I tossed the shining coin,
Guess!
It was a tail.
I opened my tiny treasure,
Wow!
Everything looked serene blue.
I stepped into a moving inferno,
Oops!
I forgot to safeguard my little mansion.
I rang my trustworthy neighbour,
Hello!
Could you please look for my keys?
I paced towards the ‘great vent’,
Hell!
Why were those shameless dogs nudging me?
A dark man interrupted me,
Hey!
He checked the lucrative chit.
I perched on a dangling spectatorship,
Lucky!
Scorching King blessed the other corner.
I glanced at the green circle,
Beware!
The yellow ruled from the word go.
My optimism refused to die,
Hallelujah!
Where was the relentless paragon?
Hours passed, parrots backed off,
Shit!
Our battalion still ended on the wrong side.
I plodded across the muddy lanes,
Whatever!
I hoped better luck next time.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
LINE OF CONTROL
A crooked figure stares at the blemish
An upright soul weeps at its terror
Wrinkles as old as the ‘golden freedom’
Cleave the face into numerous fragments.
Barbed wire as strong as cold iron
Mince the bodies up with hate and blood.
He continues to glare at the mark
That devastated millions of innocent lives.
Ghastly silence is broken by gunshots
That tear the cattle apart into fierce pieces
But boulders of rage block stream of pain.
Reminiscences of gory battles haunt him
In the hour of simulated peace-making.
His brethren he lost in the stormy weather
Are at arm’s length from where he stands.
But the politics and years of animosity
Pull his string and drag him into ‘No Man’s Land.’
He can view the world, but not himself
He can see the butchered, but not the butchers.
He wishes to ask them just one question
“What on earth prompts you to divide humanity?”
His feet tremble, his hands shudder
On sensing fumes of terror hanging in air.
Two nations that witnessed birth of civilization
Now dig a deep hole in the civilized hearts.
The old man gazes again at the line
That is called ‘Line of Control’ world over.
An upright soul weeps at its terror
Wrinkles as old as the ‘golden freedom’
Cleave the face into numerous fragments.
Barbed wire as strong as cold iron
Mince the bodies up with hate and blood.
He continues to glare at the mark
That devastated millions of innocent lives.
Ghastly silence is broken by gunshots
That tear the cattle apart into fierce pieces
But boulders of rage block stream of pain.
Reminiscences of gory battles haunt him
In the hour of simulated peace-making.
His brethren he lost in the stormy weather
Are at arm’s length from where he stands.
But the politics and years of animosity
Pull his string and drag him into ‘No Man’s Land.’
He can view the world, but not himself
He can see the butchered, but not the butchers.
He wishes to ask them just one question
“What on earth prompts you to divide humanity?”
His feet tremble, his hands shudder
On sensing fumes of terror hanging in air.
Two nations that witnessed birth of civilization
Now dig a deep hole in the civilized hearts.
The old man gazes again at the line
That is called ‘Line of Control’ world over.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
A LAND OF DICHOTOMIES
India! India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters. I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage……
Does that ring a bell? This is the auspicious pledge that I have grown up hearing and pronouncing with passion and apathy at the same time as directed by my elders. Twelve years of an esteemed educational institution’s unceasing endeavours to instill the spirit of patriotism in me have left me in a state of deep thought. The education that I obtained, is polyvalent – first, it guarantees to transform you from a human being into an intellectual being; second, it promises to guide you to display your inherent talents and secure your requisite rights; third, it ensures a gratis but daunting journey through the annals of every aspect of human history; fourth, it exhorts us to dream big and achieve our goals by means of moral, principled and ethical ways. That really sums up Indian education or does it?
Unfortunately, Indian education system has loopholes. Let’s look at the darker side of this prolific system. It has recently been dubbed as the suicide industry. Because, the new generation has utterly failed to cope with the mounting pressure and hard-bitten competition. Because, a massive overdose of facts and figures along with an infatuation with numerology have taken their toll on the subtle minds of the children. In fact, the current educational system of our country takes a lot of pride in discharging the children into an eerie abyss. Perhaps, that is the reason why it refuses to amend itself. At a time when the country is producing profuse scholars and techies, it is also generating record-breaking figures of suicide cases simultaneously.
