Criticizing the Ayodhya verdict

Almost everyone in India is maintaining a dignified silence around the Ayodhya verdict. Thankfully, we have not seen violence yet after the verdict has been announced. Mainly because the youth of today know more about farmvile and orkut than about what happened in Ayodhya. The only way they know Ayodhya might be through films like Mumbai which touched upon the violence after the Babri masjid demolition.

Instead of beating around the bush, let me come straight to the reasons why I think the verdict is not so correct.

The first thing to note is, instead of being a civil suit, the case has been judged as a theological suit. Who are the judges to finalize where the birthplace of Ram is and whether Babar masjid is infact a majid? They decisions should be left to the religious leaders and they should just stick on to giving decision based on facts rather than on beliefs. So this verdict has proved everyone that India is indeed not a secular country, but a religious one.

Next, coming on to the verdict. Everyone, including the muslim judge has given the place under the central dome to Hindus. The central dome, as its name suggests was the center of Babri masjid before its demolition in 1992. So are the judges suggesting that what happened in 1992 is correct? If the mob has not demolished the masjid in 1992, according to the judgement, they should have demolished the structure judicially in 2010!!!

During muslim rule, lot of hindu temples were ravaged. A lot many masjids might have been built on top of it. Is the court suggesting that we should collect an inventory of all the masjids constructed that way and they should be demolished to give way for hindu temples? As Ayodhya has been acknowledged as the birth place of Ram, we have other birthplaces of other gods too like Mathura. So will the masjids present in those holy towns follow suite of Ayodhya?

The verdict is nothing more than a panjayat verdict which has appeased the masses for the time being. Hindus and Muslims have shown their maturity by restraining them from committing to mindless violence. But this verdict is another writing on the wall that non-hindu minorities will be treated as minorities.

Democracy

First of all, on the day of Independence day, I wish you all happy Independence day (I am assuming that you are an Indian).

So we call ourselves the worlds biggest and successful democracy. Before dwelling into our democracy, let us consider why Socrates was murdered.

Feeling I am already going off topic? As a mater of fact I am not. Socrates was murdered as he spoke against democracy. His argument was, just because a person is famous among the people, he can not rule them properly. Only a talented person, who understands the pros and cons of the decisions he is taking can rule the people properly. He was not against democracy per se. But he was against democracy, which gives power to the un-deserving.

Let us fast forward to our times, exactly a short time before India got independence.

Jinnah was so scared of democracy that he was afraid of total domination of hindus over the muslim minority.
He wanted a separate country, so that the minority will become a majority over there. Having non-democratic reason to form the country, they were under military rule for a longer time than under a democratic rule. Even when they had democracy, they fared very badly, as they didn’t let the East-Pakistan majority rule over them.
Pakistan looked at democracy always with a cautious note.

Compared to Pakistan, we can say that we performed marginally better. We have been under emergency only once, where Ms Gandhi had a totalitarian control over the whole country. But look at the state of the politicians we have right now.

More than 50% of our MPs have criminal cases on them.
Almost all of them are crorepathis.

If Democracy on concept denotes ruling of people by people who represent them, I don’t think India is under a democratic rule. I don’t think 50% of our population have criminal cases on them. In fact having a criminal case and entering the court is considered to be a dis-honor to the whole family in many parts of India. I am pretty much sure not even 1% of our population are crorepathis.

So when we boast about India being the most successful democracy in the whole world, what are we boasting of?

Are we boasting Mayawati as one of our CM, when her only qualification is that she is a dalit?
Are we boasting Rahul Gandhi as the next beacon of India, where if he is not born to his father, he would have been a nobody?
Are we boasting Lalu as the best Railway minister we had in history, where he moved Bihar back to stone age?

What have we achieved in this 60 odd years of Independence and 60 odd years of democracy?

Corruption has been steadily increasing, and so is the inflation.
Yes, we can see more middle class people coming up in the social ladder, thanks to IT and related services.
We did test some nuclear bombs and we are ready for any nuclear war if any with Pakistan.

But are these direct results of India being a democratic country?
China has overtaken us by leaps and bounds, even though they are under communist rule.
They have achieved more that what we have in the past 60 years.
Does that mean communism is better than democracy?

How can we accept that fact that the policy makers have no idea about what they are going to do still they get elected?
How can we call guys like M.K.Alagiri, who can not understand anything other than Tamil and Rowdism our cabinet minister?

Forget what we have done till now. But the bigger question is are we heading in the right direction?
The questions are many, but answers are few and far between.
And I like many others am lost in this flood of questions.

