The President has been wedded for so long now, and we still keep asking him why he is still a bachelor! The neat thought that ‘patriotism’ is greater than ‘love’ is personified by our Pres. And both in fact are not two different things to him, his patriotism is his love!
Read this and see how proudly he talks about her. His heart swells for her. He always wishes well for her. He has her goals in mind, and gives her the best of ideas to go forward. He envisions her to be THE best. How lucky the bride has been! Long live their bonding!
He is wedded to the nation, and what a suitable soul mate he has been to this resurgent India!
Sir, you make us proud! Salutations!
PS: read his 'Wings of Fire', and you will realise his was a child-marriage!!!
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Friday, February 17, 2006
Don’t we all have our horcruxes??
Just when I am sitting in office wondering how come none I could talk to is online today, I realized something. It is a very nebulous thought. It is, how little we would actually know about what the person we are chatting with is doing. It is totally unlike talking in person. There could be a different level of acquaintance with different person we chat with. Some we might know very well and some others we would not have seen in our dear life! And the multitudes of logins we have become our online horcruxes!! We ‘live’ on the net through them, spend considerable time talking to people over chat sessions, conversation and what not! For instance all I have seen of me dear friend in 3 years now is only a few hours we spent when he was in India. But we never lost ‘touch’ because we always do catch up online. And there is this amazing being in Canada who still never ceases to be mind-blowing!! But all I know of this person is only through the internet, and yet I feel so very at-home when talking to her. So isn’t it me who is talking to her? Or is it not her who is talking to me all the time! And this is how horcruxes are supposed to work... preserve life across the unknown. OK, the horcrux in the book preserves life, but these online horcruxes preserve the personality. As I had written in my other post, what any person writes is what the person likes to read, the person himself/herself. Mails/chats might be the way we preserve ourselves in these horcruxes! :P Some idea!
ps: sorry, those who aint Harry Potter fans, if you dint got head or tail of the post!
ps: sorry, those who aint Harry Potter fans, if you dint got head or tail of the post!
Monday, February 13, 2006
Holocaust II / WW III ... ?
The Hindu came out with this article in yesterday’s issue. To say the least, it astounded me! What arrogance! How impudent on America’s part? As per the article, "There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran,'' said Senator John McCain, a likely Republican contender for the presidency in 2008.
So America will never stop lording over the Middle East/world? Yes WTC was brought down. But how does Iran’s plans directly affect the US? Bush’s deceleration ‘This is WAR’ was against the Afghans supposedly, right? Then where did Iran come into the picture now? I am not talking like I don’t know how it all has been going. But here I am trying to step back and think in the ‘history’ angle. If someone from the future were to read newspapers from around 9/11’s time, with knowledge of the American superpower status, I guess it will show starkly that the world was taken on a ‘terror’ ride by the US… and whatever ‘threat’ was posed by Afghan, Iraq or Iran was as empty as the famous and never found “WMD”.
OK my point is, if Osama was earlier trained by the US for operations against Russia and he gave back some medicine to US when he thought what they were propagating against his religion was wrong, how does it become entirely wrong on Osama’s part alone. Isn’t the big question these days – ‘Who is a bigger terrorist Osama or Bush? – correct in context?
Another interview of Ziauddin Sardar in yesterday’s paper gave a very good insight. About Islam he says – ‘Scholars and thinkers have been suggesting for well over a century that we need to make a serious attempt at ijtihad, at reasoned struggle and rethinking, to reform Islam. Reform, in my opinion, is long overdue. It is time we made serious attempts to rethink Islam in contemporary terms.’ But he also says – ‘The cartoons are not about freedom of expression; they are all about naked use of power and demonisation. They are not just maligning the Prophet; they are saying that he was intrinsically violent, that the creed he preached is violent, and hence all those who follow him are violent. In other words, Muslims are inherently violent and evil. No culture or people can tolerate such a level of demonisation. Last time, Europe demonised a people to this extent we ended up with the Holocaust. As far as I am concerned, these cartoons are a reflection of racism and Islamophobia that is now running rampant in Europe.’
It rang very true to me! What if 10 years from now newspapers start categorizing this decade as the decade of WW III!?? Lets say it all started with 9/11 attacks because the ‘Gulf War’ is a separate entity in the relative past. So the US declares WAR on Afghan. Next, with false allegation and ‘manufactured’ reports descends its troops in Iraq soil. Gets it hand on all the oil it wants and is still not satisfied. It tells the world that Iran is dangerous if it can have nuclear weapons [as if the US alone is not!!!] and goes on to bunker-bomb the nuclear facilities, in the process razing out Iran too.
