Will you please vote for me?

Dear reader,

I have been blogging for 4 years now. Many of you gave me many heart warming compliments on my writing and gave testimonials on how my writing helped you find yourself. Today I want to ask for a small favour from you in return of all the things I did, all the blogs I wrote and the love I spread.

I am participating in this Great Driving Challenge contest with my friend Vinu. It is a couple only contest. Out of the 100s of applications 3 finalist would be chosen and they will be going on a 12 day long all expenses paid driving challenge in the Mitsubishi Cedia car. The couple who would make the trip most interesting by their blogs and pics would win the challenge.

You my reader can help Vinu and me to become one of that final 3 couples by voting and writing testimonials for us. We perhaps don’t stand a chance but even if I get one vote that would mean a lot to me, I would know my readers care for me and my happiness. I never really asked for nothing no, so this one time will you please? Vote for me?

http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/application/Sanjukta/

So to vote for us you have to visit the above link.

I would owe this to my readers if we can get through.

Thanks.

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.

In Bangalore the march started from National Law College and passed through Minerva Circle to reach Town Hall.

One of the brightest and most colorful processions one could witness, it had people dressed in traditional saris and jewelries to micro-minis to off shoulders and sexy tattoos. They had all painted rainbows on their bodies and faces. Some of them wore masks some didn’t.

The smile,the being, the pride. Bangalore Queer Pride Parade 09. Photo Vinayak Das

A three wheeler with a loud speaker led the march with one of the participants chanting slogans like, “Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai, Hetro Homo Bhai Bhai;” “Gay hua to kya hua, pyaar hua ikraar hua;” “One two three four, open up your closet door, five six seven eight, don’t assume your kid is straight.”

The rest of the near thousand people followed the three-wheeler chanting the slogans over and over again. Most of them carried placards and posters with witty lines like, “Gay ho – Jai ho;” “Section 377 sucks” “I am the pink sheep of my family” “Welcome to Ben-gay-luru” and more.

Somewhere behind were 3-4 drummers beating their drums producing an amazingly contagious energy and the colorful people danced to the drum beats like there was no tomorrow.

Photographers, many from the media and many more who just wanted to document the event and show their support, chased the sexy dancers to capture their best moments. And the participants were more than happy to pose for them, give them their best looks.

They danced, they sang, they raised slogans, they teased, they flaunted, they giggled, they shied away, they rejoiced and they smiled. A smile that came from within reflecting the sheer joy they felt in walking for an event that was about their being. It was a day they walked without fear looking straight at common people’s eyes giving a message loud and clear, “Look at me, I exist, how long are you going to ignore me, how long would you call me a freak, how long would you turn your face away when I try to talk, how long will you call me unnatural?”

The joy, the pride. Bangalore Queer Pride Parade 09. Photo:Vinayak Das

The joy and festivity of the march stays with you even after you have left the venue and then you are forced to think, “How is it going to help the humanity if those smiles are turned into tears? How is it going to help God’s scheme of things if these beautiful hearts are crushed, their existence denied and their right to love and marry a person of their own choice snatched.”

About the cause…

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code is a law which tries to do exactly all that. It is a law that wants to and every day does crush millions of such colorful hearts and souls, in this country, whose only crime is that they want to love a person who had similar genitals like they do.

The religious leaders say it is unnatural for a man to love another man or a woman to love another woman because they don’t contribute to nature’s growth, in other words they do not procreate.

By that logic human beings are nothing more than a penis and a vagina whose only purpose is to produce babies.

The saddest part about this law is that it made India go back 100s of years in time.

Homosexuality, men having sex with men, men having sex with eunuchs and drags, had always been accepted in India. The Khajuraho temple, Konark Sun Temple and the Kamasutra are the living examples of that acceptance. Oral sex and anal sex are explicitly depicted in the temple sculptors and Kamasutra.

Hinduism as a religion doesn’t have any say in sexual performance unlike other holy books where a certain type of sexuality is labeled as sin.

It was in 1860 that the British rulers introduced this alien concept to us, that anal sex are unnatural and that it must meet criminal consequences, without having any regard to our thousands of years old culture and without having any regard to something called consent.

And why would they give regard to culture, tradition or even consent, the law was after all meant to control Indians, the dirty uncivilized natives, who didn’t know what is right or wrong for themselves, why would the super lords care about the native’s consent if they thought anal sex was wrong that was it.

Just think how dumb must a nation be that it is still living with this law which was designed with the very purpose of suppressing its own culture and people. When the British introduced this law they thought Indians were barbaric, un-cultured, obscene, they have such books and temples that talks about sexuality, they must be set right by imposing strict laws. Thus came a law that went against our own expression of sexuality.

British were gone but we continued with their laws. Not just that some of us are so dumb that they now think being homosexual is against Indian Culture. These queer pride parades are a way to remind the law makers of this country that they cannot keep this unjust law and continue violating the citizen’s basic right to chose their sexuality.

The ignorant in the fool’s paradise…

In the March today a friend and I approached the curious onlookers standing either side of the march and asked them if they knew what the march was about and if they supported the cause.

First we approached this 3-wheeler, the driver had just been handed a Bangalore Queer Pride pamphlet which he was going through quite attentively. We asked him if he knew what the pride was about. He had read the pamphlet by then and said he knew and that he surely supported the cause. Behind him in the passenger seat were sitting 3 ladies, one in her 50s the other 2 relatively much younger may be late 20s to mid 30s, the youngest one had a baby. All decked up head to toe in traditional white body golden border sari, gold jewelry, jasmine gajras, bindis etc.

I asked them, “Mam do you know what is this marching all about?”

The older lady said “No” with a smile.

I then turned to the younger ones and said, “Did you read the pamphlet?” They gave a quick look at the pamphlet again but didn’t react at all except a confused smile.

I said, “Mam this is gay pride parade.”

“What is gay?”

“Mam, homosexual, people loving people of same sex, boy loves boy, girl loves girl, that type? You know?”

The lady now gave an even bigger and terribly embarrassed smile, and shook her head in negation with a big “Noooooooo.”

The whole thing was so symbolic, these women in their white saris all decked up and perfect like nothing in the world can touch them, living in their own world without a clue about the other rainbow colored world.

I took a quick look at the baby and thought if only she had heard that part of the slogan more carefully, “Five six seven eight, don’t assume your kid is straight.”

How do we intervene in their perfect world?

These pride parades that are being held annually is definitely a big step in that regard. New York would be holding its 40^th annual Gay pride parade. India’s first gay pride parade was held in 1999, Delhi and Bangalore would be holding their 2^nd parade, Chennai 1^st and perhaps Bhubaneswar also its first parade. That’s how many years behind we are but we are definitely have a strong movement.

More cities should join in the queer pride celebrations every year. One common platform is required for the queer people of all over the nation, their protest activities should be concerted, united they should stand.

Media would play a big role which includes us bloggers too.

Films and television are the other great media particularly the Saas Bahu serials. Put a gay character in one them, perhaps call it “Kuyunki Saas meri lesbian thi.”

—

I can go on but may be another day. This was my first gay pride parade and trust me I am not saying it for the heck of it I really feel my life is so much more colorful now.

I will continue writing about the queer issues in the coming days, so keep an eye on this space.

More photos on Vinayak Das’s Flickr Stream

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.

Similar contests were going on radio and TV all over the world. Until a few days back, the world had forgotten him, his aura and charisma was caught between criminal charges, legal hassles, financial crisis and health problems, like an ordinary man he was failing, life was getting old and purposeless.

But with the comeback tour round the corner he was back in the lime light, suddenly his name was everywhere, everybody was looking forward to see him and he left us. Can you beat that, the timing of his death? Right when the whole world was falling in love with his genius all over again he left us, left us in the lurch. After this day with all his oddities and imperfection, you’ll love him or hate him but you’ll never be able to forget him.