The literacy rates are deplorable, especially among women. In India, a person who can sign his name is categorized as a literate. What about the three R’s – Reading, Writing and Arithmetic? The official figures overshadow the unofficial figures that are more legitimate, because we want to present a glossy picture of India rather than face the harsh reality and find solutions to the problem. We are after all the world’s largest democracy, an emerging superpower and would-be developed country by 2020. At a time when some of the Indians have scaled the heights in myriad arenas – art, literature, business, astronomy, economics and international relations, the majority remains illiterate and exploited. Rampant child labour and unemployment continue to haunt us in the twenty first century. The number of Indians among the richest people in the world is on the rise. The poverty has not been eradicated either. No country is completely perfect; no country is completely imperfect either. A country which consists of a Mukesh Ambani, an Anil Ambani, an Azim Premji, a Narayan Murty and a Rahul Bajaj also includes scavengers, farmers at the brink of suicides, petty rag pickers, malnourished children and countless beggars.
The current Indian media is not entirely about ‘Truth and Experience’ and ‘We Bring you the Truth Whatever it Takes.’ Their experience unfortunately directs them to sensationalize the truth. At the end of the day, all the news channels manage to recount the contorted ‘stories’ to the excitement-hungry audiences, whatever it takes. Today, the whole country is grieving at the plight of the father who rotted in jail for precisely fifty days for allegedly murdering his teenage daughter and then later released for paucity of evidence against him. Fifty days earlier, the same country condemned him for committing such a grievous crime. The twists and turns in the Arushi murder case have kept the CBI, the Noida police, the people and most importantly, the media on their toes. What is the moral of the story? Media reflects the society; society reflects the media. The masses remain glued to the television when a story of their interest is aired. Similarly, the business-savvy folks keep an eye on the volatile stock markets round the clock and the sports-crazy fans switch on their televisions only to find out what is happening off the field. Also, there is a section of the population that devours juicy gossip from the world of entertainment.
Does the Indian media cater to the middle class and the upper middle class only? Does it ignore the deprived masses and despise the affluent populace? To a great extent, yes. The acerbic coverage of the celebrities and gratuitous coverage of the peasants have done very little to alter the maligned image of the country. At the same time, we, the citizens of India, pledge to uplift the underprivileged and pompously trumpet the fact that we are a country known for ‘Unity in Diversity.’
Exposure to the revolutionized media and ignorance of the current affairs go hand-in-hand in this vast country. Please do not snub the be-all-and-end-all Nuclear Deal and the number crunching game being played cautiously but desperately by the Congress leadership to remain in power. Also, do not forget the spiraling inflation rates and escalating global crude oil and food prices. A section of the population is obsessed with those heart rending news and the other is completely impervious to them. There is a world of difference between information that has a direct impact upon you such as the petrol price hike and those that have little or no impact whatsoever such as the 1-2-3 Agreement. The politicians who created chaos on a daily-basis in the parliament opposing the deal, themselves were caught stuttering when questioned by the same media about the nuances of the deal. What can one expect from the electorate of a country whose politicos are oblivious to issues of national concern?
In this country, secularism, pseudo-secularism, communism, communalism, spiritualism and Hindutva dwell under one thatched roof. The one factor that unites the different political parties of the present Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government is their secular credentials. The day on which the Left decided to support the Congress from outside will undoubtedly go down in history as the start of a new era that juxtaposes so-called secular parties and so-called communal parties. Foes turned friends only to ward off BJP and its allies.
But when the Government tries to woo the minorities by presenting them sops ranging from reservation to concession, then they are charged of practising pseudo-secularism. The Jammu & Kashmir’s decision to retreat from its earlier position to grant land to the Amarnath Shrine Board is being touted by the Hindu radical organizations as a clear evidence of that.
