Random Conversations Here In Pondicherry: Take #2

Nigel Ashford's excellent essay from The Freeman, titled "Spontaneous Order: Freedom Creates Order In Society," which was linked by my good friend Professor Christopher Lingle on his blog, Natural Order, reminded me of a conversation I had with these two young lads on Beach Road last evening, as I sat there, as I usually do every evening, drinking fine, light, European beer, perfectly chilled. Last night it was Carlsberg: By Appointment to The Royal Danish Court. Hamlet's beer.


One of these lads was, of course, Arun Prakash Rao, whom I have mentioned to you earlier, the young HDFC Bank employee who has taken a fascination for me, and the other was a friend of his who had met me the previous evening too, on which occasion I had advised him to listen to the old Simon & Garfunkel song, "I am a Rock." This good fellow not only followed my advice, he also took out his mobile phone and played it - and I had a VERY GOOD TIME hearing this very old song once again. After that, I advised him to hear "The Boxer," and I trust that this evening he will play this song for me on his mobile phone.


Anyway, what else do young lads talk about to an old lad - but girls, and their problems with finding one for themselves. My advice to them was as follows: Don't think of what YOU want; think of what the girl wants.


I then pointed to the pushcart opposite us, on which this sweet old man sells this excellent sliced mango, sliced in a very artistic way, that too, and upon which he loads major quantities of salty chilly powder - and I often buy this from him, for just 10 rupees, that too, though last night I could not do so, being broke. The two big bottles of Carlsberg had been supplied to me by my hotel, on credit. That is, credit without a credit card, about which more, later.


I told these young lads, when we go to this mango vendor, we do NOT tell him that we DEMAND his mango. Instead, we POLITELY inquire as to what HE DEMANDS for his mango slices. And so, it is the same with girls. Some might want a rich man with a big car. Some might want something else, like an artistic soul who is petrified of white mice. Some might want a brave warrior with a Mighty Phallus, capable of lopping off a Tiger's Head with one one-handed blow of his khukri. And so on. It is all very "subjective," I told them.


And so, I told these good fellows, you guys go on googling all the girls you come across, for "there is plenty of fish in the sea," and surely you will succeed, and find one who wants YOU, because The Holy Bible tells us: 

"Seek and Ye shall Find."

And this PRINCIPLE, I told these lads, of asking the other what he or she wants in exchange for what we want, is as old as Adam Smith. It is this, I told them, that creates PEACE, that creates CIVILISATION - and I urge you all to read Nigel's essay from The Freeman linked above for a longer and more scholarly exposition of this PRINCIPLE.


This morning, as usual, I arrived at the tea shop where I always drink my tea, every morning, and every evening, too. I have been a regular, paying customer of this establishment for quite a few weeks now, but for the past two days I am drinking my tea on credit: that is, credit without a credit card. I have obtained this credit because I am considered credit worthy by the owner of this establishment. 


There is another, important lesson in this: 


If private bankers are in charge of credit allocation, they will be very PRUDENT about whom to allocate credit to, and they will carefully scrutinise the credit-worthiness of those who seek loans from them, and all will be well, and there will be very few defaulters, unlike our PUBLIC SECTOR BANKS, whose balance sheets are loaded with Non Performing Assets: NPAs. These are all DUD LOANS - to "friends" of The Establishment.


Hayek said:

Prudent
Private Bankers 
are the 
Overseers 
of the 
Market Economy

As I sat on the bench sipping my tea, and I had to drink three to clear my head from all the whiskey I drank in my hotel (on credit) after returning from the beach last night, a tough young lad sat across me, along with his equally tough-looking friend, who sat alongside me, and we entered into conversation after I inquired if they were sportsmen. Turned out they were volleyball players from Hyderabad - and I praised this excellent sport, ideal for the poor, for it requires zero equipment, and even girls can play it.


Our conversation then turned to Hyderabad - and I praised this lovely city where I lived for a year long ago, I praised its rocky, undulating terrain, with lovely lakes scattered all over, its excellent weather, with soft, light rain, the lovely grapes that grew there, although there is NO wine - and they were quite charmed.


But I was smoking cigarettes with my tea, cigarettes obtained by mortgaging my mobile phone yesterday - and these sportsmen expressed concern about the fact that, to them, I appeared to be a "chain smoker."


And so, I told them something about the History of Hyderabad: That the last Nizam of Hyderabad chain-smoked locally-made cheroots. They were not aware of this historical fact, and so wanted to learn more from me about their own History. And so I told them some more. Like how when this Nizam washed his collection of pearls, the entire roof of his palace was covered by pearls drying in the sun. I told them that this Nizam had a khoofia police - who were Turks who mingled with the people in mufti in order to overhear conversations that might be of plans to create trouble. He had no other Police Force, of the kind we have today. And then, I told them that Nehru had this good Nizam EVICTED by Police Action. I told them that Sardar Patel had 652 of these well-governed "Princely States" handed over to the IAS and IPS  - with the active collaboration of Lord Mountbatten. After that, they went away, after shaking my hand most affectionately.


As I said, I needed a lot of tea to clear my head of last night's whiskey overdose, and over the second glass, I found a tough, middle-aged Gurkha alongside me. I asked him if he was a Gurkha - and he very proudly replied in the affirmative, adding that HITLER once confessed to being scared of Gurkhas. I had not heard that one before! I told him that I studied in Kurseong, Darjeeling, with Gurkhas - but this fellow was from Nepal.


And so, we discussed Nepal - and what a LOVELY place Kathmandu was in the Old Days, when the Good King Birendra ruled, when there was Freak Street, where the Menu Cards of the restaurants read:

Tea

Hash Tea

Coffee

Hash Coffee

Omlette

Hash Omlette

and so on...

