OLYMPICS ARE BIASED AGAINST INDIANS

Another Olympics and yet another time we are thrilled as a nation to have got one Bronze. We compete with such nations as Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Serbia and Mongolia whilst the nation with whom we are made to (or expected to) compete in GDP growth, greatness etc, ie, China, tops the medal tally. After every dismal performance we are filled with renewed zeal: "Agli baar chhodenge nahin" (next time we shall not leave them) (Read 'We Are Like That Only'). However, when next time comes, we again bemoan collectively that the rules and umpires or referees or judges just didn't favour us; there appears to be conspiracy against the Indian civilisation.

I have been like all the others denigrating the Indians for their poor performance, lack of focused approach, discipline, sports infrastructure and competitive spirit of our young men and women. But, lately I have started to earnestly examine the 'conspiracy theory'. Lo and behold; the conclusion that I have reached is that there is adequate evidence to support the charge.

First of all, Olympics are totally opposite of our culture of "peaceful co-existence"; how can we be competing against anyone to win Gold, Silver or Bronze? Once in a blue-moon someone with 'anti-Indian' tendencies can stoop so low as to win a Gold, Silver or Bronze in shooting (a la Abhinav Bindra, Rajyavardhan Rathore and Gagan Narang) or in wrestling like Vijender Singh; but, we discourage such greed for "material things". For us, participation is more important than winning. Indeed, as a matter of interest, the expenditure on participation of scores of officials and non-players in the Indian contingent is never allowed to exceed the total sum of money spent on our former President's foreign jaunts. That's the kind of respect that we have for our head of state.

Naturally, the Westerns always take advantage of our cultural moorings and devise such lowly games where winning medals is all that counts. We, Indians have values. Winning somebody else's precious metals is not for us when we have enough of our own. Indeed, we are stashing a large percentage of these in foreign banks and vaults. Also, we have very stringent Customs Regulations; we guide our players not to bring imported precious metals as there would be heavy duty on it. We made an exception for Sachin Tendulkar's Ferrari and landed up in avoidable controversy.

Most games in Olympics are against our civilizational values and we in India lay a lot of store for values. Can't we have some realistic games suited for Indian conditions? Can't we have games that suit our natural ability and talent? Here are some that I suggested to Mr. Jacques Rogge, the President of International Olympic Committee:

Me. Mr. President, I suggest that a game called 'Traffic Decathlon' be added from the 2020 Olympics that may be held in New Delhi. We could have a driver from each participating country being given a over-burdened lorry without adequate brakes and lights and asked to go on an Indian highway.

JR. Sounds interesting; what would be the rules?

Me. Aha, Sir, 'Rules' is a totally western concept, alien to us. We shall let the contestants make their own rules.

JR. Alright; but the challenge would be if they have to reach somewhere; simply being on a highway won't do.

Me. No, no, Sir; once again, reaching somewhere is a Western concept; being ahead of the other vehicle by hook or by crook is the object of the game. And, Sir, you have no idea of the "challenge" in this; trust me.

JR. Fine; I shall put this before IOC. Let me hear your other suggestions.

Me. Sir, this is a brilliant game that we play in India; it is an adult version of 'hide-and-seek' or 'treasure hunt'. In this a large sum of public money just vanishes from under the noses of the authorities and everyone forms themselves into committees and go looking for it....

JR. ....and the one who finds it, is the winner, is it?

Me. I am afraid, Sir, you are still looking at things from a western perspective. The money is never to be found. Looking for it is great fun though and everyone has a rollicking time. Many a times we spend more money looking for the disappeared money than the original amount.

JR (catching on): And I guess here too there will be no rules.

Me. Bingo, Sir. Here is another: In this game a complete locality is flooded - as it happens with us during rains - and a team has to reach across a stretch of road.

JR. Doesn't sound very exciting; any Olympian swimmer should be able to do that.

Me. You think so, Sir? Once again the competitors would not have any idea of where the open manholes and drains are and whether or not live electric cables are submerged or not.

JR. Oh, I see. Any more new games, especially for women?

Me. Ok, Sir; now this is the ultimate test of any contestant's ability. In this a contestant is asked to look at our overcrowded local train and asked to board the train and alight at another station without loss of limb or life or gold chain or without being molested.

