The right amount of kerosene can burn even wet wood! the joys of modern life. Sunrise pic courtesy of friend....

Hello People....
long time no read/see/hear/talk, etc....
Havent been able to updateblog because of laziness and a general lack of interest. however there seems to be a lot to blog about these days...ergo...i'm back.

Cracking the Da Vinci Code

After reading about the recent protests about the screening of the film ‘Da Vinci Code’, I have discovered a bigger mystery in life—what is link between India and Afghanistan? It takes a while to understand the link, but its actually surprisingly simple—fundamentalism. We’ve seen Hindu fundamentalists; Muslim fundamentalists and now we have the Christian fundamentalists. Hooray for us. Religion was supposed to be personal, right?? I mean if you have to parade the fact that you are a Muslim or a Hindu and now a Christian, why drag poor God into this? God/Allah/Brahma, etc are supposed to be smart people right? I can bet that even they’d be confused about this one. I still fail to understand how a movie, a book or a picture can degrade a religion? Is the belief in the Almighty so weak that such ordinary and mundane depictions can shake the foundations of our belief? I have read the Satanic Verses and I still don’t understand why its heretic? I have read Taslima Nasreen’s novels and I don’t know how they insult Islam. I have heard that a naked depiction of Lakshmi is derogatory towards the Hindus. I have even read a stupid book called “Da Vinci Code” which claims Jesus married a former prostitute and fathered a line of heirs, and that insults Christianity. WHY? HOW? I am inordinately stupid and dumb and that is why I can’t seem to understand the meaning of these insults to religion. Lord help me. Oops! Sorry if I offended somebody. Please don’t go on a hunger strike or a fast unto death.

The highest authority according to the Catholics—the Pope, hasn’t called for a ban on the movie. Though the Vatican has launched a publicity drive to discredit the book and the movie, they haven’t called for an outright ban. If the Vatican can bear it why cant the Christians in India do so? Please don’t go and see the movie if it hurts your sentiments, but at least let others see it. All over the world, people seem to be offended by something or the other. Is it about their fragile egos or is it about them not getting enough media attention? What is it in Nature that makes people so insensitive and scared of each other? Does a piece of fiction challenge the religious hierarchy? Does a book filled with wrong facts and made up details pose such a threat to man’s faith?

There are so many problems in this world. Instead of wasting our precious resources and time on such trivial and inane matters, can’t we use them to our improvement instead of others’ detriment? If the General Secretary of the Catholic Association wants to fast unto death then please let him. Let him die. Let him become the second martyr for his religion. At least he will be able to reach God faster. If there are riots, then we can massacre the damned Christians. Hooray! Maybe the Hindus and the Muslims will jointly kill them. Interesting proposal. Fight fire with fire. And fight Fundamentalism with Fundamentalism. That will teach the people of the free nation the true value of freedom. Transport the damned Christians to Afghanistan along with some Hindus. The rest of the damned Hindus can go to Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc. Finally, keep some Hindus here to butcher the Muslims. That will inevitably solve the problem of religion in India. If you can’t live in peace then don’t live at all I say. What say people?

Aisi Gati Sansar Mein, Jo Garar Ki Thath,
Aisi Gati Sansar Mein, Jo Garar Ki Thath,
Jab Ekai Parey Gadhhe Mein,
Sabai Jat Thehi Bath.

Here’s a rather hashed up translation of the above doha by Kabir:

Such is the way of the world my friend,
That, men here are foolish and shallow,
If one is conned in a special way,
The others will simply follow.

This is a reminder to all of us who try to be like the rest. Your individuality is your identity, don’t lose it in this jungle of ‘coolness’. Don’t try to keep up with the Jones’, try and become yourself. The newest gadget, the most expensive clothes, the right political choices, these are all illusions. Wake up and smell the coffee.

Mentally Ok?

This is the first part of the promised travelogue. This particular blog deals with an incident concerning none other than Psycho. Those of you who had any faith in his sanity can safely disperse of it.

Before I begin I would like to point out that we stayed at a bank guesthouse, free of cost, thanks to Psycho’s relative. I am however, not being ungrateful, simply chronicling a story that deserves to be told.

