Blog ban: the other side

Blogosphere is in for some bad times, with blogspot and some other blogs banned by the Govt. Expectedly there has been a lot of public anger over the issue from everywhere and bloggers certainly haven't been kind to the Govt. To some extent one may justify the anger because it's like denying people the basic fundamental right to speech. Everybody thought the Govt. has gone berserk and is acting foolishly in the name of National Security while it should rather check its own intelligence failure. All very well, even I was quite pissed and started thinking that maybe the Govt. is taking the "Love Thy Neighbour" thing too seriously and we are becoming like Pakistan and communist China where we can't visit an innocuous website. And then, the "blanket" ban never succeeded in being all-pervasive anyway. It did not cover all ISPs and it did not cover a major part of India. I too, I confess, was puzzled and angered over the mockery that the Govt has made when my friend from IIT-kgp would read my blog and laugh at me. Not that I didn't read any blog; to every rule there are ten ways of breaking it, and I made a terrorist of myself, alongwith many others too by using proxy avoidance gateways and stuff. Indeed some of you may still be doing that, if you are reading this.

But, some clear thought and information, and a lot of help from a friend has made me see some sense and I wish to make it more public. Sure as hell it is a goof up, but neither without a reason, nor a fallacy of intent. Rather it seems to be a mistake of the ISPs and of some miscommunication. The point is this: After the Mumbai blasts the govt discovered a few blogs and sites that were being used for not so right reasons. In normal terms, it is not easy for the Govt. to track the IPs that post and frequent such sites. But when they re-route it and ban it like now, they can easily find that out. Now the original instruction from the DoT was to ban and track those sites. But, you see, it is far more difficult to block a sub-domain like example.blogspot.com, than it is to block *.blogspot.com and so on. Obviously they cannot make the list of particular sites they wish to track either. Hence the complete blackout, so that they could track all that they want to.

Hopefully, as latest reports suggest, things will be back to normal soon, in a day or two if not more. The govt. therefore, is not a complete jerk. It is only a fool. And it creates public anger when it could have acted more sensibly. The thing is, national security is a crucial issue, and we are not that selfish or senseless not to understand, and even to adjust for some time. However the Govt seriously needs a PR manager for itself. I wonder why it thinks it can survive with the resentment of middle-class, first over the Reservation issue and now this, even if the middle-class is not the majority of India. We pay the taxes Goddammit.

And now, I only hope sanity prevails soon. And that the terrorists who deserve to be caught and taught a lesson are not using too many illegal gateways! Amen.

Understanding

Understanding is but the sum of our misunderstandings.

It is also, very often, the product of some of our misunderstandings.

Main Veerapan Banna Chahti Hoon!!

It’s tough times for the world. Population is expanding and infrastructure is shrinking. There are so many people and everybody wants so much. There’s hunger and unemployment, and hell, I am growing up in exactly this sort of a time!! :O
As in, if I were born 30 years back when a B.A would have been a BIG thing and I‘d have got a good job easily with 60%, I’d have relaxed and looked forward to an easy, settled life. But, however, I’m not so lucky. So aren’t most of you likely to read this. I don’t know if I’m going to get a job three years down the line. If I don’t how would I support my poor husband and half a dozen kids, and how would I pay my credit card and mobile and internet and world tour vacation bills, and worse! What about my make-up kit and weekly pizzas?!?! So you see, I’m anxious and I’m worried because I want a job and there’s such a scarcity in the market for the regular-types jobs. That then led me to consider the alternative “hot jobs” of today.
The first I thought was the Call Centre…India Calling types. But…you know…I don’t think getting cursed from strangers in whatever languages is a nice idea. And then the whole world envies India so BPO jobs may soon decrease and there is so much growing competition anyway. After all everyone wants to talk with an accent!!
Then there’s politics. Everyday one has new parties and new leaders. Really comfortable with no real work required except some gibberish talk and yelling and some scheming. And you get to come on TV!! But, politics is so dirty and will use so much of my brain also. Plus everybody is criticizing you without doing anything, so if I do something ow would I survive. Too much muck and hard work for me!
That leaves only one job: I should become a terrorist! There’s a lot of FDI in this business all the time, and the govt. also puts no red tapes here. Promotion chances are great, and one gets exposed to the latest hi-tech gadgets and confidential information all the time. And it is the “hot seat” quite literally too. It even pays well, and maybe I could be a cross between Phoolan devi and Mona darling. Who knows, there’s so much glamour (and gun powder and action and coke and high contacts!!) So, isn’t the job profile of a terrorist exciting?
But, there’s only one problem. I don’t see the motivation and purpose behind the job any more. As in, there’s the money and there’s all the fun and adventure, but what is it that you actually work for? I wonder if even the veterans know.
Twenty years back, say after the Sikh riots of something, I could understand if someone said a terrorist was born because of the injustice by the govt. or whatever reasons. At the time of partition also, I could have understood if there was unrest due to some sense of injustice or want of “freedom” that was then misguided. Maybe it was even important to somehow attract the attention of the govt and sympathies of people and the world to some real issues that were ignored, even if the means to do so were wrong. But now? I mean a terrorist’s job has to be to “terrorise” right, and people were terrorized long ago by an attack in Kashmir or on WTC, but now, we’ve become immune and we realize the futility and pointlessness of the so-called ‘cause’ so much that we shopw only our anger in the ebst way possible: by showing it doesn’t affect us. You blast Mumbai, we work normally the next morning. How’s that for a mass slap on the face of those who want to scare or gain sympathy. Hell, you’re losing sympathy at all fronts. Earlier, hearts would melt at the religion factor. Today noses are scorned with abandonment at fanatics of Hinduism or Islam by the common man of either religion. Sorry no motivation any more anywhere…

