My Dear Women

What comes to your mind, when the first thing you read in the morning is about a padeophile who got away? Or when you read gruesome headlines like “ 7 year old girl raped and killed” . 7 year old ? Raped and Killed ? What the FUCK ? What the FUCK is wrong with a society where children , innocent, divine, pristine, and unspoilt, get raped and killed !

From the very day a woman comes to existence, as a being on this Earth, she is the target, assaulted at every stage of her life. From female infanticides, to being raped and killed, no matter how old or young she is. Whether she flaunts her gifts in a bikni or gracefully covers herself with a hijab, whether she wears a saree, salwar,skirt or shorts, no matter what, why or when, she gets hit. The sickness of men when it comes to sharing the Planet with Women is universal , and manifests in many many cruel ways . They are mostly animals, or animalistic at times, at best.

Leave alone Rape and Murder. They are the end of the spectrum. What about being sacrificed for the sake of a mythical honour, being burned for dowry, being abused by the husband, exploited at the Workplace, sold in the market place, molested in a crowded space? What about the myriad other ways, in which, We, men , in general, make things difficult for them?

This huge gap, between the socio-economic status of men and women, will it ever be bridged by Reservations alone? I don’t think so. And neither can we bridge it by special favours and treatments to a few . You think, just because you don’t see it happening around you or with you, the times have changed, and women now walk along men, shoulder to shoulder? If you do, then you are among the lucky few in India for sure. I cannot say what happens in the Western countries for sure .

And to top this fine fettle of affairs, the Media has descended upon Womenkind, as a eco-friendly fossil-free resource, to be used anywhere, and in any way possible to maximize profits. No, it is not just pronography. Pornography is very direct. It is very blunt . What I am talking about, is the multitude of advertisements, that perpetually drive home the insidious message that if you use :-

My Deoderant -> All the Women for You
My Hair Oil -> Hot wife for you
My Cement -> More women . I don’t know how, but more women for you.
My underwear -> A hot woman for you
My pen -> A hot teacher will fall for you
My Car/Watch/Laptop/Mobile/Analgesic/Soda/Umbrell/God-knows-what-else -> Woman, in every nook and corner for you

And I am not counting the tv-shows and cinema.

So what message do I get , on a subconscious level? And why would would I need so many physically beautiful women? Ergo, a woman is an object, to be enjoyed and collected, if possible. And this message is put forward, 24/7.

I can’t understand the way this society wants to function. It is at odds with it self .

It seems to me, that they are trying to go by the following :-

1. I am a Man. I rock. Even if I don’t, let me reiterate. I am a MAN. I rule.
2. I want to sleep with as many women as possible. From my teenage.
3. It is my birthright to molest, eve-tease,grope etc., any woman that dares to step outside.
4. If any other man does the same to my mother or sister, all hell will break lose.
5. When I marry, I want a hot wife who cooks,cleans and bears my child.
6. I want to be paid a certain amount for my masculinity , and the huge responsibility I take on my shoulders, to feed and protect your daughter. ( I forget at times, that I also get a wife, and the mother of my children)
7. If the hot-wife is an only child, I would be very happy. I don’t want her brothers to share her fortune. My fortune is mine. Her fortune is mine as well.
8. My wife should be a virgin, when I marry her.
9. I should have robbed at least one girl of her virginity before I get married.
10. My wife should not ever betray me.
11. I may sometimes sleep around, just to recreate myself.
12. My wife should respect every memeber of my family, no matter how they treat her.
13. Of all the children 50% or more should be sons.
14. If all the children turn out to be sons, I will reward my wife appropriately( depends on the build,complexion, health of the son, and what he becomes) over her remaining less torturous life.
15. If all are daughters, then all hell will break lose.
16. I may decide to kill some of my daughters, even if I dont have many of them, at times. I may kill them at birth, forcefully marry them off anytime I want, virtually killing them, or may kill them if they marry against my divine wish.
17. I may be upsetting the sex-ratio, but fuck that, my honour comes first.
18. Another source of my beatific honour is the possession of sons with beautiful wives.
19. I am extremely aginst homo-sexuality of any kind. Homosexuality of the feminine kind can be condoned provided I am entertained by it.
20. Coming back to my wife, she should take care of all my children. Sons can hang out with me.
21. All my sons, should get ample opprotunity to play with as many other girls as they want.
22. Any woman , my son marries, should be pure, as was mine, and should not have had any affairs prior to the marriage.
23. It is the fundamental duty of the father-in-law of son’s, to pay me back with interest, all money that I ever spent on him. But he does not get my son for it.
24. If my wife or daughter should get raped, I will first try and rule out whether she asked for it.
25. If any family member does that, I may punish, my wife/daughter, depending on what I think happened.
26. My wife/daughters should not step outside, without my direct permission.
27. I want a certain percentage of the women, to be set aside, for my , and my fellow-men’s recreation. These women, will be treated the worst of all, because of what they practice. The sleep with men, for money.
28. There are a few, amongst, many other things that I want from Women. The others escape my mind. So to simplify things, I have the right to impose any rule I like, from flattening breasts to inspecting wheter women are wearing bras or not. So please co-operate. Or else, you know.

