Friday, December 28, 2007

The myth of a "pro-India" Benazir

I do feel sad at the way she was assassinated, however, for all those who continue to believe that Benazir Bhutto was a "friend of India", watch 02:00 to 04:00 minutes of this video ( "The world remained silent" )

At best, she was a friend of Rajiv Gandhi ( well, "at best", I mean for Pakistan)

Really speaking, politically, are there any friends of India at all in Pakistan ? its just a matter of degree in how much they hate India and want Her destroyed .. the so called moderates are also simply terrorists, who have been just a little bit less ruthless than many others .....

"Lesser amongst the evils" is not an option.... we have learned it ( or have we) the hard way ...

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Neighbours envy, Owners pride !


It was 11 pm US eastern time. I was checking online the Gujarat election result lead trends... As expected, my friend, a 20 or so years old Ameican born girl of Gujarati origin was online too.. She was the one who posted the article written by B P Singhal in many a group on orkut, including an "anti-modi" group, much to the surprise of her psec-indian counterparts, who repeatedly asked in the group, something like " Are you really an American born girl ? Are you really only 20 years old ?" After seeing a clear margin for BJP, in addition to multiple smileys on the gmail chat box, she send a little note - "Both me and my younger brother are glued to the computer"


That in many ways summed up to me the "how"of Modi's victory.. It is to me, once more a victory of Gujaratis (and I would even dare to say Gujarati women) and victory of youth in addition to vistory for develoment and able leadership and needless to say defeat of insincerity and lies.

So why did I say Gujarati women ? ... For, I many times felt the "ordinary Gujarati lady" - young or old- have been more vocal about their support for BJP that even the men folk ! The other day, I was watching a panel discussion on CNN IBN, and Mallika Sarabhai in her usual nonsense talk, blabbered " This is about a man who defies Indian constituition blah blah... Gujarat has become very unsafe under his rule" When it came to the turn of the audience, a young woman in her twenties countered "I totally disagree. Look at Delhi, look at any other city in India, parents will be concerned if you are out of home after 7 pm. But look at Ahmedabad.. even 10 pm is fine. I feel more safe than ever before". Shall I say more ?

So, what all contributed to the victory ? Oh well, I am not a political analyst, atleast not of the type that I will be talking about soon, but still, I have to point out atleast two factors, that were interesting. One , Congress playing into Modis genius trap. Modi started off on the development plank... Well, the Congress thought, he doesn't want to talk about Hindutva, may be he is scared, so lets rake up the old issue, our pet issue which we have been mouthing like parrots for 6 years now - and there, that gave Modi the clear opening.. "I want to talk develpment... If the Congress doesn't want to take me on that, that shows the BJP upperhand on the issue of development. They forced me to talk about hindutva.. so be it" . Even the most anti-modi fellow can't deny that a poll based on hindutva will anyway help the BJP !

And two, indeed the "help" from ELM - english language media. Oh my God, rajdeep congress-desai, Shekhar Power Theft Gupta, .... and "political analysts" . My favorite of course was "Achyut Yagnik" .... such an idiot, I wonder why the media, especially rediff ( read "Sheela Bhatt") gives him such importance. In 2002, days before the election he wrote -" i don't see any hindutva wave" and we know what happened. In 2007 he said " In 2002 there was a wave. In 2007 there is no such. So there are chances that Modi will lose". Joker - I shall call you Achyut duality Yagnik.. buddy even Physicists are in a better position when it comes to wave-nowave of electrons

The dirty tricks of the ELM - including quoting the fake rascal and criminal who claims to be Puri Shankaracharya with a big heading "Puri shankaracharya wants Modi removed" - has backfired once more... Oh by the way, when was the last time you can remember the "opinion polls" and "exit polls" from these experts were anywhere close ?I remember, as a 10 or 11 year old, when my family first owned a TV, I used to watch Prannoy Roy on Doordarshan , and I still remember him predicting a number, which turned out to be almost exactly the number that the BJP coalition won -- that was the late 80s.... from that what a fall ? The media now is either catering to its editors political agenda, or dancing to the tunes of some body who sponsors them, or simply has lost its mind and don't know what to say. Quite likely the third, as most of the opinion polls predicted something like 90-105 for BJP and 80-95 for Congress, so that even if by chance Congress wins, they can always come back and claim " see we told you there is a chance congress may cross the may 91" ... JOKERS

