This is a tamil remake of the popular Hindi movie Jab We Met with actors Bharath and Tamannah (did I get the spelling right?) in the lead. I haven't watched the original version but my friend who accompanied me had and she was quite sure the Hindi flick was better. Anyway, its been a year since I had gone to the theatre, I quite enjoyed it inspite of its cliched storyline and having got stuck in corner seats with couples all around us who had not exactly come there to watch the movie. We were the ones who were not a couple and after squirming uncomfortably for sometime (whoever said tickets for two meant only couples) decided to chuck it and watch the movie, who cares what other were doing...
I guess everyone knows the story by now. Boy meets girl, girl is sweet as saccharine plus suffers from ADHD, histrionic personality disorder and a host of other mental disorders whose names I've forgotten (I mean, she's bubbly and all, I can quite understand that she's a happy person full of joy but this was simply too much). Boy gets ditched by previous gf , goes into deep depression and tries to commit suicide and Anjali (Tamannah) helps him come out of it, shows him the 'brighter' side of life and plans to elope with her boyfriend. But she gets ditched too and is 'rescued' by Bharath from a school (Anjali becomes an English teacher) and they live happily ever after. Its the story of two ditched people finding love in each other. Sweet ain't it?
Inspite of it being so predictable I liked it because for a change we had very less of those fight sequences and unnecessary heroism (though I still feel the songs were like jarring notes in the movie, they could have done away with the songs altogther, the narration would have been taut).
The best part of the movie was the comedy track by Santhanam. The guy is really funny and the last half of the movie was watchable entirely because of him, the movie as such did not have much of unpredictability or suspense.
Anyway what's with this whole boy saves girl from a bunch of baddies who mistake her for a prostitute? It just seemed so filmy and made the movie look unrealistic if not to say stupid. Directors should give up the urge to show the men saving women in all their movies, it not only is unrealistic but only reinforces stereotypes. Well, its a commercial flick alright, so I guess the director's got to play to the gallery. Another thing, Tamannah looks suave and urban, hardly like someone from an interior district of TamilNadu (Theni). That seemed too incongruous even for a commercial flick. And oh yeah, the fair and lovely beauty seemed so out of place in rustic Theni surroundings, whoever said directors had common sense...
Both the actors did their roles well and if Tamannah appeared hyperactive all the time it was entirely the director's fault for having taken it too far. I think this is her best film so far. Bharat for a change appears restrained and its a pleasant surprise considering that most of his previous roles had been about the angry young man and his arivalu.
Worth a hundered bucks and can be watched once.Watch it if you don't have anything better to do on a lazy afternoon and if you're a couple do get those corner seats. ;-)
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sunday, October 26, 2008
STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM
No, this article isn’t about our friendly neighbor Pakistan sending in their jehadi boys to train the Kashmiri youth to play with guns (right now I wouldn’t bother if the Himalayas collapsed and flattened the Kashmiris, I’d call it good riddance), this is about our very own secular, socialistic, democratic republic playing havoc with the lives of Adivasis in the name of Salwa Judum.
Naxalism is a movement which started several decades ago post-independence capitalizing on the disenchantment and acute poverty of landless labourers and workers for whom independence was only a mirage, an abstract concept which did not have any practical significance in their everyday existence of bonded labour. India was a nascent democracy then and though committed to socialist principles India did a botched up job of redistribution of land among the poor. Despite the land reforms, land resources were still concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy people in most villages and the Naxalites (who were bent on establishing a communist state through Maoist uprisings) used these feelings of discontent to propagate their idea of a proletariat revolution.
What started as an isolated incident in the village of Naxalbari by two people Charu Majumdar (head of CPI-ML) and Kanu Sanyal spread like wildfire all over the Indian countryside and soon Naxalites established their presence in many backward underdeveloped districts of India which did not have adequate power to combat the Naxalites. In many places land was being forcibly acquired by the government from the tribals for development purposes and this lead to popular support among the tribals for the Naxals who openly defied the government and forcibly acquired land from landholders and redistributed them.
However support for the Naxals turned out to be a double-edged sword for the villagers as the Naxals wanted the villagers to take part in armed uprisings against the state, something that the villagers were least interested in. What started off as a Robinhood movement transformed into a bloody civil war against the state and the villagers got caught in the cross-fire. The naxals indulged in cruel suppression, torture and targeted killing of adivasis and tribals who dared to speak against them. What started off as a movement to ensure better land rights for the tribals turned into one where torture, rape and killings became the standard procedure for dealing with erring tribals.
Against this backdrop we come to the present situation in Chattisgarh. Chattisgarh is one of the states which has been greatly affected by the Naxal menace. After Chattisgarh was carved out of M.P. the state went into an overdrive to ensure rapid development by exploration of mines and setting up of industries. The areas rich in mineral resources were waiting to be explored by the corporations, however the naxals were proving to be cogs in the wheel of development. Land had to be acquired from the tribals for exploring mines, something that the tribals were reluctant to do, as that would means loss of their livelihood with the government failing to provide adequate compensation (has the government ever bothered about compensation?).
Enter the Salwa Judum. Roughly translated as ‘Peace Mission’ headed by a prominent MLA of the state, the Salwa Judum (operational in Dantewada district of Chattisgarh) consists of ordinary villagers recruited by the government to tackle the Naxal menace. Though the government states that the Salwa Judum is a natural, spontaneous uprising among the tribals who have been targeted by the Naxalites, this is so only in the case of a few Judum members (the non-adivasis who have been affected by the forcible land redistribution by the Naxalites). The rest of the Judum members have been forcibly recruited from villages with active state support.
Their modus operandi is simple. The Salwa Judum leaders travel from village to village urging the people to join the movement. The villagers are given a specific date to leave their villages with their belongings and join the Salwa Judum in camps which have been established by the government. People who refuse to join the Salwa Judum are branded as Naxal supporters and threatened with torture and murder and their houses are burnt to force them to join the movement. In this way entire villages have been destabilized and emptied and it is estimated that around 50,000 people have been forcibly uprooted to live in camps set up by Salwa Judum. People fearing the wrath of Judum members and not wanting to live in squalid camp conditions have been migrating in droves to neighbouring states and villages leaving their homes behind. Some of the villages which have been emptied are being utilized by the government for exploring mineral resources and leased out to corporations.
The state has also employed other techniques to intimidate people to join the campaign. They have ensured that government services such as education,medicine and rations through the PDS system are available only in the camps and the people who preferred to stay back have no access to them. In fact many primary education centers have been converted into Salwa Judum centres to spread its message and except for the camps, other schools in the area have become nonfunctional. The state has effectively outsourced its job of tackling the Naxals to the people.
Salwa Judum members have been supplied with arms to tackle the naxalites and other villagers who refuse to accept them, and killings by the Judum members are not recorded by the police who refuse to file FIRs against them or apprehend them for their violent activities. The government has also recruited SPOs (Special Police Officers) to fight the Naxals and supply information to the state. Shockingly in some regions, children from schools have been recruited to do anti-Naxal propaganda. Emboldened by the support of the state the SPOs and top Judum members behave like vigilant justice groups killing and threatening at will with no one to question them. Infact the Salwa Judum behaves like a proxy government organization with complete power to threaten and intimidate people.
The formation of the Salwa Judum has provoked a violent reaction from the Naxals who have killed many Judum members (most of whom are ordinary tribal folks forced to stay at the camps). The Salwa Judum which was created to curb the naxalites has actually served the Naxalites' cause by their brutality and repression. The Naxalites have been able to recruit more villagers in the last two years than what they managed in the last twenty years.
Fighting Naxals is the duty of the state which should employ the police, CRPF and army, not ordinary people to fight their war. The state has got no right to use people as human shields in its fight against the naxals. The state is supposed to protect its people not use them as pawns in its games. The Salwa Judum has set a dangerous precedent for the rest of India as the government is now attempting to replicate it in the state of Manipur. Encouraging ordinary people to take up arms and promoting local armed resistance might seem to be effective in the short run but it will surely destabilize our country. The naxalites need to be annihilated and naxalism destroyed, but the government seems to be using the worst possible method for it. In its drive to open up Chattisgarh for setting up industries the government is resorting to unethical practices because it seems to give quick results. It has successfully created a fertile ground for the explosion of a civil war in the country by its short sighted policies and alienated a large section of the population by its brutality. Only time can tell what awaits India in the years to come. Certainly not superpower status.
Naxalism is a movement which started several decades ago post-independence capitalizing on the disenchantment and acute poverty of landless labourers and workers for whom independence was only a mirage, an abstract concept which did not have any practical significance in their everyday existence of bonded labour. India was a nascent democracy then and though committed to socialist principles India did a botched up job of redistribution of land among the poor. Despite the land reforms, land resources were still concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy people in most villages and the Naxalites (who were bent on establishing a communist state through Maoist uprisings) used these feelings of discontent to propagate their idea of a proletariat revolution.
What started as an isolated incident in the village of Naxalbari by two people Charu Majumdar (head of CPI-ML) and Kanu Sanyal spread like wildfire all over the Indian countryside and soon Naxalites established their presence in many backward underdeveloped districts of India which did not have adequate power to combat the Naxalites. In many places land was being forcibly acquired by the government from the tribals for development purposes and this lead to popular support among the tribals for the Naxals who openly defied the government and forcibly acquired land from landholders and redistributed them.
However support for the Naxals turned out to be a double-edged sword for the villagers as the Naxals wanted the villagers to take part in armed uprisings against the state, something that the villagers were least interested in. What started off as a Robinhood movement transformed into a bloody civil war against the state and the villagers got caught in the cross-fire. The naxals indulged in cruel suppression, torture and targeted killing of adivasis and tribals who dared to speak against them. What started off as a movement to ensure better land rights for the tribals turned into one where torture, rape and killings became the standard procedure for dealing with erring tribals.
Against this backdrop we come to the present situation in Chattisgarh. Chattisgarh is one of the states which has been greatly affected by the Naxal menace. After Chattisgarh was carved out of M.P. the state went into an overdrive to ensure rapid development by exploration of mines and setting up of industries. The areas rich in mineral resources were waiting to be explored by the corporations, however the naxals were proving to be cogs in the wheel of development. Land had to be acquired from the tribals for exploring mines, something that the tribals were reluctant to do, as that would means loss of their livelihood with the government failing to provide adequate compensation (has the government ever bothered about compensation?).
Enter the Salwa Judum. Roughly translated as ‘Peace Mission’ headed by a prominent MLA of the state, the Salwa Judum (operational in Dantewada district of Chattisgarh) consists of ordinary villagers recruited by the government to tackle the Naxal menace. Though the government states that the Salwa Judum is a natural, spontaneous uprising among the tribals who have been targeted by the Naxalites, this is so only in the case of a few Judum members (the non-adivasis who have been affected by the forcible land redistribution by the Naxalites). The rest of the Judum members have been forcibly recruited from villages with active state support.
Their modus operandi is simple. The Salwa Judum leaders travel from village to village urging the people to join the movement. The villagers are given a specific date to leave their villages with their belongings and join the Salwa Judum in camps which have been established by the government. People who refuse to join the Salwa Judum are branded as Naxal supporters and threatened with torture and murder and their houses are burnt to force them to join the movement. In this way entire villages have been destabilized and emptied and it is estimated that around 50,000 people have been forcibly uprooted to live in camps set up by Salwa Judum. People fearing the wrath of Judum members and not wanting to live in squalid camp conditions have been migrating in droves to neighbouring states and villages leaving their homes behind. Some of the villages which have been emptied are being utilized by the government for exploring mineral resources and leased out to corporations.
The state has also employed other techniques to intimidate people to join the campaign. They have ensured that government services such as education,medicine and rations through the PDS system are available only in the camps and the people who preferred to stay back have no access to them. In fact many primary education centers have been converted into Salwa Judum centres to spread its message and except for the camps, other schools in the area have become nonfunctional. The state has effectively outsourced its job of tackling the Naxals to the people.
Salwa Judum members have been supplied with arms to tackle the naxalites and other villagers who refuse to accept them, and killings by the Judum members are not recorded by the police who refuse to file FIRs against them or apprehend them for their violent activities. The government has also recruited SPOs (Special Police Officers) to fight the Naxals and supply information to the state. Shockingly in some regions, children from schools have been recruited to do anti-Naxal propaganda. Emboldened by the support of the state the SPOs and top Judum members behave like vigilant justice groups killing and threatening at will with no one to question them. Infact the Salwa Judum behaves like a proxy government organization with complete power to threaten and intimidate people.
The formation of the Salwa Judum has provoked a violent reaction from the Naxals who have killed many Judum members (most of whom are ordinary tribal folks forced to stay at the camps). The Salwa Judum which was created to curb the naxalites has actually served the Naxalites' cause by their brutality and repression. The Naxalites have been able to recruit more villagers in the last two years than what they managed in the last twenty years.
Fighting Naxals is the duty of the state which should employ the police, CRPF and army, not ordinary people to fight their war. The state has got no right to use people as human shields in its fight against the naxals. The state is supposed to protect its people not use them as pawns in its games. The Salwa Judum has set a dangerous precedent for the rest of India as the government is now attempting to replicate it in the state of Manipur. Encouraging ordinary people to take up arms and promoting local armed resistance might seem to be effective in the short run but it will surely destabilize our country. The naxalites need to be annihilated and naxalism destroyed, but the government seems to be using the worst possible method for it. In its drive to open up Chattisgarh for setting up industries the government is resorting to unethical practices because it seems to give quick results. It has successfully created a fertile ground for the explosion of a civil war in the country by its short sighted policies and alienated a large section of the population by its brutality. Only time can tell what awaits India in the years to come. Certainly not superpower status.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
BLAME THE BUREAUCRACY
A couple of days ago I read a newspaper article about the state of higher education in India and how the Indian government had sanctioned more funds to improve the sorry state of affairs in higher education. The writer dwelt at length on the obstacles in implementing these proposals and went off on a predictable tangent blaming the bureaucracy for all the ills plaguing higher education. He went on and on about how the corrupt and inept officials were destroying meritocracy and stifling the ‘efficiency’ of our ‘brilliant’ colleges. This isn’t the first time that someone blamed the government machinery for the problems in the system, for long the civil services have remained everyone’s favorite punching bag. Going by newspapers (and blogs too) all problems in India is caused by an inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy.
