Have you ever wondered what happened with the Nandigram issue? I suppose it was a little more relevant to national concerns. Of course, I don't intend to say that the potentially homicidal tendencies of Indian sports heroes is anything trivial, nor is the dressing sense of "imported" cheerleaders something we can neglect. Who can tolerate a cricketer slapping another and making him cry or half-naked women dancing in front of an audience predominantly of young teenagers (who, by the way, have ingenious ways of accessing porn anyway)? But still, I felt like committing the terrible crime of drawing your attention to violence in a poor part of the country that neither you nor I would ever visit for a vaction. Has anybody wondered what happened with Nandigram?

My sincere apologies for this savage reminder. Is it not terrible on my part to bring to my reader's active memory the story of something so hopelessly grim and serious? I do understand that you are so doused in gruelling nation-building activities all day in your meagerly comfortable office. I do understand the burden of responsibilities you carry and the fatiguing duties you discharge. Identifying the best swimming camp for your wards and escorting them up and down to their ceramics class or SSC tuition can in no way be regarded as "routine, mundane jobs". Yet, I wish to ask you. Have you wondered what happened to the poor of Purlia district in West Bengal?

Ah, but with the potentially communal, anti-national activities of the fundamentalist BJP, the actions of a Communist Party in a pocket of eastern India (where is that?) are quite puny thing to become anxious about. The free press of India and the highly liberal, secular people of this nation have finally realized the truth behind these obsolete fundamentalists. We have unveiled their nasty intentions of bottling up and preserving progressive India in the balm of a morbid, prosaic value system called "Hindu Culture". What an offense! What barbaric, savage machinations!

Sorry. I'll come off it now.

I think we all have to realize that our endeavor to become a "liberal, progressive" society does not end at blaming the BJP, snubbing Hindu protagonists, welcoming convoluted expressions of "sexuality" (which is a euphimism for lust) and flooding our value system with borrowed extracts of myriad cultures, reducing us to caricatures of human beings, like having a human hand to the right, a hooved arm to the left, a chicken leg below the hooved arm and a clawed foor to the other side, all with a shark fin at the back. The idea of a "free press" is Utopian, but not reality. Does "free press" mean that the press is free to do and say anything, to allow itself to become propaganda machines for whoever that bids the best?

In the late 80s, the government started a scheme to disburse money to the poorest distrcits of the country. Purulia, West Bengal was one of them. In 1987, the poverty ratio of the district was 40% (40% of the rural population was below the poverty line). In 2007, the ratio was 85%. When the press covered this, the Communist Government of WB declared that the official statistics were wrong. They re-surveyed the district and published that the true ratio was 30%.

The end result is hard hitting for those who live in Purulia (but just a figure for us). Rs 1000cr worth of aid allocated for the district were re-allocated because WB openly declared that Purulia was not so poor as to need it.

Of course, it's far more interesting to make fun of the BJP's Rama-setu talk than it is to report this. Or the fact that not one suit has been brought upon anyone involved in the Nandigram massacre. Nobody has thought of creating an outcry at the statement made by the WB government that the actions of the CPI(M) members in Nandigram were "morally and legally necessary".

I sound like Arun Shourie. I sound a little crazy.

Well, if being one of those people who want a bigger picture makes you crazy, then I guess I am.

My sincerest apologies about the length of this write up. Please return to to discussing cheerleaders; or Harbhajan Singh; or the economics of Tashan and their goof-up with multiplexes...

Have a nice day...

PS: Tell me honestly. You turned to this post only after reading the title, didn't you? Let me ask you a very personal, almost insulting question, pleading you not to take offense. Would you have opened it had it read "THE COMMUNIST PRESS OF INDIA", which was the original title I'd intended for it?