Be it a national-level bandh or a state-level bandh or even a district-level bandh, the states like West Bengal and Kerala come to a grinding halt immediately. No matter who is at the helm, the trade unions, the party workers and the big-time politicians join hands to disrupt road, train and air traffic. On the other hand, the metropolitan cities remain unaffected by any adverse or distressing development that occurs within the country or even the cities themselves. Mumbai was back on its feet the very next day after the deadly train blasts that butchered hundreds of innocents.
The country has witnessed some of the most lethal Hindu-Muslim riots that have scarred the demographics of Gujarat, Delhi, Mumbai, Ayodhya, Bhagalpur and many other towns, cities and villages. We are also a country that accommodates all the religions of the world, including Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism and Sikhism. We relish the pleasure of celebrating so many holidays owing to plethora of festivals. There are caste groups that forbid inter-caste marriages and also groups that denounce intra-caste marriages. A Hindu real estate owner may deny an abode for a Muslim buyer or vice-versa, but somewhere down the line, we have learnt to tolerate disparities and galvanize masses for one cause – a unified India.
On the one hand, someone claims to be proud of being a Hindu. On the other, the same person takes a guarded stand on Hindutva. Is Hindutva a distorted word? If yes, who is to blame? The Hindu zealots? What is the difference between Hinduism and Hindutva? We must remember that BJP, RSS, VHP, Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal do not represent the Hindus of our country. Hinduism tolerates neither violence nor abhorrence towards other religions. The objectives of Hindutva and Cultural Nationalism are supposedly to crush the barriers amongst the Hindu castes and sects, absorb the Dalits into the mainstream of Indian machinery and “instill national pride in every Indian.” In the early 1990s, the Supreme Court ruled that “Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism.” Looking back into the history of India with resentment and pain, Hindutva can be further classified into demolition of Babri Masjid, genocide of Muslims in Gujarat, the inauspicious Rath Yatra and so on. L.K. Advani says, “Hinduism is Indianism.” The practical definition still remains to be formulated. For the secularists, it is indeed a taboo word.
A survey conducted by CNN-IBN revealed that about 96% of Indians are proud to be Indians. In other words, they are immensely patriotic. Is the survey credible? Just like Hindutva, patriotism too requires an enduring definition. Does deploring Sania Mirza for apparently stamping on the Indian flag or supposedly placing her feet just next to the flag make you patriotic? Does playing the National Anthem before the screening of every movie in dark theatres arouse patriotism in one’s mind? Condemnation of Mandira Bedi for wearing a sari with the Indian flag at the bottom and deprecation of Narayan Murthy for playing the instrumental version of the National Anthem at a function of Infosys portray the trivialization of the concept of patriotism in our country.What about those who set the flag ablaze during protests and those who do not bother to stand up in reverence when the National Anthem is sung? Are they anti-nationalists or terrorists? Or are they practitioners of freedom of expression?
India is a very sensitive land where any action or remark can be blown out of proportion by hooligans to create turbulence. The country is inhabited by both chauvinists and cynics. Most of the Indians are staunch believers in our culture and deem the culture of the West as corrupted. The others try their best to emulate the Westerners, who according to them are more progressive and refined than us.
Education-Illiteracy and Media-Ignorance are possibly the least thought-about dichotomies in the country. Religion and patriotism, on the other hand, are definitely the most pondered-over subjects. Scientifically, unlike poles attract each other. This could be the only possible explanation for India’s survival despite tremors and tumults. Democracy is sacred for us. If democracy is violated, the destruction of this land is indubitable.
Does that ring a bell? This is the auspicious pledge that I have grown up hearing and pronouncing with passion and apathy at the same time as directed by my elders. Twelve years of an esteemed educational institution’s unceasing endeavours to instill the spirit of patriotism in me have left me in a state of deep thought. The education that I obtained, is polyvalent – first, it guarantees to transform you from a human being into an intellectual being; second, it promises to guide you to display your inherent talents and secure your requisite rights; third, it ensures a gratis but daunting journey through the annals of every aspect of human history; fourth, it exhorts us to dream big and achieve our goals by means of moral, principled and ethical ways. That really sums up Indian education or does it?
