Jun

30

The bridge on the river Tapti

June 30, 2008 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

red stones from the sky- source The Times of IndiaYesterday morning, the traffic in this western city came to a standstill as vehicle after vehicle stopped and people got out to inspect and take home what looked like strange red stones. The entire stretch of Sardar bridge, a bridge on the river Tapti, in Surat was covered in red stones, many got to stuff a few in their pockets, and many stuck in the traffic waited for their turn, hoping to steal a few souvenirs from space.

Most couldn’t believe their luck. Inflation rate going skyhigh, commodity prices setting new records, most reality TV shows at an uninteresting stage, with all that stress from work, and now you have this traffic snafu making you wait intolerably long just to get across a bridge. And then you notice little red stones - strange, and beautiful in all their unearthly glory.

Dang! For all that time you were complaining, and contending that God had forgotten you, He was getting his act together, picking up small red stones that he could throw at your city. Small red stones that He wanted you to put on ebay. Small red amulets that would bring you luck, love. Magical red sprinkle from the skies that would bring you money, and hence luck and love. Dang! He hasn’t forgotten me! For all those years my grandmother walked barefoot to the temple, for all those years my parents spent fasting, for all those centuries my forefathers waited so someone in the family finally did something good in life to open the heavenly doors for them, it all comes to this!

For a few minutes, everyone on the bridge became a dreamer, a believer! Halleluyah! God you are great, they said. Screw the stress. Screw the traffic. Screw the world. This was their moment, this was their moment in time as they witnessed the pixiedust from the starburst.

Sure, it turned out that the little red stones came from a nearby quarry, and filled the streets when the overloaded truck carrying them spilled a few here and there. But who gives a hoot? And why would they? It takes a lifetime of hope to get that tatalizingly close to phantasm, to palpate and feel a gift from the Gods, to come face to face with a mircale, and to bathe in the revelation that for all the cynicism that you carry with you, He just may be watching!

Jun

29

The circle of karma for an NRI math professor

June 29, 2008 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

Just yesterday, I mentioned the NRI couple from New York who tortured their maids stripping them naked and wrapping and ripping taoe around their bodies. Today I present the NRI father-in-law who plotted to murder his own daughter-in-law because he did not appreciate her skin color and her race.

This Friday, a jury in Atlanta’s Fulton county, came back with a guilty cerdict and sent Chiman Rai, a 67-year old ex-Math-Professor from Alcorn State University, to slammer for life.

Eight years ago, Chiman Rai’s son Rajeev fell in love with and married Sparkle, a beautiful and young African-American lady, and started life with her in an apartment away from his father, and the couple were living quite a modest but happy life. The father-in-law Chiman, upset over his family’s degradation in the Indian community with this relationship with a black family, decided to end the relationship by getting rid of his daughter-in-law. Chiman Rai recruited two acquaintances to hire a killer. Chiman’s friends hired 43-year old Cleveland Clark, a known criminal, for a sum of $ 10,000. Clark, in return, hired two of his friends to create a situation for him whereby he could gain entry into the aprtment of Rajeev and Sparkle Rai.

So eight years ago one night, Clark’s friends created a drama, knocked on Soarkle Rai’s door, asked to use the bathroom, and led and let the killer into the apartment behind them. Cleveland Clark strangled Sparkle Rai and the three almost left for dead. As thete were leaving, Sparkle Rai moved, prompting Cleveland Clark to come back and stab her multiple times and accomplisihng Chiman Rai’s dark wish.

That year 2000 murder of Sparkle Rai at the hands of unknown assailants would have remained just a statistic. But two years ago, a routine traffic stop yielded a willing witness who happened to be one of the three who were present in that apartment in 2000, and now 6-years later, was ready to confess the identity of the killer.

That’s how Chiman Rai’s karma came back to haunt him. One of the things the Indian math professor bragged to his Alabama students was the power of zero, the Indian invention that forever changed the world, the brilliant spark of an Indian mind that shows us why the circle has a way of coming back and completing. The circle did come come back for the murderer who forever extinguished the spark that was his own daughter-in-law.