JR. What's the point of this game?

Me. The point, Sir, is free amusement of the males who are otherwise bored with life.

JR. I like this because at least the goal of the game is clearly stated. What does the woman have to defend herself?

Me. There is something called pepper-spray, Sir, but points will have to be minused if someone uses it.

JR. Alright, I think you have given me some good ideas. Now, tell me one last one that should have a lot of excitement and challenge.

Me. Okay Sir; I don't know if the foreign teams can really practise it in the next eight years; our people have vast experience. This is called 'Sprint to Touch Congress High Command's Feet'. You can be in any part of the country but you have to accomplish it before your rivals can do so. There is real challenge in it; you can either lose something called kursi (chair or seat) or win it. We have been practising it since independence waiting for our glorious moment in the Olympics.

JR. Bravo, this is really adventurous, like the Afghan sport of Buzh Kashi. But tell me, Sunbyanyname, if Indians are so good at all these really tough games then how is it they don't win many medals in Olympics?

Me. Simple, Sir, it is against our culture to compete or contest and ask for material things. As an example, Sir, when British came to India we decided that we'd rather fight against each other than against our beloved guests from a foreign land. One, Nawab of Oudh, for example, in relentless pursuit of spreading Indian culture, kept up with music and poetry whilst the British took over his entire kingdom.

We Indians really love our culture and are ready to do anything to preserve and display it. Ask Ms Madhura Honey who walked in front of the entire Indian contingent at the opening ceremony of Olympics at London. She spread Indian culture in blue jeans and red shirt and became far more important than the contestants. That's the way we always have it: anyone and everyone is more important than the contestants. She is going to be our mascot for the 2020 Olympics in case we win the bid to host them at Delhi.

BORN FREE? SATYAMEV JAYATE? LETS WORK TOWARDS IT

In my last article in Philosophy section of the blog, I wrote about 'How Unbiased Or Innocent Can We Become?  The article had this quote from Swami Vivekanand near the end: "Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality. ... To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here." I concluded, therefore, that with the influences acting on our consciousness or sub-consciousness from ages and during our lives, we can never be absolutely unbiased or innocent. At best, we can be more or less unbiased or innocent than others.

Lets now descend from the stratosphere to ground reality. The fact is that perhaps never before in Indian society we were less free than we are at present; both physically and in our thinking. Satyamev Jayate, the serialised programme by Aamir Khan, is all about individual and collective freedoms and desirable restrictions thereon; for example, in the last episode, it was brought out that the unrestricted littering and pollution of water sources in India need to be checked. However, it is my firm belief that changes in societies and individuals come from within, as a response to the perceived environment. Individuals think of these changes; but, finally, they require people's support to bring about the changes. Sometimes only they are forced upon us; such as cleanliness drive after plague in Surat or need for coastal security after 26/11 attack in Mumbai. However, such changes have limited sustainability; as soon as the threat posed by the incident recedes, we go back to our routine way of doing things.

So, what this article seeks to do is to make us aware of some of the significant issues and suggest ways out. In each one of his episodes, Aamir Khan invariably brings out about individuals and organisations that are doing a yeoman service to get over the problems. This article is a small contribution to increase awareness.

Freedom or Right to be Born and Live. We have a very high Infant Mortality Rate in India. The infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of deaths of infants under one year old per 1,000 live births. This rate is often used as an indicator of the level of health in a country. The infant mortality rate of the world is 49.4 according to the United Nations and 42.09 according to the CIA World Factbook. As per the list of countries by infant mortality rate from the 2011 revision of the United Nations World Population Prospects report, by five years averages, India ranks at 150 in 194 countries with an IMR of 60.82. Our ranking is tucked in between that of Bangladesh and Ghana on top of us and Eritrea and Zimbabwe below us. Singapore has the lowest IMR with just 2.60 deaths per thousand. Since our death rate is 6.4 deaths per 1000, our IMR is about ten times. This means that in India ten times more children die before attaining the age of one than the number of deaths in other ages.

