Around The World For Love

Is it true love, an obsession, or love bordering the sublime? This person pursued his lady love for 12 years, almost around the world. Read the complete thing, it’s quite engaging.

A Baby With Tattoo

I wonder how they did this. Isn’t getting a tattoo painful?

The original source.

Technorati Tags: cute baby, baby with tattoo

Perverse Secularism

KPS Gill is perhaps one of the most prolific (and underrated) columnists that India has. Here are some excerpts from his latest article in The Pioneer.

There is a new and escalating insensitivity in Indian secular thought, which not only insistently neglects the sensibilities of the majority community, but, worse, appears eager to cause injury to such sentiments. India’s opportunistic political secularists - as distinct from those who are, in fact and practice, actually wedded to the secular ideology - feel that they cannot sufficiently proclaim their secularism without displaying at least a measure of contempt for Hindu beliefs and practices.

…

By contrast, the most extraordinary sensitivity - often transgressing not only the limits of good sense, but even considerations of national interest - is prominently displayed towards the Muslim minority vote-bank (though other minorities - with their smaller shares in electoral contests - are ironically treated with the same contempt that is directed against the majority community). These tendencies appear to be getting worse with the passage of time, and a precipitous decline in the quality of political debate and intelligence is manifest.

…

These tendencies are, nevertheless, deep rooted in Indian - and particularly Congress - politics, and the tallest of our leaders have not escaped susceptibility to this perversity of perspective. When the Khilafat movement collapsed in 1924, the Moplah rebellion, in which Muslim mobs inflicted untold savagery and rapine on Hindus, broke out in Kerala.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Mahatma, who wore his Hindu identity very much on his sleeve, first denied these atrocities. As evidence of Muslim excesses mounted, he described the Moplahs as “god-fearing” people who were “fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner they consider as religious”. Even during the Khilafat movement, Gandhi chose to ally with the infamous Ali brothers, silently sharing a platform with them, and refusing to criticise or comment when they declared: “If the Afghans invaded India to wage holy war, the Indian Muhammadans are not only bound to join them but also to fight the Hindus if they refuse to cooperate with them.”

…

Unfortunately, science, with rare exception, is taught in India much like religion: As an authoritarian, faith-based system, to be internalised by rote on the mandate of a teacher whose assertions are to be accepted without question; and, not as the tentative, continuously expanding enterprise of discovery rooted in human freedom and imagination.

…

There is an increasing fraud and dishonesty at the core of the Indian secular establishment. Secularism means, at once, a distancing of the institutions of governance from communal influence, but also sensitivity towards all religious communities and faiths - not just a particular minority vote-bank. The current, contentious and prejudiced orientation of so-called ’secular’ forces in national politics reflects a complete collapse of political intellect.

The last paragraph I’ve pasted above easily applies to the Indian blogsphere too. Here’s the link to the entire article.

Technorati Tags: kps gill, secularism in india, pseudo secularism, minority appeasement, vote bank politics

Taking A Stand In Schools and Colleges

I wish something like this could happen in our schools in India. A few students at an American school wore pink shirts to protest against bullies. Recently in that school a 9th grade kid was mocked at and threatened by a group of bullies for wearing a pink shirt — they think gays wear pink clothes.

To teach the bully kids a lesson the 12th grade students organized a pink-shirt day and distributed pink tank tops to many students, including one of the bullies. They even brought a pink football at school.

In the name of ragging and student politics bullying is prevalent in Indian colleges too and both law and college authorities have expressed their inability to eradicate it. Similarly continuous onslaught of peer pressure drives school kids to do things they won’t otherwise do. This problem can be solved within a few days if students, both at school and college level, take a stand.

In fact, many ills of the society can be eliminated by simply taking a collective stand. I’d look to put more stress on the word collective because it often becomes difficult, and sometimes fatal, for a single individual to stand up and face the bullies.

Technorati Tags: school bullies, ragging

Mob Justice Is Becoming The Order Of The Day

India is becoming a dangerous place to live day by day. A female driver was badly beaten up by another driver in front of DPS Vasant Kunj in a case of road rage. A group of hooligans thrashed passengers and assaulted girl students in a moving train. Hindu and Muslim mobs go on rampages at the drop of a hat. Doctors don’t turn up even while knowing the patient is dying. And of late, kangaroo courts in Bihar have been punishing suspects with great brutality. What does it signify?

A simmering civil unrest and total lack of justice. People don’t believe in law. Although film personalities are being sent to jail with great fanfare the common person on the street and in the villages have by now accepted that justice doesn’t exist in our country and in most of the cases police is more dangerous than the criminals. The pathetic conditions in our country have brought even law-abiding citizens to a sub-human level. Criminals roam around committing crimes with impunity and the civilians can either face daily humiliations submissively or turn into a mob and take law into their own hands.

These bursts of violence also show a deep-rooted depression. People have simply given up on their country, its people and its surroundings. Try to say hello to some stranger and you’ll know what I’m trying to say. See how people treat public facilities and places. See how we treat people from different classes and economic backgrounds.

