A new low on democracy

The recent ruckus created by BJP over Jaswant Singh's book: Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence is not merely symbolic sensationalism but it's a showcase of many deeper failings that the party has chosen and tried to undermine independent thinking voices. A fine article by Siddharth Varadarajan in The Hindu, here.

The Jaswant Singh affair is first and foremost an oracle for the atrocious state of affairs in the BJP but it also forces us to ask: Can Indian democracy survive without the freedom to think and write? Can it flourish without the right to question and interrogate received wisdom? Can it be vibrant without being able to take irony, humour, irreverence and even a bit of disrespect in its stride? The individual fate of Mr. Singh need not detain us here but the manner and basis for his expulsion will further circumscribe the arena for debate and discussion within and between political parties. And if the Gujarat government’s ban on his book is allowed to prevail, it will have a chilling effect on a wide range of academic and cultural endeavours across the country.

Another excellent read, an article by Ramachandra Guha: The Absent Celebrant. Both the articles are somewhat related, I feel and I will leave it up to the readers to figure out the nuances. And I, for now, just want to mull over this:

Gandhi said he did not get time to read newspapers; in any case, he commented, "What does it matter, who talks in my favour or against me, if I myself am sound at bottom?"

So true and I wonder if that secured feeling comes that easy.

On a different note, I just begun reading India After Gandhi, after delaying it as much as I could because of my fear of subject, history. As a security blanket and to balance it out, I am trying to do a parallel read with Waiting for the Mahatma by R.K.Narayan (of Malgudi Days fame which I still thoroughly enjoy. Swaaaaaaaaaaami!!), for two reasons. One, its a fiction and two its a light reading.

Foiled mission

Remember, I bragged, few days back? So, it turns out, I could neither keep up with the target sessions nor could I improve on it. Obviously. I have been under the weather for past few days. Longest I can remember, in this lifetime (I have realized, how much I love exaggerating!). Fever, cough, more like flu and all kind of weird related stuff with it, for about 2/3 weeks, now. In my head,, at least, I feel, I am a pretty healthy person and it hurts my ego (big time, I swear) when something like this happens and for first few days I do not even acknowledge that am not quite perfect health wise.

Anyway, this is not what I came to whine about. What I wanted to crib about was that my pound beating program has taken a beating itself and what should have been 8 lbs by now is rigidly stuck at 5 lbs. I do not like scale's stuck up behavior but as long as it doesn't move right, I will be at peace. Of course, this has to do with my MIA from gymmin' scene and what's worse is that I had slowly built the perfect regime and was religiously trying to build on it and bam! Its like somebody threw buckets of water to douse the fire and now standing on the side and laughing at the foiled plan and mission of mine. Argh!!

On the brighter side, I think, I am doing better now and ready to take on the world but I will not be bragging about it, at least for the time being! I don't want to jinx it ,again. Laugh all you can but I will believe in it till I can laugh at it myself. I will not mind all your best wishes and sympathy. So pour it all you can! I am gonna gym my a** off now~

As Woolf said: Arrange whatever pieces come your way!

Lekin

Lekin songs were classic. Still are! Lyrics by Gulzar and music by Hridaynath Mangeshkar. And this one, shines through them. I find it very powerful because of the lyrics.

Suniyo ji.mp3

So much...

for being an IITian, huh? While, I have nothing against premier institutes but I do have a problem of them being classified as an elitist group of intellectuals. That is such a gross mistake. I have seen couple of miserable failures of personalities of folks who attended "premier institutes" all their lives and proved themselves as "premier failures" and pseudo intellectuals too. One such example: IIT engineer is online sex stalker in US. On the other hand, I have also found guys from not-so-premier-institutes as great thinkers and absolutely humble intellectuals. So, I wonder, what makes things premier the way we project or are fed in our minds as?

There are couple of points that I would like to state in which first one I have a strong problem with and second one is just a deeper problem I see:

• Classifying education into lower/upper rungs and feed this in mind of students who attend and leading that to idolizing and making them believe that they are indeed some superior lot. Isn't that a systematically adopted abuse?
  
