Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Back off!
I hate it when people come and tell me what to do, specially when I am meeting them for the first time. I don't know you. YOU do not have the right to judge me. YOU do not get to tell me what I should or should not do with my life. YOU don't know me, so YOU do not get to decide whether what I am doing is right or wrong. I didn't come and start telling you what you shouldn't be doing right from the time I met you. So just back the hell off, before I seriously hurt you.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
9/11 The Falling Man
"The Falling Man" is a story about a photograph taken by Richard Drew at 9:41:15 a.m., on September 11, 2001. 9/11: The Falling Man is a 2006 documentary film about the picture and the story behind it.
Initially, the faller was identified by Globe and Mail reporter Peter Cheney as Norberto Hernandez, but when the family looked at the whole series of pictures (there were approximately a dozen images), it was clear that it was not Hernandez.
Five years after the attacks, Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old employee of the Windows on the World restaurant, was identified by chef Michael Lomonaco as The Falling Man. Briley was a sound engineer who lived outside of Manhattan, in Mount Vernon, and worked in the North Tower restaurant. According to the documentary he was also identified by his brother in the morgue by his hands and shoes. Lomonaco claims that he was able to identify Briley by his clothes and body-type.
In one of the pictures, The Falling Man's clothes were blown away, revealing an orange undershirt similar to the shirt that Briley wore to work almost every day. His older sister, Gwendolyn, asserted he was wearing that shirt on the day of the attack. She told reporters of The Sunday Mirror, "When I first looked at the picture...and I saw it was a man - tall, slim - I said, 'If I didn't know any better, that could be Jonathan.'" A charity has been set up for Briley's family, and many news programs have aired his story as being the one of The Falling Man. However, the identity of The Falling Man has never been officially confirmed.
The documentary can be found here.
Initially, the faller was identified by Globe and Mail reporter Peter Cheney as Norberto Hernandez, but when the family looked at the whole series of pictures (there were approximately a dozen images), it was clear that it was not Hernandez.
Five years after the attacks, Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old employee of the Windows on the World restaurant, was identified by chef Michael Lomonaco as The Falling Man. Briley was a sound engineer who lived outside of Manhattan, in Mount Vernon, and worked in the North Tower restaurant. According to the documentary he was also identified by his brother in the morgue by his hands and shoes. Lomonaco claims that he was able to identify Briley by his clothes and body-type.
In one of the pictures, The Falling Man's clothes were blown away, revealing an orange undershirt similar to the shirt that Briley wore to work almost every day. His older sister, Gwendolyn, asserted he was wearing that shirt on the day of the attack. She told reporters of The Sunday Mirror, "When I first looked at the picture...and I saw it was a man - tall, slim - I said, 'If I didn't know any better, that could be Jonathan.'" A charity has been set up for Briley's family, and many news programs have aired his story as being the one of The Falling Man. However, the identity of The Falling Man has never been officially confirmed.
The documentary can be found here.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Life's Lessons
I am 19 years old. And if someone asks me what I have learnt in the entire course of my existence, I can sum it up in one word - nothing.
People keep saying - life is short, make full use of it. Grab opportunities, live everyday like there is no tomorrow, and other blah blahs..
No one I know does that, no one in their right frame of mind would.
(I'm not very sure where this post is going)
No pain, no gain right? If you don't make mistakes, what do you learn from? And don't tell me from other people's mistakes. That is total bullshit. Have we ever learnt from our seniors that we should start studying early for exams? Not that we learn from our own experiences in that area to a great extent.
Feeling guilty - its something I live with everyday; be it about some work that I did not do, be it about yet another person I was rude to, be it about not following the time-table I meticulously drew up, be it about watching yet another TV series yet another time.
(I am still not sure of why I am writing this post)
The only thing we should learn from having lived is that nothing is certain, nothing is forever, we will always have to adjust, and must be prepared for it. We should certainly have goals in life, but not achieving them should not be the end of the world. The key is to survive it, day by day, and enjoy it, minute by minute, by breathing, second by second. (I hope that's not too slow a pace to breathe at?)