Now , you tell me, how the hell will a society be sane, given even half of the above rules are true. Men try to tilt eveyrthing in their favour to such a crazy extent, that things are way out of balance. But we never see the root cause. We suffer, and make women suffer even more. When we don’t get our sons,we kill them. When our sexually frustrated sons, as a result of the disturbing ratio, rape or attack other women, whom do we blame ? Even when we have paedophiles creeping out of many corners, we refuse to find out, why ?

We choose to ignore all of it. Because we are men. We want women to serve us. Till the day we end up killing all of mankind, and all other women and children.

Son of the Soil

Howdy everyone ! Its been long . Nearly one and a half months since I lasted bored you all with my rants :) . I hope some of you still remember me though .

I bet you all must have seen the Abu Asim Azmi Vs Raj Thackeray , aka Sainiks Vs Samkavadis BS being aired all over . Leave alone the debates , where Ivy League educated politicians talk as if they were schooled and force fed all the words a night before . All theory , all technical terms , full of "We shoulds and we should nots" kind of crap , cliched and over cliched . The issue itself is so damn idiotic . Who asked you to force one language on another ? And more importantly , who the hell asked you puff your chest and proclaim your solidarity with the "national language" . I wonder how familiar is that person , truly , with Hindi . And boy oh boy , do check his wikipedia bio . If the parties involved were so sorely seeking participation in contact sports , they could have easily done it in a better and more dignified manner . But NO . This is INDIA ! A gyrating democracy . Not vibrating , but gyrating , to different tunes . So this had to happen .

But this issue is just an off shot of the real issue , the Son of the Soil theory . I wonder why the name stuck , the only soil I know is the Indian one , the idea of Tamil , Gujerati , Manipuri or Kashmiri soil sounds unreal and nonsensical to me . Anyways, we all have heard about it , since it all started in 08 . What happened then bothered me a lot , and it still does . But what bothers me even more , is the undivided attention , the Hindi and English language media showered on MNS and Mr. Thackeray alone . Sure , he is wrong on many fronts . Undeniable . But how many of the news channels and journalists ever turned the limelight on the politicians and the pace of the development of the states from where all the "undesirables of Mumbai" come from ? Why aren't they portrayed as darkly as Raj Thackeray , who is nothing but one side of the coin ? Why ? Is it deliberate , a part of some sort of a super conspiracy theory , to bring him out in the open , and as no publicity is bad publicity , fuel his growth ? Or is it that English and Hindi media took it personally , and decided to just focus on the side of the story they don't like ? I want to know why . Honestly . For will I not accept this argument forever , that any Indian can settle anywhere he wants , no matter what . Some things matter . Like the fact , that two of the most populous states cannot be underdeveloped for long without having its repurcussions . The fact , that a country as huge as ours cannot do with a handful of good cities . And migration must have its optimum levels ,everything in and around us operates on that logic. And who do we blame ? The people of those states ? The people of the states that has the migrant population ? The respective leaders ? The Central Government ? Who , the fuck , is responsible , and answerable ? And more importantly , even if only theoretically speaking , how do you redesign the system , to ensure uniformity , and to restore balance and order ?

But I guess Raj Thackeray alone is enough to push the TRP up . Why bother , huh . Some of us will be happy watching the English/Hindi reporting on him . Some of us , will get a reason to pent up some anger , and might vote for him the next time . Many of us , would process it as reality tv/modern age entertainment , and live with it , till it directly crosses our path .

Please , share with me , if you have any answers .

Mad World

A tall dark and handsome man entered the room. He was musing over his dark complexion, regretting that he never ever applied the skin whitening cream in his youth. His eyes went up to the bent figure sitting , or rather slumped over the chair. The prisoner looked up, cringed, and cursed himself. “Why the hell did I not take my daily dose of Parle G. I would have been out these shackles by now. But I, like a total moron, had to fall for the coke-ke-saath-dost free crap. And that blunder made me forget about my super-power biscuit.”,he thought. His eyes caught his would be tormentor’s glare. He shivered in fright, those cold eyes froze your soul. He had been trained well, even to bear the harshest of the tortures. He even had his macro-man vest on. But he wondered whether he would be able to fend off this fiend’s attempts. The tormentor switched on the TV. “May be , they are going to give me a test of some sorts”. The colors came on. As his eyes adjusted to the brightness of TV, he started feeling an increasing sensation of numbness. And then it hit him, like a blitzkrieg, and he was fading away. The last word he heard was “Jai Shree Krishna Baa………”.

