Antulays are still in majority

And you thought Ms Barkha Dutt (Loony Tunes, Hindustan Times Saturday December 20, 2008) that Antulay is a self appointed savior while Javed Akhtar reflects the true voice of the community! An intelligent political party like congress knows whom to support to widen its base. This is a country where you can find many walking openly with 'I am ashamed that I am Hindu' when a structure gets demolished but can not find a single person confessing that he is ashamed of himself when hundreds of lives are taken by a few fanatics. This is what is meant by appeasement Ms Dutt and you understand it well but perhaps you think that your approach would affect a peaceful solution. Is it because you know that it is very easy to produce many suicide attackers by showing demolition of one single structure but only a few cowards can be misguided even after having the knowledge that hundreds of places of faith have been destroyed and thousands have been made refugee in their own country? It seems you know that why a fearful community never fears the police or the army and even the majority. Light was seen in the tunnel this time when the community appeared to be showing its willingness to become part of the mainstream. Many long pending prescriptions such as a gesture of not slaughtering caws on a holy day, raising unambiguous voices to crush terrorism and not observing the black December day were followed this time. I expected culmination of the rightist movement in India. But now it appears that it all happened because a terrorist was caught red-handed and there was no escape from this reality. The fact remains that unfortunately Antulays are still in majority.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi - a review

I saw Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi recently with my family. The story and its subject has a mass appeal and after a long time we have a film that can be prescribed for family viewing. Pure and devoted love scores over an expressive love for the girl. The triumph of old indian values on the modern liberal ideas has always been appreciated by indian mass. It was this which had appealed the mass in Shah Rukh's Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge where an innocent lover was shown to have given more importance to the approval of the girl's father than of the girl herself. This again is a dramatic love story which would appeal to all irrespective of mass or class and has a potential of becoming a genuine hit in terms of number of views ( and not in terms of the amount of money generated through overseas shows where lesser views end up giving a better revenue). The song Haule Haule resonates with the viewer's feelings and is used in a great way to leave a longlasting impression. The surprisingly pleasing climax of the film earns it a huge repeat value. Much talked about criticism that how a wife could not recognise her husband is a multiplex-class hangover and this has never been an issue for us as long as the story and the subject is treated as per our liking.

Change Your Life

(Published in BRUNCH on page 4 of Dec 14, 2008 issue)

Do you want to wait for another terror 'After The Terror' ?

I read the sweet dish presented by Seema Goswami (Dec 7, Brunch, ‘After the terror’) and was really disturbed. This is what makes me fear about India’s future. When would this page3 people be shaken out of their dream-drunken state? Brittain is a tough state and Israel is even tougher, they do not see a terrorist’s religion, they do not analyse the consequence of a terrorist’s execution, they do not free terrorists in exchange of hostages and they do not feed media about story of a lady terrorist’s links before eliminating the terrorist. They enjoy a tough life. They never compromise on security. They become tougher with each terror attack. Change your life before enjoying it again. Life is not about enjoying for the heck of it, it is about enjoying with pride and security. It is not about eating out, indulging in alcohol and enjoying dream parties at a five star hotel. Insure that there is no more death of innocent life and there are only martyrs fighting the terrorism. Let us all be prepared to become martyrs if required and enjoy finishing terrorism. Everything else would follow and continue.

Response to-Lipstick on his collar (Shobha De, HT, December 6)

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A class was shown its face
The response by Shobha De (Lipstick on his collar - December 6, Hindustan Times) insured that Naqvi's remarks did not go waste. The author probably symbolyses the class at which Naqvi aimed to hit upon. Naqvi aimed his remarks on a class which is cutoff from the common people, cares only about self and not even for a joint family; worries more about own figure and measurements than the health and thinks that by paying unavoidable tax all its responsibilities towards the society is over. This class, talk only of its demands and rights, remind others of their duties and try to ignore its own duties in this process as far as possible. This page3 lifestyle was hit at by the recent Mumbai attack at Taj. A lifestyle, which the majority of us want to have, few get a glimpse of it and only very few actually live in it. In her article, actually she describes the details of her self-centered lifestyle which reconfirms this perception about this elite class. The common people which comprise the mass and not the class sympathises neither with the class represented by Shobha and nor the class represented by Naqvi. Mass clapped when a politician was cornered for changing his clothes thrice during Delhi blasts and also enjoyed when a class was shown its face while they were protesting. Mass of India wants the government to ruthlessly crush the terrorism without bothering about human rights of the terrorists and the likes of Afzals and much before some other agency actually takes up this cause and multiplies the fronts to tackle for the government.