If one goes by these views it would seem like traffic policemen, RTO officials, tehsildars, police officers, IAS officers (and everyone else working for the government) are not like the rest of us Indians, but are a different species who have been magically transported into India from some foreign country and are bent on destroying this noble country from within. That everything else is perfect in India and if not for the red tape this great country of ours can reach super power status (forget the starving millions, they don’t count here). If only we didn’t have corrupt, vile and wicked people working in the government!
I’d love to know who bribes these officials? Martians?
We need to reserve a healthy dose of cynicism not for the government but for ourselves. I have strongly believed that the people get the government (and the bureaucracy) they deserve. The bureaucracy is nothing but a reflection of our own value system. If the bureaucracy is corrupt, inefficient and slow it means those are the kind of values that we as a society possess. Corruption is an endemic problem in all poor, developing countries and I believe things are becoming better with the RTI Act.
A couple of magazines even idiotically questioned the need for an increase in pay scales of government servants calling it an extra burden during times of inflation, the same ones who would have chided Manmohan Singh for asking top executives to have pay cuts. Besides there is too much emphasis on how ‘efficient’ the private sector is, and how India could greatly benefit by applying corporate practices for efficient functioning of the government. Nothing could be further from the truth. Private companies work for their own profits and there is no way one can expect a government functioning under great financial constraints to replicate the success of private companies.
Yes, there are several problems plaguing the government and bureaucracy, but some of them like corruption reflects more on the attitude of the society than anything else. If people really want a change they should be prepared to enter the civil services and bring about a change rather than stay safely in other lucrative professions and keep blaming the government for all the problems of the society. If we are not ready to clean the muck we are in we have no option but to put up with the stink.
If one goes by these views it would seem like traffic policemen, RTO officials, tehsildars, police officers, IAS officers (and everyone else working for the government) are not like the rest of us Indians, but are a different species who have been magically transported into India from some foreign country and are bent on destroying this noble country from within. That everything else is perfect in India and if not for the red tape this great country of ours can reach super power status (forget the starving millions, they don’t count here). If only we didn’t have corrupt, vile and wicked people working in the government!
I’d love to know who bribes these officials? Martians?
We need to reserve a healthy dose of cynicism not for the government but for ourselves. I have strongly believed that the people get the government (and the bureaucracy) they deserve. The bureaucracy is nothing but a reflection of our own value system. If the bureaucracy is corrupt, inefficient and slow it means those are the kind of values that we as a society possess. Corruption is an endemic problem in all poor, developing countries and I believe things are becoming better with the RTI Act.
A couple of magazines even idiotically questioned the need for an increase in pay scales of government servants calling it an extra burden during times of inflation, the same ones who would have chided Manmohan Singh for asking top executives to have pay cuts. Besides there is too much emphasis on how ‘efficient’ the private sector is, and how India could greatly benefit by applying corporate practices for efficient functioning of the government. Nothing could be further from the truth. Private companies work for their own profits and there is no way one can expect a government functioning under great financial constraints to replicate the success of private companies.
Yes, there are several problems plaguing the government and bureaucracy, but some of them like corruption reflects more on the attitude of the society than anything else. If people really want a change they should be prepared to enter the civil services and bring about a change rather than stay safely in other lucrative professions and keep blaming the government for all the problems of the society. If we are not ready to clean the muck we are in we have no option but to put up with the stink.
Monday, September 1, 2008
WOMEN'S RESERVATION BILL - THE LAST BARRIER
The Women’s Reservation Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on 6th May 2008 by the Law Minister Bharadwaj. The whole procedure was like a drama where the the Law minster had to be physically protected from the SP and RJD goons who threatened to tear up the bill before it could be introduced in the Parliament. This scenario aptly demonstrated the level of opposition to the women’s reservation bill by the caste based parties esp. the SP, RJD and the JD(U) who have been very vocal about their opposition to and criticism of the bill. The Bill has been introduced in the Parliament after a struggle of twelve years (it was first proposed by the Deva Gowda government way back in 1996, the Vajpayee government introduced it in 1998 and was dissolved leading to the termination of the Bill in Parliament.)
Provisions of the Bill:
The Bill provides for 33% reservation for women in the State Legislatures as well as the Lok Sabha.. The seats will be reserved in rotation, each seat can be reserved only once in three consecutive elections.
Do women need reservation in Parliament?
Definitely. At present out of the 543 seats in Lok Sabha only 33 seats are occupied by women. That is a measly 8%. In the Rajya Sabha, the figure is slightly higher at around 10%. For a group which represents 50% of the population the above figures are depressing and shatters the myth about women’s liberation and empowerment. As in all other fields women face discrimination here too, but overcoming the discrimination here is not as easy as in other fields because of the very nature of political parties. Also the society frowns upon women entering politics due to its feudal outlook. Yes, we have Jayalalithaa ,Mayawati and Sonia, but they are an exception rather than the rule.
Panchyati Raj institutions
From 1993 onwards one third of the seats in the Panchayati Raj Institutions have been reserved for women. This has led to greater representation of women at the level of villages and districts. It has been observed from the PRIs that female representatives lay greater emphasis on literacy and development programmes and have contributed to a better literacy rate. But I’m not going to stress on these factors because I believe efficiency is gender neutral. I believe women need to be given reservation not because they might be better than men, but because I see the reservation itself as an act of empowerment, a way to a more inclusive democracy which carries with it the aspirations of 500 million women. I do not believe that female leaders are going to be more corruption free or more efficient than our male politicians. But I am sure they will not make the situation worse than what it is right now!
Opposition to the Bill
The main opponents of the Bill are the SP, RJD and JD (U). Their main reasons for opposing the bill are as follows:
i) They want Provision of a sub-quota within the present system of women’s reservation for OBCs and Muslims as they feel that in the present system the upper caste women will corner all the seats.
ii) They fear the loss of constituency of the present male members.
Provision of sub-quota within the bill is constitutionally illegal as the constitution prohibits reservation on religious and caste grounds in the Parliament except for the SCs and STs for which it has made an exception. Hence conceding to the above demand will require an amendment of the constitution. But I feel the concerns of the caste based parties are dubious because these parties have never really encouraged female participation in their activities. That is the reason they fear the seats will be usurped by upper caste women, these parties have never actively encouraged women in their parties, they do not have any strong female leaders as the BJP, Left or the Cong., hence the fear that if seats are reserved for women they will automatically lose because they have not nurtured female leaders like the other parties. A sub-quota is actually unwarranted because the Parliament is already dominated by the OBC castes, there is no reason to demand separate quota for them within the women’s reservation bill. If these parties want to win the reserved seats, then they should work towards encouraging and nurturing women leaders within their own parties instead of demanding a free ride in the name of OBC reservation. Reservations for SC and ST candidates is already there and there is no need to club it along with the Women’s Reservation Bill. SC and ST women can be elected within the quota provided for SC and ST candidates as well as the general category within women's reservation.
The second concern is real. If seats are reserved for women on a rotation basis it means a certain percentage of men will be deprived of their posts as the number of seats is constant at 543. This means that a certain percentage of politicians will lose their seats and that is unacceptable to all the parties (that is the reason why the women’s bill has remained stagnant for so many years inspite of the support offered to it by the Cong., B.J.P and the Left. All of them are reluctant to give up power, but they don’t want to be seen as anti-women either. Hence they allow the disruptions by the RJD and the S.P. hoping that the stalemate will continue forever, without their active support). Several women’s organizations and the Parliament’s Joint Committee have proposed amendements to the Bill to overcome this problem.
They are:
Increasing the number of seats by adding 181 extra seats so that the total no. of seats goes up to 724. ( This addition is done as per the census of 2000, keeping in mind the increase in population from 1971 when the original figure of 543 was arrived at. This increase in seats will also be representative of the increase in population in the last 30 years).
These 181 seats will not remain constant but will be rotated after every election and these seats will also be dual member constituencies (these are single constituencies with two representatives, a man and a woman so that men are not deprived of their share of seats while simultaneously providing opportunity for greater representation of women ). However there are many opponents to the Dual member system as they feel that it will dilute women’s power in their respective constituency. Whatever the merits and demerits, this proposal needs to be debated and a suitable solution arrived at.
Women’s reservation Bill needs to be taken up and debated and amended if necessary in the Parliament. The caste based parties are doing a great disservice to women all over India by not even allowing the discussion of the Bill and blindly opposing it giving idiotic excuses such as OBC and Muslim reservations. Come to think if it, women are the only discriminated group in India who are not considered a vote bank!
Women’s reservation Bill will give a great impetus to female empowerment and ensure a more representative and inclusive democracy. It may not directly contribute to the welfare of women but it will go a long way in altering the mindset of the people about a women’s role in society. Female representatives will be more sympathetic to matters involving women’s rights and we might see more women friendly legislations and laws. Even if all this doesn’t happen we can be proud that our political system has not closed its doors on half the population.
Provisions of the Bill:
The Bill provides for 33% reservation for women in the State Legislatures as well as the Lok Sabha.. The seats will be reserved in rotation, each seat can be reserved only once in three consecutive elections.
Do women need reservation in Parliament?
Definitely. At present out of the 543 seats in Lok Sabha only 33 seats are occupied by women. That is a measly 8%. In the Rajya Sabha, the figure is slightly higher at around 10%. For a group which represents 50% of the population the above figures are depressing and shatters the myth about women’s liberation and empowerment. As in all other fields women face discrimination here too, but overcoming the discrimination here is not as easy as in other fields because of the very nature of political parties. Also the society frowns upon women entering politics due to its feudal outlook. Yes, we have Jayalalithaa ,Mayawati and Sonia, but they are an exception rather than the rule.
Panchyati Raj institutions
From 1993 onwards one third of the seats in the Panchayati Raj Institutions have been reserved for women. This has led to greater representation of women at the level of villages and districts. It has been observed from the PRIs that female representatives lay greater emphasis on literacy and development programmes and have contributed to a better literacy rate. But I’m not going to stress on these factors because I believe efficiency is gender neutral. I believe women need to be given reservation not because they might be better than men, but because I see the reservation itself as an act of empowerment, a way to a more inclusive democracy which carries with it the aspirations of 500 million women. I do not believe that female leaders are going to be more corruption free or more efficient than our male politicians. But I am sure they will not make the situation worse than what it is right now!
Opposition to the Bill
The main opponents of the Bill are the SP, RJD and JD (U). Their main reasons for opposing the bill are as follows:
i) They want Provision of a sub-quota within the present system of women’s reservation for OBCs and Muslims as they feel that in the present system the upper caste women will corner all the seats.
ii) They fear the loss of constituency of the present male members.
Provision of sub-quota within the bill is constitutionally illegal as the constitution prohibits reservation on religious and caste grounds in the Parliament except for the SCs and STs for which it has made an exception. Hence conceding to the above demand will require an amendment of the constitution. But I feel the concerns of the caste based parties are dubious because these parties have never really encouraged female participation in their activities. That is the reason they fear the seats will be usurped by upper caste women, these parties have never actively encouraged women in their parties, they do not have any strong female leaders as the BJP, Left or the Cong., hence the fear that if seats are reserved for women they will automatically lose because they have not nurtured female leaders like the other parties. A sub-quota is actually unwarranted because the Parliament is already dominated by the OBC castes, there is no reason to demand separate quota for them within the women’s reservation bill. If these parties want to win the reserved seats, then they should work towards encouraging and nurturing women leaders within their own parties instead of demanding a free ride in the name of OBC reservation. Reservations for SC and ST candidates is already there and there is no need to club it along with the Women’s Reservation Bill. SC and ST women can be elected within the quota provided for SC and ST candidates as well as the general category within women's reservation.
The second concern is real. If seats are reserved for women on a rotation basis it means a certain percentage of men will be deprived of their posts as the number of seats is constant at 543. This means that a certain percentage of politicians will lose their seats and that is unacceptable to all the parties (that is the reason why the women’s bill has remained stagnant for so many years inspite of the support offered to it by the Cong., B.J.P and the Left. All of them are reluctant to give up power, but they don’t want to be seen as anti-women either. Hence they allow the disruptions by the RJD and the S.P. hoping that the stalemate will continue forever, without their active support). Several women’s organizations and the Parliament’s Joint Committee have proposed amendements to the Bill to overcome this problem.
They are:
Increasing the number of seats by adding 181 extra seats so that the total no. of seats goes up to 724. ( This addition is done as per the census of 2000, keeping in mind the increase in population from 1971 when the original figure of 543 was arrived at. This increase in seats will also be representative of the increase in population in the last 30 years).
These 181 seats will not remain constant but will be rotated after every election and these seats will also be dual member constituencies (these are single constituencies with two representatives, a man and a woman so that men are not deprived of their share of seats while simultaneously providing opportunity for greater representation of women ). However there are many opponents to the Dual member system as they feel that it will dilute women’s power in their respective constituency. Whatever the merits and demerits, this proposal needs to be debated and a suitable solution arrived at.
Women’s reservation Bill needs to be taken up and debated and amended if necessary in the Parliament. The caste based parties are doing a great disservice to women all over India by not even allowing the discussion of the Bill and blindly opposing it giving idiotic excuses such as OBC and Muslim reservations. Come to think if it, women are the only discriminated group in India who are not considered a vote bank!
Women’s reservation Bill will give a great impetus to female empowerment and ensure a more representative and inclusive democracy. It may not directly contribute to the welfare of women but it will go a long way in altering the mindset of the people about a women’s role in society. Female representatives will be more sympathetic to matters involving women’s rights and we might see more women friendly legislations and laws. Even if all this doesn’t happen we can be proud that our political system has not closed its doors on half the population.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
KASHMIR - LIES AND HALF TRUTHS
A few days ago I saw something very interesting in one of the 24 by 7 news channels. They were covering the demonstrations in the Kashmir valley and Jammu. A large number of people had gathered in Srinagar and were shouting anti India slogans and waving the Pakistani flag. They also showed a group protesting in Jammu against the revoked order and waving Indian flags.
