Author: Alka

I have a comment in my post, The Nation Owes An Apology to This Man

ashish singh Says:
March 31st, 2006 at 5:32 am
alka ji,
what this got to do with going to a disc, I do go to one, bar hop as well – and duly introspected on the changing times when the eminment Dr Kurien quit. I wondered why, I wondered about the politics, I wondered if it was time for him to go or if he was being thrown out. I don’t know, I read all the stories I could, didn’t get too much data to form an opinion.
So I watched Paris Hilton on the FTV and sipped some beer in condolance to Dr Kurien, at least he will enjoy his tipple in peace

I really envy this guy. From his comment it seems he moves in elitist of elites. What I seem to get is following:

1. “What do you say? Where is Korea? Is it in Japan or Tokyo?” This person almost knows
every disc and eating joint in the capital and neighbouring towns.
2. “What is dowry Mam?” A student of class 7th from a good public school asks. She knows
about most of the malls and McDonald’s latest offers.
3. “What is irrigation?” Another student from class 8th asks. Don’t ask about her other
secular activities’ knowledge.
4. “What is a Mexican Ambassador? Ye kya hota hai?” I was strongly tempted to reply that
ye eak naya Bada Pav ka naam hai. But took pain to reply. This person is from IIT-K, and
NO!!! she is not my sister. 🙂
5. Another icing on the cake question, “What is bail?� This question is from another person
from IIT-K. And they say, “India ke top brains vahan jate hai.�
6. I have read Manish Chauhan’s one of the posts, where his collegue asked, “Is there a
snowfall in Lucknow?�

So Ashish Ji (I hope you are not the same Ashish V. Singh, I seem to know :-)), I have every right to write whatever I had written in Dr. Kurien’s post. 🙂 I often meet DISGUISED BEHENJIS, who look perfect from head to toe but you can’t hold a noraml, non personalized conversation with them for ten minutes.
You move in the chosen company but we lesser mortals are not as lucky as you are. 🙂 I am again requesting you, if you have a blog, please leave a link.

I have seen how Javed’s father was weeping and blaming doctors for negligence. This boy, who is sorry WAS still in his teens saved many childrens’ lives and has become a mere statistics in Meerut Fire incident. Now he will be added to the list of also died.

It never stir our concience when day in and day out we read “Blast in Srinagar. One/Two/three…. jawans died.â€? When vibrating, spirited lives are reduced to numbers, we never put pressure on media guys to at least tell us their names. They must be carrying one, given by their parents.

I invite my fellow bloggers to enlighten me about contribution of the lady in the right picture, in the development of our country.

I don’t know if we carry out a survey and ask the people to identify the above two snaps, how many will recognize the gentleman. He passed the Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Michigan State University, U.S.A. with distinction. So he had secured the so called “Ticketâ€? to a good life. But instead of running after good life, he did the following:

He has enabled India to become the largest milk producer in the world.

A man with a rare vision, he devoted a lifetime to realize his dream – empowering the farmers of India.

He is known as Father of White Revolution in India.

Many years ago, a stupid half naked fakir called Gandhi, walked on this earth, saying that India had to utilize the local resources in order to make progress as a nation. This man in the above picture turned that stupid statement into reality. He is credited with architecting Operation Flood — the largest dairy development program in the world.

He was responsible for changing the millions of villagers’ lives in Gujarat.

Many, many years ago, I heard my father discussing that government had increased this man’s security. Why? A popular vegetable oil brand was using beef tallow in its product. He dared to introduce another vegetable oil, called “Dhara.â€? taking the winds out the the Dalda lobby’s sails. But why introducing another vegetable oil in the market posed danger to this man’s life? Because common man doesn’t think twice before buying his products and trusting it. And common man didn’t take a day in discontinuing with the use of that so called brand with beef tallow. People of that brand were out for his blood.

May be it seems that he comes from a far off place. But whenever an utterly butterly Amul packet is being opened, a tetra can is used for storing juice to increase its shelf life, a worm free Amul chocolate is being bitten, a Mother Dairy or Amul milk is used or an Amul ice cream, chocolate, pizza, shri knand, cheese is being enjoyed, this man’s vision and hard work too is residing in our kitchen or refrigerator. We trust his products everyday. He ensured our and our children’s health and made consumption of milk affordable.

