The start

I started at 4 am in the morning from home to airport, reached Infosys campus in Mysore at 4 pm. There was a special TED desk set up at Bangalore Airport. I mean that’s just how big TED is, dedicated desk at an international airport. From Bangalore they had arranged for frequent shuttle service to Mysore. So all of us were in a Volvo bus with a police escort navigating through Bangalore traffic. It was weird to some of us, annoying to some other of us. And then there were some like me who were too busy sleeping all the way.

The Venue

The entrance of Infosys campus looks like a huge Victorian palace. Like really huge. And inside it looks like we are in a mini picture perfect world. The big UFO kind of building, which is like the signature of Infosys campus is called the Multiplex. You can see it from behind trees and buildings and you can tell its a bit of a walk within the campus from your hostel building to the conference area to the food area to the multiplex and so on.

Happy Diwali

Originally uploaded by samyukta_basu

Gone are the days of fire works and crackers on Diwali, gone are the days when we used to wake all night up to have the Kali puja’s maha bhog.

This year we didn’t even buy phuljharis. But we got lots of candles and diyas. And we lit the earthen diyas in the traditional way with oil.

Things have changed for all of us. Sister and I are too grown up for crackers, we don’t have the time to do all those shopping.

But still our Diwali was nice and simple and well lit.

Wish happy Diwali to all my readers.

Woke up to this absolutely shocking news, Stephen Gately of the famous Irish boyband Boyzone is dead. BBC reports,

Boyzone singer Stephen Gately has died suddenly at the age of 33 while on holiday in Majorca. Spanish police said there were no signs of suspicious circumstances, but the cause of death is not yet known.

Gately was on holiday with his long-term partner Andy Cowles. His bandmates said they were “completely devastated” and are now travelling to Majorca.

Boyzone manager Louis Walsh has pulled out of Sunday’s edition of ITV1’s X Factor in the wake of Gately’s death.

Looks like 2009 is going down in history as the year of shocking celebrity deaths and of all of them Stephen’s loss shocked me the most. Even though I wasn’t exactly a teenager in those days, but I have been obsessed with Boyzone, Ronan and Stephen in particular in the 90s. So many memories are right now flashing through my mind.

You wait for a whole month to tell the world about something you achieved, then on the D-day you login to your twitter account and see that there are about 50 odd congratulations sent your way for achieving that, even before you could announce it. You achieved something the world was looking out for. That is a great feeling.

In my case that thing was, TED India Fellowship. I am one of the 103 extraordinary individuals who joins the TED fellows program at the TED India 2009 conference to be held in Nov at the Infosys campus, Mysore, India.

The TEDIndia Fellows are a diverse group of men and women, representing not only India, Pakistan and Bangladesh but also Indonesia, Canada, Tajikistan, the United States, China, Nigeria and Oman. TEDIndia Fellows include engineers, environmental scientists and pollution experts, human-rights activists, musicians, athletes and filmmakers. (From the conference press release)

Something extraordinary happened which catapulted me into the bandwagon of some of the most classy, intelligent, creative and dedicated people in the world, a group I always thought I don’t belong to. As I looked through the list of my fellow TED fellows I felt  how insignificant my academic achievements are in comparison to them. I don’t have no foreign degrees or Phds, I didn’t go to Harvard, I am no IITian, IIMite or ISBite, I am no school topper, I never won a medal or a trophy for academics. I graduated out of ordinary school and college with medium grades.

The time has come for me to leave the city that has given me some of the best days of my life, Bangalore. Where am I going? Same place where I came from, the big bad yet annoyingly perfect capital city, New Delhi. A city which is known to be dil walon ki (of people with heart) yet where people are rude and foul mouthed, a city with big wide roads, relatively smooth traffic making it unsafe for women who dare to go out in the nights, a city where people either don’t care about you, or they care only enough to judge you, a city about which I can write a thousand bad things, I am going back to that city after spending two and half wonderful years in Bangalore.

