We are again flooded with articles concerning security in India after the recent blast.
The same old headlines that I have been so much familiar with now...
"Mumbai still fights" ; "Mumbai does not stop " .. I find all of them ridiculous .. why they don't understand its not that we don't stop by this tragic incidents .. it's just that we can't if we want to live.
Anyways.. with all this drama surrounded by the tragedy. I found an article which made sense .. a lot of sense ..
Why My Father Hated India
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
I have to say now… “Mi Mumbaikar”
I have always believed and claimed that our generation is the cursed one. We want to live a fast pace life, life full of experiments and thrill, but after a point we are bounded by our “culture” or rather the values our parents have (enforced) given us. Some place we agree with those values and some places we don’t, but either ways we live by the rules.
I felt our next generation would find things much different or rather much easier until I met a friend. Few weeks before I happened to have dinner with a friend. He not only proved me wrong but also made me realized I am a Mumbaikar.
Honestly, from childhood , I am proud to be a Mumbaiate. I believe a Mumbaikar can survive anywhere. Mumbai has given a lot to people and truly it is a “karma bhoomi”. But so has many other cities in India. I always get annoyed when people say outsiders have spoilt Mumbai or rather any other place. Mumbai is Mumbai because of everyone living their. If people from various places wouldn’t have come to Mumbai , it wouldn’t have been where it is now. Ofcourse every good thing comes with unwanted baggage. We have few things like any other city does : corruption, slums blah blah blah.
Well, getting back to my friend , according to him his so called golden “Pune” has been ripped apart by outsiders and so he is going to kill them or make them leave home. And please, I am not exaggerating, according to him all those who have come from other place make all kinds of nuisance in his homeland and so they should be thrown out. I could see the anger in his face. On top of it , he hates Mumbai because it has become too crowded for him to live. Listening to him made me sad, this is today’s generation.
I was looking at it in a different way. For me it was like someone standing on a complete foreign land and talking about how his own small town is been populated by the worse people on this earth. Does he even realize that he is doing the same? And was he really unhappy about how crowded Mumbai is or it is all about he himself not getting any place their. Any of his claims did not make any sense to me. People come to his Pune and drink a lot and make nuisance, hello you do the same. People come to Pune and do not respect others , ah ha what about you.. ..
Well in all this, I wonder what are we going to teach our next generation, are they also going to fight for their own piece of land or realize that we are known for diversity, respect others and welcome them. I know we aren’t perfect; we need a lot to change but is fighting amongst ourselves the answer to this. I always had a hope that may be if we don’t do anything right of our motherland but at least we wont do anything wrong. But now I can do nothing but just sit and pray that there would be a day when we all can be human and yeah I am going to “just sit and pray” because I too am from the same crowd who wont want to do anything to make a better place to live in , the only difference in me is I don’t have any hatred for others.
I felt our next generation would find things much different or rather much easier until I met a friend. Few weeks before I happened to have dinner with a friend. He not only proved me wrong but also made me realized I am a Mumbaikar.
Honestly, from childhood , I am proud to be a Mumbaiate. I believe a Mumbaikar can survive anywhere. Mumbai has given a lot to people and truly it is a “karma bhoomi”. But so has many other cities in India. I always get annoyed when people say outsiders have spoilt Mumbai or rather any other place. Mumbai is Mumbai because of everyone living their. If people from various places wouldn’t have come to Mumbai , it wouldn’t have been where it is now. Ofcourse every good thing comes with unwanted baggage. We have few things like any other city does : corruption, slums blah blah blah.
Well, getting back to my friend , according to him his so called golden “Pune” has been ripped apart by outsiders and so he is going to kill them or make them leave home. And please, I am not exaggerating, according to him all those who have come from other place make all kinds of nuisance in his homeland and so they should be thrown out. I could see the anger in his face. On top of it , he hates Mumbai because it has become too crowded for him to live. Listening to him made me sad, this is today’s generation.
