The comments (including mine) on this post by Nita sparked off these thoughts. What good does a riot do? Bad for the stability, bad for the economy, bad for the image of the nation. And we bloggers get a new subject to rant about. Group A intends to humiliate or crush the spirit of Group B, they go medieval on them. Well then, after a while some one or the other from Group B will be plotting for revenge, and the whole shebang will start off again. The debate on the post was on Firaaq, an (Pakistani) award winning movie which depicts the suffering of the Muslim community in the Godhra riots. Many, including me, said that the movie is one-sided, and should have included the mention of the train burning incident as well. The others ranted on, how a riot, is not about the faith, but the death of innocent beings. So on and so forth. Read the rest to get a better idea. But then, is a riot, a contest of some sorts? Is it so, that the community which loses more members is to be sympathized with more, or the community to bear the brunt first gets a justification for the brutality with which they descended upon the others. Do we keep a score, and use that to settle the argument? Movies like Firaaq do not justice to tragedies like Godhra. What you need is objectivity. We need to look beyond who started or ended it, the blame game. We need to condemn the action and the reaction equally. A truly great and sensible movie would be one, which showed you everything, told the story in its entirety. It wouldn’t appeal too many, the pseudo-seculars or the minority-bashers, and it won’t get an award from Pakistan for sure, but that would do justice to it. A fellow blogger remarked, “You don’t need to belong to a particular community to speak truth. Nandita Das is a hindu and she bothered to empathize”. But then, if you are empathizing/sympathizing on the basis of religion, then it is not true empathy or sympathy. How different is the grief of a mother whose child was burnt from that of a one, whose child was hacked to pieces? Rioters and the inciters of those riots should be doled the harshest possible punishment, irrespective of the cause and effect; these episodes spread sociological cancer. And if being rational while analyzing such incidents makes me a “dhobi ka kutta” (thank you Indyeah), neither here nor there, then so be it.
Remember the movie, Desh Drohi? How a “North-Indian” comes to Mumbai, gets his ass whopped, how he kicks Marathi ass back, and all that crap. That again, is one hell of a flawed movie, and lame as well. If I were to ever make a movie on that subject, I would start off with the root cause, the non-development of UP/Bihar. How the “great leaders” of UP and Bihar let the states rot. How they are the front runners in the BIMARU group. And then move on to Mumbai and blame the likes of Thackeray. I am a Bihari, but an Indian first and foremost, and in that spirit, it would not be fair to put all the blame on one man and his party. It is not a black and white world. This is not just a Marathi or a Bihari problem, but an Indian one, and it should treated objectively.
People lose their rationality and sense of objectivity when it comes to their own. Their “own” could be their religion, language, caste, colour, city, state or sexual-preference, possibly everything except their nation. For me, India is my own. If not, then how can I claim to be a true Indian?
A poem I wrote as a teen, years ago, after the Godhra aftermath.
A riot broke in my land
Blood flowed and flooded,
through every hand,
Man slaughtered man, and,
in vengeance was butchered by him.
A father and son were amongst those,
One perished, the other vowed revenge.
But when the time to kill came,
He heard the cries of a weeping mother,
All around him were grieving losers,
Their cries pierced the depths of heart,
The tears were many, the anguish same,
His hands froze, the malevolence maimed,
In death, he saw us all as one,
For they had no religion, once they were gone.
p.s. Someday, I will make a movie on the Kashmiri Pandits, and then fast until death if the Pakistani Government refuses to acclaim,accredit and award that movie. I am banking on the fact that :-
1. I will win a lottery to finance the movie, and cast Nandita Das .
2. There will be a few Pandits left by then .
3. The Land-of-Pure would still be on the face of this Earth .
Friday, March 27, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Obama Deception
The Obama Deception is a movie , made by a guy called Alex Jones , famous for being a conspiracy theorist . I was curious when I saw the title , even more after watching the trailer , and stunned when I started watching it . It is one hell of a shocker . For instance , Obama said that there would be a cap($500,000) on the salary of those executives , whose companies have been bailed out by the Government . The movie says that this rule is applicable for those companies only which are growing and coming up , i.e. no cap for those which have already been bailed out . Apparently , this was in the fine print. This movie is full of whoppers . God knows what the truth is . Just watch it , even if to get a few kicks out of it . Now I shall go , finish the movie , and go gaga over it . :)
Monday, March 9, 2009
Random Thought #7 : Gift of God
I read a joke. Here it goes .
