Which kind of violence is justified ???

Violence and terrorism are connected and both are inexcusable. If we condone one kind of violence how can we condemn another kind of violence? Who decides which kind of violence is right ..? The victims? Or the perpetrators?

Support for Bajrang Dal's violence might have lead to the self righteous feeling that made the Sadhwi and others justify and participate in acts of terrorism. Rahul Raj a young boy from Patna had enough provocaion, and he also thought violence worked, we know it didn't work for him.
Some say MNS is justified, somebody else says Bajrang Dal was provoked, soon SP will board the local trains in Mumbai to 'defend' North Indians. Let's each of us choose who rescues us, let's each have our favorite goons... Now India will have mafia raj.

How fast we forget that divided we kill each other, united we prosper! Let's stop finding excuses for violence.

Do you believe that violence against innocent civilians is justified under certain provocation?

I found two opposing views, one totally against violence, here and another for violent attacks at innocent civilians under certain provocation, here.... would like to know what most of us think.

The beginning of the End ?

Media person asks Amar Singh if he thinks Maharashtra has become a Banana Republic, if he had said 'No' it would have made headlines, as in "Amar Singh says Maharashtra has not become a Banana Republic", since he said 'Yes', that also made head lines. Is media not being the worst and the most provocative of all the politicians?

It seems the media and the politicians want the same thing!
What was supposed to be the fourth pillar of democracy is becoming a publicity tool for politicians.

Amar Singh and Lalu Yadav have done wonders for the safety of North Indians in UP and Bihar, so now here they come to rescue them from attacks by MNS.

Media also gave free publicity to MNS started hate campaign against the so called 'outsiders' (in their own country), many Maharashtrians claim they are Marathi manoos before they are Indians (so do some Malayalees, Punjabis and many other Indians). We saw what such feelings did for Punjab, now we will see what they do for Maharashtra. We have also seen the true colours of BJP supported Bajrang Dal violence. Where is this taking us? Is this the beginning of the end of a Nation called India?

This Diwali....

Two things.


We made a colourful rangoli, we will eat sweets like we have no waistlines to worry about, we will use Diwali as an excuse to forward delightful forwards to long-out-of-touch friends, and reply every SMS Diwali Greeting received, except Life Style, Esprit, Wills Life Style and Magic Bricks.com.
We will have all the fun, we will play card games and pretend to be disappointed when we lose, we won't buy fire crackers.

This Diwali I am also going to pray that this country survives these violent times...


Happy Diwali :)

Proud to add, that we have not bought fire crackers for last twenty years, and it has not made Diwali any less fun for us :)

Threats and Revenge

I call my Sister in Texas.
"The person you are calling does not take unidentified calls. Your Caller ID was not received. To enter an access code, press 1. Or, to record your name so that we may announce your call, press 2."
That's the welcome message on her phone. I always find this kind of irritating, this time I get back at her by reminding her of her favourite feminist, I press 2 and announce,
IHM Sarah Palin calling.
Sister picks the phone instantly, almost hyperventilating.
Sister Please don't take her name! I never objected when you claimed to be Lalita Pawar or Ekta Kapoor, but not Sarah Palin.
IHM (With sadistic pleasure.) She looks like you, spends a lot on her clothes too.
Sister I am so sick of hearing 'pro life' ... I tell them I do not agree with you but I am not going to discuss this.
IHM (Showing sisterly sympathy) You won't hear of Sarah Palin for much longer anyway...
Sister IHM Texas is a dumb republican state... but let's not discuss this, so did you buy that bag?
IHM Yeah, fine, but watch this video called, 'Ballad of Sarah Palin' let me sing it for you...
Sister (Shrieks) No, thank you. Let's talk about something else.
IHM (Speaking fast) She said a thirteen year old rape victim must give birth to her rapist's child.
Sister If you don't stop I will start telling you how BJP and Sangh Parivar are saving the Indian culture ...

Wasn't that hitting below the belt?

Double Standards?

This post has been a draft for some time. Yesterday Raj Thakre’s arrest, and the realisation that some of us, who did not condemn violence by Bajrang Dal and Modi (or at least not without justifying the reasons for it), do condemn violence by MNS and Raj Thakre. There are others who condemn BD and Modi but support MNS (by being ambivalent). And so while each of us chooses our goons & gains over justice, we make our criminal politicians richer and more powerful.

This is my response to one of the as yet, unpublished comments on Ten Answeres To Fight A Ravana. In word press you can answer each point in a comment; Blogger does not allow that, I could not publish this really long comment without answering it point by point.

Italics are what the comment said, Bold letters are my response.

IHM, first of all. I must admire the honesty with which you have spoken out against the biggest blot on Hinduism, its oppressive, birth determined caste system that has been corrupted and exploited by the upper castes for thousands of years.