Michael Jackson is the kind of people urban legends are made of. I am an atheist but if there is a super being a little bit of that is found in such legends.

I would remember Michael Jackson as a living spooky mystery, something I could never understand and I think nobody could. As a child we used to whisper about his gender, is he girl or boy, is he black or white, is he homo or hetro, is he even for real or is he a figment of our imagination, a magical illusion, how come his voice is so different when he sings than from when he speaks and so many more mysteries about him. He was my first brush with western music, Snigdha laughs at me when once in a while I still play his greatest hits on my laptop.

Call this a fan’s blind faith but I always believed that there is more to even the child abuse charges that were brought against him. Truth is very contextual and then there is a good truth and a bad truth about which I wrote at the time of Josef Fritzl rape case. We think we know but we have no idea.

The man is dead but try denying it, there’s a little bit of him in all of our souls. Like there’s a little bit of God in us.

Heath Ledger Rest in Peace

Another name comes to mind is Heath Ledger. I don’t think anything he would have done for the rest of his life, if he lived longer, would have matched up to the Joker. It was not a mere performance by a movie actor; it was almost like a transformation of souls (even in Brokeback Mountain) their journey from one body to another. Heath Ledger gave his life and soul to Joker, Joker lived, Heath died.

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.

They are going to have a baby this August. Snig looks like any mommy to be in her 8th month of pregnancy looks like. Seeing her makes me realize how the size of your body really makes no difference to your beauty. She doesn’t look any different to me, she is just as pretty as she always was. I wonder how conditioned are we that we think beauty is about the shape and size of the body.

I asked the two of them what would their approach be towards the various life decision their child would take. A long discussion followed from this question on how should a modern parent accommodate their children’s psychology with their own.

As a general rule I think parents should have unconditional acceptance of their children’s choices regarding sexuality, marriage, no marriage. Career choices too should more or less be accepted unless he/she wants to become a drug peddler or serial killer or something. Parents should inform their children from childhood that while its on the parents to do all that is needed to give them a good education and help them make a career, it would be their own responsibility to manage with their choice of life partner, wedding and the life beyond that.

Motherhood, that’s the closest I’ll get…

The urge to produce babies and raise them is perhaps a very basic urge hidden in the inherent creativity that we are born with. We all like to create something and be proud of. We want to make something that we think is perfect. I have never felt motherhood per se, never imagined myself as a mother but all these talk about raising a child with Snig and Vince made me want to raise one of mine too, my own by me for myself and for the world to see, my creation, my child.

Sounds pretty selfish, doesn’t it? I think this whole procreation is a cycle which tuns on self interest. We produce and raise our children because we want them to take care of us when we are old. When they don’t, we say, “We did everything we could to raise you and now this is how you are paying us back.” But think about it, did they ask us to have sex and bring them on earth? Do parents do a favor on their children by giving them best of the health and education? Why should there be a sense of duty to give back when they grow up?

In this world we must all learn to take care of ourselves on our own. If our family take care of us, good enough but that expectation shouldn’t be the basis of any relationship including parent-children. All must learn to walk alone.

Snig and Vince's Alleppy and me. Photo: Vinayak Das (Vince)

Some time during the week I heard from a friend that there is this month old German Shepard puppy that is looking for a home. A sudden mother instinct urged me to right away get the pup home. But alas there are way too many obstacles in getting a pet right now. I live alone a pup needs all the attention and care just like a human child, I can’t afford all that. So I had to decide against the idea but taking that decision was one of the hardest thing to do. It was almost like I got accidentally pregnant and now I have to decide whether I should keep the baby or not.

I wished I had a boyfriend who could do this together with me, we could have rented out a home and taken turns to look after the pup. Then I called home to ask mom dad if they can help me with it. But they said “No.”

I am not yet ready for a baby, human or pets.

Night Drive…

On my way back from Snig-Vince’s place I kept driving on Old Madras Road. It was minutes past 1 am on a Saturday night. The city looks so different in the night. Same roads seem to be wider because there is no traffic, suddenly you feel you can more clearly see the colors of the buildings, the art on the walls and read the sign boards. There are more dogs on the street at night and they have this look on their face which suggests we are the intruders in their business, serious business.

There is a graveyard on Old Madras Road, I had an extreme urge to pull over in front of it and look at the graves. But right near the gate there was a police van. I didn’t want to catch their attention so I just slowed down in front of the gate, had a quick look at the stillness of the graves and drove away.

Lost love…

I keep an online journal, a blog that is private only for my viewing. I was reading that this weekend and a realization hit me. There was a guy I dated for a while. He was one of the nice dates I have been on. We both liked each other for a short while. From being dates we became friends, then common friends and then some misunderstanding made us lose each other to nothingness.

This weekend as I read the transcript of one of our chat conversations I realized it was not all his fault. I had acted strangely. I had suddenly let go off him and moved on. I thought we both had got over the dating phase and were ready to move on. In just no time I turned around and said, “I have a crush on R”, a common friend. Months later he told me he had feelings for me even on the day I told about R. How could I be so dumb to not see his feelings I don’t know? How could I tell him I had feelings for another man when we had not drawn the formal curtains on our dating phase.

But why didn’t he say anything if he had feelings for me? Why months later? Or did he make it up to make me feel bad?

Anyway, so I felt bad and added him on facebook. I wrote to him, “Hey, if you don’t have any hard feelings, please accept the friend request.” He didn’t yet. Perhaps he won’t. If he is pissed at me he would remain so all his life. It was for him that I wrote these lines and now they hit me hard. “In life it is so very rare that you meet someone that you truly like and that someone also happens to like you, to find is difficult to keep is an effort. A lot of care and concern…it is just that much and we fail to achieve. That smile, that look, that thing you feel, its very delicate, very fragile, if you find it carry it with caution, handle it with care…”

I found it but I didn’t care enough about it. Who knows may be he was the man I was meant to be with. Or may be not, may be I am just getting a bit too emotional. After all if it is meant to be it would, love shouldn’t need efforts.

And more…later

‘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.

We have India’s first ever transgender celebrity Rose Venkatasan on Twitter which in itself is a great sign.

And now India prepares for a never before celebration of Queer Pride with events and pride marches being planned in all of the 5 metros. The month of June is celebrated as queer pride month all across the world to commemorate the Stonewall Inn incident on 28^th June 1969 and the series of protests that followed at the in Greenwich Village in New York. [Useful Link - list of queer pride march in other countries ]

Pride march is a way to tell the world that “we are who we are and we are not ashamed of our sexuality.” It is also a way of saying that “we are not going to be cowed down by the norms set by society and wouldn’t be ashamed of our sexuality even when we have to face ostracism.” In India a pride march also means a protest against criminalization of homosexuality and the voices this year is loud and clear.

Bangalore

Karnataka Queer Hubba 2009

Bangalore will kick start ‘The Karnataka Queer Hubba’ this Sunday, 21^st June 09. The Hubba is a week long event celebrating queer pride with a series of interesting activities, talks, seminars, film shows etc running up to the Bengaluru Pride 09 on 28^th June.

Some of the significant events lined up as part of the Hubba are: Queering the Pitch: Cricket Match on 21st June; Dalit-Sexual Minorities Dialogue on Stigma and Discrimination on 22nd June; Release of Human Rights Watch Report – This Alien Legacy: The Origins of “Sodomy” Laws in British Colonialism on 23rd Jun; Pirat Dyke Film Screening of One in Ten and Desert Hearts on 24th Jun; Public Discussion on Religion and Sexuality on 25th Jun; Story Telling Sessions on 27th Jun and more.

Pride march will begin at National College, Basavanagudi at 2:00 p.m and go up to Puttanachetty Town Hall via Sajjan Rao Circle and Minerva Circle and will culminate with a series of speeches as the crowd gather on the Town Hall steps. Last year the march was attended by as many as 600 people and this year the numbers are expected to be even higher.

