Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Blogger's block

Yeah, can't get a topic to post about. Or maybe that's too much to post about and so little time. Have decided to not write for the remainder of this month.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Flames on Flickr

My most viewed pic on Flickr crosses the 6000 view mark! It was 5000 views in November 2008. Thanks for all the views and comments and faves. Appreciate it. But kinda feel bad that my image has been used by some news sites (from as far away as Australia and the US) and no link-back was given to my image and one site had even resized the image. More on this later.

I have also posted this on my photoblog.


Flames

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Religion, Marxism and Slumdog

I got this little bit of hate-mongering as a mail forward and am posting it here. It is incredible how "they" have learned to adapt and cover themselves in Indianness and Culture, Indian-culture, the past but still manage to get that raw anger out of you - the left or the right! Read between the effing lines!

WHY did a film like Slumdog Millionaire, which conveys an utterly negative image of India — slums, exploitation, poverty, corruption, anti Muslim pogroms — create so many waves in the West, pre and post Oscars? And why does not the Indian government protest, as the Chinese would indeed have, for a twisted and perverted portrayal of its own reality? There are several answers: When the missionaries began to evangelise India, they quickly realised that Hinduism was not only practised by a huge majority, but that it was so deeply rooted that it stood as the only barrier to their subjugating the entire subcontinent. They therefore decided to demonise the religion, by multiplying what they perceived as its faults, by one hundred: caste, poverty, child marriage, superstition, widows, sati … Today, these exaggerations, which at best are based on quarter-truths, have come down to us and have been embedded not only in the minds of many Westerners, but also unfortunately, of much of India’s intelligentsia. We Westerners continue to suffer from a superiority complex over the socalled Third World in general and India in particular. Sitting in front of our television sets during prime time news, with a hefty steak on our table, we love to feel sorry for the misery of others, it secretly flatters our ego and makes us proud of our so-called ‘achievements’. That is why books such as The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre, which gives the impression that India is a vast slum, or a film like Slumdog Millionaire, have such an impact. In this film, India ’s foes have joined hands. Today, billions of dollars that innocent Westerners give to charity are used to convert the poorest of India with the help of enticements such as free medical aid, schooling and loans. If you see the Tamil Nadu coast post tsunami, there is a church every 500 metres. Once converted, these new Christians are taught that it is a sin to enter a temple, do puja, or even put tilak on one’s head, thus creating an imbalance in the Indian psyche (In an interview to a British newspaper, Danny Boyle confessed he wanted to be a Christian missionary when he was young and that he is still very much guided by these ideals — so much for his impartiality). Islamic fundamentalism also ruthlessly hounds India , as demonstrated by the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, which are reminiscent of the brutality and savagery of a Timur, who killed 1,00,000 Hindus in a single act of savagery. Indian communists, in power in three states, are also hard at work to dismantle India ’s cultural and spiritual inheritance. And finally, the Americanisation of India is creating havoc in the social and cultural fabric with its superficial glitter, even though it has proved a failure in the West. Slumdog plays cleverly with all these elements. Many of the West’s India-specialists are staunchly anti-Hindu, both because of their Christian upbringing and also as they perpetuate the tradition of Max Mueller, the first ‘Sankritist’ who said: “The Vedas is full of childish, silly, even monstrous conceptions. It is tedious, low, commonplace, it represents human nature on a low level of selfishness and worldliness and only here and there are a few rare sentiments that come from the depths of the soul”. This tradition is carried over by Indologists such as Witzel or Wendy Doniger in the US, and in France where scholars of the state-sponsored CNRS, and its affiliates such as EHESS, are always putting across in their books and articles detrimental images of India: caste, poverty, slums — and more than anything — their pet theories about ‘Hindu fundamentalism’. Can there be a more blatant lie? Hinduism has given refuge throughout the ages to those who were persecuted at home: the Christians of Syria, the Parsees, Armenians, the Jews of Jerusalem, and today the Tibetans, allowing them all to practise their religion freely. And finally, it is true that Indians, because they have been colonised for so long (unlike the Chinese) lack nationalism. Today much of the intellectual elite of India has lost touch with its cultural roots and looks to the West to solve its problems, ignoring its own tools, such as pranayama, hata-yoga or meditation, which are very old and possess infinite wisdom. Slumdog literally defecates on India from the first frame. Some scenes exist only in the perverted imagery of director Danny Boyle, because they are not in the book of Vikas Swarup, an Indian diplomat, on which the film is based. In the book, the hero of the film (who is not Muslim, but belongs to many religions: Ram Mohammad Thomas) does not spend his childhood in Bombay , but in a Catholic orphanage in Delhi . Jamal’s mother is not killed by “Hindu fanatics’, but she abandons her baby, of unknown religion, in a church. Jamal’s torture is not an idea of the television presenter, but of an American who is after the Russian who bought the television rights of the game. The tearful scene of the three children abandoned in the rain is also not in the book: Jamal and his heroine only meet when they are teenagers and they live in an apartment and not in a slum. And finally, yes, there still exists in India a lot of poverty and glaring gaps between the very rich and the extremely poor, but there is also immense wealth, both physical, spiritual and cultural — much more than in the West as a matter of fact.

When will the West learn to look with less prejudice at India , a country that will supplant China in this century as the main Asian power? But this will require a new generation of Indologists, more sincere, less attached to their outdated Christian values, and Indians more proud of their own culture and less subservient to the West.

And to really put a point to it - the Tamilnadu coast post tsunami, is not "littered" with churches. In fact, I have known that many church leaders worked with the local Hindu leaders to bring a semblance of reality back in the lives of many people. Do away with bloody labels!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Motherjane, Maktub

Can't wait to watch Motherjane perform at RockEthos tomorrow. Hopefully they will play some tracks from Maktub. Nice album that!

Even better is that Tom's cousin is Clyde, who plays the bass in Motherjane. One step even better is I know the co-ordinator of RockEthos. Nice!

NO COVERS! Yeah, I know you sissies who love Indian Rock bands playing fucking covers - NO FUCKING COVERS - stay away!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Drunk women

Sanjeeb sometimes has this really hilarious way of putting things across.

Met him recently and we were discussing the moral policing going all around, especially in Bangalore and Mangalore. We were thinking how even some well learned (sic) guys working in our offices thought the women were to blame for the ills befalling them and how they all seemed to think that the women brought the problems upon themselves. He described a conversation he had in the office with one such "learned" individual...

Sanjeeb : Sad man, the way women are getting harassed even in Bangalore these days.
Pseudo-progressive-dumbfuck-fascist-cultureupholder-pinkchaddiwearer: Bullshit! How can women or girls go to bars and pubs and drink. They will either get sloshed or try and pick up guys.
Sanjeeb: But that don't mean women can't have a good time.
P-p-d-f-c-p: But once they start drinking, then they start wearing all these revealing clothes..
Sanjeeb: wtf?!?! But you can drink?
P-p-d-f-c-p: Yeah men can drink. And once these women start drinking, then the children also later start drinking because of the mothers and spoil our culture.
Sanjeeb : Err, is that how you started drinking?
P-p-d-f-c-p: (ppd his pants and went crying to his mom)!!

Bloody 'ell mate - I am going to be marked for this!