Musings

Indian Democracy’s Knowledge Addition
Dear Cynical Indian Public, here’s one reason to vote. It teaches you an interesting bit of trivia. I learned that your nail takes two months to grow, from cuticle to tip. How did I pick up this interesting piece of news? When you go to cast your vote, the voting officials mark your right/left forefinger with indelible ink (which is apparently easy to wipe off with turpentine or lemon juice – haven’t tried it meself). Anyway, this mark is placed half on your skin, and half on your nail (at the joint). So basically what happens is that the mark on your nail stays on, (the part on your skin disappears naturally). So over a period of two months (starting 13th May 2004), that black spot progressed from the joint (where the skin meets the nail) to the tip in just under two months – it reached the tip of my nail on the 12th of July 2004.

America Says Sorry
So it’s out in most Indian dailies. America officially apologises to India for strip-searching our (now ex-)Defence Minister George Fernandez. Richard Armitage, currently in Delhi (only for today) to touch base with the new government in power, is apparently “horrified” that something like that could happen. The initial source of this was not the ex-Defence Minister, but an autobiography by Strobe Talbott, in which he claims that George (Fernandez) complained about being strip searched. Georgy-boy himself claims it was far from a strip search! Great, for once America actually apologises for a mistake, and as it turns out, maybe they didn’t make one! It is a bizarre world…

Why our country will remain stuck at 2.5-World for the next 4 years
Reason 1
Mr. Harvard-Educated P. Chidambaram’s budget. He managed to make an ass out of everybody, and basically did nothing except to raise Taxes. He made it seem like he was doing a lot more, i.e. throwing more government money into the black hole known as “Rural Development Schemes”…Yay. Throw money at poor people great. “If you give a man a fish….”

Reason 2
The monsoon, according to this voice, has officially failed to materialise. And even if it does, it won’t be even a tenth as potent as last year’s. I can just see the VHP, RSS saying that this is Will of God for not voting the BJP into power, and also for neglecting to take care of the Babri Masjid Issue.

Reason 3
This one requires a whole new post, which may be forthcoming if I can gather thoughts together to make a comprehensible blog entry. But to keep short it is the fact that most people in this country believe that in order for one class of people to benefit another class has to be suppressed. I.e. steal from the rich and give to the poor. It’s not just our country, but a world-wide left-wing phenomena. This voice, having right-of-centre leanings, finds such a philosophy idiotic, stupid, and just plain false. How about this for a philosophy. Let’s just try and make Everybodyricher. I.e. if the filthy rich are getting even filthier rich, LET THEM. But let’s also get the filthy poor to be a little less filthy. Why do the two have to be mutually exclusive? It’s never made any sense to me. It basically stems from the idea that “The Rich make their money off the backs of the Poor”. I see. So all rich people got rich because of slave labour. Ok, enough for now, this will probably be my next post for sure…

A Correction to a Lakshya Review

Not my review, somebody else’s
Ok so first of all I start this week’s dull post with a correction. PlanetBollywood.com, apparently the place to get “Comprehensive” reviews, trips up big time. Obviously the writer has no idea what s/he is talking about. I refer specifically to a particular paragraph, quoted below:

After keeping away from clich�s for most of the film, Farhan�s stereotypical, caricature representations of Pakistani soldiers are a dire step backward. Both the director and writer Mr. Javed Akhtar have denied their film�s �jingoistic� factor repeatedly, but end up succumbing to precisely the same when dealing with the war. The dialogues spat out by the long-mustached Pakistani General (Parmeet Sethi) and his associate are amateurish. While the Indian Army bathes in discipline, the Pakistani soldiers are out there fighting without uniforms, dressed in pathanis. Can the �enemy� possibly be simplified to such an extent? I believe not. Such simplification and �jingoism� is routine with J.P. Dutta but is shocking when it comes from Farhan and Javed Akhtar.

The part I take issue with in this paragraph is the line While the Indian Army bathes in discipline, the Pakistani soldiers are out there fighting without uniforms, dressed in pathanis. This shows that the author of the review is clearly not abreast of any of the facts on the Kargil War. Pakistan, to this day, claims that it never sent its soldiers to fight, and that it was “Free-Dung” fighters (i.e. Terrorists) doing the fighting. At the time, the news channels and newspapers were reporting that the enemy was not dressed in military fatigues , however, after conducting body searches of the dead enemy, there was evidence of Pakistani Army identification papers. This fact was clearly highlighted in the movie. I just wish some reviewers would get their facts straight.

The Underdog of Iraq

The BBC reports that Saddam will get a Fair Trial

If he actually does get a fair trial, America is screwed. Of course it won’t be a fair trial. The world media is only getting to see snippets of the trail plus the sound is also cut in parts, allegedly to prevent Saddam from using the trial as his “Stage” and also for “National Security” reasons. Naturally – Saddam is probably still wondering how Iraq became an enemy considering it was America’s ally in the 1980s….I bet he’s still absolutely stumped. He’s probably wondering why his gassing Kurds is wrong, while stoning unfaithful women to Death in Iran is condoned. Or the various cruelties perpetrated by the Sheikhs of Saudi Arabia… or Human Rights abuses in China. Is none of this blatantly obvious to anybody else?

If it actually were a fair trial the question that would( (or rather should be asked in this Voice’s not-humble opinion) is:

Why choose this particular middle-eastern tyrant to execute?

Why pick on Iraq? Just because they MAY have WMDs? North Korea has them. And they’re part of this idiotic Axis. So WHY NOT NORTH KOREA?

Is all the idiocy going on Iran okay, just because they don’t openly hate America? Sure Iran is also part of the bullshit-axis-of-evil, but apparently it doesn’t seem to merit an invasion. Now why is that? And North Korea? North Korea just makes me laugh. The more threatening North Korea’s posture is towards America, the more food America sends to it. It’s a fucking joke.

Of course, maybe there is a whole lot of stuff going on “Under The Table” but all this voice can see is a stupid vendetta being carried out by an adolescent mind, who happens to be President of the United States of America.

And Saddam actually turns out to be pretty sharp. “I’m not signing any papers without my lawyers present”. Then he said you are accusing one man of invading a country, when that requires an entire state’s apparatus….
He’s right. You blame Saddam for gassing Kurds whether he did it or not, but you don’t blame bush for the Torture of Iraqi civilians in Iraq. Of course the reasoning being that Iraq is ruled by a megalomaniacal dictator, and America by a Democratically Elected President. So therefore, anything that happens in Iraq is directly because of the dictator, whereas in America, nothing ever happens by presidential order, decree, or veto, especially with Bush in power…

End of rant….(for today at least….)