The Year was 2011
My opinion from my side of the "table"


In my understanding, one's opinion on certain things is very dynamic by nature.  When someone says that they have a very strong opinion about/against someone or something, I believe they lack perspective.  Its very conservative to have an opinion without being on the other side.  A strong opinion remains strong till you are on your side of the court.  When the tables are turned, ends are changed, and you found yourself in the unknown territory, your opinion starts changing.  But the problem is that the possibility of one being on the both sides of table are very rare.  So here is my opinion on some of the interesting developments in past year from my side of the table.

PART I

First and the most dearest to any "Indian" heart "Cricket".  By the time summer was over, everyone was praising England for their grand victory on India in test and one days.  Everywhere you read, it was all about how good English team is, how they deserve to be world champions, and so on.  The scenario changed when India beat England 4-0 in the home games.  This time around, all the critics who praised English team started talking about how India is "ONLY" better playing at home, and not very good playing away games.  So when India lost to England in England, it was because English team is better team, but when they won at home games, it because they had home advantage??  Well, what about the home advantage England "chaps" had while playing at home?? What about they also loosing "all" their away games, while winning only home games with India??

Capital punishment:  Few months back there was video which surfaced about a father hitting his daughter, followed by famous "Tiger Mom", and finally couple weeks back there was news about "Wolf Dad".  All this immediately followed by heavy discussion on whether capital punishment should be banned, if it is good or bad.  Now I agree that "extreme" case of child abuse is not tolerable at all.  But there is a huge difference between "child abuse" and "punishment".  The problem with "capital punishment" these "Westerners" think is that it affects child's mental health. My first reaction to all this was "come on, are you guys kidding me, are you so sissy, that you cant even manage some punishment?, bull shit".  I grew up in the environment where punishment in the school was very common, the heck, those of you who knows me from school days know that I was part of every punishment possible, but I turned out all right.  I had no mental issues, I am as screwed up as I was born.  Punishment did not affected my mental health, if at all anything it made my schooling most amazing days of my life.  I remembered incidence from short story "Chitale Master" by P.L.Deshpande.   The author writes how teacher was strict, and how his parents trusted his teacher than him.  At times, if the author was punished by teacher, he is to get more punishment from his parents.

The most over-hyped pregnancy of the year:  I dont understand the media attraction and attention given to the whole "First Family" of bollywood.  I have no two minds about Amitabh Bachchan being one of the most accomplished and popular actor of century.  But at the same time, I have no doubts about Abhishek Bachchan being the best "worse actor" and most "over hyped" person in bollywood.  Having said that, I did not understand all the fuss about Aishwarya's pregnancy.  The most ridiculous part was that people were suggesting names, I am pretty sure by this time there will be a site dedicated to what will be the name of "baby B".  If not at least a dedicated facebook page be surely there.


To be continued....

In CAPITALIST era,
War is just an annual turnover

In 2001, United States started war on Afghanistan followed by war on Iraq.  These decade long wars (which are still going on according to US) are a living (or killing) proof of how "history repeats itself".  And sometimes faster than you can imagine.

US for long has a habit of making bad friends.  Friends who will keep the US industries (mainly weapons manufacturers and US Armed Forces) running smoothly.  Friend who will claim to help US in their "so called fight for freedom" (in past it used to be "fight against communism" now its "fight against terrorism") and eventually will stab US in back with the very knife bought from US.  I remember a stand up comedian talking about how "burning of US flags" in Afghanistan and Iraq is helping US economy.  More flags burned equals more demand equals more money to the manufacturers.  But flags is just a tip of iceberg, from weapons for soldiers to food for soldiers the US companies are making profit from every war fought.  And if US is directly not involved in the war, they are still providing weapons, sometimes to the both parties in the war.  For the capitalist country like US, in the capitalist ear, this is the best equation to rise above and beyond everything.  But as usual there is a catch 22 to everything.  What goes around, comes around, and hence history repeats itself.