Here, I am going to imagine more… to make things more dramatic. Let’s say China springs a surprise on the US coming out in support of some Middle East country [this event is not totally ruled out even in today’s world]. And Russia [it is already inviting Hamas leaders to Moscow] takes a stand against the US too. And now, the US is all too much into this to step back and prevent another catastrophe. WW III flares around the world - Holocaust is here! It results in a catastrophe never known in human history. It makes WW II look like it was not a ‘major’ war as this one!!
Can this be stopped? If it can be, it has to be done NOW! Bush’s second term is getting worse for him by the day! And I don’t really know if a President can be impeached because he took his nation to an unwanted war! And he has 2 more years to stay in power, including 2006. It boggles my mind to think of the possibilities! And all this has the potential to have really far reaching consequences. Can and will the Americans stop Bush from taking the world on a terror ride? Guys sitting out there in the US, you people are placed in the inside of the place I am talking about. Can you give at least a fair picture of how things might go on, from here? Bala… here’s your favorite topic. Give me a big comment here!
So America will never stop lording over the Middle East/world? Yes WTC was brought down. But how does Iran’s plans directly affect the US? Bush’s deceleration ‘This is WAR’ was against the Afghans supposedly, right? Then where did Iran come into the picture now? I am not talking like I don’t know how it all has been going. But here I am trying to step back and think in the ‘history’ angle. If someone from the future were to read newspapers from around 9/11’s time, with knowledge of the American superpower status, I guess it will show starkly that the world was taken on a ‘terror’ ride by the US… and whatever ‘threat’ was posed by Afghan, Iraq or Iran was as empty as the famous and never found “WMD”.
OK my point is, if Osama was earlier trained by the US for operations against Russia and he gave back some medicine to US when he thought what they were propagating against his religion was wrong, how does it become entirely wrong on Osama’s part alone. Isn’t the big question these days – ‘Who is a bigger terrorist Osama or Bush? – correct in context?
Another interview of Ziauddin Sardar in yesterday’s paper gave a very good insight. About Islam he says – ‘Scholars and thinkers have been suggesting for well over a century that we need to make a serious attempt at ijtihad, at reasoned struggle and rethinking, to reform Islam. Reform, in my opinion, is long overdue. It is time we made serious attempts to rethink Islam in contemporary terms.’ But he also says – ‘The cartoons are not about freedom of expression; they are all about naked use of power and demonisation. They are not just maligning the Prophet; they are saying that he was intrinsically violent, that the creed he preached is violent, and hence all those who follow him are violent. In other words, Muslims are inherently violent and evil. No culture or people can tolerate such a level of demonisation. Last time, Europe demonised a people to this extent we ended up with the Holocaust. As far as I am concerned, these cartoons are a reflection of racism and Islamophobia that is now running rampant in Europe.’
It rang very true to me! What if 10 years from now newspapers start categorizing this decade as the decade of WW III!?? Lets say it all started with 9/11 attacks because the ‘Gulf War’ is a separate entity in the relative past. So the US declares WAR on Afghan. Next, with false allegation and ‘manufactured’ reports descends its troops in Iraq soil. Gets it hand on all the oil it wants and is still not satisfied. It tells the world that Iran is dangerous if it can have nuclear weapons [as if the US alone is not!!!] and goes on to bunker-bomb the nuclear facilities, in the process razing out Iran too.
Here, I am going to imagine more… to make things more dramatic. Let’s say China springs a surprise on the US coming out in support of some Middle East country [this event is not totally ruled out even in today’s world]. And Russia [it is already inviting Hamas leaders to Moscow] takes a stand against the US too. And now, the US is all too much into this to step back and prevent another catastrophe. WW III flares around the world - Holocaust is here! It results in a catastrophe never known in human history. It makes WW II look like it was not a ‘major’ war as this one!!
Can this be stopped? If it can be, it has to be done NOW! Bush’s second term is getting worse for him by the day! And I don’t really know if a President can be impeached because he took his nation to an unwanted war! And he has 2 more years to stay in power, including 2006. It boggles my mind to think of the possibilities! And all this has the potential to have really far reaching consequences. Can and will the Americans stop Bush from taking the world on a terror ride? Guys sitting out there in the US, you people are placed in the inside of the place I am talking about. Can you give at least a fair picture of how things might go on, from here? Bala… here’s your favorite topic. Give me a big comment here!
Monday, February 06, 2006
A good story...
