Crossing tracks - the Indian way

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Pretty woman...

Madam: 'Lalita is bold and not ashamed--she will do anything for money. Once she even went with a woman and got paid two hundred rupees. Shanta is shy, but she is pretty. She gets many customers. She will never let a man kiss her on the lips.

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A new initiative..

Blogbharti - Voices from the Indian blogosphere

Recently launched (as in a couple of days ago) idea of Krish and Shivam.

Have a look and keep coming :) A lot of great links promised!!

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Quillpad

Well, I received a mail from Tachyon Technologies today asking me if I wanted a job. I didn't but I still checked out their site and their product - Quillpad!

This is really nice and makes typing in vernacular languages very easy! I tried out a few words in Hindi and it did manage to recognise some of them.

These were typed using this interface...

कुत्ते, मैं तुम्हारा ख़ून पी जाऊंगा!

मेरे पास मा हैं

जब तक रहेगा सामोसे में आलू, तब तक रहेगा पटना में लालू!

मैं तुम्हारे बच्चे की मा बनने वाली हूँ!

It has interfaces for other vernacular languages like kannada, tamil, telugu and malayalam too!

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The cartel and its members..

I learnt a new word today - cartellian. A collective for the libertarian bunch in the Indian blogosphere.

I read this pearl of wisdom from a member of this cartel.

I quote

I think Tejal should set an example for the rest of us in ‘depreviledging’ systems by opening access to her arsehole. Everyone from Thakurs to Dalits to whites to blacks to barnyard animals to illegal Bangladeshi immigrants should be able to enter it at will. I see no reason why everyone should be a have-not when it comes to anal sex with Tejal, especially when she herself has the ability to make everyone a have.

Besides being extremely offensive to women and ridiculing one of the most egregious crimes (violence against women) that exist today, do I even need to say what is wrong with this argument? He is comparing the argument for opening up _public_ institutes to that of access to something very private and personal to a person.

Now we all have rights over our private property and who gets access to it. Which is probably the reason why the cartel is the most insistent on privatisation... To shut off the access to the "undeserving".

Libertarianism and private property rights and privatisation. see how easily they all fit together.

But I am simplifying things, arn't I? And I do not get it, do I?

PS. Incredibly, this post went into draft mode!
I think I accidentally pressed the "save as draft" button when editing this post..

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The sodomobile!!

Methinks we need one in this country!

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Surrealist Compliments...

"Garbage bins would be seventh with ivy to hold your face under a stone."

oO

Orhan Pamuk

This year's Nobel prize for literature goes to the turkish novelist who has been in the centre of controversy earlier this year.

After reading My Name is Red and recently, Snow, I strongly believed that this man would win the prize and it was just a matter of time. In fact, I finished Snow about a week ago and have been meaning to write a review of it ever since. I thought it was a great novel!

If you havn't heard of him or havn't read his books, then please do go to the nearest bookstore and buy a copy of his book. You wont be disappointed.

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Is caste alive?

Answer

What did materazzi say to zidane??

"Since Foucault died, French philosophy has sucked." ??

LOL, If he really did say that.
ROFL, if this was really the reason that got Zidane so angry!

When do they get this book out in India....

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Catch up...

There are so many things to blog about and I havn't kept in touch. North Korea test a nuclear bomb. Kanshi Ram passes away. Schumacher's hopes get dashed in Japan.

But...

This I have got to blog about now..

Irom Sharmila is a marvel. The fact that she has not taken any food willingly for six years is something that continues to astound me. In Manipur, she is a legend and for all those who have come to know of her protest, she is an inspiration and a lesson in determination. But her struggle is not over.

She managed to somehow come to New Delhi, where she continues her bhookh hadtal.

You can support her or at least go meet her and maybe you would realise that there is an another side to the story. This is short notice but I hope this message reaches a lot of people --

URGENT CALL FOR ACTION

JOIN US:
Mass Demonstration against AFSPA, 1958
ITO, Delhi
Date: 11 October 2006 Time: 11:00 AM
(Bring your protest banners)

Call for action issued by various civil society groups. For more info:
email: msad_manipur@yahoo.com adissent@yahoo.co.in
Contacts: 9899925345 (Malem), 9312314339 (Rojesh), 9811352626 (Banerjit).

