drisyadrisya

Idukki dam(n) !

2011-04-29T01:11:00.004-04:00

This was an old "promise" , but then I somehow did not feel like posting this for a while, thinking that it should not give unnecessary ideas to the terrorists !

But yesterday Surya News ran a story on the same, so here is mine too - the utter lack of security at Idukki dam - the biggest in Kerala, the destruction of which in monsoon season may cause one or two districts to go down under water and almost all of Kerala devoid of electricity.

My visit there was a year and a half ago (the same trip as was to Thekkady, a few weeks before the tragedy there). The fact that Surya news reported it now, tells me that all this while the situation has been so , just that noone talked about it - so here is my brief expeience.

As we were about to reach the dam site, the approach road split into two.. since there was apparently no proper sign boards, we took one of it.. and that was actually leading to the bottom of the dam, and not to the actual visitor area on top. And to our surprise and dissappointment, we did not find a single person - leave alone policemen - in that route leading to the bottom of the dam, to stop us. I have a couple of snaps posted above

Well, may be the dam is so strong that ordinary explosives won't do any damage... and may be since the politics of Kerala is quite a nourisher of the very groups who would think of such damaging acts, they would not dare to cut the branch they are sitting... don't know whether to call that my hope or my hopelessness !

"Saare Jahaan se accha Hindusthaan hamaara" Musical fountain

2010-07-07T01:54:00.004-04:00

Last bit of the "Saare Jahaan se accha Hindusthaan hamaara" Musical fountain at Vrindavan Gardens, Mysore (use headset if sound feeble)

Fwd: A list of communal riots in India, between 1953-1979

2010-06-15T01:57:00.002-04:00

This is an old email, that I got fwdd again recently..I have not verified the claims, but won't be surprised either if it were true, going by the dar-al-harb logic ... and I am also testing for the first time, posting by email....

[ Subject: A list of communal riots in India, between 1953-1979
[ Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 16:30:58 -0500

This period was post partition, and before Ayodhya

Most riots are caused by illegal muslim cow slaughter or
muslims stoning hindu processions or muslims molesting
hindu girls

Muslims attacked hindu processionists, raped hindu girls,
attacked buddhists, xtians, newspapers and cops and
desecrated temples

Out of the 74 riots described below

Unknown = 14
Police initiated = 1
Hindu initiated = 4
Muslim initiated = 55

In other words, Muslims initiated 75% of all riots This
was in a period, where muslims were supposedly defanged
by the sikh-hindu reprisals in the punjab

POLITICS OF COMMUNALISM

By Ms Zenab Banu

Appendix IV, Page 175-193
Historical Survey of some major communal riots.

1. 1953 Viramgaom Holi festival
(muslims stabbed holi revellers)

2. 1953 Bhopal Stone throwing by some miscreants at a
procession taken by the Hindu Mahasabha
to protest against cow slaughter
(muslims stone hindu procession)

3. 1953 Gauhati Angry crowed tried to prevent a
Muslim family from sacrificing cow
(illegal muslim cow slaughter)

4. 1953 Ahmedabad, Nasik, Ganapati festival and Moharram
Poona, Sangli... coincide
1953 Ahmedabad ---do---
(muslims with Moharam swords attack hindu procession)

5. sept.1953 Poona Arson bid in Poona
(Unknown)

6. 1953 Sholapur Ganpati immersion day playing music
before a mosque.
(muslims attack hindu procession)

7. 1953 Jamnagar A boy stabbing a cow near a hotel
(illegal muslim cow slaughter)

8. 1954 Ghaziabad Slaughter of a stolen cow
(illegal muslim cow slaughter)

9. 1954 Aligarh Over the price of a melon between a
hawker and a customer
(unknown)

10. 1954 Nizamabad Some persons hoisted the Pakistani flag
on the statue of Mahatma Gandhi.
(so even Gandhi's muslim appeasement did not help , muslim initiated)

11. 1954 Mathura Some persons broke the idol of Krishna
which was installed for worship in a
temple near Idghah mosque
(muslim desecrate hindu temple)

12. 1954 Gulbarga, Mannila, Pakistani flag was hoisted over a
Fatehpur. temple of Ganesh.
(muslim desecrate hindu temple)

13. 1956 Bhopal Holi festival - Muslims threw bones
in the Holi fire and an idol in a
temple was defiled
(muslim desecrate hindu temple)

14. 1956 Sholapur Rival claims to a shrine made by the
two communities.
(unknown)

15. 1956 Many parts of UP A publication of the Bhartiya Vidya
Bhavan alleging insulting reference
on prophet Mohammed.
(Muslim hyper sensitivity)

16. 1956 Jabalpur Forcibly closing down of shops in
protest against damage to an idol
of Ganapati
(muslim desecrate hindu temple)

17. 1956 Khamgaon Attack on a Ganapati procession
before a mosque by a crowd
(muslims attack hindu procession)

18. 1957 Hazaribagh A clash between students in
Moharram procession
(muslims with swords attack hindus)

19. 1958 Belgaun A procession of Hindus with music
before a mosque
(muslims attack hindu procession)

20. 1958 Dulhia Unauthorised cow slaughter
(illegal cow slaughter by muslims)

21. 1958 Yeola Muslims objecting a procession
of Ganpati Idol
(muslims attack hindu procession)

22. 1958 Bagalkot A procession of RSS was stoned near
Panka mosque
(muslims attack hindu procession)

23. 1959 Lucknow Sprinkling of clour on Muslim on
Holi festival by a Hindu
1959 Bhopal ----do----
(muslims attack holi revellers)

24. 1959 Sitamashi Spreading of a rumour that a cow
was slaughtered
(illegal cow slaughter by muslims)

25. 1960 Hubli Idol of Maruti disfigured by someone
(muslims desecrate hindu temple)

26. 1960 Firozabad Ramlila procession
1960 Saharanpur Ramlila procession
(muslims attack hindu procession)

27. 1961 Jabalpur, Sangore Effort to molest a Hindu girl
Narsinghpur, Damoh
(muslims rape hindu girl)

28. 1961 Many cities in UP Aligarh University hostel boy when
misbehaved with hostel girl
(muslims rape hindu girl)

29. 1961 Palanpur Discovery of animal bones in the palace
of worship
(muslims desecrate hindu temple)

30. 1961 Bhopal Meeting of Jana Sangh Dist. Committee
(unknown)

31. 1961 Vidisha, Bhopal Hindu procession being disturbed by Muslims
(muslims attack hindu procession)

32. 1962 Sikundra Slaughter of a cow
(illegal cow slaughter by muslims)

33. 1962 Malda in WB A week's agitation against the publication
of a picture of Mohammed
(hypersensitivity of muslims)

34. 1962 Agra A quarrel between two persons belonging to
opposite communities
(unknown)

35. 1962 Mandsaur A dispute over a business transaction
(unknown)

36. 1962 Bareilly Throwing of stones on a procession of
Hindus passing through Muslim residential area
(muslims attack hindu procession)

37. 1962 Ratanagiri Ganpati procession attacked by Muslims
(muslims attack hindu procession)

38. 1963 Junagarh Criminal assault by two Muslim youths on
a Hindu girl
(muslims rape hindu girl)

39. 1963 Islampur Muslim participants of Moharram procession
attacked by the police with lathi
(Police ??)

40. 1963 Akola Ganpati idol was attacked by stones
(muslims attack hindu procession)

41. 1963 Nadia, Calcutta Hair of Mohammed from Hazratbal mosque
were stolen
1963 Srinagar ---do---
(muslim hyper sensitivity)

42. 1964 Bihar, Orissa Train carrying refugees of East Pakistan
(hindu reprisals)

43. 1965 Udaipur Scuffle between the two neighbors of
opposite community
1966 Udaipur Scuffle between the two wrestlers of
two communities
(unknown)

44. 1967 Ranchi Brick batting on the Urdu agitators'
procession
(hindus)

45. 1967 Srinagar Religious conversion and marriage of a
girl of the Pandi community to a
Muslim youth
(muslims abduct hindu girl)

46. 1968 Meerut A conference organised by the Jamaat-e-
Islami in a college and a procession
crossed by Jan Sangh
(unknown)

47. 1968 Karimganj Scuffle between two boys of opposite
community on a cow of a Muslim
(Illegal cow slaughter)

48. 1968 Vizhinjam Clash between Muslims and Christians
when Muslims embarked on aggressive
violent acts against catholics
(Muslims attack catholics)

49. 1968 Allahabad Holy reveller threw water color on a
Muslim who pulled out a pistol
(muslims attack holi reveller)

50. 1968 Auditanda Ramnavmi procession
(muslims attack hindu procession)

51. 1968 Manglore Muslims had assaulted a Hindu fisherman
(muslims)

52. 1968 Aurangabad A Muslim backery servant's attack on a
cow with a knife
(Illegal cow slaughter)

53. 1968 Nagpur Scuffle between a Muslim barber and a
Neo Buddha
(muslims)

54. 1968 Parbhani A Hindu college student stabbed by one
Muslim Rikshaw puller
(muslims)

55. 1968 Mabajogi Scuffle among students
(unknown)

56. 1968 Pupri Durga procession passed through a Muslim
inhabited area
1968 Gumdum A Hindu procession
1968 Cuttack Music in front of mosque
(muslims attack hindu procession)

57. 1968 Veeranal News of a death of a Muslim in his house
(muslims)

58. 1969 Kendrapa Music near a mosque
(muslims attack hindu procession)

59. 1969 Calcutta Muslim demonstration before the office
of the 'Statesman'
(muslim hypersensitivity)

60. 1969 Anjar A clash between two persons of opposite
community
(unknown)

61. 1969 Hubli Muslims objected to throwing of colored
water on them on Holi
(muslims attack holi revellers)

62. 1969 Mau in UP Beating of a Hindu boy by Muslim boys
(muslims)

63. 1969 Anjar An armed mob of Muslims attacked Hindus
(muslims)

64. 1969 Gujarat Mutual suspician and animosity between
two communities
(unknown)

65. 1969 Ahmedabad Atack on Jaganath tmple by Muslims
1969 Other cities in Guj. Repurcussions of above
(muslims)

66. 1970 Chaibasa Ram Navmi procession
(muslims attack hindu procession)

67. 1970 Bhiwandi and other Beginning with a quarrel between two
parts of Maharashtra persons of opposite communities
(unknown)

68. 1972 Tonk Bakri Id
1972 Banaras Bakri Id
(illegal muslim cow slaughter)

69. 1973 Delhi Two groups of miscreants clashed at Bara
Hindu Rao area
(unknown)

70. 1974 Jugeshwari Anti-Muslim feeling injected by Shiv Sena
workers in the minds of general people
(Shiv Sena)

71. 1974 Delhi Quarreling of two persons belonging to
two opposite communities.
(unknown)

72. 1975 Jogeshwari Militant action of Shiv Sena volunteers
(Shiv Sena)

73. 1977 Chittorgarh Id Festival
(illegal muslim cow slaughter)

74. 1977 Banaras Durga procession
(muslims attack hindu procession)

5 yrs

2010-05-18T14:32:00.002-04:00

May 18, this blog completed 5 yrs..

This is the 225th post

and the visitor counter has just gone past 20,000

--------
Considering that there were 200 posts in the first 3 years, ( http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2008/05/3-years-200-posts.html ) last two years have seen only a post-a-month average

Well, no promises ahead :-) let time tell whats in store going fwd

Thanks to all readers

The "Tu hi re" Fort

2010-04-18T03:33:00.010-04:00

The "Uyire" Bekal Fort.. "

and now for the 'original' :)

the dream Sanskrit movie

2010-03-20T00:50:00.002-04:00

It has been a thought - a dream - for a while ... when will we have a commercial Sanskrit movie with 'mainstream' artists ? and here I am, starting to collect possible artists - feel free to add more in the comments...

1) Thalaivar Rajanikanth - http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/feb/07sree.htm

He said, 'Malayalam is quite similar to Sanskrit, and I therefore understood all the dialogues very well.'

2) Asin - http://www.simplymalayalees.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=442

She is a native speaker of Malayalam, and claims to speak Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Sanskrit, English and French.

3) And now Mohanlal - http://malayalam.galatta.com/entertainment/malayalam/livewire/id/Revitalise_Sanskrit_Mohanlal_36630.html

In his speech after accepting the honorary doctorate degree from Governor R.S. Gavai at the special convocation of the Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit in Kochi on Tuesday, Malayalam superstar Mohanlal said that Sanskrit should be revitalised as it represents the culture of the country. Sanskrit was lying somewhere in the layers of mankind and should be revived for the overall welfare of the country, he said

Pointing out that he had not learnt Sanskrit, Mohanlal said that he feels it a great loss while trying to understand the language through his research and acting

How about we arrange to teach you Sanskrit ? :)

PC issues another 'final warning'

2010-03-13T04:33:00.002-05:00

The following 2 links r items from March 2010

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/india-warns-pakistan-of-decisive-response-330

dire warning from India that another cross-border attack on its soil would invite a swift and decisive response from New Delhi.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/87913/World/Swift+response+if+26/11+repeated:+Chidambaram.html

In a categorical warning to Islamabad, New Delhi has said India would "respond swiftly and decisively" if there is another attack emanating from Pakistan.

-----------
That shud make us proud, and hopeful . But wait a minute - what about this Nov 2009 speech -

http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/chidambarams_final_warning_to_pak_stop_sending_terrorists.php

In a very strongly worded speech, Home Minister P Chidambaram has issued what he called a final warning to Pakistan.

http://www.in.com/news/current-affairs/chidambarams-final-warning-to-pak-11460573-0f05149557c546b9baef7e8c180d6ee37cfac7c0-hp.html

Home Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday night warned Pakistan against meddling with India and said any more attack from the country will be retaliated “very strongly”

Pune attack happened, and we all saw what did (not) happen

-------------------
So what PC meant must be that next time there is an attack, he will be much more swift in issuing the next final warning !

mao-chao-s

2010-03-07T05:55:00.004-05:00

I'm not exactly sure where the (unexpected) communication gap was between the three Ms - the Maoists , the 'Magsasite' and the Media

* Pillai says Maoists planning to overthrow Indian govt by 2050 and has its own army

* Maoists name Suzanne Arundhati Roy as one of the possible mediators

* As a 'faithful' mediator, Roy already started her work by contradicting and challenging Pillai

* And then comes the Maoist statement confirming their plans

links
1) http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/kishenji-names-possible-mediators-for-talks-with-government-17312.php

It was a virtual face-off between the Home Secretary and writer-activist Arundhati Roy who challenged Pillai's statement that Maoists are virtually building an army to overthrow the state of India

2) http://www.breakingnewsonline.net/newswatch/1124-maoists-to-overthrow-indian-state-much-before-2050-says-kishenji.html

"We will overthrow the Indian government much before 2050" Kishenji told PTI. "We have own army, which is capable of overthrowing the Indian government much before 2050", he claimed.

-----------
PS: I am reminded of a Romila Thapar statement which sounded something like - "Even if you show me memoirs of Babar saying that for the sake of islam I destroyed Ram temple, we historians don't accept that, we have our own methodology for 'arriving at' history"

Fools and Bigger Fools

2010-02-12T12:11:00.003-05:00

Hoping to get some "entertainment" from the idiot box on a Friday evening, I was channel browsing , and CNN-IBN and the other English news channels did not disappoint. The "lead story" on CNN - IBN was how Mumbaikars stood up to Shiv Sena threat and how "most multiplexes" in Mumbai ran a "full house" of "My Name is Khan"

I have in some of my previous posts written about Shiv Sena ( Refer the first half of the title for this post), but today the more entertaining ones were the sir and ma'm of the show.. I mean the hosts of India @ 9 or whatever..

After the clippings of the "packed houses" ( means may be 20-30 people in front of a theatre ) and interviews with some can't-figure-out-if-its-a-he-or-she folks saying "we won't let ourselves to be bullied" , there was finally the interview with the ShivSena spokesperson, and here is how it went more or less ( SS for Shivsena fella, CNNS for the CNN Sir and CNNM for the ma'm, and my comments are in brackets)

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

CNNS: So SS, tell honestly, do you accept defeat

SS: (After some philosophical discourse on how media is supposed to be the fourth pillar -or did he mean fifth column - of the society got into some statistics) - There are 263 theatres in Maharahstra and only 13 (or was it 30?) screened MNIK . In Mumbai only 4 theatres screened it . How do you still say that it was screened in "most theatres" ?