After browsing through a few blog entries such as this and this, I was wondering how indeed we have lost the art of story telling. As the ‘lazygeek’ pointed out in his blog, when Kamal said we have lost the art of script writing I really believed it was true. My guess is any movie … ANY... is as good as its script. And I just watched Fight Club [the Edward Norton one]… so there you have proof how the script can work wonders. Its all there in the head, just a bit of imagination is needed. Movies are such a vast canvas and you can tell the story however you want it and the audience is ‘mould-able’ into a mood. And this mood can be generated only with a good script. Even Rang De Basanti works for me ‘cos it has a neat script, the juxtaposing of sepia and color was good technicality too!
But this post is about my reminiscences of my college days where I was the sole narrator of vivid tales to the, nay I call, ‘pattikaataans’!! What I mean to say is, I was the city guy in the whole floor of the polytechnic hostel and we had a good 12-15 guys [the pattikaataans you see] sitting around me, after dinner, listening to my narration of ‘ID-4’ and ‘The Rock’. I was just out of school then and I am still not able to understand how I really ‘narrated’ the story of ‘Matrix’ to 2 unlucky guys! A funny anecdote is that one of the guys went home one of the weekends and happened to be watching a movie on HBO. Most of the movie got over but the poor guy had missed the initial titles and dint have a clue which movie he was watching. But towards end of the movie, a guy standing on an island lights up two flashlights and waves it at an incoming aircraft. It was at that instant when it hit my happy friend that this was the story I was narrating the week before! He knew he was watching ‘The Rock’ and this friend still attributes it to my very theatrical narration of stories that makes him like even drab movies, ‘The Mexican’ for instance. He watched it just because I said it was good and dint like it one bit. But I did, maybe ‘cos I liked Brad and Julia in it.
Anything given a twist and an angle always interests the listener/reader. Such as one of my posts did, I should guess! So narrating and listening to stories is important. And it is more important that such ‘paati kathaikal’ are narrated to every kid, ‘cos I have vivid memory of how I staggered at the immense nature of the ‘Viswa Roobam’ on screen, watching the Mahabaratha as a tiny tot. And I believe each kid should experience that. My friend and I could only feel sad about how kids these days did not have a ‘Stone Boy’ or a ‘Circus’ or even ‘Potli Baba’ to watch on TV. All that has been raided by ‘The Mask’ and ‘Jack the Samurai’ and ‘Jonny Bravo’ that give instant laughs like the fast food, but the taste never lingers on as it does with watching a ‘Bhishma Maharaj’ or ‘Kroor Singh’ for that matter! We really need to get back our story telling ways!
But this post is about my reminiscences of my college days where I was the sole narrator of vivid tales to the, nay I call, ‘pattikaataans’!! What I mean to say is, I was the city guy in the whole floor of the polytechnic hostel and we had a good 12-15 guys [the pattikaataans you see] sitting around me, after dinner, listening to my narration of ‘ID-4’ and ‘The Rock’. I was just out of school then and I am still not able to understand how I really ‘narrated’ the story of ‘Matrix’ to 2 unlucky guys! A funny anecdote is that one of the guys went home one of the weekends and happened to be watching a movie on HBO. Most of the movie got over but the poor guy had missed the initial titles and dint have a clue which movie he was watching. But towards end of the movie, a guy standing on an island lights up two flashlights and waves it at an incoming aircraft. It was at that instant when it hit my happy friend that this was the story I was narrating the week before! He knew he was watching ‘The Rock’ and this friend still attributes it to my very theatrical narration of stories that makes him like even drab movies, ‘The Mexican’ for instance. He watched it just because I said it was good and dint like it one bit. But I did, maybe ‘cos I liked Brad and Julia in it.
Anything given a twist and an angle always interests the listener/reader. Such as one of my posts did, I should guess! So narrating and listening to stories is important. And it is more important that such ‘paati kathaikal’ are narrated to every kid, ‘cos I have vivid memory of how I staggered at the immense nature of the ‘Viswa Roobam’ on screen, watching the Mahabaratha as a tiny tot. And I believe each kid should experience that. My friend and I could only feel sad about how kids these days did not have a ‘Stone Boy’ or a ‘Circus’ or even ‘Potli Baba’ to watch on TV. All that has been raided by ‘The Mask’ and ‘Jack the Samurai’ and ‘Jonny Bravo’ that give instant laughs like the fast food, but the taste never lingers on as it does with watching a ‘Bhishma Maharaj’ or ‘Kroor Singh’ for that matter! We really need to get back our story telling ways!
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