है तुझे भी इजाज़त

बेरंग सी है बड़ी ज़िंदगी
कुछ रंग तो भरूँ
मैं अपनी तनहाई के वास्ते
अब कुछ तो करूँ
जब मिले थोड़ी फुरसत
ख़ुद से कर ले मोहब्बत
है तुझे भी इजाज़त
कर ले तू भी मोहब्बत

Lyrics by Syed Quadri @ Life in a Metro

"है तुझे भी इजाज़त"

So liberating! So full of compassion!

On Wealth Voyeurism

Tapes of Paris Hilton having fun with Dick and Jane in her bedroom are passe. So are steamy MMSs featuring morphed images of Shilpa Shetty. The new titillation for Peeping Toms is wealth voyeurism: peeking through the keyhole of 'rich lists' in glossy magazines which tabulate just how much money super-rich individuals have.

An unconscionable invasion of privacy? Certainly not, say the publications which feature such lists, citing freedom of expression and the general public's right to information. It is certainly in the public interest that the asset value of a corporation, particularly one listed on the market from which it raises funds, be open to general scrutiny.

But can the personal wealth of an individual fall within the purview of the public domain, or should it be the business of that individual only, and of course of the internal revenue department and credit rating agencies, which are bound by strict codes of confidentiality?

Such ethical nitpicking aside, why do popular publications carry 'rich-lists', the 'who's whos' of the plutocratti? And the obvious answer is that such revelations — like a flashed-open trench coat — are supposedly 'sexy', arousing prurient interest as Paris Hilton's boudoir rompings used to before they became monotonous through robotic repetition. Is financial striptease — revealing a person's intimate economic vital statistics — the new erotica?

Leafing through a Grade IV employee's savings account passbook is not of course an acceptable substitute for Penthouse centrefolds. But what about the monetary equivalent of a 'wardrobe malfunction' of the super-rich, a tantalising glimpse of voluptuous superabundance? Isn't money — or at least supermoney — sexier than sex? After all, even the Kama Sutra is anatomically limited in application. But, surely, supermoney is limitless as a lubricious lubricant of endless desire.

The trouble with supermoney as an object of voyeurism is that, after a point, it just doesn't work. Like any other form of pornography, wealth voyeurism is subject to the inexorable law of reductio ad absurdum, or reductio ad boredom. Years ago, the then editor of Hustler magazine complained that after pubic had been made public, what next? X-ray pin-ups? The bare bones of all pornography's dilemma.

Supermoney, and the voyeurism it excites, is no different. After the vicarious frisson of reading about the private jet that Mukesh bought Nita as a birthday present, or about the palace that Lakshmi Mittal acquired as a pied-a-terre in London, what next? Your own personal desert island, a 100-foot Mediterranean yacht, a custom-built Lamborghini with monogrammed number plates? And after all that and more? What comes after all the seemingly inexhaustible devices and desires of wealth have been exhausted? Beyond the dreams of aspiration and avarice, supermoney as an object of voyeurism becomes just a string of zeroes, meaningless and meaning less with each additional cipher.

Full frontal nudity transformed into full frontal nullity. Literally, a zero-sum game.

-- Jug Suraiya (TOI, 17.12.07)

Taare Zameen Par - Every Child is Special

I have seen four movies in Hyderabad and this was the last. As far as cinematic experience alone is concerned, I'd rate Nishabd way above the others - Bheja Fry, Chak De and Taare Zameen Par. But for reasons other than that, Aamir Khan and his team deserve heartiest congratulations. Kudos to him for making this beauty! May God bless you.

[+] Darsheel Safari, Story and Screenplay, Cinematography, Direction

[-] Dialogue, Background Score, Music (Shankar-Ehsan-Loy were predictably mediocre), Lyrics (Gulzar was sorely missed), The entry scene of Aamir Khan (that was downright stupid)

Rate - Cinematic Experience (6/10), Overall (9/10)

Verdict - Watch in theatre

***********************

1. Education is supposed to educe - to bring forth. The teachers should identify what is to be educed, and not upload a child's mind with whatever junk they lay their hands on.

2. Children must not be ranked because they can not be; intelligence can not be measured. And what is measured can not be intelligence.

3. A child can not fail; only his teachers can fail, and they often do. Our schools and universities are filled with thousands of pathetic losers who are out to clone themselves.

4. If exams are absolutely essential, the exams must be examined first. Wrong exams can not give right results.

5. The outside world is not made any less hostile by promoting hostility among children in name of competitiveness. This is irresponsible, even criminal, on part of our institutes.

6. Asking questions is more important than answering questions. Even a bad question is better than a good answer. Till now an answer has been the expected response from students, not questions. Let's change that mindset.

7. Answers are of two types - 1. own, and 2. others'. Own answer may not be as right as others' at first, but have patience - you've nothing to lose and a whole new world to gain.

8. A teacher can learn more from a child than other way round. Children know but they don't know that they know. But the teacher doesn't know and he doesn't know that he doesn't know.