CNNM : (looking at what is perhaps a paper - or was she checking her face in the mirror once more - on the table) But we have here reports that the movie was running to packed houses
( ma'm you did not reply to SS' question or statistics...)

SS: Where are you getting statistics that even the few theaters than ran were packed ? I have seen clippings showing many empty seats

CNNS : Are you saying that nobody in Mumbai has seen the film in Mumbai today ? ( lol, even an LKG kid would understand the difference between what SS said and what you attribute to him)

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

What I thought would be a cornering of the SS guy, in just a couple of minutes turned to be a comedy show by the anchors ! I continued my browsing and somewhere I found the other "major news" for the day (I think it was CNN-IBN again). That of how Pramod Muthalik (lets call him PM) got a "taste of his own medicine" when he got his face blackened by "Youth Congress activists" .

Yet again, PM belongs to the first half of the title, but today I am more exited about the second halfers . So how come, when Youth Congress retorts to violence , even if its against another violence, it becomes "getting back", but if only it were a "right-wing" reaction to say a Christian aggression, or an Islamic invasion it becomes "two wrongs don't make a right" . How come when a disputed so-called mosque is pulled down, it becomes "two wrongs don't make a right"? Why don''t the same media call it "Islam getting a taste of its own medicine" ? ( In fact 1 in a ten-thousand part may be) . When Muthalik is attacked "he deserves it" , may be he does, so then what about when CNN-IBN office itself is attacked ?

Going back to Mumbai, some news anchor was seen asking "Who gives Shiv Sena the right to decide what Mumbaikars should do?" . Mam, who give "English News Channels" the right to decide who is communal and who is not, to label some one a criminal even before a court sentences him guilty, to distort facts as it likes and then to remain silent without even an apology when proved wrong ? Who gives you the right to keep bombarding us with distortions and biased reports ?

Though done without a choice, the 2 rupee per month ( well 100 rupee for some 50 channels) that I am paying is really worth it when it comes to " Comedy News Network - India Based N..... " any suggestions for the last N ?

Six reasons to ponder at Sixty

2010-01-31T12:19:00.010-05:00

Somewhere I chanced upon an article "Why India is better than Pakistan in its 60 years after Independence"... There may be again some comparisons between the two as India recently went through "60 years of Indian constitution" - i.e of 60 years of being a federal democratic republic, but there is a fundamental issue here because in the Islamic "republic" of Pakistan , things shaped out quite different -- The first Constitution of Pakistan was adopted in 1956, but was suspended in 1958 by General Ayub Khan. The Constitution of 1973 — suspended in 1977, by Zia-ul-Haq, but re-instated in 1985 — ......

I am not going to spend my time comparing India with that joke (or rather headache) called Pakistan, may be a slightly more interesting one (to compare) would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_(1789-1849) ...

So now, something got me thinking - What has kept India together (with issues of course, but not fatal ones despite its billion plus population and despite foolish Governmental decisions from Nehru to Manmohan ) and yet liberal at the same time.. And here are my six reasons ( Its perhaps a combination of some or all of these...a combo or AND, OR ,...)

1) The 6000 year foundation ... : The 6000 of course is not an exact number, may be close, but I wanted it to rhyme too :) - I leave it to the archeologists ( interesting sidenote- http://www.dailypioneer.com/228303/Saraswati-flows-on-in-ASI-records.html ) ... and yes, there were wars within, but think about it, even wars were with rules.. no fighting at night, the charioteer should not kill the cavalry, no hitting "below the knees".. Those who flouted it in Mahabharata had to deal with the wheel of Karma ...

2) Hinduism . : The fact that the majority religion was a very tolerant and liberal one... well sometimes I felt that it was too tolerant of other religions and somewhat harsh on itself (thats perhaps a big topic for later).

Delivered on a Jan 16 th , its worth to quote a full paragraph from

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/Volume_3/Lectures_from_Colombo_to_Almora/First_Public_Lecture_in_the_East_(Colombo)

So much I have seen, and so far those of you who are students of the history of races are already aware of this fact. The debt which the world owes to our Motherland is immense. Taking country with country, there is not one race on this earth to which the world owes so much as to the patient Hindu, the mild Hindu. "The mild Hindu" sometimes is used as an expression of reproach; but if ever a reproach concealed a wonderful truth, it is in the term, "the mild Hindu", who has always been the blessed child of God. Civilisations have arisen in other parts of the world. In ancient times and in modern times, great ideas have emanated from strong and great races. In ancient and in modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another. In ancient and in modern times, seeds of great truth and power have been cast abroad by the advancing tides of national life; but mark you, my friends, it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and with the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood. Each idea had to wade through the blood of millions of our fellow-beings. Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. This, in the main, other nations have taught; but India has for thousands of years peacefully existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist, when Rome was not thought of, when the very fathers of the modern Europeans lived in the forests and painted themselves blue. Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from then until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live.

I wonder if I really need to continue, for the main reason(s) I guess is aleady clear in that paragraph, but stil for the sake of the rhyming six, here are the other 4

3) Diversity: I think its in the very blood of Indians to accept diveristy... be it languages , or philosophies or even.. political parties

4) Evolution rather than revolution : Do we have the equivalent of a French or a Russian or an American "revolution"... Nope and I think its again due to the fact that we as a Nation are more comfortable with evolution ... and hey, we have rebirths, so whats the hurry !

5) Family Values : With the foundation strong at home, I guess its easier to extend it to the society and the Nation... in fact even to "vasudhaiva kuTumbakam" or "yatra viswam bhavatyekaneedam", if only others too agreed

6) External factors: Though not fully desirable, a Pakistan, China and Bangladesh around us, and war-torn Sri Lanka near us, and attempts to thrust some aggressive ideologies on us, may have to some degree strengthened our bond

! vandE maataram !

Photo from the web - http://rlv.zcache.com/bharat_mata_bharat_mata_tshirt-p235109234917626630qixv_400.jpg

catching up

2010-01-26T11:28:00.002-05:00

It has been an inactive 100 days or so on the blog - and oh well, perhaps a much less active year that passed by... Here I am, trying to "regroup" myself , gain back some of the lost momentum.. Looks like these days one has to view life from an "escalator perspective" rather than a "staircase perspective" - they keep going whether you plan to climb or not

Wink of a year and tweets have become much more popular, and I quite missed the tide... , trying to catch up now - http://twitter.com/drisyadrisya . In fact I wanted to do a blogpost during Sankranti ... kind of to tell myself that its a transition to a bit more active blogging (among reviving some other activities too) - but that was not to be.. and here I am on the "Republic" day going "re-public" again ... Having faced the starting trouble, the easiest way out has been to reformat the look :) .. but I promise myself , that substance will follow !

Thekkady boat tragedy - follow up post

2009-10-17T08:17:00.006-04:00

As mentioned in the comments section of my previous post, here are couple of "Jalakanyaka" pictures from my collection - on occasions when the seating / standing should have been regular / uniform (Note: click on pics to enlarge )

1. Difficult to say from this angle, but still if one focuses on the backside..... is there an in-born tilt visible ?

2. The ill-fated boat is the green one ( second one ). Do we see an extra dip on its right side ?

Waiting to happen

2009-10-03T12:31:00.005-04:00

A post after about three and half months - its not-so-happy a thing that its about a tragedy.. but yet, can't resist putting out certain unhappy truths that I faced --- thankfully for me, those did not transform into unhappy experiences, but unfortunately not for the victims of the third boat tragedy in Kerala within about seven years

Less than a month before the Sep30 tragedy, U2 and I have been on a trip there - an extended Onam vacation and much more... A few things ( which have probably been now reported in the media) was glaring during the boat trip ...

1) Right from the ticket queue, there is no guidance whatsoever of how things work ( for example you realize that one person can only take max 2 tickets, only when you reach the end of the queue ) , which boat to board, choice of upper deck/lower deck ( or may be those choices are already sold out for "black" or to those with influence)

2) Once you are in the boat too, there is nobody controlling the seating arrangement - I don't think our ticket was ever checked once in the boat, or to see if proper people are seated in the proper deck (So even if more than allotted people stay in upper deck, "nobody" knows .

3) They supposedly issue a stipulated number of tickets for each boat.. but except one time when our boat appeared overcrowded and seatless, nobody asked people to board the boats which they are supposed to ( which if you see closely on the ticket is printed somewhere on the ticket, but you don't know that its the name of the boat until you see the boat)

4) There were no instructions ( like don't crowd on one side), or what to do in case of a problem etc etc.... In fact an old man who was late to board the boat did not get a seat, and so he was seated in the driver's cabin - and alas, the fellow was non-stop lecturing about kerala politics (in Malayalam of course) ALL-THROUGH the journey to the drivers assistant and the latter listening most of the time, occasionally replying or giving him the next topic to talk about

5) And for lifejackets - i was curious to see if there were any - and they were, a few of them, stacked up nicely and tied up in the drivers cabinet...

The travellers were just focused on the joy of the ride and no hardly ever complained. At one point when at the end of the trip, there were elephants on one side ( haaaa... some "wild life" after such a long wait), people did crowd to one side and our boat "Vanajyotsna" did tilt to one side a bit , but I kind of said aloud semi-jokingly ( the other half with the intention that people notice) that the boat is tilted to one side... - ours did not reach a danger level tilt at any point.

Among the theories of the boat collapse, all ultimately lead to neglect of authorities as root cause
If it were overcrowding on one side, couldn't have been avoided by not allowing more-than-capacity and instructing people not to do that ? Also "boat design not suited for all crowding on side" When it says "60 people capacity", shouldn't it be sand-bag tested with all possibilities including this one-side possibility ? And nothing more to say about the possibility of mistake by the inexperienced driver.

I leave this post with some picture of the boat in the accident - Jalakanyaka - taken by chance while on Vanajyotsna .

The pic above shows the case elephants on one side, and people moving towards that side - and you can see the boat tilted a bit. Whether it is within limits or not, I am not an expert to comment. Notice also one fellow hanging out of the boat, quite clear that there is nobody to control

And here is another one... ( click pics to enlarge)

Rite and Rong

2009-06-19T23:44:00.004-04:00

The relationship of editor to author is knife to throat. (Quote: Source unknown )

News that is a bit old, but worth reading for two reasons.... - readers can guess both

http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/News/Article.aspx?id=1005194

Ashtanga yoga’s founder dies at 93
Published:May 24, 2009

Krishna Pattabhi Jois, a prominent and influential yoga teacher who drew a global following, which included Western celebrities like Madonna and Sting, died this week at his home in the southern Indian city of Mysore at the age of 93.

Known to his followers simply as guruji, a term of respect for teachers, Jois had an ulcer in his throat , according to Sharath Rangaswamy, his grandson and the director of his yoga institute.
In the late ’30s, long before yoga studios sprang up in malls and gyms , Jois began teaching yoga at the Sanskrit University of Mysore , according to a biography on his website. He eventually opened his own school, the Ashtanga Yoga Institute .

The son of a Brahmin (priest) and astrologer, Jois was inculcated with ancient Hindu teachings from an early age. He was first exposed to yoga when he was 12.

Jois popularised the school of yoga known as Ashtanga, characterised by fast-paced exercises that involve pronounced, but controlled, breathing while holding varying postures.

Jois’s first exposure to the West came through the 1967 book Yoga Self-Taught. Since then, Westerners have sought him out in their hundreds.

Although he was not fluent in English, Jois knew enough to make himself understood to his students. —

secularism definition

2009-04-18T05:06:00.002-04:00

Note: contribution from U2 :-) ... among the many forwards in the IT field... So after all its not as passive within the ITites !

Look who is with the Congress !

2009-04-10T05:26:00.002-04:00

1) Nagma - Nagma to campaign for Congress even if denied ticket

Born of a Muslim mother and a Hindu father, but the real connection is In 2007, she finally accepted Christ as her Saviour ... The anomaly of a Hindu man marrying a Muslim lady has hence been compensated for ... Amen

2) Azhar - Azharuddin to bat for Congress in Moradabad

In addition to the infamous match fixing betrayal of Nation, his claim to fame is having divorced his wife and married ( and converted ) a Sindhi.... and lol.. ex-girl friend of Salman Khan

which brings us to

3) Salman - Salman urges people to vote for Congress

Like a Salmon his migratory ( read as one woman to another ) skills are well knows, and is quite an epitome of al-taqiya ( sans the compulsion part..... well, biological compulsions, may be )

vinaasa kaale vipareeta buddhi ?

2009-02-28T01:32:00.002-05:00

CNN-IBN opinion poll http://ibnlive.in.com/news/alliance-needed-suitors-contact-upa-nda/86007-37-p1.html predicts NDA is behind UPA.. Well all their recent predictons about State elections had gobne awfully wrong. In fact after Gujarat election results were out , the hyper Rajdeep (Cong)ras-desai along with the just-jumped-outta-d-zoo Yogendra Yadav tried to explain why their survey was 'slightly off mark", by making a big map of Gujarat, putting some saffron and white ( I think) colored cubes on the map, ( apparently each of those cubes representing 5 seats each it seems) .. and then moving them around here and there, and telling - aha, thats were we missed... Frankly, I don't remember having seen such a nice comedy show on an Indian channel anytime recently

But this time, not because its a CNN - IBN poll, in fact in spite of it being a CNN - IBN poll, I tend to agree with the numbers in the present state of affairs . ( See my earlier post with the numbers.. the two people needed for NDA - Rajanikanth and Chiranjeevi - have not yet obliged, and even the alliance with ShivSena seems shaky) . Among the possible secnarios, 2 are in favor of UPA ( "possible", "strongly possible" ) 2 in favor of NDA ( both "not impossible") , and the last in favor of a third alternative... The last says CNN - IBN is highly unlikely

Methinks that the chances are the last is quite likely( though may not exactly be a Mayawati)... I believe that history will repeat itself.. Like VP Singh-Chandrasekhar..... like Deve Gowda-Gujral (do people even remember these jokers ?)...... India, unfortunately may have to go through a really bad perios ( not that UPA coming back to power is any majorly better, but atleast not another third front I hope).... Extrapolating that scenario further, such a regime won't last more than 2 years, and there may be a general election, may be in 2010 or 2011

I am no political expert. Though I hope it doesn't come to that, this is what I feel may happen, After all, its said "vinaasa kaale vipareeta buddhi.." ( kind of like "wrong decisions at the time of adversity")

Rajnikanth, Chiranjeevi and the future of (I)nd(I)a !

2008-12-17T08:46:00.004-05:00

Nope, its not the BJP's performance in the falsely-termed semi-final elections ( note: the Indian-English Language Media - the ELM - did so much more after the results than before it, you guess why !!) that makes me say this... and I hardly ever did election predictions on this blog.. but simple math tells me - the NDA in its present form , with the BJP and allies is NOT going to reach anywhere close to the "thoo-seventhee-thoo" mark in the general elections scheduled, mostly for sometime in April-May 2009 !!

