Karya Pragati Mein Hain

This blog is currently being reconstructed. No apologies for inconvenience caused. Deal with it, BUDDY!

No imagination at all….

I am an Idiot. What’s New?

So Mr. Pomposity Personified is at it again. Of course, it’s not like I ever expected him to stop…

The Latest Salvo:

All this is very exciting for me. I look forward to boarding the AGV one of these days. But it is also a bit sad. India will never have anything that exciting. India just does not have the imagination. We are quite happy with our trains that do an average of 25 km/hr and our top speed trains average around 80 km/hr. It’s strange that passenger train service began in India over 150 years ago. We are a slow moving people.

If one types the words ‘High Speed Rail Link Delhi Mumbai’ one turns up a number of articles – which talk about that the fact that the Indian Government had proposed to build a high-speed rail link (a la the Japanese Shinkansen) between Delhi and Mumbai, in partnership with the Japanese government.

On conducting feasibility studies, and cost-benefit analyses, this plan was revised and replaced with the Mumbai Delhi Industrial Corridor – it was felt that money would be better spent developing industry and creating wealth than building a high-speed rail line which would probably cost the same as a first class airline ticket, and benefit fewer people than the construction of dedicated freight corridors, and industrial hubs across 4 states. But no. The great God of All Things has spoken. Indians lack imagination.

“It’s strange that passenger train service began in India over 150 years ago. “. No. It didn’t. It began in British India 150 years ago, with the express aim of moving resources from the source of exploitation to a point of consumption. But no. We are a ‘Slow Moving People’.

Schizophrenia?

How does one write two posts on the same subject with opposite points of view?

First you say you’re afraid of the car:

I have been reading about the Rs 1 Lakh (about US$2,500) car that Tata Motors is planning on selling soon.

It scares me witless. ……….

Yes, those cars scare the hell out of me.

Of course, then you also suggest what Ratan Tata should have done:

Ratan Tata is the “leader” in question when he decides that he will make the cheap car. Now he could have led alternatively. For instance, he could have called Mukesh Ambani, Aditya Birla, and other assorted movers and shakers of Indian industry and academia and said, “Guys and gals, let’s figure out what we need to do to solve India’s transportation problems. Let’s do the arithmetic and figure out which way we should go. And having figured it out, we push for that public policy to set that goal.

And then finally, without eating the least bit of humble pie (this would be a very nutritious dish in your case, Mr. Pompous Popinjay), you completely switch your stance:

 In any event, Tata Motors is making a game-changing move and I am proud that an Indian corporation is doing so. Way to go, Mr Ratan Tata. May you succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

Interesting.

A Lousy week

Two car windscreens smashed, one bribe to the policeman, and broken vase this week. At least I got to work from home. Small mercies….

Riots & Terrorism Part 2

Response to a response

So although I will never really be acknowledged by The Head Typist, it’s interesting to note that my posts are responded to. I had written earlier about my opinion on the difference between Riots & Terrorism earlier, and why equating the 2 is dangerous. Well, according to the response to that post, Mr. D seems to assume what I am saying is: “Because you cannot punish everyone involved in a riot, you should let it go. But because you can catch all of those responsible for terrorist acts, you should focus on those”.

This is not what I said at all, and far be it from me to say that I am excellent writer and that my point was expressed well previously. So, to clarify, what I had said before is that the reason you should not equate Riots & Terrorism as the same thing is because the root causes are different.

This is why it’s damn near impossible to stop riots, and not terrorist attacks. By all means, punish the ones who are responsible, if it’s realistically possible. Is it possible in the type of riots that occured in Gujarat? So it means we need to punish the chief minister, his cronies, the police, and all of the people, which means some chunk of the citizenry of Gujarat. Best of luck, buddy. Yes, sure, in an ideal world where communists burn in hell, and the New Delhi traffic sticks to its lanes, this would be possible. But it’s not.

SO – how about actually trying to figure out WHY there is so much tension between the Hindus & Muslims of Gujarat that caused an explosion. It was limited to Gujarat – Why didn’t this tension spread to say Assam, or even Delhi for that matter, which is much closer? Why was restricted mostly to Gujarat? Has anybody sat down to determine the reasons? Yes, the Chief Minister incited the State Machinery. But the State Machinery was malleable to his will. How come? If I sat here and incited people to beat up somebody, nobody would listen to me. So how did he get that power? Are there laws that make policemen subordinate to Chief Ministers? Is that why the poplice did as they were told instead of behaving independently? What is the make up of the Gujarat police force? The general demographics of Gujarat. Is one community poorer than the other? If so why? Is it just 400 years of abuse? If yes, then why did this tension not surface elsewhere? Is the police force in other areas more diverse? If yes, then why wasn’t the Gujarati police force that diverse?

