Are you angry, guess Who else is angry too…

Are you angry?
Someone didn’t do their Job!
Are you blaming politician/ corruption/casual attitude?
Are you feeling Guilty (though I see very few of them) for being lax and contributing to the mess?

The greatest need right now I guess is safety.
I guess you need to see authenticity in what people say,
You need consistency of actions!

And do you feel like participating in what is going on …

Yesterday I saw Simi Gravel asking Location in Pakistan to be carpet bombed. I also felt irritated at the response, though as I got up in the morning I started wondering why she will say that. My guess is she is feeling disconnected. Going by her famous show where everything seemed beautiful, all people very loving, I think that was her world. Now that world does not seem the same and she is angry.
We all know the ancient wisdom about what happens when we are angry.

From all the conversations that are taking center stage, I hear security, border petrol, sacrificing a little bit of Individual freedom, intelligence gathering, police reforms.

There is also a small voice that is being spoken but not really getting heard, that is “as long as there is injustice, communal divide some individuals will find motivation to be angry. And as I said earlier anger clouds ones judgments”
We are angry right now, but may be
….just may be there have been some people really angry for a longer time.

We may have all the safety, best of police force, the most it can do is make it very difficult for some angry people to express their anger publicly. Difficult but not impossible, some where someone will slip in…

Do we contribute to the existing injustice in the world…
Consider this
If you are fined by a traffic cop do I pay the 1000 bugs official fine or just 100 Rs for him to be considerate…
Do you feel angry at passing the slum and seeing people defecating on the road side…
Does violence in the North East affects you
Does violence in naxal regions, right from Andhra Coast to Jharkhand, and Bengal, almost the whole eastern belt of India gets your notice
Did you think communal riots after 93 blasts in Mumbai and Godhara Train burn were even remotely justified?
Would you even remember 84 riots if media and political parties for their benefit went silent over it
Do you even know how a large number of people in Meerut many years back were murdered by police in cold blood and buried in a field?
Do you know that even today in villages of Gujarat a Muslim shop is boycotted?
Do you know how many young people are picked up every time there is a disturbance in Andhra Pradesh from Old city of Hyderabad in the middle of night by police and some of them never return?
Did you loose any sleep over the recent attack on Christians in Orrisa, Karnataka, Maharashtra and ongoing targeting of them in MP and Rajasthan?
What about the Malegaon episode, did you for even a minute thought Hindus can not do it?
Do you see the dirtily dressed (if it can be called dressed) children at railway station and cringe at the smell
Do you think maid servants are not committed and crib when they ask for a raise?
Do you know there are more than 50000 people who live on streets in Andhra Pradesh (I am quoting AP as there was a survey 5 years back), any guess what will the number in Mumbai?
Have you ever cursed Medha Patekar for being anti progress, and
Do you have any idea what happened to the people who were displaced?
Do you believe that people in Kashmir are not patriotic?
….. And the list can go on

IF any of this statement holds true for you and me then we are also responsible for what happened in Mumbai, responsible either for being ignorant citizen or responsible for contributing to an opinion that allows establishment to discriminate against its own people because they do not have a voice!

You are angry NOW, think about how each of the above statement has a group of angry people behind them!
And don’t mistake me I am not justifying any act of violence, all I am saying is anger makes us loose control.
If I am angry some one can come and easily manipulate me to express my anger by killing some one.
In some case we choose to call it revenge (Post Godhra riots)
In some other case we call it Terrorism (what happened in Mumbai)
Or
In some cases like Kashmir, we call the same people terrorist, and in Kashmir some people will call them freedom fighters.
This is the truth,
It does not matter if you hate this truth; it just allows the status quo of violence to continue, not ironical that in English it is called “Sticking to Your Guns”.

Finally in last many years I have seen Gandhi being blamed, especially by the younger generation…

Do you think Gandhi is irrelevant now, well then we deserve the violence we are in the midst of!

An eye for an eye
Are you ready to take mine or give yours?
Sounds like a cure
As a democracy, that is surly a sign
We are mature
Ready to kill, Those
Who are looking
For a cyanide pill
To my spine that
Sends a chill
Are we a people
Who jump to find faults and
Then wait for the wound
To get salt, this time though
People speak as they are sure
Politicians good only for Manure?
A game called BLAME
May be this time they will be put to shame
but will we again leave it to fate
and continue to hate,
well then
let just sat the chair straight
a plate of chips, a cup of coffee
or whatever is your poison
and get ready for
Another breaking news
Coming to you live
Dead Sure!

Proud to be an Indian….MAY BE THAT IS THE PROBLEM!

Proud to be an Indian….MAY BE THAT IS THE PROBLEM!

