Ekla Chalo Re

Party Hooters

2012-01-08T08:40:00.011+05:30

There are many instances when I’ve browsed through pictures of friends and family on virtual albums…celebrations, get-togethers. I look at pictures of grown ups laughing out loud with their heads thrown back, arms around each other and wonder if I am socially dysfunctional because I am incapable of hugging and kissing folks I don’t like very much or know…or using endearments casually or throwing my affections around cheaply. I am not apologetic about my selection of words either.

When I meet these folks individually…and our conversations pick up, I find that these pictures I see…the groups in the pictures are not necessarily of people who get along...or respect each other. They size each other up when they walk into the group, are invited and attend because they have a rapport to advertise in certain circles, indulge in inane banter and drink themselves silly. Perhaps they have to, perhaps alcohol numbs their natural instincts to turn and run and ups their tolerance levels. The best part where I would love to be a fly on the wall is the drive back home. This is when all the bitching happens about the party that was.

This kind of social interaction is also called ‘unwinding’ by the way - a stress busting exercise for people who work hard through the week. They work hard so they can afford these parties and be seen in the right clothes with the right people in the right places carrying the right visiting cards, arriving in the right cars. And some people do this every single week[end]!! Amazing!!

My idea of getting together with friends is when I can be my stupid best in my everyday clothes, sitting on the floor with some good music and home-cooked food...and a few drinks for my friends and many genuine laughs. I am so glad I know some people I can still do that with. And for that I am grateful.

Anita Iyer

Whodunit

2011-03-31T10:02:00.008+05:30

Hello blog...been a while since I felt compelled to post anything here. Been busy with EKansh...and our new pup Simba!

Recently I read this post about an old folks home on a social networking site...with questions following about those evil offspring who will want to a abandon their parents.

There are also indignant posts about kids whose parents don't give them good values...who badger them for good grades instead of thorough learning, focus on good impressions as against good attitude, ignore needs and cater to luxuries instead. IQ is more important than EQ...why I hadn't even heard of this EQ term till recently. Where the world stops when there is an exam at school. It is about oneself...succeeding, winning the rat race.

A good parent is one who knows what the child's syllabus is - chapter by chapter, line by line. Wake him/her up at midnight and they'll tell you what the child's grades were in the last exam in each subject...even those of the nearest competitors.[You guessed right, dotty's exams are on]. A good parent knows which page of which 'current hot favourite' book the child is on but has no clue which flavour of ice-cream is his/her favourite.

Yes yes, there are gray zones here too..like everywhere else.

And then one day these kids grow up and become involved in the grown up rat race. They have to get ahead...and win. They remember their lesson well - "Focus, don't let anything distract you."

And then some evil offspring dumps his/her parents in an old age home.

Same parents you think??

'What's cooking?' with Mrs. Iyer!

2009-11-19T09:34:00.016+05:30

Considering all the 'dance therapy', 'music therapy','laugh therapy', 'walk therapy', 'talk therapy', 'write therapy', 'paint therapy' workshops all around, each with atleast a dozen suckers [what else do you call someone who thinks someone else can make him/her get in touch with him/her-self?]attending, maybe I'll begin a 'cook therapy' group too and charge a 1000 bucks for a 2 hour session. Ofcourse, I already know some people do find cooking therapeutic..so ..

Here's the plan.

When you enter the class, you are led blindfolded to the kitchen where everything you need to cook up a good, fresh meal is laid out in eye-pleasing formation. This is so that you gasp when we remove the blindfold.

Lesson 1- It was all beautiful in the beginning!!

...we then get started with the 'THERAPY'

Positive venting = chopping veggies, grating cheese - also kneading dough.
Blending in = Chutney making, Dosa/Idli batter making.
Relaxation = watching tea leaves in boiling water making wonderful patterns in a deep golden brown.
Aroma therapy ( Optional - chargable) = Ginger and Holy Basil in the tea
Negative Energy release = Exhaling loudly with the whistle of a pressure cooker.
The colors of life= The spices you add to the food
You need a good cry= Chop some onions.
Coping with grief= Realising good food, like life, can be spicy, sugary, salty, sour or bitter. If you have the right proportion of everything, you have it made.
Doing away with excess baggage = Straining cooked rice, keeping only what one needs. [Oh my..I'm getting good at this - should I write and sell a book? I wonder]
Achievement bonus=Sputtering mustard / Cumin seeds and seasoning.

Life is beautiful again = Fresh coriander/Basil/Mint for garnishing.

Now say OM three times with your eyes closed, breathe in very slowly the wonderful aromas rising from the food you just prepared, open your eyes and my main door very slowly and go home. I get to keep the food. Thank you very much.

[Haven't found a replacement for my old cook...sshh]

With all due respect to the genuine therapists...those therapists who are angered and stressed out by my sorry sense of humor will be allowed to attend a session of 'What's cooking' for free.

Living a li[f]e

2009-11-18T07:41:00.001+05:30

There are so many hammocks to catch you if you fall, so many laws to keep you from experience. All these cities I have been in the last few weeks make me fully understand the cozy, stifling state in which most people pass through life. I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, "Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case." I will turn and say to them "It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!" And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup.”...... Henry Rollins quotes

I watched a man yesterday, smartly turned out, having coffee at the Chembur Barrista ( on our way out from Mumbai to Pune) talking animatedly and laughing intermittently. He looked happy...seemed to be enjoying the conversation. [I was in my car..waiting for hubby to get his cuppa.]
I assumed this was a dialogue...I turned fully to look at this man...saw nobody talking back to him or listening. I then thought he had one of those silly ear fittings that come with the cellphones that make most sane folks look demented...but he turned around twice...smiling and talking...nothing. He finished his coffee, took out his wallet, settled the bill and left...still talking to himself. He was the kind of guy you look at and think 'smart looking chap'. And this.

What drives people mad, I wonder. How does one remain sane in this crazy world, I wonder. But again, maybe like a very young friend of mine who battles bouts of Schizophrenia says..."everybody is crazy..it is just that some of us know it"

Face Value

2009-11-04T14:13:00.006+05:30

Why does Shahrukh notice Kajol in KKHH only after she begins to wear sarees and jewelry - like the typical Indian beauty?
Why does Amrita Rao have to dress like Sushmita Sen to get her boyfriend's attention in Main Hoon Na?
Why does the frog turn into a prince when the princess kisses him? Can't she fall in love with a frog?
Why does the beast also turn into a handsome prince when belle falls in love with him?
Symbolism be damned!
How many advertisements do we have for beauty products that promise us instant fame and love?

Yet, my favourite love story will remain that of Prince Charles and Camilla.

Dilli Blues

2009-11-04T08:21:00.005+05:30

I write this to assuage my conscience and as an apology to all the Dilliwalas I've offended deliberately and inadvertently [Most deserved it but hey!]. Born, bred and having sworn only to breed in Mumbai, I moved to Delhi and later to Gurgaon when I got married 15 years ago. I was already biased against the hugeeeeeee city having heard stories of its 'auntiyaan', 'behenjees' and 'showbaazee'.

None of these stories were false and I had enough reason to be opinionated and very superior with the Dilli Walas for the first few years not realising how warm and welcoming our new neighbors had been to this nayee naveli, totally lost in Delhi, dulhan and her husband.

Dilliwalas have a 'chip on the shoulder' too. They KNOW that they're not as 'kewl' as the Mumbaikars or as 'elite' as the Kolkattans. They all deny that they're 'basically' Dilliwalas although their families might have lived there for generations. Even advertisements for rented apartments are very clear in saying 'company lease' or 'south Indian family' preferred.

The shopping in Delhi is incredible. Karol Bagh, Sarojini Market and Lajpat Nagar for the casual shoppers, Greater Kailash, Khan Market, Hauz Khas and all the new ritzy malls for the more 'discerning" (??!!)...CP, Saket, etc for the youngsters to hang out...and for the khadi crowd we have Santushti and Dilli haath.

I'm now in Pune...yes...of all places. Tiny city in comparison. Cold, unwelcoming people...academically sound yet tunnel visioned in culture. A genuine, warm invite for a casual cup of tea in this city would give me a heart attack!

I long for the warmth of Delhi...the freedom to say 'Come over' knowing that the invitation will be echoed sincerely....the impromptu singing sessions with total strangers in some resort somewhere...the India Gate and the annual music shows held there...the 'showbaazi' even..where we all dressed up once in a while and showed off...the lovely places to visit with friends and kids for overnighters an hour or two away from the city...just the whole feeling of belonging.

This warmth is lacking in Pune. Everyone is an outsider...Bombay was never warm...I realise and remember that now when I revisit it after 12 years of being away. It is a city built with an agenda..it didn't evolve..it was planned. The people reflect this culture. I love it still, only because I can't suddenly not...it is a huge part of me and that will never change...but nostalgia is a big liar and I just don't feel the same way about the city today. There's too much apathy...too much attitude...too little depth. It ... just isn't the same for me anymore.

Delhi is evolving....the people know they have to change and progress..they're trying. And I like those who falter and make mistakes and try to improve better than those who pretend they were born perfect. Somehow, I've gone from the latter to the former...and I miss Delhi!

Some-antar

2009-09-06T18:10:00.006+05:30

Samaantar - The Marathi movie I watched with Mom today. Taking inspiration from my new Gujrati Pal in Kerala who watches and reviews Malayalam movies, I shall attempt to tell you what I thought of this one in a few words.

Sharmila's 'stoic'( newspaper review) silences - Marathi bolta yete hila?...pann neet bollee..towards the end.

Amol Palekar...passes (out twice) with distinction ( goatee and all)

Story line theek hota...

Aani ho! Even a Marathi SD [arre Burman re!] take-off, near Howrah bridge...O re maajhi..(Sharmila stands there wondering.."sigh, kitnee baar mujhe yahan aakar gaana padega")

Mhanje...aavadla..pann..the director doth try too hard, asa vaatla.

Art 'a' Tack

2009-08-18T08:04:00.014+05:30

A conversation with my niece, who's doing her masters in art [and living my dream] in London, led to some interesting reflections. Am sure she [in her glorious twenties] was secretly smirking at my 'unqualified' opinions.

We were discussing contemporary art. She's a fan and says art must not be restricted to beautiful depictions of even morose and morbid things on canvas...that art must leave the canvas and the four walls and be taken outside...that art has evolved to embrace the now and is not regressive or contained in a box. That video is the new canvas. That everything is art.

My take is that art has always been seen as therapeutic and a release from the regressive and contained. Also like all things real and invaluble , it was supposed to be timeless. If art today reflects the times, would it not be instantly redundant unlike what has survived and indeed enhanced generations? She doesn't agree. She says change = evolution and not necessarily a rejection of what is old. Adaption would probably be another word here. What is free, again, wont adapt.

So, I disagree. Take glass and plastic for example. Even today glass is fascinating and offers endless possibilities...plastic, well...!

What is Art? And what is its purpose?

Science for science's sake? No..there are applications
History? Again applications...well, of a kind.
Math? Applications
Geography? Applications
Art? It has always primarily been for art's sake.

I remember, we were never assessed for our aptitude for art in any great detail in school. It was, at best, an indulgance, a hobby [thank God that has changed]. At best there'd be little windows on our marksheets for DRAWING and CRAFT and we'd get graded poor/good/excellent. No marks.

Can there be theories on art? Maybe classical forms of dance and music where there can be discipline...but how does one teach another how to create a piece of art? How does one FREE art? How does it evolve? I have always found this whole 'analysis/appreciation of art' idea very pseudo...but then maybe that is because I haven't 'studied' art? 'Studied art' - an oxymoron? And 'study of free art'..again intrinsically contradictary because anything 'studied' isn't 'free'. Basic technique can be taught, perhaps...but art itself is like breathing. It has to come naturally.

Art has also always reflected current culture...and I dread to think that contemporary art will depict the lack of anything closely resembling culture today...again culture, like art, is being redefined.

Yes, the world is more eclectic and I love those buses with 3D pictures on them...and the street paintings that are surreal yet engaging...but this isn't my idea of art....this either!!!Maybe I need to take a serious look at contemporary art before I comment any further...maybe I'll change my mind...and again maybe not!

How do YOU define art?

Of balance.

2009-08-05T08:21:00.003+05:30

Some things go as planned.

Some things go differently.

Some things happen without warning.

Some things just never happen.

The secret to peace I'm told is in finding the path of least resistance and in realising that we can control and be answerable for only our own thoughts and actions.

Language is the key...

2009-08-03T04:09:00.001+05:30

http://avanti-pune.blogspot.com/

Parde mein rehne do...

2009-06-25T08:36:00.004+05:30

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/109356/Burkha-is-not-welcome-here-say-the-French

If I wont let GOD ( Yeah right!) tell me what to wear, am I going to let this french tart tell me what not to?
Btw...everyone has the freedom to be delusional. Even those who think God prescribed a dresscode. If this guy can do it, why not God? No?

....eternally

2009-06-14T07:50:00.010+05:30

And they spin...eternally.

Will we ever return
To find traces of us
In flickering spaces
Between paddles of time
Spinning eternally?
Can we catch moments
of flapping black wings
Vagrant verse
Against white skies
Of flimsy parchment
Caught and tearing
Between paddles of time
Spinning eternally?

Anita Iyer

Another time, another place

2009-05-30T07:14:00.002+05:30

What If - by Swati Chandran

I took the road less traveled by
The one that Frost had written about
Though they warned me with a sigh
Of lurking danger and surprise
I ventured on without a doubt

Of course, it made a difference
Just the way I lived my life
On my own terms, with confidence
And some not-so-common sense
Yes, it has been worth the strife

What if I had tread the beaten path?
And by every rule been bound?
Would I not be looking back in wrath,
For having feared the aftermath,
Of each new wonder that I found?

Copyright @ Swati Chandran

Tri-dent

2009-05-28T20:59:00.005+05:30

Sense, sensibility, sensitivity. Sad how one is rarely inclusive of the other in most of us.

Sense is about knowing what is worth a reaction and what isn't.

Sensibility is about being aware you don't own the space beyond your nose/knows.

Sensitivity is about being aware of the little sand grain in your shoe and completely oblivious to the elbow you stick in someone's side while you lean on him/her trying to get it out.