The new minister's wife had a baby. The minister appealed to the congregation for a salary increase to cover the addition to the family. The congregation agreed that it was only fair, and approved it. When the next child arrived, the minister appealed and again the congregation approved the increase. Several years and five children later, the congregation was a bit upset over the increasing expenses. This turned into a rather loud meeting one night with the minister. Finally, the minister stood up and shouted "Having children is an Act of God!" An older man in the back stood and shouted back "So are rain and snow, but we wear rubbers for them!"
The joke sparked off these thoughts. Many a times have I come across these words - "Bacche to Bhagwan/Allah/Whatever-name-you-use-for-your-God ki den hai", and the ones who say it have a dozen kids, give or take a few ; and it suddenly struck me, are they? Really? Maybe, for a childless couple who have been trying too hard too long, it can be looked upon a great gift. Personally, the birth of twin daughters to millions of families in India would be one hell of a gift for India, given the seemingly FUBAR-ed sex-ratio. But for the rest of the cases, I say BS. What a load of crap! WTF , literally . A horny husband wants to do it, may be the wife does not let him that often, so he decides to cook up a solid excuse for it. Quite possibly his priest/padre/imam/rabbi helped him figure out a good one. "Woman, children are the gift of God, and refusing a gift from God is blasphemy”. Take that. Irrefutable logic. The magical wand of God/Religion was waved over it,and lo and behold, you have a football team. But that was then. One might say, that people were encouraged to have a lot of children , in the name of God , as the infant mortality rate was higher , and the average life expectancy lower . But then again , no longer true , relatively speaking . 6.5 Billion people and counting ! We should thank God for contraceptives. All I have to say is, please feel free to engage in this activity as much as you want to , but don't call it an act of God , and the by-product , His gift . But if men can kill in the name of the Merciful One, why not this?
On a side note, I remember reading about the Chinese manufacturing/distributing very cheap TV sets, for/to the masses, as a population-controlling measure. You know, keep the guys entertained through other means, as for most of them, being poor, it is the only recreational activity. Interesting, eh? But will that work in India, given that most of the shows/movies aired do not necessitate a functioning brain. So ultimately, the blood of the male animal will not stay up there. Just a silly thought. :D
Corny jokes apart, we are heading towards some very tough times, given that we already are 6.5 Billion strong, and that number won’t go south short of WW III or the Yellowstone going boom. It seems to me, that most of the problems we face today are somehow related to the mass of the humanity that occupies earth. If the people inhabiting this planet were in sustainable numbers, who could have been fed, clothed and sheltered, then those who want to wage wars using religion, caste, creed, colour,nationality,race or their own asinine ideology would be out of a lot of soldiers. We think we are evolving , as a civilization, but are we? Leave alone the jackasses who want to go back to medieval times, what about the rest of us. Our technology, is mostly un-green, it makes our life easier, but creates a mess as well. It sounds very pessimistic, but nothing other than a disaster of biblical proportions, either natural or man-made, would restore the balance.
A thought provoking movie – Children of Men. Maybe, this what Mother Nature has in mind for us.
Source for the joke
The new minister's wife had a baby. The minister appealed to the congregation for a salary increase to cover the addition to the family. The congregation agreed that it was only fair, and approved it. When the next child arrived, the minister appealed and again the congregation approved the increase. Several years and five children later, the congregation was a bit upset over the increasing expenses. This turned into a rather loud meeting one night with the minister. Finally, the minister stood up and shouted "Having children is an Act of God!" An older man in the back stood and shouted back "So are rain and snow, but we wear rubbers for them!"