I love writing total and utter nonsense! :D
People keep saying - life is short, make full use of it. Grab opportunities, live everyday like there is no tomorrow, and other blah blahs..
No one I know does that, no one in their right frame of mind would.
(I'm not very sure where this post is going)
No pain, no gain right? If you don't make mistakes, what do you learn from? And don't tell me from other people's mistakes. That is total bullshit. Have we ever learnt from our seniors that we should start studying early for exams? Not that we learn from our own experiences in that area to a great extent.
Feeling guilty - its something I live with everyday; be it about some work that I did not do, be it about yet another person I was rude to, be it about not following the time-table I meticulously drew up, be it about watching yet another TV series yet another time.
(I am still not sure of why I am writing this post)
The only thing we should learn from having lived is that nothing is certain, nothing is forever, we will always have to adjust, and must be prepared for it. We should certainly have goals in life, but not achieving them should not be the end of the world. The key is to survive it, day by day, and enjoy it, minute by minute, by breathing, second by second. (I hope that's not too slow a pace to breathe at?)
I love writing total and utter nonsense! :D
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Dear Ole Bush
The 'misunderestimated' president?
All politicians are prone to make slips of the tongue in the heat of the moment - and President George W Bush has made more than most.
The word "Bushism" has been coined to label his occasional verbal lapses during eight years in office, which come to an end on 20 January.
Here are some of his most memorable pronouncements.
ON HIMSELF
"They misunderestimated me."
Bentonville, Arkansas, 6 November, 2000
"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right."
Rome, 22 July, 2001
"There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again."
Nashville, Tennessee, 17 September, 2002
"There's no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead."
Washington DC, 11 May, 2001
"I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today. He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me."
Nashville, Tennessee, 27 May, 2004
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
"For a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times."
Tokyo, 18 February, 2002
"The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorise himself."
Grand Rapids, Michigan, 29 January, 2003
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Washington DC, 5 August, 2004
"I think war is a dangerous place."
Washington DC, 7 May, 2003
"The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the - the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice."
Washington DC, 27 October, 2003
"Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat."
Washington DC, 17 September, 2004
"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."
CBS News, Washington DC, 6 September, 2006
EDUCATION
"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"
Florence, South Carolina, 11 January, 2000
"Reading is the basics for all learning."
Reston, Virginia, 28 March, 2000
"As governor of Texas, I have set high standards for our public schools, and I have met those standards."
CNN, 30 August, 2000
"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."
Townsend, Tennessee, 21 February, 2001
ECONOMICS
"I understand small business growth. I was one."
New York Daily News, 19 February, 2000
"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."
Reuters, 5 May, 2000
"I do remain confident in Linda. She'll make a fine Labour Secretary. From what I've read in the press accounts, she's perfectly qualified."
Austin, Texas, 8 January, 2001
"First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill."
Washington DC, 19 May, 2003
HEALTHCARE
"I don't think we need to be subliminable about the differences between our views on prescription drugs."
Orlando, Florida, 12 September, 2000
"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."
Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 6 September, 2004
TECHNOLOGY
"Will the highways on the internet become more few?"
Concord, New Hampshire, 29 January, 2000
"It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber."
Washington DC, 10 April, 2002
"Information is moving. You know, nightly news is one way, of course, but it's also moving through the blogosphere and through the Internets."
Washington DC, 2 May, 2007
OUT OF LEFT FIELD
"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
Saginaw, Michigan, 29 September, 2000
"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."
LaCrosse, Wisconsin, 18 October, 2000
"Those who enter the country illegally violate the law."
Tucson, Arizona, 28 November, 2005
"That's George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing about him is that I read three - three or four books about him last year. Isn't that interesting?"
Speaking to reporter Kai Diekmann, Washington DC, 5 May, 2006
ON GOVERNING
"I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together."
Bartlett, Tennessee, 18 August, 2000
"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best."
Washington DC, 18 April, 2006
"And truth of the matter is, a lot of reports in Washington are never read by anybody. To show you how important this one is, I read it, and [Tony Blair] read it."