Thanks : )

Thanks to Mahatma Gandhi and Dr BR Ambedkar, this deep-rooted rot is beginning to be rooted out.

They laid a strong foundation and now it is the cosmopolitan environment in the cities that is helping the prejudice become less visible.

The reservation for SC/ST provided in the constitution was on such step to socially uplift dalits and other backward tribes. Much more is required to be done, of course.

Don’t you think freeing them from our diktats and letting them live their lives their way would be the first steps?

The answer to the problem does not lie in converting, something that Mahatma Gandhi too did not approve.

Given a choice between conversion or burning them alive, I assure you Gandhi would have chosen to let them live. Remember, he asked a Hindu rioter, who regretted killing a Muslim child’s entire family, to raise the child as his own, but as a Muslim? That was the way Gandhi thought. It is sad that his name is being misused these days to propagate exactly the opposite of what he strongly believed in.

While your anger is understandable when you say that you would have converted,

I did not write those words in anger, I meant them very seriously. If I was born into a lower caste, I am too proud to have tolerated being considered inferior to anyone just because I was born in a certain family; I would have converted to Buddhism or Christianity. I would have been grateful that there is a way out.

JUST ANSWER THIS, “IF YOU WERE BORN INTO A DALIT FAMILY, WOULD YOU HAVE REMAINED A HINDU?”

I see in it the convenient escape of a weak person.

It takes a lot of courage to make changes. It would have been a bold choice. A choice between inertia or action. Maybe, the average dalit who does NOT escape from poverty and indignity is weak. If I cannot help this weak person, do In have any right to stop him from fighting with whatever means he has available to escape? Am I not being selfish in expecting him to stay a Hindu, even though I cannot do for him what Christianity can? Am I not encroaching on their rights?

Tell me how many real dalits, living as dalits, have you met in your life?

So if somebody has not met them, they cannot fight for them? They should let them be killed? Does that justify the killings and reconversions into the same low caste?

But I have met and seen their plight. I taught this girl whose family refused to let her marry a very good boy, a driver, because he belonged to ‘ambedkar’ caste. The girl agreed because she was ashamed of telling anyone her husband was low caste.

Gandhi always stayed in the house of a dalit wherever he went.

And he made a very strong point. Today we are letting their houses be burned.

I don't know about you, but there are many of us similarly agitated at the inequality who will not employ a dalit maid to cook their food in their city homes!

I choose maids for their work not caste, and I know for sure one of them was a dalit because the other maid objected to drinking tea from any cup that had once been used by her!

So, first of all, instead of only asking 'others' to do away with this inequality which sticks to dalits even after they have left Hinduism for Christianity, let us do something at our level for a dalit child or family in the area where we live now or from where our folks migrated.

Once when I failed to get a maid’s daughter admitted in a Municipal school in Mumbai, and that experience I will describe in a post some other time. Being a Christian, she was able to get her child into a Christian School. Why don’t the richer Hindu temples provide such support?

Coming to conversions, what Nita and others say is true.

They talk about ‘peaceful protests’, they don’t justify violence with ‘social tensions build up imperceptibly’ ...

It is not that efforts are not being made incessantly to convert upper castes, even in the metros; they are being successful. In remote areas, conversions are being done by all kinds of 'satanic' means. At a TV show recently, a padri was saying with a straight face that those opposing conversions do not know the meaning of 'love'

If Bajrang Dal knew the meaning of love they would have gone there and worked for them like the padre does.

and that all that was being done was to convert people through this godly tool.

Still if someone objects there is only one way to do that. Peacefully & legally.

Very few Christians have the courage to speak the truth about conversions which for them is the call of the Pope, if not God. But Harish Salve, a baptised practicing Christian is one who expressed his disapproval of the methods being adopted to convert people on a TV show a couple of days back.

And we who are pointing fingers and objecting to their satanic means should ask ourselves, what are our super rich temples doing for Hinduism? Killing and burning to save the religion is preferable to converting with good marketing skills? Shouldn’t this issue be dealt by the courts?

Conversion is one thing. While converting, most Hindus think that it is little more from praying to one more god in it. Then begins the process of relentlessly filling them with hatred for their erstwhile gods and goddesses who they are told are all false.

I am sure our courts can deal with this. Even this does not justify killing, raping, burning of people.

I know this statement will draw strong protests; but this is the one reason due to which social tensions build up imperceptibly in the country side where people don't live in anonymous secular apartments disconnected from even their immediate neighbours.

Tensions build up only where Bajrang Dal members are present? Is this jungle-raj or a civilised nation? Even this does not entitle Bajrang Dal to burn people and loot their houses. Legal action is the right way to deal with it. And yes, I strongly condemn any such acts by any religion. Respect for secularism applies to all religions.

