A childhood passion- of listening to music- has been revived now that I have been gifted an MP3 player. Some great songs in the player as well.
And as I listen to them, I realise why it is so futile to get into any debate on who is the greatest when it comes to artistic and individual pursuits.
Let me give an example. For years we have been mesmerized by the orchestration of the songs composed by AR Rahman. Take some time out to listen to Laxmikant Pyarelal?
I personally believe with the exception of an Illaiyaraaja, no composer has tried to include so many instruments into the same song as LP. And the instruments vary from the Indian ones like the dafli or dholak to the very-soulless sounding synthesizers of that time. And more often than not, LP will manage to take you over the moon as these instruments play out one by one or sometimes in a cacophony backed by poor technology (think Hero).
Which brings me to my point. Genius and its exhibition remains the same, time and technology change and in the process making the exhibition of genius look better with every new installment.
Simply put, an AR Rahman will look better than an Illaiyaraaja or an LP because of the better technology that is at the disposal of Rahman. The brain that sorts out the different sounds, aligns and arranges them, will remain the same for every genius. Listen to SD Burman for that matter. He too tries small riffs with obscure instruments and pulls it off brilliantly. But the quality of the sound is what is a problem. Nothing that the legend could have done about since that is in the realm of technology.
But listen to the purity of the instrumentation when it comes to Rahman. Because the maestro is as much adept with sound technology as he is with music itself. But that does not make him a bigger genius than the names I have mentioned above.
A friend, who apart from holding a doctorate in astrophysics is also a fairly good Mohan veena player, likes to play futurologist. Of all the things that he used to come up with from what is a very fertile brain, the most wonderful was asking us to listen to the silence. It always has a rhythm.
Actually try it. Choose a noisy place like a railway station or a traffic junction. Sit there just listening to what will appear to be a cacophony of disparate sounds. Slowly you will realise that each of these sounds- horns, tyres, vehicles- actually keep to a fixed time. Same with trains crossing over tracks that have slight fractures.
The point is that someday technology- computers, sequencers, synthesizers whatever- would be capable of deciphering the timing and pattern of disparate sounds. Or be able to pick up tunes in the rustling of leaves, howling of wind and chirping of birds.
Then someone will come in with the ability to use these patterns to create music and the tunes to make songs. And as is the case with every genius, we will be mesmerized. Since the medium of communication would be better than what it is today, this man would be called a genius and phenomenon many times over.But the question is would he be better than Rahman? No because Rahman is doing much the same. Trying new sounds and tunes as much as technology allows him to. Something that SD Burman, Salil Chowdhury, LP, Illaiyaraaja did before him.
As I said, genius remains constant, times and technology change. We might think Sachin is better than Bradman because of the better reach of the media, but just imagine if we saw an inning of the Don with a curtain of cameras all around as is the case with the IPL? Would we still say the same? It is always pointless this debate.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Bharat Ratna for Madam Mayawati
My suggestion to give Mayawati a Bharat Ratna has not been liked by the miniscule number of people who read it. Now let me explain why I think no lady ever in the history of this great nation deserved it more.
Let me tell you a story of a remarkable man born in 1921 into an unremarkable family in Equatorial Africa, then colonized by the French.
Bokassa of Central Africa was born to village chief Mindogon Mgboundoulou in a small part of Central Africa. The French killed his father when he refused to pay the taxes that his village had run up under the tyrannical French system. Bokassa went to a small Christian mission school in his village and soon excelled in his studies especially in French grammar, developing a love for a book written by grammarian Jean Bedel. His white teachers at the mission lovingly started calling him Jean Bedel Bokassa.
The man joined the army, took part in missions, earned the praise of the French and his native Africans and along with some cousins made himself handy to the then president of the Central African Republic, one unremarkable Dacko. In 1966 he took over as president when Dacko was abroad. The French thought that a man so steeped in the love of France should not be much of a problem so did not interfere. Bokassa continued to be President till 1976. He had made himself the President for Life.
He married 17 times and had 50-odd children from them. His reign was so brutal that once when impoverished school children protested against an expensive set of uniforms they had to purchase from one of his wives’ companies, he personally led a battalion on the road to cane the kids. A whopping 103 children died, their brains lying on the streets which had turned a shade of deep crimson. In his decade long rule, it is estimated that almost a million people were killed and very brutally at that since he loved each and every death to be a warning to future dissidents.
In 1977, knowing that the French were loving his gifts of diamonds for its president and his wife and uranium for its nuclear reactors, Bokassa declared that he was a incarnation of the French general Napolean and so was taking over as king of the Central African Republic (CAR) which would henceforth be called the Great Central African Empire.
So excessive was the coronation ceremony that France had to send troops and aircrafts to protect the nation because every CAR soldier was on leave getting himself fitted into costumes like the ones worn during the coronation of Napoleon. Bokassa used all the gold reserves available in his country to make a massive eagle-headed throne of almost 20 tonnes of solid gold.
His Napoleonic attire took away the entire budget for the capital city Bangui for over a year what with its real diamonds and gold weaves. The coronation ceremony, a huge affair with hundreds of limousines, chariots, people in Napoleonic costumes, diamond tiaras, crowns of gold cost the CAR almost five years of every penny the nation earned and got as grants from countries like the French. Every single penny that the republic had taken as loans from countries far and wide was used up in a single day. Statues of Bokassa were ordered across every village in CAR. People were asked to work at parks that would recreate his greatness and how the Lord- Bokassa was a devout Catholic- ensured that the great Napoleon was re-born in the Great Central African Empire.
Kids were dying by the thousands every month but parents were not allowed to take leave from working at the huge parks and farms Bokassa had created and named after himself. All he told the people was to ensure that the Europeans would one day leave their nations and come to become subjects of the great Central African Empire. A mixture of religion, propaganda, and amazing sense of ego propelled Bokassa till the French could take it no more and invaded the nation and forced Bokassa to run away from the country.
He died in 1996 in the CAR- he was allowed to return since- but not before claiming to foreign newspapers that he was the 13th apostle and Pope John Paul II was regularly asking his advise on matters of religion.
Coming back to Mayawati, Bokassa did all this in a nation the size of Texas with a population less than that from Churchgate to Andheri. It is such a sorry nation that the United Nations Development Index pegged it as the 179th poorest nation in a list of 182.
But Mayawati is doing a bit of Bokassa in Uttar Pradesh, and I really don’t think we have become a banana republic as yet.
Our judicial system is still fairly good, we do have elections, the parliament is not full of crooks, and one still can’t get away with murder in most cases than some.
In such a scenario, if Mayawati can manage to be a chief minister who spent a billion dollars on her own statues, and wear mutli-crore garlands in massive maha-rallies which are just sober versions of Bokassa’s coronation, then I believe the lady deserves the Bharat Ratna. And we should simply shut up and hang our head in shame and allow the lady to be one day crowned as the Queen Empress of India.
Let me tell you a story of a remarkable man born in 1921 into an unremarkable family in Equatorial Africa, then colonized by the French.