But did we bat an eyelid when this man resigned from his post as a chairman of Gujarat Marketing Federation after serving it for 34 years? He resigned in disgrace. If I copied headline of weekly “The Week� his exit was termed as “Utterly Bitterly� exit. Had we exhibited a bit of care and compassion for this 84 year old man known as Dr Verghese Kurien? No. Because we are fast becoming a nation of REAL COOL people. We are more bothered about our weekends, hip hop nights, pub hounding, night clubs and performance of Djs and Vjs or how outrageous our tattoos and piercing can be than others.

Who cares if this man’s own team had engineered his ouster. Who cares if this one and truly nationalistic brand Amul will be corporatized instead of running as a truly co-operative and transparent fashion?

Co-operative movement? Arre yaar, kabhi kisi class mei study ki thi iske baare mei?

Peris Hilton? Oh! She has broken off with her latest boyfriend!

Tanmoy has written this review to me in an e-mail. Earlier he used to write film reviews for some newspaper, which name I never asked.
With his permission I am putting it here as a post.

===============================================

I liked the intent with which the film Rang-De Basanti was made but somehow the execution left me searching for more. May be it was my mistake of expectations. I should have watched the movie after the hype had died down completely- I normally do that for such movies. But whatever might be the reasons my expectations were not fulfilled after watching the film- and I couldn’t find too many reasons why so many people are finding it awe-inspiring or motivating.

Though I must say at the outset of writing my views on the film- anything that motivates today’s spineless youth is a welcome thing and if there the movie is actually scoring in that respect- then I congratulate the entire team who made the film possible. I certainly do feel, that most of the urban youth today are escapists. We might be brilliant in our skills and forward looking in thoughts but when it comes to standing up and doing something for our homes- that is in words: ‘getting the basics right’- we fail consistently and miserably. The Jessica Lall incident might be under lot of limelight but everyday lot of Jessica Lall’s are happening in the country- unnoticed, un called for- and trust me it is high-time we feel that we are the ones who are responsible because unless and until we feel that way from within we can’t hope to cure the system or hope that the system would be cured. And there are no dearths of issues where we can make the difference. From delivering the best service to our client, to minimizing corruption at our desk, to talking nicely to the people on the road, to helping our families to be strong- we need to move beyond our gymnasiums and flex some real muscles if at all they exist in things like conscience to make the real difference in our very small society. And that is how we would justify ourselves being human- and in the process we would have an enlightened country with humane countrymen.

The film does prick us in that sphere. In fact, the shifting of periods and drawing parallels between the Freedom movement and today was a masterstroke. It is so true that inspite of being in a sovereign set up we are worse than an enslaved nation. In fact at least, earlier we could have blamed the outsiders- the British being the cause of ours misery but now we have only ourselves to blame- our fathers, uncles, brothers who occupy the positions of power to blame- we have spoilt our own home and we are doing nothing about it- just waiting for some magic to happen or even worse even we don’t want to realize we are the ones who are killing our own society.

Therefore, I loved the way; the film draws parallel between the two societies and in a way, it is probably the greatest asset for me in the film. I liked the way the millennium youth got transformed into revolutionaries after someone who was near to them got affected. It appeared so true- unless and until we see a Jessica happening in our families or we are under threat ourselves, we are motionless spectators! It is true- we have forgotten that it is we who need to prevent certain things from happening too.

I thought the path that the youth followed to get justice from the system might be called as militancy by many but was realistic. True- the first thought that comes to our minds when we face a system failure is to “teach the system- a lesson or two”. It is a spontaneous reaction- and especially the reaction becomes stronger when we see, nobody comes to us for help- because we didn’t help him or her when he or she needed it!

I loved the idea of the film- but then it stretched too long and probably the team got a bit carried away to get the message forward. Still it was good and can be called a successful blend of entertainment, social message and period. The director took a risk of trying to blend too many things and can be called moderately successful in this.

I was a bit disappointed in fact with Amir Khan’s character. I understand he is probably the best man to play this role and that is why he was needed in the film but somehow I found his pranks as a young Man too irritating and repetitive. Somehow the character played by Sharman Joshi of that of Sukhi was similar to that of Amir’s and he appealed to me much more than anyone else in the film. All the character artistes were good but from Amir I expected a bit more. He gave an amazing performance as Azad but somewhere down the line his character should have been a bit different than all others around him- given the fact that he is The Amir Khan.