And hence, I’m jobless.

Chhoti si mushkil

Aahista aahista bad rahe hain kadam
Zindagi ke maut ki or, aur mere zindagi ki taraf
Beawaaz hi fir bhi goonj rahi hain aahatein
Aur maine khaa li hai unhe ansuni karne ki kasam

Daud ke aakhri antaraal pe hi kyon manzil paas dikhti hai
Toot rahi ho jab nabz usi kshan kyon ladne ki chahat milti hai
Bujhti hui har lau ek baar zaroor jeene ke liye fadakti hai
Kshitij pe jab andhera ho, zindagi tab ekdum saaf dikhti hai

Jab saansein thi, manzil nahi thi, na chahat na sahara
Thake the hum jab kahin kohre mein se, dil ko kisi ne pukara
Achanak muskuraye hum aise jaise kabhi na muskaraye the
Jeewan ka asli ras chakhne ko jaise rab ne kiya ishara

Manzil ko chahane ki himmat to juta li, par niyati ki muskaan kutil si hai
Humsafar ka saath apnayein kaise, jab khud ki hi raahein ojhil si hain
Ye khushiyan apne peechhe peeche ghamon ko bhi sath kyon laati hain
Sirf gam hote to theek tha na, mere dil mein chhoti si ye mushkil si hai...

Koi Samjha Do please!

"Why?" questions are the worst in the world- tricky, uncomfortable and hardly answerable. They're always more revealing when you expect them to be simple, and they barely satisfy burning needs to know because of their limitations. Worst of all, you could ask a why to almost everything in this world! Why so much partiality to why!?!?! You see, there it is.

Few of these are good too, many are crucial and worth knowing, but despite all that, I hate "why" questions, more often than not.

But, magar, kintu, parantu, some of these are crucial, and I still don't know their answers. Aur sab mujhe bevkoof samajhte hain iski wajah se!!!! [:O][:(]

So, if somebody knows, please enlighten me also. Suppose tomorrow they start taking IQ tests before one can posts blogs[:O] I'd fail na...so please please, koi samjha do. Thode se doubts hain...:P

• When "mistress" means something with such a negative connotation as "the kept woman", why does everyone call their wife also "Mrs", because as far as I knew MR. stands for mister, and Mrs. for mistress?
• Why did Zidane lose his temper in a World Cup Final he sooo wanted to win? Didn't he expect someone would try to provoke him, he's old enough to know that? But mera doubt ye hai ki afterall, what exactly was he told that was sooo effective? (I wanna try that too:P) Lots of rumours on this, but no confirmations, latest being, Zidane was asked "Hum Chlormint kyon khate hain??"
• Why does our met department get nothing right!!?! They say monsoon was here in Delhi on 29th June, but instead of any signs of rains, it became hotter and worse than ever before, for the next 2 weeks. Then, when some light rains come, they tell us Oh no! These arent monsoon showers. There's be light rains all week due to humidity and heavy rains next week. Gosh, it's been raining cats and dogs since yesterday and I've got to office drenched!!!
• What kind of a memory women have? At a generalised level (so don't sue me for exceptions), they remember obscure dates and trivial details of everything, but their love for numbers and trivia isn't adequately reflected in their maths and history skills, or in their memories of traffic rules. Hell, I remember birthday's of old friends' cousins parents! Where is the "Send to Trash" button?!?!
• Complementary to previous question, why can't men remember anything?!?! Again exceptions notwithstanding, men can be geeks and nerds and toppers with everything in the textbook on their tips, but, they would forget their own promises, sisters' birthdays, anniversaries, their hankys and files, the specs that they are wearing etc etc. One possible answer was that men spent too much time thinking of you-know-what, and therefore "Testosterone Overload" and "Low Disk space" are their common problems.
• Why are a majority of kids these days taller than their parents? Genetic supplements, anyone?
• What do you do of people who copy your "About Me", change the voice and person, and paste it as your "testimonial" at Orkut? And what do you do of the testimonial? Worse, f people who lies white lies in your praise in your testimonial, including things that never happened!
• When did Manmohan Singh switch over from Congress to being an alone, independent candidate? Afterall, the Congress opposes things he says, Cabinet makes decisions PM refutes, and Opposition doesnt know what to do when the ruling alliance is Decision-Criticism-Support-Rejection all in one! What's going on?
• Why do they have to hold the Cricket world cup in West Indies, where the match timings have to be such that 70% of the cricket crazy population of the sub-continent are expected to be asleep? Whatever happened to common sense!!