There have been plenty of articles on rise and fall of the infamous man of the 20th century Mr. Osama Bin Laden.  All the articles point out to one and only one thing, the rise (and fall) of OBL was strategised, trained, and funded by US mainly CIA.  The purpose was to demolish the influence of Russians (a prominent communist country at that time) from Afghanistan.  The strategy worked wonderfully for US for several years, till they tried over controlling the Taliban, and moreover Taliban realized that they have more support and assumed that they have more fire power to take matters in their own hand.  The hate against westerns grew more and more over the years and suddenly they were in war against US.  Using the very weapons provided by US.  But US wanted new friends to fight against OBL and Taliban, and in came "Pakistan".  Pakistan needed money and mainly new improved weapons against India and US needed someone to buy their weapons.  It was a perfect match.  It was perfect match untill US realized that Pakistan is worse than OBL and Taliban.  They are not only pretending to help US in their was against terrorism, they are supporting their enemy with the very money and weapons US is providing them.  US realized that a long time back, but thought that they will be able to curb Pakistan to maintain the support on US side as against Taliban side.  They were wrong, they were wrong in first place to assume that Pakistan is one country, secondly they were wrong in assuming that Pakistan is just supporting Taliban by giving them refuge and giving the weapons.  In reality, Pakistan is divided into two parts, the country run by a democratic government as we know, and the military which has completely different rules, regulation, and agenda from the country.  This fact even though well known, US never acknowledged it and now it is coming back to bite them.  Hopefully this time, they take a right decision.

MR. RAHUL GANDHI
The over-hyped youth icon which can make or break "Future of India"

Few months back, there was a mass mail doing rounds of internet, the mail compared Mr. Kejriwal (Anna team) to Mr. Rahul Gandhi. Although the original mail composer, did justice to prove how Mr. Kejriwal truly (??) represent the youth of India when compared to Mr. Rahul Gandhi, it failed to account for the most important characteristic of the equation, the surname "Gandhi". Before I proceed with writing down my thoughts about Mr. Rahul Gandhi, I want to make 2 things clear. First, I have nothing against Congress party or I do not belong to a certain party. Second, my opinions about Mr. Gandhi are oblivious of the current status of Congress party, which may or may not reflect the popular opinion.

To start with, I am not a political critique, nor a avid blogger, or do not claim to know anything and everything about Indian politics.  But, an article by Soutik Biswas called "Waiting for Rahul Gandhi" inspired me. Half way through the article it felt like making of "Sarkar Raj: Part 3".  When Rahul Gandhi first came in limelight in around 2007, I was really impressed by him (again keeping away Congress from him just as a person).  That was the time when young politicians like Rahul Gandhi, Raj Thakaray, Milind Deora etc were coming up.  I was really impressed by his attitude, and first time thought, this is the guy, who has the right combination of charisma, talent (??), wit, and political backing to do something great one day.  When he was criticized for lack experience, he decided to take a step back and started working from behind the curtain, his election to the general secretary of Congress made him de-facto second in line for the Congress president throne.  But what followed was a series of debacles and amateur mistakes; he stayed out of action too long, he made couple of futile attempts to gain popularity by what I can stunts (sleeping at someones place, fighting for some farmers) none of which actually gave him what he was looking for, acceptance by rural India that he is one of the "son of land".  In short, all his efforts in past 5 years to establish himself as a successful politician (on his own) has failed     miserably.  His decisions in past few years have made me realize that the wit, charisma, and talent, I thought he had 5 years back were nothing but the "Gandhi" surname after him, on his own he is still not ready to take charge of the country.  But, going back to my point in the first paragraph, he has something which no one in India has, Gandhi after his surname.  Unfortunately, if congress happens to win in 2014 elections, there is a strong possibility that Rahul Gandhi will be named the Prime Minister.  The only upside to this is, he is young, as compared to some of the oldies, he might realize that he can come to power on the Gandhi name, but he will have to work really hard to stay in power.

I know, one might not agree with me on this, but "Future of India" is not in the hands of youth, it is not in the hands of Mr. Anna Hazare, and its definitely not in the hands of Mr. Arun Kejriwal, but it is in facts in the hands of "Mr. Rahul Gandhi".  If either of Anna Hazare of Kejriwal come in the politics, they loose the very foundation of the their support "non politically driven activists", and people will treat them no better than any other politician.  Youth on India, well, it will take a strong, bloody revolution like Egypt or Libya for youth of India to take control the "Future of India", in mean time, Mr. Rahul "Gandhi" will have to carry the burden of the "Future of India".  If he lives up to the expectations in the next few years and actually grows as a seasoned youth leader before assuming the post of Prime Minister he can make a big difference.