For Sparkle Rai, the unfortunate victim of her racist father-in-law, the sparkle of her eyes lives on in the form of her young daughter, now abandoned by the Indian side of her family. Her Indian father has since moved on and remarried and her Indian grandfather will soon move in to spend the rest of rotten life behind bars.

Jun

28

Domestic disturbances

June 28, 2008 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

During the last few weeks, the news on the domestic servant from India is pretty scary. There were reports of domestic servants poisoning and drugging the families, allegedly murdering a family friend’s 14-year daughter, an ex-domestic help’s grandson killing a 66-year old employer, a domestic help and her family abducting a minor for ransom.

Thousands of miles away, in Long Island, New York, however, there was a reverse drama in the courthouse this week, as Varsha Sabhnani, an Indian millionairess, was sentenced to 11-years jailtime, and her husband Mahender 3 and a half years, for treating their domestic servants as slaves. Sabhnani and her husband were convicted last December of inhuman cruelty towards their domestic servants, acts including pouring scalding water on the servants, making them eat hot peppers, and wrapping the maids nude in plastic tape and then ripping the tape off.

Well, if you thought the NRIs were the only ones who turned the tables on their domestic help, think again. Barely a week ago, a 16-year old domestic help from Punjab accused her employer of luring her into promises of marriage and repeatedly raping her thereafter. Barely a few months ago, a professor in Bihar killed his domestic servant for failing to repay a personal loan. And barely a few years ago, an 11-year old domestic servant in Delhi was decapitated by his employer’s son as he tried to dissuade the 21-year old brat from sniffing typewriter fluid.

But, wait. Only recently, a domestic servant in Delhi killed the 4-year old son of his employer. Just a few months ago, a Delhi Public School student was murdered by the family driver. And just last month, a 70-year woman was killed by her domestic help.

Independent India has surely come a long way from the days when in 1947, Bollywood’s legendary director Raj Kapoor is said to have borrowed some money from his domestic servant Dwarka, to help the cause of his first box-office hit Aag.

Jun

27

Sam Manekhsaw (1914-2008)

June 27, 2008 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

manekshawThe members of the Cabinet started walking out. I being the junior most was the last to go and as I was leaving, she said,”Chief, will you stay back?”

I turned around and said, “Prime Minister, before you open your mouth, may I send you my resignation on grounds of health, mental or physical?”

She said, “Every thing you told me is true”.

“Yes! It is my job to tell you the truth” I responded, “and it is my job to fight, it is my job to fight to win and I have to tell you the truth.”

She smiled at me and said, “All right Sam, you know what I want?”

I said, “Yes, I know what you want!”

- Sam Manekshaw (Field Marshal Cariappa Memorial Lecture - 1995),
remembering the first cabinet meeting on 1971 Indo-Pak war

Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, modern India’s most decorated battle hero, died yesterday at the young age of 94. It was under this parsee’s leadership that a Sikh (Lt. general Jagjit Singh Arora) and a Jew (Maj. General Jack Frederick Ralph Jacob aka Yaacov Rafael) led India into a 13-day victory over arch-enemy Pakistan, splitting that country in two and creating the new nation of Bangladesh out of East Pakistan.

It is said that the WWII American general Patton believed he was the greatest soldier who ever lived and made himself believe he would never falter through doubt. Manekshaw had similar Pattonesque qualities, and his atitude towards the Indian political brass were somewhat similar to that of Patton’s towards his civilian bosses.

Manekshaw’s star was shining bright since his days as one of the first trainee officers of the Indian Military Academy, and coincidentally David Cowan, his chief instructor during those times (1932-34) was also his superior when Manekshaw fought in Burma in the second world war. During the conflict, Cowan witnessed Manekshaw’s valor first hand and awarded him the military cross as Manekshaw lay bleeding on the battlefield, his body riddled with bullets.