Disclaimer: Before you kill me, consider reading this as a pre-emptive justification.

NEWS FLASH: Just for announcement, people in Delhi who are fond of books and wouldn;t mind a cheap deal for good stuff, I found a shop at Nehru place yesterday with a decent stock of books. mostly second hand, but in awesome condition, and some real good ones, at 100 apieces. Worth a look! Try going next week though, more stock expected.

Engliss babu, Desi divide

Barkha Dutt wrote a thought provoking article on the English divide in India a couple of weeks back, and somehow I have still not been able to decide what I feel exactly about it.

It's true that English in India, and it's knowledge, is one of the most real divides that exists in the society and classifies people. It's more tangible than any of those caste, and creed blasphemies that exist for centuries, and the least irrational of them all.

We all laugh at people who make grammatical errors, or who are not so fluent with the language, thereby creating some very peculiar and amusing situations. I was browsing through a job application some time back, and the cover letter read, "I am attached with my resume." Now you know what was meant to be conveyed, and you also know what was conveyed. Am I supposed to feel guilty then for finding it funny?

A lot of people in India do not have access to quality primary school education, if any at all, and while we know that English is an empowering tool being a global language as it brings a vast stock of resources at our disposal, what about those who don't have the tool, or the skill of practice. Is it their bad luck, or the society's failure.

I have lots more on mind, but something prevents me from typing too much. I just have one thought that's disturbing me.

Language is supposed to build civilizations, and to bridge people. But when the connect becomes a divide, what do you do?

UPDATE: Thought about it more last night, and the realisation is startling. The number of people in India who are deprived of the "class" education that India-shining and Vision 2020 advocates so firmly rely on for their claims, is HUGE, and it far exceeds the 39% that counts the country's illiterate. As a matter of fact, the 61% literacy, 2001 census, of India, includes many people who can barely write their names and no more. If you are reading this piece, you're definitely NOT one of those I'm talking about, and that's the irony of the situation, because the ones I am talking of are certainly not going to read this. Who bridges this gap?

The Govt is toying with a proposal, which I personally think is quite ridiculous, of making Maths and English optional at schools, ostensibly to reduce the work loads on students. I completely fail to understand if the problem is that a majority of our society is below par, should the focus be on raising their standard, or at lowering the bar itself? This was a major question that anti-reservationists have been voicing in the recent past too. But the pro-reservationists are also not wrong when they say that an enormous section of the Indian population is deprived and outcasted because they do not have access and hence knowledge of the "sophisticated elitist" language that English has come to become. It is true that English in India is a personalised softer Indianised version more often than not, but that's a creation of people who were already fed on Queen's english basics and then adapted it to convenience, which is something very natural (afterall, don't the British kids talk in the way of "Chillin out sounds nang, but who wants to end up flat-roofin laters?"). The problem is even in a majority of schools where english is taught complusorily, the teachers do not have the skill to impart efficiently a knowledge that would be sufficient for all. Infact, i have to admit that even in north, even in the "good" schools of a city like Delhi, the number of students who do pathetically at hindi and cant get one spelling write is actually more than those who mess up English. That's because English gets all the importance, but many of us dont have the skills in it, and Hindi is anyway ignored even though that may be the language peeplee speak everyday. We are really a Hinglish generation, and I dont see much harm with that. The harm rather lies with our treatment of English. The instinctive superiority it commands, is it a product of a colonial mindset that refuses to recede, or simply of a need to position ourselves competitively in a global environment where most nations speak English. And even if it is the latter, is it OK to divide ourselves into the English-speaking and the wannabes? I have a fear this is a divide far more deep and far more humiliating than who you were born as, and the shame is solely on the society.

P.S. Click here for link to Barkha Dutt's article.