Most of us are familiar with the situation prevailing in the Kashmir valley. For quite sometime Kashmiris have been raising Pro Pakistan slogans (mainly from the 1990s) and wanting Azadi from India. As always their reasons are that they feel Kashmir is a unique territory and Kashmiris are a unique group of people distinct and different from their Indian counterparts. They feel they just don’t belong in India and that India is “unlawfully” occupying its territory. All this can make sense if we assume that India is composed of people with a homogenous culture, religion and language. But that is far from reality. How much of similarity do we see between, say a Tamilian and a Punjabi in terms of religion, culture or language? Not much. In fact we don’t even look the same. The only thing that binds the different and diverse groups of India together is the concept of Indian secularism and democracy. A diverse country like ours just can’t exist without these principles.
Now this needs to be seen in the context of a Kashmiri Muslim’s identity.What gives the Kashmiri Muslim a separate identity which is not shared by his other Kashmiri brothers the Pandits, Buddhist, Dogras and other minorities? The answer is quite simple. It is his Islamic identity. I had written in a previous article entitled “Monotheistic religions and their capacity to destroy” that "On more disturbing aspect of Islam is how Muslims of different countries unite and rally at the slightest hint of threat or insult to any aspect of Islam".
For a kashmiri Muslim his Islamic identity is primary. All other identities are secondary. He identifies himself more with the people of Pakistan due to his religion than his Kashmiri brothers who share his culture (the Buddhists, pandits dogras etc.) Nothing else explains the large scale ethnic cleansing of the Pandits by the extremists actively encouraged by the average Kashmiri. Around the1990s the local mosques in the valley started broadcasting anti Hindu slogans and speeches which drove the local Muslim youth into a frenzy and made them persecute fellow Kashmiri pundits, who fearing the loss of their lives migrated in huge numbers. Many seperatist leaders who killed several Kashmiri pundits are now actively in politics with the support of the Kashmiris.
Whenever discussions on the Kashmir issue takes place most newspapers say that the agitations in Kashmir is for “self determination”. What nonsense! What “self determination” are they talking about? Is every culturally distinct group in India clamouring for “self determination”? No. Religion is the only factor that plays a part here. This should be called “communalism”, not “self determination”, “Azadi” or “freedom struggle”.
Most Kashmiris say they are sick of the heavy handedness of the Indian army and the peacekeeping forces. I agree that the treatment of the Kashmiris by the peacekeeping forces has been despicable and deplorable. There have been rapes, custodial killings, random disappearances and encounters. All of this has led to considerable anger against the Indian establishment. However kashmiris have to introspect and wonder what led to this situation. During the late 80s and early 90s Kashmiris actively encouraged militant organizations to proliferate amidst them with logistical support from the I.S.I. They gave active support to the militants and many of them also joined the “freedom struggle”. To counter these terrorist activities the government had to sent troops to crush the militants. What is the point of blaming the Indian government for ruthless suppression?
Coming to the agitations, some newspapers have condemned the politicians for giving this issue a “communal” twist. Whenever I read these kind of half baked ideas I feel like laughing. Has anything about Kashmir ever been non communal? If the inhabitants of Kashmir were following some other religion this problem wouldn’t be there in the first place.
A correspondent of the Indian Express writes “ Since the original June–end agitation in Kashmir had not been communal, reaction in Kashmir to the retaliation – targeted killing of Muslims in and around Jammu – was a horrified sense of injustice”.
This kind of convoluted logic is possible only by an Indian pseudo secularist. First he assumes that the original agitation in Kashmir was not communal, though it was blatantly so. It was all shrouded in the provisions of article 370 which does not allow foreigners to own land. Here “foreigners” has been conveniently interpreted to mean Hindus as most of the Hindu population has already been driven out of the valley. So the agitation has been conveniently interpreted to mean an agitation for land , but in reality the agitation was to prevent Hindu occupation. Though the government had assured the Kashmiris that the land was given only for setting temporary shelters, Kashmiris had decided that they would assume the land transfer was permanent and went on an agitation without verifying the facts. But the rest of us have to assume that there was nothing communal about the agitations and keep saying “ Oh the poor Kashmiris! They are being oppressed in their own land!” ( a land which incidentally belongs to a lot of other minorities too who have been driven out of their homes).
Besides there were attacks on a few Muslims in and around Jammu, but nothing was premeditated, and all these attacks too need to be condemned. However these attacks can never be compared to the large scale persecution that the Muslims in the valley had subjected the other minorities to. Strangely however, such calls for ethnic cleansing and “Azadi” is not communal, the agitations against the provision of land is not communal, however someone protesting against the revoked order is considered communal! This kind of idiocy is possible only in the Indian media.
He further writes “ the fact that not just Kashmiris but Gujjars and other Muslims from parts of other state that had nothing to do with the land transfer were also targeted seems to prove to Kashmiris that the Jammu agitation was horribly communal. And it is a short step from there to reviving fears that Kashmir is unsafe long term in “Hindu India”.
Isn’t this exactly what Kashmiris have been doing for over a decade? Targeting Hindu pandits and other minorities who had nothing to do with the brutal peace keeping forces, nor the “Azadi” movement? What makes them so surprised when some of their extremism and hostility backfires against them? Kashmiris have already purged the valley off other minorities and established a Muslim Kashmir. They keep inciting people of other religion (by agitating against the land transfer) and when they finally do see some reaction they say that they are “unsafe” in a Hindu India. This is the height of hypocrisy! How many minorities can feel safe in a Muslim Kashmir?
It is time we stopped being politically correct and try to come to terms with raw facts. Kashmir is a Muslim majority and that is the main reason they want “Azadi”. Period. All other claims of “Kashmiri psyche” and “Kashmiri aspirations” is nonsense. What special “aspirations” do they have which are not shared by the Kashmiri Hindus, Dogras, Buddhists and others? The answers is simple isn’t it? They want an Islamic state. They want a state only for Muslims. The do not want to be a part of Hindu India (that is the way they view India, concepts like secularism does not go down well with them). After all why be a part of a country filled with infidels and idolators when you can be part of the “land of pure” (Pakistan).
We would all like to believe that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance and that some misguided terrorists have hijacked it. Most people in Indian media believe in this make believe utopian world. However this is far from reality. Let us get some things straight. Islam for most of its part has been a violent religion. More than anyone else Hindus should be knowing this because they have been subjected to one of the biggest genocides in history by Muslim rulers. We can’t keep making excuses for them and say that these rulers were misguided and were following an extremist interpretation of Islam. Contrary to popular perceptions people like Aurangazeb were following the Quran word by word (atleast as far as treatment of infidels and kafirs were concerned).
Everything that these Muslim rulers did to their subjects in the name of religion has been sanctified by Quran. Prophet Mohammed would have been proud of his followers, proud that they were spreading his word by the sword. Most Muslims in India do not practise this kind of Islam because of the influence of various other religions and because they are a minority here. Majority of Muslims in India and many other countries are peace loving and have managed to stay moderate. The problem of Islamic fascism can be seen only in areas where Muslims are a majority. Whenever they are in a majority they discard the values of Sufism and other moderate interpretations and revert to the Wahhabi ideology prevalent in Arab countries. Kashmir was once a land of Sufism were Muslims and Hindus co-existed peacefully. That is not the case anymore and will never be as long as Pandits are denied the right to resettle there.
Hence the struggle for Azad Kashmir should no longer be shrouded anymore in words like “self determination”, “Kashmiri aspirations” or Kashmiri psyche”. It should be termed “Islamist uprising”, “Muslim hypocrisy” or a struggle for the establishment of an “Islamic state”. Because that is what it is and the sooner we realize this the better.
Most of us are familiar with the situation prevailing in the Kashmir valley. For quite sometime Kashmiris have been raising Pro Pakistan slogans (mainly from the 1990s) and wanting Azadi from India. As always their reasons are that they feel Kashmir is a unique territory and Kashmiris are a unique group of people distinct and different from their Indian counterparts. They feel they just don’t belong in India and that India is “unlawfully” occupying its territory. All this can make sense if we assume that India is composed of people with a homogenous culture, religion and language. But that is far from reality. How much of similarity do we see between, say a Tamilian and a Punjabi in terms of religion, culture or language? Not much. In fact we don’t even look the same. The only thing that binds the different and diverse groups of India together is the concept of Indian secularism and democracy. A diverse country like ours just can’t exist without these principles.
Now this needs to be seen in the context of a Kashmiri Muslim’s identity.What gives the Kashmiri Muslim a separate identity which is not shared by his other Kashmiri brothers the Pandits, Buddhist, Dogras and other minorities? The answer is quite simple. It is his Islamic identity. I had written in a previous article entitled “Monotheistic religions and their capacity to destroy” that "On more disturbing aspect of Islam is how Muslims of different countries unite and rally at the slightest hint of threat or insult to any aspect of Islam".
For a kashmiri Muslim his Islamic identity is primary. All other identities are secondary. He identifies himself more with the people of Pakistan due to his religion than his Kashmiri brothers who share his culture (the Buddhists, pandits dogras etc.) Nothing else explains the large scale ethnic cleansing of the Pandits by the extremists actively encouraged by the average Kashmiri. Around the1990s the local mosques in the valley started broadcasting anti Hindu slogans and speeches which drove the local Muslim youth into a frenzy and made them persecute fellow Kashmiri pundits, who fearing the loss of their lives migrated in huge numbers. Many seperatist leaders who killed several Kashmiri pundits are now actively in politics with the support of the Kashmiris.
Whenever discussions on the Kashmir issue takes place most newspapers say that the agitations in Kashmir is for “self determination”. What nonsense! What “self determination” are they talking about? Is every culturally distinct group in India clamouring for “self determination”? No. Religion is the only factor that plays a part here. This should be called “communalism”, not “self determination”, “Azadi” or “freedom struggle”.
Most Kashmiris say they are sick of the heavy handedness of the Indian army and the peacekeeping forces. I agree that the treatment of the Kashmiris by the peacekeeping forces has been despicable and deplorable. There have been rapes, custodial killings, random disappearances and encounters. All of this has led to considerable anger against the Indian establishment. However kashmiris have to introspect and wonder what led to this situation. During the late 80s and early 90s Kashmiris actively encouraged militant organizations to proliferate amidst them with logistical support from the I.S.I. They gave active support to the militants and many of them also joined the “freedom struggle”. To counter these terrorist activities the government had to sent troops to crush the militants. What is the point of blaming the Indian government for ruthless suppression?
Coming to the agitations, some newspapers have condemned the politicians for giving this issue a “communal” twist. Whenever I read these kind of half baked ideas I feel like laughing. Has anything about Kashmir ever been non communal? If the inhabitants of Kashmir were following some other religion this problem wouldn’t be there in the first place.
A correspondent of the Indian Express writes “ Since the original June–end agitation in Kashmir had not been communal, reaction in Kashmir to the retaliation – targeted killing of Muslims in and around Jammu – was a horrified sense of injustice”.
This kind of convoluted logic is possible only by an Indian pseudo secularist. First he assumes that the original agitation in Kashmir was not communal, though it was blatantly so. It was all shrouded in the provisions of article 370 which does not allow foreigners to own land. Here “foreigners” has been conveniently interpreted to mean Hindus as most of the Hindu population has already been driven out of the valley. So the agitation has been conveniently interpreted to mean an agitation for land , but in reality the agitation was to prevent Hindu occupation. Though the government had assured the Kashmiris that the land was given only for setting temporary shelters, Kashmiris had decided that they would assume the land transfer was permanent and went on an agitation without verifying the facts. But the rest of us have to assume that there was nothing communal about the agitations and keep saying “ Oh the poor Kashmiris! They are being oppressed in their own land!” ( a land which incidentally belongs to a lot of other minorities too who have been driven out of their homes).
Besides there were attacks on a few Muslims in and around Jammu, but nothing was premeditated, and all these attacks too need to be condemned. However these attacks can never be compared to the large scale persecution that the Muslims in the valley had subjected the other minorities to. Strangely however, such calls for ethnic cleansing and “Azadi” is not communal, the agitations against the provision of land is not communal, however someone protesting against the revoked order is considered communal! This kind of idiocy is possible only in the Indian media.
He further writes “ the fact that not just Kashmiris but Gujjars and other Muslims from parts of other state that had nothing to do with the land transfer were also targeted seems to prove to Kashmiris that the Jammu agitation was horribly communal. And it is a short step from there to reviving fears that Kashmir is unsafe long term in “Hindu India”.
Isn’t this exactly what Kashmiris have been doing for over a decade? Targeting Hindu pandits and other minorities who had nothing to do with the brutal peace keeping forces, nor the “Azadi” movement? What makes them so surprised when some of their extremism and hostility backfires against them? Kashmiris have already purged the valley off other minorities and established a Muslim Kashmir. They keep inciting people of other religion (by agitating against the land transfer) and when they finally do see some reaction they say that they are “unsafe” in a Hindu India. This is the height of hypocrisy! How many minorities can feel safe in a Muslim Kashmir?
It is time we stopped being politically correct and try to come to terms with raw facts. Kashmir is a Muslim majority and that is the main reason they want “Azadi”. Period. All other claims of “Kashmiri psyche” and “Kashmiri aspirations” is nonsense. What special “aspirations” do they have which are not shared by the Kashmiri Hindus, Dogras, Buddhists and others? The answers is simple isn’t it? They want an Islamic state. They want a state only for Muslims. The do not want to be a part of Hindu India (that is the way they view India, concepts like secularism does not go down well with them). After all why be a part of a country filled with infidels and idolators when you can be part of the “land of pure” (Pakistan).
We would all like to believe that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance and that some misguided terrorists have hijacked it. Most people in Indian media believe in this make believe utopian world. However this is far from reality. Let us get some things straight. Islam for most of its part has been a violent religion. More than anyone else Hindus should be knowing this because they have been subjected to one of the biggest genocides in history by Muslim rulers. We can’t keep making excuses for them and say that these rulers were misguided and were following an extremist interpretation of Islam. Contrary to popular perceptions people like Aurangazeb were following the Quran word by word (atleast as far as treatment of infidels and kafirs were concerned).