Bokassa of Central Africa was born to village chief Mindogon Mgboundoulou in a small part of Central Africa. The French killed his father when he refused to pay the taxes that his village had run up under the tyrannical French system. Bokassa went to a small Christian mission school in his village and soon excelled in his studies especially in French grammar, developing a love for a book written by grammarian Jean Bedel. His white teachers at the mission lovingly started calling him Jean Bedel Bokassa.
The man joined the army, took part in missions, earned the praise of the French and his native Africans and along with some cousins made himself handy to the then president of the Central African Republic, one unremarkable Dacko. In 1966 he took over as president when Dacko was abroad. The French thought that a man so steeped in the love of France should not be much of a problem so did not interfere. Bokassa continued to be President till 1976. He had made himself the President for Life.
He married 17 times and had 50-odd children from them. His reign was so brutal that once when impoverished school children protested against an expensive set of uniforms they had to purchase from one of his wives’ companies, he personally led a battalion on the road to cane the kids. A whopping 103 children died, their brains lying on the streets which had turned a shade of deep crimson. In his decade long rule, it is estimated that almost a million people were killed and very brutally at that since he loved each and every death to be a warning to future dissidents.
In 1977, knowing that the French were loving his gifts of diamonds for its president and his wife and uranium for its nuclear reactors, Bokassa declared that he was a incarnation of the French general Napolean and so was taking over as king of the Central African Republic (CAR) which would henceforth be called the Great Central African Empire.
So excessive was the coronation ceremony that France had to send troops and aircrafts to protect the nation because every CAR soldier was on leave getting himself fitted into costumes like the ones worn during the coronation of Napoleon. Bokassa used all the gold reserves available in his country to make a massive eagle-headed throne of almost 20 tonnes of solid gold.
His Napoleonic attire took away the entire budget for the capital city Bangui for over a year what with its real diamonds and gold weaves. The coronation ceremony, a huge affair with hundreds of limousines, chariots, people in Napoleonic costumes, diamond tiaras, crowns of gold cost the CAR almost five years of every penny the nation earned and got as grants from countries like the French. Every single penny that the republic had taken as loans from countries far and wide was used up in a single day. Statues of Bokassa were ordered across every village in CAR. People were asked to work at parks that would recreate his greatness and how the Lord- Bokassa was a devout Catholic- ensured that the great Napoleon was re-born in the Great Central African Empire.
Kids were dying by the thousands every month but parents were not allowed to take leave from working at the huge parks and farms Bokassa had created and named after himself. All he told the people was to ensure that the Europeans would one day leave their nations and come to become subjects of the great Central African Empire. A mixture of religion, propaganda, and amazing sense of ego propelled Bokassa till the French could take it no more and invaded the nation and forced Bokassa to run away from the country.
He died in 1996 in the CAR- he was allowed to return since- but not before claiming to foreign newspapers that he was the 13th apostle and Pope John Paul II was regularly asking his advise on matters of religion.
Coming back to Mayawati, Bokassa did all this in a nation the size of Texas with a population less than that from Churchgate to Andheri. It is such a sorry nation that the United Nations Development Index pegged it as the 179th poorest nation in a list of 182.
But Mayawati is doing a bit of Bokassa in Uttar Pradesh, and I really don’t think we have become a banana republic as yet.
Our judicial system is still fairly good, we do have elections, the parliament is not full of crooks, and one still can’t get away with murder in most cases than some.
In such a scenario, if Mayawati can manage to be a chief minister who spent a billion dollars on her own statues, and wear mutli-crore garlands in massive maha-rallies which are just sober versions of Bokassa’s coronation, then I believe the lady deserves the Bharat Ratna. And we should simply shut up and hang our head in shame and allow the lady to be one day crowned as the Queen Empress of India.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Mayawati, thank you for allowing us in
I don’t understand the fuss around Mayawati’s humungous Rs 1000-note mala. Is it because she is anti-Congress that the television channels have gone berserk? Maybe.
The lady is someone who has fought her way up through hardships. Such people along the way build up a sea of slights- real and imagined- so powerful that when they finally get power, they go completely insane in their quest to ‘up yours’ everybody.
But the moot question still remains one of whether the mala was as big a shocker as TV channels are claiming it to be.
Now this lady has spent over 2 billion dollars making monuments to who was at the end of the day a frustrated lost politician by the name Kanshiram. The case is in the Supreme Court but justice would be if people – and mind you they should be Dalits since they have gone most hungry in Maya’s reign- come forward in hordes armed with pickaxes and demolish each one of these monuments, parks and statues. Has that happened? No.
Praful Patel’s name is being thrown about as one of the bidders for the two new quarter-billion dollar IPL teams that are expected to join the IPL circus next year. Have their been any protests? Even despite the fact that his constituency Gondia in Maharashtra is one of the most acute hit by misery and is in the middle of the natural menace of drought and man-made menace of Maoism.
Kripashankar Singh apparently has two Pan Cards. There were stories of how some sundry police constable in Navi Mumbai has the power of attorney of several houses he owns in the city. These are not secrets I’m telling you. Just rehashing stories that have appeared in newspapers like Mumbai Mirror, Times of India, and Asian Age etc. Is Kripashankar Singh hauled over the coals? No. Last I know he has made his chair as Mumbai Congress head even more powerful thanks to the successful visits of Sonia and Rahul to the city.
Senior journalist MJ Akbar once wrote a fabulous cover page story in the Covert magazine headlined ‘The fabulous wealth of Pwar saheb’. Did it make one bit of a difference to Pawar? Did the people of Maharashtra burn his effigies or ensure that he lost his deposit? Not that I know of. From what I hear, Pawar is enjoying the ‘fully made to order but don’t tell the public’ tournament of cricket called IPL. Price rise? I’m sorry but that is surely not Pawar saheb’s main area of concern at this point of time.
Then there are the Pramod Mahajans, Mulayam Singh Yadavs, Jayalalithas, Karunanidhis. What has happened to them? Nothing much except that they are slowly moving into the zone of political legends once reserved for the saintly likes of Gandhi, Sardar, Babasaheb Ambedkar and JP.
I can give you a hundred more such examples. Madhu Koda, Shibu Soren and the likes. But what difference does it make.
So let us not waste a lot of time with Maya’s mala. Let us collectively promise ourselves that we will not be shocked by whatever expose’ any element of the media comes up with.
Corruption no longer shocks us. For any politician it is just a speed-breaker on the road, never the end of the journey.
Till then let us enjoy the magnificent spectacle of Mayawati trying to pull off a Jean Bedel Bokasa not in the impoverished lawless governance-neutral Central African Republic but in the world’s largest, most populous, wiaitng-in-line-to-be-superpower India.
No woman has ever tried anything this spectacular anywhere in the world ever I believe. Let us just be grateful we are part of the world that Mayawati chose to show up in. Probably no one deserves a Bharat Rtana more at this point of time that the lady of Lucknow.
