A Blank Slate

I have moved

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:55:00 +0000

I have moved my blog. All of my future posts will be posted here.

Thanks for visiting.

Moved to the following address: http://vishal12.wordpress.com/

What I Took Away From Aamir (Movie)

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:38:00 +0000

What a movie! Direction (by debutant Raj Kumar Gupta who assisted Anurag Kashyap in No Smoking), Cinematography (by debutant Alphons Roy), Performance (by debutant Rajeev Khandelwal), Music (by debutant Amit Trivedi), Editing (by Aarti Bajaj) - all are top notch.

This post in not a review. (There are many good reviews available online.) It contains my personal interpretations about the message that the movie tries to convey. There are spoilers, so if you haven't watched the movie yet, don't read this post.

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There's a lovely song by Eddi Reader "It's Not What You've Been Given, It's What You Do With What You've Got". (Listen to it here, it's really beautiful.)

And that is precisely what, I think, the central theme of the movie Aamir is.

"Kaun Kehta Hai Ki Aadmi Apni Kismat Khud Likhta Hai?" is the tag-line of the movie. The answer lies in the movie, in the final scene, to be more precise.

When the kidnapper tries to preach Aamir and tells him about the difficulties that Muslims face in India, Aamir shots back at him and asks who's stopping them to break the social and economic barriers and make a decent living? After all, as his argument goes, he himself is one of them (i.e. a muslim) and became a doctor in spite of living in the same discriminating society! Although Aamir loses that verbal debate, he, in the end, wins the ideological debate. Aamir could have left that bomb in the bus as he was asked to do, but he chose not to. In that sense, however limited his options were, he finally chose his destiny. He chose not to become a terrorist and kill innocent people. (That's the only thing he does willingly in the entire movie.)

This message could be easily extrapolated into the realms of our society. There are many poor, oppressed, discriminated against, subjugated people, but not everyone chooses to take the wrong, negative or destructive path (of robbery, violence, terrorism etc.). However, some do opt for baleful ways to either take revenge or in order to end their misery. But (as I've pondered over before here) that can cause a vicious cycle of hate and retributions that can eventually have cataclysmic results for the society.

The circumstances might limit the number of options that are available to you. But it's YOU who finally makes a choice.

The main character is aptly named as Aamir (which means leader). In the entire movie, he had to do what he was forced to do by the kidnapper, but in the end, by doing what he could do (and wanted to do in the given circumstance), he became a true leader. Leader of his own fate, who led his life to a respectable, noble and courageous end.

Satya - The First Mumbai Noir Movie

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:07:00 +0000

It's been 10 years since Satya redefined the way Bollywood "looked" at Mumbai underworld. It established a new genre in Bollywood - Mumbai noir. Before Satya most of the movies in which the protagonist has a negative character, showed us an honest, non-violent, Mr Nice Guy, who has a lovely middle class family, a nice girlfriend and lives a simple happy life. Then something really unfortunate and "unexpected" happens and it takes everything he loved away from him (or put it in jeopardy). Hence, he is left with no other choice but become a goonda to take revenge or to save his helpless family.

Satya gave us a break from all that cliched nice-guy-harassed-by-society-and-becomes-a-bad-guy theme. Here the protagonist enters the underworld as if he is trying to find a purpose in his life!

We're not even told why Satya came to Mumbai or where he came form. Does he have some skeletons in his closet? Does he have a family somewhere? Did he deserted them or did his family threw him out? Why? We don't know. It's irrelevant. The movie is not about what happened to Satya, it's about what happens to Satya after he comes to Mumbai. And probably that's what made Satya more interesting - the mystery and strangeness that revolves around him. (Director Ramu toys along with the audience about this. Satya is asked many times about his past and his family, but every time, we get vague answers. "Kya faraq padta hai?" is his reply when Bhiku asks him where he came from. "Mar gaye honge shayad." is what he tells him when he inquires about where his parents are.) We see Satya staring blankly at the ceiling of his tiny flat, and outwards from his window. We wonder what he is thinking about. Perhaps there's nothing but a vacuum, which will be soon filled with his next door neighbor, Vidya.

While his new friend Bhikhu teaches him how to operate a gun, Vidya teaches him how to smile and love. Satya learns both skills with ease, but we know that he is better at the former. He is simultaneously driven to two separate paths, one can lead to destruction and the other to happiness. Both Bhikhu and Vidya needed Satya. Bhikhu is a hot-tempered don who is no more than a puppet in the hands of don-turned-politician, Bhau. And Vidya is frustrated from her continuous struggle to make a living as a singer in an industry where "Kucch paane ke liye kucch khona bhi padta hai". Satya completes Bhiku, the don of Mumbai underworld, as he helps him make strategic decisions.("Hamara fayda unke dar se hai, unki maut se naheen.") And he also completes Vidya who finds a friend and companion in Satya.

Many dialogues in this movie are aptly written and executed in such a way that it leaves an impact on the audience. ("Ek Jaayega, to sab jaayenge.", "Mauka sabhi ko milta hai.", "Karna hai, to karna hai.", "Kasai bhi bakra tabhi katta hai jab log use khaate hai. Sirf KAsai pe kyon ungli uthaate ho?" etc.) There are some scenes in the movie which exemplifies Ramu's genius as a director:

- Satya's first murder

- Satya's attack on that hafta-wasooli guy with a razor blade

- The sweet scuffle between Bhikhu and his wife

- Bhikhu's proclamations as "Mumbai ka don" on a seashore rock facing the city (excellent location)

- Amod Shukla's murder and Khandelkar's reaction

- Satya's escape from the theatre

- Bhau's murder, Mule's murder

- The final scene

The mood of Satya composed by Sandeep Showta is one of my most favorite movie themes. Ram Gopal Varma once said that Sandeep Chowta understood the character of Satya more than himself. All main characters are well defined and well developed. Chakravarty as Satya was a very good choice. The character of Satya needed a new face because strangeness was the main essences of his character. The character grows on you in the movie. Just like the other leads in the movie (Bhikhu, Vidya, Bhau etc.) the audience also looks as Satya as a stranger. The audience learns more about Satya as the other characters in the movie learns more about him. (Contrast this - choice of actor - with the choice of Ajay Devgan to play the character of Malik in Ramu's other underworld saga - Company. There was no time for building the character of Malik in this movie as the movie was more about the 'events' rather than the 'characters'. So Ramu needed an established actor whom the audience can take seriously from the very first scene.) And then there's Bhiku Matre. Manoj Bajpai convinces you that no one could have played the role of Bhiku Matre better than him.

After Satya, there have been many more Mumbai noir movies that followed its footsteps. But any movie that's based on Mumbai underworld is going to have some inspirations from Satya. In that sense, Satya is to Bollywood what Godfather is to Hollywood.

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na and Ada - Initial Reaction

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Thu, 22 May 2008 02:06:00 +0000

I have been listening to Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na and Ada since last two days, and here're some of my initial thoughts:

Kabhi Kabhi Aditi is a catchy, light and peppy number. I loved it in the very first listen (on the promos). Although Rashid Ali did a commendable job and his voice suits well to the movie's young and fresh look, I wish Rahman had given this song to Adnan Sami. I think this song belonged to Adnan. (Isn't Rashid Ali's singing seem to have inspired from Adnan?) The rationale behind not using Adana though is probably that they wanted to have a new voice for the new face (i.e. Imran Khan) - at least for this 'opening' song.

Rahman has re-used one of his own tunes for this song. The mukhda of Kabhi Kabhi Aditi is same as the guitar interlude in Mustafa Mustafa song from the movie Duniya Dilwalon Kee. I am actually glad that he has done that (i.e. re-using one of his tunes from the interludes of his own song). There are many song by arr which has wonderful instrumental (or chorus) interludes that can be used to create a mukhda of new song (The violin interlude in Ae Ajnabi, Swarnalatha's humming in Sunta Hai Mera Khuda, chorus from the starting of the song Naheen Saamne etc. etc. etc.)

Jaane Tu Mera Kya Hai conveys the melancholic mood effectively. I liked the version sung by Sukhwinder more than the one sung by Runa Rizvi (which is also very good), mostly because of the opening music/tempo and the operatic chorus in the background that takes it to another level.

Pappu Can't Dance has a very catchy tune and feet-tapping beats. However, I don't think it's gonna be one of those songs that I will yearn to hear in a way I feel about most (or at least, so many) of arr's songs.

Abbas Tyrewala has done a good job as a first time lyricist (His earlier work includes dialogues for Munnabhai M.B.B.S.). I really liked that he used the immortal lines 'Papa Kehte Hain Bada Kaam Karega', giving a nod to Aamir Khan's first movie: Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. (JTYJN is Aamir's nephew Imran's first movie.)

Moving on to the other album released simultaneously with JTYJN - Ada.

Rashid Ali's pronunciations in Ishq Ada sounded a bit weird to me. I think he tried to add an Arabic/Middle-Eastern element to the song - the lyrics, heavy on Urdu words, also confirms this (I hope there's some relevance to that in the movie.)

All songs except Ishq Ada and Meherbaan are written by Nusrat Badr. I was excited to see his name on album cover because I loved his work in Devdas (after which he almost disappeared). But honestly, I didn't find anything extraordinary in his lyrics this time.

Gumsum Gumsum sounds infinitely ordinary (by arr standards). If Ada is a musical journey by arr, then this surely is the worst destination. Tu Mera also belong to the same category. (The lines 'Jise Chaha Mil Gaya' sung by Chitra reminded me - both lyrically and musically - of similar lines 'Tu Mujhko Mil Gaya' from Tera Jaadu Chal Gaya. Vague similarity, though.)

Meherbaan is wonderful and instantly likable. Hai Dard and Milo Wahan Wahan both are, for the lack of better word, interesting - both in structure and sound, very unlike-Rahman, I think (and hope, even more so) these ghazal-like songs has some 'growth potential'. Rahman has rarely used Sunidhi before (in fact, only once in Nayak) who joins Sonu Nigam in Gulfisha - another song that didn't really impress me.

Overall I am disappointed with Ada, and enjoyed JTYJN. As it's universally known, arr's songs (specially the "heavy", deep and long-lasting ones) need repeated hearings and some time to grow on you. Being an ardent arr fan, I hope that it will happen this time too, and my initial assessments will be proven wrong. But deep down, I am skeptical!

Mumbai or Bombay?

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:06:00 +0000

Vir Sanghvi writes about Marathi chauvinism in his recent column in HT. Now, I don't always share his opinions, but this article looks interesting to me. Here's an excerpt:

[W]hether we like it or not, Bombay is not an ancient Indian city in the sense that, say, Delhi is. It is a colonial creation. There is no record of any city on the site of Bombay before the Europeans got here.

That explains the name. It is generally believed (though there are other theories) that the word 'Bombay' comes from a Portuguese phrase which means beautiful bay. This was later anglicised — when the city passed to the British — to Bombay. So Bombay is not a Maharashtrian name. In fact, it is not even an Indian name. And that's because the city did not exist before colonisation.

So where did 'Mumbai' come from? The general view is that it is a corruption of 'Bombay'. Indians have a tradition of corrupting city names when we use them in different Indian languages.

There are no references here, but the proposition confirms what I knew about the origins of the names.

One can think of many such "corruption" of city names in India. Like (as Sanghvi mentions in this article) Ahmedabad, is commonly and informally spoken of as Amdavad by Gujaratis. But no one claims that Amdavad is the "proper" term, and everyone refers to it as Ahmedabad in writing. Bangalore is probably another such dialectical modification of the original name: Bengaluru.

