Questions that need Answering

Do these questions have rational answers?

1. What's the difference between the Delhi bomb blasts in October and the Varanasi bomb blasts this week?

2.If the answer is,no difference,then why is there a difference in the response to these two attacks?

3.What's the relation between terrorist attacks and minority appeasement?

4.Can 150 million Indian muslims be blamed for the terrorist attacks?

5.Aren't Hindu extremists forces like VHP & Bajrang Dal,that talk about wiping out minorities,terrorists?

6.What's it about religion that prompts prudent,pragmatic,moderate individuals like Javed Akthar to make impractical rhetorical statements like these

"We need reservations for muslims because they are being discriminated in different parts of our socitey?When they are not discriminated they succeed,like in cricket and films."

Can these questions really be answered??

 

Bird Flu

It's been six days since Bird flu was found among poultry in our country.The incident took place in Maharastra but the repercussions were felt throughout the country.Within a day people all over our country stopped consuming chicken and eggs.Well the decision was quite warranted.No one was interested in taking a risk.Better safe than sorry.As always our media pounced on this story and tried to bring us all the info they could get about this disease.We had news stories about the myths and facts of this disease.If this wasn't enough they even had news-stories on the decline in the prices and consumption of chicken.All this was fine and quite commendable.After all people had to know about this.

But what I found perplexing was that none of the news channels posed the question as to how Bird flu came to our country(atleast not to my knowledge).I know there is this theory that flu came to our country through migratory wild birds.Well that's fine for other countries like France,Turkey etc where wild birds were found dead.But that was not the case in our country.In our case it was the poultry owned by an individual that was found infected.The chickens weren't some wild birds roaming around that came in contact with migratory birds to get infected.These were birds that were privately held and were being reared for eggs and meat.How did they get infected?This is a question that probably ornithologists could answer.But sadly the electronic media hasn't brought in these experts to the studio.

In a related development,couple of months ago I had read an article written by proverbial animal activist Maneka Gandhi in tehelka.While I had discarded it as a figment of maneka's imagination,the arrival of bird flu in our country made me take a second look at it.The article is extremely interesting and the theory proposed seems radical but quite expected.Quoting it here would prolong my post and hence I will give you all a link to the same.

I request you all to kindly go through this article and tell me your opinion about the same.

For the article kindly click Here

 

Valentines Day,Right Wing Lunatics,Sachin and Mian Musharaff

Yet another valentines day is upon us and as usual the Shiv Sena,Bajrang Dal and their cronies have decided to take upon themselves the mantle of moral policing of our society.

Times Now today carried a story where it mentioned that these right wing activists were distributing pamphlets asking parents to keep a close watch on their girls tomorrow.It seems the pamphlets were titled Role Model or MMS Model.

In another post online I learnt that the Bajrang Dal has also put up huge hoardings across north India questioning parents as to whether they could be sure about their girls not losing their virginity tomorrow.Reading all this made me feel sick and nauseatic.

It 's well known that Valentines day was popularised by free market forces who realised that they had more to gain from this day than the lovers themselves.But the fact is,the institution of love is as old as civilization itself.Who are these fundamentalists and what powers do they have to advise us on love and matters of heart?

The funny part is ,this is one issue where fundamentalists from both Hinduism and Islam are united.What an irony.

Before moving on I just have a doubt.If these people are so worried about women's virginity and safety on feb 14th what about the rest of the year when women are as vulnerable as they are on valentines day.

Diggresing to something completely unrelated,India pulled off yet another impressive win against the Pakistanis and it was heartening to see,albiet after a long time,an Indian victory due to Sachin(atlease partly).It seems Sachin should never score a century.Every time he does so in an ODI,India loses.I would advise Sachin that if he reaches 99 he must retire hurt.After all what is more important?A century or an ODI victory.Ok please,please no brickbats,I was just kidding.Anyway let's hope and pray that India keeps up the good work and seals the series at Multan itself and doesn't take it till Karachi.

Based on his recent patronage of the Indian team and repeated appearances at ODI matches it seems Mian Musharaff doesn't have much to do in Pakistan.Well how about calling him over to India and asking him to rule our country for a few days.Atleast then,he would realise the pulls and pushes of Coalition politics and would not complain about India's lack of interest in solving Kashmir.

 

Are Hindus Less Relgious?

Today I and a few of my friends were dissecting yesterday's cricket match when our talk shifted to the religious leanings of Pakistan's muslim players.Most of the Pakistani players have a beard(which I think is considered religious in Islam-Pardon me if I am wrong),each and every player of theirs always says "Bismillah il Rahim", or something like that before answering any questions and some their players like Akmal,Butt,while batting,keep reciting something.This prompted me say that the Pakistanis are a bit too overzealous in showing off their religious beliefs and which IMHO was not appropriate.After all do our players,for that matter,any of us hindus recite the Gayathri Manthra or Hanuman Chalisa before answering questions at an interview.Even Pathan,Zaheer and Kaif don't do that.

