IPL Blues.

This is one time of the year when journalists are most busy – the transition from winters to summers. I am unaware of the reason but newsrooms overflow with news this time annually and most of the time editors are forced to make a hard decision about whether or not a news report ought to be shelved, whether or not a journalist’s intelligence ought to be undermined. The relationship between information inflow and public memory is best illustrated at such times – that there exists a direct proportion between the two;everyone’s forgotten Varun Gandhi the focus has now shifted to IPL, and for a change Congress is facing the heat.

Anyway. Everyone is going ga-ga over IPL being shifted out of the country, people are in mourning and political parties and politicians are trying to shift focus from the main issues and divert the attention of the public. Its a pity that Indians were forced to a situation where they had to choose between democracy and cricket. And its disgusting to see that Indians, in general, prefer cricket over democracy.

What I fail to understand is, that a private sports extravaganza be held in the country or outside the country, how does it matter? I mean do we create such a ruckus over where our politicians and actors celebrate their birthdays? Why doesn’t the general populate realize that BCCI does not represent India and that it has been evoking our emotions and fooling us all this while.

And what on earth is wrong with the losers in BJP? Why are they turning this into a political issue when it is not just the congress led states that are against holding matches before the elections? BJP’s poster boy in the south Mr Yedurappa clearly stated that providing security is impossible before the elections. BCCI authorities say that Maharastra’s and Andra Pradesh’s refusal to hold matches in the respective states is what has forced IPL to move out of the country despite the thrice revised schedule. Are these losers even aware of the problems in these states? I mean Andra Pradesh is a naxal hit state where booth capturing and kidnapping is a well known phenomenon during the polls and Maharastra in the wake of the recent Mumbai attacks is on a security high even otherwise. Don’t these bastards ever read the newspapers? That the fates were rescheduled is another joke that people are forced to believe the Ministry of Home Affairs wanted the dates to be shifted and what Mr Modi and his foolish cronies did was make a cosmetic change in the dates. Do they even know about the logistical issues that the government faces when it comes to mobilizing security?

The BJP claims Congress is admiting defeat at the hands of the terror organizations and that it ought to move ahead and hold these matches irrespective of the threats. Two things now – First, the subcontinent is the second most politically unstable and dangerous place in the world after the Middle East and security concerns raised by the Ministry of Home Affairs are genuine and second what is more important a bunch of fools running around a ball and a crowd of fools clapping hands at that absurd thing or Democracy and freedom – something that lets these fools do what they please and others to criticize them.

What all these fools are missing is the kind of money that is involved and the kind of profits the IPL organizers stand to make at the cost of these fools. Unofficial reports claim the profit involved is more than 10000million $ through merchandise, sponsorships, telecast rights and other such things. Mr Mallaya and Madam Ambani ought to respect this democracy, something that let them rise to such position instead of criticizing it and defaming and demeaning the democratic process.

Jaagore Bharat. Jaago

Shut Up And Vote

India is a Hindu Nation and no one can deny that – Mr Mohan Bhagwat made a brilliant start at his new job today as he took over the leadership of RSS. First day’s first utterance got him instant headlines. While many of you might be disgusted at that statement he made, I on my part totally agree with what he said – India is indeed a Hindu nation. There’s nothing wrong in what he said except that he failed to define what Hinduism is and who Hindus are. Hinduism is NOT a religion its a philosophy, a way of life and each one of us is a Hindu because we consciously or unconsciously have embraced this great culture and its way of life. This country belongs to us and not some uneducated fools who have no clue what they speak or stand for.

Its rather depressing to see that the world’s largest democracy happens to be the dirtiest, the least participatory and the most religiously polarized one. Like it ot not sixty years of freedom and democracy hasn’t ensured that none die of starvation and that none is exploited. More than half the country is illiterate, and an even greater percentage uneducated, Muscle and Money power still rules, Criminals still get elected, Clergy is still more or less in power and People are still not a part of the process, except once in five years.

Education I have always held is different from being literate. You might study at LSE or Oxford or SOAS or Yale and yet be uneducated, Varun Gandhi is the perfect example. All his foreign degrees failed to educate him, failed to stimulate his rationale and failed to pull him out of the bliss of ignorance he lives in. What he said reflects not just his point of view but that of an extremist organization that he is a part of. But then there’s nothing that we can do. Just like Muslim fundamentalism is legitimate in a Muslim dominated country so is Hindu Fundamentalism in a Hindu dominated country, and don’t you dare raise your fingers at them for the likes of Varun, Togadia, Modi and Advani would chop off your hands and label you as the enemy of the state and a communal force.