And on, and on and on. The causes behind the riots need to be studied, so that future riots don’t happen again. But the Head Typist simply says – killers are monsters, and should be punished. Oh what a lovely black and white world he lives in. Yes, for the most part, killers are monsters, but just like high-caste and low-caste people, black, brown white and yellow people, they are homo-sapiens too. many of them have functioning brains, and many of them are no dumber or smarter than you or I. I AM NOT SAYING THEY SHOULD NOT BE PUNISHED. I am saying that just punishing a few of the worst perpetrators in a riot, does not prevent future riots from occuring. 

When we talk about terrorism, punishing the damn fools who tried to blow up parliament, IS ENOUGH. It does send a message to other people out there with similar designs on their mind. It is also possible to CATCH individual terrorists and fry the bastards. The root-cause analysis I’ve mentioned above needs to be conducted to get behind the causes of terrorism too. But, even without that analysis, we can at least prevent the damage done by terrorists, to a REASONABLE extent. Put up metal detectors, x-ray baggage, get dogs to sniff for bombs. Yes, I concede that if somebody is determined to blow you up, they will eventually win. But just because the burglar/terrorist comes in through the window doesn’t mean you leave the door unlocked.

What preventive measures can one take against civil disorder? None. That is why it is called civil disorder. The System. Breaks. Down. So fix the system, or create a new one.

Terrosism is an attempt to fight The System, Riots are an implosion of the System.

If most people are happy with the system, Terrorism will occur, but it will fail, for the most part. If people are unhappy with a system, riots will occur, and terrorism will succeed.

Virtual Stupidity (which is very Real)

A change of subject to lessen my gloomy mood

First, before I move to the core of my rant, I’d just like to add as a side note, that Sepia Mutiny should be disqualified from the IndiBloggies Nominations. I’m not saying this because I was banned from them or because I dislike them – in fact I actually don’t dislike them, I ENJOY reading them.. HOWEVER, since it is Sepia Mutiny’s stance that they are a South Asian Blog, and not an Indian blog, what place do they have in an Indian Blog Award? Further, I recall (but cannot find the links to) a discussion on SM where when they were told they had won an Indian award, they specifically said ” But we’re 2nd-Gen Americans not Indian” or some such thing, with a mild amount of contempt (which may just be imagined by moi). So yea, I don’t think they should be part of these awards.

Update – Abhi Responds(it’s also in the comments):

Let me put it down in writing so that you have a place to point to next time. Sepia Mutiny is an American blog that has 6 Indian-American writers (although we have had, and will have guest bloggers with other South Asian heritage who write really well), and focuses on topics and issues that would be of MOST interest to South Asians living in North America. However, we cover many topics relevant to South Asian diaspora communities and to those still living in countries in South Asia, which primarily includes India. The society that I live in will always view me as both American and Indian (after they’ve asked me “where you from?”), or American and South Asian (if they haven’t asked).

If you want to be petty about this feel free to do so as long as you now have the correct information to cite. We, and I, appreciate any award we are even considered for. The true reward however is in knowing that even one person enjoys what we write (equally rewarding would be if girls would throw their underwear at us while we were on stage).

If that’s the Official take, then I eat my words, with a little garam masala to boot, especially since I’ve been trying to find the “We-re 2nd-Gen, not Indian” comment thread but failed. So I don’t really have a leg to stand on.

Now on to the Main Feature

You may have read this in today’s Editorial Column of the TOI.

Question 1: Does anybody else see some sort of perversity when it is teachers and professors of English which rise up to abuse Globalisation? Isn’t English the first whipping-boy of Globalisation?

Question 2: Why are all English teachers Communist? Is it part of the curriculum?

When I read the first para of this article, I thought the man was actually being sensible, and saying that It is better to maintain a road than to rename it with a Nationalistic name. I was about to say, good boy, and give him a doggy biscuit…BUT. He’s saying the opposite. He’s saying a name-change is important.

Time, then, to ask Shakespeare’s question — what’s in a name? Because, clearly, something is.

It used to be called Priya Square, but in these heady, headlong days, that name itself might well be retro now. Particularly in Priya Square. This is the open space in front of the Priya multiplex in Delhi’s Vasant Vihar.

It did? In what period is this? The Jurassic? For as long as I have been alive, it has been called Basant Lok….and as far as I know…IT STILL IS.

With large stores emblazoned with the iconic brands of international consumption — Nike and Baskin Robbins and Levis and the inevitable McDonald’s – his enclave in south Delhi is an enchanted space for a certain kind of young person — because as soon as one steps in here, as one bubbly young thing was heard remarking loudly, India khuttam! Across this magic threshold, India stops, and one is instantly transported to, well, Byzantium, with…

The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees… and soft, relentless, muzak in the neon-lit arcades of the shopping mall. It’s not true, of course.