• Human debased base urges (as one example cited about) cannot be alienated just by these superficial tags that we generate and attach to people into inferior or superior lot of human beings, no?

A Woman in Berlin

After reading several personal accounts of victims and wading through innumerable real stories, one fact becomes more clear to me that they never forget, and move on to lead a normal life. One such story of broken silence about collectivized systematic heinousness, here, in, A Woman in Berlin. Few quotes from the article to think deeply about:

"I was immediately gang raped by five Russians. The memories come back to you over and over again; you can never forget something like that. Sometimes after I talk about it, I sleep for a few hours and then wake up crying, screaming. You can never ever forget," she says.

As a result, for many women, political fear and shame — mixed with guilt about Nazi atrocities — created a kind of code of silence.

"The raping continues. They are everywhere, in every home. We service the Russians now. And we women will have to keep silent. Or no man will ever want to touch us again. Wretched Germany!" she says in one scene.

"The study has been helpful. But of course it brought back everything. And I've had a lot of sleepless nights because of it," she says.

...

Given that I am such a stuck-up person when it comes to welcoming new music, I was taken aback to my response to movie, Love Aaj Kal songs. A friend delivered the entire album to my inbox and I had not heard of the movie name yet. So, that was the beginning of my trouble. Looking at the name of the movie and my disapproval for the title of the movie, I did not even venture into downloading the songs. After couple of days, I just did it with very low enthusiasm as I had my biases already formed based on the casual title, "Love aaj Kal." I had said to myself, "what good can it be" and had dismissed it. Well, I have been proved wrong. There are few very groovy songs in this album. The best one is Chor Bazaari in the album, for me (by a fair margin). Its so very nice. Second one is Ajj Din Chadheya (but only first 20/25 seconds of it) and third one is Dooriyan. I have changed my mind on this album so many times that it has shaken my confidence. I hope, I don't come back with updates and edits later. Who would trust a person who likes and dissects songs to like and dislike for chosen few seconds in it?

Sigh! Life can be complicated with complex choices to discern from.

Expulsion for them

Since, they are HIV+, parents of non-HIV positive kids are demanding expulsion for the fear of infection. This fear is of getting infected, just being in the proximity of infection. Its not bad enough that they have been infected with the disease that they also face this community ostracism?

Since the school reopened in the second week of June, these 150 students have remained absent for fear of infection. "We fear that if our children play with HIV-positive kids, they too will contract the dreaded disease. We don't want our students to continue their education in this school."

To further pressure the zilla parishad administration into expelling the students, the villagers at a well-attended meeting unanimously passed a resolution to withdraw their children from school if the HIV-positive students were not expelled.

Four gone...

..and eight more to go. Yes, you might have guessed it right. Those numbers have to do something with pounds and you can attach "desirable personal loss" to it, as well. After much dodging and bluffing, I am back to my routine visits to gym. It's been a month and I am lovin' it, seeing the visible results, beyond the mental satisfaction of following a good habit.

On an average, its 4 visits per week, when sanity prevails over lethargy and laziness. So far, its only one week that I am ashamed of, for absconding for one full-whole-complete-all seven days -week bunking. Weight of one week guilt will result in more rigorous weeks to come, so it all works out fine, you see. Or so I say and think to self.

Work-out looks something like this at the moment and I am determined to improve upon it, in next few weeks: 2.5/3.0 miles of walk/run, followed by 3.5/4.0 miles of cycling, 15/20 minutes of rowing and stepping exercises and to finish, end it with half hour of yoga (combination of 8 to 10 moderate to difficult postures).

I made a little wish in a big park

Postcards

Courtesy: Blank Noise
---
And what with all the politicians these days?! "Each one, has one," is the motto they seem to be following. It's like a *thing* nowadays.

Consent makes it right?

