First Amendment and Article 19 (Part 2)

[Blogger's Note: This is the second in a series of 3 articles]


Columbia University invited Global Terrorist No.1 (or 2, depending on the mood), Enemy No. 1 (or 2 depending on the mood), State sponsor of Terrorism (it’s not George Bush Stupid …) and Holocaust denier - the democratically elected President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a part of the World Leader’s Forum initiative. The bosses in Columbia will pass the buck if there’s too much heat about giving a platform to an extremist (it wasn’t the President but a Professor of some nondescript course who actually made the invitation) and others will pat their backs and say how Columbia upheld Freedom of Speech by listening to a tyrant ramble on stage. Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia in his opening remarks said, "Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator" and then added "You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated". In between he exposed Iran's "hideous designs" on various issues, and wrapped it up with a parting salvo "I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions". Mr. Bollinger’s remarks reminded me of a hymn from the Vedas:
"Mathru devo bhava
Pithru devo bhava
Aacharya devo bhava
Athithi devo bhava"
(Respect one’s mother, father, teacher and guest just as you respect God).
Sure, Mr. Bollinger would not have read the Vedas but I think he did go overboard in inviting someone and then being so extremely judgmental, that the very values that Columbia stood up for in making the invitation i.e. Freedom of speech looked like mere lip service. What Mr. Bollinger did was to exemplify the perception of American Foreign Policy in the Middle East – ignorant, belligerent, bullying and ugly.

Sometime in March 2006 Mr. George W. Bush, who in some parts of the globe is perceived to be Global Terrorist No.1, Enemy No. 1 and State sponsor of Terrorism, visited India. The Indian government tried very hard to have him address the Indian Parliamentarians in the Parliament house. When a significant number of Parliament Members threatened to heckle him, the Government decided to have Bush address the masses from Purana Qila, the Old Fort. When Bush did address the group of Parliamentarians, he was given a standing ovation from time to time. He wasn’t heckled and he wasn’t reminded of his numerous gaffes that he had made. Athithi devo bhava indeed!!!

First Amendment and Article 19 (Part 1)

[Blogger's Note: This is the first in a series of 3 articles]

I seem to be going on a blogging spree whenever India wins in cricket. Beating Pakistan is no mean feat and winning the tournament in a format where we've just played one international T-20 match prior to this World Cup surely needed tons of self belief. To do that without the trinity of Indian cricket is like America winning the war on Terror in land-locked Afghanistan with just the Navy. The Indian media have covered this so much that the only risk I’d carry if I continued talking about the Men in Blue is that I’d sound like a broken gramophone record.

What I would like to dwell on is an interesting comment that Shoaib Malik made in the Post Match Award Ceremony. His exact words were “First of all I want to say something over here. I want to thank you back home Pakistan and where the Muslim lives all over the world."(Many thanks to Cricinfo’s Mukul Kesavan’s blog at: http://blogs.cricinfo.com/meninwhite/archives/2007/09/scenes_from_a_final.php for the comment). If I were to take Shoaib’s comments at face value, what he meant was one or more of the following:
1. Shoaib’s team was not only playing cricket for Pakistan but also for the entire Muslim world.
2. The Indian Muslims do not count as Muslims in his eyes or they were rooting for Pakistan en-bloc and were sorry that India won. I think the latter is extremely improbable as we had Irfan Pathan picking up 3 wickets for a measly 16 in 4 overs (which included the prize scalp of the other Pathan, albeit the Stupid one – Shahid Afridi)
3. Muslims in Chechnya and Bosnia, the Abu Sayyaff in Philippines and the Palestinian brethren, who probably don’t follow the game anyway, want Muslims to win across those dirty non-believers. As if they haven’t had other things to worry about.

For a moment let us assume that Shoaib as a non-native speaker got done in by the occasion (Young captain, losing a nail-biting final to arch-rivals India, not sure of the reception back at home). In such a scenario we could construe what he meant as one or more of the following:
1. Shoaib meant “Pakistanis back home and Pakistanis all over the world” which would make it a pretty innocuous comment. I still do not agree with his apologetic tone though, he made it sound like it was a disgrace losing to India when to the contrary Pakistan should have been proud of their fight back. Shoaib should have acknowledged the fact, that at the end of the day, the game of cricket won (pardon me for that famous cliché being re-used)
2. Pakistanis and Muslims are interchangeable. In such a case, (as Mukul points out in his blog) spare a thought for poor Danish Kaneria. The Hindu in the Muslim team, who was just made Muslim.

Either way, there is no point castigating (or castrating ... sorry couldn’t help that one either) Shoaib Malik. In a free world he has the freedom to speak what he wishes to (ofcourse with a certain amount of discretion) and I don’t think Shoaib crossed the line irrespective of what he meant. At worst, he sounded foolish, stupid and parochial. At best he sounded like somebody out of sorts with a foreign language and maybe he should start using more Urdu in his post match speeches.

