Wow - I hope India’s coach is paying attention. Either the sub-continent finds a worthwhile obsession, or the players are hung on rafters publicly - what comes first? I mean, I love the Mavs too - I cannot even imagine that Avery Johnson came close to being murdered by the Mavs for losing a series in the NBA Finals that his team should have won!
I mean, if Indian activists have so much free time that they are fuming and suing at stupid starlets dancing half-naked at New Year’s Eve parties, then India has progressed way more than people like us realize….doncha think?
Activist seeks police action against MallikaActivist Vinod Jain said he had approached the police after watching Sherawat’s performance on certain television channels.
Of course, the irony of the thing is that this dude didn’t even shell out the ticket money to see the “performance” in person.
Dilip brought it to my attention as a comment to a post below, that the Jessica Lal case accused is now being represented by Ram Jethmalani - one of the most famous criminal defenders in India - Jethmalani wants Jessica case transferred to another court - News.Indlaw.com. I think my first reaction honestly, would have been an eye-roll saying, “here he goes again!”, referring to Jethmalani. He is of course, quite famous for taking up high profile cases - defending those who were undefendable if you take the media’s word for it.
I actually think it is awesome that there is someone who wants to make sure there is not a trial by media, but an actual serving of justice where even a criminal gets his day in court represented by a competent lawyer. There is always the problem that only the rich can pay for representation like this, which also leads to the notion that Mr. Jetmalani takes bug bucks to set criminals free. Considering the sensationalistic nature and coverage of the current media, I appreciate lawyers like Mr.Jethmalani who will make sure there is no pile-on and a decent trial that wouldn’t convict someone of things they haven’t committed just because the media might have found a convenient scapegoat to make their story.
Look at this - BBC NEWS | South Asia | Anger over Gujarat religion law - the morons in Gujarat are hell-bent on saving the poor downtrodden Dalits from themselves. Dude, if you guys really care about their plights so much, you give them stuff too. Don’t you think there is enough red-tape and delay in your courts without you making up more stupid laws to hold up the justice system?
Can you think of how many ways this law can be misused to harrass Christian and Muslim preachers? Now, I understand there are definitely problems about some of the methods being used by these preachers to earn converts. That doesn’t mean a law as stupid as this has to go into effect. What constitutes allurement? If a missionary helps a sick child and the family converts, is that allurement? What an insult it is for Buddhists and Jains to now label them simply Hindus? What about Sikhs? Why this? Why now?
I think the biggest problem is the politicos are more focused on dividing up an already divided electorate instead of working towards genuinely improving living conditions among the poor who are more likely to convert, allurement or not. If you treat someone as an outsider, why are you surprised when they choose to leave you? This law is particularly uncomfortable for me since it reminds me too much of the apostasy laws in Islamic countries. WTF, I thought we were supposed to be a “peaceful and enlightened” religion, unlike those “barbaric” Mussalmans! (that is sarcasm for the sarcastically-challenged)
Here is an interesting link I found via Desipundit - Shobak: Outsider Asians - I don’t know who wrote this and I am still in the process of reading through this paper that claims to investigate the depiction on Muslims in India via three blockbuster movie - Sarfarosh, Mission Kashmir and Fiza. For those who don’t realize it, one of the movies was directed by a Christian, one by a Muslim and the other by a Hindu. The main character in Sarfarosh is a Hindu played by a Muslim, in Fiza the main characters are two Muslims played by Hindus and in Mission Kashmir, they are a Muslim played by the son of a Hindu and Muslim and a Muslim played by a Hindu. Quite interesting when you put it that way isn’t it - the entire intermingling of cultures, relegions…
Anyways, here was a passage that stood out me as I was reading it -As the police take their position against Amaan, he begs his sister to shoot him, saying, “I died a long time ago on the streets of Mumbai. Let me die with honor.” And Fiza pulls the trigger. In this complex and heart rending climax, Fiza stands for the assimilated Muslim and Amaan for that trajectory beyond the pale of normality. In their dialogue honor can be taken ironically to mean both living by the duties of the proper minority citizen and dying with the cry of those who will never be allowed into the nation.Can you tell what is askew in the picture? What the heck is an “assimilated” Muslim in India? How can someone who can trace their origin in the country centuries back (I am talking about most Indian Muslims here) be anything but native? What kind of a mindset looks at them as some kind of other that needs to assimilate into the nation instead of implicitly being of the nation?
