You might think how someone who doesn't even qualify to be a 'writer' get 'writer's block'! Please, for my sake, imagine that I am a writer. I realized last weekend that I am suffering from this terrible disease and that there is no medicine for it.
In spite of my wife's yelling from kitchen or the unending questions from my daughter, I tried to sit down for few hours to write something that's worth. I wrote and deleted hundreds of words. But nothing came out that was worth a post.
I thought I will sleep over it and do something fresh this morning from work. Another hour wasted at work.
So if you see no new posts for another week, believe me, I am working on it!
PS: Oh come on, I know that I don't have a single reader who would miss my posts. I am just trying to overcome the 'block' here.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Which is India's national language?
A bunch of our friends got together for a bbq party yesterday evening. I had some really good food followed by an ice cream. Once I am full, I start poking the weak points on other people till they piss off or I get pissed off! (sometimes both!)
This time I picked a nice young guy (mallu guy brought up in Chennai) who happened to say that he doesn't know how to write in malayalam or tamil. Now before I could go full fledge on this 'weakness' he defended by saying - "but I know Hindi - India's national language".
Hm.. interesting.. Hindi is our national language? Since when? The nice guy's nice wife supported quoting the 5th standard hindi text book - "Hindi hamari rashtra bhasha hei \| Hindi ek saral our aasaan bhasha hei\|".
Now another not-so-nice guy (a mallu guy brought up in mallu land) who argues for anything and everything emerges from the group (that is still enjoying the ice cream) and goes "yeah, Hindi is THE national language".
I spent my following valuable 30 minutes to 'educate' them on the fact that Republic of India does NOT recognize any language as a "National Language". Instead of proving them wrong by asking them to find one official document that states so, I took the stupid route of proving multiple times that Hindi is not national language - Interestingly Constitution of India is silent on that fact which gave them the advantage of the pursuiting the argument.
I left finally by agreeing to disagree.
Now the facts -
National language is more of a symbolic status, a privileged position that we assign to a language. I or you don't make that choice. Constitution of India makes that choice.
http://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf - Constitution of India makes a choice to call English and Hindi (both) as 'Official languages of India'. That is no privleged status. Official language is in which Central departments and Judiciary has to communicate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India - (Yeah, not a very authentic source. But believe me, nobody has contested the fact given here though) - says that "India does not have any national language".
I didn't see a single official government circular or a constitutional reference or amendment that says Hindi is our national language or otherwise. Trust me, I even visited a bunch of Indian embassy websites which portrays National bird, anthem, animal.. but not a word about language.
And that proves that the question "Which is India's national language" does not stand itself. The answer (either way) does not have a legal/constitutional validity. It is as good as a question "which is the most beautiful language in India?". You can have an answer, but don't insist that people have to agree.
This time I picked a nice young guy (mallu guy brought up in Chennai) who happened to say that he doesn't know how to write in malayalam or tamil. Now before I could go full fledge on this 'weakness' he defended by saying - "but I know Hindi - India's national language".
Hm.. interesting.. Hindi is our national language? Since when? The nice guy's nice wife supported quoting the 5th standard hindi text book - "Hindi hamari rashtra bhasha hei \| Hindi ek saral our aasaan bhasha hei\|".
Now another not-so-nice guy (a mallu guy brought up in mallu land) who argues for anything and everything emerges from the group (that is still enjoying the ice cream) and goes "yeah, Hindi is THE national language".
I spent my following valuable 30 minutes to 'educate' them on the fact that Republic of India does NOT recognize any language as a "National Language". Instead of proving them wrong by asking them to find one official document that states so, I took the stupid route of proving multiple times that Hindi is not national language - Interestingly Constitution of India is silent on that fact which gave them the advantage of the pursuiting the argument.
I left finally by agreeing to disagree.
Now the facts -
National language is more of a symbolic status, a privileged position that we assign to a language. I or you don't make that choice. Constitution of India makes that choice.
http://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf - Constitution of India makes a choice to call English and Hindi (both) as 'Official languages of India'. That is no privleged status. Official language is in which Central departments and Judiciary has to communicate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India - (Yeah, not a very authentic source. But believe me, nobody has contested the fact given here though) - says that "India does not have any national language".
I didn't see a single official government circular or a constitutional reference or amendment that says Hindi is our national language or otherwise. Trust me, I even visited a bunch of Indian embassy websites which portrays National bird, anthem, animal.. but not a word about language.
And that proves that the question "Which is India's national language" does not stand itself. The answer (either way) does not have a legal/constitutional validity. It is as good as a question "which is the most beautiful language in India?". You can have an answer, but don't insist that people have to agree.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Another depressing day back from barber shop
If there is one thing that I have utterly failed in last 5 years in United States is when it comes to communicating with my Vietnamese barber. The guy is an always-smiling nice person who thinks every Indian is a software engineer and he speaks in broken english. He keeps on blabbering based on his set of presumptions and has zero listening skills (sounds like my wife :p).
