Why do Indians do it? Talk about gender equality on one side and force their children to follow an arcane ritual from ancient times… Talk about IT on one side and follow an astrological chart for marriage on other side…
What’s the connection between Indians and scientific temper? As the blonde jokes go, same as a blonde and intelligence? There are Millions of Indians who have studied pure sciences, and their branches, engineering and medicine. And millions more are currently studying (and the anti-reservation fight was mainly fought on those course campuses, just reporting though)… But India mostly imports technology from outside, there seem to be nothing much coming up in research ideas from these science grads. Why?
Are the Indian children force fed on Farex, milk and exam oriented answers? Do they like in the loo, just produce shit in the examination hall as an end result?
Centuries old culture is ruined by call centers, or are they disturbing the staid method to make academic automatons since centuries? Religion is the opium of the masses, whew, this keyboard is turning schizo too. ;)
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Blogs of passion
Why do we/I write shit disguised as a blog?
Why do we/I write any shit at all?
To see our names in print?
To become famous?
To help the economy by helping publishing companies?
To share our valuable insights drawn from our unique experiences and even more unique (?) interpretations?
To become more articulate?
Or is it just that as written in the famous American bumper sticker, ‘shit happens’?
And how do we write? How does it come out – Systematically? Chaotically? In a flow when we are in the zone?
My process of writing seem to come out through some unknown process and I have been trying to understand it – I start writing and even if I have no idea in the beginning or even middle, it ends up as a whole. A wrote a short story, titled ‘not that crazy’, and it reflects such an experience.
I was trying to sleep at night, and I remembered a Hindi movie song and got up to write something with that as a beginning… A guy is listening to that song and what happens to him? Through this process I wrote a story about a guy suffering from schizophrenia. The whole process took about one hour (the story contains roughly 1500 words or two typed pages). I had no idea how I will end it, or what will come up next when I was writing it. I was on a roll. Wish I was more of a conscious writer than the above kind of unconscious one, because I will be able to write when I wanted to, rather than just wait for that flow or mood to strike me.
Well, it’s been the same for blogs as well. Sometimes none for a month, and sometimes 3 in one day. Gotta thank Sudip who told me to keep at it, an American Joe who reads it, and Jaadya too… I guess that wraps up everybody… oh, yeah, the blogger, yeah gotta thank them too?
Why do we/I write any shit at all?
To see our names in print?
To become famous?
To help the economy by helping publishing companies?
To share our valuable insights drawn from our unique experiences and even more unique (?) interpretations?
To become more articulate?
Or is it just that as written in the famous American bumper sticker, ‘shit happens’?
And how do we write? How does it come out – Systematically? Chaotically? In a flow when we are in the zone?
My process of writing seem to come out through some unknown process and I have been trying to understand it – I start writing and even if I have no idea in the beginning or even middle, it ends up as a whole. A wrote a short story, titled ‘not that crazy’, and it reflects such an experience.
I was trying to sleep at night, and I remembered a Hindi movie song and got up to write something with that as a beginning… A guy is listening to that song and what happens to him? Through this process I wrote a story about a guy suffering from schizophrenia. The whole process took about one hour (the story contains roughly 1500 words or two typed pages). I had no idea how I will end it, or what will come up next when I was writing it. I was on a roll. Wish I was more of a conscious writer than the above kind of unconscious one, because I will be able to write when I wanted to, rather than just wait for that flow or mood to strike me.
Well, it’s been the same for blogs as well. Sometimes none for a month, and sometimes 3 in one day. Gotta thank Sudip who told me to keep at it, an American Joe who reads it, and Jaadya too… I guess that wraps up everybody… oh, yeah, the blogger, yeah gotta thank them too?
What a friend of a friend found on a trash can in a Mumbai local train:
It was a typed page – with this written on it…
Is sexuality or sexual behavior just a value?
Does physical intimacy require some commitment or ‘love’?
What’s cool/good & what’s not, when it comes to having single or multiple sexual partners?
Forget sexuality just that word is enough to give indigestion... even though its just a value?
Let’s check this one behavior, which has been observed many times on Bombay roads:
Teenagers walking holding hands with mother / father, while walking on the road (in India)…
Does it show better family relationships (in India?)
Does it show lack of inhibition & ability to show freedom of expression of Indian parents/teens?
Or does it show the teens are un-cool?
Or does it show that teens are over-protected, socially uneasy with peers?
Or that they are obsessed with own family?
Or all of the above / some of the above could be true?
Is there a connection between the above and below paragraphs?
…Forget it, that found page on that trash can… its more trouble that its worth? ;)
Is sexuality or sexual behavior just a value?
Does physical intimacy require some commitment or ‘love’?
What’s cool/good & what’s not, when it comes to having single or multiple sexual partners?
Forget sexuality just that word is enough to give indigestion... even though its just a value?
Let’s check this one behavior, which has been observed many times on Bombay roads:
Teenagers walking holding hands with mother / father, while walking on the road (in India)…
Does it show better family relationships (in India?)
Does it show lack of inhibition & ability to show freedom of expression of Indian parents/teens?
Or does it show the teens are un-cool?
Or does it show that teens are over-protected, socially uneasy with peers?
Or that they are obsessed with own family?
Or all of the above / some of the above could be true?
Is there a connection between the above and below paragraphs?