On the publication of the Baker-Hamilton Report, Washington DC, 7 December, 2006
"All I can tell you is when the governor calls, I answer his phone."
San Diego, California, 25 October, 2007
"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office."
Washington DC, 12 May, 2008
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Being Indian
Another article that I came across. Its by Shashi Tharoor, former under secretary general of the United Nations. The article was in The Guardian dated Wednesday 15 August 2007.
Indian identity is forged in diversity. Every one of us is in a minority.
The nation born 60 years ago today is built on a bold idea of difference - and an agreement that it's healthy to disagree
When India celebrated the 49th anniversary of its independence from British rule in 1996, its then prime minister, HD Deve Gowda, stood at the ramparts of Delhi's Red Fort and delivered the traditional independence day address to the nation. Eight other prime ministers had done exactly the same thing 48 times before him, but what was unusual this time was that Deve Gowda, a southerner from the state of Karnataka, spoke to the country in a language of which he did not know a word. Tradition and politics required a speech in Hindi, so he gave one - the words having been written out for him in his native Kannada script, in which they made no sense.
Such an episode is almost inconceivable elsewhere, but it was a startling affirmation of Indian pluralism. For the simple fact is that we are all minorities in India. There has never been an archetypal Indian to stand alongside the archetypal German or Frenchman. A Hindi-speaking Hindu male from Uttar Pradesh may cherish the illusion he represents the "majority community". But he does not. As a Hindu, he belongs to the faith adhered to by four-fifths of the population. But a majority of the country does not speak Hindi. And, if he were visiting, say, my home state of Kerala, he may be surprised to realise that a majority there is not even male.
Worse, this stock Hindu male has only to mingle with the polyglot, multicoloured crowds - and I am referring not to the colours of their clothes but to the colours of their skins - thronging any of India's major railway stations to realise how much of a minority he really is. Even his Hinduism is no guarantee of his majorityhood, because caste divisions automatically put him in a minority. (If he is a Brahmin, for instance, 90% of his fellow Indians are not.)
If caste and language complicate the notion of Indian identity, ethnicity makes it worse. Most of the time, an Indian's name immediately reveals where he is from or what her mother-tongue is: when we introduce ourselves, we are advertising our origins. Despite some intermarriage at the elite levels in our cities, Indians are still largely endogamous, and a Bengali is easily distinguished from a Punjabi. The difference this reflects is often more apparent than the elements of commonality. A Karnataka Brahmin shares his Hindu faith with a Bihari Kurmi, but they share little identity with each other in respect of their dress, customs, appearance, taste, language or even, these days, their political objectives. At the same time, a Tamil Hindu would feel he has much more in common with a Tamil Christian or a Tamil Muslim than with, say, a Jat from the state of Haryana with whom he formally shares the Hindu religion.
What makes India, then, a nation? As the country celebrates the 60th anniversary of its independence today, we may well ask: What is an Indian's identity?
When an Italian nation was created in the second half of the 19th century out of a mosaic of principalities and statelets, one Italian nationalist wrote: "We have created Italy. Now all we need to do is to create Italians." It is striking that, a few decades later, no Indian nationalist succumbed to the temptation to express a similar thought. The prime exponent of modern Indian nationalism, Jawaharlal Nehru, would never have spoken of "creating Indians", because he believed that India and Indians had existed for millennia before he articulated their political aspirations in the 20th century.
None the less, the India that was born in 1947 was in a very real sense a new creation: a state that made fellow citizens of the Ladakhi and the Laccadivian, divided Punjabi from Punjabi and asked a Keralite peasant to feel allegiance to a Kashmiri Pandit ruling in Delhi, all for the first time.