That book published in Karnataka is not out of the blue; nor is it an isolated incident deliberately designed to generate communal tensions that can spark into pan-India violence, thanks to the media. This is something that metro based media people have not understood yet. When they report such incidents with their secular bias, they also inadvertently convey exactly what is happening in one corner of the country instantly to all. So, people two thousand miles away facing similar issues immediately get to see the larger picture, something that was not possible till now. That is why, reactions now are faster, larger and more widespread. In future, things will only get worse and will take most of us city folks by total surprise.

Reactions are widespread only in BJP ruled states? Isn’t there some vote-politicking going on here?

Are you actually trying to justify these killings? Just like post-Godhra killings? Any condemnable act by somebody belonging to that religion does not justify, Bajrang Dal, killing all the helpless families and children who belong to that religion. What’s happening in Orissa is not Communal Violence, but politics.

Bajrang Dal or any such outfiit has no right to indulge in violence of the kind they have been. Not only are they damaging their own religion

Absolutely. And Hindusim is not their personal property; it’s our religion or way of life too.

but are also not doing anything to address the real issue of caste inequality.

Like I said the solution lies in totally abolishing LOWER castes, which can only be done by converting reconverts only to upper castes. I NOTICE YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED EVEN ONE OF MY TEN QUESTIONS DIRECTLY.

Even if many simple poor Hindus have been tricked into converting,

Before removing the symptom remove the cause. Why do we only care for them when they are tricked into converting? Why don’t we react and burn them when they are tricked into voting for cash/liquor/little favours. Could it be that Bajrang Dal does not really care for their welfare?

the way to meet this challenge is not through this mindless abhorrent violence and shrill sloganeering.

It is not.

Let the BJP and its sister outfits go and start working with and for the deprived in the interiors that they have ignored till now but the missionaries have not. Why political parties.

Why political parties? Because they are the ones who want the votes. Other citizens should pay their taxes, vote for the right guys and not break the law. And ‘Live and let live.’

Let each Hindu who is agitated at the state of affairs do his/her bit rather than washing hands off by saying that dalits should convert to get rid of discrimination.

Or maybe wash our hands by saying Bajrang Dal got provoked into killing them? We should decide what is good for them? WHEN ARE WE GOING TO ACCEPT THAT WE ARE NOT THEIR GODS, they have rights. Their lives, they decide.

No comments on my suggestion that we reconvert them to Brahmans to free them from at least some discrimination?

That cowardice and apathy is not going to help them.

Apathy is when you let them be killed and burned. Cowardice is when you are so worried about the survival of your own religion that you are ready to let them be terrorised into reconverting. Do you realise your apathy is creating a Frankenstein in Bajrang Dal? Once they are powerful with semi literate hoodlums following them they will take more issues in their arrogant and violent, fundamentalists’ hands, I went through the link you sent, and they intend to stop girls from marrying outside religion next! Is this India or Saudi Arabia?

They have talked against girls wearing jeans and using mobile phones. They object to Valentine Day celebration. There is so much that needs to be done, you want us to waste our time dealing with these BJP created goons? You want to make them powerful?

Mayawati is a dalit. Kanshi Ram was a dalit Sikh. They have done it. Other dalits can and will do it too.

We can count them on our finger tips. I can’t believe in this era we are still fighting for equal right for all. I thought freedom and equal rights came with the independence.

The answer is in their standing up and fighting for their rights.

With us insisting they remain subservient to us, as lower castes? Do as we say or get killed by Bajrang Dal?

And in that fight, let people like us help those who need to be helped.

Are we helping them by insisting Bajrang Dal got provoked into violence against innocent families?

That is more difficult than shouting in TV studios or writing on the net, like you and I and others are doing, without having even the foggiest idea of what exactly is happening where it is.

Accepting that there is a wrong is the first, very important step. THIS DISCUSSION MIGHT MAKE YOU SEE THE HYPOCRISY INSIDE US when we assume a right to discuss if they should convert or not and their killers should be stopped or not. Are they living for us, is the purpose of their lives to keep our religion thriving? All this, when that religion does not, will not ever give them equal status.

All said an done, it is heartening to read the divergent and frank views of all those who have commented on this post.

It was very heartening to see not one of them made excuses for Bajrang Dal’s violence.

This effort of yours is one of many steps needed for exorcising Hindu religion of its ghosts and goons!

I hope I made you think, if only for a moment, that perhaps we are being selfish in deciding what they should do to keep our religion alive : )

Edited to add: If only we could see that our religion is becoming, "ME."

We never learn...

So upper caste Hindus from North India think Raj Thakre is wrong, but Bajrang Dal is right (Right it is no doubt).
Maharashtrian Hindus think Bajrang Dal is wrong, but Shiv Sena and MNS are saving Marathi culture by ....
Modi supporting Hindus think it is acceptable that Modi never expressed regret over post Godhra riots.

