Just after it was declared that Osama bin Laden has been shot dead someone tweeted, “Good, now can I bring my shampoo when travelling by air?”

Although it was said in jest there are many who believe that the killing of Osama bin Laden is a big victory against terrorism. Hardly. It is a moral victory, of course, and a victory that has come too late. Right now in the world of terrorism bin Laden holds no significance. He had begun to turn into a relic. With public rising against dictators (most of them supported by the USA, ironically) all over the Arab world and with no support from Osama bin Laden and his ilk he has been relegated to insignificance. The last video he released was in 2007 .Understandly there haven’t been much hue and cry over his killing in the Arab world save for a few commisoratory demonstrations by fringe fanatical groups.

Big terrorist names only act as inspiration, the actual groups at the ground level mostly work independently due to logistical problems. Terrorist groups derive massive support from governments and secret agencies and they are basically tools in the hands of these governments and agencies (for example Pakistan, China and Sudan). So killing one leader here and another there isn’t going to make the problem of terrorism go away. There has to be an international consensus regarding how to deal with such regimes. Unless this is done no amount of terrorist-extermination is going to provide a solution and we will keep on living in the contemporary fearful atmosphere.

Since terrorism may exist in many forms we also need a clear definition of what exactly is terrorism so that it becomes easier to deal with them. Terrorism for one can be justified resistance for anotherr. For example there are many groups fighting against unjust governments and despotic rulers. Just because you’re taking up arms against an establishment or a government this shouldn’t turn you into an internationally certified terrorist. Take for instance Maoist insurgency in some parts of India. There is a known collusion between various mafias, industries and government agencies and they are perpetually exploiting local people, looting them, depriving them of their lands and resources and murdering them. When the law that is supposed to protect you begins to exploit you and there is no platform available to you where you can voice your dissent sometimes you have no option but to take up arms.

Having said that, I’m not saying that blowing up buildings and buses and killing people in the name of a justified struggle is excusable, I’m just trying to explain the difference between a resistance and an act of blowing up a building like the World Trade Center.

Of course there are arguments and counter arguments in every case as it already happens. There are apologists who don’t know where to draw a line and then there are “civilised” extremists who again, don’t know where to draw a line. There is no balanced analysis of the reasons why terrorism crops up. People often say that the very ideology of Islam breeds violent Jihad and terrorism but personally I don’t agree with this. There are murderers and fanatics in every religion. The recent peaceful protests in countries like Tunisia, Libya and Egypt have shown that Muslims don’t need support from Jihadi groups and professional terrorists to rise up against their governments.

It’s a pleasant development that Facebook played a more significant role than the al Qaeda.

Just as there are fringe fanatic groups in every religion there are also fringe fanatic groups among Muslims.

In order to contain and destroy terrorism the international community first of all needs to realise what actually breeds terrorism and what sort of support various terrorist organisations derive from established governments. There has to be a sincere effort. The way America has been turning a blind eye to Pakistani adventurism is appalling and it smells of some deep-rooted conspiracy, whatever may be the reason. So we need to get rid of such dualism and hypocrisy and come straight to the point. It took the Americans more than nine years to hunt down Osama bin Laden. It shouldn’t have taken them more than two months had the effort been sincere and realistic. Needless war and destruction has been imposed on multiple countries in the guise of finding him.

The Muslim community all over the world needs to be more vociferous against the violent elements amidst the community just as they have risen against their dictators. Being a terrorist shouldn’t be an act of valour and terrorists must be treated as criminals and hence families supporting them must face shame rather than incite awe. Whenever you want to glorify terrorism just think of Beslan (Russia) where they had taken 100s of schoolchildren hostages and forced them to take off their clothes or the innocent Jewish family butchered during 26/11 Mumbai attacks. It is very difficult to change a cultural ideology but community leaders must make a start somewhere; during Friday prayers every week they can exhort them to distance themselves from violent and terrorist elements. This is a long-term goal and may take many decades to show some results.

The short-term goals must be to employ a zero tolerance policy against countries abetting and supporting terrorist groups in the name of Jihad and freedom struggle. Indigenously the justice system must be made stronger and effective and if the United Nations need to but in then so be it. For instance if the Indian government doesn’t go into the root cause of the Maoist insurgency then the United Nations must interfere. When you start killing your own people then it is no longer a question of sovereignty and internal matter.

So it has to be a multi-pronged approach: strengthen domestic justice system and implement a zero tolerance policy against countries breeding terrorism. Only then the problem of terrorism can be solved.

