The visit of President Obama is filled with uniqueness and this inimitability suits the stated purpose of the visit.
Nowadays it is a fashion in the business circle to measure the effectiveness and performance of a newly appointed CEO on the basis of a report card based on the first hundred days in the office. The CEO also makes sure that in the first 100 days he visits to inspire the subsidiaries in the countries which are generating or have the potential of delivering higher returns, India often featuring in the top 10 of this list
The president may be allowed some concessions for not having to make it in the first 100 days, but surely did he visit China and India in the same year and stopped short of visiting Pakistan in spite of coming so near.
Also President Obama may be the first and presumably the last non-white president of the U.S. to visit India as America impedes their experiment with “change”.
This is the first time a President of America came calling to India on a purely business mission and landed in Mumbai, bypassing the state honour at Delhi.
What ever was left of “strategic” policies with the South Block was shifted to a secondary visit after the main mission was accomplished.
On the first day of the meeting while some symbolic private deals worth around $10 billion were struck by private ventures, while in Mumbai you have to play along with Ambanis, the press and media went ballistic on the mere modalities of non issues like President never uttering the sinful word, Pakistan, and how India will benefit from this visit.
The American administration has made no false claims about this visit as being purely a mission to save the greatest nation of the world albeit the fact that our expectations are simply creations of our own fecundity.
But a careful look will emphasis on the point, what really America has to offer besides "running" shoes and "bottled aerated" water and an operating system which crashes more often than its running period?
There is not much of technology that America can offer in the field of agriculture, industrial technology, healthcare and communications - either India has the self expertise or they have better partners in Europe to choose from.
Today is a far cry from the fifties and sixties where Indian Prime Ministers went to U.S. with begging bowls asking for food to feed the ever growing hunger of people, fed over enthusiastically on doses of socialism and what India got in return was rotten, rejected lots of PL240 wheat, which was meant for cattle feed in U.S.
The only thing that America can offer is military technology, where it has got real expertise, cultivated through decades and tested at all battlefields in the world , which had been their own creation for testing their developments.
This is where the President is needed to do a hard sell with India, as India has a strategic reliance on Russia, France and to some extent even Israel on these issues.
Nowadays military deals are predominantly done by politicians and thrust upon the armed forces, with a result that to some extent we have seen our intelligence and military capabilities compromised.
This visit of President Obama is no exception, except for the fact that Americans, in a way they do the best, has taken their best leaf out of the marketing expertise from Harvard or MIT and succeeded in camouflaging the whole visit with a "partnership" or "collaborative" overtone.
We, in India, stand to gain nothing out of this visit, not even money that can buy you a candy. America has come with a begging bowl but with a mentality, of a misplaced notion, as the most powerful nation of the world.
This is clearly reflected in the tone and tenor of the president and while we may jump around, with our never ending colonial mentality, relishing on his intellect and charisma and wanting our politicians to be wearing pinstriped suits and speaking cultivated Harvard "English", but at the end of the day for a farmer dying of hunger neither the town hall meetings or the business meets gives them any hope of survival.
This is typical of America as it is typical of India to be subservient to any visitor, even to Pakistan, under the guise of our heritage of treating our guests as God.
Over the last six decades India was looked down upon by the U.S. state administration, so much so that Henry Kissinger did not think twice before calling Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a “bitch”. There is a growing rhetoric that we must forget the past and move ahead, but this rhetoric will remain rhetoric, till the major political parties can forget about the incidents of 1984, 1998 and 2002 and move ahead. Selective amnesia can be disconcerting.
While the Tea Party may object to what they see as an abject wastage of money spent in this visit of President Obama to India, we Indians hardly see the amount of capital that will be carried away by the Air Force One leaving us doing what best we can - sucking our thumbs.
November may be too early or in this context even Mumbai, but this visit of the President Obama can be aptly termed as "The Beggar who came from the Cold", to borrow from John Le’ Carre, and if that may restore any pride in our already famished hearts.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Enjoy - My Fellow Countrymen
The following is an article published in The Telegraph.
Only the so called Bengali intellectual can relish & digest such articles without any feelings of discontent.
This is by some non descriptive Supreme Court lawyer called Rajeev Dhawan - scooped out by NDTV after the "Ayodhya verdict" - please note that the fellow never uses the word but referes as "Babri Masjid" judgement.
The best part are his recommendations - with such people around India can never fail.
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Like Caesar’s “Ides of March”, the much-awaited Babri Masjid judgment by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has come, but not gone. It is now certain that both Muslim and Hindu litigants are going to appeal to the Supreme Court. It is no less certain that the Supreme Court will stay (stop the operation of) the judgment to prevent any further unilateral action by an aggressive sangh parivar.
Aggression by the Muslims is unlikely. After the Babri Masjid judgment, they have become a much weakened minority. They lost when Hindu idols were placed in the Babri Masjid complex on December 22-23, 1949. Insult, most unbecoming, was added to injury when the masjid was destroyed on December 6, 1992, whilst the world looked on. Then came the final blow when the Lucknow bench judgment of September 30 disempowered them both legally and morally. What will they negotiate with — except concede their claim for the greater glory of the Indian (Hindu?) nation?
The judgment was delivered by three judges: S.U. Khan, Sudhir Agarwal and Dharam Veer Sharma. It is customary in such cases to have a minority judge on the bench so that, at least, appearances are met. In the Babri Masjid Case I (1994), concerning the validity of the government takeover of the site and the surrounding Hindu land, it was the Muslim and Parsi judges who strongly dissented. Here, it was thought that the Muslim judge — Justice Khan — would dissent if faced with an unreasonable majority of Hindu judges.
Although there were a huge number of issues before the Lucknow bench, they can broadly be classified into two. The first was — who did the site belong to? If the answer to the first question was the Muslims, did the Hindus have a right to pray at the site? And would this right to pray have to be obtained from the Muslims or superimposed on Muslim ownership of the site? Thus, the central issue was really: who owned the site?
The answer to this question should have been simple. It had been answered in favour of the Muslims in 1885. Again in the 1940s, when Shia and Sunni Muslims fought over which waqf the site belonged to, it was the Sunnis who won. Now, if the Muslims did not own the site, how come the Sunnis won? There was also a precedent for this kind of situation. In the 1820s, the Shahid Ganj mosque had been taken over by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
Matters simmered on. The Muslims lost the case in 1855. By 1940, the Privy Council was confident that the mosque site belonged to the Sikhs and not to the Muslims. The only further issue in the Babri case was whether Muslims had filed their case within 12 years of December 22-23, 1949, from when the Hindus claimed hostile possession of the site. There was no dispute that the idols were placed on the site that evening in December 1949. As it happens, the Muslims filed on December 18, 1961 — a few days before the limitation expired. So, they had not lost the site by adverse possession to the Hindus.
Why did this simple solution not appeal to the judges? Justices Sharma and Agarwal simply assumed that this site was always a pilgrimage for Hindus since time immemorial. Even recent history belies such a conclusion. Myth and conjecture cannot displace truth. Faith may move mountains but cannot eclipse facts. This was no basis for a legal Hindu claim to the site. This was simply imagined history. Curiously, Justice Khan went along with this theory but with some doubts.
His first doubt was that while the Hindus may have prayed in the area, there was nothing to suggest that it was the Babri site that was sacral. His second doubt was that although the Ram Chabutra and Sita Rasoi had been constructed, the claim that this was the exact spot of Ram Janmabhoomi came along only years after the mosque had been built. In other words, the Hindu claim was concocted as a counterfoil to the very existence of the mosque.
There is nothing to suggest that Muslims gave up their site. Justice Khan’s conclusion was that “both the parties i.e. Muslims and Hindus were using and occupying different portions of the premises in dispute… and both continued to be in joint possession of the entire premises in dispute”. Thus, both failed to prove their title, so the site belonged to both. So, they become joint owners. How Nirmohi Akhara was entitled to one of the portions of the site defies proper explanation.
On one issue, Justice Khan and his colleagues differed. This was the sangh parivar — Bharatiya Janata Party theory of Muslim aggressors wantonly destroying Hindu temples to build mosques. The theory was important to Hindu fundamentalists to support the Hindu case for historical revenge against idol-destroying Muslims. This approach assumes that present-day Muslims had to pay the price for their irreverent ancestors. This was a war cry for revenge. Justice Khan refused to countenance this claim for historic revenge. The archaeological evidence did not suggest that a real contemporary temple was destroyed by Babur. If Babur had done that, the site would be haram and unacceptable for Muslim prayer.
The Archaeological Survey of India’s view that the site was haram has been solidly questioned by distinguished archaeologists. Justice Khan accepted that there may have been a defunct temple in the site many centuries ago. But the Hindu judges gave total support to the sangh parivar revenge theory. The evil deeds of Muslim invaders had to be punished even if they did not take place.
This leaves the question of the Hindu right to prayer at this site. This right is predicated on the basis that there was a historical Lord Ram who was born on this very site in Ayodhya. There is no proof of this at all. But, lest the argument lose its real colour, let us assume that common sentiment assumes the existence of Lord Ram of Ayodhya. But the assertion that this very site was his birthplace was only a reaction to the fact that a mosque had been built there. What better way to discredit the mosque than to say that was the holiest of holy sites?
It was a communal argument invented for communal reasons. Such an argument could not be the basis of a property right in favour of the Hindus. If Hindus were in possession, what was the need for the trespass of putting the idols there on the night of December 22-23, 1949? The factual situation was that the Hindus had abandoned their right to the site and claim to a temple.
There is little to analyse in the judgment of Justice Sharma. It is entirely pro-Hindu, discloses no legal basis and upholds the Hindu claim for no better reason than that he wanted to do so. His judgment is absurdly long and does not sustain argument, but only sentiment. Justice Agarwal’s judgment also does not bear legal scrutiny and is insufficiently balanced in his treatment of hopelessly inconclusive historical material. Ultimately, the Hindu case is based on hearsay and ‘say so’.
What were the judges trying to do? A title suit was converted into a partition suit on the flimsy basis that since the property belongs to neither, let it belong to both. Alternatively, it has always belonged to the deity and those who took it from the deity must suffer for it. But the whole world belongs to the deity without forcing focus on his unproven birthplace on earth. But it seems that the judges were in a panchayati mood to find a solution which they had not been asked to find. “Share the site,” said the judges. Not even half-half; but two-thirds Hindu and one-third Muslim. This division eludes a proper foundation. The judicial solution is unworkable. Muslims will be ousted into a corner to feel even more insecure than they do in a majority-dominated Hindu India which lets fly at Muslims, Christians and other faiths with ferocious malice aforethought.
The suggestion that mosques can be destroyed physically and legal titles taken away with legal alacrity dishonours a secular rule of law on which India’s togetherness must rest. Some say let us bury the hatchet on this dispute and move on. This seems eminently wise. But no solution should be based on a decision which induces the minority to feel cheated out of its claims. This is yet another example of brow-beating Muslims into second-class citizenship in which they cannot even defend their legitimate rights in a court of law.
I believe a solution is possible. The site can be divided. First, the Muslims need to be given an apology before anything else is done. Apologies have an important place in dispute settlement. Second, the waqf board’s legal rights must be recognized. Third, they need to be persuaded that the old mosque or a new one will be built on, or in the vicinity of, the site. Fourth, a plan to build a world heritage area in which all religions can be accommodated should be chalked out and the land distributed accordingly to make this a world heritage site to be visited by all.
I have a sense, that if Lord Ram were to arbitrate this dispute, he would approve of this kind of a solution.
Only the so called Bengali intellectual can relish & digest such articles without any feelings of discontent.
This is by some non descriptive Supreme Court lawyer called Rajeev Dhawan - scooped out by NDTV after the "Ayodhya verdict" - please note that the fellow never uses the word but referes as "Babri Masjid" judgement.
The best part are his recommendations - with such people around India can never fail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Caesar’s “Ides of March”, the much-awaited Babri Masjid judgment by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has come, but not gone. It is now certain that both Muslim and Hindu litigants are going to appeal to the Supreme Court. It is no less certain that the Supreme Court will stay (stop the operation of) the judgment to prevent any further unilateral action by an aggressive sangh parivar.
Aggression by the Muslims is unlikely. After the Babri Masjid judgment, they have become a much weakened minority. They lost when Hindu idols were placed in the Babri Masjid complex on December 22-23, 1949. Insult, most unbecoming, was added to injury when the masjid was destroyed on December 6, 1992, whilst the world looked on. Then came the final blow when the Lucknow bench judgment of September 30 disempowered them both legally and morally. What will they negotiate with — except concede their claim for the greater glory of the Indian (Hindu?) nation?
The judgment was delivered by three judges: S.U. Khan, Sudhir Agarwal and Dharam Veer Sharma. It is customary in such cases to have a minority judge on the bench so that, at least, appearances are met. In the Babri Masjid Case I (1994), concerning the validity of the government takeover of the site and the surrounding Hindu land, it was the Muslim and Parsi judges who strongly dissented. Here, it was thought that the Muslim judge — Justice Khan — would dissent if faced with an unreasonable majority of Hindu judges.
Although there were a huge number of issues before the Lucknow bench, they can broadly be classified into two. The first was — who did the site belong to? If the answer to the first question was the Muslims, did the Hindus have a right to pray at the site? And would this right to pray have to be obtained from the Muslims or superimposed on Muslim ownership of the site? Thus, the central issue was really: who owned the site?
The answer to this question should have been simple. It had been answered in favour of the Muslims in 1885. Again in the 1940s, when Shia and Sunni Muslims fought over which waqf the site belonged to, it was the Sunnis who won. Now, if the Muslims did not own the site, how come the Sunnis won? There was also a precedent for this kind of situation. In the 1820s, the Shahid Ganj mosque had been taken over by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
Matters simmered on. The Muslims lost the case in 1855. By 1940, the Privy Council was confident that the mosque site belonged to the Sikhs and not to the Muslims. The only further issue in the Babri case was whether Muslims had filed their case within 12 years of December 22-23, 1949, from when the Hindus claimed hostile possession of the site. There was no dispute that the idols were placed on the site that evening in December 1949. As it happens, the Muslims filed on December 18, 1961 — a few days before the limitation expired. So, they had not lost the site by adverse possession to the Hindus.
Why did this simple solution not appeal to the judges? Justices Sharma and Agarwal simply assumed that this site was always a pilgrimage for Hindus since time immemorial. Even recent history belies such a conclusion. Myth and conjecture cannot displace truth. Faith may move mountains but cannot eclipse facts. This was no basis for a legal Hindu claim to the site. This was simply imagined history. Curiously, Justice Khan went along with this theory but with some doubts.