But it was another war on India’s eastern front three decades later that put Manekshaw in the history books. Very few generals on the planet have had the chance to brag about creating new nations and radically changing political maps, and for Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, that crowning achievement trumped all other accolades he won for individual bravery and valor on the battlefield.

Lately, there has been some controversy over the pay scales of India’s army officers. Years ago, there was a move afoot to halt the separation allowance given to Indian soldiers. During the proceedings, the then chief of Army Sam Manekshaw was asked by the pay commission why India’s soldiers were be entitled to a separation allowance from their spouses. Manekshaw answered, “…After my marriage, I went off to war and didn’t see my wife for three long years, and when I returned I found I had a brand-new daughter, and the only reason I am sure the child is mine is because she looks just like me…”!

Jun

26

Last month, on May 16th, Aarushi Talwar, a 14-year old teenager was found murdered in her bedroom. Next day the police discover another murder victim Hemraj, the Talwar family’s domestic help, his body found hidden on the terrace of the same building. Another murder case in Pune, a week and a half ago, not only produced a few suspects on the first day of the investigation, but confirmed the identity of the perpetrators on the third day of the investigation. But after a 6 week circus of investigations, allegations, confessions and suspicions, the Talwar murder case is still murky and the answers still elusive. Here are the main reasons why this particular case has proved so hard to crack.

1. double murder - it has become harder to elicit the motive on account of the Talwar case being a double murder. Was one person the main target and the other an eyewitness? Or did the perpetrators just want to throw the police off by killing an unrelated person outside of their main motive? How were the two victims related? We know that one victim was a 14-year old girl and the other was a male domestic help. That itself begs a further probing into yet another angle, a sexual one.

2. double survivors - While the perpetrators killed two people in the Talwar house on May 16th, they also left two people alive. The parents of 14-year old Aarushi were sleeping in the next bedroom and they survived the murderous night that killed two other family members. By leaving two people alive, the perpetrators created two main suspects for the double murder throwing the entire investigation off. Or did they?

3. double partners - The Talwar couple are dentists and they practice in partnership with another dentist couple - Drs Vijay and Anita Durrani. This has led to the obvious theories from romantic angles to swapping scenarios.

4. double domestic help - The Durranis themselves have a domestic help called Rajkumar who apparently visited the Talwar residence the night of the killings. Rajkumar is alive and well but Hemraj, the Talwar domestic help, is dead.

5. the compounder angle - Besides the dentist couples, someone else who could have had the knowhow to mix something in a drink to intoxicate/incapacitate the male murder victim, would be the compounder who indeed, has compounded the case by confessing that he, along with Rajkumar and another mysterious individual called Shambhu, participate in the killings.

6. the confounder angle - of all the motives that have been discussed and thrown in the mix, none has panned out yet, suggesting that the cops are no closer to truth today than they were a week or a month ago. The ‘why’ would normally lead to ‘whodunit’ but in the Talwar case, it has so far been ‘what the’?

7. the practice of cremation - Within hours after the murder, the authorities conducted a post-mortem examination on the 14-year victim. Within 3 hours after that, she had been cremated, eliminating any possibility of an additional expert opinion. Was any other evidence destroyed along with the body itself? We will never know.

8. the cops - the cops investigating the case were a disgrace, and I’m saying this with all due respect and honor. Everything that the cops did after arriving at the scene of the crime, every little thing that they did, further destroyed the evidence and any chance of a swift unraveling of the crime.

9. the unknown factor - not everything about this case is on the table. Is there a smoking gun still out there? Did everyone involved pass a polygraph test yet? What about any DNA analyses from the crime scene? The coming weeks will shed some more light on the unknown, hopefully leading us to the why and whodunit of India’s most fascinating murder mystery this year.

10 you tell me!

Jun

25

Sparks igniting in Kashmir

June 25, 2008 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

Kashmir is burning again. The latest controversy has to do with a huge land grant by the state government to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB), a government body that oversees one of the holiest pilgrimages in India. That land grant to the Hindu shrine board has infuriated the local majority, sparking protests, riots and demonstrations in what is already a hotbed for discord and division.