Can anybody add more to this list?
Most of us don't think beyond our own interests.
And now Maharshtra Navnirman Sena has started rioting and arson.

And both my kids are at school.

Asked later : SHOULDN'T ANY PARTY/ORGANISATION/GROUP THAT CAUSES VIOLENCE AND ARSON BE BANNED?

A Dog's Heart.

Four years ago, a dog loving friend asked if I could come with her to look for a lost, emaciated Labrador she saw during her morning walk. We drove all over, looking near dhabas and housing societies. We whistled in vacant plots. We asked slum dwellers, who confirmed such a dog was noticed being chased by stray dogs and looking for food in the garbage dump, but we couldn't find him anywhere.

That determined friend found him next morning, a filthy, stinking, lice, flies, fleas and ticks infested white stray dog. He did not look like a Lab. His paws and many cuts bled. We locked him in my balcony, away from our dog and cat.

My maid Sangeeta thought he was lucky that he was being fed 'for doing nothing', he ate fifteen large chapattis, every morning, and fifteen every evening, and although I paid her extra, she grudged him these 'free meals' as she called them. “Anybody will be happy if you make them sit and eat, like this!”

I wasn't sure if he even was a 'lost' dog, until I took my dog's leash out, one look at the leash, and he transformed into a an excited, smiling, trotting, hopping, galloping bundle of foul smelling bones. He knew a leash meant 'a walk'. He had been walked before! He was somebody’s lost dog!

We had to find his family. We put advertisements in the local newspapers. No response.

Husband was away during all this, and when he came back, he gave him his first bath and we took him to our vet and got him his shots including anti rabies. Sangeeta watched all this with open dislike.

Husband introduced him to our dog and cat, and he was brought inside the house. The dog was stronger by now. His ribs had disappeared, he had turned golden from white, he ate much lesser, and he showed unlimited affection. We had discovered he recognized and loved bones, balls, leash and his own, new food and water bowls. He knew how to shake hands.

We wanted to know his name, and called him, Bozo, Zaza, Tommy, Blackie, Goldie, Dumbo, Dopey, Rocky, Vicky, Cheekoo, Ruffles, Leo, Kalu, Moti, Tiger.... endlessly, he responded to all with thump of a delighted tail.

He was like a lost baby. How many times I wished he could speak. He could have told us how he got the large gash on his right side! He barked ferociously at people with headgear and he hated all watchmen. He was terrified of sticks. And we made wild guesses why.

When I bent to pick a ball to throw for him to catch, the first time, he tucked his tail and cringed. How long was he on the road to have learnt the meaning of someone bending to pick a stone to throw at him? Sangeeta said it was good to be an adopted, greedy stray dog; you got to ‘eat for nothing’. One day, I asked her if she thought, we should let him go, now that we had found him, just like that, to live the same life. “He would have died, a kutte ki maut" (He would have died a dog’s death). She said, she knew maggots love open wounds on the forehead and near the tail, because the dog can't reach there to clean it by licking. Somebody near her house had fed rat poison to a dog with a maggot ridden wound on his head, out of pity, to save him a dog’s death. “No, he will not survive outside.”

Then Husband had to go out for a week. That evening the dog looked unwell. I wasn't pleased because I did not like the idea of taking him to a vet on my own. The dog refused his favorite treats, ate no food, just lay morosely all day. By next morning I thought he was going to die, he was not eating at all. Sangeeta asked if we had noticed he hadn't eaten since yesterday morning and said she would bring some chicken broth from her house (we are vegetarians) and the way we fed him was no way to feed a dog, couldn't we see the obvious, he was missing 'saab'?

He hardly knew him, how could he miss him? But she brought chicken and the dog refused it, and she said, teary eyed, "Even my children will not be ready to die like this for me. He has a human heart." I wanted to say he doesn't have a human heart; he has a dog's heart.

PS: Husband came back earlier than planned; the dog still eats only when Husband is around, though we are trying hard to make him get used to his frequent absences, we have had to call the vet many times.

The dog's fourth Re-BIRTHday was on 7th of this month.

So How Old Are You?

I turned seventeen the year my kids learnt to ask, 'How many years are you?'
They were instructed not to discuss such important personal matters with 'others'.

Once in a birthday party Tina, Reena and Meena's kids were discussing how old their mothers were. 'Mine is seventeen.'
'Mine is seventeen also!' said Tina's seven year old.
My six year old son was not too surprised, 'All our moms are seventeen. '
We moms were watching and it remains a joke till today.

When she was eight, and I still seventeen, once Daughter came from the park looking very angry. Almost in tears.
'My friends don't believe me! They were laughing at me, they don't believe that you are seventeen.'

Uh oh.

"You are not supposed to discuss my age with your friends."

'Momma I didn't want to tell, but X said his sister is seventeen so I said my mom is also seventeen. They did not believe me!'

