Rightists Never Represent Legitmate Grievances

Chetan Bhagat's op-ed, To Maharashtra With Love, reflects the attitude of passive approval without which parties like MNS cannot possibly thrive.

The argument that the MNS has, in a manner, come to represent legitimate grievances of a section of Maharashtrian population doesn't really hold much water. For one, Maharashtra does house a large number of poor but then one should not forget that India as a whole houses a third of the world's poor.

Salaam-Namaste...And Moving On

Is Vande Mataram un-Islamic ? When @bdutt tweeted asking for inputs on the controversy i knew my reply had to be much beyond 140 characters, so here it goes...

Yes,technically it is un-Islamic,worshiping any entity other than GOD is un-Islamic as even the most deviant Muslim will tell you. And its not just the Muslims,every monotheistic creed would have problem accepting it. The SGPC for instance has taken a stand against it.¹ and so have many Christian groups.² In fact, almost all non-Hindus would have a problem with it if they are true to their creed, after all, as Rabindranath  Tagore said in his letter to Netaji -

"Of course Bankimchandra does show Durga to be inseparably united with Bengal in the end,(emphasis mine) but no Mussulman [Muslim], christians and Arya Samajis can be expected patriotically to worship the ten-handed deity as 'Swadesh' [the nation]. This year many of the special [Durga] Puja numbers of our magazines have quoted verses from Vande Mataram - proof that the editors take the song to be a hymn to Durga".3

Ashamed

This post is in response to my twitter-friend @Sanjana_S's blog post "Shame on you" -a very strongly opinionated piece on what she thought of  the most hienous crime- rape. While commenting on her blog i had the idea of adding a new post here and add the link as comment on here blog. I absolutely refuse to categorize rape as a mere sexual crime, it is something far more heinous than that, the ultimate brutalization and subjugation of the victim as well as her kins. Ever wondered why invading armies, rioters and marauders would do that? Wouldn't it be very difficult to derive sexual pleasure during the mayhem? Definitely, it has to be sumthing other than sex.

Primitive warrior tribes considered women the most prized possession, a symbol of masculinity. If you observe the habits of primates and gorillas,the strongest, meanest and most brutish male of the tribe gets to keep the best of women and largest share of food. The female is the symbol of the alpha male's domination, a reminder to less stronger tribe-members of who is in charge (aan baan shan :p)

Revisiting the History of the Internet In Realtime through Usenet Archives

Ever wanted to see how the Web evolved or are you nostalgic about Usenet ? i am ! More so because, when i found them i had very little to contribute and the older geeks were not polite, not at all! A single stupid statement would lead to flaming that could demotivate you for weeks.

But i loved it still, it was geek culture where you couldn't survive without knowledge, intellect and an ardent love for learning. It was here that the future map of the Web was laid but ironically as the Web evolved, its popularity decreased and after Google bought off two Usenet archive, it gave way to Google Groups  . The next generation of users hardly knew of their existence. Google never indexed the largest and most valuable user-generated content but now it says it is fixing a bug that would make it more searchable.

Masala Movies And Pluralistic Indian Society

This afternoon I was watching RDB on Star and the just deceased Prakash Mehra's Khoon Pasina on Sab. Its a common knowledge that RDB spawned entire generation of conscientious citizens who were unwilling to take injustice lying down. Candle-light vigils, protests and participation did influence the outcome of the high profile Jessica Lall and Priyadarshini Matoo murder cases.