The Amarnath is the famous abode of Lord Shiva, part of the Indian holy trinity, who is said to have meditated in this particular cave in the Himalayas. Around July & August of every year, the cave becomes a destination for more than half a million devotees coming literally from every corner of the world. The pilgrimage itself has been mired in controversy for some time now, for reasons that have nothing to do with Lord Shiva and everything to do with local and national politics.

Since it was founded in 2000, the government-controlled managing board seems to be turning the pilgrimage into a political minefield. Among its main goals are

1. providing sanitation facilities and medical help to the pilgrims
2. providing protection to the pilgrims, especially because of terrorist threats

As part of that greater goal towards a healthier pilgrimage, the land grant appears to be a simple eminent domain issue where the government would be entitled to set aside a lot of land for the betterment of the public. But the locals, who have always perceived the managing body as outsiders meddling in their internal matters, are looking at the land grant as a slap on their face.

Without even going to into who is right or wrong, it is obvious that the timing that the government chose to announce the land grant couldn’t have been worse. To make a contentious announcement like this right at the beginning of the pilgrimage season, is not only one of the dumbest things government has done, but it seems to be the beginning of several other dumb things the government seems to planning to do. The timing of the announcement begs yet another point, and that is about the motive. If all the government intends to do with Amarnath is build tolets and better roads, it can do that without fanfare and political manifestos. By politicizing what is without doubt a holy and a religious experience for Hindus and Muslims in the region, the government, by intervening in the matter, has not just aggravated the issue at hand, but it seems to be hellbent on creating new issues of aggravation every year.

Personally, I feel the pilgrimage just needs to shut down for a few years. Let Lord Shiva meditate in peace for a while. Take away any incentive for politicization. The environmentalists, too, will move someplace else to find another cause. As for the valley, what it needs is economic engines, whether through the old tourism trade, or the new IT centers. When there’s enough food on the table, it doesn;t take long for the mind to be at peace.

Jun

24

Mahatma Gandhi, the State bank trainee

June 24, 2008 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.
- Mahatma Gandhi

The human resources division of the State Bank of India, was recently taken for a ride by a prankster, who registered for one of their training programs, under a very famous name. The prankster applied for a 5-day pre-test training for bank clerks, entering his name as one ‘Mohandas Gandhi’, living at 123 Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad.

The prank came to light when the trustees of Sabarmati Ashram, Mahatma Gandhi’s famous retreat, received a letter from the State Bank, inviting Mahatma Gandhi for a pre-test bank clerk training. The bank’s recruitment division had apparently failed to whet out applications (almost 24 lakhs of them), resulting in the registration card being mailed to Mahatma Gandhi at his one-time address.

The trustees of the Gandhi’s legacy at Sabarmati, took offense at the prank, denouncing it as an act of insult that denigrated India’s national hero. But Gandhi himself would probably have laughed it off. He had a great sense of humor, even of the self-deprecating kind. And had he been the prankster who played the prank, he most certainly would have finished it off well, appearing at the exam center in his trademark attire.

Jun

23

Yet another idiot has now been arrested by the police in India, for posting an allegedly derogatory message about Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the chief of the ruling Congress party. This time it’s 22-year old Nitin Sajja from Hyderabad, posting a stupid comment on the ‘I hate Sonia Gandhi’ Orkut website. This particular arrest follows a similar May 17 arrest where a 22-year old man from Gurgaon was booked for writing a stupid message about Mrs. Gandhi.

Once again, the arrest was made by Pune’s cyber-cell cops who acted upon a complaint filed by the same activist as last time. In the May 17th case, the Pune police had gotten the IP address of the Orkut user from Google itself. This time, they didn’t even have to do that as Mr. Nitin Sajja left his own name and email address on the comment, making it rather easy for the police to find and nab him.