I do...

2009-05-26T17:51:00.004+05:30

DON'T WE ALL ( email forward )

I was parked in front of the mall wiping off my car. I had just come
from the car wash and was waiting for my wife to get out of work.
Coming my way from across the parking lot was what society would
consider a bum.
From the looks of him, he had no car, no home, no clean clothes, and no
money. There are times when you feel generous but there are other times
that you just don't want to be bothered. This was one of those "don't
want to be bothered times."
"I hope he doesn't ask me for any money," I thought.
He didn't.
He came and sat on the curb in front of the bus stop but he didn't look
like he could have enough money to even ride the bus.
After a few minutes he spoke.
"That's a very pretty car," he said.
He was ragged but he had an air of dignity around him. His scraggly
blond beard keep more than his face warm.
I said, "thanks," and continued wiping off my car.

He sat there quietly as I worked. The expected plea for money never
came.
As the silence between us widened something inside said, "ask him if
he needs any help." I was sure that he would say "yes" but I held true
to the inner voice.
"Do you need any help?" I asked.
He answered in three simple but profound words that I shall never forget.
We often look for wisdom in great men and women. We expect it from
those of higher learning and accomplishments.

I expected nothing but an
outstretched grimy hand. He spoke the three words that shook me.
"Don't we all?" he said.

I was feeling high and mighty, successful and important, above a bum
in the street, until those three words hit me like a twelve gauge
shotgun.
Don't we all?
I needed help. Maybe not for bus fare or a place to sleep, but I
needed help. I reached in my wallet and gave him not only enough for bus
fare, but enough to get a warm meal and shelter for the day. Those
three little words still ring true. No matter how much you have, no matter
how much you have accomplished, you need help too. No matter how little you
have, no matter how loaded you are with problems, even without money or
a place to sleep, you can give help.

Even if it's just a compliment, you can give that.
You never know when you may see someone that appears to have it all.
They are waiting on you to give them what they don't have. A different
perspective on life, a glimpse at something beautiful, a respite from
daily chaos, that only you through a torn world can see.
Maybe the man was just a homeless stranger wandering the streets. Maybe
he was more than that.

Maybe he was sent by a power that is great and
wise, to minister to a soul too comfortable in themselves.

Maybe God looked down, called an Angel, dressed him like a bum, then said, "go minister to that man cleaning the car, that man needs help."
Don't we all?

Zen? Arabic for Good?

2009-05-26T17:31:00.001+05:30

What Are You Doing! What Are You Saying!

In modern times a great deal of nonsense is talked about masters and disciples, and about the inheritance of a master's teaching by favorite pupils, entitling them to pass the truth on to their adherents. Of course Zen should be imparted in this way, from heart to heart, and in the past it was really accomplished. Silence and humility reigned rather than profession and assertion. The one who received such a teaching kept the matter hidden even after twenty years. Not until another discovered through his own need that a real master was at hand was it learned that the teching had been imparted, and even then the occasion arose quite naturally and the teaching made its way in its own right. Under no circumstance did the teacher even claim "I am the successor of So-and-so." Such a claim would prove quite the contrary.

The Zen master Mu-nan had only one successor. His name was Shoju. After Shoju had completed his study of Zen, Mu-nan called him into his room. "I am getting old," he said, "and as far as I know, Shoju, you are the only one who will carry on this teaching. Here is a book. It has been passed down from master to master for seven generations. I have also added many points according to my understanding. The book is very valuable, and I am giving it to you to represent your successorhip."

"If the book is such an important thing, you had better keep it," Shoju replied. "I received your Zen without writing and am satisfied with it as it is."

"I know that," said Mu-nan. "Even so, this work has been carried from master to master for seven generations, so you may keep it as a symbol of having received the teaching. Here."

They happened to be talking before a brazier. The instant Shoju felt the book in his hands he thrust it into the flaming coals. He had no lust for possessions.

Mu-nan, who never had been angry before, yelled: "What are you doing!"

Shoju shouted back: "What are you saying!"

Whirlish

2009-04-12T18:00:00.003+05:30

RIP, Amma

2009-04-02T19:27:00.001+05:30

You can shed tears that she is gone,
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone,
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she'd want:smile, open your eyes, love and go on.”
..Anon

The Rising.

2009-04-01T10:59:00.006+05:30

"If we would only testify to the truth as we see it, it would turn out that there are hundreds, thousands, even millions of other people just as we are, who see the truth as we do...and are only waiting, again as we are, for someone to proclaim it. The Kingdom of God is within you."
- Leo Tolstoy

My Grandmother is waiting to stop breathing. She slipped into a coma yesterday. The pain is finally over, now it is a matter of time before she becomes a lingering memory. She will always be a part of me...because I am a part of her. And nobody will replace her as our family 'Don'!

Topmost on my mother's mind and that of her sister's, even as they're trying to come to terms with the impending loss, are the last rites and who will conduct them and how. They want what is best for her, want her soul to rest in peace. Isn't it sad that rudiculous rules control our thoughts to an extent that what is obvious becomes obscure? How do I argue with this kind of thinking at this time? Must I argue at all? Who made the rule that relatives, who care less for the person who is gone or going, have better connections in the afterworld just because they are male, to set the soul free? It is frustrating...but then...a lot of things are! I guess I'll toe the line, bury my brains...yet again and go with the flow because that is less uncomfortable - for everyone. The next few days will test my patience ( not my best virtue). I must remember to stock up on tranquilisers and try not burst a blood vessel.

How is a daughter inferior to a son? I want my daughter to carry out my last rites if my husband isn't able to for some reason. As a matter of fact, I want no last 'rites'...just a hygenic disposal of my body after all reusable parts have been taken out for transplantation and a small party with Pav Bhaji ( lots of Amul butter), some Kaala Khatta (not out of a labelled bottle) , some really good hot Samosas ( yeah I know..I have really really cheap taste in food :P ) and pasta - a la hubby. Actually, I wouldn't mind a full fledged Palakkad Iyer Kele-ka-patta treat either. And this party I'd like to have Pre-mortem if we are in the know beforehand.

Can this be treated as my official last wish?

2009-03-22T17:09:00.003+05:30

तदबीर से बिगड़ी हुए तकदीर बना ले
अपने पे भरोसा है तोह यह डाव लगा ले...लगा ले, डाव लगा ले

Crossed connections

2009-03-20T17:31:00.000+05:30

Same same but different

2009-03-16T21:08:00.000+05:30

The same people? Surely not
By Vir Sanghvi

Few things annoy me as much as the claim often advanced by well-meaning but woolly- headed (and usually Punjabi) liberals to the effect that when it comes to India and Pakistan , "We’re all the same people, yaar."
This may have been true once upon a time. Before 1947, Pakistan was part of undivided India and you could claim that Punjabis from West Punjab (what is now Pakistan ) were as Indian as, say, Tamils from Madras .
But time has a way of moving on. And while the gap between our Punjabis (from east Punjab which is now the only Punjab left in India) and our Tamils may actually have narrowed, thanks to improved communications, shared popular culture and greater physical mobility, the gap between Indians and Pakistanis has now widened to the extent that we are no longer the same people in any significant sense.
This was brought home to me most clearly by two major events over the last few weeks.
The first of these was the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team on the streets of Lahore . In their defence, Pakistanis said that they were powerless to act against the terrorists because religious fanaticism was growing. Each day more misguided youngsters joined jihadi outfits and the law and order situation worsened.
Further, they added, things had got so bad that in the tribal areas the government of Pakistan had agreed to suspend the rule of law under pressure from the Taliban and had conceded that sharia law would reign instead. Interestingly, while most civilised liberals should have been appalled by this surrender to the forces of extremism, many Pakistanis defended this concession.
Imran Khan (Keble College, Oxford, 1973-76) even declared that sharia law would be better because justice would be dispensed more swiftly! (I know this is politically incorrect but the Loin of the Punjab ’s defence of sharia law reminded me of the famous Private Eye cover when his marriage to Jemima Goldsmith was announced. The Eye carried a picture of Khan speaking to Jemima’s father. “Can I have your daughter’s hand?” Imran was supposedly asking James Goldsmith. “Why? Has she been caught shoplifting?” Goldsmith replied. So much for sharia law.)
The second contrasting event was one that took place in Los Angeles but which was perhaps celebrated more in India than in any other country in the world. Three Indians won Oscars: A.R. Rahman, Resul Pookutty and Gulzar.
Their victory set off a frenzy of rejoicing. We were proud of our countrymen. We were pleased that India ’s entertainment industry and its veterans had been recognised at an international platform. And all three men became even bigger heroes than they already were.
But here’s the thing: Not one of them is a Hindu.
Can you imagine such a thing happening in Pakistan ? Can you even conceive of a situation where the whole country would celebrate the victory of three members of two religious minorities? For that matter, can you even imagine a situation where people from religious minorities would have got to the top of their fields and were, therefore, in the running for international awards?
On the one hand, you have Pakistan imposing sharia law, doing deals with the Taliban, teaching hatred in madrasas, declaring jihad on the world and trying to kill innocent Sri Lankan cricketers. On the other, you have the triumph of Indian secularism.
The same people?
Surely not.
We are defined by our nationality. They choose to define themselves by their religion.
But it gets even more complicated. As you probably know, Rahman was born Dilip Kumar. He converted to Islam when he was 21. His religious preferences made no difference to his prospects. Even now, his music cuts across all religious boundaries. He’s as much at home with Sufi music as he is with bhajans. Nor does he have any problem with saying ‘Vande Mataram’.
Now, think of a similar situation in Pakistan . Can you conceive of a Pakistani composer who converted to Hinduism at the age of 21 and still went on to become a national hero? Under sharia law, they’d probably have to execute him.
Resul Pookutty’s is an even more interesting case. Until you realise that Malayalis tend to put an ‘e’ where the rest of us would put an ‘a,’ ( Ravi becomes Revi and sometimes the Gulf becomes the Gelf), you cannot work out that his name derives from Rasool, a fairly obviously Islamic name.
But here’s the point: even when you point out to people that Pookutty is in fact a Muslim, they don’t really care. It makes no difference to them. He’s an authentic Indian hero, his religion is irrelevant.
Can you imagine Pakistan being indifferent to a man’s religion? Can you believe that Pakistanis would not know that one of their Oscar winners came from a religious minority? And would any Pakistani have dared bridge the religious divide in the manner Resul did by referring to the primeval power of Om in his acceptance speech?
The same people?
Surely not.
Most interesting of all is the case of Gulzar who many Indians believe is a Muslim. He is not. He is a Sikh. And his real name is Sampooran Singh Kalra.
So why does he have a Muslim name?
It’s a good story and he told it on my TV show some years ago. He was born in West Pakistan and came over the border during the bloody days of Partition. He had seen so much hatred and religious violence on both sides, he said, that he was determined never to lose himself to that kind of blind religious prejudice and fanaticism.
Rather than blame Muslims for the violence inflicted on his community — after all, Hindus and Sikhs behaved with equal ferocity — he adopted a Muslim pen name to remind himself that his identity was beyond religion. He still writes in Urdu and considers it irrelevant whether a person is a Sikh, a Muslim or a Hindu.
Let’s forget about political correctness and come clean: can you see such a thing happening in Pakistan ? Can you actually conceive of a famous Pakistani Muslim who adopts a Hindu or Sikh name out of choice to demonstrate the irrelevance of religion?
My point, exactly.
What all those misguided liberals who keep blathering on about us being the same people forget is that in the 60-odd years since Independence, our two nations have traversed very different paths.
Pakistan was founded on the basis of Islam. It still defines itself in terms of Islam. And over the next decade as it destroys itself, it will be because of Islamic extremism.
India was founded on the basis that religion had no role in determining citizenship or nationhood. An Indian can belong to any religion in the world and face no discrimination in his rights as a citizen.
It is nobody’s case that India is a perfect society or that Muslims face no discrimination. But only a fool would deny that in the last six decades, we have travelled a long way towards religious equality. In the early days of independent India , a Yusuf Khan had to call himself Dilip Kumar for fear of attracting religious prejudice.
In today’s India , a Dilip Kumar can change his name to A.R. Rahman and nobody really gives a damn either way.
So think back to the events of the last few weeks. To the murderous attack on innocent Sri Lankan cricketers by jihadi fanatics in a society that is being buried by Islamic extremism. And to the triumphs of Indian secularism.
Same people?
Don’t make me laugh.

Add your comments:
Btw, it is actually the triumph of the traditional Indian pluralism !

ABBA

2009-03-09T09:43:00.001+05:30

I have a dream

Gift of the jab

2009-03-07T21:41:00.002+05:30

Forwarded via e-mail by a friend

When Insults Had Class :

When Insults Had Class (no 4-letter words!!) These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language was taken over by American slang and curse words and got boiled down to 4-letter words, not to mention waving middle fingers.

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, 'If you were my husband I'd give you poison,' and he said, 'If you were my wife, I'd drink it.'

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: 'Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.' 'That depends, Sir,' said Disraeli, 'whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.'

'He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.' - Winston Churchill

'A modest little person, with much to be modest about.' - Winston Churchill

'I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. 'Clarence Darrow '

He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.' - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

'Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?' - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

'Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.' - Moses Hadas

'I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.' - Mark Twain

'He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.' - Oscar Wilde

'I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one.' - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

'Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one.' - Winston Churchill, in response.

'I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here.' - Stephen Bishop

'He is a self-made man and worships his creator.' - John Bright

'I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.' - Irvin S. Cobb

'He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.' - Samuel Johnson

'He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.' - Paul Keating

'There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.' Jack E. Leonard

'They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.' - Thomas Brackett Reed

'In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.' - Charles, Count Talleyrand

Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?' - Mark Twain

'His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.' - Mae West

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.' - Oscar Wilde

'He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts.. . for support rather than illumination. ' - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

Poetryfest

2009-03-05T07:17:00.003+05:30

I wish I were in Dubai right now

"When You and I behind the Veil are past, Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last, Which of our Coming and Departure heeds As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast"....Omar Khayyam

"Bura Jo Dekhan Main Chala, Bura Naa Milya Koye.. Jo Munn Khoja Apnaa, To Mujhse Bura Naa Koye "...Kabir

"Punarapi Jananam, punarapi maranam, punarapi janani, jathare shayanam..Iha samsaare, bahu dustare, kripaya paare paahi Muraare"...Bhaja Govindam, Adi Shankaracharya

" Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book
nor from tongue.
If knowledge of mysteries come after emptiness of mind, that is
illumination of heart."....Rumi

"Chal Way Bullehya Chal O'thay Chaliyay
Jithay Saaray Annay
Na Koi Saadee Zaat PichHanay
Tay Na Koi Saanu Mannay"

...Bulleh Shah

And I wish they were still around...

