Mini-mill

Nehru and Gandhi chartered a course for post colonial India, a course that did indeed stay of track for a while; it had a purpose to deliver post colonial India into the new era. Now lets fast forward to today, we are ‘biggest democracy’ not the greatest, size matters I guess (stop over thinking this statement), however today the biggest parasite on post colonial democratic India is its ineffective politicians playing with India like puppet masters. Do they know that over 300 million Indians do not have enough to feed themselves or their starving family? No but these puppet masters do not concern themselves with such petty matters; they are there to make great’s like Aamir Khan or Al Pacino acting skills look amateur in comparison to their own, no wonder so many actors are joining politics, after Slumdog Millionaire’s success please all you talent scouts don’t look further than our great Politicians who when viewed on HD tv will probably make 15 time Oscar nominee Meryl Streep quit Hollywood for good. I remember Nehru’s words when we won our Independence “The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears, so long our work will not be over." Brilliant words by a brilliant man, well our politicians have tried to stick by this promise of our great leader, they have ensured that with their brilliant acting skills they move us to tears so much so that even after voting for them we do not stop crying, with all due respect to Nehru we have a long way to go for that work to be over just as long as we have corrupt politicians at the helm. As you read further you will realize that I am not generalizing politicians as corrupt no good scoundrels, I have a lot of respect for quite a few of them like Manmohan Singh and many more, but unfortunately the goods ones are a mere drop in the sea.

Someone described India as a ‘kleptocratic society’, if you do not know the meaning of a kleptomaniac please Google Winona Ryder and you shall understand, it is the obsessive compulsive need to steal even though you do not actually require to, mostly stealing something without having the economic need to steal it. I guess our fat corrupt politicians are not actually Kleptomaniacs, but misinterpreted ‘Robin Hoods’ stealing from the poor to feed their increasing girth, poverty has never looked so well fed. Greed would also not be accurate to describe these valiant men, who risk their lives everyday by committing thievery all for the betterment of society, I mean come on those shows they put up cost a lot of money, please do not expect to get entertainment of such calibre for free, one needs to literally empty their pockets to deserve what these personalities deliver.

Yes as I have mentioned earlier my sarcasm and cynisism should not encompass all individuals, some actually do give a damn about this country and have tried to make a difference, however these few individuals of worthy character cannot change the structure of society single handed as long as the reigns of power remain with the corrupt majority. We are lucky to have many sections like the armed forces that do our nation proud, one cannot help but recap the brave men from all over the country and every religion who stood together to help Mumbai when it was under siege in November; however unfortunate and sad the circumstances their brave acts were a refreshing and remarkable change from what we are accustomed to read in the papers or watch on the news and provided that ray of sunshine in a very dark and bleak tunnel. These are role model sections of society, and must be analyzed to perhaps help us bring about change in our behaviour and more so our expectation of other’s behaviour, in previous articles I have written about how we have become desensitized we expect things to be as they are and do not lift a finger to change it, but we do have the energy to grumble incessantly and point that finger to others. All sections of society, all organizations all do have an incorruptible minority who will not stand down, whose morals are so imbedded in who they are, that they will never flow with the tide but stand up for what is right. However the rest however morally forthright they may start off in their respective organizations eventually recoil, allowing the corrupt to take over, and these minor blimps eventually cause a domino effect that cause the organization to descend rapidly down the moral ladder; they eventually cause those forthright few morally ‘dyed-in-the-wool’ individuals to reassess their outlook and creating the ‘I don’t care the world is as it is and I as an individual cannot do anything to change it’ attitude, thus they now develop a certain apathy towards their surroundings and an acceptance to the way things are. They take responsibility towards their own behaviour but rationalize everyone else’s; these people soon become soft targets and fodder for the corrupt; the corrupt thus manage to create fear in the eyes of these individuals and many of them disappear way under the radar to avoid conflict, they do not waiver from their moral standing but do not interfere in the status quo. I don’t think what we really require is for these individuals to be foolish and show valour when uncalled for; however what we require from them is not to let their backbone become malleable and let it be held up strong.

Today Christians begin length to mourn the death of their messiah, and then continue with their wait for him to rise again. We do not been to await the coming of the messiah to save us, I fail to understand why we cannot save ourselves. A billion Indians must come together and break the shackles that seem to bind us from taking a stand. We must know that our spirit our voice is all that we have that live on forever, we cannot leave this society for our children to live in, we must speak out, take a stand.

The herd mentality of us Indians will always perplex me, why can’t we think for ourselves, why do we need others to think for us and tell us what is right and wrong. I know it is so very easy to lose one’s way, the forbidden fruit is ever so tempting, after all we are the children of Adam and Eve, bowing down to temptation is in our blood. However I do not ask of you to fight a war, I do not ask of you to become Mother Theresa, I do not ask of you to give up worldly pleasures and live it a mountain of righteousness, I do not ask of you not to be human, after all we all have our flaws our kinks which need ironing out otherwise we would not be human. However I do ask of you to speak up, not to bow down to the mob mentality, to listen to your conscience - We can create change one voice at a time, and soon those voices will come together to become one big voice and a force to be reckoned with.

Minicam

We live in a bubble, escaping from reality, each one immersed in their little world. Lets take a look around us the only thing we are attuned to listen to is the affair going on in the office. I want that bubble to burst, all it needs is a prick and I hope that what I say will be that prick for you.

The self realization that anything can happen to you, ‘black incidents’ by which I mean the bruises that they caused those poor women, have been happening all over the country lately whether it be Mangalore or Bangalore.