His first doubt was that while the Hindus may have prayed in the area, there was nothing to suggest that it was the Babri site that was sacral. His second doubt was that although the Ram Chabutra and Sita Rasoi had been constructed, the claim that this was the exact spot of Ram Janmabhoomi came along only years after the mosque had been built. In other words, the Hindu claim was concocted as a counterfoil to the very existence of the mosque.
There is nothing to suggest that Muslims gave up their site. Justice Khan’s conclusion was that “both the parties i.e. Muslims and Hindus were using and occupying different portions of the premises in dispute… and both continued to be in joint possession of the entire premises in dispute”. Thus, both failed to prove their title, so the site belonged to both. So, they become joint owners. How Nirmohi Akhara was entitled to one of the portions of the site defies proper explanation.
On one issue, Justice Khan and his colleagues differed. This was the sangh parivar — Bharatiya Janata Party theory of Muslim aggressors wantonly destroying Hindu temples to build mosques. The theory was important to Hindu fundamentalists to support the Hindu case for historical revenge against idol-destroying Muslims. This approach assumes that present-day Muslims had to pay the price for their irreverent ancestors. This was a war cry for revenge. Justice Khan refused to countenance this claim for historic revenge. The archaeological evidence did not suggest that a real contemporary temple was destroyed by Babur. If Babur had done that, the site would be haram and unacceptable for Muslim prayer.
The Archaeological Survey of India’s view that the site was haram has been solidly questioned by distinguished archaeologists. Justice Khan accepted that there may have been a defunct temple in the site many centuries ago. But the Hindu judges gave total support to the sangh parivar revenge theory. The evil deeds of Muslim invaders had to be punished even if they did not take place.
This leaves the question of the Hindu right to prayer at this site. This right is predicated on the basis that there was a historical Lord Ram who was born on this very site in Ayodhya. There is no proof of this at all. But, lest the argument lose its real colour, let us assume that common sentiment assumes the existence of Lord Ram of Ayodhya. But the assertion that this very site was his birthplace was only a reaction to the fact that a mosque had been built there. What better way to discredit the mosque than to say that was the holiest of holy sites?
It was a communal argument invented for communal reasons. Such an argument could not be the basis of a property right in favour of the Hindus. If Hindus were in possession, what was the need for the trespass of putting the idols there on the night of December 22-23, 1949? The factual situation was that the Hindus had abandoned their right to the site and claim to a temple.
There is little to analyse in the judgment of Justice Sharma. It is entirely pro-Hindu, discloses no legal basis and upholds the Hindu claim for no better reason than that he wanted to do so. His judgment is absurdly long and does not sustain argument, but only sentiment. Justice Agarwal’s judgment also does not bear legal scrutiny and is insufficiently balanced in his treatment of hopelessly inconclusive historical material. Ultimately, the Hindu case is based on hearsay and ‘say so’.
What were the judges trying to do? A title suit was converted into a partition suit on the flimsy basis that since the property belongs to neither, let it belong to both. Alternatively, it has always belonged to the deity and those who took it from the deity must suffer for it. But the whole world belongs to the deity without forcing focus on his unproven birthplace on earth. But it seems that the judges were in a panchayati mood to find a solution which they had not been asked to find. “Share the site,” said the judges. Not even half-half; but two-thirds Hindu and one-third Muslim. This division eludes a proper foundation. The judicial solution is unworkable. Muslims will be ousted into a corner to feel even more insecure than they do in a majority-dominated Hindu India which lets fly at Muslims, Christians and other faiths with ferocious malice aforethought.
The suggestion that mosques can be destroyed physically and legal titles taken away with legal alacrity dishonours a secular rule of law on which India’s togetherness must rest. Some say let us bury the hatchet on this dispute and move on. This seems eminently wise. But no solution should be based on a decision which induces the minority to feel cheated out of its claims. This is yet another example of brow-beating Muslims into second-class citizenship in which they cannot even defend their legitimate rights in a court of law.
I believe a solution is possible. The site can be divided. First, the Muslims need to be given an apology before anything else is done. Apologies have an important place in dispute settlement. Second, the waqf board’s legal rights must be recognized. Third, they need to be persuaded that the old mosque or a new one will be built on, or in the vicinity of, the site. Fourth, a plan to build a world heritage area in which all religions can be accommodated should be chalked out and the land distributed accordingly to make this a world heritage site to be visited by all.
I have a sense, that if Lord Ram were to arbitrate this dispute, he would approve of this kind of a solution.
Monday, November 1, 2010
The Systematic Distortion of Indian History
History is half as true as the colour of the historian and is specifically true of history of the Indian subcontinent. While the ancient civilization in the subcontinent produced volumes on philosophy and religion and to some extent popular literature, ranging from great epics, couple of dramas to explicit eroticism in the form of Kamasutra, but when it came to writing a detailed account of day to day life or about its surrounding environment [flora, fauna, socio economic life], they almost drew a blank.
What remains today as accounts of those periods are through intermediaries, mainly through the travelogues and in some passing comments in treatises on other subjects. The visitors came from far away land like Persia, China, mostly for trade purposes or for the sheer adventure of the unknown and once they stepped into this beautiful land with the richness of material and soul, they stayed on for years devouring what ever came across their way and left with bag full of documents and an enriched heart.
The Chinese came to take away the teachings of Buddha, besides selling their silk and earthen ware, but as again there was complete lack of enthusiasm in part of his disciples to share their Masters words of wisdom. The Hunan king invited monks to China and commissioned them to translate the wisdom of Buddhism in their language and as a result the volumes of Buddhist literature in China far exceed that of India.
In the 4th century B.C. there was an attempt by Kautilya through his epic Arthashastra, which although is a treatise on statecraft, politics, economics policy and military policy, gives us certain details about life and times of that period.
The Islamic conquerors maintained, like all military generals do, a daily log and that carried on even to the Mogul dynasty with Babar to Akbar maintaining a personal account [or through their courtesans, Akbar could not read or right] like Akbarnama [Book of Akbar]. Although it served more as a military document for Babar and Humayun, but in hands of Abul Fazl it took a more refined stance, but can in no way be treated as an unbiased account of the rule and life of the subjects at that time.
The history till independence of India has been flooded by the works of European historians whose accounts ranges from mythical to spiritual to upright derogatory.
Like the “History of India” was written by John Mill, who never visited the country and never spoke any local language. This format of history suited the British as their ulterior motive was to rule the country and it would be counterproductive for the British subjects to come over to a land and hit hard against a culture which is far superior in terms of its philosophical content than theirs.
The colonial rule left copious volumes of documents, the India House having more documents than even the Central Archives of India.
Orientalism, a word made famous by Edward Said in the 20th century, influenced a breed of Indian historians and they carried on writing history of the subcontinent immersed in the same sprit of Postmodernism. The writings depended more on the official documents of the British rule, with very little independent research, but was made more accessible to the general public at large.
If history was the life of a king, his conquests, his queens, his wealth then rendition in comics like Amar Chitra Katha would suffice. But history is more than that and modern history tries to delve more into the socio economic life of the subaltern in the rule of the king. But history is no science that it can be verified by experiments, the historians need to depend on what ever account is left from those times aided with some architectural evidence.
Any event in history can have three versions – one by the perpetrator, another by the affected and the third as an outsider perspective. All accounts have their own self bias and hence it becomes a matter of hard choice for the historian to write an unbiased view of the event without being influenced, partially or fully.
Mass in a socio political context is a mere number until or unless it is led to a certain activity, either in a constructive or destructive way and it is then that the mass gathers momentum and makes relevance. Mobilisation of the mass requires a tremendous effort by the leader and the leader can be a part of the mass or an outsider with a cause which appears to appeal to the mass. The stature of the leader is determined by the quantum of the mass moved – Mahatma Gandhi being one of the finest examples in India.
But it can be argued that a physical presence of a leader is not always needed to create a movement, with a clear distinction to be made between mass movement and mob.
In today’s socio political context, the society has been fragmented to suit the various political parties in terms of caste, creed, religion and other attributes. This also is for the purpose of obtaining maximum benefit from this fragmented mass, but it is also easier to derive “stimulus” that would sway this mass. If one thought that individual brilliance within the mass may negate this affect then it is only a presumption, because once you start believing in the “stimulus” your reasoning gets obfuscated by the greater cause.
A practical example is a Fire Alarm system in an office building. When the fire alarm rings, the people inside the building, irrespective of their rank [from the managing director to the bell boy] moves to a place outside the building in the designated “assembly point”. In this case the trigger for the mass movement [exodus] is inanimate, a mere electro-mechanical contraption called a fire alarm, the stimulus being the personal safety of the people inside the office building.
Neither Jawaharlal Nehru nor Indira Gandhi and her generations afterwards were mass leaders but were quite a contrary and the mass leader in Jayprakash Narayan never came even anywhere near to political power. But they had had cultivated the art of creating the stimulus with their strong official machinery.
While the Left parties and BJP has a clear ideology and to that extent also some of the regional parties like BSP [dalit ideology], RJD [social equality], but the oldest party of India, Congress is devoid of any ideology so as to speak.
The relevance of Congress ended with the independence, it was a forum which gave the voice of the Indians to reach the colonial rulers, but subsequent to independence and creation of India as a secular, democratic polity, Jawaharlal Nehru failed to create an ideology which could bind the party to their grass root supporters. The wind of nationalistic policy in terms of nation building based on socialistic principles played for a decade and with the waning of that spirit, there was the period of simmering disquiet, which Nehru could hardly handle and in many cases made blunders.
But behind the great veil of Socialism, he sowed the seeds of that nefarious “stimulus” which unknowingly has spread its tentacles and engulfed our daily lives which will be discussed in details subsequently.
“The Matrix” series by Wachowski Brothers borrowed heavily from the Buddhist or Vedic philosophy. It is a simple tale that tells that the computers have taken control of the humans, controlling their brains and thereby their actions, and how a group of “originals” try to fight out of this imperialistic control.
Movies like the “Enemy of the State” depict how every move in our life is monitored by the government, which is nothing more than a control of our lives. The control becomes easier if the polity believes is a similar ideology and do not contest any opposition to that ideology, the ideology can be religious, philosophical or political – but the central theme is to make the polity believe in that.
During the height of the “Cold War” the leftist states in India were flooded with books from Russian distributors like Mir and Vostok, highly subsidized. The collection varied from textbooks of basic science [some becoming as popular as to attain a textbook status] to writings on socio economic principles of Marxism.
Dmitri Mendeleev was a bigger figure as a true Russian than the proponent of the Periodic Table of Elements and for every scientific discovery of the allied West there exists a counterpart in the Soviet domain.
The state propaganda was drilled hard into the public domain and in fact they started believing what they were fed with as they were practically cut from the rest of the world.
Such was their faith in the leadership that in China, another Marxist block, nearly 30 million people died in Mao’s quest for transforming the traditional agrarian based Chinese economy into a modern communist society through the process of agriculturisation, industrilisation and collectivization.
The mass were in complete agreement with the principles of Mao Zedong, any rebellion being violently suppressed, in its Great Leap Forward which ultimately led to a famine and death of unparalleled proportions.
We may take pride in living in the worlds greatest democracy which adheres to secularity, is guided by jurisprudence and allowed by the constitution of freedom of speech which retains our free thinking and logical reasoning.
It is entirely another perspective, what if the ideas on which our reasoning pattern depends is based on a huge propaganda? What if what we have been taught through our school days is a clearly crafted play?
It has been assumed that not more than 1 to 2 mass leaders are needed per ten thousand people and a complete control over the minds of these leaders makes it easy for domination. Are we moving towards a Matrix like society where instead of computers there will be select few calling the shots?
This is the basis of the distortion of the Indian History, against which people are becoming aware only now, thanks to the efforts by the huge Diaspora who are investing their time, energy and money to uncover the truth and expose the culprits of systematic distortion of History.
Advancement in technology, free market, communication has helped in the spread of ideas which contradict the forty year period of systematic alienation of the people from the truth.
What remains today as accounts of those periods are through intermediaries, mainly through the travelogues and in some passing comments in treatises on other subjects. The visitors came from far away land like Persia, China, mostly for trade purposes or for the sheer adventure of the unknown and once they stepped into this beautiful land with the richness of material and soul, they stayed on for years devouring what ever came across their way and left with bag full of documents and an enriched heart.
The Chinese came to take away the teachings of Buddha, besides selling their silk and earthen ware, but as again there was complete lack of enthusiasm in part of his disciples to share their Masters words of wisdom. The Hunan king invited monks to China and commissioned them to translate the wisdom of Buddhism in their language and as a result the volumes of Buddhist literature in China far exceed that of India.
In the 4th century B.C. there was an attempt by Kautilya through his epic Arthashastra, which although is a treatise on statecraft, politics, economics policy and military policy, gives us certain details about life and times of that period.
The Islamic conquerors maintained, like all military generals do, a daily log and that carried on even to the Mogul dynasty with Babar to Akbar maintaining a personal account [or through their courtesans, Akbar could not read or right] like Akbarnama [Book of Akbar]. Although it served more as a military document for Babar and Humayun, but in hands of Abul Fazl it took a more refined stance, but can in no way be treated as an unbiased account of the rule and life of the subjects at that time.
The history till independence of India has been flooded by the works of European historians whose accounts ranges from mythical to spiritual to upright derogatory.
Like the “History of India” was written by John Mill, who never visited the country and never spoke any local language. This format of history suited the British as their ulterior motive was to rule the country and it would be counterproductive for the British subjects to come over to a land and hit hard against a culture which is far superior in terms of its philosophical content than theirs.
The colonial rule left copious volumes of documents, the India House having more documents than even the Central Archives of India.
Orientalism, a word made famous by Edward Said in the 20th century, influenced a breed of Indian historians and they carried on writing history of the subcontinent immersed in the same sprit of Postmodernism. The writings depended more on the official documents of the British rule, with very little independent research, but was made more accessible to the general public at large.
If history was the life of a king, his conquests, his queens, his wealth then rendition in comics like Amar Chitra Katha would suffice. But history is more than that and modern history tries to delve more into the socio economic life of the subaltern in the rule of the king. But history is no science that it can be verified by experiments, the historians need to depend on what ever account is left from those times aided with some architectural evidence.
Any event in history can have three versions – one by the perpetrator, another by the affected and the third as an outsider perspective. All accounts have their own self bias and hence it becomes a matter of hard choice for the historian to write an unbiased view of the event without being influenced, partially or fully.
Mass in a socio political context is a mere number until or unless it is led to a certain activity, either in a constructive or destructive way and it is then that the mass gathers momentum and makes relevance. Mobilisation of the mass requires a tremendous effort by the leader and the leader can be a part of the mass or an outsider with a cause which appears to appeal to the mass. The stature of the leader is determined by the quantum of the mass moved – Mahatma Gandhi being one of the finest examples in India.