The guesthouse that we stayed in also provided us with free food, but not wishing to impose too much on their hospitality, we decided to buy our food. The bank employees recommended a man who provided the bank with food. Interestingly enough, this man also ran two Self-Help Groups (shgs). The topic of our research being shgs, this proved to be an added bonus. We interviewed the man about his shg, etc., etc… What we found out was that the shgs run by the man specialized in food production for the local offices. The main members of the shgs were women with marital problems. This man offered to take two of us to interview one such member of his shg. Psycho and Subhomoy took up the man’s offer and went with him. They went to visit a woman whose husband had been ill-treating her (the man had apparently gone the whole hog, throwing her out of the house, etc.). Subhomoy sat about interviewing the woman while Psycho took the task of writing down the interview. During the course of the interview, Psycho started to play with a young girl who was lying on a bed nearby. The girl, who was the woman’s daughter, looked like a four or five year old. They had been previously informed that the girl was mentally unsound. During the course of the interview, Subhomoy began to hear the sound of someone whistling. Being greatly surprised, he turned and found that it was Psycho who was doing the whistling. He was apparently telling the girl a story and the whistling was the background score (this little detail came out later). Despite repeated requests to stop, Psycho decided to continue playing Aesop. Suddenly, Subhomoy found that Psycho had passed him a little chit (the contents of which will be disclosed later). After the interview, out of curiosity, Subhomoy decided to ask the woman the girl’s real age. The answer? 17 years. The girl apparently suffered from cerebral palsy, which had stunted her mental and physical growth (I know all the disability activists will get me for this remark).

Now why have chosen to regale you with this seemingly sad tale? Because there is a twist in the tale. Despite it being tragedy material, the situation was turned into a comic situation by Psycho’s little note to Subhomoy.

The contents of the note were simple: The girl is MENTALLY OK.
Despite what disability activists say, medical science still regards cerebral palsy as a mental handicap. If Psycho can so easily give the girl a clean chit, then there is either something wrong with him or he is a greater man than all of us. Which is highly unlikely given his propensity to act in a stupid manner. However that’s only my version, now you decide whether Psycho’s mentally ok.

i am simply too lazy to write any travelogues though one on psycho's exploitys is long overdue. these pics are for my faithful readers and friends( i think i should take up a publishing degree). please keep commenting about the pics, it helps to improve photography and editing techniques(i havent got the faintest clue as to how, but it sounded nice).

Which picture is better? Opinions are most welcome.

Oxymoron

I’m getting increasingly bored now. So in this process of getting bored, I decide to write this blog. I have nothing to write about, so I write and then delete a few things and finally decide to write about oxymorons.

Now why Oxymorons? I don’t know. But I am writing about this particular figure of speech that deals with apparent contradictions in two statements. I thought of the usual lot—a smart sardar, a smart blonde, a hard-working bong, etc. but then I happened to chance upon the best one—an MNC mass producing black T-shirts with a Che Guevara pictures on it.

Now why is that an oxymoron? I mean if Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd can be on T-shirt covers, then why not Che? He isn’t protected under copyright, so why not.

The point is that Che Guevara remains the best example of a successful revolutionary who gave it all away for a better world. He just happened to believe in an ideology that calls for the destruction of these huge profit houses that take endlessly without giving any thing back. Now, these companies turn around and market his image to make a fortune. Isn’t that brilliant?

Here is the second example that I came up with—RSS, VHP, etc., believing in democracy.

The recent events in Nepal have drawn comments from all political parties in India and across the world, but party remains strangely silent. What’s the connection between the RSS, VHP, Hindu Mahasabha, their façade, the BJP and Nepal? Simple. They’re all Hindus. The self-proclaimed protectors of Hinduism are nowhere to be seen as the only Hindu kingdom in the world comes under increasing pressure from the outside world.

The RSS, VHP, etc should all rise to the occasion. It’s the perfect opportunity for them. They can take their private armies of half-pant wearing goons and their half-baked political ideologies and go and save the King Gyanendra. I wonder what’s stopping them? Is it…? No it couldn’t be. But then what is it? Well then it must be democracy. Hooray for the Hindus of India, their guardians have learnt the meaning of the term ‘Democracy’. Now perhaps they will think twice before attacking other people, after all freedoms are an important part of democracy.

Maybe MF Hussain can paint Che pictures in peace (and sell them for huge sums)? Too many questions, too little data. Sad. Every thing said and done, Religion must mean the bullying of others till they submit or they are gone. Crusades for Jerusalem, Crusade against terror, Crusade for terror (jihad). I wonder—am I still writing about oxymorons? Still too little data for a meaningful answer.