So under Mahatma Gandhi and Prime Minister Nehru, Indian nationalism was not based on any of the conventional indices of national identity. Not language, since India's constitution now recognises 22 official languages, and as many as 35 languages spoken by more than a million people each. Not ethnicity, since the "Indian" accommodates a diversity of racial types in which many Indians (Punjabis and Bengalis, in particular) have more ethnically in common with foreigners than with their other compatriots. Not religion, since India is a secular pluralist state that is home to every religion known to mankind, with the possible exception of Shintoism. Not geography, since the natural geography of the subcontinent - framed by the mountains and the sea - was hacked by the partition of 1947. And not even territory, since, by law, anyone with one grandparent born in pre-partition India - outside the territorial boundaries of today's state - is eligible for citizenship. Indian nationalism has therefore always been the nationalism of an idea.
It is the idea of an ever-ever land - emerging from an ancient civilisation, united by a shared history, sustained by pluralist democracy. India's democracy imposes no narrow conformities on its citizens. The whole point of Indian pluralism is you can be many things and one thing: you can be a good Muslim, a good Keralite and a good Indian all at once. The Indian idea is the opposite of what Freudians call "the narcissism of minor differences"; in India we celebrate the commonality of major differences. If America is a melting-pot, then to me India is a thali, a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.
So the idea of India is of one land embracing many. It is the idea that a nation may endure differences of caste, creed, colour, conviction, culture, cuisine, costume and custom, and still rally around a consensus. And that consensus is around the simple idea that in a democracy you don't really need to agree - except on the ground rules of how you will disagree.
Geography helps, because it accustoms Indians to the idea of difference. India's national identity has long been built on the slogan "unity in diversity". The "Indian" comes in such varieties that a woman who is fair-skinned, sari-wearing and Italian-speaking, as Sonia Gandhi is, is not more foreign to my grandmother in Kerala than one who is "wheatish-complexioned", wears a salwar kameez and speaks Urdu. Our nation absorbs both these types of people; both are equally "foreign" to some of us, equally Indian to us all.
For now, the sectarian Hindu chauvinists have lost the battle over India's identity. The sight in May 2004 of a Roman Catholic political leader (Sonia Gandhi) making way for a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) to be sworn in as prime minister by a Muslim (President Abdul Kalam) - in a country 81% Hindu - caught the world's imagination. India's founding fathers wrote a constitution for their dreams; we have given passports to their ideals. That one simple moment of political change put to rest many of the arguments over Indian identity. India was never truer to itself than when celebrating its own diversity.
Indian identity is forged in diversity. Every one of us is in a minority.
The nation born 60 years ago today is built on a bold idea of difference - and an agreement that it's healthy to disagree
When India celebrated the 49th anniversary of its independence from British rule in 1996, its then prime minister, HD Deve Gowda, stood at the ramparts of Delhi's Red Fort and delivered the traditional independence day address to the nation. Eight other prime ministers had done exactly the same thing 48 times before him, but what was unusual this time was that Deve Gowda, a southerner from the state of Karnataka, spoke to the country in a language of which he did not know a word. Tradition and politics required a speech in Hindi, so he gave one - the words having been written out for him in his native Kannada script, in which they made no sense.
Such an episode is almost inconceivable elsewhere, but it was a startling affirmation of Indian pluralism. For the simple fact is that we are all minorities in India. There has never been an archetypal Indian to stand alongside the archetypal German or Frenchman. A Hindi-speaking Hindu male from Uttar Pradesh may cherish the illusion he represents the "majority community". But he does not. As a Hindu, he belongs to the faith adhered to by four-fifths of the population. But a majority of the country does not speak Hindi. And, if he were visiting, say, my home state of Kerala, he may be surprised to realise that a majority there is not even male.
Worse, this stock Hindu male has only to mingle with the polyglot, multicoloured crowds - and I am referring not to the colours of their clothes but to the colours of their skins - thronging any of India's major railway stations to realise how much of a minority he really is. Even his Hinduism is no guarantee of his majorityhood, because caste divisions automatically put him in a minority. (If he is a Brahmin, for instance, 90% of his fellow Indians are not.)