Who? We?

2009-03-04T09:47:00.004+05:30

Nah!!

Jai Jai Shiv Shankar, kaanta lagay na kankar...

2009-03-03T13:17:00.008+05:30

I am no Shiv Sena fan. Their antics don't amuse me, never have. And this is not a sad disclaimer. Just the plain truth.

But I do wonder. The Shiv Sena has had an anti Pak stance forever. It has been against the Pakistani artists entering any Indian arena, the Pakistani Cricket team playing here, etc. We have all condemned them for this. Now Lahore happens...with SL.

MNS has something against Non Maharashtrians coming into the state and taking up jobs which might otherwise be available to locals. I don't accept that Maharashtra is not a part of India although this whole United India is a Mughal and British concept and never was an "Indian" one to begin with. Still, we ARE one country and we must respect our own rights and those of others everywhere. Right. But if that is true, development must happen all over India too and not only in certain 'flogged to near death' pockets. Thankfully, that change is happening now...beginning with Gujrat. But they have Modi...oops!

Bal-T wanted South Indians ( I am one myself) out...he didn't like Dharavi and its predominantly South Indian population...coming into Mumbai following impossible dreams and living in squalor in an attempt to realise them. Dharavi is still there and it has grown and grown. And now it is full of locals and people from other parts of the country ...impoverished and probably without any means to get out of that trap.

Boyle makes a movie about it. Suddenly some like me are shamed, some are over the moon, some are staring at us like we're fools to even react.

And the Thackrays are wrong. I have always said that too. They are wrong... like they have always been because they are too arrogant to know how to package and market their obvious intelligence and intelligent concerns the way the pacifists and apologists and bootlicking politicians from 'SECULAR' parties package and market their spineless stupidity to us, the Indians.

Melotraumatic

2009-03-03T06:42:00.005+05:30

Post traumatic stress disorder of another kind.

While the civilised world is up in arms against child abuse and slavery, Slumdog Millionaire continues to make news. Meanwhile the children from Dharavi are back where they belong (??) and are unable to cope with the sharp U turn their lives have taken. Read more here. The trauma has just begun to unfold.

TAZ and all that jazz

2009-03-02T09:39:00.005+05:30

Tazeen Javed...an old pal from Orkut and Pakistan. Her blog is written about in today's Pune Mirror on page 12.
Here is where you can find her blogging away 1900 to the dozen!

Enjoy!

Hmm

2009-02-28T07:30:00.002+05:30

It's called Mindset!!

As my friend was passing by the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from the ropes they were tied to but for some reason, they did not.

My friend saw a trainer nearby and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away."Well," he said, "when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it's enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. Theybelieve the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free." Myf riend was amazed.

These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn't, they were stuck right where they were.Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

So make an attempt to grow further.... Why shouldn't we try it again?

(email forward)

Babytalk

2009-02-25T14:25:00.006+05:30

My daughter asked me this morning....why can't "Rita" (name changed), our maid, sit at our dining table and have her breakfast instead of on her chair in the kitchen? I explained that she came from a small 'Jhopadpatti' [slum] ...and may not be as clean as us because she doesn't have access to as much water and other facilities as us. "How come she can wash the dishes we cook and eat in and clean our home then but not sit with us to eat?"

Do I have the conviction to let her find the right answers and follow her heart or will I teach her what I know to be wrong because it is easier? Today, I changed the topic. Tommorrow is another day!

On the flip side, I've forgotten how to sit crosslegged on the floor and eat like a proper Iyer Mami though I encourage my daughter to try. Even the help at home have chairs so I don't have to check if they mop the floor after they've eaten. I suppose the traditional Indian style of eating has its positives. You have to bend a little when you're seated on the floor to put your food in your mouth. And a stomach crunch per morsel might be a good deterrent for foodies like me! Hmm. Maybe it is time to get rid of the dining table altogether. Na rahega baans, na phoolegi saans!

Daily dose

2009-02-25T05:27:00.003+05:30

Waving the hand.
The comments rock!
(found link on Quirky Indian's last blogpost)

Karma Coated

2009-02-24T08:44:00.007+05:30

Quotes off today's Pune Mirror

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it will turn out ( Vaclav Havel)

If you understand, things are just as they are; If you don't understand, things are just as they are. (Zen proverb)

and others:

I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
~ Etienne De Grellet

Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are. ~Author Unknown

It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens. ~Baha'u'llah

If every man's internal care

Were written on his brow,

How many would our pity share

Who raise our envy now?

~Peitro Metastasio

And my favourite:

If those who owe us nothing gave us nothing, how poor we would be. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

Dharavi shining and Pinki smiling

2009-02-23T18:29:00.005+05:30

We've managed to turn shame to glory..haven't we? What we swept under the carpet is now ON the red carpet. Kudos to Boyle and shame on us. The first half of the movie was unbearably stark. How many children live like that in our country? And why? The scene at the Taj where the urchins rip a tourist taxi and the American woman tells a beaten up Jamal..."Here's a piece of the real America, son" while urging her husband to tip him...I honestly didn't know how to react. Doesn't this happen there? And if it does, does it take away from the fact that it happens here? My child doesn't know that car tyres can be stolen and sold, how do these urchins know..and why? What registered also, was that nobody really really brought up 'Dharavi' at the Oscars. It was 'cheeeeeeezeeeee' time. I agree it was a sensitive movie, well made...but I am hoping it was more than a fairy tale. Sean Penn, ..the Hollywood brat who won the best actor award for MILK chose to make a statement about homophobia but Dharavi?? Wassat again?

Meanwhile, Pinki is smiling in UP. Ugliness was never acceptable...and plastic surgery rocks! So will the next child that is born there with a cleft lip be spared the ragging? I don't think so and I don't know where to begin changing the way we treat other human beings.

But for now, pop the cork and let the bubbly flow! Cheers!

Hamster

2009-02-21T12:09:00.001+05:30

My blood Boyles.

2009-02-21T07:55:00.005+05:30

Would Shilpa Shetty be where she is today if it wasn't for Jane Goody's 'politically wrong' remarks ? What if Jane had been 'nice' to her in the reality show? Goody is dying in a few weeks, leaving behind two little children that she's providing for financially by selling her story. She said what she did in the show because she didn't know better. What was Jane's role in our world in this lifetime?

That aside, why were Goody's remarks racist and why is SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE different? She asked Shilpa Shetty if she lived in a slum...and commented on her bleaching her skin. How many Indian women use bleach and 'whitening' creams? I know I do. Why did we all react like we did? Does the truth hurt that bad? If it does why is SM a rage? BOYLE is the toast of Bollywood and Hollywood and bootlicking Indians that are and aren't part of the movie are going ballistic with joy at all the adulation the movie is recieving.

I don't get it. Do you?

Washed out

2009-02-20T07:04:00.022+05:30

Like most mothers I know, I keep chasing my child all around the house trying to get her to wash up before and after she eats/sleeps/goes down to play/snacks/etc 24/7! ( Yeah I know, poor darling)

But I wonder often, I go to a grade-I restaurant and have no idea if the nice waiter in his nice uniform has washed his hands before touching the crockery or cutlery and more importantly what he's touched before that! I have no idea where those napkins I wipe the side of my mouth with daintily are kept before they appear on the table. At a swanky bakery the other day, the guy at the counter wore plast-icky gloves while packing the lady ahead of me some croissants and pastries...he'd been switching on the microwave and patting his hair with the same glove on 2 minutes ago. But nobody else seemed to have noticed and it would have been futile for me to remark..so I simply turned around and left.

In many matters and like most people ( who may or may not admit it) I'm a hypocrite. I love Joshi's Vada Pao from Vishrantwadi wrapped in last year's newspaper and have never fallen ill from eating it. Hehe! I grew up in Bombay and no Bombayite worth his / her salt can deny that the best tasting eats in Bombay, even today, are what you get from the roadside vendors. The usual joke is that the paani in the paani puri tastes good because of the added flavours from the thelewala's hand... [eww, I know ;) ] . But somehow, in my 13 odd years in Delhi/Gurgaon and my many journeys through North India, I never got used to eating in Dhaabas. Nothing to do with cleanliness, but charpoys and truck drivers, loud bad music and a good appetite don't go together for me. There are many new Dhaabas, all 'clean' and shiny cropping up though. They call themselves highway restaurants but at heart...they're still Dhaabas and yeah...much to the frustration of my husband ( and some friends who drove around with us that loveeee dhaaba food ) I could always tell the difference.

I especially expect cleanliness from those places that charge me an exorbitant sum of money for a little something on a fancy looking plate. Silly, because when you walk into any restaurant's kitchen, you see the dudes there sweating it out and touching just about everything with their hands before they serve up your food. But if I go down that road, I'll end up having all my meals at home! So :-X!

So now... am I going to stop asking my daughter to wash her hands? No way!

Aside!!

Silk root

2009-02-19T10:55:00.010+05:30

The only silk that appeals to me (inspite of my genuine (?) pity for the poor worms that die in order that I may wear the utterly beautiful fabric)- Kanjivaram.

As the Mother Goddess Kamakshi smiles benignly at her devotees from her sanctum sanctorum, there is injustice rampant under her own nose. There is a lot being done...and a lot left to do to set things right. Take a look.

Meesta Bombastic...

2009-02-18T09:24:00.020+05:30

Stop Using Big Words You (we?) Don't Understand

Sesquipedalian predilections warrant interminable vigilance.Verily, vivacious nomenclature decries salient considerations of distinguishability. Abandon waterlogged lexicons for perspicuous verbiage.Discontinue inclinations toward Brobdingnagian libretto. Procure alternative bureaucratese.Stop Blogging.

HAHAHA!!!!

Don't I want everyone that reads my blog to know what I'm saying? Or am I targetting the OXFORD RETURNED ENGLISH LANGUAGE POST GRADUATE who has a thesaurus chip in his brain? This, obviously, is the weakness of many who fancy themselves good writers ( not to say that those of us who aren't bombastic are good necessarily). Interesting and pertinent writing IMVHO ( V=very) is not about big pretentious words, it is about words that make sense the first time someone reads them. An extensive vocabulary is a definite plus but if it doesn't convey what it seeks to at first go, it is wasted. More here and here. Also here.

Someone's actually done this! There's even a song!!! Oh, and for those who insist on trying too hard, there's this and this !!

Enjoy the links and for more laughs, google 'using big words'.

Dune bashing

2009-02-16T10:47:00.006+05:30

I've always loved going to Dubai. It has something to offer for everyone. But I've also always come away wondering at how unreal the place is. If it will stand the test of time...this whole beautiful expensive bubble. I was especially disturbed when I returned from Germany via Dubai last year by the new extention of the airport that has been built recently when there is already another airport under construction. The colossal WASTE of money bothered me. It really did.

I am told by friends and family working in Dubai that the global recession has hit them like a ton of bricks. There are beautiful state of the art cars abandoned at airports with keys still stuck in them and credit cards used to the last limits. People have left / are leaving Dubai in droves, disillusioned and defeated. In the meanwhile the media is taken to task for telling it like it is.

Why did we think the bubble would last and why do Indians allow themselves to be exploited? I am told anyone without a degree/passport from the 'West' gets a lower salary compared to a 'Westerner' for a similar job profile/portfolio no matter if he/she is better at what he/she does. I don't think I need to elaborate. See how the ARABS feel. .

There was always that niggling "first uneasy impression" about Dubai everytime I visited although I've had great times there! Now as I learn more about it, I know why.

And I wonder what Mr. Obama might have to say about this.

Mirakle workers!

2009-02-15T19:46:00.004+05:30

http://miraklecouriers.wordpress.com/

Congrats Dhruv Lakra! I request those who're in Mumbai and reading my blog ( out of the few of you who do!) to try them out. It is time they got their rightful place in society and a chance to be counted. Cheers!!

Hakuna Matata

2009-02-13T10:19:00.009+05:30

Two Things To Worry About :
There are only two things to worry about: Either you are well or you are sick. If you are well, there is nothing to worry about; but if you are sick, there are two things to worry about: either you will get well, or you will die. If you get well, there is nothing to worry about; if you die, there are only two things to worry about: either you will go to heaven or to hell. If you go to heaven, there is nothing to worry about. But, if you go to hell you'll be so darned busy shaking hands with friends you won't have time to worry...

Shocking pink

2009-02-11T12:58:00.011+05:30

!!!!!

Beyond comment.

but V

Add: Sisters of mine, did you stop to think about what might happen if he ( Oh dear GODDDD NO!) decides to get even instead of mad...and actually 'dons' and poses in one of these?

Writer's block

2009-02-11T08:35:00.012+05:30

Nice things people say when they don't like your writing : by Will Wright punny pseudonym?

Every writer I know has done this. You've just finished the best thing you have ever written. So you bounce it off friends and family. You convince them to read your latest opus, waiting for them to catch the magic of your words, the subtlety of your approach, the wit, the humor, the brilliance that you poured onto the page.

And when they're done reading you get, "That was ... good." Good? ........That's it? That. Was. Good? Nothing else?

Well, having received my share of noncommittal feedback has led me to a number of conclusions. But the most important one is this: people who like you and don't like your writing aren't going to say anything that will hurt your feelings. Instead, they'll hide how they really feel. What this means is that you need a translator to convert what they say into what they really mean. Most of these responses are to the question - "So, what did you think?"

What they say: That was an interesting story.
What they really mean: This story piqued my interest. It's too bad that you wrote it. Maybe you should try submitting the story idea to a real writer.

What they say: I really liked the characters.
What they really mean: Man, this story stunk. What's something positive I can say, without lying?

What they say: I liked it. Maybe you should do this [insert whatever suggestion they have].
What they really mean: Man, this story really stunk.

