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Bull’s Eye!
As in his cartoons, he is pungent and unsparing. His writing flows in short staccato bursts of a machine gun—crisp sentences, short paragraphs and no beating around the bush. Puri gets to the point without much ado. Once in a while, he is a little flippant, too. Each piece is about 400 words. As he aims for Bull’s Eye, the selection gives an idea of the persons or issues he has in his sight most often. Among public figures, the honour goes to L. K. Advani (Narendra Modi has had only two years of notoriety). Puri cannot forgive Advani for his role in the Ayodhya mess. Talking of everyone who has been saddled with some "guilt" for the episode, he writes in a tongue-in-cheek style: "Only Advani was innocent. He became a victim. The demolition was the ‘saddest’ event of his life. The entry into the mosque by kar sevaks was the ‘happiest’. Between his grief and bliss, have we missed something?" Among public organisations, the author’s pet aversion is the VHP. Tracing the havoc wrought by the organisation’s delinquency, he pulls no punch: "The RSS leaders were narrow-minded and communal. But they were not criminal. In their own distorted fashion, they were committed to the nation. Their priorities were twisted, but their intentions were patriotic. The VHP is criminal and corrupt. It serves the interests of hostile foreign forces. Its funding and the international links of its leaders require investigation to ensure national security." This is the refrain through many of his columns. However, the political class in general gets it from him fairly regularly. "The other day," he writes: "one aspiring VIP entered Lodhi Garden with his unleashed Alsatian. An old gentleman politely asked, are you taking that donkey, sir?’" "Are you blind?" the VIP snapped. "That’s a dog, not a donkey!" "Excuse me," the old gentleman said coldly. "I wasn’t talking to you. I was addressing the dog." Nobody can accuse Rajinder Puri of being polite or gentle. "The Indian politician," he writes, "has his brains in his ass. This knowledge has helped enormously. It clears many mysteries why Indian politicians behave the way they do. Mostly, their brains don’t work because they are sitting on them." Outside India, Puri sees China as the greatest danger facing our country. "India, he says, ‘is fighting one war on all fronts. The enemy is one. The terrorists in Kashmir are the point of the lance. Pakistan’s army is the lance. China is the hand directing the lance." He warns time and again about the danger from China. "Just before 2003 dawned, Bangladesh signed a defence pact with China. Pakistan and Myanmar are already in China’s pocket. Maoist insurgency is pushing Nepal the same way. India is encircled." Puri gave Sonia Gandhi no chance in 2004, and says, "She prevents the emergence of any real alternative to the NDA!" The book was published this year, but the print line does not tell when. With hindsight, cautions Puri in Preface, the reader "might judge earlier assessments with subsequent developments." He can be excused. Everyone got the 2004 poll wrong. Among Puri’s other themes are: More power for the President, self-determination of different segments in Kashmir, religious conversions and astrology. About the latter, he writes, "No longer will we need spies and soldiers to brave the snow and sleet of Kargil to learn about Pakistan’s next attack. Instead, in the warmth of some banquet hall, our RAW man in Islamabad will slide up to Gen Musharraf and casually ask, ‘Err... By the way, Excellency, what is your exact date of birth?’" All his earlier columns were, however, marred by a silly doggerel at the end. Last year, a reader of Outlook drew his attention to this pathetic attempt at verse, which had neither rhyme nor meter, and made no sense whatsoever. To his credit, Puri promptly saw the point and dropped it. His later columns are so much the better for it. |
R