It would still have been alright to be complacent about these statistics. However, when the incidence of Female Infanticide is added to these, it should make us sit up and take notice. Some activists, including as brought out in an Aamir Khan's Satyamev Jayate episode, believe that India's 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven - activists fear eight million female foetuses may have been aborted between 2001 and 2011.  I brought out the plight of being an Indian Woman in an early article 'Is There Reason To Celebrate Women's Day in India?' and how female foetuses were discovered in a well in Patiala. Wikipedia, however, holds that these claims are controversial and that the 2011 census birth sex ratio in India, of 917 girls to 1000 boys, is similar to 870-930 girls to 1000 boys birth sex ratios observed in Japanese, Chinese, Cuban, Filipino and Hawaiian ethnic groups in the United States between 1940 to 2005. They are also similar to birth sex ratios below 900 girls to 1000 boys observed in mothers of different age groups and gestation periods in the United States. I don't agree. I feel that Female Infanticide is prevalent in India in significant numbers and even if a girl-child exercises the Right to be Born, she soon starts praying that she would be dead.

Look at the picture below. It is from the television serial on Colors channel. The series were titled 'Na Aana Is Des Laado' (Don't Come to this World Girl). It premiered on 9th March 2009, much before Aamir Khan brought it out on SJ. The story deals with the social evil of Female infanticide, and concentrates on the problems faced by women in a male-dominant world.

A scene from Colors serial 'Na Aana Is Des Laado'

Solution. Being born is a gift of God; to live depends upon our conditions. As a society we have to realise that life starts much before the actual birth and that female infanticide is murder. A child should be allowed to be born irrespective of its sex. After having been born, it should get adequate nourishment and health-care so as to live. We keep talking of an emerging great power called India. It is total hogwash if 6 percent of Indian children die within a year of being born and millions of female foetuses are discarded because our society has little use for women. We cannot change the entire country; but, we can certainly change the way we look at things in our own families and immediate neighbourhood. Others will have as much value for Indian lives - both male and female - as we have for our own lives. Six percent IMR doesn't suggest we value Indian lives too much.

Freedom to Choose Religion. This is a very touchy subject with us. Just like during the elections when we see that there are people whose votes have been already cast, we have our religion already chosen for us even before birth. After that, even in the kindergarten admission form 'Religion' has to be specified. This continues during our lives for all admission forms and other applications. Whose religion is it? It is that of our parents and their parents? We cannot dare to go outside the ambit of the religion chosen for us by our parents. We have no idea whether other religions are good or bad (actually 'bad' is not even an option; we are talking about religion and not potatoes or appliances); but, we are somehow told that absolute and blind loyalty to our religion is the stuff that separates us from pagans or beasts. It is therefore an acceptable thing to break the legs of or burn the house of a person who is perceived to be desecrating our religious symbols or monuments. Our religion itself might just be teaching us to look at all human beings with kindness; but, to hell with that. It is the religious practice or rituals that are more important to us. Hence, we are prepared to do irreligious things, even to kill, in order to defend our religion that our parents chose for us and about whose virtues we simply have had no idea. Some loyalty this.


Courtesy: wallpaper.diq.ru

Solution. Organised religion became the need when human beings started living in communities to be better prepared to protect themselves from animals, disease and vagaries of nature. Now that people live in cities, towns and villages, better equipped to defend themselves than many centuries ago, orgaised religions have started dividing people and are easy prey to machinations of hordes of godmen and politicians. We should, therefore, consider making religion more private than public and vulgar display of blind loyalty. Also, if all religions believe that we are God's children, it cannot be that God as a father would look kindly on his Muslim or Christian or Hindu children and send others to rot in hell. God loves us all. (Read 'Whose God Is It Anyway?')

Freedom to Live Anywhere in the Country. Now this sounds rather easy and doesn't look like an issue at all; especially since Aamir Khan has not (yet) talked about it being an issue. Let me, therefore, give you a few facts. Two years back, in response to a PIL (Public Interest Litigation), the Supreme Court of India ruled that an Indian has an inherent right to settle down anywhere in the country. Now, why would you require a Supreme Court ruling on it? A few years back, in an election rally, I heard the Chief Minister of my home-state make an unlawful and unconstitutional statement saying, "Himachal is for Himachalis only." Similarly, the goons of MNS want us to believe that only 'sons-of-soil' have the right to settle down in Maharshatra. A RAND study, a few years back, concluded that within the next two decades India would be divided into at least 50 states. Why are we becoming so parochial? Who is profiting from dividing us? This time it is not really a "foreign-hand" that is manipulating us. This time, just like pre-independence days when British ruled over us by following a 'Divide and Rule' policy, our own politicians too have learnt how to manipulate people by dividing them along religious, geographical, linguist and casteist lines. So, whilst earlier we lost our independence to the British, now we have lost it to the politicians. The states are now becoming more and more isolated from the concept of a united India. Within the states and cities we already have colonies of Muslims, Sikhs, Biharis, Bengalis etc. Three years back a Muslim was refused permission to buy a flat in a predominantly Hindu building in Pune. Many a times any opposition to these parochial ideas are met with threats of or actual killings.