(Good Bye Delhi, my last post as a Delhi Blogger two years back in Feb 2007)

My relocation from Delhi to Bangalore was a signpost moment in my life, and each day that I spent here were milestone sort. Life was at an all time high ever since I stepped in Bangalore, suddenly a door of fun, fame and friends had opened and I was overwhelmed with all that came my way. My being a part of the Barcamp organizers, my starting the Bangalore Bloggers group, the many Barcamps and other events that followed that year, the young and fun techies of Bangalore, the free and footloose lifestyle, the travel, the adventure, the smoking, drinking, men, sex, romance I did it all.

My sister is a complete opposite of who I am, she is more like dad and I am more like mom and since mom and dad have nothing in common sis and I were bound to be different. She belongs to this ‘old is gold’ school of thought, like those conservatives who think everything new, particularly in the field of technology, is a conspiracy to spoil the nation’s youth, those who whine over emails and are often lost in cheerful nostalgia about those beautiful days of hand written letters and pink envelopes carried by pigeons. (Good thing is she doesn’t think too highly of blogs either so chances are she wouldn’t be reading this)

So sometime back she had put this youtube video (which she thought was funny, I didn’t and I am writing this post to tell you why) on her facebook profile and asked me to see. [Link to the video]

I told you she belongs to the old school. So the video was a terrible take on Twitter. It said Twitter is for people who are self centered exhibitionist who only want to flaunt their extra ordinary life style. That, on Twitter people think they are talking but they are actually are not talking because no body is listening, that even though you think you are keeping in touch with your friends and telling them what you are doing all the time, truth is those on Twitter have no friends.

He said, “I am ready for love now, even an old fat ugly face will do, I just want to love.” She was not listening. Rather matter of factly she extended her muddy hand and said, “Give me a hand please, the stairs are too steep my height is short, body is fat and knees are weak.” He held her hand, pulled her up and they kissed.

This is actually from the archives, published on this blog as two different posts sometime in Aug’05. I am making them into one piece of, something I call a fusion between prose and poetry, a propestry.

Yesterday she dreamt she had finally found him. He lived in Mars and she in Venus…he had always seen her over the stars…she had always known him over the galaxies. One day she heard a knock on her doors. There was standing an angel, carrying a message from him to her, a message that was lightened up by the glitz of those million star studded galaxies it crossed before reaching her. It had the smell of the flowers that blossomed in his heart when he wrote it…it carried the smile that was there on his lips and the glow that he had in his eyes. She lost herself in that one splendid moment when she took the envelope in her hand…she wanted to sing a song, she wanted to write a poem, she wanted to take a rocket and fly to his planet.

It was ‘to be continued,’ “something nice is going to happen tomorrow,” she thought.

But when tomorrow came reality it her and she wished her life had stopped at yesterday. So she sang,

Let there be no sequel
Life is so much better
if there was no tomorrow,
If there was no after and no before,
If life could be just that
The moment she was living
her heart pounding,
pulse rating higher,
thinking “could this be him?”
Dreaming of her dream again,
hoping “this is him”

Tomorrow, there is no dream
Tomorrow she is suspicious and apprehensive,
Tomorrow is truth, she knows bitter;
Future was never faithful to her present.

Let there be no sequel

You did everything, you said.
“Got you the moon and the stars;
Diamonds and the pearls.”

Yeah and you even wrote me songs.
I even wrote you songs!

You did everything, you said.
“Took you to Paris and Rome,
holy Ganges and the great wall.”

Yeah and you even made me laugh.
I even made you laugh!
 
I am so cruel, you said,
“What more do you want,” you asked
when I said, “something is missing.”
And you said I broke your heart,
When I left before you woke up.

Now driving down I feel, it’s a bit funny
All you had to do was love.

This particular survey done by Tata Consultancy Services shows that  “The Web 2.0 Generation are digital natives, with high technology savvy, global in terms of aspirations and outlook as well as being increasingly optimistic about India’s economic future.” The survey is one of the largest conducted amongst youth in India covering 14000 students from schools across 12 Urban cities.