But it can be argued that a physical presence of a leader is not always needed to create a movement, with a clear distinction to be made between mass movement and mob.
In today’s socio political context, the society has been fragmented to suit the various political parties in terms of caste, creed, religion and other attributes. This also is for the purpose of obtaining maximum benefit from this fragmented mass, but it is also easier to derive “stimulus” that would sway this mass. If one thought that individual brilliance within the mass may negate this affect then it is only a presumption, because once you start believing in the “stimulus” your reasoning gets obfuscated by the greater cause.
A practical example is a Fire Alarm system in an office building. When the fire alarm rings, the people inside the building, irrespective of their rank [from the managing director to the bell boy] moves to a place outside the building in the designated “assembly point”. In this case the trigger for the mass movement [exodus] is inanimate, a mere electro-mechanical contraption called a fire alarm, the stimulus being the personal safety of the people inside the office building.
Neither Jawaharlal Nehru nor Indira Gandhi and her generations afterwards were mass leaders but were quite a contrary and the mass leader in Jayprakash Narayan never came even anywhere near to political power. But they had had cultivated the art of creating the stimulus with their strong official machinery.
While the Left parties and BJP has a clear ideology and to that extent also some of the regional parties like BSP [dalit ideology], RJD [social equality], but the oldest party of India, Congress is devoid of any ideology so as to speak.
The relevance of Congress ended with the independence, it was a forum which gave the voice of the Indians to reach the colonial rulers, but subsequent to independence and creation of India as a secular, democratic polity, Jawaharlal Nehru failed to create an ideology which could bind the party to their grass root supporters. The wind of nationalistic policy in terms of nation building based on socialistic principles played for a decade and with the waning of that spirit, there was the period of simmering disquiet, which Nehru could hardly handle and in many cases made blunders.
But behind the great veil of Socialism, he sowed the seeds of that nefarious “stimulus” which unknowingly has spread its tentacles and engulfed our daily lives which will be discussed in details subsequently.
“The Matrix” series by Wachowski Brothers borrowed heavily from the Buddhist or Vedic philosophy. It is a simple tale that tells that the computers have taken control of the humans, controlling their brains and thereby their actions, and how a group of “originals” try to fight out of this imperialistic control.
Movies like the “Enemy of the State” depict how every move in our life is monitored by the government, which is nothing more than a control of our lives. The control becomes easier if the polity believes is a similar ideology and do not contest any opposition to that ideology, the ideology can be religious, philosophical or political – but the central theme is to make the polity believe in that.
During the height of the “Cold War” the leftist states in India were flooded with books from Russian distributors like Mir and Vostok, highly subsidized. The collection varied from textbooks of basic science [some becoming as popular as to attain a textbook status] to writings on socio economic principles of Marxism.
Dmitri Mendeleev was a bigger figure as a true Russian than the proponent of the Periodic Table of Elements and for every scientific discovery of the allied West there exists a counterpart in the Soviet domain.
The state propaganda was drilled hard into the public domain and in fact they started believing what they were fed with as they were practically cut from the rest of the world.
Such was their faith in the leadership that in China, another Marxist block, nearly 30 million people died in Mao’s quest for transforming the traditional agrarian based Chinese economy into a modern communist society through the process of agriculturisation, industrilisation and collectivization.
The mass were in complete agreement with the principles of Mao Zedong, any rebellion being violently suppressed, in its Great Leap Forward which ultimately led to a famine and death of unparalleled proportions.
We may take pride in living in the worlds greatest democracy which adheres to secularity, is guided by jurisprudence and allowed by the constitution of freedom of speech which retains our free thinking and logical reasoning.
It is entirely another perspective, what if the ideas on which our reasoning pattern depends is based on a huge propaganda? What if what we have been taught through our school days is a clearly crafted play?
It has been assumed that not more than 1 to 2 mass leaders are needed per ten thousand people and a complete control over the minds of these leaders makes it easy for domination. Are we moving towards a Matrix like society where instead of computers there will be select few calling the shots?
This is the basis of the distortion of the Indian History, against which people are becoming aware only now, thanks to the efforts by the huge Diaspora who are investing their time, energy and money to uncover the truth and expose the culprits of systematic distortion of History.
Advancement in technology, free market, communication has helped in the spread of ideas which contradict the forty year period of systematic alienation of the people from the truth.
Monday, July 26, 2010
SHARDA & "Us"
The maid, Sharda, who comes to our house to do the daily chores, gets two thousand rupees at the end of the month. No weekly holidays and if by chance she falls sick or takes a day off I can feel the faint sound of vuvuzela [my wife’s grudging grumble] polluting the house.
She has a son and a daughter to support beside a husband who does some odd jobs, but mostly sits at home. She can manage to work at five more homes like ours, and armed with around twelve thousand rupees she wages a battle against WPI & CPI, which seems to be growing stronger day by day with no effective resistance whatsoever and seems to have even overpowered our very own soft spoken, weak Prime Minister, who is a wizard in economics.
Sharda sends her children to school and schools like all great business institutions have no room for sympathy, except for the devil [read people with money and power]. Our education minister has declared that education is the right of every children, but like that fabled word of Dronacharya, the silent or whispering, “iti Gaja” was left out by the media [may be they could also not hear it].
Kapil Sibal’s conscience is clear as water from the Ganges near its tributary [more mud than water] and hence skipping the entrance to the school he is more focused on the abolition of exams for students of the age where finding a girlfriend is of more substance that Newton’s Third Law.
Sharda does not read Economic Times, for that matter she does not read at all, she is clearly leading a life as delineated by the great Hindu scriptures, submitting herself to “karma” without any expectations. Newspapers, televisions are all treated by her as luxuries of life, which when avoided will lead her to the “stairway to heaven”.
She has never heard of terms like WPI and CPI and a mention of the same would lead to a Freudian slip of Communist Party of India [CPI] having to counter another political opponent in the next assembly elections.
Every day she rues that it is getting difficult to meet ends, a fact also echoed by my wife, although the level of their difficulties may well be related to two lines in parallel planes.
She gets a raise every year and that raise is not measured by the inflation, cost of living or even meeting targets or performance, but by shear gut feeling of my wife, which I would say may not be as perfect as the HR initiatives of Fortune 500 companies but leaves not much room for complaint. The measure of the practice is testified by the fact that she is with us for last three years and promises to continue barring any untoward incidents.
There have been some houses where the annual increment was met with resistance, but Sharda alone could not carry on the fight as she has more than a dozen competitors lined outside the house to replace her. This is the advantage some people take, maybe they are wiser in the tricks of the world and my wife keeps wandering why she could not be like them. Such virtues are in great demand in today’s world and it takes more than intelligence to learn them. It is more like flying a plane, where the hardness of your twin assets matter more than your grey matter.
Sharda does not know who Sharad Pawar is, but she knows that her children get less and less diet every passing day. Even if she knew detailed biography of Sharad Pawar she could not have done much as before an election she votes for the party who gives her the maximum ration, which hardly runs for a week. Neither does she know about Murli Deora, whose sleight of hand has led her to preserve as much of kerosene as possible and the family has adapted to eating half boiled rice.
But I envy her; she does not have to bother about the white elephant “automobile” and does not have to travel in those, oh so dirty public transport, rubbing your shoulder and smell with “oh, those dirty public”. In fact there will be a smirk in her face if she finds out she is in the same bus as I am.
Sharda likes Rahul Gandhi, I never came to know why but she says that next time she will vote for whichever party Rahul Gandhi stands for. She also has doubts if Rahul Gandhi will campaign for CPI [Congress Party of Indira] or Forza Italia. From the time she heard that Rahul Gandhi is visiting the home of Dalits and poor, she has bought and kept a nice blanket along with a new set of Stainless Steel plate and glass. She also made a list of things that she would prepare and a list of demands had been drafted by her son in English.
But off late both mother and son have gone into hibernation and she blames the opposition, the anti nationalist, communal BJP, for their absence.
She has dreams and lives by her dreams. She dreams of her son becoming a graduate, getting into a well paid job, getting married to a girl from a good family, having a new house full with the pitter patter of her grandchildren and she, stopped with years of hard work rather than age, will cherish those moments.
Dreams of common man, dreams which will mostly remain dreams and this Sharda will continue till her daughter in law or daughter becomes the next Sharda.
Not a soul will cry, life will go along as it goes, till Sharda gets her next year’s increment.
She has a son and a daughter to support beside a husband who does some odd jobs, but mostly sits at home. She can manage to work at five more homes like ours, and armed with around twelve thousand rupees she wages a battle against WPI & CPI, which seems to be growing stronger day by day with no effective resistance whatsoever and seems to have even overpowered our very own soft spoken, weak Prime Minister, who is a wizard in economics.
Sharda sends her children to school and schools like all great business institutions have no room for sympathy, except for the devil [read people with money and power]. Our education minister has declared that education is the right of every children, but like that fabled word of Dronacharya, the silent or whispering, “iti Gaja” was left out by the media [may be they could also not hear it].
Kapil Sibal’s conscience is clear as water from the Ganges near its tributary [more mud than water] and hence skipping the entrance to the school he is more focused on the abolition of exams for students of the age where finding a girlfriend is of more substance that Newton’s Third Law.
Sharda does not read Economic Times, for that matter she does not read at all, she is clearly leading a life as delineated by the great Hindu scriptures, submitting herself to “karma” without any expectations. Newspapers, televisions are all treated by her as luxuries of life, which when avoided will lead her to the “stairway to heaven”.
She has never heard of terms like WPI and CPI and a mention of the same would lead to a Freudian slip of Communist Party of India [CPI] having to counter another political opponent in the next assembly elections.
Every day she rues that it is getting difficult to meet ends, a fact also echoed by my wife, although the level of their difficulties may well be related to two lines in parallel planes.
She gets a raise every year and that raise is not measured by the inflation, cost of living or even meeting targets or performance, but by shear gut feeling of my wife, which I would say may not be as perfect as the HR initiatives of Fortune 500 companies but leaves not much room for complaint. The measure of the practice is testified by the fact that she is with us for last three years and promises to continue barring any untoward incidents.
There have been some houses where the annual increment was met with resistance, but Sharda alone could not carry on the fight as she has more than a dozen competitors lined outside the house to replace her. This is the advantage some people take, maybe they are wiser in the tricks of the world and my wife keeps wandering why she could not be like them. Such virtues are in great demand in today’s world and it takes more than intelligence to learn them. It is more like flying a plane, where the hardness of your twin assets matter more than your grey matter.
Sharda does not know who Sharad Pawar is, but she knows that her children get less and less diet every passing day. Even if she knew detailed biography of Sharad Pawar she could not have done much as before an election she votes for the party who gives her the maximum ration, which hardly runs for a week. Neither does she know about Murli Deora, whose sleight of hand has led her to preserve as much of kerosene as possible and the family has adapted to eating half boiled rice.
But I envy her; she does not have to bother about the white elephant “automobile” and does not have to travel in those, oh so dirty public transport, rubbing your shoulder and smell with “oh, those dirty public”. In fact there will be a smirk in her face if she finds out she is in the same bus as I am.
Sharda likes Rahul Gandhi, I never came to know why but she says that next time she will vote for whichever party Rahul Gandhi stands for. She also has doubts if Rahul Gandhi will campaign for CPI [Congress Party of Indira] or Forza Italia. From the time she heard that Rahul Gandhi is visiting the home of Dalits and poor, she has bought and kept a nice blanket along with a new set of Stainless Steel plate and glass. She also made a list of things that she would prepare and a list of demands had been drafted by her son in English.
But off late both mother and son have gone into hibernation and she blames the opposition, the anti nationalist, communal BJP, for their absence.
She has dreams and lives by her dreams. She dreams of her son becoming a graduate, getting into a well paid job, getting married to a girl from a good family, having a new house full with the pitter patter of her grandchildren and she, stopped with years of hard work rather than age, will cherish those moments.
Dreams of common man, dreams which will mostly remain dreams and this Sharda will continue till her daughter in law or daughter becomes the next Sharda.
Not a soul will cry, life will go along as it goes, till Sharda gets her next year’s increment.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Bhopal - May you rest in Peace
The growth figures of India makes us all so very conceited. We take pride in the fact that India has weathered the storm of recession better than any of the developed countries. The internal consumption led by the infamous middle class, government expenditure at the risk of increasing the fiscal deficit and inflow of foreign capital as a safe parking place had contributed to the growth. The political class is vying for the credit whether with the BJP’s “India Shining” campaign [which was a sort of blunder] or the Congress’s untoward affection for the “Common Man”.
The basic question arises if we are capable of handling such growth? Are we self disciplined enough to respect this fantastic opportunity that has been bestowed on us?
On the seventh of June the landmark judgement was passed by the court on the Bhopal Gas tragedy. The tragedy happened in 1984, when the Congress government headed by Rajiv Gandhi was at the centre and the undivided state of Madhya Pradesh had Arjun Singh [who recently fell out of favour of the Congress high command] as the Chief Minister.
Bhopal, even today is considered to be a tier 3 city, in spite of it being the capital of Madhya Pradesh. It had very few industries [Union Carbide India Limited was one of the biggest, apart from BHEL] and India was still reeling under a license Raj. The leakage of the MIC [methyl isocyanate] killed nearly 20,000 people and maimed an entire generation [some five hundred thousand people were affected by the gas and has permanent disabilities]. It is considered as one of the worst of the industrial tragedies that happened in the planet.
Candle light protests were not a fashion during those days; we were more Indian than westernized. The social activists tirelessly campaigned but the might of the government and the corporation is something even God will find difficult to fight against, and that to a corrupt government and a rogue corporation.
After 26 year and the fresh verdict there is renewed interest in the case and as usual we like rumination. We get wiser in afterthoughts.
The news channels are fielding their “best man” for the show to raise their TRPs. Is anyone concerned for real justice? I do not think so. Every morning we need some spicy news to make our day – death, tragedy, injustice – all such incidents make us feel a little better before we commence on our daily boring grind.
UCIL flouted safety norms in lieu of saving money like we do every day, not wearing a helmet while riding a two wheeler, carrying more load than a tuck can bear, carrying more passengers in a car than what is prescribed for a truck and the list goes on. They ran the plant with little or no maintenance and on depleted manpower [cost cutting had always been a fashion for multinationals for making more profits]. It was a very American way of operation, typified by running a subsidiary as an illegitimate son.
But is UCIL to blame for all these? Everyone is running after Warren Anderson, who was the Chairman of Union carbide at that point of time. One news channel in their unbridled imagination compared him with Adolf Hitler. What was his fault? He was born in a country where his mother taught him from his birth how to love the color GREEN. It was in his blood, capitalism is written large on every American. But India, which always had been on the fringes of so called socialism, what did she do repudiate the diabolical plans of the corporation? Our governments are always effete against corporation, whether foreign or innate.