I told him I went on a great LSD trip in Kathmandu during those Good Old Days. And we discussed how Kathmandu is such a LOVELY city - with tram cars, with Toyota taxis, with Japanese motorcycles tourists could hire long, long before such bikes were seen in India, and even a casino in The Oberoi Soaltee. In India, those days, all we had was the Jawa 250cc and the Bullet 350cc.


And, even today, there is no casino in any Oberoi Hotel throughout India - and they started off in Simla, with The Clark's.


I told him Kathmandu was a better city that Simla, Mussorie, or Darjeeling - and it has an airport. And he said: INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.


And then, I asked this good Gurkha, whose name turned out to be Prem, which means "Love," what he was doing here in Pondicherry. Turned out, to my horror, that he works as a peon for the State here. And that his wife and kids are back home, tending their farm. I told him to QUIT, to return, and to FIGHT FOR FREEDOM.


And then, I began walking towards this air-conditioned Internet outlet where I have been working, every morning, and every evening, too. For all these weeks, I have been a regular, paying customer. But for the past two days it is on credit without a credit card. But with the good man who runs this establishment, a good man with the good name Germain, I mortgaged a copy of George Charles Roche III's Frederic Bastiat: A Man Alone, a book that is out of print, and which I obtained second-hand via the Internet long ago, at considerable expense. I advised him to read the book, written by a former US Marine Officer, who was also a good friend of Lew Rockwell, and who is now dead.


But this man is now hassling me over his dues. So I am taking this book back.


Now, today happens to be SUNDAY - and on this happy day, there is Sunday Bazaar outside on the street. And vendors have their wares on display on the ground, and the guy right outside this Internet establishment is selling OLD BOOKS.


So, I am now going to sell George Charles Roche III's Frederic Bastiat: A Man Alone right outside, on the pavement, and, with the proceeds, clear all my dues, and hopefully even recover my mobile phone from the cigarette vendor nearby, whom I owe 250 rupees.


Wish Me Luck!

My One & Only Bank Account: Take #2

While I was employed as an Editor of The Economic Times in Nude Elly, and this was between the years 1998 and 2002, one bright sunny day, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the good news that all of us had been given "salary accounts" in HDFC Bank, and that this very good bank was immediately installing an ATM in the basement of our office. What luck!


They gave us 2 "salary accounts": and mine bore the numbers 0271050024925 and 0271050024935. In the former account was transferred the "white money," and in the latter, the "black money" - which was a very good thing, and I was happy to cheat the TAX COLLECTOR. I simply DETEST tax collectors.


When I joined the company, at the express INVITATION of Swaminathan Aiyar, the HRD manager told me that my monthly salary was to be 30,000 rupees. But, throughout those long, long 5 years, I never ever saw 30,000 rupees in my accounts. In fact, over the years, the amount in my account kept DECREASING. In five years, I never received any RAISE IN PAY. Nor did I receive any PROMOTION.


It was just STAGNATION, some amount of "intellectual repression" - and progressive pauperisation.


After I walked away from this job, one day, the first account of mine, the "white money" account, simply VANISHED.


And I was left with this second account: 0271050024935.

Subsequently, one "zero" was added to this number, and my one and only bank account, a savings account with HDFC Bank, bears the number 00271050024935.

Then, there came some good news: About six months after I quit this job, I was informed that I had been honoured with the First Frederic Bastiat International Award for Journalism Promoting Liberty, that I had been selected as winner by an eminent jury, and that this prize was going to be presented to me in London, in the Royal Commonwealth Club, by Baroness Margaret Thatcher herself.


I was overjoyed. I went to London "to visit the Queen, and sure as Hell frightened all the little mice under her chair."


Anyway, there I was back in India, with 6 thousand US dollars in Traveller's Cheques, and a Baccarat crystal candlestick with my name engraved upon the base, and with Baroness Thatcher's fingerprints upon it.


This money was NOT put into my account - for it would have alerted the taxman. I spent all this money in my Mangalore Adventure, and I do think it was well worth it.


Today, things are grave indeed, and there is NO MONEY any more in this account.


I have received Official Communication from one Mr. Bernard Graham of Google UK, that they are transferring 500,000 "non-sterling" British Pounds into this one and only bank account of mine - and this Official Communication entered my GMail Inbox some two whole weeks ago.


And Google owns GMail.


And Google also owns Blogger - on which I publish The Antidote Blog: Austro-Libertarian Opinion From Indyeah.


And Google also owns Google Chrome - on which I work on the Internet.


And Google also owns Google Images - from which I obtain all the photographs and illustrations that grace this blog, like the HDFC Bank logo above.


And Google provides me all these services FREE - and I have forgotten to mention their Search Engine - while I provide Google with ZERO REVENUE, because there are NO ADVERTISEMENTS on my blog.


Now, as an ECONOMIST OF INTERNATIONAL REPUTE, I wonder as to how Google makes money at all - since they seem to be giving all their services to everyone completely free of cost.


I notice their clever ads on GMail - but I wonder whether the revenue from these ads is sufficient to pay for all these completely free services.


Anyway, it is their business, and they must "mind their own business," while I must mind mine.


It is surely MY BUSINESS to know where that 500,000 non-sterling British Pounds have gone.


So, will someone from Google UK please let me know - soon.


And will someone from HDFC Bank let me know, too -  soon.


My current pecuniary condition is what Mr. Micawber might call "extreme penury."


This morning, I had to mortgage my mobile phone to obtain 10 packets of cigarettes.


The owner of the hotel is a little upset that I owe him some 12,000 rupees, and this is NOT a big sum of money for a journalist like me, for Outlook Business just paid me 15,000 rupees for a 750 word column DEMOLISHING "corporate social responsibility." However, I would like to pay the hotel guy off, for it is a small hotel, and he needs to keep his revenues flowing.


Now, for some days now, a young employee of HDFC Bank has been befriending me on Beach Road every evening, where I always sit at a particular spot every evening and drink beer in public. His name is Arun Prakash Rao, and he is a sweet, young lad, who is now in the habit of sending me 20 or more loving SMSes every day, and every night, too. Though I have advised him to stop this. Just one SMS a day, I told him.