So, its not yet confirmed that, if the actor really raped a minor maid or if it was with consent. Let's say there was a consent (for a minute), does that not make it wrong anyway for a married man to have sexual activity with a minor while his wife and kid were away? Or is it that consent provides a license to muck around? Although wife is pleading her actor husband's innocence. I innocently wonder why? What is she trying to save and what is left in that marriage?

In a country, where news gets more attention because of Bollywood affiliation and where Bollywood tag equals fame and expertise to speak and endorse on every subject, from politics to sports and everything in between. Or else why is Mahesh Bhatt's comment given any heed?

Bhatt said "my sources in the police say that he has confessed to sex with consent."

Update (June 30th, 09): Ahuja's lawyer said, "Ahuja's bail application mentions few main grounds as: He has no criminal antecedents, he is from a good family, the trial could take long time which may affect his unfinished films."

Is it only me, who finds this as load of impudent swill?

Update (July 9th, 09): "The court on Wednesday rejected actor Shiney Ahuja's bail petition in rape case. Ahuja is in judicial custody for allegedly raping his teenaged domestic maid."
Tough luck, Bollywood world. Ha!

Where should we be living?

She made her decision known, quietly, confidently and with little doubt. I heard it all and I was aware of her analysis that had gone behind making that strong statement. I was neither surprised nor shocked. It was not an enlightenment but a reaffirmation of those feelings which as an Indian girl we all have tucked just below our throats which we all bring it up with little goading. It’s that uncomfortable truth which some of us had a chance to escape while others have submitted to with silent resignation.

My friend, whom I met after couple of years and within few minutes of giggling and reminiscing of old graduate school days, mentioned in a subtle serious tone, that as a mature girl, she would not want to spend her youth years in any Indian city. Not by choice, at least!

She, who has traveled a many countries and had a chance to live in few other countries other than India. I was sure, she wasn't referring to materialistic pleasures, financial security or anything that we might label as developed countries privileges. She was talking about the freedom to breathe as a human being minus the constant reminder that she is one of those with only X-chromosomes constriction which comes with life of constant battle with social fabric and its tailored suffocation. To cut and sew to adapt when there are those leering threats, maneuvering of paths to avoid being touched or groped or just whistling which has perfection of melodious pitch and cat-calling comparison to Bollywood goddesses. Which Indian girl is not familiar with naughty remarks, "Arre dekh Kareena ja rahi hai," or "yeh dekh Sushmita Sen aa rahi hai be?" Humiliation which makes her yearn to run and abandon the public spaces. This disrespect to Indian women reminds me of respect Indians give to their traffic lights and regulations, it's just like given (or actually not) to objects which deserve no recognition or respect.

She was talking about security of walking on the streets and public transit without a reminder that she is only at the mercy of chosen respect by men. She was talking about safety in public places and not just from physical threats and freedom to work late at nights because she can have a deadline too. She was talking about the life in which where you do not become comfortable just only adjusting and adapting because the men have rotten minds. She was talking about normalcy of doing things, the way she wants and any time of the day, any place she wanted without any humiliation that comes as a package deal in her lovable country. Love to the country which is like love for your parents with whom you disagree completely in ideologies but yearn for them because you belong to them.

I wish her luck for her decisions and I wish the same things for me too. Sigh!

Mussarat Abbas

I discovered Abbas's voice while browsing, looking for Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan songs. He is talented and it does not take much time to recognize it. He sings Nusrat's songs mainly and rightfully so, since his voice and range matches to Ustad's Sufi genre quite a bit. There is passion in his voice and he uses this talent very adeptly in variation he brings out in different pitches. He sang two of my favorite songs on Sa Re Ga Ma show and I was pleasantly surprised and satisfied thoroughly. Just wished for cleaner versions of these two, without much drama from judges panel that happens on these shows, you know what I mean. Here you go...

First one is "Tere bina nahin lagda" below and Mussarat's version, here.

UDDIKAAN- TERE BIN...

Second one is Sanwre tore bina from the movie Bandit queen and Mussarat's version is here.