And then there is this doozy - “Similarly, in Mission Kashmir the drama centers on the possibility of Muslims being included in the nation.” Well, we want to include them in our nation and along with the Hindus and Budhhists who also call the region home. Kashmir is not all about Muslims, y’know!
Ok, I am done - I am not going to read any further - inspite of stuff like “In Mission Kashmir, Altaaf is that element of infection that challenges the fantasies of immunity that animate contemporary discourses of Indian nationalism.” (yeah, really! Indians feel very immune..from what?), I was willing to give this article a chance. I was willing to read with an open mind and try to understand the author’s perspective and where he was coming from - this made me stop - “(constellated around such bogeys as “jihadi terrorism,” the internal Muslim “threat,” cross-border infiltration, and global and Asian balance of power, etc.),” So, according to this guy, “Jihadi Terrorism” is just a made up thing - why don’t we tell that to the school teachers beheaded in Thailand, the clubbers blasted apart in Bali and numerous such instances where the only link seems to have been the belief in fanaticism. Before putting the internal Muslim “threat” in scare quotes, I invite the author to examine the speeches given by Islam’s luminaries in public places such as Delhi’s Jama Masjid against India. Of course, cross-border terrorism just never, ever happens in India - no one obviously crosses over to kill migrant Hindu workers in Kashmir - it is all just a bogey, you children!
It really bothers me when people still talk of accepting Muslims in India as if they were immigrants - people forget the shared history - the shared trauma - the not-so-distant past whose painful memories still have not completely faded from the Indian psyche. Why is it that there are only Hindu nationalists and not Muslim nationalists? Don’t Muslims feel proud of their India? Why is every single article aimed at pointing fingers at someone or the other while conveniently forgetting there is another side to every story? I am absolutely tired of this. In my opinion, not every Muslim in India is guilty until proven innocent the same way not every Hindu-oriented program considered somehow discriminating against Muslims.
The author also very conveniently glosses over the fact that each of the movies mentioned also feature nefarious Indian Hindu characters as well as virtuous Muslim characters. There is an incredible amout of effort dedicated to striking a balance between religious reality and religious frenzy in the movie that is sadly lacking in the author’s papers. It is almost like he had a set of ideologies and was trying to work backwards to prove them from movies, no less. Think about it - think about to my first paragraph that outlined the main characters and the actors and directors of the movies and it will be clear how the author could not have been any more wrong.
Here is something good - thecookscottage (via Instapundit). Drop me links to more desi cooking blogs in the comments if you guys know of any.
I know it has been a little over a week since I got back from India, but it did take me about this long to get non-jet-lagged and find enough time to actually think back and post a bit about my experiences. I left here with my son and flew into Mumbai via Amsterdam (Ravi’s dire predictions about NWA not-withstanding). I had landed in Mumbai on the 29th of October in the night and the first thing I notice… is the stifling heat! By the time I got my bags claimed, you might have mistaken me for someone who stepped out of the shower without wiping the water off, I was so dripping with sweat form every pore of my body. It was an experience I had to get used to after a long time (I had last been in India March 99, so it was quite a bit). Of course, the fun was only beginning.
First thing I did when I got settled in was to call Yaz - turned out he was happily enjoying dinner with Amit and Gaurav and others muching away delicious meat with no thoughts of trying to call a hungry freind over (sniff!). I had known Yaz for over three years now, but this was the first time I had ever heard him talk and it was a pretty strange feeling to finally put a voice to the person (I had already seen his pictures, I had an idea what he looked like).
Yaz being who he is, asked me to call Ravi - the shy, withdrawn person that he was sold to me as (I know, I actually fell for it). I am happy to certify to the world that Ravi is not shy! There! He is in fact a lot of fun to talk to and of the 15-20 minutes we probably talked that night, we spent about 10-minutes just laughing at each others’ PJs and convered such important topics as getting Ravi his own page at the Wikipedia (he didn’t sound the way I imagined him to sound either). We had all made plans to meet up for a little breakfast before my 11:00 AM flight to Vizag.