Yesterday, Arun informed me that he has found out that my bank account - the one and only one I have, whose details I have recounted above - has been CLOSED DOWN.


The hotel owner also seems to be of the same opinion. He said that my bank account has been closed down because I revealed its details to some "foreigner."


I told the hotel owner this is NONSENSE-UPON-STILTS - for the details of my bank account are clearly PRINTED on every cheque I issue. And I have my cheque book with me, with 50 unused cheques in it.


So, something FISHY seems to be going on, doesn't it?


"Smells like teen spirit."


And smells like "corruption."


If I may add, just for the RECORD, Macmillan India has NOT paid me any royalties for over 7 years now.


And they have published TWO books of mine - and I am informed that BOTH these books are BESTSELLERS.


What a completely fucked up CORRUPT COUNTRY we live in.


Corrupt politicians.


Corrupt bureaucrats.


Corrupt generals.


Corrupt policemen - who are "lawless," and not "Custodians of The Law" at all.


Corrupt judges.


Corrupt businessmen.


And now, perhaps, a CORRUPT PRIVATE BANK, too.


But I intend to get to the bottom of all this shit.


And I intend to GET EVEN.


As a wise man once advised me:

DON'T GET MAD - GET EVEN

On Civic Pride, Civic Consciousness & "Politics"

This is especially for all you good, hard-working, enterprising people of Pondicherry, all endowed with vast quantities of "natural religion" and "natural honesty" - but there are lessons in this for the rest of India, and also for the rest of the world.


Let us begin with MOH Farook, the prominent and well-established Muslim trader of this pretty, little town, this "little Gaulish village," a CONgressman, who was Chief Minister here in 1985, while I was an Officer of The Indian Police Service posted here, and who instructed me in these following words:

No one can be forbidden to drink alcohol in public in Pondicherry.

MOH Farook, the CONgressman, is now Governor of Jharkhand!


He is lording over the City of Ranchi - and he does NOT own any shops in the City of Ranchi.


And why is MOH Farook in Ranchi today?


Because the CONgress is a "political organisation." And there are "transfers and postings" in this political organisation.


But this is NOT "politics." It is best called "Roving Banditry."


What is "politics"? 


Well, I discussed this in an earlier SPIKE, but I will reiterate some of the essential points below:


As Professor Bernard Crick wrote in his In Defence of Politics, after "making some OLD PLATITUDES PREGNANT," and these old platitudes are all from Ancient Greece, a civilisation based on "City States," in which "politics" existed, perhaps, only in Athens, for this sort of "human activity" certainly did not exist in  neighbouring Sparta, that:

POLITICS ARE THE PUBLIC ACTIONS OF FREE PEOPLE

"Politics" is a Greek word, with its root in the word polis, which means "city." So Persepolis was the City of the Persians, and so on. Aristotle wrote a volume titled Politics. And there is nothing in this ancient philosophical treatise that has anything to do with "political organisation."


In India, each and every "political organisation" is CORRUPT. This is UNDENIABLE. People join these organisations, in which they invariably kiss the butt of some "leader," only to occupy public offices that enable them to Loot the Treasury, that enable them to Harass the Citizenry with Legislation, with Subordinate Legislation, and with Rules & Regulations that are enforced by a CORRUPT BUREAUCRACY.


And they use an Indian word for this: Rajneeti. This Indian word, rajneeti, has no relation with the Greek word politics. No relation at all. They mean completely different things.


In the meanwhile, throughout the length and breadth of this vast sub-continental sized nation, a nation with many, many METROPOLISES, a nation with hundreds and hundreds of CITIES, and with thousands and thousands of TOWNS - there is COMPLETE AND TOTAL URBAN DISASTER.


And this, too, is UNDENIABLE.


In India, we do NOT possess any free, civic institutions to administer our urban areas, and we therefore do not possess any CIVIC PRIDE, nor do we possess any CIVIC CONSCIOUSNESS.


And the political organisation of the CONgress has "transferred" MOH Farook out of Pondicherry, a city in which this gentleman owns many BIG SHOPS, and has sent him to Jharkhand as Governor, a province that is full of DENSE JUNGLE, and there are lots and lots of WILD TIGERS as well as WILD ELEPHANTS in these dense jungles of Jharkhand. And there are Armed Maoist Guerillas there, too.


It seems to me that MOH Farook has accepted a VERY DANGEROUS PLACE to lord over.


Imagine that: 

From being King of a Fair City to being King of the Jungle.

Like Tarzan, the Ape Man.

Doesn't make much SENSE to me.


Does it make any SENSE to you, all you good, hard-working, enterprising people of Pondicherry, all endowed with vast quantities of "natural religion" and "natural honesty"?


Surely, this MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL.


And they call ME - The Baba PAGAL Nath Charsi.


Like the Oracle of Delphi once pronounced Socrates the Wisest Man in Athens.


And poor ol' Socrates expressed "surprise and shock" when he heard this.


In Pondicherry, you good people need CIVIC PRIDE as well as CIVIC CONSCIOUSNESS. This is a tiny, little city. And it is a pretty, little city. And it is being DESTROYED. It is getting UGLY, and even UGLIER, and maybe, someday in the near future, if you good people of Pondicherry do not take some positive, well thought out steps, this city will become UGLIEST - just as Bombay, and Calcutta, and Nude Elly, too, have all turned into UGLIEST.


There is GARBAGE all over Pondicherry.


The footpaths are BROKEN - even on Jawaharlal Nehru Street, right outside The Grand Bazaar.


There is a lot of difference between the pretty "beach shacks" of Sunny Goa and the UGLY little carts of the poor vendors on Beach Road.


But, I sincerely believe, Pondicherry has FAR MORE POTENTIAL than Sunny Goa.