Sponsored reaction to the Mumbai Attack

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When you pointed out that a politician changed his clothes thrice each time he appeared on television during Delhi blasts, you think it was blown to its exact proportion… and when a politician noticed that a protester found time for lipstick and powder you feel agitated and find the comment condemnable! This is the power of media. Media can make an issue out of a non issue. We ignore the fact that while media went on screaming from the rooftop that everybody is sick of the political system and the politicians after the Mumbai attack, Delhi elections noticed a higher turnout just after the blast and a more than decent turnout was observed in Rajasthan elections many days after the incident too.

We were shown how some policemen were killed because they were not having good quality bulletproofs (politician’s do not think of their security). But the policemen and the commandos had to request the media to abstain from covering the attack live after when their live coverage inadvertently appeared to have helped the terrorists initially. More than often after a terrorist attack media starts spreading that the city moves on with the same intensity (as if nothing happened!!). This is to put a point forward that the terrorist would not succeed in dampening our spirit (The city moves on…. kind of slogan). In the case of Gujarat (where the state became sensitive after a gruesome terror-like attack, got disturbed and responded by engaging itself in some unacceptable and unjust incidents) the same media tries to remind us of that forgettable incident time and again. Fortunately despite all their negative efforts, Gujarat has actually moved much ahead. We have seen Maya’s rise, Mulayam’s show and Modi’s triumphs despite all that was portrayed by the media. It is clear that media works on agenda. Media is unfortunately in the hands of those miniscule, page three kind of Indian intellects who get disturbed only when they see threat on to their own lifestyle. This page three kind of lifestyle that hardly bothers about the problems of the common majority, ignores all attacks on Godhra, Swami of Orissa, Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai train blasts. They never bother about others till you allow them to do whatever they want to do (in the name of freedom of expression and their human rights!!). Unfortunately for them, this Mumbai attack was on these selfish-lifestyled elite group also. That is why this time they are disturbed and want a response from people. But again they have already decided and fixed the kind of response that we are allowed to show. This time they do not want us to move ahead with the city life as if nothing had happened. Instead they want us to spill our anger against all politicians across the party line (so that the impact is less on the current government and negligible on the 'person' who is the sole in-charge of the government but very cleverly has not accepted a position in the government). Where the rest of India saw Pakistani’s behind the attack, suspected local support for that and wanted a change in the attitude of the current Government, this set of intellectual started finding faults in the statements of the opposition leaders. They are praising the army and NSG only to divert our attention (Barkha Datta has done many stories to prove that army's presence is the cause of terrorism in Kashmir). Praising army and the policemen and questioning the entire political system should have ideally lead their arguments in favour of a military rule but they are consciously avoiding this because a military rule goes against their lifestyle.

Conclusion

On 27th November 2008 Hindustan Times had a front page space for a JNU professor’s statement and a chart that tried to establish that actually terrorism is not an issue for the voters of Delhi assembly. Unfortunately at that moment our country was fighting the biggest terror attack which did not find a space because probably media went to sleep earlier than the attack surfaced in Mumbai. Our media and the central government thought that by coining the term ‘Hindu terrorism’ they have finished the issue of terrorism. In fact media along with the government is now actually unable to face their failure in establishing equivalence between two colours of terrorism. A real terrorist attack established the true colour of terrorism. One, where Kasab emphasizes that he has no regrets and thinks that he would be awarded with Jannat and the other where a number of narco-analysis tests have not been able to unfold a mystery. She now knows from inside that she might have earned approval from a vast majority for the way she reacted on terrorism on her own but would go to hell if she has done that at all. Media and the government were so busy on their agenda of proving the existence of the ‘other’ terrorism that many clues and vital intelligence intercepts of the true terrorism went unattended. God save this country from these media persons and this set of politicians for whom even a Mumbai attack is insufficient to make them realize the difference between terrorism and its reaction (in the prolonged absence of any action by the government). They also might have understood now that why terrorism (irrespective of their colour) should be ruthlessly crushed, why it should not get the media coverage and why cricket can not be entirely separated from politics.