Every country has strict specifications published by statutory bodies. India also does have such bodies like the Pollution Control Board, the Bureau of Indian Standards and so many others. They all have been legacies of our colonial rule and after independence, they fluttered like headless chicken. They clung to the old British Standards of the forties and never ever thought of revising them.
There are hardly any guidelines for installation of hazardous chemicals, electrical installations or anything that can lead to danger to society at large. Such is the apathy of the government and its obstinate departments to change that still today we lose more than a thousand lives every year in industrial accidents only.
Any government regulatory board can be bought or influenced with and that is not new – so the verdict of this case does not ring a new bell anyhow.
The chemical hub of Ankleswar has toxic levels which can reduce the life of people staying there by more than ten years – but the industrialists and the government take cognizance of the fact that in a country with a population of more than a billion such exigencies are always pardonable.
As a citizen we are equally culpable. More we are educated more is our disrespect for the law. A degree in engineering or medicine makes us immune to the constitution of India – we detest standing in a queue as it undermines our privilege of education. We hate to follow the lane discipline while driving as we want to prove to the world how important our role in office is for the survival of the nation.
I find one dialogue from Spiderman very apt, “With great power come greater responsibilities.”
Who are we trying to blame? It would always be between us and them as that best suits our status quo.
The victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy were mostly people from labor class. They only have the number on their side, but not the relevant voice. Their voices pass through us, who refine it, mould it and use it for our own good.
For few good days the new channels, media will come with more and more revelations until people are fed up and then Bhopal will be once again forgotten till we again wake up from slumber to another new tragedy, the opposition will try to harass the government, the government will defend all allegations to their teeth, Arjun Singh’s stoic silence will renew his bargaining power [what goes up always comes down and the old man will have the last laugh before he dies] and the victims will lay buried in injustice simply because they cannot recite ‘Jack and Jill’ or differentiate between a wine from Boudreaux or Burgundy.
The Wikipedia page on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy has a lot of interesting information. It may be a good read on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I recommend the same and do not forget your wine as tragedy is to be relished until it strikes you.
The basic question arises if we are capable of handling such growth? Are we self disciplined enough to respect this fantastic opportunity that has been bestowed on us?
On the seventh of June the landmark judgement was passed by the court on the Bhopal Gas tragedy. The tragedy happened in 1984, when the Congress government headed by Rajiv Gandhi was at the centre and the undivided state of Madhya Pradesh had Arjun Singh [who recently fell out of favour of the Congress high command] as the Chief Minister.
Bhopal, even today is considered to be a tier 3 city, in spite of it being the capital of Madhya Pradesh. It had very few industries [Union Carbide India Limited was one of the biggest, apart from BHEL] and India was still reeling under a license Raj. The leakage of the MIC [methyl isocyanate] killed nearly 20,000 people and maimed an entire generation [some five hundred thousand people were affected by the gas and has permanent disabilities]. It is considered as one of the worst of the industrial tragedies that happened in the planet.
Candle light protests were not a fashion during those days; we were more Indian than westernized. The social activists tirelessly campaigned but the might of the government and the corporation is something even God will find difficult to fight against, and that to a corrupt government and a rogue corporation.
After 26 year and the fresh verdict there is renewed interest in the case and as usual we like rumination. We get wiser in afterthoughts.
The news channels are fielding their “best man” for the show to raise their TRPs. Is anyone concerned for real justice? I do not think so. Every morning we need some spicy news to make our day – death, tragedy, injustice – all such incidents make us feel a little better before we commence on our daily boring grind.
UCIL flouted safety norms in lieu of saving money like we do every day, not wearing a helmet while riding a two wheeler, carrying more load than a tuck can bear, carrying more passengers in a car than what is prescribed for a truck and the list goes on. They ran the plant with little or no maintenance and on depleted manpower [cost cutting had always been a fashion for multinationals for making more profits]. It was a very American way of operation, typified by running a subsidiary as an illegitimate son.
But is UCIL to blame for all these? Everyone is running after Warren Anderson, who was the Chairman of Union carbide at that point of time. One news channel in their unbridled imagination compared him with Adolf Hitler. What was his fault? He was born in a country where his mother taught him from his birth how to love the color GREEN. It was in his blood, capitalism is written large on every American. But India, which always had been on the fringes of so called socialism, what did she do repudiate the diabolical plans of the corporation? Our governments are always effete against corporation, whether foreign or innate.
Every country has strict specifications published by statutory bodies. India also does have such bodies like the Pollution Control Board, the Bureau of Indian Standards and so many others. They all have been legacies of our colonial rule and after independence, they fluttered like headless chicken. They clung to the old British Standards of the forties and never ever thought of revising them.
There are hardly any guidelines for installation of hazardous chemicals, electrical installations or anything that can lead to danger to society at large. Such is the apathy of the government and its obstinate departments to change that still today we lose more than a thousand lives every year in industrial accidents only.
Any government regulatory board can be bought or influenced with and that is not new – so the verdict of this case does not ring a new bell anyhow.
The chemical hub of Ankleswar has toxic levels which can reduce the life of people staying there by more than ten years – but the industrialists and the government take cognizance of the fact that in a country with a population of more than a billion such exigencies are always pardonable.
As a citizen we are equally culpable. More we are educated more is our disrespect for the law. A degree in engineering or medicine makes us immune to the constitution of India – we detest standing in a queue as it undermines our privilege of education. We hate to follow the lane discipline while driving as we want to prove to the world how important our role in office is for the survival of the nation.
I find one dialogue from Spiderman very apt, “With great power come greater responsibilities.”
Who are we trying to blame? It would always be between us and them as that best suits our status quo.
The victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy were mostly people from labor class. They only have the number on their side, but not the relevant voice. Their voices pass through us, who refine it, mould it and use it for our own good.
For few good days the new channels, media will come with more and more revelations until people are fed up and then Bhopal will be once again forgotten till we again wake up from slumber to another new tragedy, the opposition will try to harass the government, the government will defend all allegations to their teeth, Arjun Singh’s stoic silence will renew his bargaining power [what goes up always comes down and the old man will have the last laugh before he dies] and the victims will lay buried in injustice simply because they cannot recite ‘Jack and Jill’ or differentiate between a wine from Boudreaux or Burgundy.
The Wikipedia page on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy has a lot of interesting information. It may be a good read on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I recommend the same and do not forget your wine as tragedy is to be relished until it strikes you.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Naushad from Morocco
It was in the winter of 1997 I reached Prien am Chiemsee, a small town in the Bavarian region of Germany. This was my first trip outside India [I believe we consider Nepal as an illegal extension of India] and that to, to a country where they speak in a strange language as if they are having a fight.
Prien has a small centre for learning German language, at that time was run by Frau Rothkirch. The institute bears her name – Language Institute Von Rothkirch.
All people who were coming to Germany for the first time, from different part of the world and working for different divisions of Siemens AG, had to spend at least one month for learning the basics of the language.
It also served as a melting pot of diverse cultures and getting to know them.
Prien had a very elderly population. The old couples, mostly retired and living alone, rented their house to the students. It also helped the students in picking up German faster as they hardly spoke anything but German, that to countryside German [Bayerisches Deutsch].
I was allotted a room with a lady called Frau Neumann. There were two rooms in the attic and I was told to choose one.
She told me that the next room was booked for a gentleman from Pakistan [although I was expecting a lady from Russia]. It gave me a subtle pleasure that at least I would not spent hours talking in English or broken German. On the other hand it was also the first time I would meet a Pakistani – flesh and blood. The 1993 Mumbai bomb blast was still fresh and the word Pakistani did not evoke much camaraderie in my mind.
Naushad Alam checked in around four in the afternoon. He was very thin [I found out when he removed his warm clothes], around the same height as mine, bespectacled and I could feel him shivering beneath the layer of three coats that he was wearing and in spite of the heater turned full on.
We shook hands, introduced each other in English and then he went to his room to get fresh and change.
He came back to my room, looking a bit fresh but I could feel that he was a bit scared. I made him a cup of tea and offered him some biscuits.
He sat there in the bed, palms crossed between his legs, shivering in pulses. He seemed as innocent as a terrorist.
He was from Karachi and had joined Siemens only a year back. He has never travelled outside Karachi, leave aside being abroad. His chance came by proxy as the person who was originally scheduled to come fell sick. In a short notice he had to make arrangements, like getting his passport and then visa, buying warm clothes, food items, pressure cooker, pulses etc. He paid almost the same amount as his ticket fare in excess baggage and it was only a miracle how he lifted his stuff alone on the second floor of the building.
He was so shy that he refused to lift his face up while speaking to me. I felt a little disconcerting but carried on the conversation. Naushad spoke in a very soft voice, as if he has not yet reached his puberty.
“It is so stupid that in spite of being neighboring countries we are speaking in English.” said Naushad.
“Yes, but as per rules we should be speaking German. By the way what language do you speak?”
“I speak Urdu only, and you?”
“I speak Bengali, the language they speak in erstwhile East Pakistan and a bit of Hindi.”
“No, I do not understand any of the languages.”
“But Hindi is not that different from Urdu, except for the script.”
“Maybe, but I have never heard the language. But I heard that many in India speak Urdu.”
“Yes, maybe in the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad and Lucknow.”
“Ah! Hyderabad, which was invaded by the Indian army and forcefully annexed it to the Indian state.”
I was totally foxed by his statement, Hyderabad – attacked by Indian Army – annexed. It was a total spin and I was left flabbergasted.
“Your army also invaded Goa and more so many people got killed, India was acting fascist at that time.”
We were sitting and having our discussion in a country which has a history of Fascism about forty years back, but no one has dared call India fascist.
“And what you did in Nagaland, killing the tribal, just because they refused to be a part of the Indian state and demanded their freedom. Their leader Phizo was exiled and continued the fight from England.”
“Excuse me, Phizo who?” I was almost sweating.
The soft spoken, gentle Pakistani was telling me the history of my own country which I was totally unaware off or was it a Pakistani propaganda.
I told him that I need to go out and make a call to my family. I rushed to the nearest telephone booth and called my father and asked in sequence what Naushad had told me. It was a part of history post independence and who in the world of our age cared about history.
But some countries do like Pakistan. When you want to inflict hatred against someone a counter productive history comes handy.
You obfuscate a part of it, mould it to suit your goals and brainwash the people. Pakistan had no history – a country only forty years old and having a series of leadership change, junta rules, and a country born on the principle of hatred cannot have a history.
Few days later, when we realized that I can understand his Urdu and he can somehow understand my Hindi [which he kept on arguing was Urdu, but the fascist Indian government gave a new name] I had asked him about his roots.
He thought for a moment and then he said with a smile,” We are decedents of a business family from Morocco, who came to make is fortune in Afghanistan and later settled in Karachi after Pakistan was formed.”
Naushad Alam would never even have a shadow of India cross his frame.
Prien has a small centre for learning German language, at that time was run by Frau Rothkirch. The institute bears her name – Language Institute Von Rothkirch.
All people who were coming to Germany for the first time, from different part of the world and working for different divisions of Siemens AG, had to spend at least one month for learning the basics of the language.
It also served as a melting pot of diverse cultures and getting to know them.
Prien had a very elderly population. The old couples, mostly retired and living alone, rented their house to the students. It also helped the students in picking up German faster as they hardly spoke anything but German, that to countryside German [Bayerisches Deutsch].
I was allotted a room with a lady called Frau Neumann. There were two rooms in the attic and I was told to choose one.
She told me that the next room was booked for a gentleman from Pakistan [although I was expecting a lady from Russia]. It gave me a subtle pleasure that at least I would not spent hours talking in English or broken German. On the other hand it was also the first time I would meet a Pakistani – flesh and blood. The 1993 Mumbai bomb blast was still fresh and the word Pakistani did not evoke much camaraderie in my mind.
Naushad Alam checked in around four in the afternoon. He was very thin [I found out when he removed his warm clothes], around the same height as mine, bespectacled and I could feel him shivering beneath the layer of three coats that he was wearing and in spite of the heater turned full on.
We shook hands, introduced each other in English and then he went to his room to get fresh and change.
He came back to my room, looking a bit fresh but I could feel that he was a bit scared. I made him a cup of tea and offered him some biscuits.
He sat there in the bed, palms crossed between his legs, shivering in pulses. He seemed as innocent as a terrorist.
He was from Karachi and had joined Siemens only a year back. He has never travelled outside Karachi, leave aside being abroad. His chance came by proxy as the person who was originally scheduled to come fell sick. In a short notice he had to make arrangements, like getting his passport and then visa, buying warm clothes, food items, pressure cooker, pulses etc. He paid almost the same amount as his ticket fare in excess baggage and it was only a miracle how he lifted his stuff alone on the second floor of the building.
He was so shy that he refused to lift his face up while speaking to me. I felt a little disconcerting but carried on the conversation. Naushad spoke in a very soft voice, as if he has not yet reached his puberty.
“It is so stupid that in spite of being neighboring countries we are speaking in English.” said Naushad.
“Yes, but as per rules we should be speaking German. By the way what language do you speak?”
“I speak Urdu only, and you?”
“I speak Bengali, the language they speak in erstwhile East Pakistan and a bit of Hindi.”
“No, I do not understand any of the languages.”
“But Hindi is not that different from Urdu, except for the script.”
“Maybe, but I have never heard the language. But I heard that many in India speak Urdu.”
“Yes, maybe in the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad and Lucknow.”
“Ah! Hyderabad, which was invaded by the Indian army and forcefully annexed it to the Indian state.”
I was totally foxed by his statement, Hyderabad – attacked by Indian Army – annexed. It was a total spin and I was left flabbergasted.
“Your army also invaded Goa and more so many people got killed, India was acting fascist at that time.”
We were sitting and having our discussion in a country which has a history of Fascism about forty years back, but no one has dared call India fascist.
“And what you did in Nagaland, killing the tribal, just because they refused to be a part of the Indian state and demanded their freedom. Their leader Phizo was exiled and continued the fight from England.”
“Excuse me, Phizo who?” I was almost sweating.
The soft spoken, gentle Pakistani was telling me the history of my own country which I was totally unaware off or was it a Pakistani propaganda.
I told him that I need to go out and make a call to my family. I rushed to the nearest telephone booth and called my father and asked in sequence what Naushad had told me. It was a part of history post independence and who in the world of our age cared about history.
But some countries do like Pakistan. When you want to inflict hatred against someone a counter productive history comes handy.
You obfuscate a part of it, mould it to suit your goals and brainwash the people. Pakistan had no history – a country only forty years old and having a series of leadership change, junta rules, and a country born on the principle of hatred cannot have a history.