He was in a semi-comatose state. He had this weird nightmare, in flashes of, pasty faced over made up woman, dressed in expensive sarees. There were a lot of families involved. And almost all of them looked the same age , he couldn’t make out mother form daughter. He passed out again.

He came to his senses. His head felt heavy. He tried grapple with the situation. It took him a while to recall the events before the black out. It seemed that he had a memory loss of some sorts. He retched. His vision was blurry . It took him some effort to open his eyes. The TV was still on . Some young people were arguing with each other on this show. He couldn't make out half of what he said, the other half was beeped. As he watched more and more of it, the dull throbbing which had started in his head, turned into a splitting head-ache. He tried to figure out what was going on . Even in his own mentally disheveled state, he could figure out that a bunch of demented but stylish young men and women were involved in some extremely imbecilic and asinine acts , which obviously did not involve the use of one's brain. 10 minutes into the show, the prisoner just collapsed . His captor grinned, his teeth shining out . He was a Colgate man, and never missed to brush his teeth with the best Oral care had to offer, certified by dentists all over. He was wondering whether to bunk this interrogation session or not, as he nursed a bottle of Fanta in his hand. His techniques were not working, so far the prisoner had just drifted in and out, and showed no signs of surrender . “Eh”, he said,” Let's wait a while, and while I am waiting, I can help some poor villager get some power”. With these words, he turned on his new Voltas AC. As the AC started regurgitating power, he fell into a reverie . He wondered whether to buy some vaseline body lotion for his teenaged daughter. He wanted her to be a better tennis player, and so far , actually working on playing better tennis had not helped her. His son was still hopeless. Even the liberal doses of Mentos didn't help him pass a single subject. He wondered why every product he had ever used never worked as the advertisement promised it would . Perplexed, and tired, he fell asleep.

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To be continued , whenever I can garner some patience, better words and enough exasperation as a result of watching incredibly dumb advertisements, news anchors, and glimpses of TV shows . Par aap dekhna mat bhoolna , “Rakhee Sawant ka Swayamvar” . And if I were the producer of that show, I would introduce two new rounds to this kickass(so bad , that you want to kick your own butt) modern day “real life” drama .

1.So dumb that you should die round – This will be offered to the contestants . I would approach them personally , and offer them a desert eagle with enough bullets to end their existence , as they chose to be on of the suitors. It is not Rakhee , it is more so because this nautanki will be aired on TV , and they have no qualms about it .

2.Everyone-should-get-a-second-chance-and-die-now-or-die-painfully-later-round – This will be offered to the winner . The lucky man , will be asked to end it right here, right now, before he actually gets married . Since this man refused the first offer, this time, I will offer him a sword or a long dagger , as he deserves to die a slightly painful death, for humiliating himself.


I must add, that though I am not a fan of Ms. Sawant , I think she has guts. And the satire was directed more at the audience willing to gobble up Grade A Horse Shit like this, and then asking for more.I am not calling for a ban on shows like these . I hate them , it is my personal view , and obviously I don't watch it . But what is more infuriating , and dumber , is the debates on whether shows like these should be aired in India or not . There was one going on the yesterday, on some we-are-the-only-credible-source-and-we-are-so-full-of-ourselves English news channel . Pooja Bedi was one of the debaters . Mahajan Junior another . And the most important and the most intelligent one, according to yours truly was a guy , who was , I guess the representative of the PFBS , i.e People Full of BS , i.e Bhartiya Sanskriti . I don't want to write down everything he said or why I disagree with it . Just one would be enough . He said "Humare yahan , jab koi aurat pregnant hoti hai , to hum yeh nahi kehte ki woh pet se hai , hum yeh kehte hain ki uska paanv bhari hai . Yeh hai Bhartiya Sanskirit " . I was stumped after hearing this . I mean , how is it the term used to describe a woman who is carrying a new life related to Bhartiya Sanskriti ? I mean , WTF . Am I an idiot that I don't get it ? Do you get it ? What was he trying to say ? I still don't get it . Please , for the love of BS , tell me . And Pooja Bedi was in hysterics .

One last thought . The way things are , please do not feel surprised if one fine day , the ignoranuses(ignorant assholes) who debate on such stupid topics , make an issue out of Western style toilets . They might come up with something like - "As a western toilet is too comfortable for ablutions , it makes the Common Indian Man/Woman forget , that he/she has to struggle everyday for existence , and so is against the ethos of Bhartiya Sanskriti " , or words to that effect . Or , if not this , then something worse than this , which would be - "Woman should not be allowed to use Western toilets , as the seat is on a higher level compared to the desi one . And , as men are inherently superior to woman , only they should be allowed to relieve themselves comfortable , and from a higher plane " , or some more BS to that effect . You think I am crazy , huh ? Wait for the day .

After all, it is a Mad World .

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 .