In Sunny Goa, all the beaches are "villages." And there is the horrible Coastal Zone Regulation Act in place - so these can NEVER EVER become towns. And in Sunny Goa, as everywhere else in India, the towns are all a MESS. No tourist lives in Madgaon, or Panjim, or Mapusa. Tourists just laze around on the beaches, being served whatever they want by the owners of these "beach shacks," and then, very late in the night, they retire to their "coco huts." And these "coco huts" are all FUCKING HORRIBLE. At least I would never like to live in one, with their PUBLIC TOILETS and all that.


But Boom Shankar was GREAT!


Big chillums, some MDMA, fantastic Mojitos, great STEAKS, and the fabulous, and extremely cheap, LOCAL BEER of Goa, called "King's," always served chilled.


But here in Pondicherry, you have a CITY. Tourists can stay in nice HOTELS. And you can extend Beach Road by 10 kilometres to the North, and also another ten kilometres to the South. And these poor vendors of today, with all their little UGLY carts, can all be owners of pretty "beach shacks."


And I am sure lots of tourists will surely come here, because this is the East Coast, this is "The Land of the Rising Sun," and the DAWN here is so BEAUTIFUL.


In Sunny Goa, there is NO DAWN.


In Sunny Goa, there is only the SUNSET.


And here in Pondicherry, even the MOON RISES OVER THE SEA.


What a FAR OUT sight.


So, get together your CIVIC PRIDE and CIVIC CONSCIOUNESS and get that Tarzan, the Ape Man, back HERE to do some "politics" - a word with its root in the word polis, which means "city." 

The Battle For Eyeballs: Take #2

Now, I have been receiving mail, SMS as well as phone calls from assholes complaining about the SEXUAL stuff that is now appearing on this Antidote Blog. There is also a very rude, pseudonymous comment - and I have published this rude, pseudonymous comment, by The Devil's Advocate. Today, I would like to address this issue.


First and foremost, there is nothing vulgar or pornographic about the sexual stuff on this blog. Rather, it is beautiful. It talks about LOVE - physical love. And its inspiration is Aum Mani Padme Hun - which means "The Jewel is in the Divine Coitus." There is nothing vulgar or obscene about this. If our parents had not done this stuff, we wouldn't be here. And I have tried very hard to be EDUCATIVE - with special posts for all my Rock-n-Roll Children, first, telling them how to maintain their Rock-n-Roll Equipment; and then, how to actually do this Rocking and Rolling, such that the Coitus is Truly Divine, and this great big metaphysical Jewel is found, and that, too, by BOTH partners in this Divine Exercise.


Second, all of you must read Paul Johnson's excellent book titled Intellectuals.


In this excellent book, Johnson has compiled brief biographies of many, many complete assholes, who wrote completely stupid books on how "society" could be better "organised" - and all their stupid books led the world astray. There is Rousseau, Marx, Sarte and more. 


Now, the biography of Rousseau mentions that this asshole actually wrote pornography - and his pornography "excited" all the French, and so they went on to read all his other stupid books too. And thereby, they destroyed their nations. 


The French have had Five FUCKING Republics - and the French have NEVER tasted Liberty. The French have adored Rousseau's porn - and the French have never heard of Frederic Bastiat; nor have they heard of Jean-Baptiste Say, the "Adam Smith of France." And, I saw a photograph once, of the Great Parade in Paris at the Inauguration of one of these FIVE French Republics - and it showed a massive bust of Rousseau, with a Laurel Wreath around his head, being paraded through this Fair City. In Geneva, there is a massive statue of Rousseau. And if the French ever read Bastiat's brief The Law - they would read a complete and total DEMOLITION of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.


When Margaret Thatcher spoke in Paris once, and told the audience there that her favourite economist was a Frenchman called Frederic Bastiat, she was ASTONISHED to find that NONE in the audience had ever heard of this great man.


And as for Jean-Baptiste Say, whose "Say's Law of Markets" is vital, essential knowledge for the whole of humanity, Mark Skousen reports, in his wonderful The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives & Ideas of the Great Thinkers, that when he visited Say's grave in Paris, he found it all lying in neglect, covered up in weeds, while the entire populace hung around Jim Morrison's grave nearby. 


Skousen reports that he actually had to clean up Say's grave, in order to take a photograph of himself there - and this photograph graces this book, which has many other wonderful photographs, besides. 


If you want to understand Jean-Baptiste Say's "Law of Markets" in a nutshell, I recommend my column, which you can find here. He was a Great Frenchman - known as the "Adam Smith of France."


Paul Johnson's Intellectuals also contains interesting stuff on another pseudo-philosopher the French hero-worshipped, especially French students, and that man is Jean-Paul Sartre. This man wrote over 10,000 words every day - high on wine, and high on pills, sitting in some Paris BAR or the other. He read nothing. He STUDIED nothing. He slept simultaneously with four women - and he treated Simone de Beauvoir most shabbily, and she accepted it. When he died, over 50,000 French students attended his funeral. And do you know who his most famous students are?: They are the Pol Pot Regime of Cambodia. These guys massacred millions and millions of their OWN PEOPLE.


Now, when I started off writing this Daily Blog over three years ago, I made myself a promise. I promised myself that within 5 years, my blog would enjoy far higher readership than any newspaper editorial. And I still have 2 years to go. In this Internet World, the readership is international, and it expands with each passing day. I rarely check the statistics, but the graph shows a STEEPLY RISING CURVE. And this makes me feel very good, indeed. And so, I go on and on and on. When I began this Antidote Blog three years ago, when I wrote my FIRST POST, I had ZERO FOLLOWERS. And, today, I have 172 FOLLOWERS, and this number is forever rising. I am confident that there is NO "DEMOCRATIC" POLITICIAN in India who can line up 172 "intellectual followers." And as for the  rest of the world, there is only ONE politician who can compete with me, and probably beat me hollow, too, and that is Ron Paul, the Great US Congressman from Texas; and Ron Paul is well over 70 years old, and he has been a "Misesian" and a "Rothbardian" for over 30 long years. And I hope that I will have a long time to go. As the great Jethro Tull song goes:

Life is a Long Song

Among writers, it is a highly competitive world - and it is best called a BATTLE FOR EYEBALLS. 