Solution. Parochialism of this nature is anti-Indian. We have to publicly and individually shun it. We have to focus on the concept of one India rather than being divided into various regions. If we don't do so, very soon we shall have anti-social and anti-national elements ruling over us. As an example, Maoists writ now runs large in about one third of the districts of our country. For any movement to succeed, people have to stand up to the nonsense dished out by politicians who take up the patronage of colonies and regions based on parochial interests. We, as people of free India, must stand against these. Lets ask of our candidates in the next elections that we would vote for them only if they undertake not to divide us further. As a small step, all vehicle registration plates, by law, are to be based on "modern Hindu-Arabic numerals and Roman alphabets". Lets shun those that are in local script; these are illegal.

Courtesy: team-bhp.com

Freedom to Choose Government. "Aha, here we got you" you are bound to say, "India is the largest democracy in the world and we choose governments on the average of every five years." Think again. Do you really exercise a choice? Is it really functional democracy? One and a half years back, on the occasion of our 62nd Republic Day I brought out in an article 'How Proud Should We Be Of Indian Republic at 62?' that an elected representative in our country represents, on an average, about 9 percent of the electorate (people of voting age who are registered voters). This means that a good 90 percent of the electorate haven't elected him/her. However, when he/she enters the parliament he starts using such arrogant words as 'supremacy of the parliament' (mind you not 'supremacy of the people' but that of his seat of "power"). And these 9 percent voters; how did they elect him/her? The only issues that he brought out to them during his/her messy election campaign were those of caste, religion, and vituperation of the other candidates and parties. Think again; what choice did you exercise whilst electing him/her? Did you exercise your choice of 'none of the above'? Or, most likely, you only chose what appeared to be the least harmful of a band of rogues? If you did you are amongst the lucky few who actually went to vote and after going there found that your name is actually on the voters' list (a tall order in case you happen to vote conscientiously and not enmass as people in the politically patronaged colonies do) and your vote has not already been cast after you have reached the voting booth.



Courtesy: rediff.com


Solution. We require a truly representative government in India; one where we actually exercise a choice. It wouldn't come about unless the thinking middle-class wakes up and hold the representatives accountable. Please remember after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, when the middle class took out candle light marches for the victims and stridently took the elected representatives to task for complete absence of security, Colaba, the constituency where the attacks took place, recorded the lowest voter turn out of just 37 percent. Most middle class voters enjoy the three-four days holidays that they get for voting. Simple solutions then: One, ensure your name is on the voters' list; two, ensure that you vote; three, lets have a strong enough movement to get 'none-of-the-above' choices included in the voters pad; four, vote conscientiously and not as an ad hoc choice at the spur of the moment.

Freedom to Choose Life Partner. India is a country where until recently we had the prevalence of Sati. A widow was expected to jump into the funeral pyre of her dead husband since it was considered that after the husband was dead, the wife had no right to continue living. And who was her husband? Did she choose him? No, for heaven's sake, what are you talking about? Many of the Indian girls are still married when they are children (see pic below). The parents decide who she should get married to; of what religion and caste are the governing factors. It is the same with boys; he dare not marry anyone outside the ambit laid by the parents and the community. In many cases, should the boy and the girl decide to exercise choice, the future that awaits them is that of complete ostracising and also of death. With the increased expectancy of life, the couple is expected to spend the next five decades or more together but both of them do not exercise choice for fear of parents, relatives and khap-panchayats. In majority of the cases, the boy's family either demands dowry directly or makes it clear that the girl will be happier if her parents provide something for her; eg, "Humein kuchh nahin chahiye, jo kuchh hai aap apni ladki ko de sakte hain." (We don't need anything; you are free to give anything to your daughter though)

Prevalence of child marriage (Pic courtesy: asianews.it)

Solution. Life is unique and life is precious. The happiness of our children lies in providing them the freedom to choose life partners. Dowry and other considerations of caste and community should be shunned. The only way to change the society is if we do it with our children and start with ourselves and our families.