Scientific versus Spiritual approach

(published in the college magazine Phyzion of 2008 issue)

We think that human beings are probably the only creature on earth that is trying to unfold the mystery of life and universe. We know two ways to unfold this great puzzle. One approach is categorised as scientific while the other is known as spiritual. Both these ways claim to have the capability to understand the mystery.

Scientific approach

Science shows us the way to get to the truth in a scientific manner. It tries to answer ‘what’, ‘who’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ related queries. Science chooses the path of research and experimentation. It tries to evolve the approach by keeping all options open at any given point of time. It allows questions on itself also. The approach uses the past experiences to light up the way ahead.
Believes and assumptions keep on changing with new experimental results and fresh theoretical analysis. Let us inspect the following statements given at different times. Following few examples demonstrate how things keep on changing with time in science.

• Earth is at the centre of the solar system; no, sun is the centre of our solar system; actually sun is also revolving; no, all motions are relative; in fact one can not talk of an absolute rest frame or of a moving frame in an absolute sense.
• Matter and energy of an isolated system are conserved separately; no, actually mass and energy are equivalent and we can talk only of mass-energy combined conservation.
• There is no limit to the velocity; no, velocity can never cross the velocity of light.
• Matter and waves are different and light consists of particles; no, it is a wave; no, it is both.
• Temperature of a substance is due to the presence of calorie in it; no, there is nothing like calorie and heat is a form of energy.
• There is ether medium and light uses it for propagation; no, it does not exist and light does not require any medium for traveling.
• We can determine the position and momentum of a particle exactly; no, we can not do that.
• We can predict things to any accuracy; no, we can only talk in terms of probabilities and uncertainties.
  

Can we say for sure that whatever we know now owing to our scientific knowledge would not get negated or modified in future?

Spiritual approach

On the other hand, spiritual approach claims to reach the truth directly. Spiritual approach arrives at the conclusions without mentioning the method to arrive at those. Ayurveda never discuss the method by which it was established that a particular herb would cure a disease. The author of Ayurveda appears to have reached to the conclusion without any documented research. Yoga is yet another such example. Hymns of Gita are also in the form of conclusions. Koran, Bible and such holy books are claimed to have originated from a source whose authority and knowledge can not be put to test. Buddha got answers to all his questions as soon he acquired Nirvana. The only way to progress on this path is to develop complete faith and then follow what has been told to, without questioning.
Science rejects this approach out rightly. Science does not allow us to follow something without questioning; to rely on a theory without experimenting; or to accept a result without research.

Discussion

But let us put the basic question first. Is it possible to come to the conclusion without argument and discussion; to develop knowledge without experimentation; to preach without experiencing? Have you noticed that there are many creatures on earth that use some obscure method to attain knowledge? Isn’t it strange that a fish knows how to swim; a bird knows how to fly; a cub knows how to run and within a few hours of birth a calf knows how to stand up and walk on its feet? Astonishingly these creatures also know many herbs that help in the treatment of many of their common diseases. These creatures do not use any scientific method. They never use research or teaching for making others aware of the failures and the successes of earlier approaches. A medicine considered to be safe once may get declared harmful after some time. We have many such instances. However the cure mentioned in Ayurveda may be effective or ineffective sometimes but amazingly they more or less never harm.
It appears that some extra-scientific technique is adopted by some to acquire a mental state that knows the solution. Science at best calls it intuition. There were many who observed things similar to those observed by Newton, Einstein, Bhor and Chandrashekher like scientists. Only a few were in such a state of mind that could think of an approach to get to the solution. Science uses intuition but never rely on them. Science often tries to understand origin of such intuitions. Is it possible to understand origin of an intuition? Does spirituality help in acquiring a state that stimulates intuitions? Do creatures other than the human beings know the mystery of life and universe and that is why do not experiment? Do they know that the best way to live on earth is to live with nature without disturbing it? Is it possible to unfold the entire mystery by acquiring a state of mind that knows it? Can this approach be developed to get a correct intuition? Can we have science of intuitions?