Communism

Don’t search who made the below quote. It is entirely my Intellectual property :).

without communist, the world will be a better place to live

I always had a soft corner for communism.
My dad was a die hard communist, who participated in all the student union activities during his college times.
His name even came in news paper, for leading/participating in a strike.
We bought sputnik instead of readers digest and during election, I remember my dad wearing a red shirt.

But few incidents which happened in my life has completely changed my perception about communism.
The first major change happened when I went to Trivandrum.
I was working with TCS at that time, and Trivandrum, being the capital of Kerala is a hot bed of communism.
Atleast once a month, the work will be stopped due to strike of some sort and harthal is a common occurrence.
But the thing which made me change the complete perception about communist was when we shifted our house and the red shirts came to our house as soon as we finished lifting all our house hold items from the road to our house in second floor and demanded Rs 1000/- as we have stolen their jobs from them.
This started a heated exchange between me and the communist guys, with them even warning me that he will not let me live in the city as I am not in Tamil Nadu any more.
The guys cooled down and dispersed calmly after my sane friend gave them Rs 50/-

This is communism in utmost practicality. Humans are lazy by birth and communism sponsors for it through its principles of equality. Performance incentives are a big no-no and promotions based on talent is blasphemy. In fact in the book “Principles of Russian Socialism”, the author points out that in a socialist society, accumulation of wealth is looked down upon.

Still we can see our neighbors China doing fairly well and infact Kerala is one of the most developed state in India. But China still has got its democracy and Kerala has still got its buffer of abundant natural wealth which communist can keep on destroying for the next 30 years or so.

And one more thing, have you ever read any communist magazines?

I got to put my hands on one while I was traveling from Bangalore to Madurai.

The magazine got nothing other than bitching all around. They wanted everything for free. They were against industrial development, as it takes jobs away from normal public, who are not skilled to take the job.
They wanted to stay in the form of a raw animal. They wanted everything to stay with the government, and the government not to focus on making any profit with its institutions, as it will go against the will of helping the public, and still wanted the country to develop.

I think the communist have to come out of their cocoon of Utopian world and face the reality.

Change should start from the top, and for a change, they should tell the government what to do instead of bitching about what they have done. They should focus on making things rather than breaking things, as communist, in my opinion know nothing other than bandhs, harthals, processions, rallys and shouting slogans.

Other than working as devil’s advocate who cries foul about everything going on in this world, I find no use for communist in this society.

Insignificant

There is a phase in every one’s life
where he is small and not noted by all.
He is undistinguished and definitely unimportant.
Banging his hands against a wall.

He wants to think he is different
And to his dismay, he finds he is not.
There are same routes and roughly same patterns
Which he is following, as every one in the lot.

He is scared to fall into the trap
Which he knows is really very deep.
He tries to swim away from this hole
Which is deeper than the deepest worm hole.

He wants to break shackles and thus run free.
He wants to be great and be distinguished.
But alas he is scared to break free and run
‘cos he is just another guy, with same old thoughts.

Sania Malik?

Well well well.
Even though I think public and press should stay away from the private life of public figures, I can’t help but wonder about Sania Mirza getting engaged to Shoaib Malik.

If this engagement proceeds to marriage, that would be the pinnacle of Sania Mirza’s career.
Yes I didn’t commit a spelling mistake. Who cares about Sania Mirza’s tennis career anyways?

Personally, I followed Sania Mirza when she was an innocent 16 year old teenager, who paired up with Leandar Paes and won Asia cup mixed doubles gold for india. After that, her rise has been pretty meteorological. She kept on being in the front of press, more for putting her legs before Indian flag, than winning any tournaments, which she hardly did any.

Yes she won a grandslam with Mahesh Bhupati, and she has beaten Martina Hingis once. But for the fame and the number of advertisements she appeared in, her contributions to sport is pretty stingy.

I was not able to understand the hullabaloo around her ‘cos Mahesh Bhupati and Leandar Paes kept on winning grand slams after grand slams one after another.

I dont think she did enough to tennis as PT Usha did to athletics or Saina Nehwal did to Badmitton. Still the only thing is Sania Mirza is better looking than the other two and she was able to act as a bitch (sorry girls :)) when required.

By the way I wanted to write about this issue, as this issue will definitely bring up lot many issues including feminism.