From times unknown religion has played a rather important role in polity and modern India is no exception, the only problem being that unlike in the US or Iran there are too many religions and all of them command power be it Hindus, Muslims or Christians. I mean take a look at the statement that Varun made after he landed in the controversy – I am a Hindu, a Gandhi and an Indian in the same measure. Note the use of language – A Hindu first, and then a Gandhi and after all that an Indian. His statement points out two important problems with Indian Polity, first there is widespread communalism and hatred being spread my mainstream political parties and second you cannot dream of joining politics or making it big unless you have a lineage to back on – a look at most young Indian MPs proves that.

Its not just the Hindus who spread hatred and polarize our communities, a look at the rather silent christian community shows how efficiently it has turned into a big political force in the south. Priests and Bishops shamelessly urge the communities to vote for a certain candidate, write letters to the centre to place candidate of their choice and come out strongly against people who oppose them or their tryst with politics to an extent where people descent to the streets.

Is this what our constitution calls secularism? Is this what our forefathers’ had envisioned? Who is to blame for all this? Savarkar? Muslim League and Jinnah? Bal Thackery? or Togadia?

Unfortunately the blame lies with Gandhi, the pre independence Indian National Congress and their vision for the country. Gandhi and INC’s excessive use of Hindu symbolism in the freedom struggle alienated the minorities and that led to the formation of Muslim League and other such religious political parties.

While on one side we have all this, a rather grim picture of the Indian Politics on the other side there is hope. For once educated people are joining politics, the latest in fray being Shashi Tharoor and Mallika Sarabhai. Not many have lost hopes. There is a new wave of optimism. People want their share of power and say in the governance. Jagore Campaign has done wonders. The ever complaining Indian youth is up in arms against the warlords of Indian Politics. They want to vote for a change. They want to be a part of the revolution.

The murky waters of Indian politics, it seems, would clear up for good soon. Or would it?

The fact is that most Indians are still uneducated they’d still be influenced by the clergy and muscle power. All these war cries for responsible voting can be heard only in our cities. Shut Up And Vote is written in English a language that more than 80% of the country cannot speak. Who are we fooling? India still is in its villages. If we want a change then that ought to start at the grassroot level.

Anyway Shut Up And Vote.

Cricket and Blood…

The subcontinent is shocked. A thin string that held this volatile place has finally  snapped.

Sri Lankan team had a near death experience when a bunch of fanatics open fired on them.

India so far has been critical and lashed out against Pakistan for not having done enough. Meanwhile Lalit Modi remains defiant – IPL will not be rescheduled, the home ministry cannot dictate terms.

My reactions?

I’m happy. Laughing my head off.

Although I condemn any form of violence, I cannot stop laughing. The Gods have been attacked! People who ruled the imagination of most individuals continue to do so except that their godly image has been shattered.

Terror organizations in the subcontinent have realized, for the first time, that a normal life, yours and mine, is not worth more than a insect’s;if the governments have to be made heard what is required is to target high profile individuals;which in one way is good, for we are safer than them, even after all the security they get.

While Pakistan slips into chaos, what most Indian media, on the first day, concentrated on was the horror of the cricketers being attacked, the fate of cricket in the subcontinent and more importantly the fate of world cup. Somewhere they forgot about the five police officials who got killed and the driver who drove the team to safety – after-all who wants to see poor and unglamorous people on screen. Media reiterating the fact that our lives are not worth the lives of some fools who run around a ball.

Meanwhile after the Home Ministry’s request to look into the possible rescheduling of dates of the IPL because of the upcoming elections and related security issues, Lalit Modi went on record to say that Centre was no one to dictate terms to BCCI. Vijay Mallya went to suggest that rescheduling IPL would hurt the sentiments of cricket fans across the globe;a poll conducted by NDTV says otherwise, people want the dates to be rescheduled. There are two things that the general public fails to see here, first, Team India does not represent India; it represents the interests and motives of a group of India’s elite who call themselves the Board of Cricket Control in India and have been fooling the likes of you for years now. The government of India, which in turn represents you and me, has no stakes in Team India or BCCI, therefore none of us here have any stake in Team India. Second thing that we fail to see is why BCCI is unwilling to change the IPL schedule – if we look at what BCCI has done at the government’s request, which is not hold games 48hrs around the election dates, what we find is that the BCCI stands to loose more than 250crore. How’s that?

Refugees in Darfur

While on one side you sat glued to your television screen, horrified about the death of cricket in the subcontinent on the other side there were likes of me, a bunch of useless freaks who celebrated, for more than a million people saw a ray of justice for the first time in more than 20 years . For those of you who do not know what I am speaking of, I do not blame you. The International community finally took notice of the atrocities being committed by a regime in a non descriptive and God forsaken place called Darfur, a place where millions have died and many more still die every moment in the name of ethnic cleansing.