Just the other day, when Mrs. Sonia Gandhi visited her party activists in Maharashtra, a faction opposing Maharashtra’s curent Chief Minister threw chairs, shouted slogans and created a ugly and unseemly scene that embarrassed the party officials. The people perpetrating that particular act belonged to a powerful section of the Congress party that has been challenging and teasing the party’s core group, daring the party officials to act and punish the dissent. So far, beyond a few chiding words from Mrs. Gandhi herself, the rest of the party has chosen to keep quiet, fully aware of the power and the nuisance value of the people involved. But when the voice of dissent comes from someone who is weak and stupid and by all means acting alone, there seems to be an inordinate urgency to act and punish the individual.

What still amazes me is why India’s cyber-cops have yet not banned the hate website that has now managed to put two stupid Indians behind bars, making the public pay for their mundane incarcerations inside our prison cells? The police claim that India’s cyber-law does now allow them to arrest the person owning the website as that person would be free of any liability regarding any messages posted on the website. In fact, I’m beginning to suspect that the ‘I hate Sonia’ website may just be a cheap ploy by Congress party activists themselves so they can find and nab those who have a particular interest in posting hate messages about Mrs. Gandhi. In fact, the act of appeasement and sucking up to big politicians should be considered a worse, a more dangerous, and a far bigger crime.

This tightening up of the cyber-law noose against apparently benign bloggers, is a dangerous and treacherous trend that poses a far greater risk to India than the much-lesser, ill-perceived threat posed by a few isolated hate-mongers. Pune’s cyber-cops would do better to choose and fight their battles against individuals and groups that pose real threat to our cyber-security, the Pakistani and Chinese nationals who have been breaching India’s cyber-security at will for years.

Jun

22

Bolly-Holly-yabba-dabba-doo

June 22, 2008 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

There is growing perception among some media pundits that the gap between Hollywood and Bollywood is getting narrower. The two already have a working relationship in areas like animation, and with talks of new financing ventures flying high, one can feel the beginning of a new era of global film-making, where increasingly, lessons learnt from the rest of the business world will be put to test - outsourcing, delegation, knowledge-sharing, a newfound leveraging of strengths.

But unlike business sectors like banking and IT however, film-making at its core, is still an art about telling a story. And just because big-budget Hollywood studios start lining up at India’s doorstep has no relationship to the benefits that the average movie-goers can expect. Until Bollywood shows some willingness to grow beyond its limitations and mental barriers, nothing will change, and we will still be watching stupid Bollywood movies that make their livelihood on trendy musical scores. And Spielberg, Coppola, Polanski and Scorsese, put together, aren’t good enough to make a princess of the Bollywood mannequin propped up by a talented bunch of musical geniuses.

It is telling that the only Indian filmmaker who made a lasting impression on Hollywood came not from Bollywood but from Kolkata , and he won the hearts and respect of some of the giants of his era - from Bertolucci to Kurosawa. And Satyajit Ray, too, got into the Hollywood act when he chose to write the script for The Alien, for the benefit of Columbia pictures. That wasin 1967. But Ray was disillusioned when he discovered that he never got due credit for his script, and he believed that a young upcoming Hollywood director had taken elements from his earlier script for his new film. That new film was E.T. and that director was the same one who is, now joining hands with India’s richest family to create a new Holly-Bolly film fraternity.

What can we expect for the near future? Not much, except maybe a better-animated version of Hanuman who now would be able to grab some skills from the spiderman’s toolbox. Personally, I have long wished to see Mr. Amitabh Bachchan cast as the man from La Mancha, upstaging all those who played the whimsical Quixote before. Of course, Mr. Bachchan may believe that he has already done the same, playing Sarkar in successive Ram Gopal Verma movies.

Jun

21

Ice on Mars

June 21, 2008 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

ice on marsFor those who are amazed by the mysteries of the universe, these are very, very exciting times, thanks to a small cluster of robotic instruments on planet mars. Yesterday, the mission scientists in charge of NASA’s phoenix Lander program, revealed that they have seen ice on Mars. Though there is much speculation on what else the white substance could be (whether ice or some salt, etc), most agree that the white-colored sheet in the top surface of Mars is ice.