Conclusion

Think of it and it can be realised that science can never claim to have reached the truth. It defines the path to reach the truth probably at the cost of the knowledge of the truth. On the other hand, if you believe in the spiritual approach you are termed as conservative and are understood to possess an unscientific temperament. To me this progressive approach smells unscientific. Spirituality may claim that science can never get to the truth. This is consistent with the spiritual way of thinking. However saying that spirituality is unscientific is actually an unscientific argument in itself.
I will like to conclude this discussion by inviting scientists to open up and assess other (extra-scientific) approach to the truth in a scientific manner. Science does not accept conclusions blindly but seems to have developed a blind faith in its approach.

Women can not become Men

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Shahrukh Khan would not mind if mobbed, embraced, drooled over and kissed by young girls, Koena Mitra lodges an FIR if one of her fans holds her by her waist.

Akshay Kumar would willingly allow a young girl to give him a bear-wild hug, Mallika will ask a man that has he taken permission from his wife before coming to dance with her.

A male singer gets excited as he accepts a kiss on his cheek by his female co-singer but the female singer cries foul when the male goes a step further and gave it back on her lips. She did not get excited and tried to go a step further.

A young Indian Idol male competitor is excited and blushed when a young girl came up on the stage and kissed her all of a sudden, an incident other way round would have caused havoc. The boy would have been placed behind bars.

Why? Are men not equal?

If men enjoy adam-teasing then why can’t women enjoy eve-teasing? If men can enjoy a sex forced on him why can’t women enjoy the same? Come on if you want to become men, if you want to party late night like men, if you want to drink and go out of control like men, if you want to attract opposite sex like men, then like men do not complain and rather enjoy like men. Do not expect men to behave like women just because you have started behaving like men. Men enjoy and hence never complain. It is for this reason that men put efforts to invite attention of the opposite sex and try to attract them. Men would like the girls to go wild. Men feel and understand the meaning of getting physically hurt but can not understand the meaning of feeling sexually hurt.

To me it seems that problem arises for men who think that women have now become like men. They start behaving with a girl just as they would have liked the girl to behave with them. All biologically correct men would enjoy if they are subjected to any kind of sexual abuse (without getting physically hurt) by young wild girls. For them their fantasies would come true. They are mistaken by girls who do try to sexually attract men (like men) but complain (unlike men) when they go wild.

Just imagine if Mikka had gone to the police to complain just after getting kissed, if Indian Idol competitor had slapped the girl who kissed him, Shahrukh had lodged an FIR and Akshay with a group of grey-haired middle aged male friends had gone to sit on dharna at jantar mantar to lodge their protest on these incidents saying this world is of females and they consider males as mere sexual objects. Fact is they did not.

Awake! These are no issues for men, you would remain women till you are going to make these issues and try to make us behave like women.

Don’t complain. Don’t protest. Don’t seek women-like protection. Let there be nothing called eve-teasing just as there is nothing like adam-teasing. Let there be nothing defined as ‘rape’. A bad sexual behavior should be punished but it should be equated with an offence just as slapping or beating. If you can do this you possess an important ingredient to become men. If this is not possible for you then you must understand that you are better than males, and you should not downgrade yourself to become men.

In the best interest to the society please remain women. Never think of becoming men. Instead of trying to come down the standard to become men, take up the task to shake male’s conscience to lift them up from behaving men-like. If you do this you would get support by all whom you would like to correct because they know themselves better than you know them.