India is still present, in the famished shapes soliciting alms, the dark children with stick-like limbs, weaving unseen and unregarded through the throngs of the well-heeled, devouring their ice-creams and their accessories with hungry, angry eyes.

In the Dummies Guide To Countering Globalisation (in India), the first sentence reads as follows:

Thou shalt remind those who are “more fortunate” and “lucky”, that all their HARD-EARNED money, and enjoyment thereof is a cause for guilt, for there are those who are not so lucky.

The second sentence reads: “Thou shalt make the oft-claimed statement that The Real India consists of famished shapes soliciting alms. Other stereotypes abound, please look for them in Rohinton Mistry Novels, Arundhati Roy’s work, CNN or Naipaul.”

Remember folks, those of you who have enough money and food to read this blog – WE ARE NOT REAL. WE DO NOT COUNT. WE ARE NOT THE REAL INDIA. WE ARE FAKE. WE ARE THE ILLUSION. WE HAVE NOT CONTRIBUTED TAXES TO THE ECONOMY. WE HAVE NOT COME BACK WITH OUR IVY LEAGUE DEGREES AND TRIED TO APPLY THE KNOWLEDGE HERE. Our crime is that we have money, and hope, and food in our stomach. Let us all collectively hang our heads in shame for not being born famished and begging for alms. No, I mean really. Please. I don’t want to see a single person happy, or wanting to buy a new pair of jeans, until every single iota of humanity in this country and the world is rolling in money. Just kill me now, the guilt is just too much to bare, O Venerable Ivory-Tower Academic.

The CII ideologues are vastly more sophisticated, but even in their accounts of that globalised future which is simultaneously desirable and imminent, the transition from an all-too-present present to the gleaming, glamorous future is always visualised as smooth and streamlined, lubricated by a miraculous coincidence of desire and possibility, so that everyone gets what they want, and there are no losers and no costs.

Everyone gets what they want? There are no losers? Is that what the supporters of Globalisation say?
Ok, since the Typist cartel has forbidden us from using a much tossed about term, I shall use the Hindi equivalent, and say that the above statement simply shows the creation of a Bhoosa Aadmi.

There bloody well are lots of losers. With more free trade, the customs officials at our points of entry have less ways to harass, as there is less (or no) duty to be paid. They’ve lost “revenue”. With more globalisation/liberalisation every company attempting to sell a substandard and shyte product ends up having to either go out of business or find ways to improve – or resorts to our good ‘ol friend corruption + protectionism to keep the rest of the world out.

That this infantile fantasy should have acquired so many adult believers is one of the great mysteries of our time.

That there are adults out there incapable of forming rational arguments is not one of the great mysteries of any time (yes this comes from personal experience. Let it go).

The call-centre hacks who acquire slick tele-identities along with their shaky accents are common knowledge. One can easily imagine the damage caused by the social dislocation that results from working a graveyard schedule to suit the convenience of customers in American time-zones — so that the only other people one can know are the similarly afflicted, other denizens of the night-world in which they are Bob and Carrie and Chuck and Robbie, au fait with cultural trivia derived, I’m told, from a pedagogic exposure to Friends.

One can also easily imagine the damage caused by the social dislocation that results in being 20-something and UNEMPLOYED. But better a famished Indian with his begging bowl extended, than a Cyber-Coolie caught in this INDENTURED “Servitude” eh? I mean the air-conditioned cubicles, home-drop sumos, pizza parties, the extra cash in their pockets, the additional work experience, the call centres competing for workers, they must be so humiliating for these people, since it is all in Service to the White Man. I mean if you had a choice between begging for Money from an Indian, or working for low Wages for a White Man, which would you choose?

C’mon folks, let’s be patriotic here, and Hold your Head High! I might be a pauper, but at least it is Indian Communists who are giving me my alms, not some filthy pig shmuck capitalist exploiting White Man. I feel so much more Indian now, and happy. Who needs heaters in winter when you can be begging on the street corner hey? Heck money can’t buy everything. What did you really need a bed, food, clothing and shelter for anyway? All that counts in the end is Good Karma.

Don’t you know, at these evil call centre places, they stand ready with whips in their hands, and you’re chained to your desks like in the old days of Pax Romana. Sure they had to Row before, and now you have to Type and Speak, but it amounts to the same amount of torture RIGHT? Oh how I long for the Old Days, when being in the mid 20s meant having to BEG ENGLISH PROFESSORS FROM DU for references so you can scrounge around for a job.

How dare the arrogant youth of today actually feel optimistic and frivolous because they can make some money when Some People have been Left Behind. How dare they enjoy their lives, when we all know that the freedom fighters of yesteryear fought to ensure that we would always remember misery and suffering and death and destruction, and continue to sacrifice our lives at the altar of Misery. Didn’t you know that’s what freedom is about? That there are now happy and carefree people in this country – it’s a travesty I tell you. The world is going to the Dogs. That there are content people in this country. A sin. A Shame. How. Dare. They.