-------------------------

As a Malayalee, having seen the devil and deep sea alternately ruin such a beautiful state, I have to admit.... I envy Gujaratis, I envy Modi. I have seen most youth complain about their state's government - and rightly so many times. But a majority of my Gujarati friends, seem so proud of their government. They put youtube videos showcasing Gujarats rapid development on their orkut..... I am sure, some of them, if not most, also hope that what Sardar Patel was denied will be made up by Modi - if not immediately, some day, may be after Advani !

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

quote of the day

"In your country the system may be corrupt. But in mine there is no system itself"

-Overheard a Pakistani gentleman telling his Indian counter part while both are waiting for a masala dosa in an Indian restaurant nearby

Monday, November 26, 2007

forty percent

counting the number of US states that I have been to ...

NY, NJ, PA, WV, DE, MD,DC, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL,TX,CA,AZ, NV, OH, MI, IN, IL

thats 20 isn't it ? Chetak has been to 11 (with me, donno b4 that )

Sunday, November 11, 2007

mayookham


It was accidental, that I hit upon this 2005 Malayalam movie on youtube . ( Link to the first part : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmtaa7yrXw4 and the other parts follow) .
I must say it was a great experience after a long time. And as this reviewer has pointed out it reminded me too of the golden era of Malayalam cinema - the mid and late 80s.. My school days, and the films of those era are etched in my mind, as representative of the good malayalam movies.
And its a classic Hariharan ( in this case not just directed, but written also) , my other favourites of his being Nakhakshatangal ( 1986) and Amrutamgamaya (1987) . In some ways the movie has resemblances to some other Hariharan themes, including the fact that he tried new actor (Saiju Kurup) and actress ( Mamtha Mohandas) , much like he tried a totally new Vineeth and Monisha in Nakhakshatangal - and they have delivered superbly ! Interestingly somehow the actress ( Mamtha ) reminded me on Nadia Moithu in "Nokkethadoorathu kannum nattu", in her looks and the theme
Anyway,watching a good malayalam movie -not withstanding the fact that it many times has an underlying tragic theme - is like having had a nice feast, the malayalam sadhya !

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Of birthdays and.....


This week marks two birthdays - if you are wondering who the second one is, thats Chetak.. Oh well, I really don't know when exactly he was "born" but then I do remember that he was "mine" on (or very close to) Nov 4, 2003 ...

At that time, I had thought- oh well I hope he survives for 3 more years... and its been 4 ! apart from some initial hiccups, its been pretty good service also so far... kind of 35-36 mpg on hiways, and once even it hit a 39.8 or something !

It had 87600 miles when I got .. and now its 135100 almost... 4 years 47500 miles.. thats quite close to an average of 1000 miles a month ! and the gladdest part is that I can quite positively assume that atleast 50% of that time, there must have been some one else instead of me in there - as a ride. yeah, off late, that part has reduced... thats when you realize that you have moved on in life, atleast in age !

Anyways, my 2003 birthday self-gift has come of use, so also I think my 2005 self-gift ( the 125$ digicam) .. how would be my 2007 gift in the long run ? ha ha ha what is that ? :-)

So, in advance, happy birthday my best friend and constant companion for the last 4 years !!