Dont believe me?
Do you remember how Indians cheered when Sunny Deol who is an Indian eloped with Amisha Patel who is a Paki in the movie Gadar: Ek prem katha.
Now is the perfect role reversal. A guy from Pakistan is going to marry a girl from India.
I don’t think Indians will support this marriage as they did with Gadar: Ek prem katha.

The next thing is Indo-Pak peace talks.

Think about it. If Gandhiji brought up a decree saying that all Indians should marry a Pakistani only, then most probably we will stop fighting with Pakistan. ‘cos it will be like fighting your own Mom or Dad.

Sania, by starting inter country marriage, has definitely started a new peace process in the correct path 😉

On your death bed

Once there was a really old man, who had three sons.
His sons loved him very much and the old man too loved him dearly.
The old man was really old that nobody even remembered his name.
Of course his sons knew his name, but never called him with his name.
All of his friends who could call him by his name had long been dead.
We know his name and we will call him by his name Peter.

Yes he hoped to be like Peter Pan who never grew up.
Still he was happy with the way things have gone for him.
His sons are still alive, and he is sure he will die before any one of them meet their end.
The grandsons of his sons are expanding their family fortunes all over the world.
Peter really felt like a Badshaw of Persia.

Now he felt that he is becoming a burden for everyone around him.
He has enjoyed his life, got his children, and have seen their grandchildren.
There should be no reason for him to live in this world.
More than this feeling, the feeling of boredom was affecting him badly.

He was sick most of the times, and when he is fine, he can hardly walk around his big house once before resting to his cot.
It has been aeons since he has rode his bike.
His bicycle, which was the first thing he posses of his own, is just a memory in his mind.
His bicycle and bike, unlike Peter, has stood the test of time, and are still carrying his sons and grandsons and sons of grandsons, so and so forth.

Talking to his nurses and doctors day after day is tiring on him.

He wanted to end his life.

He realized that this is the worst thing that can happen to anyone.. Wanting to end your life, but not able to die.
He is not a broken hearted lover, or a stock broker during 1929.
Neither he Hitler nor a Kamakaze pilot.
His condition is just plain old boredoom and nothing else.

Television didn’t interest him, internet didn’t concern him.
He was in his very old world, and he was bored with everything he had.
He has read his fill, and with failing eyesight, even though reading books is out of question,
he has long lost his interest in books.

With nothing left other than to wait and die, he wanted to face death head on.

Of course he was not afraid to die, because, like a soldier in the charge of light brigade, he is ready to face the enemy head on.
But for him, suicide is out of question.
He never like suicide, and he never liked the people assisting others to die.
Suicide according to Peter is the coward’s way of life.
People commit suicide because they are afraid to live, but Peter on other hand, want to die not because of the fear of like, but the indifference of it.

He realized that, his mind is uttering whatever to what ever is happening around him.
He has stopped caring for anything around him, as they were boring and this stoppage in caring for stuff around him, has made him bored.
Definitely he is caught in a vicious circle, and unfortunately he was ready to go down than come around it.

Finally he decided what he thought was a good idea.

(To be continued………)

The daemon

How will you feel about a person who knows what you think, whom you talk with and some times even direct your money and watch each and every thing you do?
Pervert? Leach? or Google?
Now to those who don’t know about the reach of Google, here are the snippets.

Not many people know any video hosting site other than youtube or google videos. Hardly few people use metcafe.
Yahoo messenger is almost extinct and almost every one in the block use gtalk.
With the release of google wave, which has shown new ways to communicate through webcam, skype is moving almost out of question.
The number of entries in Blogspot – again owned by Google almost completely outweighs the entries made in wordpress.
Google Adsense is definitely much better than Adbrite, even though you have to be a owner of a high traffic blog/website to have one account.
People who were using mozilla are slowly switching over to Google Chrome.
Google has even come out with an OS Chrome OS, which will have nothing other than Google Chrome installed in your computer, and you use your computer just to connect to the internet.
Google Reader, Google Maps, Orkut, Google Docs, Google Calender are slowly taking over our way of life. Even WikiMaps is powered by Google!!

So OK. Google is every where. So is or was? Microsoft. You might ask what is the big deal with Google monopolizing the whole of internet? The problem is that Microsoft asks whether you want to send some information to its server. The problem with Google is that, you have to accept their terms and conditions, which almost none of us care to read, and in some obtuse location, they have specified that they will collect some of your data. The worst part is that Google till now, they haven’t come public about what they are collecting from us.

Yeah Google knows what you type. Google knows what you blog and Google has got even a new OS.

Now coming on to perks.