Some of the highlights of the survey:

63% of urban students spend over an hour online daily

93% are aware of social networking

Orkut and Facebook are most popular online destinations

46% use online sources to access news; TV, Newspaper users at 25%

62% have a personal computer at home

1 in 4 students own lap-tops in metros; 2 of 3 own music players

IT and engineering remain overwhelming popular career choices

Media & Entertainment, Travel and Tourism are emerging careers

USA, UK top list of international destinations for higher studies

The results make me very happy and give me new ideas for the Blogging Outreach Project. When I got inspired to do the blogging outreach 3 years back the new media scene was lot different, now a lot of things have changed. Most importantly internet has entered many more urban houses in the last few years.

Today, so many children are being well versed with new media, tomorrow they can use the medium of blogs, photo/audio blogs to spread information at a far greater speed than it is traveling now. Information is still not traveling at the speed in which it should, and is still restricted to a certain class / group of people. The real India, the villages are still not on the global map.

Each village needs a blogging center which would be manned by an army of citizen journalists, who would gather information and publish it directly to the world wide web, so that information reaches in real time to the largest audience without bias.

So much work to do.

Read more about the survey here.

I am watching the final episode of Rakhi Ka Swayamvar. Blogging it live and also tweeting. At the end of it I would mention why I loved this only reality show so much. As of now just the live reporting via tv of Rakhi Ka Swayamvar. (Read in reverse order from 11 to 1 and then read 12th onwards, sorry about the confusion)

Below is my twitter stream.

1. watching the final episode of Rakhi’s Swayamvar, two brothers of Rakhi, Ravi and Ram are grilling th 3 grooms
2. I watched t whole series for sole reason tht its an empowering matrimonial process 4 a woman, she is th ultimate decision maker.
3. I took it as a show and just a show, i never thought is rakhi’s wedding, but I appreciate th messages it gave out.
4. Even on mehendi, somone said, “Rakhi dont forget ur freinds like most women do after their wedding. Rakhi promised she wont forget, neither friends nor her work.
5. Today’s episode is being Live telecast from Hotel Leela Kempenski in Mumbai btw.
6. Rakhi is posting live comments on her facebook stauts update from the venue.
7. Oh dear lord, she IS indeed looking stunning..
8. correction in my prev tweet, rakhi isnt posting live comments, somebody on RKS page is doing it, that too isn’t live anymore. sorry 4 misinfo6 minutes ago from web
9. @b50 I am with Manas, they wud make a more fun couple. But i suspect there’s a huge twist in th waiting, somthing to do with money.3 minutes ago from web in reply to b50
10. Usually in these kind of reality shows there is always somthing to do with money, that wud be th big shocker in RKS
11. The grooms are being given one final chance to speak their heart to Rakhi. Whatever they have in their mind.
    
12. Manas’s mom can hardly speak she is getting so emotional.
    
13. Rakhi says I know everybody is admiring me, more my jewelery than me and laughs. She always have to tell the truth.
14. Looking at my twitter timeline, people who so vehemently dismissed the show earlier are all talking about it today. So who is the winner eh?
15. Rashmi on twitter had to switch of TV for daughter’s school in morning but then she couldn’t resist the temptation to catch the show, so switched it back.
16. She just tweeted this “@rashmibansal Decided we can run for school bus tom. Switched TV back on.. :) 5 minutes ago from web
17. I love the energy around the show. @b50 is the other person as excited as me, he too is live tweeting.
18. @rashmibansal Yay way to go…i love the energy around this show, rakhi is a winner all the way :D @b50 8 minutes ago from web in reply to rashmibansal
19. Sometime i feel Elesh is too good to be true, sometimes marrying these NRIs cud be a risky bet. #rks7 minutes ago from web
20. Rakhi is saying prayers for jesus
    
21. Rakhi and 3 of her friends, singing a prayer for jesus. She is a believer of Jesus
22. everybody in the hall requested to stand up, varmala is being carried, rakhi says varmala is small.
23. Rakhi says final words to the boys,all of you are my fav, i am really sorry if I cause heartbreak by not chosing one of you.
24. Time has stopped on rakhi ka swayamvar
25. rakhi is walking towards the boys wiath the varmala in hand..
    
