An Ode to the Faceless Soldier

What is common to?


Seetharamiah – a small scale farmer in Ongole

Muniraju Reddy – a wholesaler at Rajahmundry

Alex Mathew – a Sales and Marketing Professional covering Southern India

Gopal Rao – a successful dealer having is network across Karnataka

Shaikat Ahmed – a Pan Shop vendor at Bangalore

And Me …

If you say Nothing at all … well think again... not just these six odd people, but in fact several lakhs of people around the country are connected through an intrinsic network… the tobacco that Seetharamiah grows reaches ITC factory in Kolkata and Bengalooru through Muniraju’s trading company. Alex Mathew the enthusiastic head of sales chasing his monthly targets at ITC, channels the finished cigarettes into pan shops like the one that Shaikat operates, through dealerships like the ones run by Gopal… and that’s where I get my daily dose of nicotine from.

The chain is very feebly represented here... it consists of several other players in its fold... the logistics that helps the tobacco from its place of origin to the gentle grip amidst my fingers, the middlemen who negotiate rates and cuts, the factory workers who give the ciggies its perfect blend and its finest finish, the entire corporate structure at the tobacco company… the list is quite extensive … but I guess you get the drift ….

Every time a smoker lights up, he is contributing to the livelihood of many of his countrymen … literally lighting up the lives of many fellow countrymen and women too (I am reliably informed that the beedi industry in India is driven by rural women folk, who have made crafting beedis their livelihood and yes a thriving cottage industry, data given below) … not just directly by what he pays for the cigarettes but also through the taxes and duties …that's used in "National Interest" as detailed below

I know most of you are averse to chewing tobacco, so here are some figures I would like you to chew on...


* The cultivation of Tobacco is restricted to 0.3% of the total cultivated area

* Tobacco cultivation and processing provides employment to more than 60 lakhs people

* The beedi industry provides employment to around 44.00 lakhs essentially unskilled rural folks mostly women

* The export figures for 2007 -2008, shows that for tobacco both processed and unprocessed the value is 2022.78 Crore (502.67 M US$) and for the period from April to July 2008 for tobacco totals up to Rs. 982.87 Crore (233.8 M US $)in terms for foreign exchange earnings

* 55 per cent of the price of cigarettes in India represents excise. On the whole cigarette is taxed at around 132% of the value of the product (ex-factory price net of taxes)

* Cigarettes contribute nearly 10 per cent of total excise to the exchequer

* The branded cigarette industry in India is valued at Rs. 15000 Crore (Year 2007)

And a small portion of this huge tax collected and foreign exchange earned does percolate to Nation building ...I say a small portion because quite of lot of it goes into important matters of governance ... like for example:

* paying up the expenses for the high powered committee to Bahamas to study the plight of Indian fishermen

* cost of running 18 ambassadors and 6 contessas in the name of Z category security for a single VIP, while the rest city gets jammed (with the car and bike engines kept purring, if I may add) waiting for the cavalcade to pass

* the print and media campaigns that proclaim the existence of a government and its so called successes ... remember “UP mein dum hain... kyonki Crime yehan kum hain" (Whoa! Would I love to meet up with the marketing team that coined that one ...) or for that matter the “India Shining (While Indians are whining)” campaign

* the lakhs that are spent on the chief ministers’ aerial survey of flood hit areas (forget the fact that the same lakhs could have been used to procure relief to the victims on ground or is it neck deep in water)

... I am not even beginning to talk about the share that gets looted along the way... which goes into building the personal assets of those in power and their cronies in bureaucracy...

You must be wondering did I come here to read all this gyaan.... I was expecting something else based on the title ... An Ode to the Faceless Soldier ... err Smoker ... well in my opinion a smoker is a soldier in his own right ... what else do you call a person who puts his/her life on the line to help sustain a nation ... its people.. its economy ... a person who readily sacrifices himself / herself for the sake of the Seetharamiahs , Muniraju Reddys, Alex Thomases and the Shaikat Ahmeds of the world ... a person who is prepared to die for his/her fellow citizens ... a soldier right? A person directly contributing to the aforementioned Rs.150000 Crore economy by p(l)aying with his/her life and indirectly to an economic process that cannot even be realistically valued ...But is he/ she ever given his/her due? In a country where its real soldiers are seldom remembered , I understand fully well that it’s too naive to expect its smokers to be valued....