But what looks like ice isn’t behaving like ice because of the atmospheric conditions on mars. Some of the ice from last week’s pictures seems to have vanished when the scientists tried to picture it again this week, leaving them to wonder if ice on Mars may be subject to sublimation, going from a solid ice-state to vapor, skipping the liquid water phase altogether. But soon, the instrument cluster on Mars will tell us what really is going on, since they will scoop the ice up and subject it to controlled environment that will give us a chance to see if water can indeed be created on Mars, albeit momentarily.

There is a story about planet Mars in Indian mythology, where the God of the red planet appears at a devotee’s door, disguised as a (of course) brahmin, and asks for food (Indian Gods will do anything for food, if you don’t know already). But Mars puts a caveat in his demand by asking the devotee to plaster the ground with cow-dung before cooking food.

Now we know that planet Mars himself enjoys a plastered surface, made probably of ice, if not cow-dung. And we’ve also found that like Hindu mythology, Mars, too, is truly sublime.

Jun

20

A 21st century Ahalya in Nagpur

June 20, 2008 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

A Nagpur woman is claiming that she was raped in the middle of the night in her own home, by a stranger, who she thought was her husband.

A young woman from Kalameshwar near Nagpur has filed a police report accusing a local resident of tricking her into having his with her while her own husband slept only a few feet away. The suspect, they alleged, entered their homw as they were fast asleep, lay down beside the woman, and made love to her. The woman has contended that she believed it was her loving husband and therefore cooperated rather delightfully. But she cried foul afterwards, alerting and awakening her husband who then tried to chase the suspect in the middle of the night on the dark, dim village streets. The suspect, a rather sly devil of a lover, managed to run away, leaving the villagers and the police with a huge question mark. The police, however, say that they know who the night stalker is and will get him soon.

Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I, for one, am not so sure about the whole thing. My first instinct is to demand a CBI investigation, followed by a narco-analysis as well as a brain mapping of the woman, her husband and her secret lover. I would also like to suggest narco-analyses of a whole bunch of other village folks in this naughty Nagpur suburb. For all we know, this might be an age-old thing going on here.

Those who have read a little bit about Hindu mythology will remember the story of Ahalya , her husband sage Gautama and Indra, the king of the deities. Indra, having fallen for the beautiful Ahalya, the wife of the famous learned sage, disguised himself as the sage himself and managed to make love to the beauty, who the story goes, believed she was enjoying a romantic tryst with her husband. In that story, the lover left, the husband (sage Gautama) came back and discovered what had transpired. Gautama is then said to have put a curse on Ahalya, converting her to stone statue. So she turned to stone, and lay there for ages until Lord Rama came along on that path, the mere touch of his divine feet injecting life into the lifeless stone, redeeming it back to Ahalya, one of the famous beauties of Indian mythology.

Most of us have probably always believed that the stories from mythology are just stories from mythology and nothing more. But as inventive and imaginative we believe them to be, incidences such as this one in Nagpur, or the other one about a four-armed little girl Laxmi, suggest that mythology has a way of imitating life and reality, and most writers including those who do mythology, steal their ideas from the things that go on around them.

Jun

19

The missing missies of Pune

June 19, 2008 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

“…..A large number of girls elope and settle down elsewhere. To protect the family’s honour, parents file a missing complaint without disclosing what their daughters have done….”
- Rajendra Bhamre (chief, social security cell, of Pune police)

Times is reporting a disturbing trend in one of India’s metros - Pune. So far this year, about 1600 missing persons reports have been filed in various police stations in Pune. That’s almost a 7% rise from last year’s figures of 3000 missing overall in that entire year.

The Pune police seem to be treating the issue with a characteristic unflappable nonchalance. The chief of social cell of the Pune police explained the phenomenon away, by contending that, most of the missing cases are honor-missings (as in honor-killings). He blamed the missings on the limited choices available to young girls who, he said, eloped to marry against their parents’ wishes.