I was looking at it in a different way. For me it was like someone standing on a complete foreign land and talking about how his own small town is been populated by the worse people on this earth. Does he even realize that he is doing the same? And was he really unhappy about how crowded Mumbai is or it is all about he himself not getting any place their. Any of his claims did not make any sense to me. People come to his Pune and drink a lot and make nuisance, hello you do the same. People come to Pune and do not respect others , ah ha what about you.. ..
Well in all this, I wonder what are we going to teach our next generation, are they also going to fight for their own piece of land or realize that we are known for diversity, respect others and welcome them. I know we aren’t perfect; we need a lot to change but is fighting amongst ourselves the answer to this. I always had a hope that may be if we don’t do anything right of our motherland but at least we wont do anything wrong. But now I can do nothing but just sit and pray that there would be a day when we all can be human and yeah I am going to “just sit and pray” because I too am from the same crowd who wont want to do anything to make a better place to live in , the only difference in me is I don’t have any hatred for others.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
A Murder - My Point of View
“Mi Nathuram Godse Boltoy”, a Marathi play which is all about a hero who saved our nation from a paradoxical phenomenon, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, Gandhi. “Mi Gandhi Cha Vaadh Kela”, that’s what Sharad Ponkshe kept on repeating while getting into his character. His passion and the dialogues made me believe that assassination of Gandhi was the most ideal thing that our nation needed and the man who gave it to us by sacrificing his own life was also “a one man army”, the only person involved and the only person who made it happen. Well, I must say it is a nice effort by Pradeep Dalvi of telling people his point of view.
Recently I finally got hold of the only hope remained (as per my knowledge) about the assassination, The men who killed Gandhi by Mohan Malgaonkar. It is supported by unpublished documents and photographs of the trial and the assassins. The narration style is not at promising as it keeps moving from past to present but in-depth details of the murder are well described. It illustrates all the facts and episodes that happened before and after the murder , yes “the murder” and not “vadh” as what my Nathuram would have said.
I was surprised to know that there were an army of seven – Nathuram Godse , Narayan Apte , Gopal Godse, Badge,Shankar,Karkare and Mandanlal Pahwa . The day Gandhi was murdered was not the only time when they had tried to kill him. Reading their earlier murder plan made my heart ache. I never imagined my hero can think of a mass murder by throwing grenades during Gandhi’s Prayer hours just to kill one man. Moreover, he did not even take initiative but was happy to just be an observer to the task. He constantly complained that Gandhi had bought freedom to Pakistani’s. According to him, he was father of nation only for Muslims but unknowingly he was also fighting only for Hindus. I was confused why and what exactly made these young men take this decision. Were they not ok with the fact that a Hindu was supporting Muslims, or was it just the fact that Gandhi was so powerful that he was successful in making India a safe place for Muslims to live-in, while no other “hindu leaders” could do anything for the Hindus who were in Pakistan. I am not a follower of Gandhi’s beliefs either and will never be. The man who calls freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh a terrorist will never understand the pain that every Indian went through during the war of Independence, but I do know one thing if people are killed , oh I am sorry, if Hindu’s are killed in some place , does not give me the right to kill Muslims were I live.
Extra Curricular Activities of Narayan Apte were very disappointing and that itself made me not believe much in his patriotism. But till I finished the book, I always thought he was what is perfectly described in the Marathi Play “Nathurama chi Savli”. He tried to get an alibi from his mistress to make sure he is not trapped into the Gandhi murder case. Prosecution Witness, Badge, a path chosen by him to save himself, Gopal Godse backing out at the last moment choosing his life over death did not quite fascinate me. At the end, I just felt like it was a crime made by bunch of angry young teenagers.
I felt only common point between me and Godse are, I too believe Gandhi’s regular fast, as an answer to anything that went against him is like an angry wife fighting with her husband and the decision of giving 55 crores to Pakistan was just not acceptable. But killing Gandhi is also not justified to me yet.