If more and more eyeballs read your stuff, you succeed, and your ideas DOMINATE the whole world.


And that is the DIRECTION in which I am headed, and I have called it:

A JAMES DEAN HOLIDAY

Rebel Without A Cause

In a Porsche Carrera

235 kmph

Headlong to My Death

Rocking and Rolling All Over The World

Some Lessons From History - For The Fucked Up Indian Police: Take #5

Now, Queen Elizabeth The First, the "Good Queen Bess" as she was affectionately called by all her loyal and devoted subjects, was a very good queen indeed, and she was a very good Queen only because she knew how to choose and select her advisors as well as her lovers, all of whom were VERY GOOD MEN. Very early in her long and illustrious reign, one of these GOOD MEN told her:

Win hearts and minds - and then MEN will lay down their LIVES, as well as their PURSES, for you.

And so the Good Queen Bess had Sir Walter Raleigh as a lover, the man who brought tobacco to England, and it is a well known story of how Sir Walter Raleigh ever so gallantly laid down his Cape upon a puddle, so that the Good Queen Bess would not get her Royal Feet muddied.


And all around the Ancient and Fair City of London, there are many, many ancient PUBS, and all these ancient pubs bear plaques proclaiming that the Good Queen Bess drank there.


Yes, the Good Queen Bess frequented London's pubs, to sit and drink and converse with her subjects - and, of course, she TAXED their ale, but they did not mind too much, because they all LOVED their Good Queen Bess.


Now, QE2 is very different, what with her "quantitative easing" and all that. There is nothing "sterling" about the paper British Pound today - and QE2's crowned head is printed on this completely non-sterling British paper pound.


Today, no one can even AFFORD to drink a pint of lager in any Ancient London Pub - because of the fuckin' high taxes. And you can FORGET about tobacco and the good knight Sir Walter Raleigh, for tobacco is more or less banned in Britain. And it is very heavily taxed, too. Today, no one can smoke tobacco in any London pub, not even The Sherlock Holmes Pub, and so, if Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson ever came there today, to enjoy some pale ale, and to THINK as to how a "Three Pipe Problem" could be solved, they would have to FORGET about it, and the "Three Pipe Problem" would NEVER EVER be solved.


I saw a lovely cartoon once - and it showed Sir Walter Raleigh leaping to his death from out of the window of his London hotel room, because this was a non-smoking room on a non-smoking floor!


And all the good Rastas of London hate QE2, too. There used to be an old Rasta tune in the old days that went, "England is a Bitch - And There is No Escaping It."


There is an ESCAPE, of course - and that is GOA. Thousands and thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of Englishmen and Englishwomen, old and young, flock to Goa every year to ESCAPE, but - Alas!  - the escape is cut short, and the Immigration Authorities of the Government of India send them right back!


Alas! What a sad, sad, English word.


And, talking about Rastas, some years ago, QE2 gave an award to a London Rasta poet - and he REFUSED to accept this award.


Let us now turn to the Indian Police.


They are all HATED throughout India.


Now, as you all know by now, I did spend some years as an Officer of The Indian Police Service - just as George Orwell did, and just as The Sage Valmiki was once a member of a GANG OF DACOITS.


But these were NOT "misspent years" as such. I learnt plenty of Good Things at the National Police Academy in Hyderabad - like riding horses. Like Unarmed Combat. I learnt a good deal of Law - The Indian Penal Code, The Code of Criminal Procedure, and also The Indian Evidence Act, which was my favourite, an excellent Act drafted in extremely precise legal terminology by none other than Sir James Fitzjames Stephen himself. I learnt Forensic Science - and also attended a Post-Mortem. 


And I was an EXCELLENT CADET - and won prizes in the 4X100m Relay, in the 4X400m Relay, in the English Debate, and in Marksmanship & Weapons Handling. And I sang many good, English songs in the Officers' Mess there, accompanied by my own guitar: Dylan, Cohen, and stuff like that. I conducted many Quiz Competitions there, too. Interestingly, every one else who sang there, did so in the vernacular - and none could play any musical instrument.


In the National Police Academy, my lover was an Officer of The Royal Bhutan Police, who wore a Blue Uniform. And I never spent much time with all the guys and gals in khaki. Kezang and I would drink lots of booze together every single night; she would cook her dried beef in her room for me; and we did a LOT of Rock-n-Roll. And it was she who told me Her Secret of Happiness: Aum Mani Padme Hun, or "The Jewel is in The Divine Coitus." And it was she who presented me with the songs of the Patron Saint of her country, Drukpa Kuenley, "The Divine Madman," all very ribald songs, and even to this very day Drukpa's Kuenley's Mighty Phallus is worshipped in Bhutan, and it is called:

The Flaming Thunderbolt of Divine Wisdom

I learnt a LOT from my lover in a Blue Uniform. We would ride on my 350cc PRIVATE motorcycle every once in a while to a booze shop down the highway to stock up - and she LOVED me for the NAME I gave to this boozeshop: I called it PARADISE! Drukpa Kuenley LOVED to drink chhung.


It was a very strange HYPOCRITICAL place, this National Police Academy in Hyderabad. Here, the Officers' Mess has a Big Bar, made of expensive wood, but NO BOOZE is ever served here. Those who want to drink, must do this sneakily in their rooms. But once, a brave Anglo-Indian officer sang a song in this Mess about this hypocrisy, a song in English, that he had composed himself. The Indian Police is NOT like the Indian Army; rather, it is marked by HYPOCRISY over drink. In Gujarat, for example, the highest incidence of liver cirrhosis is among policemen - and there is Prohibition there. 