Few days later, when we realized that I can understand his Urdu and he can somehow understand my Hindi [which he kept on arguing was Urdu, but the fascist Indian government gave a new name] I had asked him about his roots.
He thought for a moment and then he said with a smile,” We are decedents of a business family from Morocco, who came to make is fortune in Afghanistan and later settled in Karachi after Pakistan was formed.”
Naushad Alam would never even have a shadow of India cross his frame.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
My Misadventures in USA -Part II
“I speak American.”
“How is it different from English?”
“English is spoken by the natives of England.”
“Yes, I understand, but how is your language different?”
When asked, “How are you?” we say,” I am good” and they say,” I am doing fine.”
“Anything more, that’s just an expression. I mean, semantically is there a difference?”
“Look here, my friend, we speak American and you ask those darn Brits what’s the difference?”
The first morning breakfast did not make me any wiser about the American way of life, but at least it was the beginning. The Americans are generally happy go lucky kind; take things as they come, not going deep or into the root of anything, quite superficial, which is in a way good and in a way bad.
When you meet anyone, irrespective of the fact that you are total strangers, you are always met with a greeting,”Hey, how are you doing today?” By the time you can gather your breath and mutter,” I am fine, what about you?” the person will be a mile [see, I started talking miles] away from you. But, it’s alright; it’s the thought that counts.
Our training was quite fun, the Americans have a nice way of presentation. It was much less of training but more of an interaction, the deeper understandings being told with lively anecdotes. Of the four days of training we only had a slide show of ten minutes and the rest all were like Hans Anderson stories.
The group was quite diverse, there were four people from Quebec, Canada and they spoke more French than American [English], three guys were from North Carolina and the heaviest among them [which already clarifies that all were overweight] kept on humming a CCR number, and I was the lone Indian and that too a dark one.
The organizers everyday placed a huge box full of Donuts of different types. After having one I realized why “Type One” Diabetes and obesity is so popular in USA, but went on to have more than four everyday and realized that it’s not the fault of the people but the Donut manufacturer, it is so difficult to resist.
Rockford in April was by no imagination hot, temperatures were hovering between three to twelve degree centigrade and a hot steaming coffee was my constant companion. But my friends in the class did not agree with me. While I was helping myself with hot coffee, they were filling their cups with crushed ice. Some chewed on the ice, making an awful noise and running a shiver in my spine, others just sipped at intervals to have the water from melted ice. Later I found that wherever you go and ask for water they will give you cold water with ice cubes. Some things in life are beyond logic and I treated this as one of them.
I was ready for the breakfast on the second day, ordered eggs [there is nothing singular in US, all are big, oversized] to be made nice and easy with brown bread and sausages with coffee on the go. Felt so satisfied. One of the French guys ordered for pancakes with maple syrup. When it was served, it reminded me of “set dosa” served with molasses.
My friend took me for dinner that night. It was a nice place, a sports bar sort of, but they also served the best steak in Rockford. Rockford is a small town and I think there are not much of Indians that live there.
The young bartender was nice and friendly and asked me,” What can I get you for a drink, Kingfisher or Stella Artois?” It was smart of him as it proved that he knows the taste of people as per their nationality.
For the main course I had already decided to try the Sirloin steak with mashed potato. The following conversation followed:
“So gentlemen, have you decided on the main course, the kitchen is about to close in one hours time.”
“I will have the Sirloin steak with mashed potato and ribs.”
“What’s the portion you want, six, eight or eleven ounce?”
“I will go for eleven ounce”
“How would you like to have your steak – rare, medium or well done?”
“Medium, I guess [I just want to eat my cow].”
“Will it be rare medium or medium well done?”
“Simply medium, I mean medium-medium.”
“That’s great; you would like to have salad or French fries along with the steak?”
“Salad, please.” [Please let me have my food, the kitchen will close by the time you are finished with the order].
“What dressing would you like to have with the salad?”
Now, that was enough, I could not take it any more.
“Tahina mixed with Hummus topped with crushed Mutabel.”
This completely unsettled the young man. He has never heard of these Middle Eastern concoctions in his life.
Still he faced up to my challenge and said,” Sorry, Sir, we don’t have those dressings – it does not go well with our salad.”
Now the address turned to a polite “Sir”.
“Do you have Thousand Island or Miracle Whip?” I was complete novice when it comes to salad dressing – but these names I have seen when I had been to Subways.
The bartender almost broke down,” No, Sir, we only have Ranch, Blue Cheese and French dressing and I will serve you samples of all and whatever you like I will serve you more.”
“Thank you; please rush before the kitchen closes.”
It gave me a good feeling to win a small physiological battle, but the steak was one of the best one I ever had in my life.
“How is it different from English?”
“English is spoken by the natives of England.”
“Yes, I understand, but how is your language different?”
When asked, “How are you?” we say,” I am good” and they say,” I am doing fine.”
“Anything more, that’s just an expression. I mean, semantically is there a difference?”
“Look here, my friend, we speak American and you ask those darn Brits what’s the difference?”
The first morning breakfast did not make me any wiser about the American way of life, but at least it was the beginning. The Americans are generally happy go lucky kind; take things as they come, not going deep or into the root of anything, quite superficial, which is in a way good and in a way bad.
When you meet anyone, irrespective of the fact that you are total strangers, you are always met with a greeting,”Hey, how are you doing today?” By the time you can gather your breath and mutter,” I am fine, what about you?” the person will be a mile [see, I started talking miles] away from you. But, it’s alright; it’s the thought that counts.
Our training was quite fun, the Americans have a nice way of presentation. It was much less of training but more of an interaction, the deeper understandings being told with lively anecdotes. Of the four days of training we only had a slide show of ten minutes and the rest all were like Hans Anderson stories.
The group was quite diverse, there were four people from Quebec, Canada and they spoke more French than American [English], three guys were from North Carolina and the heaviest among them [which already clarifies that all were overweight] kept on humming a CCR number, and I was the lone Indian and that too a dark one.
The organizers everyday placed a huge box full of Donuts of different types. After having one I realized why “Type One” Diabetes and obesity is so popular in USA, but went on to have more than four everyday and realized that it’s not the fault of the people but the Donut manufacturer, it is so difficult to resist.
Rockford in April was by no imagination hot, temperatures were hovering between three to twelve degree centigrade and a hot steaming coffee was my constant companion. But my friends in the class did not agree with me. While I was helping myself with hot coffee, they were filling their cups with crushed ice. Some chewed on the ice, making an awful noise and running a shiver in my spine, others just sipped at intervals to have the water from melted ice. Later I found that wherever you go and ask for water they will give you cold water with ice cubes. Some things in life are beyond logic and I treated this as one of them.
I was ready for the breakfast on the second day, ordered eggs [there is nothing singular in US, all are big, oversized] to be made nice and easy with brown bread and sausages with coffee on the go. Felt so satisfied. One of the French guys ordered for pancakes with maple syrup. When it was served, it reminded me of “set dosa” served with molasses.
My friend took me for dinner that night. It was a nice place, a sports bar sort of, but they also served the best steak in Rockford. Rockford is a small town and I think there are not much of Indians that live there.
The young bartender was nice and friendly and asked me,” What can I get you for a drink, Kingfisher or Stella Artois?” It was smart of him as it proved that he knows the taste of people as per their nationality.
For the main course I had already decided to try the Sirloin steak with mashed potato. The following conversation followed:
“So gentlemen, have you decided on the main course, the kitchen is about to close in one hours time.”
“I will have the Sirloin steak with mashed potato and ribs.”
“What’s the portion you want, six, eight or eleven ounce?”
“I will go for eleven ounce”
“How would you like to have your steak – rare, medium or well done?”
“Medium, I guess [I just want to eat my cow].”
“Will it be rare medium or medium well done?”
“Simply medium, I mean medium-medium.”
“That’s great; you would like to have salad or French fries along with the steak?”
“Salad, please.” [Please let me have my food, the kitchen will close by the time you are finished with the order].
“What dressing would you like to have with the salad?”
Now, that was enough, I could not take it any more.
“Tahina mixed with Hummus topped with crushed Mutabel.”
This completely unsettled the young man. He has never heard of these Middle Eastern concoctions in his life.
Still he faced up to my challenge and said,” Sorry, Sir, we don’t have those dressings – it does not go well with our salad.”
Now the address turned to a polite “Sir”.
“Do you have Thousand Island or Miracle Whip?” I was complete novice when it comes to salad dressing – but these names I have seen when I had been to Subways.
The bartender almost broke down,” No, Sir, we only have Ranch, Blue Cheese and French dressing and I will serve you samples of all and whatever you like I will serve you more.”
“Thank you; please rush before the kitchen closes.”
It gave me a good feeling to win a small physiological battle, but the steak was one of the best one I ever had in my life.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
My Misadventure's in U.S.A - Part I
The Lufthansa flight, which was the first one to take off from Frankfurt to cross the Atlantic defying the dictums of the met department and the volcanic ashes, landed in Chicago O’Hara International airport in the wee hours of the morning. The airport was deserted except for few duty bound officials.
I had my turn in the immigration with a middle aged lady, who wanted to laugh out loud looking at the condition of the passengers but as per the training imparted on her had to maintain a stern face. After taking all forms of prints of my body parts and some frivolous questions, answered by equally mundane answers, she put a stamp on my visa and said,” Have fun.”
By the time I checked into the hotel, The Clock Tower in Rockford, it was around two in the morning and way past my sleeping hours. The lady in the reception handed my two access cards for the room to which I sheepishly asked,” Are they both for the room?”
May be it was a dumb question as she stared at me and said,” Excuse me.”
I took the strength to ask again,” Are these keys to the same room?”
She shook her head in disbelief and said, “Yes, any problems?” No, I realized I was in United States of America, where things are different if not somewhat through [as per them and stupid as per me].
I had been in Gulf countries and realized that they do things completely different from how we do things back here in India. That was contributed by the humorous fact that Muslims do exactly opposite to that of Hindus.
I nearly spend ten minutes trying to open the door, inserting that card, taking it out, waiting for the green light to blink and push the door lever down to enter. I am not a simpleton and it is not that it was by first visit abroad from Jhumritalaiya.
I went back to the reception, expressed my inability to enter my room. By now she was quite irritated; because I found out that I was causing a rift between her and her big fat burger [at two in the night?].
She came along me, after whispering a little sweet nothing to her burger [that meant a big bite] did the same things I did till she lifted the door knob UP to let me in. It was a second welcome to Uncle Sam’s land.
Since I could not sleep I tried to see all gadgets in the room, tried operating them [if it did not work in my way I always tried the opposite and in most cases it worked, they took pity and left the TV remote unchanged – Green button for ON and Red for OFF] and then realized that I was once again in trouble.
My hand phone was telling me to feed her with energy and there was a complete mismatch with the plug and the socket. I had one adaptor for Germany, Britain, Australia and even one for Mocondo, but nothing would go in. It was like a strict no, no without Durex [in America, use American].
Next day, early in the morning, I made my first trip to the famously infamous Walmart [thank god, they are open 24X7] and picked up an “all American adapter for the rest of the world” for $ twenty. My initiations to America were quite costly.
When I came back, participants for the training program were already at the breakfast. A little bit of self introduction and getting to know each other was interrupted by the waitress’s [she was a stout lady in her fifties] wake up call,” Hey, how are you doing today and what can I serve you for breakfast?”
I was about to say, Idli, Sambhar and Chatni separate [I have aligned my taste with the place I stay now] but realized that would be too much to ask for.
Wherever I have been, breakfast had always been a buffet, so ordering from menu was more or less the first time. I usually have a light breakfast of milk and cornflakes and sometimes an egg with a piece of bread.
I asked her if I can have a couple of toasts and an egg to go with.
“What sort of bread would you like – with butter, full fat or margarine or jam to go with? How do you want your eggs to be served and would you take coffee, tea or orange juice? And by the way you need to tell me if you want bacon or sausage along with the egg.”
Honey, you just shrunk me.
No one told me how my face looked at that point of time but I could hear the lady saying,” Don’t worry, Honey – I will get the right stuff for you.”
I was served with toasted brown bread with butter with a small accompaniment of jam, a fresh garden omlette with golden brown mashed potato, three big fat beef sausages and a steaming cup of coffee.
That was one hell of my first morning in the United States of America.
I had my turn in the immigration with a middle aged lady, who wanted to laugh out loud looking at the condition of the passengers but as per the training imparted on her had to maintain a stern face. After taking all forms of prints of my body parts and some frivolous questions, answered by equally mundane answers, she put a stamp on my visa and said,” Have fun.”
By the time I checked into the hotel, The Clock Tower in Rockford, it was around two in the morning and way past my sleeping hours. The lady in the reception handed my two access cards for the room to which I sheepishly asked,” Are they both for the room?”
May be it was a dumb question as she stared at me and said,” Excuse me.”
I took the strength to ask again,” Are these keys to the same room?”
She shook her head in disbelief and said, “Yes, any problems?” No, I realized I was in United States of America, where things are different if not somewhat through [as per them and stupid as per me].
I had been in Gulf countries and realized that they do things completely different from how we do things back here in India. That was contributed by the humorous fact that Muslims do exactly opposite to that of Hindus.
I nearly spend ten minutes trying to open the door, inserting that card, taking it out, waiting for the green light to blink and push the door lever down to enter. I am not a simpleton and it is not that it was by first visit abroad from Jhumritalaiya.
I went back to the reception, expressed my inability to enter my room. By now she was quite irritated; because I found out that I was causing a rift between her and her big fat burger [at two in the night?].
She came along me, after whispering a little sweet nothing to her burger [that meant a big bite] did the same things I did till she lifted the door knob UP to let me in. It was a second welcome to Uncle Sam’s land.
Since I could not sleep I tried to see all gadgets in the room, tried operating them [if it did not work in my way I always tried the opposite and in most cases it worked, they took pity and left the TV remote unchanged – Green button for ON and Red for OFF] and then realized that I was once again in trouble.
My hand phone was telling me to feed her with energy and there was a complete mismatch with the plug and the socket. I had one adaptor for Germany, Britain, Australia and even one for Mocondo, but nothing would go in. It was like a strict no, no without Durex [in America, use American].
Next day, early in the morning, I made my first trip to the famously infamous Walmart [thank god, they are open 24X7] and picked up an “all American adapter for the rest of the world” for $ twenty. My initiations to America were quite costly.
When I came back, participants for the training program were already at the breakfast. A little bit of self introduction and getting to know each other was interrupted by the waitress’s [she was a stout lady in her fifties] wake up call,” Hey, how are you doing today and what can I serve you for breakfast?”
I was about to say, Idli, Sambhar and Chatni separate [I have aligned my taste with the place I stay now] but realized that would be too much to ask for.
