourself from another profession. It is rare that a publisher in India of any standing would touch your work unless you get a reference from a member of this large mafia. Remember, even a prominent journalist like Arun Shourie couldn’t get his initial books published. He had to self-publish. The other option is those Daryaganj type publishers who will publish, give you no payment except a negligible royalty and force you to buy a certain number of copies of your own book at a decent discount. In short, if they agree to print 1000, you would be expected to buy 500 copies of your own book. I am not joking. It is the same route that gets people like Aakar Patel into the G-37 panellists club.

Over the last decade or more this mafia has thrived on a corrupt establishment that supported their prosperity. To be a member of this honourable mafia, you have to be anti-Hindu, bitch about Modi or RSS or BJP or any Hindu outfit at least once a month. You have to trash anything remotely connected with Hindu culture. That’s how Naxal-sympathisers like Kavitha Krishnan become TV experts. Just look around you, they are all over the place. And while TT may be out, David Davidhar is still there, along with other worthless pieces of junk like Mani Shankar. Davidhar is no less a criminal having been sacked from Penguin for a sexual harassment episode. And he has been accused of that more than once. Simple thing is, what TT is accused to have done happens routinely in our media houses. It is considered normal life by them. While the incident concerning Tejpal may alarm ordinary folks and cause an outrage, this is nothing new or serious for this mafia.

It was a happy mafia. Imagine, BK whining about extraneous noise. These are the scumbags and scumbaginis of society who are on TV, who write in newspapers and magazines, who write on social media too, who are at every media or celebrity event. These are the same people who pollute public discourse with their noise every single day on some forum or the other and yet BK complains about noise when it comes to ordinary people on SM? This is the hypocrisy and irony that never kisses them. They had a great run for many years and now this intruder called social media with ordinary people threatens their freedom to perversion. The political upheaval across India threatens their very survival. Check the last lines in the video again.

“The '57 meeting was about how we were gonna divide this country. This meeting is how we're gonna survive…. Bosses are going to jail”

Saving Tejpal

The World Cup tournament is about to start and one of your best players is seriously injured. It can do two things. One: deflate the morale of your team and two: instill greater confidence in your opponents. When it’s a grand player like Tarun Tejpal, with his Tehelka, you can imagine how much it would have dented the morale of Congress and our MSM. It’s a big blow not to have him and Tehelka as players in the run-up to LS elections. In this post we will just list a series of articles and shows without drawing any conclusions about “victim Tejpal”.

Slowly but surely there is an organised and co-ordinated effort in the Scotch-circuit of Delhi media to use a Dominique Strauss-Kahn like campaign to turn Tejpal into a victim. DSK is the former IMF chief who could have been a future president of France but had sexual-assault allegations against him. Turns out his alleged victim herself had a chequered past and the cases were dropped. In between, the accuser’s past was used to hound her and other cases brought against DSK were also dropped. There were even reports that DSK’s accuser may have been HIVinfected owing to her living in an apartment for “HIV only”. Last heard, France was to prosecute him for pimping charges. DSK admitted some lapses and misdeeds but claimed there was no rape and he was innocent. Sounds familiar? Inspirational? Not fully yet, because our media still hasn’t quiet managed to tar Tejpal’s victim but some are indeed trying very hard. It’s not just Indian media but also some foreign ones chipping in (all are edited excerpts in blue). Among the first was this one from Newslaundry (Feb 14):  

To begin with, I would like to establish quite clearly that I do not see you as a victim, unless it is of bubblegum feminism… Neither is my heart bleeding for Tarun Tejpal. After all, he in all his wisdom chose to hire you – and chose to travel with you in that lift… Yet, in all fairness, in the one-way fury that had been unleashed on him in response to this incident he has become the victim, not you… The space for this discussion has instead been completely hijacked by those defending the rights of “bubblegum” feminists. The kind that some articulate young women have come to represent in India – the self-indulgent, frivolous,  feverishly BBM-ing kind –who do what they want, how they want, when they want, and then righteously demand to be excused for any of its repercussions, because hey, after all they are just women… And when she finally got her head around it, she would respond with fury – want revenge from him for breaking the rules of the silly games she was used to playing… I hope you realise that in this “noble” race you have been actively complicit in the event of a man being thrown into jail – without a trial – purely on the basis of the accusation of assault. You have allowed the most ludicrous comparisons to be made between him and violent rapists.