What they say: How did you come up with this story?
What they really mean: Why did you make me waste three hours of my life reading this?

What they say: There's some real intelligence behind your writing.
What they really mean: Yeah, just like the guy who wrote my chemistry text book.

What they say: There were some typos and spelling errors. But overall it was good.
What they really mean: I was so bored; I had to count errors just to keep myself occupied.

What they say: I liked the part where [insert whatever part they liked].
What they really mean: Out of the 200 pages you gave me to read, I liked one page.

What they say: I'm not really qualified to judge writing.
What they really mean: Please don't make me lie to you and tell you I like this.

This reminds me of my kavitanjali days when I'd torture a couple of good friends...insist they read what I passed off as poetry and be terribly upset with anything vaguely negative they said. :)). I commend their patience! Have things really changed? I've just gone to prose from worse...oops verse!

Mean joke of the day: What do you call a midget psychic that escaped from jail? Small medium at large!

Tera mujhse hai pehle ka naata koi...

2009-02-09T22:20:00.007+05:30

The mind is intelligent. And the soul is something you force yourself to listen to ...sitting crosslegged, eyes closed..scented candles around...picturing the Himalayas in your 'mind's eye' so you are at peace with the world.Right? ....Well, think again!

Doesn't it surprise you how some people appeal to you at the very first meeting.Why people..even nicknames on the internet. People you've never met...people you may never meet. You feel attached, an affinity that cannot be explained. You feel like you've known them forever.

And then there are those that you can't stand from the word go...you try...you get older...you tell yourself you are wrong in judging and labelling...that those people are probably really nice...and/or only as bad as you are. And you know you can be rotten too...as rotten as anyone else. And then you go out of your way...to try and deal with them the way you try to deal with everyone else...honestly. Sooner or later, you are disappointed.

And it slowly dawns on you. Your soul is more intelligent than your mind. It knows...it recognises what the mind cannot. It has a history, like the soul of the person you form an impression of. The feeling is uncanny...and undeniable. There is something beyond human comprehension. There is that element of Karma. There are things we cannot explain. There are things we mustn't mess with. One such phenomenon is that of THE FIRST IMPRESSION.

And my new year ( late I know...but its just February yet) resolution is never to argue with my soul.

“First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not infrequently) to our cost, when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or studied actions. A man's look is the work of years; it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.”
William Hazlitt quote

Flash back - I

2009-02-09T10:42:00.014+05:30

My man-friday, the guy who cooks and manages my house for me, has been on leave for a few days now and I'm back to running my home like I did 9 L O N G years ago with part time help. Hm, this morning as I made pavakkai pitla and beans poriyal to pack for my hubby's lunch with rice and dahi and pickle and banana chips from Coimbatore while juggling with the dosa tava and chutney grinder at breakfast time I thought of naani and my life with her.

I grew up with Naana and her (and my aunt who got married and left for her own home when I was in Class IX ). Naani was ( is) chronically asthmatic. Has always had severe wheezing bouts and had/has to resort to Asthalin and Betnasol and Deriphyllin overdoses to be able to breathe almost normally. Back then, she'd wake up at 6 in the morning, bathe...make us all breakfast, pack lunch for Naana who'd leave at 8 for work and also for my aunt who had to rush to college/work. She'd then get me ready for school...no mean task. I was ( am?) naughty and had very long hair and she'd have to braid it carefully...and then ensure that I'd packed the books I'd need each day at school. Her coffee would be in her steel tumbler ( we all had different glasses and plates - no mixing) getting tepid and tasteless. But she'd finish her chores before she sat down for a sip. And then once Parvathi Baee ( our maid) had left at 10 30 or so after her morning beat, she'd sit down for a bit and read the newspaper. At 12 it would be time for her to heat up my lunch and pack it in a dabba...to be put in the usual plastic lunch basket and send with Parvathi Baee to school for me. I always ate piping hot food..home made...no sandwiches or junkfood. Never ordered out unless there was a very special occassion. Baee would be back at 1 30 to return the basket. Naani would lie down till 3.30 and wake up to make herself some tea or coffee...and wait for me to get home by 4 15 or so. Then she'd make sure I changed, drank my tea, ate a hot homemade snack and finished my homework by 5 30 to run down to play with my friends. My aunt returned at 6 30..and Naana at 7. She'd take care of their needs then. We had dinner at 8 because Parvathi Baee would come at 8 30 sharp to do the dishes at night and would grumble if we weren't done. :))). When I visited my friends, I'd look forward to the junk food I'd be served by their mothers..and when they came over, they asked for Naani's special snacks. My classmate from college still hasn't gotten over her adai and avial.

When I'd visit my folks in Dammam and miss school I had a residence visa that HAD to be renewed every 6 months, so sometimes I'd go mid-term, she'd borrow notebooks from my classmates and write down everything I'd missed and make sure I made up when I returned. She'd yell at me when I'd hurt myself or stay out longer than I was allowed to. Through all this she struggled with her breathing. Her Asthma. After my aunt got married, it was Naana and Naani and me. Naana died of cancer when I was in my class XII. She looked after him like he was a baby in his last days...she had married him when she was barely 13 and was 55 when we lost him. Naani was/is the strongest woman I've known. She refused to go stay with her daughters and insisted on continuing in her own house. I was more than happy to stay with her because it meant that I'd not have to move from Bombay. I remember having to rush her to the hospital at all hours when she'd get breathless and nothing would work on her. She'd be put on oxygen and given drugs IV to settle her breathing. She'd even tell me what to do if she died on me. Where the keys were kept, where all the kitchen stuff was, whom to call and what to say. When she'd be hospitalised, I'd make very frugal lunches to take to the hospital for her...frugal because all I knew back then to make was Rasam, Rice and some sort of Potato curry...and yes..Phulkas. She was kind..and always ate and appreciated what I took for her. The year after Naana passed on, my folks returned to India and settled in Madras. I couldn't bring myself to leave Bombay, so I continued with naani till I got married. I remember her packing my lunch when I'd go to work too...and my colleagues would completely ravish my dabba before I could even get to it and I'd be stuck ordering out. Amazing woman.

Today she's 80 plus, suffers from a million health issues but is still a source of strength for us. I remember cracking all the filthy jokes that I'd hear in college and at work with her...and she'd blush and laugh in turns. My aunt always says that I've completely corrupted her mother who used to be such a prude! One of her newer problems is 'fundal varices'. It rears its head every couple of months and cannot be treated in her case because of her age and asthma. They just inject a sealant endoscopically and hope for the best. Last time she was in the ICU, I went to see her between dropping my daughter at school and picking her up...and she regaled me with stories of which nurse was eyeing which ward boy and which patient didn't like her daughter in law. Can't not love her! All I wish for, for her, is rest because I can see that she is truly tired. I hope it comes gently though.

Everything comes rushing back to me often when I'm doing my chores or combing my daughters hair or helping her read or write. I wonder what memories my daughter will have of me when she is 41.

High 5!

2009-02-08T11:39:00.006+05:30

One summer, when Bill was still president, Mrs. Clinton and he were vacationing in their home state of Arkansas. On a venture one day, they stopped at a service station to fill up the car with gas. It seemed that the owner of the station was once Hillary's high school love. They exchanged hellos, and went on their way. As they were driving on to their destination, Bill put his arm around Hillary and said, "Well, honey, if you had stayed with him, you would be the wife of a service station owner today." She smirked and replied, "No, if I had stayed with him, he would be President of the United States."

(off the net)

Yenjaay!

2009-02-07T20:08:00.000+05:30

The weakest link

Abhi toh main....

2009-01-29T09:31:00.007+05:30

Have you ever been guilty of looking at others your own age and thinking, surely I can't look that old. well.. you'll love this one.

My name is Alice Smith and I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his dds diploma, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40-odd years ago. Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on, way back then? Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate. After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Morgan Park High School."Yes. Yes, I did. I'm a mustang," he gleamed with pride."When did you graduate?" I asked.He answered , "In 1959. why do you ask?""You were in my class!", I exclaimed.

The wrinkled, fat ass, gray-haired, decrepit @$#*&^%! asked,"Really? What did you teach?"

Snip Shots

2009-01-28T10:25:00.002+05:30

I am told by friends and family not to concern myself with news bits like these. We have enough on our own plates without having to worry about some place far away. But when I find my usually normally dressed friendly neighborhood Muslim tailor wearing jeans cut 2 inches above his ankles ( not a pretty sight at all ) and suddenly sprouting an unruly beard, I wonder. Walking down MG road in Pune during the Moharram period, I heard rhythmic beats and chants coming from the first floor of a Muslim community center. Also pictures of Jamma Masjid in Delhi are awe-inspiring in that so many thousands offer their prayers to one God in unison. But it also makes me worry because if someone in Pune in 2009 can actually believe that God dictates the length of his jeans ...all of a sudden...then anything is possible.

And no, this blog post isn't about Hindus and therefore they haven't been mentioned. And no, there is going to be no apologetic pacifistic statement about the stupid things Hindus do either. You're free to blog about those if you want to...even about the Sri Rama Sena and its antics in Mangalore. :)))) I promise to visit and comment.In the meanwhile, you are invited to tell me what you think about what is in the links.

In poor taste....

2009-01-27T06:43:00.001+05:30

Kya aap paanchwi pass se gaye guzre hain? Pata lagaane ke liye nimnalikhit prashnon ke uttar deejiye. Ya matt deejiye. Mennu kee?

Adoption...I really can't get what people have against it. My 'rebellious' take is that if an Indian naari can marry a man she doesn't know from Adam and do the most unmentionable things with him and produce babies...accept his entire family and moral and emotional baggage of more than quarter of a century not to mention his GENETIC BAGGAGE which is not the same as hers, why can't the Goddamn couple just adopt an innocent baby? [ It is not like the "arranged match" makers are going to mention the psychotic aunt who hacked the doodhwala to death because she was lactose intolerant or like the families are true blue descendants of Aryabhatta..What genes exactly are they keen on passing on? And who knows their family name beyond their mohalla and who really cares anyway? I asked a pal who desperately wants to get pregnant ( med help too) ALL this just a couple of days ago and she almost passed out from shock. But she says she'll continue to try. Tathastu! ]

Why would couples rather try nightmarish wierd medical possibilities when they fail naturally? Why is it legal to put up a huge signboard saying ‘INFERTILE? UNABLE TO CONCIEVE? COME AND DISCOVER THE JOY OF NATURAL PARENTHOOD AT OUR IVF CENTER’?? The wierdos never tell you how it can alter your life and morph you into a completely different human being…mentally and physically too. And why can’t you sue them for that?

Why won't widows who're otherwise modern remarry and find happiness again? Why do people (even their own children) get offended by this question? What is offensive? A woman's loneliness or the possibility that she can find the warmth of such a relationship again? Why do we think that the new husband might not accept the child of another man alongwith his widow...and most often..why are we right? But then again, why is marriage the ultimate solution to all problems?

Why is a woman's virginity of greater importance than a man's morals and ethics ( kya kya kya??)?

Why does a rape victim feel SHAME? I can understand anger, regret, depression, pain, etc. But SHAME? How many men do I know that would marry a rape victim? And if there are such men, how many will be allowed by their families to take this step? And why don’t these people feel SHAME?

Why is the CHILD illegitimate and not the parents who indulged in such an act? Who is the bastard here? What is the abusive word for the adults who produced an 'illegit' child? (Oh and there is another popular question. A girl that has that kind of fun is a s—t…what is the equivalent for a guy? )

Why do parents of disabled children look embarrassed?

Why do gay people remain closeted and even marry and produce children? Why do such marriages survive?

Why is marriage still legal? How many couples have you met that you REALLY think stay together just out of utter love for each other after the first few years of marriage? What is the TRUTH here without bringing in 'the kids'? So what does 'morality' mean? And is divorce the solution?

Uncomfortable, no? I can hear you clearing your throat. Sorry...

Do you see why some people would rather kill themselves than live lies? Suicide is the honest person’s cleanest exit option? Maybe this is why we have terrorists and criminals too. Array, if we're dishonest and unkind with ourselves, how can we be otherwise with others?

The only way to stay happy is to thumb your nose at the world and live your life on your own terms! But then...WE are the world?

[Disclaimer: This rant has been triggered by some conversations I had recently with some friends and by some blogs and articles I've been following. So don't blame me for the headache it leaves you with. It has been waiting on my fingertips for a very long time...though some of it had found expression in pseudo poetry I wrote years go. But now that I have the option to blog, I did. Cheers!!]

Jaagte Raho

2009-01-26T21:07:00.000+05:30

www.neverforget.in

Click and matter.

Raat gaee, baat gaee?

2009-01-26T16:26:00.000+05:30

Hey India, where is the rage? The outrage? Where are the screaming headlines? Have we again shown our resilience like I'd predicted on facebook? Even blog topics [mine too] have gone from the urgently angry to boringly mundane or is there something bigger and better brewing behind the facade? I hope we haven't lost the will to stay safe in the fight to play safe.

Miles to go before we sleep...peacefully and fearlessly again...

Jaagte raho!

Meri awaaz hi pehchaan hai...garr yaad rahe

2009-01-24T13:41:00.001+05:30

Lata Mangeshkar...the Goddess of Bollywood music. I absolutely love her classical, semi classical and other renditions in movies...and have tried to ape her voice forever...................and failed. Like all other female Hindi movie fans, I've tried singing in a voice shrill as hers whenever I've hummed a tune within another person's earshot.I am not shrill. I have a voice that is 'bhaari'...like the rest of me. I like my own voice too, very much. I sing fairly well...by my own standards and can hold certain tunes with ease. But "yaara seeli seeli" is impossible...as is "Aye ree pawan". I don't have much success with many of Asha Bhonsle's numbers either unless I try to sing them my way at my own pitch. One of my honest and not so polite friends once pointedly asked me why I tried to sound like Lata and that was like a wake up call. I can never thank him enough.