The lady is someone who has fought her way up through hardships. Such people along the way build up a sea of slights- real and imagined- so powerful that when they finally get power, they go completely insane in their quest to ‘up yours’ everybody.
But the moot question still remains one of whether the mala was as big a shocker as TV channels are claiming it to be.
Now this lady has spent over 2 billion dollars making monuments to who was at the end of the day a frustrated lost politician by the name Kanshiram. The case is in the Supreme Court but justice would be if people – and mind you they should be Dalits since they have gone most hungry in Maya’s reign- come forward in hordes armed with pickaxes and demolish each one of these monuments, parks and statues. Has that happened? No.
Praful Patel’s name is being thrown about as one of the bidders for the two new quarter-billion dollar IPL teams that are expected to join the IPL circus next year. Have their been any protests? Even despite the fact that his constituency Gondia in Maharashtra is one of the most acute hit by misery and is in the middle of the natural menace of drought and man-made menace of Maoism.
Kripashankar Singh apparently has two Pan Cards. There were stories of how some sundry police constable in Navi Mumbai has the power of attorney of several houses he owns in the city. These are not secrets I’m telling you. Just rehashing stories that have appeared in newspapers like Mumbai Mirror, Times of India, and Asian Age etc. Is Kripashankar Singh hauled over the coals? No. Last I know he has made his chair as Mumbai Congress head even more powerful thanks to the successful visits of Sonia and Rahul to the city.
Senior journalist MJ Akbar once wrote a fabulous cover page story in the Covert magazine headlined ‘The fabulous wealth of Pwar saheb’. Did it make one bit of a difference to Pawar? Did the people of Maharashtra burn his effigies or ensure that he lost his deposit? Not that I know of. From what I hear, Pawar is enjoying the ‘fully made to order but don’t tell the public’ tournament of cricket called IPL. Price rise? I’m sorry but that is surely not Pawar saheb’s main area of concern at this point of time.
Then there are the Pramod Mahajans, Mulayam Singh Yadavs, Jayalalithas, Karunanidhis. What has happened to them? Nothing much except that they are slowly moving into the zone of political legends once reserved for the saintly likes of Gandhi, Sardar, Babasaheb Ambedkar and JP.
I can give you a hundred more such examples. Madhu Koda, Shibu Soren and the likes. But what difference does it make.
So let us not waste a lot of time with Maya’s mala. Let us collectively promise ourselves that we will not be shocked by whatever expose’ any element of the media comes up with.
Corruption no longer shocks us. For any politician it is just a speed-breaker on the road, never the end of the journey.
Till then let us enjoy the magnificent spectacle of Mayawati trying to pull off a Jean Bedel Bokasa not in the impoverished lawless governance-neutral Central African Republic but in the world’s largest, most populous, wiaitng-in-line-to-be-superpower India.
No woman has ever tried anything this spectacular anywhere in the world ever I believe. Let us just be grateful we are part of the world that Mayawati chose to show up in. Probably no one deserves a Bharat Rtana more at this point of time that the lady of Lucknow.
Monday, March 15, 2010
The oil tank terror plot- the bad, ugly and the good
Every time I used to travel by taxi along the Indian Oil storage tanks close to Antop Hill, I used to think what would happen if one of them caught fire accidentally. The slums around are hardly a few hundred metres away and they are so closely set that it would be a disaster so unimaginable that almost every time the thought came to me, the monstrosity of it forced me involuntarily to abort even the thought. I would just say a muted ‘touchwood’ and move along.
Yesterday the horror was at the doorstep. The Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested two youngsters for planning to set on fire similar oil storage tanks at Sewri. Mind you the Sewri ones are bigger than the tanks at Antop Hill, are very close to the Harbour line railway station and a fire would have also shut most parts of the Mumbai port bordering Wadala-Sewri-Cotton Green.
Now what do you to say to such kind of madness? My Muslim friends keep telling me the religion is one of peace. I think it is about peace by a long mile but the community has not done enough to get the message across. Every time something like this happens, murmurs soon turn into full-fledged allegations that the Hindu police was being vengeful.
Idiotic journalists- I’m one so I know the kind- will soon publish stories of how the poor lad just spoke of work and his wives and never uttered anything about terrorism. As if a terrorist calls a seminar for the neighbourhood in order to announce he is now a Wahhabi and is adamant on blowing up anything that he did not see in Saudi Arabia around the time when the religion was set up. Since the Arabs of that time had no clue about oil and would have remained wretched goat and camel drivers if the Americans didn’t find them their oil, so the oil storage tanks have to go.
The problem is terrorism is now a monster that just cannot be tamed by normal laws. The time for TADA and the like are now. I’m sorry if I sound so harsh and dejected but I for one have always believed this country was set up on great ideals. The ideals which are mentioned prominently on a rusting iron board planted illegally in a garden outside the RCF headquarters Priyardarshini- on the eastern express highway, some distance from Suman Nagar.
On the board is a giant portrait of Babasaheb Ambedkar and the words- in Marathi- that the society he stands for is one of equal opportunities and justice for all, brotherhood among all. More intelligent words have not been spoken, I think.
In that scenario, accept my harsh tone when I say the Islam you care to create here is not welcome. The Islam that talks of brotherhood is welcome, but as is the case of any religion worth following, the obeisance has to be a personal affair. Politics, statesmanship, governance, administration, the commonality of community have nothing to do with the true following of a religion. So if you think all women must be in burqas and the country has to go from being one of kafirs to believers, then sorry, but I think the security apparatus of this nation needs to take you out. If it is without mercy, then just your luck.
If that is sounding morose, let me cheer you up with a small bit of conversation that I overheard when I went for my morning tea at the roadside tea stall near my house.
The conversation centered around four youth particularly unhappy with the events of yesterday and the arrest of the two youths for the aborted oil storage tank terror act.
The words ‘madar#$%d’ and its behen and beti varieties punctuated almost every word. I sneaked in closer to the group to hear what they were talking about. After all, two of the youngsters were wearing pathanis with the increasingly mandatory looking skull cap.
Then I managed to catch the direction of their talks completely. One of them lighted his cigarette in style and spat out ‘ab yeh hum logo ko batayenge Khhwaja saheb kaise Musalman the?”
The topic of discussion of course was the one that has divided the Muslim community in the city right through the middle. A Wahhabi preacher during a sermon in Ghatkopar last month ranted against the predominance of dargahs in the process of worship for a large part of the community in India. Just take a look. Islam in the city- even in its film versions- is predominantly about Haji Ali, Mahim Dargah, Haji Malang in Kalyan, one big one whose name I forget in Antop Hill and some smaller ones atop hills in Kurla.