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Triple Cs

Coffee, Cigarettes, and a long Chat. I met Kuffir yesterday. And we talked about a lot of things. He gave me a lot of history of the city I am in right now and some interesting anecdotes. He had a lot to say and I was content to listen... :)

I will mention just one of his observations here.
"You look older in your photograph"
He he...

We will meet again the next time I am in the city, hopefully...

After MIT, it is UC Berkeley!

We all know about MIT's Open CourseWare, right?

Now UC Berkeley joins in making its educational material available online through google video!

This is absolutely awesome! Of course, this is great news for all the students of the world including perennial student like me :)

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One reason to adopt MySpace..

ONE

Gandhian ideals and relevance...

I do not really watch news channel but I happened to see CNN-IBN's special (?) debate on whether Gandhian ideals are relevant in today's world. First of all, I wondered what they were really talking about. Was there anything specific about Gandhi's life and teachings that they were talking about? Because when I think about Gandhiji, a lot of things come to my mind. His most famous teaching were his emphasis on truth and non-violence. There was also his insistence on wearing handmade, Indian clothes and minimalist lifestyle. And numerous other things, some forgotten, some deliberately hidden and some some ignored.
But of course, a news program, particularly a modern news program, is not going to delve on all the nuances of reasonings and facts, would it? Quite obviously, all this debate on Gandhiji has been triggered by Lage raho... So, I assume they are really referring to what the movie's central message was, that of truth, satyagraha and non-violence. The news program seemingly purports to find out whether Gandhiji's teachings are still alive even today and whether there are people, especially the youth, who believe in it and are ready to live according to those ideals.
But it goes about this task in the worst possible by asking the wrong question! Relevance of ideals, any ideals, could never be in question. Do you start questioning the relevance of Socrates' ideals, Archimedian critical thinking, Confucious' ideas of complex inactivity? Plus, if you really take a deep look at the history of non-violence, you might realise that these ideas have been around for a very looooooonnnnnng time. Think buddha! If Buddha's teaching were relevant to our struggle of independence after two millenia after Buddha, then can we really ask whether they are relevant after nearly 60 years of the death of the man who helped revive it and remind us of those lost ideas. So, if you think about it, it is just an incredibly stupid question.

Are Gandhian ideals still alive today? To answer that question, I would have to describe one of the most painful videos I have ever seen.

Manipur is a land of violence, that we all know. Most people seem to be under the impression that the army is fighting militants there whose aim is separation from the Union of India. What is never heard of or is ever presented to us is the manner in which the people of Manipur have been subjected to immense amounts of violence and pressure the Assam Rifles (a paramilitary force and hence, not part of the regular Indian Army) exert on them. In fact the amount of frustration and helplessness was so much that a few women stripped all their clothes and paraded naked carrying banners that screamed "Indian Army! Rape us!" and that was when the mainstream Indian media took notice of this. It did not notice the rape and murder of Manorama but it took an exceptional courageous and non-violent protest by twelve women.

Manipur is a troubled state where the army and protesting students "clash" at regular intervals. In the video, I saw one such protest. There were a bunch of students wearing bandanas with messages and carrying posters being mercilessly beaten up by men with lathis and being forcibly carried away from the entrance to the Assam Rifles HQ. What was really amazing was that students were not retaliating. They were just lying there taking blow after blow, each one made me wince at the sheer amount of vicious force put behind them. And they were not just beating them up but were pulling them out of the way. And then another amazing thing happened. As soon as one of the students was pulled away, another took his place. The beating continued and at that moment of time, I was reminded of Gandhiji's message. He said that violence is the weapon of the coward and that it takes immense courage to turn the other cheek in the face of violence. At that moment, I knew that he was dead right in that observation.