Wherever I have been, breakfast had always been a buffet, so ordering from menu was more or less the first time. I usually have a light breakfast of milk and cornflakes and sometimes an egg with a piece of bread.
I asked her if I can have a couple of toasts and an egg to go with.
“What sort of bread would you like – with butter, full fat or margarine or jam to go with? How do you want your eggs to be served and would you take coffee, tea or orange juice? And by the way you need to tell me if you want bacon or sausage along with the egg.”
Honey, you just shrunk me.
No one told me how my face looked at that point of time but I could hear the lady saying,” Don’t worry, Honey – I will get the right stuff for you.”
I was served with toasted brown bread with butter with a small accompaniment of jam, a fresh garden omlette with golden brown mashed potato, three big fat beef sausages and a steaming cup of coffee.
That was one hell of my first morning in the United States of America.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
TIME WRAP - INTERNET CONNECTION
Exactly a decade back I was one of the privileged few who had a personal computer at work with an internet connection. In those days to have an email account meant filling up a series of forms, with justification for the need to have an “expensive” mail account, when there were regular mode of communication like telephone, fax or the post. The forms needed to be submitted to the departmental head who in his own great managerial demeanor would sit on the file till you poked him about the same. Then came the monologue which by then was known to any person even remotely connected to our business unit. It came to be known as the “Great Indian Management” jargon.
Without even looking at you, scribbling on a notepad, the great manager would rue about the rising cost, the need for austerity, how receivables are increasing leading to lesser profitability, reduced sale due to lesser demand [attributed to either bad monsoon or severe health problems of anyone in Gandhi family] and self restraint in these trying times.
Then he would look up through his glasses which were just left hanging on the nose and say triumphantly that he is no bigot, he cares for his people and understands that technology is the only way for the future.
That ultimately meant that you will get your mail account in the future which can stretch from few weeks to few months.
Nowadays the same manager, when fed up from not getting the office-boy on the pantry phone for a cup of tea, sends him a text message for the same.
I had just come back from overseas training and the business unit had set a precondition that I should have a mail account and an internet connection for faster communication and updates.
The form for the internet connection needed to be signed by the director of the company, it was even beyond the jurisdiction of the “great” manager who is responsible for the profit loss account of the division. They said it is for greater good and the cost needs to be adjusted across the divisions. At one point the feeling was that an internet connection was more crucial than a couple of senior managers.
Getting the internet connection was after all not that difficult. After the form was approved it took few minutes for a person to hook up a connector into my computer and say,” Open Sesame”. There you are in front of the World Wide Web and hardly knowing what to do.
I still remember the most popular search site was AltaVista [do not know if it still exists] and the first thing everybody worth their salt and an internet connection did was to open a Hotmail account.
I was no different [I was not married then, people generally say life becomes different after marriage].
The best part of the net during those days was that most of the contents were free as most things in life in the beginning are. There was hardly any filter and the greatest demand for the internet was after office hours.
People who started packing their bags at four to catch the bus at five to get back to home suddenly felt the urge to devote more time for the good of the company.
We had the internet connection but the computer we had would have been now an archeologist’s delight.
We calculated that the time taken by the computer to start up was exactly the time for a person to finish a “Will Navy Cut” cigarette.
After hitting the “enter” key by the time a new page loaded you could very well say,” Jawaharlal Nehru liked the smell of Lady Mountbatten’s armpit and she never used a deodorant.”
Gross, but we were acting our age.
We all made these things up, thinking that some day we would tell these stories to the next generation.
We chatted after office hours, made up names, age and also gender in the chat rooms – it was fun and we did it all collectively, not in the solitude, in the remote corner of a room.
I still am in touch with a friend I met on one of the chat rooms.
Ten long years – sometimes you do not even remember how fast time catches up with you.
Without even looking at you, scribbling on a notepad, the great manager would rue about the rising cost, the need for austerity, how receivables are increasing leading to lesser profitability, reduced sale due to lesser demand [attributed to either bad monsoon or severe health problems of anyone in Gandhi family] and self restraint in these trying times.
Then he would look up through his glasses which were just left hanging on the nose and say triumphantly that he is no bigot, he cares for his people and understands that technology is the only way for the future.
That ultimately meant that you will get your mail account in the future which can stretch from few weeks to few months.
Nowadays the same manager, when fed up from not getting the office-boy on the pantry phone for a cup of tea, sends him a text message for the same.
I had just come back from overseas training and the business unit had set a precondition that I should have a mail account and an internet connection for faster communication and updates.
The form for the internet connection needed to be signed by the director of the company, it was even beyond the jurisdiction of the “great” manager who is responsible for the profit loss account of the division. They said it is for greater good and the cost needs to be adjusted across the divisions. At one point the feeling was that an internet connection was more crucial than a couple of senior managers.
Getting the internet connection was after all not that difficult. After the form was approved it took few minutes for a person to hook up a connector into my computer and say,” Open Sesame”. There you are in front of the World Wide Web and hardly knowing what to do.
I still remember the most popular search site was AltaVista [do not know if it still exists] and the first thing everybody worth their salt and an internet connection did was to open a Hotmail account.
I was no different [I was not married then, people generally say life becomes different after marriage].
The best part of the net during those days was that most of the contents were free as most things in life in the beginning are. There was hardly any filter and the greatest demand for the internet was after office hours.
People who started packing their bags at four to catch the bus at five to get back to home suddenly felt the urge to devote more time for the good of the company.
We had the internet connection but the computer we had would have been now an archeologist’s delight.
We calculated that the time taken by the computer to start up was exactly the time for a person to finish a “Will Navy Cut” cigarette.
After hitting the “enter” key by the time a new page loaded you could very well say,” Jawaharlal Nehru liked the smell of Lady Mountbatten’s armpit and she never used a deodorant.”
Gross, but we were acting our age.
We all made these things up, thinking that some day we would tell these stories to the next generation.
We chatted after office hours, made up names, age and also gender in the chat rooms – it was fun and we did it all collectively, not in the solitude, in the remote corner of a room.
I still am in touch with a friend I met on one of the chat rooms.
Ten long years – sometimes you do not even remember how fast time catches up with you.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Trapped by Nature
We think that human beings are the smartest animal on this planet and in our endeavor to prove that we are above The Ultimate we make wasteful expenditures like creating the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator in Switzerland. Billions of Euros has been pumped by CERN in the Large Hardon Collider (LCH) project which is a disaster for the environment, in the guise of finding the scenario that happened just after the Big Bang.
We understand a bit of physics which present scientists call history and have put under achieves as classical physics. It is much like the beautiful rock music of the sixties and seventies which is also relegated to Rock classics.
It made sense when we were told that apples can only fall down from a tree because it has no wings to fly up, the same reason why people cannot fly without an airplane. Gravity was understandable but anti gravity involved a lot of mathematics that went beyond our Famous Four of add, subtract, multiply and divide.
Fusion hot or cold was not as cool as fusion music and the names of scientists were as complicated as Max Plank, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Einstein (a singular stone) as their theories were. I always thought that Schrödinger’s Cat was a distant relative of a Siamese cat, but never realized why it would be a statistical problem for a cat to live in a box with a radioactive particle.
Einstein deduced a simple formula E= mc² and said that the only way to retain your beauty is not to go through Botox or not a sip from the Holy Grail but to fly faster than the speed of light. That is the way of life, predict something unachievable and you get a Nobel and even if we do fly faster than the speed of light, Steven Spielberg intimidated us the problems we may land up with a series of “Back to Future” movies.
I am not against modern physics, but when you are stuck in Frankfurt for three days in a row because of a volcano which wake up from sleep after a period much longer than Rip Van Winkle took (it went to sleep in 1817), none of our brightest scientists could even visualize that such a thing would happen. Science is not meant for predicting the past; if it is so then the profession of scientist’s is as much as debated as that of soothsayers. It is to predict what may be the consequences of certain events or occurrence of events.
Scientists are also getting media savvy and using nice jargons – the other day I heard a scientist calling the event a “Black Swan’ event. An event which is likely to happen but it is beyond human predicament.
You can do nothing better that watching all the crap in the television while praying to God when he will again be merciful to us.
People, who are trapped and are atheists, should be given the last chance to fly out, because nature is nothing but a reflection of The Ultimate – whether you believe or not.
We understand a bit of physics which present scientists call history and have put under achieves as classical physics. It is much like the beautiful rock music of the sixties and seventies which is also relegated to Rock classics.
It made sense when we were told that apples can only fall down from a tree because it has no wings to fly up, the same reason why people cannot fly without an airplane. Gravity was understandable but anti gravity involved a lot of mathematics that went beyond our Famous Four of add, subtract, multiply and divide.
Fusion hot or cold was not as cool as fusion music and the names of scientists were as complicated as Max Plank, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Einstein (a singular stone) as their theories were. I always thought that Schrödinger’s Cat was a distant relative of a Siamese cat, but never realized why it would be a statistical problem for a cat to live in a box with a radioactive particle.
Einstein deduced a simple formula E= mc² and said that the only way to retain your beauty is not to go through Botox or not a sip from the Holy Grail but to fly faster than the speed of light. That is the way of life, predict something unachievable and you get a Nobel and even if we do fly faster than the speed of light, Steven Spielberg intimidated us the problems we may land up with a series of “Back to Future” movies.
I am not against modern physics, but when you are stuck in Frankfurt for three days in a row because of a volcano which wake up from sleep after a period much longer than Rip Van Winkle took (it went to sleep in 1817), none of our brightest scientists could even visualize that such a thing would happen. Science is not meant for predicting the past; if it is so then the profession of scientist’s is as much as debated as that of soothsayers. It is to predict what may be the consequences of certain events or occurrence of events.
Scientists are also getting media savvy and using nice jargons – the other day I heard a scientist calling the event a “Black Swan’ event. An event which is likely to happen but it is beyond human predicament.
You can do nothing better that watching all the crap in the television while praying to God when he will again be merciful to us.
People, who are trapped and are atheists, should be given the last chance to fly out, because nature is nothing but a reflection of The Ultimate – whether you believe or not.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
M.F. Hussain - Goodluck & Goodbye
I left Bharat and landed in Dubai,
On a plane ride so bumpy that I almost cried.
Clergymen in uniform and Amirs counting gold,
Everyone was there to greet me when I stepped outside.
Newspapermen eating kebabs
Had to be held down by big police.
Someday, everything is gonna be different
When I paint my masterpiece.
My apologies to Bob Dylan for twisting his beautiful lyrics to suit my purpose, but God’s like him are all forgiving.
But things are really “different” for Maqbool Fida Hussain has who has been leaving in self imposed exile for last four years. He exile, albeit self imposed, is more or less for the same reason as Ms. Taslima Nasrin is out of Bangladesh or Salman Rushdie has been collecting girlfriends in his self imposed hiding.
Maqbool Fida Hussain has been conferred the prized Qatari citizenship by Qatar’s powerful first lady, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, wife of the emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and the “masterpiece” is a series of canvasses depicting the history of Arab culture.
Maqbool Fida Hussain has accepted the privilege with honor and has to give up the citizenship of India, the land where he was born.
While Taslima could not conjure so much publicity as she is more obscure because of her regional, gender biased writing and Mr. Rushdie has been a shade of his former self writing subdued novels from the dungeons, people are “fida” about Fida and shakes and stirs at the mention of his name.
Whether it’s New York Times or The Tribune, both local and international media have been crying foul about the “exiled” status of the painter, who has been dubbed as the “Picasso of India”.
Mr. Hussain has a summer residence in London and spends the rest of his time shuttling in Middle East countries.
But the basic question remains why Mr. Hussain is in self imposed exile?
If one has to believe in the reports of the “secularism” obsessed press, the reason is given below. The lines are from Mr. N Ram, editor of “The Hindu”.
“Since 2006, when the Hindutva hate campaign against him escalated, Mr. Husain has been living in Dubai, spending his summers in London. He travels freely except to India, where he faces legal harassment and physical threats, with the system impotent and not committed to enabling his return. Though the Supreme Court has intervened on the right side, it was too little, too late. The Congress-led government, it is clear, has done no better than the preceding BJP-led governments in protecting Mr. Husain’s freedom of creativity and peace of mind.”
Maqbool Fida Hussain was born in pre independent India in 1915 in a village in Maharashtra and went to Sir J.J. School of Art. He started is career (earning money) by painting billboards for Bollywood and then joined the Progressive Artists Group which wanted to break free from the nationalist Bengal School of Art and focused more towards the avant - garde modern redemptions in painting.
Painting, when made commercial, by nature is a bourgeois form of art. It is understood by limited people, adored and appreciated by much lesser population and can be afforded only by the rich and famous.
Even a canvas painting from an outgoing student of Pune School of Art will command a grand. We, the middle class, know more about Hussain’s painting after the auctions at Christies or when bought by a connoisseur by spending an amount which could have eradicated poverty in few small African villages. For the 450 million people living in villages Maqbool Hussain may resonate with the name of a person living in the nearby village.
Painters are creative people, but creativity does not feed you in today’s world. You need to sell and to sell you need to be popular and the easiest way to create popularity is to create a controversy.
Hussain’s paintings started earning him rich dividends mostly after the controversy broke out on pictures which were drawn few decades back.
The controversy started with his Ramayana and Mahabharata series and his depictions of Hindu deities in the nude.
Most of us who would like to discuss Hussain, due to lack of any current topics on making money or cricket, have no credible information about the drawings and all their coffee table dissertations are based on hearsay.
The Hindu belief in God is based on mythology as Hinduism does not have a flesh and blood proponent in the form of a Prophet or Son of God. The belief is older than any man made religion and the scriptures profess equality for all rather than having an expansionist view. That is why we have seen Gautam Buddha choosing a different path and forming his own sect and the same holds true for Jainism. Hindu philosophy is like a huge Banyan tree which shelters other sects and sub sects to grow in peace.
The mythological figures have been in our sub consciousness from the time we are introduced to them and we are given an option to choose our religion and not forced as in case of others. While the same mythology depicts Goddess Kali in the nude, whose form depicts destruction, and through the centuries the idea of that picture is instilled in our head, the same depiction of Lakshmi or Saraswati, Goddess of fortune and knowledge is in their purest form.
It hurts sentiments of people, who are devoid of understanding to that extent, the Indian version of selective freedom of speech, more so in case of abstract art, when such deities are depicted in impure form.
“Indeed, Husain has painted several goddesses from the Hindu pantheon in the nude, including Saraswati, the goddess of learning, Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and Durga, a martial goddess who slays demons. These are bold works that reshape our thinking about Hindu myths, revealing them in new light; they are not lewd drawings meant to titillate. His nudes delineate the body in sharp lines, elevating it to an abstract realm, suggesting the formlessness of divinity.