Unfortunately, Indian education system has loopholes. Let’s look at the darker side of this prolific system. It has recently been dubbed as the suicide industry. Because, the new generation has utterly failed to cope with the mounting pressure and hard-bitten competition. Because, a massive overdose of facts and figures along with an infatuation with numerology have taken their toll on the subtle minds of the children. In fact, the current educational system of our country takes a lot of pride in discharging the children into an eerie abyss. Perhaps, that is the reason why it refuses to amend itself. At a time when the country is producing profuse scholars and techies, it is also generating record-breaking figures of suicide cases simultaneously.
The literacy rates are deplorable, especially among women. In India, a person who can sign his name is categorized as a literate. What about the three R’s – Reading, Writing and Arithmetic? The official figures overshadow the unofficial figures that are more legitimate, because we want to present a glossy picture of India rather than face the harsh reality and find solutions to the problem. We are after all the world’s largest democracy, an emerging superpower and would-be developed country by 2020. At a time when some of the Indians have scaled the heights in myriad arenas – art, literature, business, astronomy, economics and international relations, the majority remains illiterate and exploited. Rampant child labour and unemployment continue to haunt us in the twenty first century. The number of Indians among the richest people in the world is on the rise. The poverty has not been eradicated either. No country is completely perfect; no country is completely imperfect either. A country which consists of a Mukesh Ambani, an Anil Ambani, an Azim Premji, a Narayan Murty and a Rahul Bajaj also includes scavengers, farmers at the brink of suicides, petty rag pickers, malnourished children and countless beggars.
The current Indian media is not entirely about ‘Truth and Experience’ and ‘We Bring you the Truth Whatever it Takes.’ Their experience unfortunately directs them to sensationalize the truth. At the end of the day, all the news channels manage to recount the contorted ‘stories’ to the excitement-hungry audiences, whatever it takes. Today, the whole country is grieving at the plight of the father who rotted in jail for precisely fifty days for allegedly murdering his teenage daughter and then later released for paucity of evidence against him. Fifty days earlier, the same country condemned him for committing such a grievous crime. The twists and turns in the Arushi murder case have kept the CBI, the Noida police, the people and most importantly, the media on their toes. What is the moral of the story? Media reflects the society; society reflects the media. The masses remain glued to the television when a story of their interest is aired. Similarly, the business-savvy folks keep an eye on the volatile stock markets round the clock and the sports-crazy fans switch on their televisions only to find out what is happening off the field. Also, there is a section of the population that devours juicy gossip from the world of entertainment.
Does the Indian media cater to the middle class and the upper middle class only? Does it ignore the deprived masses and despise the affluent populace? To a great extent, yes. The acerbic coverage of the celebrities and gratuitous coverage of the peasants have done very little to alter the maligned image of the country. At the same time, we, the citizens of India, pledge to uplift the underprivileged and pompously trumpet the fact that we are a country known for ‘Unity in Diversity.’
Exposure to the revolutionized media and ignorance of the current affairs go hand-in-hand in this vast country. Please do not snub the be-all-and-end-all Nuclear Deal and the number crunching game being played cautiously but desperately by the Congress leadership to remain in power. Also, do not forget the spiraling inflation rates and escalating global crude oil and food prices. A section of the population is obsessed with those heart rending news and the other is completely impervious to them. There is a world of difference between information that has a direct impact upon you such as the petrol price hike and those that have little or no impact whatsoever such as the 1-2-3 Agreement. The politicians who created chaos on a daily-basis in the parliament opposing the deal, themselves were caught stuttering when questioned by the same media about the nuances of the deal. What can one expect from the electorate of a country whose politicos are oblivious to issues of national concern?
In this country, secularism, pseudo-secularism, communism, communalism, spiritualism and Hindutva dwell under one thatched roof. The one factor that unites the different political parties of the present Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government is their secular credentials. The day on which the Left decided to support the Congress from outside will undoubtedly go down in history as the start of a new era that juxtaposes so-called secular parties and so-called communal parties. Foes turned friends only to ward off BJP and its allies.