Burma is another example that comes to mind. John Wells (a professor of Phonetics) wrote about this in his blog: (link)

As we all know, the ruling junta in Burma would prefer that we call their country Myanmar. In Burmese, this name Myanmar is essentially just a variant of the name Burma. It is transliterated as Myan-ma or Mran-ma, and in the local language pronounced something like [ma(n) ma], as against [ba ma] for the traditional name.

According to Wikipedia: Within the Burmese language, Myanma is the written, literary name of the country, while Bama ... (from which "Burma" derives) is the oral, colloquial name. In spoken Burmese, the distinction is less clear than the English transliteration suggests.

Coming back to the Indian context, it looks like politicians are, once again, using this "purification" campaign to incite junta and thus earn political dividends. It looks like the Marathi manoos is falling for that, and the politicians are winning in their unstoppable zest of attaining and exploiting power, once again.

Competitive Intlerance

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:27:00 +0000

The Delhi High Court has sent a strong message against competitive intolerance by disposing off charges (of offending religious feelings) against the renowned painter M. F. Hussain.

Here are some excerpts from the verdict by High Court Justice Sanjay Kaul:

“In a free and democratic society, tolerance is vital. This is true especially in large and complex societies like ours where people with varied beliefs and interests mingle."

“India’s new Puritanism, practised by a largely ignorant crowd in the name of Indian spiritual purity, is threatening to throw the nation back into the Pre-Renaissance era.”

“Criminal justice system should not be used as an easy recourse to ventilate against a creative act.”

“Art and authority never had a difficult relationship, until recently...Our greatest problem today is fundamentalism, the triumph of the letter over the spirit.” [source]

I cherish each and every word quoted above, and hail this verdict by Justice Kaul. I do feel that our society should become more tolerant and learn to appreciate the fundamental rights of freedom of speech and expression. As I have argued earlier (here), I believe that protecting the fundamental right of freedom of expression should be one of the main goals of a liberal, democratic and morally healthy society.

Many examples come to mind while we're on the topic of cultural intolerance: Banning Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses (India was the first country to do so), trying to get cheerleading banned from IPL, burning the movie theaters that showed the movie Fanaa after Aamir Khan made a controversial remark about those unfortunate displaced families, filing police complaints against Mallika Sheravat for wearing a provocative dress in a function - are just some of the many such incidents.

What's different in M. F. Hussain's case though (from the above mentioned and many other such examples) is that this was actually a communal/religious fervor & hatred wearing a mask of cultural intolerance. Justice Kaul didn't address this facet of the charges in his well-worded verdict (I couldn't find a full transcript, so I am speculating from the quotes I read so far.) I wonder if such charges were filed against a Hindu (let's say for drawing a cartoon of prophet Mohammed), would the court had been able to mete out justice in similar fashion? May be not! But that doesn't mean that the M. F. Hussain verdict is wrong. You can't fight intolerance with intolerance, right?

Socialism in India

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:58:00 +0000

It's not surprising, if a bit unsettling to some, that many of the freedom fighters got attracted to the lure of socialist ideas for nation building while dreaming for an independent India. Socialism was like the Spirit of the Age in pre-independence India. It was Karl Marx, the father of communism, who inspired many Indians through his writings during the Russian Revolution.

Bal Gangadher Tilak was among the first Indian freedom fighters to praise Marx's philosophy and the Russian communist revolutionary Lenin. Subhash Chandra Bose, the fascist leader of the Indian National Army, had inclinations towards authoritarian means for creating a socialist nation. He thought of Soviet Union as a role-model-nation for India and believed (post WW II) that democracy would not work in a country like India. He had major disagreements with Gandhi's non-violent methods for attaining independence, and was an advocate for a violent resistance. [He was elected as the president of Indian National Congress for two consecutive terms, but resigned because of his ideological differences with the Mahatma.]

Another revolutionary, Bhagat Singh, was also attracted to the Marxist principles of revolutionary Communism. After becoming the leader of Hindustan Republican Association, he changed its name to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association in 1928. Like Netaji, he also believed that a vast and diverse country like India could survive only under a socialist government. He wrote in his letter to the Governor of Punjab “Till Communist Party comes to power and people live without unequal status, our struggle will continue. It cannot be brought to an end by killing us: it will continue openly as well as secretly.”

In the famous statement on June 6, 1929, Bhagat Singh said, “The whole edifice of this civilization, if not saved in time, shall crumble. A radical change, therefore, is necessary and it is the duty of those who realise it to reorganise society on the socialistic basis. Unless this thing is done and the exploitation of man by man and of nations by nations is brought to an end, sufferings and carnage with which humanity is threatened today cannot be prevented.” [source]

On the other end of the political spectrum of pre-independence India, the Indian National Congress also believed in the socialist idea and set it as a goal for free India. Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India adopted socialist practices for industrial and economic development as well as for social reforms in India. While many argue today that the liberalization should have taken place as early as the 70's (as opposed to the 90's), it remains a topic of debate whether implementing free market economy right after freedom could have been a wise alternative to 'centralized planning'.

The National Planning Committee (NPC), which was set up in 1938, was in charge of deciding economic policy for India that was soon to be free. The NPC took lessons from Russia and Japan where state intervention was needed and helped tremendously to annul the effects of late industrialization. This 'late industrialization' effect was even more prevalent in India which had been under colonial rule for over 200 years. So the NPC suggested "service before profit" policy, and notably the private sector agreed with this strategy. In 1944, a group of leading industrialists published A Plan for Economic Development for India (which was later known as the Bombay Plan), in which they expressed the need for state intervention especially in energy, transportation and infrastructure. These capitalists concurred that, positive and preventive functions of the state are essential to any large scale economic planning in the early stage of industrialization.

During the Emergency of 1976, the word socialist was added to the preamble of the Constitution of India:

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA,

having solemnly resolved to constitute India into

a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, social, economic and political;

LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;

EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;

and to promote among them all

FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation; [link]

(Emphasis is mine.)

Even after India has shredded off its socialist ideals in 1991, when the prime minister Narsimha Rao and the finance minister Manmohan Singh, introduced economic liberalization which spurted a tremendous economic growth in last couple of decades, India continues to be described a socialist republic in the preamble to the constitution! [Several months ago, the SC surprisingly refused to entertain a petition which urged to remove the word socialist from the preamble.]

Atheism and Agnosticism

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:59:00 +0000

There is a common misconception about the definition of atheism. Many perceive an atheist as someone who believes that God does not exist (i.e. there's no God.) -- which is not necessarily true.

Let's consider the term theist first. A theist is someone who believes in the existence of God. He believes that there's a God. If you think of this particular belief (there's a God) as a metaphysical entity, then this entity exists in the mind of a theist. While in an atheist's mind that belief simply does not exist. Note that this does not necessarily mean that an atheist believes that there's no God. A belief that there's no God is, another metaphysical entity, which might or might not exist in an atheist's mind.

There are two possible opposites of belief (1) disbelief, and (2) absence of belief. The first one is active denial. While the second one is a mere passive position. Normally when one hears the term atheist, they think about the 1st position (i.e. disbelief in God). Position (1) is called active (or strong) atheism, while (2) is referred as non-theism. I think it's fair to lump (1) and (2) together and tag both positions as atheism. But it's important not to forget that an atheist can belong to either (1) active atheism, or (2) non-theism. Active theist affirms the non-existence of God, while a non-theist rejects theism.

So while theism (and hence atheism) is about belief. Agnosticism, on the other hand, is about knowledge. A person who knows for sure that God exists is a gnostic. And a person who doesn't claim to know whether God exists or not is an agnostic.

Contrary to common understanding, a person can be both: a theist and an agnostic, a believer without claiming to know for sure if God exists or not. Similarly you can be an atheist as well as an agnostic. In fact, being an agnostic can be a reason why someone is also an atheist (i.e. he lacks the belief, because he's not sure.)

On religious subjects, the only world religion that's firmly agnostic - Buddhism - is of Indian origin. A particular school of thought in Buddhism, called Theravada, a predominant religion in Sri Lanka, is actually non-theist. In Hinduism too, the Carvaka philosophy of skepticism and materialism (also known as Lokayata), which originated in the 6th century, is classified as a nastika (i.e. atheist) system. Jainism also rejects the beliefs in a personal creator God.

Amartya Sen has explored the heterodoxy of Indian religious beliefs in his fascinating book The Argumentative Indian. I take the following passage from his book: The so-called 'song of creation' (or the 'creation hymn', as it is sometimes called) in the authoritative Vedas ends with the following radical doubts:

Who really knows?

Who will here proclaim it?

Whence was it produced?

Whence is this creation?

The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.

Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen -

perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not -

the one who looks down to it, in the highest heaven,

only he knows -

or perhaps he does not know.

[From Rigveda. English translation by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, in Rigveda: An Anthology.]

The Last Mughal

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:13:00 +0000

The Last Mughal is yet another laboriously researched and wonderfully written book by William Dalrymple. William is an Indophile, who previously authored two excellent books: The City of Djinns and White Mughals. He is fascinated by the old city Delhi and all his three books reveal quite intriguing, obscure and forgotten details about the city that served as the capital for two of the biggest empires that ruled India - the Mughals and the British. The city was also the primary center of the Great Mutiny of 1857.

What's most interesting to me in this book is the first-person accounts of what happened on the streets of Delhi ere, during and after the Uprising. Utter chaos took over the city as the mutineers started looting around (the members of the wealthy class being their first target). As the situation grew worse after people realized Zafar's inability to stop the havoc, many seized this opportunity to settle old scores and satiate their lust. After Delhi fell under British attack, hell broke loose when the revengeful army officers went on a killing rampage. "The punishment for mutiny is death." was their motto, but they didn't even spare the lives of innocent civilians who were mere observers (albeit most wished for british defeat). During the Uprising, the mutineers had violently massacred numerous British officials and civil servants not sparing the lives of their wives and children. This created a strong desire for vengeance among the victorious army officials. The army rummaged and plundered houses and havelis in search of any valuables they could find. The violence rumbled on for weeks and the city was deserted after many were killed and those who were alive fled the city. Delhi became a necropolis.

William Dalrymple intensively researched previously undiscovered sources like the Mutiny Papers, the National Archives of India, Delhi Commissioner's Office Archives, Delhi's principal newspapers of that time (Dilhi Urdu Akhbar, Siraj ul-Akhbar, Delhi Gazette &c), National Archives of Rangoon (where Zafar spent his final days as a British State Prisoner). We read letters written by British officials to their wives and siblings that often oscillate between emotional outbursts (on seeing poor civilians being killed inhumanly) and brave proclamations (for being able to take revenge for the innocent British families that were butchered by mutineers). There are excerpts from diaries written by Englishwomen, army officers as well as celebrated Delhi personalities like Ghalib (the famous poet who was a member of Zafar's durbar). All together, this creates a throbbing picture of the indescribable cruelties that took place in Delhi. The letters, editorials from newspapers, government documents - all are very subjective accounts, but you have to appreciate William Dalrymple who tries to be as objective as possible and gives us information from both sides: British and Indian, both of which played the roles of 'the cruel' and 'the victims'.

Bahadur Shah (II) Zafar's precarious and helpless position at the dawn of the Mutiny and also after their defeat is explored in this book as never before. By 1857, the Mughal dynasty was on a steep decline and the British Company, of whom Zafar himself was a pensioner, was already on the rise. When the mutineer army from Meerut came to Zafar to get his blessing, the enfeebled 82 year old king had no other option but to give in to their rather forceful demands and hesitantly declare support for the Uprising. This finally led to his imprisonment after Delhi fell to British army, and the British court charged Zafar with "rebellion, treason and murder" in a trial that lasted more than 8 months. The primary contributor to the defeat of mutineers seem to be the lack of central authority, which Zafar was supposed to be providing. But the octogenarian, who was a sufi poet by heart, could do very little except expressing his dismay at the looting of the city residents by mutineers and their arrogant disrespectful behavior to the emperor himself. "The king was like the king on the chessboard after checkmate." Above is a photograph (perhaps the only one) of the Last Mughal taken after the his trial in 1858.