I mean how much more desensitized will we get before we realize that things are hitting too close to home. Do we need to read about the death of some college boy for money, the road rage shooting..what I ask do we need to wake us up, maybe what we need is a kick in the groin and the different fanatical political groups are literally doing just that. They have kicked women, beaten them up and for what for attending pubs, and we all know that these are the same men who visit dance bars and prostitutes, kill people, bribe, these hooligans are supposedly going to teach modern India about culture.

Mangalore, Bangalore, these hooligans have gone beating up women galore.
Let us dwell into the crimes of these so called wanton women, they were working, went out to a watering hole, some probably were smoking some were drinking, they would have been gossiping about what some other woman wore and how cute the new guy in the office is. They stand outside this watering hole, and in the case of Mangalore they were inside, then out of thin air these bunch of hooligans/mafia/goondas come at them brandishing their fists and ready to hit. Of course all the women were in shock, a mundane day at work or life could not end like this, they were panic stricken and probably too shocked to move. They must have yelled and screamed tried to get someone to help or try to appease to common sense of these men. I mean we are talking about the modern Indian woman, self made, successful and not used to being submissive, they would have protested strongly. These rabid dogs would have probably run at these women, giving them gaali’s (obscenities in Hindi) or whichever other language, with their fists flying all over the place. All those strong enough to defend stepped up; however the blows started to rain upon them. The few well meaning bystanders who wanted to help these women step up and get thrashed as well. Slaps rained down, punches in the gutt, kicked in the groin, grabbed and thrown around, all this going on with the constant stream of abuses in the background. Now comes the best part the pandu’s (our well fed corrupt policemen) come sauntering in, with a wada pav (an Indian hamburger) in their hand, they are happy because they are here to watch a show, not to be part of it. So the women and the few brave men who dared to try and protect these women get beaten up relentlessly, a punch after punch is thrown, the bloody carnage continues and is even caught on tape, so that the other pandus can watch it with their popcorn on a nice big screen tv paid for by these hooligans. When help does come if any, the women are made to look like the heathens and the hooligans ‘the true sons of the soil saving the Indian heritage’…please applaud with me. The cops take these bulky goondas word as they are the true sons of the soil, because in their mind the lathis in these men’s hands needed a place to rest so why not on these poor women’s faces. Now the piece de resistance is that the bloodied barely conscious women get picked up and arrested and some get beaten up while being pushed into the vans, again pause to applaud... Hooray!!! our justice system prevails (kindly denote a tinge of sarcasm). The hooligans get into their fancy cars paid for by these women’s taxes. When they reach the police station the pandus and the goons are on first name basis and tea is promptly bought in to quench these men’s thirst, because beating up women is a rather tiring job. Complaints were not registered from some of the women who dared to stand up as the pandu’s they were intoxicated (from a single beer hmm). The goons relate their side of the story to the cops over chai, while the women tender to their wounds and their black and blue bodies.

The media then steps up and finally actually sensationalizes something that ought to be sensationalized because it makes me sick to my stomach that something like this could happen.

The human spirit was battered, bruised and bloodied but not broken even while staring at the face of hooligans hiding behind the thick veil of corrupt political power.

The goons tried to put all this across as a drunken brawl, ignoring the women beaten up. These men in packs, mob mentality think they are so strong, bring them out one by one they have no balls, their bravado and machismo will just evaporate into thin air, and standing there would be these man who uses his fist to cover up the fact that he is of no use in this world and that women are stronger and doing better than him. However nothing till date has happened to these men, nor do I expect it shall ever; even though the media and women groups all over have brought these cases to the limelight and are doing their very best to bring these political parties to justice.

All you men out there please think about it, these men would be the reason for your wife, mother, daughter to be scared, to be apprehensive every time she walks freely in this pseudo democracy, afraid of future attacks and victimization.

Don’t just let this pass, stand up, we can make a difference, in your small way despite how insignificant you may think it is, let us back up these women and show them our support. We all know it is easy to accept things as they are - there are terrorists, people die, people get beaten up…why not do something about this instead of just taking things lying down. Speak Up, don’t fall prey to this escapist trend, try and make a difference. Do not be submissive to the system, own it, we are part of this system lets make a difference lets bring about change. Whether it be as meagre as what I am doing that is posting a blog on what I feel, lets bring about change, lets step forward expressing our feelings and make it clear that we are not taking any more crap lying down. We cannot blame circumstances if we refuse to do anything to change them, we are the problem and the problem is our long accustomed view to let everything go, the more we do this in our own way we are encouraging these hooligans, these goondas. We turn a blind eye, they get that much more encouraged because they feel and soon enough they know they can get away with anything and everything, they push the evil envelope and try something new more dastardly than the last.

An interesting campaign that came about following these dastardly acts was the “Pink Chaddi” campaign where women had to send the Shri Ram Sene who were responsible for the Mangalore attacks a Pink chaddi (underwear) in protest. The group responsible for this was the ‘Consortium of Pub going loose and forward women’, which started this as a group on facebook but soon the campaign took on a life of its own. This is a humorous way to voice your protest, thousands of people joined the group on facebook, many voiced their opinion and even more actually went and sent their pink chaddi’s, one hilarious note written on one of the pink chaddi’s sent was “This must be Mutalik’s cos it stinks”. This creative way to revolt against these ‘sons who soil’ their pants woke up a lot of people normally asleep to the world around them.

WAKE UP AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE. YES WE CAN.