There have been many times when I have thought about the answer to that question (in case it is asked), and I realized I can never bring myself to say “I am proud to be an Indian”(IAPTBAI), I will be lying otherwise.
I response will be, “I am OK to be an Indian”, or better “I am cool to be an Indian”, or may be just state it as a basic fact “I am an Indian” take it or leave it.

I believe we have for too long and with disastrous consequences lived on IAPTBAI. Think about how many of us are proud Indians and how many are questioning Indians. I am often surprised by between Proud Indians and foreign nationals, where the Indians tell them so many Good things about India that when the foreigner passes by a slum he gets utterly confused about the tales of Proud Indians.

Another example of Proud Indians goes back to the last year of my college in Durgapur. There was a stabbing incident where an Indian student stabbed a Palestinian student. The Palestinian student was a friend and we wanted some action to be taken against the Indian student within the law. I was horrified when a lot of my batch mats and some people form college staffed actually came up to us and in casual conversation told us, “why are you bothered, the victim is not an Indian”. I can not in my life understand what makes a human being come up with such a Hitleristic thought.

OK so I am a Proud Indian, the question I will ask myself is what about millions of people who don’t get 2 square meals a day? What about 100,000 thousand women who are forced to be prostitutes in one city alone, Imagine what will be the number if we think of whole country. Take a guess will these women be daughter/sister/wife/mother of someone. Do you think they will be proud Indians? Or may be they don’t count!

History/culture/tradition to be proud about and I am sure we all know all the good things. Lets just balance that with some other not so glorious things about our past. Right from our mythology where Sita was abandoned and Dropdi was molested - something to be Proud about? DO you know about massacre of Jain community in Tamilnadu by a sect of Hindu’s in Tamilnadu? One of my journalist friend has done a PHD on it. What about a whole lot of people generation after generation for centuries being humiliated/insulted/treated as scum and termed as untouchables. Do you think they were proud to be Indians? OR can we today be proud of centuries of discrimination? Now we get angry about reservation and talk about how that has not worked at all?

So many places in India you go and tell your first name, what will be the immediate response – “what is your surname”. May I ask WHY? Can we not be just proud Indians why do we have to be Proud Brahmin Indians, Proud Rajput Indians, Proud Yadav Indians?

I can go on and on and ask about girl child being killed before or after birth by parents Proud Indians??

Garbage on the road, spitting on the wall, bribing to solve our problems, What do we do? What are we doing to change anything that will change even a little bit for better?
The whole politics of IAPTBAI is exactly to make us ignorant and inactive, because a proud nation does not need many changes, it implies things are fine with us, it prevents introspection, and it stops questioning old and outdated social order.

Even if we stop being proud Indians for one hour every day and in that one hour do something to become proud Indians we can make a big difference.

So my request is, LETS STOP Being Proud Indians even if for an hour every day!

Even with this Mumbai attack, why do you think it happened? We can blame/curse many people it will not stop the next one from happening. We need to recognize that we have angry/hateful people who are looking some way of expressing it and someone used them very skillfully to create this whole episode. We can say they are wrong or there is no place for such hatred or that those people are not proud Indians but the fact remains, there are people like them and I am sure the number is not small but significant. The more we hate the more this number will grow. The only way is to find ways to reach out to all angry people.

The Mumbai Attack - An appeal for Peace

The Mumbai Attack
Another attack, life’s lost and in all probability Hate and Venom seeded in the minds of thousands.
I wonder what is the bigger success of people who’s brain behind these things? The attacks themselves or the amount of hatred they are able to generate.

Strangely I remembered what Bhagat Singh the revolutionary of Indian Freedom struggle said after throwing smoke bombs in the parliament run by British rulers, he said, you need a bang blast to open the ears of people who have stopped listening to the calls of freedom.
The question in my mind is what are we suppose to listen to. Also what state of mind we need to be in to listen.
Compassion is what comes to my mind.
The easy way out for all of us is to blame a group, a community, a religion, the inefficient security, and what not. It will allow us to curse them and wish horrible things to happen to their near and dear ones as has happened to 100 or more people who have died. Again will it stop anything is the question?
But can be listening to the pain or the hatred in people, who do such things, Imagine 22 year old young people, putting their life at stake, how many us will risk our life for anything. What will be the reason, what passion (hatred/pain) they might be carrying? In coming hours and days, you will her a lot of rhetoric about how terror is taking over, how Mumbai is so resilient, how we need to act against terror (like Bush said). Watching countless hours of TV and reading news and discussion we will also get passionate and speak with hatred about some group/community. I am wondering how more HATRED will help any of us? Can we be different from people who do these kinds of attacks and actually listen to what is going on, what is making us more violent?
Normally talking about peace is seen as weakness at such times, and I want to reaffirm that Peace is not absence of violence it is way of living. We all have a choice we can contribute to the hatred that exists between groups/people/communities/individuals and it will only create more hatred and lead to more violence. Or we can distance ourselves from any kind of hate and even doing that will tilt the balance in favor of peace.
Question is Do we have the courage?