Bahadur Shah II Zafar, the last Mughal King, the descendent of the great world-conquerers Chengiz Khan and Timur, died quietly without any fuss, as a British State Prisoner in Rangoon in 1862. A week after his death the British Commissioner Captain Davis wrote to London to report what has passed, adding:

The death of the ex-King may be said to have had no effect on the Mahomedan part of the populace of Rangoon, except perhaps for a few fanatics who watch and pray for the final triumph of Islam. A bamboo fence surrounds the grave for some considerable distance, and by the time the fence is worn out, the grass will again have properly covered the spot, and no vestige will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Moghuls rests.

Few factoids from the book:

The mutineers were called "Pandees" in Colonial British slang. The name derived from, as you might have guessed, Mangal Pandey who was the first sepoy to rise against the Company. And "Tommies" was a generic slang for a british soldier at that time.
Although they are commonly believed to be written by Zafar, it's unclear if he really penned the fantastic and rather melancholic ghazals (1) "Na Kisi Ki Aankh Ka Noor Hoon" and (2) "Lagta Naheen Hai Dil Mera" (both wonderfully sung by Mohammed Rafi in movie Lal Qila).
Zafar, the pen-name of Bahadur Shah II, means "Victory", which is quite ironic since he is widely perceived as a "loser" and associated with one of the greatest defeats in Indian subcontinent.
Ghalib was among the few Muslim survivors left in the city. In his muhalla, Ballimaran, also lived some senior courtiers of the British loyalist Maharaja of Patiala, who sent troops and supplies to British army during the Siege. Because of this, the Britishers did not raid Ballimaran and Ghalib escaped the massacre.
The Sikhs were keen recruits in the British army. They fought two vicious wars with the British but this was probably outweighed by the hatred on the Mughals who martyred two of their greatest gurus - Guru Arjan Dev and Guru Tegh Bahadur.

Size does matter!

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:14:00 +0000

My favorite drink at Starbucks is Tazo Chai Latte (No Water, No Foam, Extra Hot). Most of the time I use the terms small, medium and large to suggest the cup size in which I would like to ingest my Tazo Chai Latte.

The Starbucks' naming convention for small, medium and large sizes, as we all know, is: Tall, Grande and Venti. This, I utterly dislike. Why can't they just call it the normal way? What's the rationale behind inventing a new measurement system? (Apart from being different.)

Dave Barry, who writes a periodic (Ask Mister Language Person) in The Miami Herald, expresses his disagreement quite humorously here:

[...] Unfortunately, we consumers, like moron sheep, started actually USING these names. Why? If Starbucks decided to call its toilets ''AquaSwooshies,'' would we go along with THAT? Yes! Baaa!

Recently, at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Death March, Mister Language Person noticed that a Starbuck's competitor, Seattle's Best Coffee (which also uses ''Tall'' for small and ''Grande'' for medium) is calling its large cup size -- get ready -- ''Grande Supremo.'' Yes. And as Mister Language Person watched in horror, many customers -- seemingly intelligent, briefcase-toting adults -- actually used this term, as in, ''I'll take a Grande Supremo.''

Listen, people: You should never, ever have to utter the words ''Grande Supremo'' unless you are addressing a tribal warlord who is holding you captive and threatening to burn you at the stake. JUST SAY YOU WANT A LARGE COFFEE, PEOPLE. Because if we let the coffee people get away with this, they're not going to stop, and some day, just to get a lousy cup of coffee, you'll hear yourself saying, ''I'll have a Mega Grandissimaximo Giganto de Humongo-Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong decaf.''

Amen!

By the way, talking about cup sizes at Starbucks, only recently I discovered that Starbucks also have Short size cups (smaller than the Tall size). They don't advertise Short size on their price boards, which has prices for Tall, Grande and Venti size cups only. Below is the liquid content of each size:

Short = 8 ounces
Tall = 12 ounces
Grande = 16 ounces =1 pint
Venti = 20 ounces

Considering this, the Grande makes some sense as it corresponds to 1 pint. And Venti actually means twenty in Italian, so there's some sanity in calling it a Venti. But what's the logic behind Tall? It is named "Tall" because it's taller than the smallest size? If so, I find the logic quite absurd, and non-intuitive when there are two other sizes available that are taller than Tall itself.

I am going to stick with the Small, Medium and Large. Let Starbucks call them whatever they want.

Love to hate Nehru

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:45:00 +0000

Another forwarded e-mail. And this one really grinds my gears! The e-mail is titled "Look at this idiot", which is directed to India's first prime minister Nehru. And it has the above picture as an attachment. There are also some disparaging remarks about Nehru in the e-mail.

First of all, I don't see anything wrong with this picture. And I fail to see how this makes him an "idiot".

But this is nothing new. It has almost become a fashion to criticize Nehru (and Gandhi) nowadays. Many proclamations are based on mere speculations and allegations (often driven by political motives). But what really boils my blood is when the allegations moves from policies to personalities. You may disagree with Nehru's ideas and policies, but questioning his integrity as the prime minister of India and doubting his compassion to create a great democratic and secular India is, I think, quite preposterous.

Yes, he made some bad decisions as a prime minister. His under-estimation of the China threat, manhandling of the Kashmir issue and distrusting businessmen as a class, are among his prime failures as a prime minister. If we look into his personal life, there are many things to criticize too. He mistreated his wife, and he was almost an absent father. Apart from that, the allegation that his relationship with Edwina influenced his policies as a prime ministers is, well, allegation at its best and cheap-shot at its worst. [link]

But one can hardly argue against his vigorous pursuit for economic and social development in pre and post independent India. When we refer to the biggest democracy in the world, it's difficult not to give this man some credit who held the flag of democracy democratically for 17 years.

But still, we Indians, love to hate Nehru. It's his failures that interest us more (as they are easy to comprehend), not his achievements (which are difficult to grasp for a common man).

In his fascinating essay Ramachandra Guha calls Nehru and Gandhi "Shock Absorbers". He points out how we Indians are quite lenient and often eloquent when it comes to criticizing Gandhi and/or Nehru. But for other leaders of the yore, like Ambedkar, Golwarkar, Shivaji, Bose and Tagore, the tolerance bar is set quite low (by specific communal or regional groups). The pride of Ambedkar is protected vehemently by Dalits, the Maharashtrians demand total reverence to Shivaji, Golwarkar (and Savarkar), the Bengalis can not take a slight criticism of their favorite leaders: Bose and Tagore. Most of these protests are on sectarian, communal or regional level.

Guha asks the question "Why this taboo on criticizing, on the basis of solid historical evidence, Bose in Bengal, Savarkar in front of radical Hindus, Ambedkar in a Dalit meeting, or Indira Gandhi in the vicinity of 10, Janpath? [and why do we have license to say anything we want about Nehru and Gandhi?]". And his answer (below) makes a lot of sense to me:

One reason we are free to dump on Gandhi and Nehru is that neither is, was or ever will be a sectarian leader. Despite the best efforts of the Muslim League, many Muslims, among them such devout ones as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, stayed with Gandhi. Despite the criticisms of Ambedkar and company, many Dalits saw Gandhi as being on their side. The portrayal of Gandhi as either a ‘Hindu’ leader or an ‘upper caste’ leader was made with great determination, but with limited success. No one even tried to represent him as a ‘Gujarati’, since his identification with the other parts and provinces of India was as deep and sincere as with his own.

Likewise with Jawaharlal Nehru. As Rajmohan Gandhi has pointed out, the main reason the Mahatma chose Nehru as his heir — above Patel, Rajagopalachari, Azad, Kripalani, or Prasad — was that his personality and political beliefs transcended the divides of religion, region, gender, and language. No one thought of Nehru as a man of the Doab, or as a Hindu, or as a male chauvinist. He was greatly admired by south Indians, by Muslims and Christians, and by women, large sections of whom saw him as working for and on behalf of their own best interests.

Ironically, and tragically, it is the fact that they so effectively transcended sectarian boundaries while they lived, that makes Gandhi and Nehru so vulnerable to criticism and abuse now.

(Emphases mine)

And Guha ends his essay with this wonderful comment:

And so, of all our icons and heroes dead or alive, the two whom we can most fearlessly criticise are the two who did most to build a free and democratic India. This, to be sure, is a land of paradox and contradiction, but of all the paradoxes and contradictions abroad this one must surely count as the most bizarre. That we can treat Gandhi and Nehru as we do testifies to their greatness, and perhaps also to our own meanness.

Addendum: Shrek proposes an alternate explanation (here) of our love-hate relationship with Nehru/Gandhi. He believes that the reason is psychology, not sociology. The text-book depictions of the freedom fighters are such that we grow up thinking that they were flawless. And when we eventually learn that they were after all flawed, we focus on the negative and revolt. Couple of my friends also opined that "[I]t is indeed a part of human nature that we do sometimes get drawn into biased thinking regarding certain issues or people, conveniently forgetting or bypassing some alarmingly positive facts in the process." - referring to the blunder Nehru made regarding Kashmir issue. We, Indians, have huge emotional investments in the Kashmir issue and we are extremely sensitive about it, that "the man who made the wrong call on Kashmir" became such a hate-figure. (And not to mention how the right-wing politicians and activists honed our discontent for their own benefits.)

The answer to the question "Why do we love to hate Nehru/Gandhi?" is, probably, multi-faceted. But whatever the explanations are, the roots are in our (society's) faulty/biased interpretations & thinking.

Happy Leap Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:25:00 +0000

Tomorrow is 29th February, a leap day in the leap year of 2008.

Refreshing the logic for determination for leap year:

If a year is divisible by 4 but not by 100 --> Leap year

If a year is divisible by 400 --> Leap year

The Gregorian calendar has 365 days in a year. But a solar year has 365 plus a little less than 1/4th day (i.e. 365 days + little less than 6 hours) in a year. In four years, the Gregorian calendar would fall behind by almost 1 day. Thus, it compensates for that "loss" by adding an extra day (29th February) every four years. However, on this pace Gregorian calendar would move ahead of solar year because it's adding more (1 year) than it should (little less than 1 year). So to compensate for that, it does not add 1 additional day after every 100 years (except for every 400 years!).

Even after doing all these adjustments, it doesn't completely match up to the solar cycle. But it's close enough, we will be off by 1 day in about 8000 years!

Why in February? March 21st is the common date for vernal equinox. This happens when the Sun is positioned directly in front of the Earth's equator (No shadow at noon on the Equator). The vernal equinox marks the beginning of Spring in the Northern hemisphere. To make sure that the vernal equinox happens exactly on (or as close to as possible) March 21st, the leap day is added in the prior month (i.e. February).

The Hindu calendar, which follows the Lunar year/cycle, has similar mechanism to compensate for the "lost" days. The lunar year is around 10 days shorter (approximately 355 days). The Hindu Calendar adds an extra month (called Adhik Maas) after every 3 years to match with the Lunar year.

The Islamic calendar, on the other hand, leap years or months are not used as they are forbidden by the Qur'an.

Indian media biased?