Everything that these Muslim rulers did to their subjects in the name of religion has been sanctified by Quran. Prophet Mohammed would have been proud of his followers, proud that they were spreading his word by the sword. Most Muslims in India do not practise this kind of Islam because of the influence of various other religions and because they are a minority here. Majority of Muslims in India and many other countries are peace loving and have managed to stay moderate. The problem of Islamic fascism can be seen only in areas where Muslims are a majority. Whenever they are in a majority they discard the values of Sufism and other moderate interpretations and revert to the Wahhabi ideology prevalent in Arab countries. Kashmir was once a land of Sufism were Muslims and Hindus co-existed peacefully. That is not the case anymore and will never be as long as Pandits are denied the right to resettle there.
Hence the struggle for Azad Kashmir should no longer be shrouded anymore in words like “self determination”, “Kashmiri aspirations” or Kashmiri psyche”. It should be termed “Islamist uprising”, “Muslim hypocrisy” or a struggle for the establishment of an “Islamic state”. Because that is what it is and the sooner we realize this the better.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE
A week earlier I had watched the no confidence motion moved in the Parliament. I have previously watched budget sessions of the Parliament but was never greatly interested in their proceedings. This experience was quite different. It actually started in a very tame manner by the Prime Minister ManMohan Singh reading out a prepared speech and starting the motion. What was striking was his absolute lack of speaking skills. The Prime Minister may be a technocrat, he may not have actively campaigned anywhere but that is not a good excuse for a Prime Minister of a billion people. No wonder he doesn’t inspire many. But of course Mr.Singh’s inadequacies are nothing compared to the phenomenal mediocrity of thought and action that I witnessed the next two days.
Mr.Advani as leader of opposition was the next speaker. He was flamboyant as usual talking passionately about how his Left friends had been cheated by the Congress by violating the sacred Common Minimum Programme. However his speech had nothing new to it, was repetitive (what he spoke in the Parliament was exactly similar to the interview he had given to The Hindu a few weeks ago, even the words did not change) and was factually wrong in many places. But he did put his points strongly and was much more convincing than Mr.Singh.
The speakers who followed were not able to speak as the opposition decided that they would not let anyone be heard. There was absolute pandemonium and the Left managed to produce the highest decibel levels. There was this particular M.P. from the Left (I think his name was Ahmed) who occupied maximum floor time (I guess atleast four hours) more than his stipulated 40 minutes by interrupting every speaker on some issue or the other. The Speaker Mr.Chatterjee was greatly annoyed and had to adjourn the House several times.
It was obvious that these people had gathered there not to discuss issues (most of them had already decided who they’d vote for) but to disrupt the Parliament as much as possible and make their voices heard. There was absolutely no respect for the Parliament nor for the Speaker. The Speaker looked like a helpless sheep among a pack of wolves.
Our honourable M.P.s lacked listening skills, basic decency, and where high on rhetoric and low on facts. They had decided right from the beginning to disagree with each other. They were more interested in personal attacks and settling scores rather than have a discussion on the issue. A handful like P.Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee did justice to their posts.
It is a great shame that these are the guys who are representing us on a national and international scale. The Parliament appeared to be a product of anarchy rather than democracy. The icing on the cake was as everyone knows the display of cash in the well of the House by three B.J.P. M.Ps. Along with those who have given bribes these three M.P.s should also be punished for contempt of the Parliament.
This inability to reach a consensus is a problem that has been plaguing India throughout its history. Indians had meekly submitted to the rule of the Mughals and the British exactly because of this problem. We were so busy quarreling with each other and settling petty scores against one another that we missed the big picture and were ultimately subjected to slavery and foreign rule. Our selfish instincts seems to be more stronger than the ability to work together for the greater common good. Our inability to see beyond short term selfish goals has severely handicapped our ability to make long term plans. No wonder we are not only the world’s largest democracy but also the most non-functional.
Mr.Advani as leader of opposition was the next speaker. He was flamboyant as usual talking passionately about how his Left friends had been cheated by the Congress by violating the sacred Common Minimum Programme. However his speech had nothing new to it, was repetitive (what he spoke in the Parliament was exactly similar to the interview he had given to The Hindu a few weeks ago, even the words did not change) and was factually wrong in many places. But he did put his points strongly and was much more convincing than Mr.Singh.
The speakers who followed were not able to speak as the opposition decided that they would not let anyone be heard. There was absolute pandemonium and the Left managed to produce the highest decibel levels. There was this particular M.P. from the Left (I think his name was Ahmed) who occupied maximum floor time (I guess atleast four hours) more than his stipulated 40 minutes by interrupting every speaker on some issue or the other. The Speaker Mr.Chatterjee was greatly annoyed and had to adjourn the House several times.
It was obvious that these people had gathered there not to discuss issues (most of them had already decided who they’d vote for) but to disrupt the Parliament as much as possible and make their voices heard. There was absolutely no respect for the Parliament nor for the Speaker. The Speaker looked like a helpless sheep among a pack of wolves.
Our honourable M.P.s lacked listening skills, basic decency, and where high on rhetoric and low on facts. They had decided right from the beginning to disagree with each other. They were more interested in personal attacks and settling scores rather than have a discussion on the issue. A handful like P.Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee did justice to their posts.
It is a great shame that these are the guys who are representing us on a national and international scale. The Parliament appeared to be a product of anarchy rather than democracy. The icing on the cake was as everyone knows the display of cash in the well of the House by three B.J.P. M.Ps. Along with those who have given bribes these three M.P.s should also be punished for contempt of the Parliament.
This inability to reach a consensus is a problem that has been plaguing India throughout its history. Indians had meekly submitted to the rule of the Mughals and the British exactly because of this problem. We were so busy quarreling with each other and settling petty scores against one another that we missed the big picture and were ultimately subjected to slavery and foreign rule. Our selfish instincts seems to be more stronger than the ability to work together for the greater common good. Our inability to see beyond short term selfish goals has severely handicapped our ability to make long term plans. No wonder we are not only the world’s largest democracy but also the most non-functional.
Friday, July 18, 2008
UNILEVER'S SHAMELESS ADVERTISEMENTS
Unilever has done it again. In its quest for greater profits it has successfully exploited the inferiority complex of many Indians who think their dark skin is somehow degrading. More than settle for a “fairer” skin it seems the company is trying to push for what many Indians consider the highest ideal of beauty – a white skin. In this particular ad (which is more like a drama) Priyanka Chopra who gets dumped by Saif, slathers her face with Pond’s white beauty and lo and behold… Saif realizes he is actually in love with her(due to her “radiant white beauty”) and goes back to Priyanka. The whole idea is so shallow, I wonder which kind of woman will be appealed by it. It is truly an insult to the intelligence of Indian women. If this is what is required to attract a suitable husband then I’d rather remain a spinster all my life. ;)
Unilever has been involved with such racist ads for a long time with its ubiquitous and highly lucrative brand “Fair and Lovely” where a fair skin can guarantee you anything from a high paying job to a hubby. In these ads they usually show a woman who is not only dark but also doesn’t have a fashion sense, is timid and scared to approach people. Once she uses fairness creams everything about her changes (not only her face), she dresses more fashionably, approaches people more confidently and manages to attract suitable grooms.
As pointed out by many in the blogosphere, the same Unilever company markets Dove products in the Western countries which asks woman to love themselves the way they are. Apparently Western people can be confident about the way they look, but Indians should cover their faces with creams to reach the “ideal” look. Our idiotic society plays a huge part in reaffirming these prejudices. You only have to look at the matrimonial section of newspapers to know this.
I call all self respecting women (and men) to boycott Unilever products. It is time we Indians got rid of this slavish mentality.
Unilever has been involved with such racist ads for a long time with its ubiquitous and highly lucrative brand “Fair and Lovely” where a fair skin can guarantee you anything from a high paying job to a hubby. In these ads they usually show a woman who is not only dark but also doesn’t have a fashion sense, is timid and scared to approach people. Once she uses fairness creams everything about her changes (not only her face), she dresses more fashionably, approaches people more confidently and manages to attract suitable grooms.
As pointed out by many in the blogosphere, the same Unilever company markets Dove products in the Western countries which asks woman to love themselves the way they are. Apparently Western people can be confident about the way they look, but Indians should cover their faces with creams to reach the “ideal” look. Our idiotic society plays a huge part in reaffirming these prejudices. You only have to look at the matrimonial section of newspapers to know this.
I call all self respecting women (and men) to boycott Unilever products. It is time we Indians got rid of this slavish mentality.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
MONOTHEISTIC RELIGIONS AND THEIR CAPACITY TO DESTROY
MONOTHEISTIC RELIGIONS AND THEIR CAPACITY TO DESTROY
Schopenhauer once famously remarked “Intolerance is essential only to monotheism, an only God is by nature a jealous God who will not allow another to live. On the other hand polytheistic Gods are naturally tolerant as they live and let live.” The significance of what he said seems to have more relevance today than anytime before.
The concept of monotheistic religion stands as “ There is only one God and he is the one I believe in.” The possibility that people belonging to other lands, languages, cultures could similarly subscribe to a different religion and have different versions of “God” does not seem to affect them. Rather they solve this problem by stating that their God is the true One. Everone else is worshipping a false God or else that they are poor misguided souls who need to be converted to the “true” religion.
Monotheistic religions center around a selfish concept i.e. only those followers of a particular religion can have salvation. Everyone else is condemned to eternal damnation. However polytheistic religions do not suffer from this narrow minded approach as once you start acknowledging that different Gods can exist in the same religion, so can different Gods for different religions. One God needn’t exist at the cost of another. They can co-habit peacefully.
I have to share this particular experience I had as a teenager. I had gone to visit an uncle in a hospital who was recovering from a spinal injury. As my Mom and me were starting to leave two nuns from a nearby catholic church approached us. They asked my Mom if they could pray for my uncle’s speedy recovery. My Mom was touched that a total stranger was willing to pray for her mother and gladly agreed. After they completed the prayer and blessed my Uncle they turned to leave. My Mom stopped them and asked them if they would permit the reverse i.e. allow people from her religion to pray for sick people of their (Christian) faith. The two nuns seemed utterly shocked for a moment, then they composed themselves and told my mother with a sweet smile these exact words in Tamil “ Yesu thaan unmaiyaana kadavul. Naanga eppadi unga matham senthavangalukku jabikka anumathikkiradhu?” roughly translated as “Jesus Christ is the true God. How can we let people of other religions pray for our people?”
I am not quoting this incident to prove that all Christians are intolerant and myopic. I studied in a Christian school and I knew plenty of people who were exactly the opposite. However what I want to explain is that monotheistic religions feeds on an individual’s hunger to feel unique i.e. “my religion is the best, my God is the best.”
Religion and faith can help a person only if it is coupled with education and a broad world view. Else it severely constrains the ability of a human mind for rational and logical thinking. This can be seen in several Western countries which are predominantly Christian. Due to a liberal education most people are encouraged to think for themselves and do not have the reductionist world view of a fundamentalist. Besides they do not feel the need to live their life by a literal representation of the Bible as they have realized that faith in God has nothing to do with a line by line adherence to the Bible. Some people have even given up their religion to embrace atheism but more about this later.
However supporters of Islam (esp. those living in Islamic countries) do not seem to have the luxury of an open mind. Education does seem to have had a moderating effect on them and does not reverse several years of religious indoctrination which have been drilled into their heads from a very young age. They are made to believe that they have to lead their lives through a literal interpretation of the Quran.
This kind of “live by the book” attitude severely retards their capacity to take their own decisions about God, morality etc. There maybe many Muslims living in secular countries who do not abide by these rules. However it must be remembered that they are minorities in those countries whose predominant religion is something else. Secular interpretation of religion very rarely occurs in countries which are a Muslim majority. The Muslim groups which make themselves visible through the media and newspapers are the “fatwa issuing” rabble rousers. Besides Muslims with a secular attitude would be considered kafirs and infidels even by their counterparts in Islamic countries as they are not following the Quran literally. In fact the ones ready for jihad on non-believers are the ones who are following the Prophet’s ideas word by word. Thus quite obviously they consider secularism anathema to their religious beliefs and ideals.
This should be taken in context with the recent protests in Kashmir about the Amarnath land issue. How a few hundred Hindus staying in Kashmir for two months can alter the “demographics” of Kashmir is baffling if not outright stupid. This claim from a state of people who routinely hail dead terrorists as “martyrs’, take processions for them as well as constructing shrines in memory of them, and who have systematically driven out the native Kashmiri pundits through discriminatory policies. This refusal to grant land has nothing to do with - environment. It stems from the intolerant belief that no other religion be allowed to flourish in Kashmir.
On more disturbing aspect of Islam is how Muslims of different countries unite and rally at the slightest hint of threat or insult to any aspect of Islam. A cartoon depicting Mohammed as violent is reacted to not by peaceful protests but by burning embassies thus proving that the cartoonist was in fact right in portraying the leader of their religion that way. Books highlighting the negative aspects of Islam are banned and the writers are driven out of their countries to seek asylum elsewhere.
We call ourselves a secular country and prove our “secularism” by banning any sort of material which is considered hurtful to any religion. What we have done ultimately is reduce ourselves to a weak country in trying to assuage every hurt sentiment and giving lunatics and fanatics more bargaining space. If we do not wake up and realize the quagmire we are in, we are going to lose Kashmir to this global fascist organization masquerading as a religion. Our country is doomed if we do not check the radical aspect of this hostile monotheistic religion.
Schopenhauer once famously remarked “Intolerance is essential only to monotheism, an only God is by nature a jealous God who will not allow another to live. On the other hand polytheistic Gods are naturally tolerant as they live and let live.” The significance of what he said seems to have more relevance today than anytime before.
The concept of monotheistic religion stands as “ There is only one God and he is the one I believe in.” The possibility that people belonging to other lands, languages, cultures could similarly subscribe to a different religion and have different versions of “God” does not seem to affect them. Rather they solve this problem by stating that their God is the true One. Everone else is worshipping a false God or else that they are poor misguided souls who need to be converted to the “true” religion.
