India is 55 – five years before retirement?
Gandhi missed India’s fifty-fifth independence day today. He had missed India’s first independence day too, as he was busy trying to quell rioting in Noakhali (now in Bangladesh) at the time we were busy making our tryst with destiny. One would thing that rioting would have gone out of fashion after 55 years, but it is apparently here to stay.
In spite of the heavy rioting in Gujarat this year, it got only a passing mention in the PM’s message to the nation. Muslims didn’t receive apologies for the total lack of state support during the carnage and nobody expressed their regrets towards the Hindus for the unconscionable acts carried out under the name of Hinduism.
Here is the text of the Prime Minister’s speech.
Journalists in India wrote their articles about how India is a great land of unfulfilled potential. The scenery is just like Africa, they would have us believe, but we are more like America. And too boot we don’t have to endure Jay Leno before getting to Conan O’Brien. Lucky us. All Non Resident Indians in America shall write to the INS canceling their applications for a green card.
In Churchgate station in Bombay there is a sign. To get to it you have to duck like an agile Ronaldo to avoid getting spittle on your shirt, walk over two people sleeping on the platform and trip over trash lying at a good fifty feet away from the trashcan. Then you see the sign that says: A dirty environment reflects a dirty mind…Gandhi.
Very, very true. There is nothing more sapping to the morale than having to exist in filth 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Then you die. And then what if you happen to be reborn under the auspices of the Bombay Municipal Corporation? The next blog will deal with Gandhi’s views on dirt and the environment.
Gandhi would have done a double back flip, just as I am sure he does every year when the nation’s leaders visit his samadhi to pray their respects, if he had heard of the Asian cloud. This cloud apparently reflects back 15% of sunshine and is one of the possible causes the monsoons failed this year.
The failure of the monsoons mean that millions of farmers will go without crops this year in Northern India.
However, Gandhi would be proud of one thing
If one were to go by history, the poor farmers with barren fields don’t have to worry about starvation like their counterparts in Southern Africa. India has never experienced famine post independence. Its richer neighbor China has borne several famines. Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen says that the mechanism of a democracy is such that leaders are accountable to the people. Hence, processes are set in place to avoid starvation, as to avoid embarrassment in the general elections. In the 1977 famine in Maharashtra, the government created over a million jobs (paid jobs unlike the internships at NBC), so that people had money to buy food from neighboring states.
Entitlement is the name of the game.
Will somebody please entitle somebody?
Gandhi missed India’s fifty-fifth independence day today. He had missed India’s first independence day too, as he was busy trying to quell rioting in Noakhali (now in Bangladesh) at the time we were busy making our tryst with destiny. One would thing that rioting would have gone out of fashion after 55 years, but it is apparently here to stay.
In spite of the heavy rioting in Gujarat this year, it got only a passing mention in the PM’s message to the nation. Muslims didn’t receive apologies for the total lack of state support during the carnage and nobody expressed their regrets towards the Hindus for the unconscionable acts carried out under the name of Hinduism.
Here is the text of the Prime Minister’s speech.
Journalists in India wrote their articles about how India is a great land of unfulfilled potential. The scenery is just like Africa, they would have us believe, but we are more like America. And too boot we don’t have to endure Jay Leno before getting to Conan O’Brien. Lucky us. All Non Resident Indians in America shall write to the INS canceling their applications for a green card.
In Churchgate station in Bombay there is a sign. To get to it you have to duck like an agile Ronaldo to avoid getting spittle on your shirt, walk over two people sleeping on the platform and trip over trash lying at a good fifty feet away from the trashcan. Then you see the sign that says: A dirty environment reflects a dirty mind…Gandhi.
Very, very true. There is nothing more sapping to the morale than having to exist in filth 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Then you die. And then what if you happen to be reborn under the auspices of the Bombay Municipal Corporation? The next blog will deal with Gandhi’s views on dirt and the environment.
Gandhi would have done a double back flip, just as I am sure he does every year when the nation’s leaders visit his samadhi to pray their respects, if he had heard of the Asian cloud. This cloud apparently reflects back 15% of sunshine and is one of the possible causes the monsoons failed this year.
The failure of the monsoons mean that millions of farmers will go without crops this year in Northern India.
However, Gandhi would be proud of one thing
If one were to go by history, the poor farmers with barren fields don’t have to worry about starvation like their counterparts in Southern Africa. India has never experienced famine post independence. Its richer neighbor China has borne several famines. Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen says that the mechanism of a democracy is such that leaders are accountable to the people. Hence, processes are set in place to avoid starvation, as to avoid embarrassment in the general elections. In the 1977 famine in Maharashtra, the government created over a million jobs (paid jobs unlike the internships at NBC), so that people had money to buy food from neighboring states.
Entitlement is the name of the game.
Will somebody please entitle somebody?