Kabul – A flight you shouldn’t miss

Kabul – A flight you shouldn’t miss

“Kabul…!”, “the closest I have been to Kabul is seeing the Kabul Express (a recent Bollywood film) and I wouldn’t want to go any closer”.

That’s what my friend said when I told him about my Kabul visit.

…and as if going to Kabul is not enough when the day of departure arrived I had no VISA. Friends in Kabul said come and we will get you the visa here. All I had before walking inside the Delhi Airport was a letter that was in Arabic script (Darri as I found out later).

The immigration officer at Delhi was perplexed, “sir if you are sent back then I will loose my job”. Thankfully he found a colleague who knew the script and let me go.

First hour in Kabul

…there was no one at the airport to receive us and I came out of the immigration with a slip of paper in exchange of my passport. I looked at faces and decided in favor of one, ‘can I use your mobile?’…and the host arrived, blaming the traffic for her late arrival. She was being very honest (we discovered that truth in its wholeness on the last day of our visit)

As if all that chaos was not enough, I remembered I had a bag, and I looked for it only to see it nowhere in site. Enquiry with the airport made us feel more lost. Anyway I went to get my visa with the host and Michael was shown a porter by lost baggage dept. The porter walked him for half a kilometer to the parking and opened the hood of a car and BINGO! The bag was there.

So all the assurance by different people at the airport saying don’t worry you will find your bag was true. People don’t lie there I guess…

…so the journey begins

As you are about to land in Kabul you see housing which merges in the ground color of mud, some dumps of wreckages, planes of USA/NATO and UN and beautiful mountains, some covered with snow.

As soon as you are on the road, you experience the traffic jams. The cars are big and high suspension. Toyota seems to be the occupying force on the road. For first two days I did not see a motorbike. But a lot of bicycles, and like India puncture shops by the road side.

The invariable part of Afghan hospitality is Tea, light, without milk and accompanied by what in India we call toffee. A white something with a liquid fruit core. Melts well in mouth with tea.

Life is normal with cars buzzing past, people walking along, children carrying nan from the next door bakery if it is lunch time. Of course there are high walls surrounding all the buildings, there is always security at entrance. I guess security is the biggest employment source right now (so much for job security). But I never felt unsafe. Well there are those moments when you go to Standard and Chartered bank or US consulate. The sheer size of concrete blocks, the dead end roads, and the security layers makes you feel, ‘I am safe… or am I?’

Our host, Bureau of Reconstruction and Development, had the office in a bungalow on the outskirts of Kabul. Being in the city can be very costly, especially since all the rates are in dollars. From the office window I could see the mountains covered with snow. The sun was bright but as soon as you get inside you feel cold. So we spent some quality time boding with our friends outside in the sun.

We had working lunches most of the days. Well! What I mean as we were planning someone in the office was working on the lunch. A treat every day, the Afghan nan, which is almost 2 feet long, flavored Basmati rice, vegetables in tomato gravy garnished with sour cream. And there was meet also which was offered to me since I was vegetarian. I am vegetarian I said, and they said yes we know, but this is not beef we cooked it for you especially!

And then there was Pepsi, water is too simple to be offered to guests. I have come to believe that Pepsi/Coke is the equivalent of water in many cultures.

While at food let me talk about the breakfast also. That happened in the guest house we were staying. It was a mix of western flavors with Afghan bread. Peanut butter, marmalades, cheese, juices and eggs. I was surprised how everything went so well with the Afghan Nan. No wonder we ended up having no dinner on many days.

The guest house was UN cleared, that means the UN has checked it for security and found it safe enough for their people to stay. The 3 security guards lived in the 6 square feet cabin, sleeping by turn. It was a square building with a big lawn in the center, beautiful trees that were white with flowers, and yellow by butterflies. Telling loudly if anyone cared to listen “ALL IS NEVER LOST”

I had a room to myself with a TV where I could connect to India through the continuous breaking news of news channels, and the tears of saans-bahu. The India you can get anywhere in the world!

And there is more the care taker at the guest house, while watching a Kareena song proudly asked me, ‘do you know how many pictures of her I have on my cell…60!’