Monday, October 29, 2007

youtube and narendra modi

Its cold outside and inside- the former temperature wise and the latter my healthwise, and so this Sunday I have restricted myself withinin the apartment -- with some books , cellphone, the laptop and of course medicines :-)

and so somehow ended up watching some speeches of Narendra Modi online . I must admit, he is an amazing orator in Hindi . In fact , I was curious to know how many youtube videos turn up while I searched for the names of some bigwigs of Indian politics ... and here are the results (as of today)

Manmohan Singh - 88
Narendra Modi - 87
Sonia Gandhi - 27
Atal Vajpayee - 7
L K Advani - 2 (and both are in relation to Modi)

I did not spend time to check each and every one of those to try to see how much relevant they indeed are, but I think this atleast gives a trend - half of Modi's videos might be by the "opponents" but I still get the feeling that this man is born to make a mark....one of those like him or not, can't ignore him chracters - well, time shall tell

Thursday, October 25, 2007

stages of life - what do u lose ?

An attempt at some lighter stuff

Dining out with some other family.... at various stages in a guys life

Stage1- student and bachelor

* Likely that your bill will be paid for by them...

* And likely that all the remaining food be sent with u

* :-)

Stage 2 - still bachelor, but no more a student

* Hopefully will get the "packed food" for take home, but bill.. u have to share

* :- o

Stage 3 - no more a bachelor also

* :-(

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

in mourning

Due to the death ( at an early age) of my uncle, this blog will not be active at least for the next 10 days

Monday, October 08, 2007

NYT ad against Madam Maino Sonia

This was the ad given in New York Times by the forum to save Mahatma Gandhi's heritage

Quite interesting points.... as for thr KBG connection, oh well, of course its a tough bet to guess which agency she is working for, but I am personally convinced that she is one of the most successful sleuths in history.. ( see my previous post on http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2007/04/imagination-or.html ) ... and so succesful that not even 10% of Indians would believe such an accusation, and she seems to have so succesfully either suppressed most proof, or have taken on her side all those who actually knows something or about it

I am still curious to know how Indira-Gandhi, known for her reasonably good promotion of Indian Intelligence, never thought it a danger to admit an Italian bahu into her family and there by so close to the wealth of National secrets ! Or was she handtwisted by the KGB into accepting her ?!

So what is RAW and IB doing ? lol ... quoting from a recent article by Swapan Das Gupta

Apart from reiterating the worst-kept state secret -- that RAW is ineffective and corrupt...

the IB has, in recent decades, squandered away its glorious inheritance and become too much of a private agency for the ruling party.....

As things stand, the IB has been contaminated and RAW is beyond redemption.

and by the way, did u notice -

that the priority of RAW is the self-advancement of its cadre, not national security. There are more RAW operatives posted in North America than in Pakistan.


Thursday, October 04, 2007

IAF Platinum Jubilee

Links:

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Air_Force
http://indianairforce.nic.in/

----------------------------------------
Nabha Sparsham Deeptam - Touch the Sky with Glory

Friday, September 28, 2007

10 years of...

Sep 27, 1997...... a month and few days before I turned 18... I think it was a Saturday... A bunch of folks at IIT Madras, trying to start a new student group ( well rather trying to semi-officialize an already existing loose network) organized a small talk by a Swamiji.... I was one among the may be 20 some audience...

It took me another year before I really started volunteering for the group, but I believe that day, 10 years before, some how initiated changes in my social life ... academically and careerwise whether that influenced my life - I donno..... I was told by my Father that astrologically I was supposed to have shanidasa (a bad period as I understand it) from like 18 to 36 or some such... I donno how that fits into the picture also, as even though compared to quite a brilliant academic record in the first 18 years ( State 10th 7th rank, state engineering entrance second rank, and IIT-JEE 141 ) , I may not have been able to do-all-I-wanted in my past 10 years, but it has not been any particularly bad either

Anyways, whatever that is... and around October beginning that year was when I first picked up a Bhagavad Gita also for myself........ and the 10 years, I have volunteered in my own small ways, for different organizations.... being instrumental in starting a few also.... educational, charity, social,student, non-student...... but memories about the first one are always special

In this post, I would perhaps post about just one experience - something which the organization never made much public, but I feel that its important that more people know about it.... A spiritual organization in the land of Periyar... it did not take much long after its initiation in 1997 that accusations of "Brahmanical propaganda" were hurled at us... in fact such a complaint was apparently lodged with the institute authorities about us