Let us all please please please return to a State of Mass Misery, as that produces the best results for removing poverty. Youth of Today, please abandon your dreams of fast and easy money. Stop being so Shallow. Please Grow Up. The world is a miserable place, and therefore you must be too. Abandon the hope and expectation that comes with youth. Please, for the sake of Mankind, don’t strike for faster, harder, bigger, stronger, more – well not until there is Nobody Left Behind. In the meantime please satisfy yourselves by donating everything you earn to Charity, so that you can partake in some mass poverty. Please don’t buy a cellphone with the money you’ve saved last year, when you could help put Billoo through school. Besides, once Billoo has been through school, he can follow your example too, right? Have you no shame for claiming a right to the money you worked for? Oh and what would you really do with a 15,000 rupee a month job anyway? Isn’t this a rich country with parents who provide everything for their kids. Sheesh. The kids of today, I tell you. Spoiled, stupid, and educated. Don’t you think your time could be better utilised harassing the women outside on the street, or murdering old people for the money in their cupboards? What are you doing serving The White Man in this office? Have you NO shame? You are destroying Indian traditions. What next? Will you outsource the Mahabharat to Bengalis (shudder)?

You bunch of cyber-coolies. Filthy. You dare to earn money when there are real coolies out there suffering in the railways stations? Usurpers! Traitors!

Dare I say it….yes, I dare – Won’t Someone Think Of The Common Man? *Wrings hands and beats breast – then proceeds to go teach ENGLISH*

A few side notes:

1) McDonalds
This so-called symbol of Globalisation, is a symbol of Localisation. the McDonald’s in India, is LIKE NO OTHER McDonald’s anywhere else in the world. The American McDonald’s does NOT deliver food to your home. The American McDonald’s DOES serve pork and beef. It DOES fry things in LARD (or did until a Hindu sued them). The American McDonald’s does not serve a Veggie Burger (but a Vegetarian burger made out of Soya. Yuck). The French McDonald’s serves beer.
So much for having a common Global Identity.

2) Pesticide in Coke.
Yes, Coke is an EVIL Multinational for serving you soft drinks full of pesticide. But I’m curious. Have you ever taken a sample of the groundwater your local-non-evil-multinational-owned-but-government-run Water Board provides you with? How come you don’t drink it straight out the tap?
Why didn’t the CSE choose this for its crusade? Why did it instead pick on a corporation, which had been kicked out of India before? Do you not pay the Water Board? Isn’t water more important than coke? Do you serve every person in your family coke from the minute they’re born to their death? But why is there no crusade against the Water Boards – oh wait – Occam’s Razor right – the water that the local boards provide MUST BE CLEAN, and don’t cause any water-borne diseases. Right? Coke is Evil, and the Delhi Jal Board a Noble Service Provider. Like the Buddha, I have received my enlightenment. Under a cold tap.

3) I’ve got this far without a single cussword. I deserve to be rewarded, lauded, applauded. Now my post is only as abrasive as TravelTalesFromIndia’s comments.

Free Your Mind (and the Markets Follow)

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”

This voice has been occupied with personal-life-related stuff recently, and thus hasn’t had time to address issues which are his pet peeves. In a post written in the aftermath of the much publicised Operation Duryodhana (Which was great work!, IMO), Shivam Vij (Mall Road) highlighted some of his political convictions, and slipped in what looked like a guerrila attack on free markets…

sigh. I didn’t want to write about this, because these arguments need to be tackled in a civilized manner, and not in a TTG Rant….to counter posts by a reputed blogger, who shall remain nameless (Dilip D’Souza). He has decided that there are two types of people – NHBs (Normal Human Beings) and FMS(Free Market Supporter) Jihadis.

Well, as Fido Dido, one of the murtis of the Free Market said: “Normal is Boring”.

Here’s my attempt at actually tackling all arguments with sanity (er.. I failed MISERABLY, BTW).

First off, I am not a member of the Libertarian Cartel, I’m a Voice From A 2.5-World Country. But every once in a while, our views converge. I cannot speak for what kind of India the Libertarians envision, but I can tell you what kind of India I envision. this might get across what I mean by what a “Free Market” is. I never realized this was a definition in dispute.

First of all, if we are discussing which country/area comes closest to a Free Market – it is NOT America. It is Hong Kong. Everything in Hong Kong is run by PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS. EVEN MONEY is legally printed, by three banks, managed by an AUTHORITY called the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. This means that there are three different types of currency notes being printed in Hong Kong. One set is by HSBC(formerly the HongKong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the other set is by Standard Chartered Bank, and the third is by the Bank of China. The Bus Service is run by 3 private companies, the underground train system is run by one private company(the MTRC), the electricity is supplied by two private companies (China Light & Power, and HK Electric), the cooking gas is provided by one private company (TownGas), the telephone network was initially provided by one private company (PCCW – formerly HongKong Telecom)

Somehow, I don’t see Hong Kong deteriorating into anarchy.