Monotheistic religions center around a selfish concept i.e. only those followers of a particular religion can have salvation. Everyone else is condemned to eternal damnation. However polytheistic religions do not suffer from this narrow minded approach as once you start acknowledging that different Gods can exist in the same religion, so can different Gods for different religions. One God needn’t exist at the cost of another. They can co-habit peacefully.
I have to share this particular experience I had as a teenager. I had gone to visit an uncle in a hospital who was recovering from a spinal injury. As my Mom and me were starting to leave two nuns from a nearby catholic church approached us. They asked my Mom if they could pray for my uncle’s speedy recovery. My Mom was touched that a total stranger was willing to pray for her mother and gladly agreed. After they completed the prayer and blessed my Uncle they turned to leave. My Mom stopped them and asked them if they would permit the reverse i.e. allow people from her religion to pray for sick people of their (Christian) faith. The two nuns seemed utterly shocked for a moment, then they composed themselves and told my mother with a sweet smile these exact words in Tamil “ Yesu thaan unmaiyaana kadavul. Naanga eppadi unga matham senthavangalukku jabikka anumathikkiradhu?” roughly translated as “Jesus Christ is the true God. How can we let people of other religions pray for our people?”
I am not quoting this incident to prove that all Christians are intolerant and myopic. I studied in a Christian school and I knew plenty of people who were exactly the opposite. However what I want to explain is that monotheistic religions feeds on an individual’s hunger to feel unique i.e. “my religion is the best, my God is the best.”
Religion and faith can help a person only if it is coupled with education and a broad world view. Else it severely constrains the ability of a human mind for rational and logical thinking. This can be seen in several Western countries which are predominantly Christian. Due to a liberal education most people are encouraged to think for themselves and do not have the reductionist world view of a fundamentalist. Besides they do not feel the need to live their life by a literal representation of the Bible as they have realized that faith in God has nothing to do with a line by line adherence to the Bible. Some people have even given up their religion to embrace atheism but more about this later.
However supporters of Islam (esp. those living in Islamic countries) do not seem to have the luxury of an open mind. Education does seem to have had a moderating effect on them and does not reverse several years of religious indoctrination which have been drilled into their heads from a very young age. They are made to believe that they have to lead their lives through a literal interpretation of the Quran.
This kind of “live by the book” attitude severely retards their capacity to take their own decisions about God, morality etc. There maybe many Muslims living in secular countries who do not abide by these rules. However it must be remembered that they are minorities in those countries whose predominant religion is something else. Secular interpretation of religion very rarely occurs in countries which are a Muslim majority. The Muslim groups which make themselves visible through the media and newspapers are the “fatwa issuing” rabble rousers. Besides Muslims with a secular attitude would be considered kafirs and infidels even by their counterparts in Islamic countries as they are not following the Quran literally. In fact the ones ready for jihad on non-believers are the ones who are following the Prophet’s ideas word by word. Thus quite obviously they consider secularism anathema to their religious beliefs and ideals.
This should be taken in context with the recent protests in Kashmir about the Amarnath land issue. How a few hundred Hindus staying in Kashmir for two months can alter the “demographics” of Kashmir is baffling if not outright stupid. This claim from a state of people who routinely hail dead terrorists as “martyrs’, take processions for them as well as constructing shrines in memory of them, and who have systematically driven out the native Kashmiri pundits through discriminatory policies. This refusal to grant land has nothing to do with - environment. It stems from the intolerant belief that no other religion be allowed to flourish in Kashmir.
On more disturbing aspect of Islam is how Muslims of different countries unite and rally at the slightest hint of threat or insult to any aspect of Islam. A cartoon depicting Mohammed as violent is reacted to not by peaceful protests but by burning embassies thus proving that the cartoonist was in fact right in portraying the leader of their religion that way. Books highlighting the negative aspects of Islam are banned and the writers are driven out of their countries to seek asylum elsewhere.
We call ourselves a secular country and prove our “secularism” by banning any sort of material which is considered hurtful to any religion. What we have done ultimately is reduce ourselves to a weak country in trying to assuage every hurt sentiment and giving lunatics and fanatics more bargaining space. If we do not wake up and realize the quagmire we are in, we are going to lose Kashmir to this global fascist organization masquerading as a religion. Our country is doomed if we do not check the radical aspect of this hostile monotheistic religion.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
TIME TO SCRAP ARTICLE 370?
The latest controversy about the transfer of land to the Amarnath shrine board and its subsequent revoke order has raised several questions about the special autonomy status which J&K has had for the past fifty years. Due to this special status accorded to J&K by the government of India the people there have ceased to consider themselves a part of India. The autonomy given by this article has actually compounded the problem of integration of Kashmir with India and has led to the rise of separatist tendencies among the people.
On October 26, 1947 Maharaja Hari Singh formally acceded Kashmir to India. Article 370 was provided as a temporary measure of governance until the State Assembly ratified the accession. However the subsequent governments failed to nullify this Act which has led to the creation of a country within a country. The provision of Article 370 is such that except for defence, foreign affairs and communication the Parliament requires the State governments approval for the application of all other laws as required by the constitution.
Hence the state of J&K has a different set of laws with respect to citizenship, and ownership of property. According to these property rights, a person from another state of India cannot buy land from J&K. Though people from J&K are official citizens of India , people from other states cannot expect to become citizens of Kashmir. However people from J&K can enjoy every right that other Indian citizens enjoy. This particular law has special significance with respect to the ongoing protests in Jammu about the revoked order. According to several seperatist leaders in Kashmir this particular order (granting land to the shrine board) would alter the “demographics” of Kashmir. What they mean is that the Indian government was trying to repopulate the area with Hindus. Though the Indian government had assured the people that the board was only going to construct make shift accommodations and was not constructing buildings on a permanent basis the people of Kashmir have continued with their strikes and protests. This level of intolerance to other religions while simultaneously being a part of a secular country like India is precisely because of the seperatist tendencies reinforced by article 370. Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state in India and they have shown a great amount of intolerance to people from every other faith. Imagine what would happen if we applied the same standards to a Hindu majority country like India?
Paradoxically article 370 provided by the constitution is against the very essence of our constitution which provides for a sovereign, secular republic. However the people of J&K who have been brainwashed by their seperatist leaders think that Kashmir is a unique state not under the purview of the government of India and most of all that it is an Islamic state. Their religious identity seems more important to them than their national identity. This is reflected in their intolerance to other religions and their reluctance to accept the secular nature of India. What should have been a temporary provision became permanent because of trying to appease the majority population consisting of Muslims and minority rights were systematically violated under the guise of the will of the majority. The problem is also compounded by the CRPF and other peace keeping forces in Kashmir who have eroded the people’s faith in the Government of India
If Kashmir is ever to become an integral part if India what is required is the abrogation of Article 370 by the President. But will any government have the will to do that?
On October 26, 1947 Maharaja Hari Singh formally acceded Kashmir to India. Article 370 was provided as a temporary measure of governance until the State Assembly ratified the accession. However the subsequent governments failed to nullify this Act which has led to the creation of a country within a country. The provision of Article 370 is such that except for defence, foreign affairs and communication the Parliament requires the State governments approval for the application of all other laws as required by the constitution.
Hence the state of J&K has a different set of laws with respect to citizenship, and ownership of property. According to these property rights, a person from another state of India cannot buy land from J&K. Though people from J&K are official citizens of India , people from other states cannot expect to become citizens of Kashmir. However people from J&K can enjoy every right that other Indian citizens enjoy. This particular law has special significance with respect to the ongoing protests in Jammu about the revoked order. According to several seperatist leaders in Kashmir this particular order (granting land to the shrine board) would alter the “demographics” of Kashmir. What they mean is that the Indian government was trying to repopulate the area with Hindus. Though the Indian government had assured the people that the board was only going to construct make shift accommodations and was not constructing buildings on a permanent basis the people of Kashmir have continued with their strikes and protests. This level of intolerance to other religions while simultaneously being a part of a secular country like India is precisely because of the seperatist tendencies reinforced by article 370. Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state in India and they have shown a great amount of intolerance to people from every other faith. Imagine what would happen if we applied the same standards to a Hindu majority country like India?
Paradoxically article 370 provided by the constitution is against the very essence of our constitution which provides for a sovereign, secular republic. However the people of J&K who have been brainwashed by their seperatist leaders think that Kashmir is a unique state not under the purview of the government of India and most of all that it is an Islamic state. Their religious identity seems more important to them than their national identity. This is reflected in their intolerance to other religions and their reluctance to accept the secular nature of India. What should have been a temporary provision became permanent because of trying to appease the majority population consisting of Muslims and minority rights were systematically violated under the guise of the will of the majority. The problem is also compounded by the CRPF and other peace keeping forces in Kashmir who have eroded the people’s faith in the Government of India
If Kashmir is ever to become an integral part if India what is required is the abrogation of Article 370 by the President. But will any government have the will to do that?
Chech this out:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-465570/I-fanatic--I-know-thinking-says-radical-Islamist.html
Sunday, June 15, 2008
NADI JOTHIDAM - A HOAX?
Nadi jothidam is something that has fascinated me for a long time. The whole concept is mind blowing : reading the past present and future of a person through the writings on palm leaves written thousands of years ago by ancient sages who had the ability to reach beyond the boring reality of their everyday lives and have a peek into the workings of the Universe.
I was around tenth standard when I came to know about nadi jothidam. Those were the times when I was fascinated and awed by both Indian and Western astrology. However with growing years the skeptic inside me grew and I realized that most of astrology was done through either intelligent guessing, random choices or generalizations. There was certainly no method to it and certainly no way of proving or disproving anything.
However I’ve got many friends and acquaintances who will vouch for the authenticity of nadi jothidam. They are not uneducated illiterate people, most of them are doctors and engineers and some are academicians. I’ve never had the time to visit Chidambaram and check this out for myself. A few days ago an article appeared in The Indian Express about a journalist’s experience with Nadi jothidam in Chidambaram and like many of my friends she was shocked to realize that the astrologer was predicting several incidents which were happening in her life with unnerving accuracy only by having her thumb impression and sifting through hundred of olai chuvadis to find her correct match.
My question is if nadi jothidam was as accurate as people say it is, why is this claim not being rigorously researched by scientists? If this were to be proved true after rigorous testing just imagine what a sea change it will produce in the world. I for one will quit being an atheist and people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens will be rendered jobless. If rebirths are proved to be true ,then surely the presence of a superpower to set your destiny in motion is unquestionable, therefore God’s existence will always be unquestionable.
But we as a people are always satisfied with half truths and miracles. The spirit of enquiry is dead in our country. We don’t want to question our astrologers and godmen lest they be proved fake. It is the duty of our government to set up a commission to investigate such claims so that the few of us who are actually interested in knowing the truth should know it. Freedom does not only mean we are free to rule ourselves, it also means freedom of the mind to explore all things, question everything and come to our own conclusions. How long can we remain ambiguous in our beliefs and close our eyes to logical and rational thinking?
I was around tenth standard when I came to know about nadi jothidam. Those were the times when I was fascinated and awed by both Indian and Western astrology. However with growing years the skeptic inside me grew and I realized that most of astrology was done through either intelligent guessing, random choices or generalizations. There was certainly no method to it and certainly no way of proving or disproving anything.
However I’ve got many friends and acquaintances who will vouch for the authenticity of nadi jothidam. They are not uneducated illiterate people, most of them are doctors and engineers and some are academicians. I’ve never had the time to visit Chidambaram and check this out for myself. A few days ago an article appeared in The Indian Express about a journalist’s experience with Nadi jothidam in Chidambaram and like many of my friends she was shocked to realize that the astrologer was predicting several incidents which were happening in her life with unnerving accuracy only by having her thumb impression and sifting through hundred of olai chuvadis to find her correct match.
My question is if nadi jothidam was as accurate as people say it is, why is this claim not being rigorously researched by scientists? If this were to be proved true after rigorous testing just imagine what a sea change it will produce in the world. I for one will quit being an atheist and people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens will be rendered jobless. If rebirths are proved to be true ,then surely the presence of a superpower to set your destiny in motion is unquestionable, therefore God’s existence will always be unquestionable.
But we as a people are always satisfied with half truths and miracles. The spirit of enquiry is dead in our country. We don’t want to question our astrologers and godmen lest they be proved fake. It is the duty of our government to set up a commission to investigate such claims so that the few of us who are actually interested in knowing the truth should know it. Freedom does not only mean we are free to rule ourselves, it also means freedom of the mind to explore all things, question everything and come to our own conclusions. How long can we remain ambiguous in our beliefs and close our eyes to logical and rational thinking?
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
SPIT INDIA MOVEMENT
It is a national pastime of gargantuan proportions. Only the other national pastime- cricket rivals it in its popularity and reach. Most Indian citizens are acquainted with this very Indian sport and many of them are jubilant participants competing in it gleefully without expecting any prizes for their hard work. In one way these people are the true followers of Bhagavad Gita.
“Swaraj is my birth right” thundered Bal Gangadhar Tilak. “Spitting is my birthright” says the average Indian. No Indian citizen would forfeit his birthright to spit for anything in the world. We Indians just can’t have it any other way. However we should not discredit our spitters by putting them in a single homogenous group. That would be criminal as they are of different hybrid varieties and they warrant a classfication accordingly.
Red Dragon:
These are the eternal pan, gutkha , betel nut chewers. They were the pioneers of the chewing gum industry. The Yankees and Brits just copied it from us and replaced the pan with rubber.
Anyways, if not for these guys how will the aisles of cinema theatres, government hospitals and subways be decorated with such myriad shapes and designs, such art yet unrivaled by any abstract artist. These will be the future Ajantas and Elloras of our country bearing testimony to this hands free art devoid of paints and brushes. These artists work at a considerable cost to their life with the risk of oral cancer looming large, but these brave souls plough on knowing that the future generation will be eternally thankful for their sacrifices.
Casual Spitter: These people usually belong to the labour class – the coolies, rickshawallas, vegetable vendors etc.They have absolutely no qualms about spitting on the ground, it is as vital to them as breathing. They will not bother about the people standing around them, they are extremely focused on their mission – to spit and no amount of staring can stop these people. They’ll probably think you are mad if you tell them that people actually get fined in some places for doing the same.