The Machinations of the MSM

Something bad happened in Barak Valley, Assam in January. Some miscreants belonging to a particular faith barged in to a place of worship of a different faith, and desecrated it. The inspiration for this atrocity being religious conversion .Now what does come to your mind? Did you jump to the conclusion that it was BD or its kind who were the desecrating miscreants? Ha, you are SO wrong. And the reason is very obvious. If it had been these Hindu terrorists, you would have heard about it, without fail. The Main-Stream-Media would never ever let go of such a juicy episode like this, they would have milked it till it was dry, and then milked some more. You would have seen the symbol of Om against the backdrop of something visually disturbing, with a two-bit sinister score as well. But do you remember anything like that? I, for sure don’t. Once again, as in the case of the KVS logo change episode, may be, I missed it again. But then, my twisted mind tells me that this is could not have escaped the radars of the MSM had it been the Hail-Hindutva boys. So what really happened? Well, some missionaries burnt the idol of Goddess Kali and damaged the temple as well. Shocking incident. Very disturbing. And yet, it was nowhere in the news. I googled it and I could not come up with any article by any major news vendor. And I concluded this:-

1.Was this given a miss-in-the-baulk, on account of it taking place in Assam, a state of the North-East, land of the “Chinkies”, about which , we don’t give a rat’s ass, it seems ?

2.Was this not reported by the MSM because the aggressors were Christians and not the vile and virulent Hindus?

The fact that the only source of available information is either a blog/site associated with Hinduism/Hindutva/Right-wing or one of rather unknown origins, does question the credibility of the information. But about all the sources I have seen so far, report the same thing. May be they tried a little of Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. But assuming everything crazy that I have suggested so far is true, why the hell was this NOT reported? In the spirit of fairness and truthfulness, every attack on every religion should get the same attention by the media. I am not gnashing my teeth in anger, as I still have my doubts. And there is only reason I could come up in the favour of it not being reported. They would have sparked off riots for sure. If the murder of a man could, then the apparent murder of a Goddess would have caused all hell to break loose. Which creates a moral/ethical dilemma. Is it right to filter out events like these in the larger interests of the nation? Or will covering them up ultimately result in more mayhem eventually? And, can this entire episode be labeled as a machination of the main stream media? The more I look for answers, the more questions arise.

Sources - 1 , 2 , 3 and 4

A Lost Cause

India is a secular and democratic nation. At least that is what the founding fathers wanted it to be. Somewhere down the line, religion became too big an issue for it to be as secular as it should have been. But what the hell, we still are. It is a good thing, certainly something to be proud of. And I am .But then, every now and then, the secular image takes a beating, and a bad one. The history of India is checkered with incidents of riots sparked off for reasons, from mundane to macabre. I cannot quote statistics to back me up on this, but I guess it is the minorities who are usually at the receiving end, more so than the majority. I feel sorry for them. Genuinely. For I do not think that the systematic rape of a woman of the minority community, commencing with the invocation of Mahadev, does service to my religion. I was aghast when I learnt about Abhinav Bharat. I still do not see any rhyme or reason in their actions. If they plan to blow up the terror camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh or in India (if there are any), I am all for it. But I do not think bombing Muslim-populated areas would serve any true purpose, other than creating more soldiers for Jihad. What happened in Gujarat was atrocious indeed. I concur. I am not denying that it happened, and on a gruesome scale too. And now comes my bone of contention with the media, the liberals, the intellectuals, the human rights activists and the champions of secularism and democracy.

What greater hypocrisy can there be when anything even remotely associated with oppression of minorities by the Hindu masses makes news, but the Kashmiri Pundits, who have been actually deracinated, and killed by thousands, doesn’t nowadays . Does the sole responsibility of the media and the human rights activists is to act as a watch dog for the minorities alone? Does being in the majority automatically warrants of not being at the receiving end? Kashmiri Pandits, who ethnically, culturally and religiously as well, belong to Kashmir, are living like refugees in their own country. They are rotting in the refugee camps. Quite a few of them died of sun stroke as they were so accustomed to the cold climate of Kashmir that they could bear the heat of northern plains. But all this is too old and too stale, devoid of sensationalism and not TRP-worthy. Maybe it is because of the fact that the number of pundit votes generated won’t be enough to quench the thirst of the blood-thirsty bastards scavenging for votes, that they do not make an issue out of it. If only the pundits could have thrown family planning to the wind and produced at least a dozen kids per family!

“Those to whom evil is done do evil in return”, as said W H Auden. But how many of the Pandits took to terrorism in retaliation? As if this was not bad enough, the UN decided to give some crappy human rights award to Benazir Bhutto. What definition of human is the UN following these days? How does the Bhutto bitch get an award when she so clearly instigated the “ethnic-cleansing” of Kashmiris?

