..True India ... White Tiger!

I know I said I was going to read "The Discovery of India" and write back on my experiences with it! I did hold true to that thought ... for about a week … It is great reading but fairly heavy. I soon felt the need for some mainstream fiction and so went back to my genre - Epic Fantasy. I realized I needed more than a quick fix and so I covered Sara Douglass - "The Twisted Citadel", 4 books of Jim Butchers' - Furies of Calderon Series and now I am on Kate Elliott’s' - Crown of Stars Series. Some where in between I found Aravind Adiga - the winner of the Booker Prize 2008 for "The White Tiger". I picked it up with more than a little bit of dread - I had tried Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things" and not had a pleasant experience with it. Of course I am not conceited enough to admit that it could have been the wrong time for me to read it. But I never tried again. But I was very surprised by this one - after a slow start that puzzled me enough to read more of it - I LOVED IT! The style, the sarcasm, and the sheer bald truth of how things are in India - India currently is very little about Gandhi, Sandalwood paste and Bharatanatyam (I give Adiga full credit for this line). Very commendable writing, simplistic in nature and not overflowing with flowery prose - it is an experience I would recommend to anyone who would like to try something different.

And this compliment coming from someone who does not like reading about true things or rather believes there is more to this world than what we can see and feel with our senses (made obvious by my choice of genre) is high indeed!

BRAVO and KUDOS!

~ HAPPY NEW YEAR Everyone!

Discovery of India ..... a journey that began 18 years ago!

For me anyway ... 18 years ago was when my life inexorably intermingled with 'Bharat Ek Khoj'. I of course did not know it at the time. I was a wee babe then but I used to try and see what I could make of this 'dark' (for some reason I remember the film quality being dark) foray into India's past ... Of course my clearest memory of Bharat Ek Khoj today is the haunting introductory chant .... with music by Vanraj Bhatia.

" SrushTee se pehle sat nahin thaa, asat bhi nahin.
Antariksh bhi nahin, aakaash bhi nahin thaa.
Chhipaa thaa kyaa, kahaan, kisne Dhakaa thaa.
Us pal to agam, aTal jal bhi kahaan thaa. "

The words still ring in my ear (Well .... a good reason for this could also be that I have been listening to this everyday while I work for the past week). I have therefore decided to read the masterpiece that was the reason for this televised saga. Amazon had it and now so do I. Will let you know how it goes!

~~ Ciao.

Hi after a loooooooonnnnngggg time!

Am back on the web world after a really long hiatus. Done loads of things since then - got engaged, got married, moved States and moved jobs. Still reeling from the affect of it all!

~ Adios Amigos! Will be BACH soon!

The true meaning of discrimination

What is discrimination? Let me give you two examples of times when I have felt it :

Incident 1 – I am walking down a very familiar street and someone calling rude expletives from the opposite sidewalk because I am an Indian and I am in USA where I so obviously should not be according to them.

OR

Incident 2 – A very highly educated person and a person respected for their knowledge and their stand on a variety of issues writes a note in my assignment that they do not understand my numbers (large 6 – 7 figure numbers) because I have the comma in the ‘wrong’ place and removing a couple of marks from the total. All this because I am Indian and we write numbers in the British way and not the American way?

So what do you think?

Amitabh's Donation to Tirupathi - Thoughts...

I read the newspaper the other day and also saw the local news. Amitabh donated a bracelet made out of gold and studded with diamonds for Lord Venkateshwara at Tirupathi. Initially I was impressed. This man who is an Icon in India respected and revered the Lord. He wanted to thank the Lord by generously donating something.

However, a little while later, I was talking to my dad about this. I wondered aloud what happened to all the ornaments that were put in the Hundi of the Lord at Tirupathi. He said that as far as he knew they would be held as fixed assets for the Lord.

That was when I started thinking. Do such donations really help. I do know that the money that goes into the hundi is used for the upkeep of the temple, the facilities for the pilgrims who visit Tirupathi, the universities and charities that are run by the Facilitators of Tirupathi. Every one in India knows that Lord Venkateshwara of Tirupathi is the richest lord in India.

Then would a donation in the form money for these charities or universities, or in the form of a trust fund for the poor, not be a better way to thank the lord for his constant strength in ones' life.

Would such a donation not be a more proactive way to thank him for the life he has given us?

ciao...

Gandhi Park, Meerut - Feminism OR Vigilantism

Any one who saw the video clipping of the happenings at Gandhi Park, Meerut on ------- would have definitely wondered whether the police had inside information on the couples who were slapped so vigorously on camera.

Since the idea behind this public rampage was to stop eve teasers - maybe the police had conducted a thorough investigation and found out the guys who were in the park that day enjoying a quiet solitude with their significant others used to be eve - teasers who actually managed to "eve tease" the ladies into becoming their partner in crime.

The adaucity shown by the police astounds me. Did they actually think that walking around the streets of Meerut would lead them to eve-teasers?? Especially when they were in full uniform?? Are the eve - teasers that stupid or are the police so powerless that incidents of eve - teasing would occur in full public view of the police who are walking around with a camera crew no less.

I wonder if any of these women police officers have ever been eve - teased? Eve-teasing is done in such a subtle manner that people walking by do not even know that its happening. Police in uniform walking around with a camera crew is not going to stop it.

In fact I am sure that the perpetrators of this kind of crime, are having a nice time laughing over such pathetic attempts.

Unbelievable ......

Question ?

I was reading an article on CNN today about the various Supreme Court cases currently pending. The most controversial amongst them is of course the Legalization of Abortion. I had a thought when I was reading and decided to put it across to see what others think.

There is one fact that cannot be refuted.

Men cannot get pregnant and hence do not know what it is to be pregnant. Therefore I do not see how they can have a say in whether or not a woman can have an abortion.

.. ?