imaginathon

I think I want to title this post: Seasons Whiches

2006-10-24T02:45:00.000-05:00

When you return after a long break there are thousand and one things to talk about. But some things take priority over others. So here's whiching you a Happy Diwali and here's whening you all a very Happy Eid too :D

All those who have been waiting for a good time to hit on that Muslim girl in your school/college who won't look at you from the corner of her scarf, waiting for your auspicious stars to align (or atleast for the crescent of the moon to become visible), and frantically searching for Eid shayaris the last minute to send it her way thereby shooting up my sitemeter, here's a quick outlink: Kashif Hoda's page on Eid shayaris.

It's difficult to come out of a long hiatus. You have this mega blog-post writing itself over and over in your head before the next news cycle comes and goes leaving a wreckage of new words and thoughts in its wake.

Before you get yourself immersed in work nosedeep.

Before someone in some corner of globe screws up and decides to make life more difficult for everyone.

Before The Dumb One decides to come up with another of his gems (“[I] define success or failure as whether or not the Iraqis will be able to defend themselves. I define success or failure as whether schools are being built or hospitals are being opened. I define success or failure as whether we’re seeing a democracy grow in the heart of the Middle East" - moronic f**ker of idiotic proportions, The Chump can't even decide what he wants to redefine).

Before you think you've seen all of Dylan there is to see, and out of nowhere one more genius recording pops up out of nowhere keeping you entranced for days (ping me if you want to go down yondering Puerto Rico).

Before you took a surprise liking to totally electronic rad punk-goth music you never thought you would like at the Austin City Limits. Before you pulled over at grocery store parking lot and engulfed in the live awesomeness of Van Morrison's "Gloria". If there is ever (is there?) a compilation of "Best Live Music", this ranks up there right next to genius that was Johnny Cash live at Folsolm Prison.

Before you realise every new day, brings with it a ban on some hitherto unimaginable things of everyday nothingness. Ban on moisture, ban on spinach, ban on bread-spread Vegemite, ban on American kho-kho, ban on this and ban on that; and soon you are wondering hey whatever happened to the post about Idiocracy you were supposed to write. In some twisted over-the-top bathroom-humour fashion it's really a future depiction of what America will turn amount to in near future if left unchecked. That probably explains why Fox doesn't want you to see it and exactly the reason I took a chance on my $8 and came out laughing and notlaughing both at the same time.

So you have all these things going over on the side and you keep shifting the topic of your comeback post, all in your head. Waiting for the next good free day to blog it all. And one day, after too many similar days have passed, you decide to take a quick peek at your blog, and you see someone "whiching you a happy eid" throwing you into bottomless pits of uncontrolled laughter and forcing you to write whatever the hell you can manage to string together from your backup memory while simultaneously calling friends and relatives all over, whiching them their share of greetings, while also helping out (or atleast pretending to help) The Beghum in preparing sheerkhurma and sweets.

This blog ain't dead yet :)

Till then,
Happy Witching!

A million broken hearts: Rumours of Area man eloping with Area girl found true

2006-04-29T06:09:00.000-05:00

Bombay - Rumours of local area man Suhail Kazi about to elope with one local area girl have been confirmed true by various local news agencies Wednesday. However there is no official word yet from the man himself and repeated attempts to reach him over email or phone by our local correspondent failed.

When the news first broke out thousands of flickering hearts, who had crush on this Calvin of a man went into collective national grieving. A few who couldn't bear the shock have been hospitalised and admitted to ER. Doctors are constantly monitoring the quality of their heart beats. Google's search zeitgeist has been swamped with searches originating from India that are overwhelmingly similar to "sad dukh bhare ghazals" and "dil tootne ki shayari". If the situation is not brought under control in the next few days, chances are that for the first time in it's history Google might run out of result pages to serve all the incesssant "Next" clicks.

Reactions have been coming in thick and fast, ranging from the broken hearted to the outright violent outbursts.

"It's all over", sobbed Fatima, 25 (name changed) from Chinchpokli (place changed) as she concluded "How can he do that without so much as dropping a hint?" (while we are at it, quoted text also changed). On asking whether she had ever met Suhail or conveyed her feelings she replied in the negative. Similar are the strange stories of thousands of other jilted girls from all over the country who blame him for playing with their hearts. It is too early to guess how exactly such a situation first came into being. Some of these girls have started unionising, protesting under the banner of "Dukhtaraan-e-millat" and planning to start an online petition in a last ditch attempt to dissuade him from taking the plunge. The influential ones are pulling strings at AIMPLB and AIWMPLB to intervene in this matter and some are generally threatening to "show him" when he shows up (actually some of his long time friends are also threatening to "show him" for keeping it a secret, but since this post posits itself as a serious article hence we shd immediately come out of offtopic parentheses). Some spurned beauties have even crossed beyond the bad news acceptance cycle of 'shock, grief, acceptance, move on' and have turned violent resorting to guns and whatnot. They are out there on the streets in an attempt to track down the runaway couple and we have no idea what they plan to do next.

Wrinkle-foreheaded aunties who have been eyeing Suhail in social gatherings and marriages in the last few years and uncles with balding plates who have been tracking his job moves with the sole intention of setting him up with their eligible daughters were surprised to hear this news. "I was waiting for him to return from Austin, but who knew he had his own plans in place", lamented Abdul Kader Chiplunkar, obviously missing the catch by two nautical miles. "But he is a fine man, I wish him all the best", he added, before he proceeded towards the seas to catch some shrimps for the day. Mariam Gondhlekar, 53, mother of Mehjabeen (27), hailing from Ratnagiri now working as a teacher in Andheri (all details changed) recounted in Eastman colour how she ran into him once when he dropped by into the ladies section in a marriage ceremony searching for his mom. She recalled, "I enquired about his studies. He was six years old and looked so chubby-cute then in his favorite blue shirt. I wonder if he even remembers tricking my little Mehjee into giving her share of falooda icecream by pointing her to an airplane in the sky which was never there". Mehjee, who is now all grown up, standing by her mom's side managed to give us a smile even as she continued gazing an empty pale gaze -- this time to the Gods up there in heavens.

The news first started doing the rounds through several blogger friends. "I suspected he was onto something when he started using too much shayari in his emails", suspected one such friend who wishes to remain anonymouse; "When I asked him, "dude what's up?" he simply replied, "nothing Yunus and winked back"". Some friends who hacked into his gmail and Blogger account found several draft messages with the subject lines such as "Thank you SMS technology", "Five ways to run away with future wifey" and an attachment that included a txt file called myownshers.txt. Another close friend confided "Suhail has been searching for Qazis who can run through a nikaah on the fly. He told me he was doing a story for his blog on such rent-a-Qazis after encountering similar searches on his statsmeter; but who knew he was collecting this info for himself".

This plan of eloping has entirely flummoxed both the families as none of them had objected to the marriage anyways, preparations for which have been going on for quite sometime. There has been no reaction from any of them so far as they have been reduced to muted open-mouthed gapeness. Though Shiv Sena shakha pramukh Raju, and area karta-dharta Haji Ghani from Teesri Galli, have taken it upon themselves to look into the matter.

The news is being received with mixed reactions in some other quarters. President of Bachelors Unanimous Club, Waahid Eklaa says, "He was a key member of this club. Though he hated participating in our ever-popular KeepApartmentSmelly, PileUpDirtyDishesInSink and wearyourshoesallthewayuptobed activities, he was the most active member of our sms-at-2am, keepLoggingInAndOutOfGmail, goInvisibleOnY!Msger clubs, as well as the founding member of our tricks-to-make-your-lentils-taste-different-everyday egroup. He also had this uncanny ability to write long emails peppered with (boring) shayaris, a disease hitherto unknown to bachelor species". Waahid thinks that though this news might affect the morale of existing members in the short term, and will result in unfortunate removal of the world's best egg-burjhee from the palate of dishes served in future club events, but it will have no negative impact on the growth of the 30 crore strong club that receives new membership applications by the truckloads.

A. Jilani, Secretary of Bombay chapter of the Now Cometh The Camel Under The Mountain club -- recently renamed from its Hindi translation -- greeted this news with open arms in an advance potluck party thrown Sunday to mark the ocassion. Three married fellows once again abused that cliched line, "Every man should get married once. After all happiness is not the only thing" behind their wife's backs. Everybody partook the same buffet lunch they've been having every third boring Sunday of the month.

Given the random unpredictable nature of this man clubbed with his tendency to keep playing pranks, it remains to be seen how this ends in the next few days. However for sure those thousand broken hearts ain't got no luck left behind. We found clinching evidence at his apartment, where true to his software skillz, as a memento he left behind a patch update to be applied on all bodies affected by this news.

Tagged: Truthinest? Partially? Humour? Suckage? Lame? Eh! Heh! Hah! Teeehoooo!!!
See also: Area man in Delhi for two days.

Delhi, help me get this dictionary

2006-04-27T15:38:00.000-05:00

I will be in Delhi on 7th and 8th May. Can you help me find the foll. that I've been desperately looking for?

It's an Urdu-to-Urdu dictionary (& maybe English too?). In urdu 'dictionary' is called 'Lughat'. The name is either Mohazzabul-Lughat or it is of the form, Lughat-e-dashdash or dashdash-e-Lughat, something like that. But chances are, the title includes the word 'Lughat'. I saw it few years back in a book fair in Bombay, but I was a miskeen student then (and 25 paise xerox from Chembur for stupid copy-paste assignments eats up all your pocket money, even though everybody knows we can do without them). Methinks it was from a Delhi publisher. Multiple enquiries in Bombay bookshops has returned nothing. Since then it has been there on my to-buy list.

It's a set of 12 (10? 15?) hard-bound volumes. Each book is quite thick and heavy. Has a classy timeless make and feel to it. The outer cover is probably black with golden border or navy-blue with maroon border patterns....that kind of a book. The kind of binding you see on encyclopedias, law books or WorldBank reports kept in the library corner. What's special about this dictionary? For each word - or atleast most words - there is an Urdu sher (verse) that goes with it. You can make out from my description that all the details are a bit hazy, but for this sher-o-shayari part. I have already tortured two friends over it, but they haven't met lady Luck yet; so deciding to throw this out in the vast wide web hoping that the Internet will do its job.

So come on all you Delhi peoples, deep down in your heart you know you've been waiting for such an opportunity to score brownie points over Bombay ever since you had your fourth Happy Birthday party. You don't want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime chance to finally settle the argument with a visiting Bombayite how cool Dilli is, do you? Step out, use your skillz to zip through city using the world's best metro, named after Delhi as Delhi Metro, and point me to that hole-in-the-wall in Urdu Bazaar or bookmall in poshville where can I buy this.

Even otherwise, despite shamelessly sitting on your lazy behinds and not feeling an iota of remorse for not helping me get this dictionary, feel free to ping me on kazionline ATwhatevergibberishpeoplehavestartedputtinghereAT gmail DOT com, preferably with your contact number, if you can justify ~~wasting~~ investing some of your precious time with me on any of these two days. It's a hectic schedule, so I can't confirm for sure as of now; but I do have plans to meet some friends and bloggers, so probably can setup some time on the fly. From my side I promise I'll desperately attempt to fake my way through to appear more all-knowing and less boring than the impression you've formed about me from reading this blawhg.

Thankoo.

Jesus loves You Too?

2006-04-11T21:13:00.000-05:00

The Guardian's Culture Vulture blog has a good piece speculating Bono's chances of making it to the Papacy considering how U2's music is being picked up at some churches. But that's just the tip of the iceberg compared to the comments that are a laugh-riot. Sample these :

- The problem with Jesus Christ is that he thinks he's Bono. ~ Father No
- According to certain Baptist ministers in the US Bible Belt, if you play U2 albums backwards, they sound all f****d up. ~ Father No
- Who's the guy in the little white hat next to Bono? ~ Bishop Basher

Do read it. Even some of the anti-Bono hate comments are well articulated and are a cause for much merriment.[1]

No such doubts for our very own Sheikh Gawker. He is the new prophet and he ain't laughing coz one of his rare true stories was parodied, cartooned and done to death in Saudi Arabia.[2]

Anyways, the Guardian thread for whatever reasons reminded me of BBC's endearing R.I.Ps, where they give a loving farewell to things and events of the daily mundane. eg: This ode to Mars chocobars or Kent cricket ground's Fallen Tree. The comments in them are almost always ultra-funny pithy one-liners taking them to an altogether different level. (There you go, again, my productive 30 mins)

God bless the Brits. I sometimes wonder in amazement, how could a people as good-natured, erudite, fun-hearted and with such endearing funny accents as Brits could rule half the world by force (I know, I know it's a sweeping generalisation, but still..you know like.... ummm whatever).

In some other weirld news, your McD drive-thru orders are now taken at a call-center located miles away -- cool down fanboy, it's still inside US -- and then relayed over the intarwebs back to the kitchen. Next they are coming up with an automated system wherein you just speak your fatso order into the dumb machine, and if your burger is not ready in 5-mins, then you'll be able to simply dial a 1-888-McD-HELP number from the drive-thru help booth located nearby and enter your 15 digit password to wait 15 mins while cheapo poor man's Mozart plays in the background, whereupon pressing 3-2-0 will take you to a customer service agent who can take your complaint and track any discrepancies if your French fries were not brown enough. As you can clearly see, this will give a whole new purpose and meaning to mankind's already shallow and empty (stomach) existence.

Perhaps, given that it's a NYT article, many of you would readily dismiss it as some kinda sensational truthism. But let me assure you that you have no reason to suspect what I just found while searching for my tickets back to Maatrbhoomi. It seems the Onion guys sent in their bunch of investigatve journalists and l@@k what they scooped out: Our desi Air India will now offer Business Caste Seating. Read their comprehensive ground-breaking 6-part report -- before it appears on TOI tomorrow next to a Gurucharan Das piece -- on how Praful Patel and his high-society buddies will benefit at the expense of tax-payer's money.

And even as I type this, American news channels are competing to announce that World Prez Bush's approval ratings are marching to a steady beat, up from an abysmal 51.5% last year to an impressive career highest at 32% - a first for any American President. His spinmeisters are going dungho that this time they will leave 'no stone unturned' (now available in a rephrased shiny four-word packaging "No Ground Left Behind"), even as on his way up he waved past by the wimpy Dohmocrats hung at a lowly 48%. Eh? Now when did that happen? One insider from inside the Beltway commented, "This President office has been so active in reforms and putting America back into the future. Never in the history of any Presidency have we seen such a massive engagement by the peoples of America in the day to day running of the nation so early into the term. He has woken us all from our deep slumber. He is The One" (ofcourse, Bono, Keanu Reeves and some Latinos won't agree) The Dohmocrats, never the ones to be flying high for long, are chalking out a strategy to turn the tables and beat the Prez in this freefall game. Across the Atlantic, entire Iran and much of mid-East erupted in joy to celebrate this long awaited piece of good news. This was evident in the 21-cannon honorary salute given to welcome IAEA into their nukulear facilities by Mahmoud 'Holocaust-is-a-truth' Ahmadinejad and his friends. Impressed by this show of camaraderie, Prez. Bush in a reciprocative gesture announced the diversion of billions of dollars earmarked for edumacation of American children towards supplying all Iranian kids with their first experience of fully democratized and independent parent-free orphaned life. A life free of past troubles, free from worries of the future. It doesn't get any more freedom-er than this. Brit PM Blair is expected to join with a "Yes" anytime soon in this good deed.

And when it's good news all around, can Pakistan be far behind? To mark the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammed, a family welfare organisation in Karachi has decided to adopt 57 (as of this writing) homeless people and rehabilitate them in a shelter for the rest of their lives. If all goes as per plan that number can shoot well above one hundred.

Recently a friend uttered a nugget of wisdom on chat, which seems like a good ending for this post. He said, "I sit and think. Sometimes, I just sit".

In the last one year

2006-04-08T21:04:00.000-05:00

1. We completed one year of clogging the Internet's drainage pipes and watering Larry and Sergey's lawns. Should we yippee-yay? or should we nay?

2. We won $omething for writing this writeup, proceeds of which we donated. We felt a wee bit goodie for doing our thing for World Peace.

3. We also received one anonymous sweet little thing from one of our closet admirers, asking for, gasp! ahem.. our hand in marriage. A looong and terrific email dropped in our Inbox around the same time probably from the same(?) person. Being a Kazi ourself we don't know how to respond to such notes. Also, you see, we don't do nikaahs over the e-webs. Anonymous admirer(s) whoever you are, if you are reading this, let's just say this much: Thanks, but no thanks. hic!

4. We realised quite recently the exacto-preciso usage of the appendums 'sic'. One keeps learning, our mom says. Yes, we do have a suitably embarassed expression on our face to show for it. Otoh, we are also thinking of asking partial refunds from our school. But Miss D'Costa wouldn't be too pleased if she knows the heights of arrogantism we could reach. Also, she was charming and we cannot ever do such a thing to her. However we also have mixed feelings about so many thousands of pupils, even brighter and smarter than us, who are still out there in the wrong woods. "O' ye Quingleesh, where thee hiding, when we seeketh thou". So that others can learn from our mistakes, the good samaritans that we are, we hereby put forth a proposal for an activism group called, 'Save Teh Sics', something on the lines of Apostrophe Protection Society. How's the idea ye fellow cloggers?

5. Oh, and we also managed to complete one year of stay in Austin. Don't ask how we completed two one-years together in one one-year period. But we know it means that tis the time to be coming back to Motherland and soak ourselves in Bombay's pleasantly sunny weather. Enjoy a ride in the 6pm Virar local passing through the scenic Mahim-Bandra belt, or simply immerse ourselves in the neato bylanes of Kalbadevi. Lots of travelling to do and many blog friends and other people interacted over email needs to be face-putted-on, and celebratory rath-yaatras arranged by AdmirersAnonymous societies in our honours to be blessed with our eternal graceness. More details of our tripping to come later. (AA from 3. above, we don't know you from Adam's Eve and have no idea who and where you are, but we are open to a meet if you the interested. not in that way. simply justa meet ?)

Celebration-e-Mehdi Hasan

2006-04-01T21:42:00.000-06:00

My new pal, Mohib Ahmad, maintains an aweseome Urdu poetry website, Aligarians. He's gradually building up a huge collection of Urdu shayars, ghazals, their translations, popular renditions of these ghazals sung by famous singers and - to me this is the best part - recitals of these shers in the poet's own voice, sometimes with videos. The wah-wahs and subhanallahs in live mushairas just make it so much more better (eg: chk out this video of Khumar Barabankvi reciting "ek pal mein ek sadi ka maza").

Every few days Aligarians.com has a special series on one particular artist. This time it's Jashn-e-Mehdi Hassan, famous Pakistani ghazal singer, from 1-15 April 2006. A fortnight of beautiful ghazals and nazms sung by him. Don't miss the Flash radio player on the sidebar where he posts a new composition everyday.

If you are into sher-o-shayaris do take a look at the site and while you are at it, write him a note of thanks.

Do It For The Kids

2006-03-29T18:27:00.000-06:00

If you are lucky to be in Austin and if you switch to KLRU on your TV tonight then somewhere in the background you might just be able to catch The Kazi Boy. Others please find and support your local PBS station.

So what are you waiting for? Pick up the phone and call the toll-free number on your screen now to pledge your support.

We are working late to serve you better!!

Lawrence of Arabia

2006-03-23T05:15:00.000-06:00

Out of the very many NGC, PBS documentaries I so voraciously consume, every once in a while I come across a particular documentary which literally blows me away with its sheer brilliance. This PBS documentary about British officer T.E. Lawrence was one of them.

Once Upon A Time
The story starts with young Lawrence's first journey to Syria as an undergraduate student of Oxford exploring remains of castles and historical archives. Soon after graduation he accepts a job as an archeologist and returns to Carchemish, Syria. He has already established his reputation as a wanderer and historian by walking hundreds of miles across deserts and interacting with Arab communities. Working alongside local Arabs recruited as labourers at the excavation site he starts getting more and more involved with Arab culture and its people. Dressed up in Arab attire he cuts a rather cute figure. Here he befriended a waterboy, Dahoum, an Arab whom he trained as his photographic assistant and learnt Arabic from him. There is speculation -- you saw it coming, didn't you? -- that they shared an active gay relationship (What's up with these historic figures in that almost everyone seems to have some kind of hidden skeletons? Let's not go there, which I am sure is a matter of great import and a source of bread-and-butter for historians).

During this time he learns about resentment brewing in the Arab ranks towards the Turks who governed them. Around the same time, someplace else, European nations are planning for the First World War. Britain, France and Allied nations are preparing to launch an attack on Turkey from the west, whereas Germany wants Turk's alliance in exchange promising them arms and to develop trade routes(esp. railways). As all great historic events come to pass, this route, the Hejaz railway by coincidence falls alongside Lawrence's excavation site. This is about to mark Lawrence's role as link between the West and Arabs. He starts documenting each and every other thing about this project in great detail.

The Arab Revolt Against Turks
On commencement of World War I, with his two brothers joining the British army, Lawrence too lands a gig with the British military's intelligence division in Cairo (his archeologist position affording him a convenient legitimate front). He starts off by sending notes and photographs about the rly project as well as surmising the Arab geo-political scene. As he grows in stature, he is deputed to work with the Arabs and help in an Arab uprising to destabilize the Turkish enemy. The agreement between British and Arabs here being, that after the war the Arabs will get independent rule on their own land. It is here that Lawrence's experience comes handy. He meets Arab leaders with his proposal and gains their confidence, Emir Faisal in particular, to revolt against the Turks. Some tribal historians say his on-the-ground role in the actual revolt alongside Arab forces was limited to beng a technical expert in improvised exploding device(IEDs) helping to blow up Turkish military supply trains and raiding their outposts. But it's clear that he's much more than that. To the Arab leaders he was the British liaison officer, and one amongst them, who supplied them gold and guns. To the British generals back home, he was their eyes and ears, dressed in military green on the Arab scene. Simply stated, this role fit him like a glove. All the while Lawrence maintains a personal account -- and going by the excerpts in this DVD, there is no doubt that he was an excellent writer and a story teller -- which is later to become his autobiography, 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom - A Triumph'.

The Arabs go on to win some regional battles against Turks. However things are not hunky dory as The Empire wishes. France, the proverbial bone-in-the-burger (kebab mein haddi) won't let the British have it all. They claim their slice of the Middle-East pizza. So they set out to do what nations did best during war times. Carve out a secret deal with the British. The British, ever the shrewd opportunist made a deal, the Sykes-Picot agreement in which they totally ignored the agreement with Arabs (made via Lawrence). This news of British two-timing gradually leaks out to Lawrence throwing him up in a dilemma. At once he decides to write up a protest letter. However he fears that disclosing this news to his Arab hosts might bring down the curtains on the revolt. He never delivers the letter and continues working with Arabs in their war. The Arabs are on fire and they can't smell the smoke.

Betrayal
At this point we are told - largely based on his own autobiography - that Lawrence believed he could fulfill his promises to Arabs despite the secret deal. He reasons that if the Arabs could win Aqaba followed by Damascus then he could still cut a deal for them. However I am a bit inclined to believe (and perhaps I am incorrect, but when did that stopped a man from having uninformed hunches?, so pls correct me if you know better), that at best Lawrence was a cunning diplomat, and a military officer simply serving his masters keeping up his pretence of alliance. That this grand delusion that Lawrence had built up in his head about ensuring an independent Arab state was nothing but perhaps his own romanticism of potential heroism given the pivotal role he's playing, mixed with an attempt to lie to himself so as to mask his guilt for betraying the Arabs. He writes, "I had to join the [British] conspiracy".

Fastforward into the war, Arabs with Lawrence and support of other Arab tribes (Auda in particular; his granddaughter is interviewed in the film) go on to win Aqaba and Damascus. Parallely on the western front Jerusalem falls into Britisher's laps and Lawrence joins them in the celebration. All the while Arabs under Emir Faisal's leadership, naive as they were then, are counting on British to keep their word. But the bitter truth has to be ultimately disclosed. The Arabs make a disgraceful retreat from Damascus with their tails between their legs ("haath tau aaya, muunh na laga"). There will be no Arab state, atleast not with Palestine in it. And it is here, once again, that Lawrence tries to look the other side. For a man who wrote in extreme detail about each and every event of his journey leading to the war and beyond, one who meticulously described and photographed each castle, rock or rivulet he came across, for someone who was Faisal's translator during this historic meeting -- for a man of such impeccable credentials, is it merely surprising that he makes no mention of this most important moment? That his only remark about the event is, "I was too exhausted"? So even if we are to believe that he was in some sense sympathetic to the Arab cause due to his closen relations with Prince Faisal -- and there is ample evidence of that too -- he didn't speak when it mattered most.

That said, to his credit, after the war Lawrence went on to write articles pushing forward the Arab stand. However since popular opinion is against him, the papers started editing his letters. Perhaps a reminder to all of us that history is written by the victorious. That it's not as cut-and-dried as we'd like to think. He did make a final attempt to get Prince Faisal into Paris Peace Conference in 1919, however nobody would give them a hearing. The Europeans were then busy making peace with Germans at the end of WW-I, and an independent Arab state was not even a blip on their radar. As a way of displaying his anger and resentment, he also refused a medallion of honour or two awarded to him by the British military. This caught the attention of then Colonial minister, a certain Winston Churchill. (God bless his quotilicious soul).

Laurels for Lawrence
Now comes the most surprising part. While all this is happening, nobody outside the establishment knows much about Lawrence. Like thousands of others, he is yet another distinguished British military officer who performed his duties. He is simply T.E.Lawrence.

Trust an American journalist to fill the gap. Enter journalist, and filmmaker Lowell Thomas. Soon after the Jerusalem win, he filmed Lawrence over several days in Sheikh Faisal's desert camp, in Arab costume, riding horses and camels, meeting Arab leaders..he taped it all. A plastic war shot on film for mass consumption. He's now suddenly transformed and thrust onto the global stage as "Lawrence - The Uncrowned King Of Arabia". The movie Thomas made became hugely popular, so much so that British foreign office starts fearing for Lawrence's life (since Turks are after him, and amazingly they don't know how he looks like). However like most of us, while basking in his new found popularity Lawrence is not all comfortable with it. Thomas remarked about Lawrence, "He had a genius for backing into the limelight".

The End
For the rest of his life Lawrence kept on moving between several defence jobs including one at Royal Air Force. As an advisor to Churchill he was involved in 1921 Cairo conference, where as a consolation Prince Faisal finally got Iraq and his brother Abdullah got Jordan. Towards his very end, Lawrence went into a shell. He took up a holiday home and gradually shut off communication with the outside world ("from now on, I'll write fewer letters", he replied to those who wrote him). His house had a Greek (or Latin? or somesuchthing) inscription that read "Don't care".

This five foot something with a huge history chip on his shoulders, had a rather flippant ending in a road accident. Trying to avoid two cyclists while doing 100kmph on his motorbike (apparently he loved speeding), Lawrence finally said goodbye and set out on the last of his journeys.

maut ne zamane ko yeh sama dikha dala
kaise kaise rustom ko khaakh main mila dala
yaad rakh Sikander ke hausle to aali they
jab gaya tha duniya se dono haath khali they

~ From the Qawwali, "Chadhta Sooraj dhereey dheerey" by Aziz Nazan.

About the documentary
Two experts in the documentary that I want to point out are biographer Suleiman Moussa, and ex-foreign minister of Jordan Kamel Abu Jaber. Sometimes 'experts' in documentaries can sound quite boring and a bit too academic. Not these men. The speak their heart out with passion and authority. And everytime they come on screen, they bring a certain energy into the whole mix. Especially Suleiman Moussa with his hands waving all over and enacting the events to us as if it's all happening right in front of him. Watch out where Moussa says, "Damaaascus whaas the praaiz" -- the million-dollar glint in his eyes, and a sudden ecstatic shift in his tone is simply priceless. He totally draws you in. Put a beard on Mousa and he could very well be my grandfather. All this is set to a pitch-perfect warlike background score and a heavy deep-throated narration. The documentary also has some excellent B&W photographs and 10fps jumpy-skippy footage of WW-I. Mix all this together and the finaly pkg you get is nothing short of excellent!