Atleast I am not aware of any such person.

This provoked one of my friends ,who too is a hindu, to say

"We hindus are less religious.We are not pious enough to indulge in such activites,which actually should be practised.Muslims pray 5 times a day.Do we atleast pray one time a day?.They keep calling their god's name several times.How many of us do that?"

That was an interesting observation but I think the beauty of Hinduism lies in the fact that it is less a religion and more a faith.I don't mean to defame Islam,but I feel that compared to Islam,Hinduism is a bit more liberal,with respect to,how one prays,when he/she prays and how many times one prays in a day.As for calling god's name I think since there are 330 million gods in our religion.How many can we call out?I guess that's why most of us say "Kadavale" or "Aandavane" or "Hey Bhagwan".

I also feel that Hinduism is one religion which isn't thrust upon anyone.There may be social organisations in different religions and despite all the work they do,there's always the idea of conversions at the back these organisations minds.We hear conversions to Christainity,Islam,Buddhism etc but rarely do we hear of people being converted to Hinduism.That's one reason why we find hinduism predominantly in only two countries unlike Christainity and Islam(which is on course to overtake Christianity as the most widely spread religion in the world).

As far as exhibiting one's beliefs in public is concerned,I guess religion and beliefs are something that ought to be kept in the personal domain and should not be bragged about in public.That's one reason I hate the Togadias,Bin Ladens and other religious fundamendalists.

Hinduism does have its fallacies in the form of caste system and the general ill-treatment of people from the lower castes.But that,I feel, is the work of bigots who didn't comprehend Hinduism and thus defamed this great religion.

Update:-Each and every religion has it's own advantages and disadvantages.Through this post of mine I merely tried to point out some of the advantages of hinduism and in no way intended to belittle any other religion.I respect all religions and consider all of them to represent one entity.Hence if any one of you feels that my post has offended you in any manner I ask for your forgiveness.

Update:-Can it get any worse?-Iran to Publish Holocaust Cartoons

 

The Fall of the Master Blaster????

Is it really the end of the master????If one were to browse through our news channels one would very well start believing that.Take Aaj Tak,it seems to have put sachin's dismissal video on a loop.Every time I switch to that channel I see Sachin falling over himself playing a delivery that kept unusally low,and to spice things up we have this extremely "tragic" music playing in the background as if Sachin has been slayed in the battlefield.On Headlines Today,you have an aged Rajan Bala talking about how Kumble,Sachin and all other player past their prime should retire.Mr Bala why don't you stop writing.Even you seem old and some of your articles are not upto the mark.Please leave before your editor chucks you out.If I am not mistaken till last month Kumble was supposedly our most successful bowler who could run through any team.Today he is past his prime.Hmm interesting.And then Star News,well I don't think I have to talk much about that channel.Those who have watched it would know about the kind of shows it broadcasts.Those who haven't kindly do so for 10 minutes(especially after 7pm) and you will realise what I am talking about.And then common to all channels we have the "SMS Poll" where people were being asked whether Sachin's end was near and yes we had the results 78% said yes.There we had it Sachin's career was over.He can't play anymore.Throw him out.Saurav you are let off,Sachin is the next scape goat.

It's another fact that none of the batsmen barring Yuvraj(who was quite lucky) did well in this test match.It's yet another fact that Sachin had quite confidently reached 23 and 26 in this match before losing his wickets to exceptional bowling.

Now I am not a Sachin fanatic who blindly supports his idol.You could ask my friend Ranjith,a Sachin fanatic,who nearly thrashed me once for criticising his idol .Infact of late I have always felt that Sachin was being let off despite his loss of form.If Saurav had to fight for his place the same yardstick had to be applied to Sachin.I continue to vouch for that.But Sachin in this series seemed in much better touch than his scores indicated.But what has appalled me is the way our media has disowned Sachin completely.Just last month these very same news channels were packed with shows singing Sachin's praise.There they were,beaming videos of Sachin's children,his kith and kin,and that of Sachin himself offering prayers and cutting cake to celebrate his 35th centuries.And today,I see shows dissecting his batting style and revealing his weaknesses which had till last month,seemed non existent(despite indications contrary to it).

The fact is Sachin is past his prime and there's no denying that.His centuries are few and far apart.His drought of form is prolonged.We all need to accept that and respect it as well.After all he too is a human being.But that doesn't give our channels the excuse to play with him.They raised him to heavens when he made is 35th century and now when he had a low key series they dropped him with a thud(thud IMHO is an understatement),I guess all that Sachin needs to do is to make a century per series and that will keep the press silent.

The best way Sachin can answer his critics would be to score more runs.After scoring in single digits in 2002 against New Zealand,people had started questioning Sachin's ability.He answered them by scoring more than 600 runs in the world cup.I will just hope and pray that Sachin does just that in the forthcoming ODI series.For that matter let's hope that our entire team has a great series.We can't let the Pakis take it all.They just won't stop bragging about it.