How do we fight corruption at a personal level? As an inidividual it might be a lone battle, and you may end up gaining nothing and losing a lot. Take for instance getting a water connection at home or an electricity connection when setting up a new business; most of the times you cannot get the connections unless you pay a bribe to people who are responsible for providing the services at the local level. For practically everything you need to give a bribe. People claim that they had to give bribes even to obtain death certificates!

You may decide not to pay a bribe and take the matter up with higher authorities, but the problem is even people sitting there may also turn out to be corrupt and this litany of corruption may go right up till the top, wherever the top goes. You might end up never getting your work done just to set an example for other would-be “crusaders”. What is the solution than?

The problem is aggravated by the indifferent or even hostile attitude of neighbors, colleagues and even relatives. If you don’t get your work done because you haven’t paid a bribe it’s often you who would end up being termed as a fool. They will either laugh at you, or resent you for pricking at their conscience.

Why do the corrupt survive? They work together. In togetherness lies their safety and interest. They are always protecting each other and watching each other’s back. Unless there is some diehard whistleblower among them they either remain quite or become a part of the corrupt system.

On a lower level the only way you can tackle corruption is by getting people together. It might be an uphill task but it is definitely better than fighting a lone battle. Just like you there might be scores of other people who don’t want to pay a bribe just as a principal (not just to save money) but don’t know how to go about it alone. Whenever you’re visiting a place where you suspect a bribe will be demanded go with many people who too have the same need. Maybe there are 15 other people who need a water connection or electricity connection in your locality. Try to mobilize them.

At the outset it may sound like an overkill (just to get a water connection) but just imagine what you stand to lose if you continuously give in to corrupt officials. You don’t get proper roads, you get inferior quality amenities and even if somehow you are able to get water and electricity connections you are very well aware of the standard of these services. You may already be purchasing drinking water and power cuts may already have forced you to resort to using a generator or an inverter.

Form locality-based groups and organizations that can come to the assistance of those being pestered by corrupt officials. There are already many non-profit organizations working in this field and they can provide you with ample information and support if you look around.

Editor arrested for ‘outraging Muslims’ – Asia, World – The Independent

Reminds me of childhood story

We had a storybook at home written by a Russian girl. We had its Hindi translation that mom must have bought from one of those book fairs at Pragati Maidan. It contained short stories about the reminiscences of a girl’s father’s childhood: Chab Papa Bachche The that means “When Papa Was a Child”. It was a collection of short stories about different events occurring in papa’s life.

In one of the stories papa used to get angry whenever somebody raised the finger at him. He would always, without fail take offense whenever somebody raised the finger at him. He would create fuss, he would stomp his feet, he would get into fights, he would run around in rage whenever somebody raised the finger at him.

His cousins, his friends and even the elders in the family were aware of his peculiarity and would raise the finger at him just to have some fun. No matter what he was doing — whether he was playing, sitting, simply chatting or studying — the moment somebody raised the finger at him he flew into a rage. No matter how many times his mother explained to him that people were doing this just to annoy him he wouldn’t cease his tantrums. Mischievous boys and girls would come to him from all over the village just to raise the finger at him and then enjoy his annoyance.

Although I am an admirer of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing, in this New Yorker article he doesn’t seem to get social media. Coming from an author who is constantly encouraging people to embrace new thoughts and think out of the box it seems a bit strange when he tries to downplay the role of social media tools like Twitter just because you cannot be physically present at a particular place in order to stir up a social revolution.

Social media is effective because it empowers people (at least those who can connect and communicate through text, video and images). It is a communication network. It may not trigger full-fledged revolutions (well, who knows?) but it can easily internationalize local revolutions as we recently saw in the case of Iran, Egypt, and latest, even Saudi Arabia. With just a single tweet you can reach the entire global community. Of course, it doesn’t happen in every case but you can say this even about revolutions in the physical world: not all revolutions catch up and 99% of revolutions die off even before 5 people can join.

The same happens with Twitter and Facebook. After all it’s the people who are interacting and they are moved by the same things that move them in the actual physical world.

Revolution doesn’t always have to be, necessarily, dipped in sweat and blood — it is normally a mass action against an ideology, regime or bias. What is wrong if you can participate in a revolution by simply sending a tweet? It’s about expressing yourself and you don’t always have to be physically present in order to express yourself.

And there is no use of going into “Will you fight wars on Twitter and Facebook?”