There is so much hue and cry over Kashmir. And how can I forget the recent Amarnath land row? Fuck the Kashmir issue. Kashmir be damned. I don’t give a rat’s ass whether we Indians ever get the land known as PoK back. If it were up to me, I would call truce and settle for the LoC as the International Border. But I do care about the Kashmiri Pandits. Because theirs is a truly lost cause. For a culture as old as the concept of Bharata Varsha and Sanatan Dharma, for my fellow Indians who are as integral a part of this nation and its culture as anyone can ever be, for them my heart weeps. Shame on us. They have been sidelined because they are not in numbers large enough to be on the election manifesto. They do not have enough representation on any level .I guess even the Hail-Hindutva-Hardliners have forgotten them. While they are bellowing over Ayodhya and Ram-Sethu Sundaram, why don’t they holler about the Pandits, and the other religious minorities, who have been the brunt of unbridled and systematic violence, the body of which is Pakistan and the ideological source, Islam. Oops! I said the unmentionable. My true colours are out. I am a venom-spewing, minority bashing, jingoistic, right winger! As if I give a damn.

The p-sec’s (thank you Krishna Aradhi, it is an awesome term), who usually are hoarse from crying out murder and foul, even when a brave man legitimately loses his life battling terrorists, why don’t you shed your tears for these poor souls as well ? On a side-note, I often wonder, whether those who suspect the authenticity of the encounter in which Mr. M C Sharma was martyred really think that we all have been hoodwinked, and in actuality, Mr. Sharma is alive, and somewhere in the Bahamas? I mean WTF! A man lost his life, how can that be fake ? Coming back to the p-sec’s , what do the mother-effing pseudo-secularist liberal assholes have to say ? What do the Teesta Setalvad’s and the Arundhati Roys have to say ? Where were the liberals,intellectuals,leaders,human right activists when there was an actual “ethnic” cleansing taking place ? I don’t think they will ever take a stand on this issue, because vociferating for the rights of an ethnically and religiously Hindu group would automatically make a right-winger out of them.

What happened to Kashmiri’s is now happening to the Bodo’s in Assam. They face a similar threat, and if the Bangladeshi plan pan’s out, we will have another Kashmir at our hand . But even that is not good enough. Because a) they are from the north-east , which is not deemed worthy of attention , b) they are Hindus practicing Brahma Dharma and c) Some jackasses want to bestow Indian citizenship upon the illegal immigrants to get some more votes. Why don’t these morons whore out their own mother’s and daughter’s instead? A more direct approach to grab votes. And it will work. Once again, no self respecting “truly” secular liberal would touch their issue with a ten foot pole. Alas, only saffronized to the hilt right-wingers can sympathize with their cause .

I am a Hindu, a proud one, and I leave no occasion to say it out loud. I am not proud of the fact that of lately, certain Hindu organizations , for the right or wrong reasons, have instigated violence against minorities. I am not proud of casteism, dowry system and a host of other crap like that, which is a part of it. But that is not the extent of Hinduism. That’s the flawed part. I am a proud Hindu because of its rich philosophy. Because it says “Sarva Dharma Sambhava” and “Vasudev Kutumbam” . There so many different schools of thought, from theistic, agnostic to even atheistic. I am proud of it because there has been no major Hindu evangelical movement, which indirectly lends weight to the Hindu principle of “Sarva Dharma Sambhava” . And I will never be ashamed of it. And a thousand curses and eternal damnation to those who try to belittle my culture and faith without even attempting to understand it.

I guess self-flagellation is a incredibly satisfying vocation. If I ever get a chance to go abroad, and hold an audience, I would make sure that I tell them what a hell hole India is , and how many atrocities are committed by the intolerant and chauvinistic Hindus on a daily basis . Boy oh boy, wouldn’t that win me a whole lot of brownie points !I would be the toast of the civilized society, if things worked out for me.

All I want to hear is a spade, being called a spade . I shall never ever proclaim what happened in Gujarat to be even remotely right or justified. But why did it happen ? Did the train burning incident was conjured up or state-sponsored as well. Why does being Hindu in India is not good enough for the English media and the liberals and secularists. BD made news, for the wrong reasons. It was right. They did something unimaginably evil. They raped a nun. But what about the bloody New Life Activists who had painted an extremely biased, inaccurate and evil picture of Hinduism through their pamphlets. Why don’t they face the heat? I know of quite a few politicians and social activists who are champions of secularism and defenders of minority rights. Are there any Muslim activists for Kashmiri pundits or Bodo’s ? This is a cheap shot, but what the hell, I am a right-winger now, aren’t I ? I would just like to know. I am not implying that there cannot be . Anyone know a name or two, do tell me . The same goes for conversions and shit. Are there any voices of reason who have come out openly against the destructive proselytizing, the one achieved through nefarious means.

I do not believe in chauvinism, linguistic parochialism, communalism, fundamentalism, communism and most of the other –isms. The one –ism I truly believe in is Indian-ism. Religion is secondary. But will I stay truly Indian, or will the farce going one in the name of God and Votes derail me , and leave me as a hollow Hindu, incensed and retributive ? I do not wish to say anything about what happened in Mumbai (26th November 2008). Enough has already been said and nothing has been done. But I would like to know if the red sacred thread worn around one’s wrist by Hindus is proof enough to elicit a response from a renowned journalist and TV-anchor, Rajdeep Sardesai, that they could be “Hindu” terrorists ? Was his train of thought anywhere close to the track ?

