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.

Harrison’s Hinduism Vs Muthalik’s

I have been obsessed with Hinduism since my tenth grade, a time when I started reading Dostoevsky and Krishnamurti and started questioning my own religious beliefs. And then I had the good fortune of spending time with some great scholars who enriched my grounding in Hinduism and I turned into a christian who believes and tries to live by Hindu Philosophy.

It’s been over a year now since I got addicted to The Beatles. While many of my metal-head friends dismiss them as a bunch of sissies who wrote nothing but love songs, what they fail to see and fail to realize is that it was Beatles who wrote and performed the first heavy metal song – Helter Skelter. While most of the songs Beatles performed were written by McCartney and Lennon, I for some unknown reason have a strange leaning towards the lesser known George Harrison.

This Post was supposed to be written on the 25th of February,   George’s birth anniversary but due to some unavoidable reasons I had to postpone it to today.

Nevertheless, for those of you who haven’t been infected yet by The Beatles mania I suggest you watch this Movie called “Across The Universe”. Unlike the kind of songs that rule the billboards today, bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and others looked at music as an outlet to their dilemmas, observing life like philosophers and commenting on the same and therefore every song had a interpretation often deep, be it Stairway to Heaven by Led Zep, Mother by Pink Floyd or I am the Walrus by Beatles. And it was perhaps for this reason that Beatles fans across the globe where divided when it came to “Across the Universe” while some liked it others trashed it as the worst tribute to The Beatles. Nevertheless, after the movie, Beatles were never the same and now quoting my own example I can say with full confidence that even the greatest of metal heads who’ve seen the movie would have a newfound respect for the Beatles and their music.

George Harrison was someone who was obsessed with Hinduism and as a part of his religious efforts he organized the legendary Concert for Bangladesh, on 1st August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Organized for the relief of refugees from East Pakistan (now independent Bangladesh) after the 1970 Bhola cyclone and during the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities and Bangladesh Liberation War, the event was the first benefit concert of this magnitude in world history. It featured an all-star supergroup of performers that included Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and Ringo Starr.

While the the likes of Harrison embraced a peaceful form of Hinduism we in India started embracing a rather militant form of Hinduism, led by savarkar and gang.

First it was the demolition of the Babri Masjid, then the Gujarat Riots, Sethusamundram Project and most recently the Manglore pub attacks.

At this point I am reminded of a proverb, “Empty vessel sounds much”. Half baked knowledge is always dangerous and that is what I believe is the problem with these Hindu fanatics, of course coupled with socio-economic injustices.

Hinduism unlike Christianity is not a violent religion in fact it is NOT a religion. Hinduism is a philosophy, a way of life and the Hindu scriptures lay down the rules for this philosophy. To claim that Hindu epics are true to the core, that Ram existed, that ausuras existed is nothing but sheer stupidity – we’re already witnessing the result of the asura interpretation, the strong anti aryan, dravidian movement in the south. Hindu epics are nothing more than Aesop’s Fables for the mature.

Hinduism does not preach violence, it does not preach hatred rather it preaches tolerance, acceptance and love.

Now if I were to respond to why Hindu fanatics should not react to the threat they face from other religions in the form of religious conversions I’d say it is because of their own created system that there is a threat, people like cows prefer greener pastures, and if some religion helps them get over the atrocious caste system they’ve lived and suffered under for centuries, they’d embrace that than live like the dust off the Deva’s feet.

The world has changed a lot from what we is in our villages, India has moved from its villages to cities. And to bring the centuries old morals of our villages to cities is criminal.

Women, for God’s sake, are as human as men and it isn’t illegitimate for them to ask for their share of freedom and you are no one to deny them that. Celebrating valentine’s day is not a crime! public display of love is not a crime, if it is start by demolishing temples that have images of nude apsaras and dieties, start by demolishing the lingam in a yoni that represents Shiva!

What the Fuck is wrong with those freaks, they have no clue what their fucking religion is and they”re out there to impose upon us some assumed sense of morality that they claim existed for centuries!

Although ignorance in one reason another major reason which many people have failed to see is the socio economic disparity that exists between the rich and the poor.

Morality is a social construct of the middle class. With globalization and booming economy, the middle class became the upper middle class and the divide between the rich and the poor increased. Now the rich have across the globe have more or less the same kind of morality and then you have the poor who have been victims of the middle class morality that has been imposed upon them and made believe as the ultimate truth. And it is this class, a class that has been for years crushed and bullied that is revolting.

Academic outlook of our ruling class hasn’t ensured that macroeconomic gains trickle to the bottom of the society. The likes of Muthalik and Thackery do not have a strong following in the locales of South Delhi or Malabar Hills or Banjara Hills, they have a following in the poorest and the often neglected quarters of Dharavi and JJ colonies.

Each one of us here is at blame for the rise of likes of Muthalik and Thackery.

They are our creations who’ve turned against us. Just like Taliban – a creation of the US.

Damn I am going bonkers. I need my pills.

At this point I leave you with a beautiful song written by Harrison called “Here comes the sun”, performed at the Concert for Bangladesh in the year 1971