26. she just passed all of them without chosing anybody
    
27. and now walking back stopping at each one of them, and again she didn’t pick anybody, says i hav decided to do swayamvar part 2, laughs
28. And its Elesh… he gets the varmala
29. Whoa..common guess..Elesh..thats it? Really? there is more i think. @b50 ?
    
30. wow. this is good even though i was suspecting twist, i wudnt have been happy to see it. this is good simple honest. Congrats @rakhisawnat
    
31. @rakhisawant good choice rakhi, congratulations to you and elesh.. Love for both of you
32. Now, Rakhi has still not said I love you to elesh
33. Now is the time, she is saying her feelings now, after Elesh once again said ILU to her along with som grt romantic lines.
34. and she said it, “I love you too”
    
35. Ring ceremony now
    
36. Rakhi speaks to audience, “all those who came, all were good, but best was Elesh, he has all qualities to be my husband”
37. “today we are getting engaged, we can marry too, but we both would need som time so today is the engagemnet”
38. “We’d marry and we’d do it in front of you only” so is that the 2nd part that’s coming?
    
39. the ring dont fit elesh.. hands had to be changed, from right to left.
    
40. They’ve cut the cake..now taking aashirvad from people
    
41. Ram asked both of them what r their POA next, what about the 7 pheras.. rakhi sings in between something arbit, while elesh tries to talk
    
42. rakhi – well we hav seen each other only on camera, so we need more time to know in th real life, he only has seen me with makeup getup etc
    
43. rakhi is so funny, says, kal main without make up pahunch gayi unke saamne and yeh bole “who are you” she did elesh’s impression.
    
44. RT @b50 If there’s one guy who’s getting major gaand jalao now, it has to be Mika. Look who got the publicity in the end dude.
    
45. @rakhisawant Rakhi, you are the winner all th way. I am very happy for you. Today everybody is talking about you, you’ve won.
    
46. I can’t help smiling looking at my twitter time line, everybody is tweeting about her today. So try as u may, u cant’ ignore Rakhi Sawant
    
47. At the end Ram said, whenever they would plan to take the saat pheras NDTV Imagine would be there to bring it to us the audience.
    

—

Twitter was bustling with Rakhi tweets today, she is the winner all the way. #Rakhi became a trending topic at no.8. Just proved that try as you may you can’t ignore Rakhi Sawant. But as always there are many who are judgmental about Rakhi and this show. I hate such kind of pretentious hypocritical judgmental people. I have been constantly fighting with all these people who speak ill of Rakhi and I feel tired already. I can guess how she must feel living every day of her life with so many people hating her.

Why do people hate her so much? Because she is unapologetic about who she is, she holds her ground in her pride and is not ashamed of being the real self unlike most of us who are hiding behind our masks. She can’t ass lick, she is annoyingly honest. Some people even has a problem with her inability to speak in English. They make fun of her accent. How narrow are these people?

The ohter day I fought with all such people who made fun of her accent. It is a mean heartless thing to make fun of anybody for any reason specially for their accent. Every body has funny accent, the south Indians have the Punjabis have the Biharis have the french, the spaniards, they all have funny accent, its a shame to make fun of people’s accent.

We all come with our queerness in some way or the other, some can be seen and heard some can’t, so we must learn to love and respect people and not judge them for some silly thing they have.

But look at the twitter time line and you’ll see people making stupid jokes about Rakhi Sawant. Some one said, “does Elesh know what is he getting into?” I felt like asking that person, did your boyfriend/husband/friends know what they were getting into. I mean who do you think you are that you pass such comments against Rakhi.

I get so angry, Rakhi has gone enough of shit in this life, can we please give her some love now, accept her for what she is and be happy for her that she got the success she wanted.

All the best to you Rakhi for everything ahead.