In fact, my dad had to admit that he is a software engineer the last time he went there for hair cut. Now coming to how that affects me..
Here is how a typical visit is like -
I go there hoping the neighboring shop run by real professionals is open (those guys never open!) and our guy catches me - "Oh, my good indian computer engineer is here". Right on spot this time too buddy.
He makes me sit and covers me with a sheet. And here is where I start feeling like I am ready for the autopsy. He goes - "Ok my good sir, how do you want to trim it short today?". And I go, "No trimming mister. I will say it, you listen carefully. Medium on the top and short on the side and back. That simple. Got it".
And he picks up the machine and goes - "Ok, trimming. Got it". Here is where I feel the surgery blade on my chest. I speak up again, "friend, no trimming. medium on the top and short on side and back. do as I say. Will ya?".
He shrugs and goes "yes.. yes.. I got an elephant idol from the last Indian groom who I styled for his wedding".
And I thought to myself, may be the groom wanted to symbolically crush his head with an elephant!
He turns on the machine (yes, the very trimmer!). And I go this time with a more desperate voice "No, trimming buddy. Medium on the..... okay, whatever!!".
He keeps his talking on and I will slip to my intermittent death state with a false hope that some miracle would happen and I will wake up to see Shahrukh on the mirror (without the sixpack ofcourse.. and the stammering.. and the.. okay leave it).
I will sail through my dreams and the background score would be by the Viet Ilayaraja's trimmer.
After ten minutes I woke up and saw on the mirror a figure that told me -
"Mugambo khush hua"
In fact, my dad had to admit that he is a software engineer the last time he went there for hair cut. Now coming to how that affects me..
Here is how a typical visit is like -
I go there hoping the neighboring shop run by real professionals is open (those guys never open!) and our guy catches me - "Oh, my good indian computer engineer is here". Right on spot this time too buddy.
He makes me sit and covers me with a sheet. And here is where I start feeling like I am ready for the autopsy. He goes - "Ok my good sir, how do you want to trim it short today?". And I go, "No trimming mister. I will say it, you listen carefully. Medium on the top and short on the side and back. That simple. Got it".
And he picks up the machine and goes - "Ok, trimming. Got it". Here is where I feel the surgery blade on my chest. I speak up again, "friend, no trimming. medium on the top and short on side and back. do as I say. Will ya?".
He shrugs and goes "yes.. yes.. I got an elephant idol from the last Indian groom who I styled for his wedding".
And I thought to myself, may be the groom wanted to symbolically crush his head with an elephant!
He turns on the machine (yes, the very trimmer!). And I go this time with a more desperate voice "No, trimming buddy. Medium on the..... okay, whatever!!".
He keeps his talking on and I will slip to my intermittent death state with a false hope that some miracle would happen and I will wake up to see Shahrukh on the mirror (without the sixpack ofcourse.. and the stammering.. and the.. okay leave it).
I will sail through my dreams and the background score would be by the Viet Ilayaraja's trimmer.
After ten minutes I woke up and saw on the mirror a figure that told me -
"Mugambo khush hua"
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Nuclear treaty: Rights and Wrongs - by Sameeh Nazrulla
The following amazing review is written by a good friend - Sameeh Nazrulla. The guy is an ideological freak (more freak than ideology), a lazy a** and will never do anything to show his ideas light (other than occasionally writing in some crap orkut communities).
Date: September 17, 2008
"Lemme try to put up a snapshot of Indian political views at the time of the crucial trust vote in parliament (I was following the issue closely till those days)
Leftists - opposed as usual, didn't want any bogie with US as it was ideologically untenable (some other reasons they said were actually convincing, but we'll discuss that later)
BJP - opposed as usual, bcoz they are in opposition
Samajwadi party - supported as usual, because there was important bargaining to be done with UPA
Laloo prasad - cautious as usual; didn't fully support this way or that way, just that they were for the deal but without stating reasons.
Abdul kalam - optimist as usual (actually the funniest response came from this former prez; he said let's go with deal, and go to test when we wanted to. Of course, he wasnt worried abut the billions that wud go down the drain by way of purchasing the reactors; after we tested.)
finally, my own take of it:
Manmohan singh's early initiative seemed noble indeed; but the Left was right for once, when they objected for following reasons-
1. any deal with US wud actually mean bending our foreign policy to satisfy americans; this was proved when india voted against long time ally iran over the IAEA issue.
2. nuclear power, even if enabled after sacrificing so much (how much??) wud still be costlier compared to oil/gas based power. india almost lost the gas deal with iran so as to make way for nuclear power, which is bad economics.