To me as an audience Amir turned out to be both the prospective strength (Azad was the thinking and shrewd mind but somewhere Amir’s DJ appeared inane) as well as weakness in this particular film.

And of course the ending should have been better etched. The film could have shortened the fun portions and have had a little detailed script towards completion or may be as such the film should have been shorter- much shorter. The lengthy taxi ride of Alice Patten should have been short and perhaps she should have shot a Video of what her young friends wanted to say or talk about and sold it off to International Media. I somehow felt that that could have been done rather than the whole fiasco at the AIR station.

Overall, I didn’t love it as a complete film that much and can’t call it landmark but yes it is indeed a good attempt.

I liked Swades too, infact it looked a bit realistic to me but then Swades lacked the entertainment Punch and problem is today’s youth loves to get motivated while they are still dancing!

It somehow saddens me that even serious messages have to go across wrapped in glossy paper- but then who said our minds are fat free and we are not living in a regime where everything needs to be marketed- Even motivation!

10 out of 10 for the entire Rang-De-Team for that. They couldn’t have done better probably- given the audience they have to cater to

Anil The Yogi has tagged me again. I have to highlight eight things which I hate the most. But I will write nine. 🙂 Its one of the easiest things to do. There are so many things I hate. Here I go!

1. My father is a walking and talking encyclopedia and an embodiment of hard work. Be it history, politics, yoga, films, poetry, palmistry, astrology, science, maths, economics or finance he knows almost everything. The way he devoured three newspapers daily and reads any book in proximity, be it comics or literature, one just has to see it to believe it. I NOW know why I find most of the guys stupid and lacking in intelligence when I unknowingly compared them with my father. It makes me quite angry and sometimes I feel quite ashamed of myself that being his daughter I know so little. It really makes me hate myself sometimes.

PS- I have forgotten to add homeopathy and religion to my father’s knowledge bank. 🙂

2. I hate my lack of self control. Once I get angry only my near and dear ones can tell what happens.

3. I hate my lack of finesse and polish. When I don’t like a person, I ignore him or her manically. I don’t know how to be polite and hold a conversation with that person while inside I am seething with anger.

4. I hate my self supported notion that if you are not provoking a person he / she too will leave you in peace. And I constantly wonder why this person is being so vindictive and hateful when I have not done anything to ignite the fire?

5. I hate it when I witness men gossiping like women. I always think that men discuss politics, economics, religion and sports and women discuss husbands, boyfriends, make up, dresses, relatives and neighbours’ activities. But when I see otherwise I just become tongue tied in that gathering.

6. I hate my inability to confront those who create negative atmosphere. I should give them hell, but like a complete fool I retreat into a shell.

7. I want to spend rest of my life planting trees but I hate it that I haven’t even started yet.
8. I hate it when someone jumps the queue thinking himself/herself very smart and rest of us waiting patiently as buffoons.

9. My blood simply boils when so called literate people, instead of promoting regional harmony perpetuate discord. If literate persons will behave like this, what to say about illiterates? Here is a very fine example :- “Attention North Indians”

Now its your turn:

1. Tanmoy Chakrabarti : A wonderful blogger who is hibernating for a long time.

2. Mallik : Often says deep things simply.

3. Beautiful Life: Put anything beautifully, if it catches her fancy.

4. Ganga : I admire his consistency to blog.

5. Girl: A thoughtful teenager. 🙂

6. Hiren Shah: A wonderful blogger with
depth.

7. Married Single :He himself says
that he is Regularly irregular.

8. Sidharth: Last time you didn’t oblige. You
better watch out this time……..
9. Amrit : He has an opinion on everything
and anything. 🙂

I was reading some newspaper supplement, few weeks ago. Here a fresh divorcee was trying his best to come to terms with his new found status. Someone suggested, that he should ask his close relatives and friends for the cause of his divorce. Idea was appealing and the person distributed blank sheets to the near and dear ones. He even included his ex-mom-in-law for her opinion.

I was full of admiration for this guy. He was leaving no stone unturned for his peace of mind. This path is suggested by many. Coming to terms with what happened in your life. Face it squarely. Make peace with it and then move ahead.

But my ears started emitting fume, when he mentioned the current gal in his life. There was a name for her, “My Rebound Love.� I was amazed at the guys cowardice. He was not yet over with his broken relationship, still he has gone ahead with another one. We see it happening everywhere. Have we matured as suckers? Have we left all sense of fairness and decency to self and others?