I don’t know what bad ‘luck’ had befallen upon me last night that I went to see the latest release ‘Luck’. What bad karma did I do in my past life that in this life I was destined to go through such a disturbing movie? Never before in my entire life did I walk out of a cinema hall without finishing the movie. No matter how stupid a film has been I have seen it till the end but this film hurt my sensitivity as a human being so much that I couldn’t sit there anymore.

What kind of demented psychopathic sadist must have made such a film? The film was so disturbing from ethics and human rights point of view and so dumb and sloppy from cinema point of view, I don’t even have words to express. To put it in one line - a soul less mash up of crazy demented ideas conceived while smoking something funny.

The movie plot is about a betting industry set up by a guy called Mussa (played by Sanjay Dutt) which puts money on people’s death. I have seen many violent films but the insensitivity of such a concept was so disturbing it beats them all. Let me describe just one scene for you – So you have this one big hall where hundreds of people are betting on the players (various characters played by Shruti Hasan, Imran Khan, Ravi Kishen, Mithun Chakraborty etc.) like in a typical horse racing ground. On a big screen in that hall you have images of the players standing in a desert somewhere. A message flashed “Betting closed, Game begins.” The game is that all these players will have to jump off from a helicopter 2000 ft above a hilly terrain, each one is wearing a parachute but only 6 out of 9 parachutes are in working condition, the players don’t know who picked what. The people who’ve put their money on the players are watching anxiously on the big screen to find out who lives and who dies. Suddenly one of the player’s parachute fails and he crashes into a tree. His dead body is shown hanging from the tree on the big screen, camera moves and cash money is shown to move from hand to hand amongst the betters.

Meet Ahana aka Mishkah, the baby girl who came to this world this morning at 8.20 am who would call twitter rock stars @snigdha and @lighttripper as mom and dad, and @sanjukta as Sexy Maasi :P

She is a very special child for many reason, one of them being her birth was perhaps the first in India that was live tweeted :D

Below are the updates from my twitter time line from 3 am to 8.30 am on 25th July 09. (To be read in revers order)