Further Reading
Comprehensive PBS Resource on Lawrence of Arabia.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom : A Triumph -- Lawrence's autobiography
Wikipedia on Lawrence and a good site for photos: both, his photos as well as photos taken by him.

To end this, I'll just say that if you are in the US and don't watch PBS regularly, you are losing out quite a lot. It's a free-to-air channel so you don't need outrageous $60p.m. cable connection and it's fully viewer-supported. And it has zero or very v.minimal ads in the programs . What more could you ask for! I will perhaps write a separate post about PBS and the public library system here. There is a lot to be said about these two great institutions.

ps: As I finish wrapping up this post I have an email from PBS to volunteer for their pledge drive coming Sunday. I am definitely going to land up there, and will write up a post on that experience too.

Out and about town - SXSW

2006-03-19T19:32:00.000-06:00

Fustofall, a lightning photograph that I was lucky to capture from my aptmt. Not perfect, but come on guys it's lightning we're talking here.

Last night I went to check out some South by Southwest live music. The good thing about live music, as I discovered after having listened to a few in the past here, is that even the crappiest band can come across quite decent. The good ones come across extra-good. So we were in downtown listening to an assortment of bands that came to Austin from all over the place for the music fest.

a) No name American band: Overall good music. One of their tracks went like:
~!@d$%#r^&*u#$#m@%#^#s*$#g!@u*#i!#%t!@a~!#@r#*
~!@d$%#r^&*u#$#m@%#^#s*$#g!@u*#i!#%t!@a~!#@r#*
away..away.
away..away.
~!@d$%#r^&*u#$#m@%#^#s*$#g!@u*#i!#%t!@a~!#@r#*
~!@d$%#r^&*u#$#m@%#^#s*$#g!@u*#i!#%t!@a~!#@r#*

b) The Longcut, UK: These guys were the bestest of all. No smalltalk between numbers. No testing..no ding-dong. Forty straight minutes of pure genious on guitar and drums. The mp3s don't do justice to their rockaliveous performance. But if you like rock, you must absolutely check out "A Last Act of Desperate Men" and "The Latenight Bus" in that order.

c) Division of Laura Lee, Sweden: As much as I hoped it not to be, the inherent hollowness of this band's name found its way into their music. They were some kind of shit metal band. I don't listen metal, plus they were too much in the nakhra dept. One of those bands which tries too hard to get the audience on the edge by continously asking, "so guys, how's it going? you enjoying, ha? eff you!". Now if your music is good you can pull it off. If you are bad it comes back to hit in your face. One of their stupid tracks was supposed to go like:

Lead motu vocals(groaning): Do you love me? do you love me?
Crowd + sidie singers : Yeah we love you! Hell! we love you.

Instead, it went like this:

Lead motu vocals(groaning): Do you love me? do you love me?
Crowd: (silent and like huh?!?.....)
Sidie singers(moaning): Yeah we love you! Hell! we love you.

As you can see it was quite a hilarious BackBroking gay party up on stage for those five minutes. At the end of it all the leads guy got so frustrated, as a last face-saving attempt he faked a pseduo-show of crashing his guitar. Too bad even that he wasn't able to pull off. Everybody in the audience saw that behind the speakers kept on the stage he meticulously loosened the strings and unplugged the chords. They exited rather unceremoniously.

d) Rock-n-Roll Soldiers, Oregon: John Lennon's ghost will come back in a flowing Surf-ki-safedi white gown from his New York grave and stage a candle-light protest with Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono outside the White House if you told him that this group of punksters call themselves rock-n-roll. However if you discount the genre identity issues, their music -- all rock, no roll -- was quite good given that all the dudes looked like they were just out of high school. Whatever they lacked in music and work-experience they more than made up for it in the 'ooomph' dept. The lead vocals was a Chinese or Japanese dude(there, that itself is +10 on the hipster scale), fully Americanised by having his jeans torn down at the knees to show his uber-punkness(+2). One guitarist dude was lefty. Leftists are always cool(+3). The third guitarist wore a wrist band like Ejaz Ahmed(+1). Their album is called, "So many musicians to kill"(+15, we all know there are so many bad musicians out there). The drummer I thought was acting a bit too much, what with his eyes and mouth wide open throughout. But to his credit he justified the labor pains his mother underwent by actually crashing out his drums for real and threw the sticks around at the end(+5). If you consider the number of yuppie dudettes falling all over them after the show as a measure of success I guess they were the winners.

So that was my weekend.

If you are a Torrent Nazi, you can now choke your hard disks with clean legal copies of all the music from all the bands played throughout the week(either full songs or samples) from SXSW music fest here.

My fatwa beats the hell out of your fatwa

2006-03-15T00:24:00.000-06:00

Tis the fatwa season and we Kazis, muftis are charging overtime. Even before the last fatwa goes on the wire and outta the presses, a new one pops up from nowhere. You gotta give them some love, these freshly minted Muslim brothers who keep on egging and prodding the moulvis with leading questions. This one's brought to you by the good guys (sometimes also referred as pseudos). And since it's pretty difficult to get photographs of such events I just sketched out one myself. From Rediff:
--------
A 'fatwa' against terrorists attacking places of worship

A leading 400-year-old Islamic seminary, the Darul-Ifta Firangai Mahal on Monday issued a 'fatwa' against terrorists targeting places of worship and killing innocent people.

The Lucknow based institution issued the fatwa on an application moved by local businessman Sajid Umar, who had sought Firangi Mahal's verdict on the issue.

According to Firangi Mahal chief Maulana Khalid Rasheed , who was also the Imam of Lucknow's Idgah, "Sajid Umar wanted to know what Islam had to say about those people who were attacking places of worship and killing innocent people in cold blood."

The Maulana ruled, "There was absolutely no room for terrorism in Islam and murder of one innocent person amounted to murder of entire humanity."

.....While emphasising that, "Islam has always laid stress on peace and harmony," the Maulana's fatwa added, "If any Muslim causes harm to any place of worship of indulges in killing of innocent people, Islam would regard it as the worst possible crime and the Shariat would consider it absolutely unlawful."[link]
-------

For a 400 year old leading seminary, I've never heard of this place. But as long as it's anti-anti I am cool.

Elsewhere Sani Mirza is all set to team up with Israel's Shahar Peer. I am waiting for some Noor Mohammed from Hyderabad to get all worked up about Islam's position on the same.

[Crossposted at Indian Muslims. ~~Some problem with uploading the image there~~. Please be gentle with the crappy artwork. God knows I've touched MS-Paint after years and Miss D'Souza from Std V(Div E) knows I lost second rank cuz I failed in my drawing exams]

Area man goes nuts, breaks into yet another group blog

2006-03-02T04:38:00.000-06:00

March 2, 2006
Austin, TX: A local Austin area blogger, Suhail Kazi, 11 (name changed, age not) has gone berserk and hacked his way into one more colla-blog Tuesday. Given that this is his eighth such attempt in the last one year, makes it much more special just like his second, third, fourth and pretty much every other attempt. Speaking to RightOn! News correspondent, Suhail, an Injun Muslim said "I don't know the exact what, when and hows of this. I've never cracked into these kind of systems before so this is kinda new for me. I'll try not to suck much and finish it off fast".

According to intelligence available from regular anonymous sources, at this point it's not clear if this is going to distract him from his prolific 12-posts a day on his own blog where he writes searing diatribes and hot-headed opinion pieces. "I see it as a placeholder", pausing briefly to make a placeholder gesture with his hands, "for errm..ahem...placing some of his ocassional Muslimish pieces there", said Evan Dimitri, a researcher from UT Austin on inter-blogging affairs.

It must be noted here that the last time Suhail joined a successfull group blog, DesiMediaBitch, he went on to steal their Google Adsense earnings. This resulted in a total collapse of its finances leading to the blog's shutdown and forcing his friend and founding member fadereu to go underground. Fadereu now lives his life as a depressed marwari mujaahideen in exile, trying to separate gullible audiences from their money while making a circus out of his new novel.

Minutes after realising that they've been hacked, the admins of Indian Muslims announced a prize of 1 crore to anyone who could get Suhail off their roster. Inorder to aid in this attempt, they've hired Haji Yaqoob Qureshi of the 51 crore fame as their single-point of contact for their fund-collection drive.

Zigzackly, the one-man neighbourhood Collablog Watchdog Community chief, warned that the blogging community needs to keep a watch on him as he mucked up with stuff last time he forced his way into one Mumbai collablog. "The blogging community needs to keep a watch on him as he mucked up with stuff last time he forced his way into one Mumbai collablog", he warned.

It remains to be seen how this event plays out in the coming days. But you can bet your last penny that RightOn! News will continue to replay it back to you.LULI

2006-03-02T03:29:00.000-06:00

You'll never get such a strong moving piece of writing in your daily newspaper. Annie Zaidi on street harrassment.

Austin Foggy Photos

2006-02-22T13:37:00.000-06:00

It was quite foggy yesterday and streets were bathed in a soft orange glow. I grabbed my cam and went out late night to grab some shots. All the photos were taken handheld with Nikon D70. All orange blobs are regular halogen lamps. I'd give an arm and a leg if you can somehow change that to late evening sunlight. Click on thumbnails to enlarge. Comments/tips for improvements welcome.

Besharam Ki Balla Duur....

2006-02-21T10:47:00.000-06:00

...maaro chappal aaya noor. ~ My Mom.
(When hit by a sandal a shameless person will say it brings shine onto his face)

Aap aaye bahaar aayi, kela khaaye dhakaar aayi ~ My friend Sharique.
(you come spring comes, eat banana burp comes)

Der lagi aane mein tumko, shukr hai phir bhi aaye tau ~Andleeb Shadani
(Better late than never)

Chat with Amit

2006-02-20T00:49:00.000-06:00

Amit Varma had his gmail chat status set to "sdrawkcab gnitirw". So I pinged him:
----
me: (-: ?yhw
Amit: ?ton yhw
(;
me: doog oot
{-:
Amit: ok, back to normal now!
Phew
how's things
me: (;?noos os ?pu evag.
yea.good.
Amit: [smile]
me: I think if everybody starts writing backwards..we'd save a lot of time.
coz every1 would be talking in monosyllables
Amit: yeah. See how redundancies would vanish
me: ofcourse, no redundancy at all.
-----
{-: he ,dooG sI efiL

We need to talk...

2006-02-16T00:07:00.000-06:00

..and then you need to shut up! Yes, I am talking to all of you, calling yourself Muslims going around burning embassies, resulting in deaths. Enough already, okay? How many of you even realise the irony behind the senseless violence against some shitty cartoons. The whole idea behind why Islam prohibits explicit pictures and images of Prophets is to avoid his deification, to remind you that he was after all human. That he was subjected to the same insults and humiliation and was prepared to take it on his chin if required. By your strong idiotic reactions, you, the rioters(not peaceful protesters, rioters) have not only semi-justified the cartoons but in a way also put the Prophet on a pedestal. Had the Prophet been alive, he would have himself condemnded this collective stupidity being portrayed under the pretext of protecting his name and honour. Now I am not going to spray over all his quotes and teachings, but just pick up any book and read the story of his life and read his teachings and read how he behaved with non-Muslims, even those who committed indecent acts against him, insulted him in public; how he won over them with compassion, love and understanding, rather than tit-for-tat hatred, and you'll know what it means. Read the Taif episode. Damn it, go back and read how he treated the old lady, who contrary to her daily practice of dumping her garbage on the Prophet, one day missed to do so. And later when the Prophet went on to enquire about her health, he found to her embarrassment that she was ill that day. Kill with kindness, not violence. That is the message.

So if you want to protest, do so by writing back to the editor. Flood their e/mailboxes. Write articles and give interviews and explain that not all Muslims are terrorists and not all terrorists are Muslims (for that matter tell them there are innocent Sikhs who wear turbans too). Stage peaceful protests and rallies outside JP's office. If they don't apologise, bring pressure on their govts. and the embassy officials in general by using diplomatic means. That is why you have their embassies in your countries you morons. It's not for burning. It's for protesting. It's for giving the embassy staff a welcome break from the routine zombie work that goes on there. To let them know that some rougue elements from their home countries are playing it dirty. So go register a protest. If this doesn't work, form a party and chose your representative. Elect him in the next local council elections or whatever to better represent your side of argument. Don't shout from the top of minarets of local mosque, shout in the assembly hall. If all this still doesn't work, and you think you are a spent force, go home and pray to Allah. You've done your part. Burning buildings and cars and whatever you set your sight on and having innocents killed in the process is only hurting the cause of those who are trying to help the situation. And it's not helping the cause of hundreds of thousands of others who are silently watching this drama unfold in horror and wondering when will this madness stop.

And while we are on the topic, please develop a sense of humour. Yes, quite a few of us need to shed our closed oh-so-fragile humorless ghetto existence, come out of our holes and watch the sun once in a while. Just read the headlines from three different newspapers, and you'll realise there is a lot going in this world that can make you laugh. Ease up a bit. Life doesn't revolve around rituals. The very essence of a a good life is to live through the ups and downs and array of experiences. Otherwise the Prophet wouldn't have stopped you from becoming hermits. Only by interacting with society we'll be able to change ourselves and influence others. That is how progress is made. Even if we concede that these cartoons were not humorous, there are any number of cases where the Muslim community just jumps in to demand apologies at the slightest hint of something they disapprove of. I'll tell you why we need humour. Because humour is a great weapon to deflect shit back on to those who first send it your way. But alas, as of today, it's too much to ask from Muslims to do that and to dream about such a state is to delude oneself in an utopian world. One lives in hope.

To Jyllands-Posten and all those who reprinted the cartoons
You have as much right to print those cartoons as some people who are protesting by boycotting products from your country. I understand it's totally idiotic and unnecessarily harsh on businessmen from your country who have nothing to do with you, but under the circumstances you and your governments haven't left any room to negotiate on their behalf. You can't screw around with Jack and ask for Jill's hand in marriage. No siree, Jack and Jill tumble down together. So please save your tears. Too bad those businesses who export to Islamic countries are suffering the wrath on your behalf while you go on paid leave. World economy is increasingly getting globalised. So if globalisation has its benefits, it also has its downfalls. This is one of them. Atleast it will make the business class on either side, who are losing their revenues, to show some stick to their respective govts, to take steps to avoid such things in future. Boycotting products by using this broad-brush approach is the least desirable method, but when you insist on not letting it go, then you can't cry when you receive such an extreme response.

Ofcourse, there is absolutely no defense for burning embassies, rioting, the works and it should be strongly condemned without mincing any words.

Amidst all this mayhem and bloodbath, very few people have pointed out the real reason why the cartoons are offensive. And increasingly I am seeing more and more Islamophobic venom spreading across discussion forums, and many neutral observers who have nothing to do with this are coming across with just one side of the view. All along you've been hearing that the cartoons are offensive just because they depict Prophet Mohammed in a pictorial form, right? Right? Wrong! Many of us understand the need to illustrate religious figures in drawings and pictures. We also understand the need to caricature and desire to express it in a parody, humour or satire. We understand your freedom to be not bound by regulations of Islam. We are not idiots, we understand all of that. I am sure if the editors of JP would have simply portrayed the Prophet with a turban walking under a hot sun in some la-la-desert land with some Arabic-camel-humour spin on it, none of this would've happened. But this was not the case. Their goal was not to be funny or stand up for free expression but to be provocative and offensive, and hence it was laced with choicest Islamophobic bigotry. After all why was there a need to have a time-bomb ticking on that turban? And mind you not just a simple turban, but one which has Islam's first line (kalma) written on it. By God we don't need no more towel-head violence. JP, you know it very well. Don't act as if you are unaware of it. Don't tell me that you are unaware of Denmark's controversial history about anti-Muslim-immigrants hostility. And no less than your queen has publicly called upon Danes to "show opposition to Islam". Had she asked to fight the radical elements, I would've stood next to her, but by opposing the whole of Islam, she's also opposing me. Last I remember I have done no wrong. And I think of myself as a good Muslim. So suck it up. And let's not even go down your past where you declined to print anti-Christ cartoons because it could "result in an outcry" because I don't believe in this tit-for-tat equal opportunity hate against all. Under such circumstance don't expect me to stand by your pseduo-struggle of freedom of expression. Free speech doesn't exist in a vaccum. It doesn't exist even in your bedrooms when you are with your wife. Try telling her that she is fat. Or that you cheated on her. And later excuse yourself by throwing the "I was just being funny" line. Hell will hath no fury for the rest of your unfunny lives. So how can it exist when you are dealing across borders and religions. Absolute free speech exists only on a mountain top. All your arguments to the contrary are baseless. Just ask anyone in France who wants to make anti-Semitic statements. Ask anyone who wants to deny Holocaust(as idiotic an idea as it already is), in those European nations where it is a crime to do so. Even the well acknowledged Iranian rad prez can't deny Holocaust in his own country without someone raising a stink? Then why do you think you are above all of that? Ask this guy why was he arrested for protesting against the cartoons in a manner similar to what you choose, by dressing himself up as a fake suicide bomber. After all he was simply dressing up in reality the way you portrayed him on paper. Where is the need to get offended by it? Ask the relatives of 7/7 victims why it hurt their sensibilities to see this guy's photos. Damn it, ask Beverly Young, wife of Repubican representative C.W.Young who got arrested at Bush's annual State Of The Union speech for wearing a T-shirt that said, "Support Our Troops - Defending Our Freedom". How ironic is that? If you still want to go ahead and defend absolute free speech sure proceed ahead. But if you do that you are a moron, unarguably, and I am only exercising my right to free expression when I say so. Yeah, take that!

Thanks to both of you, JP & ilk and those who are rioting, my life will be much more easier the next time when I fly, or board a train, or admire the intricate design patterns in museum domes or simply roam around downtown streets on a lazy Sunday with a camera in hand. My life will be easier if I ever try to read Urdu poetry in public. My life will be easier when I introduce myself to a group of people and quite naturally some of them take a special liking to my surname. If not my celebrity skin colour or frail short terrorist like body structure, I am double-checked because I sport a Muslim name. And so is the case with million others like me. To hell with you'll if you think all of it is just a coincidence.

Having said all this, in hindsight in some twisted sense, there is some positive take-out from all this. It brought out moderate Danes who stand for Another Denmark. It brought out a multitude of moderate Muslim voices who are Sorry for Norway and Denmark. It brought out peaceful protesters by thousands who are there to voice their anger in the right way, who are writing petitions and articles all across trying to engage in a dialogue. Sure, they are outnumbered by the radicals, but atleast this time there is a semblance of quite a motley group of sensible individuals.

Jyllands-Posten & ilk: You may now resume your post-cartoons life defending the "free speech" for the rest of your existence.
All you rioteers: Shut up already and get a triple dose of humour like there is no tomorrow. And this is as good a time as any, so read this:

