Bankim Chandra Chatterjee wrote the immortal lines of Vande Mataram in his epic Anand Muth 100 years ago. That was a different era I guess. Our freedom fighters walked to the gallows singing Vande Mataram, such was the aura and the pride of the song.
It’s sad to see how an awesome piece of patriotic work has been reduced to a petty religio-political tool by both Hindu and Muslim fanatics. On one hand, I shouldn’t be forced into singing a song, on the other, what’s the fuss even if you sing it, just to respect the feelings it carries? Don’t they sing it in the parliament?
The opposition to the song I guess began with the Muslim League’s objection to it around 1937. It was Jinnah’s way of sowing the seeds of separatism, and by playing the same tunes today’s Muslims are doing the same thing. Why is this community hell-bent upon proving they are misfits in whatever “different” culture they exist? Why there is always this clash of ideologies?
Despite my personal feelings for the song and my aversion to any kind of opposition to it (I talk about it as a beautiful poetic composition), I think as an independent decision making individual of this country I should be free to not to sing the song, and if I don’t sing this song, it shouldn’t mean I’m a traitor or I’m an anti-national.
Saumyadip on his blog has various versions of this song and he also traces a brief history of it.
I saw the sad news of Steve Irwin’s accidental death while researching for another news. I liked him a lot but I think he most of the times went too close to the animals, needlessly startling them. He’d randomly pick up reptiles and insects without ever bothering to respect their space. The problem was, even the others tried to follow him on various wildlife and nature channels.
Nonetheless, he was among the very few people who continually espouse the cause of animals. The animal world has lost a great friend. This is the marine animal he went too close too. The animal is not fatal. It was just that Steve was in the wrong position at the wrong time and the barb went straight through his heart. Only 3 people in Australia’s recorded history have died of the stingray’s attacks so far, included Steve Irwin. This is so ironical. He wrestled with crocodiles and anacondas and even cobras, but was killed by marginally dangerous fish.
But it’s very difficult to be agile in the water. It’s a totally different territory. On land it’s easier to dodge attacks.
Information is power and mutli-way, unhindered communication constantly fuels that power. JP Rangaswami very eloquently uses various real-world analogies to explain why social software finds resistance at the enterprise level.
It’s precisely the same reason the RTI act has been opposed by the bureaucracy in full connivance of the government. When people can directly access the information that drives their lives, the people who control this information and keep a tight lid over it feel threatened. When people have a platform and a tool to communicate to each other without a third-party mediation they are empowered to take collective action. Even if in some cases action is not possible, at least the can build pressure and put up a resistance.
It was shocking to see that day on TV how rudely a “student” was talking to a college professor. I use double-quotes because he no way looked a student. He out and out looked like a — what we call them in India — gunda, a goon. After a heated verbal exchange the 64-year-old professor was badly beaten up and he succumbed to his injuries at the very spot and some 20,000 spectators merely looked on. The police, present in ample number, didn’t intercede.
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This was bound to happen one way or another. The transition has been total. Although it has been orchestrated by our one-year-old daughter, Vasu, we have always been a part-time nocturnal family. Even when I was young (a millennium ago) they used to call me ullu — the owl — because I mostly slept in the morning. Then I met Alka, who herself was not an enthusiastic night sleeper. And together we bore a child that eventually touched the pinnacle for us. She never, ever sleeps at night.
Now, all three of us go to sleep after 11 AM and wake up around 5 or 6 in the evening. We’re fortunate we work from home and 99% of my clients are in other countries. It’s day there, it’s night her, but since I’m wide awake at night, it works well for all the parties concerned.
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