And here is my nowhere-near-perfect, yet you-give-me-a-better-calculation chart. This includes the list of states where BJP or its current NDA allies ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Democratic_Alliance_(India)#Past_and_Present_Members ) have any significant presence.. So for example, Punjab is included because of SAD+BJP, but Kerala is not, u-know-why .. And the min and max are at best based on guess and at worst (!) based on recent elections/state anti-incumbency/local considerations, and the underlying assumption is that there is no Ramjanmabhoomi like wave favoring the BJP anywhere

(Ignorance is not always a bliss... that I donno how to put a table on the blog makes this chart a little worse than ugly, doesn't it ? )

State...........................Seats.................Min..............Max

Assam ........................ 14 .................... 5 ................. 10
Bihar .............................40....................10................. 25
Chattisgarh...................11.....................4....................7
Delhi............................... 7......................2....................3
Goa..................................2.......................0....................2
Gurjarat..........................26....................10.................18
Haryana..........................10......................3....................6
HP......................................4......................1....................3
Jharkand.........................14.....................5...................9
Karnataka.......................28....................10................18
MP...................................29.....................12.................22
Maharashtra...................48.....................24................36
Orissa................................21......................7.................12
Punjab...............................13......................5..................10
Rajasthan...........................25.....................8..................13
Uttaranchal........................5........................1.................3
UP.......................................80.....................5..................15

Total.................................... NA ............... 112.............. 212

On a side note, its glaringly obvious that losing UP has been BJP's biggest problems ... with no hope of regaining lost ground any time soon

If its anywhere near the minimum, then one might simply see the end of BJP in a few years, unless may be "NaMo" takes the "center"stage ... Even in the best case scenario, it only adds up to 212 ...... May be some more smaller allies and a seat here and there and a few independents - add a 10 more, and its still only 222 ... Wonder where the bulk of the rest of the seats are gone ? Well, thats where AP with 42 and Tamil Nadu with 39 seats come into play .. It is quite obvious that whoever rules the center next , will have to have won the majority of seats in either if not both of these states ... Well, nothing new, for that is indeed the case at present u wud say with the Congress in AP and DMK and allies in TN... True, I am just stating that fact once more, with an emphasis that the NDA simply cannot think of ruling India without significant number of seats from these two states.... thats all

So now, what going on in these states ? Lets take TN first .. Quite likely the DMK and allies will continue with the Congress .... even otherwise teaming up with the DMK will be counterproductive for NDA due to state anti-incumbency .. AIADMK has already tied up with the left . So the only hope for BJP is if Rajanikanth ( Rajinikanth/Rajnikanth ) joins or actively campaigns for BJP ... Will he ?! Time is simply running out for BJP ....

And coming to AP , though Chiranjeevi (who, I am told will surely have an impact ) prefered the left ( "Allu Arvind wants BJP But Chiru leans Left" .) , the fact that he is strongly oppossed to both TDP and Congress, and that the left already went with the TDP means a PRP-BJP(-TRS) alliance is still a possibilty ... the big question again is, will he ? ... And unlike in the Rajanikanth case, Chiranjeevi has one more option of going it alone at first and supporting NDA from outside post-poll if it helps......

So, like it or not, here is a scenario, where the future of India will depend on what two super stars of South Indian movies will decide !!!!

Brahmin by Karma... vidyaa vinaya sampannee ...

2008-11-03T01:45:00.005-05:00

Thanks Ranjith for sending this news item ..... For those who can't read Malayalam, the gist of the article is that Kerala Kshetra Samrakshana Samithi has trained 24 children , from all backgrounds and "castes" , including 7 "adivasis" (tribals) in being priests ... Well, not really a new thing as the news items at the end of this post would reveal ( readers are invited to post more such relevant links and news in the comments section)

Before that, a few relevant Gita shlokas ... { transliteration and translation c & p from net for ease :-) , so excuse the possible minor errors }

Gita 5:18

vidya-vinaya-sampanne brahmane gavi hastini
suni caiva sva-pake capanditah sama-darsinah

The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater

Gita 18:41

brahmana-kshatriya-visamshudranam ca parantapa
karmani pravibhaktanisvabhava-prabhavair gunaih

Brahmanas, kshatriyas, vaishyas and shudras are distinguished by the qualities born of their own natures in accordance with the material modes, O chastiser of the enemy.

( The next 4 shlokas talk about those qualities and natures)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Item 1: an old piece - http://www.hindunet.org/srh_home/1997_5/0052.html

---------Youth from all sections of the society, particularly the scheduled castes, came forward in a large way to become temple priests and lead the Hindu masses. VHP organised special training camps f or them. Till now more than 1000 priests have been trained.

News Item 2 : ------------------http://news.amritapuri.org/41/sreedharan-tantri-to-receive-amrita-keerti/ Sreedharan Tantri is the founder and chairman of Sri Narayana Tantrika Research Vidyalayam, a charitable institute in North Paravur, Ernakulam District that trains children, irrespective of caste and creed, in Kshetra Tanta Vidya.

News Item 3:
---------------------------- Forwarded message ----------To: panchaamritam@yahoogroups.com / from: vskchennai@gmail.com
PANCHAAMRITAM 120
THREE

A silent revolution is on in the Vayanad region of Kerala (Bharat), thanks to the Kshetra Samrakshana Samiti (Temple Protection Committee) functioning under inspiration drawn from the ideals of RSS. The Samiti has conducted Poojari training course for the vanavasi (Scheduled Tribe) boys of Vayanad. Of the 29 boys who participated in the course 28 were from vanavasi families. The Samiti had sent out an appeal to all major temples in Kerala inviting applications from boys of any caste willing to join the Poojari training course. Over 70 applications were received. 29 were selected with the permission of parents. All boys were given initiation and guidance in performing Sndhya Vandhanam to begin with. Their daily routine has ben designed so that they do the daily duties like any temple poojari. The boys on their part evince enthusiasm in abundance.

RASHTRA DEV, Hindi fortnightly brought out from Bareily, Meerut and Dehradun; dated September 30, 2007.

of predictions and reductions

2008-10-13T00:54:00.007-04:00

By no means am I an economic expert, nor do I understand whats happening right now
And neither do I claim that the dip in oil prices is a creation of the US presidential election....

but what I do know is that I did predict a situation where the oil prices may reduce big time, around the US pres election time ( after a sharp rise a few months before that) - I had based it purely on my experience in 2004.

See my post http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2008/04/tip-of-iceberg-or-end-of-it.html

Whatever be the real reason, it seems to be heading the same way in 2008 too with just weeks left for the US election
----------------------------------------------

Meantime, here is a video that has been circulating and in which the speaker makes some predictions about the US economy, and more importantly tries to put things in a common mans language... he is a columnist in rediff, and the video is uploaded feb 10, 2008

black cat or white cat ?

2008-10-04T09:56:00.003-04:00

Tata says "tata" to Singur and West Bengal - I am utterly confused as to whom should I laugh at

* At Mamta Banerjee who is day dreaming that she can capture the erstwhile communist votes by doing what they used to do a few years ago ?

* or At the "ruling" CPM themselves, who responded to the pull out with their dogs-tail-never-gets-straightened strike call - Tata must be releieved

As ET reports that "Gujarat and Karnataka has emerged as the two top contenders" for alternate location, the situation is even more irritating for the CPM in Kerala. On the issue of SEZs in Kerala, in its slow but steady progress towards realizing "I don't care if it's a white cat or a black cat. It's a good cat so long as it catches mice" , the CPM faces its biggest roadblock from its supposedly less radical ideological counterpart - the CPI

It must the the great "revolutionary" training that our comrades receive that helps them have not even a pin prick on their conscience while practising the highest hypocrisy . Here are some samples

* While criticizing the central govt, the CPM govt in Kerala has recently hiked water price, milk price, auto/taxi price - God knows what not. In fact two years when I came to India, the minimum charge on bus was Rs 1.75, and now ist Rs 4/- in just 2 years ( not that it maked the Central govt any better, but right now we are just talking about the commie hypocrisy )

* The same commies who are now pained that the Central govt is making India lose its right to test nuke weapons, were the ones who oppossed it so much when India tested in 1998

* And guess from whom the Kerala CM is facing oppossition while he tries to oust the realtors who built resorts on encroached govt lands ? None other than the district CPM committee

Recently "Surya TV" apparently launched a Malayalam channel exclusively for comedy - but one has to subscribe to some Sun-Direct to get the channel. methinks that its a bad business move - who will ever pay money to watch comedy, when the commies have free shows running everyday

i am back

2008-09-26T23:48:00.004-04:00

That I now have some one else in my life shall explain the long gap, I hope.. For reasons known to some of us - those who know her name and know Malayalam and Hindi, she shall be mentioned as "U2" on this blog

So, among our travels the week after marriage, was a trip from Shimla to Kalka on the toy train ( ask google mama for the curious ones) ... 2.20 pm from shimla was the passenger train, supposed to reach Kalka at 8.15 pm, more than enuf time left for our Kalka-Delhi train supposed to leave Kalka station at 11.55 pm

The narrow guage train had a few general compartments , two reserved second class, and a reserved first class- well the first class had one section with 3 seats and another with 5 .. Seeing the general full, I got our general ticket changed to first class ( which is the only place where the seats were left) - for the first time I was travelling Indian Railways on a class greater that II SL ... - may be thats why I was destined not to complete the journey

The route was scenic, the enthusiasm dampened only by the incessant rains that had been pouring for over 20 hours by then ( a record of sorts say the locals) - and thats the excuse I shall give for not getting nice pictures.....

Come 5.30 ( half way into the journey) , a big boulder fell onto the compartment right behind us with a big sound - to one of the II reserved ... Thankfully it fell onto the door, so none got injured ( the stone was big enuf to kill 1 or 2 ) ... 2 hrs they tried breaking the stone and letting the train move, but hearing that there were further landslides ahead on the route, the railway - yes the railway arranged for taxis for the first class passengers upto Kalka ... as we were leaving I heard them say "Let the first class people go first - we will take care of the rest after that". Leave it to u for ur own comments and conslusions abt IR :-)

Here are coupld of snaps I took of the stone - but with all the rain and the darkness by then, I could not do much justice ...

On the road trip too ( the taxi), at one stage there was a big tree fallen on the road and blocking traffic - the driver was smart enough that instead of waiting for the Army ( !!) to come and clear it which could have taken 2-3 hrs , he took us through an alternate route , and safely got us at Kalka an hour and half before midnite ... quite a trip that was !!

Mission Kashmir ?

2008-07-26T12:33:00.004-04:00

Bangalore and now Ahmedabad - the latter on the Kargil (Victory) Day (July 26) . Allah and a few of his "slaves"(footnote-1) alone know how many more to come soon !!

Off late the target has been BJP ruled states, perhaps either to prove that " BJP and even Modi can't stop us" or to put a fear in people's mind not to elect BJP in their states and may be even in the Center ... ( By the way Advani claims that BJP governments in Rajasthan and Gujarat has been waiting for years now for a clearance from the Center on a tougher terror law) ...

Lets not talk about the whole p-sec crowd that are going to come up with their usual nonsense - time for India lovers to ignore them completely, and focus on action ahead ... Time to make Hindus more aware of the dangers of Islam - just make them read the Qoran in the least, any sensible Hindu will be able to correlate the blasts to the book !! And then, for every blast in future, we should have atleast 10,000 Muslims in India leave Islam and embrace their ancestral religion . Sure enought that will provoke the Islamists to have even more blasts, and that should make 20,000 leave Islam - like it or not, thats the ONLY solution to prevent India from becoming like Kashmir in the near future

footnote1 - The root word for Islam is “al-Silm,” which means “submission” or “surrender.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
post script: from rediff

Following is a chronology of some recent major bomb blasts in the country:

May 13, 2008: Eight blasts rock Jaipur in a span of 12 minutes leaving 65 dead and over 150 injured.

January 2008: Terrorist attack on Central Reserve Police Force camp in Rampur kills eight.

October 2007: 2 killed in a blast inside Ajmer Sharif shrine during Ramadan, in Rajasthan.

August 2007: 32 dead, 35 hurt in Hyderabad 'terror' strike.

May 2007: A bomb at Mecca mosque in Hyderabad kills 11 people.

February 19, 2007: Two bombs explode aboard a train bound from India to Pakistan

September 2006: 30 dead and 100 hurt in twin blasts at a mosque in Malegaon, Maharashtra.

July 2006: Seven bombs on Mumbai's trains kill over 200 and injure 700 others.

March 2006: Twin bombings at a train station and a temple in Varanasi kill 20 people.

October 2005: Three bombs placed in busy New Delhi markets a day before Diwali kill 62 people and injure hundreds.

after the circus......

2008-07-23T20:27:00.002-04:00

Cartoon courtesy: keralakaumudi . Caption in Mallu says something to the effect of the arc of Manomoha .. and Manmohan is saying, in Mallu :-) , what in French is the famous Apres moi, le deluge - after me, the deluge

So what did the whole excercise achieve ?

* Divert the attention from all of government's failures - price rise, a weak response to terrorism, Ram Sethu issue, Amarnath issue etc etc - quite a master stroke Mr PM

* Now, the govt will try to show off some "reforms" and say that "we could not do all these because of the left"... oh yeah .... what a realization after completing more than 80% of its term

* Open talk by politicians about money.. its like the public have gotten so used to it, that nobody is shocked when money of the order of 25-30 crores are offered to vote one way or the other - and MPs who openly admit they know nothing about the N-deal ... They know only about the M-deal. Who exactly is funding such huge amounts of money ? Atleast 10 MPs were bought to vote for the deal or abstain - so that 250 crores minimum ...

* In comparison to open admissions of horse trading, statements like "My only interest is the development of my party" made by this JD-S "Member of Parliament a.k.a servant of the Nation" , can be pardoned

Congratulations Mr MMS and the lady MMS ( Madam Maino Sonia ) - together you have achieved so many things with just one deal

How my articles have been edited by Deccan Herald

2008-07-12T16:50:00.002-04:00

July 08 - what finally came -
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jul132008/sundayherald2008071278408.asp

Nov 2007 - what finally came - http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Nov42007/sundayherald2007110233776.asp
( They did put a picture of the Diwali mela poster in the print edition)

Now given below are each of what I actually submitted - in both cases upon request from "Sunday Herald" and according to their guidelines on the number of words - not a word extra. For ur convenience, I have highlighted in red the portions in red that got edited out .. Upto u readers to draw any conclusions if u wish ... !!!

July 08

American View of India and Indians

In 1911, the LA Times published a headline "A Hindu apple for modern Eve: The cult of Yogis lures women to destruction". In 2001, Time magazine did a cover story on Yoga, with an opening paragraph that read "Stars do it. Sports do it. Judges in the highest courts do it. Let us do it – that yoga thing. A path to enlightenment that winds back 5,000 years in its native India, yoga has suddenly become so hot, so cool, so very this minute"

Perceptions change with time, people and events. For two Nations vast and diverse, it is difficult to summarize the "American perception of India" in a short article – this is at best a collection of thoughts and experiences on the topic. In general Americans treat its foreign population including Indians, with warmth and my experience has not been much different. Not to deny occasional cases of racial abuses, like against Sikhs perhaps mistaking them for Talibans due to their turban and beard, but such incidents do not make the general rule. Perhaps Indians are able to fetch greater respect than many of their Asian counterparts because of their relatively better communication skills, hard work, and most importantly the cultural values they have brought with them. It is not uncommon to see a good number of Americans – some out of curiosity, but some who have made it part of their lives – in Hindu temples, festivals and indeed Indian restaurants

So what are certain factors that might be shaping the American opinion on India and Indians? As the adage goes "Strength recognizes strength", India's advances in the economic field in general and IT field in particular, has definitely contributed positively. How can one not take notice when say Tata Motors buys the prestigious Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motors for 2.3$B? Outsourcing and call centers in India will only add to the list of recognizing India's strengths, and even though there has been critics both in media and among the policymakers, overall the American public has not yet shown an animosity and "You people are taking our jobs" attitude towards Indians.

The contribution of second generation Indian-American is no less – Dr Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief health correspondent for example, is quite a household name in the US. Talking of events, even though subject of major criticism from American policy makers at the time it happened, the 1998 Pokhran tests have for sure, made America take a fresh look at India and redefine its foreign policy. Among people, a big factor will be missing if mention is not made of the contributions of Hindu spiritual leaders like Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Mata Amritanandamayi, Sri Sri Ravishankar, and so on who regularly visit US and conduct Satsanghs.

In a country where 4 out of 10 marriages on an average are believed to end in divorce, I have felt that Indian family values is another factor that evokes respect from a good number of Americans. In fact during a friendly talk with an American cop near my house, he asked me if I was married. Hearing a no, he said "I am telling you, marry a girl from India, not from here. My wife is Indian and she values family so much" It has to be mentioned however that most Americans find it hard to appreciate arranged marriages. I do not believe bollywood has much of an influence on American public due to the language factor, though English movies about India like "Indiana Jones and the temple of doom" could result in a good number of Americans get the wrong impression about India

American public's general knowledge about India leaves much to be desired. Here are some samples questions and statements that have been thrown at me or my friends on various occasions- "So do you speak Hindu or Indian or Arabic ?". "So where in India ? Bangladesh ?". "In 1947 Pakistan won Independence from India". " I know Mahatma Gandhi and her daughter " - the last one, a reference to Indira Gandhi !! Interestingly it was not an American but a Chinese colleague of mine who once asked me "Do kids go to school in India on elephants?"