I often contemplate on the concept of secularism from an Indian perspective. And I realized this . There are those who are secular to such extreme lengths , that to garner votes/gain popularity among the liberals or to appease their altruistic cravings, will go to any length to appease the minorities. And then, there are the ones who would like dump them in the sea, or something equally horrible . And those are the only two kind who are heard or seen. I guess being neither here or there isn’t good enough to get heard. Isn’t a secular nation supposed to ensure that the rights of all different kinds are protected, but at the same time they are on the same footing . But not here, it’s either, “I will let you climb on my head, and piss” or “I will piss on you “ . And that pisses me off .

There are times when I wonder, whose side do I take, which path do I tread on? But there is none for me, no middle way as Buddha said. I am pro-India, but so are the right-wingers and left-wingers and the secularists, as they claim. They all have their own axes to grind, while the nation gets ground effectually. Meanwhile, all I wonder is, who cries for those are Hindu, and yet have suffered.

A documentary on Kashmiri Pandits

Being an Indian

I have been ranting and raving about the pros and cons (mostly, sadly) of being a Bihari. And it struck me how hard; or rather intricate is the state of being an Indian. Suddenly, Jinnah’s two nation theory seems like the babble of a deaf-mute 5 year old. India is a thousand nations. And maybe it will be divided on those grounds someday. That is definitely not I want. But who knows what happens next.

People fight. That is an indelible trait embedded in our genes, I guess. Allow me to digress. I am a not-so-regular viewer of an incredibly sarcastic TV show with elements of dark and sometimes twisted and sick humour in it, called SouthPark. In this show, a couple of episodes titled Go God Go I and II were aired some time back. It started with Richard Dawkins and atheism. And after much hullaballoo over Darwinism and Intelligent Design, one of the characters gets to the Future, centuries from now, as a result of a freak accident. And guess what was going on in the future? People stopped believing in God or religion, they said Oh My Science instead of Oh My God, BUT, they were still fighting. They were fighting over something called the Ultimate Question, and whose answer was the right one. The bottom-line is obvious. Coming back to the big bad world, while people all fight over different issues, one issue per region, in India, we seem to have the complete range. We have religion, obviously, the numero uno. Followed by caste, which has many sub divisions. Language is a one; the Aryan-Dravidian nonsense is another. I firmly believe that even this Aryan invasion theory was a diabolical fabrication by the Brits to further ease their job in India. And how can I forget women. Men and women in India have been fighting a silent war, and one look at the sex-ratio would tell you what the casualty count is. Around 35 million females. Damn all the men who consider women as second-rate citizens. A woman is a mother. Period. And nothing else can surpass that. (Feminists, please don’t jump at my throat if you think I was implying that a women is only good enough to bear and rear children)

Hindu Jaagaran Morcha. An outfit to avenge the deaths of Hindus by IM/SIMI. I felt weird, sick and confused, all at the same time, when I heard of their doings. So that is how a decent, law-abiding, patriotic Muslim feels when some jackass who claims to be a believer in God and a follower of Islam blows up something. I am aghast and ashamed. And thank the Almighty that this was not swept under the rugs. Speaking of terror and terrorists, we seem to have almost all kinds of them.

1. Good old Islamic terrorist
2. The greenhorn Hindu “jihadi”
3. The Naxalites , MCC, CPI-ML , PWG and so on
4. The Upper-caste army of Landlords who came into existence to counter no.3
5. The Khalistani militants, which I guess are not as dormant as commonly perceived
6. Naga Terrorists (Aren’t they Christians?)
7. ULFA
8. BD - If you rape a nun in the name of God, you are a terrorist for me.
9. Every bloody rioter

My apologies if I forgot to mention anyone.

That’s terrorism in diversity for you people. Be Proud. You could only have that in a country like India. “It happens only in India”! And we only need Buddhist, Jain and Parsee terrorists to complete the beautiful picture. No offence intended!

Whenever somebody blows up or kills someone in the name of something or the other, I am reminded of a dialogue from the movie Sarfarosh, where the character called Inspector Saleem says so”Apne desh ke dushman bohot kismet waale hain, unhe bas hathiyar bhejne ki zaroorat hai, ladne waale bohot mil jayenge” (The enemies of India are really lucky, as they have to furnish the guns and the bombs only, the soldiers to fight their wars are in plenty). Very true.

A thousand curses and eternal damnation to the media. They are the worst amongst the worst. Show me the whole picture, I’ll choose the part which seems right to me. I would like to know whether the ad for the grade IV examination conducted by the railways was really brought out only in the Hindi newspapers or not. But I don’t think I am ever going to discover that through the media. Is investigative journalism dead, or in a coma? All the media seems to show is what depresses, demoralize and disgusts, sometimes all at the same time. Is it that hard to look for stories that are good for the Indian spirit?

