In the neighbourhood of hostility It is such a topsy-turvy world that at times you don't know whether you are standing on your feet or on your head. Nothing illustrates our loss of sanity and credibility to uphold the rule of law as much as the way two of our state governments and the media have handled the Veerappan affair. If times were normal, a man who had committed more than 130 murders would have had more than 130 death sentences passed on him and hanged at least once - that would have been enough to serve the purpose of justice. As for killing hundreds of innocent elephants and hacking down thousands of sandalwood trees, he would have got many sentences of rigorous imprisonment for life. But as I said before, times are out of joint and we are citizens of a mahaan Bharatvarsha where we show more compassion towards criminals than we do to law abiding citizens. We keep feeding ourselves on the myth that we have a discerning electorate which, when it goes to the polls, gives top priority to national interests. That is utter nonsense. Time and again, voters have returned thugs to assemblies and the Lok Sabha and put caste loyalties above their loyalty to the country. We also have our Phoolan Devi, charged with the killing of about 20 men at one go in Behmai village, granted pardon and now she is an 'honourable' member of parliament. So it is on the cards that Veerappan may emerge a hero of Tamil Nadu and be elected to the Lok Sabha, be made leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or a minister of the Central government. He might make a capable home minister, as he knows a lot more about crime than anyone else in the country. What a scenario! It is significant that Veerappan kidnapped a Karnataka matinee idol, Raj Kumar. And he is dictating terms not only for himself but also what the Tamil Nadu chief minister, M. Karunanidhi, wants to extract from his Karnataka counterpart. It is the Karnataka chief minister who kept flying to Chennai to plead with Karunanidhi - not the other way round. I think both chief ministers are being very shortsighted in playing roles - one of a giver and the other of a taker. There is a large Tamil-speaking population in Karnataka: I am told that in the state capital, Bangalore, Tamil is spoken more than Kannada. There have been anti-Tamil demonstrations in Karnataka. If something happens to Raj Kumar, the situation may become perilous. The Central government must not remain an idle spectator to the tension building up between neighbouring states. As it is, their police has shown its impotence in failing to nab this notorious murderer, robber and thief. Instead of joining forces to get hold of him and putting him on trial, the two state governments are shamelessly negotiating terms on which he is to be granted amnesty. A strong Central government would have directed the two chief ministers how to tackle the situation before it got out of hand. We do not have that kind of government in the Centre anymore. Atal Behari Vajpayee, on whom I pinned my hopes, looks tired and jaded - barely recognizable as the man who took over the reins of the government more than a year ago. What has happened to his fiery oratory which kept his audiences spellbound for hours? On Independence Day, instead of speaking extempore, he read out an uninspiring text of the achievements of his government and faltered more than once while doing so. Who else do we look up to, to get us out of the quagmire in which we have been stuck over the decades? >Act natural, don't lose composure Amitabh Bachchan has been crorepati many times over in the last 30 years. We have not seen a bigger money-spinner or a more versatile actor on our screen: good guy, bad guy, Bhangra dancer, he can pull off every kind of role with aplomb. For the short time he was a member of parliament, he made a good parliamentarian. He did his homework, prepared his speeches and spoke as an authority on his subject. He is a tall, handsome man with a rich voice. I can't think of any other person who could have made thundering success of as asinine a show as Kaun Banega Crorepati?. Everyone wants to become one without having to sweat for it. He has put other top favourite programmes like Antakshari, Sa Re Ga Ma in second and third places by the simple formula of asking moronic questions to an audience comprising of morons. Under the camouflage of being a test of general knowledge, it is essentially a gambling device with Bachchan playing the roles of a croupier at a casino and a bingo-master at a session of bingo. My one grievance against Bachchan and most other leading actors in Indian films is that they remain unaware of the difference between acting on stage and acting for the screen. Exaggeration, which is permissible on the stage is not acceptable on the screen. You may act on the stage but on screen you must behave and speak as you do in real life. Bachchan has stayed a stage actor all his life as have others like Dilip Kumar, Ashok Kumar, the Kapoor brothers, Dev Anand, Shatrughan Sinha and so on. It is this stage acting rather than acting natural that makes most Indian films unacceptable to cinematographically advanced countries and sophisticated Indians. There are, however, a few glorious exceptions who have stubbornly refused to be stereotyped by Indian directors and producers and left their individual stamps on the Indian film scene. The name that first comes to my mind is Saeed Jaffery. He is very versatile and an excellent mimic. Though he has often accepted roles in second-rate films to keep himself and his family in comfort he has refused to be directed and acts as he thinks best suited to his part. The same can be said of Naseeruddin Shah. He his a no-nonsense actor who fits himself into every role he plays as a hand slips into a glove: from Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib to a cranky Parsi. And, of course, Shabana Azmi: from a maid servant to a peasant's wife, the girl next door to a blue-stocking lesbian, she lends a tone of authenticity to her acting. Then there is Amitabh Bachchan's wife, Jaya Bachchan. She has not done as many films as her husband nor does she have his flamboyance, but in her gentle way she is more convincing on the screen than he. These four I have named as my favourites. If they have not made crores, they have remained true to themselves rather than take short cuts to stardom and riches. Verse dedicated to worse politics