A bunch of young volunteers who never spoke about our "castes" among ourselves - suddenly we were forced to look at each other... for the first time in our 2 or 3 years of friendship, I was curious about knowing what castes my fellow volunteers belonged to.. Not that I would judge about the organization based on that, but just out of curiosity - thanks to the esteemed fellow who made the complaint based on his own fancy

And it turned out that out of the 7 vols from my batch , (as per the British defined system) 1 was a Brahmin, 1 told his caste as a vysya caste, I belonged to an "OBC", 3 belonged to SC and I don't know about the 7th fellow.....

and even if it were all Brahmins, what a stupid complaint that is.. If spirituality is what they equated to Brahmanism, then I would anyway don't mind being accused of being Brahmanical.. will take that as a credit !

Thursday, September 20, 2007

woman and last rites - scriptural references ?!

1) July 2, 2007 - UP

Coimbatore/Allahabad, July 1 (ANI): While rallies were organised across the country to mark the 'National Day of Girl Child' on Sunday, a woman performed the last rites of her father-in-law in Allahabad, forbidden in the Hindu custom.Maya Mukti Upadhyaya set a precedent when she performed the last rites of her father-in-law.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/070701/139/6hl8f.html

2) July 22, 2007 - Bihar

A Hindu woman from Bihar has broken age-old Hindu traditions by performing the last rites of her husband, a ritual usually done by male members of the family, describing him as her dearest friend.Geetu Avinash, in her 50s, Sunday performed the 'shradh ceremony' (ritual performed after a death) of her husband Avinash Kumar at Ara, about 60 km from here.

http://www.indiaenews.com/religion/20070722/61943.htm

3) Sep 16, 2007 - Orissa

According to Hindu rites, women are not allowed inside crematoriums. But Shanti Behera, 49, spends most of her time inside the Sambalpur municipality crematorium. And whenever chants of “Ram naam satya hai” draw near, she knows that’s her cue to start preparing yet another funeral pyre...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=0b55942c-165a-487e-94df-510e6db5e0fb&&Headline=Orissa+woman+prepares+pyres%2c+rewrites+rules

4) Sep 19, 2007 - Bihar, again

For the first time, women in Nawada village of Bihar have broken an age old tradition.
Sharmila Devi and Meena Devi carried their deceased father's body to the cremation ground though the bereaved family has three sons...... And surprisingly, even men support this call for change.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070026582

-------------------------

lol... in their zeal to be the "first ones" to report an incident like this, each medium is claiming that the incident quoted by them is the first in history...... and a little google search showed me that there are incidents reported years before also and who knows, there may have been these incidents dating all the way back ...

--------------------------
2003 - http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030914/herworld.htm#1

In Ujjain, Sandhya Chauhan, the only daughter of Mangilal Chauhan, lit the pyre of her father on the Shipra Ghat near the famous Mahakaleshwar temple. "I fulfilled my father's last wish that only I should perform his last rites,"

1993 -
This the account of Ms. Bandita Phukan. She is the first woman mechanical engineer in the State of Assam. When her father died in 1993, the relatives tried to find a son of a cousin to do the last rites (Shraddha), because her father did not have a son. Bandita revolted, and asked the priest to permit her to do the last rites. At the beginning, the priest refused. Last rites of a dead person can be performed only by a male member of the family, and never by a daughter. Bandita did not give up. At her insistence, one Brahmin priest came forward and allowed her to perform the last rites of her father.

The last article concludes with a paragraph

If married Hindu daughters could be allowed to perform the Shraddha cerimonies, concludes Phukan, their surviving parents would be happy to have a dear daughter as eligible as their dear son.