Why we have turned into cold, manipulative, calculative zombies? Don’t our parents and elders imparted us an iota of self restrain and courage? We are so weak that we can’t live with ourselves for few months? We constantly need attention and admiration at the cost of another person’s feelings? Imagine, one has just suffered a heartache and moving with the awareness that icy fingers are tightly clutching the heart, but one is ready to transfer the same feelings to “Rebound Loveâ€?. Just because he / she is a perfect gutless wonder and doesn’t want to face the realities of life staring at him / her.

Can’t we give us some time to settle things? Doesn’t “REBOUND LOVEâ€? has feelings and a heart which is also breakable just like ours? I remember a movie, “Vijetaâ€? where a character remakrs, “Eak spin se nikle nahi, doosare mei phans gaye.â€? When we ourselves are in emotional flux and aren’t sure of what we want, then why go ahead and have a “Rebound Loverâ€?? Or playing with others’ emotions is our national time pass apart from cricket?

I strongly believe, like boomerang things will revert to us with the same speed and force. If I am treating someone as “Rebound Loveâ€?, I too will become the same for someone sooner or later and I will hear terms like YOU ARE “My Holiday Loveâ€? or “My New Year Eve Loveâ€? or “My Current Journey Loveâ€? or “My One Day Loveâ€? or “My Hip Hop Night Loveâ€? or “My Rainy Night Loveâ€? (specially in Indian context 🙂 ) or “My coffee Break Loveâ€? or “My breakfast Loveâ€?……………..

My recent post “Prostitute and Pimp” and comments, including mine :-), are being deleted due to some database problem from the server host company. From now onwards I will be taking regular backups. If any of you want to post your comments again, you are welcome. I don’t have any problem due to disagreement. 🙂

“My friend, tell me what’s the matter?
What is the secret of your non-stop chatter?”

“Can’t you detect a thing?
I will be wearing a wedding ring.
Today ladke wale are coming to see me
And soon I will be flying free.
Come on, let’s go to the beauty parlor
Soon I will be having my own harbor.”

Barely concealing my disgust,
I asked, not warming to the request,
“Are you a prostitute or product or wine
to be delivered on time?
Your own parents acting as pimps
Has their conscience gone limp?
Getting you packaged beautifully,
to attract target customers dutifully?
Where is your pride?
Has it gone for a ride?
How can you exhibit yourself as an offering?
In front of strangers, will your self-respect not be suffering?
My friend, have some dignity
Don’t sacrifice it for the sake of security.”

“See after coming of age
I have to mate.
I have to be scrutinized
Otherwise the deal will not materialize!
How can I have dignity?
When boy too doesn’t protest for being treated as commodity!
Day in and day out, in the dowry market
He has been fitted in a money casket.
Auctioned and sold and bought
But he doesn’t seem distraught.
Not a single pore of his body rises in self-respect,
So we two items are destined to tryst.
He refuses to learn and grow up into manhood.
So I too remain secure in the childhood.
See we both deserve each other
We are perfectly made for each other.”

Anil, The Yogi has tagged me. He wants me to write about my idea of a perfect lover. I will try to do my best.

Rules of the game are …
1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.
2. Need to mention the sex of the target.
3. Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged.
4. If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again.

Sex of the target :
Male:

PERFECT LOVER:

1. He MUST have the ability to SEE the INNER BEAUTY of not only mine but of other persons too. If he can’t fathom the innermost beauty of a person, then he is as good as a walking and talking corpse, without any soul. If external beauty is so important, then Angelina Jolies, Kate Winslets, Marlin Monroes, Aishwarya Rais of this world would have NEVER accosted a philandering partner and felt heartbreaks. Their beauty should have sufficed for everything.

2. He should be self respecting, and doesn’t confuse it with being an EGOIST. You see there is a HUGE difference between the two.

3. If things go wrong in a relationship, he should have the guts to soul search, instead of taking the easy way out such as having another beautiful / ugly diversions. The channel of communication should always be open. Most of the guys find that VERY BORING.

4. He should be sensitive enough to understand things from other’s point of view too, and sensible enough to view things objectively.