Then next…let’s take America…America’s train network was built by private individuals…and is still now mostly private – AmTrak. Amtrak sucks. But would somebody please compare it with Indian Railways?

The bus services are run by GreyHound. Would somebody like to make another comparison?

The highways in USA, were originally private-built. The ‘Turnpike’ is a road you have to pay a toll to use….

I envision an India, where the government is not in charge of running any business whatsoever. There are no government-run airlines, no government-run hotels, no government-run railroad, no government-run bus services, no government-run water-distribution/electricity distribution services, no government-run telecommunication services, no government-run education boards, no censor board, no Board of fucking-Control for Cricket in India (What the FUCK kind of name is that, anyway?), no government-run Oil Companies, no government-run Bread Companies, Coal companies, or any other f-ing companies, no government-run liquor distribution vends, no government-run “Super Bazaars”, no government-run Ration shops.

I envision a lot more stuff too, but we’ll take this as a vision for starters. Once the government gets out of the business of producing stuff, it can actually get INTO THE BUSINESS OF ENFORCING LAWS TO MAKE SURE PRIVATE PLAYERS STAY IN LINE.

It is NOBODY’s case, that businessmen, and the corporate world, do things for “the good of the people”, or to be moral, or righteous. They are after one thing, and one thing alone. It is called…not MONEY…but PROFIT.

Making money is easy. Declare yourself the voice of God, ask for donations, and say you work in Mysterious Ways when questioned about your lack of Miracle-Performing abilities. You’ll have money.

But that’s not what businessmen, are after. It’s PROFIT. This is not the same thing.
And it is the GOVERMENT’S JOB to ensure that the businessmen do not step out of bounds in their relentless pursuit of profit. The government’s role is to function as an UMPIRE, not as an f-ing batsman. Let the businessmen play their games, but once they step out of bounds, the other side appeals, and then somebody gets out.

So….let the private players run an airline. But then ensure that they give cheap fares to remote areas. Let them make profit on the rest of the routes.

Let the private players supply petrol to the Country. Let them allot petrol pumps on the basis of who seems the savviest at making a profit. But then make sure that the person who does so, is not adulterating the petrol in his pursuit of profit.

In order for businesses to make money. They have to cut costs. Be nimble. Act quickly. The ones that don’t automatically perish. Their employees leave them. They start defaulting on loans, they get a bad reputation due to shitty customer service.
And when THAT happens, ensure you have a strong legal system which ensures the CONSUMER GETS HIS DUE

The Honda City That Ran Over Self Help Books

At last, TTG gets back to the usual.

Argh. Groan. Moan. Grumble. Growl post on ‘Aaj Kal de bacchey’*

The best part about Hinduism, is that Hindus don’t have to subscribe to dogmatists like you. Who made YOU the keeper of my religion?

They dont know why a shraadh should be performed every year, why a sacred thread should be worn, and have forgotten to pray with verses

I know why a shraadh should be performed every year, and I think it’s stupid. Guess what. That doesn’t make me any less of a Hindu. Go do some more research on what being a Hindu means. The same goes for praying with verses.

There is one section that believes in God but not in the ecosystem that comes with it , the pujaris and the pyres.

Yes, and again, this section is not any less Hindu. Believe it or not, there are many different forms of Hinduism, and yours is not the One True Faith. The reason I love my religion the most is because it doesn’t follow any One True Faith nonsense like many other religions. You reveal yourself to be a fundamentalist by these statements. There is no one keeper of Hinduism, no one Vicar of Hinduism on Earth. So don’t dictate to me what I should or should not be doing in my religion.

It is unfortunate that most youngsters learn a foreign language like French during school for better global prospects rather than Sanskrit. Knowledge of Sanskrit enables one to atleast understand the various mantras chanted during a ritual or the scriptures in the Vedas.

The answer lies there itself. Better. Global. Prospects. It’s very easy for you to lecture people on praying to God on a full stomach. Not all of them are so lucky. So you would deprive them their right to a better life just to keep preaching archaic ideals? And your reason for learning Sanskrit is even sadder. If all I can do with Sanskrit is to pray better, I’m not going to be learning Sanskrit anytime soon.

Its a strange vaccuum where the joys of materialism after years of Brahminical restraint and the vapidity of mainstream media have left us very little time or inclination to find and know our roots.

Brahminical….restraint…..riiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggggghhhhhhhhttttttttt.

Ummm welcome back to the Real World buddy. Please don’t pass me whatever you’re smoking. Some trips I can do without…

A word about vacuous materialism. Is the computer your working donated by by some benefactor? No? Did you Pay for it? Do you own it? Did this machine, this culmination of years of vacuous materialism (and vacuum tubes) help you get your point across? It did, didn’t? So much for the benefits of Brahma-f-ing-inical restraint

*Aaj kal de bachchey is Hindi+Punjabi for “The Kid’s of Today”

Ahem

n defence of my DBM hosting…Shivam has an interesting post (No Longer Available)about our Delhi blogger’s Meet.
Umm, Vulturo links to the Google Cache of it though, in his post..

Because I am unemployed (and am considering putting my profile up on AdultFriendFinder and Shaadi.Com just to see what sort of response I get), I feel justified in making Mount Everests out of Speed Breakers. So in my defence, I would just like to say that I would rather host a blogger’s meet in pub than in a coffee place. I just figured that not everybody was a drunkard like me, so we should start off abusing a different substance. But I should also have known better – this is Delhi, after all! If I’d held the meet in a pub/other sharaabi joint, maybe attendance would automatically have doubled.

Oh and a word about the number of bloggers – while I don’t expect to see huge crowds, a few new faces would be nice – in addition to – and not – in lieu of – the old faces.

And to the Page 3 journalist: I’ve been trying to get my picture snapped in your page 3 since I’ve been 3 years old. I’ve dropped names, changed clothes, donated to charity even. Sigh, so close, and yet..so far…

Huzoooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, huzoooor-e-ala

I’m It!

I have been book-tagged! (by RTD2 – see “Curbside Prophet” on the SideBar)

Last Book I Bought:Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond. A very interesting take on why the World is the way it is today (in terms of why is Africa poor and America Rich?). Really interesting stuff, but some of it is a little heavy

Last Book I Read: well re-read actually – The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I’ve always loved the way this story is written (but it should not be read when you’re a confused adolescent – I think it had a negative impact on me then…) But I still love it. The characters are so well drawn, and there is some truth to the stuff this woman preaches

Books Currently Reading:Well none as of now… but if you’d ask me this question on July 16th, I’d have an answer for you…

Total Number of Books Owned:I think somewhere between 100 and 200. Never done an inventory. But it’s been one of my dreams to have my own little library – not too big – a bookshelf will do, which houses nice new editions of books (covered in nice plastic or something) I must own (and maybe the full set of Asterix and Tintin Comics too).

Books That Meant A Lot To Me:
Well this is a difficult one, and I know that this part will have to be continuously updated as time progresses, but here goes (in no particular order):

Lord of The Rings – for showing me it’s possible to write good Fantasy
Dune – For also showing me it’s possible to write crazy science fiction
Shogun – 16th Century Japan which blows your mind away
Fountainhead – see above
Something Fresh – one of my favourite P.G. Wodehouse novels
Harry Potter, The Prisoner of Azkaban – still my favourite novel of the series
Midnight’s Children – Good summing up of India from 1940-something to 1980.
A Fine Balance – well I hate this book, and I hate the author for writing it, but it’s well written, and it’s so well written in fact that it pissed me off enough to get me write a Blog called Voice From a 2.5-World Country, whose main aim has always been to dispute the conventional nonsense about India .
The Alchemist – Just love it. Need to re-read it to get back in touch with that side in all of us.

There are many more books which mean a lot to me. Will update this as and when required…

Oh now the er… tagging part…most of the bloggers I know have already been tagged, so consider is a global-tagging. If you read this blog, then consider yourself tagged! And leave a small comment (if you wish) to let me know you’ve been tagged.

Some more ‘made history’ days…

Some good-news updates

Well as most of the world will have seen, India and China seem to be friends, and actually seem to be resolving their disputes…. let’s hope so…. Many an American columnist has said that USA should be worried because never before in History have 2 giants awakened at such similar times… well unless you are a supporter of Deeshaa.org (”who tells it like it is”) in which case you will gladly lick China’s ass, and abuse India to the depths.

Second, there are now 100 Million telephone connections in India. This is way below China, of course, but is still a good sign for India, and approximately half of these connections are MOBILE PHONE connections. Apparently, at current growth rates (which may not be sustained) the number of connections is set to double by 2007. Let’s hope so….

Finally, the best news so far (in my humble opinion). Some time around in the early part of the century (I think it was the 1940s or 1950s) an Indian entreprenuer going by the name of Tata went on to found an airline service called Tata Airlines…. This airline service was so good, that a another fledgling airline startup, going by the name of Singapore Airlines would turn to Tata Airlines for pointers on service, and management e.t.c. Alas, those days are long gone…. A damn fool by the name of Nehru and his idiotic flirtations with Socialism put a stop to Tata Airlines – it got bought over by the government and renamed to (cringe cringe) AIR INDIA. Sigh. So that put an end to what was a good airline. Fast forward to the year 2005. India’s (not)first Private Airline launches flights to its first non-SAARC destination. Jet Airways will fly you from Delhi to Singapore today, for 14,000 rupees, and at the current US$ rate of $1:Rs. 43.6, that works out to $320…. So at last, the day has come where nasty Air India will no longer represent India’s national face. Yay. Routes to points West are being negotiated as we speak and are not long in coming. Now if only my application for Jet Airways shares had gone through

The superfluous Royals, and their language….