But a drilldown into the numbers of the missings does not completely back that tale. Of the 1610 missing in Pune so far this year, there were 497 men, 620 women, 191 boys and 302 girls. Also, of the 1610 missing this year, 782 returned — 224 men, 291 women, 99 boys and 168 girls. In the entire last year, 3,006 went missing — 1,104 men, 1,149 women, 487 boys and 595 girls. Of those, 545 men, 666 women, 361 boys and 389 girls returned home.

Those numbers don’t really support the police theory of the missing based on the eloping younger female population. In fact, almost as many men and boys seem to be disappearing. Which actually suggests, that the parents of eloping girls as well as the of eloping boys, both the sets of parents seem to be filing missing persons reports when the loving duos elope. In fact, digging deeper, I think the entire missing report could be explained by not just the marrying lovers eloping, but also both the sets of parents eloping into obscurity for a while, probably to protect themselves from the gossiping neighbors. Any additional number of missing men and women could probably be the police who have gone missing looking after the missing parents of the missing teens.

Jun

18

Are we still kadwa chauth-positive?

June 18, 2008 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

The case of the 61-year old woman who has filed a dowry case against her husband and his second family, is a classic example of how some women are natural born victims for such ridiculous scams.

The woman in the case, Venkatalakshmi, married her husband Somappa in 1966, had 5 children from him. Somappa walked out on her years ago (following either his heart or his second wife’s money) , and married a younger (of course) woman, with whom he has been living since. Venakatalakshmi has now revealed that Somappa and his second wife have been harassing her for money and further, have flatout refused to support her kids from the marriage.

There are several things going on here.

1. Many women go along with their husbands’ dowry demands fearing their husbands would either walk out on them, or fearing violence and abuse. Venkatalakshmi’s husband had already walked out, so realistically, for her, there was nothing further to lose (if such a husband’s walking out be could considered a loss at all - many would consider it a stroke of good luck).

2. Many women, when they get out of abusive relationships, would rather choose not associate any further with the scoundrels they have just escaped from. Venkatalakshmi, it seems, is still in love with her husband, and probably still considers herself and her kids to be an integral part of his family. Her asking the police and the court to intervene regarding spousal support, is indicative of the fact that she is still keen on not entirely starting a new life.

3. How is a 61-year old supposed to start a new life, you would argue. Well, here’s the thing. Having been deserted for another woman years ago, Venkatalakshmi should really have been looking out for her own independnce. But then how is one supposed to do all that with five young kids to feed?

4. The answer to that partly lies in educating oneself to a point where financial independence should not an afterthought. I know of many women, who having educated themselves to higher degrees, have chosen to stay at home, trusting that their husbands would be bringing the bread on the table. For some of them, that trust did not pan through, and they were left fending for themselves, filling job aplications after a hiatus of years if not decades of housewifery. So no matter how good the marriage looks and sounds, women, must, in all cases, be ever so ready to be independent. A side benefit of this is the ability to take over when unexpected circumstances necessitate diving into job markets, circumstances such as a spousal illnesses or a death.

5. The other part of the answer has to do with the slavish and servile mindset that I will call the kadwachauth mindset . For eons, Indian women have been plagued with this kadwachauth syndrome where it has been ingrained in their psyche that they ned to please their husbands. Now, I don’t have anything against women pleasing their husbands. What is irksome and idiotic are the notions about a married women being bonded to their husbands for multiple lives or incarnations. A surprizingly large portion of India’s population, still suffers from this idiocy, fueled and fed by the morons of daytime soaps whose only goal is to squeeze the ratings out of all those TV-viewing women.

Before dowry goes, kadwa chauth has to go. It is a stupid festival and it has no place in modern society. I’m all for women dressing up neat and getting together on a social basis and having sweet conversations about their loving families in the frontyards of our temples. But I’m sick of the societal ills and cancers that we perpetrate under the guise of religion, tradition, and culture.

6. Lastly, what are Venkatalakshmi’s kids doing? She has ten hands that could help her, but looks like they too, suffer from the same sickness and affliction of dependency. India is one of the few countries where most parents still support their kids until the kids graduate and get married. The rest of the planet has grown up and so should we.