While the two sisters have entertained and inspired generations of movie and music crazy Indians, they had also, till recently, made it impossible for women like me to sing in public without negative remarks about the texture of our voices. I guess it wasn't deliberate and even not their fault, it was just that they sounded so good that we didn't want to entertain any other kind of voice. Just recently Alka Yagnik said on TV to a girl with a 'different' voice like Sunidhi Chauhan's that she could probably sing 'item numbers' or 'different' songs but there was no way she was going to be crooning for the main lead, Indian kind of heroine...meaning the long suffering, suppressed, pining, lost, 'abala Indian naari', I suppose. I mean, how can a Nutan be shown crooning "One two cha cha" in Usha Uthup (nee Iyer)'s voice?

Luckily for me, I discovered Farida Khanum and through her, the entire galaxy of female Pakistani Ghazal singers with voices to die for and luckily today, Sunidhi is on top...as are other 'different' singers and I actually have a choice of songs I don't have to struggle with to sing. I do still go back to listen to Lataji and Ashaji...they were and will remain more than worthy of our respect and awe for their voices and abundant talent, but I don't try to sound like them anymore. And I hope all my friends who sound extremely FUNNY trying to ape the duo will come into their own too. Doesn't matter if we only sing for ourselves, we must sing LIKE ourselves. Trust me, it is such a release!

Der Depperte...

2009-01-24T10:06:00.000+05:30

The life and faith and times of a man who could have done with a better hairstyle [ like the billboard of a popular unisex salon in Pune says]

Were we talking about perfection?

ICU or do I?

2009-01-23T17:52:00.000+05:30

How to deal with sighted persons

People who use their eyes to receive information about the world are called sighted people or "people who are sighted." Sighted people enjoy rich, full lives working, playing, and raising families. They run businesses, hold public office, and even teach your children.

TRANSPORTING THE SIGHTED People who are sighted may walk or ride public transportation, but most choose to travel by operating their own motor vehicles. They have gone through many hours of training, at great expense, to learn "the rules of the road" to further their independence. Once that road to freedom has been mastered, sighted people earn a "driver's license" which allows them to operate a private vehicle safely and independently.

THE TRAGEDY OF LIGHTING Sighted people cannot function well in low lighting conditions and are generally completely helpless in total darkness. Their homes are usually very brightly lit at great expense, as are businesses which cater to the sighted.

BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION WITH THE SIGHTED Sighted people are accustomed to viewing the world in visual terms. Thus, in many situations they will be unable to communicate orally and may resort to pointing or other gesturing. Calmly alert the sighted person to his or her surroundings by speaking slowly, in a normal tone of voice. There is no need to raise your voice when addressing a sighted person. Questions directed to sighted persons help them focus on verbal rather than visual and gestural communication.

HOW BEST TO ASSIST THE SIGHTED PERSON At times, sighted people may need help finding things, especially when operating a motor vehicle. Your advance knowledge of routes and landmarks, particularly bumps in the road, turns, and traffic lights, will assist the "driver" in finding the way quickly and easily.
Your knowledge of building layouts can also assist the sighted person in navigating complex shopping malls and offices. Sighted people tend to be very proud and will not ask directly for assistance. Be gentle yet firm.

HOW DO SIGHTED PEOPLE READ? Sighted people read through a system called "Print." Print is a series of images drawn in a two-dimensional visual plane. Because the person who is sighted relies exclusively on visual information while reading, his or her attention span tends to fade quickly when reading long texts. People who are sighted generally have a poorly developed sense of touch. Braille is completely foreign to the sighted person and he or she will take longer to learn the code and be severely limited by the dominance of his or her existing visual senses.

HOW DO SIGHTED PEOPLE USE COMPUTERS? Computer information is presented to sighted people in a "Graphical User Interface" or GUI.

Sighted people often suffer from hand-eye coordination problems and poor memories. To compensate, people who are sighted often use a "mouse," a handy device that slides along the desktop to save hard-to-remember keystrokes. With one click on the "mouse" button, the sighted person can move around his or her computer screen quickly and easily. People who are sighted are not accustomed to synthetic speech and may have great difficulty understanding even the clearest synthesizer. Be patient and prepared to explain many times how your computer equipment works.

HOW CAN I HELP A SIGHTED PERSON? People who are sighted do not want your charity. They want to life, work, and play alongside you. The best way to support sighted people in your community is to accept them for who they are. These citizens are vital, contributing members of society. Conduct outreach. Take a sighted person to lunch.

From a link in my previous blog. Do click and peek....maybe you'll come away a little more educated and more than a little ashamed...just like I have. Good luck!

And THIS isn't really that funny if you've watched them play cricket.

Perfect imperfection.

2009-01-23T09:27:00.000+05:30

Autism isn't the end of the world, justthe beginning of a new one....Sally Meyer

Is this your child?

Is this your child?
someone asked me when I was shopping
in a crowded store.
Is this your child?
I stopped for a moment and looked at my son.
He hadn't let me comb his hair that day,
and he wore his favorite teeshirt
which was decorated in ketchup red and chocolate brown.
His face was smudged and dirty,
we had been to the park and he had fallen in a mud puddle.
He was singing
God Bless America over and over
in his offpitchvoice.

Is this your child?
She asked again
I looked into her unfriendly eyes
and cringed at her tone of voice.

Taking a deep breath
I ruffled that unruly hair kissed his smudgy cheek.
Turning to face her I answered
loudly and proudly
"Oh yes, this is my child
his name is Dhylan
Isn't he wonderful?"
c. 1999 Sally Meyer.
Autism is not the end of the World. . . . just the beginning of a new one.

I am learning to accept 'imperfection' because I haven't found anything more imperfect than nature. Perfection, I guess, is for fools. No one has achieved it yet, in anything anyone has tried. Nobody is perfect and everyone is flawed. I ask again, who is 'special' and who isn't?

I haven't met anyone with two identically shaped or sized eyes or nostrils or feet or toes or hands, have you? I haven't seen a flower with two petals exactly the same. Yet in our imagination, everything that is right has to be perfect.

Perfection is not natural. And what isn't natural isn't divine.

I salute all the mothers who struggle with our insensitive, unyielding world in bringing up children who're blessed differently and I wish them strength.

Yeh kahaan aa gaye hum

2009-01-22T19:41:00.000+05:30

Army signpost in some "God-forsaken" place.

Sanjay Du(h)tt - Ek zor ka jhatka jo zor se hee lagay

2009-01-20T11:27:00.000+05:30

This is one guy I had decided to like when all my classmates were drooling over Kumar Gaurav ( sic!). 'Rocky' and 'Love Story' were released around the same time. Now when I think of it, they were both equally underserving of any adulation. But hey...we were all 14-ish I think, in the throes of hormonal confusion. Anything cute and male was droolworthy. They all HATED Sanjay Dutt, the mountain goat with dopey eyes. They were all singing "Dekho maine dekha hai" while I hummed "Aa dekhein zara". I was the only girl in my school who bought SD postcards when all the KG ones were sold out. 25 paise per piece too and I had no-one to send them to because nobody wanted them! I guess I was a wannabe social activist even back then and stood alone in my support for the underdog. Suddenly things changed and Sanjay Dutt was a star and Kumar Gaurav was gobbled up by some black hole. (Small mercies)

But SD makes big mistakes and doesn't learn from them. And now, it is as if nobody expects him to. I can't even fool myself into imagining that the 'poor chap' is jinxed anymore. He just seems beyond caring. He knows he can go utterly wrong and still be loved by the masses. His joker is his ace and he knows it. Today he's proven that he's only another Punjabi MCP who can't get over his 'manhood'. Well, he's just lost his first fan completely and forever with THIS though I've been drifting that way for very long.

I think if Sunil Dutt and Nargis were to sit judgement on the surname issue, they'd be prouder of their daughters than their wayward son whom they obviously loved but also lost....to his own stupidity.

AND, he's entering Politics? DOWN DOWN!! Mahila Morcha...jaago re!!

Addendum: WTH????? WAKE UP INDIA...for God's sake! Who is this Amar Singh? Who is Manyata? What is Sanjay Dutt? WTH?????????????? Where are we headed? If people make up a country, what is patriotism? Must I feel a bond with these losers? Argh!

Add II: OMG!

Joke ...off the net

2009-01-18T16:32:00.001+05:30

In Jerusalem , a female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Wailing Wall to pray, twice a day, everyday, for a long, long time. So she went to check it out.She went to the Wailing Wall and there he was! She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, she approached him for an interview. "I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN.Sir, how long have you been coming to the Wall and praying?""For about 60 years.""60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?""I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims.I pray for all the hatred to stop and I pray for all our children to grow up in safety and friendship.""How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?""Like I'm talking to a f^%^*g wall."!
( taken verbatim off the net...not edited)

An ode to the shower

2009-01-18T12:44:00.000+05:30

Where we hum in gay abandon
tunes that we can't hold
Where we wash away our secrets
untamed, unnamed, untold
Where we weep until the water
goes hot- warm -tepid- cold
What is it about the shower
that makes us so bold?

[Had written this ^ long ago..a few words here and there were different I think...but hey!]

Old memories returning
to haunt awoken days
I can hear them echo
down long forgotten ways

...Anita Iyer

Ponal pogattum, poda

2009-01-18T08:34:00.000+05:30

Diplomacy, I’ve realized, is the art of making a U turn where there is none and putting another in the tight spot of pointing it out to the sweetheart....copyright Anita Iyer

I don’t have that talent sadly. When I make a U turn, there are tyres screeching and a round of apologies for being wrong. I wonder if hypocrisy is something one is born with or acquires over one’s lifetime preferring being numb and 'liked' to being alive to the truth. Friends, bought with words I don’t mean would be worth little to me. So why would I make that compromise with my soul?

Silence is a blessing I’ve absolutely begged God for many many times. The capacity to keep my mouth shut when my words will matter little. God never listens and I'm always suffering from bouts of foot in mouth.. Maybe He's getting even with me for daring to question his existance, or proving that he doesn't exist...hmm now. I am 41, yet I am unnerved by those who will remain silent at a time when the truth needs to be stated the most. These are people who'd trade their souls for a comfortable place in the shade and it isn't just about me and those I know. It is what affects the world as I see it today. Hypocrisy.

I always thought honest was nice. I thought justice delayed was justice denied. I thought to allow oneself to be wronged is worse than doing another wrong. I thought stating the truth as one knows it is one’s duty AND right. I thought to be silent when the truth, however insignificant, is being mauled is a crime. I must sue those who gave me these values when they mean nothing in the real world. Real World...what an oxymoron!

What makes a situation worse? The truth or burying the truth so there is ‘peace’? Sigh, if I haven’t found out in 41 years, is there any chance that I ever will?

And so we slept

2009-01-13T10:40:00.000+05:30

This is a lullaby my father used to sing and his father before him. I hum it even now although I am not fluent in Malayalam. Today I searched for and found the translation. It was so much more beautiful when they sang it with feeling

Omana Thingal Kidavo
Nalla komala thamara poovo
Poovil nirannjha madhuvo...

Here's to you Appa, sleep well.

Bah?

2009-01-11T08:41:00.000+05:30

And THIS is important in today's world! Don't ask me why.

More useful trivia. ;)

The chicken or the egg?

2009-01-11T08:26:00.000+05:30

MJ Akbar
Blood does not sleep, stays awake as nightmare

Saladin, the greatest of Muslim warriors, died of fever and old age on the morning of March 4, 1124. He was the iconic believer. Malcolm Lyons and D
E P Jackson write in Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War, ''The imam Abu Jafar and al-Fadil were with him on the morning of March 4. The imam was reciting from the Quran. 'It is said that when he reached the words — There is no god but God and in Him I put my trust — Saladin smiled; his face cleared and he surrendered his soul to God'.'' On his last visit to Jerusalem, the holy city he had restored to Arab rule, in September 1123, he gave his fourth son, Abu Mansur al-Zahir, some immortal advice. As his son was about to leave, on October 6, Saladin kissed him, rubbed his hair fondly and said: be chary of shedding blood, ''for blood does not sleep''. He added, addressing his attendant emirs, ''I have only reached my present position by conciliation''. Nine centuries later, blood has still not slept in that land. It keeps awake as a nightmare. No region in modern times has refused conciliation and invested as heavily in a nightmare. Blood neither sleeps nor ceases; most cruelly, it does not discriminate between child and man. There is nothing new about war. But there is something new about the war raging on the sands of Israel and Palestine. Once, blood was lost on a battlefield, with honour. Blood is now spilt on the street. Civilians are no longer exempt from the havoc of war. Both sides target them, relentlessly. The difference is this: the Qassam rockets fired by Palestinians are crackers, pinpricks, compared to the overwhelming, bellicose firepower of Israel. Of all the images shivering into our consciousness from Gaza, none is more searing than the faces of children who have lost their laughter. Israel is building the foundations for war in 2025: children who are five today will be adults then. Blood will not sleep. Israel has every right to protect its citizens, but there are grave dangers in a disproportionate action that punishes a population for the actions of a government. It is only the insecure who over-react, but why would Israel, with its overwhelming military superiority, feel vulnerable? Perhaps, after throwing a chain around Gaza and delivering maximum punishment, time after time, it is unable to deal with the persistence of defiance. Defiance is courage, and courage is admirable, but courage is not victory. Victory too needs a definition, and it cannot be imposition. It must be justice, and equity demands that Palestine and Israel accept that neither will disappear. Both are nations. Facts demand peace, but fear engineers an essentially unequal war, its story told in cold statistics of dead, dying and destruction. There is more than one reason why Palestinians are still in refugee camps and Israel is a regional superpower. Gaza is imprisoned in two concentric circles. Only one is the blockade by Israel. The larger circle is a noose placed by cynical Arab ruling cliques who feed off Palestine's despair to perpetuate their own survival, using the alibi of conflict. When there is rage on the Arab street, as now, there is silence and wordplay in the Arab secretariat. Organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah have filled a vacuum created by military incompetence and pathetic governance. That is their appeal to Muslims beyond their borders. Poor governance has created a knowledge deficit; and knowledge is the key to strength. An Arab friend sent me some startling statistics; the email was captioned 'A time for introspection'. Here are just a few: there are only 500 odd universities in the Muslim world. The United States has 5,758 and India has nearly 8,500. Literacy in the developed world is 90% against 40% in the Muslim world. If you removed Turkey from the list, the comparison would look grimmer. High tech goods and services constitute only 0.9% of the exports from Pakistan, and 0.3% from Algeria. They add up to 68% of Singapore's exports. Men die for two diametrically opposed reasons: when they value what they seek to defend, and when there is nothing worth living for. Israel has created a state worth defending. The Palestinians must be given something to live for.