Careful Spitter: These guys are the most dangerous as most of them are unrecognizable from the non-spitters. These are the mall going city bred types. However their eyes are always watchful and when they’ve made sure that no one is watching them out of nowhere an ugly blotch of fluid will appear on the ground. They’ll keep walking as though nothing happened.
Chronic Spitter: These guys usually suffer from some chronic lung disorder and feel the urge to displace the microorganisms colonizing their body to another human habitat free of cost, no strings attached. Research is going on to use these guys as potential weapons of mass destruction in biological warfare.
The “I am disgusted” Spitter: These guys do not actually transfer their oral fluid to the ground, they only mimic the action to show that they are particularly displeased or disgusted about something. They are present mainly in movies and mega serials.
The virtual spitter: These are the people who spit on India through their words and writing. A good example is Sir Vidia Naipaul who has taken it upon himself to make the Western world understand why India is such a hopeless and sick country. He has accomplished what a generation of Indian spitters haven’t.
The Spit India Movement would have accomplished twenty years earlier what the Quit India movement did, only if we had had a dedicated spitter for a leader. The brits would have fled the country if we had drowned them in a deluge of spit, tail between their legs.
Considering that we Indians are so good at this particular sport, we should press the Olympics Committee to include it as a sporting event. I mean if you can have a sport to assess how far a guy can throw something, you can also have a sport to calibrate the spitting potential of a person. Both require skills don’t they? Let us hope for the best. I am keeping my fingers crossed. If we succeed in convincing them, then nothing can stop us from getting that coveted Olympic gold!
Saturday, May 31, 2008
MALAISE AFFLICTING TAMIL CINEMA
A strange disease seems to be afflicting Tamil cinema. I don't know if the other Indian movies are affected similarly, due to my obvious lack of knowledge. However I've seen this unhealthy trend for a long period of time and here are my two cents about it. Tamilnadu is the land which has supposedly welcomed the dark hero
Rajnikanth and made him world famous. Rajnikanth is a cult figure here.
In every other movie of his, Rajnikanth harps on his dark skin and says what a great gift it has been , thanking his mother, his country and thanking the Tamil people for accepting him. However all his heroines, and I say all (dispute me if you can) are fair skinned and most likely brought down from Mumbai. They do not know Tamil (obviously) and are pretty bad at lip sync. This is not only restricted to Rajnikanth. Almost all other tamil heroes are dark, but they prance around with fair heroines brought down from the south of Vindhyas. It seems the idea of a dark skinned heroine is anathema to them though most of them encounter dark skinned women all their life. They probably think that their mothers and sisters are ugly too. I don't know. They are dark skinned, they talk at length about the superiority of dark skin and all that crap, but they will act only with fair skinned heroines. This obvious hypocrisy is baffling.
This can be seen particularly in that big blockbuster joke of a movie called Shivaji with Rajni at the lead. In the movie Rajni tries a lot to become fair by dabbing fairness creams, but ultimately his lady love (the fair skinned Shriya) tells him that she likes him just the way he is. It seems this reflects the mentality of Tamil youth (atleast the B and C class moviegoers). They need the constant reaffirmation from fair skinned ladies that they are good looking however dark they maybe. This reflects a deep seated insecurity and self hate seen in Tamil men.
They obviously are not proud of their color whatever dialogues they might mouth in movies targetting the same insecure Tamil youth. And sadly people like Rajnikanth are proprogating this insecurity and self hate unconsciously. Or maybe they have been in the field for so long that they have internalized these values and don't see the obvious hypocrisy involved. I really don't know. This guy is no superstar. He is just super insecure. Pretty pathetic that there are no dark skinned Tamil heroines though 80% of the population here is dark skinned. What message are we sending our girls through these movies? That somehow being fair is superior and beautiful?
These kind of movies are also partly the reason why fairness creams are the highest selling beauty products in our country. These companies tell people (especially girls) that their natural skin color is somehow degrading and ugly and not good enough to be deemed beautiful, and earn millions in the process!! Shame on us Tamilians!
Rajnikanth and made him world famous. Rajnikanth is a cult figure here.
In every other movie of his, Rajnikanth harps on his dark skin and says what a great gift it has been , thanking his mother, his country and thanking the Tamil people for accepting him. However all his heroines, and I say all (dispute me if you can) are fair skinned and most likely brought down from Mumbai. They do not know Tamil (obviously) and are pretty bad at lip sync. This is not only restricted to Rajnikanth. Almost all other tamil heroes are dark, but they prance around with fair heroines brought down from the south of Vindhyas. It seems the idea of a dark skinned heroine is anathema to them though most of them encounter dark skinned women all their life. They probably think that their mothers and sisters are ugly too. I don't know. They are dark skinned, they talk at length about the superiority of dark skin and all that crap, but they will act only with fair skinned heroines. This obvious hypocrisy is baffling.
This can be seen particularly in that big blockbuster joke of a movie called Shivaji with Rajni at the lead. In the movie Rajni tries a lot to become fair by dabbing fairness creams, but ultimately his lady love (the fair skinned Shriya) tells him that she likes him just the way he is. It seems this reflects the mentality of Tamil youth (atleast the B and C class moviegoers). They need the constant reaffirmation from fair skinned ladies that they are good looking however dark they maybe. This reflects a deep seated insecurity and self hate seen in Tamil men.
They obviously are not proud of their color whatever dialogues they might mouth in movies targetting the same insecure Tamil youth. And sadly people like Rajnikanth are proprogating this insecurity and self hate unconsciously. Or maybe they have been in the field for so long that they have internalized these values and don't see the obvious hypocrisy involved. I really don't know. This guy is no superstar. He is just super insecure. Pretty pathetic that there are no dark skinned Tamil heroines though 80% of the population here is dark skinned. What message are we sending our girls through these movies? That somehow being fair is superior and beautiful?
These kind of movies are also partly the reason why fairness creams are the highest selling beauty products in our country. These companies tell people (especially girls) that their natural skin color is somehow degrading and ugly and not good enough to be deemed beautiful, and earn millions in the process!! Shame on us Tamilians!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
MYTH BUSTED
One more revelation which will help in the transition of this country from a superstitious, irrational one to a sane rational one. The Makara vilaku which appears every year on the first of the Makaram month is a man made one! The Minister of Temple Affairs G.Sudhakaran has just confirmed this.. I personally know many people who actually believe that the makara vilakku is a supernatural phenomenon in this day and age. Too bad for them the list of miracles just keep dwindling day by day. And the temple authorities should be punished for fooling people consistently for so many years.
It is time we busted the other big miracle maker of our age : Sai baba. This guy can apparently produce lingams, sacred ash and what not out of thin air. Millions of devotees throng him every year in the hope of recieving blessings and good luck. He should be tested under controlled conditions and his fraud should be exposed. He should spend the rest of his days in jail where he can entertain his other prison mates with magic tricks. Many prominent personalities (including prime ministers) take blessings from this guy and for long he has roamed this country in the guise of a god man "blessing" people with his "powers".
Worshipping statues and stones is one thing. You could probably call it "projecting" your faith onto something which can be seen and felt.( I dont support this either but doesn't seem to be too harmful to me.) But worshipping another human being is quite another thing altogether. It smacks of slavery and servility. Indians seem to excel in this form of slavery particularly.
We seem to be clinging to the slave mentality that we acquired during the British period. Bending over backward to please our gora masters has morphed now into this strange Indian obsession of deifying human beings. Lack of courage to face the present gets translated as "faith" and "bhakti". These guys make use of the weaknesses in the human psyche and manipulate people and their feelings by making them feel powerless.
Also people who were normal human beings become Gods after they die. There is this one person I know who doesn't believe in the present Sai baba saying he is a trickster out to fool people. However she has tremendous faith and belief in Shirdi Sai baba who according to her is the "original" sai baba. What rubbish!! Orginal or duplicate, both are human beings. There is nothing divine or special about any one of them. They are all living , breathing humans like us, with all the human weaknesses.
The same goes for the controversy surrounding Ram sethu. Rama may have been a powerful king during his time or he might have just been part of a mythical folktale. Either way Rama was no God and there is enough evidence to prove that Ram sethu was not man made. However archaeologists who stated this obvious fact were fired and the Congress had to give an apology to assuage the feelings of "ram bhakhts".
Harry Potter is a pretty popular book now, the way the Ramayan tale was during its time. In another thousand years (by that time the tale might get twisted to give harry "godlike" characteristics), there is every chance that Harry might become God and the Harry Potter books might just become one of the sacred books of the Potterians ( a new religion based on the Harry potter books). And Hagrid might just become someone like Hanuman. Provided we don't nuke ourselves before that :)
It is time we busted the other big miracle maker of our age : Sai baba. This guy can apparently produce lingams, sacred ash and what not out of thin air. Millions of devotees throng him every year in the hope of recieving blessings and good luck. He should be tested under controlled conditions and his fraud should be exposed. He should spend the rest of his days in jail where he can entertain his other prison mates with magic tricks. Many prominent personalities (including prime ministers) take blessings from this guy and for long he has roamed this country in the guise of a god man "blessing" people with his "powers".
Worshipping statues and stones is one thing. You could probably call it "projecting" your faith onto something which can be seen and felt.( I dont support this either but doesn't seem to be too harmful to me.) But worshipping another human being is quite another thing altogether. It smacks of slavery and servility. Indians seem to excel in this form of slavery particularly.
We seem to be clinging to the slave mentality that we acquired during the British period. Bending over backward to please our gora masters has morphed now into this strange Indian obsession of deifying human beings. Lack of courage to face the present gets translated as "faith" and "bhakti". These guys make use of the weaknesses in the human psyche and manipulate people and their feelings by making them feel powerless.
Also people who were normal human beings become Gods after they die. There is this one person I know who doesn't believe in the present Sai baba saying he is a trickster out to fool people. However she has tremendous faith and belief in Shirdi Sai baba who according to her is the "original" sai baba. What rubbish!! Orginal or duplicate, both are human beings. There is nothing divine or special about any one of them. They are all living , breathing humans like us, with all the human weaknesses.
The same goes for the controversy surrounding Ram sethu. Rama may have been a powerful king during his time or he might have just been part of a mythical folktale. Either way Rama was no God and there is enough evidence to prove that Ram sethu was not man made. However archaeologists who stated this obvious fact were fired and the Congress had to give an apology to assuage the feelings of "ram bhakhts".
Harry Potter is a pretty popular book now, the way the Ramayan tale was during its time. In another thousand years (by that time the tale might get twisted to give harry "godlike" characteristics), there is every chance that Harry might become God and the Harry Potter books might just become one of the sacred books of the Potterians ( a new religion based on the Harry potter books). And Hagrid might just become someone like Hanuman. Provided we don't nuke ourselves before that :)
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
A FARMERS BUDGET! - REALLY?
I am no economist and do not claim to be one(being a doctor by profession). These are some of my views on the budget as I understand it from various newspaper articles and magazines especially the Frontline.
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This budget is dubbed as a populist one targeting the common man especially those in the agricultural sector. The loan waiver announced by the Finance Minister Chidambaram is viewed by many(especially in the print media) as one that will bring a huge relief to the debt ridden farmers
However there are two clauses to the loan waiver: one is that only farmers who have borrowed from the banks could avail of the loan waiver and the other is that only farmers who have a land holding of two hectares or less could avail the loan waiver. So essentially the relief is going to reach only 25% of the farmers. It is especially not going to give relief to farmers from the suicide prone Vidharba district as most of the farmers there own more than two hectares though they are the most hit by the drought and the agrarian crisis. (This paradox is because most of these farmers have arid lands with little access to irrigation and hence the produce from each land is limited and meagre. Therefore inspite of having more than two hectares their agriculture produce is pretty less when compared to farmers who have access to irrigation and who can make a huge produce with one or two hectares.
Most of these farmers have also acquired loans from private moneylenders who charge exorbitant interest rates which have added to the farmers misery. Hence the debt relief package will not reach farmers such as those in Vidharba who are the ones in a quagmire.
Also it is touted that the debt relief package will cost the exchequer. This is not true as the banks have to write off the loans and receive bonds from the government in return and receive a steady interest rate which will cost the government only 4000 crores.
The government should have instead settled the loans borrowed from private money lenders by providing loans through co-operative banks in this regard. This proposal was mooted but was not taken up by the government.
The farmer’s predicament is truly miserable. Imagine that you have a part-time job with a company. Instead of the steady salary you receive every month the company decides to hold up your salary every time it goes through a bad patch even tough you work regularly. This comparison may sound dubious but this is somewhat the state of the Indian farmer. This is where insurance schemes can help the farmer but the government has failed to implement it properly.
The cost of input for agriculture has increased because of subsidies for fertilizers have largely decreased over the past decade. Add to this the compounding problem of drought and the increasing price of seeds.
The farmers borrows from a private moneylender and invests into his land. If a drought season comes he is left with little or no output and no money left to pay his loans which drives him to penury and suicide. Even if the rains come on time and the farmers produces a bounty of harvest he is given a minimum procurement price by the government. Though the cost of input has increased exponentially over the past few years the government keeps the support price of procurement to a minimum level. The prices are kept low so that the prices of foodgrains do not increase and contribute to further inflation. The farmers have been made the scapegoats and shock absorbers here. And the government proudly proclaims that that most of its policies are pro-poor and pro-agrarian.
Have we strangulated our farmers in our quest for liberalization? Liberalisation brought with it the upward moblility of the middle class and an increased access to consumer goods and durables such as computers and mobile phones. India was touted as the perfect destination for MNCs by the government and sops and subsidies were extended several IT companies to set shop here. However with the era of liberalization the farmer has been marginalized more and more and pushed to the background. Farmers income have declined over the past decade thanks to the policies of the government.
Many people say that Nehru made a big mistake by pursuing socialist policies in the post independence era. However they do not realize that it was his socialist policies which gave a firm support base for the economic growth of the country. If we had followed capitalist policy we would have ended up like one of the present African countries.
It is shameful that India has four billionaires in the Forbes list while simultaneously having a human development Index (HDI) of 128. I do not blame them for India’s record. However no other country from which the top ten were listed had such a dismal record except us. We are much behind Srilanka, China and even Namibia. HDI is based on gross domestic product(GDP), literacy levels and human life expectancy at birth.
