Thus begins a dirty war

A reminder that this is role play and if you are easily offended, you should please move on. And so we continue. The half resourceful Persian nationalist that I am, I proceed to re-evaluate my encounters with India and all things Indian.

What is annoying me, of course, is the meanness of that Indian fellow blogger and my impression that the Indian negotiating team misrepresented their position about this ongoing nuclear standoff judging by how surprised the Iranians were with the outcome of the vote. But I am now merely lashing out.

Technically, the Indian move could be viewed as diplomacy proper. Or we might choose to call it pursuing one’s own best interest--call it what you will. I will choose to call it masking true intentions. Would it really qualify as cunning manipulation? And lying or deception?

So I begin to take liberties with the language which should have ideally helped me put problems in context. Babbling is what I am used to as an intellectual. It gives me power. It makes me feel superior.

Yes, it must have been a ruse all along. Now deep down, I know I have had my share of encounters with cheating, lying, deceitful domestic politicians. I have also seen children lie. I have seen students offer excused about not having their homework on time and have heard their creative stories about their papers having been eaten by animals.

I have heard husbands lie about their whereabouts or an affair and have seen their wives conceal the truth about the cost of those red shoes or the Chanel perfumes or a dress. And I have certainly seen colleagues twist the truth a little and offer tall tales, or many a lying whiteness as the expression goes after a few drinks.

But boy, do those Indians now get on my nerves. There must be something inherent to their culture that allows them to toy with their interlocutors so deftly, I begin to argue.

Well, now that I have had time to think about it, the premier text that is all about cunning, treachery, deceit and how to accumulate wealth and power by sowing dissention and discord in my own society is a book called “Kalilah wa Dimnah” which uses the technique of intricately woven tale within tale to deliver a message.

The book is a translation of collection of ancient Indian fables written down in Sanskrit -- popularly known as Panchatantra. The first tantra features the exploits of a lion and a bull and narrates the prominent role played by two jackals called Damnaka and Karattaka or Kartak and Damanak, take your pick. It is full of wisdom about eating others lest you be eaten -- a variety of what is categorized as practical wisdom. Most ancient cultures have sophisticated renditions.

But again, I am now in bending the truth business-- just ever so slightly. Our own ancient culture, I go on to argue, must really not have had those tales or someone wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of bringing those gems back from India. And as everyone must know-- because Herodotus said so-- we Persians used to learn early on “to mount the horse, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth.”

But Indians, you see, must have always had problems with the truth all along. As a matter of fact, they have a history of abandoning their neighbors—the Indians do, after they fall for new gods so it must be in their genes to follow a lie each and every time.

Remember how I alluded to having been once joined at the hips. Well, one of the reasons my ancestors chose to emigrate was because the forefathers of those who are now Indians decided to worship the younger, more hip deities who appeared the victors in a war of gods, while we remained faithful and chose to honor the more ancient Ahuras. That’s why in our old literature we have such a serious problem with the follower of Lie, or Druj!

We are nothing like them.

What’s wrong with those Indians anyways? What ails their society? How can you expect them to care about their neighbors when they don’t even care about their own people! They rank in the 127^th position on the Human Development Index report. They fare even worse than Iran in terms of fighting poverty.

In point of fact, as the NGOs report, they have the highest concentration of poverty anywhere in the world with 350 million living below the poverty line. And they tolerate so much violence against the people they call untouchables. Their very own citizens.

Why do they reproduce at such high rates, anyhow? So I begin to offer alarming statistics. Here is the latest Indian census figures of 2001 putting the population at 1,027,015,247 and another and yet another here giving us three different models put out by Harvard projecting future population growth for the years to come.

What else can we expect from a people who worship genitals? Lingam and Yoni they call them. Besides, we should never trust anyone who also deifies some potentially yummy shish kebob!

And they always keep to themselves and eat their own food. Have you ever notice how Indians eat? And the smell that comes from their places of residence? And why do they dress the way they do anyways? Heck even the Chinese have begun to dress like the rest of us "normal" folk.

And boy do they know how to migrate, don’t they? Both internally and externally. According to their own figures, 307 million migrate by their place of birth (pdf) within the country and there are 20 million Non resident Indian Nationals all over the planet.

So now, remember those Christian porn peddling terrorist of the last post? As it turns out, they operate in a contested region whose inhabitants are an ancient people called the Boro. And it’s just like those Hindus to come settle en mass in regions that belongs to others and they create conflict wherever they go and threaten the natives.

So now, I choose to highlight the plight of the Boro and begin to also draw attention to the latest anti-Christian disturbances. Then I begin to look again at the history of the Persian community in India because you just know that if an opulent, learned and successful community has lived around poor people of many different religions and ethnicities for centuries, chances are, there have been sporadic conflicts. Now I want to show how intolerant Indians have always been.

Those Hindus are at everyone’s throat all the time. They are always rioting. In the big ones a few years back between 500,000 to 1 million got killed. If it’s not the Christians they attack, they are after the Sikhs or some others. What’ wrong with them any ways?

You know, they must seriously have problems with woman as well. Because women hating, grotesquely patriarchal cultures are the ones that exhibit these symptoms of the widespread malaise we are witnessing among the Indians.

Look closely. Rape is as frequent as traffic accidents. There is sexual harassment and kidnapping and female infanticide galore. And violence and corruption and prostitution.

Indian women don’t have an easy time. 60 percent of women are anemic. 50% of women are illiterate. Maternal death in India counts for almost 25% world wide child-related deaths. There is corruption and crime and so much violence, but thankfully women are fighting back.

Indians have women problems because as their ancient text make clear, women are kind of merchandise and some (by nature or habit) are gained over by striking. As a matter of fact, despite their licentious sexuality, there is a morbid fear of women’s desires. Just go and pick up the latest edition of Kama Sutra at your local bookstore.

The older layers of commentaries make clear that women’s sexuality should be viewed with suspicion and should best be controlled. That’s why Hindus are counseled to see to it that women keep busy with housework and other domestic tasks. Because, you see, men’s sexuality is cyclical and a woman’s oceanic—she comes to have orgasms in waves. And as one of the chapters makes clear, the moment a man is fatigued, some “manly” women will chose to sodomize him to end up on top. Their whole cultural history can be viewed as an unfolding of a morbid fear of women.

So now, I am feeling pretty good about myself and so superior to boot. I have successfully overcome the last vestiges of shame and so I freely utter the vilest of thoughts while patting myself on the back for being an “anti-idiotarian,” or so audaciously “contrarian.”

I never cower before the “politically correct” crowd. Ain’t I special?

Now, I am ready to take the next step and go after some of their canonical texts in order to settle the affair with their false gods and to highlight their tenuous hold on reality.