I also smoked ganja in the National Police Academy. One very early morning, two old friends from Delhi landed up in my room, carrying a LIT JOINT: and these were Dr. Alok Sareen, a psychiatrist from Delhi's AIIMS, and Dr. Hemant Paul, from that same, elite institute. We had quite a few joints together that morning, after which they left. And I attended my morning parade in a very good mood.


On another occasion, around Holi, I think, a tall Bihari officer from Delhi University who was keen on the idea, SP Singh, of the Rajasthan cadre, and I drove on my PRIVATE motorcycle to Hyderabad city, where SP SIngh knew where to buy the stuff. This was bought. We returned. And had a good time.

Anyway, the happy year in Hyderabad ended, my Lover in Blue and I had to part, for our nations were different, and the chosen pathways of our separate lives were also very different.


I then went on an Army Attachment to Ladakh. This was great. I have travelled all over this bleak, scary landscape. I have spent nights in freezing sub-zero temperatures. And driven Army Jongas through high-altitude deserts, watching wild horses running by. I have been to Leh - by an Air Force plane in which I had to take off standing, holding on to a rope, and land the same way, too. No seat; no seat-belt either. Why can't poor people fly like that? And we can call it "Airbus." I went on to Kargil - where the Army served us brandy in heated gazebos at 10am. I wanted to see the Siachen area - but we were forbidden from going there. And that crazy "war" is still going on.


Next, I spent some hard months at the Punjab Police Training College in Phillaur, known to be the physically toughest police training in India. This was during the height of Khalistani terrorism - and Indira Gandhi has been gunned down just a few months earlier. But I enjoyed myself there. And I learnt to play a little golf. Great place, Phillaur. A fort - now used as a police academy.


From there, I came to Pondicherry.


And I have already told you all that I learnt in Pondicherry, walking up and down Beach Road every night, accompanied by my dog, who was never on a leash; how I discovered that a "natural order" existed; and that Thomas Hobbes was a compleat moron.


I actually resigned from service while in Pondicherry. But outside interference made me withdraw that resignation. This was perhaps the biggest mistake of my life. And I will forever regret it.


I finally left the Indian Police in 1989, after short stints in Arunachal Pradesh and Delhi - and took off to The Department of Government at The London School of Economics & Political Science, for an MSc Programme, with particular focus on Comparative LOCAL Government - and I have already told you all about the morons who taught me there.


This was BEFORE the Berlin Wall had been torn down and the Soviet Union had collapsed - and I was already on the side of Capitalism. And I was looking at LOCAL - and not CENTRAL - government. My mind had been made up. I just needed to go on acquiring all the relevant knowledge. The events in East Germny, Eastern Europe and the USSR only made my resolve stronger. And so, I kept on persevering.


After that, in Delhi, I briefly worked for Jain TV - along with Advani's pretty daughter, Pratibha, and I have told you all about that. But thanks to this job, I bought myself a 500cc Bullet motorcycle - on installments, and that was my horse for many, many years thereafter. This bike is still to be seen thundering down the narrow lanes of South Goa, in excellent condition, but with a new owner.


And then, I gave up television for good. And I became a freelance journalist in the PRINT MEDIA, because I thought the written word was more important, contributing to all the leading Indian dailies, and surviving with difficulty on the crumbs they hand out for such contributions.


And then, for 5 long years, 1998-2002, I worked as an Editor of The Economic Times in Nude Elly - and I resigned this post too, because they were always editing my editorials. The "punch line" - the SUCKER PUNCH - was inevitably deleted. The final straw was my editorial against sonia gandhi, which ended with the following words:

The People Need Liberty. 
The People Do NOT Need Another Caesar.

The next day, this important editorial of mine appeared in such a garbled form that anyone who read it would think that the editorial writer was  looking for a job as an advisor to sonia. As though I am a fuckin' Plato - and not a Socrates, or a Diogenes, the Cynic.


And so I WALKED OUT - without any "notice period," and since a Notice Period was mandatory in my Contract, I lost some 50,000 rupees, or more.


In these 5 long years with this newspaper, I wrote over 1000  editorials - and these are all carefully cut out and stored for the Record of my Work. One of this was a Historic Editorial. It was a Lead Editorial titled:

 "Go Home, World Bank."

I also wrote my fortnightly column, "Antidote."


And I was the Editor of the prestigious "Tuesday Debate" on the op-ed page - and all these important debates on vital issues have all been carefully preserved as well.


I also conducted some important interviews for the prestigious "Tuesday Interview" - of Gabriel Roth, the world's greatest authority on private highways and expressways; of Deepak Lal, India's greatest free market economist; of Guy Sorman, a great Frenchman, who teaches, writes good books, and who is also the Mayor of a small, French town; and some others, and it was extremely unfortunate that my Tuesday Interview with that great South African free-market economist, Leon Leou, a man who has been thrice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was not published. Its publication was endlessly delayed, on some pretext or the other. And then, I WALKED OUT anyway, so this interview has never seen the light of day.


For long, I looked after the "Citings" column on the Edit Page - which featured a Quote of the Day. And I quoted all the Great Masters of Liberty, all of them, day after day after day. But this must have upset someone High-Up - and I was relieved of this happy responsibility, which was handed over to someone else, who turned it into "Spiritual Quotes," and that is what we call "metaphysics."


I wrote only one News Report - and this appeared as a Front Page Anchor Story - and this was a report on the Geneva Motor Show of 2000, which I attended as a guest of Daewoo Motors, my one and only "junket." 


In that news report, I fucked Ratan Tata and his unsexy Tata Indica, which he had taken to display there, alongwith a sexy Miss India, if you please. 


Of course, everyone was looking at the sexy Miss India - and no one even looked at the unsexy Tata Indica. 


And let me tell you that the Geneva Motor Show is the MOST IMPORTANT Motor Show in Europe - and the Swiss do NOT make cars. They have FREE TRADE in cars - so they DRIVE the best cars in the world. 