Personally speaking, I’m not in favor of expressing views that are not directly concerned with me and that too from thousands of miles away but since I am coming across so many views and counterviews on whether a mosque should be allowed near the 9/11 bombings or not I thought, well, let me do some vocal thinking.

First of all I’m not clear whether it is a mosque or a cultural center they are talking about. If it is a cultural center then I wonder what the point of opposing it is. A cultural center — if it is actually a cultural center — is a good place to raise awareness and reduce animosities and chunks of misinformation floating around. It may bring people from different races and creeds closer. In fact such a cultural center would be a fitting reply to the perpetrators of the bombings. Just because the idea of this cultural center is coming from Muslims it shouldn’t be opposed.

What if it is a mosque? Frankly, I have no idea what to say. I have no objection to people building mosques but — and I may be wrong — it may end up sending the wrong signals to those who support fanaticism. It’s like, “Our religion and approach eventually triumphs; we first brought down the buildings and now there is a mosque there.” It may end up being the greatest symbolic victory for terrorists.

I am not saying that since a few Muslims are fanatics so the remaining ones must live under restrictions — religious or social — but a mosque at or near ground zero will definitely send wrong signals and encourage more Muslim youths to take up arms against other religions and ideologies. This is such a simple thing and I wonder why nobody is talking about it. This has got nothing to do with freedom of expression or practicing religion, this is common sense.

Even for a while if we ignore the “sending a wrong signal” point, why many people may be opposed to this idea is because most of the Muslims — and this is a sad reality — don’t vociferously come forward to denounce the violent side of Islam but when it comes to participating in token gestures like building mosques and religion-centric cultural centers all of a sudden they develop loud voices. I think this is the basic problem: this duality. It is so uncommon for the Muslims to protest against violent Islamic acts that whenever they do it becomes a news. If they openly and routinely oppose violence like everybody else does they will automatically become a part of the global society and consequently people of other faiths and religions won’t look upon them as some race quietly condoning violence or promoting it.

I would also like to make another suggestion to my Muslim friends. Just as they support the idea of building mosques in non-Muslim countries they should also put pressure on Muslim countries to let people from other faiths build temples and churches in Muslim and Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, etc. This way it will become a two-way approach rather than always demanding without giving. If Muslims want to be embraced they must also learn to embrace.

Just quickly went through this article that talks about how your level of happiness increases after having your own kid or kids. The article also refers to a survey that established that people are less happy after having kids.

Whether having kids makes you happy or not depends on lots of factors. It depends on your economic condition, your health, relationship between spouses, the aspirations of both the parents, facilities available in the area, and the support system the couple has. Having a child can totally turn your life upside down. Recently we saw a movie “Marlie and Me” and somewhere the character of Jenifer Anniston says, “Parenting is the toughest job in the world and nobody prepares you for it.”

Clichéd as it may sound, as a couple who have had a baby who, despite being exceptionally intelligent and talented, has some issues when it comes to eating, sleeping and paying attention to things that can make life a bit easier, we could totally relate to the statement. Since Vasudha’s birth we have totally been on our own, as neither my family nor Alka‘s (my wife) family was in a position to be around in case we needed some respite. She’s going to be 5 this July, and not even a single day, or even a few hours she’s spent without us. So for the past 5 years our lives have pretty much revolved around her.

Although I work from home, due to my cerebral palsy, beyond a certain level I cannot help Alka much, especially when Vasudha goes through periodic disturbed sleeping patterns and Alka ends up getting just 2-3-hour sleep for weeks. Sometimes Vasudha used to wake up just when Alka had fallen asleep. And it’s not just sleep. She doesn’t like to eat food but every other thing that can be chewed. She won’t write sometimes even a single alphabet or number without extensive prompting. When she’s not at school we cannot have a single sentence without her interference — spending even 5 minutes together ends up in something disastrous sometimes. She takes minimum one-and-half hour to have a meal. Getting her to fall asleep at night becomes an hour-long or even more project. Whatever you tell her to do the standard reply is “no”.

In India most couples who can afford, have a maid, but unfortunately, our experience with different maids has been quite disturbing. In India most couples occasionally have parental support which, as I mentioned above, has been missing from both our sides. I was living at my parents house when I got married but we had to move to a new place when Vasudha was just 3 months old.

In the building where we live, almost all the couples every second month call their mothers so that they can tend to other things while there is somebody with the child or children. People even go on holidays leaving their kids behind with a relative! The parents of one of our neighbors totally shifted here so that they could keep the kid while his mother went to office. There is nobody with whom we can leave our child for even 3 hours and go somewhere.