"I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today."
~~~ Now that's funny (or not) by my fav. quotist-who-never fails, George Bernard Shaw.

Shout out for Hossein Derakhshan

2006-01-25T01:28:00.000-06:00

Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan is visiting Israel as a citizen journalist and peace activist. For those who haven't heard about him, he paved the path for Iranian bloggers by first posting a How-To on Persian blogging using Blogger's free service. From then on Persian bloggers have literally taken off. He and his Iranian journalist and blogging friends have got into trouble with the authorities time and again for their anti-establishment stance. Last November he was also denied entry into USA because of his blog which was checked right at the USA-Canada border. I believe his blog is currently blocked in Iran.

A fine journalist not afraid to speak his mind and one who's clearly influential over the Iranian cultural landscape, Hossein says:

"As a citizen journalist, I'm going to show my 20,000 daily Iranian readers what Israel really looks like and how people live there. The Islamic Republic has long portrayed Israel as an evil state, with a consensual political agenda of killing every single man and woman who prays to Allah, including Iranians..."

"...As a peace activist, I'm going to show the Israelis that the vast majority of Iranians do not identify with Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric, despite what it looks like from the outside.

I'm going to tell them how any kind of violent action against Iran would only harm the young people who are gradually reforming the system and how the radicals would benefit from such situation.

During my visit, I'm going to blog in both English and Persian, take a lot of pictures and record numerous video and audio reports and make a few podcasts."

I've followed his blog for quite sometime and I'm eagerly looking forward to his output from Israel. If you feel the same, you too can make your own little contributions by Paypal or simply spread the word. [Link] [Crossposted]

2006-01-24T20:06:00.000-06:00

Forbes made a special attempt by putting two columnists to work and come up with this utterly idiotic take on the whole Google vs DOJ issue: "A public disclosure of exactly how much pornography is on the Internet and how often people look for it--the two data points that will result from fulfilling the government's subpoena--could serve to make the Internet look bad. And Google, as its leading search engine, could look the worst". Huh!?!

Wassup with blind Muslim clerics?

2006-01-23T02:51:00.000-06:00

Slate tries to answer why there are so many blind clerics in the Muslim world(though many in their list can hardly be called clerics, but that's another topic). The high rate of blindness in Arab countries was quite revealing. Ditto the fact that Turks and Egyptians call their blind people as Hafiz/Maulanas out of respect, whether or not they are one. In India similar treatment is given to people who sport beards when they are referred as "Haji saab", irrespective of the fact if they have undertaken Hajj or not or referred as "haapiji"(hafiz-ji). But it's not always out of respect and many a times just in jest or casual banter amongst friends. It's amazing how words are co-opted in different cultures.

Anyways, the article goes on to state that teaching of Qur'an might favour blind people since becoming a Hafiz is just rote memorization. I just have a teeny nit to pick here. I don't buy in full that Hafiza training favours the blind. Creating a subconscious visual matrix is as important in co-rrelating with memories of sound repetitions. That's why most Hafizes use a specially printed Quran, one in which each page ends with an aayaah(sentence). It's called by a certain name which I now fail to recollect. And like others they are also available in different sizes, fonts etc. But once a Hifz student picks up a format, s/he tends to stick to their own copy for years because they've trained their eyes to look at those verses on a particular page at a particular location. Now I understand blind people are strong in other faculties, but I don't think it's to the point where becoming a Hafiz is just a cakewalk for them.

This also easily corroborates with my personal experience when we were forced to parrot through our Q&As in primary schooling years. I used to memorize my answers based on a visual map. And I clearly remember that when I sat down in the examination hall I would recollect not just the answer but the exact page and location but even spelling mistakes, cancellations, underlined words, eraser marks etc where they occured in my notebook. Recalling the position was an automatic and subconscious first step in recollecting the answer. This style of memorization went on atleast till 5th-6th standard, after which "Give ten reasons for World War II" just became a tad too lengthy and we had to come up with complicated abbreviations of first letters. And I know few of my classmates who did the same. This is not to say we didn't understand the concepts, or grasp the topic in question. It's just that our examination systems were a weirdo thing where students were supposed to ingest tomes of stuff and vomit the exact thing back, in an already squeezed hour of speed writing competition, like a laser printer on steroids. Or risk losing those precious three marks out of 100. Anyone who did schooling back in the good ole days knows exactly what I am talking about. I must say that I got so accustomed to it, that for any addition/subtractions under 1000 I still use a visual map of my Std-I number book where in we wrote 1-100, 101-200, 201-300 on grid-lined pages for the umpteenth time(remember?). I find that this pictorial representation works faster for me and even today I can proudly beat any local baniya worth his salt (hello Haroon Bhai, Bombay and Gujju cashier lady at Taj Grocery store, Austin), in calculating how much change they owe me back after they've successfully handed me some lemons.

Coming back to the point of blind clerics -- now that I think about it, I realise that I've never come across someone who was blind to begin with and went on to be a hafiz. Nor have I seen Quran in Braille or heard any of Indian madrassas/mosques having such a copy.

Just an academic curiosity: Have you come across a Braille Quran (all you phoren univ. students, reading this from berkeley.edu and utexas.edu I am looking at you) , or for that matter a Braille Bible, Gita, any religious book? Or a blind-from-birth Hafiz? Any pointers? Thanks.

2006-01-23T00:42:00.000-06:00

There are too many fun facts in this guy's inspiring story. First up he's a lawyer. Secondly he won't lie. Ok, maybe half-truths but not white lies. Thirdly you can hire him for a princely sum of $40, because he's a public defender. Nextly he cleared his bar exam in fourth attempt, because he slept through his law classes and had to beg for D's from his profs. Next-to-nextly he tells his job interviewers that he suffers from ADD and says,"It's not my job to prove they're innocent...It's the state's job to prove they're guilty." Oh and did I mention his name is Charalampos Georgious Demosthenous? With a name like that, the opposition would be on its knees even before the case begins. Hats off Charley and good luck in getting rid of that $17000 debt hole. Down but not out.

Fantastic article on The Socratic Method: Teaching by Asking Instead of by Telling. The author, Rick Garlikov, describes how he succesfully taught basic binary maths (the one used by all digital circuits) to avg. students of third grade class in 25 minutes, just by asking a series of simple logical questions. Bonus points for getting 19 out of 22 students totally involved in it and doing so in a late Friday afternoon session.

2006-01-18T15:18:00.000-06:00

And from our neighbours, Pakistan Times, we have this ultra-editorialising belly-aching, ROFLMAOing, jaw-tearing-apart, mind-exploding Big Bang style, laden-with-hyperbolized-hyphenated-superlatives, basically going totally-gazoombonking-piece - ever - : "WITH this veracity a great and grand nation came into sight on the world Atlas to manifest the charter of the comity of nations—as the silhouette of the UN—hallmarked with an elegant mindset, Love vis-à-vis all and Odium towards none—as well as with the employ of the acknowledged axiom—equilibrium—with live and let others live, as its podium." (thx Quizman)

Dubya beats around the bushsh@*t, stumbles, tries to pick his jaws and brains, then stumbles again. In the process manages to redefine 'sovereignty' and concludes with this gem: "Relationship between federal govt. and tribes is one between sovereignenities". Howlarious!! [Video]

US guvment up for grabs, in an outrageously hilarious going-out-of-business sale held by its trusted agents, The Onions: "The Washington-based government, which hasn't shown a profit in five years and carries the highest debt in its history, was ultimately driven out of business by costly overhead and cheap foreign competitors. As a result, Bush said, everything—from flag stands and Capitol cafeteria flatware to legislation dating from the early days of the republic—will be marked down 30 to 90 percent." Seeing this flood of competition products, NYC has decided to give away their bridge for free.

Dear Pakistanis,

2006-01-15T23:36:00.000-06:00

Your aapas, beghums and ammis have my sympathies. Evenings without fun-filled and educational saas-bahu programmes from Zee,Sony, Star and other Indian channels will never be the same. But boys, pray tell me, why are you blaming PEMRA for banning Discovery, National Geographic and other sports channels? After all they have to be fair to both the sexes. If only channels targetting women were to be banned, PEMRA would be accused of supressing their choice and freedom. Within a week there would be an editorial in NYT or BBC which wouldn't be good for the image of Pakistan. So it's only fair that they've balanced the scales a bit.

In any case channels targetting at us, men, show violence, blood and killings. Haven't you noticed in all modern sports, how they keep hitting each other below the belt instead of going on with the play? And in those Discovery/NGC programmes, when they are not showing animals being chased and hunted by other bigger and stronger animals, or when they are not dissecting teenyweeny insects under the microscope (so much violence...tauba tauba), they are showing documentaries about things that we already know. Like how gravity works. Doh! We all learnt it in 8th Std textbooks. Like Einstein's equation, E=mc2. LOL!! You can learn that from Wikipedia's dead tree editions which will reach remote tribal areas soon. Surely you don't need western TV channels for that.

But what hurts me the most is that in your hurry to slam PEMRA, you have failed to notice one positive fallout of this move. Let's admit it, with all these 35 channels banned, many of you will have enough free time on your hands to twiddle your thumbs till they fall over twice due to wear and tear. So, why not spend some quality time with your families? Why not help little munnas/munnis with their school homework? Go reclaim the evening mehfil with an extra pre-dinner session of kebabs and naans. How about showing your ammi and abbu that you care about them by taking them out to the park? I believe you have more parks and gardens than us, don't you? Take your beghum out for shopping for which she has been pestering you for months.

In one whoosh of a move PEMRA is giving a chance to all Pakistani men to go where no man has gone before. ie to become the most-loved member of your homes. Am I the only one to spot the seed of ingenuity in this? Don't you see?

Bestest,
-Suhail.

2006-01-14T23:29:00.000-06:00

Photographer Alex Tehrani. I like this stlye. Close-up pics freezing raw energy and action in a frame.

You can buy a bridge in New York. For one dollar. The catch? You have to maintain it and can't sell it for scrap : "We have $1 ready to put on the table," said T. Gorman Reilly, president of Civitas Citizens. "All we need is the $20 million it might cost to complete the project."

Urdu poet of Chinese origin. A dentist by profession and settled in Jamshedpur, Yung, 74, has bagged the Firaq Gorakhpuri award for his linguistic talents.

And speaking of Urdu poets, Saeed Naqvi writes : "An Aligarh alumnus, the song he[Asrar-ul-Haq Majaz] wrote for his beloved university was adopted as the tarana, or anthem, of Aligarh Muslim University. This fact itself demolishes stereotypes. In popular imagination the author of the official song of AMU would be an earnest, religious type, possibly even a straightforward mullah. It is a startling paradox that the writer of the AMU tarana, was a poet renowned for his irreverence and, above all, an impoverished wanderer who died in a country liquor shop!"

Reductio ad Commie-ism

2006-01-14T16:17:00.000-06:00

The other day(thx to Neha) I came across Godwin's law which states:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

Godwin has written a fantastic article explaining this law and how he set out experimenting with it on Usenet and BBS. One of the eye-catching links on that Wikipedia page was Reductio ad Hitlerum, defined as:

The "reductio ad Hitlerum" fallacy is a special case of the genetic fallacy, of the form "Adolf Hitler, or the Nazi party, supported X, therefore X must be evil". This fallacy is often effective due to the near-instant condemnation of anything to do with Hitler or the Nazis.

I have a parallel version of it. I am inviting contributions for catchy names..something which beats the aura of Hitlerum, but for now let's call it Reductio ad Commie-ism :
------
The "Reductio ad Commie-ism" fallacy is a special case of the genetic fallacy, of the form "Leftists or socialists, supported X, therefore X must be evil". This fallacy is often effective due to the near-instant condemnation of anything to do with communism or socialism.
------

I'm sure most of you've come across discussions in online forums and blogs where we see the topic being discussed quickly descending into a left v/s right war.

Let's say person A said such and such thing about socio-political topic X. Now readers R1, R2...Rn chip in with their additional comments, views etc. Good.

Here comes dissenters D1...Dn.

D1: Hellish NO. Person A is a uber-left bleeding-red stinking commie. His father in law was a card-carrying CPI member and his wife even looks like Brinda Karat. And since commies can never be trusted, so he must be/is lying. Kick him out.
R1, R2: ummm..no, please give valid reasons.
D2: Well, he made/wrote/funded so and so movie/book/movement which was also supported by CPI/CPM and whose proceeds go to so-and-so leftists organizations. That movie/book/movement was a total one-sided pseudo-secular farce. Hence person A's intentions are malicious and hence he must be at once ignored/kicked out.
R1..Rn: But well, how does that affect the merits of this case X?
D1...Dn: Some more points flying in all random directions, except for anything related to X.

Something similar happened on this post by Abhi at Sepia Mutiny about independent filmmaker Rakesh Sharma suing the NYPD for harrassment and abuse while he was trying to film cabs coming out of the tunnel under the Metlife building in NewYork. Rakesh Sharma himself has commented thice on that thread which has only made the discussion more interesting and worthwhile. This is the meat of that post.

I've been active on that thread and going through it is really a study of how to (or not to) discuss things online and avoid falling in traps set up by people who use the above fallacy. I've watched with anger, resignation and even some amusement as the thread crossed 170+ comments.

Those who might not want to go through the complete thing, let me give you a quick summary of concerned comments with respect to the point I am trying to make here.

At comment #48, someone called hammersickle first mentioned that dreaded 'C' word :

Although what happened to RS does happen to other human beings and not correct in its entirety, but he being a communist might be lying and exaggerating to fight his long time ideological enemy - the imperialist/capitalist New York. One of the earlier reports (when the incident happended last year) said he was continuously taking camera shots of buildings and not taxis.

Note that whichever is that "one of the earlier reports", that hammersickle claims is contradictory to Rakesh Sharma's own version is insufficient for his own argument, even if that report were to be true. Notice his smarty sleight of hand as he slips in "he being a communist he might be lying/exaggerating". With this he has quickly scored two points. Labelled Rakesh Sharma as communist, which he might be or might not be. And labeled all communists as liars.

At #50, comes in another one :

It takes empathy, compassion, self-confidence, concern for justice and due process to show all these qualities that the above two -- (Ed: he's referring to George Fernandes & Kamal Hasan who kept silent while facing similar humiliation) -- displayed. Going by Rakesh Sharma's ultra-left leanings, I would guess that he is wanting in all of these qualities and more.

At #77 and #84, two commenters point out that RSS types(presumably #48, #50) are against Rakesh Sharma, because of his documentary Final Solution, about Gujarat riots/pogrom/genocide (apparently there is a debate on the usage of word too)

At #87, hammersickle is back again informing us to keep a watch on some CPI(M) website how they'll be cheering Rakesh Sharma for suing NYPD.

Some more comments by someone else, who says that Rakesh Sharma has not shown enough of other riots/genocides, or that the title is misleading, hence his motives are in question.

By this time, if you are someone who hasn't heard of Rakesh Sharma before, you have already formed an association between him and Indian leftists organizations. Much of the discussion after this has diverted to whether Rakesh Sharma has shown the whole truth in that documentary or not, by virtue of his being leftist as alleged by these people. I and some others have engaged some of these dissenters with contradictions from their own comments. But as is the norm in all such blog discussions, you expect such questions to be conveniently side-stepped or expect another attempt to bury you under some more of such blabbering.

Somewhere along the way the original topic (ie Rakesh Sharma suing NYPD) and the merits/demerits of that case are totally forgotten. I don't know or don't care whether Rakesh Sharma is leftist or not. All I care is the outcome of it. Because as far as my reading of the law goes, there is no law that Rakesh Sharma violated in this case. And whenever he wins/loses this case, it will set a precedent on how photography/filiming laws are interpreted. And because that is the topic under discussion.

My pique with with this poorly constructed "Reductio ad commie-ism" fallacy, is that apart from taking the shortest route to criticise ideas, it also assumes that a person either wholly supports all ideas on the left or on the right. We leave no room to decide for ourselves individual issues and what is our opinion on it. Instead of targetting at the actual weaknesses of the policies on merit, which even a first time reader can absorb, it tries to take the easy way out with clubbing everything under one banner.

Let's take an example of a current topic going hot in the Indian blogosphere :

Me: I don't think caste based reservations in private organizations is the right way to go.
X: Bang on buddy. We BJPwallahs should really whip Congress with this.
Me: Sorry, I am opposed to ShivSena/BJP/RSS/ and it's fascist policies too.
X: You are a closet hypocritical socialist then.
Me: Why so?
X: Anyone anti-BJP is leftist. Congress is pseudo-centrist, but currently they are aligning with left parties to be in power, so even they are leftist.
Me: But I also think Congress and it's leaders should be punished for what happened in 1984.
X: So, you are a true citizen after all. A son of the soil. But you've been brainwashed with all these jholawallah types. You know you should stop reading Arundhati Roy and Teesta Setalvad.

By now neutral commenters N1..Nn chip in: Here's a link to all political articles from Arundhati Roy. People should read and decide for themselves.

Me: I am yet to finish God of Small Things, but why do you tell me to stop reading them?
X: Because they tell you that Gujarat was all planned and that 'N' number of Muslims were killed which is hogwash.
Me: Are the figures not right? Similar data is also available from independent human rights watch(HRW) groups.
X: Aaaah..these HRW organizations are simply a front for leftist propaganda. They have the ultimate jholawallah, Anant Patwardhan, on board. Don't you see?
Me: What about Amnesty?
X: You see they don't have much hold in India. Plus they are bent on destroying India's image in other foreign countries. So we should not trust them.
Me: So are you saying all thosse reports about murders and rapes I've read are all wrong and planted? Even the stories in IE, TOI and any number of other newspapers and TV channels?
X: Shekhar Gupta and his ilk are in bed with the Congress. They just picked up some figures and magnified them without verifying it. The data might be right, but we should wait and verify before we pass judgements you know.
Me: So how do you know that the data is wrong then? And were you peeping through the keyhole when Shekhar Gupta slept with Congress?
X: Because the data is given by commies and they lie all the time and no I was not peeping through the keyhole, but someone who did told me. Read this link and this comment by that someone.
Me: Um..and..what has all this got to do with caste-based reservations in pvt sector?
X: Um...yes you are right to oppose that. But you know you should really stop reading Arundhati Roy.

Thus, we conclude that no matter what topic you start with, you end up discussing world peace. I am sure many of you would've come across some variant of this discussion.

And this is not unique to India. Even in US politics, from whatever little I've gathered in the last year, there is a daily stream of nonstop rhetoric from both sides. So you are either with them or you are against them. I am sick and tired of this stance. I have 100 different views on 100 different topics. Not to mention the other 500 topics, on which I have no views at all, either because I don't care or because I have zilch knowledge about it to make up my mind. But no, you are not allowed that flexibility. Some people just assume that either you should have views on everything, or they'll threaten you with links to read this 1000-pg book and that 2000-pg legalese manual before you dare to open your mouth.

That's why I like Dilip's new tagline: I'm not leftist, I'm not rightist, I'm a typist.

So, coming back to the topic: Please suggest a catchy name for "Reductio ad Commie-ism". And by God ki qasam, I am so going to go around and spam each and every other online forum with a link to this post the moment some wingnut tries to pull out the 'C'-word out of his ignorant hat.

Choking-over-pretzelism #452896

2006-01-12T14:08:00.000-06:00

"Whether you agree with me or not, we're doing the right thing".

News report which carried this precious gem was headlined "Bush Fields Questions About War, Policies".

Happy Eid Mubarak to you too :)

2006-01-10T11:51:00.000-06:00

True profile of John Seigenthaler Sr.

2006-01-08T17:06:00.000-06:00

Hilarity re-defined (via Kunal)

Uncyclopaedia backlash:
"In June 1987, an anonymous poster who turned out to be Ted Kennedy posted inaccurate information on Uncyclopedia suggesting that Seigenthaler once ate a baby while under the influence of LSD. In reality, Seigenthaler has never tried LSD and was "merely hungry". The error went undetected for 18 years, before Seigenthaler awoke from his dark slumber in the netherworld, discovered the Internet, and launched a class action lawsuit against Uncyclopedia Media Holdings Group, Inc. for being mean. (Then he cleaned his cat's litter box.)"

2006-01-08T12:38:00.000-06:00

Report those Bangalore potholes by calling BMP commissioner@22237455 or write to commissioner@bmponline.org (via madman)

And what can be done about cutting down trees to make way for hoardings? (via Gaurav)

Using the collective intelligence of an infinite number of LJers, humour scientists have come up with the best blonde joke ever.

2006-01-06T13:31:00.000-06:00

Google Video of Dylan and Lennon (transcript), fultoo drunk and talking uber-trash while sharing a taxi ride. The famed Brit-wit manages to shine through :
Dylan: Haha! I wish I could talk English, man.
Lennon: Me too, Bobby.
Dylan: (Pointing to Lennon) He can talk American. (To Tom) Hey, Tom, you've heard me talk in English haven't you? But I can't never do it around John though because (behind back of hand) John's such a great actor, man, that...
Lennon: ...you can't believe that it's me.
-----
Video collage of performances by Johnny Cash(4:09). Don't miss the bespectacled lady around 3:22, wearing a one-in-a-million-not-to-be-missed-expression that is oozing out a mix of adoration, love and contentment with two teaspoons of sugar. Sweeeet!
-----
Prashant Chandra, lead industrial designer with Telserra, Gurgaon, wins $50,000 in PC design contest at the CES.

2006-01-06T00:12:00.000-06:00

TOI's Ruma Singh rues Aamir's hush-hush marriage: "No press, no camera crew, no fans. That's the way reclusive star Aamir Khan chooses to live and get married — even the second time around.....The blanket of secrecy which shrouded the entire wedding/honeymoon continued here, too." Too bad, so sad. Next time Ruma, he's allowed four marriages.

A concise guide on "Verifying sources on the Net".

If you are planning to miss the Oscars, DON'T DO IT. America's funniest man, Jon Stewart is hosting: “As a performer, I’m truly honored to be hosting the show,” Stewart said, then joked: “Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can’t help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal.”. Wheeeeeeeee!!!

This Is Broken. It's literally a comedy of errors.

How To: Snatch an Expiring Domain.

Now where do I SMS this?

2006-01-05T02:12:00.000-06:00

Gudiya kisi ki nahin hui.

Fishermen used as human shields in Manipur, like they did five years ago, like they've been used in Kashmir or elsewhere for the umpteenth time. But who am I to point out, and how dare you protest. Coz ofcourse pointing to such stories tantamounts to being anti-national or being a duffoo in math, unable to account for some loose change as collateral damage in the larger scheme of things. Yea..I like that term, The Larger Scheme Of Things. Because in the larger scheme of things it doesn't matter if a mother-daughter duo is raped. Because in the larger scheme of things we ignore if a 17-year old girl is lashed and her bones broken down. In the larger scheme of things, when you set out to search for that tiny piece of lost land, SERPs return something like 33 results..no wait 35 results..urrmm no wait 73 results and you instantly know it doesn't count. If it requires three different spellings to search, you know it's a nowhere land with a non-issue to boot. The TOIs/HTs/STARs/NDTVs have no idea about the last two sentences, or do they? Because I think we outsourced that job to the BBC and don't hold your breath, Khaleej Times. In the larger scheme of things human shields in Manipur are the same as 'caught in crossfire' in Kashmir. All those damn terrorists, ulfas, naxals, ultras, ISI, JeM, LeT, they all deserve it... all those traitors are the same. In the larger scheme of things anything and everything can be swept under the dirty carpet of "Islamic terrorism" or pseudo-secularism or protecting the nation's borders..some such thing. As long as they don't disturb our walled-caves in Bombay/Delhi/Bangalore we are okay with it.

"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out.." and all that.

Blah 2.0

2005-12-30T02:29:00.000-06:00

With each passing day, it's becoming more and more difficult to surf the net without coming across some badly spelled words passing off for technology like web 1.0, web 2.0, RSS, RDF, feed, feedster, atom, molecule, XML, SHTML, XSHTML, Ajax, bakwaas, pods, podfeeds, skypecast, meta-data, maata-data, pita-data..yada yada yada. To complement these incomprehensible technologies, there are web-applications encompassing the flavors of MTR and in full range of United Colors of Benetton, with tampered spellings like whatevr, bigdeal.a.sheee.us, squintoo, junkorati, 43boulders, 9bhools, etc...etc. And in order to link these two there is a standard set of words like tags, social software, conversations (this annoys me the most), folksonomy (whatever the hell it means)..global village blah blah".

When I first came across these sites frankly it was all mind-gazoombling. And there is only so much blah one's mind can assimilate. So, inorder to save the rest of the humanity from undergoing all this pain....as a new year's gift, I've packaged the difference between the earlier Internet as I understood and this newer version, and reduced them into a nice pair of images. Enlightenment follows.

Internet 1.0
Good ole(the accented 'e') days when Yahoo! meant Shammi Kapoor and Hotmail was Sabeer Bhatia. When pages under construction used to have the logo you see on the sides. When Slashdot oozed nerdiness even in their footquotes, Unix fortune cookies were the wikiquotes and email forwards was the BoingBoing. When geocities was what Blogger is today. When high quality .wav format songs were downloaded from fan sites(as opposed to ripping cheapo 64kbps mp3s). When Internet was for email and telephone was for well..errm..calling people. When back button of IE used to work like back button of Netscape. Where you got only what you clicked. When Apple meant Mac boxes and not peas and pods. When Microsoft was the Google and Google had just come out of Stanford.

Web 2.0 (give your emailID, we'll let you know what we are doing when we start coding)

The standard template of a Basically Blah 2.0 web-startup is to first select a name totally devoid of any meaning in the context of the service the application provides. If it starts with digits, all the more better. To convert this name into a hotshot thingie, all you have to do is register a URL and make a big-buttoned-app-name-in-text as the logo. Add another small icon like a leaf, or a fruit or something "herbal/organic" which looks appealing enough that you might want to eat. Throw some RSS feed icons everywhere across the page. Keep a big text box wherein you beg for visitor's emailID and promise them that exciting ideas are being thrashed out. In your "About" page spout some of the words from the above list. Ajax is mandatory. Wait till you make half a million accounts. Screw up with the browser's back button. Sell out to Yahoo for a few million. Profit. Throw parties, attend conferences, generally move around like a hotshot. Start a blog on how to save 30 seconds while blowing your nose. Give it an equally stupid name, like ummm...30seconds? Move to the Silicon Valley. Add that "a Yahoo company" superscript to the logo. Introduce planned downtime and say that you are moving servers to Yahoo. And ofcourse your App remains in a perpetual Beta state for continuous customer satisfaction. Thusly, nirvanification shall be attained.

Damn those bloody Pathani-wearing "radicalised" Muslims

2005-12-30T01:06:00.000-06:00

Dec 28: Ex-IIT Prof. Puri gunned down at a research conference in IISc Bangalore. No details about the gunman[men]. News reports vary in the details, right from the point whether it was AK-47 or AK-56 down to whether it was 1, 2, or 3 men and whether they belonged to JeM, LeT, D-company, or if it had anything to do with Salem's current trial in Bangalore. All in all nothing clear yet.

Still, let's assume for the sake of simplicity and since some pointers do point to it(also because it's fashionable to blame them immediately after any attacks), that it was a terror attack by one of these Pak-based, ISI-funded terror outfits. Ok, agreed. Hang those bastards.

Now pls edify your ignorant little brains with this comment:

"...My reaction to the IISc attack was: What took them so long?
I've been told that Bangalore's muslims are being radicalised over the last decade. You can see it on the streets - more men with skull-caps and pathani dress, most women with head-scarf. You can see it also in the mosque sermons - so much so that by default the police have to be present near every mosque after the Friday prayers to keep peace..."

And this one:

"...It's another thing when people who wore lungi/veshti/dhoti, saris and lehngas, spoke Telugu, Kannada at home for centuries, suddenly (over the course of a few years) switch to salwaar/hijab, Urdu at home and Arabic in mosque. Would the latter group be more susceptible to attacking professors? I think so. Just watch the trend in Bangladesh and Indonesia for the last 10+ years..."

Got a toothache? I've been told there are 32 whites. Got a headache? Would it help to cut it off?

2005-12-27T20:22:00.000-06:00

80 lakh. That's the cost of cleaning the annual sh*t they generate at Mantralaya.

Everybody knows it, just that we now have a confirmation. Military Admits Planting News in Iraq.

Santa's identity leaked. "This leak compromises generations of undercover work on the part of U.S. parents," Clarke said.

Turn all those Christmas gifts back into hard cash. Heh!

Happy Christmas...

2005-12-25T10:53:00.000-06:00

....Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia....Festivus. Whatever floats your boat.

Dying a death

2005-12-25T00:56:00.000-06:00

Shivam lost two people he knew in quick succession to road accidents. My condolences, and may their sould R.I.P. He goes on to asks: Why do people die? and whether death ends fun?

So, why do we die?

Not to make light of any of these accidents, but ..imagine if none of us ever died. Just imagine.. It'd be hell lot of a crowd here on Earth, isn't it? Why, if it comes to that, some people might even prefer to die of suffocation - (yes, I know my paradoxes) - rather than live through it. Just ask some daily commuters travelling in that Virar local in Bombay. I suppose death is each person's way of taking his exit from life's highway. And nature's way of balancing things. Old people make way for new people to join in. That doesn't mean life is not unfair to some of us....it sure as hell is. Some people die much sooner than others. Some die in hospital with all relatives by the bedside, some die in sleep after kissing their spouse goodnight and some just die with their calendar entry for next day all choc-a-bloc. Just like that. Without any excuse, rhyme or reason. Takes me back by a couple of months when someone I knew expired in a similar manner. Out of the blue, one fine day she was gone. Like all dreamy-eyed youngsters, she too had grand plans for the future. Little did anyone know that her time was so close. When I first heard the news I totally flipped out. And next day I too was wondering, childlike, why do people die? From the time/space discontinuity afforded by a distance of thousand miles, this answer was all that my tiny childish mind could come up with.

Does "death end fun"? I'll leave it to the Irishman to answer that :

"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh" ~ George Bernard Shaw.

However like me, if you want to know why "Death Ends Fun", the answer lies in a bumper sticker.

Let me close this thought with a quote attributed to a certain Caliph (paraphrased) : If today I die and I were told that except for one person, everyone would go in Heaven, I'd fear if I am that one person. And if I were to know that except for one, everyone would go in Hell, then I'd hope that I am the chosen one to get that ticket to Heaven.

Islamic teachings time and again stress on this point and propose it as a coda for living life. Of being constantly repentant of your sins, and equally hopeful of your good deeds. Methinks, it's a good introspection tool even if you are an atheist. Combine this with another hypothetical question: What if you knew you were going to die after a year? After a month? A week? ..tomorrow?...now? What would be the next immediate thing you'd do?

Whatever be your answer, I'm sure blogging won't be there in my list.

But 'pobody is nerfect'. Hence this post.

Homeless Guy and The Snowsuit Effort

2005-12-23T04:21:00.000-06:00

I wanted to put this in my last post, somehow missed it.

An excellent blog from Kevin, A Homeless Guy, from Nashville. His profile says:

"I had 15 minutes of fame two years ago when I started a blog about my homeless experiences. For the 7th time, I became un-homeless on the 4th of April, 2005. I now have my own apartment in a nice neighborhood."

It's very rare and difficult to get such insider views of the day to day problems faced by those who don't have a roof over their heads. Thank God for the luxuries I can afford. From my limited outside observations, I think that if you compare homeless guys from US and India, life is much more tough for these guys. One simple reason: Extreme winter season. Also, the homeless in India can atleast setup their temporary camps under bridges, footpaths, traffic lights etc.. and if one is determined, can get some kind of labour job. Whereas, here, these guys have a tough time doing even that, what with the police chasing and driving them out. I once saw it near my library. And somehow it feels that in the US once you fall below a particular level of sustenance, it's a freefall all the way down. Much more difficult to pick up the broken pieces of your life. OTOH I would think there'd be more support programs by the govt/NGOs compared to India.