Even though Indian Americans have started making a mark in politics, time alone will tell if the influence is positive or negative or neutral. Academics unfortunately is a field where some vested interests – unfortunately many of whom are Indians – are hell-bent on tarnishing India, may be in quest of money and promotions. Then there are some Indians who consider it their duty to talk about only the negatives of India, for reasons best known to them. Even in media sometimes– I stopped buying Washington Post because the India correspondent had only trash to write about India , perhaps thinking that will "please the boss".

I am not averse to criticism, indeed positive criticism helps progress, but unfortunately some of these misrepresentations deserve the kind of remark that Gandhiji made about Catherine Mayo's book 'Mother India' - "If Miss. Mayo had confessed that she had gone to India merely to open out and examine the drains of India, there would perhaps be little to complain about her compilation. But she says in effect with a certain amount of triumph that the drains are India". Every Indian is an Ambassador whose duty it is to correct such mistakes.

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

November 07

Diwali ( Deepavali) at Maryland

Being so far away from home, many times it is festivals like Diwali which connects you back with your roots and creates the home away from home atmosphere out here in the US. My experience being part of various Diwali programs in Maryland in the last few years have been no different - I cherish those wonderful memories.

As a University student you would experience that the entire festive season starts pretty much with the onset of Fall semester - typically around end of August or early september. Some Universities have an Indian Independence day celebration, and for the freshers - well, those who are in US by then- that becomes the first social event. Ganesh Chaturtis, may or may not celebrated in Universities, the latter scenario partly because most student organizations like the Hindu students council would have just regrouped after the summer holidays and still in the process of planning their events. I do know of certain Universities like the NCSU where Ganeshotsav is a major event http://video.aol.com/video-detail/hsc-ncsu-ganesh-chaturthi-2006-celebration/1528814293 . At Maryland, most years, I have had to be satisfied with the events in the temple, or organize a little bhajan and dinner session with friends or even better get invited to some one's house - typically that of some Marathi families or friends

The festive excitement on campuses kind of peaks around the Navatri times. Garba-Dandiyas , typically organized by the Hindu Students Council (HSC) or various Indian Students groups are common in almost every campus with a good Indian popuation. In fact the University of Maryland Garba organized by HSC pulls close to 1000 people. It must be mentioned that most of the participants in these are American born Hindu youth, and many times you can see them teach the dance to their Indian counterparts who just came to the US. Being from south India, I myself was totally new to Garba and some I did try to learn a bit from my friends (who were born and raised in US) with partial success . ( Some pictures can be found at http://sitekreator.com/hscumd/garba_pics05.html ) It is also common practice that part of the money raised ( through a small entry fee of about 7$) is donated to some NGO, like the ekal vidyalaya ( http://www.ekal.org )

Diwali is sort of the culmination of this Fall festive season. The fact that it starts getting cold by November and that the homework and exam pressure would have mounted, only slightly reduces the Diwali festive mood.In fact at University of Maryland, both the HSC and the SCI (Student Council of India - organisation for the grad students who mainly come from India) have their Diwali celebrations ( A few years before both the groups came together and had a single big event) . Both the groups events are typcially on a weekday evening, either ON Diwali or one day before or after. HSC event usually has a rather elaborate Puja and decorations followed by a dinner, where as the SCI event has a Puja, dinner and some cultural programs. ( see some pictures at http://sitekreator.com/hscumd/diwali06.html )

These events also become an opportunity for you to explain a thing or other about Hinduism and Indian culture to a curious non-Indian. In fact these at these events you would typically find many non-Indians, some may be fascinated by Hindu-festivals, some simply love the Indian food. In addition to the weekday event on campus, many friends circles hold their own get togethers and Pujas in some ones apartments. In addition to these, there are also various community and temple events. In fact a noteworthy event in Maryland is the Diwali Mela organized by the United Hindu Jain temples of Washington DC area, which attracts anywhere between 5000 to 10000 peple every year ( see the website http://www.dcunitedtemples.org/ )

All these efforts, have made Diwali a rather famous festival amongst Americans also -from your colleagues at to the US Congress. I remember reading an old article on how President Bush ignored the Diwali celebrations in 2004 ( http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/920984.cms ) and there was some requesting going on in 2005 for him to attend .. ( http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/oct/22diwali.htm ) when Diwali was, I believe celebrated for the first time at an "official level" . I also happened to come across this resolution that was introduced in the US Congress on 14 March 2007 ( http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr110-245 ) "Recognizing the religious and historical significance of the festival of Diwali" , and I may be curious to know what happens this year at the US governmental level.......

But, fact of the matter is that beyond a point, these things do not matter to me, or in general to any Indian or Hindu in the US in as far as the pride and joy they have in celebrating Diwali, with all its cultural significance and symbolism

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Tailpiece: For the november article, I may been better of highlighting in green what came rather than what got edited out :-) .... May be they wanted it too specific to Diwali.. arrey, then why don't u tell me that my "first draft" is off the target ?! .. anyway compared to november07, the july08 is percentage wise better !! So may be a third time..... if at all ha ha

The victims of Islam

2008-07-08T22:17:00.002-04:00

Apparently the Muslims of India are unhappy - unhappy even with the parties that have made it their single point agenda to appease them .... So, what is that ? A case of pampered child continuing to demand more of what he is used to ?

Consider this - in Kerala Muslim "minority" schools ( meaning salary for teachers paid by government, and the private management has the right to choose the students and appoint teachers, many times taking a "donation") has certain specials rules... They can start the school at 10.30 am , after all the brainstorming in the mosque is over . They have holiday on fridays and work on Saturday instead. And during the month of Ramzan, which falls in different months every year, the school goes on vacation, and that is made up later - exams are conducted specially for these schools

Think about how it is taking a month long break right in the middle of the academic year - that too different months different years - for years this has been continuing, and finally........ recently some Parent Teacher Associations are realizing that this is adding to the backwardness of their kids... ---> and have been demanding that the schools be converted into "normal ones"..... Well, not quite, normal only in terms of the Ramzan classes, but the Friday holiday and the late opening should remain ! Well, whatever, like the Ramzan moonsighting, atleast some bit of light ...... though quite late...

So yet another example proving that statement that my friend often quotes "Muslims are the biggest victims of Islam" !

The "Maya" of Manmohan

2008-06-21T12:41:00.004-04:00

The "Congress may be bad, but we trust Manmohan" fellows can continue to defend the PM, but over the years it is quite clear to me that either the PM has been enough "Congressised" or that the real Manmohan was always hiding behind his thaadi ,... i mean a mask ( yes, "mukhauta" ) ........ or both

So why exactly is there a possibility or at least a "hear it loud announcement" that Indian PM may resign if impasse over nuclear deal persists . That step, the PM perhaps is hoping, will achieve him a few things -

a) Sympathy esp from the anti-left crowd b) The cause of his resignation ( and even possibility of the govt falling) would much more be "remembered" as failure of the nuke-deal, than issues like inflation, failure to tackle terrorism etc etc ... c) If indeed the general elections are to be ahead of time, and done together with the state elections in MP and Rajasthan, Congress may be hoping that atleast in those states, the state anti incumbency ( against BJP) will be more than the one against the center d) Indications are that inflation is likely to keep rising in the near future also, so holding on to power may just do more damage to congress

Meanwhile India inflation rate rises to 11% and qouting another source "The RBI website, which gives average monthly inflation figures with the base of 1993\94, tells that the last time inflation was in double digit was in April-May 1995 when it ruled above 11 per cent. The mid 1990s saw a very high inflation and for 12 months in a row from June 1994 till May 1995, the rate of inflation was in double digits"

Guess who ruled India at that time ? And guess who was Finance Minister at that time !!!!!! and yet " Congress ka haath gareebon ke saath" ( "The Congress' hand is with the poor" is their election slogan) , and Manmohan Singh is considered an "efficient" FM .... lol may be its his Cambridge and Oxford University degrees as oppossed to say, a "locally educated", Indian Administrative Services Yashwant Sinha ... ( after all Sinha titled his book "Confessions of a Swadeshi reformer" which would not have gone well with the Indian- English- Media )

Meanwhile looks like Mayawati has jumped out of what she perhaps sees as a sinking boat .. the months ahead will be interesting to watch for those interested in Indian politics .. and I strongly tend to believe that the outcome of the next general election will indeed decide whether the 2020 vision will go anywhere or not ....

Fishing in troubled waters

2008-06-08T22:09:00.002-04:00

861 females for 1000 males, and "ye to ho na hi thaa" ( this was bound to happen) - that guys in Haryana ( and some othe states in India too) have started finding it hard to find suitable girls...

http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&&issueid=57&id=9359&Itemid=1&page=in&latn=2

"If you are poor, without job and have small land holding then you get no girls to marry," says Ranu Bai.

But unfortunately, instead of solving the issue some guys are busy exploiting the situation ....

Like other areas where demand outstrips supply, illegal rackets start flourishing, with devastating consequences, as was the case with Sukhdev.....

They showed Gurcharan Singh, Sukhdev's brotherin-law who had come to finalise the marriage on his behalf, the prospective bride, Guddi. She looked too good to be true. Gurcharan immediately agreed to the marriage proposal and paid some token money.

That's when the racket unveiled itself. Kartaro and Charno demanded Rs 35,000.
"They said the girl's family was very poor and needed monetary help to perform the marriage rites," says Ranu Bai.

Sukhdev's family, who earn barely Rs 5,000 a month, could not meet the demand but relatives and other villagers pitched in. "We all gave whatever we could, after all it was the question of Sukhdev's life," says his neighbour Mukhiyaro.

Kartaro and Charno were paid in two installments. The marriage was fixed for May 28 at Dabwali. When the baraat reached the venue, it wore a deserted look. On being confronted, Kartaro and Charno produced Rani, a middle-aged widow with two grown up children. She was not the girl Gurcharan had seen.

Its heartbreaking to see such things happening ! If this business is allowed to flouish, it will only aggrevate the issue !

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister himself is playing politics with the issue . In a recent conference on "Save the gil child", PM hits out at Punjab, Gujarat, Delhi for poor sex ratio ... . Note two things - Punjab and Gujarat are ruled by Congress' opponents. Not only does the PM base his accusations on the census 7 years ago, he quotes confusing figures ( if the above report is to be believed) .

The census figures illustrate that it is some of the richer states of the country where the problem is most acute and these states include Punjab which had only 798 girls (per 1,000 boys), Haryana 819, Delhi 868 and Gujarat 883 girls per 1,000 boys in the 2001 Census.

If this map is to be believed - http://www.mapsofindia.com/census2001/sexratio/sexratio-india.htm - J & K , UP , Haryana and Sikkim have a much moe serious issue than Gujarat. http://www.iloveindia.com/population-of-india/sex-ratio.html quotes Gujarat's sex ratio as 921:1000 . May be the "girl: boy" ratio is different from "female:male" .. even then, the PM conveniently forgets that "In the decade of 1991-2001, the sex ratio of Gujarat has reduced significantly from 934 to 921" ( source: http://www.mediaware-infotech.com/newsletter/Gujarati/demograph.htm ) . A good chunk of that period was ruled by the Congress at the center and in the state.... Modi took over in 2001

And as per http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?issueid=5&id=1437&option=com_content&task=view&sectionid=24

With Beti Bachao Andolan—a term coined by Chief Minister Narendra Modi—gaining momentum, social mindset is changing in Gujarat, a state which had one of the poorest sex ratios in the country. From 802 in 2001 and 822 in 2002, the sex ratio has climbed to over 870 in 2007 in the state, against a national average of 933.

No doubt the statistics is more confusing than what the PM quoted ( strengthens my feeling that there is a mix up of girl and female sex ratio ) - but one thing is clear.. Modi has initiated steps unlike most other states . In fact in one of his speeches he says ( slightly in a lighter mood) something along the lines of "The situation was so bad that if it continued then 20 in 100 guys will end up like me" , and then he details the step that were taken by his government

Indeed, statistics are many times not perfect, but if the Man Mohan Singh's intention is indeed to use his economics brain power to quote the statistics as he wants and play politics with it, he is proving himself to be no better than the fake bride racket !

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

Related posts:
1) http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/01/why-am-i-not-surprised.html

2) http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2008/04/revisiting-question-of-dowry.html

3) http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2007/09/woman-and-last-rites-scriptural.html

3 years 200 posts

2008-05-18T08:42:00.005-04:00

May 18, 2005 was the first post on this blog

http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2005/05/hinduism-and-physics-merge-in-god.html

May 18, 2008 - this is my 200th post on this blog

I would not deny that I kind of timed it so that these two coincide :) ... So far this year, I have maintained a steady 4 posts per month routine ... at times I go a bit crazy about maintaining some number patterns ..... Like in the other blog http//9006jokes.blogspot.com , it was an arithmetic progression of posts in 3 years ... 40 in 2005 , 30 in 2006 , 20 in 2007 .... want to do 10 more posts this year to make it 100 :-) ...

Yeah the old Math-lover shows up every now and then

Are you sleeping well Mr Prime Minister ?

2008-05-13T19:56:00.005-04:00

Usually I tend to post something, write something on May 11 ....

http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2007/05/may-11-thoughts.html

http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/05/as-another-may-11-approaches.html

and so on.... This year being the 10th anniversary of Pokhran tests, I somehow felt like waiting till May 13 ( the date when the second set was detonated ) ... I wanted to write about "Pokhran not big for UPA, no celebrations planned" and "At DRDO meet, PM leaves out Pokhran-II from speech " - so characteristic of a spineless government ... I also wanted to write about how the former President still continued not to dissappoint when he said Pokhran tests strengthened India and Vajpayee displayed courage in giving nod to Pokhran II: Kalam

Well well, all that has to wait... for looks like more than the spineless, lifeless UPA government, the Islamists seem to remember the date.. as they tried turning the pink city red . Hopefully, at last the esteemed "Prime Minister" of India is able to get some sleep for having added yet another feather to his cap !!! For those who don't know what I am talking about, read

http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2007/07/23/the-help-manmohan-sleep-campaign

http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2008/02/09/sonia-gandhi-manmohan-singh-anti-terrorism-record

http://atlantean.wordpress.com/2007/07/22/the-sensitivities-and-feelings-of-the-muslims-are-more-important-than-saving-innocent-civilians

Well Manmohan may just be the tip of the iceberg, for the control of the UPA government is elsewhere .. And the PM has already earned the nickname Man-Woman Singh ... But I would not call the PM by that.. for Ardhanaareeshwara is an image of strength in Hinduism... He does not even deserve the word used by Krishna in Gita .. 2.3 "klaibyam ma sma gama ..... "

Like Father Like Son

2008-05-10T07:13:00.003-04:00

5 years ago, I happened to hear a speech by Goutam Chopra, son of Deepak Chopra. Apart from being the son of a "famous" father, I am not aware of any other tails associated with
Gautam which made him eligible to speak to a crowd of a few thousand, but never mind .....

And in his speech, Gautam said something along the lines of .. "It is sad that religions are fighting with each other everywhere. Hindus and Muslims are killing each other in Kashmir, Hindus and Buddhists are killing each other in Sri Lanka .... " . Shocked at the utter ignorance of this chap, I took refuge in thinking myself .. "Puvar Deepak Chopda ... his son became a typical case of the son getting it all wrong .. like they mix up " so your religion is hindi and language indian ?"

Now after reading the Father Chopra's interview in rediff, I have sympathies for Gautam. I am surprised the fellow did not abuse his parent religion as much as he could have, like his Father does Here is from Deepak Chopra's interview

1) http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/25sld7.htm

Do you consider yourself a Hindu at this stage of your life?

No. I think if spirituality has to survive, it has to become secular

2) http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/25sld6.htm

Look what they are doing to the artist M F Husain. This shows the primitive, tribal nature of our Hindu fanatics. Unfortunately, they are becoming very popular in India. They are militant and have done so much harm. Hindu fundamentalists are as violent as other fundamentalists; the only difference is that they are vegetarian. After seeing the film, they will be worse.