I think both our religious ethics and social morals are all fucked up. In theory our religions preach love but in practice they perpetuate hatred and suspicion. Does it happen anywhere else that people who build a temple cannot enter that temple? Similarly, our social feelings never picked up after the independence. Whatever love we had for the country left with the British. In the name of love for country we merely have jingoism and charade. No wonder the BJP can come to power after promising a temple and the Congress strives for power by pitching communities against each other; we don’t have even a single political party in the country that truly fights for the betterment of the country.

Who is to blame for this mess? Our collective national conscious to a great extent, and I think the way we allegedly got independence. Mahatma Gandhi’s ways of non-violence perhaps gave rise to a population that was devoid of any fighting spirit. We became used to accepting violence, first from the British and then from our own oppressors. Violence is an injustice, and when you accept injustice than you lose sense of justice. And even if you accept it, at least don’t wrap it in the garb of non-violence. We were too weak, mentally and physically, to beat the shit out of them, and that was that. As a race we have been inferior and this should have been tackled either during our struggle for independence or immediately after that. Our country would have been better off had we kicked the British out with force. The centuries of defeatism and segmentation would have washed off. We should have had a general, not a Mahatma.

Consequently, as a civilization we are too weak. We turn barbaric when we face a submissive opponent and we become helpless (peace-loving) victims when a strong opponent attacks us, whether from within the country or from outside.

Solution? Abolish all kinds of discriminations severely. Let people be proud of their country by making every citizen important by providing equal opportunities and justice. Instill civil sense in them and let them know law is the same for everyone. Root out politicians that use religion and caste to remain in power.

Two things should be free in our country: healthy food (this includes safe drinking water) and primary education. Make everything else expensive if need be. Strong, educated people mean a healthy country.

When people are healthy, educated and happy, they don’t commit crimes, and they don’t tolerate injustice.

Technorati Tags: politics, crime, nation building

Ram Does Not Exist — O Ram, Where Art Tho?

Gandhiji uttered “Hai Ram” thrice before the three bullets pumped in by Nathuram Godse drained life out of him. The expression still adorns his samadhi at Raj Ghat. To highlight that the historical significance of the of the Ramsetu bridge is nothing but a mythical illusion, the Indian central government has told the Supreme Court that there is no proof of Lord Ram ever existing, or for that matter of all the sundry characters existing in the epic Ramayana. So has the government turned anti-Gandhi all of a sudden? If the Mahatma had the word Ram on his lips while he breathed his last breath, did he die uttering a false god?

With the nuclear deal controversy not showing signs of abating due to the churlishly intransigent Left (and the BJP) some say snap polls are imminent, and the Congress is surely preparing for that eventuality by playing the ultimate communal card. By denying one of the mightiest of Hindu gods it’s anybody’s guess whom the Congress is trying to please. Not Rawan, surely, because he becomes false too.

It’ll be stupid to believe that the center wants to demolish the Ramsetu bridge simply for economics because the scientists have said time and again that the environmental costs of the Sethusamudram project will be immeasurable, from inviting tsunamis to destroying the pre-historical coral reef (it’s a PDF). The central agenda of Congress (who is in power at the center right now) is to appease the minorities by showing that it doesn’t give two hoots to the majority’s (Hindus) sentiments. And of course there is lots of money to be made by the politicians, the builders and the contractors.

The response from the BJP and the VHP has been predictable. But sadly, this is the only kind of response that mostly works in our country these days. As we were discussing yesterday at home, in our country where more than 70% of population survives on Rs. 20 per day, who is bothered about the environment, but yes, Ram heats up the emotions. So if the bridge can be saved using the plank of religion, then be it.

What do I think about the existence of Ram? I’ll write about it in another post, in the meantime, let’s have a poll on Ram.

Technorati Tags: ramsetu bridge, Sethusamudram project, ram, environment

For Those Who Love Salman Khan

Some years ago, actor Salman Khan and his friends went hunting for a protected species of deer called Chinkara. He shot at a doe, hit her legs and then, as she dragged herself to escape, he chased her and slowly slit her throat. He left her there. Some days later, he shot another deer and kept on repeating the crime again and again. [ link ]

So to those who love and support Salman Khan I can only say, “Chullu bhar pani mai doob maro.” (how do you say it in English?)

Technorati Tags: salman khan, animal cruelty, chinkara hunting, bollywood

How Much Money Do You Really Need

I often come across expressions like “I need to make a ton of money,” or “I don’t need much money to survive,” or “Money is power or lack of it is misery.” I was reading about a search engine optimization consultant who recently wrapped up his business to pursue his writing career and somewhere in his blog post he wrote: I anyway don’t need much money to survive.