This is a blant – a Blog + Rant
Parth, A member of what I like to call my little blog community has just posted an article on the redundancy of the British Bluebloods and laments the trees wasted on every iota of their lives. That part is fine by me, to hell with the Monarchs. In India they’re a dime a dozen. But I do understand why the Brits do rever them somewhat, and tolerate them. The British Monarchs (responsible for that nasty corruption of democracy known as ‘parliamentary’ democracy) have been inventive enough to see through new ages and yet survive. Whereas the French Revolution almost all but put an end to French Monarchs, and the rest of Europe was going through its upheavals, the English dudes managed to hold their own, and even prosper into the 21st Century! Give them small teency mount of credit for that.

The second, ultra-loaded statement in Parth’s post was how we Indians tend to rever the British for their contribution of Railroads, Democracy and English. I have heard many people bring up that opinion, and frankly it doesn’t really bother me one way or another, and here’s why, at the risk of sounding like a Fuckface.

An old college buddy of mine (of Bulgarian origin) said “at least the British left India with some good things. All the Turks left us with was shit and destruction”. Parts of southern Europe were under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire, and from whatever I’ve heard, they were pretty nasty folk.

So let me make a few very controversial statements:
English is GOOD for India, and NECESSARY for OUR prosperity
Two commenters on Parth’s blog said that English is not required for a country to do well in this world, hell look at China. They don’t know English, and since they are growing at such a fast pace, they soon will know English too. This is a fallacy, a myth, in totality.

First off, ENGLISH is NECESSARY for INDIA to prosper, because we have never been and rarely are now, ONE NATION, but many. China has been a united kingdom for a LONG LONG LONG time. They do have close to one spoken language (yes there are many dialects, ranging from Putonghua to Cantonese, but the script used is the SAME, and so are most of the contexts). When you take some 30 disparate kingdoms and force them to become one country, you need to unify them in terms of language – which language to do you pick? Hindi? Rubbish. It is a mostly North Indian language, and even that’s not entirely true. As a Punju, I can attest that in Punjab, punjabi is the spoken/written language. You think Tamil people speak Hindi? I dare you to use Hindi in Chennai. You will get a much ruder experience. English however is safe. It’s the common bridge between all of India’s disparate languages and cultures. Sure Hindi is the official one, but English is also required, because English has reached a point of cultural neutrality that other languges lack. It’s a glue, it doesn’t belong to any country anymore (though yes, fucking Americans think they fucking invented it).

SECOND, the Chinese will NOT pick up English quickly, and it will remain difficult for them to pick it up. There are very empirical reasons why. Chinese is NOT a branch of the Indo-European languages. Indo-European languages are not tonal. Most Indo-European languages are read from left to right, and most definitely cannot be read from bottom to top!! To this day the common roots are visible. Take Hindi and French – simple example. In French, you call Teeth – Les Dents (Dents is pronounced like the English word (with british pronunciation) Aunt, with a D in front of it (dAunt). The Hindi for Teeth is Daant which sounds almost exactly the same, it’s been proven they have the same root. Lord knows what the Chinese word for Teeth is. Same goes for counting. Whether it’s French, English or Hindi, you hve the same phonetic sounds for the same numbers. You do NOT find this similarity in Chinese. In Cantonese, the counting goes as follows: Yut, Yee, Saam, Sae, Ng, Lok, Chat, Paat, Gow, Sup.

Hindi: Ek, Do, Teen, Char, Paanch, Che, Saath, Aat, Now, Dus
French: Un, Deux, Trois, Quatre, Cinq, Six, Sept, Huit, Neuf, Dix
English; (oh count it yourself, but note that English has many Norse/German influences in it)

NO similarities between Chinese and the others.
English is actually not so hard for Indians to pick up, and is GOOD FOR INDIA, BUT NOT NECESSARILY REQUIRED OR BENEFICIAL FOR CHINA.

The British would have left India anyway…
As much as I will be stoned to death for this, I think we can all agree that this true? No? Well I still think so. After WWII, England was broke as hell. America was on the rise. America would have pushed for Indian independence just to piss off the Brits, and they would most likely have left anyway. Sure they didn’t relinquish Hong Kong that easy, but Hong Kong was on a 99-year lease anyway…And who knows maybe they would have left a united Sub-Continent… but that is all part of the If’s and Buts’ dialogue. At least we Indians get to say we kicked the Limeys out….

Phew, end of blant for the day….