If your Hindi has enough Urdu and English then you can talk to anyone in Kabul. Darri which every one seems to know, Darri is very close to Persian and thus has many words that are also in Urdu. People are conscious about there privacy. We never met the families of our hosts as that is not done here. We met some young people in the guest house who have grown/lived abroad while the country was in war. They are now back and want to contribute in rebuilding a society. There values are a bridge between Afghan and the western/other culture. Almost 70 percent of the population in Afghan is young. I hope that their energy will move to rebuild what has been lost in last 30 years.

There are times when you would think this could be India. The crowded streets, the cloth shops, the dust, beggars, street side eateries, juice shops around corners with carrot being the most prominent.

What is different? …the children and teenagers selling prepaid mobile cards like newspapers, dry fruits on hand carts like vegetables(almost same cost as India), and people with a handful of currencies ready to exchange any currency to local one on roadsides. … And no dogs on the roads. In 8 days the only dog I saw was a pet in the guest house.

All play and no work, you will think! Wait I am coming to it. In 3 days our mornings and afternoons turned into a proposal. Time to sell! We had a couple of meeting in CRS and USAID. The reaction was positive, the advice was ‘think about Kandhar’ that’s where people want to focus, and the subtle hints were to get government on your side. It is surprising how accessible the government is (beside the fact that our host has been working for last 22 years and knows his way around). We had a meeting with a minister and he said why you don’t start on your own like an international agency, since local NGO’s are not experienced.

Play for Peace doesn’t work like that, so it meant we need to have more meetings.

…the last couple of hours in Kabul

Flight time – 11.40 am

Meeting with cultural minister – 10 am

Minister’s itinerary – in parliament till 9.30 am

The road truth – if you are on a busy road half an hour is minimum time to get to the other end

Where we were – till 10.15 in the ministry, the minister couldn’t make it, so we left.

We reached the outside of airport at 10.45, the first thing someone told us at the gate, “Check in closed”

We could see out Indian Airlines plane from outside, so we shouted, ‘but we can see our plane’

So we were inside the airport at 10.55. “Check in closed” was the most used word for next 30 minutes. We ran from one officer to another, shouted “help” to anyone who looked official. We gave up… well almost! Michael decided that it is time for alternate plan, since we had our flight for Tel Aviv from India the next day. The plan was to go via Dubai, credit cards not acceptable. So we called our host from Airline office and ask them to turn back.

The Resin diplomacy came to our rescue. Michael had this resins that our host have gifted us, he took that out and started offering it to everyone in the office. The Afghan airline officer started talking, they said we have no problem but the Indian Airlines is refusing. They made another try… ‘No they are not agreeing’.

Final refusal.

After 2 minutes some one appeared with boarding card for some passengers who were lost, and after another 10 minutes we were running (no jokes!) towards the plane.

Moral of the story – always be on the good side of Kabul traffic

Epilogue

If you think that was an eventful visit wait till you hear this…

On arrival when I went to get my Visa Gratis, the officer in charge walked us to his office and very kindly stamped my visa.

Later I opened my passport to see the visa and located it next to…, guess what?

…next to my Israel visa where I was suppose to go the next day after leaving Afghanistan.

After 2 hours of questioning while entering and laving Israel, I wondered for whom it was challenging, me or the immigration boys and girls of Israel. I guess for them…

They asked me so show us what kind of games you play; I had to play Gotcha with him.

So now I know two people can also Play for Peace…

When will we stop hearing about it...

Gujarat is in news again. A court verdict and a sting operation. For people like us who have been to Gujarat around that time and are working their with communities, there is no surprise. It has all along been known that the state machinery was an active perpetrator. I am wondering if I am confused now. is it not obvious to people that people were killed, that the Government was involved? often a dialogue with a lot of NORMAL people in Gujarat boils down to rationalization, finding a positive side of Modi. Hello! if appreciation is your drug, then we can find good things about Hitler also....

BOWLED OUT

What is twenty twenty! HEy! excuse me but can we just be a little creative. Sounds like a name that came up in a conversation that two 6 year children were having comparing how many Tajos( or whatever those stupid little things are) they have.But then we are talking about a game that always has a silli point. in any case if you have a better name do let me know! And what is All that halla about bowled out not being the right way to end a match.
Are we forgetting something?
Sports like all forms of Art(Didn't you know that) started basically from a basic human need to connect with each other. Sports are recreation of human bonding, results are are creation of profit making bodies.
we are living in such a lalita jee world(my dress is whiter then thou!) that we don't notice that even our emotions are being driven by corporates. Children don't feel hungry now a days, they feel Macdonald. When was the last time you just allowed yourself to be "yourself". Such moments are precious, but you know what? who has time for that!But for everything else you need there is MASTERCARD.
I am not surprised that a toughly fought match has to end like this. is there a better way to tell the players there is hardly anything that separates the two sides. The result in a evenly fought match is just a silli point. Point made! Move on guys...