Actually it’s very difficult to relate unless you yourself go through a similar situation. The point is, if you try to attach a halo to the experience of having a child and bringing him or her up, I’m going to hit you with my crutch.

Again, as I mentioned above, it depends on your social-economic coordinates. Had we had the support many people take for granted (NRI couples make their parents visit them from India when they have a kid) may be I would have been writing a different experience.

Am I complaining? No, I’m just stating the facts and it doesn’t mean we haven’t had our share of happiness with our child. It’s not her problem that we have had a tough time. In fact, despite all the difficulties we’ve gone through, she’s the best thing that has happened to us, and I’m not saying this just for the sake of saying. She gives us a direction, a purpose. We know that with her around, the only option we have is keep on fighting and moving ahead. And it’s not just a litany of troubles. We have great times together. When she softly touches my face with her small hands or her cheek, the world stops and there remains no other desire. When she is lying by my side, ready to fall asleep, if I want to define heavenly bliss, that’s the time to define it with. We swell with pride when she effortlessly sings songs during school functions and parents and teachers are amazed at her talent. A mere sight of hers lights up the surroundings. She makes our world, our togetherness complete, and we wouldn’t have been us without her. She was our conscious decision, it was just that, we were ill-prepared. As she’s growing up, we’re able to communicate more and things are easing up a bit.

There, I was just going to write a small paragraph on the above-mentioned link. Having children and bringing them up and the related feelings depend on lots of factors, but yes, if you ask me if we ever regretted having a child, definitely not. It doesn’t make sense, but I guess this is how nature makes us. It’s kind of a sadistic pleasure you can say. Right in the midst of a highly chaotic day we do have that WTF feeling but that doesn’t last for long. The above-mentioned article ends quite aptly:

You will lose the freedom to go out on Friday and Saturday night, without a care in the world. You will lose freedom, period. You damn sure will lose sleep. But once that child is here, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without him. You will know contentment at a level beyond your imagination.

Ah, it’s after a long time I’m writing here. There’s no particular reason why I haven’t been writing here (sorry to my regular readers), but it also doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned this blog.

Coming to the topic. The “famous” artist MF Husain recently gave up his Indian citizenship and accepted Qatar’s offer to become its citizen. There’s been lots of breast-beating in the country — in fact I just read Barkha Dutt’s column in the HT on Husain becoming Qatar’s citizen — and they’re saying it’s perhaps one of the greatest cultural losses India has faced in the recent times.

He’s been hounded out of India, both by “religious fanatics” and the judiciary for depicting the famous Hindu gods and goddesses naked (some say he’s out only for monetary reasons because he can earn a lot more by not living in India, and it has got nothing to do with the security scenario). In his paintings he has disrobed all major divinities like Saraswati, Durga, Parvati, Sita, Mother India, etc. In one of the paintings goddess Durga is copulating with her tiger, for example.

Before proceeding further I must mention that being an Indian citizen, no matter how vulgar or outrageous depictions he created, he deserved all the security guaranteed by our constitution. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right of every Indian citizen. Even if a major section of our society finds his paintings revolting, our constitution has provisions to express disagreement too. While operating under legal parameters, his paintings could have been barred from public viewings. So ransacking his studios and threatening him physically should have been dealt with severely. In fact it’s the people who threatened him who should have been on the run, not Husain.

Hasain has never been my type of painter (I like Raja Ravi Verma, Shobha Singh, etc.) — I find his paintings quite trite and immature (overhyped), but that’s another issue. Artistic freedom, sure, I’m all for it. If Husain wants to paint naked Hindu gods and goddesses and wants to create the Kamasutra comic with Ram and Sita in lead characters, in the ideal world, nobody should have a problem. In fact I’d suggest to him — seeing his love for Hindu gods — he should have first converted to Hinduism and then painted.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in a world replete with blatant double standards.

Many who support Husain’s freedom of expression say that Hindus should be the last ones to protest as they have all sorts of gods and goddesses depicted performing various carnal feats in many temples and caves. That’s true, but I wonder if those gods and goddesses can be named. I haven’t visited these places, but can someone point, OK, look, here’s goddess Saraswati in the nude, and here’s Sita in close naked proximity with Ram or Hanuman? I don’t think so. None of those figures have prominent temples and classics written around them. They are all unknown yakshas and mohinis indulging in sex. So equating them with major worshiped folks like Saraswati, Sita, Hanuman, etc. is totally stupid and diversionary, to put it mildly.