5. He should have a positive disposition towards life.

6. He should be a romantic, and shouldn’t always discuss practical things with me.

7. He should be able to know how to woo me and cherish me.

8. He shouldn’t be manipulative. I can’t tolerate manipulative and calculative persons.

Now its your turn:-)

1. Sidharth: This time you are the topmost in my tagline.

2. Tony: Another blogger to prompt me on and often to write some new post on my blog. Its your turn now. 🙂

3. Ganga: You always bother to read whatever I write.

4. Ritu Harish: I am eagerly waiting to see what you are going to write about your perfect lover.

5. Beautiful Life: I always enjoyed reading your post. Though your frequency is as good as mine.

6. Manish: Seeing your active bloglife and faithful following (I’m one myself), I hope you are not already tagged for this.

7. Utkarsh: I am very curious to know your opinion on this. Afterall you come from my city. 🙂

8. Amit: I APOLOIZE for writing in English. Pardon me for this. But please give us your opinion in Hindi.

We often fret about inflation and rising prices. I regularly say to my near and dear ones that Rs. 100 note have no value at all. We can’t purchase anything that’s substantial. Now I even start grudging that Rs. 500 is of no value. I can never keep track of things which I have purchased using that amount. But of course, how unaware I was, till I heard / read this one.

This post took a long time to come. I apologize for that.
I asked a simple question, “I will like to know what you think about this issue. Why Taslima Nasreen shouldn’t be granted political asylum in India? On what ground her plea should be rejected?”
I wanted to write about your views, which are quite interesting.

While I was going through your responses, one fact struck me clearly, that most of my fellow bloggers accessed the situation practically. I was particularily looking for that most used and abused word “SECULAR� and freedom of expression, individual liberty, right to life etc. But very few of you debated the issue on this ground.

Manish Says:

“Logically speaking, she should be allowed to stay in here. But the contradiction is – what happens to miniority vote. When we can’t give justice to our own citizen Shah Bano, who only demanded compensation, how come we can give justice to others. It’s the same people in the government!â€?
Manish says a lot in few lines. This sums up the policy of our government and how it plays the secular card.

Vaibhav Says:

“Yes Taslima Nasrin should be granted a political asylum.�

Vaibhav has chosen not to assign any reason for his view.

Tony says:

Its not a problem giving Tasleema asylum, but i doubt if India would be the best place for her. Anyway with the kind of spineless leaders we have, no point even discussing..

Tony fears for Taslima’s well being in India. Well we are not THAT resourceful as a State to spend so much money on her.

Jammy says:

“No reason what so ever to stop her from seeking asylum in India….am with you…�

Jammy decided not to be very articulate about the issue.

Anonymous Says:

“pressing thoughts those…but whatever said in all hose comments about we handling our own stuff forst and then play Big brtohter..and othe rthigns abt Rajiv Gandhi..i guess its about time that we realise that we are a power to reckon with in our region..and i guess power brings friends and foes along with it..but we should only do whats right..as Indians we always tend to look at things from the perspective of being fair and giving everbody a fair chance to live,survive ,co-exist..and We Should stick to it..By all means..So lets Grant her Asylum if we have to ..but lets not compromise with what values we stand for..As Indians..�

Well said.He /she decided to look into things from moral point of view. Anon discusses right and wrong and also states the for being strong you lose some friends and gain some. He also invokes the sense of fairplay in politics which is so hard to find in present scenario.

Prem Says:

“My point of view is she should be allowed her freedom of expression and write more books with enough govt. protection along with some responsible post in some NGOs, which practically does some thing for the women to make them really free.�

Prem upholds the importance of freedom of expression.

Unsui Says:

“Well thats acceptance of government that there are more radical Islamic organizations which will cause the lady more hurt ,she is more safe in her own country )�

Unsui raises a very practical question, ‘Will she be safe enough in our country?’ A very vaild reason not to grant her political asylum.

Soumya Says:

“we already have too much bangladeshi influx… why have more of them…
on a serious note she has offended feelings of ppl of her own nation which i cant ever support… moreover if a person says something he shud stand by it and face consequences rather than run away from own motherland… may be i am wrong but i cant think of leaving my own country for whtever reasons and so cant support such moves of other ppl… moreover ppl in india oppose those bangladeshis who come to india so that thay can have bread to live but i see in ur comments box that ppl are not opposing her even though her case is not as appealing as of those who come for bread… these reasons of mine doesnt weigh for political decisions for which i can say ..
her presence is going to create disturbance here also…
we already have too much communal tensions and she wud definitely add to that… there is no ponit in losing peace for her.�

Soumya don’t want one more Bangladeshi in our country. He too fears communal tensions will raise its ugly head again, if we grant her political asylum.