So I humbly explain and apologize that since kids are likely to pass on the information sometimes mothers, don't lie, they just joke about such stuff, all my fault, and all. She is NOT interested in apologies, all she wants to know is "Then what is your real age?"

So I tell her and she makes a 'mother-die-promise' to keep the secret to herself, not even to tell her little brother, but I did tell him I was not seventeen and they must not discuss mother's ages and daddy's wages with friends, because it is rude and bad manners etc. They understood.

Several years later, when I could no longer attempt to pass off as 17, I was at a stall at a Christmas Carnival. This precocious young brat, a friend's child, had devised some Harry Potter quiz and game, I answered all the questions correctly and am the proud winner of a Merit Certificate. He fills in the name and address and then looks up "Aunty how old are you?"
"Do you have to write that?"
"Yes."
"Okay, normally I write seventeen. Will that do?"
"No."
"I am the same age your mom, right? So how old does that make me?"

With a gleam in his eyes and a suppressed smile, he fills in the age, covering what he is writing with the other hand.
I remember his Mom announcing her age in a party. She is a kindred spirit.
He hands me the certificate, and I am twenty one in it. The same age as his Mom.

This is something we can do.

WE THE READERS….

This article came like a breath of fresh, unpolluted air after all the voices of hatred we have been hearing everywhere.

If you like it please let DNA and Ranjona Banerji know here. Why should you bother? Well, we all know they just want to sell their Newspaper? So here’s our chance to let them & their advertisers know that we the readers prefer to read about tolerance, peace and sanity. Let’s make a difference when we can.

History is not an excuse for carnage

Ranjona Banerji

Monday, October 13, 2008 22:23 IST

Hinduism is whatever Praveen Togadia or some random illiterate says

It is true that Mahmood of Ghazni arrived in India and went through the land with sword and fire. He also raided the Somnath Temple many times. There. I said it. The only problem is that Ghazni died in 1030 AD. This does not affect me personally, so it is not that kind of a problem. The problem is that I find myself unable to understand the logic that connects his excesses to explain why it is somehow okay for Muslims to be burnt to death in Andhra Pradesh in 2008.

And so, now, I feel the wrath of the “majority community” or the Hindutva brigade, in other words. “Do you have the guts to write about Muslims being terrorists?” All right, here you are: There are Muslims who are terrorists and terrorists who are Muslim.
Could you please now tell me the logic that connects some Muslims being terrorists to a family of six Muslims being burnt to death in Bhainsa, Adilabad district, Andhra Pradesh? The fight in Bhainsa was something to do with Dassera versus Eid celebrations. Now I get it.

When Hindus and Muslims collide, the Muslims get burnt to death because Mahmood of Ghazni ransacked Somnath several times between 1024 to 1026, because Muslims in pre-Independent India partitioned the country and because Kashmiri pandits were driven out of Kashmir by militancy — also by Muslims. And I’m supposed to believe that all this justifies, in no uncertain terms, that 2000 Muslims were brutally killed in Gujarat in 2002? Oh, now I know what I’m going to hear: who threw the first stone? If Godhra had not happened and the rest of the Hindutva rant. Well, how about this? What happened in Godhra is not clear, the recent report of the Nanavati commission notwithstanding. Worse, how do the deaths of 59 people — horrible though they were — justify large-scale rioting and the deaths of 2000 people who had nothing to do with the Godhra attack? And even stranger, why did the Hindutva parties, so ready to stand up and fight when their cock-eyed version of Hinduism is attacked, do nothing to help the victims of the Godhra attack? Why did the father of some of the victims of S6 of the Sabarmati Express come out and attack the Narendra Modi government for its
indifference?

No, we’re not allowed to talk about all that. We’re not allowed to talk about the recent brutal and disgusting attacks on Christians and Muslims by Hindutva mobs, because by doing so, we are being anti-Hindu. This insult is so bad, that we must, to avoid it, ignore all the atrocities done by the Sangh Parivar. That way, we become good Hindus, even if we have never read the Bhagvad Gita or believe in karma or the transmigration of souls. All that stuff is not Hinduism. Hinduism is whatever Praveen Togadia or some random illiterate says at any point in time. Hindus, incidentally, according to this Hindutva theory, only believe in Hindutva and only feel disgusted when Hindus die. However, they do not feel so bad when lower caste Hindus die and that is why there were no Hindutva-led riots when members of the Bhotmange family of Khailanji were massacred. They were Dalits. Hindutva does not know what to do with Dalits.

The question which Hindutva does not answer is what about those of us — regardless of our faiths or the faiths we were born into or the faiths we may have acquired ourselves — who object to what is going on because we are Indians, who owe allegiance to the Republic of India first? Or those of us who think killing is wrong, regardless of whether it is by Hindus or Muslims or Christians or anybody? Indians who do not narrowly limit our definition of ourselves to instructions from a political party? Indians who are willing to discuss our faults and limitations and not mistake that discussion for one more assault by Mahmood of Ghazni (dead since 1030)?