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:27:00 +0000

There is some sort of "media bias" e-mail being circulated on the net. It is declared, without any citation or references, that mostly all of the media groups and agencies in India (NDTV, Times of India group, Indian Express group, CNN-NBC etc.) are owned by non-Hindu organizations. And that is given as a reason for why these media groups have (allegedly) become "hindu bashers". Here're some excerpts:

NDTV: A very popular TV news media is funded by Gospels of Charity in Spain Supports Communism. Recently it has developed a soft corner towards Pakistan because Pakistan President has allowed only this channel to be aired in Pakistan. Indian CEO Prannoy Roy is co-brother of Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the Communist party of India. His wife and sisters.

India Today which used to be the only national weekly who supported BJP is now bought by NDTV!! Since then the tone has changed drastically and turned into Hindu bashing.

I think this is utter B.S. (Yes, it is true that NDTV is the only Indian channel that is currently being broadcasted in Pakistan. But I don't see why that would suddenly make them anti-hindu. By the way, I don't think "co-brother" even means anything.)

I spent some time online and googled these alleged connections but didn't find any authentic information. The only sites where this "media ownership alignment politics" is mentioned are on-line discussion forums, blogs and some religious fundamentalists' web-portals. Barring the last one, most questioned the validity of these fragile allegations. Here's some more:

Gujrat riots which took place in 2002 where Hindus were burnt alive, Rajdeep Sardesai and Bharkha Dutt working for NDTV at that time got around 5 Million Dollars from Saudi Arabia to cover only Muslim victims which they did very faithfully. Not a single Hindu family was interviewed or shown on TV whose near and dear ones had been burnt alive, it is reported.

Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka.com regularly gets flat check from Arab countries to target BJP and Hindus only, it is said.

(Emphases mine)

Does someone really have to be a genius to see right through these?

I have made a rule of thumb long time ago: Do not trust ANY forwarded e-mail at once. Most of them are nonsensical twaddles. A little research can easily reveal the truth.

The last line of this forwarded e-mail reads "PONDER OVER THIS. NOW YOU KNOW WHY EVERY ONE IS AGAINST TRUTH, HOW VERY SAD."

Really, how very sad!

Jodhaa Akbar disappoints

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:56:00 +0000

Just watched Jodhaa Akbar yesterday. It was disappointing. Stunning landscapes, spectacular forts, beautiful costumes and commendable acting by Hritik couldn't save the story and screenplay which lacked a cohesive thread. The story kept swinging back and forth between a historical anecdote and a love affair. And ended up doing full justice to neither. The extras (in battle scenes) seemed to be hugely underpaid (even more so than those in Mahabharata!). Action scenes were lousy. Overplayed melodrama and lack of humor made the 3+ hours almost difficult to endure.

The movie had its moments, but there were very few.

I didn't like the execution of Khwaja Mere Khawja song. An emotional devotion was either missing or half-heartedly performed.

If you must, watch it for (a) ARR's background score, (b) Hritik's acting (and flexing!) skills, and (c) astounding visuals.

Cause and Effect and Self Fulfilling Prophecy

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:54:00 +0000

I have been thinking about the "cause-and-effect" phenomenon in the social context. Simply put, an event-A happens, which causes or triggers event-B. Newton's Third Law (Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.) can be explained in laymen's term as: Every action has consequences. Interestingly, the Hindu philosophy takes this scientific rule and apply it to everyday life. The laws of karma imply that your current living conditions (good or bad) are actually caused by your karma (deeds, or actions) from your early life or even from your previous birth.

The situation that interests me particularly is: Cause (Event A) --> Effect (Event B) --> Cause (Event A). In other words, Action-A triggers Action-B. But then Action-B becomes trigger for Action-A. The consequence reinforces the original cause. And the wheel can keep turning forever.

I can think of a hypothetical example of a husband and wife. The husband thinks that his wife is not treating him with respect (Event A). Disappointed, he starts drinking and coming home late every day (Event B). But this just makes things worse, and his wife now actually disrespects him (Event A, again). Once this kind of rather vicious cycle is in motion, it becomes impossible to tell where exactly it started. Did the wife not treat her husband well in the beginning? Or was it just a wrong assumption on the husband's part?

Other examples comes to mind. A minority group in a society finds it difficult to get jobs in spite of having a good level of education (being discriminated and all). So they become less interested in getting college degrees and more involved with petty jobs and joining street gangs and criminal activities. This reinforces the majority group's discriminatory feelings towards the minority. Which, in turn, makes it more difficult for minority folks to get a job. And the vicious cycle continues!

Let's say you hear somewhere that road accidents are more likely to happen when you change lanes. So you try to be extra careful while changing lanes. This wavers your normal driving sense, and you become more likely to make a mistake. An accident happens. And this validates your initial belief (which might not have been true to begin with!).

These example are also related to a phenomenon called "Self fulfilling prophecy". As explained by the Thomas Theorem:

"If men defined situations as real, they are real in their consequences."

Take the story of Krishna for example. The king of Mathura, Kansa, hears a prophecy that he will be killed by his sister Devaki's son. So he puts her behind bars and plans to kill all her sons. (Don't ask me why he put both Devaki and Vasudeva in the same cell!) So Kansa kills Devaki's first six children. But the seventh (or was it 8th?) child Krishna was smuggled out of the prison. And eventually, Krishna grows up to kill Kansa. End of story. Now the question is: Was Kansa's death bound to happen by Krishna? or was it Kansa's attempts to prevent the prophecy that actually led to Krishna's birth who eventually killed him?

By the way, isn't Lord Voldermort and Harry Potter's story is somewhat similar to Kansa and Krishna's? Both have similar prophecy of antagonist's death, and the opposing characters have blood relationships.

Lord Macaulay "chaar sau bees"

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:58:00 +0000

I received a forwarded e-mail, titled "See what was [sic] India at [sic] 1835", from one of my friends. The e-mail included the following quote that was supposedly spoken or written by Lord Macaulay.

"I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation."

The validity of this quote is quite unclear. I tried to look up on-line and see if I can find any authentic source, but I found none. There are many who claim this quote as false, but none of these sources look authentic too. In any case, a quick look at Macaulay's writings and thoughts would make it clear that this man is very unlikely to utter such words of glory for anything that is Indian.

Anyway, I found couple of interesting things about Macaulay. He came to India in 1934 to serve in Supreme Court and spent about 4 years there. During his tenure in India, he made two major contributions. He created the criminal law system that was enacted in India after the Great Mutiny of 1957. This code was soon to be reproduced in many other British colonies. It was Section 420 of this code, that became a very popular cultural reference. Even today, after more than 150 years of its creation, tricksters are called chaar sau bees (Four Hundred Twenty in Hindi) in India. His second contribution is quite controversial. In 1835, he convinced the Governor General to replace Sanskrit (and Arabic) with English as the medium of higher education (6th year of schooling onwards). He wrote a well-known article called Minute on Indian Education, which played a pivotal role in convincing the British government to implement this change. [The full text can be found here]

A century and a half later, one can make an arguement that the software revolution might have never happened if it wasn't for Macaulay.

Looking at this article more closely, many of his quotes look highly dramatized and controversial. Here's one for example: "... a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.". This is an exaggerated statement at its best. The whole article is full of many such false claims and justifications, but I think there are few points that are worth giving some thought. While I strongly disagree with the construct and reasoning of his argument, I tend to agree with the core reason to opt for English because it had the necessary vocabulary to explain modern science and medicine. What makes his argument difficult to digest is his prolix claims about Sanskrit/Arabic being useless languages

"... the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India, contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are, moreover, so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them."

On the other hand, I think there's some fact in his proposition that there's very little historical information in the books written in Sanskrit (most of them are fables, poems, and shlokas), but again, his proclamation about this [read the entire text here] is full with spurious nonsensical comparisons.

Here's another interesting quote from Minute on Indian Education:

"...it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect."

This passage gave birth to the term Macaulay's Children, which is used (often in derogatory fashion) to refer to any Indian born individual who has adopted Western culture or lifestyle or values (Anglophiles that are not loyal to their own Indian heritage).

There are different school of thoughts in India that either revile or revere to Macaulay's impact on education in India. There are some dalit activists that believe that it was because of the introduction of English medium that the lowest strata of the Indian society could become even eligible to get eduction. Their claim is based on the postulation that Sanskrit was considered a sacred language, and only the upper caste Hindus were entitled to learn the scriptures and texts written in Sanskrit. Once English became lingua franca in schools, that bar was removed. [Source] And on then there are protectionists who think that Macaulay's actions was a severe blow to the native languages as well as culture. To them Macaulay has become synonymous with cultural estrangement of Hindus. [Here is an article, with saffron color sprinkled all over, on Hindu Jagruti web-site.] According to such measures, the four biggest enemies of Hindu Dharama are: Muslims, Missionaries, Marxists and Macaulayites... known as the 4 M's!

For further reading, here's a link to Ramachandra Guha's take on Macaulay's Minute. And the Wikipedia link.

M. F. Hussain for Bharat Ratna?

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:22:00 +0000

Recently, the issue on M. F. Hussain being nominated (as a result of a popular poll) by NDTV for Bharat Ratna award (India's highest civilian award for national service) came to my attention, which in turn, led me to do a little research about this.

There are a lot of controversies going on around M. F. Hussain's paintings. Some of his paintings showed Hindu gods and goddesses in nude. Several years ago there was another controversial painting by him that showed the Bharat Mata (Mother India) nude.

Apparently, the Hindu Personal Law Board (a private organization) has announced Rs. 51 Crore reward for beheading him. There were some more rewards offered by others for gouging out his eyes, or chopping off his hands. I am really astonished by the instances of these kinds of "Hindu fatwa". Over the years, we had seen Islamic fundamentalists to use fatwa against so called infidels or non-believers , but lately more and more fatwa are being summoned by Hindu groups/activists in India. (There was one issued by a VHP sadhu for murdering Karunanidhi, after his notorious comments about Lord Rama's credentials and eventually questioning his existence.)

All these allegations, several "fatwa", violent protests and litigation (mostly by right-wing activists), pushed M. F. Hussain, who is now 91, into a self-imposed exile. He's charged with "hurting the sentiments of people because of his nude portraits of Hindu gods and goddesses".

In 1989, Salman Rushdie, probably the greatest author alive, was forced to live under police protection for years after a fatwa was proclaimed by an Islamic leader (Ayatollah Khomeini) requiring Rushdie's execution. I wonder how different that fatwa is, from the one that's declared for the death of Hussain.

I am not going to comment on whether Hussain is eligible to receive Bharat Ratna award or not, because I know little about his achievements as an artist. There's a little doubt that M. F. Hussain is one of the most renowned contemporary painter though. Forbes magazine called him "Picasso of India" [source]. For comparison, here's a list of some other artists who received this prestigious award: Satyajit Ray, Lata Mangeshkar, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Bismillah Khan. In any case, if the government decides to give him this award (which, I think, is unlikely), it is bound to create huge controversy, especially among the Hindu fundamentalists. (And God forbid if that triggers communal violence.)

I think the bigger question we're dealing with here is: Is our society being fair with the artists? Are politicians and fundamentalists in India destroying the artistic freedom in our country?

If an artist has to make sure that no sentiments are going to get hurt by his/her creation, how much would that impact his/her creativity? I think the impact can be huge. There's an intangible cost that an artist has to pay by curbing his/her creativity & imagination, which in turn the society will also have to (indirectly) incur. An argument can be made that there has to be a limit to freedom of expression. But where exactly should we draw the line, if we have to?