Now this Wahhabi gentleman who spoke at Ghatkopar- following the strict doctrine laid down by another medieval Arab gentleman by the name Abdul Wahab- had uttered a lot of nonsense and violence about what best to do with the dargah of Khwaja Garib Nawaz – or KGN- at Ajmer. The original Wahab maintained that all mausoleums, dargahs etc are to be razed to the ground since God alone is to be worshipped. Note how in August 2005 the Islamic world was stunned when Saudi Arabi- long ruled by Kings who toe the Wahhabi line- agreed to the demolition of Prophet Mohammad’ house in Mecca to make way for the Jabal Omar Scheme, a project consisting of a parking lot, two 50-story hotel towers and seven 35-storey apartment blocks.
Coming back to my original line of thought- where I had promised you I will give you cheerful news- the boys who were having the discussion near the tea stall had come on bikes with KGN emblazoned in bright green on the piece of fibre protecting the headlights of their bikes, The youngster who spoke last- while lighting his cigarette- was livid that gentlemen like the kind who follow Wahab will now teach them- the boys that is- probably Barelvis but most definitely followers of the pious Khwaja of Ajmer- what or who is a true Muslim.
What is the cheerful part? Well Wahhabism and its ultra-orthodox interpretation of Islam further powered by billions of dollars for its propagation by the Saudi royal family, is spreading among Muslims like wildfire. However with Wahhabis now aiming their guns at fellow Muslims as well- the kind of ‘deviants’ who go to dargahs and sing qawwalis- apart from confirmed kafirs like Hindus, Jews and Christians, the fight is going to get interesting. The youngsters like the group at the tea stall are the ones who will help solve the riddle for us. When the monolith of militant Islam is broken, it will pave the way for the eventual defeat of the Islamists and a return to democratic values of peace and brotherhood among people and equality among sexes. Something I believe the original Islam propagated.
Yesterday the horror was at the doorstep. The Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested two youngsters for planning to set on fire similar oil storage tanks at Sewri. Mind you the Sewri ones are bigger than the tanks at Antop Hill, are very close to the Harbour line railway station and a fire would have also shut most parts of the Mumbai port bordering Wadala-Sewri-Cotton Green.
Now what do you to say to such kind of madness? My Muslim friends keep telling me the religion is one of peace. I think it is about peace by a long mile but the community has not done enough to get the message across. Every time something like this happens, murmurs soon turn into full-fledged allegations that the Hindu police was being vengeful.
Idiotic journalists- I’m one so I know the kind- will soon publish stories of how the poor lad just spoke of work and his wives and never uttered anything about terrorism. As if a terrorist calls a seminar for the neighbourhood in order to announce he is now a Wahhabi and is adamant on blowing up anything that he did not see in Saudi Arabia around the time when the religion was set up. Since the Arabs of that time had no clue about oil and would have remained wretched goat and camel drivers if the Americans didn’t find them their oil, so the oil storage tanks have to go.
The problem is terrorism is now a monster that just cannot be tamed by normal laws. The time for TADA and the like are now. I’m sorry if I sound so harsh and dejected but I for one have always believed this country was set up on great ideals. The ideals which are mentioned prominently on a rusting iron board planted illegally in a garden outside the RCF headquarters Priyardarshini- on the eastern express highway, some distance from Suman Nagar.
On the board is a giant portrait of Babasaheb Ambedkar and the words- in Marathi- that the society he stands for is one of equal opportunities and justice for all, brotherhood among all. More intelligent words have not been spoken, I think.
In that scenario, accept my harsh tone when I say the Islam you care to create here is not welcome. The Islam that talks of brotherhood is welcome, but as is the case of any religion worth following, the obeisance has to be a personal affair. Politics, statesmanship, governance, administration, the commonality of community have nothing to do with the true following of a religion. So if you think all women must be in burqas and the country has to go from being one of kafirs to believers, then sorry, but I think the security apparatus of this nation needs to take you out. If it is without mercy, then just your luck.
If that is sounding morose, let me cheer you up with a small bit of conversation that I overheard when I went for my morning tea at the roadside tea stall near my house.
The conversation centered around four youth particularly unhappy with the events of yesterday and the arrest of the two youths for the aborted oil storage tank terror act.
The words ‘madar#$%d’ and its behen and beti varieties punctuated almost every word. I sneaked in closer to the group to hear what they were talking about. After all, two of the youngsters were wearing pathanis with the increasingly mandatory looking skull cap.
Then I managed to catch the direction of their talks completely. One of them lighted his cigarette in style and spat out ‘ab yeh hum logo ko batayenge Khhwaja saheb kaise Musalman the?”
The topic of discussion of course was the one that has divided the Muslim community in the city right through the middle. A Wahhabi preacher during a sermon in Ghatkopar last month ranted against the predominance of dargahs in the process of worship for a large part of the community in India. Just take a look. Islam in the city- even in its film versions- is predominantly about Haji Ali, Mahim Dargah, Haji Malang in Kalyan, one big one whose name I forget in Antop Hill and some smaller ones atop hills in Kurla.
Now this Wahhabi gentleman who spoke at Ghatkopar- following the strict doctrine laid down by another medieval Arab gentleman by the name Abdul Wahab- had uttered a lot of nonsense and violence about what best to do with the dargah of Khwaja Garib Nawaz – or KGN- at Ajmer. The original Wahab maintained that all mausoleums, dargahs etc are to be razed to the ground since God alone is to be worshipped. Note how in August 2005 the Islamic world was stunned when Saudi Arabi- long ruled by Kings who toe the Wahhabi line- agreed to the demolition of Prophet Mohammad’ house in Mecca to make way for the Jabal Omar Scheme, a project consisting of a parking lot, two 50-story hotel towers and seven 35-storey apartment blocks.
Coming back to my original line of thought- where I had promised you I will give you cheerful news- the boys who were having the discussion near the tea stall had come on bikes with KGN emblazoned in bright green on the piece of fibre protecting the headlights of their bikes, The youngster who spoke last- while lighting his cigarette- was livid that gentlemen like the kind who follow Wahab will now teach them- the boys that is- probably Barelvis but most definitely followers of the pious Khwaja of Ajmer- what or who is a true Muslim.
What is the cheerful part? Well Wahhabism and its ultra-orthodox interpretation of Islam further powered by billions of dollars for its propagation by the Saudi royal family, is spreading among Muslims like wildfire. However with Wahhabis now aiming their guns at fellow Muslims as well- the kind of ‘deviants’ who go to dargahs and sing qawwalis- apart from confirmed kafirs like Hindus, Jews and Christians, the fight is going to get interesting. The youngsters like the group at the tea stall are the ones who will help solve the riddle for us. When the monolith of militant Islam is broken, it will pave the way for the eventual defeat of the Islamists and a return to democratic values of peace and brotherhood among people and equality among sexes. Something I believe the original Islam propagated.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Buddha and the Women's Bill
So I am in a huge minority here with no one for company except Lalu, Mulayam and Sharad- the three Yadavs. Just about everyone I speak to about the Women’s Reservation Bill is all in support of the historic piece of legislation.
However let me start of with a story I have heard but have no clue whether it is true or not.