Ever heard of the word “illad”? Not Homer’s Iliad. I-L-L-A-D. This is the one word that I absolutely hate with every fiber of my body. This word stands for one of the major flaws with the mindset of the Indians (hailing from the states other than Karnataka, Kerala, TN and AP). This is like blasphemy for me. For those of you, who have not heard of it, an “illad” is the more affectionate term used to address (indirectly) the people of the Southern states, or “South-India”. It was quite a commonly used part of the vocabulary of the average Manipal-ite. Every time I hear it, I feel as if somebody used the invective of the mother-sister type for me. Even though I hail from a state up north, it stings. And the morons who drop it at the drop of hat from their mouths evidently do not realize how wrong and criminally insensitive they are. A few months ago, while dining in a restaurant, I overheard a girl saying” Delhi ke neeche sab south hai.” (Everything below Delhi is South for me). Sure you do bitch. Who the hell taught you geography, and history for that matter? I would go wild with ecstasy if the words “North-Indian” and “South-Indian” were officially banned.And while I am on the subject of name calling, I equally loathe and detest how Indians from the North-East get labeled as "Chinkies" . That is again , seriously fucked up . They are treated as if they are foreigners , no wonder some of them do want to secede from India .When will we stop seeing each other as illad's, chinkie's,bhaiyya's,ghati's and whatever-other-stupid-names-we-have ?

Amidst all the anti-Bihari vibe tingling the nation’s spine, sometimes I feel like a Jew. I guess the displaced Kashmiri Pandits feel the same, refuges in their own home. The Sikhs during ‘84 riots must have felt the same. Also the Muslims in ‘93 and ‘02. And the Christians in Orissa and in Karnataka. I bet the busload of elderly Marathi women and men touring Bihar, who were caught in the middle of the ruckus, felt something close. At least they escaped unscathed, thanks to the local MP and the Police. And I am alive, amen to that. Which brings this thought to my disturbed mind, who’s going to be the next “Jew” of India?

Amidst the chaos and the cacophony, I often wonder, when, or rather how would it end? Would it ever end? Or Is this the beginning of the End? For a guy like me, who thinks a lot about these things (contemplation, retrospection and introspection being one of my preferred activities to engage at leisure), for whom these things matter, it is extremely disturbing. I am often lost; thinking about how things could have been or rather should have been. While people often think about Superheroes and fantasize about being one (including yours truly), I, more often than not, end up conjuring up a fantasy of a Super India. An India that was economically stronger, with a uniform distribution of wealth. An India that beat the living daylights out of China and was significantly more powerful (In my fantasies we annihilated China in 1962 and asked Tibet to join the Indian Union, and they gleefully did., ditto in the Bangladesh war, and we also did not lose the piece of land now known as Pok). An India which files thousands of patents a year. An India which spear heads the development of green technology. An India which sends a manned mission to Mars before others do. As secular and democratic as no nation has ever been. And so on, and so forth. What an incorrigible day-dreamer am I! Which is why when jolted back to the real India, I actually feel physical pain. I feel a throbbing in my head and a searing pain in my heart.

The reason why I don’t watch a lot of football or have a favourite team – Does my country play this game? Does any club from my country play this game, on an international level? Then who do I root for? Why should I scream the blood out of my lungs? No Tricolor, No testosterone-driven-adrenaline-powered-crazy-cheers. As a result I am an unbiased and a neutral spectator of Football. This is a testament to how insanely tricolored-track my mind is. And I am proud of it. I also wonder whether not being such a die-hard, somewhat jingoistic patriot would have actually been good for my mental health.

When I am so bogged down by the bloody mess that we live in, I often think of the easiest way out. Quite obviously, things wouldn’t get fixed over the period of a 3 hour sorry ass Indian movie, with people from all over India singing “Saare jahan se accha” or the national anthem, arms linked together and all. I am not suicidal or even close to suicidal but there are times when I wish I would get knocked down by a speeding bus. Or get blown to bits in the next bomb blast, assuming another one takes place. At times, it is all I think, how wonderful it will be to disappear from the face of this earth and never ever come back (temporarily though, because I am a believer of the Hindu theory of the cycle of birth and death). Am I unhinged to think like this? I guess a short trip to the loony bin wouldn’t hurt that much.:) At least, I would be in the company of certified lunatics, who have the failed, the “test-of-sanity” of this whacky world.

I heard about some book or the other through a pal in which the author anatomizes the concept of India, and concludes that it exists in theory alone. I tried to Google more about this, but couldn’t find anything concrete. But it does make me think a lot these days. My increasingly depressing thoughts aside, this is a serious question indeed. Is the concept of India as a secular, democratic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual nation too utopian to be true? Or is this just a phase which will pass over, and we will get back to our old “chalta-hai” attitude. Is it just plain old crazy me who is having doubts? My belief system has taken such a severe hit that the words India and Indian bring a sardonic smile to my lips these days .