------------------------------

Eventhough the declining female:male ratio in India may have multiple causes (social and financial more than anything else ) I strongly believe that anything in Hinduism that may even remotely cause people to justify infant girl-child mortality should be trashed.. I have so far never come across any shruti references justifying or asking sati ( the ones quoted by some leftist intellectuals from the Vedas turned out to be a clear misinterpretation ) and my gut feeling is that even this custom of last rites has nothing to do with the shrutis ....

if anything it might be mentioned in some smrithis... ( and for a small discussion on smrithis see http://www.geocities.com/satyawaadi/smrithi.html ) or minsinterpreted as is the case with sati and things like http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/02/et-tu.html

I am now curious to know where the scriptural reference if any are.... might take me a while, as I will have to go thro' scores of internet references... meantime, if any of the readers know anything, my request is to kindly post in the comments section or email me

-----------------------------------------------

ps: Even if it were a shruti injection, it doesn't surprise me that the customs can be changed, or that such an action would not invoke anything similar to a fatwa... Quoting Sri Aurobindo "Hinduism, which is the most skeptical and the most believing of all, the most skeptical because it has questioned and experimented the most, the most believing because it has the deepest experience and the most varied and positive spiritual knowledge, that wider Hinduism which is not a dogma or combination of dogmas but a law of life, which is not a social framework but the spirit of a past and future social evolution, which rejects nothing but insists on testing and experiencing everything and when tested and experienced, turning in to the soul's uses, in this Hinduism, we find the basis of future world religion. This Sanatana Dharma has many scriptures: The Veda, the Vedanta, the Gita, the Upanishads, the Darshanas, the Puranas, the Tantras:......but its real, the most authoritative scripture is in the heart in which the Eternal has his dwelling"

Monday, September 10, 2007

blog getting older as bin laden getting younger !


Nov 11 last year is when I put a counter on my blog... so sep 11 its 10 months, easy to divide the total and get an average.. looks like its going to be closer to 600 a month... i.e average 20 a day.. assuming on an average 2-3 are my own, thats like 15+ a day.... not bad I guess .. of course sometimes there is like a 100 hit a day and sometimes 1 (that must be my own hit)


Interestingly the kind of google searches that fetches the blog max hits are "meera jasmine" and "beena antony" , "actress" and so on and so on, names which I had not mentioned for long time, and names which I mentioned in the contexts that the searchers hardly wud expect to see ..
If I were to market my blog better, I should be posting atleast one bollywood or cricket post for every 2-3 other posts, or atleast throw around some of those big names - oh well, why not now itself - amitabh bachan , abhishek bachan, aishwarya rai, sachin tendulkar ... lol i am so bad at this ....

-------------------

Meantime sep 11 also marks the 6th anniversary of 9/11 . Interestingly the much hyped come back kid Bin Laden starrer Al Qaeda Productions , marketed by Al Jazeera movie has ended up, apparently as a comedy even though the producers wanted it to be a suspense thriller... The very first line of B Ramans latest paper set me laughing

http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers24%5Cpaper2365.html

1. Some of the Mullas in Pakistan are known to put on make-up in order to make themselves look younger.

and later

3.In Pakistani jihadi circles, it is this which is being discussed and not the meaning of his message. One understands that this has been so in some of the TV channels of the West too, with even many week-end TV jokes about his dyeing his beard......

photo courtesy: http://www.bloggernews.net/110018

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Teachers Day


Sep 5 may not be as "auspicious" as Guru Poornima, still, wish to thank all my teachers in my life.... starting with Ma Saraswati whom I accepted as a Guru at the age of 5 after a parrot picked up that card, Panikkathiar who taught me Malayalam, my father who used to
prepare sample exams for me even when I was in my first standard (which I was very much bent upon cracking every time), my mother who is a teacher by profession...... and the scores of others from school to college to universities to daily life !!!

If I have ever done anything right in life, its due to all of you...
Any mistakes, just mine ......

Sunday, August 26, 2007

raising the bar ? whither terrorism ?