9. If you can not understand children, leave them be. Even if you do, leave them be. Thank you.

10. Every child is special. If you expect a mango tree to grow roses, you know who's a fool. First identify that it is a mango or a rose, then nourish it accordingly.

The Divine Beloved

Love is an existential imperative. But love is forbidden first by society and then by ego. What would one do then?

Enter God the omnipresent. I don't know whether God is a benign source of love but He surely has been the recipient of the deepest of human devotions. Since man is not allowed to love one another, and since he has to love something, he loves God. God is more accessible than the person sitting next to you. When you talk, He listens.

Society wouldn't have allowed Meera to love any living man with the intensity she loved Krishna. And our loving lady would have died of cardiac arrest if Krishna were not there for her. He might have had thousand maidens dancing around Him, but for each of the maidens there was no one else but Him. Men might see Krishna as a lucky lover, or as a Casanova, but women see Him not as a lover but as their beloved - their graceful beloved. In Him, they express the forbidden. With Him, they feel like women. With Him they play, and in him they redeem themselves.

कान्हा काहे करत बरजोरी

Similarly, Tulsidas had to drown himself in Rāmacaritamānasa when his wife rebuked him for his earthly passions. She asked him to go to God, and so he did; and in Him he found solace. When the flame of love burns passionately, God is the only beloved who can stand the heat. Cleansed by the silent stream of tears, poetry becomes prayer. Like true love, true prayer is also unconditional. No other experience can match the experience of prayer, so what else can one ask for? Also, there is nothing called unrequited prayer. How can gratitude be unrequited?

हो गई किरपा राम की, तो बन गए तुलसीदास

There can be no moderation in love; it's free, and it's infinite. Only He can be loved freely, and infinitely. There is no ego, no fear, between a lover and his divine beloved.

Who are you?

Let's assume that you are a prince/princess. You have everything that can be bought by money. You have everything that can be obtained by power. You don't have to work for a living. You have days and years lying ahead of you. Now what would you do?

Think about this scenario to know who you actually are.

For most of your waking hours you are a software engineer, or a financial consultant or things like that. You are them to earn money. You play roles, and be your role. You are them to have an identity(!), and status in society. But you are a prince now. You don't need money anymore. You don't have to do nothing for status now. You don't have to play any role.

Think about this. Now you do not have to be anyone else. You can be yourself. Now ask yourself - who are you?

And what do you really want? What do you want apart from palaces and cars, apart from recognition by others? Have you ever thought about it? Have you ever asked your heart what you really want?

If you can hear your heart you will know what it wants. And money and power couldn't afford you those things. In fact you could only lose them in the mad pursuit of money and power. But still you want to be rich and powerful. What for? What else is Maya?

Siddhartha had to renounce princedom to become Buddha; what do you want to be?

Shame Australia, Shame

About two years back I had said - Remove Judge to Save Justice. The conflict between the game of cricket and those who are appointed to officiate the game has become irreconcilable, and worse - visible to all. Technology has brought everything out in open for everyone to see; and media has educated the people round the globe and allowed them to express their opinions. Cricket is not the same anymore, and so the truth can not be ignored in the name of tradition. The decision-makers have to decide whether the modern cricket will be played and seen as a game of random decisions and wanton contempt for its law or otherwise. A right decision may not save the losing team, but that will surely save the spirit of the game. And I am afraid that if Reason is humiliated anymore, the Economics might wreck vengeance upon them whom it has made powerful.

Now have a look at this video.

Coming to the banning of Harbhajan, he must be banned if he has done what he has been accused for. However, he can not be penalized without a fair trial, and without his offense proved. And offense is not proved by mere accusation. But it seems that Procter's court didn't need any trial, any evidence to do what it did. Perhaps he will be in better position to explain the reasons for the sentence that he has pronounced without any incriminating evidence available. To an outsider like me, he looked just too eager to push the button. Being a South African, he claims that he knows what racism is. I am sure you do Mr Procter, just as a butcher knows the pain of death.

Saying someone 'monkey' is saying that he is 'less evolved', and that indeed makes it a racial slur. I have no doubt that it is a racial comment. This is what a racist says to others - less evolved. All allusions to Indian Mythology is nonsense.

But it should not be forgotten racism is founded on the history of colonialism, and subsequent cultural subjugation. It has a meaning only in its tradition; there is nothing that is logical in it. Isn't it curious that the first convicted accused of racism (in ICC) happens to be a colored man, who also happened to have been the poor victim of the same?

Finally, I have no hesitation in saying that the Australian audience have much more respect for the game of cricket than their national team; and the Sydney test has established it officially. They are undoubtedly the most competent team around, but they are hardly anything more than that.

Introducing - 'Sitara'

Born in Pakistan, and proud of it!

When Nano was still on drawing boards, Habib Motors of Pakistan beat India by launching Sitara - the marvel of Pakistani technology.



Read this article on Sitara (courtesy TOI).