That little burst against the “bubblegum feminist” (Self-indulgent, frivolous, BBM-ing kind) is from a lady called Nirupama Sekhri. What can I say! But it helps to know what Tejpal’s victim could have done instead of being a lowly employee, going by Nirupama’s profile that NL carries:

Cool, isn’t it? Mother of two, travelling with an Indian truck driver for 3 months around the country in trucks (which is safer than working at Tehelka), as any high school lady teacher does. Sure, many schools insist teachers to have trucking experience. She is also a teacher at a Jiddu school in Kodaikannal. These schools are very different from your regular schools. You know, more philosophy types. Bubblegum philosophy? LEARN, all you self-indulgent, frivolous, BBM-ing girls! Why can’t you go around trucks in India with a truck driver instead of seeking to be a journalist in employment with Tehelka. You should have known better. Then there’s the NYT (Feb 18) which has its own take in a report:

In a six-paragraph letter, the first official communication he has released since he was arrested in late November, Mr. Tejpal, 50, wrote that he has “viewed the relevant footage of both days whilst being ‘held’ in police custody and the footage clearly validates me.”… “The fact is, most of the officers in the crime branch know there is no case, and have said as much to me,” the letter says. His daughter, Tiya Tejpal, said in a telephone interview that she has examined stills of the footage, and that they “clearly show the intent of him and her”. “I mean, if you have a look at it, you’ll get an idea whether it was consensual,” she said… In the letter, Mr. Tejpal – put the case into the context of coming elections, calling it “an early sign of the inherent fascism of the right wing that will target its detractors in the most sinister and underhand ways, using all the government machinery at its disposal.”… “It’s a crying shame that a major party that is bidding to rule the great pluralism that is India is imbued with no tolerance of dissenters and critics, of whom I certainly am one”

Early sign of inherent fascism; sounds a lot like Sonia Gandhi, doesn’t it? So far Tejpal and his lawyers were claiming that the CCTV footage will prove he is innocent and that the “encounter” was “consensual”. This, of course, is different from the confessions Tejpal made in earlier emails and SMSes to the lady in question. So we have to be enlightened on such “Empty parlor games” by some arty-farty type called Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi; again in NYT (Feb 24):

This was to be a Sunday brunch, for an artist from Delhi. Around 30 guests appeared, a miscellany of writers, socialites, artists, publishers, venture capitalists and tag-along out-of-towners. As the afternoon wore on, though, I felt a creeping sense of unease. I overheard a middle-aged photographer offer a young model a pro bono “portfolio shoot,” and she rolled vixen eyes. A moment later, she accepted his offer, the trade of pictures for sex implicit.

So these are normal things in these circles. “She accepted his offer… for sex implicit”. Tejpal, in his drunken banter, had something similar to say to his employee about furthering her career for such small exchanges. Nice! But if all these intelligent people had their own assessment can the C5M resist doing a half-hour show on Tejpal dearest being a “victim”? So Sagarika Ghose got together a bunch of people for a stupid debate on whether Tejpal has the right to play victim (I’m sure if Congress comes to power again RahulG will also get you the “Right to Victimhood” Act passed). Defending Tejpal strongly, as he has done in the past, was Sanjoy Roy. Now this Roy is the Litterfest specialist who organises events like Jaipur Litterfest where the Tejpals, Dalrymples, Nandys gather to compare notes on… Well, make a wild guess! Here are some pics from Sagarika’s show that should explain:

 

In the first pic above, I have added a pic of the scroll that CNN-IBN ran during the show and the bright question is “Are right wing forces targeting Tejpal because of his Tehelka work”? Seems highly probable doesn’t it? After all, the Hyatt hotel being built in Goa, those lifts, the CCTVs, the woman employee were all planned and executed by right wing forces. Err… read that as “Hindus”. And then claims of “vendetta” and that the Goa police had fabricated the case which will collapse the moment the CCTV footage is revealed. Ironically, on the same day as Sagarika’s show the CCTV footage was handed over to Tejpal’s lawyers and since then there has been no further statements or claims by them so far.