Last year after the Mumbai 7/11 blasts, when the city rolled back to life the very next day ( unlike a NY that was paralysed for days after 9/11), many in the media and social circles applauded it as resilience

In the wake of todays blasts, I am now starting to wonder, was it really resilience, or a steady loss of sensitivity ? - something that the islamists (a.k.a terrorists) want to happen by making sure that there are at least 3-4 major blasts in different parts of India every year......

aided of course by the psecs who shout "hindu -muslim brotherhood " (also known as goat-butcher brotherhood, a la "Hey Ram" movie ) or "islam is a religion of peace" in the wake such incidents.. of course there is a PM who wud now lose sleep on what the psychological effect of this wud on the Muslim community which fetches him a crucial 50 odd seats to keep the power !!

And there willl always be a Pakistan or a Bangladesh to blame for ( so that the Indian Islamists remains a non-dangerous marketable commodity on paper ) .. no sane person wud ever believe that all this is possible without an indian islamists terror netowrk --- of course, the blame for that is naturally on a Taslima for bringing out the truth of islam or a Gujarat (sans Godhra of course ). In short, heads Hindus lose, tails Islamists win !


As my friend says, terrorism will stop ONLY on the day a substantial number of Muslims realize that they are also " victims of Islam " and either re write the Quran or mass convert out of it..

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

trifurcation and other personal stuff

yes, finally I started a seperate Malayalam and Samskritam blog, just so that I am forced to write more there.. !! well, with my current situation I have no clue why I am getting into more promises myself, but then thats the call, and here I go !!

as for Malayalam, I have been feeling for some time that I am steadily losing my touch with the language and the land, and hence that ....

********************************************

Ummm so the votes seems interesting... and for now I am going to fulfill a bit of that 16% request for personal stuff !! Long time before I had a post on marriage and caste

http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/05/tooo-personal.html


Its over a year now, and as expected I got so many rejects for intercaste proposals ! I wud not blame those parents, it ain't easy to change things overnite.. neither am i oppossed to same caste marriage, which is where mine might head mostly (oh no no, don't have to jump on me, I am just stating a trend, not any major "developments"- atleast so must u believe !!)

but I am glad on three counts

1) that I tried

2) that there were almost four of five girls/families that did respond positively for an intercaste arranged marriage proposal (two from nearby universities...two from india ) , but due to other reasons those did not work out ....

3) i inspired or atleast encouraged one cousin of mine to have a "caste no bar" on her profile.....

but most interestingly , two of my younger cousins in India - one on fathers side and one on mothers side, and getting married on Aug 31 and Nov 18 respectively, BOTH love marriages BOTH intercaste :-) .. in fact one of them had kept his cousins, thats us , posted for quite some time and gathered our support before he took it to his parents .. his "girl friend" even text messaged me (and then we spoke) when i went to India .. The other had given indications to me "Some people are waiting here to see their elder cousins get married".. and I replied "You will grow white hair if u wait for me.. I shall give you a No Objection Certificate" .. he seems to have used my NOC !!

good luck dear brothers, and glad that the families on both sides were supportive......

Monday, August 13, 2007

cricket, for a change


After a long time, I kind of got hooked on to following the test series in England.. may be because these days I am almost always on a computer during day times... and seeing Dhoni blast off and Kumble inch towards his maiden test century, I even started following cricinfo... the li'l score window will be open as I did my work on the comp...

The third day as I saw the Indian team almost wrap up England with more that 300 runs lead, I was hoping that indeed, 60 years after their colonial rule, we could give England a fitting 2-0 test series victory two days before the I-day....

ney.. that was not to be.. even though we won the series 1-0, I am pretty sure, lot of Indian fans would be struggling to come to terms with - why din't we make england follow on ? no explanations so far has satisfied me, it defies any logic.. except - we Indians lack the killer instinct.. one victory, and we want to just bask in its glory for a long time, not-bothered about winning the next one

in fact this point was raised by an Indian friend of mine who works in the US .. "it looks like as a race, we Indians lack that 'go for the kill' attitude"..... may be true.... ne comments from readers?