The joke sparked off these thoughts. Many a times have I come across these words - "Bacche to Bhagwan/Allah/Whatever-name-you-use-for-your-God ki den hai", and the ones who say it have a dozen kids, give or take a few ; and it suddenly struck me, are they? Really? Maybe, for a childless couple who have been trying too hard too long, it can be looked upon a great gift. Personally, the birth of twin daughters to millions of families in India would be one hell of a gift for India, given the seemingly FUBAR-ed sex-ratio. But for the rest of the cases, I say BS. What a load of crap! WTF , literally . A horny husband wants to do it, may be the wife does not let him that often, so he decides to cook up a solid excuse for it. Quite possibly his priest/padre/imam/rabbi helped him figure out a good one. "Woman, children are the gift of God, and refusing a gift from God is blasphemy”. Take that. Irrefutable logic. The magical wand of God/Religion was waved over it,and lo and behold, you have a football team. But that was then. One might say, that people were encouraged to have a lot of children , in the name of God , as the infant mortality rate was higher , and the average life expectancy lower . But then again , no longer true , relatively speaking . 6.5 Billion people and counting ! We should thank God for contraceptives. All I have to say is, please feel free to engage in this activity as much as you want to , but don't call it an act of God , and the by-product , His gift . But if men can kill in the name of the Merciful One, why not this?
On a side note, I remember reading about the Chinese manufacturing/distributing very cheap TV sets, for/to the masses, as a population-controlling measure. You know, keep the guys entertained through other means, as for most of them, being poor, it is the only recreational activity. Interesting, eh? But will that work in India, given that most of the shows/movies aired do not necessitate a functioning brain. So ultimately, the blood of the male animal will not stay up there. Just a silly thought. :D
Corny jokes apart, we are heading towards some very tough times, given that we already are 6.5 Billion strong, and that number won’t go south short of WW III or the Yellowstone going boom. It seems to me, that most of the problems we face today are somehow related to the mass of the humanity that occupies earth. If the people inhabiting this planet were in sustainable numbers, who could have been fed, clothed and sheltered, then those who want to wage wars using religion, caste, creed, colour,nationality,race or their own asinine ideology would be out of a lot of soldiers. We think we are evolving , as a civilization, but are we? Leave alone the jackasses who want to go back to medieval times, what about the rest of us. Our technology, is mostly un-green, it makes our life easier, but creates a mess as well. It sounds very pessimistic, but nothing other than a disaster of biblical proportions, either natural or man-made, would restore the balance.
A thought provoking movie – Children of Men. Maybe, this what Mother Nature has in mind for us.
Source for the joke
Sunday, March 1, 2009
We,the Foolish
1: One bunch of fools burns an idol (Kali Maa, for instance)/attacks a church/desecrates the Koran/insults the 10th Guru/spews venom about a language or region or religion/you-get-my-drift, inspired by some insanely foolish idea/thought/ideology/man/I-hope-you-get-my-drift.
2: The second bunch of fools, who could and should do something about it, do nothing. Maybe, their hands are proverbially tied.
3: The third bunch of fools, who shouldn’t be doing something drastic, irrespective of their proximity with the Zone where the incident took place, attack/burn (living and non-living entities)/rape the people belonging to the community of Bunch 1, who, in all likelihood had nothing to do with the incident.
4: The fourth bunch of fools, who wield the power, and are elected by all the other fools, sit-on-their-asses, wait and watch , spell check the speech they will deliver once the blood-and-the-dust settles down , ruminate over how can it be used to gain some political mileage . I speculate.