In the incestuous club of Delhi media nothing is an accident. The series of articles and shows coming up on “Tejpal the poor victim” does seem to have a background. Sitting in his sea-facing temporary home, Tejpal seems to have been busy dialling up all his saviours. Here’s what Firstpost reports:

Tip-offs from "good" journalists in the national capital led to the surprise raid of Tehelka editor-in-chief's prison cell, according to Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. Speaking at a public function, Parrikar alleged that Tarun Tejpal, from whom a mobile phone was allegedly recovered during a raid on 23 February, was speaking to Delhi-based journalists every morning…  "There are journalists in Delhi who reported to us that he was speaking to reporters from Delhi every morning," Parrikar said… Nine mobile phones were allegedly found in the Sada prison complex housing Tejpal during a sudden raid a few days ago. Prison officials claim that a SIM card was also found in the editor's shirt collar.

It is inevitable that as the days go by and the trial gets closer the “victimhood” for Tejpal will grow shriller. Sagarika and all her panellists agreed that the court not giving him bail was “inhuman”. The interim bail and subsequent pleas were declined by the court after extensive hearings. Surprisingly, these same poodles don’t find it inhuman when Sadhvi Pragya or Asaram or others don’t get bail. Well, Tejpal is one of their Hammamis and an important one at that. The malicious campaign against his victim has already started. We have to wait and watch and see if they can save Tejpal. 

The Annual Farce Report

One of the things that the Tarun Tejpal rape case brought out and on which no action has been taken at all is the corruption at Tehelka. Everyone who was aware of Tehelka knew it didn’t have enough earnings to sustain itself. Many former employees mentioned salaries were always delayed. Yet, the top management like Tejpal, Shoma Choudhury and their family members made a huge amount of money selling shares at bogus, inflated prices. Even Kapil Sibal had shares in his name but he claimed he had only made a donation of 5 lakhs. Being the law minister he isn’t bothered who signed his share application form if he hadn’t applied. Such money flows directly through political organisations or indirectly under orders of those in power. Not very hard to guess, is it?

Tehelka being a Congress crony had a great run till Tejpal’s ‘one minute of drunken banter’ as he calls it. His THINK Litterfest was a grand scheme to make money through coerced sponsorships. I wonder how other Litterfests and Think programmes organised by other media outlets are funded. We do know that HT Summit has been funded with PSU money in the past and this year too. There’s India Today with its multiple conclaves. There’s NDTV and CNN-IBN with Greatest Indians, Tiger’s tail, Green-cover money and so on. Each one has a farce of its own flavour.

India Today came up with the most extraordinary finding that Andhra Pradesh was the best managed state and doled out an award to CM Kiran Reddy. They claim to have assessed the performance of all the states on various parameters and found AP the best governed. Even if this goes against general public intelligence you have to wonder what experts they employ to deliver such comic assessments. There is merit in assessing state performances by a news outlet so that the public can measure but is there merit in a media house giving out awards to a CM? Absolutely not! A warden may assess the conduct of his prisoners and recommend early releases but it would be stupid to dole out “Best prisoner awards”. The media fails as a watchdog over and over again when it starts doling out awards. Seasoned editors and publishers have removed the “watch” part from their roles and become shameless ass-lickers.

CNN-IBN was there again with its annual sham of “Indian of the year” awards. The sports and business categories shouldn’t bother anyone but yet again there was a political award for Arvind Kejriwal (probably for the 3rd time). This time it was for winning against Sheila Dikshit and AAP making a great debut in the Delhi elections. What are these awards for? Electoral performances or performances as elected officials? In any case, news media shouldn’t be rewarding politicians at all. Once again CNN-IBN removed the ‘watch’ from the watchdog. CNN-IBN’s past awardees include Rahul Gandhi, Manohar Parrikar and nominations include Akhilesh Yadav. At least two of these have turned out to be pathetic non-performers. Manohar Parrikar still has some way to go before being judged. The haste to give an award to Arvind Kejriwal follows the campaign the entire IBN group carried out for the AAP party during the last elections.