Jun

17

A murder of crows halts India’s trains

June 17, 2008 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

For a change, a different kind of murder, that of an avian variety, rocked the state of Bihar, yesterday. A murder of crows (yes, that’s what a group of crows is known as) snapped the overhaead power lines of the Indian Railways, in the state that is the birthplace of Laloo Prasad Yadav, India’s minister of railways.

The crows were protesting the disruption brought upon them by the Railways workers who had been clearing the crows’ nests to address the increasing number of short-circuits seen on railways power lines, a fallout of a large number of crows fighting or flapping their wings. The corvidian protest halted the trains in their tracks until railways workers finally managed to restore the power lines.

Crows, one of the commonest corvidian bird species found in India, and is indeed deeply rooted in the Indian consciousness. It sometimes considered as an avatara of the dead relatives who revisit their loved ones on the 14th day after their death. It is also the ride used by the two-headed Lord Shani (Saturn) in India’s fascinating mythology. It is also one of the domesticated species that do not seem to mind the crowded coexistence with human beings.

But crows are an intelligent species, with a very high pound-to-pound ratio of brain to body weights. Crows are known to exhibit signs of extraordinary intelligence rivalling non-human primates. Over last century and a half, the railway power lines have now sunk into the corvidian collective conscience as exotic habitats for their nests. Any attempt at destroying that habitat is sure to spark a revolution and a power struggle that will pit the crows against the shrewdest and the most ruthless predator on the planet.

It is a power (line) struggle the railways minister will do well to be well-versed in. Only two days ago, his plane was hit by a bird, and ended up making an emergency landing in the capital city. Just a few weeks ago, the minister wrote his first blog, blasting a political agitation by an ethnic group - “..this agitation has become directionless…”, he wrote. Now he will probably be writing about the avian agitation borrowing the same lines.

Jun

16

I’ve read somewhere that Mahatma Gandhi was a fan of Bollywood’s movies and had actually seen and admired a few as well. One of the commonest themes in Bollywood movies is the tale of two sons, one who veers of the path of righteousness turning out to be the bad seed, the other one - a hardworking idealist who eventually manages to make something of his life. Gandhi may have had little inkling that the screenplay he helped write for a story about two brothers of the same family tree would turn up so eerily similar to that all-too-common Bollywood theme.

The New York Times is reporting today, that Pakistan and some of its citizens have had a bigger hand in distributing the sensitive and dangerous nuclear weapons dirty bomb technology to several rogue groups around the planet. This new informaiton came to light after investigators pieced together secrets of the blueprints from Pakistani scientists computers, blueprints that are basically recipes for worldwide disaster and distruction.

The newness of the findings relate to the discovery of a digital design of a compact nuclear explosive device, a faster, sleeker and a 30-minute recipe version that can be quickly copied over and distributed for commercial gains. The new discovery also sheds light on how the Pakistani government and General Musharraf, especially, have been making a fool of the rest of the humanity by declaring that the Pakistani nuclear bomb leak case had been contained a few years ago once the principal perpetrator (Dr A. Q. Khan) was arrested.

So now we learn about this new low achieved by Pakistani government over the last few years. So as General Musharraf kept India busy with the Kargil war and the usual cross-border skirmishes, his close confidants were busy in backroom dealings with whoever would pay money to be able to learn how to kill a large number of people in a quick and dirty way. The able general managed to accomplish all that while suppressing the will of the few good men in his country. His one-time-counterparts from his neighboiring country have retired. His biggest political rival in his own country was assasinated. He himself has supposedly had several attempts on his life. But the general, like some demon from India’s ancient scriptures, is still around, devouring and sucking any good that tries to survive and take root.

It seems to me that India’s rise to superpowerdom this century will have less to do with industrial strength and progress in IT. Like the other democracy that assumed the mantle of last century’s superpower after defeating and destroying the demons of that century, India’s rise and its path to glory in the years ahead is only through the annihilation of the rogue elements that lurk at its border and threaten not just India, but the rest of this planet.

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