Photography 2 (MACRO)

Though Feb is not the best time to visit Munnar, season is a bit too dry and near by National Park. It is too dry to see wild elephants as they all move to another side of forest due to lack of water but it is rewarding in its own way as well. Thousands of flowers bloom in Feb. I took advantage of this to test some MACRO tricks on flowers. Here are some of the best. You can pick them up if you want to send a virtual bouquet to your Girlfriend :)

Photography-1

This is my first post on my experiments with camera. Generally we Indians give first place to Ganesha but I essentially don’t believe in concept of Elephant headed God. For me God is everywhere(or nowhere according to perception) so I will choose purest manifestation of God for my first pic, Child

Laddu, My Nephew is jolly and can look deceptively mischievous when happy

Crystals Colors and light..

Well, Its not a chopper..

Interesting Animal..

Sunlight through leaves creates magic which we choose to ignore so often

Sunset and Pine

I always wanted to click a waterfall in this way. Not bad for a first timer without tripod :)

Reflection is not always a true picture

And a well deserved Selfie

Delhi Election and lessons for Indian Right wing polity

This week we saw elections in Delhi, results will be available in 3 days but if we go by exit polls, AAP is going to triumph BJP this time. News studios and weekly columns will pay obituaries to Modi wave (obituaries incidentally is going to be same to what they said after UP and Bihar bye election) without even giving a thought that one of Modi opponent (read Nitish Kumar) have committed biggest political hara kiri in recent times. An act of political stupidity have to be really subline to beat Rahul Baba tearing ordinance and Nitish Kumar did exactly that (I have a feeling that Lalu Yadav is infectious :)).

Now coming back to Delhi elections writing only about AAP and BJP will suffice considering Congress have been moved to footnotes in most of Indian polity. I will not spend much time on AAP but just redirect you to this post of mine which I wrote in September 2013 when AAP was most “different looking” political party in India. If you remember past 1 year than you probably will agree that I hit eagle’s eye more often than not in that post (Look, I am ready to become a political analyst. Its just time for some news channel to call me and shout on their prime time program). Now, I will just theoreticize what I wrote at that time. Any political party more so in India can operate only in select band of morality. This band have no lower bound (As proven by so many of our distinguished leaders) but have a well defined upper bound and this bound depends on your competitors. You can start way above your your band but will have to come down to you band sooner than later (Lok Satta party of Hyderabad have remained an exception but probably thats why they are not successful). It happened pretty quickly in case of AAP, It took just less than 2 years. It took close to 20 (and 50 if you include Jan Sangh years) years for BJP in late 20th century. But we are all living in fast forward world these days.

Now coming to BJP, this election is a classic examples of mistakes, grave grave (intentional repeat) mistakes and there are lessons to be learnt. First and foremost BJP have to admit (may be just to themselves) that their calculations went wrong. They should have called for assembly election just after national polls, may be with Haryana elections but every day delayed after that was like kicking CM chair away and away from you. Probably in hindsight Kiran Bedi was not a very good choice as a CM candidate. Second is communication, Kejriwal copied every campaign and communication strategy Modi used in LS elections and he have beaten BJP masterly in it. I will just give you a few examples of Kejriwal replicating Modi’s election tactics.

1. Kejriwal projected this election as a lone common man fighting against might of BJP (remember 1 aam aadmi, 200 MP,5 CM etc etc and Modi claiming CBI, central Govt and Shehzada against a chaiwala)
2. Kejriwal used social media and frugal communication channels to bombard public with a message (which was generally lie like Gobhi 60 Rs/Kg, Gajar 80Rs/kg etc etc) like Modi did although using more money
3. Kejriwal was ever communicative on social media like Modi was during LS polls
4. Last but most easily noticeable was their use of caste spin. Modi used statement by Priyanka Gandhi and Kejriwal used BJP ad to give caste spin to a personal remark.