Being Indian is no joke.

Time to curl back in my cocoon and let my imagination run wild. “What ho, Jeeves! Bring me a stiff w & s. Pip pip Cruel World. “

Rang De Basanti

It is one of my favourite movies, and will be so till the day I die. It is amongst the very few motion pictures which brought out my tears, and in no less volume. There was a time when I thought I could cry no more, and then RDB happened. I cried, I cried like a child, and my anguish was real. It was for the loss of one of the greatest sons of India, Shaheed Bhagat Singh. He has been my hero since ages, and nobody can take his place that I have in my heart and head for him. For me, he IS the greatest son of this nation. I have decided to call him, hence forth, Mahapurush Bhagat Singh, the son of this nation. Many a times, the mere mention of his name, the heart wrenching reminder that this nation has almost forgotten him, or reading any anecdote about him has been a stimulus to incite my tear glands. In a poll conducted by India Today to list the 60 greatest Indians so far, MBS got an astonishing 27% vote, which was unequivocally the highest. I say astonishing not out of disrespect for him, but rather for my fellow Indians. But I must say, it was a very pleasant surprise. Even though, I still think India does remember him well because an opinion poll is subject to thousands, at the best. It is not a referendum. Coming back to RDB, I have read many different reviews of it, it has been lauded, lashed at and laughed at. The message of the movie has been the subject of many a debate, and it has been labeled as misleading and wrong. And that according to me is Grade A BS. What the hell is wrong with the message? And why the hell is it wrong? Ignoring the morality and ethics concerned with killing a human being, what is wrong with taking the life of a politician whose only concern is staying in power, at any cost. Why shouldn’t the scum bags who divide and rule, so obviously be put to death? Why shouldn’t these soulless buggers, who resort to any means necessary to save their sorry asses be executed? And why shouldn’t the blood of these mother effing blood sucking traitors flow in the gutters, when the serving the nation is their last agenda ? We have scores of MP’s and MLA’s with substantial charges against them, and quite a few of them were or rather are hardcore criminals. I bet some of them are even involved with the ISI. Isn’t that just great? I am not saying that all of our netaas are bad, had it been so, we would have completely stopped functioning as a democratic nation long ago. But indubitably, there are many. The goddamned media is also partly responsible for the state of affairs. The fourth estate of a nation should be a neutral and an unbiased observer, acting as a watch-dog. Instead, they seem more like pet dogs to me. What munificent praises do they heap upon the politician whose antics and stand up comedy act has made everyone forget his past record. I bet they get their “pedigree” in reciprocation. A few weeks ago, I saw All the President’s Men, which is based on the true story of how Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein blew apart the Watergate Scandal, and initiated the downfall of Richard Nixon. The most powerful man of the planet, the leader of the free world was brought down to his knees by two measly investigative reporters of the Washington Post. It’s a modern day David and Goliath story. And people wonder why America is a great nation. The war on Iraq is no feather in America’s cap, but this certainly is, and it indeed bestows upon it its greatness. In India we have our Tarun Tejpals. And if I am not wrong, wasn’t the government planning on passing a bill which would make the evidence gathered by a sting operation inadmissible in a court of justice. Reservation for OBC’s was not enough, there should be reservation for teachers as well. The next time Mr. Arjun Singh falls sick or needs a surgery , I pray to God that a doctor who has benefited from the reservation system should treat him. I foresee a future when there will be no such thing as a general category and merit would be a synonym for your caste or religion. Had Charles Darwin been born in India, he would have definitely not come up with the survival of the fittest scheme of nature. He would have been ensnared in red-tapism, bureaucratic BS, caste, religion and language based politics, and would have ultimately shot himself. Our nation faces many threats today, internal and external, and I see no leader who can helm the ship. All I see is gutless and spineless. And I wonder, whether this democracy is doing us good or crippling us ? Isn’t a nation comprising educated individuals supposed to be democratic? I will be damned if say aye to communism, the only way I see out is a Hitler, tailor-made for India. A jingoist, who will annihilate her enemies. A dictator who will unleash terror on anything or anyone against India. I am willing to surrender my fundamental rights for a man or a woman like this. My rantings and ravings may sound immature to the wise men of the world, but there is an element of logic, a small morsel of substance in it. The only flaw that I find in what I propound is that where do you get the people to do an RDB, to kill in the name of the nation? Would I be able to do it, sacrifice all that I have and can have in the near future? Rang De Basanti indeed, but instead of painting it yellow, make it red.

Force when aggressively applied is "violence" and is, therefore, morally unjustifiable, but when it is used in the furtherance of a legitimate cause, it has its moral justification. The elimination of force at all costs in Utopian. - Bhagat Singh