I think almost each and every one has a gmail account. Now guess what? The button which they have provided as delete is just for beauty. It doesn’t serve the purpose. For the sake of so called efficiency, your data, what ever you store online in gmail is duplicated in various servers around the world and recently Google has come out open saying that they necessarily don’t delete all the content which the user thinks he has deleted.

So nobody knows what is going on inside the black box called as Google. And this black box is slowly taking over what we knew as internet. You could be prosecuted for what you think. As in countries like China, you are not supposed to think in certain ways.

So the gist of the post is that, if you are a believer, pray to God that Google does not fall in wrong hands and become a daemon which it could become 🙂

PS: This is my take on Google. For detailed list of controversies surrounding Google, please check wiki

Whats in a name?

Have you ever met any of your old friend whom you have not met for the past 10 years and his name just pops out of your mouth?
But unfortunately Murphy hardly parts ways with me
as some times, you meet one of your best buddies and you will just forget his name. You will remember his favorite color, crush, mom’s name, dad’s name and even the name printed on his water bottle, but his name.

I met one of my old friend Sreedhar, who became close to me after he broke open a part of my skull with a stone. Even though we were not on talking basis for a long time, sharing leaked question papers brought us together. I lost contact of him after my 10th, and after meeting some unknown stranger in a restaurant near to our office, I realized that, the guy in formal shirt and pant sitting in the very next table is in fact Sreedhar.

Some times, brain really amazes me. Some times, I get frustrated with it too.
This happened with my another friend whose name, I can’t remember even now. Blame it on the ‘Sutha Kathiri’ (Spoiled brinjals) which became his nick name in 11th and 12th standard. You know what the worst part is? He will remember your name and will call you with the same. And trust me guys, it is really tough to act as if you can remember his name without actually remembering it.

My brain has not helped me with this cause even when I was in my MTech course. I was the maintenance secretary of our hostel and I play cricket on regular basis. the down side of this is that many people know me, but I don’t know them. The real trouble happens when you go to the mess to eat, where the guy standing before/behind you will start talking with you as if he is a close friend. During the initial days, I politely asked them their name. I stopped my habit after realizing that I can not remember any of their names.

So seriously guys, what is in a name? Person as a person is more important than a person as a name rite?

I finish with a modified version of a dialogue from Matrix Revolutions.
“Love is just a word. What matters is the connection the word implies.”

Nobel laureate Barack Obama?

Like many people in the world, I am also shocked to hear Barack Obama granted Nobel peace prize. This should definitely be the most scandalous Nobel peace prize of the century.
The Nobel committee has awarded the peace prize as he has 1. worked great deal towards climate change, 2. bringing muslim world closer to the rest of world and also in 3. reducing the nuclear weapons stockpile through out the world.

Seriously I am sure the Nobel committee does not read news papers daily.

1. Regarding climate change, I seriously dont know what Obama has done to change the world. Other than fleeting talks which even George Bush can give, he has not done anything more.  The UN international conference on climate change has not yet convened in Coppenhagen. Without even deciding on what the world is going to do about climate change, awarding a political leader the fruits of working towards climate change is simply stupid.

2. This is the most comical point which is given by the selection committee. US army is still in Afghanistan and in Iraq. They are thinking of getting them back to US. But thought has not been supported by action. Obama being half muslim doesnt prove anything. Nobody cared about his race. So I think even religion should not come into effect.

3. I never read any news saying that the US nuclear weapons stockpile is being reduced. Forcing other countries to sign NPT when they are the guys who have done more than 50% of the nuclear tests is pure hippocracy.

So I totally think Obama does not deserve the peace prize. Norway has yet again aligned to the strong arm of the west and have sided with the US president. It is the same committee which did not give peace prize to Gandhi, but had Hitler and Stalin as nominees for the prize. By awarding peace prize to an unworthy candidate, they have proved the world that words are in fact better than action.

Around the world to your next house

Has it ever happened to that you will think a lot for something and will even do something really complicated, only to find that, the same thing can be done in a really simple way, sometimes even in a single step.
It happened to me today.
I did really cool, complex, annoying code, which ran for hours together to get an output which could have been done in a single line and that too taking less than half the time which it took for the original complex stuff.
The worst part was, the complex stuff was not what I wanted and I am right now running the simple stuff which I didn’t know in the first place and am waiting for its output.
I seriously laugh at people when they say you have to think out of the box where you can go to your destination in a really simple straight line.

PS: I am pissed off really.. 2 days of my work = 1 single line of configuration file :X