1. So should i go ahead and claim it to be india’s first ever birth on twitter? Live tweeting of arrival of vinayak snigdha’s baby Mishkah about 2 hours ago from web  
2. @girishmallya yep at least first india.. will put up th transcript on my blog. #livetweet about 5 hours ago from web in reply to girishmallya  
3. @fossiloflife @Harishk @rahulrrao @SiddharthPatel @harinathpv @StrikeMeGyllen Thank you all. will convey your congrats to them about 5 hours ago from web in reply to fossiloflife  
4. So I was live tweeting the birth of snigdha vinayak’s baby girl since 3 am last night till 8.30 this morning…you guys saw? about 5 hours ago from web  
5. I am signing out now about 10 hours ago from mobile web  
6. Ok its a baby girl. Pls congratulate th proud parents @snigdha @lighttripper about 10 hours ago from mobile web  
7. Vinayak’s mom getting impatient, but i’ll respect their privacy, Its their special moment about 10 hours ago from mobile web  
8. They are yet to come out and tell us..boy or girl. Vince taking pics i can see flashes going about 10 hours ago from mobile web  
9. And the baby is here i can hear it still dont know boy or girl. about 10 hours ago from mobile web  
10. I can hear snigdha frm th labour room, she’s pushing.. Vinayak is also inside about 10 hours ago from mobile web  
11. miracle of birth. We don kno wat color it’d b, wat sex, wud’t have large eyes or small watever it is 2 ppl wud love it more than their lives about 11 hours ago from mobile web  
12. #Live tweeting birth of snigha vinayak’s baby from cradle nursing home about 11 hours ago from mobile web  
13. She’s been staying strong so far, waiting for dr.Anuradha now. Am sitting outside labour room about 11 hours ago from mobile web  
14. @Snigdha being taken to labour room, 7 cm dialated, baby shud come in couple of hours. Wish her luck. about 11 hours ago from mobile web  
15. Contractions are happening every two mins for 60 seconds, it’ll go on like this 4 anothr 4-5 hrs it seems. about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
16. And am talking about young men who live in delhi nt som villager about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
17. Am feeling sleepy, with me also at th nursing home is vince’s mom. about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
18. Till date thr r men who send there wives to parents 4 dlivery. Its like go away wid ur mess come bak wid t baby, t pain is urs baby mine about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
19. Am feeling sleepy, with me also at th nursing home is vince’s mom. about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
20. @satishkini ya true.. But its too much pain about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
21. They just gave her anema, that thing is put up ur ass to clear ur belly or smthing, she hates dat bt u gotta do wat t doc says about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
22. @fossiloflife could u get som sleep yet? When in cold lie on ur side instead of back, helps about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
23. For those who came late, am #live tweeting th #birth of @snigdha @lighttripper’s baby. about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
24. Now she’s asking for sm pain relief, am thinking why women take this upon them? Just go 4 adoption no? about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
25. Vince is telling her bout breathing tecnique they learnt at pre natal class, bt i don think she’s intrested about 14 hours ago from mobile web  
26. Hungry am i. @having a britannia good day about 15 hours ago from mobile web 
27. Sorry it should been 7 am in prev tweet about 15 hours ago from mobile web  
28. Next check up at 7 pm, its gonna be a long wait. Vinayak is timing th contractios am writing them dwn about 15 hours ago from mobile web  
29. Being made to change room as th AC of prev room wasn’t workin. Shudn’t they pre check these things? They charge so much. about 15 hours ago from mobile web  
30. We’ve reached cradle nursing home, @snigdha’s contraction started an hour ago about 15 hours ago from mobile web 
31. we are off to bed, it will take about 4 to 5 hours for snigdha to start having contraction, gonna be a long and exciting day tomorrow. :)about 19 hours ago from web  sitting with @snigdha and @lighttripper he is googling side effects of artificial labour pain induing..snigdha is about to do that about 19 hours ago from web
32. Sitting with @snigdha and @lighttripper he is googling side effects of artificial labour pain inducing..snigdha is about to do that about 19 hours ago from web

"I don't like this place, I was better inside"

Those who thought I was too crazy to have tweeted this  ’private’ event (some people on the comment thread below) read this and open up your mind. Twitter’s founder Ev William’s wife tweets about her delivery too.

Jango at his daily vigil

This morning we lost our dog Jango.

He was 11 and a half years old. He had never shown signs of old age until last Sunday when he refused to eat his meals.

This was the first time ever that he said no to any thing that was edible. He was the most hungry dog we’ve ever known. Naturally it worried us all. On Monday, my mom, dad and sister took him to the Vet. The Vet said, “he doesn’t have any ailment as such, just signs of old age, give him liquid food, he’ll be fine.”

But his conditioned worsened during the week. Meanwhile on Tuesday my sister and mom had to travel to Kolkata and other places which they wanted to cancel considering jango wasn’t well but the vet assured them that the situation wasn’t so serious. He also assured that I need not take a flight to Delhi immediately. He said he has enough time to live but of course he is getting old. So mom and sis went ahead with the travel plan leaving Dad to look after Jango. I am of course based out of a different city.

And here in Bangalore I came over to stay at Snigdha-Vinayak’s place for couple of days since the doctor said Snigdha might go into labour any time now. In case it happens in the night, Vince would drive there should be somebody to sit with her. The big news also came that their dogs Pondy and Alleppy are also gonna be parents, Alleppey is pregnant.

Pause for a while, take a moment, spend it in mourning for all that is dead, dying and will die. Death of the faith in justice system, of women’s rights, of the many helpless innocents killed at work or leisure…So many death and so many killers walking free.

—

All 6 accused in the Prof Sabharwal murder case were set free by a Nagpur Court today. The accused who were ABVP (students wing of BJP) activists had allegedly attacked and beaten Prof Sabharwal outside the Madhav College in Ujjain 3 years ago. [Source] The entire nation had watched the disturbing brutality, a wounded unconscious Prof, the “guru brahma guru vishnu guru devo maheshwara” being carried inside an ambulance. Broad day light 100s of on lookers. Yet they couldn’t find one witness to make a strong prosecution.