Let there be light.

Keep Thinking!

Curious-err and Curious-err

The Indian government has a strange policy called reservations. What the hell it tries to achieve is something I have not been able to decipher. All the intellectuals around me tell me that reservation is all about equality and empowerment, etc., etc. It’s really amazing how people have concocted an entire debate over an issue that does not exist or at best should not exist.

A brief history of our reservation debate begins in the British era (I don’t mean that Hindus and Muslims lived in Eden before the British came). The British policy of divide and rule was the first and most overt expression of communalism in India. (Poor Aurangzeb’s discrimination against Hindus doesn’t exactly fall in the same category). The problem really began from the Indian Councils Act of 1909. The British wanted to simply divide the people along all possible communal and sectarian lines. The caste issue really came to the fore front when E.A. Gait of the census department wrote that “Census returns of Hindus are misleading as they include millions of people who are not really Hindu at all, who are denied ministrations of Brahmans, and are forbidden to enter the Hindu temples, and who in many cases, are regarded as so unclean that their touch or even their proximity, causes pollution.” The Hindus began organizing shuddhi (purification and conversion) and sangathan (consolidation) movement to counter the idea that Dalits were independent category. Hindu militancy’s drive to incorporate the ‘other brothers’ included Dalits, who became the object of their politics in 1920s. The incorporation however, simply meant that Dalits would be counted as Hindus in the census to bolster the Hindu majoritarian claim made by militants on the emergent nation and on the colonial state. Even Gandhi and his entire ‘Harijan’ campaign was part of this larger fold—the Hindus of India didn’t want to give up their claim of majority to the Muslims. Thus begins the long and winding tale of reservations in India.

In 1932, Gandhi went on a fast against award of separate constituency to Dalits and ended his fast when the promise of separate electorate to untouchables was annulled, and a combined electorate with some electoral constituencies reserved for untouchable candidates was proposed. Thus the blame put on Ambedkar for being the father of the reservationists, is somewhat misplaced. Originally, the system of reservations was supposed to be fore ten years. Then it went off the political scene, only to re-appear in the 1990s in the form of the Mandal Commission Report and the entire fracas over it. The rest is now well known. The recent addition to the debate has been the proposed reservations for the OBCs in the IITs and the IIMs.

My main problem with this entire debate about merit or equality is that the system itself is flawed, and therefore incapable of bringing a lasting solution. I’ll elaborate. The Indian Constitution does not guarantee the right to work, instead it guarantees the right to vote, the right to free speech, etc. In short, none of the economic rights are guaranteed. The right to free primary education till the age of 14 had to be read into the right to life. What I am trying to say is that a government/society, that cannot guarantee basic economic rights of a person, cannot bring about social parity. The government knows very well that the benefits of these reservations doesn’t accrue to the poor, rather to certain unscrupulous persons, who could do without it. The entire system of trying to achieve social parity by reserving IIT and IIM seats is ridiculous. People who don’t get enough to eat, people who cant even sign their own names (that the official level of literacy in Indian) are being given seats to the premier institutes of higher education in the country. It’s absolutely pathetic.

The level and degree of reservations in India is down right ridiculous. Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, Physically Handicapped, Local Quotas (Look at places like Maharashtra and South India), Sports Quotas, Non-Resident Indians, Foreign Nationals, Mentally Handicapped (Oops! That one slipped out. But this one should be there as well), and many others. If the government decided to adopt a simpler but tougher stance, they could provide reservations in schools (especially primary ones), colleges and jobs, not on the basis of caste, tribe, etc, but on the basis of economic status. That’s a simpler stand, but infinitely more difficult to achieve. The framers of the constitution passed the buck to the later generations in the form of the Directive Principles of State Policy, but consecutive governments have adopted their policy of passing the parcel.

If this policy continues, then my friends we shall soon have a time when there will be reservations for the General Category. I can imagine an entrance exam to the IIT of the future—30% reservation for SCs, 25% for STs, 20% for OBCs, 15% for local quotas, 5% for NRIs and Foreign Nationals, 2% for Physically Handicapped, 1.5% for sports quota, and a royal 0.5% reservation for the General Category. The future is bright. I think I’ve finally managed to understand the India Shining Campaign. So, my friends, are you ready to fight for the General Category Reservations? See you there in another 15 years.

Jago India Jago.