It's just not possible to define this boundary. What is acceptable to one group of individuals can be offensive to another. And the whole thing becomes more complicated when we add politicians, that are wholeheartedly eager to manipulate those sentiments and turn them into votes, into the mix. If we start to foster all little disagreements and offenses, then it's only going to make matter worse. (For example, few weeks ago, a Hindu group got offended by the dress an actress - Shreya - wore in an award ceremony, and files a police complaint. They felt that the dress was "provocative and offended the Hindu culture".)

I think that protecting the fundamental rights of expression should be one of the main goals of a liberal democratic and morally healthy society. We, the people, need to learn to become more tolerant and learn not to get insulted at the mere drop of a hat. In case some individuals find a particular matter very offensive, there are ways to protest peacefully (as opposed to declaring a "fatwa"). The legal system can intervene if needed.

By the way, it's not only right-wing Hindus who have issues with Hussain. Several years ago, some Muslim organization raised objection to one of the songs (a qawwali) he wrote for his own movie Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities . The song is called "Noor-Un-Ala-Noor'. Since he used some words in this qawwali that were directly taken from Quran, it was considered blasphemous.

Jodha Akbar Music Review

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:21:00 +0000

After a long wait and unexpected delays, here comes the latest offering from A. R. Rahman (aka arr).

The album opens with Azeem-O-Shaan Shahenshah which will virtually take you right to the battlefield! Bugles, heavy drums and percussion, chorus that sounds much like a war-cry, all together create such an environment that makes your feet tapping and your heart beating with an adrenalin rush. Wait till you hear the mind-blowing percussion before the second antaraa. Also, the progression from "Chan Chanan Nan Nan" to "Marhaba Ho Marhaba" is really catchy. A perfect introductory song for the mighty Emperor Akbar. "Jeetna Kahen Hum, Utna Kam Hai; Tehzeebon Ka, Tu Sangam Hai.". Akbar's efforts to bring two cultures together, are aptly captured in words here by Javed Akhtar.

One thing I am a little confused about is: how the King is addressed as "Tu" in this song, as in "Tu Shaan-E-Hindustan". When it comes to showing respect, Urdu language is actually very particular about the emphasis on politeness (called takalluf or aadaab). Addressing someone, who is not extremely intimate, as "Tu" is considered informal and even derogatory. [source]

Jashn-E-Bahaara stole my heart at the first listening. Javed Ali is at his best. Lyrics by Javed saab are just awesome. The opening words "Kehne Ko" adds very imaginative irony to the fact that love is considered a joyous celebration, but love itself is bemused ("Ishq Yeah Dekh Ke Hairaan Hai") by that because there seem to be many shades of pain along with the colors of joy ("Chhupa Hai Koi Ranj Fiza Ki Chilman Mein"). I think this song has all the ingredients and potential to work very well with the masses.

The lines "Ishq Yeah Dekh Ke Hairaan Hai" reminded me of Gulzar's "Aye Hairat-E-Aashiqui" from Guru.
Also, the starting chords (some Arabic/Persian version of acoustic guitar?) of this song sounded somewhat similar to the lines "Tinak Tinak Tin Tara" from "Imli Ka Boota" song from Saudagar movie (Music was by Laxmikant Pyarelal). The tunes are not identical though, there's a vague similarity, which I am pretty sure, is totally accidental.

Arr has always wowed me with his Sufi Qawwali type songs: "Piya Haji Ali" from Fiza, "Noor-Un-Ala-Noor" from Meenaxi, "Zikr" from Bose, and "Al Maddath Maula" from Mangal Pandey. Here's one more which belongs to that "Sufi cannon" of arr gems, Khwaja Mere Khwaja. Although, I have to confess that this song didn't leave a lasting impression on me (when I compare it with the other songs mentioned above) from first few hearings, I am pretty sure that this song will grow on me slowly, like an aged wine!

This qawwali is very well suited for this movie, especially because Akbar was a devout bhakt of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti. [source]
Arr seem to be working hard on his Hindi pronunciations, as it seem to improve with each Hindi song he sings. However, there are some flaws, like how he pronounces chhaaya for example, that I am not sure if it's because of his singing style, or because of the fact that his native language - Tamil - alphabet, lacks the letter chh.)

Add Mira's devotion and pang of separation to Radha's passion for Kanha and you get the recipe for the next devotional song (bhajan) Mann Mohana. Bela Shende's pleasant voice is very well suited for this bhajan. The set-up of this song and minimalist musical arrangement is pretty similar to the songs from Water.

My pick from the album would be In Lamho Ke Daaman Mein - probably because I am partial to Sonu's honeydew voice and flawless pronunciations and also to arr's knack for fusion songs. How wonderfully arr has combined Javed saab's Urdu poetry, with Arabic instruments and style, with Hindustani classical alaaps in between, with choir-ish interludes! I loved the part where Sonu sings along with the chorus "Kyon Hai Yeh Aarzoo, Kyon Hai Yeh Justajoo...".

Notice how Javed Akhar has carefully used Urdu words (pakeeza, qalma, fariste, falak etc.) for the lines that are written for Akbar (who, as we all know, was a muslim), and used Hindi words for the lines that are written for Akbar's hindu princess Jodha (samay as opposed to waqt, kaaya as opposed to jism/badan, prem as opposed to ishq). Kudos to Javed saab!
This choir based interludes gave me deja-vu feeling and reminded me of the - much milder and mallow - chorus "Donston Se Joothi Moothi" that breaks out in between antaraas of another arr classic: "Chupke Se" from Saathiya.)

There are two instrumental versions in the album, which are quite good (especially the Oboe Instrumental piece).

Overall, Jodha Akbar is another great album by arr. An instant classic. I have been continuously listening to these songs since last few days, and I can't get enough of it. We had to wait really long for the release of this album, but it was completely worth it!

Having said that, I am not very sure if this is going to work well with the masses or not. Two concerns comes to mind: (1) Some songs (especially two devotional songs) are only for ardent arr fans, and (2) The wonderful Urdu poetry by Javed Akhtar would be difficult for many to understand - and this can hinder the overall catchiness of the songs.

Here's a complete track-list [source]:

Song	Singer(s)
Azeem-O-Shaan Shahenshah	Mohd. Aslam, Bonny Chakravarti & chorus
Jashn-E-Bahaara	Javed Ali
Khwaja Mere Khwaja	A. R. Rahman (Lyrics: Kashif)
In Lamhon Ke Daaman Mein	Sonu Nigam & Madhushree
Mann Mohana	Bela Shende
Jashn-e-Baharaa	Instrumental - Flute
Khwaja Mere Khawaja	Instrumental - Oboe

A timeline of political & social events in INDIA AFTER GANDHI

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:53:00 +0000

I recently finished reading a fascinating, comprehensive book “India After Gandhi” written by respected scholar and historian Ramachandra Guha.

Below I have tried to capture most of the significant events that took place in India in and after 1947. I have tried my best to capture most of the events, at least the ones that are mentioned in this book. This, by no means, is a complete time-line.

1947

India gets Independence form British rule on 15^th August. (The date is chosen by Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, as it was the second anniversary of the day when Japanese army surrendered to the Allied force in the 2^nd World War.)
Pakistan is created by partitioning India. Millions die in clashes and religious conflicts between Hindus and Muslims and especially Sikhs and Muslims.
Jawaharlal Nehru becomes the first Prime Minister of Independent India
Travancore (the first princely state to question the right of the Congress to succeed the British rule) finally decides to accede to Indian Union after C. P. Ramaswamy Aiyer, the chief advisor and diwan of Travancore is attacked by a man.
Bhopal (Hindu majority, Muslim ruler) and Jodhpur (Hindu majority, Hindu ruler, but because of its proximity to Pakistan the king was alluded by the idea of getting better terms from that Dominion) also follows Travancore’s example and signs the instrument of accession.
Junagadh’s Muslim nawab (ruling chiefly Hindu population) gets acceptance from Pakistan to join the Dominion, but due to obvious popular agitation, ten days later the nawab (Sir Shah Nawaz) hands over the administration to India. (A referendum was held in February 1948, resulting in 91% voting in favor of acceding to India.)
The Hindu maharaja of Kashmir Hari Singh signs the Instrument of Accession after several thousand armed men (mostly Pathans from Pakistan) invads his state from the North. India, in turn, sends its troops to fight with the intruders. (It was Mountbatten who suggested that it would be best to secure Kashmir state’s accession before sending troops.)
A delegation of Naga National Council (most autonomous among the tribes in North-East) meets governor of Assam to discuss the terms by which Nagas can join Indian Union. Nehru reiterated that they could get autonomy but not independence.

1948

Mahatma Gandhi is shot dead by a Hindu chauvinist and an RSS member from Maharashtra – Nathuram Godse on 30^th January.
Gandhi’s death reconciles the bitter relationship between Nehru and Patel, which could otherwise have significant negative consequences for the nation.
India sends troops and took control over the State of Hyderabad (85% Hindus, but army, police and civil service were dominated by Muslims). This becomes easier decision to make for Patel after Mountbatten’s departure from India.
India decides to take Kashmir issue to UN. But as UN supported Pakistan’s position, Nehru immediately regrets his decision.
Sheikh Abdulla (pro-India and Nehru’s close friend) becomes the prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan and India battles in the later months of 1948, India recaptures Dras, Kargil and Poonch.
Jaipal Singh (president of Adivasi Mahashbha) gives his presidential speech and asks for speedy creation of Jharkhand. (He speaks of how “British imperialism” is being replaced by “Bihari Imperialism” for Adivasis after independence.)

1949

India becomes a full-fledged republic on 26^th January. This date was originally chosen by Indian National Congress in 1930, when it passed a countrywide resolution of celebrating last Sunday of January (26^th) in support of purna swaraj.
To Nehru’s annoyance, Rajendra Prasad who was close to Patel and had wider popularity in Congress, (not C. Rajagopalachari who was the Governor General and Nehru’s friend) becomes the first President.
Nehru visits US for the first time. His visit is widely covered and publicized by American press, but his meetings with the US State Department went nowhere.
A popular movement forces the maharaja of Manipur to join with India. After Manipur merges with India, the territory is designated as “Part C” state. (It has no popularly elected body and is ruled by a chief commissioner who reports directly to Delhi.)

1950

The constitution of India (with 395 articles and 8 schedules – it’s probably the longest in the world) goes into effect in January. The most influential (out of more than 300) members of the Constituent Assembly were: Nehru, Patel, Rajendra Prasad who was the president of the assembly, the chairman of the Drafting Committee B. R. Ambedkar, a Gujarati polymath K. M. Munshi and a Tamil advocate general Krishnaswami Aiyar.
Nehru criticizes China’s invasion and annexation of Tibet, while being careful of not “overdoing” the criticism. Patel urges Nehru to strengthen defence, but Nehru thinks that attack from China is unlikely.
Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel dies.
By this time, more than 500 “centers of feudal autocracy” had been acceded to India. Patel’s achievement owes hugely to his secretary V. P. Menon (a Malyali from Malabar) who was the chief draftsman of princely integration and its first chronicler.

1951

Respected Gandhian J. B. Kripalani forms KMPP (Kisan Majdoor Praja Party).
American congress debates the food request from India, while Soviet Union sends 50,000 tons of wheat loosening its frosty relationship (due to CPI in India) in early last few years.
A disciple of Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave begins his Bhoodan movement (which would eventually obtain more than 4 million acres from zamindars.)
Nehru and Ambedkar make several attempts to pass the (liberal) Hindu Code Bill into law but the opposition was considerable within Parliament as well as outside of it. RSS was amongst the many groups that fiercely opposed it.