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

Praise the Lord, for I am not a vegetarian, and so escaped part of Chopda's abuses.... and mind you, in his interview, here and there he attacks the vegetarians.. Boy waaaattt crime did the puvar old can't-meet-his-ends priest do by not going against his beliefs ? What did the tens of thousands of even-though-not-born-Brahmin-but-vegetarian-by-choice Hindus do by deciding to spare the life of a chicken or a fish ?

I do believe that being non-vegetarian does not one maketh any less Hindu - as Swami Vivekananda, himself not a vegetarian would say, one should accept the food habits that suit one's nature and temperament - but at the same time, I respect vegetarians , especially the "by choice" ones.... May be I am not as brilliant as Chopda. for I fail to understand the dude's going gaga over vegetarians.. May be some day he landed up in some vegetarian Indian restaurant and got kicked out for saying " I am Deepak Chopra, the man who can do anything he wants, so I want my Turkey well cooked " ( Interesting Chopra never played around with the "RoP" -Islam.... he he may be he knows it is indeed the "Religion of (make u into) Pieces"

Our man speaks as though he is the only one who knows about "real Hinduism". He accuses Hindus of not having sense of humor while looking at pictures of his Goddesses painted in the nude.. Saaar, Mr Chopra "guru", let me tell you a small story. When I was five, an interesting incident brought Mother Saraswati to my life, and ever since She is my Guru . And I have a small black and white picture of her, since then till present, wherever I am. I must have been 10 or so, when I first heard about Husain paintings - I could not stop myself from crying that day ... Saaarry Saaar, I now understand that by birth, I lacked that sense of humour, for as per you as a true Hindu - never mind I was 10 - I should have laughed and shouted that news out from my rooftops ..... Saarry Saar . I am trying to improve. As a starting point, I shall hang up a picture of yours in my room, Saar, for looking at it I am reminded of cow dung, and I end up laughing .........

And now, here is the strange logic, or the lack of it. He tells us what Hinduism is, should be blah blah, takes pride in his sense of humor ... sells all he could out of Hinduism and make money and fame ( even though I bet he can't even quote a verse properly from Upanishads or Gita) and finally at the end of the day, he says he is not a Hindu .... And laments that the elements he doesn't like are becoming more and more popular in Hinduism... Now saaar, if popular and "moderate" and perfect people like you are not calling yourself Hindus, don't you think it is natural that only those who are proud to be Hindus and willing to defend it against all odds ( whom unfortunately you hate ) will make up Hinduism .... Saaar, please advise , waaaatt shall we do ? You are our "guru" saaaar, sar sar saaaar , ammmmaaaaaaaaa

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

Post Script 1:

http://www.punjabnewsline.com/content/view/10005/92/

Criticism of upcoming Hollywood movie "The Love Guru" for its purported slandering of Hindu practices is stretching across various religions, professions, and age groups.

Reverend John J. Auer, Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Reno; Andrea Forman, Founder of Shanti Shanti, only Sanskrit rock band in the world; Swami Pooja Saraswati, a well respected spiritual leader; Hindu Jana Jagruti Samiti and Sanatan Sanstha, through their spokesperson Bhavna Shinde; Alison Pratte, a yoga leader; Father Charles T. Durante, a Catholic priest well respected in northern Nevada for his various community outreach efforts; Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, a well known Jewish leader in parts of California and Nevada; Right Reverend Gene Savoy Jr., Head Bishop of International Community of Christ; Reverend William Bartlett, a well known Buddhist priest and Interfaith Chaplain; Lonnie L. Feemster, civil rights activist and Religious Affairs Chair of Reno-Sparks National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Vidya Chaitanya, Director of the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center in Los Angeles; Paradheya Das of Sri Krishna Vedic Cultural Association in Sacramento (California); Rakesh Nagpal, General Secretary of Ramayan Pracharini Sabha; Lila D. Sharma, President of India Heritage Panel; and Dharam Loonaa, Executive Director of the Universal Society of Hinduism; have already issued statements in support of this cause espoused by Rajan Zed.

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

Post Script 2:

Going to where I started, Guatam Chopra. I would like Gautam to present a single case of Hindu killing Muslim in Kashmir ( and then indeed I can show facts of thousands of Hindus killed by Muslims ). Indeed the Indian Army kills Islamic terrorists in Kashmir, but if you call that Hindus killing Kashmir, you need treatment at NIMHANS .. may be your Father too

Coming to Sri Lanka, LTTE being mistakenly called a "Hindu" group is not the first time... so I pardon you on that. Atleast some people know that the former spokesperson and strategist for LTTE was "Anton Balasingham" ( his mother was Christian, and he took a Christian first name... the tail Balasingham is simply because his father was Hindu, not Anton ) . But not many knows that their military chief who got killed recently was Shanmughanathan alias Charles , and even the chief Prabhakarans son's name is Charles Anthony .... so much for thei Hinduness

life is not fair....

2008-05-06T21:50:00.001-04:00

tip of the iceberg ? or the end of it ?

2008-04-26T20:55:00.006-04:00

North Pole could be ice free in 2008 says the new scientist Environment.

You know when climate change is biting hard when instead of a vast expanse of snow the North Pole is a vast expanse of water. This year, for the first time, Arctic scientists are preparing for that possibility.

I am not an environmental expert, and so don't know exactly what this implies.. but the article goes on to point out

What is more, the extent of the ice is only half the picture. Satellite images show that most of the Arctic ice at the moment is thin, young ice that has only been around since last autumn

Despite its news value in the media, the North Pole being ice free is not in itself significant. To scientists, Serreze points out, "this is just another point on the globe". What is worrying, though, is the fact that multi-year ice – the stuff that doesn't melt in the summer – is not piling up as fast as Arctic ice generally is melting.

Some factors could still save the day, though. In summer 2007, warm winds favoured melting. "If we have an atmospheric pattern like we had last year, we are going to lose a whole bunch of ice this summer, but if we have a cooler, more cyclonic pattern, that might preserve some of that ice," says Serreze.

The article also mentions

In September 2007, Arctic sea ice reached a record low, opening up the fabled North-West passage that runs from Greenland to Alaska.

I guess thats what is mentioned here also

http://www.yourtv20.com/news/econews/9963306.html

The Northwest Passage, one that eluded famous explorers, may become a shipping lane because so much ice is melting in the Arctic. And now there's a race to see who will get rights to the melting area, where a U.S. study has suggested as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden.

Talking about gas prices.. the hike in the last one month or so.... - I guess globally the prices are shooting up, but is it also a hike so that closer to the US elections in November it can be reduced - I vaguely remember a similar gimmick in 2004 ... but hey, Bush ws seeking a re-election that time where as there is nothing like that this time... still is that going to happen ?

Well , like so many things in life, time alone can tell, I guess

I wish my neighbour's son were a Bhagat Singh

2008-04-12T20:19:00.005-04:00

I would not call it a "scientfic poll" yet, this recent survey by India Today throws up some interesting results... The top two choices have a strong military way of working .... The champion of non-violence is pushed to a third place with just 13% !

See complete poll at http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6964&issueid=49&Itemid=1

The poll may also be reflective of the "Young India" .... more than 50% of population being under 25.

Its a different question how many of the people who really voted a Bhagat Singh or a Subash Chandra Bose are really willing to stand up and sacrifice for the Nation, when really put to test ? Or is it the same old "I wish a Bhagat Singh were born in my neighbour's house " ? .. Well atleast I am glad that the top two choices are men with such love for the Nation... India can look forward to its youth power in future

And what about their "political ideologies" .. Yes Bhagat Singh was a self-declared atheist and influenced by Marxism - but if he were to see what the Indian Marxists of today are upto, he would have perhaps waged a war against them. Interestingly more than the Marxists its perhaps the RSS that considers Bhagat singh a hero - to the extend that it demanded a Bharat Ratna for Bhagat Singh - http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/21bharat.htm .

What about Bose ? I believe he is a leader whose legacy unfortunately continues in perhaps not the best of the reasons.. One - theories about his death, which has become almost an obsession for many, especially Bengalis ! Two - The party that he found, "The Forward Bloc" , has removed the last word from its guiding principle of "Left Wing Nationalism" ...

Interestingly Bose's open connection with Hitler has been much less criticised, say as oppossed to Golwalker's alleged "drawing inspiration" from the Nazis ( By the way, here is a detailed article by Koenraad Elst on " Was Guru Golwalker a Nazi" ? - http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/21bharat.htm ) .....

And here are some interesting quotes from Bose ( I am not sure in what context he wrote this, except that this was during his college days)

Vivekananda’s teachings had been neglected by his own followers-even by the Ramakrishna Mission which he had founded. We were going to give effect to them. We could, therefore, be called the neo-Vivekananda group, and our main object was to bring about a synthesis between religion and nationalism, not merely in the theoretical sphere, but in practical life as well. For the emphasis on nationalism was inevitable in the political atmosphere of Calcutta of those days. ( from his unfinished utobiography "An Indian Pilgrim")

revisiting the question of dowry

2008-04-09T19:18:00.007-04:00

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/825415.cms - that is news about a survey conducted by a pro-left group in Kerala ( which has 55% Hindus) , a couple of years ago.. some relevant quotes

While a privileged Hindu family owns only an average of 0.69 acres, a Muslim family owns 0.77 acre and a Christian family, 1.264 acre.

The report published in September this year says only 80.1% of Hindu houses are in a livable condition, less than that of Muslims (89.7%) and Christians (83.6%).

Even in matter of dowry, Christians lead the tally with 80% families following it. Muslims tag along at 76%. Though less, Hindus too are yet to rid themselves of the social evil with 52% still under its grip.

Haaaa .... there goes the story of what the media and the academia and the intelligentsia and the westia has often termed as a "Hindu socal evil" !

Having grown up for almost 18 years in Kerala - I am least surprised... for I grew up hearing stories of how my Mulsim neighbour's daughter was tortured and finally divorced for dowry deficit..... how my Christian neighbours daughter's marriage did not happen for a long time for they could not agree to the "rates" that the groom's families asked for...... I had chanced upon matrimonial advertisement-files on the desktop of the computers in the browsing center in my home town in Kerala of a Muslim girl which clearly mentioned "ready to pay xyz lakhs in cash and abc amount of gold".......

and much less such stories and incidents when it comes to Hindus....... and yet as Mark Anthony would say "Dowry is a Hindu social evil" .......

No, I am not denying dowry related crimes and the evil itself in Hindu families in Kerala or elsewhere, but just as the harijan-converts-to-christian-dalits and fast realizing in their new found religion that "dalithood" is not a Hindu something, the Hinduness of dowry is another myth that will be shattered inspite of all the **ias

Well, I should not do a blanket blaming, for there has been such works as Veena Oldenburghs book - http://books.google.com/books?id=BSjVgCpc5p4C - Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime

To quote: In this highly provocative book, Veena Oldenburg argues that these killings are neither about dowry nor reflective of an Indian culture or caste system that encourages violence against women.Rather, such killings can be traced directly to the influences of the British colonial era. In the precolonial period, dowry was an institution managed by women, for women, to enable them to establish their status and have recourse in an emergency

Interestingly I chanced upon this Chapter in Kautilya's ( Chanakya) arthashastra

Book III , Chapter 2 , lines 11 - 13 can be roughly transated as ...

for it is they that receive the money paid by the bridegroom for their daughter. In case of the absence by death of either the father or the mother, the survivor will receive the money-payment. If both of them are dead, the virgin herself shall receive it. Any kind of marriage is approvable, provided it pleases all those that are concerned in it.

So the boys family pays the girls family !! ( a custom I believe, still in existence in parts of India's North-east) ......

also goes

"vrittiraabandhyam vaa striidhanam" - Means of subsistence or jewelry constitutes what is called the property of a woman. ( 14)

"tadaatmaputrasnuShaabharmaNi pravaasaapratividhaanE cha bhaaryaayaa bhOktum adOShaH" - It is no guilt for the wife to make use of this property in maintaining her son, her daughter-in-law, or herself, whenever her absent husband has made no provision for her maintenance. ( 16)

So thats the real meaning of "striidhanam" which currently is used in the sense of dowry ( oh.. talk about blindly taking english terms into Indian context.... varna being equated to caste is another such blunder) ....

Arthashaastra goes on....

On the death of her husband a woman, desirous to lead a pious life, shall at once receive not only her endowment and jewelry, but also the balance of the marriage-price due her. If after obtaining these two things she remarries another, she shall be caused to pay them back together with interest on their value. . . If a widow marries any man other than of her father-in-law's selection, she shall forfeit whatever had been given to her by her father-in-law and her deceased husband. . . .No woman shall succeed in her attempt to establish her title to the property of her deceased husband, after she remarries. If she lives a pious life, she may enjoy it. No woman with a son or sons shall after remarriage be at liberty to make free use of her property; for that property of hers, her sons shall receive.

All along it talks about the property originally that of the guy or the guy's father, but given to the girl or the girl's parents during marriage... and about the girls right to her husband's property....
not the other way around !!

The whole chapter ends with - If a husband either is of bad character, or is long gone abroad, or has become a traitor to his king, or is likely to endanger the life of his wife, or has fallen from his status, or has lost virility, he may be abandoned by his wife.

Traitor to the King... or Nation in this case.. God, atleast half the politicians should have been divorced by their wives now as per Arthashaastra standards !!

what is common to these ?

2008-04-03T18:26:00.009-04:00

I got these in email... looks like they were all taken from some website - whichever that website is, acknowledgements are due ...

equality of mass .... err mess

2008-03-15T12:17:00.003-04:00

There used to be a time when SSLC ( Std 10) exams were a pride of the Kerala govt... Conducted meticulously the exam system had high reputation. While most other exams - especially conducted by Universities where a totall mess, SSLC (and the model exam that happens a month before) continued to enjoy the trust of the people..

Not any more .. the commie govt of Kerala is steadily ensuring that SSLC exam too is as messed up as other exams.. no one exam shud be more equal than the others !! Last year ( or was it the year before ?) was the leak of question paper .. and now this year , the govt decided to be the champion of secularism by postponing the friday exam to saturday, to appease Muslims ( as far as I know, surprisingly no demand came from the Muslim side as such, but the govt itself wanted to score some points)

And the moment it ws shifted to Saturday, 7th day advetists christians were up in arms ... and finally High Court had to intervene ... read http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=India&month=March2008&file=World_News2008031583315.xml

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

Meanwhile, a recent US human rights accused Kerala and West Bengal as states with maximum human rights violations ... WB for Nandigram , Kerala for custody deaths and human trafficking..

The same buffoons who quoted US human rights report on Gujarat, are now suddenly up in arms against it ...

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Left_ticks_off_US_over_comments_on_Nandigram/articleshow/2867351.cms

and among other reasons ..

CPM MP Mohammad Salim said the US had earlier dubbed China as the biggest violator of human rights. “We do not think the US is a champion of human rights"

True to their Nationalistic spirit , these Chinese Nationalists are more hurt at US report on China.....

BORI incident- some facts

2008-03-15T11:14:00.005-04:00

Preamble: Any resemblance to any real life characters is intentional

They say, drop a cat whichever way, it will land on four legs.... Argue with a psec, whichever way, the psec will repeat the same fantasy

A month or so I happened to talk to one Mr X , on you know, issues which usually fill up my blog.. Knowing fully well that many times such "talks" are waste of time, especially if the person on the other end lives in his/her own fantasy world - I somehow still went for it ... may be 1 hour on the phone...

I noticed that whatever I say about Islmic attrocities, and whatever I say about Quranic calls for violence, this person would say something like "But you see Hindus attacked the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute .... Hindus are equally bad as the Islamists " ....

Some recent comments on this blog has prompted me to think that the attack on BORI seems to be an obsession with this person ... you see there is this old story .... The guy and girl are in love.. but families don't agree.. they decide to both comitt suicide .. in front of the train... girl jumps, guy can't in time.. girl dies, guy goes mad ... and there after he keeps on repeating "train cam , she jumped " .... "train came, she jumped" , ........ poor him .. and her ...

Likewise, God knows who hit him on the head, but Mr X seems to be determined to keep on quoting BORI attack incident as proof that Hindus are as intolerant as the Islamists... even though Mr X as such does not seem to accept facts ( and wikipedia) and is never willing to have his facts checked or corrected, or get out of his world of imaginations, this post is for the unsuspecting readers lest, they be mislead to believe "Hindus - as a religious entity - attacked BORI"

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So here are some facts .....