---------------------------

meantime, I have also been surprised, how come after a Kapil Dev (or even say Ravi shastri, even though the time I started following him, he was the - backfoot defend on a full toss and sixes for his leg spin kind) India never produced all rounders ?! wikiedia list has no Indians among the 8 batting all rounders, Irfan Pathan (Oh come on, update the list folksssss) among the 10 bowling all rounders and Mahendra Dhoni among the 4 WK batsmen ... some solace, but I still feel that the Haryana express was the last of the all rounders we produced so far..

any reasons ?!

oh well, i better get back to my work :-) .. once again cricket has been dissappointing enough for me to not get re-addicted !!

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Defaming Hinduism : series






A series of articles written by a retired IAS officer in newstoday published from Chennai
based on the recent book,

INVADING THE SACRED: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America
edited by Krishnan Ramaswamy, Antonio De Nicolas and Aditi Banerjee

Long time before I used to be in touch with Aditi ( American born, now a practicing attorney in NY, who has been doing a lot of research in Hinduism studies in USA and writes often for outlook.. ). I may have met and known Krishnan Ramaswamy also, even though I am not sure if its the same person....

by the way, the official website is http://www.invadingthesacred.com , where I also took the cartoon from

Part 1: http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/170707.htm

Part 2: http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/190707.htm

Part 3: http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/200707.htm

Part 4: http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/210707.htm
Part 5: http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/230707.htm

Part 6: http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/240707.htm
--

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

sobbing at sixty !

"Hey did you know Priyanka Chopra is coming to the parade this year".. that was one of my colleagues telling her friend about the Independence day parade in NY - this year on Aug 12...
"I don't think its Priyanka, I heard its Urmila" replied the other

As I drove down the New Jersey Turnpike, I was lost in thoughts... its her 60 years after independence... How do I celebrate ?

Two hours thence, hopes have turned into .. may be fears and sleeplessness, that I am up on my bed past 12 and penning this !! And all I did was run my mind through some of the recent developments ...

Sleepless, did I say ? The good news is that I share the quality with the PM of India Man Mohan Singh .. the bad news is that the latter is losing sleep over how to protect alleged terrorists ! (1) .... to the extend where the former chief of anti-terrorism unit of RAW wrote ‘‘God save this country and its men, women and children from the depredations of the jihadi terrorists. Since our own Prime Minister has let us down, what else can we do?’’ ... A former IB chief was no different in his opinion (2)

The esteemed Prime Minister did not lose sleep over last years Mumbai blasts ( the 7-7) .. neither did he bother to observe the anniversary ! (3) .. Of course, after all this one obviously cannot expect him to have bothered when sometime in end July a brave Col Vasanth sacrificed his life fighting Islamic terrorists in Kashmir (4) ...

But he would sure lose it if any of the perpetrators of the numerous terrorists attacks on Indian soil in the past few years (
Malegaon, Jama Masjid, Mecca , Ayodhya, Samjhauta Express, Sankat Mochan Mandir , the Indian Institute of Science, Sarojini Nagar in New Delhi to name a few ...... ) are brought to justice.. or if Afzal Guru (5) - the convicted terrorist - is brought to justice ...

Least surprised would I be if the two MMS ( Man Mohan Singh and Madam Maino Sonia) were involved or indeed master minded it such that ex-President Kalam never received the papers of Afzal Guru (6) .. and now they have in place a corrupt (7) puppet Pres and so things are much more easy ...And no surprises as the two major parties supporting the Prime Minister - namely Congress and the Left- welcomed Madhani the Kerala based terrorist after having spent 9 years in jail, with open arms (8) ...

Uffff.. compared to all this, the inappropriate remark on the opposition leader's mother by the AP Chief Minister (9) seems a bit less a crime, doesn't it ? and the continued calls for reservations for vote-banks by Union Ministers even go unnoticed (10) .. Is it fatigue ? Is it a loss of sensitivity ? sensibility ?

One may say isn't the 123 agreement (the Indo-US nuclear deal) a silver lining ? Once a supporter of the deal, over time I have lost confidence in it... and the what shook my hopes in the bilateralness of the deal was this passing comment by K Subrahmanyam
"The 123 Agreement was drafted by US lawyers. No lawyers from the Indian side were present"
WHY ? Doesn't that bother you ?!