On the same note, a photoblog, Snowsuit Effort by Ryan Keberly from Detroit. Ryan goes out daily on the streets of Detroit with a cigarette, sandwich or some such eatables, meets these guys, spends time with them and puts up one photo daily on his blog. A continous leafing through his site, and you can see hope, hopelessness, despair, resolve, determination, anger, fatigue, suspicion..an avalanche of emotions, all at once. It's all there. In their eyes. Here's one such emotion.

His name is Jerry.

“I’ve got to make ends meet…”

“I sleep at Hart Plaza.”

“I’m a bona fide Detroit homeless person.”

Moving with the times and some coupons

2005-12-23T01:25:00.000-06:00

So The Kazi recently shifted apartments. Unlike in India, moving rental apartments here in US is not a big deal. It's so not a big deal, that it's really worth blogging. You call up your apartment leasing office (yes, they have a central office to take care of all things, from the broken door-stopper, to the shower refusing to throw hot water simultaneously in both the bathrooms after 15 mins), you sign up a new lease, and enter the new house. No come tomorrow, or next week, or after lunch, no handshaking, no middleman, no 2% commission, and all the paperwork done in a matter of minutes. You call up the electricity company and give the new apartment's address. That's it. They disconnect it on the specified day, and send you a settlement at the new address within 3 days. You call up your ISP, disconnect/transfer the service, and it's done. You logon to your bank/credit-card website, click "Change Address" and change the address. Done. You logon to USPS and give your new address. Done. USPS will even take care of routing your mails from old address to new address, for a month after move. Not only that, they will mark all such mails with a yellow sticker, as an indication to the recepient to inform the concerned party of address change.

Really, the whole thing is not even a matter of hours. As smooth as cutting through butter. On one hand it really feels great to have this kind of breezy service, and getting things done at lightning pace. But at some level (the level at which a Bombayite/Indian is used to) I do find it a bit discomforting, that such big deals and decisions get done in minutes. "What? No waiting for even one day? Just my SSN will do? That is all you need? Surely someone must know my blood group? No? How about father's mother's name? Are you not going to ask me my marital status?". You get it? It's discomforting in the warped sense, that you miss out on all the great experiences of life which one day must be told to your grandchildren. I mean seriously, these are the things which add zing to life.

Long story short, I moved.

Now comes the interesting part. In Amrika, when you move you don't just pack your luggage and leave. No sir, you gotta take your coupons along. I mean the discount coupons from local stores, raffles and other spam that regularly lands in your mailbox. I had notified USPS of my address change whereupon they sent me a confirmation mail at the new address along with helpful links and pointers to notify the essential services like, IRS, medical etc..of the new address. Seriously, how sweet of them. They are not obliged to do all this, but still, they do.

The first thing I noticed is, they printed my name as "Suhail _midllename_ Mr. Kazi". I like it when someone calls me Mr. Kazi, I really do, but this? ....this brought memories of good ole vintage goofups committed by our own grand BEST from Bombay who never seemed to get the names right. A Kazi would mysteriosly sometimes turn into Kaasi and stay like that for months and then again magically correct itself to Kazi. Sometimes even jumble up building name with person's name, and the smart mailman used to get it based on his experience. And do any of you even remember that their printout sheets were always misaligned with the 80-column dot matrix printer? The "statement date" and "due date" column used to be consistently off by two rows, month after month, which made you simmer in rage and wonder why can't someone just load that damn sheet of paper properly. No digressing.

So anyways, I got this change confirmation letter. Little did I know that opening that envelope is going to change my life forever. That I will never have to work another minute to live through the rest of my life. That all the riches and luxuries of life, like treasures in war-chests from some pirate ship, lay in there, waiting for that auspicious moment when I'd open it. It's no secret by now, that as I opened the envelope, I found a bunch of marketing coupons to go with it. When I say a bunch, it literally means a bunch which can make a slight "thud" sound. So many coupons, that just claiming to be overwhelmed with them, would be understatement of the year.

So, I had a whale of a time just going through them. I mean, okay, I am used to the weekly ads from local groceries and some dental clinic who has been incessantly insisting on giving me a "Smile make-over" --(seriosly guys, is this smile :D so bad? how about this one :) ?) -- but, house movement comes with its own set of coupons which are really something worth dissecting.

So, here is the list of luxuries awaiting me at my new home:

a) Get $75 for opening a checking account with Bank Of America - Get $75 after keeping the account for 6 months, and keep repaying through your nose for each and every single banking transaction you conduct.
b) Spl offer from Brinks Home Security Systems, std installation $99, sign now, get 2 months free - If I was so wealthy to install security systems, I wouldn't be staying in a rental place, would I? And, anyways, who wants their security system to be on the "Brinks."
c) Welcome to the neighbourhood[1]. Spend $1000 at Rooms To Go and receive a $100 gift card for your next visit- translation: Look dude, half of Austin is studying in UT, so they are students, can't buy new stuff. You are the only one in a corporate job, so just come and purchase all this expensive stuff, will you? If you don't purchase, who will support this neighborhood store? and who will recycle this expensive furniture in Austin's Craigslist? And it's not as if we don't have pretty lasses in our ads.
d) 10% off at the Home Depot. You can do it, we can help! - Cho chweet, next time, okay?
e) Ace Hardware : Buy 1 get 1 free duplicate key -- My aptmt already gives me two keys. Thx.
f) Unpacked yr phone/computer yet? Call Geico and save hundreds on insurance - How about I save some time by not making that phone call?
g) J. C Penney, 15% off on Bed, Bath & Windows - ok, don't you pay your mktg guys? Can you atleast come up with genuine names? Here's a hint: Don't imitate "Blood Bath & Beyond" .
h) Order 4 boxes of custom checks(cheques) and your 4th box is free -just send me the 4th box!
i) Sam's club. Welcome to the neighborhood - Use the one day guest pass to buy our cheapo products and then take annual membership to return the same merchandise.
j) Got a new home? Get new stuff from CircuitCity. $40 off on purchases of $200 -- buy more electronics which is going to be obsoleted after this Christmas.
k) Why pack another monthly bill? GoPhone pick your plan -- Wherever you go, our spam follows.
l) Buy $15 Gevalia Kaffe, and get a Coffe maker free -- Thanks, but I am a tea guy, mostly.
m) Beautifully designed Address Labels, 25 labels for $6.95 only -- I have a pen and envelopes, and a masters degree from JJ School of Arts. No, that latter part was a lie.
n) Get daily delivery : USA Today -- Sorry guys, you just don't cut it these days.
o) Easy contact lens delivery, 1-800-CONTACTS -- 20/20 vision here. Touchwood. No kidding.
p) Pre-inked express stamps, $9.99 -- Don't need it.
q) Give your family a security of $30000 Globe Life Insurance -- I don't sign insurance deals on Thursdays. Rahu, Ketu, Shani etc..
r) Bring Hollywood home for the Holidays, Direct Satellite TV -- translation: Look, we produce some junk shows, so why don't you buy a 32" Flatscreen TV for $1000, then subscribe to our exhorbitant services to watch more junk shows. I so totally care about you guys.
s) Netflix Unlimited DVD rentals. Free Trials -- Unlimited? Really?
t) CD for 90 days, risk-free, no credit card required, try AOL free -- is the CD rewritable? That is the only way it can be of any use to me.

and now comes the biggest and the most odd offer of the lot. Odd in the sense it doesn't have anything to do with moving houses and at this point you get a feeling that even you could have done a better job at distributing this coupon.

u) Now that you've moved, test drive a Ford, get a $50 Ford Visa Bonus Card -- huh! say it again! "Now that you've moved, test drive a Ford, get a $50 Ford Visa Bonus Card"
Translation: We are desperately hoping that in the midst of all this house movement, you just missed that two of our trucks are listed in the Forbes' Worst Cars of 2005 list, with Ford Ranger being the topmost loser. We hope you also forgot to read that Toyota is set to overtake GM in 2006 and become the largest car manufacturer. And after months of giving "you pay what we pay" employee-pricing offers, and showing you umpteen number of macho fake-cowboyish western ads, we still haven't been able to sell our 2005 stock, as is apparent from this totally irrelevant non-contextual advertising coupon. So pls..pls..pls..buy Ford trucks. Oh, don't worry about that free $50 card, it's just an eyewash. Either Visa will take care of ripping you ten times that amount once you sign up, or you'd have already bled through your nose paying for the gas. Anyway idiots who buy cars because it comes with a $50 card, deserve to get a Ford.

I mean, come on ad/marketing guys: you can do a better job than this. Let me remind you, your granddaddy, David Ogilvy, of O&M fame, the master adman and strong proponent of direct mailing, once famously said, and I love this quote:
"The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything".

I'm sure Mr. David is turning in his grave, because people don't move houses and purchase trucks, both at the same time. Or do they? Married folks, pls reply back. I wouldn't know.

A total of 21 coupons!! Staggering. So people, you are informed. Next time you are squeezed for cash or feel a sudden urge to go on an impulse buying spree, all you have to do is just move apartments. The riches will follow.
-----------------------------------

So lots of new things, happened in between while I took break from blogging and online activity in general. It's unfathomable but things did turn out that way in the last month or so with my schedule being terribly tight. Like a patient in ICU on masked oxygen support, I survived on minimal email support.

The first thing I came to know on my return is that whole Cobrapost/Q&A investigation. Bravo guys. I am so not surprised, given that the guy at the helm of affairs, is none other than Anirudhha Bahal of Tehelka fame. The last I remember of him was when I read his article in Tehelka, way back, (by then he'd already started Cobrapost), where he weighed in on the series of mysterious deaths and disappearances of ~~nuclear(biotech?) scientists~~ eleven microbiologists across several countries. That story was so bleeding edge that really in the first read I couldn't gather what it was all about. I forgot its specifics, but IIRC he was hooded up somewhere in Switzerland or one of those Scandinavian countries and meeting all these men of science in defence departments to get his story.

So here it is, salute to you! And well done Shivam Vij, even if yours was a small insignificant role, I suppose, you did squeezed in some smart Qs in there. Gave me a good belly laugh. I still have to read up on that whole episode.

That dawg is back!

2005-11-10T08:32:00.000-06:00

...barking in style with Phone Feeds attached to its collar, and hopefully this time its byte will cut deeper and will be more rabid. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for CSF-II.

2005-10-21T02:00:00.000-05:00

Wikipedia + Onion = Uncyclopedia (rated PG). Check out their obsession with Oscar Wilde.

The document which used to be called MIT guide to lockpicking. Remember, Feynman was the coolest person to have walked on this planet and he picked cabinets to access secret files from the Manhattan project. So it's good. Also, at How Stuff Works.

Fortune's detailed profile of BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen.

Good..v.good String piece by Yonder Mountain [11 MB] More here. (Any recommendations similar to these?)

If you liked The Sunscreen song, you might be interested in this interview of Mary Schmich who penned it.

Chweetoo Angel

2005-10-19T03:00:00.000-05:00

(Photo: Ricky Carioti - The Washington Post)

The more I look at this cutie, named Darshi Shah, the more I find myself mesmerised and drawn to the gleam in her eyes and the frolicsome whirled tongue. This adorable image has to be shared, simply because it brings a joyous zestful smile everytime I see her. Mrs. & Mr. Shah, please treat her with lots of hugs, kisses and candies. And hats off to Ricky Carioti for freezing the moment. (thx Anna, full story and photo in WaPo).

More unhatched eggs from IIPM

2005-10-14T08:50:00.000-05:00

[Disclaimer]
Continuing to dig the pit that Gawker, Arzan and Puneet have dug for IIPM, here are some more findings. But before that, a word about this whole mess. While trawling through the maze of several of IIPM's partners, associates, alliances and whathaveyous' websites, it appears that IIPM is nothing less than some kind of a diploma mill. None of their associated websites list any faculty clearly. Most of these sites simply advertise the awesome buildings and 'campus' they have, and the international 'guest' lecturers they get. One thing is for sure. This guy sure knows how to cut his chicken and eat the eggs too. I mean if he can keep up this show for years, well he truly deserves all the fame and money. Maybe IIMs really have a thing or two to learn about marketing from him.

Here we go:

1) Puneet first reported about illegal Search Engine Optimization tricks IIPM is playing. Now look at this 'IIPM links' page. To anyone with basic understanding of search engines, it's a link-farm. SEOs frequently employ these tricks to boost up their page rankings. Not all of those links are valid. Just as a sample check this and this. Notice the similarity?

2) A word about IIPM's courses. Excerpts from this page:

"Eligibility: For the MBA program, applicant should be a graduate, or should be in the final year of graduation. No minimum percentage is required in graduation for applying. For the BBA program, applicant should have completed 10+2, or should be in the final year of high school (12th grade). No minimum percentage is required in 10+2 for applying to the BBA entrance exam."

..Similarly...

"Applicant should have completed a minimum of 16 years of education to apply for the IIPM fellowship programs. However, it is extremely preferred that the applicants have relevant work experience and have previously published research papers, articles etc."

(bold mine; rough translation: cough up the money and walk-in).

3) By now you'd have read of IIPM's alliances with IMF, World Bank, UNDP etc. Guess what? Almost all searches of IIPM inside of these three websites (IMF, WB, UNDP) turn out to be some iipm-mpri.org which has got something to do with Mining etc. Most other places where you see, just IIPM, most probably it's the Indian Institute for Production Management, or in some cases Pharmaceutical Management. So beware of that.

3) Now check this page. It lists the IIPM faculty who are also part of Planman Consulting.

"Arindam Chaudhury: M.A Economics, P.G.D.P.M, F.I.I.P.M
A. Sandeep: B.Com (H), M.Com, PGDSM, PGDM (IIM Calcutta), FIIPM (IIPM)
Sourav Chatterjee: PGDPM (FIIPM)"

Notice any discrepancy? Well, there are so many ways you can write FIIPM that apparently you can switch it's position inside or outside of parentheses at will. Great!

4) After checking these fantastic eligibility criterias and the fancy Fellowship trilogy, you might be forgiven if you think they teach something more than MS-Office there, right? Right? Wrong. I came across this personal home page of someone named Nikhil Khade, and looks like he has maintained his entire IIPM history there. No offence to Nikhil or other students, but I checked some random photos, and of particular interest is this one where they teach all about MS-Office (creating folders, creating files etc).

Hats off IIPM! Counting more chickens and eggs over at Desipundit, where I'm sure pretty soon they'll be opening up a poultry farm.

Tag: IIPM

All your hens are belong to us

2005-10-14T06:59:00.000-05:00

I swear to the Internet.......whatever I say now below, I say true, nothing else without true I say nothing.
Hindi: Hum Internet ki sugandh khaa kar kahe deta hoon, jo kuch kahoonga sach kahoonga, sach ke siva thode hi na kuch kahoonga?

-------Fresh message--------
From: Legal Cell, Imaginathon (.blogspot.com)
Date: 10/14/05 (mm/dd/yy)
Subject : Notoriourized notice of legal disclaimer
To: All past, present and future readers, non-readers, abusers and their dogs and cats.
Cc: TheWorldwideInternet@gheemail.com and all hyperlinks contained or missing therein.

First, last and worst notice of legal disclaimer to you.
Warning: In view of the spaghetti flying all over the place , each and every pixel of this note has been fully sanitised with Nirma detergent tikiya (jiske jhaaaag ne jadooo... kar diyaaa!); and since we are currently in the USofA, we also applied Kleenex on it, and thereafter wiped it dry with 8-ply cotton tissue. Having done this, we went to the cheapest lawyer money could buy in Austin, judicially notoriourized it and tagged it with highly radioactive uranium, to blow up speyeballs, legalese or any abusive comment whomsoever might hereupon make or not make.

Notice: SOME/SHING/DANG/2005/10
Date: 10/14/05
Subject: False perceptions, misconceptions, biases and opinions formed by you on reading or intending to read this blog and/or pointing your mouse in the general direction of any hyperlinks pointing to this blog, or wishing to do or not do any or all of this.

I am the head of the legal and crap compliance counsel at The Imaginathon Institute of Blogging, (hereafter referred as IIB). We (ie I and my non-existing partners) purport to be the owners of IIB, and once in a while, if we feel like it, we also play the juggler and make tons of moolah. But that is besides the point.

This notice is about you forming totally false and biased opinions about IIB in your mind after having read our blog posts on blogspot.com publishing domain(ref: blogger.com), having your clear reference and proven deliberate and fradulent intentions to harm the Fair & Lovely international image of IIB so carefully constructed over the years. Your malicious views about the personal opinions expressed in IIB, have caused unfathomable losses to its various non-existing operational areas and damaged the future depreciation value of our precious non-performing assets.

Since we are a global business, and you see, we too were born in the 70s, so sometimes it becomes difficult to keep all that math in one excel sheet. Anyhoo, our back-of-the-page calculation shows we are somewhere in the region of 500 crores. Why? Simply because we count our chickens even before the hen knows it's going to lay eggs. Thusly we are writing this note to you as a first notice of proposed legal, judicial and criminal action which has already been approved by the Fellowship of Blogging Committee, and which may involve an immediate compensation from you to the tune of 600 crores. Yes, our share price just went up! We are also providing your details to respective national and regional search engines, like Google, Yahoo etc. for thinking about sending us any kind of legalese trash.

However, stupid laws in the name of fairness demands that we give you one last chance. So here it is. Incase you undertake following actions immediately, and provide evidence of the same, we shall withhold the above mentioned proceedings against you:

a) Immediately remove all demented thoughts from your mind that this blog represents any connection, explicit or implied, with our past, current or future employers or dentists. You dumbo, sometimes we ourselves don't believe in what we write. Quite often, we are even ashamed of what we wrote. Not to mention several factual and grammatical errors which creep in. How can you even think of squeezing in our employers in this? This blog represents I, Me and Myself or We, Us, Ourselves. Nobody else. Even if they say so. Gedditt? Clear as mud? Good.

b) Immediately remove all misconceptions that the comments hosted on this blog are ours. Individual comments represents the views and opinions of those who don't have enough work and hence who wrote what they wrote. Anonymous comments are the collective responsibility of Gandhiji (but hey, he's dead, let him RIP and not drag him here). So let's put it on the HTTP protocol at large, shall we? Go sue the www.w3.org.

c) If you are interested in what we wrote, and wish to reproduce it, read our license. Remember, if you dare to plagiarise our content (man, you must be such a loser to do so - go get a life), we will chase you to the end of this earth, until you fall off from the tip of South Pole and get sucked up in the first black hole Hawkings never discovered. What? Aah! So now you think World is Flat just because Thomas Friedman said it? Here's a hint: Why don't you read this.

d) Remember, anything else you might want to argue or froth at your mouth will result in unnecessary global warming, coz we are already one-up. It's called the early mover advantage.

e) Rinse, lather and repeat until you suffocate from your own stupidity.

Yours truly.

For IIB,
-Sux Hartd Aerned Bux
Friendly Neighbourhood Lawyer
leagle@gheemail.com

Tagged: Legal crap, chicken, IIPM , eggs, poultry farm, sheikhchilli.

Laptop warriors

2005-10-11T15:57:00.000-05:00

[Update: Varna gets a similar legal notice from IIPM. They have upped the claim from 125 crores to 175 crores. Sure, their net-worth increased by 50 crores in the last 3 days.]

Move over Mediaah! Big money sleazeballs claims second victim of Indian blogosphere. When I first read the legal notice served by IIPM to Gaurav Sabnis, I didn't think much about it. What do you make of a notice which starts with:

"Warning: This email has been judicially notarized (holymoly) and has been tagged to validate receipt and response(!oo!)"

Moreover, the legal notice has a subject line:

"False articles released by you on IIPM on blogspot.com (reference blogger.com)"

[fine print for the parentheses-challenged: holymoly is an original unword coined by this blogspot domain (reference blogger.com) in response to email being judicially notarized, and "!oo!" is an emoticon for eyes popping out while LOLing]

So, as Gaurav says, after reading it, I went back to watching stupid cable TV. But then, something serious happens and you begin to wonder, "huh!, tomorrow it could be me". In the wake of recent controversy Gaurav has resigned from IBM. I totally applaud Gaurav's courage to stand by his statements. A rare celestial event it is.

In short, here's the story:
Rashmi, editor of JAM Mag, wrote an article debunking several of IIPM's claims, Gaurav linked to those articles and expanded on them. IIPM shot back with legal notices to Gaurav, and played pressure tactics by threatening to burn laptops in front of IBM's Delhi offices. Yes, burn laptops!! Many comments, slander and defamation have flown under many blogs, especially this post by Rashmi, and you can read all about the continuing developments at Desipundit.

I will just add three points:
a) I wish Gaurav stuck to his job, especially considering that his line managers at IBM were with him, and watch how those dramebaaz, bunch of jokers from IIPM Students Union would've burnt laptops in full public view. But deep down, if I put myself in his shoes, I think I too would've done the same. It's not easy to take decisions in a day, when the outcome of those decisions may affect others. So people, be easy on him.
b) Like many others, I didn't know or cared much about IIPM earlier. Sure, I knew they were a pvt. mgmt. institute, and I had glossed over their full-page ads, but nothing beyond that. However with this fracas, they've just ensured that no one in my (and at last count 300+ bloggers) friends and relatives circle will ever join them.
c) More than just blogging or commenting about it, I wish collectively we could do more to help Gaurav, Rashmi(JAM) out in this particular case, and in general indemnifying bloggers from future lawsuits and defend our freedom of speech.

Once again, Godspeed to Rashmi and Gaurav.

2005-10-09T17:09:00.000-05:00

PBS is celebrating 100 years of Einstein's Big Idea, E=mc^2. Documentary to be aired on Oct 11 8-10pm EDT. Also, check this page where other physicists explain it in short. Outside of Seinfeld reruns, PBS is one thing I watch religiously on TeeVee - highly recommended, if you ask me.

About secularism

2005-10-07T02:01:00.000-05:00

Congrats to Uma who has a well-written essay on Rethinking Secularism in which she discusses several events. In short, she concludes by saying:
a) Punish the guilty
b) Rebuild Babri Masjid (she later clarifies that she has contradictory feelings on this)
c) Follow the law.

Some points to make here:
a+c) Punish the guilty -follow the law:
I don't think anyone disagrees here. But who will punish the guilty? The law and order system serves the govt. of the day. The police force is tied to its political masters. The current Congress govt. isn't bathed in cow's milk. Pardon my cynicism, but it looks like we are just stuck with choosing between the devil and dead sea. Throw Pawar out, get Thackery in..throw Thackrey out get Vilasrao in. Take any major state, and it's the same story everywhere. It's one big tomfoolery going all around. Frankly, I've lost all faith in the big, bad govt. and their high-falutin policies. Once in a while we do see positive things coming out, some RTI act here, a Manmohan, Jaswant there...but by and large, methinks these micro-steps are not going to take us out of this morass. As we never tire of saying it in the context of cricket, these positive outcomes are all "despite the system, not due to it". I don't drink, but in those rare moments of enlightened stupor, I feel we need a big jhatka..and a big tragedy..of behemoth and chaotic proportions inorder to rejig the power and give a collective shake to this nation, and shift balance to some new place. If it takes a honest, well-meaning dictator to do that, so be it. Give me a good, honest devil in military green over these washed-in-whites hypocrites anyday. In these cynical moments, I feel all this demockracy is nothing but just that.. some kind of a magic wand to get ourselves a step in the international BigBoyz club in UN and fool all the citizens all the time.

b) Rebuild Babri masjid?
No! If you'd have asked me back then(age when I was more impressionable and easily given to emotions), I too would've given a resounding Yes. After 13 tiring years of waiting and apathy, I don't think it makes any sense to dig up old graves and stuff them with new skeletons. And that is what exactly the SC is doing. Digging up the foundations and trying to find a match of Babar's footprint with the ASI archives. (Hola SC!! Are you alright? Need some help?)

Though it has become an identity issue for Muslims, but frankly after all these years, I don't think many Muslims are really bothered about the Babri masjid issue per se. The main reason why many of them are holding onto the fallen Gods, is the perceived fear (and until the last election results it was quite a real fear) that "if we give away claim to Babri masjid, then look, the saffron bandanas are already asking for Kashi.. Mathura and what not". Similarly, you take 1984..or Kashmir issue. And it's not difficult to see why the govt. of the day couldn't have solved the same issues if they really willed to do so. After all BJP had all the time in the world to do something about getting Pandits back home, and Congress could have shown some spine and taken action on the Sri Krishna Commission report on the Bombay riots. But as we all know, it is in the best interest of all parties to keep these ghosts alive.

Now it can be debated till the cows come home (and frankly I don't see much merit in that debate either), as to who demolished a temple to build a mosque..or vice versa, because we may as well go back to stone-age..when there were no brick structures and everyone roamed around with a banana leaf around their unmentionables. So really speaking, I don't see much value in reparation by all this posthumous token apology business either. In any case, why should all Hindus apologize to all Muslims for a bloodbath indulged in by a few, and similarly why should the blame for every crime committed by Dawood Ibrahim and self-confessed Islamist jihadists be laid on the door of Muslims. Someone lights up firecrackers to celebrate Pakistan's win over India, go catch him. Please don't come to me asking for my ration card and badge of patriotism. I don't wear it on my sleeve.

The only way to prevent these kind of riots, is to ensure that atleast in these big hate crimes nobody goes free..and I mean NOBODY. As a young citizen of this country, is it too much to ask for a justice system that works? Don't just jail the lowly karsevaks. I want Kalyan Singh's and Advani's head on the plate. Don't just kill few foot-soldier mujahideens in an encounter. Show me the noose on the necks of all those who drove away the Pandits away from their homelands. And I mean ALL of them. But wait, I am already contradicting my response to the first point. Who will carry out this law and order business?

I guess what I am saying is, I am tired..and sick of this merry-go-round debates which we have heard umpteen times and I am just passing the buck. So I'll just stop it here. It could very well be that, today I am too cynical. And tomorrow I might myself not believe in what I have written here. This was just a random, something I needed to get off my chest. Make of it what you want. I started writing this as a comment to Uma's post, and it somehow ended in a lengthy dead-end rant here. However, in no way this is to belittle various well-intentioned viewpoints eloquently articulated by Uma and many other commenters on that thread.

Live well, take care and thank you.

Hamas celebrates Gaza strip victory by suicide bombing itself

2005-10-06T00:30:00.000-05:00

Gaza : Hamas, the militantly pro-democracy organization, celebrated Israel's evacuation of Gaza strip by launching a massive suicide bombing victory parade in the city.

Hamas leader, Sheikh Al-Aat-Ma-Hatya, leading the rally down Gaza's main market street attended by thousands of supporters declared, "For years we have dealt with this whole charade of Israelis guarding our forts. There have been many hardships faced by our brothers in the past who had to sneak past the checkpost and blow themselves up in haraam pubs and bars. Finally Allah the great has heard our prayers, and we have our land back at us. Blow away my brothers". Hearing this clarion call, hundreds of suicide bombers from the first-batch who had been waiting for this day, pressed the button and blew themselves up in the crowd. Several eye-witnesses reported souls flying up to the heavens where they will finally rest with the Houris. Survivors went into a raucous rapture of jubiliation and one could hear cheers of "Allah is Great". Along with that, few rounds of random celebratory gunshots were fired which relieved a few more kids here and there of their miserable lives. The victory suicide procession is expected to go on for the next few days, during which Hamas intends to bomb every single square-inch of the 20 feet wide and 10 kms long Gaza strip.

16 year old Jannat-ul-Maqaam, a new recruit who has been training for months for such an event was ecstatic. He said, "Finally we have our land back. We can blow ourselves to our hearts content!". His only gripe was, "Too bad we can blow ourselves only once". A small group of children sporting green headbands splashed with, "Where do you want to blow today?" soon gathered near him.

One thing is clear, western media certainly did a shoddy job of reporting it. Not all groups unanimously support this strategy of pompously blowing the victory conch. Speaking to Imaginary reporter Kazvin of eastern media group, RIP-al-Fateh leader of Fatah group said, "This is a clear violation of the peaceful war treaty we earlier signed with Israel in some God damned place. If Israel chickens out midway, we have nothing else left to die for. The Israelis are clearly cheating." Blaming Hamas' mission he said, "This is not suicide as we the Falastinis know. This is stupid death". Word on the street is that it is all a part of some grand Zionist strategy backed by Christopher Hitchens and Ann Coulter.

According to unnamed, anonymous and nincoompoop inside sources, several Fatah members have already started strapping themselves with emergency suicide belts near their headquarters, and plans are afoot to set on a parallel suicide mission later in the day to protest against this. Hezbollah the third group in this party has reportedly adopted a wait-and-watch policy after several of their suicide bombers earlier defected to Hamas, to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime event.

Given Hamas' grand mission to rip apart Gaza strip in shreds, analysts estimated that they are going to fall short of atleast 20,000 suicide bombers and equal number of green headbands. There are no young man to be found on the streets of Gaza. In a half-baked quickly arrived solution, to help solve this humanitarian tragedy, Red Cross, which has already been pushed to the edge of US east coast, in the aftermath of hurricanes like Katrina and Rita, has decided to take urchins, street-beggars and widowers from third-world countries as donations. They have opened up a camp near Egypt and their helplines 1-800-DIE-NOW are reportedly being flooded with calls from Africa.

Reactions from world leaders to this news, varied from nought to nothing. Russian president Vhatever Putin and French president Jacqass Chirac are meeting in Geneva along with disembodied heads of other EU nations, to "discuss this issue" and decide whether to oppose or support this move. World president Bush convened an emergency pressCon and declared, "The Abu Ghraib matter is now closed. The American military, ably supported by our allies and Halliburton in this war against terror, will do all which can be done to ensure a smooth transition of freedom, peace and demockracy in iRaq". Brit PM Blair in London was seen nodding his head in approval with a Brit-accent. Indian proxy-PM Manmohan Singh squeezed in his unsought 2 cents, "We have historical ties with Israel and Arab countries. My hope is that we'll be able to convince them to play out this mission in a bit more non-violent manner". Indian Foreign ministry then offered DVDs of recently concluded India-Zimbabwe cricket series, including never before seen footage of Greg Chappel teaching Ganguly how to hold a bat. Pakistani president Pervwayz Musharrough took credit for the move, saying it was all "because of Pakistan's step forward of renewing ties with Israel that such a historic event came to pass". Donning a fresh dark-green Friday military suit, he went on to question, "dude, but what about Kashmir?". As of this report going to the press, reaction from Germany was undecided. Two grand leaders of Germany's two grand parties, were found sharing a Kingsize bed, about to conceive the grand-daddy of all coalitions.

In some other world news, Angelina Jolie illegally adopted one more child from some godforsaken African nation, Paris ends engagement with Paris and US Supreme court rules Supreme court rules.

Tagged : LOL!, OMG!! and BS!!!

23rd post-5th sentence on 22/05

2005-10-06T00:02:00.000-05:00

"I just cannot come to terms with this bit of senseless violence. You go to a Sunny Deol movie, the worst that can happen to you is a bad headache. Not this."

That was the 5th (6th and 7th) sentence from 23rd post of this blog - about blasts in Delhi theatres - which I am supposed to reproduce, as per this silly but interesting tag which was thrown at me by Saket.

The interesting thing here is, that line is not mine. I was quoting Great Bong from his Delhi blast post. Ha! What fun, these random things. (Btw, whatever happened to the culprits?)

Next five victims in the firing line:
a) Sunil - I bet, you didn't know his email ID sounds like Linus Torvalds just flew in to L.A.
b) Megha - Every single pixel on her blog is there for a reason.
c) Patrix - I still don't know his real name, and I just realised we stay in neighbouring cities, which means I shd meet him.
d) Aparna - Dishes out some nice news in limericks.
e) Sonia - Check out the new cool artwork on her blog. One major reason, why I tend to stay away from RSS feeds.

Kar Lo Duniya Mutthi Mein!!

2005-10-03T23:57:00.000-05:00

Heh!!

Shri Tarachand: Social reformer weaning Kashmiri women away from Pheran

2005-10-02T12:10:00.000-05:00

Annie questions:

"Why can we not go back to dressing the way we did in pre-british times? Why is it that we never, ever, hear a politician stand up and demand that women stop wearing petticoats under their sarees, since that is what 'Indian' culture dictated? How is it that school uniforms are never cotton kurtas, especially for boys? Why are we so afraid of being, and appearing, 'native'?"