The March and the Hubba are a collective effort of various organisations and individuals under the banner of Campaign for Sex-workers and Sexual Minorities Rights (CSMR)

(Official Website – For details, time, venue of the Hubba, Official Twitter)

Delhi

Delhi Queer Pride 2009

Delhi would have its 2nd Queer Pride March on 28th Jun 09 at 5.30 pm starting from Tolstoy Marg to Jantar Mantar. This year it is expected to be attended by even greater number of people and is going to be much more fun and frolic with wedding bands, rainbow colored flags, fancy masks and lively people of all kinds. There would also be street plays and talks at the end of the march. Like Bangalore, the Delhi march is also being organised by LGBT people and allies under the banner of ‘Delhi Queer Pride Committee’ and not by any particular organization. The official blog of Delhi Queer Pride says, “Queer Pride is a celebration. It is about loving who we are, whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, hijra or straight, and affirming everyone’s right to be respected.” (Useful Link1, Link2, official twitter)

Chennai

This year Chennai would hold its first Queer pride march on June 28th, Sunday, 4 pm Marina Beach from the Triumph of Labour statue to the Mahatma Gandhi statue. The call to join the march goes out to Lesbian, Gay, Kothi, Aravani, Bisexual, Trans folks and Straight allies as they all enter Chennai to celebrate June as the pride Month. Besides the main march Chennai has also been organizing events to celebrate the pride all through the month of June.

The celebrations kick started on 5^th of June by Amour, a multimedia Bharata Nathyam dance performance by Shanmugha Sundaram, produced by Sathir Natya and sponsored by Alliance Francaise of Madras and SAATHII.

On 20^th June The Shakti Center and Human Rights Watch organized cultural performances and discussion on colonial origins and everyday impact of sodomy laws.

On 22^nd June Monday, 6.30 pm, South Indian Film Chamber Theatre, Anna Salai, there would be a screening of the Oscar winning film ‘Milk’ as part of the South Indian Film Chamber’s Oscar Film Festival, in association with the US Consulate.

On 26^th June, Friday, 4 pm there would be held a ‘Support Group Meeting’ for parents and siblings of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Chennai. Facilitated by Center for Counseling, a non-profit organization, the meeting will provide a supportive and confidential space where parents and siblings can ask questions, get factual information, and most importantly, meet other parents who are struggling to cope with similar issues relating to their adult children.

(Useful Link1, Link2)

Mumbai

In Mumbai while the feelings and emotions to celebrate the pride perhaps remain the same the Mumbaikars prefer to call it the Queer Azadi March and it is held on 16th of Aug to signify the freedom movement for queer people in India. The emphasis of the march is more on the unjust law of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that in effect penalizes homosexuality. To quote from the official blog, “The choice of date, 16th August, was in order to make a statement that while the rest of India had got its independence from the British on this date in 1947, queer Indians were still bound by a British Raj law (Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, introduced in 1860) and Victorian mores that have corrupted traditional Indian acceptance of alternate sexualities.”

Planning is yet to begin with full force for 2009 Queer Azadi but small steps have already been taken. The intention is always to make it bigger than the last year so perhaps we would see a lot of interesting activities from the LGBT community in Mumbai in August. Meanwhile here’s a link to the media coverage of last years queer azaadi.

Kolkata and Bhubaneshwar

Full fledged preparations are also on in Kolkata and Bhubaneshwar however the dates are not decided yet. Kolkata happens to be the first proud city in India to have held a gay pride parade way back in 1999. In 2005 the Rainbow Pride Week was celebrated from Jun 20 to Jun 25 with much stronger participation than before. The Rainbow week consisted of film shows, art exhibitions, discussions and dance performances all meant to create spaces for dialogue and understanding devoid of hate, stigma and harassment against LGBT community. The week long celebration concluded in Rainbow Pride Walk through Southern Avenue, Gol Park, Gariahat, Ballygunge and Park Circus.

This year the queer pride date is colliding with Kolkata’s Municipal Elections so they are reconsidering 28th June as the pride date. I will update this space with more information as I get them.

More readings – 2005 report, 2007 report, 2008, Link4

I have not been able to find any more information about Bhubaneshwar except that pride march preparations is on for the first time there.

The next steps: United effort optimizing the use of New and Social Media

The above listing is enough to prove a point – a point that I have already repeated. It is now only a matter of time that we get rid of the archaic law. A petition filed by Naz Foundation is at its final stage in the High Court of Delhi. During the arguments hon’ble court have been pro LGBT rights in its observation. My personal thought is that right after these two months of queer pride celebration the Court would pick it up and give the final orders which would go down in the pages of history as the true freedom for queer people in India.

Meanwhile there are still more efforts required from Queer community. As more and more city join the queer pride celebrations there is a need of a common national body which could support/promote/document the movement. Right now each city is doing it at their own level but their has to be a unity, coordinated movement, an army of peace loving queer people need to be built which would continuously be negotiating with the lawmakers for recognition of homosexual relationships, family units, property distribution, domestic violence etc.

Use of new and social media is still very minimal in the civil society sector. Internet is the only medium which is static, you can’t see the re runs of a TV news for more than 2 days, you won’t find the newspapers of 2 weeks back but anything you document on your website or blog would show up on the search results even 10 years later. It is important to document the movement on internet. I for one couldn’t find enough content on the Kolkata rainbow pride walk, they don’t have a website or a blog yet which are much needed. As and when smaller cities join the movment it would get even more difficult to follow them all via mainstream media. None of the city organizers have thought of designing HTML support badges and banners to be put up on their website to support the pride which is what young techie India needs today.

Hopefully in 2010 when I come back to this space writing on this topic I would be updating you on the same.

Till then do show your solidarity by writing about it on your blogs, micro blogs, help the movement being documented, which ever city you are go ahead join the march, take photographs, videos, make films and upload them on youtube. Spread the joy put some more colors in your life.

[Cross posted on Desicritics]

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.”

Each egg had a security hologram affixed on it and a related message on the carton was, “Authentic Keggs have a security hologram affixed on each egg.” Somewhere it also read, “To prevent misuse destroy box after use.”

The line that amused me the most though was the user instruction on the pack, “Best enjoyed as half boiled fried poached.”

Now let’s apply logic, do we really need to be told how to best enjoy our eggs? And what is a tan shell, what do they mean by cage free, what would be an unsafe egg or a non delicious egg? Eggs are pretty much just eggs, No?

One doesn’t have to go back too much in time; one doesn’t have to be in her 60s to be nostalgic about how simpler life was. It wasn’t too many years ago when, back there in our ancestral house, every morning we kids used to race to the small farm we had in our backyard. The race was about ‘who would be the first to wake up and release the hens from their cage and gather the eggs they laid.’ We would crawl into their cages and pick up the freshly laid eggs covered in feathers and sometimes smeared with chicken droppings. Our mothers and aunts would then make breakfast with those eggs.

It wasn’t so long ago that my mother had a milk man who would come with the goat to our door step and milk the goat on the spot and sell it to us. (Hey don’t look at me she just wanted to be sure he ain’t mixing water.) Today on TV, they caution you against buying milk from milkmen. It is advised that you always buy ‘unadulterated’ milk packaged in ‘authentic’ tetra packs.

Sure development and modernization have to give way to rural life but are we becoming more and more robotic and lacking in common sense in the process? I mean to instruct how best to eat eggs on the carton, isn’t that a bit too much?

We all know it all started when a certain lady sued a certain fast food company for damages because she spilled hot coffee on her lap. Apparently the coffee should have had come with a warning that it was hot or at the least, as it was argued by the winning lawyer, that it was ‘unexpectedly’ hot.

On a pack of American Gardens microwave popcorn they write, “Open keeping pack away from your face, hot steam inside.” Do we actually need to be told that something we just took out of the microwave would be hot and that we got to be careful?