v/s

The lying silence about Gaza [ John Pilger ]
Western governments know about Israel's murderous history against the Palestinians. Why are they silent?
January 9, 2009
"WHEN THE truth is replaced by silence," the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, "the silence is a lie." It may appear the silence is broken on Gaza. The cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents, and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea can be viewed on Al-Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC.
Columnist: John Pilger
John Pilger is a renowned investigative reporter and documentary filmmaker who was called "the most outstanding journalist in the world today" by the Guardian. He is the author of numerous books, including most recently Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire, a collection of investigations into the effects of war crimes and globalization. His books and films are featured at JohnPilger.com.
But Russia's incorrigible poet was not referring to the ephemeral we call news; he was asking why those who knew the why never spoke it and so denied it. Among the Anglo-American intelligentsia, this is especially striking. It is they who hold the keys to the great storehouses of knowledge: the historiographies and archives that lead us to the why.
They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, "Israel's right to exist." They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine's right to exist was canceled 61 years ago, and the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel.
They know, for example, that the infamous "Plan D" resulted in the murderous de-population of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Jewish army), and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as "ethnic cleansing."
Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon, "What shall we do with the Arabs?" Ben-Gurion, reported the Israeli historian Benny Morris, "made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, 'Expel them.'"
The order to expel an entire population "without attention to age" was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister promoted by the world's most efficient propaganda as a peacemaker.
The terrible irony of this was addressed only in passing, such as when the Mapan Party co-leader Meir Ya'ari noted "how easily" Israel's leaders spoke of how it was "possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the roads with them because such is the imperative of strategy...who remembers who used this means against our people during the [Second World] war...we are appalled."
Every subsequent "war" Israel has waged has had the same objective: the expulsion of the native people and the theft of more and more land. The lie of David and Goliath, of perennial victim, reached its apogee in 1967 when the propaganda became a righteous fury that claimed the Arab states had struck first.
Since then, mostly Jewish truth-tellers such as Avi Schlaim, Noam Chomsky, the late Tanya Reinhart, Neve Gordon, Tom Segev, Uri Avnery, Ilan Pappe and Norman Finkelstein have dispatched this and other myths, and revealed a state shorn of the humane traditions of Judaism, whose unrelenting militarism is the sum of an expansionist, lawless and racist ideology called Zionism.
Israeli historian Ilan Pappe wrote on January 2:
It seems that even the most horrendous crimes, such as the genocide in Gaza, are treated as desperate events, unconnected to anything that happened in the past and not associated with any ideology or system...Very much as the apartheid ideology explained the oppressive policies of the South African government, this ideology--in its most consensual and simplistic variety--has allowed all the Israeli governments in the past and the present to dehumanize the Palestinians wherever they are and strive to destroy them. The means altered from period to period, from location to location, as did the narrative covering up these atrocities. But there is a clear pattern [of genocide].
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IN GAZA, the enforced starvation and denial of humanitarian aid, the piracy of life-giving resources such as fuel and water, the denial of medicines and treatment, the systematic destruction of infrastructure and the killing and maiming of the civilian population, 50 percent of whom are children, meet the international standard of the Genocide Convention.
"Is it an irresponsible overstatement," asked Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and international law authority at Princeton University, "to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not."
In describing a "holocaust-in-the-making," Falk was alluding to the Nazis' establishment of Jewish ghettos in Poland. For one month in 1943, the captive Polish Jews led by Mordechaj Anielewicz fought off the German Army and the SS, but their resistance was finally crushed and the Nazis exacted their final revenge. Falk is also a Jew.
Today's holocaust-in-the-making, which began with Ben-Gurion's Plan D, is in its final stages. The difference today is that it is a joint U.S.-Israeli project. The F-16 jet fighters, the 250-pound "smart" GBU-39 bombs supplied on the eve of the attack on Gaza, having been approved by a Congress dominated by the Democratic Party, plus the annual $2.4 billion in war-making "aid," give Washington de facto control.
It beggars belief that President-elect Barack Obama was not informed. Outspoken on Russia's war in Georgia and the terrorism in Mumbai, Obama's silence on Palestine marks his approval, which is to be expected, given his obsequiousness to the Tel Aviv regime and its lobbyists during the presidential campaign and his appointment of Zionists as his secretary of state, chief of staff and principal Middle East advisers. When Aretha Franklin sings "Think," her wonderful 1960s anthem to freedom, at Obama's inauguration on January 20, I trust someone with the brave heart of Muntader al-Zaidi, the shoe-thrower, will shout: "Gaza!"
The asymmetry of conquest and terror is clear. Plan D is now "Operation Cast Lead," which is the unfinished "Operation Justified Vengeance." The latter was launched by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 when, with Bush's approval, he used F-16s against Palestinian towns and villages for the first time. In the same year, the authoritative Jane's Foreign Report disclosed that the Blair government had given Israel the "green light" to attack the West Bank after it was shown Israel's secret designs for a bloodbath.
It was typical of New Labour Party's enduring, cringing complicity in Palestine's agony. However, the 2001 Israeli plan, reported Jane's, needed the "trigger" of a suicide bombing that would cause "numerous deaths and injuries [because] the 'revenge' factor is crucial." This would "motivate Israeli soldiers to demolish the Palestinians."
What alarmed Sharon and the author of the plan, Gen. Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli chief of staff, was a secret agreement between Yasser Arafat and Hamas to ban suicide attacks. On November 23, 2001, Israeli agents assassinated the Hamas leader, Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, and got their "trigger"; the suicide attacks resumed in response to his killing.
Something uncannily similar happened on November 5 last, when Israeli special forces attacked Gaza, killing six people. Once again, they got their propaganda "trigger." A cease-fire initiated and sustained by the Hamas government--which had imprisoned its violators--was shattered by the Israeli attack and homemade rockets were fired into what used to be Palestine before its Arab occupants were "cleansed." On December 23, Hamas offered to renew the cease-fire, but Israel's charade was such that its all-out assault on Gaza had been planned six months earlier, according to the Israeli daily Ha'aretz.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BEHIND THIS sordid game is the "Dagan Plan," named after Gen. Meir Dagan, who served with Sharon in his bloody invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Now head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organization, Dagan is the author of a "solution" that has seen the imprisonment of Palestinians behind a ghetto wall snaking across the West Bank and in Gaza, effectively a concentration camp.
The establishment of a quisling government in Ramallah under Mahmoud Abbas is Dagan's achievement, together with a hasbara (propaganda) campaign relayed through a mostly supine, if intimidated Western media, notably in America, that says Hamas is a terrorist organization devoted to Israel's destruction and to "blame" for the massacres and siege of its own people over two generations, long before its creation.
"We have never had it so good," said the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir in 2006. "The hasbara effort is a well-oiled machine." In fact, Hamas' real threat is its example as the Arab world's only democratically elected government, drawing its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians' oppressor and tormentor. This was demonstrated when Hamas foiled a CIA coup in 2007, an event ordained in the Western media as "Hamas' seizure of power."
Likewise, Hamas is never described as a government, let alone democratic. Neither is its proposal of a 10-year truce as a historic recognition of the "reality" of Israel and support for a two-state solution with just one condition: that the Israelis obey international law and end their illegal occupation beyond the 1967 borders. As every annual vote in the UN General Assembly demonstrates, 99 percent of humanity concurs. On January 4, the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto, described the Israeli attack on Gaza as a "monstrosity."
When the monstrosity is done and the people of Gaza are even more stricken, the Dagan Plan foresees what Sharon called a "1948-style solution"--the destruction of all Palestinian leadership and authority followed by mass expulsions into smaller and smaller "cantonments" and perhaps finally into Jordan.
This demolition of institutional and educational life in Gaza is designed to produce, wrote Karma Nabulsi, a Palestinian exile in Britain, "a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed...Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Sharon] had in store for us, and he has nearly achieved it."
Dr. Dahlia Wasfi is an American writer on Palestine. She has a Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father. "Holocaust denial is anti-Semitic," she wrote on December 31. "But I'm not talking about World War Two, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [the president of Iran] or Ashkenazi Jews. What I'm referring to is the holocaust we are all witnessing and responsible for in Gaza today and in Palestine over the past 60 years...Since Arabs are Semites, US-Israeli policy doesn't get more anti-Semitic than this."
She quoted Rachel Corrie, the young American who went to Palestine to defend Palestinians and was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer. "I am in the midst of a genocide," wrote Corrie, "which I am also indirectly supporting and for which my government is largely responsible."
Reading the words of both, I am struck by the use of "responsibility." Breaking the lie of silence is not an esoteric abstraction but an urgent responsibility that falls to those with the privilege of a platform. With the BBC cowed, so too is much of journalism, merely allowing vigorous debate within unmovable invisible boundaries, ever fearful of the smear of anti-Semitism. The unreported news, meanwhile, is that the death toll in Gaza is the equivalent of 18,000 dead in Britain. Imagine, if you can.
Then there are the academics, the deans and teachers and researchers. Why are they silent as they watch a university bombed and hear the Association of University Teachers in Gaza plea for help? Are British universities now, as Terry Eagleton believes, no more than "intellectual Tescos, churning out a commodity known as graduates rather than greengroceries"?
Then there are the writers. In the dark year of 1939, the Third Writers' Congress was held at Carnegie Hall in New York and the likes of Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein sent messages and spoke up to ensure the lie of silence was broken. By one account, 3,500 jammed the auditorium and a thousand were turned away. Today, this mighty voice of realism and morality is said to be obsolete; the literary review pages affect an ironic hauteur of irrelevance; false symbolism is all. As for the readers, their moral and political imagination is to be pacified, not primed. The anti-Muslim Martin Amis expressed this well in Visiting Mrs. Nabokov: "The dominance of the self is not a flaw, it is an evolutionary characteristic; it is just how things are."
If that is how things are, we are diminished as a civilized society. For what happens in Gaza is the defining moment of our time, which either grants the impunity of war criminals the immunity of our silence, while we contort our own intellect and morality, or gives us the power to speak out. For the moment I prefer my own memory of Gaza: of the people's courage and resistance and their "luminous humanity," as Karma Nabulsi put it.
On my last trip there, I was rewarded with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering in unlikely places. It was dusk and children had done this. No one told them to do it. They made flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and a few of them climbed on to a wall and held the flag between them, some silently, others crying out. They do this every day when they know foreigners are leaving, believing the world will not forget them.

Silk

2009-01-10T07:30:00.000+05:30

Have you heard it rustle..

as it falls thru your fingers..

Bole toh?

2009-01-09T12:54:00.001+05:30

Secularists' doublespeak
Jyoti Punwani

Secularists and human rights activists have not covered themselves with glory over the Malegaon episode. Till a few weeks before the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya, these groups, as well as Muslims, were pouring scorn on the police, especially the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad (ATS).
Investigations into the Ahmedabad and Delhi blasts had seen the ATS feed a credulous media with details of various ‘masterminds'. More disturbing was the trial through the media being carried out by the police. Mumbai's Muslim leaders even met former ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who was slain by terrorists in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, to protest against the raid on a Muslim mohalla, where policemen dragged a hakim out of bed at 3 a.m. at gunpoint and abused his family. To his credit, Karkare apologised and ordered an inquiry. That, however, didn't spare Karkare from the wrath of the Indian Mujahideen, who, in an e-mail sent immediately after the September 23 Delhi blasts, warned the "entire Mumbai ATS" that "we are closely keeping an eye on you and just waiting for the proper time to execute your bloodshed." (sic) Two months later, the Maharashtra ATS chief was killed in a terrorist attack. From all accounts it appeared that his killers didn't know who they were shooting. But immediately, secularists and Muslims declared that Karkare's killing was a conspiracy not by the Indian Mujahideen, but by the RSS. For just a day before his death, he had received an anonymous death threat for his role in the investigations into the Malegaon bomb blasts of September 29, in which the suspects had links with the RSS. Why give credence to one threat and not to the other? The answer to that lies in the willing suspension of disbelief in the Malegaon blasts investigation. As was done with Muslim terror suspects, details of the interrogation of Malegaon's Hindu suspects were leaked to the media.
But this time, no scepticism was expressed by the Left-secular brigade, nor did they scream "trial by media". No human rights organisation objected to the triple brain tests conducted on Sadhvi Pragya, though they had all along maintained that such tests were a form of torture. The BJP alone protested, raising exactly the same objections against the Malegaon investigation that human rights activists had raised against previous terror investigations, which had focused on Muslims and alleged Naxalites. Such protests were expected from the BJP. It was not surprising either, for Muslims to swallow the Malegaon findings hook, line and sinker. But such a deafening silence was certainly not expected of human rights activists and secularists. One crucial difference must be acknowledged between the Malegaon investigations and those that preceded it, and it was voiced by Karkare himself in an interview: "When we want to question a suspect and if he or she has any Hindutvawadi connections, we make sure once, twice, thrice, that we have enough reason and evidence to even question. Normally it is not like that. We are able to freely question anyone we suspect." There was also the incriminating evidence of the 2006 Nanded blasts, in which two RSS men had died while making bombs. Indeed, had the Nanded investigation been allowed to run its logical course, much of what was unravelled during the Malegaon investigations may have come out. Who knows the Malegaon blasts may not even have taken place. Ironically, the same powers that thwarted the Nanded probe gave the green signal for the Malegaon investigations because the time was right. Astute Muslims acknowledged this, even as they rejoiced at the findings. Surely the Left/secular brigade realised this too? Yet, for them, the Malegaon inquiry became a cause celebre. Karkare's career wasn't just about Malegaon. He'd dealt with Naxalites as an SP, Chandrapur, during 1991-93, and as ATS chief, was in charge of the case now against Mumbai's alleged Naxalites. Yet such was the effect of the Malegaon probe that Naxalite sympathisers, secular stalwarts and Muslim leaders, all turned out in force at Karkare's funeral, probably the first time they had paid homage to a police officer.

The writer is a Mumbai-based freelance journalist

Just as I thought

2009-01-09T07:16:00.000+05:30

What we see is never what we get!

Check out the other illusions too!