This reminds me of an opposite example, of a social reformer protesting against traditional clothing. Just want to note it down here for two reasons. First, few people are asking these questions and even fewer people are documenting it, so a lot of these small stories are lost to obscurity. And secondly because the person in question, Shri Tarachand (a.k.a. Kashyap Bandhu) is the great great-grandpa of a Kashmiri Pandit friend of mine*.

Excerpts from Koshur** Samachar profile of Kashyap Bandhu:

During the beginning of the thirties he [Shri Tarachand] started his programme of Social Reforms. The Reforms which were taken up for implementation were:

.....
2) Wasteful expenditure and other customs:
Most of the expenditure incurred during the marriages or other festivals used to be wasteful. The manner in which feasts were given for days together on such occasions and food stuffs and other things wasted was unbearable. To stop all this, Bandhuji and his colleagues started picketing and used to sit on dharnas wherever such feasts were organised. He requested the people to limit the number of Baratis and stop wasting the money and the food stuff. He also advocated limiting the number of preparations on such occasions and refrain from giving huge dowries. Those days it had a salutary effect on the community.
....
[Ed:You might want to read these two reports about marriages brought under Essential Commodities Act in J&K]
....
6) From Pheran to Saree: Today we see our womenfolk in sarees and salwar kameez. During the period of early thirties, sarees and salwar kurtas were non-existent. Pheran was the common dress for our women without any under garment beneath it. This dress was responsible for lethargy and laziness. Bandhuji requested the women folk to change the dress and start wearing sarees and that too khadi sarees. There was resistance initially but he and his volunteers started visiting each and every house and requested the women to change the dress. His efforts bore results and today saree and salwar kameez have become the normal dress of our women folk...
....

The intensity of the opposition faced by Bandhu ji will be gauged by this example:
Kashmiri Women:
taaraachand bulbulo trawoo israar
aes na baa traawoy z'ahtih naerwaar
Bandhuji:
pootch, zoojya tai naerwaar
im chhi shikasaek sardaar
mali baerthaey gardan
traawi feran tI lolo

My friend explained the last 6 lines :

Kashmiri ladies used to wear a very heavy dress called pheran earlier(they still do). The ladies resisting this move, had made this small song which they used to sing when my daddu used to go to them and ask them to wear sarees.

"O TaraChand bulbul , stop going around like this,
we will never leave our precious dress narivaar (narivaar=pheran)"

and daadu used to reply:

"pooch zooj n narivaar (3 parts of the whole dress)
just make you lazy and dirty (it was difficult to get into and out of this dress)
liberate yourself and welcome the new change"

As for wasteful expenditure in marriages, I totally support this idea of making marriages simple affairs. I just cannot fathom why every marriage is supposed to be attended by no less than 500 people. Most of these guests are never-to-be-seen-again-uncle's third-daughter's brother-in-law from distant Mira Rd. suburbs (who will most likely crib about the mutton-kebabswhich was not upto their refined tastes). And taking heavy loans for marriages is plain idiotic. There is so much of wasteful expenditure in these celebrations, not to mention the amount of food wasted. Sadly, with every passing day, cousins and friends shedding their bachelorhood, I am seeing a push towards conducting a 'grander' ceremony. It is not even just a question of affordability. Of all the marriages I have attended, I can count on one hand the times when the bride and groom really enjoyed the proceedings, and where they were not treated as puppets by relatives, in-laws, and the entire marriage-conducting gang.

Then there is this other practice (so patently stupid in my opinion that I might just do something about it) which simply refuses to die, is having bride-groom photographed with all these 500 people. Important people and close realtives with Titanic-sized egos, have to get multiple shots (first uncle-aunty with bride-groom, then uncle's son-and-dauther-in-law, then the entire joint family in one happy photo-session with different permutations combinations of where they are standing on stage w.r.t the marriage couple). In one fell swoop, the relative importance of friends and relatives is reduced to the number of times they appear in the video-shooting or wedding photo-albums. And in each of these shots you can see the groom sweating under the arc-lights. The bride, well she can beat Kunjurani Devi in weight-lifting on that day. Poor thin chiselled soul, she carries a weight of no less than 20 kgs draped in all forms of garments, jewellery and atleast 5kg of make-up. No one deserves to be treated like that, not on their marriage day. And these days many marriages are taking this concept too far, what with allowing the photographer to become master of ceremonies...(abhi baith jaao, abhi khade ho jaao, chacha ko aane do, chaachi ko jaane do, thode baal sanwaar lo, woh paseena poch lo, thoda idhar, thoda udhar..abhi doodh-ke-glass mein straw daal kar ek-doosre ki taraf dekh kar smile karo at which point both bride and groom will fake a shy smile, haan ..bas..bas..theek hai..click..click).

Of course, I do realise that many couples later look back at all these photos with nostalgic lenses, and some even want all the dhoom-dhamaka that goes with it, to which I have no objection: good for you. But what about all those silent folks, who are forced to undergo this...what shall I call it, ordeal, just because, that's how marriages are supposed to be and bride and groom have no say at all in the most important day of their life.

Dudes and dudettes of India unite against this oppression!

ps:
*Interestingly, my friend figured out this story about her great grandpa one day when she was searching for Kashmiri food recipes ensconed in Singapore. All excited, she then forwarded me the link with subject line: "chk this!!".
**Koshur or Kashmiri is an Indo-Aryan language. I learnt a smattering of Kashmiri (ch kyut chuk?, ba choos jaan - how are you?, I am fine :), it's a Faarsi-meets-German sounding language, and has a distinct coarse feel to it.

Not the Sunscreen song

2005-09-29T22:54:00.000-05:00

Some more goodness from last post. Mr. Bong wrote to me that Guy Forsyth's Long Long Time, reminded him of some famous Sunscreen song. I had no idea what this was. So I Googled around a bit and holy cow! whatanamazing jingle it is. (thx Mr. Bong)

Quick, before you proceed any further:
Sunscreen song lyrics and mp3 download, and lo behold! a Not the Sunscreen Song parody lyrics and mp3 download.

The sunscreen song was not really a song. It was written by Mary Schmich as a deadline column for Chicago Tribune, turned into an Internet hoax, found Aussie director Baz Luhrmann as one of its fans who then bought rights and made a song out of it. That's not all. Like all things famous, some smarty pants did a damn good job of making a wicked parody of it called "Not the Sunscreen Song". And to add some more spice to the parody, someone, possibly some Aussie guy, has tweaked one line which is available here. He also has explanation of some terms, which lyrics Nazis like me will find interesting.

My fav. lines from the good-boy original version :
--------------------------------------------------
- Don't feel guilty if you don't know what to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
- Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either.
- Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's.
- Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.
- Live in northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

And my fav.lines from the parody :
-----------------------------------
- Shop-lift as often as you can, Shopping Centres factor shop-lifting into their prices, so if you don't do it, it's like they're getting money for free.(is that so truly cool or what? :-))
- Remember you can wear your underwear four times without washing them, forwards, backwards, inside-out forwards, inside-out backwards. (this guy must've been an IITian)
- But most of all, don't aim too high, you're probably only suited to an office or factory job.

People, put these two items on your to-do list. Listen to them before you die, seriously. This week is turning out to be oodles of goodness. If I could've only manage to catch this documentary on Bob Dylan telecasted on PBS earlier in the week, I would've most certainly suffocated to death with over-happiness.

Abida Parveen's Raushan Jamaal-e-Yaar, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Tum Ek Ghorak Dhandha Ho

2005-09-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

The comment thread in my last post about Guy Forsyth, took some highly entertaining and educational diversions. It has given me joy like no other and by far one of the best threads of this blog. It discussed three great songs, all with superb lyrics and rendition. And since there was so much of info back and forth, it cerainly merits to come out as a separate post on its own. Also, many people come searching on this blog for various combinations of shayari (someone just googled for "biryani shayari" and this blog is #1 in results), I think I should have some google juice for them.

Two good things from the comments:

a) Quizman pointed me out to the sweet Raushan Jamaal-e-Yaar from Abida Parveen and Sepoy of ChapatiMystery provided the much needed context to its maqta (last 2 lines of a ghazal). If you want to know how words can feel sweet, and I literally mean sweet as in 'meethi', listen to this. You don't have to know Urdu to experience it.

b) After months of waiting, I finally managed to dig out Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Tum Ek Ghorak Dhandha Ho, a 30-min ~~qawwali~~ heady concoction from Pakistani music website. This just rules. P.e.r.i.o.d.

Both songs can be heard online as streaming music, no downloading if that matters to you.

(mandatory side note: Is it more than coincidence that these two great Sufi stalwarts are so likeably fat and chubbycheeksy?)

Those who have already read that comment thread, thanks. Others you might want to proceed ahead, to read the foll. culled out from that comment thread:
-----------------
Very nice post. Haven't heard Guy Forsyth before. I will certainly take a dekko. Regarding folk songs, people swear by old timer Woody Guthrie and his son Arlo Guthrie. [And what's this chela business? :-)]

Btw, on a related note (NFAK), I've been listening to a very spiritual ghazal by Hasrat Mohani. You can listen to Abida Parveen's excellent version here (music by Muzaffar Ali), Mehdi Hassan's (very famous) version here, and Jagjit Singh's version here

Raushan jamaal-e-yaar se hai anjuman tamaam - Hasrat Mohani

raushan jamaal-e-yaar se hai anjuman tamaam
dahakaa huaa hai aatish-e-gul se chaman tamaam

hairat Guruur-e-husn se shoKhii se iztaraab
dil ne bhii tere siikh liye hai.n chalan tamaam

allaah re jism-e-yaar kii Khuubii ke Khud-ba-Khud
ra.ngiiniyo.n me.n Duub gayaa pairahan tamaam

dekho to chasm-e-yaar kii jaaduu nigaahiyaa.N ++
behosh ik nazar me.n hu_ii anjuman tamaam

** hirine-e-Naseem hai soz-o-gudaz-e-Mir
Hasrat tere sukhan pe hain lutf-e-sukhan tamaam

++ Mehdi Hasan sings it as "husn-e-yaar". I've transcribed Abida's version above.
[**Not sure about the words]

Translations of words
===============
raushan = Light, lighted up, alight, illuminated; bright, shining, splendid, luminous
jamal = Beauty, comeliness
anjuman = Assembly, meeting, company
tamaam = Complete, finished; perfect, entire, whole, full
dahakna = To burn, to blaze; to be burnt;
aatish = Fire, flame; anger, passion, rage
chaman = A bed (in a garden), flower-bed, a flower-garden

Gurur = pride, haughtiness, vanity, vainglory
husn = Goodness, goodliness; comeliness, beauty, pleasingness
shoKhii = Playfulness, fun, mischief; pertness, sauciness; coquetry, wantonness
iztarab = Agitation, perturbation, restlessness, distraction, anxiety

pairahan = Covering, mantle; a long robe; a kind of loose vest

chasm = The eye -- hope, expectation

Hir = Hero, lover of Ranjha
Naseem = Naseem Dehlvi, poet, Hasrat Mohani's ustad [Apparently, Abida's CD cover translates the word 'Naseem' literally. I was told by my Urdu teacher that the misra refers to Mohani's ustad]
soz-gudâz= Burning and melting
Mir = Mir Taqi Mir
Hasrat = Hasrat Mohani - takhallus
lutf = delicacy; refinement; elegance, grace, beauty; the beauty or best
sukhan = Speech, language, discourse, word, words

Regarding the maqta, Mir is burning and melting (after listening?) to Naseem's heer - where Heer is a type of poem/song composed on Heer of Heer Ranjha fame - but, Hasrat's words embody discourse/speech in its entirety. Perhaps, he is referring to the fact that Hasrat's words are about the creator, hence it embodies all creation.

I'm still not sure about the meaning of the maqta. Any ideas? Could you listen to Abida's version and try to transcribe the maqta and interpret it?

~ Quizman
-------
Quizman : I wish I could do something more than keep thanking you over this stupid internet :) Thanks for Abida's version. She is really excellent. Compare it with Jagjit's morose version (why does he always cry in the same tone for most ghazals?) where towards the end I felt I'll simply wither away. And Abida madam's version feels like so light..and so sweet..that you would evaporate away in ecstasy...if you didn't die of diabetes. I don't know abt you, but I could literally taste sweetish saliva if I try to follow her words - if you know what I mean. Excellent.

Anyways, the maqta line as I heard it in Abida's version starts with.

"sheereen-e-naseem..." strain yr ears hard during the first and third time when she repeats those words. Second time it definitely sounds like hireen and AFAIK there is no word hireen. (Shall have to consult some friends from Hydbad/Awadh and get back if there is a correction).

Anyways:
sheereen - sweet
naseem - fresh air (there could be other meanings too)

so as far as I get it from the last two lines it seems Hasrat implies:

"ha! what is this Mir's burning, melting..(and dard-o-sukhan crap ;)..it's nothing. it's just sweet fresh air to me.

Hasrat's poetry is THE poetry to beat all poets. (lutf-e-sukhan tamaam)"

One can also think of it as Hasrat's back-handed compliment to Mir. ie..ok, I know you are the greatest and awesomemost & whatever..but "miyaan, Hasrat bhi koi cheez hai." Artists (esp.shayars) usually do that. Praising a competitor by riling him down(in words) and leaving a double entendre to it. But this fine nuance is sometimes lost. One needs a warped sense of humour to "get it".

->Also why is it that Mehdi Hasan and Jagjit, both have left out this maqta? Any idea?
->What are the introduction lines in Abida's version? It sounds Faarsi.
(pending questions)

OffTopic: I've seen a Moulana Hasrat Mohani chowk somewhere near my place in Bombay. It never occured to me that 'Hasrat' is this man :D I know it doesn't mean anything, to anyone..Just like that, I am sort of always clued in these chintu-chintu tidbits.

Sunil: I think CD's are available everywhere. This guy is an old-time Austineer..but never really gained the fame and acknowledgement he deserved. Or maybe this is his best piece yet. I came to know about him only now.

~ Suhail
--------------------------
Hi Suhail,

Thanks. I've blogged about it in my blog with the corrected maqta thanks to Sepoy. My Urdu teacher said that Naseem was the name of the ustad of Mohani, Naseem Dehlvi.

Yes, Abida's version is splendid indeed. I listened to it 10 times during one sitting. :-)

~Quizman
--------------------------
Hia!!
Finally got Tum Ek Ghorak Dhandha :)) 13th song from bottom. I just can't stop gushing!!

It covers many things from Islamic history, over and above questioning the existence and ways of God.

Needless, to say I will definitely write a full-length post..featuring lyrics, explanation, and entire religio-Islamic context attached to it.. all coming soon.

and thanks to Sepoy for yr maqta explanation. Its surprising how changing the context can change the meaning of lines totally. I know Naseem is a person's name, but I thought here it's the meaning of word. Only when you know that Naseem was his ustaad, then things fall in place. Thanks..thanks..thanks.

~ Suhail

Guy Forsyth - With love from Austin to America in 5 mins

2005-09-26T02:01:00.000-05:00

Can't hide no more. Finally got hold of Guy Forsyth and his title track , "Long Long Time" from his latest album "Love Songs: For and Against". This Guy (convenient pun, isn't it?) is all over the airwaves on the local Austin music scene, and then you know why mercury in this part of Texas has been hotting up these past few weeks.

I first chanced upon this song on the local KGSR FM 107.1 -- which is btw a superb radio station for some Austin and Texas-style cowboy-hats crooning bluesy country music (tho there are no real cowboys to be seen around). However the thing with these songs, where they have rapdily delivered lines after awesome lines interspersed with feet-tapping chorus is that you get torn apart whether to go along and immerse yourself in the song or just sit back all ears with a pen and book in hand and start scribbling whatever you can gather so that you can hum along the words next time.

KGSR has now literally gone berserk with their repeats. Now I am definitely not too much 'into' any genre of music. But as we Indians like to say, take it from me on a stamp paper, this track is going to rule the charts and American hearts in the days to come. I'd be surprised if it didn't. (Remember, you first read it here)

Songs like these reinvigorate one's faith in the power of good lyrics to have a forceful impact. This song doesn't really say anything new. It is about the same ole things that I know about the American life from personal experience, books and news (Sprawlmarts, Starbucks, SUVs, highways, oil, Enron, Exxon, Nixon..the works), but in a way and a voice that makes you sit back and listen again and again, and again. Some of the other recent songs having this same grip on me were Rabbi's "Bulla ki Jaana" and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's "Tum Ek Ghorak Dhandha Ho"*. Pieces like these have that innate magical quality in them, which makes you question in fear whether listening to them ad nauseam will reduce their listening pleasure and will you ever get bored with it? No way. Pieces like these defy economics' principle of Diminishing Returns. Every single repeat has the same value, maybe even more.

Listen to the full song on Guy's page(click 'Listen' on top-left). And as if to deliver a knock-out punch, the track has a very subtle suspense in it -- to all discerning readers who care about the li'l lyrical tidbits -- which is revealed only in the end; well almost. So, not to ruin your listening experience, I am keeping the lyrics in the comment section. Read it only after you've heard the track.

Also make sure that you listen to the second track, Beautiful Mistake too. It's one of those, which gets overshadowed by the full-throttled mainstream awesomeness of the first one but is equally good and starts growing up on you the 3rd or 4th hearing. (Rabbi's "Ek Geet" shares the same relation vis-a-vis his title "Bulla ki Jaana". Anyone else with me?).

One more thing which appeals to me about Guy Forsyth is that he has been a sort of Jack Of All. He wears several hats as a musician, plays several instruments, including some rare hardware called musical saw and sings, writes, acts, and practices martial arts and etc.etc.. I hold such people who pack so much in a punch in reverential awe (I also like people who are slightly confused and hazy in their minds). So I always try to watch closely how these people do all these thousand things they do, and how they become successfull in whatever they do, so that one day I too can give a shot at that elusive thing called success. (Thom Hogan is another such man -- techie, photographer-cum-backpacker, Nikon guru, editor, author, musician.. wah.. wah.. wah)

Getting back to the point, so you are thinking "wassup with the 5 mins in the title of this blog-post?"(even if you are not thinking, I will explain since I spent 10 mins thinking up such a smarty-pants subject line). The answer is, as Guy says, it took him only 5 mins to write "Long long time". Unlike some others who hit the instant famedom meter after years of obscurity and then try to sound like oh-so-cool who struggled their way up and try to make it a big deal, Guy's frank admission about those lyrics comes across very refreshing:

"Conversely, the could-be-a-hit took only five minutes for Forsyth to write, after producer Mark Addison supplied the hook. Forsyth asked himself what bothered him about the current cultural climate and the Starbucks-whipping words just rolled out. "It's not a protest song, really," he says. "It's a song of disappointment. I grew up being taught that America was the greatest country in the world, that we always stood for righteousness and individuality. But then you get on the freeway and it all looks the same. You look around the world, you look at what's going on in Iraq and you start to question what's been beaten into your head."

Something more tells me this man is honest.

My favorite lines from the "Long long" track are:
"We don't live around this mess, we love under it"..and the way he halts and pauses before croaking in "under it", and

"..living life according to the TV set. Corporations owning nations, telling us don’t change the station, it’s the only safe way to win the human race..."

Awesome..awesome lyrics. His band is currently touring Denmark, Belgium, Holland etc. I definitely want to watch him live when he returns to Austin.

Links:
Guy Forsyth's homepage & song by song story of his new album, "Love Songs: For and Against".
Two* reviews and an interview (*photo link)
Lyrics of "Long long time".

ps:
a )*Tum Ek Ghorak Dhandha Ho : I've been wanting to catch hold of this almost 30-min long rendition for a long time now. I first listened to it at a Pakistani friend's place here, and unable to find the CD anywhere. I think the CD title is "NFA's Golden Collection". Apparently it's banned in Pakistan, for its so-called blasphemous lyrics. But I don't expect BanNazis to understand that behind the veil of denouncement, NFA is actually calling out, or even praying if you will. I can guarantee, if you are into ghazals, qawwalis, sufi etc, and you listen to it with concentration just once and it keeps playing in your head for days. Pls..pls..pls comment if you know where to get it.

b) Also pls recommend any good radio stations which play Appalachian aka Hill Billy music, where they sing about mining and farms, and trains and electricity and Great Depression and people migrating to Chicago in search of jobs, and young boys talking to their dads, and talking about going back home, and good ole stuff like that. After watching a PBS documentary on Appalachian people and music, I am literally swooning over that old guitar-like dulcimer they play.

c) I've been on-off with my mini-breaks, but like all good bloggers promise to be regular now. Too busy with work and all that, and things happening offline. And there's a long story why some things just suck. But right now just this much, photo service from Walgreens sucks. Sucks. Big. Time. A full-post Walgreens rant and quite a few photos from my Philly-Richmond trip coming soon...This time soon is hopefully sooner than the previous 'soon' :-)

Hurricane Rita : Update from Austin

2005-09-23T01:06:00.001-05:00

So now it looks like we'll be safe after all. Anyways, earlier paid a quick visit to the local HEB grocery store, just to convince myself that indeed I am prepared for any eventuality. It was weird to see rows of bread shelves empty between some racks of jam and jelly bottles
This photo from sunlitrain comes pretty close to what I saw. Except that the last remaining bread packets you see here, were also not to be seen. Ended up buying a pack of rusk. Same with vegetable/fruit section. Not a single banana left. Not a single pack of milk anywhere. Bought a pack of bottled-water from the last three left. Almost as if, someone came and sucked up the whole lot. It's amazing how everyone automatically moves to bread and milk section in times such as these. Some people were seen hoarding large, no make that very very LARGE, packets(or rather buckets) of chips and popcorn. I say, people it's better to delay it and die of hunger rather than trying to speed it up by consuming all those chips.

But not too much to worry. It's still quite hot out there, the AC is running full blast inside, and there is absolutely nothing out in the air which might suggest the onset of winds or storms.

Hurricane Rita may possibly touch Austin

2005-09-22T16:00:00.000-05:00

[Update: Austin City Limits 3-day music festival is ON for now, but they say they are monitoring]

This is too close to my comfort. Didn't really gave too much of a thought to it until now. I was sort of unconcerned until my friend told me today at lunch that stuff is flying off the shelves at the local HEB grocery store. There is(was) quite a bit of traffic on the road leading to the store.

Yesterday got a hurricane alert pamphlet from my apartment office. They suggested tanking up gas (ha! first let me get a Texas DL), stock water for 3 days and food for a week, medicines, battery, flashlights etc. It also mentioned that if you don't have a big container, clean the bathtub and sink and store water in it (what? Never thought about it, but probably the most practical advice).

Anyways after reading all that I kind of dismissed it as over-reaction due to Katrina's halo effect. Albeit there were some warnings or statements by local city officials to be prepared. But what the heck, Austin is 220 miles away from coastal Galveston, or that's what I thought to myself. At the most I was expecting some rains to cool down the 90+ heat outside. My thoughts not necessarily a reflection that I don't care about weather, though it might be true at some level. But it stems from the nonchalance resulting from usual weather reports in good days, when they keep hammering their "20% chances of thunderstorms" forecast, disrupting Seinfeld and Raymond with their so-called "weather alerts", and next morning you see nothing happens. Not a droplet from the heavens above. Some clouds hovering on the TV screens, and the word out of these weatherbags is "thunderstorm" - without fail, every single time, every single news channel. Never 'rains', it's always 'thunderstorms'. A case of the boy crying wolves. So, I always take the local weather with a grain of salt. A whole salt-shaker actually. (Weather reports from local news channels here merit a separate post of their own)

However now, all news channels are forecasting that even after making a landfall Rita might continue inwards and hit Austin as category3 or category4 by Saturday. The ratings are changing by the hour. Colleagues from my office are talking about fixing up their fences, lawns etc. And amidst reports of fuel prices rising, one teammate surprisingly mentioned that he saw the price drop from $2.67 to $2.57 a gallon. Not that it really matters a big deal, but just to make a note of it. Anyways, things and people are still fine in office. Work as usual. No high alerts as yet.

Elsewhere, Interstate I-45 has been converted to a one-way North-bound for people moving out from Houston. Evacuees from coastal Texas are stalled on highways-turned-parking-lots. CNN is running stories(and videos) which shows bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles (30 mins to travel a mile). And probably the first time I am hearing this here in the US : people are pushing their SUVs, cars to save gas. With major oil-refineries in Houston(25% of US' oil production comes from Houston), looks like this is going to be a big thing come next week. From what I've learned in these past few months, US is a nation, the collective pulse of which can be gauged more or less by looking at gas prices. And when there are talks of fuel touching $5 a gallon, you can be sure as hell, it spells trouble.

However, looks like this time the officials are better prepared with their plans. FEMA has a co-ordinating office in Austin. Katrina infolines will continue to work for Rita (this sounds so much like some..aherrm.. you know, those kind of numbers). Rita evacuees from coast are sheltered in a planned phased manner in local schools, halls etc. Organisers of Austin City Limits, a 3-day musical extravaganza, will make up their mind today evening 6pm, whether to go with the event or not. It's a sell-out event and surely the organisers are in trouble.

One colleague came and asked my friend, "Man, we too should do something". Will need to keep a watch on the situation and probably "prepare" for the storm tonight. My house is on the topmost floor of a 2-storey building(Americans like to call it 3rd floor) and heard that there have been instances of rooftops being blown away, since here everything is made of ultra-light wood. Not too much scared, but just a little bit.

Called up my folks at Bombay the other day, and they are still under Katrina's effect. They were asking me, if my state, city has been affected by it. I assured that I am fine. But looks like it might be time to make one more call soon. I'd rather tank up my Reliance India calling balance.

And just for the record, must not let this go unreported. Some people just cannot stop thinking of minting money at any cost:
"Assistant City Manager Rudy Garza says the city is expecting evacuees to stay about 48 hours. He adds that could mean a boost for businesses because these folks will be self-sufficient. They'll likely take-in movies, do some shopping or eat at local restaurants."

What! did he? say, again?!? The closest public utterance that comes to mind that can match this idiocy - admittedly at a different level and scale - is a comment from NatWest trophy finals, India vs England : Kaif holding it out in the end, and India needs some 11- runs off 9 balls (or 9 runs off 7 balls?) or something like that. Everybody on the edge of their seats, nails firmly held in between their teeth, myself and my roommate who believe(despite not really believing) in our seating positions, staying put in our respective positions, not budging an inch to help India avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And here comes our very own Mr.Shastri breaking the silence-of-suspense on the microphone by declaring something like "..from here on, if the match were to draw, India and England would share the $N-thousand prize money".

Gimme a break!

Katrina: Because it must be heard

2005-09-12T03:15:00.000-05:00

[Via Bayosphere, via YSU. Crossposted]

Vivid first-hand account of two paramedics held in New Orleans.

"Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences
Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane reliefeffort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators.

Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.

Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.

On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole.

The guards further told us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement".

We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the City.

The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are there."

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot.

Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts.

Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us.

Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not carrying any communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.

Call to Action: Pass it on."

Done.

Back from a mini vacation

2005-09-08T01:35:00.000-05:00

Lots of interesting tales to tell, gaffes to guffaw at and photos to post, lots of them. Of road trips, coniferous trees in their pre-fall-season greens lining both sides of the road, sunsets, electric lines dangling from pole to pole along the countryside, beautiful ..utterly beautiful houses from Philadelphia (yes, I roamed around the county where M.Night Shyamalam and Kobe Bryant own houses), and some more from Washington DC and Richmond. I hope the photos turn out as good as I saw them. And also, met the GreatBong on my way back. Some more stories there :)
Will be back soon.

And before it gets any more belated, Happy Ganesh Chaturthi to all of you.

Leeches come to the rescue of Hurricane affected

2005-08-31T01:50:00.000-05:00

Big news in the past few days: Hurricane Katrina blowing over Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and other eastern states of USA. Administration doing its best to evacuate thousands of people from New Orleans, the hardest hit city in this tragedy. However, there is also help coming from unexpected quarters. Reportedly, some leeches have risen up to the occasion and are helping out people in clearing the debris:

“Deteriorating conditions in New Orleans will force authorities to evacuate the thousands of people at city shelters, including the Superdome, where a policeman told CNN unrest was escalating. The officer expressed concern that the situation could worsen overnight after three shootings, looting and a number of attempted carjackings during the afternoon”.

As much surprising as it might sound, it isn’t completely unheard of. Last year in the aftermath of South-Asian Tsunami, similar Blood-sucking Samaritans were reported performing last rites on dead bodies after clinically weaning them off their jewelry, clearing the debris of vehicles after carjacking and saving some stereo systems. I should draw your attention to what Hush reported:

"Laura and Brian brought back with them many reports on the tragedy. Dead bodies are being sold to their families for Rs 5000 and Rs 10,000 etc. Vultures in human form are cutting fingers and ears off corpses, to steal the rings and earings and other jewellery. Some are searching the pockets of the garments of bodies searching for money. Starnge it seems that while a majority of us are all driven by self-sacrifice, helping people in every way we can; a handful of these criminals doing this to the dead is a crying shame"

Again, these aren't just stray cases. India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia ..you name it and the volunteers were spread across, doing what none of us, armchairing around would have done. Helping out in their own small ways. Any which way. Again on the ground reporting, during and after the tsunami, about these worms :

"Houses burned while burning bodies and sadly also to be looted." - Dilip D'Souza from Nagapattinam, India.

"The looting and the fact that some people are taking advantage of this situation.. is that human..? people looting and people hijacking vehicles is one of the biggest problems faced by the relief workers.. due to this, roads have been closed, curfew has been imposed after dark and people are just scared to tread there" .... "due to the need of food and rations, there is now a high demand for bread etc in Colombo.. some supermakets and even small boutiques in areas have risen the price of bread to Rs40/-.. (usually 15/-) - Morquendi from Sri Lanka.

"Stay away from the Galle road.
Continous looting and violence reproted in Moratuwa." - Morquendi again.

"If you are going down there, go in groups. People are looting very
badly. Don't travel after dark." - Last Node from Sri Lanka

This 'outpouring of charity' from fellow life forms, is surely something to be admired. Rescue workers are at a loss rationalizing such a spontaneous surfacing of this effort. Public health experts are expecting more and more such worms to turn out in times of such future disasters. The Red Cross, Insurance companies and other NGOs made a joint statement citing fear that if such initiative takes off, they will be out of their jobs. However the victims don't care. They are hoping the leeches will be rewarded in cash and kind by water-borne diseases, choicest curses of those affected, hell’s fury and some more.

Amen!

Google Talks and then I talk

2005-08-24T09:40:00.000-05:00

Finally! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the wait is over. Google has finally released it's IM beta called Google Talk, which means I can, at last, start moving all my old stuff from Yahoo to Gmail. I gave it a quick run, and I liked what I saw. It neatly swishes in and out of Gmail, allows you to review/scroll past headers of emails in a nifty box from the systray, and if you are already logged in Gmail with a different account, it even switches between GMail accounts. Also includes VoIP calls, ofcourse free. Now if only Google can get a easier, cheaper and faster SkypeOut, -- which is not far away in the distance, given that Google has been dabbling in communications, Wifi and suchlike -- well, then bye to bye to India calling cards and services. Jason Kottke, the owner of rich hypertext products, has a neat speculation on what could be 'GoogleOS' in the future.

******

I have been doing a lot of random surfing lately and have come across some very fine links. So here are some other goodies from the Linkin Park:

1) GoogleHacks: We have seen the nifty hacks that can be used with Google APIs. But you ain't seen nothing yet, if you haven't checked out the aces up the sleeves of this Google employee named Douwe Osinga.