Haleem, Ladoos, Lab rats and the 'M' word

In Nagesh Kukunoor's Dor, Zeenat (played beautifully by my senior in school, Gul Panag) asks Meera to sign a letter to forgive her husband who accidentally kills Meera's husband. Meera, sick of her life as a Hindu widow, doesn't agree and in the ensuing discussion asks "Tumhara Quran bhi yeh kahta hai naa …badle ke liye badla ... mujhe badla chahihye" (Even the Quran justifies revenge and asks an eye for an eye ... I want revenge). Zeenat replies by saying that the Hindu scriptures encourage forgiveness and pleads Meera to sign.

For a religion that started in the 7th century when the world already had enough religions to contend with, the adoption of Islam has been phenomenal. If a religion in the new age had to succeed, it had to be militant, aggressive and forceful. Islam gives you all of them in equal doses. It had to grow at the expense of all other religions and the only way it could do so was to preach Zero Tolerance, be unforgiving to people who blaspheme and elevate itself as the purest and most supreme form of worship. Thomas Friedman in his article in the New York Times talks about the Islamist view "Muslims are raised with the view that Islam is God 3.0, Christianity is God 2.0, Judaism is God 1.0, and Hinduism is God 0.0." If this is indeed true then we are in deep trouble.

Exactly 108 years to the day when a bunch of stupid men flew planes into buildings, a man clad in saffron addressed The World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. It was September 11th 1893. Somewhere in a speech that talked about universal acceptance and tolerance he had time to translate an old Sanskrit hymn "As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee." Vivekananda captured the hearts and minds of Americans with his speech (obviously Mr Bush wants to do it differently with the Iraqis), but all he was stating was what is so obvious in the Hindu religion.

India today is trying to reconcile with the fact whether Hindus and Muslims will ever be able to live again peacefully. One religion talks about acceptance and tolerance while the other considers all other forms of worship blasphemous. Amartya Sen in his book "Identity and Violence" talks about how having a single identity that eclipses all other identities can cause friction. He argues that every person is not only a Hindu, or a Muslim, but also a male or a female, a doctor, engineer or an actor, a communist, socialist or a capitalist, a rock music fan or a carnatic music fan. In a nutshell the more identities a person has the less likely is there a chance of friction in the name of religion.

The Indian Muslim who has multiple identities is never the problem. A Shahrukh Khan, a Mohammed Kaif, a Shabana Azmi or an Azim Premji will never fund a terrorist outfit or become a suicide bomber. However, the Indian Muslim below the poverty line is being slowly moulded to have only one identity (which is the identity of religion). He is taught to belong to a different league and is continuously reminded of his superiority. His frustration only mounts when he is unable to come to terms with his standing in real life. It would be a difficult task to get the poorer Muslim to be more pluralistic, but that doesn't mean it can not be done. To start with, a part of the fault lies with the Hindu Majority. From a religion which was based on acceptance and pluralism we have seen a more uncharacteristically militant form which reeks of all things which were never the basis of Hindu teachings. The problem with today's Hindu is that we don't give the Muslims a second identity, albeit a more important one, that they are Indians just like any body else. That would solve half the problem to begin with.

In "Chak De …", when Kabir Khan walks out of the Indian Hockey Federation meeting after asking if he could coach the Women's Team, his friend (a character inspired by Negi's real life friend Jyotikumaran) consoles him of his missed penalty stroke by saying "Lekin … Hum Sab ki Ek Galti to maaf hota hai" (Everyone is forgiven for one mistake) and Kabir retorts "Sab ki naheen" and repeats it again "Sabki naheen" (Not everyone's first or only mistakes are forgiven). That pretty much sums up the feelings of the ordinary Indian Muslim. Making Lab rats out of them and asking them to wear their loyalty on their sleeves is something that has already begun to isolate them.

Every Ramzan I make it a point to be in Hyderabad (partly because it is the safest time in the year to be in Hyderabad and partly because I love the Hyderabadi Haleem). On Vinayak Chaturthi, my cousin, a friend and I went to the Al Saba Cafe and packed a Haleem for dinner. I can't speak for the other two, but consider me sacrilegious, a voracious meat eater or a plain stupid dunce, I still managed to add 3 new identities to the ones I already have. On a more serious note ... How many Muslim's would eat Tirupati Prasad after they see the moon come out during Ramzaan? … Clearly it takes two hands to clap …!!!