Nilesh agrees with Soumya

“i agree with soumya. we should first resolve our own problems before giving asylum to Taslima.�

Tony tries to refute Soumya’s claim of Taslima staying in her own country.

“@soumya,
I am not much of a suporter of her asylum, but standing by one’s own view et al is easy in a country like India or USA. but in countries like N korea, China, iran or bangladesh( which might be slightly better) it difficult to stand by ur views. You either keep mum or you say it and run. the braves say it and run, you don’t want to be a martyr.. what with death fatwa and everything. i only opposed asylum because India is not yet strong enough to play power games.. tasleema could go to US if she wants to but India.. We don’t wanna be enemies with all our neighbours..not now when China has 400 nuke warheads and we have 30.. “

Anand Sharma Says:

“Your question is in the nature of a leading question and loaded against granting political asylum to Tasleema.I dont know if we have ever given asylum to any other author earlier.No government , ruling a country like India should create controversies internally and displease a neighbour by granting political asylum to Tasleema Nasreen,even if to protect freedom of expression in the world.�
Anand finds my question skewed and loaded. 🙂 but he too discusses practical issues and stresses on maintaining good relations with our neoghbours.

AmitL Says:

“well,on humanitarian grounds,it’s all right.But,why did she pick only India?What about other countries?Or,is she sure now that they are not soo religiously welcoming as our secular country is?�

Well AmitL, whatever information I have gathered from print media, Taslima Nasreen says that she feel at home in West Bengal, rather Kolkata. She finds the language, food, culture almost same. Though she was granted political asylum in European countries too, but she wants the feel of home, which is only available in Kolkata.

Tarun Says:

“I don’t know if she is trying to get political asylum in India or not but if yes then it will be better for India to reject Taslima Nasreen’s plea. India is not strong enough to deal with religious extremist (hindu or muslim or anyone else). She can face the same problem here too for which she is planning to leave her country. She will also become political trishanku among various political parties. Even some group of handful people don’t believe India is their motherland and this could be see in multiple occassions. But being a educated intellectual person very few chances the she will be part of that group. Now long time back one of Indian citizen (Salman Rushdi) took asylum and then later citizenship (I am not sure if he got it yet or when?) in UK for the same reason for which Taslima is looking for asylum. He was threaten by same religious extremist and that was in India as well in UK too. Apart from all these there will be political consequences too with the Bangladesh, this could be dealt easily but right now India neither have strong political system, neither political stability nor a strong leader. USA will be much more secure place for her to roam around freely than India.�

Tarun thinks that India lacks the necessary political will and system to grant her asylum. He put forth his arguments in forceful manner.

In the end, I thank all of you for taking time out and expressing your views.

Amit, Thank you very much for the pic.

These days, I am not writing anything, but whenever I get time I keep reading blogs. Some interesting debate was / is going on about “Free� Market and Government Regulations. I was religiously following many posts written by fellow bloggers via Desipundit

I am unable to write anything on the subject right now, But then I CAME ACROSS THIS, “Mother of all comments�.
I was reading perhaps the “LONGEST COMMENT� in the Indian blogsphere. Chetan is an extremely knowledgeable fellow, and reading his comment was a humbling experience. It shook me out of my slumber, that how poorly read I am, and how much I have to catch up with. Thanks Chetan for this comment, and making many of us realize that “Ab aaya Ooth pahad ke neeche.�

One of my fellow bloggers, Ramesh Sharma Says:
November 28th, 2005 at 6:54 pm

“Could you please let me know why my previous post was deleted? Was it not upto the standard”?

Many of you can ask this question. I AM REALLY SORRY FOR THIS. Actually, I was deleting spams (Which I get in loads) and somehow, in that process, few of my fellow bloggers’ comments got deleted. 🙁
Again I apologize, and promise to take utmost care, that none of this happens again.

I will like to know what you think about this issue. Why Taslima Nasreen shouldn’t be granted political asylum in India? On what ground her plea should be rejected?

These days I am getting an overdose of the “Goodness� of British rule in India, right from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to CEOs of some BPOs and fellow bloggers.

Here are some samples

This was published in Indian Express by Jaithirth Rao:

“I, for one, am grateful to Macaulay. Without his gift to us, so many of us would be lesser individuals, not just different individuals. I use the word “lesser� quite deliberately. English is not just a medium or a means to an end; it is part of our very consciousness.�

This person has touched the nadir in showing the servile attitude to Gora Sahibs!