Today the Court noted the prosecution has failed to prove the charges and aquitted all the accused. So did no body kill him? Did Prof Sabharwal die a natural death? How will it feel if tomorrow the Court says “the prosecution has failed to prove the charges” and sets free Ajmal Kasab.

BJP is now seeing this as a moral victory. They were seen shouting slogans outside the Court today. On CNN IBN a BJP spokesperson said, “We always had faith in judiciary and that faith has been restored. Truth has won.”

 

They believe in every few ages every time the affairs of the world goes haywire God pays a visit to earth, its the same God who just comes in various different avatars. He came and wrote holy books, The Geeta, The Bible The Quran.

But not every time will he write holy books will he, in different ages need of the hour changes. So this one time he came and gave man kind, the Pop music.

Rest in Peace, Michael Jackson, you were that God sent who gave us pop music. Do come back again for this world wouldn’t be the same without you. Michael tried in vain to teach her moon walk and just gave up at her attempts. “Michael loved to laugh, MJ’s laugh was the sweetest and purest laugh I’ve ever known, he was very mischievous.”

—

Watching the Live telecast of the Memorial service from Staple Center.

Will you please vote for me?

Writing this in hurry, couldn’t have waited.

History have been created today in India, this morning Delhi High Court gave its judgment on the petition filed by Naz Foundation challenging the constitutionality of Section 377 of IPC which criminalizes all acts of oral and anal sex between individuals irrespective of age and consent.

High Court ruled in favour of the petition and said,

We declare that Section 377 IPC, insofar it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution. The provisions of Section 377 IPC will continue to govern non-consensual penile non-vaginal sex and penile non-vaginal sex involving minors. By ‘adult’ we mean everyone who is 18 years of age and above. A person below 18 would be presumed not to be able to consent to a sexual act.

Read the full judgment here.

The religious groups have already started reacting negatively. They say this is a sad day for civilised people. May their God help them.

The politicians are quiet, Law minister said he would react after reading the judgment.

The road ahead is still long, the next struggles would be about homosexuals couple’s property rights, adoption rights, marriage rights, domestic violence in intimate relations etc.

I have written more about this case earlier here.

A more detailed report in the making. Crossposted on Desicritics

Did anybody see a rainbow today on Bangalore sky? I did as we drove back from Town Hall, the place where the Bangalore Queer Pride Parade concluded and I thought how very symbolic.

Bangalore Queer Pride Parade, 09. Photo: Vinayak Das

Queer people in Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai and Bhubaneswar today celebrated their ‘being’ under a rainbow colored flag. Gays, lesbians, kothis, hijras, intersexs, transsexuals and straight people walked the streets in large numbers amidst busy traffic dancing, laughing giggling, posing for the numerous photographers…and mostly, being proud of whoever they were in their ‘weirdest’ state of being.

Girl boy were going through a break up. They promised they would never talk. This morning boy messaged girl, “MJ is no more.” She called him back and they shared the fond memories they had about MJ and his songs. How they danced to his tunes in school, how they bought blank cassettes and recorded the MJ songs for their friends on their birthday. MJ brought them together again.

Most people I know are calling their families to share the grief. On twitter most of us are sharing our most fond memory of the King of Pop. His death is like a global human tragedy.

I am shocked to say the least. The first thing I do in the morning is switch on the radio. Today when I switched it on they were playing Black or White. They have been playing at least 4-5 MJ songs all day all this month. It was a part of a contest. At the end of the day one caller who would be able to correctly identify all the MJ songs played during the day would be selected as finalist and at the end of the month long contest, one winner would be chosen amongst the finalist. The winner and a partner would be flown to London for Michael Jackson’s last ever concert. But not any more.

This weekend and another weekend this month or last month, the Saturday evening was spent at Snigdha-Vinayak’s place. I usually land up at their place for lunch and then hang around till dinner. Towards the evening we always go to the terrace and enjoy the breeze and do a lot of talking. Three of us are amazing talkers. There is not another soul besides my sister with who I can talk so much on so many varied topics as much as I can do with Snig and Vince.