3. 123 wud finally be determined by the Hyde act; which places serious limitations on the technology transfer that would happen , and also the consequences if india were to conduct a nuclear test. In spite of congresss repeatedly asserting that india wud not have to worry about the hyde act, truth was the opposite, as confirmed by independent sources in US admin, as well as the controversial letter that was declassified early september.
however, post NSG meeting, the whole game changed. the waiver was the best thing to happen to india since 1991. "corporate" media lost no time in announcing that MMS ended india's nuclear isolation, just as he ended the economic isolation in 1991. Singh is King again (if we conveniently forget that the King lied continuosly to parliament and nation, on point number 3 we discussed above).
result of waiver:
left sulked, expectedly (when they shud have ideally celebrated the event, but distanced from the impending 123 agreement)
bjp sulked, expectedly, because they were in opposition.
rest-of-india, well.. does it matter anymore?
NOW.. india has doubts about signing 123, since govt says bush jr openly came out stating
1. fuel supply is not guaranteed (remember tarapur episode 1974)
2. sensitive technology might not be made available
(As if these events were not known before. The left was constantly reminding the govt of precisely these 2 things, dammit!!)
meanwhile, france and russia come up with proposals for india. (let's remember that france has the best nuclear tech in the world; ahead of even the US)
so, finally, if india forgoes 123, and signs up with france instead... india's the sole winner out of all this. (yeah, we wud have duped the sole world power into pressing the NSG to vote for us, and then we wud have ditched them)
but we have to wait and watch what happens to 123..
some links:
an old version of CPIM's arguments
http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/20/stories/2007082058071400.htm
a recent column by noted journo/writer MJ Akbar
http://mjakbarblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fluff-and-bluff-cant-change-harsh.html
implications of hyde act
http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/20/stories/2007082058271500.htm
latest american public perspective
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/opinion/09tue2.html?scp=6&sq=india&st=cse
the letter which created news in september
http://www.hcfa.house.gov/110/press090208.pdf"
Date: September 17, 2008
"Lemme try to put up a snapshot of Indian political views at the time of the crucial trust vote in parliament (I was following the issue closely till those days)
Leftists - opposed as usual, didn't want any bogie with US as it was ideologically untenable (some other reasons they said were actually convincing, but we'll discuss that later)
BJP - opposed as usual, bcoz they are in opposition
Samajwadi party - supported as usual, because there was important bargaining to be done with UPA
Laloo prasad - cautious as usual; didn't fully support this way or that way, just that they were for the deal but without stating reasons.
Abdul kalam - optimist as usual (actually the funniest response came from this former prez; he said let's go with deal, and go to test when we wanted to. Of course, he wasnt worried abut the billions that wud go down the drain by way of purchasing the reactors; after we tested.)
finally, my own take of it:
Manmohan singh's early initiative seemed noble indeed; but the Left was right for once, when they objected for following reasons-
1. any deal with US wud actually mean bending our foreign policy to satisfy americans; this was proved when india voted against long time ally iran over the IAEA issue.
2. nuclear power, even if enabled after sacrificing so much (how much??) wud still be costlier compared to oil/gas based power. india almost lost the gas deal with iran so as to make way for nuclear power, which is bad economics.
3. 123 wud finally be determined by the Hyde act; which places serious limitations on the technology transfer that would happen , and also the consequences if india were to conduct a nuclear test. In spite of congresss repeatedly asserting that india wud not have to worry about the hyde act, truth was the opposite, as confirmed by independent sources in US admin, as well as the controversial letter that was declassified early september.
however, post NSG meeting, the whole game changed. the waiver was the best thing to happen to india since 1991. "corporate" media lost no time in announcing that MMS ended india's nuclear isolation, just as he ended the economic isolation in 1991. Singh is King again (if we conveniently forget that the King lied continuosly to parliament and nation, on point number 3 we discussed above).
result of waiver:
left sulked, expectedly (when they shud have ideally celebrated the event, but distanced from the impending 123 agreement)
bjp sulked, expectedly, because they were in opposition.
rest-of-india, well.. does it matter anymore?
NOW.. india has doubts about signing 123, since govt says bush jr openly came out stating
1. fuel supply is not guaranteed (remember tarapur episode 1974)
2. sensitive technology might not be made available
(As if these events were not known before. The left was constantly reminding the govt of precisely these 2 things, dammit!!)
meanwhile, france and russia come up with proposals for india. (let's remember that france has the best nuclear tech in the world; ahead of even the US)
so, finally, if india forgoes 123, and signs up with france instead... india's the sole winner out of all this. (yeah, we wud have duped the sole world power into pressing the NSG to vote for us, and then we wud have ditched them)
but we have to wait and watch what happens to 123..
some links:
an old version of CPIM's arguments
http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/20/stories/2007082058071400.htm
a recent column by noted journo/writer MJ Akbar
http://mjakbarblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fluff-and-bluff-cant-change-harsh.html
implications of hyde act
http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/20/stories/2007082058271500.htm
latest american public perspective
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/opinion/09tue2.html?scp=6&sq=india&st=cse
the letter which created news in september
http://www.hcfa.house.gov/110/press090208.pdf"
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