This explanation, which is faithful to Hindu philosophy, is too abstract for fundamentalists who have protested against his works, and in some cases, ransacked art galleries in India displaying his art. Some Hindu groups have also used the courts: More than 1,200 cases have been filed against him.” - The New York Times
For common man the above report in the New York Times is pure Esperanto.
We are as we present ourselves to the world and whatever be the form of art, the representation should not be a matter of ridicule.
Maqbool Hussain made a film titled “Meenaxi – Tale of Three Cities” which was pulled out of the theatres after four days of release.
A religious Muslim body found a qawwali number in the film, ‘Noor-un-Ala-Noor’ as blasphemous. The council claimed that the song featuring the film’s main protagonist, contained words directly lifted from the Quran.
The response of Hussain to his withdrawal was succinct,” I have not made the film to make money, nor have I sold it to anyone. Therefore, I need not give any reason for the withdrawal of the screening of the film to public.”
We clearly live in a world of dichotomy and our actions are guided more now by commercial and political motives than by any of our bodily organs.
We can accept the depiction of Sita in nude riding on Hanuman’s tail, claiming it as a form of abstract art or may find it objectionable.
When a greater mass find the painting objectionable then it should be mated with the same fate as that of the Danish Cartoon, Satanic Verses or Meenaxi.
These drawing have been made not for Hussain’s bedroom but for public consumption in the western world. Hussain may have received loads of support from quarters that profit from religious divide in the veil of pseudo secularism, but there had been criticism that supersedes the appeasement.
Satish Gujral has gone on record to ask Husain whether he will be bold enough to treat icons of Islam in the same manner.
According to a senior artist and former President, Bombay Art Society, Gopal Adivrekar, “Nothing is bad in being creative but the artists should not go for such artwork, which may hurt the sentiments of a segment of the society.”
The biggest noise was made by the media, who nowadays play more of a disruptive role rather than the constructive role that they are supposed to play.
Hussain’s acceptance of the Qatari citizenship is a blow to their pseudo secularist role and that’s the reason you see only passing remarks about this issue.
To the pseudo secularists, art lovers or those who pretend to understand art, Maqbool Fida Hussain, may be the Picasso or Paul Gauguin of India but to me, like the majority masses of India, it is just another name and his acceptance of Qatari nationality will mean that we have one less citizen.
Good luck and Goodbye – Maqbool Fida Hussain.
On a plane ride so bumpy that I almost cried.
Clergymen in uniform and Amirs counting gold,
Everyone was there to greet me when I stepped outside.
Newspapermen eating kebabs
Had to be held down by big police.
Someday, everything is gonna be different
When I paint my masterpiece.
My apologies to Bob Dylan for twisting his beautiful lyrics to suit my purpose, but God’s like him are all forgiving.
But things are really “different” for Maqbool Fida Hussain has who has been leaving in self imposed exile for last four years. He exile, albeit self imposed, is more or less for the same reason as Ms. Taslima Nasrin is out of Bangladesh or Salman Rushdie has been collecting girlfriends in his self imposed hiding.
Maqbool Fida Hussain has been conferred the prized Qatari citizenship by Qatar’s powerful first lady, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, wife of the emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and the “masterpiece” is a series of canvasses depicting the history of Arab culture.
Maqbool Fida Hussain has accepted the privilege with honor and has to give up the citizenship of India, the land where he was born.
While Taslima could not conjure so much publicity as she is more obscure because of her regional, gender biased writing and Mr. Rushdie has been a shade of his former self writing subdued novels from the dungeons, people are “fida” about Fida and shakes and stirs at the mention of his name.
Whether it’s New York Times or The Tribune, both local and international media have been crying foul about the “exiled” status of the painter, who has been dubbed as the “Picasso of India”.
Mr. Hussain has a summer residence in London and spends the rest of his time shuttling in Middle East countries.
But the basic question remains why Mr. Hussain is in self imposed exile?
If one has to believe in the reports of the “secularism” obsessed press, the reason is given below. The lines are from Mr. N Ram, editor of “The Hindu”.
“Since 2006, when the Hindutva hate campaign against him escalated, Mr. Husain has been living in Dubai, spending his summers in London. He travels freely except to India, where he faces legal harassment and physical threats, with the system impotent and not committed to enabling his return. Though the Supreme Court has intervened on the right side, it was too little, too late. The Congress-led government, it is clear, has done no better than the preceding BJP-led governments in protecting Mr. Husain’s freedom of creativity and peace of mind.”
Maqbool Fida Hussain was born in pre independent India in 1915 in a village in Maharashtra and went to Sir J.J. School of Art. He started is career (earning money) by painting billboards for Bollywood and then joined the Progressive Artists Group which wanted to break free from the nationalist Bengal School of Art and focused more towards the avant - garde modern redemptions in painting.
Painting, when made commercial, by nature is a bourgeois form of art. It is understood by limited people, adored and appreciated by much lesser population and can be afforded only by the rich and famous.
Even a canvas painting from an outgoing student of Pune School of Art will command a grand. We, the middle class, know more about Hussain’s painting after the auctions at Christies or when bought by a connoisseur by spending an amount which could have eradicated poverty in few small African villages. For the 450 million people living in villages Maqbool Hussain may resonate with the name of a person living in the nearby village.
Painters are creative people, but creativity does not feed you in today’s world. You need to sell and to sell you need to be popular and the easiest way to create popularity is to create a controversy.
Hussain’s paintings started earning him rich dividends mostly after the controversy broke out on pictures which were drawn few decades back.
The controversy started with his Ramayana and Mahabharata series and his depictions of Hindu deities in the nude.
Most of us who would like to discuss Hussain, due to lack of any current topics on making money or cricket, have no credible information about the drawings and all their coffee table dissertations are based on hearsay.
The Hindu belief in God is based on mythology as Hinduism does not have a flesh and blood proponent in the form of a Prophet or Son of God. The belief is older than any man made religion and the scriptures profess equality for all rather than having an expansionist view. That is why we have seen Gautam Buddha choosing a different path and forming his own sect and the same holds true for Jainism. Hindu philosophy is like a huge Banyan tree which shelters other sects and sub sects to grow in peace.
The mythological figures have been in our sub consciousness from the time we are introduced to them and we are given an option to choose our religion and not forced as in case of others. While the same mythology depicts Goddess Kali in the nude, whose form depicts destruction, and through the centuries the idea of that picture is instilled in our head, the same depiction of Lakshmi or Saraswati, Goddess of fortune and knowledge is in their purest form.
It hurts sentiments of people, who are devoid of understanding to that extent, the Indian version of selective freedom of speech, more so in case of abstract art, when such deities are depicted in impure form.
“Indeed, Husain has painted several goddesses from the Hindu pantheon in the nude, including Saraswati, the goddess of learning, Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and Durga, a martial goddess who slays demons. These are bold works that reshape our thinking about Hindu myths, revealing them in new light; they are not lewd drawings meant to titillate. His nudes delineate the body in sharp lines, elevating it to an abstract realm, suggesting the formlessness of divinity.
This explanation, which is faithful to Hindu philosophy, is too abstract for fundamentalists who have protested against his works, and in some cases, ransacked art galleries in India displaying his art. Some Hindu groups have also used the courts: More than 1,200 cases have been filed against him.” - The New York Times
For common man the above report in the New York Times is pure Esperanto.
We are as we present ourselves to the world and whatever be the form of art, the representation should not be a matter of ridicule.
Maqbool Hussain made a film titled “Meenaxi – Tale of Three Cities” which was pulled out of the theatres after four days of release.
A religious Muslim body found a qawwali number in the film, ‘Noor-un-Ala-Noor’ as blasphemous. The council claimed that the song featuring the film’s main protagonist, contained words directly lifted from the Quran.
The response of Hussain to his withdrawal was succinct,” I have not made the film to make money, nor have I sold it to anyone. Therefore, I need not give any reason for the withdrawal of the screening of the film to public.”
We clearly live in a world of dichotomy and our actions are guided more now by commercial and political motives than by any of our bodily organs.
We can accept the depiction of Sita in nude riding on Hanuman’s tail, claiming it as a form of abstract art or may find it objectionable.
When a greater mass find the painting objectionable then it should be mated with the same fate as that of the Danish Cartoon, Satanic Verses or Meenaxi.
These drawing have been made not for Hussain’s bedroom but for public consumption in the western world. Hussain may have received loads of support from quarters that profit from religious divide in the veil of pseudo secularism, but there had been criticism that supersedes the appeasement.
Satish Gujral has gone on record to ask Husain whether he will be bold enough to treat icons of Islam in the same manner.
According to a senior artist and former President, Bombay Art Society, Gopal Adivrekar, “Nothing is bad in being creative but the artists should not go for such artwork, which may hurt the sentiments of a segment of the society.”
The biggest noise was made by the media, who nowadays play more of a disruptive role rather than the constructive role that they are supposed to play.
Hussain’s acceptance of the Qatari citizenship is a blow to their pseudo secularist role and that’s the reason you see only passing remarks about this issue.
To the pseudo secularists, art lovers or those who pretend to understand art, Maqbool Fida Hussain, may be the Picasso or Paul Gauguin of India but to me, like the majority masses of India, it is just another name and his acceptance of Qatari nationality will mean that we have one less citizen.
Good luck and Goodbye – Maqbool Fida Hussain.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Future is Bright, so We Think
The natural resources to support the world population of more than five billion is depleting faster than a piece of camphor left in the open and so is the resilience of the society.
The Amazon rain forest is vanishing faster than the speed of night and along with them the indigenous tribe of the region. The forest of Amazon, known as Amazonia is called the 'lungs of the earth' as it produces twenty percent of the total oxygen in the world. It is the largest ecosystem on earth.
The constant fight between survival of mankind and its environment is pushing them to extremes. The ever increasing population needs more space, grow more food or build infrastructure so that they can support their livelihood. Illegal mining for the benefit of the money mongers and corrupt politicians is taking a toll on the forests across the globe.
The animals are also not spared. The ecological balance is being destroyed for innate fancies of human beings. The population of tigers in China is a miniscule twenty. Tigers are being raised in Chinese tiger farms to be slaughtered for their pelt, meat and bones. The bones find use in traditional Chinese medicines and aphrodisiacs. Despite a ban by the Chinese government the trade is flourishing and now with the year of the Tiger ushered, the poaching has shifted to Indian forests where there are hardly fourteen hundred tigers left (the figure is again disputed).
The global warming due to excess of carbon emissions is resulting not only in higher temperature but also rising sea level. Based on the projected increases, the IPCC TAR WG II report notes that current and future climate change would be expected to have a number of impacts, particularly on coastal systems. Such impacts may include increased coastal erosion, higher storm-surge flooding, inhibition of primary production processes, more extensive coastal inundation, changes in surface water quality and groundwater characteristics, increased loss of property and coastal habitats, increased flood risk and potential loss of life, loss of nonmonetary cultural resources and values, impacts on agriculture and aquaculture through decline in soil and water quality, and loss of tourism, recreation, and transportation functions.
We are busy fighting to whom Mumbai belongs, but we do not care for the fact that in few hundred years Mumbai, which is an island, would seize to exist. We are fighting for a lost cause and for vested political interests.
The deep sea water fishing (bottom trawling) brings up a whooping 20 million tons of fish from the bottom of the ocean every day. This destroys the entire ecosystem of the ocean. The fishes are not getting enough time to breed and there is depletion in the fish population. Almost quarter of the haul perishes before it reaches the market. The fancy of the Japanese for whale meat has driven the species to near extinction.
The biggest problem that affects us directly is the depletion of the ground water level. This affects not only sustenance of life but also for agriculture. To suck up water from the ground one needs to dig deeper or needs to use more powerful pump, which in turn needs more energy. There is a huge scarcity of potable water. In Sub African countries more than sixty percent of the population does not have access to potable water. Even a modern city like Mumbai has to depend on rain God and on the artificial lakes for their daily source of water. When the rain God plays truant, the taps run dry and the shortage of power is imminent.
In a strategy of sort countries have started buying tracts of farm land and water bodies in Africa or in countries like Brazil. Most of the Middle East countries and China have bought around five to ten percent of farms lands in the African countries like Ethiopia, Niger, Kenya and Mozambique. War is being promoted to reign in instability and for profiteering of some advanced countries.
The facts are known to all of us and we can do nothing but be mere spectators and watch in delusion the slow destruction of the mankind. These are collective follies of our race as we try to outsmart nature, of whose powers we do not have any credible information.
We bring up the next generation by imparting them the best of education or vocational skills but do we have the moral fiber to tell them that they have to go for days without having a bath, or they have to go to a museum to see a stuffed tiger or to an aquarium to see a common Tuna or Sardine or be prepared for the dark days ahead as there will be so much scarcity that only might may prevail over knowledge.
All I wish for is a careful introspection of our consumption pattern. We earn to live a good life but the good life is not restricted to us, our next generation also deserves a bit of that if not the whole.
The Amazon rain forest is vanishing faster than the speed of night and along with them the indigenous tribe of the region. The forest of Amazon, known as Amazonia is called the 'lungs of the earth' as it produces twenty percent of the total oxygen in the world. It is the largest ecosystem on earth.
The constant fight between survival of mankind and its environment is pushing them to extremes. The ever increasing population needs more space, grow more food or build infrastructure so that they can support their livelihood. Illegal mining for the benefit of the money mongers and corrupt politicians is taking a toll on the forests across the globe.
The animals are also not spared. The ecological balance is being destroyed for innate fancies of human beings. The population of tigers in China is a miniscule twenty. Tigers are being raised in Chinese tiger farms to be slaughtered for their pelt, meat and bones. The bones find use in traditional Chinese medicines and aphrodisiacs. Despite a ban by the Chinese government the trade is flourishing and now with the year of the Tiger ushered, the poaching has shifted to Indian forests where there are hardly fourteen hundred tigers left (the figure is again disputed).
The global warming due to excess of carbon emissions is resulting not only in higher temperature but also rising sea level. Based on the projected increases, the IPCC TAR WG II report notes that current and future climate change would be expected to have a number of impacts, particularly on coastal systems. Such impacts may include increased coastal erosion, higher storm-surge flooding, inhibition of primary production processes, more extensive coastal inundation, changes in surface water quality and groundwater characteristics, increased loss of property and coastal habitats, increased flood risk and potential loss of life, loss of nonmonetary cultural resources and values, impacts on agriculture and aquaculture through decline in soil and water quality, and loss of tourism, recreation, and transportation functions.
We are busy fighting to whom Mumbai belongs, but we do not care for the fact that in few hundred years Mumbai, which is an island, would seize to exist. We are fighting for a lost cause and for vested political interests.