The nation has always looked down on smokers, smokers have been always given a raw deal, but the latest ban is sort of the last straw... What the government is effectively telling the smoker is that, we will allow people to grow tobacco and it’s perfectly legal to process it, manufacture it and sell it. If you as a manufacturer are smart enough, we will also allow you to advertise it (so what if you make a rather a poor attempt to camouflage it as a lifestyle clothing range or try and hide behind a bravery award campaign). Whether or not March follows February, each year we will religiously hike the taxes and duties on tobacco, as a consumer you can even buy it wherever or whenever you want it ... but hey! you can’t smoke respectfully ... you can do so, in hiding or bribing the law enforcement authority (as if, they did not have enough avenues to make a buck or two on the side)


I can hear the Ministry Of Health argue, you enjoy your smoke why would you call it a sacrifice or expect to be rewarded for that ... well that is akin to asking a professional you enjoy your job why do you want to be paid for that or why would you seek a promotion ... in any case I am not advocating sops for smokers ... I am not fighting for reservations for smokers’ kids in engineering colleges, nor am I asking for discounted railway tickets or a vishisht seva medal (though I would think the smokers deserve a AVSM, at least posthumously if not during their lifetime)... I am just wondering why you can’t let smokers be... Oh we care about your health is the next line of defence...


Well if you are so concerned about my health, why don’t you ban the cultivation of tobacco, the manufacture of cigarettes and beedis and their sale? Why would you treat the symptom, rather than removing the cause? Aww well you need the money... you need to make your bi-yearly foreign trip and once in 5 years TV campaign to list out your achievements, if there is a distinct lack of achievement during your tenure, you at least need it, to fund a bailout package in the election year for the farmers succumbing to the threat of loans....

Well, the smokers of this country will magnanimously bear this assualt too, like we have been silently suffering for decades now ... for your sake Minister of Health, we will not smoke in public places and yes! for you Minister of Finance, we will still strive to keep your coffers chiming, So what? if we have to get on to the road in that pursuit.... that reminds me, a well wisher during college days had once told me, quit smioking or you will end up on the roads... how very prophetic!!!


Overheard: The Health Minister to the poor smoker “Come on child; let me help you, kick your BUTT”



PS: This write up is purely a work of satire; the author respects the Indian Soldier or for that matter any soldier, who puts his life on line, so that the rest of the country can go about their normal day to day life in peace...

Whatever it takes

This is about something that’s not in the news anymore; it’s not in the news because it does not make commercial sense to keep it in the news… It is about Indian Hockey’s inability to qualify for the upcoming Olympics… Or rather India’s ability to nurture what is popularly termed India’s National Game...

What worries me more than India’s loss of status in the international hockey arena is the apathy shown towards this sport in our country …. On the same day as the loss a major news channel in this country did a show where in a reporter got on the streets and went about asking the passersby to name 5 players in the current Indian hockey team and no surprises there almost none got it right; simultaneously they ran another show (like most other news channels did that day) asking for the removal of the person heading the Hockey Federation in the country… what bothers me again is this fault finding attitude of Indian Media and very specifically this channel in question… is only the Indian Hockey Federation and the average man on the street to blame for India failing in hockey? What is the Media role here???

When it is cricket, a tour match in Australia attracts so much attention, there programs running for not let than 30 minutes on each channel in the country (on the previous day, on the day(s) of the game and the next few days after the game is over) with so called experts from all across the country over phone, video link, satellite hook ups and what not … discussing threadbare the strategies, the pitches, what the players did in their spare time…where the players went shopping dining clubbing… the entire Olympic hockey qualifier that India took part in did not in opinion get that much footage on our news channels …. Yes the experts and others were called in after the tournament was over to help nail the culprits …