What our own PM was stating at Oxford University “Our judiciary, our legal system, our bureaucracy and our police are all great institutions, derived from British-Indian administration and they have served the country well.�

It is obvious he has forgotten the same police, judiciary and legal system when Jallianwallah Bagh happened and General Dyre was exonerated!

First these champions of British rule should be provided with some stats:

====================
The British Empire was the world’s first global power and history’s largest Empire; by 1921, it held sway over a population of 500–600 million people — roughly a quarter of the world’s population — and covered about 15.1 million square miles (nearly 37 million square kilometres), roughly 35% of the world’s total land area.
================
Now some questions have to be answered by these Bhura Sahibs:

The British implemented almost the same pattern of education, governance, law, judiciary, police…….wherever they ruled. Then why not Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Uganda, Brunei….. have the similar virtues of British Empire? Roughly this world’s 52 or 53 countries had been BLESSED BY BRITISH RULE. Why not inheritors of Great Governance of these nations are shining example of freedom of press, upholders of democracy, champion of secularism, a super power in IT industry? Why these places are not producing world class professionals, writers, artists, technicians despite having the same education system? The great English education system!

The world’s 35% of the land area was under golden rule of British Empire, then why only India has consistently maintained the rule of democracy? Freedom of press? Secular Principals? Why we escaped the clutches of military rule and marshal law? Why only we have somewhat world class professional institutions? Why we have world class scientists? Why are we considered 6th nuclear power in the world? Why only our country keeps on sending indigenous satellites? Why we had Green Revolution?

Who has the time to ponder and think? Who has the inclination to read history and find out a common pattern of our lives? NOW We belong to a generation of mediocre people. (That keeps on manifesting itself in remix songs. Those suckers can’t produce anything remotely good of their own so they keep on lifting golden lyrics from the past era!) So our thinking too has become mediocre too. Otherwise it’s quite plain that the difference doesn’t lie in British rule or their education system.

It’s WE THE PEOPLE who had made all the difference. We never had a history of offering poison to our Socrates! We never termed Gautam Buddha, Lord Mahavira or Guru Nanak as infidels. We Indians never shied away from embracing new ideas, technology, religion or culture. So whenever we read Montesquieu, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Burke, Machiavelli, Marx or James Mill, we never felt threatened by their ideology or system. It never occurred to us that our Indian-ness was in danger or we will lose our identity!

So if the British rule seems good to some people, they should ponder a bit further and think why this system worked wonders for us and mostly failed in other countries.

Mohammad Iqbal has already put it succulently for us:

Kuch baat hai ki hasti mit-ti nahin hai hamari
Sadiyon raha hai dushman daur-re jahan hamara!

Today I was reading Sidhartha’s post. He was mourning the loss of his beloved teacher. I remembered that I had written a post on teachers too ages ago. I just wanted to repost it.
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I think a lot about this profession called teaching. Most of the present herds of teachers are in this profession, but not by choice. Imagine, if most of us are provided with choices of being an engineer, doctor, software professional, a corporate yuppie or a mere teacher, what will be our choice? You don’t have to be very creative to visualize the respect an engineer, a doctor, a software professional get from family, society, future in-laws and current and ex – would be-s and could be-s.

I had to carry out a survey among the various schoolteachers for a project. I was busy preparing the questionnaire. Suddenly I thought of this question, ” If you were given a chance to choose your profession again, what would be your choice?” I had to show the questionnaire and subsequent result to my project leader. I was secretly happy with the list of questions I had on my register. This particular question was my favorite. I was eager to see the response. And more than that how my Project leader would sum up my findings.

Ok, the due date was coming nearer. All of us behaved like schoolchildren with our project leader. If he was about to take our class, and we tried to squeeze in some drops of water down our throat in scorching heat of Rajasthan, and he entered the class a few minutes earlier, we happily forgot our thirst. Quenching thirst was not worth it. Our parched throats could wait. We ran back to the class.