Is this about being more intelligent or dumb? Is it not true that if we start following instructions for every little small things we would become more and more dependent on somebody else remote controlling our lives?

Is it yet another not so great thing we have imported from the west? Why must everything in the world take one common path to doom? Why are the lines distinguishing culture, lifestyle, markets, academics, love etc. all getting blurred?

Sure some of the convergences are for good, like when we import the liberalized culture and lifestyle where men and women are treated equally and homosexuals and transgenders have the same right to unison and establish families or where sex work is legal or when we discard Indian style toilets (which by the way includes the open fields and railway tracks.)

But to imitate every silly or may be not so silly but irrelevant concepts is really not needed. For example we could have lived without replicas of every TV shows that MTV produces or absolutely dumb and uncreative game shows like, ‘Are you smarter than a 5th Grader.’

Perhaps it is just a way of making urban life easier. May be it is targeting at a section of consumers who may have actually no knowledge of how an egg look like when not cooked. Remember that dialogue from “Seeta aur Geeta.” Spoilt dude goes to sabzi mandi and asks to a vendor “what is this” pointing towards a vegetable. Vendor answers “Baingan” and dude reacts in surprise, “accha baingan aisa hota hai kya?” Dude had never before seen a whole uncooked baingan because somebody had always cooked it for him.

Whatever it is I think the day isn’t too far when we would have such user instructions and cautionary statements on box of eggs, “Edible content inside. Break shell to eat” or “Break shell carefully, content may spill.”

Possible?

—

Cross posted on Desicritics.

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.

Even I have been to quite a few of them and trust me I am not particularly proud. We go to Jim Corbett National Park in hopes to see tigers, Gir forest to see lions, Kaziranga to see hippopotamus and so on. Each state country continent is famous for one or the other national park or wildlife sanctuary or whatever you call them.

We go all dressed up in track pants and leather jackets, hats and belts and boots. And we carry all sort of fancy bags and rucksacks and water bottles. And of course we shudder at the thought of not being able to bring back evidence of having seen the animal we went to see so we carry cameras and tripods and a whole bag full of lenses and so on.

When we reach the jungle we arm ourselves with all sorts of strategies and game plans to ensure that we get to see that animal that we came to see.

First, are tour guides make it sure that we are conditioned to fear the prospect of actually seeing the animal we came to see by narrating to us dramatic stories of how only the night before that deadly animal was seen right next to the quarters we were staying and perhaps how it dragged a calf or a lamb inside the jungle. Then we would be told what not to do to make sure that the animal comes right out of its hiding and dances in front of our safari jeeps and then we would be told what to do if it happens to chase the jeep. 

We love to create so much of drama and suspense around the whole deal. We like to think ourselves as great achievers if we manage to get a glimpse of the animal and we feel utterly depressed if the mission fails. 

This one time when we went to Jim Corbett our tour guide told us a tigress which has just given birth to 3 cubs can always be seen around the fences with her cubs. And there were these two English guys who shared the dorm with us. They said, “We happen too see the tigress and her cubs more often than we get to see our driver.”

The English men thought he was being funny but we were absolutely heartbroken for we couldn’t understand why such an unforeseen tragedy had befallen upon our fate that the good tigress never seems to be interested in appearing before us?

The way we behave while on the look out is no less funny. Like in Jim Corbett the first day we went all around the dry jungle in a jeep. Our guide kept cautioning us to be quiet lest the tigers get scared and goes into hiding. But we wouldn’t listen. So no tiger luck. But we blamed the terrible noise that the jeep of 1930 model made for the failure and decided to go on an elephant safari the next day. 

So there we were on the elephant back all alert and quiet. Our eyes constantly on the look out for the slightest sign – a tail somewhere perhaps or the tip of an ear. Then our guide said, “Look there tiger paws” and we all ‘bend over’ to closely see the great wonder that a tiger paw is and then shuddered at the fact that was being established by such marks – that a tiger just walked by this path. “Look tiger paw, whoa tiger paw” we whispered at each other’s ears. 

I mean what is the big deal with a tiger paw. Tigers exist and they have feet and paws and when they walk they leave marks. What are we achieving by taking macro photographs of a tiger paw? 

I mean what is this fun we have in ‘ogling’ at the animals. Imagine you are sitting in your living room watching that film popping that corn or gum and a bunch of funny looking creatures pointing at you and saying, “Hey look he is eating pop corn.” And the chorus would go, “Where where? There there. Ah yes, he is eating pop corn. Ooh he is eating pop corn.”

Don’t animals have right to privacy? Why must we make these unwanted invasions in their private lives? What is this curiosity for how they walk and what they do on a regular day?

This other time when we were driving down from Ooty to Bangalore near Medikeri there was this whole herd of elephants and all the cars on the road either slowed down or pulled over and every body looked out of the windows and pointed at the elephants saying, “Hey look elephants.” 

I couldn’t help doing an imaginary voice over for the one that was standing very close to our car giving a very disgusting look. “Ya I know I am an elephant, enough already now will you move it? Go go keep going you morons! You’d cause a traffic jam. And next time come in a limousine. Am sick of seeing these same old cars you people drive.”

I so could feel for that elephant, really. 

And don’t even get me started on what might happen if you actually encounter a really fierce one like a tiger or something. I’ll tell you what happened on that elephant safari in Jim Corbett. After seeing the tiger paws we were convinced that the tiger was somewhere close. Suddenly we heard a roar, a tiger roared. My heart skipped a beat and I begin to enquire from our guide if tigers can climb on elephant’s back. He assured they can’t.

The tiger roared again and we were half dead. We all looked at each other, we looked around and finally we looked at the guide. We were totally bewildered, “Why he is not reacting to the roars?” 

Then I noticed and we all smelled simultaneously – the roaring sounds were that of elephant farting. That was the closest we got in our mission of seeing tigers in Jim Corbett. 

You see what I am saying. Try thinking from their point of view, you would realize what a silly and dumb activity it is to go looking for wildlife in these national parks. 

I guess that would be for today, but before I sign off here’s another crazy thought – I can’t help wondering, why do sausages have such incredible resemblance with a certain part of the male human anatomy? 

Do share your wildlife safari experiences.

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.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to ascertain the ground reality of the LTTE v. SL Army situation in the Northern part of Sri Lanka. The truth is hard to find and even harder it is to believe what they claim to be true.

While the Sri Lankan government claims they have stopped using air strikes and heavy weapons against the LTTE, a young Tamilian girl who survived the conflict in the island nation says the war is still on and adds that LTTE chief V Prabhakaran is a hero. She says the ceasefire is a myth, the SL Government is lying to the whole world and that she wishes their hero Prabhakaran escapes the SL Army. [Source]

On the other hand captured LTTE cadres are now saying that the LTTE have killed innocents Tamil civilians and have stopped them from fleeing the war zone. They said,

“Every point from where people could move away from LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) areas were unfortunately manned by LTTE cadre,” said V.K. Pancharatnam, a translator and aide to the Tigers’ late political leader S.P. Thamilselvan.

“People who tried to leave met with violence,” he said, referring to the Sri Lankan military offensive as a “humanitarian operation” – in line with the defense ministry’s portrayal of its blistering offensive.[Source]

Chances of these cadres lying in exchange of amnesty is less because SL Government clearly said that there is no question of amnesty for senior LTTE leaders.

The other day this twitterer said, LTTE don’t use their own people as human shield. So I asked him who are their own people? He said (1) People whose kids who have taken to LTTE (2) Residents of that region until before Army occupation and shelling began.

Of couse this information is from a random social media user and cannot be relied upon for any practical purposes but shows the public thinking. What if there were Tamilians in the North who don’t want to join Prabhakaran in his freedom fight or don’t want their children to become LTTE fighters? Prabhakaran and his men would kill them? We have been hearing for long enough that the LTTE cadre force small children to pick up guns and engage in guerilla war tactics. So do they support Prabhakaran out of fear?