1952

First general election in independent India, which chooses to move straight into universal adult franchise. (Chief Election Commissioner is Sukumar Sen)
At that time, 175 million Indians were aged 21 or more, and 85% of them could not read or write.
60% of the total registered voters exercise their franchise in what was termed as “the biggest experiment in democracy in human history” by Sukumar Sen.
Congress receives 45% of the vote and wins 75% of the seats.
The Akali Dal leader master Tara Singh (originally Hindu, later converted to Sikh) is arrested again for making “inflammatory” speeches during election. He started making claims that Sikhism was in danger and insisted on having a separate nation for his religion.
After the election, Andhra movement (statehood for Telugu speaking people) becomes strong again.
A man named Potti Sriramulu begins fast until death. Nehru ignores this. Sriramulu dies on fifty-eighth day into this fast, pulling huge reaction from Andhra public.
Several months after Potti Sriramulu’s death, after damage to the state property runs in millions, a new state of Andhra Pradesh is carved out of Madras state.
The situation becomes worse in Jammu after Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee’s death. Mookerjee (who left Nehru’s cabinet to form Bhartiya Jana Sangh) dies in jail after trying to enter Srinagar against state government’s will.
Naga National Council’s chief Angami Phizo meets with Nehru, but Nehru is adamant about not giving independence to Nagas.

1953

Sheikh Abdulla is dismissed from National Congress and arrested after the rift broke between the two segments of the party: one pro-India and the other pro-independence of Kashmir. Ghulam Mohammed (famously known as “Bakshi”) becomes the new pro-Indian populist prime minister of Kashmir.
Naga National Council leaders start collecting arms, organize “village guards” and go underground. Police raids suspected areas further alienating the villagers. Indian Army’s presence considerably increases in the area.

1954

By this time, India has total 40 embassies around the world. (The goal was set by Nehru five years ago, after he personally supervised the creation of Indian Foreign Service.)
India officially recognizes Tibet as a part of China, and Nehru visits China for the first time.
French finally gives up its territory Pondicherry to India.
Nehru visits the site of Bhakhra (Sutlej river) dam to formally initiate the project. At this time, the 680 feet dam was the second highest in the world. (Only the Grand Coulee Dam on Colorado River was higher.)
The first IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) is inaugurated by Nehru.

1955

After 18 months of intensive work, The State Recognition Committee submits its report with recommendations about redistributing the areas (into states).
The new states based on languages come into being. (Although Nehru was opposed to the creation of states on lingual basis, it was inevitable after SRC’s report that further strengthened the popular will.)
Hindu Marriage Act and Hindu Succession passes into law. The radical changes in Hindu laws pertaining to marriage & inheritance were mainly the work of Nehru and Ambedkar.

1956

In a colorful and well-attended ceremony, Ambedkar converts to Buddhism in Nagpur. Many dalits joined him in the conversion.
(Six weeks later) Ambedkar dies in December after months of ill health, diabetes and complications thereof.
The newly formed Naga Hills Force is on full scale war on the Naga Hills – not getting any coverage from both Indian and International press.

1957

Second general elections are held in India. Thus, India “certifiably” joins the league of democracies. Sukumar Sen is still the chief election commissioner.
Slightly less than 50% adult Indians votes out of total 193 million who registered to vote.
Mrs. Indira Gandhi becomes Nehru’s official hostess during the election campaign.
Since S. P. Mookerjee was dead and Jayaprakash Narayan had abandoned politics for social work, Congress gets a comfortable majority in the parliament (371 seats).
Congress faces regional challenges: In Orissa Congress is strongly opposed by Ganatantra Parishad (local landlords), in Bombay by Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti and Mahagujarat Parishad (both fighting for separate states), in South by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), In Kerala by Communist Party of India (CPI).
The victory of CPI in Kerala is noteworthy. The first chance for communist to govern a full-fledged province in a large country. E. M. S. Namboodiripad becomes the new chief minister of Kerala.
The Mundhra scandal (large investments were made by state owned Life Insurance Company in a private first in Kanpur owned by Haridas Mundhra) makes the first serious dent in Congress’ image of Gandhian austerity.

1959

The first molten iron comes out of the blast furnace in Bhilai, Madhya Pradesh where Russians and Indians worked shoulder to shoulder to lay the foundations of iron industry in India. (The Germans built one plant in Rurkela, Orissa and the British in Durgapur, West Bengal. America didn’t get any such agreements.)
Mrs. Indira Gandhi is elected the president of Indian National Congress.
Nehru’s government succumbs to popular sentiment and dismisses Kerala’s Communist government.
C. Rajagopalachari (a.k.a. Rajaji) launches a new political party, Swatantra Party. (He firmly believed that there should be an opposition group within the Congress, but his proposal to do so was rejected by Congress.)
Dalai Lama crosses the McMahon line and enters the territory of India, making the Indo-Chinese relationship even more bitter and resentful.

1960

The states of Gujarat and Maharashtra come into being on May 1^st. Bombay gets allocated to the latter.
The Naga people’s convention presents a memorandum to the prime minister demanding a separate state of Nagaland within Indian Union. With Naga question successfully internationalized (by the fierce leader A. Phizo), Nehru succumbs and declares that a new state Nagaland will be craved out of Assam.

1961

After waiting for 14 years for a peaceful solution with the Portuguese colony, Nehru’s government decides to “liberate” Goa. Indian troops enters Goa and successfully finishes Operation Vijay.

1962

Congress retains its majority in the general elections (361 seats out of 494).
A “phony war” that had been going on since 1959 becomes real when Chinese army invades the eastern (northeast frontier area south of McMahon line and north part of Assam and western (Aksai Chin area south of Sinkiang and east part of Jammu & Kashmir) sectors. Indians were unprepared for this. V. K. Krishna Menon is finally removed from the post of defense minister.
Surprisingly, Chinese announce unilateral ceasefire. In NEFA they pulls back to the north of McMahon line and in the Ladakh sector they retreat to their positions before these hostilities began. (By this time, according to Defence Ministry’s statistics, 1,383 Indian soldiers got killed, 3,968 became POW, and 1,696 were still missing.)
In the aftermath of the war, DMK (headed by C. N. Annadurai) dropped its secessionism. It no longer wanted a separate country, but it did want to protect the culture and language of Tamil speaking people.
The state of Nagaland is created.

1964

Nehru’s illness becomes sever. He persuades the party to return Lal Bahadur Shastri to the Cabinet. Shastri becomes the de facto prime minister.
Jawaharlal Nehru dies. Gulzarilal Nanda is sworn in a acting prime minister.
Congress Working Committee finalizes on Lal Bahadur Shastri as Nehru’s successor. (Other contenders were: A Tamilian K. Kamraj, the congress president, and Morarji Desai, an outstanding administrator from Gujarat who made it clear that he wanted the job.)
China tests a nuclear device. Dr. Homi Bhabha gives a talk on All India Radio suggesting that India should develop a nuclear deterrent of its own.

1965

As 26^th January, 1965 approached, opponents of Hindi geared up for action. (The constitution that went into effect in 1950, gave fifteen years of grace period when English was to be used along with Hindi in communication between center and state. After 15 years, Hindi would prevail.)
After several protests in Madras, appeals signed by leading politicians of the time (from Madras, Bengal, Mysore), and resignation of two union ministers, Shastri gave in and declared that (a) every state will have the right to do their own business in language of their own choice, (b) inter-state communications will either be in English or accompanied by an authentic English translator, (c) non-Hindi states will be free to correspond to the Center in English, (d) in the transaction of business at the Center English will be continued to be used, and (e) Indian Civil Services examination would continue to be conducted in English.
Sheikh Abdulla, while returning from his trip to Mecca, stops at Algiers and meets with Chinese prime minister (who also happened to be in Algerian capital). He is taken under arrest as soon as he arrives at New Delhi.
A conflict broke over a salt marsh in Kachchh desert which was claimed by both India and Pakistan. Pakistan (president – Ayub Khan) used their American tanks successfully, forcing Indians to withdraw some 40 miles.
In the late summer, Pakistan army starts off Operation Gibraltar in Kashmir to invoke rebellion in the region. As the rebellion did not get materialized, they condemned Operation Grand Slam in Jammu. Indians head straight for Lahor (whether Lahor fell or not remains a disputed question.) Both sides claim victory.
Shastri becomes the first prime minister to increase the budget for agriculture. (Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan.)

1966

By this time, only 1.77% of senior administrative posts were occupied by low-caste Indians, 8.86% of clerical jobs and as many as 17.9% of posts of peons and attendents.
Shastri and Pakistani President Ayub Khan meet in Taskent along with the Soviet Union Prime Minister Kosygin, and signs “Taskent Agreemetn”.
On the same night Lal Bahadur Shashtri dies in sleep, of cardiac arrest.
Gulzarilal Nanda is (once again) sworn in as acting prime minister.
Congress president Kamraj endorse Indira Gandhi’s name. But Morarji Desai decides to contest for the leadership.
Indira Gandhi becomes the second woman elected to lead a free country (after Ceylon’s Sirimavo Bandarnaike).
Mizo National Front (which first sought a separate state and then a separate country) launches uprising against Indian government.
The government decides to devalue the Rupee. The exchange rate (earlier pegged at $1 = Rs. 4.76) became $1=Rs. 7.50.
Punjab and Hariyana stated divide. Cahndigadh remains as capital for both.

1967

Fourth general election since independence.
Congress retains majority, but the % of votes decline from previous elections.
In 22 of the 75 constituencies in Kashmir, Congress candidates are returned unopposed, after the rival’s nomination papers gets rejected.
P. N. Haksar, a Kashmiri Brahman, then the deputy high commissioner is London is asked by Indira Gandhi to join her Secretariat. (Since then, until 1973 he remains probably the most influential and powerful person in the government.)
After the banks were nationalized, Mrs. Gandhi turns to abolition of the privileges of the prices.

1969

One of the worst communal riots after independence takes place in Ahmedabad on Mahatma’s 100^th birth anniversary. More than 1000 people die.

1971

The Prime Minister calls for the election 14 months ahead of its schedule (astutely disassociating the general elections from the elections of the state assemblies).
The size of the electorate in nation’s fifth general election: 275 million.
Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress (I) wins the election with comfortable majority.
India starts hosting training camps for Bengali guerrillas (known as “Mukti Bahini”) preparing them to wage a war against East Pakistan army.
Early December Pakistani bombers (under general Yahya Khan) attack airfields all along the western border, and simultaneously 7 regiments are attacked in Kashmir.
The war lasts little less than 2 weeks. The Indian army moved to Dacca from four directions, and formally recognizes the Provisional Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Pakistani troops surrender.
By this time, sex ratio in India is 931 women to 1000 men. While 39% of males can read or write, but only 18.4% of females can.

1974

Students in Gajarat lead a movement, named Nav Nirman, demanding the dismissal of the state government, which was quite notorious for corruption. (Chimanbhai Patel is the Chief Minister of Gujarat.) The movement becomes violent, and Gujarat comes under “President’s Rule” as a result.
The Republic of India acquires a chunk of territory that previously constituted the quasi-independent state of Sikkim. (Previously, Sikkim was ruled by is hereditary monarch but it was politically and economically dependent on India.)

1975

Indira Gandhi becomes India’s first Prime Minister to testify in court (for the hearing of a petition filed by Ra Narain who had lost to Mrs. Gandhi in the Parliamentary election in 1971, the petition alleged that she won the election through corrupt practices).
On 26^th June, state of emergency is declared in India. Many opposition leaders, including, Jayprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, are sent to jail. Sanjay Gandhi becomes Prime Minister’s close associate during this time of crucial political importance.