1) Yes, wikipedia, Mr X is free to not accept this -

The group that attacked BORI .. sambhaji Brigade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambhaji_Brigade

The outfit distances itself from the Hindutva organisations and considers itself as the ideological descendant of the Maratha Empire. The outfit's members consists of mostly Maratha youths from the rural interiors of Maharashtra. The organisation's ideology is directed against the Brahmins of Marathi society. The parent organisation MSS's founder Khedekar is alleged to have close ties with many Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders, although the NCP denies it.

This group attacked some portions of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, to protest against the allegedly slanderous remarks about Maratha Empire founder Shivaji and Rajmata Jijau by American academic James Laine.

The group's activists were also in the news for attacking Hindutva leader K. S. Sudarshan with footwear by Mahesh Chavan, when he was in Solapur, to protest against the policies of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

May be Mr X will now quote a non-Indian non-British , but of his choice history book to still prove that "Hindus/Hindutva people attacked BORI" ... he he .. what can I do !

2) Let us hear from the horses mouth .. the BORI website itself as to what happened ...

http://www.bori.ac.in/news%20&%20events%201.htm

News & Events

“The Controversial Book by James Laine should be banned” - Appeals the BORI

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Rashtramata Jijabai and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj are the pride and inspiration of not only Maharashtra, but the whole nation. American author James Laine has made some highly objectionable and inflammatory statements about our revered deities in his book titled “Shivaji: A Hindu King in Islamic India”.

The ban on the book is recently recalled by the Mumbai High Court. However, the Honorable Supreme Court, dealing with a case involving a different book, has recently given a Verdict to the effect - “In the case of foreseen threat to public harmony, the Governments of States are authorized to ban any book”. In the light of the same, the Regulating Council (RC) of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) has unanimously passed a resolution with an appeal to the Government of Maharashtra to ban the said book.After the book was released in September 2003, Dr. M. K. Dhavalikar, a Trustee of the BORI had brought the objectionable matter to the notice of the then RC of the BORI.

The RC had passed a unanimous resolution of condemnation and an appeal to the Government of Maharashtra to ban the book in a meeting conducted on December 4, 2003. A similar resolution was passed by the current RC on December 2, 2005 under the chairmanship of Dr. Vijay Bhatkar.The honorable High Court had recalled the ban on the book on April 26, 2007. Dr. M. G. Dhadphale, the Honorary Secretary, BORI, had put an appeal to retain the ban on the said book to release in the Marathi daily ‘Sakal’ (April 18, 2007) and the English daily ‘The Maharashtra Herald’ (April 28, 2007) on behalf of the Institute.With a view to introduce the world to the contribution of the BORI to Oriental Academia, it had launched a website in 2003. In the vandalistic attack on January 05, 2004, severe affliction was caused to the rare books and manuscripts, etc.

Numerous newspapers and journals had covered the event in the form of information and reactions. It has been found that some such coverage was mentioned in some links on the website. Unfortunately, the website was not edited thereafter. We wish to clarify that the links are not directly related to the BORI, and the BORI is not directly responsible for the matter in them. However, we are much thankful to the Shivabhakta Loka-andolan Samiti for bringing it to our notice that some of the links on the website mention some matter from the objectionable book. Immediately after the incidence was brought to our notice, Dr. Vijay Bhatkar, the Chairman of the Regulating Council, issued orders to close down the related webpage. This order has already been put to action.The Institute deeply regrets the confusion arisen due to this mere error of negligence. The BORI now plans to close the website down and launch a new one that would highlight our goals for the time to come. We are also pleased to announce that we wish to republish with English and Marathi translations, the Budhabhuushana, a work by Chhatrapati Sambhaji, published by us in 1926.

The Institute also announces that the Institute will always be proud party to any righteous and peaceful undertaking to uphold the honour of the revered and legendary personalities like Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj and Raashtramaataa Jijabai, who have truly maintained the glory of religious, cultural and historical legacy of the nation.

Vijay Bhatkar,
ChairmanRegulating Council

10000

2008-03-05T18:13:00.003-05:00

Nov 11, 2006 is when I put a counter on this blog, and it now reads 10,000+ .. It took ... ummm lemme see

19+31+365+31+29+5 = 480 days .... to get there

Thats an overall average of 20+ per day ... I think the peak hit on a single day was some 300 or something recently ... after the akbar-jo-thaa post , which incidentally also has the highest number of comments on it

Interestingly, the search term that seems to get more people to this blog than anything else seems to be " meera jasmine family " or "shaji kailas annie" after the " mallu christian actresses " post .. thats funny .. considering that movie related posts are sub-ten percentae of this blog

Well... things in life that matter to most, I guess

And this, is the 190th post on the blog.. so soon, hope to hit the double century :-)... At this juncture would like to thank all those who have encouraged, commented and criticised this blog, directly or indirectly... including the many personal emails I got... from the very first post on May 18, 2005 , till now and in future as well.....

dhanyavaadaaH

youth are not useless they are used less

2008-03-01T08:24:00.004-05:00

AFAIK , the title is a quote from Swami Chinmayananda . Thanks to "mod" for sending this

Click on the picture to enlarge.

om sweet home

2008-02-26T18:56:00.005-05:00

missing my home :-( ...... pics, thanks to my amma for maintaining the garden , and thanks to my cousin for the snaps ! click on the pics to see them enlarged

On the lighter side

2008-02-23T11:21:00.003-05:00

Thanks "M" for sending me this funny video....

Talking about videos, thanks to reader "GS" for sending me this link to Modi's Chennai (English) speech videos - http://youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4F48C269FAE491D3

He raises some very interesting points - especially about the defeatist attitude.... and though he may not be the best in English, he has over all managed a good job..

But indeed, his Hindi speeches continue to be a class apart .. see the one's where he addresses the NRI crowd via satellite http://youtube.com/watch?v=ylx7m59N454&feature=related .. Only thing I did not like abt the video is the background studio setting !! :)

akbar jo thaa

2008-02-16T21:03:00.005-05:00

अक्बर् जो था !!

At the outset, let me clarify that this is more about Akbar "the great" than the good or bads of the recent bollywood movie starring Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai

In my school history texts, just like any other kid in India would have, I too studied about "Akbar-the-great", the proponent of Hindu-Muslim-bhai-bhai ( spoofed as goat-butcher-bhai-bhai in "Hey Ram" movie - a freudian slip from Kamala Haasan ?) .... and as example of his "reaching out to the Hindus" was given the example of his marrying Rajput women ....

Interestingly as I used to read my text books at home, my mother - by no means a hindutva person, and who used to vote for Muslim League candidate simply because they had an alliance with Kaaangress - used to say .. " Oh well, Akbar, all he did in the name of Hindu-Muslim alliance was enjoy marrying Hindu women "

That was one of those incidents where I have to admit that "knowledge from ancestors" or even intuitions are sometimes more factual than bookish knowledge.. for indeed, contrary to what the pseudo secularists may want us to believe , Akbar DID NOT allow his formerly Hindu - wife to remain a "kaafir".....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariam-uz-Zamani

Mariam-uz-Zamani née Hira Kunwari (born October 1, 1542), was a Rajput princess and was the eldest daughter of Raja BharMal, Raja of Amber, India. She was the wife of the Mughal emperor Akbar, and the mother of emperor Jahangir.

.......For the purpose of marrying Akbar she was converted to Islam and was rechristened Mariam-uz-Zamani after marriage. The Mosque of Mariyam Zamani Begum in Lahore, Pakistan was built in her honour. She has been also referred to as "Jodha Bai" or "Jodhabai" in modern times, although she was never actually known as Jodha Bai during her lifetime.

So is Jodhaa Akbar or Mariam Akbar more apt ? Indeed, the latter name does not play well with the pseudo secularists nor with the Islamic underworld that funds bollywood.. So there you go.....

Also, the same wikipedia article mentions

a similar sounding name "Jodh Bai" is addressed to Princess Manmati of Jodhpur, the wife of Jahangir and mother of emperor Shahjahan

Its clear that yet another Hindu Princess was married into the Moghul family and her son too continued to be a slave warrior of Allah rather than being a Hindu .. How about the lady herself - i.e "Jodh Bai" ? was she converted ? well, I could not find an explicit mention of that ( I did not search much, may be readers can help) , but the wikipedia entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Manmati

gives her name as Princess Manmati, Taj Bibi Bilqis Makani Begum Sahiba Jodh Bai

So leave it to ur imagination ..... I guess at that time the Quranic injunction that a Muslim HAS to convert the non-Muslim into an Allah's slave warrior before marrying him/her was kept more faithfully.. Only recently has that rule been relaxed to a perhaps modified form of Al-Taqiyya
( read- compromise if it helps in the long term) by which its okay if the non-Muslim converts after marriage to the Muslim or in the worst case if he/she refuses to, atleast as long the kids remain slave warriors of Allah

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post script: whenever I used "wife of Moghul emperor" , I assumed that readers have the maturity and knowledge to understand that I mean "one of the wives" !! Some estimates say Akbar had 300 wives.. many of whom were Hindus... errrrrr formerly Hindus

how shall I title this ?

2008-02-12T17:59:00.000-05:00

Down the valley and along the creek
Found a bird that could sing and speak
"About life I sing in my favorite tunes
And at times I even bring fortunes"

"Lovely that would be, O li'l bird,
Lonely I have been, away from the herd
Give me a line or two on dreams
Save me a thought on what it means"

"Dreams are wings and at times when one
Feels all day that life has no fun
Hold fast to them for if they die
Life is a bird that cannot fly"

"Words so wise my dear friend
Seems to me you are timely sent
What do you do if it moves farther,
That which you hoped is almost there ?"

"Get you will" said the bird with a smile
"It may take you still a little while
Till then with will and imagination

You can be close enough even in separation"

he, we and they

2008-01-23T21:51:00.000-05:00

photo from islammonitor.org

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/24marriage.htm

Opposing the recent Supreme Court order making marriage registration certificates mandatory, the New All-India Muslim Personal Law Board on Wednesday said the community would not accept the directive, as it was an infringement of the Muslim personal law.

Muslims are governed by their own rules which are different from the rules of other communities," said Mr Hashmi.

He stated that according to Shariat law, a girl can marry once she attains the age of 16 years, whereas the Constitution allows marriage only after the girl reaches the age of 18.

Is that an open admission ( or threat ?) that "we" will marry off our girls at 16 itself ? ( partly also making sure that the girl does not fall in love with a kafir by any chance.. oh even if she does, there are people ready to kill the kafir). As a matter of fact some of my classmates got married when they were in 9th ( even factoring in 1 or 2 yrs of failed classes, that would be max 16 !) and stopped schooling... and mind you I studied in an "English medium" Christian run school .. so imagine the situation in those aided Muslims schools ( my mom who teaches in one such tells me cases of Muslim girls getting married after 7th class itself) or government schools

By the way, so as per Shariat its 16 years... but what about "prophet" Mohammed ?

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/ayesha.htm

The thought of an old man becoming aroused by a child is one of the most disturbing thoughts that makes us cringe as it reminds us of pedophilia and the most despicable people. It is difficult to accept that the Holy Prophet married Aisha when she was 6-years-old and consummated his marriage with her when she was 9. He was then, 54 years old.

There comes the he-we-they classification of Islam ! Its one law for Mohammed, another for Islamists ( i.e those who stick to QHS - Quran, Hadith and Sunnah ) and third for non-believers
( of course within the "they" the grade of punishment differs for Jews/Christians/Hindus..)

Here is another example
Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four says Quran 4:3

And they say 4 is the limit... but what about the PPP ( the first P for "Piece-loving", the third P for "Prophet" and the middle P, you make your own guess based on the paragraph in red above ) ... Our man conveniently marries 9 or more ... ( the following link has a list of his wives)
http://www.wikiislam.com/wiki/The_Marriages_of_Muhammad:_A_violation_of_the_Quran

Whenever I think about this I am reminded of Lalu Yadav.... Apparently at one time our man was giving a speech on the importance of family planning .. and some one asked him, "how can you advocate family planning when you yourself have 2 sons and 7 daughters ? " and Lalu is said to have replied " I have the experience and thats why I am telling you " ....... so may the PPP was also smart as Laloooo

justice denied or cat cornered ?

2008-01-19T13:26:00.000-05:00

So was it indeed the injustice of the second test "defeat" that ensured the victory at Perth ?

Or did India deserve a victory in the second test itself ?

justice denied or cat cornered ? or both ? Does that say anything about our National character of being "reactive" than proactive to attacks on us ?

Whats with India repeating its 2001-Kolkata "achievement" of stopping the Kangaroos exactly at 16-in-a-row test victories ?

just some random thoughts

The "modi"fication of Indian politics - which way ?

2008-01-14T19:06:00.000-05:00

One is the former chief minister of the Southermost state of India. The other the same of the northern most state. Both "former" NDA allies ... and both unusual in their own respects ..

Unusual ? yeah read about Farooq Abdullah - and his family - Among other interesting stuff, he himself is married to a lady of British origin, his Muslim son has married a Sikh girl and one each of his daughters married to a Muslim, an African based black Christian and a Hindu ( son of Rajesh pilot who got ( or was ?) killed in a road accident ) .... Well, not even the Nehru family can beat that "diversity" I guess

and read about the "Amma" of politics - remember the initial period of the 13-month Vajpayee government or the tea-party with MMS ( Madam Maino Sonia ) or the Kanchi Acharya incident ? what defines her more than anything else, when it comes to National politics, is unpredictability ..

At yet, these two were recently in news, in connection with none other that Narendra Modi.... Jayalalitha with a "45- course Pongal lunch" and Farooq for being in the firing line for having praised Modi's victory .. Indeed the media was quick to call both the moves as an attempt to revamp old alliances, and indeed as yet another sign that Modi is planning on entering the National political scene sooner that later.

May be they are right, but to me the more pertinent question is, how far is this going to help the BJP ? True both these parties ( AIADMK and NC ) belong to states where BJP does not have strong allies, and simply cannot hope to win any seat if went alone.. Also true that in 3 big states - MP , Rajasthan ( both due to anti-incumbancy against present state govts) and UP , BJP may not stand to get too many seats, making the "alliance" states all the more important for NDA

But amongst its core voters, would it damage the BJP pre-poll ? allying with some one in the south accused of so many corruption cases, and with some one in the North who was a former JKLF activist ( sure, one can give them some benefit of doubt that they have impoved , but still ....) ! And also, how much of a "headache" they will be post-poll, assuming NDA does win ( which in my opinion is still a 50-50 ) .....

So many assumptions - that the BJP will ally with these, ... that the NDA will win in 2009... and let me add the third assumption , that Modi will indeed enter into National politics.... in such a case perhaps the answer to these questions, the answer to where India would be heading in the next decade, lies in whether the allies will modify the "CM" or the "CM" will "modi"fy them ....
Time alone can tell

India Today, yesterday and tomorrow

2008-01-04T22:17:00.000-05:00

As a small child, around my first-second standards I guess, I used to eagerly watch out for the Amarchitrakatha-Mahabharata .... I would know exactly the day it would come out, and as my Father or Mother gets back from work ( I used to get back first from school and wait for them) would be looking into their hands from a distance, if they were indeed carrying the precious possession that I am looking for .....

By the time I was in 5th or 6th and of course by highschool, I could ask for money and buy whatever I wanted .. and by then, what I would look for is "India Today" ! I believe the magazine started becoming popular when they started the regional editions including Malayalam .. and inspite of being an voracious newspaper reader, I would look fwd to the biweekly ( if I remember correctly, at that time biweekly and later it became weekly) magazine

So what was it that may have caught my attention so much ? First may be the magazine had a much more National perspective than any other print media available in Malayalam at that time ( and no, up until my highschool I hardly read English newspapers or not even many childrens books, comics etc) . Secondly, the magazine always had a very "graphic" oriented reporting style... Their pictures, their maps, charts,....... had a quick impression. And finally the reporting style ... it always had an undercurrent of excitement ( I am not calling it sensationalism as I did not feel it was the "cheap" variety ) .. and unlike many media even at that time, I believe not have that much of an anti-right bias

During my undergrad at IIT Chennai, the hostel commonroom would get the English edition, along with many other newspapers and magazines including its rival - The Outlook ( I felt that it was more or less a Congress party mouthpiece from the very first issue that I ever saw ). Somwhere along the line, especially after it was made weekly, and thinner ( but with may be the same amount of ads) , I felt it was perhaps slipping in its quality, but continued to be my favourite among weekly magazines. The Mallu-Christian-Manorama-Congress run "The Week" , the commie run "Frontline" , "Outlook" , where the other major ones thand at I used to browse through

Once in US, I started looking for the online editions, and to my dismay all but India Today were free. Initially I could get around, as I tried some random 4 digit code, and it worked !! I could read India Today online, but not for too long... and slowly, reluctantly, I started reading Outlook more often, or sometimes even frontline !

