Avay Shukla - PolyTicks, DeMocKrazy & MumboJumbo: Babus, Mantris and Netas Making Our Nation

never read anything like it brilliant, hilarious and painfully accurate sardonic satirical, but infused with a burning passion for the issues that matter in India unsparing in his insights, and sometimes savage in his critiques (but) marked by a searing honesty Shashi Tharoor

Most acerbic Col. Ajai Shukla

Brilliant! Prof. Anupam Shukla

Didnt laugh so much in a long time Yawar

Turns the mirror on our social reality Anonymous

Eye catching jugglery of words. Superb! Anonymous

Says it like it is, but with finely tuned irony Anonmyous

Your writings are a delight to read and think about Anonmyous

Your writings are a delight to read and think about Anonmyous

Absolutely scintillating! Anonmyous

Simply the best! Anonmyous

I hate what you say, but I find myself forced to return to read the bilge you write because it is so funny Anonymous

Thoroughly enjoyable Raaja Bhasin, author, columnist and historian

AVAY SHUKLA became an unserious writer after retiring in December 2010 from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) having reached the dizzying heights of Additional Chief Secretary of Himachal Pradesh.

His crowning achievement? The establishment of two national parks in Kullu District Kheer Ganga National Park (about 710 square kilometres/ 270 squaremiles) and Inderkilla National Park (104 square kilometres/ 40 squaremiles).

Having fallen in love with Himachals mountains and forests, hes been foolish enough to trek to its remotest regions, documenting the lifestyles of the hardy villagers, and local myths, legends and anecdotal trivia. An account of ten of these treks is available in his book, The Trails Less Travelled: Trekking the Himachal Himalayas (2015). His second book, The Spectre of Choor Dhar: Tales from the Mountains (2019), is a collection of short stories based on similarly-gathered fables and anecdotes.

However, in the book you are holding, he aims his lance at subjects as varied as our countrys canvas itself: current affairs, the environment and conservation, the bureaucracy and governance, legal matters, social issues, societal peccadilloes, and anything else he can lampoon. Most of his blogs are at avayshukla.blogspot.com, and it is not only websites such as The Citizen, Hillpost.com, Sify.com, and The Wire that have tolerated his work but even major print media such as The Hindustan Times, The Morning Standard, National Herald, New Indian Express, and The Times of India.

Dividing his time between Delhi and his true home (a small village, Puranikoti, above Shimla), he amuses himself with passable bridge and bad golf. His wife of forty years, Neerja, is a special educator, and manages her own NGO working with children who have mental and physical disabilities. Shukla and his wife have two sons: Sidharth is a digital media executive with a multi-national, and Saurabh is a finance and investment consultant. One helps Shukla with the computer, the other with his investments; needless to say, both crash more often than not.

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Foreword Shashi Tharoor, 2020

Main Text Avay Shukla, 2020

Avay Shukla has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Book Cover Cartoons Vikash Upadhyay, 2020; used by agreement. The Artwork is not intended to convey the likeness of any individual, living or dead, except in the case of public figures such as social leaders, cultural leaders and political leaders. However, if the Artwork is intended to contain a recognisable likeness of any person other than such a public figure, the Illustrator has explained to such person the use to which the Artwork will be put and obtained from each suchperson a form of release and delivered the same to the Publishers in a form satisfactory to them.

Any other apparent likenesses to real persons are entirely coincidental.

Cover Design: Lara Iakovenko

Book Packaging: Lara Iakovenko

All rights reserved. Except as may be permitted by the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission from the publisher.

978-1-913738-01-3

The Little Oxford Dictionary

Art Buchwald, Columnist, The Washington Post

Avay Shukla is no ordinary blogger. He is a former senior bureaucrat in the Government of India, now retired but armed with a formidable (nearly) four decades of experience administering the complexities of Indian governance. He was clearly no ordinary bureaucrat, either, for he wields an incisive pen, a highly effective vocabulary and a style so original, so witty and often so devastating that his file notations must have been classics in their own right!

I have never met Avay Shukla. My knowledge of him is, in contemporary terms, virtual: I know him from his blogs. These were written, it seems, for a circle of friends, but have been circulated widely around the internet. I first came across his work because a number of unrelated friends (unrelated to him, and to each other) kept passing me his blog on Delhis parties (the social ones, not the political). I had never read anything like it: a brilliant, hilarious and painfully accurate takedown of a phenomenon so ubiquitous in the nations capital that one never quite notices how absurd it seems until one sees it through the eyes of the detached and sardonic observer, a role Shukla plays to perfection. Read it, and you will never feel the same about the next dinner party you attend in Delhi.

But Shuklas sharp eye is not limited to social observation. With his knowledge, experience and command of a wide variety of subjects in keeping with the fabled omniscience of his tribe, the Indian Administrative Service he is equally insightful analysing government projects and schemes, the follies and failures of rural development and the nations congested roadways. Every subject is tackled with a command of both subject and language that make his conclusions impossible to resist, however apocalyptic some of them might be. Some of his writing is satirical, but much of it is infused with a burning passion for the issues that matter in India, tinged perhaps with the disillusionment of one who has seen it all and found it wanting.

Despite having been a participant and a decision-maker on many of the issues he writes about, Shukla is unsparing in his insights, and sometimes savage in his critiques. But his blogs are marked by a searing honesty which leavens some of the harshness of his judgements. He seems to blame himself and the country he loves for its deficiencies, and I say this without the benefit of ever having discussed any of his blogs with him a burning conviction that it is time to rid oneself of the cant and hypocrisy that is too often used to justify official pronouncements and claims.