Gautama Buddha was sitting deep in thought beneath a huge tree in a very forested part of ancient Bihar. Seeing the serenity on his face, a tribal came close to him and waited with folded hands for the Enlightened One to open his eyes and come out of the meditational pause. The One soon did, looked at the tribal and smiled.
The tribal asked the One if he could join him. The One asked why?
Tribal: I find an amazing peace in your presence. I have seen animals walk past you almost in reverence. I fear the animals in the forest that I stay in. I too want that serenity.
The One: Are you happy with your family?
Tribal: Yes I am. I have a wonderful wife who cooks for my children and me. My children love to play with me. I love to bring in food for them from the forest.
Even as the tribal and the Enlightened One were talking, a wild boar sauntered through the thick undergrowth. The tribal, for the first time, saw his concentration break as he eyed the boar and slowly found his arm reaching for the arrows in his quiver. Buddha smiled.
The One: You like hunting?
Tribal: Yes. I love to see the joy with which my children crowd around the pot when my wife is cooking the meat.
The One: But that boar might also be out to replenish itself so that it can feed the piglets back in its cave? What about them?
The tribal started thinking and said: But what about my children? Don’t they need food?
The One: Do you grow trees?
Tribal: No
The One: Do you cut them?
Tribal: Yes
The One: Do trees bear fruits?
Tribal: Yes
The One: Do your children love fruits?
Tribal: Yes
The One: Then plant trees. Let the trees bear fruits. Eat that. Let the boar live. The lack of ways is not because there is no other way but because of the lack of thought, the lack of search.
The tribal was deeply touched. But he still wanted to go along with the Enlightened One. The Buddha told him that he wills that no one covet anything, desire anything, harm anything, and injure anything.
The One: Would you be able to follow it without hurting your wife and your children dependent on you?
Tribal: No my Lord.
The One: Then you would be unhappy following my law, isn’t it?
Tribal: Yes my Lord.
The One then told the tribal the core of every law that was ever made by powers divine or by humankind.
One: No law that makes another unhappy is ever a just law. Law is for the happiness of everybody. My laws cannot change you but your change can make my laws. That is the essence.
Well coming back to the Women’s Bill. I think the last sentence is what it is all about.
We need to change because the law- the Bill- cannot change us.
Let me give an example:
In a very prosperous industrial town in Jharkhand, an honest, benevolent and hugely successful manager stood for elections against a woman who had got the ticket because her husband was caught taking a bribe to support the ruling party during a vote of confidence in Parliament. Everyone thought the manager- a legend for running a 72000-people strong company superbly for almost half a century- would win hands down. When the results were counted, the manager had been trounced by the largest margin ever for that industrial town. The woman spent the next five years in Parliament never ever having raised any question or taken part in any debate. Russi Mody never stood for elections ever again. Abha Mahato never ever got a ticket again.
In Pune, a bureaucrat who fearlessly fought the land mafia, nipped corruption in the municipality, stood for elections against an old timer, a typical politician if you understand what I mean by that. The result? The bureaucrat lost his deposit. The politician continues to run his constituency and several sports associations he is associated like his personal fiefdom.
Moral of the story: If we vote for the right persons, for the right values, for the right principles, we would never ever need reservations. To say that a particular piece of work can be done best by men or by women is a fallacy. It can only be done best by those who want to do it well. No law can ever change that fundamental truth. If our system remains the way it is, instead of a corrupt Parliament with an overwhelming majority of men, we will have a corrupt Parliament with a third of it women. Is that the difference we seek?
However let me start of with a story I have heard but have no clue whether it is true or not.
Gautama Buddha was sitting deep in thought beneath a huge tree in a very forested part of ancient Bihar. Seeing the serenity on his face, a tribal came close to him and waited with folded hands for the Enlightened One to open his eyes and come out of the meditational pause. The One soon did, looked at the tribal and smiled.
The tribal asked the One if he could join him. The One asked why?
Tribal: I find an amazing peace in your presence. I have seen animals walk past you almost in reverence. I fear the animals in the forest that I stay in. I too want that serenity.
The One: Are you happy with your family?
Tribal: Yes I am. I have a wonderful wife who cooks for my children and me. My children love to play with me. I love to bring in food for them from the forest.
Even as the tribal and the Enlightened One were talking, a wild boar sauntered through the thick undergrowth. The tribal, for the first time, saw his concentration break as he eyed the boar and slowly found his arm reaching for the arrows in his quiver. Buddha smiled.
The One: You like hunting?
Tribal: Yes. I love to see the joy with which my children crowd around the pot when my wife is cooking the meat.
The One: But that boar might also be out to replenish itself so that it can feed the piglets back in its cave? What about them?
The tribal started thinking and said: But what about my children? Don’t they need food?
The One: Do you grow trees?
Tribal: No
The One: Do you cut them?
Tribal: Yes
The One: Do trees bear fruits?
Tribal: Yes
The One: Do your children love fruits?
Tribal: Yes
The One: Then plant trees. Let the trees bear fruits. Eat that. Let the boar live. The lack of ways is not because there is no other way but because of the lack of thought, the lack of search.
The tribal was deeply touched. But he still wanted to go along with the Enlightened One. The Buddha told him that he wills that no one covet anything, desire anything, harm anything, and injure anything.
The One: Would you be able to follow it without hurting your wife and your children dependent on you?
Tribal: No my Lord.
The One: Then you would be unhappy following my law, isn’t it?
Tribal: Yes my Lord.
The One then told the tribal the core of every law that was ever made by powers divine or by humankind.
One: No law that makes another unhappy is ever a just law. Law is for the happiness of everybody. My laws cannot change you but your change can make my laws. That is the essence.
Well coming back to the Women’s Bill. I think the last sentence is what it is all about.
We need to change because the law- the Bill- cannot change us.
Let me give an example:
In a very prosperous industrial town in Jharkhand, an honest, benevolent and hugely successful manager stood for elections against a woman who had got the ticket because her husband was caught taking a bribe to support the ruling party during a vote of confidence in Parliament. Everyone thought the manager- a legend for running a 72000-people strong company superbly for almost half a century- would win hands down. When the results were counted, the manager had been trounced by the largest margin ever for that industrial town. The woman spent the next five years in Parliament never ever having raised any question or taken part in any debate. Russi Mody never stood for elections ever again. Abha Mahato never ever got a ticket again.
In Pune, a bureaucrat who fearlessly fought the land mafia, nipped corruption in the municipality, stood for elections against an old timer, a typical politician if you understand what I mean by that. The result? The bureaucrat lost his deposit. The politician continues to run his constituency and several sports associations he is associated like his personal fiefdom.
Moral of the story: If we vote for the right persons, for the right values, for the right principles, we would never ever need reservations. To say that a particular piece of work can be done best by men or by women is a fallacy. It can only be done best by those who want to do it well. No law can ever change that fundamental truth. If our system remains the way it is, instead of a corrupt Parliament with an overwhelming majority of men, we will have a corrupt Parliament with a third of it women. Is that the difference we seek?