Looks like the long wait is finally over :-) ... http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/ ( I donno from when on it is online, but I saw this only recently) . Now,I am not quite sure in the past 3-4 years how their political bias has changed, if any. Except for "Daily Pioneer" all English Language Media ( E L M) can more or less be classified as pro-left / pro- Congress .... ( see my post on Modi, below) but I am guessing ( or is it just a hope) , atleast not so much "India Today" .. A friend of mine used to say "Smart journalism is if you can write about some one whom you like, in such a way that on the surface it appears a citicism, but is actually a either a positive criticism or even a positive aspect given a negative spin" ... and a BJP supporter that he was, used to say that he used to actually get thrilled reading some of the magazines "criticism" of the party !!

really ? Something like saying "The biggest problem with the show was that it was overbooked and people could not get tickets " ?

Well, may be you can look at the issue before the Gujarat election (dec 17, 2007) on Modi, and decide for yourself http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?latn=1&issueid=31&page=archieve

For now, I am just happy catching up with an old friend of mine :-)

The myth of a "pro-India" Benazir

2007-12-27T18:02:00.000-05:00

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 ...

Neighbours envy, Owners pride !

2007-12-23T07:26:00.000-05:00

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 !

quote of the day

2007-12-03T22:19:00.001-05:00

"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

forty percent

2007-11-25T21:19:00.000-05:00

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 )

mayookham

2007-11-11T11:09:00.000-05:00

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 !

Of birthdays and.....

2007-11-03T21:10:00.001-04:00

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 !!

youtube and narendra modi

2007-10-28T15:22:00.000-04:00

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

stages of life - what do u lose ?

2007-10-24T18:07:00.000-04:00

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

* :-(

in mourning

2007-10-09T10:55:00.000-04:00

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

NYT ad against Madam Maino Sonia

2007-10-08T11:34:00.001-04:00

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.

IAF Platinum Jubilee

2007-10-03T17:45:00.000-04:00

Links:

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

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Nabha Sparsham Deeptam - Touch the Sky with Glory

10 years of...

2007-09-27T17:56:00.000-04:00

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 !

woman and last rites - scriptural references ?!

2007-09-19T20:27:00.000-04:00

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

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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

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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"

blog getting older as bin laden getting younger !

2007-09-09T21:02:00.000-04:00

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

Teachers Day

2007-09-05T20:14:00.000-04:00

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 ......

raising the bar ? whither terrorism ?

2007-08-25T16:32:00.000-04:00

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..

trifurcation and other personal stuff

2007-08-20T16:37:00.000-04:00

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......

cricket, for a change

2007-08-13T14:11:00.000-04:00

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 !!

Defaming Hinduism : series

2007-08-10T20:11:00.000-04:00

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
--

sobbing at sixty !

2007-08-07T00:07:00.000-04:00

"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 !!

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(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

campus samskritam........

2007-07-31T13:50:00.000-04:00

for some added publicity for

http://www.speaksanskrit.org/campus

http://vishvavani.blogspot.com

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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 :)

poems.....

2007-07-28T19:44:00.000-04:00

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

www gc

2007-07-19T15:05:00.001-04:00

www la - lv

2007-07-19T14:54:00.001-04:00

www sf -sd

2007-07-19T14:39:00.000-04:00

www big sur

2007-07-19T14:28:00.000-04:00

www -yosemite

2007-07-19T14:14:00.000-04:00

pics from the wild wild west trip :-)

ins(e)pi/aration

2007-06-20T12:06:00.000-04:00

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)

കാവ്യയുടെ കവിതകള് - 1

2007-06-17T15:58:00.000-04:00

keeping an old promise :)

read http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2007/01/blog-post.html for background info

കാവ്യയുടെ കവിതകള് - 2

2007-06-17T15:52:00.000-04:00

click to enlarge

why don't they just gettit ?

2007-06-08T17:15:00.000-04:00

pic: http://www.hinduwisdom.info/images/couple_hindu.jpg

every year as the world celebrates the valentines day in its own way, the sena in maharashtra "celebrates it their way by breaking up a few shops and burning a few effigies" as one of my friends put ( not quoting, but the idea....)

arguably, the v-day has quite a christian/western influence on it, ...
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/holidays/valentines_day.htm

in fact, i should rather rephrase it as , its another of the lovely native traditions, taken over and christianised by the church .. even the commie run "The Hindu" admits that
http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/yw/2003/02/08/stories/2003020800020200.htm

The association of St. Valentine's Day with love and courtship rose from coincidence of the date with the Roman festival of Lupercalia. The festival is believed to have been in honour of Faunus, the Roman god of flocks and fertility. Also known as Lupercus, he was worshipped in a temple on the Palatine Hill, and the festival was celebrated on February 14. The festival survived until the 5th Century A.D. The Christian church ended the feast of Lupercalia, transforming it into the feast of St. Valentine

That doesn't surprise me, for the church is known for such take overs..... some people believe that even Dec 25 was some kind of local festival, which was taken over by the church...

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

anyways, the point is, for the sena, how good (or rather bad) is it to oppose a festival celebrating love ? amongst youngsters... even from a cultural perspective is it not better to indianize the day .. start organizing something special for couples in nice, safe and culturally acceptable community places.. never mind how many come in the first few yrs... if you make it attractive enough people will eventually shun bars and dance clubs .. those who still go to the latter places, well you can't change them anyways...

or may be pick another day - hindus have so many festivals anyways, and many celebrating love- and make it popular as an occasion for couples and young lovers...........

to put it in short, i never got the logic behind senas breaking up shops ....

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

and now, even more enigmatic is the demand to ban orkut..... !!

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jun/08spec.htm

lol, what kind of logic is that ?! ... in one go, you are going to create thousands of young enemies... minus may be some who spend way too much on orkut to the level of addiction, and will be thankful to u for saving their lives :-)

how do these people manage to completely miss the pulse of the youth every time ? why don't they gettit ?

I wonder, how the party continues to get support, even from among the youth ? may be they do lot of good work otherwise, especially in cleaning up the filth of mumbai .. or may be the threat given by the islamists in trying to turn mumbai (and parts of mumbai i hear has already been) into numerous mini-pakistans, is so grave and poeple there see the sena as the only force which can stand up against it....

or is their some other reason ? that indeed people are seeing through the commercialism and the westenrisation motives behind the v-day ? am i the one not getting it ??

*******************************************
talking about orkut, its interesting to see some people (and this includes my friends and relatives) put "spiritual but not religous" .... "religious humanism" and so on in the religion column ! interestingly some of these "spiritual but not religiuous" people are hardcore temple goers !! and i bet those who put "religious humanism" have know clue what it means(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_humanism ) ... its just a fashion at best !!

but then, i would not fully blame them either, for over the years the media and the intelligentsia and our dear p-sec politicians have managed to create a psyche that calling oneself a hindu is a matter of shame..... alas they forgot to teach us that hinduism is indeed the basis for all spirituality, that it encompaasses all humanism and that it indeed is "right-liberalism" , an option that orkut fails to give !! much as it fails to recognise sanskrit as a spoken language !!!

happy weekend

150th post

2007-06-06T11:12:00.000-04:00

I got the following paper clipping as an email attachment, with a note

Please see the attached article by Shri Gurumurthyji on M F Husain's paintings. The Indian media has carefully shielded these provocative paintings from the public eye, while espousing the noble cause of 'artistic freedom'. Gurumurthyji has done us a great service by getting them published. Now, the public can see for themselves and decide whether this is artistic freedom or sexual perversion.

Please see also a related link: http://www.sanatan.org/hussaincampaign/painting.php

and recently i got another email from yaajushi ( her pen-name, i guess)

http://www.hindujagruti.org/news/article/mf-husain-campaign/m-f-hussain-selected-for-raja-ravi-varma-award.html

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

for now leave it to others to handle mfhussain (issue), and i for once drift into memory lanes... how i used to take time off during my final semester at iitm (which was relatively free with only two courses and final year btech project) to transcribe some very informative talks..couple of them Gurumurthyji's and some of which are available now at http://pramodkumar.voiceofdharma.com/index.htm ..

i must have done close to 10 of them.... from cassettes to a piece of paper... and most of them, i used to take to the li'l shop outside the velachery gate to be typed up into a word document... it was just 10 rupees or so for typing up a page... and another 5 rupee for a print out (something like that)

the only catch was that my poor handwriting added to to the villagers english necessitated, a thorough word by word correction later on... to the extend that after a while i prefered typing them up myself in the vels shop (they were also happy about it as they can do some other work, while i paid the same or close to the same fee)

anyways, here is one particularly favorite one of mine .. and i am inlcuding the google link to show how popular it has become http://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+Intellectual+Scene+in+Post-Independence+India%22&hl=en&start=0&sa=N

And this particular comment, pays off for all the hard work i did in my IITM 8th semester :-)

http://www.aspirationsindia.org/dec06/article6.htm

This is one of the most thought provoking speeches about India in recent times. Delivered by Mr. S.Gurumurthy, who has been a lateral thinker and an intellect, has put together thoughts about our very own country, about which, many of us have very wrong impression...Some facts stated here are really stunning. This is truly an intellectual piece, which coincidentally has been on the most popular e-mail forwards. Read it with patience and see how it changes your mind....

How i wish i had that kinna energy and time these days !!

"will Sanskrit go from America to India?"

2007-06-05T13:09:00.001-04:00

pic(k) of the day

2007-06-03T17:11:00.001-04:00

Found this pic in the Keralakaumudi online edition !! Minister for "education" in the Communist govt of Kerala, M.A Baby , unvealing a statue of Saddam Hussain to be erected in Kanyakumari !! Looking at the similar poses , yours truly has one doubt - which one is real, which one is the statue ? Or are they interchangeable ? like in terror and ruthlessness ..........

two blogposts..

2007-05-30T16:25:00.001-04:00

Here are two blogposts, related to Kerala, which I enjoyed reading

1) http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2007/05/me-in-pioneer-on-demolition-man.html

I used to not like Achuthanandan for in addition to being a commie, his speeches seemed way too artificial and political for me, but that perhaps was just his style. If not anything else, the 80 some CM has surely proved to be an action man. I shall wait and watch

2) http://stochastic-blah-blah.blogspot.com/2007/05/temple-entry-to-everyone.html

Ranjith has looked at the issue from various angles.. It also has a mention of yours truly and the good old Meera Jasmine petition. One thing I ardently hope is that the commies do not get credit for what is an internal evolution within Kerala-Hinduism...

अवशेषजीवनस्य प्रथमदिनम्

2007-05-20T08:05:00.000-04:00

ह्यः वस्तुअतया मम एकम् दायित्वं समाप्तम् ! DC प्रदेशस्य संस्कृतकार्यकर्ता रूपेण ! अतः अहं चिन्तितवान् किन्चित् स्मृतिमार्गॆ सन्चरामि इति !

यद्यपि अस्माकं सम्स्कृत कार्यम् पूरवमपि आसीत् तदापि मम तावदधिकम् दायित्वम् तु 2007 दिसम्बर् मासे एव आरब्दम् ! तस्मिन् मासस्य 17 तमदिनान्के अहम् सम्स्कृतकार्य “पुनरुधारणर्थम्” आदि शन्कराचार्य नाम्न चलनचित्रस्य प्रदर्शनं कर्तुं निस्चयं कृतवान् ! Dec 24 वयं मॆलितवन्तः ! केवलं 5 एव आसन् ! राजॆष् महॊदयः (अत्रस्य सम्स्कृत भारती चालकः) अहम् एकः नूतनः कार्यकर्ता (अविनाशः) अनन्तरम् अन्य द्वौ !!

सार्धवर्षानन्तरम् हयः - May 19 – यद्दा वय़्म् मॆलितवन्तः दशाधिक जनाः आसन् – कार्यकर्तारूपॆण ऎव ! सार्धवर्षे वयम् बहवः कार्यक्रमाः कृतवन्तः ! अत्र पश्यतु – http://www.sitekreator.com/speaksanskrit ! मम मनसी सन्तॊषमपि अस्ति दुखमपि अस्ति ! सम्स्कृतसॆवनार्थम् यः अवसरः मया प्राप्तः तदर्थम् अहं कृतार्थः ! अपि च मम परमॊपाहारः अस्ति मम “नूतन” सम्कृतमित्राणि !

इत्तोपि अधिकं कार्यं करणियम् मया ! इदानीम् मम स्वप्नः अस्ति May 19 2008 (बुध पौर्णमि) आरभ्य् June 3 2008 (गनॆशचतुर्थी) परयन्तम् 108-दिनस्य सम्स्कृत यत्रायाः आयॊजनम् करणियम् इति ! एकः वर्षः अवशिष्टः अद्य आरभ्य ! आश्चर्यकार्यम् अस्ति अद्य प्रातकाले उत्थया अहम् एवमॆव अनतर्जालम् द्ष्तवान् मया सम्पूर्ण आदि शन्कराचार्यः चलनचित्रम् प्राप्तम् http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1047087149251803384 !!

पश्यामः किं भविष्यति इति !! स्वप्नदर्शनार्थ्ं कमपि धनं दातव्यं खलु ? अपि च यथा अब्दुल् कलां महॊदयः वदति “स्वप्नात् भवति चिन्ता ! चिन्तायाः भवति क्रिया”

suppressio veri suggestio falsi

2007-05-18T14:04:00.000-04:00

Dear Shri Raman

I appreciate you coming up with a quick article on the mosque blasts... And the appeal to muslims not to get intimidated ..

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/18raman.htm

In the above article you have quoted samjhauta blasts as a "targeted attack" on Muslims ..

However in a previous article you had mentioned that

It seems that while the majority of the 68 passengers killed in the explosions-cum-fire in two coaches of the Samjhauta Express at Deewana, near Panipat, on February 18 were Pakistani nationals, more Hindus than Muslims were killed.

Source: http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/feb/21raman.htm

What is the truth ? Why are the Nationalities and the religious affiliations of the victims of Samjhauta blasts not made public ? Were most of them who got killed Pakistani Hindus ? out of the very few who are left out ......

thanks and regards

.... an old love... after 5 years :)

2007-05-14T23:43:00.000-04:00

Alternate link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5400627457371871580

May 11 thoughts

2007-05-11T20:39:00.000-04:00

( Note: see my last years May 11 post at
http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/05/as-another-may-11-approaches.html )

So..... the nuke deal discussions still continues.... personally, like last year, i face mix of uncertainties and hopes ahead eventhough of a different nature... and above all, elections are in the news

The UP elections, not only proved the exit polls wrong for the nth time in a row (in fact i can't really recall a major election in the recent past where they were any close.... gone are the days of the prannoy roy accuracy of predictions) , but also, i feel vindicated my belief of a "hindu vote bank" ... to take a term from the british-imposed vocabulary - "upper caste hindu vote bank" to be more specific ..

See my previous post at http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/11/fc-votebank.html

Mayawati rightly tapped into it - into the FC vote bank , while still keeping her harijan vote bank intact ( because mulayam and congress were too busy wooing muslims, and the bjp never really made much inroads.... ) . I think congratulations are dew to her .. and she will be one of the most watched political figures atleast for some time to come... hope she does not mess with a birthday bash and a tajmahal sale ... and needless to say, any kind of divide and rule

Like many others, I too wish that the caste politics is eliminated at some point, but then, as long as it is there to stay (and that may be a loooooong period), its perhaps better off top to see results like this where Hindus of various castes come under one banner, one party, than seeing them fight with each other... after all, one is told that indeed thats the ultimate aim of hindutva - to unite hindus above caste barriers.. and its perhaps good that such a goal is not just promoted by one "parivar"....

lets wait and watch - whether its up or down in UP....