Trauma of parents...

...who are rich and famous! The Indian ghazal duo which made their mark with some of their most beautiful collection of ghazals. Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh, whose mellifluous voices I grew up listening to.

Chitra Singh's daughter committed suicide, y'day, who was suffering from clinical depression over two failed marriages.

And that's not all!

Their son, Vivek Singh, died at a young age of 19, in a road accident, in 90s. That was the event, when Chitra Singh decided to quit singing over this humungous personal loss.

Nothing can fill this void in their life now, and no money or fame will help them get past this grief to lead a normal life, any time soon.

Kiya hai Pyar Jise...

Where would my grave be?

I better find out, answer to this question after I deride this peanut-size brained, self-proclaimed, fearless leader of Mumbai land which belongs to Marathi folks, only. As a side note, in middle of nowhere, in the post, I would like my grave to be in a place heavily populated by Maharashtrians spot in Mumbai or in front of Balasaheb's plush mansion. Apart from abundant laughable ridiculosity, there are many noteworthy remarks made in this proclamation by Balasahebji Thackeray.

Thackeray calls Singh and Nirupam a snake and a cobra respectively, and warns them for acting against the interests of Marathi people.

Thackeray continues: "Delhi always fear that Marathis will become rulers one day.

Sonia Gandhi said that Mumbai belongs to everyone. Who has given her the right to decide Mumbai's fate? In fact, she is an outsider to the country.

I call them masterpieces of wisdom meant for framing and putting them up as wall decors. You noticed the "ji" in there? What do I say, I have utmost respect for this clown clan who has worked really hard on divisive India. I wonder, if nation should get together to dig his and his son's grave first before tackling more constructive developmental work. It might just help speed up the process.

Ha!

Serendipity...

...in Singapore, of finding that getting caught unaware in rains still leaves a tickle, I still love getting drenched in rains. Realized, some simple pleasures never get buried too deep, no matter how jaded life gets! Simple pleasure will be simply found just like this oldie song. I love the way she cuts him off, every time, to say what she wants to say, nevertheless. Ahhh...!!

Tumse Mila Tha Pya...

The ugliness of the Indian male

I had first read on Hari's blog, a forthright confirmation about atypical habits which are typical to genre of Indian males. It was a nudge to my deeper observations which I had conveniently never made a fuss about, never mind if they had made me uncomfortable. And then, about a week back, on South Asian literature mailing list (which goes by SASIALIT) there was a furor over an article by same Mukul Kesavan, The Ugly Indian Man - Of hygiene, hair and horrible habits. Needless to say, there were some angry email exchange by Indian men and the rebel was quite evident. Rightfully and quite understandably so. Many of them were offended and there were voices of rebel to discontinue the discussion. One gentleman also said,

"As an Indian male I am deeply offended at this kind of hate-mongering.
Indianmaleophobia is what it is. Moderators, over here, if you please!"

Recently, I was on a flight to Singapore, 18-long hours flight which I had dreaded from the beginning. But Singapore airlines had me impressed right from the beginning with their hospitality, provision of comfort and attention to little details. I think, the food was a little excessive for me and I could barely eat one-fourth of what they provided but after a couple of times, I realized it would just be safer for me to decline rest of the meals and snacks, until I felt hungry again. However, after 12 hours of flight there was a stop for fueling at Incheon, a place I had never heard of before. But this 40 minutes pit-stop led to shuffling of passengers. After I returned, I had an Indian male neighbor for my remaining 6 hours leg. What the heck did I know, what a replacement this would turn out to be.

This person was probably in his late 30s or early 40s, slightly pudgy with salt and pepper hair. His casualness was noticeable. He had flung his shoes aside as soon as he had plonked in to seat, tore open the blanket plastic cover with a sense of immediacy and covered himself as he reclined casually stretching his legs under his front seat. He grabbed the remote device immediately and fiddled with it until he settled down for the movie of his choice. Quite understandable that utmost comfort can be critical on journeys like these.