And, in Hall 2 of this Geneva Motor Show, where all the SEXY CARS are displayed, there are NO sexy women to be found at all, because the cars are all so fuckin' sexy.


And I am talking about Aston Martin Lagonda, about Bugatti, about Maserati, and Ferrari, and Lamborghini - and Porsche, of course.


During my years at The Economic Times, I also regularly contributed to The Economic Times on Sunday - which was a separate operation, with a different editor and staff. I sometimes wrote editorials for them. And, occasionally, wrote their main opinion pieces, too. My Bastiat Award-winning article, "Liberals Must Dump Gandhi," appeared in The Economic Times on Sunday. You can read this article here. I also wrote many excellent book reviews for this paper. During these years, one bright morning, the Editor of The Economic Times on Sunday, a roly-poly Bengali woman who was fond of me and my eccentric ways, barged into my chambers and addressed me thus:

Can you give me a QUICKIE?

I was thunderstruck! And I told her:

What the FUCK, woman?

Right here in the fuckin' office?

What do you think I am: A FUCKING MACHINE?

But all she wanted was a quick editorial - and we enjoyed a good laugh.


My greatest joy during these five long years with The Economic Times was the last year, when they started a "Travel Page" - and I was given a weekly column. I had so much FUN writing this funny column - all about my travels and adventures all over the world, and all over India, and all about the booze, the beer, and the ganja and charas I have smoked in these places. It became the most popular column - and I became the "mascot" of that Travel Page, and our great cartoonist, Bonny Thomas, would every week draw a funny face of me, smoking a big joint, or pulling at a big chillum, and that funny picture would appear on the masthead. I have cut out all these columns, too, and carefully preserved them.


My greatest regret during these years at The Economic Times was that all my writings were in a PINK PAPER - and very few people read pink papers. As a freelancer, I had been contributing to many, many WHITE PAPERS: The Indian Express published me fortnightly, for example. I wrote for some other white papers, too. Except for The Times of India, whose editorial page editor then, Sanjaya Baru, would inevitably return my pieces with the word "Rejected" written on them. This man, incidentally, was chacha manmohan s gandhi's Media Advisor till recently.


But things changed when Jug Suraiya took over this page - and a Planning Commission man named Arjun Sengupta wrote a Leader Article on the financial crisis is East Asia titled "Against The Free Market Fundamentalists." So, I wrote a rejoinder, and took it up to Jug's office upstairs. He said: "We do NOT publish rejoinders." And I replied: "Your paper's motto is Let Truth Prevail."


Anyway, my rejoinder was published - on the right-hand corner of the page. And so, I seized the opportunity and began sending a monthly piece for that right-hand corner to Jug - and he published them. Finally, I sent him one on New Public Management - and Jug ordered me to make it into a Full Length Leader Article, and then I began to send him, every single month, these Thunderous Articles, which he duly and happily published as Leader Articles. Even the owner of the paper, Sameer Jain, once complimented me on one of these articles, in which I had written that "cities are the ant-hills of human colonists." He found that "a very profound philosophical observation."


And I have been writing for the ToI even after walking out of ET - but I have stopped now.


During these years with The Economic Times, some of my "batchmates" at the National Police Academy invited me for a dinner, and this dinner was held at the official residence of RK Singh, who was then heading the security forces at Delhi Airport. In attendance was Ranjit Pachnanda, then a Deputy Inspector-General of the West Bengal Police. And, after I had been seated comfortably and handed a very big and very strong alcoholic drink, a third batchmate of mine made his appearance, and this was Ashok Patnaik, who happens to be a son-in-law of none other than chacha manmohan s gandhi. Ashok was then a Deputy Director of the Intelligence Bureau. But I do declare that his intelligence gathering was extremely deficient, for he came up to me, shook my hand warmly, and said, "So you are now a Deputy Editor of The Statesman."


There is some guy with my name who was in The Statesman then, and is now with The Indian Express, but he spells his name differently, and he is a very junior functionary of the journalistic world - and Ashok Patnaik, IPS, Deputy Director of the Intelligence Bureau, OUGHT to have known who the FUCK I was.


Anyway, at that dinner, the one and only time I have socialised with IPS officers, I told them: 

"We must change the economic system."

I also told them another important thing, and that is:

Economic morality is more important than sexual morality.

There is an important article I have written discussing these aspects of morality, but this article has vanished from the Internet.


After all, all these senior IPS officers claim to be "happily married" - an oxymoron if ever there was one. But they never think of the "economic means of survival" they have chosen for themselves, as well as for their wives and their children. The "economic means of survival" these happily married guys have opted for is the POLITICAL MEANS. Their salaries and allowances come from us, the TAXPAYING PUBLIC, we who have opted for The Market as our means of survival.


And all these happily married tax-parasites think that I "sleep around," that we rockers don't love the women who rock us, and they probably think these lovely rock-n-roll women who rock us are all "loose."


Let me tell these morons this: 

There is much more to life than being FAITHFUL TO YOUR WIFE.

What about being FAITHFUL TO YOUR OFFICIAL DUTIES?

What about being FAITHFUL TO THE PEOPLE - the taxpayers?

They are only faithful to the CONgress Party - and all the other "socialist political parties" we have in India. 


And I also asked these serving, extremely senior IPS officers to invite me to lecture at the National Police Academy.


But I NEVER heard from any of them ever again.


And I did lecture at the IAS Academy in Mussoorie - twice. And found out, to my disgust and horror, that the Professor of Economics in this academy is a Marxist-Ricardian, a follower a Piero Sraffa, a complete moron as well as an asshole, who did NOT attend my lectures.


Now, let me tell you something about Piero Sraffa, for this asshole Professor of Economics at the IAS Academy attempted to hand me Sraffa's slim, MATHEMATICAL book with the extra-ordinary title:

On the Production of Commodities by the Means of Commodities

As though commodities produce themselves. As though gold miners are not required to dig out the gold. 