I can go on and on.... what can one do ? rather than keeping faith in those word of Aurobindo... "India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples"(11)..........

I usually do not miss an Independence day celebration- be at IIT or at the local Indian community in US or in the University (I consider it fortunate to have been founded the group which initiated it) .. and most times, while I salute the tricolor, my eyes will uncontrollably be filled....

this year too I am sure they will be filled... but for all the wrong reasons !!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) http://www.hvk.org/articles/0707/133.html

(2) http://www.newindpress.com/Column.asp?ID=IE620060922133748&P=old

(3) http://retributions.nationalinterest.in/no-tears-for-mumbai-blast-victims/

(4) http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jul/31jk.htm

(5) http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/10/taaki-aksar-na-ho-afzal.html ( an old blog post of mine and a 16 comment discussion !!)

(6) http://us.rediff.com/news/2007/jul/27parl.htm

(7) http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2007/06/shocking-if-true-arun-shouries-expose.html

(8) http://www.indianexpress.com/story/208157.html

(9) http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2007/07/christist-cm-of-andhra-stoops-to-lowest.html

(10) http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/05/stories/2007080554631100.htm

(11) http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/ir/IR_frontpage.htm

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

campus samskritam........

for some added publicity for

http://www.speaksanskrit.org/campus

http://vishvavani.blogspot.com

-------------------------------------

the patrikaa had one li'l contribution from yoz truly as well ... c&p here

विनोदिका

अस्ति एका "अद्वैतवादिनी" लता नाम । एकदा सा चिन्तितवती, मया अद्वैतसिद्धान्तस्य प्रचारः करणीयः इति । तस्याः गृहस्य भित्त्यां सा लिखितवती - "सोऽहम्" । परन्तु तस्याः सहोदरी, सीता, द्वैतवादिनी आसीत् । भित्त्यां लिखितं सन्देशं दृष्ट्वा सा चिन्तितवती, मया अपि द्वैतसिद्धान्तस्य प्रचारः करणीयः इति । सा तत्र गत्वा "दा" इति अक्षरं योजितवती । अतः तत् वचनं "दासोऽहम्" इति अभवत् ।

अग्रिमदिने लता स्वलिखितं सन्देशं द्रष्टुम् आगतवती । परन्तु पदस्य परिवर्तनं दृष्ट्वा सा विस्मिता अभवत् । "एतत् तु मम सहोदर्या लिखितं निश्चयेन । मया किमपि करणीयम्" । सा पदात् पूर्वम् अन्यम् एकं "स" अक्षरम् योजितवती । "सदासोऽहम्" इति । तद्दिने सायङ्काले, सीता पुनः पदस्य परिवर्तनं कृतवती - "दासदासोऽहम्" । एवमेव प्रतिदिनं, पदस्य परिवर्तनं जातम् । अन्ते किम् अभवत् इति भवन्तः एव पूरयन्तु :)

Sunday, July 29, 2007

poems.....

ummm... somehow this stemmed out of a gen discussion with my cousin and i ended up rememberin one of my favorite poems from the web... I am posting it below... yeah true that these are times i do need an added bit of inspiration, but am not in an major crisis also.. neverthless i just felt like posting it here

also, i remembered, perhaps inspired by this, i had long time befor tried penning one of my own !! something which i rarely do - i always considered myself not-too-bad at writing prose but when it came to poems, it was a mental block.. so take this in that spirit

http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/01/certainly-uncertain.html

wait, there was one more attempt at it i think, surely not a better one :-)

http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/02/that-voice.html



after reading these two (inspite of my warnings), I am sure readers will enjoy this one (Note : this poem has been attributed to many well known persons fraudulently, but I believe it was composed by some not-so-known student)

"Don't Quit"

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won, had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt
And you never can tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

Author Unknown

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

ins(e)pi/aration


Don't be dismayed by good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again after moments or a lifetime is certain for those who are friends.


~Richard Bach (Illusions)