My biggest fear regarding money is that what if I don’t have enough of it to save a loved one’s life? Although here too there is never “enough” but still, if you have lots of it, you don’t have to worry at least on that front. I know merely money cannot save a life, but you can avail the best healthcare facilities if you can pay for them. This is a primary reason why I want to have sufficient money. Health insurance can surely help in this regard.

In the movie Hotel Rwanda the protagonist saves his wife and a few others by paying lots of money to an army officer, and this is a true story. All his family would have been killed had he not lots of cash available, and some connections. Whenever a catastrophe happens, the poor always die more than the rich or the financially well off.

I don’t like wearing expensive clothes (I prefer good clothes), I don’t want to have a big house (but I want spacious surrounding), I don’t want an expensive car (but a decent one will do) and I have never been crazy about food (I just need healthy food and it doesn’t have to be expensive).

So how much money does one need to be comfortable:

• Enough money for kids’ education
• Enough money to purchase a decent house for the family
• Enough money to get healthy food and clean drinking water
• Enough money to avail good healthcare if there is a need
• Enough money to see you through your old age.

How do you define enough money?

Technorati Tags: finance, money, livelihood

Blogging, Journalists and Writers

Sandeep on his blog dissects an article published in The Hindustan Times written by some extremely biased (or clueless, a greater possibility) historian/writer named Ramachandra Guha. My analytical writing has been living in the dumps for quite some time but Sandeep’s take on Guha’s politically and culturally confused contemplations is quite engaging.

Recently Amardeep posted his reaction to a journalist’s outburst against bloggers. The journalist says at the beginning of his article:

Every English-speaking Indian man between 25 and 60 has written about the Hindi movies he has seen, the English books he has read, the foreign places he has travelled to and the curse of communalism. You mightn’t have read them all (there are a lot of them and some don’t make it to print) but their manuscripts exist and in this age of the internet, these masters of blah have migrated to the Republic of Blog. [ link ]

Amardeep rightly says that the writer hasn’t done his research properly and hasn’t read blogs that he should have really read before drawing such immature conclusions. I’m sure the writer didn’t read Sandeep’s blog.

Why do conventional writers and journalists (most of them, not all) hold blogging with contempt or downplay it as an elite fad? There was recently another article saying that bloggers were nothing but scavengers surviving on the toils of real journalists. Actually, they don’t understand blogging, and those who do, hate it or fear it.

A blog is a communication tool, a social media tool where people can express themselves and interact with hundreds and even thousands of their readers on a regular basis. It renders voice to people who had no voice until its advent. Anybody can today have a blog and share his or her opinions, philosophies, joys and concerns. Blogging empowers you to react immediately. Have some opinion on a newspaper article or a TV program or a movie, or a book or politician? Log into your blog account and share it with your readers. Just discovered a new recipe? Write it on your blog. Got a great video clip? Share it on your blog. Anything that can be digitally published, can be published on a blog.

Blogging initiates a two-way communication, and this is something feared by journalists, MSM people, politicians, and all those who thrive on the inability to react. In pre-blogging times the most you could do was send a letter to the editor if you read something nefarious like Guha’s article. It was up to the editor to publish your letter or whether to “edit” it or not. The Hindustan Times would certainly never publish Sandeep’s letter in its present form. And even if it were published, it would only be available to the HT readers. His blog post can be read by thousands of people from all walks of live. For instance, I read it just now and I have never in my life read HT.

Blogs also jump in when the mainstream media (MSM) fails to cover relevant news. Recently Mridula highlighted an incident where a laborer’s child died due to the callousness of IIT Kanpur authorities, and I too wrote about the incident. Taking a cue from different blogs the MSM too has started highlighting the shameful incident. Similarly when Manjunath was murdered the TV channels and newspapers woke up only after the incident had been widely discussed on various blogs. Bloggers have forced many multinational companies like Dell, Sony, etc. to mend their ways. Journalists, with their limited reach, would have never been able to achieve such feats.

Instead of criticizing blogging, journalists and writers should embrace blogging to reach a wider readership.

Here you can read diverse views on blogging.

Technorati Tags: journalists, msm, blogging

Blogging With MS Word 2007

Just got the trial version of MS Word 2007 and I know it can publish blog posts. So just testing it. Till now it looks good although it is not as cool as Windows Live Writer (the recent version is even better). They have totally revamped the interface of Word. Will take some time getting used to it. I was easily able to select multiple categories. You can insert quotes and various headings too…it has got almost everything a typical desktop blogging tool should have.

I’ll check how the markup of the post is generated once I publish this entry.

Update: Just checked the markup. It’s actually good. In fact if you use MS Word 2007 and if you are not crazy about cutting-edge blogging tools then this version of Word is an excellent blog publishing solution.

A glitch: It doesn’t let me enter plain HTML. For instance, sometimes I insert AdSense code by using <!–adsense–>. I’m not able to do it in Word 2007. Got any idea?

I’ll stick to Windows Live writer because it lets me switch to different views (layout, HTML, etc.) quickly and I need this feature to write content for my clients.

Technorati Tags: word 2007, blogging, blogging with word