Well the due date had arrived. I was armed with my findings. He started to discuss the final results. It seemed a long wait. What the heck! My name starts with A?. Why was he taking so much time? Suspense was building up inside me. For the first time I was experiencing the feeling of “butterflies in my stomach”. Finally it seemed that my name was being spoken.
He asked the whole class, “Can you figure out how many persons one would meet in his / her teaching career, if it covers a period of mere 20 years?
The class was busy finding out statistics. One
“Sir we need more data.”
“Ok if a teacher takes 5 classes everyday. And each class consists of at least 50 children?”
“Sir, 250 persons everyday!”
“In which job, you think a person comes in contact with so many impressionable minds?”
Dumb silence!
“See, a teacher really has the power to leave impression on so many young minds. Nobody, in any profession, comes across such a large number of unadulterated minds for prolong period.”

For the first time I realized, in this profession you are not dealing with products, codes, text files, documents or machines. You are not coming in contact with any damn inanimate object! You are getting the opportunity to write on a blank slate. Just imagine, how many lives you are going to deal with? You are entering in a frail world. The echo of every careless action will be heard till eternity! Tread on this path delicately.

I never had the pleasure of seeing this watermelon in three dimensions! It grew on its own in my sister’s backyard. I remember, I used to bug my sister about how the fruit was performing, how it was looking, how was its size and color! I really envied her for having this beautiful watermelon. She had the pleasure of tending it, watering it, watching its everyday progress.

Hope, someday I will have my patch of land where I can grow my own fruits and vegetables, without having the fear of what is in my plate and how much fertilizers and pesticides it contain. And I might have a nice shady tree, under which I can read my favorite books, sipping tea, prepared by someone else! Right now these seem sweet and distant dreams.
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For the first time Arunima tagged me 🙂

Total number of films I own on dvd/video:
NONE! I don’t believe in watching these bade bade kalakar on small screen. One day, when I am going to meet all of them, they mustn’t complain, “Honey you shrunk me!� I believe in watching them on larger than life screen!

The last film I bought:
I will buy films, when I will own my own multiplex!

The last film I watched:
“The Village�

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
I can’t go by three names.
Amrit, Mridula, Dilip and Sunil

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
Alka, Alka and Alka only

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
My brain, My brain, my brain

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DON’T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
Oh! Let me think!

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
My sister, my two adorable darling nephews.

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
Losing my near and dear ones
Getting some serious illness
Nuclear Bombs

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
Toothbrush, toothpaste, chatting with family and friends!

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
My slippers, my attitude, my smile

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:
Trust, domination from my side, everyone should understand me.

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
Get up early in the morning.
Trying to feel as healthier as I can!
To walk endlessly till I get tired of it.

THREE CAREERS YOU’RE CONSIDERING
Sting operator
Join Tahelka.com/ newspaper weekly whatever is left of them
Be a PA to Laloo Yadav (Fodder Scam will be solved in no time!)

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO FOR A VACATION:
My hometown
My hostel room (it should be allotted to me whenever I want or feel the urge)
Go back to my childhood days, then every day was a vocation.

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
Want to learn the art of flirting.
Want to see at least ONE politician punished for his/her wrongdoing.
Want to ensure my make up is just right when my last rites are performed!

Now it’s your turn to do the honors
Tan
AmitL
Tarun
Ajay

1. You will always be expected to understand things and never be allowed to show emotions. If you insist on exhibiting them, it will be to guys like water on duck’s back.

2. No wooing period for you. People will straight away get down to practical matters. Nothing will be offered to you on a platter. For smallest of things or what is your due, you have to fight tooth and nail.

3. Taking you for granted is guys’ birthright. Guys will never cherish you and don’t take a stand for you. They will not feel protective or have possessive bone for you. You have to fight every battle of yours alone.

4. When all the other avenues of playing will be exhausted, only then you will be remembered.

5. It will be understandable that you can always lick your wounds in silence and with dignity. No one will come to enquire about how you are coping.

6. It will be told hundredth times to you, you are not “that� type of girl wallowing in jealously.

7. You will never need sweet nothings two lines at odd times, tender moments, movies and romantic outings. You are the saner one. You are expected to behave.

8. Your hurts and heartbreaks will never be acknowledged. Making up for the past hurts is not for you! Even explaining to you is soooo boring. Yawn! Yawn! Yawn!

9. Two hoots for your inner beauty! Who needs that?

10. No flowers, cards, poems, chocolates or surprise gifts for you. They are reserved for your vivacious, sexy, flirty and attractive counterparts, who keep the competition hot and alive among the guys. Boys have to stretch themselves extra mile to remain in these gals’ RAM (but we all know it’s volatile.)