Today when we were sitting on the terrace I had tweeted this to the universe, “am with @snigdha @lighttripper on their terrace. They are few meters away from me yet this I can only twitter, not say – I love you guys.” For emotional intimate communication twitter works for me, I can’t ever say I love you face to face.

‘Greetings from the land of the Sinful Kamasutra’ said Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil while opening the Euro pride 2008 at Stockholm. (Video) But who is he?

He was one of the few Indians to be invited to the Oprah Winfrey show, was one of the candidates for Time Magazine’s World Top 100 Most influential People list in 2007, have been quoted and interviewed by respected magazines and news dailies from all over the world; he is one of the most prominent face in LGBT rights activism and HIV awareness activity; he hosts an annual cultural festival at his palace for homosexual artists to celebrate their talent and their being, yet he is someone who is hardly talked about on Indian mainstream media. A convenient silence, deafness and blindness prevail on us when it comes to homosexuality – but not any more.

I wrote about Prince Manvendra Singh on this space exactly a year ago on my post ‘Its time to stand up and stand tall’ where I said “only when the number of people identifying themselves as queer is large enough and the faces known enough will the society realize it is not something so unnatural after all. And this responsibility lies with LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) people themselves to come out of their closet and be confident of their sexuality. It’s time to stand up and stand tall.”

And they did. In just one year the queer movement in India has grown by leaps and bounds. There are more popular culture celebrities who now openly support homosexuality, most vocal of them being Celina Jaitly who have called out for gay rights in India in her blog on Times of India. The last year or so saw movies like ‘Partner’, ‘Dostana’ which had both explicit and implicit homo-eroticism and gay rights advocacy. While our cinema and advertisement have always had depiction of male homosexuality albeit in a funny and derogatory manner, we have been terribly silent over female homosexuality. This also changed (very insignificantly) in the recent past, a certain Virgin Mobile TV commercial is the case in point, where a girl tells her father that she is not interested in going out with this boy from her class. The father gets all worried thinking she might turn out to be a lesbian and insisted she goes out with boys more.

 

So the other day Snigdha and I was killing time on Twitter when she came up with some of these really hilarious user instructions and cautionary statements. Here are some of the best ones. User instruction on a pack of tampons, “Not to be used for diarrhea;” on an iron carton, “Do not iron the clothes which is on your body;” On a pack of noodles, “Edible content inside, not to be used for knitting;” And this one is my favorite, on a pack of laxatives, “Please apply for casual leave before consumption.”

It all started when I picked up a pack of eggs from Spencer’s. Not just some ordinary eggs, they were ‘tan shell cage free near organic fresh’ eggs by Keggfarms Pvt. Ltd.

I found the pack very amusing so I read every bit of information that was there on it. On the front side besides the words ‘tan shell cage free near organic fresh’ it also read, ‘safe delicious bright yolks.’ On the back of the carton they had mentioned the diet of the hens that laid those eggs which basically contained “high quality maze, rice, derivatives, soya, sunflower, limestone, vitamins and other organic plant materials.”

Like I said in the previous post here I am back after the short hiatus. Over the last two months I have been neck deep in work. There was no time for Blogging. A whole lot of other things have been also going on that I need to talk about but not today.

Today I just want to write some random things and strangely enough so many random thoughts packaged in fanciful words of delightful combinations have already started bubbling up in my mind.

Let me tell you about how I find it so very funny when we human beings go out on Jungle safaris. It’s one ridiculous activity I tell you.

In case you noticed my absence from this page…I am engaged in something important. Announcements will happen if things work out. I have been off the internet for this thing, what I miss the most is blogging and twittering. Just to give you a glimpse of how I survived…here’s my offline alternative to tweets and blogs – ‘post it notes’

Tomorrow is a big day, wish me luck. (And no you are not hearing wedding bells)

Come back happenning next week.