Freedom of Expression. This is a very sensitive subject with us. From ostracism of MF Hussain to Mamta Bannerji getting after people with vengeance who were making cartoons of her, we are certainly losing patience and becoming more rigid in our approach. It is not just James Laine's 'Hindu King in Islamic India' but, nowadays, increasingly large number of movies and books are found objectionable by communities and vested interests; many of these without either seeing the movie or reading the book. It is true that freedom of expression should be responsibly used; however, I am talking about more and more people in our society being pseudo loyalists and jingoists. We are gradually becoming a society where fear prevails and true expressions remain suppressed for ages.


Laine burning (Courtesy: patwardhan.com)

Solution. We should be proud of the pluralism of India. Even when foreign kings came to India and ruled over us, we didn't require armies and senas to protect our beliefs and ideas. In the end, ideas conquer because of the strength of the ideas and not because of the authorities or senas protecting these. What we need is a society more tolerant of others' ideas. As Winston Churchill said, "I do not agree with you but I shall defend to the hilt your right to say your thing."

Right to Privacy. Lets face it: we are too many of us. There is no way we can let people by themselves; everything is public, everything is everywhere. In this, the role of the present day Indian media is to be abhorred. Imagine sending a microphone down to Prince having fallen into a 40 metres hole and asking him, "Kaisa lag raha hai tumhen?" (How do you feel being down there?). Similarly, telling us live what is happening every minute to the innards of Pramod Mahajan after having been shot by his brother, I would think it is invasion of privacy. Listening to people's calls, e-mails, messages in the name of tightening security is also invasion of privacy. There is nowhere to go these days. Young boys and girls in love are frequently hassled by the police. All your sensitive information is public knowledge. India has emerged the capital of the world for white collar crimes such as stealth of banking data of people and credit card details. Similarly, the police feels that they can stop anyone anywhere and start harassing ordinary citizens in order to show their "supreme power". Any number of promoters ring you up and sms you any number of times to advertise their products. You won't find directions on the road as to how to reach the airport, hospital or railway station but you will find large hoardings telling you how far and where the next MacDonald is. Whether or not you want to participate in a religious festival, since these are largely celebrated on roads and public places you end up participating in these against your choice. You cannot dare to speak against the noise levels. We have simply lost privacy.

Loss of Privacy (courtesy: wearethebest.wordpress.com)

Solution. This will take a long time to come in India beset as we are with the problems of terrorism both from across the border and home grown. The law enforcing agencies feel that they have a right to pry into people's private lives and people on their own feel helpless. Some of them even ask what's the big deal about it? Possibly, we can start asserting individual's right to privacy in awareness campaigns. The more people talk about it, the more will be the compulsion to do away with privacy. As far intrusions into privacy of individuals by communities are concerned, includind intruding by unwanted and illegal noise, we can start with ourselves, our children and our families and perhaps the movement will grow.

Freedoms We Can Do Without. Having given vent to some of the desirable freedoms that we should have as Indians and the ones that we are still far from having, let me now make a short list of freedoms that we have ascribed to ourselves but which encroach upon others' rights and freedoms. We should restrict these so called 'freedoms':

The first one of these is the freedom to have sex with everyone and everywhere without consideration of age and circumstances. The instance of incest in our country is as high as 49 percent. Many very young lives have been scarred for life with our people's inability to control sexual urges. Rapes are on the increase and Delhi has now earned the dubious distinction of being the 'Rape Capital of the World'.

The second is freedom to use the roads every which way. The other day a foreigner asked me to describe traffic in India. I have written a lot on the subject in this very blog. But, in order to cut a long story short, here was my reply: In India you would do well to understand that on our roads we have all types of vehicles and non-vehicles at all times in all directions at all times. Can't we individually and collectively bring some order into it?