…Forget it, that found page on that trash can… its more trouble that its worth? ;)
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
7/11 mumbai blasts
Bomb blasts in 7 areas of Bombay (or Mumbai) within 11 minutes (from 6.24 pm to 6.35 pm) was a terrible news, though cannot be very unexpected. The railway is the life line of Bombay, and during rush hour, hundreds of people crush themselves into each compartment. population density would be the highest in such compartments during those rush hours, and anyone who has experienced this in Mumbai local train is not likely to forget it in his/her life time.
These blasts occurred only in first class compartments, which are more expensive (10 times more expensive than second class compartment), and comparatively less crowded. is there a reason to target first class compartments? (I read in BBC internet news report which had erroneously reported that first class passengers can be identified beforehand).
There is no way to distinguish who will climb into any compartment, because there is no booking in local trains, you just climb in. You don’t even have to buy a ticket to get into a railway station or a train, and you are fined only if you are caught by some handful of ticket checkers who seem to be present mostly during the first week of beginning of a month (salaries are paid, so people will have money to pay fines). Anyway, what I want to say is, there’s no security system as such, and I remember how just 1 year before (7/7) London railway series blasts police could check video of passengers getting into the stations.
If the blasts were done by LeT (lakshar e Toiba) or some such fanatic group who usually claim to fight for Islam. They would have harmed Muslim passengers as well (reports already show that some Muslim passengers have indeed died in these 7/11 blasts). These terrorist actions create mass psychological impact as well. Though I hope it won’t lead to religious disharmony and riots. Focusing on a single identity of the religion of the attackers (terrorists) and generalizing it on to a whole community is as criminal a thing. If such a terrorist was a woman, then are all females to blame? If one of them is left-handed, then are all left-handed people to be judged?
We live in a complex world and each individual has such multiple identities. Everyone is a minority in that sense, or even unique… for example, you might be the only person who is 5.11 inches tall, has light brown skin, a square jaw, a spot on your left ear, and can speak 3 specific languages, with a liking for sports cars. But such rational or logical thinking often seems alien and riots and mob killings have occurred in Mumbai as well in other areas of India before. These lead to a vicious cycle and more terrorists are created.
The common error or judging a whole group as good or evil increases during intense emotional states. And the suicide squads formed as early as 13th century (called Fidayeen) in the middle-east Asia was trying to achieve the same panic state of mind, and blind retaliation and its cyclic process. (I have used the word fidayeen for its historical purpose only and not in any religious context, but that word seemed to have become synonymous with suicide squads). Similarly terrorists are attempting to bring about macro level changes by creating unexpected micro event/s, and we need to think & prepare ourselves to defeat the purposes of such inhumane acts.
The 7/11 blasts have killed almost 200 people and injured many more. Thousands would have been shocked by the impact and noise as well. But amazingly the always on-the-go Mumbai spirits has withstood many such major shocks previously and hope it does so again... Of course, Mumbai police is providing information about people injured in the blasts through their website (even a decade ago, it woulda been sci-fi), the link is http://www.mumbaipolice.org/images/news_cp/1blast/blast.htm and the information is pretty detailed and done quickly; remarkable!
These blasts occurred only in first class compartments, which are more expensive (10 times more expensive than second class compartment), and comparatively less crowded. is there a reason to target first class compartments? (I read in BBC internet news report which had erroneously reported that first class passengers can be identified beforehand).
There is no way to distinguish who will climb into any compartment, because there is no booking in local trains, you just climb in. You don’t even have to buy a ticket to get into a railway station or a train, and you are fined only if you are caught by some handful of ticket checkers who seem to be present mostly during the first week of beginning of a month (salaries are paid, so people will have money to pay fines). Anyway, what I want to say is, there’s no security system as such, and I remember how just 1 year before (7/7) London railway series blasts police could check video of passengers getting into the stations.
If the blasts were done by LeT (lakshar e Toiba) or some such fanatic group who usually claim to fight for Islam. They would have harmed Muslim passengers as well (reports already show that some Muslim passengers have indeed died in these 7/11 blasts). These terrorist actions create mass psychological impact as well. Though I hope it won’t lead to religious disharmony and riots. Focusing on a single identity of the religion of the attackers (terrorists) and generalizing it on to a whole community is as criminal a thing. If such a terrorist was a woman, then are all females to blame? If one of them is left-handed, then are all left-handed people to be judged?
We live in a complex world and each individual has such multiple identities. Everyone is a minority in that sense, or even unique… for example, you might be the only person who is 5.11 inches tall, has light brown skin, a square jaw, a spot on your left ear, and can speak 3 specific languages, with a liking for sports cars. But such rational or logical thinking often seems alien and riots and mob killings have occurred in Mumbai as well in other areas of India before. These lead to a vicious cycle and more terrorists are created.
The common error or judging a whole group as good or evil increases during intense emotional states. And the suicide squads formed as early as 13th century (called Fidayeen) in the middle-east Asia was trying to achieve the same panic state of mind, and blind retaliation and its cyclic process. (I have used the word fidayeen for its historical purpose only and not in any religious context, but that word seemed to have become synonymous with suicide squads). Similarly terrorists are attempting to bring about macro level changes by creating unexpected micro event/s, and we need to think & prepare ourselves to defeat the purposes of such inhumane acts.
The 7/11 blasts have killed almost 200 people and injured many more. Thousands would have been shocked by the impact and noise as well. But amazingly the always on-the-go Mumbai spirits has withstood many such major shocks previously and hope it does so again... Of course, Mumbai police is providing information about people injured in the blasts through their website (even a decade ago, it woulda been sci-fi), the link is http://www.mumbaipolice.org/images/news_cp/1blast/blast.htm and the information is pretty detailed and done quickly; remarkable!
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