George Santayana said that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. What could you say to those who distort their history or never understood it in the first place?

Email: b_ranjona@dnaindia.net

BLOG ACTION DAY:Poverty

I once taught a bunch of smart, precocious girls in Delhi. They were welcome to walk in and out of the 'class', anytime between 11 am and 1 pm, depending on when they were free from their work as domestic helpers. Eager learners, most of them would have been bright scholars, but were destined to do dishes in middle class homes. A fate no different from their mothers. I spoke to their mothers about letting them give class tenth exam privately, but their mothers were helpless, the girls were needed for working at home and outside.

The groups of barefoot girls in school uniform asking for lift to school, don't know about the above experience, so they have no idea how the sight of their cheerful blue ribbons and clean, faded uniforms fills me with delight. I always stop and let them in. They can never imagine what joy it gives me to ask them if they know 'Sare jahan se achcha', knowing full well they do. They almost never know what 'mazhab naheen sikhata aapas mein bair rakhna' means, and I always make sure I tell them. I should have been a teacher! They all have been trained to say they wish to grow up and ‘become doctors’. Even an optimist like me knows that is extremely unlikely to happen. But I am happy they are not scrubbing greasy dishes at least.

Most have working mothers, alcoholic fathers, cricket loving brothers and second hand colour televisions. Some have DVD players, cell phones and Mixer Grinders in their houses which leak in monsoons. They all want to learn to speak in English. They don't think about their future.

They don’t live good lives but I am glad when they grow older they will have memories that the other girls will not. True our schools are the wost possible, missing teachers, corporal punishment, students running errands for the teachers... I know all that. BUT STILL.

These girls aren’t any richer than the one’s I attempted to teach in Delhi, but their parents realise that they must go to school.

They will work for a living, but not as poorly paid maid servants, their children will study higher than them. The girls who never go to school have no hope of a better future for their children, these girls do.

Even the unluckiest of them will, at the least, work as well-paid, well fed, House Keepers, they will answer phone calls, heat baby food in microwave, write daily 'hisaab' and they will have Post Office accounts and earn better salaries than the ones who never went to school. I have seen many attend computer classes, work as sales girls in shopping malls, some work as assistants to Beauticians, some are proud SAHMs and help their kids with home work. Yes, I know this isn’t much, but when I tell them I demand some 'singing along', in return of the lift and they giggle confidently and tell me which songs they learnt in school ... I can’t help feeling hopeful.

A long forgotten song...

When she was fourteen and I fifteen my super dramatic Leo sister declared she wanted to hear Cliff Richard singing 'Outsider' in her last moments. I wasn't pleased because I wanted to make him my favorite, now she had chosen him to sing for her.

So we competed in 'getting to know him better'. I found out (without Google), that he was born in Lucknow, India. He was half Indian (later we learnt he was not proud of being half Indian and were most disappointed) and born on 14th October, which means today is his birthday :)



Cliff Richard is better known for The Young Ones, Congratulations, Summer Holiday, Evergreen Tree and Theme for a Dream ('Har pal' from Lage Raho Munna Bhai is on this tune).

One song I am not able to find in Lime Wire, Cool Toad.com or You Tube is 'Disillusioned Fool' by Roger Whittaker. Where do I look? Looked everywhere, all I found are these lyrics ...

Disillusioned Fool
by Roger Whittaker

1) Raindrops are falling from my windows
Teardrops are falling from my eyes
Memories come creeping through the shadows of my mind
Thoughts of love and thoughts of all those lies you told me

2) I think of the time when we were children
Hand in hand we'd wander home from school
But those times are lost and gone forever
Leaving me the disillusioned fool

Chorus

I'm a disillusioned fool for loving you
You're locked up in my mind
No matter how I try or where I go, or what I do
Just when I think I've met someone
the past is over-finished-done!

3) I remember the things we used to do, together
I remember calling you my own
I remember kissing you and holding your hand
Now I'm remembering alone

Repeat 1) with last 3 lines as follows:

Indistinct impressions of a girl I used to know
Games & swings & funny things we did so long ago
I remember kissing you and holding your hand
Now I'm remembering alone

So here's another one by Roger Whittaker. I wonder if anybody still listen to these ... I love them :)

Ten Answeres To Fight A Ravana

Answer ten questions marked with *

Well, so why not let all Hindus choose their caste. Wasn't that how it originally started? We've all read in school about how the system of castes in Hinduism evolved. Nehru discussed this in Discovery of India. Originally, we were not born into our castes, we were Kshatriya, Vaishya, Brahman or Shudra, depending on the vocations we chose. Our children did not inherit our castes, they were free to choose what they did with their lives. We were truly democratic and liberal.