The third is our uncontrollable urge to litter; the freedom that we feel our forefathers have won for us. The result is that our houses, colonies, roads, public places, anywhere and everywhere, look shabby, full of paan stains, with mounds or heaps of filth. Diseases and epidemics result from this unchecked pollution especially of all our water bodies. However, we don't want to bring in even an iota of discipline in our civic lives.

Lastly, we can do away completely with the freedom to consider public moneys and properties as our own. From netas to common man, everyone is now part of the great Indian corruption scene; it is all to do with shortcuts to get ahead in life somehow. We Indians have really lost our soul. (Read 'Indians - Bartering Character For Prosperity')

Fortunately for us having touched rock bottom there is no way to go but up. Lets work towards it.

Satyamev Jayate.

DESPERATE JEALOUS WIVES

As soon as I started writing articles in my blog, I wrote one titled 'Loose Emotions'. In this I brought out that the deadliest Loose Emotion for women is Jealousy or Envy. Recently (just two days back) a Nigerian businessman  by the name of Uroko Onoja realised the hard way (or soft way, whichever way you look at it) that having sex with his youngest wife of a pack of half dozen would evoke the jealousy of five others and they would demand the same treatment. Now, I know, all those medical books that we used to read about in our school days used to tell us that no one can ever die of sex since the body has its own safety valve. However, if there is a great gap between intent (forced on by a pack of five desperate women) and capability, it can be fatal. Do you remember the school time joke of 'Big chief, no shit' (from a region close to Onoja's)? Finally, after the doctor kept increasing the laxative dose, it was 'Big shit, no chief'. A similar thing happened with Uroko Onoja.


Nigerian Uroko Onoja realised polygamy may not be as attractive as it appeared (Courtesy: bvinews.com)

Men will never know how desperate jealous wives can get. Some of them, like Onoja, die before they can learn. John Wayne Bobbitt realised it when he was still alive but most men in John Wayne's condition, won't really call themselves 'alive'. John married Lorena on 18 Jun 1989 (her maiden name was Gallo and the pronunciation of it should have cautioned John). However, John, oblivious of what waited for him, flaunted his infidelities with other women to Lorena. On the night of 23 Jun 1993, when he thought he would do to Lorena in his apartment in Virginia what he was subjecting the other women to, he had no idea his fun would be cut short. And mind you, if it hadn't been for the police doggedly searching for the severed fun (or should it be spelled with a g?), and reuniting him with his instrument of desire, he could have claimed to have the world's fastest sex change.

During the trial, it came out that Lorena was not only jealous because of John carrying his acts outside the Virginia apartment, but also because she claimed that he derived all the orgasmic ecstasy from their conjugal enactments whilst leaving her high and dry.

Many a man has come across the jealous wife imagining woh (As in 'Pati, Patni Aur Woh' (Husband, Wife and She)) even when none existed. Like the wife who used to spot different shades of hair on her husband's coat in the evenings and concluded that he was having affairs, one after the other, with a blond, brunette and redhead. One evening, she couldn't spy out a single hair on his coat and she bemoaned, "Gawd, he has now started dating bald women too."

Two and a half months back, I brought out in an article titled 'Jill The Ripper And Satyamev Jayate' that, in London, they now suspect that Jack the Ripper was a DJW (Desperate Jealous Wife) Lizzie Williams who was so fed up of the infidelities of her husband that she targeted all those who she thought had affairs with her husband.

The English playwright and poet William Congreve in his 1697 tragi-drama 'The Morning Bride' wrote: "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,"

I know the question foremost in the minds of Indian men would be, "Nigeria, yes; America, yes; but is there anyway the bushfire would reach India?" My advice is 'don't take chances' . For example, Sections 97 to 106 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) deal with the 'Right of Private Defence'; but, there is no section dealing with the 'Right of Defence of Privates'. Gouging eyes of the other women is become passe' these days. The other methods of teaching lessons to men, as described above, are becoming more common now.

An Indian Saint called Vidya (Knowledge) Balan (Young) (Or 'Knowledge for the Youth) had this advice to give men in The Dirty Picture, "Tujhe holi khelneka bohot shauk hai lekin teri pichkari mein dum nahin hai." (You like to play Holi but your 'Fountain Gun' isn't loaded).

Alas Uroko Onoja, the Nigerian Businessman, like other men, realised that the Pichkari cannot remain loaded forever. In other words, during school-days, we used to learn the main difference between Dark and Hard: the difference is that it can stay dark the whole night long.