May be the month of hopes...

2007-05-01T09:43:00.000-04:00

April ended hectic - between thursday and sunday I had driven about 1000 miles, criss crossed the NJ Turnpike some 6-7 times and had an average of 4 hrs sleep for 4 days continuous, and all of this while continuing to have a bad allergy induced cold, and body pain... but it was fun, lots of it ... and hopes for future....... and shall I say I ended April or start May - with a new addition to my life - a SONY VAIO notebook... thanks to Kalyan for guiding me thro' a good deal - a notebook + printer/scanner + 3 yrs service contract - altogether for effectively 800$ ! ....

Some how, I have always liked the moth of May.. May be (!!) its the transition to summer , may be its the beginnings of new phases, may be its the "May 11" of the Pokhran and the Somnath fame,.... may be may be...

Yup, lifes changing fast for me, and will soon know if the Verazzano bridge will indeed isolate me atleast partially in a looooong island ...................................

Quoting Patel - my birthday mate

2007-04-16T20:25:00.000-04:00

Swapan Das Gupta brings forth a very interesting quote from Patel, in
http://www.newindpress.com/sunday/colItems.asp?ID=SEC20061116074405

And here is the full debate from the Parliament of India website
http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/vol5p9a.htm

and I quote

(To the Muslims on the issue of reservation for "minorities") You have got what you wanted. You have got a separate State and remember, you are the people who were responsible for it, and not those who remain in Pakistan. You led the agitation. You got.it. What is it that you want now ? I don't understand. In the majority Hindu provinces YOU, the minorities, you led the agitation. You got the partition and now again you tell me and ask me to say for the purpose of Securing the affection of the younger brother that I must agree to the same thing again, to divide the country again in the divided part. For God's sake, understand that we have also got some sense. Let us understand the thing clearly. Therefore when I say we must forget the past, I say it sincerely. There will be no injustice done to you. There will be generosity towards you, but there must be reciprocity. If it is absent, then you take it from me that no soft words can conceal what is behind your words. Therefore, I plainly once more appeal to you strongly that let us forget and let us be one nation.

To the Scheduled Caste friends, I also appeal: "Let us forget what Dr. Ambedkar or Ms group have done. Let us forget what you did. You have very nearly escaped partition of the country again on your lines. You have seen the result of separate electorates in Bombay, that when the greatest benefactor of your community came to Bombay to stay in bhangi quarters it was your people who tried to stone his quarters. What was it ? It was again the result of this poison, and therefore I resist this only because I feel that the vast majority of the Hindu population wish you well.. Without them where will you he ? Therefore, secure their confidence and forget that you are a Scheduled Caste. I do not understand how Mr. Khandekar is a Scheduled Caste man. If he and I were to go outside India, nobody will find out whether he is a Scheduled Caste man or I am a Scheduled Caste man. There is no Scheduled Caste between us. So those representatives of the Scheduled Caste must know that the Scheduled Caste has to be effaced altogether from our society, and if it is to be effaced, those who have ceased to be untouchables and sit amongst us have to forget that they are untouchables or else if they carry this inferiority complex, they will not be able to serve their community. They will only be able to serve their community by feeling now that they are with us They are no more Scheduled Castes and therefore they must change their manners and I appeal to them also to have no breach between them and the other group of Scheduled Castes. There are groups amongst themselves, but everyone tries according to his own light. We are now to begin again. So let us forget these sections and cross-sections and let us stand as one, and together.

Vishu Aashamsakal

2007-04-13T05:47:00.000-04:00

Its April 15th this year in Kerala.... but 14th here in US (NY Panchangam ??) . For the sixth straight year, I miss my favorite Malayalam festival.... of padakkam and Kani and Virunnu...

imagination or....... ?

2007-04-08T22:42:00.000-04:00

call it too much of imagination or tiredness ...

but then....

read this sequence of events once,

---------------------
* Rajiv Gandhi "meets" an italian woman - sonia

* marries her, she is accepted into India "most powerful family"

* soon, sanjay gandhi dies

* maneka gandhi gets thrown out of the family

* indira gandhi dies

* sonia's hubby is now indias PM ... but soon he loses his popularity.. its no more a unipolar party politics in india..

* sonia's husband gets killed ... in an event where she did not accompany him

* Two of the parties, young and dynamic leaders die in "accidents" - madhavrao scindia and rajesh pilot

* and finally, the complete control of the party as well as the "most powerful family" is in her hands ...

* and the saga continues...... the (erstwhile) young turk of of kaangress, pranab, gets injured in an "accident" ..

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

Ummmmmmm, now assume that Sonia is indeed, a well trained, self motivated , mole , plotted into the indian system by some agency... and reread the above sequence.... is it just my fancy ?

And now, Rahul Gandhi, "meets" a Columbian girl ... deja vu, all over again ?

Kerala makes a stronger case !

2007-04-05T16:08:00.000-04:00

Cannot stop wondering why I can't find much details about the grounds on which the Allahabad High Court gave the "historic" judgement on the status of Muslims as minorities in UP.

http://www.centralchronicle.com/20070406/0604001.htm

This news item does mention about the population data, and quotes a figure of 18.5% Muslims in UP (even though I tend to believe that the actual percentage is far above this official figure)

A) Let us assume that population data was indeed a major judging factor

The "National Commission for Minorities Chairman, made a comment that even if its 49 against 51, it should be considered a religious minority... in other words, heads I win, tails you lose.. That indeed is stupid, eventhough the question remains as to what is an agreeable percentage ? In the absence of such a number, if we go by comparison, Kerala stands a stronger case where christians and muslims be denied the minority status and thereby all the privileges "given" and "given by interpretation" under articles 29 and 30 of indian constitution (quoted at the end of this writing) . For here are the figures for Kerala

Hindus constitute 56.20 per cent, Muslims 24.7 per cent and Christians 19 per cent of the total population as per Census 2001 of the State

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

B) Now let us assume the other way around.

In fact, even though written by a Muslim author, i found some of the following arguments from an article on the net, quite reasonable

Majority’ and ‘Minority’ are classifications non-numerical in character, based on the criteria of dominance or non-dominance in a given society or nation-state....... Definition equates dominance with the majority and non-dominance with minority groups. A non-dominant minority at times may outnumber a dominant majority and conversely a dominant majority can outnumber a non-dominant minority as well.

Hindus are in fact a "non-dominat minority" outnumbering a "dominant majority" in the whole of India, and in particular in Kerala. Doubts ? lets refer to a study conducted by the communist "shastra sahitya parishad" . http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/825415.cms

While a privileged Hindu family owns only an average of 0.69 acres, a Muslim family owns 0.77 acre and a Christian family, 1.264 acre. The report published in September this year says only 80.1% of Hindu houses are in a livable condition, less than that of Muslims (89.7%) and Christians (83.6%)

Would be interesting if this judgement can have any effect in Kerala (a PIL ??) and how the communist govt would react to it !!

Addentum 1:

from Indian constitution

Article 29 Protection of interests of minorities(1) Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same.(2) No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them.

Article 30 Right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions(1) All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.(1A) In making any law providing for the compulsory acquisition of any property of an educational institution established and administered by a minority, referred to in clause (1), the State shall ensure that the amount fixed by or determined under such law for the acquisition of such propertyis such as would not restrict or abrogate the right guaranteed under that clause.(2) The State shall not, in granting aid to educational institutions, discriminate against any educational institution on the ground that it is under the management of a minority, whether based on religion or language.

Addentum 2 :

Some of my friends asked me if this is good news or not.. Of course, from the fact that Imam Bukhari has already decided to challange it in SC, one can easily judge that its a good one.. But indeed, I guess they were refering to the fact that the population has indeed come to a no: where Muslims are no more a minority.. my reaction - well, truth has to come out, at some point

Another point raised was that if the SC also approves the judgement, whether the govt will go for a Shah Bano kind of legislation ? well, nothing can be ruled out with the MMS govt ( no it does not stand for Man Mohan Singh, it stands for , as I have mentioned previously Madama Maino Sonia )

The Bangladesh situation

2007-04-02T14:00:00.000-04:00

Nope, I am not talking about world cup cricket !

For background information on recent developments, read the following

1) The take over of the interim caretaker government(s) , oct 06 to jan 07 and jan 07 to present

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006%E2%80%932007_Bangladeshi_political_crisis

2) The execution of the six militants recently

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6509163.stm

3) The most recent ( google news says 5 hour old news) statement by the army

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6517887.stm

---------------------------------------------------------------
A few observations

a) Both the "fallen" out nations from the old india - pakistan and bangladesh, now have military govts. not democratically elected ones ..

b) is the failure of democracy to be attributed to the fundamental islamic character of these states ?

c) from the army heads statement, it appears that like pakistan, this one also may continue for a long time to come.. unless of course, a pro-jihadi revolt happens either within the country ( and a possible civil war) or, who knows, may be within the army

d) why hasn't such a revolt happened within pakistan and its army yet for so long ? is it because of external pressure/influence ( US), or is it that fact that at some level the establishment continues to support things which the jihadis like to see ? like sheltering taliban/osama, and to continue to bleed india ...

e) if point d) is valid, then would the new bangladeshi regime and the now-influential army also go the same way at some point (and if so what will that imply for India) ? Or will they continue to take a tough stance against the jihadis as they have seemingly done in executing the six militants ?

mmm.... lets wait and watch .. meantime, interesting to read the way al jazeera covered the news

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/55BB8885-E916-4C42-9B65-1820E1EFC761.htm

comments / thoughts welcome.. me not a bangladesh expert, just a casual reader

gauravamaakunna bhiaravayuddham

2007-03-28T15:39:00.000-04:00

For the sake of my non-Mallu readers, this is an "intellectual" (sic !) fight thats brewing up between a (Hindu) reporter from MalayalaManorama (the biggest circulating malayalam daily and traditionally known to be anti-communist in addition to being being run by christians) and the communist intellectuals ( excuse the oxymoron) of kerala ....

all those who can read mallu, I will let you enjoy... to me, more than anything else, it shows the ability of the commies to "veenidathu kidannuruluka" by playing around with words not knowing what they are talking about, and the low levels to which their "intellectualism" have stooped down to, and yet, ever willing to pick up fights in the even of the slightest criticism. The few reasons they still survive in kerala are

1) caste politics

2) a very corrupt, minority appeasing and infighting ridden kaangress ........
and an insignificant and inefficient bjp

3) cos they still very well into the "we don't wanna work, we just want strikes" attitude of lots of mallus, still ...

And thanks to my Bengali friend, Ms. M.B for sending me this link.. which I believe is quite appropriate here

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/26726.html

read on.....

Hey Raam

2007-03-27T15:50:00.000-04:00

HAPPY RAMNAVAMI TO ALL !

Did I notice something curious ? Its about 4 pm EDT in USA - I go to google news and type ram navami .. I see greetings from Kalaam, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.. However, I try all possible combos of man mohan singh, prime minister and so on, and nothing turns up.. Did the i***rt****te conveniently forget to wish ? Or was it such an insignificant one that it was not worth reporting in the media ? Do we need to rename it "Al- Raam navami" or something ?

Well, I may have missed his greetings completely, but I would not be surprised if it actually was never there... for thats what psecness is all about, right ? just take a look at the "US-Indian Embassy holidays" for year 2006

http://www.indianembassy.org/New_Template/embassyholidays.asp

4 for Muslims, 2 each for Hindus and Christians, and 1 each for Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists !!

"March" ing the madness !

2007-03-23T11:11:00.000-04:00

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12 hrs after this post : Did I go overboard a bit and scare my friends ? With this post, if I gave an impression that something seriously gone wrong, I am sorry... the intention was not that.. I had gotten a couple of questions, and also a comment in the previous post, asking why no updates for close to a month - things have been a bit unpleasant for me, and I could never gather the mood for a post.. it was a bit hectic times as well.. and I just wanted to bring that out, but alas, I might have ended up scaring a few friends. It was a good feeling tho' to get a phone call, checking if all's well with me ... :-) ... yes, things are just quite fine.... thanks all, and await some non-personal usual kinna posts next week :-)
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Its so ironical.... last years month of March

http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/03/march-to-april.html

And this years, things have gotten, shall I say, worse ...(one reason why posts were missing from this space for long) . Well, in the least, my I can say, my life took a sudden diversion this month, drastic changes to follow soon -- I don't know what that implies...

Started off with an intention to test waters, but I did not expect to have landed myself in a path so different from what I thought I wanted to do in life... - good or bad, I donno, but there goes....
life's like that, they say

And to add to the wound, was the news of the death of a good friend of mine... aaah, not surprisingly that I am reminded of last years March ..... and yes, as the cold has started getting the better of me, blocking my nose and itching my eyes,.... I have started counting the days....

Am I upset ? Am I depressed ? Can't say "no" to both, but I shall move on, taking whatever life offers, and hopefully that also means, back to regular (atleast weekly once a week) posts

subhashitaas for the month

2007-03-23T10:44:00.000-04:00

car AJs

2007-02-27T21:49:00.000-05:00

Q: If instead of running on fuel, your car were to eat food, what would you call it ?

A : carnivorous

Q: If MUL (Maruti Udyog Limited) were to manufacture such vans, what would they name it ?

A: omnivorous

Q: What kind of cars does the Pope like ?

A: convertibles

Dr Subhash Kak

2007-02-19T15:01:00.000-05:00

The debate seems to be heating up regarding Dr Kaks paper on Twin paradox... Going with the same line as Rajeev took on his blog, I must say, I do not have enuf theoretical physics knowledge to judge his paper...

http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2007/02/fwd-lets-congratulate-mr-subhas-kak.html

But I want to mention two points .. not at all related to the debate on about his paper, but related more to him as a person - two instances, and I think tells a lot about this wonderful personality

1) I first met him in december of 2001, at a Chinmaya Mission function.. that must have been just for a few minutes... I happened to suggest his name for the CM annual banquet, and so I got a reduced price student ticket for that :)

I exchanged some mails with him after that... the next time he met me was in July 2003.. I was at the Global Dharma Conf booth, Dr Kak walks to me and says, "Hi Arun, How are you ?" .. I was dumbstuck ....

2) Much before his paper actually got accepted, he had sent me the work.... I feel so lucky that some one as famous as him, actually took his time out to keep me informed !! again speaks volumes about his humility, than of course, any potential theoretical knowledge that people think I may have :) .. and even though i cud not respond (my head was spinning after reading the paper) , later when it got accepted, he again shared the good news with me as well.. and finally sent me the actual journal link

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

From: Subhash Kak
To: arun

Arun,

You must be aware of the famous twins paradox of relativity theory.Recently I offered a resolution that allows one to determine whichobservers will age, and which won't: http://uk.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0605199 I have received positive response from several physicists. I thought you and your friends would like to know of it. Let me know what you think.

Subhash

---------- Forwarded message ----------Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2007 15:49:55 -0600From:

Subhash Kak
To: arun

Subject: Re:

Arun, here's the online link:http://www.springerlink.com/content/e4670q159464473r

S.

Musharaf the genius !

2007-02-19T14:32:00.000-05:00

Dear Sri Raman

Quoting you from http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/feb/19raman.htm and http://www.saag.org/papers22/paper2142.html

I am strongly against the Indo-Pakistan peace process as carried on by the present government. It is playing into the hands of Gen Pervez Musharraf and his horde of jihadi terrorists whom he and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence have been using to make India bleed. At the same time, I am against postponing the so-called peace process because that would be interpreted by the terrorists as a major success for them.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but if the scenario is as follows

1) The peace process in itself is pro-pak .. oppossed by people like you

2) Musharaf uses his terrorist counterparts, to make it look like they are against it... with some blasts.. even people like you are now for not cancelling the talks, in order that the terrorists don't win

3) and so finally mush himself wins.. on the one hand, "his" peace talks now has a sympathy from even you, and on the other hand, he looks good in front of the world, for the terrorists appears to have attacked "his" peace process

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

Is there no counter to this genius called Mush ? Or is it because on the other side there are two players - Mush and the islamists (eventhough they ultimately want almost the same thing) , and on this side, there is only one - and that also, a weak and minority-appeasing govt ?