Sitara includes parts almost entirely designed and manufactured locally. The 175 cc Chinese engine is manufactured in Lahore. The car does not exceed 400 kilograms in weight, and has a load-bearing capacity of 250 kilograms. The capacity of the fuel tank is 10 liters and consumption is 18 kilometers per liter. The maximum speed allowed is 60 km/hour.

Keeping the safety of people in mind, especially at high speed, locally made seat belts have also been provided by the manufacturer. Understandably, Sitara costs a little more than Nano - 1.26 lakh.

Habib Motors have sold not less than 60 Sitara car(t)s since its launch in 2004. That many Pakistani families now fly at 60 kmph with their seat belts safely (and proudly) tied on. Mashallah!

Between the Two

चलती चक्की देख कर दिया कबीरा रोय,
दो पाटन के बीच में साबुत बचा न कोय।

Between the two moving slabs of grinder, i.e. the days and the nights, man gets crushed.

Kabir says that days and nights are like the heavy slabs of a grinder, one turning on top of the other, and crushing whatever is stuck in between.

But this is just one interpretation. What about the conflict between mind and heart? Mind seeks truth, but the world of heart is a world of thousand ironies - where the opposite of truth is equally true.

ईमाँ मुझे रोके है जो खींचे है मुझे कुफ्र,
काबा मेरे पीछे है कलीसा मेरे आगे। - गालिब


********************************
In search of truth, I found love;
In search of love, I found God*.

10

Our popular hero, Abhishek*, ran for a cool 10 km today.

Unperturbed by popping of eyes and beating of hearts around him, he did quite a Forest Gump this morning in KBR Park, Hyderabad.

We are so tearfully proud of him. With extreme sense of pride and honor we bow before His Valor. Now let's raise a toast and celebrate this momentous occasion with a glass of milk.

Reading The Last Word

Last month my landlord said that we should know each other.

And yesterday he came up with a bagful of books on Islam. Perhaps he wanted me to know about him by reading those books. I wonder if he has ever taken any pains to know something about me.

I asked him his opinion about the girl from Qatif, and asked what he has to say about Taliban. Quite an amiable fellow he is, he smiled amiably and said that there was an order in Afghanistan while Taliban was in power. And there was peace, and freedom too; in fact it was Taliban that freed Afghanistan from the clutches of Russia. After coming to power, they put an end to drug trafficking and stopped other corruptions prevalent at that time. When I showed him The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the book I have read recently, he dismissed the work as a false propaganda by the West.

As far as the girl from Qatif was concerned, he had little to say except 'there are some rules that must be followed'. Talking of the rules, he had seen a man publicly being stoned to death in Saudi Arabia, and he holds this practice as just since he thinks that this severity discourages others to commit similar type of crime. Well, right or wrong, he of course couldn't have denounced Sharia (system of devising Islamic law) which is based on Quran and Hadith (sayings and doings of Mohammad). He looked too old for that.

Well, I told him upfront that I am an atheist and I believe neither in Allah nor in his Prophet. I am young and no word can be harf-e-aakhir for me; and I don't respect too many things. Worse, I doubt and ask lots of questions. Till date, I have not felt any particular need for religion, and as far as Islam is concerned, I see it as something very alien and something very very suffocating.

Finally, I assured him that I will still read a few of these books to know each other.

you become the one you hate

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." - Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)

What an irony! A man is likely to become like the one who he hates, the one who he fights against. For instance, many of those who hate rioters become rioters themselves.

However, those who hate riots are less likely to become rioters. Those who fight monstrosity are less likely to become monsters. Perhaps that's why Gandhi asked his followers to love their enemies. Perhaps he saw his enemies as ailing people and he wanted us to hate their malady and not them.

The million-dollar question is - is that practical?

I don't know about that. I find it difficult to love my enemies. But what is told to be 'practical' may not be practical as well. Wrongs don't cancel each other, they just pile on.

I Defy? Not Anymore.

Defiance, just for the heck of it, is nothing but an another form of obedience. Defying is not freedom; it is a slavery. A man who obeys needs someone to obey. Similarly, a man who defies needs someone to defy. Each of them gets confused when he is left on his own.

Moreover, defying without value is perverse. Defiance has only a negative value - 'I don't' rather than 'I do'. And 'I don't' does nothing.

Defiance doesn't need courage; it needs recklessness. And it breeds what it needs - recklessness.

The spirit of 1st

A phoenix renews itself after every 500 years. It burns itself and from its own ashes it takes another birth, a new birth. Death marks a beginning of a new life, therefore there is something vital hidden in mortality.

A circle has no start and no end. But a running track has both, and both are same - the start and the end. When a runner reaches at the end, he takes a deep breath and pushes himself with a new energy for a new start. One end point pats him at his back and the other calls him forth, cheers him, challenges him.

Life, in many ways, is like running. A periodicity in it makes it less monotonous. A pat and a call makes it more exciting. A deep breath brings a gush of life with it, a fresh life, a new life.