India has one of the highest rate of malnutrition and underweight children at birth. Over the past few years inspite of a G.D.P of 9% we have fallen in the HDI from 126 to 128. This is because of our dismal literacy levels and life expectancy. G.D.P per capita is basically a non indicator in this regard.
By pursuing such policies India is going to put itself in deeper inextricable problems and the disparity between the rich and poor is going to increase alarmingly. We cannot be happy that a few people have reached the super-rich category while million others are struggling for three meals per day. This kind of unsustainable policies are going to wreck the country in the long run. The government can pursue liberalization policies if it simultaneously decides to protect the interests of the poor , but I don’t see this happening at all. The way we are going we will end up as brain deficient, retarded free market fundamentalists.
.
This budget is dubbed as a populist one targeting the common man especially those in the agricultural sector. The loan waiver announced by the Finance Minister Chidambaram is viewed by many(especially in the print media) as one that will bring a huge relief to the debt ridden farmers
However there are two clauses to the loan waiver: one is that only farmers who have borrowed from the banks could avail of the loan waiver and the other is that only farmers who have a land holding of two hectares or less could avail the loan waiver. So essentially the relief is going to reach only 25% of the farmers. It is especially not going to give relief to farmers from the suicide prone Vidharba district as most of the farmers there own more than two hectares though they are the most hit by the drought and the agrarian crisis. (This paradox is because most of these farmers have arid lands with little access to irrigation and hence the produce from each land is limited and meagre. Therefore inspite of having more than two hectares their agriculture produce is pretty less when compared to farmers who have access to irrigation and who can make a huge produce with one or two hectares.
Most of these farmers have also acquired loans from private moneylenders who charge exorbitant interest rates which have added to the farmers misery. Hence the debt relief package will not reach farmers such as those in Vidharba who are the ones in a quagmire.
Also it is touted that the debt relief package will cost the exchequer. This is not true as the banks have to write off the loans and receive bonds from the government in return and receive a steady interest rate which will cost the government only 4000 crores.
The government should have instead settled the loans borrowed from private money lenders by providing loans through co-operative banks in this regard. This proposal was mooted but was not taken up by the government.
The farmer’s predicament is truly miserable. Imagine that you have a part-time job with a company. Instead of the steady salary you receive every month the company decides to hold up your salary every time it goes through a bad patch even tough you work regularly. This comparison may sound dubious but this is somewhat the state of the Indian farmer. This is where insurance schemes can help the farmer but the government has failed to implement it properly.
The cost of input for agriculture has increased because of subsidies for fertilizers have largely decreased over the past decade. Add to this the compounding problem of drought and the increasing price of seeds.
The farmers borrows from a private moneylender and invests into his land. If a drought season comes he is left with little or no output and no money left to pay his loans which drives him to penury and suicide. Even if the rains come on time and the farmers produces a bounty of harvest he is given a minimum procurement price by the government. Though the cost of input has increased exponentially over the past few years the government keeps the support price of procurement to a minimum level. The prices are kept low so that the prices of foodgrains do not increase and contribute to further inflation. The farmers have been made the scapegoats and shock absorbers here. And the government proudly proclaims that that most of its policies are pro-poor and pro-agrarian.
Have we strangulated our farmers in our quest for liberalization? Liberalisation brought with it the upward moblility of the middle class and an increased access to consumer goods and durables such as computers and mobile phones. India was touted as the perfect destination for MNCs by the government and sops and subsidies were extended several IT companies to set shop here. However with the era of liberalization the farmer has been marginalized more and more and pushed to the background. Farmers income have declined over the past decade thanks to the policies of the government.
Many people say that Nehru made a big mistake by pursuing socialist policies in the post independence era. However they do not realize that it was his socialist policies which gave a firm support base for the economic growth of the country. If we had followed capitalist policy we would have ended up like one of the present African countries.
It is shameful that India has four billionaires in the Forbes list while simultaneously having a human development Index (HDI) of 128. I do not blame them for India’s record. However no other country from which the top ten were listed had such a dismal record except us. We are much behind Srilanka, China and even Namibia. HDI is based on gross domestic product(GDP), literacy levels and human life expectancy at birth.
India has one of the highest rate of malnutrition and underweight children at birth. Over the past few years inspite of a G.D.P of 9% we have fallen in the HDI from 126 to 128. This is because of our dismal literacy levels and life expectancy. G.D.P per capita is basically a non indicator in this regard.
By pursuing such policies India is going to put itself in deeper inextricable problems and the disparity between the rich and poor is going to increase alarmingly. We cannot be happy that a few people have reached the super-rich category while million others are struggling for three meals per day. This kind of unsustainable policies are going to wreck the country in the long run. The government can pursue liberalization policies if it simultaneously decides to protect the interests of the poor , but I don’t see this happening at all. The way we are going we will end up as brain deficient, retarded free market fundamentalists.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
RELIGIOUS PEOPLE - ARE THEY WEAK MINDED?
The other day I was flicking through various channels and came across one regional channel which was broadcasting a religious congregation at the Marina beach.Thousands of people had assembled to hear a guy called Paul Dinahar who is a Christian preacher. I never usually see such programs but the words he said compelled me to watch it. He was saying: "Have faith in God. Only then will He have mercy on you. Without him you are nothing. Everything you do is successful only because of him" and so on and so forth.
It was as though the guy was actually threatening them with dire consequences if they wavered from their belief in God. All of them were listening to every word he was saying with folded hands muttering prayers furiously under their breath. Then the channel proceeded to show certain videoclips of 'miracles' that the guy had performed by his mass prayers. A lady suffering from urinary incontinence,a man with broken legs and many others with several assorted ailments had been cured because of this guy's prayers.
The camera went back to the congregation and the guy was speaking in a louder and more commanding voice asking the people to pray to Jesus Christ for forgiving all their sins. He soon reached a frenetic pace and people in the crowd started waving their hands towards the sky begging god to have mercy on them. Many women were ridiculously crying and one women started dancing hysterically waving her hand in different directions. The men were content saying furious prayers. This whole proceeding had me doubled up in laughter. This was a classic case of mass hysteria. So many people seem to be scared of the wrath of God and were asking for his mercy. The man had managed to whip the crowd into a frenzy and it seems everyone loves a bit of excitement.
But the main point was that they actually swallowed all the miracle stories that the guy had told them. You could see it in their faces and tears. They actually believed all the crap he said.
Mind you, not many of them were illiterate uneducated people. A substantial portion of them (who spoke in the programme later) seem to come from the middle class. Many of them spoke fluent English. I'm pretty sure most of them atleast have a twelfth standard to their credit.
It seems thinking objectively just doesn't fit in with religion. Most religious people seem to have severe deficiencies in their prefontal cortex which makes them delusional and robs them of objective analysis. And most women seem to fall easily for this sort of crap. This guy Paul Dinahar and his father D.G. Dinahar have amassed a fortune from the various donations they have recieved from various fools. And having a degree and education doesn't stop these people from believing this sort of nonsense.
I have come to the conclusion that most religious people are weak minded whiners who are so scared to face the realities of life that they need a psychological crutch in whatever they do.They need someone to support them in every stage of their life.
The same goes for Hindus too. Recently several schools pooled up their money together to perform a yagna to invoke Goddess Saraswathi just before the board exams. All the chidren sat around the homam while the poojari distributed stationaries 'blessed' by him. Most of the children inerviewed later said they felt blessed by the pooja. Religious fervour seems to be increasing with every generation in India.
Parents(whose minds have already been brainwashed with years of indoctrination) force religion down children's throats. Children blindly believe what their parents tell them becoming immature adults believing in 'miracles'.
Religion seems to be embeddd in the Indian psyche. The other day a software company who opened their operation in Chennai requested a pujari to perform poojas who promptly smeared kumkum on the monitors as though this was going to help them in any way. If only those computers had artificial intelligence!
Many Indians also go around wearing gems and stones apparently lucky for them and there is a roaring business going on in this field. Most businessmen capitalize on this insecurity of Indians and their weakness for all things religious.
Indians see an auspicious time for everything they do starting from marriage ceremonies, new ventures and businesses even to giving birth to a baby on an auspicious minute as deduced by their astrologer so that the baby has a perfect natal chart!
If there is ever a species which is so scared of fate on this planet it is us!
It was as though the guy was actually threatening them with dire consequences if they wavered from their belief in God. All of them were listening to every word he was saying with folded hands muttering prayers furiously under their breath. Then the channel proceeded to show certain videoclips of 'miracles' that the guy had performed by his mass prayers. A lady suffering from urinary incontinence,a man with broken legs and many others with several assorted ailments had been cured because of this guy's prayers.
The camera went back to the congregation and the guy was speaking in a louder and more commanding voice asking the people to pray to Jesus Christ for forgiving all their sins. He soon reached a frenetic pace and people in the crowd started waving their hands towards the sky begging god to have mercy on them. Many women were ridiculously crying and one women started dancing hysterically waving her hand in different directions. The men were content saying furious prayers. This whole proceeding had me doubled up in laughter. This was a classic case of mass hysteria. So many people seem to be scared of the wrath of God and were asking for his mercy. The man had managed to whip the crowd into a frenzy and it seems everyone loves a bit of excitement.
But the main point was that they actually swallowed all the miracle stories that the guy had told them. You could see it in their faces and tears. They actually believed all the crap he said.
Mind you, not many of them were illiterate uneducated people. A substantial portion of them (who spoke in the programme later) seem to come from the middle class. Many of them spoke fluent English. I'm pretty sure most of them atleast have a twelfth standard to their credit.
It seems thinking objectively just doesn't fit in with religion. Most religious people seem to have severe deficiencies in their prefontal cortex which makes them delusional and robs them of objective analysis. And most women seem to fall easily for this sort of crap. This guy Paul Dinahar and his father D.G. Dinahar have amassed a fortune from the various donations they have recieved from various fools. And having a degree and education doesn't stop these people from believing this sort of nonsense.
I have come to the conclusion that most religious people are weak minded whiners who are so scared to face the realities of life that they need a psychological crutch in whatever they do.They need someone to support them in every stage of their life.
The same goes for Hindus too. Recently several schools pooled up their money together to perform a yagna to invoke Goddess Saraswathi just before the board exams. All the chidren sat around the homam while the poojari distributed stationaries 'blessed' by him. Most of the children inerviewed later said they felt blessed by the pooja. Religious fervour seems to be increasing with every generation in India.
Parents(whose minds have already been brainwashed with years of indoctrination) force religion down children's throats. Children blindly believe what their parents tell them becoming immature adults believing in 'miracles'.
Religion seems to be embeddd in the Indian psyche. The other day a software company who opened their operation in Chennai requested a pujari to perform poojas who promptly smeared kumkum on the monitors as though this was going to help them in any way. If only those computers had artificial intelligence!
Many Indians also go around wearing gems and stones apparently lucky for them and there is a roaring business going on in this field. Most businessmen capitalize on this insecurity of Indians and their weakness for all things religious.
Indians see an auspicious time for everything they do starting from marriage ceremonies, new ventures and businesses even to giving birth to a baby on an auspicious minute as deduced by their astrologer so that the baby has a perfect natal chart!
If there is ever a species which is so scared of fate on this planet it is us!
Saturday, March 8, 2008
WOMEN'S DAY- CAUSE TO CELEBRATE?
In this post I'm not going to start singing paens to those few women who have made it big in their life. I'm going to talk about the vast majority who haven't. I am warning beforehand that this post is loaded with pessimistic thoughts and sweeping generalizations.
The other day I was reading Forbes list of the ten most richest people in the world. Most of those listed were industrialists. Obviously there was not a single woman on the list. This was hardly surprising. Women have never been in the upper echelons of business and industry.
Constituting roughly 50% of the world's population women are hardly represented in the top ranks of any field. In fact when you go through the list of Nobel prize laureates the results are even more enbarassing. Women contribute to just a handful of recepients. Is this due to the 'glass ceiling' or is the problem more deeper?
Is it that women are just not motivated or passionate enough to make it big in the world? (I know I am sounding remarkably juvenile when I say this but I don't know how else to put it). Or are their priorities just different from guys? Do they value raising children annd starting families more than they value their independence, career and profession?
When a system (ex: religion) oppresses women and puts them on a lower social status than men why aren't the oppressed raising their voices against it. Clearly it seems women just aren't interested in coming out of their 'comfort zones'. It takes a great deal of persevearence and courage to fight the system and women just aren't upto the task. They are contented in being second class to men as long as they remain in their comfort zones. They don't even support other women who have the guts to speak out. (How many Muslim women are ready to support Taslima Nasreen?) Women constitute half the population and I don't think it is impossible for them to break the shackles of a system if only they want to.
However most women (atleast in India) are contented in being a docile wife and mother as long as thier positions are not jeopardized. Surely the housewives are the bane of women's liberation.
They also blame men for their woes while it was they who played a major part in legitmizing and condoning the system in the first place. If women are not adequately represented in every field they have no one to blame but themselves. They are just inheriting their ancestor's complacency in not fighting for their rights all these years which has contributed to the sad state of affairs today. How long can one blame a society which was formed and legitimized by women? The society simply would't exist without them.
Depiction of women as sex symbols in commercial movies and advertisements doesn't help either. It only reinforces stereotypes about women and their (lack of) intellectual capacities.
The other day I was reading Forbes list of the ten most richest people in the world. Most of those listed were industrialists. Obviously there was not a single woman on the list. This was hardly surprising. Women have never been in the upper echelons of business and industry.
Constituting roughly 50% of the world's population women are hardly represented in the top ranks of any field. In fact when you go through the list of Nobel prize laureates the results are even more enbarassing. Women contribute to just a handful of recepients. Is this due to the 'glass ceiling' or is the problem more deeper?
Is it that women are just not motivated or passionate enough to make it big in the world? (I know I am sounding remarkably juvenile when I say this but I don't know how else to put it). Or are their priorities just different from guys? Do they value raising children annd starting families more than they value their independence, career and profession?