The channel in question here, CNN IBN (which happened to be one of my favorite news channels) did not even post my comments in their website - maybe I violated their code for comments but I never received any message on my email suggesting to that effect or maybe I made a mistake in the way I submitted the comment, but then I guess I got a response which said that my comment is being reviewed and will be available on the website in sometime - in retrospect its more likely because I was direct and to the point to the extent that I mentioned (to quote, not verbatim though) “for a channel that says “whatever it takes” I do not think that CNN IBN has done “whatever it takes” to promote hockey in the country.. while I also accept that it is no way CNN IBN’s responsibility to be promoting hockey … that is the responsibility of the Indian Hockey Federation, the Sports loving Indian Public, the Coaches and hockey players…”

The media’s responsibility is to exploit the commercial aspects of news or what they think is news or what they want the public to believe is news… keep sensationalizing issues as long as it makes business sense and then drop it without any botheration… ultimately it’s a business venture … and lets make it profitable by doing “whatever it takes”

Stop This Monkey Business...

I am penning down my thoughts on the eve of the Harbhajan Hearing...

The Indian board has categorically stated two things – firstly that its not too happy with using the additional evidence from the stump cam and mic, in this hearing, secondly it would be calling off the tour (read the one off Twenty20 match and the Tri-Nation One day International series) if Bhajji is charged with racial abuse.

I am not too sure if either of these two issues is in the interest of the game…. Before anyone raises the issue let me clarify that I am an Indian and a proud one at that.

Coming to the usage of fresh evidence, firstly the fulcrum of this case (appeal) is the fact that Bhajji is innocent. The BCCI seems to accept that unquestionably, even Tendulkar vouches to that effect. If that is the case and we are a hundred percent sure that Bhajji did not utter the "M" word, why should we back off from any additional evidence? We should in fact unearth as much evidence as possible and make them available to the person hearing the appeal… and in case we are objecting to these fresh evidences being used, then we are by our own act, accepting that there is a possibility that Bhajji might have in fact used a word construed as racial against Symmo.

Another line of argument seems to suggest that we Indians do not consider the usage of the word Monkey as a racial abuse. Well that argument does not hold water in any case as, we cannot go around spitting in public places, say in Singapore and ask for not being penalized as spitting in public places in most parts of India is not considered a punishable offense. Whether Harbhajan used the word is a different question altogether, but to argue that he did not know that it is a word that has racial connotations is a feeble line of defense.

Coming to the issue of pulling out of the tour in case Bhajji is indicted, well the less said the better. It is like saying we will attend the trial and we sincerely hope it’s a fair one; however we will not accept a verdict if it goes against us. Then why go to the trial in the first place? Isn’t this intimidation? Isn’t this a very deplorable case of using one’s financial clout in the game? Isn’t this exactly what many Indians resent, say in case of how America imposes itself on rest of the World, politically and militarily? A better alternative is to skip the trial and the tour…. Or else what is the message we are sending out? This for all reasons will be a case based mostly on circumstantial evidence and to me it appears that if Bhajji is cleared for lack of evidence we will happily accept it and probably celebrate the fact that ICC has been fair (may be even press charges against Mike Procter) and in case Bhajji is proven guilty, we will get on to the streets deploring how ICC is biased against non-whites!!!

Well let me reiterate that this is not a case of Indian pride, nor is it a case of the sub continental teams versus the rest of the cricket world, or by any stretch of imagination a case of colored people versus the whites as many experts would like us to believe. Just because an Indian ran a car with explosives into an airport in London, all Indians do not become terrorists… in case there is conclusive evidence against Bhajji in this case, just because an Indian racially abused a black man on the sports field, all Indians do not become racists… On one hand we are the same people who stone the family of our cricketers, burn their effigies, damage their personal property when the team loses a tournament or series for cricketing reasons and on the other we are ready to go to any lengths to support a player of the team, even if he is proven guilty on sportsmanship issues…

Of course as an ardent Indian fan, I do wish and hope that Bhajji has not used the word and that he gets cleared in the hearing held tomorrow … however if he has, I would not want him to go Scot-free just because he happens to play for the richest and most influential board in the world of cricket… if that happens we as a nation will be bringing in greater disrespect to the gentleman’s game than anything else in the recent past has….