2) FedEx: Remember Tom Hanks, Casted Away in 2000 with ice skates from a FedEx shipment? Well, he uses them to knock off his teeth which are in acute pain.

What happens to the FedEx box? Well, penury and internet has finally given the answer, or to be precise, generated a new solution.

Some guy called Jose, collected FedEx boxes all these days and became the FedExFurniture.Com guy. Don't trust me? Believe The Internet.

"My name is Jose. 4 months ago, my friends Tom and Rob moved to Seattle. Tom, not having a job or a place to stay, eventually managed to get himself an apartment, but still had no furniture. Utilizing FedEx boxes, he built a simple desk for his PC. Several months later, I moved to Arizona for a new job, and had a similar problem, no furniture. Using FedEx boxes and packaging materials, I constructed a desk, bed, couch, dining table and chairs out of the boxes. I'm currently stuck with double rent (both my new and old apartments), and can not afford real furniture. After seeing pictures my friend Divide convinced me to build this site."

Wait, the most interesting part is yet to come. FedEx has served 'cease and desist' notices on this chap, claiming some copyright, trademark violaiton yada yada yoda, and the Stanford Law School Center has taken up his defense. Much fun for net-surfers and some evil looks towards lawyers, affectionately called kaala-coat.[link]

3) For all you creative folks who want to chuck it all and start afresh, where you are the boss of your own money, but not quite sure how to go about it, help is on the way. Hugh, an ad-copywriter in NY, has a fine series of 30 short posts on How to be Creative, illustrated with some neat back-of-the-visiting-card artwork. I have read the first few, and couldn't wait to link it. Well worth your time spent (one of those blogs where the comments are as knowledgeable and funny as the original posts). It will appeal more to writers, artists but he has written it quite well so as to be applicable to the general mass.

4) This guy Aaron Swartz is 500% prodigy. He is just 19 something. His attempt at understanding matters technosocial, (even when I disagree) belie his age. Everything going right, he should be some big hot-shot before he turns 25. At his age I was busy doing nothing (read college).

5) You've seen Baghdad Burning, now watch out for Afghan Lord. This Persian blogger is doing some on the ground reporting from Afghanistan. Of special interest to journalists and organizations.

E) And if all these little somethings weren't good enough, I hereby present A Whole Lotta Nothing.
*******
ps: Held up on the work front. Blogging might be slow for few more days.

'I felt like a Jew in a Nazi camp' : Khushwant Singh

2005-08-15T01:00:00.000-05:00

Complete interview (sub$cription reqd.) of Khushwant Singh with Harinder Baweja from Tehelka. (Emphasis in answers, mine).

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

For a man who has already chronicled his death, it isn’t easy looking back on 1984. Khushwant Singh, the ageing grand old man of letters, who admits to fading health, took time off for an interview on the carnage that first made him conscious of being a Sikh. Excerpts from an interview with Harinder Baweja.

1) Twenty one years later and still little justice. How do you feel as a Sikh?

I am very disappointed. I was expecting a more forthright denunciation of the people involved. Ninety percent of the report is of no consequence. It is all focused on police stations and I am sure the police could not have acted the way it did unless instructions had come from the very top. Delhi burnt for four days and there was no Section 144, no curfew, no shoot-at-sight orders. Finally when the government sent for the army from Meerut, the Sikh Light Infantry came and they had to be kept in the cantonment. The government was not visible. Even the President of India, Gyani Zail Singh, didn’t matter. I called Rashtrapati Bhawan but Zail Singh didn’t take my call and instead sent me a message asking me to take refuge in a Hindu’s house. Zail Singh should have resigned, even earlier, after Operation Bluestar. His stature would have gone up. Instead, he died unsung by his own community. The Nanavati report has only targeted the lieutenant governor and the police. I am disgusted. All governments make a mockery of these commissions of inquiry.

2) If someone like you felt so helpless and is now so angry, what about the ordinary Sikhs who lost their family members?

I have no doubt that they will be having nightmares. It is not possible to forget family members being burnt alive. Some of them must have gone crazy and some others must be drugging themselves to sleep. 1984 made me conscious of being a Sikh even though I don’t practise the tenets. But I feel the hurt of the community. I had to move out of my house and was picked up by a complete stranger from the Swedish embassy. I was living in the lap of luxury but felt like a Jew in a Nazi camp. I was an exile in my own country. What shook me was the number of Hindus who revelled in this. Girilal Jain wrote in The Times of India that the Sikhs should have known that this was coming. The Sikh community had, in fact, been let down by their own leaders. Zail Singh and Sanjay Gandhi created Bhindranwale. They let him go when he had been arrested. No one realised the ill-will that had built up against the Sikhs because of Bhindranwale. Not one Sikh leader had the guts to denounce him when he made statements like, ‘each Sikh should kill 32 Hindus.’

3) How do you feel as an observer of justice?

This is the most gross example of miscarriage of justice. Jagdish Tytler is a liar, saying none of the commissions have even mentioned him. Rajni Kothari brought out a pamphlet just after the carnage titled, ‘Who are the guilty?’ Not one of these guys, Tytler or Sajjan Kumar or Dharam Dass Shastri had the guts to take Kothari to court for criminal lies.

4) You have been a close friend of the Gandhis. Be it Bluestar or the 1984 carnage, the Congress was responsible.

My closeness to the Gandhis is much exaggerated. I defended Sanjay Gandhi on the Maruti deal. I went to see the Maruti factory and let me tell you it was worse than a mechanic’s shop. The point is and I have said this again and again — the carnage could not have taken place unless there were orders from the very top. Even on the tabling of the Nanavati Commission report, the government waited till the very last day. This shows their malafide intentions and their lack of confidence. They knew they would come in for the severest criticism. I feel personally let down by the Nanavati Commission. I went to depose and the atmosphere was that of a tea party, except that there was no tea. Every one was laughing and joking.

5) How do you see 1984 as a historian? What is the future for riot victims?

Justice is for the rich and the powerful. Inquiry commissions just pass the buck. Any future historian will know they can’t rely on these reports and will have to seek other sources of information. Governments need to understand that a crime unpunished breeds criminals. 1984 remains unpunished.

6) Are you upset that the Action Taken Report has been authored by a government headed by Manmohan Singh, a Sikh?

I don’t think he has any say. We know the circumstances under which he became the prime minister. Sikh or not, he has integrity, ability and humility. The Sikh community needs to also look at the positive side. Was it even conceivable in 1984 that we would have a Sikh prime minister, a Sikh Army chief and a Sikh heading the Planning Commission?

**********

This week's issue of Tehelka, has a comprehensive coverage of the 1984 Sikh massacre. Apart from the above interview, a detailed first-hand account by Amitav Ghosh how he got sucked up in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi being shot dead, pieces by KPS Gill and KTS Tulsi, and the incisive Sankarshan Thakur who starts off his Editorial by setting 1984 against several other such killings:

"For a talkative society, we tell very little of the essence of ourselves. We babble in the subconscious hope it will drown our truths. We’ve erected opaque mental monuments to Buddha and Gandhi to blind our eager resort to bloodletting. When the glare catches us red-handed, we wipe our sins on others and melt into our vast convenience of numbers. Narendra Modi. Pravin Togadia. Lal Krishna Advani. Jagdish Tytler. Sajjan Kumar. HKL Bhagat. Bal Thackeray. Hiteswar Saikia. Bhagwat Jha Azad. Remember him? Bhagwat Jha Azad of Bihar? Remember Bhagalpur of 1989? Remember a village called Chanderi and another called Logain?

....It was eventually left to the vultures to rip the cover. The bodies, 116 of them, had lain there decomposing for six weeks. In that period the village had grown wiser to the fineries of tilling — dead men made good compost. A lush winter crop of mustard had sprung on the bed of corpses they had laid. But the village was also to grow wiser to a thing or two about old idioms: Dead men do tell tales, it is seldom they don’t."

And goes on to conclude :

"There are a myriad contemporary Indian stories we have forgotten. They are all true stories. They have dates and datelines. They have pegs and dead people hanging by them. And there are, among us, the many hands that hung them there that have since been washed in collective and convenient forgetting. The truth about mass murder in this country we haven’t learnt to tell. Even less to confront. Which is why someday, when that diabolical sloganeer appears again with a manic prescription and a surcharged bloodcry, we will again turn upon each other and consume."

In another Opinion piece in Outlook, Khushwant Singh starts off with :

"I have only two words for Justice G.T. Nanavati's inquiry report on the butchery of Sikhs 21 years ago: utter garbage."

and summarises with:

"A few salutary lessons that the experience has taught us should be kept in mind by our leaders.The most important is to understand that crimes unpunished breed criminals.Another equally important thing to bear in mind is that the State must never abdicate its monopoly of punishing criminals, if it overlooks its duty or delays dispensing justice beyond limits of endurance, it encourages aggrieved parties to take the law in their own hands and settle scores with those who wronged them.If we do not learn these lessons now, we will have more holocausts in the years to come."

As an Indian, my head hangs in shame, again, because as some cynic pointed out:

"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."

Evolution of Urdu, Introduction to Konkani and Debate on Indian English: A comparative study on languages

2005-08-09T03:05:00.000-05:00

Arka's blog has a fiery debate going on in these two posts, between the English language purists and pro-Indian English(IE). Battle lines have been drawn and at last count, I saw 100+ cuts on his comments box. I envy him. Arka himself being one of the purists, detests every other form of English. He stands tall for ENGLISH. That's it. No Banglish, Tanglish, Hinglish or Indian English. Because he believes there is no such thing as "English" Telugu, or "American" Bangla. Quite a reasonable justification that. (He also goes on to use some industrial grade words like 'curmudgeon', 'opprobriously' and 'pestilential'. Have you no shame, all you lit-bloggers, for making me go to dictionary.com when alll I want is to read your blog?). In the comments, there is Gamemaster G9 (man, 'like' this handle is like cool or what ?:) who says :

"No, no, no, no and NO!

I firmly and completely disagree with you. I believe that no language can or should be held hostage by the purists. To do so is simply undemocratic. I believe that every single teacher who has mouthed nonsense such as "You can, but you may not", to an unsuspecting tot is guilty of perpetuating a broad class difference between the haves and the have-nots..."

My first reaction to the above mayhem, was to take an emergency exit by trying to throw in a sher - as I usually do - since it has a soothing effect on frayed nerves. These (Ghalib?) lines came to my rescue :

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

kuch kehne pe toofan utha leti hai duniya
duniya ki inaayat hai hum, kuch nahin kehte.

A furore, an uproar, everytime I say something
Thanks to that, I chose to keep mum
-----------------------------------------------------------------
(Quizman, I know, there is some confusion over these lines too :) Not sure if Rajinder 'Who?' Kishan reworded it. pls correct me, yr honour)

On second thoughts, I thought of writing this tangential response, juxtaposing the growth and subsequent decline of Urdu, a short introdcutory trip down Konkani langscape, and putting it alongside my views on Indian English. Let me then see if I can tie in some loose threads towards the end.

Before we move on, my own take on Indian English:

I am not so much opposed to changes. Innovation in grammar? No. Co-opting words in vocabulary? Yes. Guru was a Hindi word until yesterday, today it's in the OED. Ustad, Hazrat, or even Sirjee might end up in the same place. I do get both Arka's and G9's point. I can sense Arka's uneasiness on reading imperfect Ingleesh, because I too can be a purist sometimes, when I am reading Urdu poetry('sometimes' is the keyword here). By and large, I am okay with a bit of mish-mash, even indulge in it quite a bit. Growing up in Bombay, I am like that free bird, what many would describe as free of regional colloquialism. That also means, when I have to sound vernacular, I just pick up one based on the context. eg. if I am speaking with a Tamilian, the word 'chumma' (IE equivalent just like that - not kiss), or with a Mallu, "what bose?", or with a Kannadiga, a trailing "aaa.."at the end of sentences, spurts out. The point being, both of us are aware that it's a detour, and not quite my usual way of speaking, even admitting that I am indulging in some light fun. Like an upside-down compliment to one's culture/accents. What to do? We are like that only! (done with that cliche)

Evolution of Urdu : It's rise in Mughal era, and decline in Independent India

To start from the beginning, Urdu as a language is quite recent in its history (circa 1700 onwards). In started off as an amalgam of Persian(Faarsi) - the language of Mughal courts, aka elitists, and Hindustani - the language of the masses. Hindustani in itself being a dialect of Hindi (via Sanskrit) widely popular in the Awadh region(UP, and northern MP). Infact, at some point of its evolution, before it was named 'Urdu', it was formally referred to as Rekhtha - literally meaning, 'rough mixture'. Where there is Urdu, Ghalib can't be far behind :

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

Rekhtha ke tum hee ustaad nahin ho 'Ghalib'
Kehte hain agle zamaane mein koi Mir bhi tha

You are not the sole master of Rekhtha, 'Ghalib'
They say, there was a 'Mir', in the years gone by
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The language gained a standard literary form by poets who were associated with nobility like Sauda, Zauq, Mir and Ghalib. They were on the payroll of emperors of their times. Ghalib's early literary works were all in Persian. So was Mir's. Ghalib was cajoled, even emotionally blackmailed (thankfully) by his friends, and promised fame and popularity, to start writing in Urdu. And boye, some fame he got! And any discussion about evolution of Urdu language, is incomplete without paying a tribute to the poets' poet, Mir Taqi Mir, one of the most influential person behind Urdu's current shape and form.

From K.C.Kanda's treatise on Mir :

Mir lived at a time when Urdu poetry was passing through its formative period: its language was being reformed, and its texture was being refined. Right till the time of Mir, Persian language had held the place of pride in Northern India. Being the language of the Mughal aristrocracy, it had acquired a special respectability, and was regarded the only fit instrument of poetic expression and civilised discourse. With the weakening and disintegration of the Mughal empire under the repeated raids of Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah.......the language of the nobility also took a beating. It began to shed its aura of superiority, yielding its place to the new language of the common citizenry, formally known as Rekhta, or Urdu. This new language, while it came from the humbler homes of ordinary citizens, from the streets of Delhi and Agra, and from the stairs of Jama Masjid, had a tremendous potential for becoming the language of the people, enriched as it was with the tributaries of local and regional dialects, such as Brij Bhasha and Khari Boli (spoken around Mathura and Agra), Punjabi and Decanny, dressed up with a judicious sprinkling of Persian diction and phraseology...

..Mir was advised by Saadat Ali of Amroha(U.P.) who urged him to choose Rekhta as the medium of poetic expression... A perusal of Mir's poetical works indicate that the poet does not fight shy of of using in his poetry words and phrases of local origin in their prevalent sense and shape, such as kabhu (for kabhi), kasu (for kisi), jad (for jab), lijeo (for lijiye) etc..nor is he allergic to the use of Hindi words such as nagar, pawan, mukh, saanjh, sajan, and phrases such as aawe hai, jaawe hai, bowe ga, khaawe ga.

Mr. Kanda goes on to state Mir's mastery in Persian, and gives several examples, how he peppered and enriched Urdu :

We shouldn't forget that Mir was familiar with the strength and richness of not only the local Hindi speech, but also Persian prose and poetics. He had authored a poetical collection in Persian, besides writing a number of books in Persian prose...Even the lowly country vernacular, often considered uncouth and unpoetical, acquires in his hands a new dignity, as for instance, in the line, 'andoh-e-wasal-e-hijar be aalam khapa diya', where the word 'khapa' (expend) , a mere pedestrian word, is made to rub shoulders with the stately Persian expression: 'andoh-e-wasal-e-hijar' (relax, even I didn't get that phrase)..

So, what is the point of above discourse? Well, it quite simply proves that language is not static, not standing rock-solid like an Oak tree. It is a free-flowing entity, like air or water. As water approaches a shore, it gathers foams, bubbles, shells, sand etc. It partners with other smaller similar waves. It is this motion which gifts it the beauty, the force and some semblance of a big wave, which we enjoy on the shores. You can go surfing at some beaches, river rafting in a rough rivulets gushing with raw force through a valley, or a relaxed, laid-back boating at a lovely lake meant for honeymooning couples. Everywhere the basic composition of water remains same. But its nature, its speed, the way it changes its surrounding elements, the way the topography changes its flow, and the way it affects us, differs. So is it with languages. It is shaped by ideas, by places, by men of literary leanings, and by the tapori on the street, by the here and the now, and the chaai and the paav, by the events of today, and the history of yesterday. Otherwise, we wouldn't have 9/11, 7/7, or chey(6)-Dec in our vocab. There would be no jihad in any dictionaries. So, let's not turn our lakes into garbage bins or dirty our shores. And allow all these water-bodies to flourish. To stretch the analogy, build a dam, if you must. Regulate it for better control. But don't stop it. For, you can't stop water, or words. Water will find its own level or it must dry....Words or languages will find their own speakers, or they must die...

And Urdu is dead! well almost...
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Mudassar Hanfi (Calcutta Univ) puts it nicely:

sitam raseeda hai Hindustan mein urdu
isi zubaan mein Hindustan zyaada hai

Neglected and deprived is Urdu in Hindustan,
Ironically, the word Hindustan is used more often in Urdu
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Now, I would not go as far as to establish a 100% equivalence between fate of Urdu and English, what with latter's global acceptance today, but yes, the arguments surrounding this debate are quite relevant to what we've seen above.

There are several reasons for Urdu's decline :

a) Over a period of time Urdu became the de-facto language of the courts. It flowered and cross-pollinated in Mughal courts. The last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was himself a reputed Urdu shayar of his times. It too 'acquired' the elitist tag. Slowly the elites started looking down upon anyone who meandered or stumbled upon the finer nuances. The Lakhnawi nawabs and their paan-chewing churhidaar-wearing descendants with embroidered fez caps, appropriated it as their own. People from Delhi and Agra claimed it as their legacy (tombs of these poets being their excuse). So did the Deccanis from Hyderabad. So much so, that Urdu started resembling an orphan child torn apart between its caretakers.

b) Couple that with the fact, that poets who came later, employed it exclusively to produce rather cliched lines on hackneyed ideas of love, wine and women. Sharaab, shabaab and kabaab became their staple diet. Iqbals and Sahirs, who could rule over the minds of masses, and spawn a hundred clones were exceptions, rather than the rule. There is hardly a contemporary Urdu literary giant to hold sway over the heart of today's youth. Sorry sir, one Javed Akhtar and Jagjit Singh are not enough to fuel the growth of a dying language in a country of 1-billion+ Oh, well there is 'Popular' Meeruthi. But his popularity flows, not from mastery of the language, or the way he plays with words, but from his sense of humour and the satire/parody he writes.

c) Arabic and Urdu share a similar Persian script, and due thanks to Osama bin Ladens and Bal Thakreys of this world, and enough ignorance on the part of R.K.Laxman's common man, anything written from right-to-left --> is Arabic --> is Muslim/Pakistani/Arab (--> ergo terrorism. Some other post on this maybe). This notion has been partly fuelled by the fact, that most of Islamic literature is in Urdu. Thus, without asking for it, Urdu has been inadvertently relegated to a status of language of the Muslims, for the Muslims, by the Muslims. Thereby becoming untouchable for non-Muslims. This despite the fact that Brij Narayan Chakbast, a Kashmiri Pandit, wrote a scene from Ramayana, Tilok Chand Mehroom wrote, Rawan ka Maatam, Sita ki Faryaad, and no less than Iqbal has written a beautiful nazm on Ram -- all in Urdu. Ofcourse, these could be just exceptions. The wily politicians have realised this Urdu<->Muslim association, and milked the cow to get a grip on their votebanks. Sir Sayed Vajpayee Ahmed at his peak promised recruitment of 2 crore Urdu teachers, no kidding! Imagine, 2 crore Urdu teachers, in a nation of 100 crore people. The mind goes gazoombax!!??!! Let's not even start talking about Sheikh Mulayam Khan's histrionics in UP.

e) The Muslims too haven't helped either. Instead of nurturing the language, they sought to take refuge and use it as if it's their own baap-ki-jaagir, so to say. An average Muslim parent in Bombay, will send their daughters to Urdu schools, where the standard of education is abysmally low, and will prefer sending their sons to Eng-medium schools (read progressive). Slowly, the only Urdu medium schools remaining are defunct municipal schools. If you look at the one near my house in Bombay, you cannot make out where the hutments end, and where the school begins. The school playground is taken over by local taporis, and by kids from neighbourhood desperate to play cricket. Education standards not even worth commenting! So, instead of introducing it as a course in educational institutions and promoting its growth in local libraries, corner-shops, there is a sharp demarcation created. Urdu-->girls-->backward. English-->boys-->forward. Thank you. (Other regional langs too are partly afflicted with this malaise)

f) Finally, Urdu media. Pick up any Urdu newspaper, Inquilab, Urdu Times or magazine like Khatoon-e-Mashriq in Bombay.. read it, come back and tell me with a straight face, that they contain, anything more than :
i) Front page of news, politics, usually concerning Muslim issues.
ii) Peans on Muslim icons of the day. Right from celebrating Md. Rafi & Dilip Kumar's umpteenth birth anniversaries, down to Irfan Pathan's next wicket and the boy next door who got 80% in his HSC exams. Ofcourse half of Bollywood falls under the 'icons' section.
iii) Remaining stuff sounds like theology lessons in Islam, Mehndi lessons for Mariam, and latest designs in Burkha for the Beghum.
iv) Even the advertisements they attract are dominated by Chamatkaari Baba Bengali and Haj/Umrah Tours.
One cannot be faulted if one thinks, he has read some Muslim association's magazine, rather than an Urdu newspaper.

The results are obvious. Urdu is clearly on the decline in India. It remains a blip on the Indian language scene, and an oddity on the RBI currency note. It has govt. bodies with long winded names, under Min. of H.R.D, like National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language(NCPUL), that do nothing, except for sitting tight on their behinds, as far as you can make out from their website. None of the sidebar links work. And I once applied for one of its courses(EMS Speedpost), they never responded back. Such bodies need to be wiped out, for they are of no use.

At the same time, with the rise of English as a global language of choice, Urdu's downward spiral was imminent.

The Konkani language
Now let's compare and contrast this with the lesser known Konkani. Marathi is the state language of Maharashtra, with a formal grammar and a script. Whereas Konkani is a dialect similar to Marathi, spoken in the Konkan coast of western Maharashtra. As you move down south from Bombay to Goa, for every 100 kms or so, there is an incremental shift in its words, phrases and accents from base Marathi. A pahije?(want?), becomes a huna?. Mala(I/to me), tula(you/to you), becomes maaka, tuka and so on so forth. When you reach Goa, the Goanese Kokani is totally different than the one spoken in Panvel (few kms away frm Bombay). Infact if you move further down south, it suddenly morphs into Manglorean Konkani and from there North Kannada is not far behind. Infact, the Konkani language doesn't even have a script to call its own. It exists only in the spoken space. Obviously it is not taught as a formal language in any schools. Yet, it is safe as ever, in the minds and hearts of the people. And not so much in danger of evaporating.

Why ?

Again, because, people have chosen to pepper their speech and have formed variants, which are different from the one in neighbouring village. So much so that, some old-timers can even pinpoint exactly, whether you belong to Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, Raigad, Chiplun, Sangmeshwar, Shrivardhan or some other district, based on your speech (and sometimes with the smell of fish on you:). And the really-real-experts, the balding plates, can even hazard a guess on your surname. So, even though everyone says, they speak Konkani, actually each one of them is speaking a different version. The only thing common in all these Konkan districts is the Navnaath Raswanti Grah (Navnaath juice centre), and the per-capita fish consumption. Had there been Konkani language purists, I am sure, this language with all these sidie cultural quirks would have been dead, and all that would have remained is one monolith Marathi. Which would not be such a good thing, because nobody would have cracked jokes on Konkanis and the their fishy habits. Also, Marathi is a weak subject for many English medium students :p

So people, The Judgement Day has cometh. And The Kazi has decideth:

a) Bend, meander, twist, adapt, amalgam--> (sun-never-sets-on-Empire) --> grow --> English
b) Bend, meander, twist, adapt, amalgam--> (fish, no script) --> status-quo maintained --> Konkani
c) Rigid, purists, staunch, hard-nosed, snobbish --> (circumstances) --> perish --> Urdu
d) British-->15Aug-->28 states-->1-billion-->100 innovations --> (you decide?)-->Indian English

Wait! Don't go away.

Like all dark clouds, this Urdu obituary too has silver linings. And those shall be duly expounded upon in some future post. In the meantime, please add to this discussion. And if your comments are really really good, I promise to share insider jokes on Konkani Muslims :p
-----------------------------------------------------------------
ps: Ashok Banker, the prolific writer has a very good blog titled, Indian English Spoken Here. I wonder, what he has to say on this debate.
pps: I feel a li'l dirty inside, if I leave a ghazal incomplete. Here is Prof. Mudassar's complete thing. Sorry, no translation (N-nasal):

vo mere haal par meherbaaN zyaada hai
isliye hava kam dhuaaN zyaada hai
zameeN tang rahi hamesha mere liye
mere hisse meiN ek AasmaaN* zyaada hai
sitam raseeda hai Hindustan mein urdu
isi zubaaN meiN Hindustan zyaada hai

* - Smart prof. His wife's name is Aasmaa as well :)

Weep

2005-08-03T21:42:00.000-05:00

Read this, listen to Dr. Shazia's story in her own words....and weep. I can't bring myself to comment anything more at this moment. I am just numb.

[Via Atanu]

Mumbai Help and Cloudburst Mumbai : A Colla-Blog Initiative

2005-07-30T05:45:00.000-05:00

Zigzackly, the serial colla-bloggist, and Sunil Nair have started a collaborative blog Mumbai Help.

In Zig's own words:
--------------------
The recent floods in Bombay, though nowhere near as large a tragedy as the earthquake and tsunami, showed how unprepared the city is for a disaster.

A friend, one of the contributors to the SEA-EAT blog that many of you also contributed to, has started a blog that aims to put together information on helplines in Bombay, facilities in case of emergencies, and the like. In future times of need, the idea is it will swing into action the way the way the tsunamihelp team did, posting links to current news, requests for help and the other stuff we know so well.

How you can you help

1. You could link to the blog from your own sites: http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com/

2. You could become part of the team. You don't have to be from Bombay, or living in the city, though it would help if you knew a bit about it. In fact its essential that we do have some out-of-towners on board. When the electricity fails, and the net lines go down, those of us within the city may not be able to blog. Mail Sunil Nair - sunilrnair AT writers DOT net - or Peter Griffin - zigzackly AT gmail DOT com - and we'll send you an invitation.

3. You could mail in suggestions and information you have on emergency services. Same addresses as above, or use the comments section on the blog.

4. And yes. If you live in a city or area that does not have a proper site and easily accessed emergency info, you could start your own regional blogs, and we'll link to each other. A chain of emergency service blogs.

Thanks for your time. Keep it blogged.
---------------------------------------

Cloudburst Mumbai is another blog which will aggregate news, links to news, and personal stories specific to this tragedy. To join this blog you can mail Zig (zigzackly AT gmail DOT com) or Amit Varma(amitblogs AT gmail DOT com) to get an invite.

How to help: Same as above.
------------------------------

I am a contributor on both the blogs. If you think you too can help in your own small ways, join these blogs. For any further information, links, resources, which you can provide, feel free to email me (kazionline AT gmail DOT com) or any other contributors. Thanks for your time.

TOI touching new lows : Updated

2005-07-29T01:12:00.000-05:00

[Update: Pic via Uma - click the pic and zoom to smell the muck these guys are vomiting. Choice quotes below.]

Just when you thought, that the only place TOI can go from here is up, they go ten steps down, and prove us wrong, once again. A typical dial-a-quote article. The only intelligent line, if it was ever required came from Akshay Kumar: "In this case, no news wasn't good news".

And looks like Shobha De desperately needs to increase her readership, when TOI has to go to the extent of :

"Expressing similar withdrawal pangs Dilip De said, "I tried everywhere to get a copy myself, then sent my people out ... It was as if the day hadn't started for me." And no, it wasn't Shobha De's columns he was desperately seeking! (Those appear on Sunday in TOI and on Monday in Bombay Times)"

One expects better self-promotion tactics from TOI's marketing guns. Maybe, outsourcing this article to Medianet would have been a good idea.

Also, please, not to miss what Bips and other stars did while it poured:

"Tuesday morning and the Heavens opened up. It rained like it’s never rained before in the Bollywood capital of the world. And it crippled the city. Airports were shut, trains came to a halt, people came onto the flooded roads in multitudes, wet and bewildered. Cars still line the streets and water still reaches chin levels in parts of the city – affecting all. Even our lofty movie stars."

Aah! There you go. City awashed, doesn't matter. People dying, who cares. Bombay High on fire, it's ok. heh, giggle..giggle..heh, let's check out what was Bips upto in our own Bollywood capital, while it rained. And oh yes, Sachin Tendulkar got his copy of TOI. Please not to worry. Thanks.

Absolute third-rate sickos!!! I have long stopped caring, what they write, but in times of disasters like these, it's disgraceful and needs to be dissed in the harshest tone. Remember, the tsunami episode? Anyone?

[Cross-posted]

July 4th Fireworks: Boom Boom Boom

2005-07-23T12:05:00.000-05:00

This July 4th, US Independence Day, first time I witnessed fireworks of the sheer scale and beauty, which I could previously watch only in documentaries on National Geographic and Discovery. Here in the US, most cities and towns have celebrations lined up in their national parks or public places to mark this ocassion. In Austin itself -- which is a small city compared to Dallas or Houston in Texas state -- there were atleast four or five venues where large-scale celebrations were arranged. Each of these celebrations ends with a dhoom-dhaam-dhoom fireworks. We attended the one at the sprawling Zilker Park, and I was truly enthralled by this half an hour light and sound show. One more point worth highlighting is that, it was the first time when I saw a crowd of thousands assembled in one place. Generally this place is so sparsely crowded, that it feels like I am staying in a Parsi colony, but that day was different. (And as it must happen to any photographer, after reaching there, I realised that I had only 3 exposures left in my loaded film, and I had forgotten extra films at home. Even then these two turned out, pretty good, considering that (a) I was shooting fireworks for the first time, and (b) The exposures were approximately ~ 2secs, taken without a tripod).

Click on the indivdual images to see them in full size. Some more pics from Austin coming soon.

[Previous in the photo series: A truck in Bangalore a.ka. India Rising]

It happens only in India

2005-07-20T02:00:00.000-05:00

Cunningham Rd, Bangalore.

Got a bunch of film rolls processed in digitalese. Will upload some more soon. These two photos were taken on one of those rickety-rickshaw rides, when everything seemed to be going wrong, when every turn we took turned out to be a one-way in the wrong direction setting me back by another 20 mins, including this right turn on Cunningham Rd. (Yes, in Bangalore, just for kicks, they keep changing directions of existing one-ways too!!). After I saw this, I called up my colleague and told him, that our meeting is canceled and proceeded gleefully to shoot the proceedings :-) Oh, and I can still hear the autowallah that day, thanking profusely and blessing my three generations to come for emptying my purse onto him.

[Next in the photo series: July 4th fireworks from Austin]

Masjid-e-MumTaj

2005-07-19T01:35:00.000-05:00

Now, that even The Taj has has not been spared, it's time for some people to turn in their graves. Time for some verses to be twisted and some to be quoted again.

The ever romantic dreamer, Sahir 'Revolutionary' Ludhianvi, shifting with unease in his grave, is probably making grumbling noises :

"ik shahanshah ne daulat kaa sahara lekar,
Hum gareebon ki ~~muhabbat~~ ibaadat ka udaaya hai mazaak"

Quite unlike the scenario, when he recited the original lines as a young turk -- all of 19 years old, in his college days, thereby creating furore in literary circles. (one of my fav. lines)

Amjad Islam Amjad said:

chaand ke saath kai gham puraane nikle
kitne gham they jo tere gham ke bahaane nikle

dil ne ik iiNth se taameer kiya Taj Mahal
tune ik baat kahi, laakh fasaane nikle

The-most-beloved-Ms 'Mughal' Mumtaz Mahal, the center of all this unwanted attraction, cries out two different verses from Ghalib:

~~jala~~ gadha hai jism jahaan dil bhi jal ~~jal~~ gadh gaya hota
kuredtey ho jo ab raakh, justujoo kya hai..

kahoon kis se meiN ke kya hai, shab-e-gham buri balaa hai
mujhe kyaa bura tha marna, agar ek baar hota

Nida Fazli said:

do aur do ka jod hamesha chaar kahaan hota hai
soch-samajh walon ko thodi naadaani de mowla

tere hote koi kisi ke jaan ka dushman kyon ho
jeene waalon ko marne ki aasaani de mowla

Finally, to round up, Chacha Asadullah 'Sarcastic' Ghalib who is probably deviously enjoying this entire tamasha, has predicted as much during one of his hangover moments :

kahaan maikhaane ka darwaaza 'Ghalib' aur kahaan waaiz
par itna jaante haiN kal wo jaata tha ke hum nikle