Gandhiji's message is very much alive. Wherever there have been oppressed people who have had nothing to fight with, they have always used non-violence as their means of struggle.

So, yes, his ideals are not forgotten and will never be.

My personal views about him and his methods mirror Tagore's. There is no denying his greatness and the effectiveness of his methods.

Most of the times, we see only one side of him and we either embrace him completely or denounce him totally. In the past, I have defended him vehemently, even though I have always had my reservations with his ideas and his doings.

Looking at him from just one angle is just totally wrong and even though, it is nice to see teenagers think that he is a "roackstar", I would rather have them learn more about him and appreciate why he is truly great...

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Technology that has immense potential.

I have heard of these multi point touch screen systems but I hadnt seen one in action. Watch it. It is really impressive. If it is indeed something that can be produced cheaply, then its teaching and creative potential is huge!

Students and movements

History has seen a lot of student movements all over the world. Most of them met with a bloody end. The worst being the Tiananmen Square massacre in China giving, perhaps, the best reason to throw communism out of the window. The protests in France in 1968 were perhaps the most influential which propelled protests in various countries which were ruthlessly suppressed.

Why have students been at the forefront of such movements is a question seldom asked. They are idealistic, study in an academic environment that teaches them to think for themselves, analyse and criticize the world around them, and they are passionate in their beliefs and naive enough to believe that they can change the world (and they do!). When faced with authority that tries to suppress their thoughts and control their actions, they rebel and their rebellion is much feared by their governments.

Are they right or wrong?

In their beliefs? Quite often, there are legitimate grievances behind those protests, which are not addressed by the powers that be for a variety of reasons. You cannot get a mass protest out of huge, disparate group of people (as evidenced by the French and the Chinese ones) without a reason or a collection of reasons.

In their actions? Well, that is a tricky one. Quite a few of the rebellions have been violent. Can we accept violence in any form? The violence is usually a manifestation of the frustration and sense of powerlessness and the impatience associated with youth. Violence always snuffs out a lot of lives, lives that would have contributed to the world and their countries if they had continued to live on. And that is the tragedy of it all. Violence is understandable and serves as a precursor to the socio-political change but it would have been better if it hadnt been a violent one. Of course, the repressive governments could very well get away with mass murder without getting punished like in the case of the Tiananmen square massacre.

Students with their passion and energy are the most valuable assets to a country much like oil or gold. Their energy could be used for good or bad, for constructive or destructive purposes, for social reasons or for vested reasons. And their minds are the most malleable and the leanings they inculcate usually stay with them for life. Which is why they are the most sought after by political parties. Which is why the role of the teacher is so powerful and important! Which is why they should, ideally, be left alone to explore the world on their own, with, maybe, a little guidance and mentorship.

Are they really powerless? Can they really be silenced so easily? NO.

we can still change the world without violent rebellions and bloody fights. With patience and determination, and with immense courage. Which is why I deplore messages that tend to legitimise the frustration and powerlessness that lead to violence and tragedy. Which is why I would ask my fellow youth to never lose sight of their goals and work towards it in their own ways and to work together to bring about changes in the world around them and in people they know.

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News...

New company, new city, new people, new processes...

In other words, everything new.

Except for a post. I have been meaning to write something for a long while but things got a little hectic everywhere.

btw, I am not moving out of Bangalore but am working temporarily in Hyderabad.

P Sainath on 9/11

Sainath remember not one but three 9/11s! And tells us the lessons of each and the one that he considers turned the world for the better.

One claim of the time was that it had "changed the world forever." Did it? And in what ways?

Latin America, though, is seeing a wave of anti-neo-liberal globalism protests. And a trashing of pro-U.S. regimes. Whether in Venezuela or Ecuador or Bolivia. Last year, tiny Uruguay became the first nation in the world to ban water privatisation.

"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind."

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I didn't expect this...

10% scored higher (more nerdy), and
90% scored lower (less nerdy).

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:

Supreme Nerd. Apply for a professorship at MIT now!!!.

Ahem...

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