Within few minutes into the movie, with remote in his one hand, this man was industriously digging into his nose, alternating between left and right nostrils. My red flag antenna was on high alert from then on. After all, I had written confirmations and self observations to back my aghast internal (so far) reaction. I knew that this hard work of index finger is a danger in my vicinity.

"When you think of where they put those nails, this is not surprising. I’ve seen respectable men conducting conversations with their index fingers two digits deep in their nostrils, digging with industrial enthusiasm. If you ever see a desi man delicately rubbing the tip of his index over the pad of his thumb, beware. Don’t do near him: he’s rolling the bogies he’s mined into little balls."

This called for my pretentious patient demeanor to react and soon. So I did! I gave him some serious angry looks but I should have known that the man is too comfortable and oblivious to his surroundings. I was suddenly very conscious of my lack of access to freedom in that belted seat. I was helpless and trepid of my confinement. I immediately mumbled, "this is disgusting"! I was gleeful that he heard. But he did not stop right away, his fingers would reach out to nose and then he would brush it off gently with his thumb and index finger and end it with a sniff. I did not give up and obviously could not sleep for rest of my journey. I calculated in my head that uncomfortable alert wakefulness is a safer proposition than oblivious sleep which can lead to infliction of dreadful habits of Indian male neighbor.

Hello from Singapore!

Mediocrity

How do we justify mediocrity? Process of learning, acceptable sub-standard way of thinking, rejection to first-handed way of subliminal possibilities and thinking, wholehearted acceptance to below average ways?

Can manipulation be labeled mediocre? Does explicitness of shameless mediocre actions qualify for better preparedness or implicit-but-can-be-spotted-mediocre actions qualify for sophisticated way to some esoteric elitism?

Mediocrity is a dangerous premise and I have seen it very closely in known and somewhat known faces. Close enough to know that it is mediocre thinking which has translated into mediocre actions. I have experienced this in professional environment, volunteer work (seemingly noblest intentions), personal life, friends and acquaintances. It's stealthy presence leaves me troubled, every time. People being comfortable with mediocrity makes me uncomfortable. It makes me nervous, so very nervous!

If, anytime, you hear somebody saying in callous demeanor, "but that is how it has been happening for a long time," watch out for degraded collective wisdom in calling to accept and refusal to think!

...

Jaage Hain.mp3

"aadhe adhoore khwaab jo,

poore na ho sake,

ikbar fir se neend mein,

woh khwaab hone do."

Beautiful song with beautiful lyrics! This is not to say, that, I have forgotten about my most(est) favorite gem. But this just fits my current mood just a little better.

Watch it...

...it's a bitchy rant!

I got super annoyed with this. I don't follow it but stumbled a few days back and couldn't resist making my point. If you wonder why, read the rest. I don't dislike things without a reason. Firstly, I have no idea why nowadays every possible celebrity wants to join this bandwagon of blogs. You really don't have to! It's not uncool if you don't have a blog. But it's uncool if you present garbage which is loud and desperate for attention. Quite like the way he always liked hogging all the attention, AB, and is his name. Didn't you get enough attention already Mr.B, from the nation which featured you in its poverty parade of recent times as well? I am referring to Slumdog Millionaire. If I were you, I would be ashamed than anything else of the fact that a kid did what he did in the movie for your picture. It's rather a sad symbolism of deprived existence and presented in layers of fantasies and promises, through the lens of Bollywood. But that's not your fault entirely.

Forget your acting skills for now, and let's just analyze your blog quality bit by bit, disaster by disaster, feature by feature. One, do you really think people need to look at your loud close-up picture first and be forced to scroll up & down to hunt for some meaningful content? Flicking your father's poem to decorate it on your blog is in cheap taste, imho, because such things can be done and should be on a personal website, no? Then comes the content part, do you really think its important to have an everyday log? who reads that kind of royal shit? As a mature adult, you can contribute meaningfully or just be quiet. It's about time you figured that its about quality and not about quantity. I quickly glanced through and couldn't figure out anything that made any sense. You hog everything that came your way, whether it was acting, singing, anchoring, clowning. There was no thinking time, sifting time given and it showed in everything you did.