Surfing couches across Europe

Europe, like India, is a cultural melting pot with a million cultures. Ask a European to travel 250 kilometres from where he is and he'll probably feel like a stranger in a strange land. People, opinions, outlook, culture, leanings are all very different as you travel across Europe. I was lucky enough to interact personally with a great number of these different souls and all that happened thanks to the Couchsurfing Project (http://www.couchsurfing.com/). Couchsurfing is based on a very simple premise. Travellers all over the world are a kindred spirit and a traveller will be more than glad to host you for a couple of days if you happen to be travelling to his city. The name of the project comes from the fact that hosts will at least be able to give up their couches for you to sleep in, if they have nothing else to offer. I used the Couchsurfing network to make friends in Hamburg, Milan, Venice, Paris and Berlin and each experience was extremely fulfilling.

My first Couchsurfing experience was with Leif in Hamburg. Leif is a Scandic name and apparently it is common for Northern Germans to have such a name. Leif was the perfect host. He drove us down to Lubeck and Scharbeutz apart from showing us around Hamburg. Leif introduced us to popular local selections from Astra beer to the Reeperbahn (Hamburg's Red Light district, where the Beatles played in the 60s much before they got so famous that John Lennon in his characteristic style said "We're more famous than Jesus Christ"). We did the typical touristy guy stuff in the Dollhouse and also did the Sunday morning at the fish Auction hall. His parting gift to me was an East German flag that made it to the display back at home.

I love the Italians. My mother tongue, Telugu, is often called the "Italian of the east" because all words (or almost all) end in vowels. This gives an impression of symmetry and structure to the language and makes it sound very pleasant. Italy reminded me of home to the extent that I felt homesick. I was hosted by Ray Tarantino in Milan. Ray has a band of his own and inspite of his busy schedule showed me around Milan's nightspots. Being one of those Da Vinci Code trivia fans I couldn't resist visiting Vinci's Last Supper Painting. Milan has so many Japanese tourists that they found it common sense to install squat-pans in toilets in most places. With the amount of money the Japanese tourist pumps in, anyone would bend backwards to indulge them.

If people were to be given the choice to visit one European city then they must choose Venice. Venice is charming, mesmerising and frustratingly beautiful. What made it even more memorable was to be hosted by somebody like Sara. We discovered some wonderful Osteries and Cafes in Venice and had a great time. She had some wonderful stories about her experiences in Galway and Granada and her passion for the Lynx. By the end of the trip she surpassed Gondolas, Marco Polo and Cassanova as far as recall value with respect to Venice was concerned. Venice also introduced me to other travellers and Couchsurfers. Sebastien a French-Canadian who had just finished a trek in the Julian Alps in Slovenia, Anna and Fanny an Italian and Belgian pair who had just come for a break.

You can't do justice to Paris if you stayed less than 3 days. I was there for almost 5 days and I still felt like I wanted to be there longer. I stayed with Won the first few days. Won, an American of South Korean ethnicity had a passion for mime and that brought him to Paris. I attended a few of his rehearsals as their official photographer and it was amazing how passionate Parisians are about art. Mime is an old South East Asian art that looks so fabulous when done the right way and Won's team was so good that at times forgot about my role of clicking pictures. (I remember a mime artist performing in School and being booed away from Stage and our Headmaster making the whole school stand in the chilling December cold in the middle of the night). I then moved to Vincente's place in Le Gobelins. Vincente worked for a foundation that helped young kids discover their scientific leanings. I met him at a time when France had just voted Sarkozy in and through his friends who were a great bunch of people we drank wine late into the morning and talked about Paris, India, French Politics and France's 264 patented varieties of cheese.

In all these people I found a common theme: A genuine love for travel, an interest in meeting people of different cultures and sharing experiences, and helping fellow travellers so that they get the best travel experience. People don’t expect a community purely based on good will to do well ... but Couchsurfing has all the ingredients to become a much larger and widely used community. Good bye seedy hotel rooms !!

Of Flashes in the Pan, Coorgis and first crushes

Watching India beat England after chasing down 317 with 2 balls to spare reminded me of the Natwest One Day Final in 2002 where we chased down 326 and Ganguly performed a "Half Monty" from the Lord's Pavilion. It also reminded me of the famous India Pakistan match in the Independence Cup final in 1998 where we chased down 314. These 3 matches (forget about the order) are my favourite One day victories. The heroes in these matches, Robin Uthappa hitting 2 consecutive boundaries off Broad in the last over, Mohammed Kaif coming in at 146-5 and batting with great cricketing sense and Hrishikesh Kanitkar hitting Saqlain for 4 off the second last ball, were all unestablished when they played these gems. Looking back, both Kanitkar and Kaif lost it somewhere down the line. Some go to the extent of calling them flashes in the pan (though it would extremely unfair to call Kaif that). Only time will tell how Robin Uthappa will be judged but as always a billion people will expect him to do what he did last night everytime he comes to the crease. I do hope this Coorgi dude becomes one of India's next generation of cricketers.