Meanwhile the entire world is asking the SL Government to stop the onslaught and provide for humanitarian aid to the civilians who are in the warzone. The entire Tamil diaspora accross the world are against SL Government except for one group of Canadian Tamils. On 3rd April this group issued a statement of absolute support to SL Government effort to eradicate terrorism from the soil of Sri Lanka.

The Executive board members of Canadian Tamils for Peace and Democracy today voted unanimously in favour of an emergency resolution put forward declaring absolute support to the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa to eradicate Terrorism in Srilanka.

The resolution, requests the President to undertake “whatever actions deemed necessary” to crush Terrorism and putforth a reasonable political solution to Tamils. It also thanked the Government of Srilanka for the conference in Colombo inviting moderate Tamils – Sri Lankan oversees to consult and discuss the solution.

The resolution strongly rebuked some member countries of the United Nations and European Union for launching attack on the rights of the democratically elected Government of Srilanka and for undermining its efforts to eradicate Terrorism from Sri Lankan soil. Sri Lanka’s decision to fight the Terrorists is a historical one, because for the first time in Sri Lankan history, the Government is determined to fight the Terrorist to protect Sri Lankans without bowing down to International pressure.

A former LTTE intelligence wing cadre who defected from the organization in 2004 and currently works as an analyst writes a blog called ‘The LTTE insider‘. This person wrote on his blog,

I have been working on the following paper since winter 2006 and decided to post it on a blog as I saw an attempt by LTTE to circulate a false propaganda that internally displaced people in northern Sri Lanka are being sent to “internment camps” or as described on their own words as “concentration camps”.

But the truth is that the Sri Lankan Government has planned to open five welfare centers to house Tamils fleeing the last 100 square kilometers patch of jungle where the army has pinned down the remaining LTTE cadres who try to infiltrate liberated areas disguised as civilians. 

Read the full post here

More updates on this issue to follow.

So most of you already know the news. This high school kid Salim kept a beard in a convent school, school authorities didn’t appreciate. The kid sued the school. I don’t know if it was his own idea to go as far as Supreme Court for this mere cause of keeping beard or was it his parents or some religious leader in his neighborhood.　It surprises me a bit that a school going kid would fight it all the way to have a beard of all the things. I mean beard, french beard, go-tee, clean shave, short hair, long hair, spiked hair, mohawk cut, hairy chest, waxed chest, hair on your eyebrows and upper lips are all parts of grooming and glamorising yourself I thought.

But what beats me and frustrates me to death is to see the continuous fuss over such non issue from various sections particularly the secular Indian Muslims. There is an outrage against the Supreme Court judgment which according to many, is acceptable in theory but not in spirit.

Indian Muslim community’s anger is seeded in the fact that while out-rightly and very justly rejecting the petitioner’s arguments that he should be allowed to keep a beard against the school’s disciplinary norms, Justice Katju said that we cannot allow beards and burquas because, “We don?t want to have Talibans in the country.”

This uncalled for remark which could have been ignored has been interpreted by everybody as Justice Katju’s attempt to equate Beard and Burqa with Talibanism. I read up a few posts in the blogsphere expressing this anger. Shamnad Basheer, a professor of the National University of Judicial Science, Kolkata, writes on Hard News,

“Given the tenor of the judges’ comment, the possibility of bias against Salim and his community cannot be ruled out. After all, as a cardinal principle of justice known to most legal systems teaches us: Justice must not only be done, but also be seen to be done.? It is critical that the case be reviewed and reheard by another bench. In other words, any review petition filed by Salim’s counsel must be allowed and the case reheard by another bench to determine whether or not the special leave petition in question ought to be admitted.”

I cannot believe this learned man is proposing more of the Court’s valuable time be spent on this non issue. A review petition be allowed for what…so that school going kids are able to grow beard? Never mind the dress code and code of conduct? Since this person is arguing in favour of having a mechanism for censuring judges, I would like to ask him if he will agreed that Judges are only human, if they were not we wouldn’t need to keep a vigil on them, right? To err is to human, so yes, justice Katju’s remark was uncalled for off the cuff and silly. But that does not necessarily mean his decision was wrong or biased. Why are you reading in between the lines.

Mr. Mohib Ahmam writes on Indian Muslims.in

“Prima facie it appears that Justice Katju and the bench over-reached their jurisdiction and some of the comments made by the bench went way beyond the scope of the case. What is good for Sikhs is good for Muslims and other religious denominations as well. At the very minimum if Mohammad Salim’s Sikh classmates are sporting beards as part of their religious traditions then he should be allowed to do the same on that basis. A healthy debate on private institutions right to set rules and regulations is needed. At the same time the courts can’t litigate religion from the bench.”

I cannot stand such arrogant comment against the Courts. In exactly what capacity is this blogger making this statement that the Honble Supreme Court has over reached its jurisdiction. Who does he think he is, how dare he disrespect the Court so much? Criticism is one thing, its most people’s favourite pastime but people should know their limits. Now the Courts would have to learn from this guy what is their jurisdiction?  

There’s no point in comparing Sikh students with Muslim students. The decision is only related to a private minority institution’s right to make their own rules and regulations. It is such a simple thing, the word private by defination implies that is is my goddamn territory and I decided how I will regulate it so long as I am not breaking any law of the land.

Javed Ahmad wrote a very sensible article on Indian Express and I will just quote few of his paras:

…A half-hour Google search on mainstream Islamic websites is enough to show there are very divergent views on the beard being an “indispensable part of Islam.”

The next time you run into a Muslim obsessed about the burqa or the beard, ask what happened to the essential teachings of the Prophet: “To seek knowledge (in Islam all knowledge is sacred) is the religious duty of every Muslim man and woman”; “The ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr”; “To obtain knowledge travel to China if necessary”.

Had the self-appointed custodians of Islam honestly spread this simple message of the Prophet instead of peddling a bygone culture and patriarchy as Islam, Muslim women would today have been pushing the frontiers of knowledge and teenager Salim would have concentrated on sharpening his intellect instead of frittering his and the community’s time, money and emotion in search of shallow piety.
 

We need to learn to keep our religious sentiments at home and not carry them to educational institutions and workplaces. Every insitution has its own set of rules, values, diciplinary conduct etc and if we want to be a part of it we must respect have respect for such regulations. Otherwise there would be no end to such petitions and litigations for every random thing and we would only be walking backwards with such mind sets which puts personal faith and religion before civil laws and allows religion to control every aspect of their life.

Ever since as a teenager I have romanticized the idea of an young and famous death. I am not suicidal. I think they suck who kill themselves. Someone once asked me what your advice would be to a person contemplating suicide and I said, “I’ll say – go to hell.” 

Yet I always thought death was romantic. I fantasized young lovers who died for love because the world wouldn’t let them live and love. I fantasized even more the death of a lover whose love remained unrequited. 

Every time my heart would break, every time some jerk would leave me all alone in the walk of life I would tell him in my imagination and I’ll tell myself, “Someday when I’ll be long gone, someday when you’ll be all alone feeling down and low, you’d know my worth and what you’ve lost. Someday you’ll miss me like crazy, you’ll weep till you have no tears left just to be able see me once but you won’t find me ever, never ever. 

For death to be romantic it has to be young. There’s no point dying when you are old and worn out. When your charm is lost, your purpose on earth is lost, when you don’t even remember the people you wanted to cry for you and when there’s no way they’ll even ever look for you. You should be gone soon enough they left you so that by the time they look back they can’t find you any more. It’s like how sport stars should retire at the peak of their glory much before people start saying, “ah it’s high time the guy should retire already.” 