If caste and language complicate the notion of Indian identity, ethnicity makes it worse. Most of the time, an Indian's name immediately reveals where he is from or what her mother-tongue is: when we introduce ourselves, we are advertising our origins. Despite some intermarriage at the elite levels in our cities, Indians are still largely endogamous, and a Bengali is easily distinguished from a Punjabi. The difference this reflects is often more apparent than the elements of commonality. A Karnataka Brahmin shares his Hindu faith with a Bihari Kurmi, but they share little identity with each other in respect of their dress, customs, appearance, taste, language or even, these days, their political objectives. At the same time, a Tamil Hindu would feel he has much more in common with a Tamil Christian or a Tamil Muslim than with, say, a Jat from the state of Haryana with whom he formally shares the Hindu religion.
What makes India, then, a nation? As the country celebrates the 60th anniversary of its independence today, we may well ask: What is an Indian's identity?
When an Italian nation was created in the second half of the 19th century out of a mosaic of principalities and statelets, one Italian nationalist wrote: "We have created Italy. Now all we need to do is to create Italians." It is striking that, a few decades later, no Indian nationalist succumbed to the temptation to express a similar thought. The prime exponent of modern Indian nationalism, Jawaharlal Nehru, would never have spoken of "creating Indians", because he believed that India and Indians had existed for millennia before he articulated their political aspirations in the 20th century.
None the less, the India that was born in 1947 was in a very real sense a new creation: a state that made fellow citizens of the Ladakhi and the Laccadivian, divided Punjabi from Punjabi and asked a Keralite peasant to feel allegiance to a Kashmiri Pandit ruling in Delhi, all for the first time.
So under Mahatma Gandhi and Prime Minister Nehru, Indian nationalism was not based on any of the conventional indices of national identity. Not language, since India's constitution now recognises 22 official languages, and as many as 35 languages spoken by more than a million people each. Not ethnicity, since the "Indian" accommodates a diversity of racial types in which many Indians (Punjabis and Bengalis, in particular) have more ethnically in common with foreigners than with their other compatriots. Not religion, since India is a secular pluralist state that is home to every religion known to mankind, with the possible exception of Shintoism. Not geography, since the natural geography of the subcontinent - framed by the mountains and the sea - was hacked by the partition of 1947. And not even territory, since, by law, anyone with one grandparent born in pre-partition India - outside the territorial boundaries of today's state - is eligible for citizenship. Indian nationalism has therefore always been the nationalism of an idea.
It is the idea of an ever-ever land - emerging from an ancient civilisation, united by a shared history, sustained by pluralist democracy. India's democracy imposes no narrow conformities on its citizens. The whole point of Indian pluralism is you can be many things and one thing: you can be a good Muslim, a good Keralite and a good Indian all at once. The Indian idea is the opposite of what Freudians call "the narcissism of minor differences"; in India we celebrate the commonality of major differences. If America is a melting-pot, then to me India is a thali, a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.
So the idea of India is of one land embracing many. It is the idea that a nation may endure differences of caste, creed, colour, conviction, culture, cuisine, costume and custom, and still rally around a consensus. And that consensus is around the simple idea that in a democracy you don't really need to agree - except on the ground rules of how you will disagree.
Geography helps, because it accustoms Indians to the idea of difference. India's national identity has long been built on the slogan "unity in diversity". The "Indian" comes in such varieties that a woman who is fair-skinned, sari-wearing and Italian-speaking, as Sonia Gandhi is, is not more foreign to my grandmother in Kerala than one who is "wheatish-complexioned", wears a salwar kameez and speaks Urdu. Our nation absorbs both these types of people; both are equally "foreign" to some of us, equally Indian to us all.
For now, the sectarian Hindu chauvinists have lost the battle over India's identity. The sight in May 2004 of a Roman Catholic political leader (Sonia Gandhi) making way for a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) to be sworn in as prime minister by a Muslim (President Abdul Kalam) - in a country 81% Hindu - caught the world's imagination. India's founding fathers wrote a constitution for their dreams; we have given passports to their ideals. That one simple moment of political change put to rest many of the arguments over Indian identity. India was never truer to itself than when celebrating its own diversity.
Rules of life
These are my philosophies:
1. Escapist theory
The world is not a bad place, but it is too much trouble.