Nation got tired of you but you haven't tired yourself of giving garbage to the nation. For the little good work we can talk about, here is what I have to say. If you worked on million things, chances of one, two or three being somewhat successful is highly likely.

Be good and Keep the promise of appreciating sanity!

Effective efforts

I had written this, below email (last year) to set of people, of my impression (as a woman) and categorization of various potential heinous things that women may face in their life.

Hi A,

Thanks for putting this together! You have captured the essential purpose of this conference session and intention with it was triggered to begin with. If you notice, there are just so many issues of varied seriousness, be it regular day to today life instances, to trivial matter like using guys instead of folks, or more grave issues of molestations to rape. And since the session did not come out with tangible concrete action items to go home with, it cannot be labeled as faulty. Issue by itself is so diverse and knotty that we do need to focus on problem by problem from accepting if its a problem first to if there are healing steps required. But with due respect to everyone's consciousness, we do need to focus first on absolutely necessary harmful issues which are beyond the "gotcha" aha moments.

One such discussion I had with V (during conference) on existence of prostitution business in our "society." When people say existence of flesh business is acceptable for safer societies for women. So essentially are we sacrificing few women for greater common good? Is that something they are doing willingly? Is it the money lure (blinding by not providing the choice of other alternatives)? If it is a healthy component to the society then why it is not a mainstream profession and why not advocated to every woman. My gut feeling is no woman will or doing this by choice. Its either force, trick or difficult financial circumstances. Hence, I do not agree with that argument at all. highest degree...


Next is molestation, rape where affected women are damaged beyond inexplicable impacts. Even though for a moment we accept that we make it socially acceptable and men are more open towards accepting the victims, but are they not scarred and battered at a deeper level? Almost all the stories that we heard in the email, there was one element very common, shame, guilt, deep hurt (even though none of them asked for it). None were rape experiences in those but any kind of physical intrusion left them seriously hurt. How did the guilt get formed to girl child of age as early as 7/8 years old. Is it instinct or? higher degree...

Next is cat-calling or eve-teasing etc..these are instances where women are affected at a more superficial level and their physical self is not intruded by strangers. I got talking to my American friends here about this issues and idea of eve-teasing is almost non-existent. It will be interesting to find why it is such a big crisis in India.Is it suppression of guys feelings, upbringing, lack of proper education, lack of co-eds, sex education? These might be bit easier to deal with. I know, I am making a big assumption here. Please chime in. Medium level...

Next is issues related to our everyday lives, why were women made to learn cooking and guys taught not to cry etc...list is long here. But having said this, these are deep rooted, well fed from childhood practices/biases etc. How harmful can they be or are? Once we assess that we can address those as they come. Low level...


Some of you may feel that one is more harmful than the other. Agreed. This is very subjective. I merely listed all these for convenience and since we cannot adopt the same approach to all the problems. But we need to identify the gravity of issue individually and tackle one at a time. I think we have been pretty successful in introducing the topic in general. Now we need to find our focus and work towards one problem at a time.

My 2 cents.
Pallavi

Today, morning I read about this.

According to the Justice Department, 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped in her lifetime. Tribal leaders say predators believe Native American land is almost a free-for-all, where no law enforcement can touch them.

It got me wondering if just tightening the federal efforts is the solution to eradicate this problem.

The federal government has recently announced plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to improve medical clinics, buy more rape kits and bolster the police response to what authorities say is an epidemic of rapes on Indian land.

I personally don't think so! It will empower women and grant access to justice but they seem like prescriptive reactionary steps after the deed is done. What prescriptive steps are we formulating where physical assaults do not even occur in perpetrator's mind? What can we introduce in our formal or informal education or methods of social interactions that aggressive mindset is dealt with, to avoid destructive attacks, altogether?