Government Militia

The International Criminal Court at Hague has issued an arrest warrant against the president Omar al-Bashir of Sudan for war crimes and crime against humanity, in Darfur.

It’s a rather interesting form of war that is being fought in Darfur, primarily because of the means employed, the weapon being used by the Arab majority is no sophisticated weapon, nothing that resembles an AK 47 or its likes, the weapon deployed by the Arab majority is called RAPE. While men are murdered in the most brutal manner, women and children are raped.

Rape Victims

A rather strange weapon for something like genocide aint it? What harm can rape probably do?

Its a means of killing that can leave the most torture techniques ineffective. You don’t just experience the physical pain and disgust, that pain becomes your companion forever. You’re not just left with the physical pain and scars but also social ostracization. Both men and women look down upon you, reminding you every minute of the rest of your life the atrocity committed against you.

If I go by the UN and Amnesty International reports children as young as 5 years old have been victims of this barbaric act of violence. And for 20 years we kept our eyes closed and continue to do so. May be blacks aren’t as glamorous as the Jews.

I leave you with a song – Bangladesh by George Harrison. A song that I believe, has a universal appeal.

To Love Man…

Man is a savage they say, a beast. A beast which the society tames.

Growing up as a kid I was often labeled as a selfish kid, by my parents, my teachers and my peers, for I wouldn’t share my goodies with anyone – chocolates or toys or any other such thing. Gradually, I began to change, for God did not like selfish kids, or so I was told. I started sharing things with others, often with a heavy heart and afraid of the God hiding behind the clouds. But more than God what scared me was the rebuttal of the society, being labeled as selfish all over again and being sidelined.

I was, like many of you reading this, being tamed – to fit into the society – but for some strange reason, within the deepest quarters of my heart I, still was, the same old selfish beast and tried my best not to show my share of goodies to friends and family, lest I be forced to share.

College and grass helped me become the beast again, I dared to call myself one, I dared to call myself selfish and I still do. While the society regards selfishness as a vice, to me its a virtue, a virtue far greater than any other, for somewhere deep inside we are all selfish and we’re scared to accept the truth.

go go said the bird
reality is too much for human kind to bear

said TS Eliot in one of his poems. It actually is too much for us to bear and in the process we created the likes of God, with the kind of vision that’ll embarrass Superman!

We’ve created a perpetual machine against the very basic laws of thermodynamics!

In the process of loving God, being one with him we have forgotten what love means. How can a man love others if he doesn’t know what love is, for to love others he has to love himself first; but that he cannot do for loving himself would mean being selfish and selfish people cannot love others. What kind of illogical beings have they turned us into? How can a man make a music if he knows not what it is?

To be selfish is not a crime, it is the first step in finding yourself, reclaiming your life, a life that you’ll live but once for no one knows what lies beyond and all that we claim to know is based on our imagination!

It is when you become selfish, when you experience yourself, when you see the beauty of the beast within you that you’ll become a man, not otherwise, for unless you see the beauty and the ugliness within you you will not be able humble yourself and experience the beauty elsewhere.

Selfishness taught me the joy of sharing, the joy of being friendly and at the same time being rude, the joy of being able to laugh at myself and above all the joy of loving people and forgiving them.

When I say all this, you’d assume this is all rhetoric, what the fuck is he saying? he has no clue!

Well, for once I know I am not stoned, and that I am in perfect senses and that I make perfect sense. To be able to be a man, a human, you need to be selfish. All the love for god will not reform you, it’ll make you worse. I see it everyday, church going people, cursing each other behind their backs.

Had the good fortune of spending a day at a Leprosy Care Centre here in Hyderabad and I must say it was an experience of a lifetime, for I realized that the social outcasts are at times the most love-able and loving people. Want to spend some more time there. What surprised me was the manner in which the people who accompanied me reacted, a bunch of church going god loving sheep. Their attitude not just disgusted me rather reinforced my belief that loving a non existent god is worse than killing a man.

Where has all this Godliness brought us? People are up in arms against each other, be it Hindu Fanatics in India, Muslim Fanatics in Pakistan, Jewish Fanatics in the Middle East or Christian Fanatics elsewhere. Religion and Gods have left us with nothing but misery, they have divided our hearts and filled us with hatred.

Dostoevsky was right when he said that Roman Catholicism is worse than atheism infact any organized religion is worse than atheism.

The need of the hour is not to seek the non existent god within us but to seek the human within us.

The need of the hour is to make a new man of us, to transform ourselves into humans and not some brainless sheep herded by an unknown and unseen shepherd and to work towards a new world order devoid of these forces that divide us and spread nothing but hatred.

At this point I leave you with an iconic song of the last century by John Lennon – Imagine. Lyrics can be found here.

Pax Vobiscum.