The salt ...

2009-01-09T06:42:00.000+05:30

Sathrou mithre puthre bandhou,Maa kuru yathnam vigraha sandhou,Bhava sama chitta sarvathra twam,Vaanchasya chiraadhyadhi Vishnu twam.

Twayi mayo chaanya traiko vishnurVyartham kupyasi sarva sahishnu,Sarwasaminnapi pasyaathmaanam,Sarvathrothsyuja bhedaajnananm.

Satsangathwe nissamgathwam,Nissamgathwe nirmohathwam,Nirmohathwe nischala thatwam,Nischala tathwe jeevan mukthi

1-1-1 ( Life - thrice daily with a pinch of salt)

2009-01-09T06:25:00.000+05:30

If...
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Ek aur gaya!

2009-01-08T16:27:00.000+05:30

hahahahaha

My Indian Muslim pal online says Zardari will be declared the next NON STATE ACTOR!

Smile! Someone up there loves you!

2009-01-07T20:23:00.000+05:30

We'll wait a few
so you can breathe
and hug your folks goodbye

eat your meal
say your prayers
and then prepare to die

you're innocent
we know, you know
and god is just and kind

but we're not god
we want our land
we trust you do not mind

three wretched hours
is all you'll get
to taste the taste of peace

so hurry now
and don't forget
when there's a flash, say cheese!

Red

2009-01-07T18:59:00.000+05:30

blood splatters
on rusty parchment
crowded with words
from a god that died
yesterday in battle
with his men gone mad
screaming a prayer
no one understands
where the minds are vengeful
and the hearts have stopped

time stands still...
...and waits
for the tears to fall

Reality bytes

2009-01-07T08:54:00.001+05:30

From the horses' mouths

Heaven

2009-01-06T08:55:00.000+05:30

is here

I conclude that there has to be more than one God because the one that created this voicebox can't be responsible for Ila Arun and Himesh Reshamia. No way!

And if there were really a God, would we have this? Socho!

A case of exploding myths

2009-01-06T05:53:00.000+05:30

Ten myths about Pakistan....don't miss the comments
Deleted the whole nine yards in favour of simpler cleaner links as usual.

.....I like

2009-01-04T21:30:00.000+05:30

http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/babel/index.html

....to stand and stare

2009-01-04T20:57:00.000+05:30

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work. The one who paid the mos attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on. In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshu Bell sold out at a theatre in Boston and the seats average $100. This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Washington Post piece here
Email forward.

Afterthought: What makes me certain it would have turned out very different had it been Shakira instead of Bell? Depressing thought? Why? What is music and why?

Got a problem? Take it here..

2009-01-03T15:08:00.000+05:30

http://pgportal.gov.in/

PHHHHEWWWWNALLLYYY

Back then is right now?

2009-01-03T07:58:00.000+05:30

http://www.languageinindia.com/april2003/macaulay.html

We are told that the time can never come when the natives of India can be admitted to high civil military office. We are told that this is the condition on which we hold our power. We are told, that we are bound to confer on our subjects every benefit-which they are capable of enjoying?-no; --which it is in our power to confer on them? -no ; --but which we can confer on them without hazard to the perpetuity of our own domination. Against that proposition I solemnly protest as inconsistent alike with sound policy and sound morality. . . . We are free, we are civilized, to little purpose, if we grudge to any portion of the human race an equal measure of freedom and civilization. Are we to keep the people of India ignorant in order that we may keep them submissive? Or do we think that we can give them knowledge without awakening ambition? Or do we mean to awaken ambition and to provide it with no legitimate vent? Who will answer any of these questions in the affirmative? . . . It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown that system; that by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity for better government; that, having become instructed in European knowledge, they may, in some future age, demand European institutions. Whether such a day will ever come I know not. Abut never will I attempt to avert or to retard it. Whenever it comes, it will be the proudest day in English history. To have found a great people sunk in the lowest depths of slavery and superstition, to have so ruled them as to have made them desirous and capable of all the privileges of citizens, would indeed be a title to glory all of our own. The sceptre may pass away from us. Unforeseen accidents may derange our most profound schemes of policy. Victory may be inconstant to our arms. . . . (Young 1935: 152-155).

...freedom is a many splendoured thing. And we're still to achieve it.

Aadmi jo kehta hai..

2009-01-02T18:01:00.001+05:30

Things people say...that stay with you and sort of play and replay in your mind when you least expect them to..

"Doubt Everything"...Gautama Buddha and my naani who brought me up.

"Don't trust a man who cries too often and a woman who laughs/smiles too much"...My naani again. ;)...ooh..and yeah, she's right.

'Read books, they make better friends than humans'...Daddy

'Mix with people your own level'...Daddy! Sigh! Sorry Pa, didn't understand you back then!

'Water will find its own level'....Daddy again...trying to dissuade me from showing people their place/s

'Operation succesful, patient dead'....Pa in law

'All geniuses are a little eccentric'...Pa in law...pulling my leg. lol

'Don't do anything that doesn't make you happy' ....that would be MOM...she rocks!

'Nice and foolish are two different things' ...Ma in law.

'Pretend not to have heard/seen/understood' ...a very smart lady I used to know over a decade ago.

'Good from far, far from good' ...Hubby

'Always do what is right , it will gratify half of mankind and astound the rest'...Mark Twain and Hubby( in his own words ofcourse)

...I'm still astounded!

Let them live!

2009-01-02T16:29:00.000+05:30

Watched this on BBC today and can't get over it. Am sure there are similar rackets in our own country too.

Poverty is a curse...as are illiteracy and helplessness.

I love Shahrukh...

2008-12-30T17:37:00.001+05:30

...well, right here

Ladd, jhagad, aage badh?

2008-12-30T08:19:00.000+05:30

Went to Jadhavgadh for lunch with hubby and beti this Sunday. A nice one hour drive from KP where we live with a cute little uphill route thrown in. Nicely restored fort .. good lunch and a tour of the premises which includes a museum. The building that houses the museum reminded me of traditional homes in Kerala somehow...the open courtyard in the middle, etc. unless ofcourse its because I've not visited any ( if there are any) restored or 'converted to hotels' havelis or homes in Maharashtra like I have elsewhere. I know surprisingly little about traditional Maharashtra though I've spent more than half my life here.

"Ladd, Jhagad, Aage badh" is the catchline on the signboards and advertisements for Jadhavgadh. Beat that!

My daughter wanted to know what the word FORT means. I had to explain how rulers and warriors had to build them to protect and defend their lands against attacks by foreigners. They showed us a dungeon where prisoners were sent. I didn't go down the steps, the very sight of it was claustrophobia inducing because it reminded me of another dungeon in some castle in England where we'd seen wrist and ankle clamps on walls to chain prisoners vertically one foot off the floor and other more inhuman instruments of torture. They were left there to die.. with rodents, the cold damp air and hunger for special effects. She then asked me who the "good" men were in this picture and (as happens often when I'm with her) I had no answer.

These were HUMAN BEINGS of yesterday. Some who attacked and some who defended...like territorial beasts . Some who were 'right' and some who were 'wrong' depending on which side of the border you were on when you took down minutes of the war to be recorded as History for posterity. Land, women, wealth, fame. Wonderful things to have at the cost of other lives and one's own moral dignity.

One glimpse at the newspapers today will tell us nothing much has changed. It is still 'Yeh mehlon, yeh takhton, yeh taajon ki duniya" where we fight using the slightest excuse. Where we're constantly comparing one with the other and fighting over differences instead of celebrating them. I am guilty of this too.

My daughter goes to Karate class, I tell her she must learn to 'defend' herself and not be a weakling. She wants to know who she must defend herself against and why. 'Others' I tell her...others that are physically stronger and who might use that physical strength against her someday and also to protect those others who're weak and might need her help. I tell her not to trust everyone who is sweet to her. When she began school I had to tell her not to be too generous with her snackbox unless she has saved enough for herself. She used to come back home, often hungry and with an empty box thanks to other tots her own age, which is sweet in hindsight but wasn't, back then. She's slightly older and smarter but still asks me when I remind her...'Amma, sometimes you tell me it is nice to share, sometimes you tell me I must not...why do you confuse me?" So now she takes a little extra so she can share and still have enough for herself. I ask her to respect the same rules when she's peeping into a friend's snackbox.

How does this work in the larger picture? I don't know.

These days everything seems to push me down some psychedelic philosophical spiral leaving me angry, drained and disillusioned. (Definitely not great company unless you have a couch and charge by the hour....NO..THAT is not what I meant! )

Fences, defences...around hearts, souls, minds, bodies, homes, cities, countries....and so it goes on. We're isolating/insulating ourselves from everything around us because we're afraid of each other on more levels than one. We'll live in fear till we die... par yeh jeena bhi koi jeena hai, Lallu?

WHAT is going on?

2008-12-29T15:21:00.000+05:30

http://www.roguepolice.com/pil20.htm

Recieved this link from my pal Rati Parker and think it MUST be shared. Please read.

The mind goggles

2008-12-28T07:30:00.000+05:30

Is this true?

I asked in another blog why Kasab and his friends turned to murder and mayhem. Maybe this will give us a clue.

Why are they fed lies and given a distorted self image at an age when they must be innocent and building self esteem? How will they be responsible, self respecting citizens of the world if they're told that they're universally hated? Why wont Pakistan's 'educated' as opposed to 'indoctrinated' citiziens wake up and demand to be told the truth? From Jinnah to Zardari, all their leaders, like their mullahs, have lied to the Pakistanis. A country established and run on the poisonous fuel of lies and dirty politics, it is now seen as an international migraine. Isn't that sad? They used to be us not very long ago and today they're this cringing, kicking, impoverished, frothing at the mouth, mutilated, infected neighbor that we can't bring ourselves to tolerate any longer.

We pray for a real Jihad in Pakistan. A revival of the real Islam. A new dawn of respect...for the truth and themselves. And when that happens, maybe they'll learn to respect the rest of us and earn our respect in return? Inshallah!

Etcetera Etcetera Etcetera!

2008-12-26T20:11:00.000+05:30

this
and
this
and
this
and
this
and
this
and
this

Sigh!
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggf_szKYV_E

Kya irony hai!

2008-12-26T08:09:00.000+05:30

Sri Sri Ravishankar "Sssoooooooo Hummmmm fame" goes to Iraq to unite Shias and Sunnis.
Zakir Naik ji? tsk tsk!!!

Why?

2008-12-19T16:13:00.000+05:30

Antulay still a Union Minister at 79?
And why is he having to quit over this? Don't you have your own doubts? I know I do.

Why are we doing nothing yet? So much discussion...so much self doubt. If we're confident that we have proof, we must act. But will we?

The ball is in our court...and all we're doing is making a racket?

Confession: I think I'm finally in love.

2008-12-14T08:16:00.000+05:30

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=V_0qly5ZZl4&feature=related

Pune wakes up to Bombay's darknight

2008-12-08T07:10:00.000+05:30

Yesterday in Pune....

Women in silks, labels and warpaint, men in designer track gear....protesting against corruption and 'mourning' Mumbai's night of terror. More like laughing, catching up...ambling up and down about 1/10th of Pune's little M.G. road. The youth thankfully seemed committed to the cause. Their banners left very little unsaid. A lot of energy...untapped, looking for direction. It frustrates me how not many older people looked 'clued-in' or interested even. I guess it comes from years of taking things for granted and just not caring. I belong neither with the youth ( except in spirit) nor the 'elders' ( except in physical fatigue)..am fuming and self-doubting...a bad position from any angle. Anyway, I signed up ( a little form) for what seems like an impending war against terror and corruption. Small scale, but a war nevertheless. Waiting and hoping it really happens.

Flipside

2008-12-03T06:57:00.000+05:30

Words aren't coming easy. So much has already been said about what has happened in Bombay, the city where I was born and spent a good 27 years of my life. A city which gives everyone a chance...now, even the terrorists. In the eye of this crazy storm of negative emotions are my feelings of pity, for these young boys who were brainwashed and sent to their deaths. How were they brought up? What were they before they became these killing machines? There was a piece in yesterday's newspaper which said one of them was given up by his father in exchange for money. Dirt poor, they were. Now they're rich? I don't think this could have been an easy decision, for the father or the son. Yet they made it and acted on it. And suddenly this isn't only about money. There are 'educated', well to do, 'everyday' folks involved in many/all aspects of these operations too. What leads them down this path, I wonder. What sense of injustice, of persecution drives them to plan and execute these dastardly acts? Do the results satiate them? Make them feel better? I doubt it.

While everyone talks of control and reaction, I'd like to speak of positive action...finding the root cause of all these ills. Is it religion? I don't think so...religion is also only another crutch, another means of brainwashing those who need something to hold on to in desparate times. These boys were mere puppets. We need to get to those who hold the strings. Yes, I suppose I seem like some kind of traitor, sitting here and typing away about people who deserve nothing more or less than our complete contempt. They probably always had enough of that, atleast in their minds. Was that what pushed them over the brink? If I feel helpless about Bombay, I also feel sorry for those boys who came here and caused such misery. They weren't bold, they were cowards, scared of some demon they were convinced could be exorcised only this way. They were miserable inside, there was something missing. I don't see an end to this problem unless we find that something and restore the self image and self respect of a people who are perhaps in a scarier hell than we are.

As we whine dis'grace'fully....

2008-11-17T09:40:00.000+05:30

http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/34422984.html

....there are people smiling thru tougher lives.

'Horn ok please!', 'Buri nazar walay, tera mooh kala', 'Maa ka ashirwad, Babuji ka prasad', 'Hum do, hamari ek', 'Pappu teh Dinky di gaddi'....and all

2008-11-15T07:36:00.000+05:30

When I'm not jetting or driving off to some crazy place thanks to my stars and planets which seem to be spinning wildly out of control in the past two odd years, I'm travelling the virtual world on my laptop. Came across a nice blog today ( can't link, don't know blogger, random find) where the blogger lists the places she's been to and I wondered why I shouldn't too. So, I sat me down and made that list. Mine seems modest compared to hers...but hey! atleast I have a list...so, grateful to dame luck for family ( parents and hubbusky and dotty) and all the unearned chances.