बीवी का नया नाम

हम बीवी को बुलाते थे जान, चाँद, सनम और रानी
पर एक दिन सर के ऊपर से निकल गया पानी
नाम हमारे दिमाग में आये चार सौ अस्सी
और बीवी का नाम बड़े सोच के रखा "रस्सी"

कया अजब नाम है?  सोचा होगा आपने
आज तक ऐसा नाम नहीं रखा किसी के  बाप ने
"इसके क्या माईने हैं कुछ तो ससमझाईये
हमें  बुझारतों में इस तरह ना उलझायिये"

हमने कहा, "इसमें बुझारत की क्या बात है?
"रस्सी" का मतलब बिलकुल साक्षात है:
यह जल जाती है पेर बल नहीं जाता

हमारी मेहबूबा का भी कल नहीं जाता"

"वो कल जब माईके में उन्का राज था
भाई काम करते थे और इनको ना कोई काज था
अब पति करता है  दिन रात इनकी सेवा
और ये खाती हैं मखमल पर बैठ के मेवा"

"मेरी गरदन में बड़े प्यार से पड़ जाती है

अच्छे भले मुलाजिम की जान निकल जाती है
हुमने सोचा था यह बनेगीं प्यार की डोरी
पर इन्हों ने रस्सी बनके की जोरा  जोरी"

 

Courtesy: heysko.com

यारो अगर बीवी भी बन जाये गले में फंदा
और तुम रहना चाह्ते हो इस जहान में ज़िन्दा 

डोरी को कभी ना बनने दो रस्सी या संगल
तभी रहेंगे तुम्हारे  दिन व रात मंगल  

BLOGGING - RACE OR STAMPEDE?

The Webster dictionary describes the word 'Stampede' as: "A sudden panicked rush of a number of horses, cattle, or other animals". Lately, however, the description has also come to include people, eg, "There was a stampede at the temple on the hill. When reports last came in, 23 people had died and two were in critical state in the hospital." The four key words are: sudden, panic, rush, animals. Why, oh why, do bloggers indulge in it? Where is the panic? Why the rush? Who are the animals? What is the suddenness, haste, hurry? Where is the race?


Courtesy: sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

When I retired from the Navy in end Feb 2010, I picked up a job on the civvie-street and discovered that people are steeped in, what is known as, corporate culture. They work, and work, and then - just to break the monotony - work some more. Your status and actual power that you command is often meausred in terms of how late you work in the nights in the office. Since I am in the Energy business, I find it rather ironical that we should ourselves be dissipating so much of energy to save the world or India from an energy crisis. So, whilst in the Navy, I worked five-day weeks, on the civvie-street I had no choice but to work six-days-in-seven like the rest of the corporate guys and gals and then spend the sabbath day with the family. This would really make mind dull, I thought to myself. The question that came to me was how to keep body and soul together in this mad race? And then I saw a little light across the tunnel of my mind: write, it said; let creative energies flow. It would rejuvenate those little brain cells that are dying due to old age and inactivity. A blog was thought by me as the equivalent of sudoku; it would give me enormous joy to do it at a leisurely pace without having to beat the world record in speed.

Strange are the ways of the bloggers, though. Little did I realise that I would get out of one race and get into another. Race is at least something orgainised with everyone hurrying in one direction. Blogging scene, I soon realised, is like a stampede and that's how I started with Webster's.

What went wrong? Well, how can you pinpoint what goes wrong in a stampede? However, I shall try to do a small analysis. Here goes:

Initially when I wrote a few of the cognoscenti read it and either called me or mailed me about the quality or lack thereof of my writing. One sabbath day, when I had a little time to myself, I started wondering what other blogs looked like. I typed out the word 'blog' on google search and landed up with 10,560,000,000 results. I realised that if I had to go through these it is quite possible that my great grand children would have come to the end of the search. So, I tried to become narrow-minded and typed 'Indian Blogs'. This produced 286,000,000 results. As I scrolled down, I came across something called indiblogger. I clicked on the link. Looking back, I am reminded of the second standard boy of a primary school who accidentally presses an innocuous looking red button during his school's visit to a nuclear reactor. Just like him, I din't know I had started something I would find it difficult to control. Indiblogger url is http://www.indiblogger.in/. Why 'in' I asked myself at that time? Now I know the answer: it is 'in' because there is no way out.