And it has to be famous so that they know they lost you. So that even if they weren’t looking back for you when they’ll see you speeding away they’ll know you’ve left them far behind. Assuming you lost their numbers or they stopped taking your calls – imagine the shock they’ll get if they read on the papers that you were dead. 

Jade Goody had that perfectly romantic death that I always fantasized for myself. The kind of stuff that eternal tales and urban legends are made of Jade had them in her life and in her death. 

Few people knew about Jade until her entry as the villain in the reality TV show Big Brother. At least no body outside the British TV audience knew about her. Then came the big break in her life, she made a racial comment against Indian film star Shilpa Shetty. Like it happens in any story, the whole world loved the victim and hated the villain. Shilpa Shetty gained immense sympathy and went on to win the show ‘Big Brother’. 

‘The winner takes it all’ we thought and switched off the TV to move on with our lives. Well, if it would have been an ordinary life the winner would have taken it all and the story would have ended there but Jade’s wasn’t an ordinary life. 

Jade was to leave us all behind and win the race. She was going to die. And its not even like she was to die in a plane crash or get hit by a truck, she had the darkest of all premature deaths, the cancer. Cancer, one word says it all. The minute you say ‘cancer’ it creates an aura of pain, loss and sympathy. 

Suddenly every body who ever hated the villain regretted every moment of their life spent in such hatred and wanted to now make it up by loving her as much as they could in whatever little time they were left with. 

The entertainers sell us everything about themselves, from their childhood traumas to mid life crisis, their weddings to divorces, pregnancy to adoptions, from sex and drug stories to stories of true love and nirvana. Jade Goody sold us her death. Only this time it was for real. This was no publicity gimmick, no popularity stunt no sympathy seeking plot. Jade no longer needed any script or plan; she no longer needed to pretend to be anything because from being a ‘reality TV star’ her own life suddenly became a ‘reality show’. The cruelest of all reality the audience could ever see, an adventure as gripping as it could ever be, the most amazing race and the greatest survivor. 

It takes an ocean of courage to be able to do what Jade did with her approaching death. Not only did she fearlessly look right into its eyes she also embraced it with open arms. She personified what John Donne wrote years ago, “death be not proud…thou shall die [too].”  

While I am confident her contribution towards spreading awareness about cervical cancer or the money she left behind for her kids are invaluable I would personally remember her as someone who taught me what it really means to live before you die, how it doesn’t matter how long you live but how much you live.

From the day the news about her cancer broke she has gained immense popularity. Today almost every random channel surfer all over the world in this age of global infotainment knows about Jade Goody’s story. An ordinary person became a world figure because she decided to not die a silent death. She made the most of the life she had, she made the most of the death she was going to have. 

What would have happened if she had a longer healthier life? Perhaps she would have lived a happy life with husband and kids. May be she would have made it big as a star and would have been rich and famous. Or perhaps her new husband would have been old and boring one day. There would have been divorce and litigation over child custody. The children would have grown out of a broken marriage and taken to drugs. 

Either way would it have been any bigger than what her life is today?  

Rest in Peace, Jade. We will miss you. You are the winner who took it all.

—

Crossposed on Desicrtics. Do check out the comments thread there, the mothers of the world are pissed at this obituary. It’s just an obituary for christ sake, people really got too much of free time. Of course I don’t give a fuck.

The road has come to an end. This is the end of the beginning, and this is the beginning of a new end.

In this road nothing excites me anymore,
nothing makes me happy,
nothing makes me sad.
I feel numb. Comfortably numb.
Oh dammit did you see,
in this road I lost my creativity.
All the feelings I feel are already woven into songs,
this Floyd, that Cobain.

I don’t wanna walk this road no more,
here all I have is broken images, scattered thoughts.
I hallucinate, I see things that signify emptiness.
I see dry leaves, empty desert,
thorny bushes, dry ponds, hungry dogs.
I hear voices in my head,
they are all sad songs, poems,
they all have the same tunes
that of dullness.
Whatever I eat they all taste the same,
that of ocean.

In my sleep I dream I am naked.
Naked in a crowd, sharp eyes on me,
sometimes I try to hide,
sometimes I look straight in their eyes.
It’s my soul I bare,
but all they see is the body.

They come near me,
they touch me poke me turn me around,
lift me up and hang me upside down,
like a freak show on the highway,
they stop by for a while,
some leave too soon, some take time.

This road is not rough,
not worth treading anymore.
This road is perfect, perfection is a sad state of being.
Put the last brick on the wall, creativity ends there.
That last stroke of a brush in a more than perfect frame
is an end to the artist’s imagination.
A book when read and closed puts an end to knowledge,
we stopped learning the day we graduated,
we stopped loving the day we took the vows.

Why do I then want perfect love?
Why do I then run away from crossroads and mazes?
I don’t. I just solve them too soon and they disappear.
It pains when they disappear.
So I don’t bother anymore.

So where do I go from here?
Drift, the world is round anyway.
Alright then, I’ll see you at the end of the world.

There was a freak on the highway. What happened when they saw it? Some just passed by without even noticing, some stopped for a while, stared and wondered but left without going too near. Some were really adventurous, they pulled over, went near, they touched it felt it, spent some time trying to understand. What did you do?

Here is last year’s Live blog

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8th March 7.45 pm

Happy woman’s day to all my readers. A male friend said this day is to be wished only to woman. I said no, you can wish it to men too, its like independence day. Wanted to write a post on W-Day but was outside most of the time so couldn’t.

I don’t know how much and how many of my readers like reading these live blogs I write but I love writing them.

Today I am live blogging my reaction to the Filmfare Awards ceremony 2009 as I watch the recorded telecast on Sony TV. Filmfare is a necessary evil, never a fan but still I end up watching the ceremony every year. I mostly watch it keep assuring myself that my icon Aamir is so right in boycotting this award completely.

Right now Mini Mathur and Murari talking to the stars on red carpet. The show would be anchored by Imraan Khan and Ranbir Kapoor. As always a lot of humor is expected.

I might also be tweeting a few things here

8 pm - Karan Johar opens the show

Blogging this as I watch this story closely on CNN IBN: *Satire alert*

–

12 am – This whole Gandhi Auction issue is such a ridiculous waste of national time and resources. We are such losers. Much like the screen Gandhi of Lage Raho Munnabhai, Gandhiji’s soul must have woken up with a startle with so much noise around his name and reading all about the issue he must be saying, “guys stop this drama, like you ever cared for anything I stood for. All you people ever did since the time I have been dead is to freeze me in various forms- statues, frames, trays, showcases, now what is the big deal if an American does the same?”

Don’t we already have these Gandhi Museums where they have kept the Gandhi items and photos etc? How does it matter if these few items are not there? These items are after all just symbolism, apart from reminding us of Gandhiji’s physical existence during the freedom struggle what else do they represent? If it is just about symbolism don’t we already have enough symbolic establishments in the country to remind us of his name.

What are we trying to prove by putting pressure on the legitimate owner of these items, Mr. Otis, to give up the auction. Why? Let him do what he wants to do, that is what Gandhiji would have said, right? For all we know, he would have given some more items to go up in auction, given his policy of offering the second side for same consequences after the first have been slapped. And its not like Mr. Otis is showing any kind of disrespect to the items. Auctions of precious antique items happen all the time all over the world, why are we being so paranoid about this issue.

The train is now chugging through the hills, going in and out of tunnels every now and then. Manoshi is tapping her foot to the rhythm of a certain song playing on her MP3 player and she is reading a book. There’s no one else in the compartment. As the train entered a tunnel again, she lifted her eyes from the book and stared at the darkness outside the window. A faint smile appeared on her face while she took a deep breathe in memory of the people who just got off the previous station.

It was a bunch of wonderful happy people who boarded the train some 2 stations back right after the train had taken a major turn. She had a lot of fun with them, she sang, danced, played, they had a band with them which played loud music, they had cameras which flashed every now and then, there were fire works, colors were being splashed around ribbons, shine and shimmer and glitters and so much more. 