Somehow we allowed the system to become so rigid that some of our fellow Hindus, who should have been equal in every way, were exploited, enslaved, cheated, humiliated and abused. We don’t want them to worship Christ, but we won’t let enter our temples.Even today many of us will not touch them, many will not share a meal with them, most of us genuinely believe in our superiority over them, and will never marry amongst them, but, we don’t want them to turn away! Our logic being ‘Even Christians have castes’. Well, they obviously feel more wanted there. We have no business to burn them for converting. If somebody robbed you and burnt your house and your family, what would you call them?* If they did this in the name of religion does it become acceptable then?* Shouldn’t any such gangs be stopped immediately? Can we kill, rape, rob and burn people alive in the name of religion?*

If Christian Missionaries can woo them, why can't we?* We can win them back with respect, equality, dignity and love. Not with gau-mootra !

Those who convert to Christianity/Buddhism are obviously unhappy with their birth-caste. Reconverting them to the same caste serves no purpose. So, all reconverts should be converted to Brahmans. As of now, VHP and bajrang dal are making them drink cow's urine and reconverting them back to dalits. Is this going to make them love Hinduism? Shouldn't these gangs, hijacking Hindusim, be banned?*

What if they still wish to convert to Christianity?* I think then we must accept that we cannot stop them, who we pray to is not something anybody can dictate. Today in DNA, R Jagannathan talked about how many times he has converted, and I realised many of us have done the same thing. I became a staunch Krishna Fan as a child, after reading Mira Bai's story in Amar Chitra Katha. Today I think I'd fall in the category of a Liberal, Agnostic Hindu. What's your religion in your Face book profile? (or otherwise)*

And should we say the same logic should also entitle economically backward Upper caste Hindus the option to convert to dalits. Allow no lower caste Hindu unearned handicaps or privileges. In fact, VHP will serve the Hindu Nation much better by converting upper-caste Hindus to Dalits so they can avail of reservations available to the dalits, 'Ambedkars' or Chamaars, or Chandals. How many will exchange places? Unthinkable!? Why is it so bad to even think of converting to a dalit caste?*

Just imagine if just being yourself, if just being born to your parents and your caste was an insult! If your name or caste was a slur or an insult, how would you feel? *Students protesting reservations were singing on traffic jams (seen on TV) and what were they singing?

'Ramchandra kah gaye Siya se, aisa kalyuga ayega, hans chugega dana tinka, Kauwa moti khayega.’ [Ramchandra told Sita that in kalyuga the deserving white swan will eat ordinary grain and the lowly black crow will eat Pearls (of reservation)]

Either you live your entire life in humiliation or you reject the cause of this humiliation.
I know what I would have done. I would have converted with family and friends and escaped, no rejected, such indignity. Were you in their place would you have chosen low caste Hinduism over Christianity/Buddhism, with or without any perks?* Put yourself in their position. What would you have done?

People who quote Gandhi when they talk against conversions forget Gandhi was dead against castiesm and very much for equality and reservation.

EDITED TO ADD Read why MadMomma is glad her ancestors converted to Christianity, here. And read why Ajit thinks that 'The culture that we have inherited is also just 61 years old', here.

Buy now?

9 36 am Oct 8th 2008: Udayan Mukherji is advising us to sell our furniture to buy stocks now and then don't look at the screen for two years...want to take that advise? Will we regret not taking/taking his advise?

Last time I took Udayan's advise and bought some more Reliance Capital, was when markets had come down to 17000. Sensex closed at 11695 yesterday, and a gap down opening is expected.
I remember when Congress came to power in May 2004, the Sensex had crashed and there was this one person buying stocks dirt cheap, when everybody else was selling. Nobody thought that was a time to buy.

May 17, 2004: Sensex dropped by 565 points, its third biggest fall ever, to close at 4,505. With the NDA out of power and the Left parties, part of the UPA coalition government, flexing their muscle, the Sensex witnessed its second-biggest intra-day fall of 842 points, twice attracting suspension of trading.

He must, even in this market, be a rich man today :)

My Take : Wait & Watch. What do you think?

...did you see the market today?

A friend called this evening, "Oh My God IHM! How much further will it fall?"

Last year this time I was sitting with my mobile and calculating how much richer we were, calling my dad every hour. He was insisting I immediately sell everything.
My sister said diamonds were a better investment, but I knew Reliance Infrastructure was my biggest diamond.
I had considered playing safe and selling half, but was flying with the $tock price$, singing, "Who wants a loan? I am rich!"

There were all the warnings but we were singing, like these two:
'You fill up my Sensex, like a Reliance net worth, like a sinking Air Deccan, Stock Market's insane... '






Husband and the Broker repeated, "Sell. Put the profit in fixed deposit, reinvest the capital when the market comes down."
"How down?"
"16000."
Nobody wanted to think, it would fall lower than that :)

I stayed invested, deciding to wait and watch...