Real people = Real trouble while
Fictional people = not my problem.
Hence, I choose to spend my day in my room watching TV series.
2. Murphy's Law
Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. True almost everytime I'm waiting for a bus.
3. Procrastination
Postpone everything till the last minute till the guilt or the workload kills you.
4. Law of extremes
I wanna be either totally busy or totally free. In between doesn't work for me. And of course, the transition phase from one to the other is painful.
This is my early morning ranting for the day. Even though its 1211pm, my brain is asleep => it is early morning for me. Cheers! :)
1. Escapist theory
The world is not a bad place, but it is too much trouble.
Real people = Real trouble while
Fictional people = not my problem.
Hence, I choose to spend my day in my room watching TV series.
2. Murphy's Law
Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. True almost everytime I'm waiting for a bus.
3. Procrastination
Postpone everything till the last minute till the guilt or the workload kills you.
4. Law of extremes
I wanna be either totally busy or totally free. In between doesn't work for me. And of course, the transition phase from one to the other is painful.
This is my early morning ranting for the day. Even though its 1211pm, my brain is asleep => it is early morning for me. Cheers! :)
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy to say goodbye to 2008
TOI article on 01/01/2009 by Jug Suraiya
One of the more memorable metaphors for 2008 is that of a pinstripe-suited Wall Street banker holding out a begging bowl. As the subprime loan bubble burst, unleashing a financial tsunami across the globe, Wall Street became Wail Street and markets over the world collapsed like so many houses of cards, all of them jokers with a sick sense of humour.
But something far bigger seemed in imminent danger of taking a terminal toss: capitalism itself. Had Adam Smith's free-market credo which was the cornerstone of western-style liberal democracy finally fallen off the high horse it had ridden all these years? With banks and other financial institutions going belly up or holding out begging bowls for governmental bailouts, making a mockery of a competitive free-market, was capitalism being consigned to the trash bin as its former arch-foe, communism, had been a while ago? If both these polar isms had failed, what ism was left? Fatalism?
Even as capitalism teetered on the brink, in the US another ism came a much-deserved and long overdue cropper: racism. Barack Obama made history - and unmade racism - by being the first black successfully to aspire to what is often tagged as the world's most powerful office - the presidency of the United States.
But as the world celebrated a triumph that was as much America's collectively as it was Obama's individually, another ism raised its politically incorrect head: sexism. Obama's defeated rival for the Democratic nomination was Hillary Clinton. Did Obama's victory, at her expense, imply that while the US was ready to overcome its racism it had yet to get over its sexism, the innate gender bias against women that is common to male-dominated societies the world over?
Obama's triumphal message was change. But did that change also apply to the status of women? Apparently not. Put a black man in the White House? Yes, we can. But a woman in the Oval Office? Uh, uh. You've still got a long way to go, baby.
As a consolation prize, Hillary was made Barack's secretary of state. A small step for Hillary; a giant leap for the Stepford wives (remember Ira Levin's parable of that name which tells of a typical American suburb where all the women are robots designed solely to serve men's needs?).
The year ended with a murderous bang as terror gatecrashed India's success story via the front door of Mumbai, the country's financial capital. That ten savage psychotics could hold an entire city to ransom and threaten to derail the Indian gravy train came as a nerve-jangling wake-up call. Several political heads rolled as a consequence, including that of the home minister.
But these cosmetic clean-up acts do not address the basic question: Is India too 'soft' a state to tackle the globalised menace of terror? How can India turn itself into a 'hard' state? By setting up a federal investigative agency? By arrogating more powers to government authorities through more stringent anti-terror laws? By suspending individual rights, such as habeas corpus? And if it were to do all these things, would India remain the same India of a free and democratic society that it is today?
The questions fly thick and fast and deadly as shrapnel from a grenade. Whatever the eventual political and social outcome, there is little doubt that '26/11' has been a watershed event, a life-changing trauma in the narrative of the nation. It will make India rethink its friends and its foes, and how to deal with them. It will make citizens rethink and re-evaluate their relationship with the political leaders they elect.