Now it’s all quiet and lonely, and peaceful. She is in anticipation of the next station.

Came across this story on NDTV that touched my heart. Couldn’t stop thinking about the question – Where do they go from here?

Shafiq Syed, the child artist who played the lead role ‘Krishna’ in the Oscar Nominated 1988 film Salaam Bombay, a role for which he was given the National Award for Best Child Artist is today an auto driver in Bangalore. Doesn’t it just hit you so hard, the cruel irony? In this 1 min interview with NDTV Shafiq says how he has taken countless rounds of various Bollywood studios and knocked at producer’s doors but he never got a single chance, not one person gave him another chance in Bollywood. They all told him, “Oh you did a great job, Salaam Bombay is a great film” but it ended there. Today, he no longer has the privilege of pursuing a career in films, he have to make ends meet by plying an auto-rickshaw. But he has a dream of someone someday finding his life interesting enough to make a film on it. A story of a rag picker who was picked from the streets, put on a plane, flown across the world to the greatest of places and then thrown back to the same street where he came from.

Salaam Bombay was nominated for and won several international awards including Cannes, BAFTA, Golden Globe, Oscars, Montreal. Just the way today Slumdog Millionaire is getting praised all over the world today. The child stars are taken as far as the Oscars red carpet but where does fate take them when it is all over? I don’t know the background of Shafiq, but as he mentions in the interview, he probably was a rag picker or something similar. The Slumdog Millionaire stars it seems live in the same slum where the film was shot. Their home is made of tarpaulins and blankets in the Behrampada shanty area, where rats crawl around and sewage runs untreated. [Source] Isn’t it unfair for these kids to go to the Disney Land and be back to their slums? But do they have another option? And is anybody to be blamed or is it just their destiny?

Times of India reported that the case of a 19 year old blogger Ajith may forever change the way bloggers blog in India. To quote TOI,

“Bloggers may no longer express their uninhibited views on everything under the sun, for the Supreme Court said they may face libel and even prosecution for the blog content.

It will no longer be safe to start a blog and invite others to register their raunchy, caustic and even abusive comments on an issue while seeking protection behind the disclaimer – views expressed on the blog are that of the writers.”

In less than 24 hours from now you’d see an army of bloggers lamenting the death of their freedom of speech, some facebook group would be floated, every blogger would be asking one question, “can we do something about it? it would become a trending topic on Twitter and all the soldiers of blogsphere would do their best to save their ‘freedom of speech’ from being trampled under the feet of tyranny.

Uff spare me the drama I say.

Phew! So much is going on in life, just don’t have the time to blog. This person asked, “whats up?” Now for some it might just be a conversation starter but for me it is a dilemma, should I or shouldn’t I start telling what all is really up. Let me see, umm, from the last time we met, work, hectic, health bad, food outside, activities, NDTV, We the people, Barkha Dutt, happy, Mutiny, stress, friend, hope-to-be-boyfriend, fight, patch up, love, sex, valentine’s day, free hugs campaign, fame some more, travel, Goa…Those are the things that has been up off late. I don’t think you’ll like it if I really start talking about what’s up, and that’s why my safe answer would be “nothing much, life in general.”

Goa and the event India Lies in You

Leaving for Goa tomorrow 12 noon flight and have not yet started packing. I do this every time and every time I am reminded of that famous line from the film ‘A few good men’, “William was leaving for life, and he didn’t pack a thing, he didn’t make a call.” If I was William, Lt. Kaffe wouldn’t have had a case. Well ok, I am only leaving for a day, but never mind.

Going as a panelist in this event called, “India Lies in You.” It’s a passionate initiative taken up by the students Sri Sri Institute of Management Studies, Goa. It is heartening to see how more and more of the students community today are trying to create an environment and conscience which inspires each one of us to give back our share to the society and the nation. ‘India lies in you’ is one such initiative which tries to answer questions like, “what are our duties as an Indian, as a citizen? What Will we become the change we want to see?”

While we were discussing the Free Hugs Campaign for V-Day, at least 10 people brought to my notice that there was already such an event planned, a world wide free hug campaign, details of which were up on Facebook.

I find it surprising that an world wide event can entirely be planned online via facebook or other social networking sites, while the event is only possible offline. You can spread the word through facebook but can you actually plan the event? But while I was planning the campaign they all pointed me to the facebook event so I thought may be there are some special guidelines to follow or somebody is dedicated in each city world wide to plan and implement the event off line and we need to get in touch with that person.

But when I checked out the facebook event page I realized there is no such planning involved. They have just declare 13th to 14th as 24 hours of Free hugs campaign. They have not set any guidelines. No individual is actually leading the campaign in each city. I guess they have left it to the users to organize their own Free Hugs and spread the word through that page. This is indeed a great way to bring young generation across the world on a same platform for a common cause.

So far so good but there was one thing that really pricked my eyes and now it seems the event page isn’t merely an attempt to spread the word and unite. It also is a marketing strategy for a certain T-shirt maker and seller. There was a link to this T-shirt site on the main event page, these are cool Free Hugs T-shirts. Not for free.

Does anybody else think its a marketing strategy?

Here’s the link to the facebook event page.

A few of us on Twitter and Blogaloreans list were discussing about what we can do about this Ram Sene issue and an idea struck us, in order to challenge the various threats from Mr. Muthalik and Ram Sene what we should do is dare him. He threatened us against celebrating valentines day, we want to challenge him by having a mass valentine’s day celebration.

An actual event started taking shape since then. A Free Hug campaign on 14th Feb 2009 in Bangalore. We would be out in groups offering free hugs to the people of Bangalore, carrying placards like, ‘Happy Valentines Day, I love you, Hug me, ‘Public Display of violence is not part of Indian culture’ etc. (The more and the more creative ones, the merrier) Exact venue and time not yet fixed but we’ll keep you posted.

My appeal is to all the girls, women, moms, grand moms, sisters, daughters, girl friends and wives alike to join us in this campaign. (Pardon me for making this appeal to girls only, but I trust that men would certainly be there in support of this)

We have to understand that looking at the present state of affairs, we cannot afford to be scared of hooliganism and sit at home. I am not saying we have no reasons to fear, of course we have, because the situation is indeed very scary and hopeless. Multiple incidents of violence have taken place thereby terrorizing women not just in Karnataka but all over India, yet no one has been punished. Clearly, Ram Sene is just an ice berg we see and we can only shudder for a moment at the thought of what might possibly be lying under.

But it is upon us women to face the fear. Sure the State need to act, sure mindsets need to be changed and culprits need to be brought to justice but before we ask for all that let us ask ourselves what are we doing to assert our rights? A very old saying goes, “God helps them who help themselves.”

It is high time we take things head on with these attackers, look straight in their eyes, dare them and stand unshaken when attacked instead of running away in fear. Unless we stand up for ourselves no one would help us. So let us be out there giving a strong message that no one can threaten us and snatch away our rights. We will fight it out till whatever it takes.

• If you are a woman who feels sympathetic towards the Mangalore pub incident victim, join the free hug campaign to break the gender barrier which some undemocratic people are trying to enforce.
• If you are in a relationship, and intend to celebrate Valentines Day, come celebrate it with us to make the statement that you are not scared of a few hooligans.

Let us do or die.

For details keep following this space or write to me, samyukta[dot]basu[@]gmail[dot]com

[This is the new thing I am doing]

An important update on this. The meeting is cancelled because there were only 8 confirmed bloggers for the meet, and the ABIDE team wasn’t interested in meeting such a small group. I don’t blame them, after all Mr. Mishra and Mahesh are really busy people. That also makes me realize what a shame it is that they are all so fond of cribbing but no one wants give up their Sunday morning for something really constructive. 