5: The fifth bunch of fools do some Live-Action-Reporting , preferably in English , present a one-sided story , unequivocally condemn the other-side , bandy with words like freedom,democracy,secularism,Gandhi,truth, non-violence, constitution etc., have open air/closed room debates on it , air their own opinions , go blah,blah and blah till your ears bleed and file a law-suit or two if anybody dare criticize their incessant idiotic rant. These bunch of fools, apparently, no nothing about investigative journalism (my personal opinion).
6: Bunch 3 and Bunch 4 swing into action. They go blah, blah and blah this time, count the dead bodies, start the blame game, declare compensatory packages, justify the actions of Bunch 1 or 2 depending upon their ideology and appoint another bunch of fools, which go by the name of “an enquiry commission”.
7: Bunch 6 , the enquiring bunch , fools around , digs up some stuff , makes-up the rest(Once again, I speculate) , presents a report , hopefully in a few years time from the incident . This report does nothing but makes a fool out of you. By this time, either Bunch 1 or Bunch 2 has swung into action again. So all this tom-foolery starts again.
8 : Bunch 7 , everybody else(you and I included) , who have been fooled through 1 to 7 in varying degrees and different ways, scratch their head , wonder what the hell the truth is , question the who,why,where,how and what of the now years old incident, talk about it , may be blog about it , and sigh dejectedly . :(
Bunch 5, is still going on and on and on. I loathe Bunch 5. If I were a cannibal, I would munch that bunch. I wish I was rich enough to fling a brick at my TV every time one of them came on. I wish I was even richer to start my own TV channel , and hire Russel Peters to make fun of them , 24/7 . Why don't they shut up ?
Fool me once , shame on you , fool me twice , shame on me , fool me so bloody many times that I have lost count , Welcome to India .
2: The second bunch of fools, who could and should do something about it, do nothing. Maybe, their hands are proverbially tied.
3: The third bunch of fools, who shouldn’t be doing something drastic, irrespective of their proximity with the Zone where the incident took place, attack/burn (living and non-living entities)/rape the people belonging to the community of Bunch 1, who, in all likelihood had nothing to do with the incident.
4: The fourth bunch of fools, who wield the power, and are elected by all the other fools, sit-on-their-asses, wait and watch , spell check the speech they will deliver once the blood-and-the-dust settles down , ruminate over how can it be used to gain some political mileage . I speculate.
5: The fifth bunch of fools do some Live-Action-Reporting , preferably in English , present a one-sided story , unequivocally condemn the other-side , bandy with words like freedom,democracy,secularism,Gandhi,truth, non-violence, constitution etc., have open air/closed room debates on it , air their own opinions , go blah,blah and blah till your ears bleed and file a law-suit or two if anybody dare criticize their incessant idiotic rant. These bunch of fools, apparently, no nothing about investigative journalism (my personal opinion).
6: Bunch 3 and Bunch 4 swing into action. They go blah, blah and blah this time, count the dead bodies, start the blame game, declare compensatory packages, justify the actions of Bunch 1 or 2 depending upon their ideology and appoint another bunch of fools, which go by the name of “an enquiry commission”.
7: Bunch 6 , the enquiring bunch , fools around , digs up some stuff , makes-up the rest(Once again, I speculate) , presents a report , hopefully in a few years time from the incident . This report does nothing but makes a fool out of you. By this time, either Bunch 1 or Bunch 2 has swung into action again. So all this tom-foolery starts again.
8 : Bunch 7 , everybody else(you and I included) , who have been fooled through 1 to 7 in varying degrees and different ways, scratch their head , wonder what the hell the truth is , question the who,why,where,how and what of the now years old incident, talk about it , may be blog about it , and sigh dejectedly . :(
Bunch 5, is still going on and on and on. I loathe Bunch 5. If I were a cannibal, I would munch that bunch. I wish I was rich enough to fling a brick at my TV every time one of them came on. I wish I was even richer to start my own TV channel , and hire Russel Peters to make fun of them , 24/7 . Why don't they shut up ?
Fool me once , shame on you , fool me twice , shame on me , fool me so bloody many times that I have lost count , Welcome to India .
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