Yes, in a democracy the political leadership is responsible, or is supposed to be responsible, for its citizens. But equally, in a democracy the citizens are responsible for the political leadership they put in office through their votes. Democratic responsibility is a two-way street. By all means blame politicians for their ineptitude in handling terror attacks or anything else. But equally, let's blame ourselves for not being more deserving of better leadership.
Most will be happy to see the back of 2008. Except for the thought of 2009 lurking around the corner, determined to upstage its predecessor and in terms of excitement quotient make 2008's act seem like what it might appear in retrospect: a truly crashing bore, of lethally high calibre.
One of the more memorable metaphors for 2008 is that of a pinstripe-suited Wall Street banker holding out a begging bowl. As the subprime loan bubble burst, unleashing a financial tsunami across the globe, Wall Street became Wail Street and markets over the world collapsed like so many houses of cards, all of them jokers with a sick sense of humour.
But something far bigger seemed in imminent danger of taking a terminal toss: capitalism itself. Had Adam Smith's free-market credo which was the cornerstone of western-style liberal democracy finally fallen off the high horse it had ridden all these years? With banks and other financial institutions going belly up or holding out begging bowls for governmental bailouts, making a mockery of a competitive free-market, was capitalism being consigned to the trash bin as its former arch-foe, communism, had been a while ago? If both these polar isms had failed, what ism was left? Fatalism?
Even as capitalism teetered on the brink, in the US another ism came a much-deserved and long overdue cropper: racism. Barack Obama made history - and unmade racism - by being the first black successfully to aspire to what is often tagged as the world's most powerful office - the presidency of the United States.
But as the world celebrated a triumph that was as much America's collectively as it was Obama's individually, another ism raised its politically incorrect head: sexism. Obama's defeated rival for the Democratic nomination was Hillary Clinton. Did Obama's victory, at her expense, imply that while the US was ready to overcome its racism it had yet to get over its sexism, the innate gender bias against women that is common to male-dominated societies the world over?
Obama's triumphal message was change. But did that change also apply to the status of women? Apparently not. Put a black man in the White House? Yes, we can. But a woman in the Oval Office? Uh, uh. You've still got a long way to go, baby.
As a consolation prize, Hillary was made Barack's secretary of state. A small step for Hillary; a giant leap for the Stepford wives (remember Ira Levin's parable of that name which tells of a typical American suburb where all the women are robots designed solely to serve men's needs?).
The year ended with a murderous bang as terror gatecrashed India's success story via the front door of Mumbai, the country's financial capital. That ten savage psychotics could hold an entire city to ransom and threaten to derail the Indian gravy train came as a nerve-jangling wake-up call. Several political heads rolled as a consequence, including that of the home minister.
But these cosmetic clean-up acts do not address the basic question: Is India too 'soft' a state to tackle the globalised menace of terror? How can India turn itself into a 'hard' state? By setting up a federal investigative agency? By arrogating more powers to government authorities through more stringent anti-terror laws? By suspending individual rights, such as habeas corpus? And if it were to do all these things, would India remain the same India of a free and democratic society that it is today?
The questions fly thick and fast and deadly as shrapnel from a grenade. Whatever the eventual political and social outcome, there is little doubt that '26/11' has been a watershed event, a life-changing trauma in the narrative of the nation. It will make India rethink its friends and its foes, and how to deal with them. It will make citizens rethink and re-evaluate their relationship with the political leaders they elect.
Yes, in a democracy the political leadership is responsible, or is supposed to be responsible, for its citizens. But equally, in a democracy the citizens are responsible for the political leadership they put in office through their votes. Democratic responsibility is a two-way street. By all means blame politicians for their ineptitude in handling terror attacks or anything else. But equally, let's blame ourselves for not being more deserving of better leadership.
Most will be happy to see the back of 2008. Except for the thought of 2009 lurking around the corner, determined to upstage its predecessor and in terms of excitement quotient make 2008's act seem like what it might appear in retrospect: a truly crashing bore, of lethally high calibre.
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