Anyway the Blogaloreans are now focussed on organizing a Free Hug Campaign on V-Day to defy Mr. Muthalik in his anti humanity attempts. Follow the discussion here :)

—

We, the Bangalore Bloggers have a great opportunity to participate in the planning and development process of our favourite city, Bengaluru.
 
Many of you might have already heard of Bengaluru Vedike. It’s an initiative by Member of Parliament – Mr Rajeev Chandrasekhar. A platform for public-spirited citizens of Bengaluru, aimed at making a difference to the future of Bengaluru by engaging all its stakeholders to a vision of clean, green, safe and progressive city.
 
One of their initiative is ABIDE Plan Bengaluru 2020 under which the team have recently launched four action plans and blueprints in the areas of (1) Govern Bangalore, 2) Road Traffic Management 3) Urban Poor 4) Security [More details on ABIDE page]
 
Lead India winner Mr. RK Mishra (who is also a blogger btw) and India Together’s Co-founder, Mapunity founder Mr. Ashwin Mahesh, who are also members of ABIDE, have co-authored the action plan related to Road Traffic Mangament. They have expressed their willingness to meet the Bangalore Bloggers to obtain their feedback / review of the Plans.
 
Their aim is to get every Bangalorean to review these plans and add their feedback or add any specific concerns that might have been missed out and there is no better way to reach out but through the bloggers. You could give your reviews / feedback / bricks / bouquets about the plans on your personal blogs which could be featured on the Vedike home page. (Terms and Conditions apply. Would be decided post the meeting)
 
ABIDE team have offered to provide for the venue and lunch.  
 
So here are the final details, Please leave your contact details in the comments section below or reply to this email thread that is running on Blogalorean’s google group, or to blogaloreans@gmail.com to confirm your participation. 
 
Event: Bangalore Bloggers Meet with ABIDE Plan Bengaluru 2020
Date: Sunday, 8th February 2009
Time: 10 am to 1 pm
 
Agenda:
10 am to 10.30 am – Question & Answer sessions on “who, what, why of Bengaluru Vedike and ABIDE”
10.30 am to 11.30 pm – Presentation on the plan. 
11.30 to 1 pm: Discussion about the Plans
1pm to 1.30: Lunch
 
Venue: Koramangala Club
Participation: Free but with prior intimation to the contact person below.
 
Contact Person:
Sanjukta 9900119681

Please note this is not a formal conference or seminar, this a bloggers meet organized in the true free spirit of blogging.

Crossposted on Blogaloreans

In my previous post besides pointing out the fact that Bloggers are making an unnecessary hue and cry over this Kunte v. Dutt issue, I also brought my reader’s attention to a particular angst I have against a culture of elitism in Indian social media. I have had this for quite some time. But never thought of writing about it. As more and more professional journalists start to blog this elitism is taking new dimensions.

A certain blogger friend constantly lives in denial of the existence of any such culture or any such elite blogger. I told him today, that as much as he wants to deny there is a certain amount of elitism that prevails in the Indian Blogsphere. While he by no means is someone who practices elitism, technically he is an elite blogger. I will explain how some other time. Will write a detailed post about it complete with the behavioral pattern and the symptoms of it. For now here is a classic example.

See this post entitled ‘Holding NDTV accountable‘ on Desipundit, a collaborative blog run by some of the premium bloggers of the country. Anybody who has heard of the word blogging must have also heard of Desipundit.

Do you see anything odd in the post? Any particular behavior singling out just one person? Any particular treatment meted out to only one blogger in that entire post? No? Check again.

Every single person who have been linked on that post have been addressed either by his/her first name or both first and last name or blog name except me. The post doesn’t take my name. For eg, Pragmatic, Mridul Khullar, Chandni etc are there, but if you’ll scroll down to the end of the post you’ll see my previous post have been linked by the words ‘a section’.

Do you not think it is odd? Unfair? Does it not imply that the name Sanjukta Basu has no relevance? This is called elitism. Other people who have been linked are all respectable bloggers with certain amount of credibility in the eyes of the author Patrix, so he has no hesitation in taking their name. While he is at the topic he did link to my post as well but by not taking my name he is being dismissive about my identity.

This same Mr. Patrix also made a comment about me on another blog on the Kunte v. Dutt issue, and I’ll quote him,

Sadly, education sometimes makes no difference to an individual’s intellect. I wish the blogger at least wrote better English.

Someone who has never read my blog and who obviously doesn’t know me at all could so easily judge that my education has not made any difference to my intellect. Such self acquired jurisdiction and credibility to judge other people’s intelligence based upon insufficient fact is elitism. Probably he thinks so highly of himself that any body digressing from his point of view has to be a moron.

I know Mr. Patrix is also on Twitter. I decided to have a direct conversation with him and ask him how could he make that judgment. But the thing about elite bloggers is that they never face you directly unless they think you are worthy of a conversation. “Hum chote logo ke muh nahi lagte types.” (We don’t deal with smaller people)

I sent him @patrix messages once, twice. I left messages for him on comment threads on various blogs asking him to face me on twitter but he never responded. Perhaps he realized, it is not easy to face the person you criticize.

I have been around this blogsphere long enough, and I know my followers would vouch for my education, intellect and honesty or lack of any of it, but he was too quick to judge. Alas.

[Note the words I have tagged this post with and let me know if you can read in between the lines]

A war has been waged by the Indian Blogsphere against NDTV Journalist Ms. Barkha Dutt.

Recap: Certain Mr. Kunte wrote a this blog post against Barkha Dutt. Note, I said against Barkha Dutt as a whole, not just on her reporting style. He called her an ‘idiot.’ Soon he followed it with a public apology and withdrawal. The language of the withdrawal post was very legal so Indian blogshpere went ahead and assumed (may be rightly) that Ms. Dutt might have threatened him with legal consequences.

A huge uproar followed, on blogs, twitter, suddenly Kunte was a famous victim of coercion from Mainstream media, blogger’s favorite enemy, invoking large amount of sympathy. Facebook groups are being floated in his support, ‘we support Kunte’ kinda virtual slogans are being raised, there are talks of comic strips being made on the incident to malign Ms. Dutt’s image even more. Somebody even said something about a candle light vigil. In no time we have another blogging martyr first being one Mr. Sabnis.

[Scene - I, 22^nd Jan 1977, Jalpaiguri a small town in north West Bengal]

She spent all of last night sobbing in his arms. “The doctor said 21st is the date but I never had a labour pain. And now the baby has even stopped moving. Some thing must be wrong with the baby, I am so scared, and you are leaving me here all alone. Why must you leave? Shouldn’t you be worried that the baby is not moving? Yes I did tell ma about it, she said few days here and there from the predicted date is fine. But I am scared. We should go to a good doctor, the Government hospitals are no good. Just because I don’t have a family of my own you people are doing this to me. If I had my parents they would have taken me to a good nursing home for a checkup.” She sobbed and sobbed.

All that sobbing really got Gora worried. It was barely dawn when he rushed to his mother’s room. “Ma, your bouma is very worried, it seems the baby is not moving, let us take her to a doctor come with me.”

They went to Dr. Banerjee’s private clinic. He took one look at Mita and said it cannot be a normal delivery. Dr. Banerjee isn’t a very sweet person. One would often hear him saying, “I don’t have time to be nice, I have lives to save.”

He asked Gora rather rudely, “when was your return to Kolkta again?”

“Er, I thought I would leave tomorrow.” Gora could sense doctor Banerjee wasn’t very pleased.

“What? Leave tomorrow. Your wife is going to deliver a baby any time now and you have plans to return to work, leave her alone here, don’t you people have any sensibility. Go cancel your tickets or whatever. There has to be a seizure, you will have to sign a bond. Leaving tomorrow it seems.” He sounded disgruntled

Mita had to be immediately admitted.