Indiblogger has Indian bloggers vying with each other to obtain popularity through a simple, scientifically proved tenet that can be expressed as: 'you scratch my back, I scratch yours'. There are bloggers and fans, or writers and readers - all cyclic, all within a loop. In short, when A writes a blog, B is a reader and when B writes, A is the reader. This is a very fine arrangement since otherwise blogging is like an Indian regional political party, say, Akali Dal in Punjab; to start with there was one combined Akali Dal with one leader on top. Then, a suppressed potential leader thought of splitting the party into two, with the faction loyal to him having his name's first letter as a suffix to the original party name, eg, Akali Dal (S). This fissionable process continued until they landed up with more parties and leaders than partymen. Fortunately, Indian bloggers have potentially as many readers as writers.

Indibloggers also remind you of two rabbits being chased by foxes; after running some distance the he-rabbit turned to the she rabbit, "Should we keep running or should we just stop for a while and try to outnumber them?" Indian bloggers are in a stampede to outnumber the others in number of posts, votes and comments. This process is simplified by indiblogger by giving you an indirank dependent upon MozRank. which "represents a link popularity score. It reflects the importance of any given web page on the Internet. Pages earn MozRank by the number and quality of other pages that link to them. The higher the quality of the incoming links, the higher the MozRank." Then there is Alexa Rank, which brings out the global ranking of your site in comparison to other sites based on its popularity. Then there is 'External Juice Passing marks'. Then there is frequency of posting to judge whether you are a rabbit or a fox. In case you are like me, enjoying writing at leisurely pace, indiblogger is more likely to tell you that "your blog is starting to appear neglected". All this for a simple hobby of writing for pleasure? Hardly, sirs and ma'ams; writing and reading for pleasure is for the nincompoops. Indibloggers behave like drivers in India; the idea is to somehow be ahead of the driver adjacent to you. Now, at this juncture if someone were to ask the indibloggers or the drivers as to where are they headed, you are likely to receive he response, "Why should we worry about that? I started at a ranking of A; and now, after three years, I am at 2A. I must be getting somewhere." Philosophically and culturally we are Indians; for us the journey is more important than the destination.

The result of the stampede is that bloggers 'promote' other blogs and 'comment' and 'vote' as if it is a contest or election. The idea is to offer a tit for tat. It is not rare to find fellow-bloggers commenting on your blog without reading it at all and - this is a must - leaving the url of their own article in the comment to enable you to scratch their back too.

The dynamics of the race or the stampede are such that it is sacrilege to question it. It is like telling a driver who cuts lanes that it won't help. For 37 years I was in the Navy and I had to make peace with ranks and promotions. Indiblogger has brought it home to me that others care about these even more than we did. And, most indibloggers are more at sea than we were.



Courtesy: magical-marketing.com

Many blogs actually appear like the social media such as facebook. The blog post is as small as the status on facebook, followed by dozens of comments by friends and back-scratching hopefuls, as if repeating the words of the popular song from the 1973 Hindi movie:
A: Mujhe kuchh kehna hai (I have something to say).
B: Mujhe bhi kuchh kehna hai (I too have something to say)



Carry on fellow indibloggers; some of the rewards of the blogging are reaching me too:



LOVE BEYOND THE PAIN

Don’t love me, O’ sweet, when we meet,

For there is less

Glee in achieving than in yearning.

From here it’s alluring,

The scent of your tress;

I get my joys in burning,

In pining, in longing

And in sorrow,

And waiting for each tomorrow.

I don’t want to strangle my dreams to death,

You, alone, sit in my dream castle

On an island in a grieving river;

And far below

In a dark dungeon I am thrown.

I reach out my hands without catching ye,

Ye outside smile at me.

And, lo! I wish not my hands were free.

Courtesy: sweet-tea-theology.com

I shall wait…wait till the pains are so much,

That they burn themselves in their own scars,

The waters of grieving river’d calm down,

The cell would break its own bars.

Then you and I’ll live away from town,

In a small hut by a joyous brook.

We’d work, we’d eat, we’d play the deep

Game of love,

And thus at last we’d sleep.