The deep sea water fishing (bottom trawling) brings up a whooping 20 million tons of fish from the bottom of the ocean every day. This destroys the entire ecosystem of the ocean. The fishes are not getting enough time to breed and there is depletion in the fish population. Almost quarter of the haul perishes before it reaches the market. The fancy of the Japanese for whale meat has driven the species to near extinction.
The biggest problem that affects us directly is the depletion of the ground water level. This affects not only sustenance of life but also for agriculture. To suck up water from the ground one needs to dig deeper or needs to use more powerful pump, which in turn needs more energy. There is a huge scarcity of potable water. In Sub African countries more than sixty percent of the population does not have access to potable water. Even a modern city like Mumbai has to depend on rain God and on the artificial lakes for their daily source of water. When the rain God plays truant, the taps run dry and the shortage of power is imminent.
In a strategy of sort countries have started buying tracts of farm land and water bodies in Africa or in countries like Brazil. Most of the Middle East countries and China have bought around five to ten percent of farms lands in the African countries like Ethiopia, Niger, Kenya and Mozambique. War is being promoted to reign in instability and for profiteering of some advanced countries.
The facts are known to all of us and we can do nothing but be mere spectators and watch in delusion the slow destruction of the mankind. These are collective follies of our race as we try to outsmart nature, of whose powers we do not have any credible information.
We bring up the next generation by imparting them the best of education or vocational skills but do we have the moral fiber to tell them that they have to go for days without having a bath, or they have to go to a museum to see a stuffed tiger or to an aquarium to see a common Tuna or Sardine or be prepared for the dark days ahead as there will be so much scarcity that only might may prevail over knowledge.
All I wish for is a careful introspection of our consumption pattern. We earn to live a good life but the good life is not restricted to us, our next generation also deserves a bit of that if not the whole.
Monday, January 4, 2010
WHITE LIES
The war is on, although in a muted fashion till date. The recent pogroms in
It has moved away from continents and has narrowed down to religions. It is a fight between Christianity and Islam for the throne to rule the world.
While Christianity is facing a decreasing population and also a decimation of global dominance due to emerging power of
By definition of the constitution of the country we, Indians, are secular. But the grave question that surrounds us today is the fact how long we can remain secular. Another 50 years at the maximum? Once the parity in the population mix is destroyed can we maintain our secular credentials?
Noted journalist Mr. M.J.Akbar stated that “minorities” is independent of the state. Simply put, during the Moughal Empire the minorities were not Hindus, but the ruling classes themselves. Similarly in spite of ruling
The Muslims who are considered to be the biggest minority in this country as per the 2001 census (2) constitute around 13.4% of the population and are growing at one and half times faster than the rate of growth of the Hindus. Between
Of the 48 fastest growing countries by population today, 28 are majority Muslim or have Muslim minorities of 33% or more. (3)
Between 1961 and 2001, in absolute numbers, the Hindu population has grown from 366 million to 827 million - a growth of 126% while the Muslim population in the same period grew from 47 million to 138 million - a growth of 193%. The Muslim population growth was consistent at about 50% higher than the Hindu population. What is more alarming is that Hindu population growth rate has declined from 25% in the previous decades to about 20% in the decade preceding the Census while the Muslim population growth, if not increased, as the initial data had indicated, it has almost remained constant, and if declined, only marginally so. It is still a high of around 30%.
Secularists argue that margilisation of the Muslims and lack of education has caused insecurity leading to the growth, but they conveniently forget that the same does not hold true for other minorities like Christians, Jains etc.
Sustenance of such a huge population (
Europe and
In 1905 the French government passed a law stipulating "the separation of churches and the state," thus enshrining secularism as a national principle (laïcité). The law, which barred the state from officially recognizing, funding or endorsing religious groups, represented a major shift in church-state relations in
We are afraid to face the imminent truth or shy away from our own religion or in a show of embracing modernity we put up a brave face of “secularism” to subvert the truth. But facts cannot be shoved under the carpet for a long time.
“High Muslim population growth is in fact a part of a greater global plan to make Islam the dominant religion in the world by sheer demographics. In all fairness to Muslims, their religious leaders and the rank and file are quite open about why the Muslims want to increase their population at a faster rate. As many Muslim leaders have pointed out they are not interested in "quality of life" -- they are interested in "the quantity of the Muslim population". (6)
The North African countries are a stark pointer to this fact. Even after centuries of being a colony to either France or Dutch they have shunned all forms of modernity and embraced the Islamic way of life.”
We have started seeing the effects of the Muslim growth in some parts of
Who will get a visa to visit the country is not decided by the GOI but by religious organisations (the Salman Rushdie issue). (7)
We can shed as much of crocodile tears for our Muslim brethren, take out candle light processions when they are “oppressed” but it needs to be seen when the table turns after 50 years what treatment are the majorities of today mated with?
The ball is in the court of the pseudo secularists and the so called secular columnists of the
Source:
- (1) CNN-IBN
- (2) Census of
- (3) Times of
- (4) & (5)The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
- (6) The
- (7) The Times of
- An Independent Social Magazine
- Wikipedia – general information
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Is the Press failing us?
The columnists of Times of India have an uncanny penchant for picking up topics which has very little or no journalistic value. All that these articles do is to flare the passion of religiousness in the minds of the dogmatic or take the so called middle class, pseudo secularists for a ride.
Few days back there was an article on TOI by Jug Suraiya based on an article,” Religious freedom experts put India on 'watch list'” published by Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Without going through the fact what the original article states, the article in TOI devoted half the space in lambasting the Hindu zealots and shading tears for the Muslim and Christian brethren.
It gravely stated that we as a nation (read Hindus) are becoming intolerant and are being incited at the flimsiest of reasons. It went on to detail the exploits of Hindu extremists (read BJP & Shiv Sena, RSS etc. with an emphasis on Narendra Modi) and the inconceivable pains undergone by the minorities (read Muslims), who already have the legacy of being oppressed for since independence. Then it went on to state about how a secular democratically elected government should tackle such issues and ended with a big moral question,” Are we playing in the hands of the zealots?”
Any reader of Hindu origin (please exclude the secularists – they form an alternate religion by themselves) who has gone through that article is bound to feel a bit restrained and embarrassed. After all it does not speak well about the oldest religion in the world, and which, if truth to be told is not a religion but a way of life.
The article was a clear subterfuge for bashing Narendra Modi, digging up the 2002 Gujarat riots. That is the sadistic pleasure the columnist derived and we helpless readers have to bear through his more than 200 words article. And sometimes we also tend to believe in these articles, the very reason why we subscribe to newspapers to get to know about the happenings of the world and to get expert viewpoint on current socio, economic and political affairs.
If we were to search and dig out information on our own it would be a difficult exercise and in that case newspapers will come to an early exit than predicted.
Pew Forum is a research foundation based in U.S.A (mostly supported by government and religious bodies of that country) and publishes research on a myriad of issues relating to the affect of religion on politics, law, world affairs and domestic policy.
The article on Pew forum was based on a rating given by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Has anyone ever heard of such an organisation let alone paying heed to their ratings?
But if your main aim is to instigate or to take a sardonic view on someone you detest, you have to burn the midnight oil to find your source, however obscure it may be.
The link to the article is given, go through the same and find out how vulnerable we are in hands of such national newspapers. They twist facts, events and make us believe in things that have never happed and they do it without checks and balances.
From the day Thomas Carlyle coined the term “Fourth Estate” in 1841 to represent the press, we have had our firm belief in them.
But it seems what Oscar Wilde said few decades back holds good even today.
“In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism.”
The original article in the Pew forum can be found here:
http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=18553
Note: The Government of India has refused to grant visa to USCIRF for doing any study; much to the annoyance of Mr. Jug Suraiya (the fact he conveniently forgot to mention in his article)
Few days back there was an article on TOI by Jug Suraiya based on an article,” Religious freedom experts put India on 'watch list'” published by Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Without going through the fact what the original article states, the article in TOI devoted half the space in lambasting the Hindu zealots and shading tears for the Muslim and Christian brethren.
It gravely stated that we as a nation (read Hindus) are becoming intolerant and are being incited at the flimsiest of reasons. It went on to detail the exploits of Hindu extremists (read BJP & Shiv Sena, RSS etc. with an emphasis on Narendra Modi) and the inconceivable pains undergone by the minorities (read Muslims), who already have the legacy of being oppressed for since independence. Then it went on to state about how a secular democratically elected government should tackle such issues and ended with a big moral question,” Are we playing in the hands of the zealots?”
Any reader of Hindu origin (please exclude the secularists – they form an alternate religion by themselves) who has gone through that article is bound to feel a bit restrained and embarrassed. After all it does not speak well about the oldest religion in the world, and which, if truth to be told is not a religion but a way of life.
The article was a clear subterfuge for bashing Narendra Modi, digging up the 2002 Gujarat riots. That is the sadistic pleasure the columnist derived and we helpless readers have to bear through his more than 200 words article. And sometimes we also tend to believe in these articles, the very reason why we subscribe to newspapers to get to know about the happenings of the world and to get expert viewpoint on current socio, economic and political affairs.
If we were to search and dig out information on our own it would be a difficult exercise and in that case newspapers will come to an early exit than predicted.
Pew Forum is a research foundation based in U.S.A (mostly supported by government and religious bodies of that country) and publishes research on a myriad of issues relating to the affect of religion on politics, law, world affairs and domestic policy.
The article on Pew forum was based on a rating given by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Has anyone ever heard of such an organisation let alone paying heed to their ratings?
But if your main aim is to instigate or to take a sardonic view on someone you detest, you have to burn the midnight oil to find your source, however obscure it may be.
The link to the article is given, go through the same and find out how vulnerable we are in hands of such national newspapers. They twist facts, events and make us believe in things that have never happed and they do it without checks and balances.
From the day Thomas Carlyle coined the term “Fourth Estate” in 1841 to represent the press, we have had our firm belief in them.
But it seems what Oscar Wilde said few decades back holds good even today.
“In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism.”
The original article in the Pew forum can be found here:
http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=18553
Note: The Government of India has refused to grant visa to USCIRF for doing any study; much to the annoyance of Mr. Jug Suraiya (the fact he conveniently forgot to mention in his article)
Friday, January 1, 2010
A HAPPY NEW YEAR
The starting of 2010 was quite interesting with the “idiotic” producer telling the errant press and media to “shut up”. Mr. Bhagat has written a long blog (if it ran a few more lines, it could well be his fourth novel called “License Fee”) accusing the “idiotic” group of cheating him. He wanted to be the named as the first “idiot” who created the “3 Idiots”.
I feel the timing is not on your side, Mr. Bhagat. You only realized what you are missing after the “3 Idiots” became quite a rave. You were very apprehensive like your last installment of “Hello” which you strongly denied has got anything to do with “A night at call centre”.
You misjudged on the capability of Mr. Amir Khan, who may not be an IIT, IIM alumni but knows a thing or two about his business, which is unfortunately filmmaking. To meddle with a veteran of twenty years on his own ground needs a lot of strength and more than lateral thinking.
There has been a contract between you and the movie makers – you never told us what was about it? It is pure monetary hue and cry or a try for a quick shot to fame.
What is a sure shot recipe for higher TRP? A powerful person (it is a prime time catch if the person is a politician) misusing the law and getting merrily away with it. The Ruchika Girhotra fits the bill to the word R, when the person in question was himself the upholder of justice.
Just today I got an invitation to sign an online petition for justice for Ruchika. I did not sign, not that I do not want the molester to be tried, but I do not want to carry the feeling of guilt with me.
In Bangalore last week, a working couple poured hot oil on a sixteen year old housemaid. She came all the way from the poorest part of West Bengal for a livelihood. She did not want to play tennis; she never dreamed of studying in an English medium school, all she wanted was to work hard for two square meals a day and some clothes to cover her shame. What she got in return was exploitation, harassment, sexual abuse and hot oil spilled over.
News for one week and there goes in oblivion another “common man”.
The sun has already set on the maid who was raped by the small time movie star. He is away in Delhi on a bail and within a year will resurface in a movie, maybe depicting the same real life experience. Who else could play the role better than the maniac?
Such cases are aplenty, but we bury our head like an ostrich and are only selective when we see a potential blockbuster. Burning candles adds a bit to the economy so I do not condemn it, but sorry, I cannot join the bandwagon, because my conscience hurts.
The Nithary killings, the molestation of the orderly’s wife by a Rajasthan Police officer and dozens of such cases needs to be ‘candle lighted’ first, signatures to be taken for them and then only we can move forward. Last In First Out seems to work only in India.
We should not take sadistic pleasure in bringing only the mighty and powerful to justice, justice is for all and more so if we call India as a democratic system.
I feel the timing is not on your side, Mr. Bhagat. You only realized what you are missing after the “3 Idiots” became quite a rave. You were very apprehensive like your last installment of “Hello” which you strongly denied has got anything to do with “A night at call centre”.
You misjudged on the capability of Mr. Amir Khan, who may not be an IIT, IIM alumni but knows a thing or two about his business, which is unfortunately filmmaking. To meddle with a veteran of twenty years on his own ground needs a lot of strength and more than lateral thinking.
There has been a contract between you and the movie makers – you never told us what was about it? It is pure monetary hue and cry or a try for a quick shot to fame.
What is a sure shot recipe for higher TRP? A powerful person (it is a prime time catch if the person is a politician) misusing the law and getting merrily away with it. The Ruchika Girhotra fits the bill to the word R, when the person in question was himself the upholder of justice.
Just today I got an invitation to sign an online petition for justice for Ruchika. I did not sign, not that I do not want the molester to be tried, but I do not want to carry the feeling of guilt with me.
In Bangalore last week, a working couple poured hot oil on a sixteen year old housemaid. She came all the way from the poorest part of West Bengal for a livelihood. She did not want to play tennis; she never dreamed of studying in an English medium school, all she wanted was to work hard for two square meals a day and some clothes to cover her shame. What she got in return was exploitation, harassment, sexual abuse and hot oil spilled over.
News for one week and there goes in oblivion another “common man”.
The sun has already set on the maid who was raped by the small time movie star. He is away in Delhi on a bail and within a year will resurface in a movie, maybe depicting the same real life experience. Who else could play the role better than the maniac?
Such cases are aplenty, but we bury our head like an ostrich and are only selective when we see a potential blockbuster. Burning candles adds a bit to the economy so I do not condemn it, but sorry, I cannot join the bandwagon, because my conscience hurts.
The Nithary killings, the molestation of the orderly’s wife by a Rajasthan Police officer and dozens of such cases needs to be ‘candle lighted’ first, signatures to be taken for them and then only we can move forward. Last In First Out seems to work only in India.
We should not take sadistic pleasure in bringing only the mighty and powerful to justice, justice is for all and more so if we call India as a democratic system.
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