All economic activity is HUMAN ACTION - the title of Ludwig von Mises' great Treatise on Economics. If you want to know what the subject of Economics is all about, and this is a VITAL SUBJECT, because it concerns HUMAN SURVIVAL - not in The Jungle, but in the Urban Market Economy, which is what "civilisation" is all about, then you MUST STUDY this book carefully. On your own. And you must read it many times over, after that, so that, in time, all the points sink home, and then, you can call yourself a self-declared Misesian, an Economist of the Austrian School.


And so, I told this asshole moron who did NOT pay me the courtesy of attending my two separate lectures, delivered on two separate occasions, that I did NOT want to accept his brain-damaging mathematical book by Piero Sraffa, who was Keynes' sidekick, with the crazy title On the Production of Commodities by the Means of Commodities.


I told him to "stick it where the sun don't shine."


Now, let me tell you something more about Ashok Patnaik, the Deputy Director of the Intelligence Bureau who is chacha manmohan s gandhi's son-in-law. We did another course together - a Basic Administration Course organised by the IAS Academy. During that course, I was elected Chairman of a Syndicate Group that prepared a Report on De-Centralised Planning, while Patnaik was elected my Secretary. I penned the Report - and it was HIGHLY CRITICAL of the government. And Patnaik penned a Note of Dissent to my Chairman's Report. And, of course, the IAS Academy failed me in this Basic Administrative Course. They do NOT like STRONG VIEWS - this fucked up IAS Academy.


Now, I have not been a policeman for well over 20 years or more. And I have never ever socialised with policemen, except for that one occasion mentioned above. In fact, I have never ever socialised with corporate media journalists either. I just hang around with some of my smoking buddies sometimes, with my Helga sometimes, with some students who like me sometimes, and some other people, sometimes. I am an Individual. My visiting card says:

One's Self I Sing,

A Simple, Separate Person.

Yet, these fucked up Indian cops have been harassing me and harassing me, endlessly. I have told you all about the harassment I faced during my years in Mangalore. And how the Karnataka Lokayukta did NOT provide me with Justice.


And I have told you of the TORTURE inflicted upon me by the Pondicherry Police some weeks ago.


Now, last night, on Beach Road, I was ASSAULTED by some of these fuckers. My very expensive spectacles were smashed. And, on my scalp, there are some bleeding injuries I discovered this morning, and bleeding injuries, according to The Indian Penal Code, are "grievous hurt" - and a VERY SERIOUS MATTER, a "cognisable offence." 


After inflicting upon me this completely uncalled for "Assault & Battery," these fucked up cops then took me to a Police Station; there, they questioned me; they examined my passport - and then, they released me without any charges. My lovely floral shirt was torn and tattered. And my lovely rudrashk necklace, with a Tiger Claw on it, a necklace I bought right here on Beach Road from a poor woman for 550 rupees, has VANISHED.

They are, in essence, a "lawless police." 

They just go around fucking up all the good people in the town just for the fuck of it.


Never ever forget that Veerappan was MURDERED WITHOUT TRIAL, without any of the "stipulated procedures" of The Code of Criminal Procedure being followed, without any "evidence" presented in a Court of Law against him as per The Indian Evidence Act  - and that I was the only Indian journalist to write the opinion that, if sandalwood trees had NOT been State Property, Veerappan would have been a very rich sandalwood farmer and trader. You can find this article here. This article was also translated into Kannada, and appeared on the Front Page of The Kannada Prabha.

Now, a week or so ago, an EVENT happened here in Pondicherry, a motorcycle stunts exhibition organised by Madras' TVS Motors. TVS Motors put barricades on the footpaths - for crowd control. And TVS Motors deployed some twenty or more of their own, unarmed, friendly, uniformed employees to assist in crowd control. 


It was a very happy STREET PARTY - and there was LOUD TAMIL DISCO MUSIC playing. The three stunt riders, on their TVS Apache 180cc RTR bikes were simply AMAZING - and they STOLE THE SHOW. The entire crowd assembled there was ENTHRALLED by their amazing performance, which continued for over 2 whole hours. I personally went across to shake the hands of all these brave and highly skilled stunt motor-cycle riders - Prashant, Sathya, and Biju. And I personally congratulated many of the uniformed employees of TVS Motors there for having manufactured an excellent motorcycle in the TVS Apache RTR 180cc bike.


And there were these three assholes from the Pondicherry Police there, too, wearing their khaki "uniforms of brutality," their red Inspector Clouseau French hats, all carrying their Big Sticks - and, these fuckers went about BEATING UP the crowd!


In Pondicherry, the Police Department does NOTHING of any worth - and the Traffic Police is a DISGRACE.


They go about BEATING UP poor people who peddle their wares on Beach Road.


And, though they have a Big Building on Beach Road called "Tourist Police," they go about BEATING UP tourists like me.


Now, you stupid fuckers of the fucked up Indian Police Service, think about The Good Queen Bess.


Think!


You are all HATED throughout the length and breadth of this vast sub-continent.


In many, many parts of this vast nation, like Jharkhand, and Chattisgarh, and also parts of Orissa and Maharashtra, in these thickly forested areas, policemen are being ROUTINELY MURDERED.


Just the other year, I read of an Inspector of Police, in his full "uniform of brutality," wearing his Three Stars on his shoulders, his Yellow Lanyard, his broad, black belt with the State Emblem on it, and his Peak Cap, too, being hauled out in public in a busy market in a small Jharkhand town by the local people and being BEHEADED.


Think! You stupid fuckers.


All you do is VVIP Security. I read 1800 Delhi cops guard chacha's residence.


And Patnaik is chacha's son-in-law.


Think!


The Delhi Police is HATED throughout Delhi.


Think of that Great Peter Tosh song:

Downpressor man,

Where you gonna run to?

Downpressor man,

Where you gonna run to?

You're gonna run to the rocks,

But the rocks will be melting...