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
To hell with the Women's Bill
Now that the Women’s Reservation Bill has been passed in the Rajya Sabha, we are left with a feeling of having undone a major part of the wrongs our culture has perpetrated on women. But the moot question is this. Has a top-down approach ever been beneficial to any sector, nation or company?
Let me give an example. What if there was a rule in your firm which said that all directors of the form or the chairperson has to be a woman? Do you think it would make the firm you’re working in a better one?
But if the same rule were to be amended and now the equation would be that thirty percent of all management trainees in your firm would be women, do you believe it would make a more positive impact?
Probably because then, the ladies who join you as management trainees start on an equal footing and from there on whoever reaches the post of director, it has to be through fair competition and hardwork.
What is the point reserving a third of our Parliament- the highest seat of law and governance of our land- for women when the chance to attain it is restricted to such a small number that the whole process looks like a sham.
Some wonderful cartoons in our daily newspapers have summed it up well. All of them have some or the other neta beaming that now he can reward his wives, daughters and bahus with coveted MP election tickets.
Even at the moment, with probably the exception of Sushma Swaraj, Brinda Karat and Maywati, name me one woman who has reached the upper echelons of governance because she is not somebody’s wife, daughter or bahu.
Till internal democracy comes to parties, all this is hogwash and while I completely oppose the reason why Mulayam or Lalu opposed the Bill, I’ll side with them if I had a vote.
Did you hear what Priya Dutt had to say when she came out after filing her nominations for the Lok Sabha elections in 2009? Someone asked her what her priorities would be- a very clichéd question. The answer was betterment of infrastructure, making Mumbai a better place to live, equality for all sexes, blah blah. You could be forgiven if you thought the question was posed at the Miss World competition since the answer was the kind that would have done and bust-and-bum beauty brigade proud.
But what do you know? Priya Dutt won with a record margin and is a second time MP though she can be seen only on the pages of Bombay Times or Midday in parties hosted by cronies.
Come 2014, it will not just be Poonam Mahajan but just about everybody who is a lady in the Munde-Mahajan household who will be getting tickets.
If true democracy has to bring about equality, then our mindsets have to change. The day Irom Sharmila wins from Manipur, or a lady whose name I forgot- I’m also a hypocrite you see- who started a mosque exclusively for women wins, that’s when you can say democracy has come in and has brought equality as its partner. Or Shah Bano or Mahasveta Devi.
No point rejoicing over the Bill when you know every seat in that reserved circle would be taken up by docile biwis and bahus and betis who cling on to regressive families because of the legacies they would inherit some day.
Just go home one day, sit doing nothing, observe your mother multi-task with the dexterity of a Harvard Business School bright spark, and listen carefully to the philosophy that she spouts. And you will find a woman who puts in a lot of work being a wife, a mother, raises kids, reads to be able to converse with her children, tries to acquire a thought process to beat the generation gap with her daughter and does it without much of a fuss. And you will find that probably she is the kind of woman you want in Parliament.
Let me give an example. What if there was a rule in your firm which said that all directors of the form or the chairperson has to be a woman? Do you think it would make the firm you’re working in a better one?
But if the same rule were to be amended and now the equation would be that thirty percent of all management trainees in your firm would be women, do you believe it would make a more positive impact?
Probably because then, the ladies who join you as management trainees start on an equal footing and from there on whoever reaches the post of director, it has to be through fair competition and hardwork.
What is the point reserving a third of our Parliament- the highest seat of law and governance of our land- for women when the chance to attain it is restricted to such a small number that the whole process looks like a sham.
Some wonderful cartoons in our daily newspapers have summed it up well. All of them have some or the other neta beaming that now he can reward his wives, daughters and bahus with coveted MP election tickets.
Even at the moment, with probably the exception of Sushma Swaraj, Brinda Karat and Maywati, name me one woman who has reached the upper echelons of governance because she is not somebody’s wife, daughter or bahu.
Till internal democracy comes to parties, all this is hogwash and while I completely oppose the reason why Mulayam or Lalu opposed the Bill, I’ll side with them if I had a vote.
Did you hear what Priya Dutt had to say when she came out after filing her nominations for the Lok Sabha elections in 2009? Someone asked her what her priorities would be- a very clichéd question. The answer was betterment of infrastructure, making Mumbai a better place to live, equality for all sexes, blah blah. You could be forgiven if you thought the question was posed at the Miss World competition since the answer was the kind that would have done and bust-and-bum beauty brigade proud.
But what do you know? Priya Dutt won with a record margin and is a second time MP though she can be seen only on the pages of Bombay Times or Midday in parties hosted by cronies.
Come 2014, it will not just be Poonam Mahajan but just about everybody who is a lady in the Munde-Mahajan household who will be getting tickets.
If true democracy has to bring about equality, then our mindsets have to change. The day Irom Sharmila wins from Manipur, or a lady whose name I forgot- I’m also a hypocrite you see- who started a mosque exclusively for women wins, that’s when you can say democracy has come in and has brought equality as its partner. Or Shah Bano or Mahasveta Devi.
No point rejoicing over the Bill when you know every seat in that reserved circle would be taken up by docile biwis and bahus and betis who cling on to regressive families because of the legacies they would inherit some day.
Just go home one day, sit doing nothing, observe your mother multi-task with the dexterity of a Harvard Business School bright spark, and listen carefully to the philosophy that she spouts. And you will find a woman who puts in a lot of work being a wife, a mother, raises kids, reads to be able to converse with her children, tries to acquire a thought process to beat the generation gap with her daughter and does it without much of a fuss. And you will find that probably she is the kind of woman you want in Parliament.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Wikipedia: Stephanie "Stephie" D'Souza, nee Sequeira
Stephanie "Stephie" D'Souza, nee Sequeira (December 26, 1936- September 11, 1998) was a sportsperson who represented India in athletics and women's hockey.
D'Souza was part of the Indian team that won the gold in the 4x100 m relay in the 1954 Asian Games and a bronze in 1958. She won a silver in the 200 m, creating an Asian record in the semifinal, and finished fourth in the 100 m in the latter competition. At one point, she held the national records in 100 m, 200 m, 400 m and 800 m.
She was eliminated in the first round of the 400 m in the 1964 Summer Olympics after finishing sixth in 58.0 seconds. She took part in the 100 yards and 220 yards sprints in the 1958 Commonwealth Games. D'Souza represented India in the first international women's hockey tournament in London in 1953 and captained the side in 1961.
Stephie D'Souza was the first woman to win the Arjuna Award presented by the Government of India. She died in Jamshedpur(Jharkhand) at the age of 61.
D'Souza was part of the Indian team that won the gold in the 4x100 m relay in the 1954 Asian Games and a bronze in 1958. She won a silver in the 200 m, creating an Asian record in the semifinal, and finished fourth in the 100 m in the latter competition. At one point, she held the national records in 100 m, 200 m, 400 m and 800 m.