The New Orientalism…(sigh)

SIGH
*Cringe*….*double cringe*…ok so having not blogged for while due to various reasons, I was scouting around blogger.com only to find a “blog of note” called Aziz’s Blog. As much as it pisses me off to generate more traffic for Mr. Aziz, I have no option but to do so, as Mr Aziz’s travels are the reason for writing Voice From A 2.5 World Country….
(Mr.) Aziz happens to be somebody of type ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) – NOTE I say TYPE, because Mr. Aziz is actually a Canadian (CBCD?) , and although he may not be born in Canada, he definitely has all the markings of the -BCD type. So Mr. Aziz is blogging from his trip to India. SO what do you do when you go to India? Well as anybody familiar with Orientalism would know, you would find yourself the most godforsaken part of the country, go there, work for an NGO, and then report that this is what all of India must be like. It’s just great.

There are lovely snippets from his blog like: “They must not have pasta in India”….I am sure that the Olive Bar & Kitchen, Diva, La Piazza, Big Chill, Flavours, Italiano, San Gimigiano, Trattoria and a host of other restaurants which dish out really good non-Indianised Italian food will be pretty surprised to hear that, as am I.

Then a whole bunch of other observations, which are broad,sweeping, moronic.

“Delhi is a very polluted city” (He says this, and then he heads out to Jaipur). Unfortunately, I don’t have the statistics URL on hand right now, but Delhi is now one of the LEAST polluted cities in India. It has a lot to do with something called CNG which Mr. Aziz is not familiar with. He should look it up, since he seems to be making an effort to “report” about India. Another interesting comment is about why India is “isolated” from the rest of the world. It is because our news channels (he takes the example of NDTV) are totally inward-focussed…This is just such a load of bullshit it’s hilarious. I don’t know how “global” the Canadian TV channels are, but having experienced American news first-hand, I can say that our News Channels are lot more “global” than America….

Then Mr. Aziz goes on to say that we are so “proud” of the fact that we are a democracy, we don’t stop to analyse anything, because we are so busy being proud…apparently it’s alright for the Western world to trumpet the causes of freedom, democracy human rights, but when us brownies revel in the fact that we are democracy (as opposed to a failed state, like countless other former colonies of different empires), we should shut up, because there are still people starving, still people peeing on the roads, and still people murdering other people. We are not allowed to value our right to criticize, or our right to peacefully remove a government from power to replace it with a new one, oh no. Thank you Mr. Aziz.

It is this person’s account of India, and all of those people before him that force me to carry on my crusade…..If you go to this person’s blog, you will see the standard picture of India that is presented to you time and again. Lots of poor hungry starving people on display. Dirt. Stories of cows and pigs. Complaints about spicy food. Condescending stories about the “natives”. All the regular stuff. Basically, Mr. Aziz fell for the Filth Factor. And of course, because said blogger needs a little re-inforcement, he seems to be sticking to all our regular loved Indian authors (Naipaul, Roy, Seth, Mistry ) – the ones that refuse to write about 21st Century India. They all have to pick 1947, or some other time of misery to write about, otherwise how else will they get noticed and awarded those lovely prizes? They can’t possibly write about Happy Indians, God Forbid. Or something Good happening in India. Maybe Mr. Aziz does what he does with full knowledge, maybe not, but he plays right into the hands of the same maliciousness that has been going on since the first Western European set foot on a “foreign” shore. The standard example of assuming that even in a country of one billion people and sub-continental land-mass, the author’s experience must the genuine standard one-size-fits-all experience of India, and no other version could be true.

I’m not going to ramble about everything positive that is happening in India. Because the standard Western refrain about India runs as follows. “In India <insert positive development here> but there are lots of poor people and everybody is dying, so this small positive development means nothing”.

I guess the only way to counter posts of hungry, starving people, is with pictures of people who aren’t, followed up with pictures of a non-filthy side of India….(a tactic which has been used by yours truly before starting to blog…) .

It is sad when people with Indian origins/roots decide to depict India in this manner. They are after all the people who will “Market” India to the rest of the World. And this is what they choose to show.

But of course, this is also the type of stuff that gets you noticed. If said blogger had something good to say about India, he’d probably not have made it to the Blogs of Note list. Just like Arundhati Roy would not have got her award if she wrote the story of a middle-class Indian studying hard, getting a job as a Software Engineer, and earning more money than his family had seen in a generation. Or even Rohinton Mistry, who decided to show India as it existed under Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. Would he have gotten a place on Oprah’s show if he’d said something about how India is only a 57-year old country, and progressing fast? Nope. Better to tell a story about a bunch of poor people, who have to beg for a living, and some others who commit suicide, get divorced, oh and there’s a nice castration and caste war to boot.

Mr. Aziz is looking for a book deal. He will probably get it, as he’s playing right into the hands of the publishers. Best of luck to you sir.

Thank God for blogging.