Is it any consolation that if I had sold then, I would have reinvested at somewhere between, 17000 to 15000, and seen a very red portfolio now?
Isn't it better to stay invested in a portfolio bought at around 10,000-11,000, then reinvest profits at 16,000?
I have stopped peeping into the portfolio, every hour, to check how much poorer, from then, I have made us.
Do you think there is any hope of us ever singing this song again? And when? The Sensex closed at 11695 today.

And if Veerdas in the video above made you want to hear the beautiful Annie's Song...

A Conversation

Son just got back from school.
IHM: So how was your day?
Son: Hm.
IHM: Good?
Son: Hm.
IHM:Did you hear the thunder today?
Son: Hmm?
There was loud thunder today, loud enough to frighten the cat into hiding under the comforter, where he later fell asleep. The dogs had barked restlessly maybe they worried it was Diwali time again. Well, nobody could have missed such a racket, so I asked,
IHM: Where were you when that thunder was heard?
Son: In school.
I laugh, Yeah I know, but where in school?
Son: In class.
Sees me amused,
Son: Oh! In the library.
IHM:Then what happened?
Son: It rained.

Obsessions & Confessions!

Nimmy and Sue tagged me to list my addictions and quirks. Quirks and Addictions are, I think, just habits gone out of control :)
Here are some of the addictions I am constantly battling against, and some of these have been accepted as quirks.

1.) Chili in food.

For other chili-addicts here is a recipe of my red hot favorite Dynamite Chutney:
Green chillies, quantity depending on your tolerance level; one fresh coconut; a large bunch of green coriander; garlic one pod; juice of two-three fresh limes; cumin powder; salt.
Grind to a tongue clicking, eyes watering paste and enjoy.

Note: Too much chili irritates the stomach lining. Use minimum chili.

2.) The Internet, and paraphernalia that makes it easy to use. It's a life support system.

3.)Any new interest or gadget becomes an obsession. A new piece of furniture. A new book on astrology. A new cell phone.
When a new washing machine came, all the curtains, kitchen napkins, dusters, woolens, cushion covers, dog towels, comforter covers were washed at various settings. Some clothes were deodorized, others were air washed, others taken straight to the wardrobe from the machine.
Everything and everybody looked squeaky clean for months :)

4.) An obsession to record everything on film. The camera stays in the bag where ever we go. An extreme example is I had to take Daughter for a class the day after the Ahmedabad blast and I was worried. Finally I checked the camera battery was fully charged, just in case...at least the camera would have some record of what happened. Sounds morbid? Such are our times!

5.) Can't wake up fresh without a cup of tea.

I have to pass this tag to eight people, and I pass it to Aaarti , Kislay, Unmana, Mavin, Aneela, phoenixritu and Chirag and Vinod Sharma.
SMALL PRINT : Tags are not compulsory, feel free to ignore if you don't wish to do one. But tags are also a fun & easy way to know more about your blogging friends:)

No, not a Dry Day...

In 'Lage Raho Munnabhai', Munna Bhai and Circuit want to be famous for following Gandhi's ideals and they are dreaming of roads and holidays in their names, but they don't want a Dry Day in their name. Later, the ease with which Munna Bhai gives up drinking for the girl he loved, can only happen in Bollywood movies. In real life it's not possible to give up addictions so easily.



I had not given Gandhi and Alcoholism much thought until I saw a maid servant's swollen face. There's a law that makes this battering a crime, but no law prevents her husband from getting criminally sozzled. In today's India, buying liquor is easy - just up to walk to the neighborhood vendor/bar/shop/haath batti.
He is not just ruining his own health (which is his own business), not just abusing his family, (does not provide for them, beats them etc.) but he is also a criminal or criminal-in-the-making, he would do anything illegal or legal to get his daily dose. Once drunk he is a threat to civilized society. But no law prevents him from getting drunk.
Alcohol addiction is as bad, and as ruinous as drug addiction: This guy's days begin when he wakes up around 11 am, and starts looking for money for the next dose, he eats little, remains unhappy and snappy, his children may go to bed hungry, but he really is beyond all help. Once he stole somebody's brass knocker to buy daru and was caught and beaten. He and thousands more like him, would sell anything that can be sold, in some cases this includes their girl-children. Most of the time the children are taken out of school and sent to work, often far away from home. He has to have his daily dose. We have seen Bollywood villains selling their long suffering wives' mangalsutra to buy desi liquor - much worse happens in real life.

Gandhi traveled all over the interiors of India and made the same discovery many years ago, but today, even a movie based on his teachings does not seem to realise the seriousness of alcohol abuse.

This violent, abusive, even dangerous man is ill and needs help. He should be next on Ramadoss's agenda.