~~~~~~~~~~

masjid - mosque
ibaadat - prayers
iiNth - brick
tameer - construct
fasane - legends
kuredtey - scratching
maikhaane - tavern
waaiz - preacher
mowla - O'Lord

A plug for Tehelka Foundation

2005-07-09T18:25:00.000-05:00

I was mighty pleased when I read this. Something which fills my heart with happiness. Tehelka has taken their Social Responsibility Initiative one step further and started the Tehelka Foundation. In their own words:

THE TEHELKA FOUNDATION is a non- profit Trust committed to empowering young people into becoming proactive Citizens.

Young people between the ages of 10-24 years account for almost 33% of India's population - a resource of 350 million. The intent of the Foundation is to empower them to engage with the community as responsible members, and participate in a wide range of issues dealing with citizenship.

In the process the Foundation will develop a model of Leadership Development and Social Equity that can be implemented in schools across the country

They are involving students from schools and colleges(right now it's Delhi), and partnering them with NGOs, activists, assigning them to do some real grassroots activism. The students are writing their own diaries about it. Excerpts from Michael Lakra's notes :

May 27: Parivartan’s Arvind Kejriwal calls me. He fixes a meeting at Ranjan’s house on May 31 at 4pm. Ranjan is a member of the Defence Colony RWA (resident welfare association)...

May 31: We meet. Arvind briefs me on everything Parivartan does. What they do, and how they work. He told me what my role would be. I also meet Pravita and Manya, two students from Vasant Valley School, who’re also volunteers with Parivartan.

What I have to do is note down the name of the agency that has given money to the MCD (Muncipal Corporation of Delhi); how much money has been spent; how much is left. There are instances where the MCD has taken money twice for the same project but the work has not been done. In some cases the work is not up to the mark. The government is trying to fool citizens. According to me, people have the right to know how the government invests money because people pay taxes.

June 7: Uday calls. He’s helping me file an application to the PWD, in charge of roads. He has told us to look for roads that are in bad condition so we can ask the PWD why they have not been repaired.

He also tells me that they are meeting again on June 11 at the India Habitat Centre. The Saturday meetings are a weekly feature.

Thanks to Parivartan I have come to know lots about RTI. It's a great experience being part of the NGO, and working with two RWA's –Defence Colony and Rajinder Nagar.

Not quite surprising, from their launch meeting photos, there is only one of the male variety (We men are just...simply, good for nothing).

I hope they are able to take this initiative far and wide. Kudos to you Michael, to all the students and to everybody in Tehelka involved in this.

Godspeed !!

Rape!! Who? Imrana? Where?

2005-07-09T05:15:00.000-05:00

[Via Altaf ]

Zafarul Islam Khan, editor of that excellent fortnightly Milli Gazette, has a don't-miss-it comprehensive report of how Indian media got it all wrong, again. He takes the old-fashioned legwork route, journalists are supposed to walk. (How many newspapers and TV channels thought of getting back at the Deoband mufti who issued his 'fatwa'? How many of them approached the AIMPLB to find out its official stand?) No hi-fi investigative journalism is required to do this. But our media is so full of crap. They don't want to see we are all skating on thin ice here. Everytime an Ayodhya happens, a Thakrey thunders, millions of hearts skip a beat with a, "what-next"? Everytime a Gudiya, Imrana, Mukhtaran Mai or stories of simpleton women from some obscure village steeped in stone-age comes out, millions like me wait with bated breath, for some dolts to write dial-a-quote articles, and paint Islam as some kind of an anti-women, anti-justice, war-mongering enemy (never mind the real meaning of the word 'Islam').

If Zafarul Islam's report is anything to go by, ALL what we know about the story is plain wrong. Some key excerpts:

a) Imrana might not have been raped. It might all boil down to some stupid property dispute.

Enquiries show that no one in the tiny house or her immediate neighbours heard any "scream" at night. This was strange as it is summer time when all people living in the tiny inter-connected houses sleep on the terrace or in open courtyards inside their homes. What adds a new dimension to the case is that this allegation was made in the midst of an on-going dispute in the family about selling the ancestral property.

b) A morally pervert Dainik Jagran journalist is responsible for doing Imrana in.

The father-in-law has all along denied the rape claim and the issue was dismissed within the family but some neighbours got wind of it and soon the story reached a small-time local journalist of the Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagaran. He came to the family and demanded ten thousand rupees -- a price to keep silent. The poor family pleaded that it did not have this kind of money. The journalist now went ahead and published the story in his newspaper. Zee TV picked it from Dainik Jagaran and thereafter all the channels, newspapers, agencies, NGOs and government organisations descended on the small village of Charthawal whose inhabitants would tremble even at the sight of a single baton-wielding policeman.

c) What's a "Shariyat Panchayat" anyway, and what is its legal standing?

As in many rural areas in the Subcontinent, a local elders council (panchayat) was called in the village on 15 June to deliberate over the issue. A local maulavi told the panchayat that after the incident the woman was haram (forbidden) for her husband as she is like his "mother" now and that she should marry the rapist! The panchayat was described by the media as a "Shariat Panchayat" as if a meeting of Islamic scholars had taken the decision, which is not true.

d) AIMPLB has never officialy ratified the so-called 'fatwa', and it's funny, they are also distancing from it. (btw, who is AIMPLB to ratify or denounce?)

Just one day after our interaction on 29 June, the Mufti's office announced on 1 July that the previous fatwa was not about Imrana, which is factually incorrect. While the name "Imrana" is not mentioned in the question to which the fatwa was given, her village and district are mentioned. Moreover, the 3 July issue of Rashtriya Sahara Urdu newspaper carries an article by Mufti Habibur Rahman which explicitly mentions the name of Imrana and pronounces the same opinion he earlier expressed in his fatwa.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board too has now distanced itself from that fatwa and will now soon to reconsider the issue.

And is it any surprise, that none in the mainstream media chose to carry this? (Hindu, Tehelka..appeal to thee...pls cover it)

As usual, it was only belatedly that the Muslim community leaders started taking a stand on the issue. On 30 June Dr Tasleem Rahmani, president of the Muslim Political Council, called a press conference in Delhi in which he showed a 3-hour video in which Imrana was shown as saying that no rape had taken place, that she was given five thousand rupees by a womens organisation.....

...Most newspapers and channels chose not to carry Dr Rehmani's statement.

Enough of excerpts. Go read the complete article. I haven't had the satisfaction of reading a well-rounded, complete article for quite some time now. This one does it. Thank you Zafarul Islam.