There is something cool about the Coorgis though. We had a bunch of them in school and each of them had this cool streak running through them that by the end of my first year in school I wanted to be a coorgi as well (The only thing I guess which stopped me was that Venkat would have had to become Venkatappa, Venkayya, Venkanna or something similarly uncool). I was lucky enough to sit next to one such Coorgi in Grade 6. Kaveri was this one helluva beautfiul girl and I think by the time we finished our first term I was very much smitten by her. I was this budding philatelist then and during study hour one day I was sorting out my stamp collection. She seemed to be interested as well and I couldn't say "No" when she asked for a few stamps to start a collection of her own. Caught between possessiveness towards my collection and this request from the girl, I by now was very much in love with, I did the obvious - I gave her a couple of fake stamps from my collection (I think it was those funny moon landing collections from one of those Gulf emirates). Kaveri left after the 6th grade and I never got to meet here again. In all those years in between I would rather discreetly ask other Old school mates about her whereabouts and I'd always get a blank.

In 2005, I got this forwarded mail about the dangers of using a microwave to heat water (Moral of the e-mail: Don't heat water in a microwave unless the cup has something like a tea-bag or wooden stir to diffuse the energy built up). It was forwarded from a colleague and as I scrolled down to read it my eyes lit up. The originator happened to be the very same kaveri I knew in school. I shot off a mail asking if she ever went to the same school and if she remembered my fake stamp collection or me. Yes (she went to the same school) and no (she could neither remember me nor my fake stamp collection) was the reply.

As far as I can remember Kaveri was my first serious crush (till then all I had in my crush list were Class Teachers). I did learn from friends that Kaveri is now married to a fellow Coorgi who was a Senior at school but when I think of first crushes I still think of those balmy evenings of 1990 when I had to make the diffcult choice between parting with my stamp collection and indulging the girl I adored and I know I couldn't have done better.

Saala Madraasi ...

A lot of us often think of the Tamilians as a race with militant ideas and a misplacced sense of Dravidian/Tamil nationalism. To a large extent, this is because of the language struggle, where they genuinely believed Tamil to be a 'logical' alternative to Hindi and the fight for an independent Dravidian homeland, that consisted of Tamil Nadu and northern Srilanka. Now, consider this:

1. MG Ramachandran was a mallu Nair from Palakkad
2. Rajinikanth (Shivaji Rao Gaekwad) is a Marathi from Bangalore
3. Jayalalitha is a kannadiga from Mysore
4. Khushboo and Simran are Hindi speaking. Incidentally both of them have temples constructed for them in Tamil Nadu.
5. Thyagaraja who wrote the Pancharatna kritis was a Telugu based out of Tanjore

Sure for every MGR we have a Kaurnanidhi, and for every khushboo and a Simran we have a Radha and Radhika, but the dichotomy for me seems too sharp to understand for them to fit the cliche. How can a race that is believed to be so gung-ho about it's identity continuously elevate people from outside to the pedestal. So are they miltant, confused souls with a bit of an identity crisis or more liberal than we make them out to be ?

The birth ...

I must thank Abhilash for getting me out of my self induced slumber of 5 years and pushing me to write ... It happened at Rajahmundry airport ... Nuthan had just finished nourishing some vegetation on the compound wall when this dude calls to see how Suri's wedding went. We talked about the days of yore, his research into something sinister and the fact that we weren't talking enough ... The blog name (Eat your own ....) is a tribute to a German colleague (?) at work ... his way of saying that you can give something to a customer only if you are sure you can use it yourself. Think it's some wise German saying translated badly using Babelfish. Blue Buffalo is a great oxymoron. Of all, it is a pet food company that specializes in dog food.

Racist South Indians

I've always called myself a Racist South Indian. I've often been asked what that means and my definition has always changed every single time I've tried to respond (based on my mood, state of mind and a host of other things that included the price of onions) ... This is my attempt to be consistent ...

Racist South Indian
- Noun (Usage: I was eating Mutton Madras and bloody hell ... I realised I was a Racist South Indian)
1. A bunch of like minded people who dig thunder thighed actresses, prefer moustaches on their heroes (and heroines given a choice). They can gorge on dosas, vadas, MLA pesarattus and bisibela baths 3 times a day, think that Amitabh Bacchan (who is he?) comes a close 29th after Rajini, Chiru, Upendra (not necessarily in the same order) and a bunch of other pot-bellied and not so pot-bellied actors. They believe that Article 343 (Hindi as a national language) should be scrapped or ammended and filter coffee goes best while reading The Hindu