1977

To the surprise of Mrs. Gandhi’s political opponents, she announces that Parliament was to be dissolved and elections were to be held. (Precisely what or who persuaded the Prime Minister to end the emergency? Remains a mystery.)
Congress faces a wider wash-out in the North, but performs somewhat well in South. For the first time in the nation’s 30-year history, a party other than the Congress (Janata Party) would govern at the Centre.
The “grand old men” behind Janata Party – Jayprakash Narayan and J. B. Kripalani – chooses Morarji Desai for the post of Prime Minister. External affairs department goes to Atal Behari Vajpayee.
DMK’s 10-year rule comes to an end. M. G. Ramachandran’s (MGR) charisma and charm brings AIADMK victory in the state elections.
Under pressure from the backward caste’s lobby within Janata, Morarji Desai appoints a commission to examine whether reservation should also be extended to the jobs in Central Government. The commission was headed by a politician from Bihar, B. P. Mandal.

1978

Jimmy Carter comes to visit India, the first US president to do so since Eisenhower.
External Affairs minister Vajpayee visits Pakistan and charms the hosts, the dictator Zia-Ul-Haq included, who thought that Vajpayee as a Jana Sangh man, would be anti-muslim and anti-Pakistan.

1979

Morarji Desai resigns after Janata Party splits into three parts: headed by Morarji Desai, Jagjivan Ram and Charan Singh.
Jayprakash Narayan dies after the disintegration of Janata Party.
Charan Singh is sworn as Prime Minster, but a month later Indira’s Congress (I) withdraws support, which forces a mid-term election.

1980

Mrs. Gandhi, now sixty-three, returns to power as a result of the mid-term election.
Sanjay Gandhi dies in a plane accident. He did three loops in the air, tried a fourth but lost control. Due to this, Mrs. Gandhi’s elder son Rajiv Gandhi, feels increasing pressure to enter politics.
By early 1980s the movement in the tribal state of Jharkhand takes more militant form. Naxalites activists, arrested during the emergency but released afterwards, makes their presence felt in the tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh. The Asamese Nationalist movement (originally born out of hostilities between Asamese and Bengali speaking people in Asam) acquires gigantic proportions.
In Punjab, when Akalis were dismissed and Congress took power, a group of students meets at the Golden Temple and proclaims an independent state of Punjab. The republic is named Khalistan.
The state of Gujarat was convulsed by clashes between forward and backward classes.
After Janata Party was routed in the elections, its Jana Sangh members broke away to form a new party – Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) – to represent and advance he “Hindu” interest.

1982

A great film actor N. T. Rama Rao (NTR) forms a new regional political party, Telugu Desam, which stands for “the honor and self-respect for the 60 million Telugu speaking people”. A year later, he will be sworn as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.
Sheikh Abdulla dies, and Farooq Abdullah takes his father’s job.

1983

After years of terrorism and killings, President’s Rule is imposed on Punjab. And Bhindranwale (an obscure preacher) takes up residence in Akal Takht at the Golden Temple.

1984

Attacks on Hindu and some Sikh civilians become more frequent in Punjab. Major General R. S. Brar is summoned by the Prime Minster to lead the operation to rid the Golden Temple of terrorism.
The Operation Bluestar finishes successfully after death of (government estimates) 4 officers, 70 soldiers and around 500 terrorists. Outside Punjab, many people appreciated Mrs. Gandhi’s strong and necessary (if belated) actions, but this left a collective wound on the psyche of Sikhs (even those Sikhs who previously opposed Bhindranwale).
Indira Gandhi is shot dead by two of her Sikh personal bodyguards.
Violence follows Mrs. Gandhi’s death, more than 1,000 Sikhs dies in Delhi alone. The police simply looked on, or sometimes even actively aided the looting and murder.
In the worst industrial accident in human history, 2,000 people die due to the release of MIC (methyl isocyanate) in Bhopal. It came from a pesticide plant owned and run by an American firm, Union Carbide.
18^th general election in Indian takes place in December.

1985

Rajiv Gandhi becomes the Prime Minister after sweeping majority in the parliamentary election with more than 400 seats.
The first budget by Rajiv Gandhi’s government (Finance Minister: V. P. Singh) seeks to liberalize trade sector. Licensing regime is simplified, with crucial sectors such as machine tools, textiles, drugs and computers are deregulated. Curbs on assets of individual companies are partially lifted, and rates of corporate and personal income tax are reduced.
In the famous “Shah Bano verdict”, the Supreme Court dismisses Mohammed Ahmed Khan (Shah Bano’s ex-husband) and confirms that Khan would have to continue paying Shah Bano monthly allowance. (Khan’s argument was that according to Islamic Law he was responsible to pay allowance for only three months. SC invoked section 125 of the Criminal Procedure code, whereby a divorced woman was entitled to claim an allowance from her former husband if he had taken another wife – as Khan did – and if she had not remarried – as was the case with Bano.)
Reliance experiences growth rates unprecedented in Indian industry. Through the 1980s, the company’s asset grows at an estimated 60% per year.

1986

Succumbing the pressure from Islamist lobby, the government introduced a Muslim Women’s Bill (which eventually became law) in Parliament that sought to overturn the Supreme Court verdict, by taking the Muslim personal law out of the purview of the Criminal Procedure Code.
The government of India signs a peace agreement with the leader of Mizo National Front. By its terms, the MNF rebels lays down their arms and government says it would grant full statehood to Mizoram. (The model here was the agreement of 1975 in Kashmir when Sheikh Abdullah came into power in similar fashion.)
The district judge of Ayodhya (in Uttar Pradesh) ordered that the locks be opened to permit worship at a small Hindu shrine, which was located inside a large mosque (known as Babri Masjid) built in 16^th century by a general of the Mughal emperor Babur.
In Bengal, the Nepali-speaking people in Darjeeling hill area begins asking for a separate state under the leadership of former soldier Subhash Ghisingh. Eventually, the prime minister persuades him to accept an autonomous hill council rather than a separate state.
In Tripura, tribal activists begins struggle against the Bengalis who had migrated in large numbers after the partition.
To tackle the resurgence of terrorism in Punjab, a new chief is brought in K. P. S. Gill.

1987

Episodes of Ramayana started showing in January on national telecast (Doordarshan). Estimated viewer-ship is 80 million.
Bad monsoon causes famines in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Orissa and many other parts of the country affecting about 200 million people by one estimate.
Rajiv Gandhi is asked by Sri Lankan president, J. R. Jayaverden, to help mediate the conflict - a bloody civil war between Sinhala majority and Tamil minority. As many as 48,000 soldiers are eventually stationed in Sri Lanka. This became very unpopular especially among the Tamils who always thought that India was on their side.
A storm breaks out over the revelation that commissions had been paid to the middlemen in a deal involving the sale of the Swedish Bofors guns to the Indian Army. V. P. Singh leaves the cabinet as well as Congress.
Studies show that class (still) strongly overlaps with caste in India, where the truly disadvantaged continues to be Harijans or Scheduled Castes. (For example, a survey in Karnataka reveals that 80% of the SCs living in countryside and as well as more than 60% of SCs living in towns are below the official poverty line.)

1988

India tests its first surface-to-surface missile, capable to attacking targets that are as far as 100 miles away.
V. P. Singh’s party Jana Morcha is merged with the old Janata Party to form Janata Dal, and becomes the focal point for anti-Congress sentiment.

1989

Rajiv Gandhi visits China – the first prime minister to do so in last three decades.
Congress faces serious challenges in the General elections from: Asom Gana Parishad in Assam, Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh, Akalis in Punjab, and from the Hindu right – Bharatiya Janata Party. Congress wins only 197 seats, down from more than 200 from its previous tally.
The general elections of 1989 were the first in which no single party won a majority.
V. P. Singh is sworn as the head of National Front government, with the left an BJP choosing to support it from outside. (Singh becomes the second non-Congress prime minister of India, who, like his the first, spent most of his life in Congress.)

I had to end the timeline at 1989, as the events after that are only sparsely captured in this book. (The reason is that, as Guha says, it’s always becomes very difficult to remain impartial while analyzing events that are more recent. Guha explains in his book, “Those who write contemporary history know that they are not addressing a passive reader of text placed in front of him. The reader is also a citizen, a critical citizen, with his own political and ideological preferences.”)

Changing status from H-4 to F-1 in the US

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:34:00 +0000

Recently (October 2007) we applied for a Change in Non-immigration status for my wife. And I just thought I should share some information with someone who might be looking for it.

My wife entered in the US on H-4 visa in May 2007, after getting married with me. (I am on H-1B visa.) After coming here, she wanted to pursue Master's degree in Architecture. She could, in fact, study while being on H-4 visa, but there were some drawbacks in doing so: She would not be able to work (part-time on campus, or full-time internship etc.) if she's on H-4 visa, and (2) She would not become eligible for OPT (Optional Practical Training, which allows students to work for any employer, without requiring any sponsorship, for one year after the completion of studies) if she studies while on H-4 visa. You have to be on a Student visa in order to become eligible for OPT.

There's a form called I-539 that the applicant has to submit to apply for change in non-immigration status (this is the same form that one would submit for extension of non-immigration status. You can go the the following link and click on “Immigration Forms” to download I-539 form: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/usci. The filing fee is $300 (as of January 2008).

Here's a list of all the documents that we submitted (sent by FedEx) to the service center:

Copy of non-blank pages from applicant's passport. No need to send copies of empty pages.
Applicant's original I-94 (front & back) Upon approval you'll receive a new I-94 card which will reflect your new F-1 status.
My (applicant's sponsor) Bank Statement/Proof of funding (notarized) The balance should be more than enough to cover the studies and living expenses.
Financial Support Statement (signed by me, notarized) This is where the sponsor (if any) puts in writing that he/she will take care of the applicant's studies and living expenses.
Copy of my I-94 (front & back)
Copy of my I-797 (H1-B approval notice) This is important, because if H-1B visa holder has maintained a legal status in the US, that means that the applicant also have maintained his/her status.
Copy of my I-129 (Petition for Non-immigrant worker)
Copy of our marriage certificate
Original I-539 application form
Original Student copy of I-20 You will receive this I-20 back reflecting the new status.
A Cover Letter This is where you would mention your purpose for applying for change of status/further studies. You can mention here that you have no intention to stay in the US after completion of your studies (remember, unlike H1-B, F-1 is not a dual intent visa), you can also re-affirm here that you will maintain your status as a full time student.
Check of $300 made payable to USCIS

We submitted the application on October 23, 2007 (receipt date) and the case was approved on January 10, 2007. The F-1 is valid for the entire duration of her studies (specific date is not mentioned). Her original I-20 was returned with the approval notice (I-797).

Once the application is filed, within two weeks you'll receive a receipt issued by the service center. This receipt will have your case number that you can use to check the status using the following link: https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/jsps/index.jsp. You might just want to create a customer portfolio account and add your case number. You can enable the e-mail notification option so an e-mail will be sent to you every time there's any change in the status of your application.

The sequence of Hindi alphabet

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:42:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered if there's any specific reason why the Hindi alphabet follow a particular sequence?

The overall sequence of all alphabet has a specific order. The order of the letters depends on the place (in the mouth) where it is pronounced. The sound of the letters in the alphabet start from the back (deep) of the throat and steadily moves upwards & outwards to the front of the mouth (towards lips).

क ख ग घ -- back of the mouth (i.e. velar)

च छ ज झ -- mid-point in mouth (i.e. palatal)

ट ठ ड ढ -- back in mouth with tongue curled (i.e. retroflex)

त थ द ध -- touching teeth (i.e. dental)

प फ ब भ म -- from closed lips (i.e. bilabial)

So when one speaks Hindi alphabet, the sound (of the letters) constantly moves outwards starting from the bottom of the mouth and ending towards the front of the mouth. Isn't that fascinating?