And look here, Imrana-Part II is on its way.

~~~~~~~~

On a somewhat related note, journalist from The Hindu, Hemangini Gupta, was molested in train on her way to Chennai. She gives it back to the guy, who later tries to pull her heart strings by calling her "maa". Sheesh!! Such shrinks should be hanged upside down, with their heads buried in garbage can, and their private parts stoned, then treated with hot-coals, again stoned, and cycle repeated ad-nauseam. She has filed an FIR, and the beast is under arrest. Drop by Hemangini's place and give her a bravo if you feel strongly about it. We need more girl-power like her to scream and shout and maybe even create a ruckus!

(Why am I getting a sick feeling that the world is going to end sooner than I earlier thought?)

Wanted: Google Certified Hecklers

2005-07-06T12:50:00.000-05:00

On returning from my blogging hiatus, I saw these sweet comments from a certain Impostor Dhanvir(ID), who would make Anonymous Cowards of Slashdot community feel as famous as...umm...God.

On a previous post he/she/it had this to say:

"Yella OK, Kool Drink Yaake?
Where is your take on the IMRANA case?"

And yesterday when I returned, he commented (let's assume it's a 'he') :

"u sure can be much better, cantya? dint expect 'did went' & 'striked' fromya. u never answered my q in my comment on da previous post"

Though the commenter come across as a troll to be ignored, I think he deserves a reply.
------
ID: "u sure can be much better, cantya? "..
Amir Khan says in Dil Chahta Hai, "it's difficult to improve perfection". I wish I could use that line here :p

ID: "dint expect 'did went' & 'striked' fromya"
ya man, me too, dint Xpect this frm maself, but what 2do. yaknow Eng is a foreign lang. for me, and I am not exactly a gr8-gr&son of The Lord Bard. In my resume, the language section reads some gibberish like C, C++, etc(there too, my compiler puts me to shame every now and then). Writing doesn't come as easy to me as it obviously comes to you. I have to apply myself to it, and damn it I admit I am just not good enough. N yaknow vot? un4tun8ly I was inattentive in my Wren-n-Martin grammar sessions in skool, as I was busy hitting 4s and 6s because we liked playing book-cricket with thick books. So, ocassionally I do trip - especially when I am writing late nights, and like half-drowsy and when that part of my brain which does grammar is not cooperating. I believe it's a medical condition called "Immuno Grammar Deficiency". Or maybe, it's like a human thing 2do yaknow? I mean, to err..and all that. Hey look, what we have here. I have company of NYT reporters who keep on correcting their headlines, after hitting the Submit button.

Or maybe it's not such a good company; and you deserve a thank you note for correcting me. And I mean it. In some ways, I am elated, that I have readers watching my every single word, and to correct my li'l mishtakes the nxt min after posting. Having said that, I hope you took away more frm my blog than just this.

ID: "u never answered my q in my comment on da previous post"

Ya man, and you are not helping your cause either. Since you are a not-so-'vir' nincoompoop, man you dint leave ne proof that you r da same commenter in both da comments, didja? Even if you are the same, let truth be told. I am not answerable to you, especially, if you ORDER me to do something. It is like one of those history exam papers we had in school, ya know, like: "when did so and so king captured the falaana falaana fort"? Now, it doesnt really matter if it was 1657 or 1658. Still our teachers used to confuse us by including both the years in Column B of "Match the columns" section(remember?). And just to confuse some more, they would include one more event from 1668 which would have taken place in the course of that semester's syllabus. Back then I had no choice. It was a series of coin-tosses to the rescue. Today I can chose to say "No". Hullo!! we are still talking about MY blog, aren't we? (That analogy made any sense? No? Good. It wasn't supposed to. It was just a meaningless digression)

Wait, I won't turn you away just because I can. You sound like a borderline case who just made it inside my troll tolerance threshold, and since you also corrected me I will be good to you and answer your question. I am not a full time journalist or a writer to report or comment on all the thousands of rapes(for that matter any news) taking place anywhere, wokay? is that clear as mud?. And my blog can be termed an exclusive news site only if you can utter "pedestrian shayari" and "news" in the same breath. But obviously for some reason you are too much in a hurry to read my "take" on the Imrana case. Did you actually read my last post before commenting? Can you read the the last line again - yes, that "we are back" line. Man, I thought I twisted Arnold ShivajiNagar's line quite nicely there. That line, along with the gap in my previous two post implies something. Dintya get that? Anyways, I am so sorry to disappoint you. If you read my previous posts or comments on More case, you will get an idea of where I stand - whether it be Imrana, Aruna, More or any other rape case. Infact I am left wondering, what is that "special reaction" you are expecting from me. After all, most people I know, have the same "take" on every single rape case. I don't know about you, but believe me, for people on this and that side of the international date line, it's quite natural to look down on rape as one of the most heinous crime that can be ever perpetuated on anyone. The AIMPLB (or any other body) and their total misinterpretation of Islamic laws notwithstanding. Naturally most of us also expect the harshest punishments and torture for rapists. Some good souls, who are better writers than yours truly, go one step further and write about the trauma faced by the victims. Like Pinki Virani wrote this book on Aruna Shanbaug's story. You know, like, it spreads awareness and sets us thinking and all that. I hope you read that book, rather than wasting your precious time waitinnggg... to read the take of a Nobody Blogger who commits basic language errors.

Your intentions behind insisting on "my" take on the "Imrana" case don't sound quite good to me. Whatever be your real motives, I will bite the bait for two reasons. First: There are too many people like you who think a person who writes about topic A, should also write about A', A'', a' a''etc. Second, there are an equal number who also think, that if I have said something about Ram, then it becomes imperative on me to say something about Rahim and vice versa. There might be a grain of sense in that logic. It doesn't appeal me very much though. Sadly I don't see signs of such people going away anytime soon. Hence, as much as I'd like to avoid such discussions, I do run across such debates too often for my own comfort. You are not the first person to have done that.

So let me try to deal with it (hopefully) once and for all.

There are two ways to answer your question. I can go ahead and write another post to whet your appetite. Or maybe I can spend that time on perfecting the 6-ball juggling pattern, writing pedestrian shayari for the umpteenth time and giving up, and generally doing what lowlifes are supposed to do. Today, let me take the latter approach. Please read the postscript in this piece about why I decided to keep a tracker on More case (yes, just the postscript is enough), and also this long comment which I left on "Imrana" story on Sepia Mutiny(June16) when it first appeared. That in a nutshell will give you my take on the Imrana story. Mind you, all this was written much, much, earlier before your first Happy Birdday on my comment pages. I hope this helps in your homework for today. If your teacher has anymore questions on it, you can always search on Google and Technorati. I am sure many bloggers have their take on Imrana case. Though how many of them have their surname as Kazi, that I know not.

And let me be very honest to you. You were successful in ruffling my feathers, and as long as you don't get on my nerves, you are welcome with all your ~~Kool~~ Cool drinks. Yep, it's not Kool. Upendra and Vijay Mallya won't forgive you for that grave error. Methinks it was Manish Vij who once said on Sepia Mutiny(paraphrasing) "I like my racist to be culturally correct". I think there is a profound truth in it, and applies to hecklers as well. You see, heckling is an art form. A good heckler can even force Tony Blair to respond, and be covered by BBC! And though I am no standup comedian, I think, it would be good for the egometer of this blog to have better quality heckling. Dealing with hecklers will also come handy in my future juggling shows.

And as we come to the close of the show, I gather that Amir Khan in his DCH line just mentions that it is "difficult", he never said it was "impossible". So I promise, I too will try my best to "improve on my purrfakeshun." Now howzzatt?

No love lost

2005-07-05T01:15:00.000-05:00

It started a few months back. It was love with the word Go. I started spending my time with her. We were like peas in a pod, or spoon and fork. Just me and her. Simply inseparable. Discussing about almost anything and everything. Moving on slowly from the Hi-Hello stuff to the serious topics. As the range and length of our chatting grew, so did the strength of our relationship. New bonds were formed. Details hitherto private were shared. We discussed our likes and dislikes. Together we had a nice little thing going on between us and I loved every bit of it. (I was even surprised, when one of my colleagues told me that he knew we were seeing each other) We were painting the town red. On the highest of high. But as they say, everything which goes up, has to come down. The sharemarketwallahs like to call it as "markets going in for a correction."

So, one fine day, calamity striked in the form of work. After long, arduous hours at the office, I was not really in the zone, and didn't call her that evening. She was a bit estranged. But there is tomorrow, or so she thought. It was not to be. One tiring day another. Then another and another and another... Things did went normal for a day or two. But, for no reason whatsoever, in those days I jumped in the pool and tried my hand (and legs) - pun unintended - at swimming. It was nowhere in my to-do list. But so are all the other things which happen to me, including this companionship and the break-up. None of it was planned. Felt proud about being able to graduate from swimming the width to the length of the pool. For some adventure, even tried diving. And the butterfly strokes. All at the stately 5 metres-deep community pool. However it wasn't easy. Just as in the real-life crisis, I could feel the water-level rising. Days kept on piling by, and so did my anxiety. Not to mention work at the office. Long distance online relationships are like that. They leave little room to wiggle out with an excuse, even on that rare ocassion when it's genuine, or so.

In the meanwhile other personal chores which had been gathering moss for quite sometime had to be taken care of. To top it all, HE decided to play dice, and sent Mr. Murphy to rescue me by unleashing his devious laws. His first law said, "Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong". And so it did. I lost my wallet and found it within half a day. A minor trouble, one might say. But the cards, which were cancelled before you could say 1-800-BANK-ING, are yet to be replaced and the new assorted PIN numbers memorised. The second law read, "You will shift apartments, just when you are about to receive important courier". And so I did. Hell hath no fury after that.(I HAD to use that phrase somewhere, so here..) And his last law reads, "A cellular telephone call is not just a voice channel from pt. A to pt. B. It is a "have-cell? will-rip-you-off" 2-year contract, with at least 3 fine-prints; all in easy self-explanatory legalese, available from 5 different toll-free numbers and as many websites."

By now she had started getting restless and was worried about my well-being. When I didn't respond to her calling, she tried sending messages through her friends. One, two, three..the friends and their emails kept pouring in; like people queuing back home in India, at the mention of the phrase "not feeling well". All of 'em asking me if I am doing okay? If I am in town? If I am alright? But how do I explain her that by now, I was already in a self-inflicted coma. The combined best wishes of all friends notwithstanding. Is a guy (for that matter a bhaiNs) expected to respond to emails, when he is out of internet and phone connection?

Finally over this long weekend, I started sorting it all out. I made the first move. Dropped in to check her over the weekend. There she was, waiting for me, as you would expect. There was a 10 minutes of silence on the line. Each of us not knowing what to say. All the LEDs were blinking green, but not my eyelids. Einstein's theory of relativity was proved once again. Those 10 mins, boye!, they felt like 10 hours. I looked at her forlorn, unkempt, tattered look. Oh, how she was longing for me all these days. And here I was, with a dumb-looking face as my only defence. Convincing is hard, more so when the relationship is just months old. And before it could go anywhere else, I had gone incommunicado. Foolish me, didn't even caution her, or dropped a word to her friends. Guys can be really bad most of the times (which is like pretty much all the time). This was one of those times. I was cursing myself, hard. "Why did I do this to her?" The why, oh whys kept coming back to me, without taking me anywhere close to the answer. I can just hope that she will forgive me, just this once.

"There have been some hiccups in the mailing process, but sir, I assure you, you will receive your card in the next few days", so say the sweet sounding ladies from 1-800-MYBANKS. Similarly, we might be patchy over the next few days. The speedy responses won't be there, just as yet. But, the good news is: Just like yesterday, we are a couple, again. And if you will, this posting is our make-up date.

I and my blog. We are back!!

"Even when I'm the underdog.....

2005-06-17T01:04:00.000-05:00

...I still prepare a victory speech."

As you know, I recently won a blogging contest. The prize distribution ceremony is being held on C*S*F lawns. And just this once, it won't be covered live(cross-posted) here, as I want all comments, suggestions to be in one place. So please be there. Everyone's invited. Nay, not just invited, but earnestly requested to share their thoughts and ideas.

This is also a good time - a milestone, to thank all my readers who have jumped in with their comments, who have corrected me along the way and those who have sent me lovely luvvly emails. Much love to you all!!

I won a blogging contest

2005-06-15T11:35:00.000-05:00

Here is the winner: Myopia for the Masses. It has been just around two months, since I started co-blogging on ChiensSansFrontiers, a bit hesitantly at that. And here I am today, with a prize money of $100, awarded by people whom I've never met. Needless to say, I am happy for it, even though we didn't have as many contestants, as one would expect from a colla-blog of 50+ contributors.

Parallely, I am also sort of tuned in to the reflection of this win on my post, or the follow-up steps that I think need to be taken (win or not). I have some ideas and plans on all this. But sadly -- as Murphy's law would have it -- right now am held up with too much work on hands.... will try to come up with a detailed post by tomorrow or day after. So stay tuned.
[Update: Here is my acceptance post, and my plans to utilise the prize money]

In the meantime, you can read about the contest, and go through the results and other entries. Trust me, some of the pieces there are literally "dhuaandhaar blogbaazi".

Sunil More(Updt 8): If there is a sun, then why it isn't shining?

2005-06-14T01:50:00.000-05:00

For no rhyme or reason whatsoever, More's custody is extended, once again :

Mumbai police constable Sunil More charged with raping a girl at Marine Drive outpost on 21 April had his judicial custody extended for the fourth time till 24 June..

Fifty-three days have lapsed since the cop had committed the rape inside the police outpost. But the Mumbai police, which showed interest on having an expeditious trial, are yet to prepared the chargesheet. Now with the police having done precious little for the prosecution of the accused, there is a growing suspicion over the integrity of the police force. The limit for filing charges is 90 days.

Does this mean, if they aren't able to file a chargesheet, within 90 days, he will go scott free, or that he has to be released on bail or some such thing? This is a general question, not just specific to More's case. If yes, then it's so stupid. All one has to do is sufficiently grease police's palms, so that they aren't able to get the red pen close to the register. And then, voila! I remember a case against Bal Thakrey for making inflammatory speeches(articles?) during 1992-93 riots was thrown away, somewhere around 1998-99, citing a similar argument that the incident occurred few years back. Whole of Bombay had come to standstill, with tensions running high, just to hear that lame excuse. Are the courts allowed to go amnestic? Anyone with a better legal dope on this, please enlighten.

[Case Tracker]: Prev | Next
----------------------------------
ps: And while we are on Bombay, Mid Day beats other media channels hands down with its proactive reporting -- gets the story out, and forces the authorities to do something about it, rather than just report the consequences. This time, it's the roof on local railway stations: No if... no but... sirf chhat! -- what a headline!

Is there a sun in the sky?

2005-06-12T15:20:00.000-05:00

Online friend and lead dog of the pack of dogs, Fadereu, from ChiensSansFrontiers(C*S*F - where I co-blog), recently got a job in DNA - yes the very newspaper about to be launched in Bombay, which is supposed to give tough competition to Times, HT and the likes. Just one week into his job and he's already smoking rings about the higher purpose of his life:

"I sit in my air-conditioned cubicle and wonder about the sun. Do they[DNA] even remember the sun? That huge thing in the sky which makes life and time possible? Are they even aware?

NONE OF the top bosses interact with me. Even at the "ice-breaker' party, they just smiled and breezed past towards the bevy of pretty assistants. I'm too low in the pecking order. I dress weird and I wear shorts to the office. I say crazy things like "this is wrong!" when I see misleading headlines, but no one seems to mind. I'm just a blogger. I smoke joints in full view of my editors. My geeky suggestions are "interesting" but no one has the time to improve how they do things, because they are too busy doing them. If you're older, you're smarter. If you're boss, you're smarter. If you're Pradeep Guha, you're a publishing phenomenon."

Check it out.

Fohyaatugo, Finland and some such stories

2005-06-12T13:30:00.000-05:00

When I run out of topics, I simply lift it from other's blogs, the topic that is. This one comes out of two posts from Michael Higgins' very very interesting blog, about a sandwich guy who forgets his regular choices, and about Finland's success.

Fohyaatugo:

First time in a McDonalds in the US. And as surprising as it might sound, no I hadn't visited any McD in India before this incident. Still, had a fairly good idea of a burger, courtesy billboards and PETA. After glancing through the menu for sometime, and coming to terms with the fact that a burger, fries and cola combi is called a meal, I ordered for a Fillet-o-Fish. I am a fisheggiterian when I am traveling. Here's how it went :

McD: Hi, how can I help you today? -- (in hindsight, I now know, in the US nobody is ever selling; he/she/it is merely helping you to lighten your wallet. That's not the point though)
Me: (*sorry, I don't need any help - I can eat that burger by myself*) One fillet-o-fish please.

McD: Anything else sir..fries or cola ?
Me: No, thanks. (*still haven't read Nutrition-101 to realise that double-cheeseburger and diet-coke combi helps maintain obesity just below the national calamity watermark*)

McD: Fohyaatugo ?
Me: (*hmm... now what's that! I hate choices.. just give me the burger man..I don't need any sidies*) No thanks, just the burger.

McD: (*bemused expression, but still friendly*) Sir, fohyaatugo?
Me: (*maybe it's unusual to take a fish burger without specifying choice of fohyaatogo. So let me ask him*) Is that a veg. thing or something made out of pork/beef?

McD: (*confused by that million-dollar question*) That's a fish burger you ordered for. So, do you want it fohyaartugo ?
Me: (*missing that subtle 'it' and that 'r' from his previous statement*) Sorry, I don't get you. What is fohyaatugo? I'll take it only if it is pure veg. (As advised, act wise. Anything veg, simply say yes- even if you don't know what it is. Later you can throw it. But first just say yes. Atleast you'll come to know how that damn thing looks)

By this time, McD has drawn attention of another McD in the kitchen. Fortunately he turns out to be a desi McD. dMcD comes to our rescue.

dMcD: (*noticing my new-desi-in-town-zapped-look, instantly switching to Indian English*). You'd want to eat it "here" or you want it parcel, "to go" at home?
Me: (*realising-that-gravity-makes-the-apple-fall embarrassing look plastered on me . now, that I have made a big idiot out of myself, I can't possibly eat it here, can I?*) Parceled :-)

Last heard, before making a hurried face-saving exit, dMcD was busy explaining the finer nuances of language and accents to McD. So nice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The second topic from Michael's blog, is about Finland's successful socialism model. He says:

Finland is ethnically homogeneous. Robert Kaiser commented about that here. Basically everyone in Finland is a Finn, speaks Finnish, belongs to the Lutheran Church (although doesn’t attend regularly), and has a lot in common culturally with every other Finn. This does not describe the United States or India. If you could measure ethnic diversity, Finland would be on the left, United Kingdom would be more towards the middle, United States to the right of the U.K., and India would be to the far right. A casual observation is that mild tax-and-spend socialism works well in a country that is ethnically to the left but not so well in a country that is ethnically to the right. Why is this?

Now, this is exactly the kind of post that allows me to squeeze in two related Finland stories I know of:

A) I read in an article somewhere about a "Honesty" survey done across several countries. The researchers placed a wallet stuffed with a decent amount, but not too much, of local currency, some officialese paper-chits, some smart cards, and a business card with their complete contact details in that city. These wallets were dropped off at several public places like train/bus stations, malls, cinema halls, park benches etc. Then they noted down how many people returned back the wallets, and what were the methods used. The results were mixed, as expected. In most countries the return percentage hovered around 60-75% (I recollect from memory). In some cases, the person directly landed up at the address given in the business card. Others just called up and asked the owner to come and collect it. Some points worth noting from the survey results.
-- Finland was the only country with 100% returns. 10/10 to their honesty.
-- In many cases, the person returning the wallet kept back some money (in some cases the full amount), and just gave back the remaining stuff. The point to be noted is, all these persons in all the countries directly landed up at the given address without first giving them a call!! Just to prove, that they've been completely honest, they went out of their way to deliver the wallet.
-- In one solitary case, IIRC it was Bangladesh or Nepal, the guy chipped in almost double the money from his own pocket and silently pushed it in the wallet. Why ? Because, those other chits of papers, contained some info about money owed to bank, friends, some hospital, medical bills etc. Now that's going beyond the call of honesty I'd say. That's so charitable.
-- And this last bit is really interesting observed across all the countries. In the same city, as they went on increasing the money in the wallet, the return percentage started to rise exponentially. So, the next time you forget your wallet anywhere, make sure it contains wads of cash!

B) The second story is from my friend, who has worked ~2 years in Nokia, Finland. Apparently, Finnish people won't take as much as even a sip of any alcoholic drink in parties, if they know they have to drive back home. So, either the husband or wife have decided who's drinking and who's driving back home. Or they arrange for friends going to the same party who will volunteer to drop them off. Or else, they have arranged it with the host, to stay overnight. Now that's some display of civic responsibility. I am not sure, if that's the scene across Finland, but atleast the few socials my friend attended, he had observed this. I'd appreciate, if anyone who has a broader experience can confirm this for a fact.

Read the complete piece from Washington Post, which is in Q&A format, with Post reporters fielding questions from both Finnish and American readers. It's worth your time -- a peek into a foreign society and culture. eg. did you know?

The Finnish clean air requirements apparently make it so clean it's invisible ...OR...

..the box of baby items sent to new parents. Such a gesture couldn't help but convey that new babies are valued by all members of society, and that all members of society are concerned about the well-being of new babies.

Now, isn't that soo coool!! Thanks Michael for your thought-provoking post that made me read it.

Our country has the best buffaloes...

2005-06-11T14:02:00.000-05:00

...and there is provision for paid news, as reminded by representatives of India Today (Hindi) to the mantriji.

An encounter with rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad. A must read, for those who worry about our villages, farmers, seeds and yes.... paid news.

Laziest review of Cinderella Man

2005-06-09T21:46:00.000-05:00

I've never reviewed books, music or movies, coz I can't write good, bad or critical things about them in fine detail. But, thou shalt breakt every rulet atleastt oncet. And a beginning has to be made. So there we go..

I love boxing, especially if it's the umpteenth rerun of Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier bouts from the ESPN archives(grainy videos). And I like Russel Crowe. So when Russel Crowe plays part of boxer James J. Braddock in this biopic, it's a heady combination. Cut to the chase.

Braddock, boxer, young turk, fails to live up to the promise of his early years, licence revoked, Great Depression sets in, peanuts by doing irregular labor jobs in NY docks, no food, no fire, failing gloves, state subsistence, reduced to beg from suits -- (enough sympathy generated by now) -- time for lady luck to smile, a chance match comes up, a no-contest in favour of Braddock's opponent, no hopes to win, only hope is to live through the defeat without breaking bones and earn the appearance fee. Twist in the tale.., one upset win followed by another and a happy ending.

Now, I'll pick just three scenes, which are etched in my memory :

Scene #1 : Maybe there is something in the overall build-up to this scene. One can shed a tear when Crowe with his baggy cap as begging bowl is collecting money from everyone. And finally he approaches the suit who had earlier revoked his boxing license (when I say 'one can shed a tear', I am simply trying to hide the fact, that I indeed shed a drop or two). This money is ofcourse to pay off pending bills, so that he can get his kids back home, who were sent away by his wife to a relative's place to be cared for. Earlier in the movie Braddock had promised his son, that no matter what happened he wouldn't send him off. Hence, Braddock goes with a begging bowl to keep his side of the promise. Very moving scene. I am left wondering, despite the tearful 'family.. relationship' sagas we have in Bollywood, not many movies depict father-son interaction. Infact, we hardly portray any relationship in a realistic way. (Another excellent movie, "Road to Perdition" comes to mind. Every father should watch that movie with his son. Enough of digression. Parantheses close)

Scene #2: After Braddock belts in an upset win, his promoter-cum-benefactor Joe Gould, played by Paul Giamatti, gives the best shot of the movie. He is so pumped and pleasantly surprised by Braddock's win that he goes something like(paraphrasing frm memory) : "Holyy Jeezuzz... Mary.. Christ.. St. Joseph.. Mary...All the saints, jeezuzz... holi Mary...did I say Jezus ?". If there is a best scene of the year award, this scene gets five votes from me. Ok, make that ten. I can watch the movie again and again just for this one scene.

The Grand Finale:
Scene #3 : James 'Underdog' Braddock steps in the arena for the title bout. Unlike what one might expect, there is pin-drop silence. No cheering, jeering or booing. Everyone silently rooting and praying for Braddock, yet somewhere deep within all of 'em are a trifle nervous. He is carrying the hope of thousands suffering from the unemployment and despair of the Great Depression (I must say, in comparison, Tendulkar is under much heavier pressure even today..poor Tendlya). As Braddock takes a look at the stands filled with his supporters, out of nowhere a man in the audience stands up and shrills in at the top of his unemployed-underfed stomach, "Yoou can dooo iit Jimmyyy!!". That is the moment. The uproar that follows is deafening. That single line is the gist of the movie. It's not as much about the knockout punch, as it's about the journey. Infact, there is literally no knockout punch.

As I am writing this, I now realise that there was almost no background music..No OST which played everytime a bout started or some such thing. Nothing, like the hum-drumming "Bumaaye Ali..bumaaaye Aali" chants from Ali -- an excellent movie based on boxing. However comparing these two movies would be unfair. Ali was a legend, and that stuff that legends are made of, he was stuffed with it. Reminds me, should put up an damn good quote from him..my hero. (There you see, I started with Braddock, and ended praising Ali)

All in all it's a good movie. Crowe is, as expected, near perfect. And Paul Giamatti complements him in each and every scene. Probably will earn him a nomination for best supporting actor too. And if you are a boxing fan, it's a recommended one. It pumps up your blood, and what they call, zest for life.

Lastly, I know of atleast two people here, who think the name "Cinderella Man" sounds like some emotional love story. Well, it is. But I can tell you this; the movie is as much about Cinderella, as one Mr. Jinnah has to do with secularism.

Bookful in Austin

2005-06-06T02:50:00.000-05:00

All these days, I was stealthily trying to escape from this. But professors are known to catch up with lazy students. And with this IISc prof. Abinandanan (are you sure, there are so many 'uns' in yr name? ;)), there is no escaping. He has book-tagged me - a game first started by Yazad - and sadly there is no way I can copy this assignment with minor changes thrown in, without getting caught. I'm afraid, dear readers you have to live through the truth.

This is probably going to be the most non-conventional book meme you would ever read. To place things in perspective, I don't know exactly when, but somewhere in my six years of engineering I stopped reading non-textbooks -- the books which people fondly recall with threadbare details of every single character and their hairstyles. A major reason for it is that those days I was racking my braincells doing pros-n-cons between 25paise back-to-back (kerosene) ghaaslent-xerox of Tanenbaum from Bandra, versus buying a second hand copy from Matunga/Fountain. Sadly, any other books didn't find much space in my list for the little money I had. After college I did read some stuff, but for most part that habit seems to have stuck, and nowadays I find myself reading more stuff online, than in books. Not sure, if that's a very good thing to continue. Anyways, here we go:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aye ahl-e-nazar aao yeh jaagir sambhaalo
mein mamlakat-e-loh-e-qalam baaNt raha hoon

~ Firaq

Come, ye discerning minds, take over your heritage,
Lo, I bequeath to you the wealth of pen and page.
~ Translation by K.C.Kanda

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Total number of books I own: Compared to the zeroes appended at the end of non-zero numerals by other bloggers, I am getting quite a complex here. Suffice it to say my collection is in two humble digits, and steadily increasing.

Last book I bought: Three actually, from Bombay, just before coming to Austin.
Bombay Meri Jaan - a collection of essays on Bombay. I was getting very lovey-dovey sentiish about leaving Bombay and India in general, and at the peak of that sentiness, I bought it. Arundhati Roy's Algebra of Infinite Justice. And just when I thought I was done with these two books from a bookstore, on my way back picked up, a used copy of Roy's God of Small Things (I know, I am so late) -- probably my last book from the Fountain pavement bookstalls. Btw, I feel embarassed to disclose (mujhe kuch kehna hai, par kaise kahoon, kuch samajh mein nahin aata!) that I haven't been able to resume on GoST, ever since I got stuck on its first chapter. Can anyone help me with her saas-bahu-maternal-paternal-aunt equations and quirky names of her characters? or is it just me ? please, please comment if any of you went through the same. There is some consolation in company. It's called - hum tau doobey hain sanam, tujhe bhi saath le doobengey.

Last book I read :
1) Masterpieces of Urdu Nazms by K.C.Kanda - Contains nazms (form of Urdu poetry) from several poets in Urdu script, transliteration in English and a befitting lyrical English translation. Also contains some very old B&W photos of the featured poets. Just adds that touch of romance to it. Two points to note here. There is nothing like reading Urdu poetry in Urdu script. Reading the transliteration just doesn't feel right - although it's immensely beneficial to the reader who can understand Urdu, but not read the script. Secondly, Sana Allaha Saani Daar Meeraji must've been a rockstar of 40s, what with curly long locks thrown around his mane. (Note to self: post his photo soon and become famous amongst the shayar community)

Five books that mean a lot to me:
1) Enid Blyton's Secret Seven, Famous-Five, and Hardy Boys collection: These series were my first real introduction to reading books outside of syllabus, way back in my waterbottle-hanging-from-neck and tiffinbox-in-recess days. I still remember I used to finish off one copy per night. I befriended the old librarian, so that she relaxed the 1 Book+1 Mag per week rule for me. This allowed me to pick up as many books as I wanted. (And while we are at it, it must be said that Nancy Drew sucks. Half the time she isn't done with her makeup and sissy things she does with her cousins, and most of her mysteries are solved by her dad, because he was umm..an attorney. I say, gal, get a life ! (any of you feel the same, pls approve...I feel unusual when I see so many Nancy fans around, especially boys- ok, double parentheses close))

2) A book on Mathematics & Logic in my cowlaze days: I don't know why I liked it so much, but the first time I came across proof by induction and proof by contradiction in this book, it just gripped my imagination like anything. I was addicted to it. I recollect redoing most of the exercise problems in it just for fun, and then it's chapter on graph-coloring -- WOW, it rocked. Imagine reading a maths book like fiction. Here I must brag that I got 97/100 in that subject (hey, it's my blog; if I can't lie here, where else I can). So much fun! I forgot the title and author, but my dear junior - if you are reading this, and if you still have that book with purple jacket, please return it to me. Though, I had given it to you for free, but I'll still exchange it for my right arm and a vada-paav outside Bandra rly. station. Not to mention 25ps xeroxed notes from Vidyalankaar classes.

3) Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman:
After reading this autobiography of Noble prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman, I briefly weighed my options of shifting from tech. and making a career out of picking locks (I swear, I even consulted HowStuffWorks for this). Feynman was some dude by any standards. This book also reminds me of long dreary afternoons from my childhood days, spent watching boring lives of ants, and trying to figure out, why ants approaching each other from opposite directions always knocked their antennaes(skulls?) in a mutual antennae-shake before proceeding. Don't be misled by the author's academic background. The book is as humorous as it gets and it begs to be re-read multiple times. And if you have a position open for a lock-picker, please email me. I won't charge by the hour (Coincidentally, one more Bombay blogger, Gaurav Sabnis shares this pick with me). This book is my recommendation for anyone who cares.

4) Arundhati Roy's Algebra of Infinite Justice - Collection of her political essays, so forcefully and convincingly written; that once you have read it, you just can't get yourself off it. Part guilty-consciousness of the self and part introspection about our role in society keeps haunting every now and then after reading this book. I bet any reader who finishes it, would want to go and write to Ms Roy pronto. Coz, irrespective of whether you agree with her or not, you can't ignore what she says. Hats off to you madam, and more ink to your pen.

5) This last one is much more than a book. Frances W. Prittchet's, A Desertful of Roses. Anyone who adores Ghalib, loves sher-o-shayari, or is a student of Urdu poetry, must absolutely read this. It's a Ghalib encyclopedia, nourished with love and affection. Whenver I have free time, my mouse automatically points to this website. If there should be one thing I must take on an island, this would be it (someone pls tell me, how to take a website to an island). And once again, fellow bhateeja-of-Ghalib Quizman, shares this pick with me.

Now comes the difficult part of tagging some more bakras to be halaal-ofied, to carry this game forward. Since most of my regular favourites are already taken, I hereby present some new ones, who I think would do justice to this:
- carNivas (hydra-headed future Tamil star)
- gratisgab (aka Gabby, superb writer, and an author(ess?) in the making)
- Arun Kedarinathan high on Textosterone (Pls write in sentence case, and no reverse type to hurt my eye; you write too good not to do this. I am your closet fan)
- The headhunter from Bombay, aptly named vulturo. (Revenge of the Hunted: I am gonna spam you buddy)
- The greatbong . I am in awe of his writing skills. (pls..pls atleast remove that fat lady gif from RSS feed)

(*If some of you are still wondering, what's a meme, go read Annie's beautiful description. Actually, go read her entire blog. I am getting tired of pointing people to her blog*)

Myopia for the Masses

2005-06-05T09:12:00.000-05:00

A comparison of two horrific crimes of our times and our reactions to it. Both events shook the establishments and masses. Different establishments and different places. One local (at best national for few days), other international. However a common thread unites them. In both the cases, perpetrators (I am purposely skipping that dreaded word - 'alleged') of these dastardly acts are none other than the ones who are supposed to be the protectors -- men and women in uniform.

First a rape of a teenager at Marine Drive. The other - escapes dictionary definitions as far as my vocabulary stretches - by a woman inflicted on many men; euphemistically labeled as prisoner maltreatment (You know once in a while, the law can be really simple). We'll see more about it.

First sparks: An on-duty policeman Sunil More, rapes a teenage girl in broad daylight in the very chapel of public security. Witnesses to the event beat up Sunil More, but not enough to injure or make him unconscious.

Next Day's Noose: Indian media hangs More guilty on their headlines. A cacophony of haai-haai follows. More gets dismissed.

Forest fire burns the trees the next week:
All media channels are kept on their toes by the flurry of the updates. Alcohol and potency(sic) tests are done. All positive. Police commissioner A.N.Roy faces the music. All kinds of kneejerk reactions follow, including but not limited to, Mr. Navalkar's objection of Ghatkopar (a N.Bombay suburb) girls coming downtown South. More was remanded to police custody and then to judicial custody till May 19. NCW delegates descend on the city to console the victim, his highness Shri Thackeray airs his precious pinions on Saamna front-page - duly translated by Outlook and IndianExpress. Mr.Patil goes on for breathanalysers to discipline the policemen, when they fall short of breathanalysers, they resort to mouth-mouth tests. All lowly bloggers blog --including this lowlife-- at the top of our voices about it, trying to think of it as an act of voicing our protest. In a perverse sort of way, I guess most of us felt that anything which helps to keep the focus is fine. Dope for the Pope, and hope for the nopes.

Charred remains:
Two weeks down the line, all other newspapers orphaned the More case, and moved on to the next big news. Except for Mid-Day, no other national daily followed it up, when More first denied the accusations, and later when he admitted to his crime. Think of it. Two most important plots of this tale, straight from the protagonist, which will directly affect the final judgement - whenever it comes, and by God ki qasam, it ain't gonna come anytime soon - are lost in the din and noise of first few days. Infact I can go on a limb and say that if a random survey is done, less than 10% of juntaa would know, what is the current status of More's case. The reason being quite simple. Media didn't cover it. Even MidDay's headline & main story then was how More was treated as a regular inmate, what barrack he was kept, and whether Iqbal Kaskar is in the same jail or not. At the bottom of that story, a small highlighted box reads the all important news that More has indeed admitted to his crime and that he also admitted to being drunk at the time. But atleast they reported that much.

Time shift a year into the past, and head to Iraq. Now compare this event with AbuGhraib, where innocence-personified Lynndie England, a US marine, unleashed terror on suspected Iraqi terrorists, all in the name of,umm.. well...war against terrorism.

First sparks: AbuGhraib pictures leaked to the media. Draws disgust and ire worldwide.

Forest fires: Almost every conceivable email Inbox received those photos, not to mention worldwide media attention it attracted. To cover up for the black deeds, a lot of White from the House is splashed all over the place. Innumerable press statements, clarifications and promises are delivered from the pulpit. Everyone who is anyone in Washington is out there giving soundbites. Endless debate ensues, whether madam-unstained and her colleagues were simply marching to their superior's orders ? What should be the exact words in framing charges against her ? I kid you not, they refused to use the 'torture' word anywhere. Maginfying glasses are dusted, to pore over Clause 18, Subsection A4 of 'International Treatise on Human Rights of Foreign Nationals taken as prisoners', published during some Geneva or UN convention -- to ascertain if dogs can be unleashed on testicles of suspects. Or how many exact centilitres of sperm can be extracted so as to 'soften' up the alleged terrorists, or what is the maximum height allowed of naked-human-pyramid, without that act being labelled as 'torture'.

Charred remains: Given all this, how many of us now know that a year down the line, Lynndie England's guilty plea was turned down !! Yes, turned down, and not in the guilty sense, but in Holy Christ's "you might be so innocent, coz you didn't know what you did" sense. Earlier Lynndie's defence tried to "bargain a guilty plea", so that the maximum prison term could be brought down from 16 to 11 years. And after all this, the esteemed judjges simply throw the plea out of the court, citing that her testimony is conflicting. At the time of this writing, two military lawyers have taken over Lynndie's defence (who is the bloody prosecution here?), and a hearing is scheduled to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to order a full court martial against her.

It's not over until the fat lady sings:
In both these cases, our media has shown exceptional short-sightedness, and failed pathetically in following up the story. And these are just two examples. Ofcourse there would have been some reports on alternative media(Sarai, sacw.net, countercurrents.org etc), but I am talking about the mainstream media. The TOIs, HTs, IEs and Hindus.

I believe, this raises two important questions all of us should be asking:

A) First up, media followup. Agreed, that MidDay is a Bombay-centric paper hence it will follow the city news to a detail that others might not. But, do editors of other national dailies judge that Sunil More's denial and his subsequent admission of guilt doesn't even merit so much as a passing mention ? (Atleast I didn't see any on the net. Any of you read in print ?) Especially when lengthy editorials were written and a rabid mouthpiece headline was translated in English just two weeks back. What is the basis of allocating space to news ? How does the editorial board decide what is important, and what is not ? Is it all up to the chief-editor? Is Editor(Features) also responsible for allocating news space ? More's trial on May9 saw his custody extended till June 1, and then till June 13. Nobody knows why. Because no one bothered to ask. There were no crowds this time.

How many Indian newspapers or TV stations covered Lynndie's trial sham? How many of them even bothered to find that there are no criminal charges against her - just two counts of conspiracy of maltreatment of prisoners, four counts of maltreatment, and one count of deriliction of duty. Compare this to the noise generated last year when Abu Ghraib occured. The question that begs to be answered is, just because it's old, is not newsworthy anymore? Why are our international columns, and Op-Ed pieces so dull and devoid of any form of debate? Infact, as a nation, collectively we hardly have any opinion and much less influence on what goes outside our boundaries(except if it's Pakistan). Indian media is hardly quoted by other journalists. So much so that even the revered Hindu has a tie-up with Guardian whereby they import Op-Ed pieces, on foreign affairs. Other newspapers don't even bother to go that far.

B) Second point is about pressure of public opinion in our societies - especially celebrities. Where are the ShahRukhs, Amitabhs, Aishwaryas and Sushmitas, when we need them ? All those pretty damsels, who swore on the ramp to champion the cause of feminism ? Why do reporters on the party circuit, never ever ask these questions in front of the camera ? Why does a retd. judge - for that matter a sitting judge - a bureaucrat, a Milind Deora, a Sachin Pilot, shy away from pointing a finger, in the direction it needs to be pointed to.

The fact, is we have left all these second-rung battles to the poor deglamourized Medha Patkars of this country ? Or we expect Kuldeep Nayar to file PILs every time a government legislation starts to itch. If at all a Arundhati Roy jumps in, many potato chips with one hand firmly on their remote, will dismiss her as a "celebrated writer looking to cash in on her Booker prize".

And that's reflects a sad attitude on our part.

Given this state of affairs, who in his right mind would not like to believe that Sunil More too can go scott-free, or at best with a rap on his knuckles. I am certainly cynical.

Nobody can save our society and our freedom from being doomed, if not us. No God. Or Allah. Or Bhagwaan. Whichever name you wish to call Him. HE is not listening if WE don't care to shout. And thankfully, some women from Nagpur have more than realised it when they lynched Akku Yadav to death outside a courtroom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sources:
There were just too many links which would've made it unreadable. So I'll just give general pointers here in the end:
a) Sunil More: I first blogged about it, just like so many outraged people out there. But later I took it up as a start-to-finish case study. You'll find most of the links archived in a series of two-way linked posts, starting here. Or you can jump to Rediff (some updates missing).

b) Lynndie England : These two Wikipedia pages and this tracker page from Law School, Univ.of Pittsburgh.

This was also posted as an entry to the CSF Contest, where I co-blog. Other entries in the fray are: here and here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update: Moved the last 2 lines to the bottom to take care of "Know More" script misbehaving.