Psycho's letter

This is a rather bizarre letter that i found in psycho's computer. he has been kind enough to lend it to me. (thats a blatant lie). some names have been changed(only reduced to initials) to protect the identities of those involved. any further editing would have destroyed the humorous nature of the letter.

To,
The Registrar
The West Bengal University of Juridical Sciences
Kolkata

Sub:

Sir/Madam,
Hostel is a place where students after the whole days work pressure, want to relax. All students residing in the Halls of Residence of NUJS are entitled to the mess facilities which include watching of television in the mess too.
Yesterday, there was a One Day International between India and South Africa being played at Eden Gardens which was being broadcasted live by Doordarshan. I was watching the first innings (South Africa had chose to field after winning the toss) with other residents of the Hall of Residence. Incidentally I was supporting the South African side rather than the Indian side. When the last wicket fell for India at the score of 188. The incidents that happened after that were really unfortunate as well as humiliating, and put a question mark on the safety of the students residing in the Halls of Residence. Here is a complete list of events that happened:
AB, incidentally the Disciplinary Committee Convener calls me and asks me that, “Why are you clapping?”
I: Because I am happy that the last wicket fell for India
AB: And still you are clapping, you know that this is the last Indian wicket that fell!
I: Yes
P, incidentally against whom there has been an innumerable disciplinary actions says, “Aren’t you an Indian?”
I: Yes, I am.
P: Then why on the hell are you supporting South Africa?
I: Because I think they are playing very well, today; and does it not depend on me which country I should support.
P: Tell me, where were you born? And for that matter aren’t your parents and your brother Indian?
I: Yes, they are.
P (sarcastically): Oh! Then you must go and support Australia when they play against India
AB: This person supports teams on merit, isn’t it?
I: Yes
P: Hey, man; change your attitude or you would not be able to stay in this college. You must remember that you are an Indian and must never support any other country other than India. Did I say anything like to you before; don’t think that I am joking. I am damn serious. I find you next time doing this crap I would ensure that your half broken teeth is completely broken.
AB: You can do all this in some other college but not in this college.
P: now kindly, f*** off.
I being grievously humiliated by this act of his and went to stand at my previous position, AB and P looked at me and then asked me furiously, “Why are you still standing here, please get out!”
I: Why should I get out? What have I done?
P reacts to this very crossly and holds me by my shoulder and without my willingness takes me out of the mess and there he says, “Don’t show your attitude like this. I have nothing to lose. After five months I am going to get out of this college, and the last day I can easily come to your room and hit you hard. I would break your specks and deface you. So be careful.”
I was really humiliated as well as terrified by the way P threatened. My fear was double fold for the very fact that even though the D.C Convener was a witness to all these stuff, he didn’t raise a finger against his ‘dear friend.’
The question which I want to raise is that whether or not the basic fundamental right that I enjoy under Article 19(2) of the Indian Constitution which guarantees me Freedom of Speech and Expression.
Furthermore, if we refer to Section 351, which says that Whoever makes any gesture, or any preparation intending or knowing it to be likely that such gesture or preparation will cause any person present to apprehend that he who makes that gesture or preparation is about to use criminal force to that person, is said to commit an assault.
Explanation.—Mere words do not amount to an assault. But the words which a person uses may give to his gestures or preparation such a meaning as may make those gestures or preparations amount to an assault.
(a) A shakes his fist at Z, intending or knowing it to be likely that he may thereby cause Z to believe that A is about to strike Z.A has committed an assault.
(b) A begins to unloose the muzzle of a ferocious dog, intending or knowing it to be likely that he may thereby cause Z to believe that he is about to cause the dog to attack Z.A has committed an assault upon Z.
(c) A takes up a stick, saying to Z, "I will give you a beating". Here, though the words used by A could in no case amount to an assault, and though the mere gesture, unaccompanied by any other circumstances, might not amount to an assault, the gesture explained by the words may amount to an assault.
Sir, in light of the abovementioned facts made in utmost sincererity I make this humble plea from the depth of my heart that the following issues be considered:
1. A serious breach of hostel rules and regulations was caused by both Mr. P and Mr. AB.
2.. There has been a dereliction on the part of the D.C Convener Mr. AB in turning a blind eye to the whole incident.
I hope I have conveyed to the authorities the seriousness of the matter and would be highly obliged if a solution to the matter is reached at the earliest.

Yours truly,