And that's not all. Each group of letters above (usually grouped in four), are also arranged in specific sequence. Take first four letters for instance: क ख ग घ.

क -- non-voiced, non-aspirated

ख -- non-voiced, aspirated

ग -- voiced, non-aspirated

घ -- voiced, aspirated

Definitions: A consonant is called "voiced" if, while pronouncing, it makes the vocal cords vibrate. And the consonant is "aspirated" if it produces a strong burst of air with the sound. You can put a candle in front of your mouth and pronounce ka and kha to see the difference.

The same sequence (non-voiced/non-aspirated to voiced/aspirated) follows for:

च छ ज झ

त थ द ध

... and so on!

Talking about Hindi alphabet, I found that there is some confusion between the sounds of: झ and ज़, and also between फ and फ़. Note the difference between the pronunciations of these letters below:

झ – /jha/ pronounced with the tongue touching the roof of the mount (palatal) as in झलक, मुझसे

ज़ – /za/ pronounced without the tongue touching the roof of the mount (like a whistling sound) as in मज़ा, ज़ख़्म, ज़िंदगी

फ – /pha/ pronounced from closed lips (aspirated sound) as in फूल, फिर

फ़ – /fa/ pronounced with the lower lips touching the upper front teeth (aspirated sound) as in फ़रेब, बेवफ़ा

Not everyone realizes that the original Hindi alphabet don't have the letters ज़ and फ़. These two letters are (among others like क़, ख़, ग़) borrowed from Urdu. Note that these letters are specified by using standard Hindi letters but placing a dot (.) at the bottom. Because of this confusion between standard Hindi letters and borrowed Urdu letters, some standard Hindi words are mispronounced (most of the time by replacing standard Hindi sound with the borrowed sound). For example: फिर is sometimes mispronounced as /fir/ instead of /phir/. Other words that come to the mind right now are: ग़ालिब, ग़म, खुदा.

Comparing English with Hindi, there are couple of distinct features I have noticed: Standard Hindi does not differentiate between the following two sounds:

/v/ -- voiced labiodental (pronounced with lower lips and upper teeth)

/w/ -- voiced labiovelar (pronounced with rounded lips)

Because of this Indians (including me!) sometimes have difficulty in differentiating these two sounds. (For instance, wine and vine become homophones.) Other major distinction is: in Hindi प, त, and क are always non-aspirated. But in English, /p/, /t/ and /k/ are always aspirated. So the word tiger is (mistakenly) pronounced as /tiger/ instead of /tʰiger/.

More information on Hindi language can be found here (Wikipedia link).

No Smoking - Movie review

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 18:31:00 +0000

No Smoking is a “self service” movie. You have to try and figure out the story and the message by yourself. The movie is not likely to work well at the box office since we are so used to being served (spoon-fed) in Bollywood, where everything in the movie has to be clear and easy to understand. Metaphors and symbolic references are quite rare and frowned upon in our film industry.

“I hope the movie finds its audience” says Anurag Kashyap (the director) because he knows that for an average Joe it’s going to be inconvenient (and in some cases, impossible) to come out of those explain-me-everything and I-am-here-only-to-be-entertained mind-sets.

This is a bold and quite “arrogant” movie that refuses to spoon-feed the audience. It’s like when someone throws you into the water and expects you to learn swimming without any help. You either swim, or drown. There’s no third way out.

The movie is full with many metaphors and surrealistic moments.

- The protagonist's name "K" is a reference to (Anurag) Kashyap – the director himself.
- The bathtub is a symbol of worldly comfort, and ciggaret of freedom. (You have to choose between these two. In the dream sequences K constantly leaps for his ciggaret/freedom and gets killed by the soldier. Towards the end, when he decides to go for the bathtub instead, his freedom is sacrificed and that kills his soul.)
- Initially you see K smoking in his bath-tub, which indicates that he has both: worldly pleasures and his freedom. He is having dreams (or, nightmares) in which he has to choose between these two.
- The two fingers that K uses to smoke his ciggarets, are also the same ones that Kashyap uses to write his movies.
- The dream sequence in Russia is a reference to Stalin’s dictatorial Communist government – violation of personal liberty.
- The secretary and wife both played by Ayesha Takia are two different and opposite characters. The wife is a self-determined & strong individual while the secretary is submissive (she follows orders unquestionably and takes out K’s shoes in one scene.)
- “Cigarret Shashtra” is a reference to social orthodoxy and conservatism.
- K arrogantly talking to himself in the mirror (“Hi, I am K”, “Nobody tells K what to do”) is reference to Martin Scorsese classic Taxi Driver (the immortal sequence “Are you talking to me?” by De Nero).
- There is a reference to Vishal Bhardwaj, Gulzar and also to Fidel Castro. I felt that the former was forced and shallow though. (“Bidi jalai le ke Vishal desh mein…”)
- Baba Bengali’s threat of hurting or killing K’s family members is probably symbolic reference to the fact that K’s smoking hurts his family (both emotionally and physically as in his brother’s case).
- In the last scene, K is shown quiet and composed for the first time in the movie. He has quit smoking. Baba Bengali has won. But K’s soul is gone. We see that his fingers are cut – which is probably a way of showing the fact that his soul is now cut off from himself.
- The cinematography, lighting, background score and song lyrics – the overall ambiance of the movie is “dark” which gels with the melancholy theme of the movie.

The movie actually takes off when K plunges into the water in the custody. His soul and his body take two different but coherent journeys after that moment. The soul experiences bizarre moments and try to find ways to continue smoking (i.e. stick to his individual freedom.) But finally in the battle of K’s soul and his mind, the mind wins when K chooses to opt for the bathtub (instead of ciggaret) and not get killed by the soldier.

There are obvious flaws in the movie too. I think Kashyap has tried too hard to not spoon-feed the audience. He ended up making a movie that lot (or worse, most) of the people will not “get” completely. I doubt if there’s anyone except Kashyap himself who can claim to have understood the whole movie. But may be that’s the idea. May be that’s way this movie was meant to be.

This is probably the first time in Bollywood when a director made a very “personal” self-referential movie. Through K’s character, Kashyap talks about his own frustration and anguish (with the industry). In order to understand the analogy, you would have to know some background of Kashyap. This movie is from a director who is still waiting to get green flag from the censor board to let his first to movies released (Paanch and Gulal). It’s a movie from the director who had to unwillingly make several cuts in his last movie (Black Friday) to get censor board’s approval. It’s a movie from the director who felt as if his liberty to make movies (in the way he wants to make them) is taken away from him (as if his fingers with which he writes his movie were cut!). And that’s the central theme of this movie. How a person has to sacrifice his own self(ish) desires in order to follow the societal norms. And how that comes at the cost of your own personal soul! (By this, Kashyap is not saying that smoking is good. He makes this very clear before the movie begins. “A thousand people stops smoking everyday. By dying. Smoking Kills.”)

This is a movie that bothers you, provokes you, makes you think, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle that you try to put together even after (and especially after) the movie is over.

I loved this movie for its libertarian theme, style, wonderful songs, witty dialogues, bold and unusual way of storytelling.

PS. Two great quotes from two great philosophers (Socrates and Plato) are shown before the beginning credits:

“To be is to do.”
“To do is to be.”

You are defined by your what to do. Your actions define you, not your looks.

Jab We Met movie review

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 03:43:00 +0000

Jab We Met is very enjoyable. After a long time, we have a fabulous romantic comedy.

The plot is not original, but the script is well written. A big part of this movie is on Karina's shoulders and she carries it really well. She rocks! This is probably her best performance so far.

Two songs are very melodious and with nice poetry: Aaoge Tum (Music: Sandesh Shandilya, Lyrics: Nida Fazli?, Singer: Ustad Rashid Khan) and Tum Se Hi (Music: Pritam, Lyrics: Irshad Kamil, Singer: Mohit Chauhan). They are well placed in the movie. The placement of other songs could have been better though. They don’t move the story forward but don’t do much damage to the flow either.

Some moments in the movie were really touching and well executed: When Aditya accepts that he’s in love with Geet and says “Yes, I like you a lot, but hey, that’s my problem!”, when during their second stay in a (this time literally decent!) motel she says something like "Kitni stupid hoon main, is liye meri ye haalat hui hai" and starts crying, when Geet finally realizes what her heart wants, a train passes in the background and she feels "jaise koi train chhut rahi ho…”

Imtiaz Ali has grown as a director after his first movie Socha Na Tha (which was quite likeable). The opening sequence: when Aditya leaves his cell phone and car keys and walks into the streets dropping his tie on the sidewalk, was very impressive.

I am looking forward to Imtiaz Ali’s next movie.

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Also, I highly recommend Manorama Six Feet Under and Johny Gaddar to everyone who likes off-beat movies. Both are very well-made and well-acted movies in genres that are almost absent in Bollywood nowadays. The former is a Bollywood noir set up in a remote village in Rajasthan (spectacular visuals). And the latter is a suspense thriller, in which the audience knows who the culprit is, but the actors in the movie don't, and the movie is about how they find it out! Look out for pop-culture references to the movies from 70's. There are so many.

Unfortunately, No Smoking, on which I had high hopes (especially because of the names that are associated with the movie - Vishal Bhardwaj and Gulzar), didn't get any good reviews. It looks like Anurag Kashyap has broken bridges with so many reviewers that many of them are reviewing his attitude rather than his movie. (Read Khalid Mohammed's review in Hindustan Times, you don't need an expert to figure out that he has personal grudges for Kashyap and that's all he talks about in his "movie" review - bad director, bad person, very arrogant, how stupid yada yada yada...) I still haven't given up on the movie though -- I will watch it as soon as I can.

Yahoo Driving Directions in India

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 02:08:00 +0000

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You can go to Yahoo website to get driving directions between two cities in India. It seems a tad slow, it's definetely not perfect (works well between two cities only), but it's a great start.

Here's the link: http://in.maps.yahoo.com/

Note that directions include landscapes (turn left past Bharat Petrolium, turn right past Andhra bank etc.), which are unavoidable because we don't have names for all streets, do we?

Enjoy!

Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich

noreply@blogger.com (Vishal) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:12:00 +0000

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Although I am not a conservative, as a libertarian my favourite presidential candidate is the Republican representative from Texas: Ron Paul.

I definitely don't agree with all of his plans and policies (that I know of). Also he might be too old and doesn't look like the "strong leader" that US is looking forward to have as a President, but I think Paul is the candidate whom I dislike the least. As one of the South Park episode has succinctly put: you have to make a choice between a Giant Douche and a Turn Sandwich!

Here's a snapshot of some of his beliefs and actions:

- He opposes, and have always opposed, Iraq war.
- He wants USA to be out of UN and other such international groups.
- He believes in: Abolishing Federal taxes, dismantle Federal reserve and get back to god-backed currency.
- He supports Gun Ownership.
- He says no to US interventions in other country's internal affairs.

Here's a link to his web-site: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

Giuliani, Romney and McCain are currently the forerunners at Republican presidential nominee race, but it looks like none of these candidates can win an election against Clinton. In fact, any Republican presidential candidates seems very likely loose election against Clinton.

Senator Clinton, who is considered a socialist by many people now, wants the Government to "take over" Health Care system. It looks like by increasing taxes, she would go on a spending spree if elected as a President. She must be stopped! But unfortunately if looks like no one will be able to do that.

I am not a US citizen, so I don't vote here, but being in this country for several years, I have my emotional investments in next year's presidential election.