LiFe=Randomize(Everything)

Everything in life is so random and all random things keep happening at random intervals of tie to random people with random results and impact. Isn’t that such a marvelously random way that life functions so randomly. Okay, if I use the word “random” once again, one of my respected seniors would sue me for copyright, others who know him would sue me for imitation, and all the other readers would run away!:P

If you’ve been brave enough to come to the second paragraph after all that crap, congratulations, for you must have guessed that I’m in one of those moods when I just feel saying any thing any crap and blabber about life, the universe and anything. Actually it comes from two things…one that I’m totally silly, and two, that I am the good kind of blogger who gives the readers, if any, a full variety in her posts!!:P As in you get poetry here, you get fiction, you get lectures on morality and philosophy, there’s male bashing and there’s female bashing, there are regular Loveguru sessions full of useful funde, you get updates on all the craps I do, you get quotes and you get serous pondering on the state of affairs that is. What more, I even added mush and pinky yucky stuff with pics and all? If this doesn’t prove to you I’m jobless and I’m good, nothing will. :D:D

My life as such is definitely going in one of those random patterns. I’m mostly happy, and so bored of being bored all the time that I’m cool with it. The people I work with are nice, they mostly mind their own business and I can still smile and talk if I want. And yeah there are like these two typical characters who come with me in the bus. One of them is called Kalu, and the other is Ahmed. For many days they used to sit behind me and “discuss” me, while I spent my looong journey reading something, or just thinking. One day they stuck up a conversation asking something, and since then everyday they keep inventing questions, topics and excuses to talk to me, and I keep giving answers to avoid, or to end the topic, or basically just foil their plans. It’s actually so funny, esp when they compete on grabbing the seat next to me, which I often place my bag on and pretend to go to sleep… Yeah I know I’m sounding like the mean snob who’s playing with others [grin] but what the hell, I’m not the least bit interested in talking to them. They are funny all right, but it’s more like comic. And here comes yet another forward from them. Do they even notice that I never reply?

Anyway, moving from random people to random talk, I was just wondering last night that books are also like real people. They make you react to them, think about them, love them, hate them. They become different in different moods and times, like evolution. Sometimes they tell you just what you wanted to know, sometimes they become your mirror, and sometimes they just shake you up with ignored truths. More often than not, when I read a book these days, I feel like an idiot. Now that’s why I call a book introducing you with your truer self!!

And does somebody know what’s wrong with Delhi’s rains. I mean, cmon, Mumbai and south have had enough. It’s ten days into “monsoon”; I am dying to bathe in the rain!! I don’t know how many people do that, especially as grown ups, but I’d say bathing in the rain is one of the ost delightful simple pleasures. Especially playing soccer or cricket in the rain and getting all muddy and drenched. I used to go cycling in the rain too, as a kid. And yeah, my friend adds, it can be real fun watching others do all this in the rain, esp girls bathing and dancing in the rain! Whatever…I would say I like the guys skidding in muddy pools in heavy rains better. [:(

Idioc(ommun)ity

I am an idiot mainly because every idiot of the world thinks so.

Don't you?

If only you knew..

My hands

empty

wait for

your fingers

to fill the spaces

between mine.

My arms

outstretched

tire in the pain

not of the effort

but only of

the longing.

My eyes

are thirsty

to drink from

the ocean of

your eternal

passionate love.

Time is waiting

to come alive

The universe waits

for my life

If only you knew

If only you knew.

Two cubes sugar.

At the moment, I'm happier than I've been in two months. So so happy that I almost feel like jumping off the twentieth floor in delight. True many of the problems tht have been roasting my brain in the recent past persist still , true I spent a sleepless hour or two even last night, but still I'm so so happy , ki kahin nazar na lag jaye!!!:P:P

Happiness is all a state of mind, and my mind is far more at peace than it was, so I feel like dancing in joy, like a real 'kiddo' :D. Life's good, really sweet. At least that's how I choose to look at it at the moment....It's amazing what a power love is, and how two sweet words from a loved one can work wonders!!Indeed we hardly ever realise the power of polite loving words, even to a total stranger(as I one 'preached' here ).

And even though Brazil has lost, there's been some awesome soccer played, and it's now down to the semis and finals, so it is a treat! And I woke up this morning with India beating West Indies flashing on my TV. Yipppeyyy...what's more, Rahul Dravid is the Man of the Match and Man of the Series!!! Oh I lovvvveeeeeeeeeee Rahul, he is just awesome, and he played brilliantly esp in this match. Infact I'm slightly superstitious with Dravid in the sense I like to think my mood and luck are quite linked with Dravid's performances. If he does well, things turn out good for me too, and if India wins a match with him on/just before my exam, I swear I don't need to touch a book!!! :P. Sachchi, it works!!:P

My project's relocated to a new building with sexier interiors and smallers workstations. And so far it's been a chaotic morning with everyone settling down...but I'm still happy, and now I think I'd go grab a coffee, with an extra cube of sugar.:)