Amit was the first person to show up the next morning and kept me company till Yaz and Ravi showed up. Gaurav was also able to join us a little bit later (we were too happy a celebrity such as him actually sat there and ate with us to give him a hard time about coming in late :p). It was a great way to start my trip off really, since the meet could not have gone any better. It was a meeting of old friends, we had so much shared history - we had so much to talk about, the cartel quiz by MadMan, Ravi’s SARS jokes (joke being just a loose description here) and tons of other things we had been through together as bloggers. Before I knew it, I was anointed Godmother of the “cartel” and my son was drafted into it. I was actually quite sad when it was time to leave, but I had a wedding to attend to in Vizag and my sister would have buried me alive if I missed it. More on that coming a bit later.
Here is a post I found via the Desipundit about some using Google Earth to figure out that a “Sanskrit Studies” building at JNU is shaped like the Swastika - river’s blue elephants: The Swastika in JNU. So what? Why be all alarmist about it? A Swastika is a big component of Sanskrit and Hinduism (which are both very inter-related due to the long association). What next? Getting alarmed over Ganesh posters that depict him with a Swastika in his hand and those of other Indian gods?
update: The link for the post above was changed for some reason overnight, so I found the right link and updated the post this morning. FYI, the post’s author apparently doesn’t want anyone to link to the post so she has taken to changing the URLs every few hours too keep the linkers confused - how original! The post still remains on her blog, so just go to the main page and scroll down. As an aside, if you don’t want people to read or comment on something you have written, I think a good idea is to NOT post it online.
Here is a good write-up on the recent IIPM dustup - DNA [Daily News & Analysis] - Evolutions - Can bloggers take on the role of public regulators?
In India, grown women are not allowed to be independent enough to live by themselves in 90% of the places, but apparently a 15-year-old can have a “free will” and get married. Wanna bet how many of the marriages are going to be between teenager kids and lech older men? Why is it that a 15-year-old is not considered wise enough to vote or inherit property, but old enough to get married and bear kids? What kind of an idiot judge was it who delivered this verdict? Why is it that as times change, we are trying to move back civilization-wise instead of progressing more?
Girls over 15 free to marry: Court
The marriage of a minor girl above 15 years of age is not illegal if it is her free will and she cannot be sent to Nari Niketan against her will, the Delhi high court has ruled.[emphasis mine]
Here is a story of a blogger who was forced to resign from his job - all for the mistake of linking to a story that a sham business school didn’t like - Vantage point: An Update!
This sort of thing amazes me all the time. If someone is so sure of their righteousness, I would expect to them to be transparent to the public in their operations, put all facts forward and let the chips fall as they may. Instead of that, this sham business school (yeah, try suing me for that, morons!) just tries to cut off the voices of those who dare to speak against it. If I were a student, I would first be outraged at the management for successfully conning me (what kind of a businessperson would I be if I were so gullible!) and would stand for my fellow citizens’ right to free speech, especially when they are indirectly working on my behalf.
Here is a more full accounting of the story. Read it and decide for yourselves.
update: Check here for the wikipedia entry on IIPM.
Here is an interesting perspective on Gandhi and his penchant for extreme pacifism. I agree with a lot of what the blogger says about Gandhi. I haev often wondered how can it be that a man who so completely believed in the Gita (which of course, says that to protect Dharma you are allowed to kill even your own leave alone those who are oppressing your kin) could have gone to such extremes in pacifism. I completely agree with the claims in the post linked above that he was an extremist in his beliefs and cause and had the luxury to be blind to everything else since he kept himself so far removed from the mainstream - not physically mind you, but mentally - he obviously thought he was so pure and beyond the regular human instincts that he kept preaching people that it was better for them to die than fight back even while they were being massacred.
It brings to my mind the story of the Budhhist monk and the snake - the monk asks the snake to be peaceful and to stop biting others. The next time he meets the snake, he sees it covered in bruises and near death. When he asks the snake what had happened, the snake replies that since he stopped biting people, they were no longer afraid of him and started throwing stones at him for fun. The monk then asked the snake that he needn’t have bitten the people but could have hissed at them as if to threaten a bite to protect himself - that way the snake would have remained peaceful and still could keep the people away from him.
I believe that a threat of violence, if not actual violence is extremely inportant to keep peace. Think about it - why do we punish criminals? Why is there a [metaphorical] “stick” that we use when the carrot doesn’t work? Not for the fun of violence, but so that the threat of violence further discourages crime and keeps peace among the citizenry. By openly and completely eschewing any violence and by ordering his people to do so, Gandhi took away any semblance of the stick from the opressed during the partition to the point violence flared out openly in the belief that some people could get away with whatever they wanted since the leader of those who opposed partition (Gandhi) would never allow his followers to fight back for what they believed in.