I loved the book for the fact that it has not been partial at all. It has portrayed all the aspects of assassination. But I was a little upset to know that technically talking if Gandhi was struggling for peace then Godse was for independent and undivided Hinduism which he called as undivided Hindustan.
Recently I finally got hold of the only hope remained (as per my knowledge) about the assassination, The men who killed Gandhi by Mohan Malgaonkar. It is supported by unpublished documents and photographs of the trial and the assassins. The narration style is not at promising as it keeps moving from past to present but in-depth details of the murder are well described. It illustrates all the facts and episodes that happened before and after the murder , yes “the murder” and not “vadh” as what my Nathuram would have said.
I was surprised to know that there were an army of seven – Nathuram Godse , Narayan Apte , Gopal Godse, Badge,Shankar,Karkare and Mandanlal Pahwa . The day Gandhi was murdered was not the only time when they had tried to kill him. Reading their earlier murder plan made my heart ache. I never imagined my hero can think of a mass murder by throwing grenades during Gandhi’s Prayer hours just to kill one man. Moreover, he did not even take initiative but was happy to just be an observer to the task. He constantly complained that Gandhi had bought freedom to Pakistani’s. According to him, he was father of nation only for Muslims but unknowingly he was also fighting only for Hindus. I was confused why and what exactly made these young men take this decision. Were they not ok with the fact that a Hindu was supporting Muslims, or was it just the fact that Gandhi was so powerful that he was successful in making India a safe place for Muslims to live-in, while no other “hindu leaders” could do anything for the Hindus who were in Pakistan. I am not a follower of Gandhi’s beliefs either and will never be. The man who calls freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh a terrorist will never understand the pain that every Indian went through during the war of Independence, but I do know one thing if people are killed , oh I am sorry, if Hindu’s are killed in some place , does not give me the right to kill Muslims were I live.
Extra Curricular Activities of Narayan Apte were very disappointing and that itself made me not believe much in his patriotism. But till I finished the book, I always thought he was what is perfectly described in the Marathi Play “Nathurama chi Savli”. He tried to get an alibi from his mistress to make sure he is not trapped into the Gandhi murder case. Prosecution Witness, Badge, a path chosen by him to save himself, Gopal Godse backing out at the last moment choosing his life over death did not quite fascinate me. At the end, I just felt like it was a crime made by bunch of angry young teenagers.
I felt only common point between me and Godse are, I too believe Gandhi’s regular fast, as an answer to anything that went against him is like an angry wife fighting with her husband and the decision of giving 55 crores to Pakistan was just not acceptable. But killing Gandhi is also not justified to me yet.
I loved the book for the fact that it has not been partial at all. It has portrayed all the aspects of assassination. But I was a little upset to know that technically talking if Gandhi was struggling for peace then Godse was for independent and undivided Hinduism which he called as undivided Hindustan.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Most common thing to do at this time of the year .. :)
So here are few things that I would like to accomplish this year.
1. Finish reading the books that I have been long postponing.
2. Start painting again (Just an FYI, I am not good at this, but like to spoil the canvas)
3. My Thoughts have become a good stress buster for me. I would like to make sure I write regularly.
4. Give my certifications which I am long delaying.
5. Stay Veggetarian .. :)
6. Visit Florida.
7. Try to visit Kerala (Heard it is a beautiful place)
8. Get in touch with my old pals.
9. Be more organised.
10. Buy a house in India.
My goodness too much things to do in a very little time. Hope I would be able to accomplish it.
All the Best to me ... :)
1. Finish reading the books that I have been long postponing.
2. Start painting again (Just an FYI, I am not good at this, but like to spoil the canvas)
3. My Thoughts have become a good stress buster for me. I would like to make sure I write regularly.
4. Give my certifications which I am long delaying.
5. Stay Veggetarian .. :)
6. Visit Florida.
7. Try to visit Kerala (Heard it is a beautiful place)
8. Get in touch with my old pals.
9. Be more organised.
10. Buy a house in India.
My goodness too much things to do in a very little time. Hope I would be able to accomplish it.
All the Best to me ... :)
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