Kejriwal himself has made a thorough farce of democracy itself with his mindless moronic 18 questions to other parties and then the SMS poll with citizens to decide if AAP should form a govt. In giving out such silly awards the news channels cheat the public to whom they are to report facts and truth. I do not see one case where the IBN group has honestly reported about AK or AAP. This was true for their sucking up to RahulG also till they had to face the undeniable truth that RahulG was a dud. This brief report about the annoyance of Delhi citizens with AK and AAP is the sign of times to come for this party that is making spurious promises based on nothing but foolishness:

The CNN-IBN IOTY farce is sponsored by none other than GMR who is a major contractor of the govt for building airports and other infrastructure projects. GMR is a group with over 150 companies under their roof. All it takes is a call from a friendly minister to channelise funding of such awards and programmes. As with Tehelka, the other news outlets and TV channels have found that they can sustain themselves only through such silly programmes where they make a huge profit through sham awards, litterfests and other campaigns. The honour for some awardees may well be truly deserved but only a fool would believe that these news channels are out for some noble deeds.

Each of these flamboyant news channels has been laying off employees by the score, facing huge losses but have to keep their lipstick on with such programmes. The last THINK of Tehelka was reported to have brought in 17 Crores, so you can estimate what each such event is meant to generate. If you read the linked report it will be obvious that the festival was operated through multiple companies and even sponsors weren’t aware which company they were actually dealing with. Each year it gets more brazen as NDTV showed us this year.

The Rashtrapati Bhavan for once was turned into Hotel Raisina Hill. Here’s an image from the RP website:

Notice carefully the links on the left margin of the website home page. It has profile, speeches, gardens etc. but none that says “RP Bhavan is available for rent”. There is another page that accepts requests and grievances though that doesn’t appear to be information for renting a hall at RP Bhavan. NDTV, for its 25th anniversary celebrations, rented a hall at RP Bhawan for a frivolous show called “25 global living legends of India”. From a nation of 1 billion plus they went with a torch and microscope to find these 25 people.

I would agree with the people chosen being living legends but it is foolish to pick only 25 because there are many others who would also qualify to carry that title. Oh, of course, the number has to match NDTV’s 25 years of non-performance. Surely, if you were to pick Shahrukh Khan, who I consider a ham, why would you overlook someone like Dilip Kumar? Anish Kumar, Indira Nooyi, YK Hamied, Zubin Mehta can all have better replacements one can argue. Surely, Lata Mangeshkar is any day a bigger legend than Zubin Mehta for India. But the whole idea and event is a farce so why look for any sense in it. Why should the President hand out these dole-titles from RPB and make it look like a State award?

NDTV has just about managed to pick those who would appear to be “sickular” and closer to their own political persuasions. The channel is a loss-making, face-losing brand. It has been accused of many misdeeds, including financial ones. So to out-do their competition in these sham shows they had to do something weird and unusual to catch some attention so they used their political clout and rented the RPB. To say NDTV is a doormat of the Congress would be stating the obvious. The more important point is how the govt allows a private party to misuse the facilities at RPB for its own private agenda. Sonia Singh confirms the channel had paid rent for it and I would say that is quite big-hearted of NDTV. I’m also sure the rent would be nothing more than peanuts for the facilities obtained if it were compared to a 5-star property. Sonia also mentions “this exchange really misses the point”. I agree! The point that it misses is that a bad precedent has been set by the govt. Now any Tom, Tata or Reliance can seek usage of RPB for grand private ceremonies. TOI can even hold its next Filmfare award at this hotel and have the awards given out by the President.

If at all RPB is available for such frivolous shows their website makes no mention of it and doesn’t mention at what rent. If such a facility is allowed to NDTV there is no reason why the public shouldn’t be aware at what rent and for what purposes RPB can be misused. The RPB hall is mostly meant for state functions. But now you can hold your next party there if you have political connections.

All these events are annual farces to make money and partly for brand-building. It is worth noting that almost all of these farces have bloomed only in the last 7-8 years while the corrupt Congress regime has been at the Centre. Someday a massive investigation in to these news outlets and such events will reveal how much public funds and facilities have been looted. Those who scream the loudest about corruption are also usually the ones fuelling it. The watch had indeed gone out of ‘watchdog’ a long time back. All that remains is the…

PS: Please do vote on the poll for India’s worst news channels (on the right margin of this page).