I think threats of “Satyagraha” work only as long as those you are trying to bend to your will are actually inerested in keeping up a good public face and care for good PR. The minute the mob psyche takes over, they call your bluff by taking up arms against you. What are you to do then, if all your life you have been moving more and more to the extremes of pacifism? What do you do when you are militantly against violence? I think Gandhi had no way to save face and his people paid the price.
This is what we do to sportspeople with real talent and then wonder why it is that a country with over a billion people sucks so bad at winning anything in the Olympics and other world arenas.
Penury makes player sell medals! : HTTabloid.comPenury has driven a woman powerlifter from Orissa to sell all the medals she has won in national and international meets.How sad is it that at a time when worthless, corrupt politicians hoard crores of rupees in their vaults, a talented woman has to sell her awards and medals to try to finance her trip to an international sports competetion? I cannot believe there wasn’t a single organization or sponsor to help the poor woman bring pride to the country. I am just flabbergasted.The 29-year-old Mandakini Mahanta, a resident of Goladihi village in Mayurbhanj district, won a gold medal in the Asian senior powerlifting championship in Kerala in May.
“I have no option but to sell my valuable medals,” Mandakini, who is single, said.
She was selected for an international meet in London that started on Monday. But due to lack of finances, she could not participate.
update: Of course, we cannot be completely satisfied with just stopping aspiring athletes. We now have to issue a fatwa against rising tennis star Sania Mirza for the dastardly act of - get this - wearing short skirts while playing the game. Some parodies just write themselves I think - you just cannot makeup crap anymore when reality is so out there! They are even proposing an alternative to her dress…
The fatwa - in effect, a demand that she cover up - was issued by a senior cleric of the Sunni Ulema Board, a little-known group. Similar fatwas have been issued against Mirza, who comes from a devout Muslim family, but none has ever gained popular support among India’s 130 million Muslims.[emphasis mine]“The dress she wears on the tennis courts…leaves nothing to the imagination,” Haseeb-ul-hasan Siddiqui told The Hindustan Times. “She will undoubtedly be a corrupting influence.”
He said she should follow the example of Iranian women who wore long tunics and headscarves to play in the Asian Badminton Championships.
Here is an excellent column detailing the response from the Indian government to the media vs. the Pakistani government’s approach to media during the time right after India announced to the world that she had successfully conducted nuclear tests. You would think it was a rpoud moment for the country and people would be tripping over each other to relay the message to the world, but then you would be wrong as the column points out. It is amazing how clueless the Indian government still is when it comes to media management and public relations in an age where you are what the media makes you out to be!
I was hoping against all hopes that I could end the Friday on a good note, but here is the story of a certain Kalpana Kumari who was so enraged by a sleeping pupil in her class that she hit in the head with a pencil hard enough that a piece of lead got stuck in his scalp and had to be removed by a doctor. How old was the child? All of FOUR! This makes me furious and just takes me back to my childhood. My sister was a chubby little thing in nursery with really cute, chubby cheeks. Of course, her nursery teacher’s favorite punishment when my sister messed up…was to slap her hard on the cheeks. I remember when I went over to her nursery to eat lunch with her and I would see her getting slapped around. She would be so scared when I made any mess in the lunch area, since that would mean more slaps.
I myself went to a missionary school where a “sister” almost broke her cane beating me up since I had my hair open - I was in 4th grade. When my sister was in First grade, her new teacher’s favorite way to punish her was to pull on one cheek while slapping her hard on the other. Even when we were in eigth grade, I remember once that I could answer something in class that other students missed. My reward was that I could hit on the palms of the students who missed the answer with a scale. Since I didn’t hit them hard enough, the teacher hit me hard to show me how I should have hit them.
I cannot imagine how all the above abuse helped me or my sister in any possible way. I completely fail to see it. It actually messed our minds up in a way since I remember when we monitored younger students when their teachers were on break, we were as cruel to them as their teachers. We didn’t see anything wrong with that. It still breaks my heart to think of the horrid way were treated and we then treated the little kids. All this in the name of education! That’s surely what kids need - someone beating the living shit out of them in the name of teaching them good manners and a way to earn an honest livelihood.