BJP have many lessons to learn from this election. Some of them are

1. Distinguish yourself from FRINGE: Media was able to project BJP and RSS being responsible for things like
1. Statue of Godse
2. People opposing PK
3. nuinsense makers on valentine day

BJP have to understand that they won because of support of youth and most of the youth do not resonate with politics of likes of Sakshi Maharaj and 1 statement like “Chaar Bachche” gives ammunition to opponents which is disproportionately more to benefit of having 1000 Sakshi Maharaj.

2. Be (hyper)communicative as Modi was during election campaign. You missed many opportunity to stop falsehood from spreading and give too much leeway to opponent to spread falsehood Example
1. Modi’s suit during Meeting with Obama (Suit was fashion disaster, see points below), Opponents claimed (and less importantly here) it was worth 10 lakh and taxpayer money was used to buy it while the truth is that suit was a gift and cost was way below it. But we did not see any tweet from Modi or PMO on it. This lie was tweeted and facebooked thousands of times and everybody knows that a lie iterated thousand times is a truth
2. Kejriwal kept giving false prices of vegetables and telling lies over LPG subsidy  during his campaign and NOBODY from BJP dared quote RBI stats or truth of LPG subsidy to him.
3. Above all BJP failed enormously on the communication of black money. As far as I remember nobody in BJP quoted 15 lakh leave alone “depositing in your bank account” but this lie was spread zillion times and Amit Shah committed a bigger mistake by confessing it being a “chunavi zumla”
4. I will just highlight benefit of hyper communication that AAP enjoyed in this election. They gave so many conspiracy theories that their mistakes appeared as conspiracy. They were able to cover up as well, as happened in case of EVM tampering. They alleged, EC retorted and rejected their allegation and they said they are satisfied after EC’s promise/explanation. (Intelligent wordplay it is)
3. Correct some basics.
1. MHRD have been root of so many controversies. Many of the being media hit job, no doubt but a thing being in doubt is capability of Minister of human resources. Why not get her a not that important portfolio to prove herself and get a person like Arun Shourie to manage Indian education system. He can easily take on intellectual space dominated by left wing manipulators who have manipulated Indian history beyond recognition and steer India’s future in right direction
2. Mr. Modi, Take charge of communication yourself. Amit Shah is good (no doubt) in election management but there is no communicator excellence at par you. Leave some of your foreign policy engagements to Ms. Swaraj. She is competent and you need not do everything by yourself.
3. Take help of experts which are lying just at arms length and believe in ideology most of the times. Some people I will suggest (apart from Arun Shourie) are: Jayaprakash Narayan of LokSatta Party, Prof HC verma of IIT Kanpur and many highly capable foot soldiers like team of CAG
4. And finally get back to what RSS do the best. Be simplistic. Modi ji only real criticism in last 8-9 months of your personality is that suit. Please get back to simple Modi Kurta’s and return to times when you cut sleeves of your kurta as they were inconvenience. You created a brand out of it. You do not need brands/fashion trends for popularity but you create fashion trends and brands. Simplicity does no harm (I by no way is saying that your dressing sense is poor just because of 1 wrong selection or dressing for the occasion is bad. I merely imply we love simple Modi more than fashionable Modi)

I will like to end this uncharacteristically long post of mine with few lines for Indian right thinker. This war against Left (to generate prosperity for India) is going to be a tough one. We won a major battle in may last year and many smaller one subsequently. A small defeat now should only act as a reminder that war is not over and its not the time to fall complacent. Delhi election is a fightback by secular(Not dictionary meaning but meaning in Indian context) and socialist(Dictionary meaning) block of India. With every defeat they will fight back and may be fight back stronger (As they have done this time) but we must not lower our guard. This is historic opportunity for India to turn towards prosperity and move away from “Mai baap” and socialist policies.

If you like this post you may want to follow me on twitter(@goyalprtk) and read my 1st attempt at hindi writing