When a system (ex: religion) oppresses women and puts them on a lower social status than men why aren't the oppressed raising their voices against it. Clearly it seems women just aren't interested in coming out of their 'comfort zones'. It takes a great deal of persevearence and courage to fight the system and women just aren't upto the task. They are contented in being second class to men as long as they remain in their comfort zones. They don't even support other women who have the guts to speak out. (How many Muslim women are ready to support Taslima Nasreen?) Women constitute half the population and I don't think it is impossible for them to break the shackles of a system if only they want to.
However most women (atleast in India) are contented in being a docile wife and mother as long as thier positions are not jeopardized. Surely the housewives are the bane of women's liberation.
They also blame men for their woes while it was they who played a major part in legitmizing and condoning the system in the first place. If women are not adequately represented in every field they have no one to blame but themselves. They are just inheriting their ancestor's complacency in not fighting for their rights all these years which has contributed to the sad state of affairs today. How long can one blame a society which was formed and legitimized by women? The society simply would't exist without them.
Depiction of women as sex symbols in commercial movies and advertisements doesn't help either. It only reinforces stereotypes about women and their (lack of) intellectual capacities.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
REMINISCING POTTER
It has been a wonderful, mindboggling journey. One filled with happiness,sadness, joy ecstasy, hope and sorrow. I am talking about my journey with Harry Potter.
Now you might say ‘She is one of those delusional Potter maniacs who are crazy about all things Harry”.And I say “Yes!” A resounding yes. Our love for Potter extends beyond liking a well written book with an excellent plot. It has been an emotional and thrilling experience too.
How can a book, a mere book make you feel happy and sad at the same time? This one can. You’ve got to be reading Potter for a while for the experience to sink in.
I am going to confine myself to describing certain parts of the book for obvious reasons.
I first read Potter when I was in my eleventh standard. I enjoyed the first book but thought it was way too childish for my taste. However I loved the plot and Rowling’s way of bringing of the magical world of Hogwarts right in front of your eyes.This lady has tremendous imagination and creativity! Most of us Potter fans had imagined the Hogwarts castle complete with its revolving staircases and talking portraits even before the movies got released, thanks to Rowling’s beautiful descriptions.
The books started more like a beautiful fairytale and became more engaging, macabre and dark by each installment. Her last book “the Deathly Hallows” is hardly a children’s book, more to be read by teens and adults.
The best part of these books are the well fleshed out characters. Each character in the book have a three dimensional personality, a story of their own and black and white and shades of grey. This is one of the most important reason for the immense popularity of the books. There is such a variety of characters that everyone reading the book can identify with atleast one of them. Rowling highlights the positives and negatives of each character in a beautiful manner. Be it the motherly Mrs.weasley, the ever sarcastic Severus Snape or the benevolent Dumbledore each character has been brought out in its entirety. Mrs.Weasley is not only motherly but courageous, defiant and proud, Snape can also be caring and loving and Dumbledore of all people a powerhungry and cunning man.
The next best thing about the books are its plots and subplots. Rowling masterfully weaves a web of stories and and branches them out into delightful subplots with each character having a central space in the individual subplots. Her books contain heavy doses of foreshadowing and glib oneliners which become the predictions for the future books. She is also an expert at planting red herrings all the way to fool the unsuspecting readers to reach wrong conclusions which they realize only in the next book.
Her books also contain delightful little intricate details like the origin of the names of the different characters. There is also an entire family tree who have been named after stars and constellations!
A master storyteller Rowling has thrilled us like no other.
Now you might say ‘She is one of those delusional Potter maniacs who are crazy about all things Harry”.And I say “Yes!” A resounding yes. Our love for Potter extends beyond liking a well written book with an excellent plot. It has been an emotional and thrilling experience too.
How can a book, a mere book make you feel happy and sad at the same time? This one can. You’ve got to be reading Potter for a while for the experience to sink in.
I am going to confine myself to describing certain parts of the book for obvious reasons.
I first read Potter when I was in my eleventh standard. I enjoyed the first book but thought it was way too childish for my taste. However I loved the plot and Rowling’s way of bringing of the magical world of Hogwarts right in front of your eyes.This lady has tremendous imagination and creativity! Most of us Potter fans had imagined the Hogwarts castle complete with its revolving staircases and talking portraits even before the movies got released, thanks to Rowling’s beautiful descriptions.
The books started more like a beautiful fairytale and became more engaging, macabre and dark by each installment. Her last book “the Deathly Hallows” is hardly a children’s book, more to be read by teens and adults.
The best part of these books are the well fleshed out characters. Each character in the book have a three dimensional personality, a story of their own and black and white and shades of grey. This is one of the most important reason for the immense popularity of the books. There is such a variety of characters that everyone reading the book can identify with atleast one of them. Rowling highlights the positives and negatives of each character in a beautiful manner. Be it the motherly Mrs.weasley, the ever sarcastic Severus Snape or the benevolent Dumbledore each character has been brought out in its entirety. Mrs.Weasley is not only motherly but courageous, defiant and proud, Snape can also be caring and loving and Dumbledore of all people a powerhungry and cunning man.
The next best thing about the books are its plots and subplots. Rowling masterfully weaves a web of stories and and branches them out into delightful subplots with each character having a central space in the individual subplots. Her books contain heavy doses of foreshadowing and glib oneliners which become the predictions for the future books. She is also an expert at planting red herrings all the way to fool the unsuspecting readers to reach wrong conclusions which they realize only in the next book.
Her books also contain delightful little intricate details like the origin of the names of the different characters. There is also an entire family tree who have been named after stars and constellations!
A master storyteller Rowling has thrilled us like no other.
Monday, February 18, 2008
AYN RAND'SFOUNTAINHEAD AND WHY I HATE IT
I've been wanting to write about this for a long time (ever since I read the book) and here I go. This book was recommended to me by a friend who said it depicted the realities of the world.
The fountainhead is regarded as an excellent fictional book the world over with heavy doses of philisoophy, ethics, morality and her unique philosophy "Objectivism".
However I failed to understand why the book is appreciated so much the world over. It is not a very engaging book and is extremely pessimistic and disillusional.
The protagonist Howard Roark is an extremely unrealistic character who if he had existed in the real world would probably have had a nervous breakdown because of his isolation from the social world of humans. But jokes apart I read in a website that Rand had modelled Howard Roark on what she considered the 'ideal man', free of prejudices and free of common human failings like jealousy. To ensure that she introduces him as an orphan who is free of the 'corrupting ' influence of his parents.
As the book progresses we see that Howard wants to be an architect in his own right and wants to build bulidings in his own unique way. Pretty idealistic and perfectly alright. We are then introduced to his friend Peter who is a pretty pathetic creature always requiring the approval of others for everything he does and says- a perfectly insecure young man who will go to any depth to get things his way.
Then she introduces us to a beast of a human called Dominique Francon who like I said if had existed in the real world would have been locked up in an asylum for her sadistic cruelty. This lady will go to any length to ridicule and and belittle others in the knowledge that she is more purer and nobler than others. It is at this point that I start having doubts.
Someone who knows the faillings of others will most likely understand the reason for those human incocnsistencies and sympathize with them or at the most will consider themselves superior. But this lady in her attempts to depict the shallowness of those around others stoops to a level worse than them in her cruelty and highhandedness.
But as she is pretty and the daughter of a rich architect she is tolerated at best by most and despised by a few. This lady falls in love with Howard for according to her he is the embodiment of all that is pure in mankind. But she realises that this 'shallow' and 'ugly' world will not let him survive.
So she decides that she will accelerate his downfall because she does not want him to be 'tainted' by the 'ugly world'.
She goes about spreading wrong things about Howard and hitching every possible assignment he gets to destroy him totally. And every day that she successfully ruins his projects she sleeps with him.
At this particular point I have become totally convinced that this is an absolutely psychotic book but I continue reading it to see what I have missed that the others can see. The book continues on with Howard's heroic struggle with the world and his ultimate triumph in the end. As the book unfolds Domonique keeps moving from one successful guy to antoher and ditching him in his moment of despair. Needless to say she unites with Howard in the end.
This book is supposed to champion the celebrated concept of individuality and it expresses the idea that taking care of your self interests will benefit the society in the long run.
She portrays Horward as a dynamic individual who charts his own course and succeeds in life. But what of the female protagonist?
Howard loves his job and wants to work the way he wants to. He is an admirable perrson in the book. The author portrays Dominique as a woman of pure and noble nature above human failings(I dunno how to express this but that is how she is percieved in the book). But she does not have an ambition of her own, she does not seem to love her work , however she loves to point out other people's faults.
This degrading mentality disgusted me and being a bit of a feminist myself wondered why Rand being a woman had opted for such a disgusting portrayal of a woman. (She is not required to, but well I always pin my hopes on female writers to tell the female side of the story.) The female protagonist does nothing more than sleep with different guys and bring them down at the best possible opportunities. The merits of the book are how it successfully showcases the superficiality of the world and its failings.
Rand is an advocate of "laissez fair" capitalism and free market fundamentalism both of which can be disastrous to a country. Concepts like welfare are anathema to her and she believes in exclusive capitalism. Socialism is a strict no-no, and the concept of equality for all a completely devious plan bent on 'punishing' the truly 'meritorious'.
The fountainhead is regarded as an excellent fictional book the world over with heavy doses of philisoophy, ethics, morality and her unique philosophy "Objectivism".
However I failed to understand why the book is appreciated so much the world over. It is not a very engaging book and is extremely pessimistic and disillusional.
The protagonist Howard Roark is an extremely unrealistic character who if he had existed in the real world would probably have had a nervous breakdown because of his isolation from the social world of humans. But jokes apart I read in a website that Rand had modelled Howard Roark on what she considered the 'ideal man', free of prejudices and free of common human failings like jealousy. To ensure that she introduces him as an orphan who is free of the 'corrupting ' influence of his parents.
As the book progresses we see that Howard wants to be an architect in his own right and wants to build bulidings in his own unique way. Pretty idealistic and perfectly alright. We are then introduced to his friend Peter who is a pretty pathetic creature always requiring the approval of others for everything he does and says- a perfectly insecure young man who will go to any depth to get things his way.
Then she introduces us to a beast of a human called Dominique Francon who like I said if had existed in the real world would have been locked up in an asylum for her sadistic cruelty. This lady will go to any length to ridicule and and belittle others in the knowledge that she is more purer and nobler than others. It is at this point that I start having doubts.
Someone who knows the faillings of others will most likely understand the reason for those human incocnsistencies and sympathize with them or at the most will consider themselves superior. But this lady in her attempts to depict the shallowness of those around others stoops to a level worse than them in her cruelty and highhandedness.
But as she is pretty and the daughter of a rich architect she is tolerated at best by most and despised by a few. This lady falls in love with Howard for according to her he is the embodiment of all that is pure in mankind. But she realises that this 'shallow' and 'ugly' world will not let him survive.
So she decides that she will accelerate his downfall because she does not want him to be 'tainted' by the 'ugly world'.
She goes about spreading wrong things about Howard and hitching every possible assignment he gets to destroy him totally. And every day that she successfully ruins his projects she sleeps with him.
At this particular point I have become totally convinced that this is an absolutely psychotic book but I continue reading it to see what I have missed that the others can see. The book continues on with Howard's heroic struggle with the world and his ultimate triumph in the end. As the book unfolds Domonique keeps moving from one successful guy to antoher and ditching him in his moment of despair. Needless to say she unites with Howard in the end.
This book is supposed to champion the celebrated concept of individuality and it expresses the idea that taking care of your self interests will benefit the society in the long run.
She portrays Horward as a dynamic individual who charts his own course and succeeds in life. But what of the female protagonist?
Howard loves his job and wants to work the way he wants to. He is an admirable perrson in the book. The author portrays Dominique as a woman of pure and noble nature above human failings(I dunno how to express this but that is how she is percieved in the book). But she does not have an ambition of her own, she does not seem to love her work , however she loves to point out other people's faults.
This degrading mentality disgusted me and being a bit of a feminist myself wondered why Rand being a woman had opted for such a disgusting portrayal of a woman. (She is not required to, but well I always pin my hopes on female writers to tell the female side of the story.) The female protagonist does nothing more than sleep with different guys and bring them down at the best possible opportunities. The merits of the book are how it successfully showcases the superficiality of the world and its failings.
Rand is an advocate of "laissez fair" capitalism and free market fundamentalism both of which can be disastrous to a country. Concepts like welfare are anathema to her and she believes in exclusive capitalism. Socialism is a strict no-no, and the concept of equality for all a completely devious plan bent on 'punishing' the truly 'meritorious'.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Sonia and her Order of Leopold
Sonia Gandhi is to be conferred the Order of Leopold by Belgium. This award is given to those who have served Belgium outstandingly through the military, or through the society and state. However this could mean her allegiance and adherence to Belgium.
Hence the huge debate on whether she should be allowed to recieve the Order in the first place. So the Election Comission has served a notice on her on a disqualification complaint filed against her by a lawyer in Kerala. The election Comission has been divided on the whole issue what with the voting going 2 to 1.
However I wonder why Sonia is being given the award in the fiirst place? What did she do to earn the gratitude of the Belgian government to select her for the highest award in Belgium? In what way could she have served Belgium? Is the honour purely decorative?. Is there something I can't see?
Hence the huge debate on whether she should be allowed to recieve the Order in the first place. So the Election Comission has served a notice on her on a disqualification complaint filed against her by a lawyer in Kerala. The election Comission has been divided on the whole issue what with the voting going 2 to 1.
However I wonder why Sonia is being given the award in the fiirst place? What did she do to earn the gratitude of the Belgian government to select her for the highest award in Belgium? In what way could she have served Belgium? Is the honour purely decorative?. Is there something I can't see?
Friday, February 8, 2008
RANTINGS
A walk on the beach may not guarantee fresh air but it sure does guarantee a good dose of stench. That was my experience today morning when I went for a walk on the Marina beach. Considered to be one of the longest beaches of the world it is in a pretty sick state right now. A main factor is the proximity of slum areas or "kuppam" in local parlance, to the beach. These people consider the beach their private property and openly defecate on it in the early morinngs. An entire compund wall has been converted into a smelly urinal. It would be better if our ridiculous chief minister, instead of providing free television sets to poor people could construct toilets for them instead of letting them live in subhuman conditions.
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