She was eliminated in the first round of the 400 m in the 1964 Summer Olympics after finishing sixth in 58.0 seconds. She took part in the 100 yards and 220 yards sprints in the 1958 Commonwealth Games. D'Souza represented India in the first international women's hockey tournament in London in 1953 and captained the side in 1961.
Stephie D'Souza was the first woman to win the Arjuna Award presented by the Government of India. She died in Jamshedpur(Jharkhand) at the age of 61.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Sorry, ma'am. Hockey is dead, you live
Ok so now we all know that India plays a game called Hockey. Also that it is the kind of sport that would make ‘superfit’ players like Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina – not to say the other cricketers- throw up in the first five minutes because of the sheer speed. At my office, you would almost believe hockey is our national passion. Inside the train, some college chaps were talking about how India could have played better against Australia. Of course they also added that with India beating Pakistan four-nil, our tournament is over and we have emerged victorious.
I really believe that India will never regain its hockey glory ever again. I hope I am wrong. Let me begin by telling you a small story. Nothing very dramatic.
In a large and reputed school in Jamshedpur, every Saturday groups of students assembled in a well-appointed classroom to take part in what was called ‘the School Quiz Club’.
The routine was that the moderator- a stern and strict teacher by the name Jimmy Munro- would make teams and then play quizmaster.
Jamshedpur had a fairly robust school quizzing scene and so doing well as a team at the Quiz Club meant that you got the chance to represent your school in these events and be the toast of school if you won. The ultimate of course was the Bournvita School Quiz hosted by Derek o Brien and telecast across the country. Incidentally two students from this school- Little Flower School- went on to win the Bournvita School Quiz.
Coming back to the story. As the competition on that Saturday morning started getting close, sir Munro threw in a question. Name the first Indian woman to get an Arjuna Award.
The faces of every participant in that class lit up. Now this was easy. Pat came the answer- PT Usha.
Surprise. Surprise. Wrong answer. It was my turn next. I offered this very long guess and said Shiny Abraham-Wilson. Nope as well.
Someone made a better try and threw in Diana Eduljee. Negative again.
Mr Munro took this long pause, looked at all of us. Smiled. Then dropped his heavy voice for a bit and said, “Do you all have any clue about a lady called Steffi D’Souza?”
The faces were blank. Mr Munro threw in another clue. “Steffi Sequeira?”
The class let out the kind of sigh that could have been heard a mile away. ‘Don’t tell me’, ‘come on’ ‘oh gosh’ rented the dull air in that spacious classroom.
“Ya my friends, we in this country have no idea about anything of our own”, Mr Munro said in a tone that betrayed a bit of arrogance over his white skin and Australian ancestry. Later I realised it was not arrogance, just plain hurt.
Because Mrs Sequeira for years now was our physical training teacher at Little Flower School. Clad in her trademark shirts and knee-length skirt, it was not difficult to guess that she must have done a fair bit of sports in her time.
Some physical problems had made her put on weight but the strength of a sportswoman came to the fore every time she gave us a tight one on our thighs if we made a mistake. Like what cricket commentators would say- when she hit, it stayed hit.
Across the city, young students- me included several times- called her ‘handi’ because of the massive weight that she had put on. She disliked it, sometimes got angry but the students always managed to run away before she could catch hold of any one of them.
She tried starting a hockey league in the city, ran around for it. Forget the league, Little Flower School hockey team itself never got off the ground. Some of the students felt their wrists paining, some threw up and some had the ball cracking into their shins with enough force to put them out of all work for one whole week.
We called hockey a stupid sport. Cricket is the real deal, man, we told each other.
One rainy day, when it was not possible for us to practice our physical training routine outside, we all sat in the school pavilion. Mrs Sequeira- married and having moved from native Pune to Jamshedpur- brought out a hockey stick and a shining white ball from the sports room.
Then she kept the ball on the ground and slowly started caressing the ball with the hockey stick. It was not a performance for any one of us. It was not to show who she was or what she was capable of. It was just trying to snatch a part of the world that for her had gone past.
The caress got quicker, her muscled forearms developing a grid of veins as the seconds ticked by. It must have been less that a minute later when every student sitting cross-legged in that pavilion realised that even their perfect eyesight at that age could not see anything better than the stick shivering into a brown blur and the ball looking like a whirling mass of soft white cotton.
I don’t remember if I saw any tears in her eyes that moment. But some of us had moist eyes that day. A sports legend having to bring out her skill before a set of unworthy students to tell them that in the world she once inhabited, they respected her for her skills is a very sad sight.
Steffi D’ Souza was the first woman to get an Arjuna award. And the only woman who has represented India and probably the only instance in the world of any athlete who has participated in athletics and hockey at Olympics. She captained Indian women’s hockey team for a long time and is still considered the greatest woman hockey player this nation has ever seen. She was called Flying Rani for the massive surge of speed she could generate with the ball and for her sprints.
She passed away in 1998. Hockey died in Jamshedpur and the adjoining Jharkhand towns- the cradle of Indian hockey- almost two decades before that. Ma’am, if you are looking at us from there above, please forgive us. We are sorry.
I really believe that India will never regain its hockey glory ever again. I hope I am wrong. Let me begin by telling you a small story. Nothing very dramatic.
In a large and reputed school in Jamshedpur, every Saturday groups of students assembled in a well-appointed classroom to take part in what was called ‘the School Quiz Club’.
The routine was that the moderator- a stern and strict teacher by the name Jimmy Munro- would make teams and then play quizmaster.
Jamshedpur had a fairly robust school quizzing scene and so doing well as a team at the Quiz Club meant that you got the chance to represent your school in these events and be the toast of school if you won. The ultimate of course was the Bournvita School Quiz hosted by Derek o Brien and telecast across the country. Incidentally two students from this school- Little Flower School- went on to win the Bournvita School Quiz.
Coming back to the story. As the competition on that Saturday morning started getting close, sir Munro threw in a question. Name the first Indian woman to get an Arjuna Award.
The faces of every participant in that class lit up. Now this was easy. Pat came the answer- PT Usha.
Surprise. Surprise. Wrong answer. It was my turn next. I offered this very long guess and said Shiny Abraham-Wilson. Nope as well.
Someone made a better try and threw in Diana Eduljee. Negative again.
Mr Munro took this long pause, looked at all of us. Smiled. Then dropped his heavy voice for a bit and said, “Do you all have any clue about a lady called Steffi D’Souza?”
The faces were blank. Mr Munro threw in another clue. “Steffi Sequeira?”
The class let out the kind of sigh that could have been heard a mile away. ‘Don’t tell me’, ‘come on’ ‘oh gosh’ rented the dull air in that spacious classroom.
“Ya my friends, we in this country have no idea about anything of our own”, Mr Munro said in a tone that betrayed a bit of arrogance over his white skin and Australian ancestry. Later I realised it was not arrogance, just plain hurt.