In every major religion there are gods that enjoy a level of sanctity. Ram and Sita are highly revered, so are Saraswati, Durga, Kali, Hanuman and Laxmi — you cannot just go on painting them nude in the name of artistic expression, even if they’re mythological (many think they are not — but they have every right to think that way, just as those who don’t think that way). Religion has been here for thousands of years and it’s going to stay for at least a couple of centuries more (even scientology is a new religion), people are often ready to kill and die for it. People quietly accept hunger and backwardness but mess with their religious sentiments and they’ll cut you in half if they can. I’m not saying this is right, but this is a reality. It needs to be changed, it is changing, but it’ll take some time.

Freedom of expression comes with sensitivity. You don’t paint Muhammad sexually cavorting with one of his wives or camels, you don’t show Guru Gobind Singh intimate with Mata Sundri: the so-called Hindu fanatics just ransacked and threatened, Muslims and Sikhs will surely decapitate you, whether someone likes it or not, and you won’t even be able to run to another country, Qatar and all. This is a reality and hopefully such reactions will mallow down (we cannot accept them to go) with time. So no matter how “evolved” a painter you are, and no matter how tolerant and civilized religion you are dealing with, on your own, you should have enough dignity to draw a line.

I don’t really care where Husain lives and paints (may he be blessed with hundred more years), but if he wanted to live in India, even if it took the entire military, he should have been made to feel save. It’s a loss that he left, but it’s not a cultural loss, it’s an indictment of our inability to evolve as a truly democratic and civilized country.

Recently a link was posted on Facebook condemning the scheduled sacrificial slaughtering of 20,000 buffaloes by Nepalese Hindus. It is as it is tragic that we slaughter animals for daily consumption and it becomes more grotesque when they’re tortured and killed in the name of god. In some religions, Islam and Christianity for instance, the more the animals suffer, the better it is, because the blood needs to be drawn out drop-by-drop. In Islam since every animal slaughtered is in the name of god, every single animal goes through an agonizing death: gives you goose pimples when you sit quietly and think about the practice that has been going on centuries.

I’m glad in Sikhism no animal sacrifices are encouraged or tolerated and there are no ambiguities.

Then someone posted this nice link that explains what different Vedas say about animal sacrifice. For example,

The Rig Veda, the most ancient book of the Hindus, says ‘One who partakes of human flesh, the flesh of a horse or another animal and deprives others of milk by slaughtering cows, O King, if such a fiend does not desist by other means, then you should not hesitate to cut off his head (Rig Veda, X. 87. 16).’

Contemporary Hindu ritual is based on the Manusmruti and it is interesting to see that Manu lashed out against all forms of sacrifice and meat-eating. The Manu Samhita (5.48-52) recommends that since ‘meat can never be obtained without injury to living creatures, and injury to sentient beings is detrimental to the attainment of heavenly bliss, let him therefore shun the use of meat. Having well considered the disgusting origin of flesh and the cruelty of fettering and slaying corporeal beings, let him entirely abstain from eating flesh.’

I wonder why in this list of the 7 most impressive libraries from throughout history there is no Indian library.

I did some research and there were definitely some great libraries at the universities of Takshasila, Nalanda, Vikramshila and Kanchipuram. Of course libraries, especially during the ancient times, took decades, and even centuries to gain a stature, and they were among the first places to be burned down during an invasion. May be the Indian rulers and other influential people were always busy building mega temples so they never spared a thought for libraries and books, although some really great literature was being written throughout the history.

But then Nalanda was one of the first and the biggest centers of teaching in the world, back in the 5th century B.C. So may be people in India believed in disseminating information and sowing seeds of knowledge instead of hoarding it. Please share in the comments section what you know of great and ancient Indian libraries.

Suvro corrected the time and a few details about Nalanda university in the comments sections (thank you!). He wrote:

Oh, I think there’s a factual mistake regarding dates in your blogpost: Nalanda, to the best of my knowledge, grew out of a few villages donated to some Buddhist scholar/monks by a late Gupta king sometime in the 6th century A.D., not B.C.

Now women can have orgasm while giving birth, and instead of pain, childbirth can turn into sexual pleasure according to this article. You can view the video on the actual website that promotes this technique. Of course, understandably, there are people who cannot somehow relate childbirth with sexual pleasure. But I think this is just a mental block…after all a child is conceived, normally, when you are experiencing, and indulging in sexual pleasure. So why make women go through so much pain while giving birth? They say pain is required to bring the baby out. The same can be achieved with an orgasm.