Ready or not, here comes the list in no particular order:
Bahrain
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Malaysia
Hong Kong
Hungary
Vatican
Thailand
Australia
Austria
France
Germany
Scandinavia
Netherlands
Belgium
Switzerland
Italy
Egypt
Turkey
UK
USA
UAE
Nepal
Sri Lanka

This is ofcourse besides our crazy Bharat Darshan trips by car ( and flight, mercy God!) thanks to hubby dearest's passion for driving across the length and bredth of our great country. If he had his way, he'd go around the world in his car. He wanted a son ( hmm) only so they could do a world tour by car together. Now, luckily for him, our daughter is proving to have the same 'drive'!

Have a friend in Gurgaon who'd taunt...'Have a baby, we'll see how you guys continue to travel like lunatics then'. And hey presto!...well almost! Dotty already has an enviable passport (her first flight was Delhi-Bangalore when she was less than 3 months old...her first trip abroad - test trip- was to Nepal at 6 months). She's an absolute darling whether it is a drive to Badrinath from Delhi or a flight to Miami via NY from Delhi. Total veteran at 5 1/2 ( Chashme baddoor!!!). I just pray that it stays this way and that she gets to travel the world and like she says often, to space even if it becomes possible in her lifetime. Nothing compares to travel when it comes to education in the real sense.

One thing that all this travelling has taught me is that being vegetarian is not so cool. I mean, it would have been so much easier for me to eat whatever was available wherever I went rather than waste precious time finding vegetarian food ..and desi, if possible. I hope dotty grows up without any biases but she already says she'd rather not eat a dead animal/bird/fish on a plate. I hope for her sake that that changes quickly tho I'd probably be grateful not to know.

Another thing I've learnt is not to stay too long in any one place as a visitor...it gets suddenly boring and there is this nagging homesickness which sets in and takes away from the whole experience. AND, I still haven't learnt to pack light. I am embarrassed but not enough to change, I guess. AND...never stay with family ( no offence - just in case my family is reading, hehe). Never everrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. If you can't afford a B&B even, don't travel but never stay with family (immediate family is exempt thanks to immunity ofcourse). Similarity between family and fish - both stink after 3 days. Love and mirth and merriment fly right out of the window and a strange sort of discomfort takes over, for both the guests and the hosts. Just not worth it. So...!

Out of the many places I haven't visited, I'm eager to go to
Africa
Vietnam
Japan
Alaska ( Amreeka, I know)
Canada
New Zealand
Brazil and
Greece.
and in my own country, I'd like to visit Leh and Ladakh, Khajuraho ( Oye! Why the smirk?), Cherrapunji in the rains ( yes, why not?)...and I'd like to take my daughter to Kashmir before we lose it to some idiots with no foresight.

Ooh and talking of Kashmir, Pakistan is another country I'd like to go to. Traitor? No...just curious...like when you have kidney stones removed, you want look at them just to know what caused all that pain, no? LOL!

What scares Hubby and me is the day when age and health will force us to hang up our travel gear. We hope to be beamed up a la Spock before that happens.

Sometime soon, I'd like to gather the patience to write about each place I've been to and all the memories I cherish most. For that, I'll have to travel quite some distance back in time. Bon voyage, me.

Random thots

2008-07-25T21:05:00.000+05:30

....another temporarily happy rewardee of your 'offering my shoulder...being nice to emotional imbeciles' scheme...pink tinted glasses for the winner and brownie points in heaven for the devil!...hmmm...

....I'm comfortable being uncomfortable in today's world. I think I'd hate myself if I didn't feel uneasy living with/like/in this...

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
...It bothers me how NRIs return to India for holidays and comment on just about everything even when they know they don't have to put up with it too long...are they rubbing our poor 'stuck Indian' noses in it?...

And it bothers me even more when firang expats comment on just about everything when they aren't going to lift one finger to change anything in the three odd years they'll spend here and would gladly EAT a stinking dead fish on a fancy plate for a fancy price in a sushi bar in Kyoto because the rest of the city looks clean and they SO want to be part of the 'been there, done that' brigade. They complain about the water, the air, the traffic, the people, the smells ...makes me want to gift them a roll of toilet paper and tell them exactly where I'd like them to shove it!

What secretly and honestly bothers me the most is that they're right. I'm told India is shining but the smog in most cities hasn't let me check...and if we're really coming up roses, when did they begin smelling like this?

Brand knew

2007-08-14T21:40:00.001+05:30

Have you noticed how our own ideas become more acceptable when we put them in the words of somebody famous?

I'd rather not just say ' I like peace' not because I don't mean it but because I'm not sure you even want to know what I like..if instead I quote Mahatma Gandhi, you'd probably listen and be impressed. Also if I'm speaking about spirituality ( which in my opinion boils down to 'I like peace'), I must quote Vivekananda or Ramakrishna Paramahansa. How can I not? And if I'm the kind that likes to shock, I can also season my speech with some OSHO-isms.

Brands are in and anything which is not branded has to be inferior. Therefore just as my watch has to be a Rolex for you to even notice it, my thoughts have to stem from something said by a 'superior' thinker who is now a brand. Why must anyone listen to me wax eloquent about how the conscience must be our only guide? Must I not quote from the VEDAS and the GITA and the UPANISHADS to substantiate my thinking? Even the QORAN agrees but hey, I didn't think of it first and therefore I must bring proof from all these guides that I must use only my common sense and conscience to guide me.

It is amazing how even the most intelligent thinkers of today would rather tie themselves up in - isms and call themselves -ites than just express what they know as true - for themselves atleast. We would rather be part of a herd...than be heard for ourselves.

We are afraid to remain in our own skins when we preach but it is easier to do the very same thing using quotations. I'd rather not say...'hey..chill and do what you have to'...I'd rather say ' Krishna ne kaha - apne karam karte jao, phal ki chinta matt karo' and Krishna is God and I've successfully passed the buck.

Is this why today we lack younger leaders? Is this why we're happy with BJP and the Congress and can't look beyond them? Where is the young brigade with new ideas for today? Where are those people who can THINK and express themselves without fear? How long will we dig into our pasts for inspiration? Inspiration is great but forward thinking indispensable. Is the present not reason enough for us to say ENOUGH?

Get out of that mental prison and THINK and tell us all what YOU think..make a change before it is too late.

Ruined

2007-06-27T08:58:00.000+05:30

Frozen in time
that smile I gifted
to warm lips
that once spoke
of flowers and such

those lips are silent
the smile stays
acid trickles down the chin
“hold it in”, I say
“don’t let it dribble
onto the floor..”

it slithers, you know,
into unlit corners
and stays…
watching without eyes
eating into the walls

cracks appear
snake like
all the way to the roof
and it falls…
inwards…inwards
into the soul

so much debris
so much debris…

~Anita~

L-iyer

2007-05-24T22:47:00.000+05:30

Iyer. Anita Iyer. That is my name. And Iyer indicates that I am a Hindu, a Tamil Brahmin albeit from Kerala. Brahmin. Funny term that…considering that I now belong to a 'business' family. Aren’t Vaishyas traditionally the traders and businessmen? Aah! But then there are Brahmins in the army fighting wars and in Mc Donald’s sweeping floors and cleaning tables. Not that that is wrong… it is just not ‘Brahmin” if you know what I mean.

I wonder why the priests who conduct these ‘thread’ ceremonies and other such ridiculous functions for ‘Brahmin’ families don’t explain the meaning of the word ‘Brahmin” before they begin their acts. Is it only about knowing the Gayatri mantra and a few other Sanskrit Shlokas and mantras and some yogic postures? What does that sacred thread really indicate? That we are above the others? How? No, really, how?

Most of these priests have day jobs offering steady incomes after they’re done with their morning circuses. Many are accountants and clerks and sales executives and BPO employees and CEOs of little companies even. One of these days I’m going to gather the courage to ask a couple of them if they’re Brahmins only in the mornings and Vaishyas and Shudhras otherwise. Idiots!

It also really isn’t about not drinking or smoking or being vegetarian in my opinion. If it were, everyone who doesn’t smoke or drink or eat meat must be a Brahmin. It is more about the person one is…to me a Brahmin is a person who is close to God, who is highly knowledgeable yet seeks knowledge and shares it unconditionally with those he meets…someone who is superior to others in his intentions and actions. He is superior because of what he chooses to be, not because of the family he is born into or the religion he decides or is forced to follow. He is someone who can be looked up to, respected, of pure heart and pure affection. But then the Qoran says that is also what a true Muslim is. I think I would be a good Muslim if I were a superior Hindu – a Brahmin…automatically.

So... a name or symbol is no certificate of character or religion and mustn’t be, which is why no religion really advocates the use of any symbol. A name is a symbol too…it is designed to label you as belonging to a certain faith or position. It mustn’t. It is given to you BEFORE you develop your own character, without giving you a choice…the choice every religion bestows you with…that of choosing your own path irrespective of its name…your name.

So how then am I an Iyer? How then does my surname proclaim my religion or caste and position as a human being in society? Am I a Brahmin? I honestly hope I’ll learn to be one as per my definition of the word and be worthy of the surname for atleast one day in my life as an Iyer.

Amjad Islam Amjad

2007-03-21T09:54:00.002+05:30

Yeh jo reyg-dasht-e-firaaq hai
Yeh rukay agar
Yeh rukay agar toh nishaan miley
Yeh nishaan miley
Ke jo faaslon ki saleeb hai
Yeh garri hoi hai kahaan kahaan!
Merey aasmaan se kidher gai
Terey iltefaat ki kehkashaan
Merey bekhabar merey benishaan
Yeh rukey agar toh pata chalay
Mein tha kis nagar, tu raha kahaan!
Ke zamaan makaan ki yeh wuusatein
Tujhey dekhney ko taras gaeen
woh mere naseeb ki baarishein kisi aur chat pe baras gaeen
Merey char su hai ghubaar-e-jaan, Woh fishaar-e-jaan
Ke khabar nahin merey haath ko mere haath ki
Mere khwaab se terey baam tak
Teri rahguzar ka to zikr kya
Nahin zoofishan tera naam tak!
Hain dhuaan dhuaan, mere istakhwaan
Mere ansoo-on mein bujhey huay mere istakhwaan
Merey naksh gar, merey naksh jaan
Isi reyg-dasht-e-faraaq mein
Rahey muntazir....terey muntazir
Merey khwaab jinke fishaar mein
Rahay merey haal se bekhabar tere rahguzar
Tere rahguzar
ke jo naksh hai merey haath par
Magar is bala ki hai teergi
Ke khabar nahin merey haath ko mere haath ki
Woh jo chashm-e-shoabdaa saaz thi
Woh uthey agar merey istakhwaan mein ho raushni
Isi ek lamha-e-deed mein teri rahguzar
Mere teerajan mein chamak uthey
Merey khwaab se terey baam tak
Sabhi manzaroon mein damak uthay
Usi ek pal mein ho jawidaan
Mere arzoo jo hai beykaran
Meri zindagi ke hai mukhtasir
Yeh jo reyg-e-dasht-e-firaaq hai.. yeh rukay agar...
Yeh rukay agar

Catch 22

2007-03-05T17:09:00.003+05:30

The Teacup
There was a couple who used to go to shop in the beautiful stores. They both liked antiques and pottery and especially teacups. One day in this beautiful shop they saw a beautiful teacup. They said, "May we see that? We've never seen one quite so beautiful." As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke.
"You don't understand," it said. "I haven't always been a teacup. There was a time when I was red and I was clay." My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over and I yelled out, "let me alone", but he only smiled, "Not yet."
"Then I was placed on a spinning wheel," the teacup said, "and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. Stop it! I'm getting dizzy!" I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, 'Not yet."
Then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I wondered why he wanted to burn me, and I yelled and knocked at the door. I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as He shook his head, "Not yet."
Finally the door opened, he put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. "There, that's better," I said. And he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. "Stop it, stop it!" I cried. He only nodded, "Not yet."
Then suddenly he put me back into the oven, not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. All the time I could see him through the opening nodding his head saying, "Not yet."
Then I knew there wasn't any hope. I would never make it. I was ready to give up. But the door opened and he took me out and placed me on the shelf. One hour later he handed me a mirror and said, "Look at yourself." And I did. I said, "That's not me; that couldn't be me. It's beautiful. I'm beautiful."
"I want you to remember, then," he said, "I know it hurts to be rolled and patted, but if I had left you alone, you'd have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I knew it hurt and was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you never would have hardened; you would not have had any color in your life. And if I hadn't put you back in that second oven, you wouldn't survive for very long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first began with you."
God knows what He's doing (for all of us).He is the Potter, and we are His clay.He will mold us and make us, So that we may be made into a flawless piece of work To fulfill His good, pleasing, and perfect will.

~~~

'Insipirational' bullshit like this makes my blood boil. I just got this in my mail. Either God is a despot or a retard. I mean if he couldn't produce what he intended to to begin with, he isn't God as we define him anyway. Besides we're not clay to be moulded and we do feel pain. If he does intend to mould us "to fulfuill his good, pleasing and perfect will" then he might as well not give us individual brains or nerve endings to percieve emotions and sensations.

When you go thru shit and come out smelling of it, they tell you that is wrong because all that pain was supposed to make you stronger, not obnoxious. But how does one suffer and not get a tad disillusioned and bitter? I guess that calls for another round of inspirational bullshit about how pain and pleasure are the same thing as percieved by yogis. Dammit, if we were all yogis and perfectly comfortable with what we're given, how do we evolve? Progress is about gettting better. If things seem perfect to all of us what will we aspire for, work towards, look forward to?

And what exactly is wrong with clay? It is perfect in that it is in its natural state. We're meant to be clay, not tea cups. We're moulded by other human beings into what we think is in tandem with HIS 'good , pleasing will" and from that stems all disease. Do you see what a multilayered word that is? - DIS-EASE?. We spend our lives conforming to labels prepared by other human beings. Why we even define God the way we want Him to be.

And so it goes on. ..this endless finger pointing. Either you have changed and are not the person you used to be, which is tragic...or you haven't changed at all and are hopeless and stagnating. Either way the world thinks you need help! If being a teacup pleases you, lie back and enjoy the patting and spinning and preheating and reheating! If you want to be clay, be prepared to be trampled upon. Either way you have a hanging judge!!