Because Mrs Sequeira for years now was our physical training teacher at Little Flower School. Clad in her trademark shirts and knee-length skirt, it was not difficult to guess that she must have done a fair bit of sports in her time.
Some physical problems had made her put on weight but the strength of a sportswoman came to the fore every time she gave us a tight one on our thighs if we made a mistake. Like what cricket commentators would say- when she hit, it stayed hit.
Across the city, young students- me included several times- called her ‘handi’ because of the massive weight that she had put on. She disliked it, sometimes got angry but the students always managed to run away before she could catch hold of any one of them.
She tried starting a hockey league in the city, ran around for it. Forget the league, Little Flower School hockey team itself never got off the ground. Some of the students felt their wrists paining, some threw up and some had the ball cracking into their shins with enough force to put them out of all work for one whole week.
We called hockey a stupid sport. Cricket is the real deal, man, we told each other.
One rainy day, when it was not possible for us to practice our physical training routine outside, we all sat in the school pavilion. Mrs Sequeira- married and having moved from native Pune to Jamshedpur- brought out a hockey stick and a shining white ball from the sports room.
Then she kept the ball on the ground and slowly started caressing the ball with the hockey stick. It was not a performance for any one of us. It was not to show who she was or what she was capable of. It was just trying to snatch a part of the world that for her had gone past.
The caress got quicker, her muscled forearms developing a grid of veins as the seconds ticked by. It must have been less that a minute later when every student sitting cross-legged in that pavilion realised that even their perfect eyesight at that age could not see anything better than the stick shivering into a brown blur and the ball looking like a whirling mass of soft white cotton.
I don’t remember if I saw any tears in her eyes that moment. But some of us had moist eyes that day. A sports legend having to bring out her skill before a set of unworthy students to tell them that in the world she once inhabited, they respected her for her skills is a very sad sight.
Steffi D’ Souza was the first woman to get an Arjuna award. And the only woman who has represented India and probably the only instance in the world of any athlete who has participated in athletics and hockey at Olympics. She captained Indian women’s hockey team for a long time and is still considered the greatest woman hockey player this nation has ever seen. She was called Flying Rani for the massive surge of speed she could generate with the ball and for her sprints.
She passed away in 1998. Hockey died in Jamshedpur and the adjoining Jharkhand towns- the cradle of Indian hockey- almost two decades before that. Ma’am, if you are looking at us from there above, please forgive us. We are sorry.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Taslima, you may be wrong, but you're welcome
So Taslima has done it again. An article of hers in a Kannada daily has caused a riot that has killed two already and injured several more at Shimoga, Karnataka. At the newsroom that I work in, there was quite a lot of discontent over the fact that the government allows a troublemaker like Taslima back into the country time and again despite she being up to no good.
About the troublemaker part, well I agree. After all her writings cause riots so you’d have to give it to her.
But the problem is not as much with her writing as it is about the gradual destruction of a culture we have nourished over the centuries. The ability to be brash about our religions, our ways of praying and our general outlook towards our Gods.
We have been taught that wonderful poem by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar in our schools about how the man who conquered Lanka would be called God, but the powers that made the bridge to Lanka would remain monkeys.
I have not known of any problem that poem has caused anywhere in the country. It still remains in the Hindi textbooks of all ICSE schools in Bihar and Jharkhand.
Kancha Illiah, that cerebrally-gifted bureaucrat turned Dalit ideologue can get any religious Hindu’s blood boiling every time he gives an interview to the Times or any other publication for that matter.
His hatred for Hinduism and everything that it stands for is so acute that you can feel singed when his blood boils and takes the shape of vitriolic words.
But have there been riots ever after any of interviews are published? I don’t think so.
So why poor Taslima. Jut because she writes about a community and religion that since inception did not allow freedom of thought to the individual. A religion where the process of thought-creation was handed over to a cabal of people called mullahs and maulvis who set about decoding Arabic texts to their advantage and ended up building a homogenous mass of non-thinking people who surrender their weapons of reasoning and insight the moment someone utters that what has been written in the holy book must be followed in detail, by rote.
But should that allow us to forget our culture? The one where on Holi people drink to death and then tell jokes that involve everyone from the pantheons of Gods to saints to godmen.
And the same people who have a problem when Taslima writes about that horrible cage called the burqa find it absolutely secular to support MF Hussain when he draws gods and goddesses in the nude.
Creative freedom should be absolute. It is for the individual to control his temper and concentrate on something better. If I tell you that your religion sucks, then you have the right to tell me too that my religion sucks. Once that is out of the way, we can probably sit and agree with each other that both our jobs suck.
That is secularism, my friend, not digging out the wounds of old riots and Satanic Verses and Taslima’s Lajja and disallowing a community to move forward. Because the way forward is the only way we were taught. Let the memories of the past subside, move on to better thoughts, better times.
All that all the saints did over the centuries, good for them. All that we will do, may it be good for us.
About the troublemaker part, well I agree. After all her writings cause riots so you’d have to give it to her.
But the problem is not as much with her writing as it is about the gradual destruction of a culture we have nourished over the centuries. The ability to be brash about our religions, our ways of praying and our general outlook towards our Gods.
We have been taught that wonderful poem by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar in our schools about how the man who conquered Lanka would be called God, but the powers that made the bridge to Lanka would remain monkeys.
I have not known of any problem that poem has caused anywhere in the country. It still remains in the Hindi textbooks of all ICSE schools in Bihar and Jharkhand.
Kancha Illiah, that cerebrally-gifted bureaucrat turned Dalit ideologue can get any religious Hindu’s blood boiling every time he gives an interview to the Times or any other publication for that matter.
His hatred for Hinduism and everything that it stands for is so acute that you can feel singed when his blood boils and takes the shape of vitriolic words.
But have there been riots ever after any of interviews are published? I don’t think so.
So why poor Taslima. Jut because she writes about a community and religion that since inception did not allow freedom of thought to the individual. A religion where the process of thought-creation was handed over to a cabal of people called mullahs and maulvis who set about decoding Arabic texts to their advantage and ended up building a homogenous mass of non-thinking people who surrender their weapons of reasoning and insight the moment someone utters that what has been written in the holy book must be followed in detail, by rote.
But should that allow us to forget our culture? The one where on Holi people drink to death and then tell jokes that involve everyone from the pantheons of Gods to saints to godmen.
And the same people who have a problem when Taslima writes about that horrible cage called the burqa find it absolutely secular to support MF Hussain when he draws gods and goddesses in the nude.
Creative freedom should be absolute. It is for the individual to control his temper and concentrate on something better. If I tell you that your religion sucks, then you have the right to tell me too that my religion sucks. Once that is out of the way, we can probably sit and agree with each other that both our jobs suck.
That is secularism, my friend, not digging out the wounds of old riots and Satanic Verses and Taslima’s Lajja and disallowing a community to move forward. Because the way forward is the only way we were taught. Let the memories of the past subside, move on to better thoughts, better times.
All that all the saints did over the centuries, good for them. All that we will do, may it be good for us.
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