But when the Government tries to woo the minorities by presenting them sops ranging from reservation to concession, then they are charged of practising pseudo-secularism. The Jammu & Kashmir’s decision to retreat from its earlier position to grant land to the Amarnath Shrine Board is being touted by the Hindu radical organizations as a clear evidence of that.
Be it a national-level bandh or a state-level bandh or even a district-level bandh, the states like West Bengal and Kerala come to a grinding halt immediately. No matter who is at the helm, the trade unions, the party workers and the big-time politicians join hands to disrupt road, train and air traffic. On the other hand, the metropolitan cities remain unaffected by any adverse or distressing development that occurs within the country or even the cities themselves. Mumbai was back on its feet the very next day after the deadly train blasts that butchered hundreds of innocents.
The country has witnessed some of the most lethal Hindu-Muslim riots that have scarred the demographics of Gujarat, Delhi, Mumbai, Ayodhya, Bhagalpur and many other towns, cities and villages. We are also a country that accommodates all the religions of the world, including Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism and Sikhism. We relish the pleasure of celebrating so many holidays owing to plethora of festivals. There are caste groups that forbid inter-caste marriages and also groups that denounce intra-caste marriages. A Hindu real estate owner may deny an abode for a Muslim buyer or vice-versa, but somewhere down the line, we have learnt to tolerate disparities and galvanize masses for one cause – a unified India.
On the one hand, someone claims to be proud of being a Hindu. On the other, the same person takes a guarded stand on Hindutva. Is Hindutva a distorted word? If yes, who is to blame? The Hindu zealots? What is the difference between Hinduism and Hindutva? We must remember that BJP, RSS, VHP, Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal do not represent the Hindus of our country. Hinduism tolerates neither violence nor abhorrence towards other religions. The objectives of Hindutva and Cultural Nationalism are supposedly to crush the barriers amongst the Hindu castes and sects, absorb the Dalits into the mainstream of Indian machinery and “instill national pride in every Indian.” In the early 1990s, the Supreme Court ruled that “Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism.” Looking back into the history of India with resentment and pain, Hindutva can be further classified into demolition of Babri Masjid, genocide of Muslims in Gujarat, the inauspicious Rath Yatra and so on. L.K. Advani says, “Hinduism is Indianism.” The practical definition still remains to be formulated. For the secularists, it is indeed a taboo word.
A survey conducted by CNN-IBN revealed that about 96% of Indians are proud to be Indians. In other words, they are immensely patriotic. Is the survey credible? Just like Hindutva, patriotism too requires an enduring definition. Does deploring Sania Mirza for apparently stamping on the Indian flag or supposedly placing her feet just next to the flag make you patriotic? Does playing the National Anthem before the screening of every movie in dark theatres arouse patriotism in one’s mind? Condemnation of Mandira Bedi for wearing a sari with the Indian flag at the bottom and deprecation of Narayan Murthy for playing the instrumental version of the National Anthem at a function of Infosys portray the trivialization of the concept of patriotism in our country.What about those who set the flag ablaze during protests and those who do not bother to stand up in reverence when the National Anthem is sung? Are they anti-nationalists or terrorists? Or are they practitioners of freedom of expression?
India is a very sensitive land where any action or remark can be blown out of proportion by hooligans to create turbulence. The country is inhabited by both chauvinists and cynics. Most of the Indians are staunch believers in our culture and deem the culture of the West as corrupted. The others try their best to emulate the Westerners, who according to them are more progressive and refined than us.
Education-Illiteracy and Media-Ignorance are possibly the least thought-about dichotomies in the country. Religion and patriotism, on the other hand, are definitely the most pondered-over subjects. Scientifically, unlike poles attract each other. This could be the only possible explanation for India’s survival despite tremors and tumults. Democracy is sacred for us. If democracy is violated, the destruction of this land is indubitable.
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