On the art of self defence (different from the Karate Kid, Rambo and Santa Claus comes to town)
My telephone rang quite a while ago. I picked it up and discovered that it was my president Bill Clinton on the other line. He threatened me with deportation and mumbled something vaguely about how he didn’t like the fact that Ali Baba was my fortieth uncle. In order to mollify him, I offered to take Monica Lewinsky out to lunch and hung up the phone.
When I am in the restaurant somebody makes lewd remarks towards Monica. I am shocked, not only at his poor taste, but also because Monica is like my sister and I cannot take these extremely salacious, vulgar remarks anymore. The person making the remarks is now touching her and when I try and come in between, he pushes me aside, as if I were a fly who had just dropped in for a spin. Now, this man, who is molesting my sister is approximately seven feet tall and eight feet wide – in either direction. I don’t want to start a scene and don’t want to be violent. What should I do?
Obviously, whatever Gandhi would have me do.
Gandhi is very clear on the course of action I should take. Firstly I should remember world history and know that violence only begets more violence. Look at Israel. One day they get bombed, next day they bomb. Grenades switch hands from the bombers to the bombees and we are nowhere near a solution. To get back to the subject of dying, I should consider death to be a blessing and be willing to lay my life down when protecting my dear sister Monica. However, I should not walk away and justify to myself that I acted in a non-violent manner. That would be far from the truth – I chickened out.
A coward never risks his life. A man who would kill often risks it and is closer to the path of non-violence than a person who would just stand, or run away. Bullies are strong only in the face of the non-violence of the weak. So I could go and hit the bully in vulnerable areas, much like an ant biting an elephant in the eye, and meet with Gandhi’s approval.
But I don’t want to start a cycle of violence. I want to exhibit non-violence of the brave. What do I do?
The key here is not to harbor any ill will against the assailant. This is the most important thing. I must be ready to get hurt or even lay down my life. This unalloyed self suffering is the truest art of self defence. The assailant would soon realize that I have no ill will against him. A violent person is usually trying to get a reaction, to get the other party to surrender something. But if I am firm in my belief, hate the evil rather than the evil doer, willing to die in my post and have belief that this man has some semblance of good choice when it comes to women, I know that I shall be able to drop her off unharmed and also have won the grudging respect of the assailant.
The kicker is truly not to hate the oppressor. Gandhi admired the British, even as he fought them. As Q Tip says:
Sing a song of sixpence, but sing it like a singer.
It’s all good.
My telephone rang quite a while ago. I picked it up and discovered that it was my president Bill Clinton on the other line. He threatened me with deportation and mumbled something vaguely about how he didn’t like the fact that Ali Baba was my fortieth uncle. In order to mollify him, I offered to take Monica Lewinsky out to lunch and hung up the phone.
When I am in the restaurant somebody makes lewd remarks towards Monica. I am shocked, not only at his poor taste, but also because Monica is like my sister and I cannot take these extremely salacious, vulgar remarks anymore. The person making the remarks is now touching her and when I try and come in between, he pushes me aside, as if I were a fly who had just dropped in for a spin. Now, this man, who is molesting my sister is approximately seven feet tall and eight feet wide – in either direction. I don’t want to start a scene and don’t want to be violent. What should I do?
Obviously, whatever Gandhi would have me do.
Gandhi is very clear on the course of action I should take. Firstly I should remember world history and know that violence only begets more violence. Look at Israel. One day they get bombed, next day they bomb. Grenades switch hands from the bombers to the bombees and we are nowhere near a solution. To get back to the subject of dying, I should consider death to be a blessing and be willing to lay my life down when protecting my dear sister Monica. However, I should not walk away and justify to myself that I acted in a non-violent manner. That would be far from the truth – I chickened out.
A coward never risks his life. A man who would kill often risks it and is closer to the path of non-violence than a person who would just stand, or run away. Bullies are strong only in the face of the non-violence of the weak. So I could go and hit the bully in vulnerable areas, much like an ant biting an elephant in the eye, and meet with Gandhi’s approval.
But I don’t want to start a cycle of violence. I want to exhibit non-violence of the brave. What do I do?
The key here is not to harbor any ill will against the assailant. This is the most important thing. I must be ready to get hurt or even lay down my life. This unalloyed self suffering is the truest art of self defence. The assailant would soon realize that I have no ill will against him. A violent person is usually trying to get a reaction, to get the other party to surrender something. But if I am firm in my belief, hate the evil rather than the evil doer, willing to die in my post and have belief that this man has some semblance of good choice when it comes to women, I know that I shall be able to drop her off unharmed and also have won the grudging respect of the assailant.
The kicker is truly not to hate the oppressor. Gandhi admired the British, even as he fought them. As Q Tip says:
Sing a song of sixpence, but sing it like a singer.
It’s all good.
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