No Goode

Theres an amusing controversy over some Virginia Republican , Virgil Goode , objecting to the first Muslim representative elected in the USA decision to use the Koran for his private swearing in ceremony. While there really should be no controversy over this, you can know what sort of person Mr Goode is by reading this question and answer
RUSH: Final question from David Asman. "Would you prohibit, Mr. Ellison -- would you prohibit him from bringing a Koran into that ceremony?"
GOODE: If the voters of that district want persons that are going to swear by the Koran, that's the choice of the voters of that district, but I believe that the overwhelming majority of voters in my district would prefer the use of the Bible if a book is used, and that is exactly what I'm going to do.
Source : http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_122206/content/stop_the_tape_2.guest.html
A simple yes /no would suffice :)

Million Dollar baby

Just finished watching Million dollar baby. Quite disturbing , but then euthanasia is a disturbing subject. Though since the movie revolves round boxing , its difficult to identify with as its a sport i detest. Hilary swank is good, morgan freeman and clint eastwood play themselves in their parts. I kind of expected more from this movie , but it seemed ordinary, (not so )young fighter loses her ability to fight and wants to die is helped by mentor who doesnt want to do it first. Ok so theres more to it , but i dunno , it wasn't that touching. Seems to have been overhyped. But the question of euthanasia remains as i suppose it will remain, unresolved.
On a side note,read somewhere, can people who smoke be arrested for attempting suicide?
I guess there are so many grey areas to euthanisia which is why it seems problematic. It doesnt help that the people who make the laws are prone to only secure their votes and no serious debate is held. And so i believe the same as i did before watching the movie. Life once gone cannot be got back so when in doubt preserve life

Random Stuff

India is doing well in a test , wait for it Overseas!. Amazing, unbelievable , may it last for more than one day. England on the other hand have shot themselves in the foot. An amusing article in the BBC said atleast the brit barmy army was more wittier than the aussie spectators. Ironically the barmy army isn't that witty and is more of a nuisance, but the British crowd who text in messages to BBC are funny, humorous , cynical and amusing as just the British can be. Mind your language anyone?
Watching khosla ka ghosla.It would be a better movie if it decided whether it wanted to be an emotional drama or a Not a penny more or less caper movie.
Read some bits of the Black Friday book. It takes some doing to write about this matter objectively. So far Zaidi succeeds. I wouldn't have and im not sure what's better.
Some article in the midday yesterday began on a brilliant note. The muslims panel of somewhere had a conference and said the community needed to look beyond reservations and fix their problems rather than clamoring for reservations. And also simply voting anti bjp was just not working
It did however go downhill from there with MP's Like Syed Shahahbuddin wondering how to circumvent the court order which capped the reservations. Its said that the places worse off for muslims are where the elected representatives are those who are the champions of the muslim cause. I wouldn't be surprised. Other people stating that OBC muslims are also OBC's and the discriminatory hindu law which states that obc's can only be of the hindu religion. If history serves me correctly some people converted from hinduism because there was no caste structure in christianity or islam. Ironic really that OBC is now a sought after status.
Laments from a pakistani about the lack of books and intellectual discourse in Lahore. Whats stopping you? Get rid of the dictator you'll have, stop worrying about other countries should do it.
Mr musharraf has offered to freeze the LOC and jointly administer kashmir.Im sure he wouldnt react kindly if India offer joint administration of pakistan.
Some joy for India at the asian games. Anyone watching them?
And shes back!

Religion

My girlfriend asked me what i was looking for when i told her that i was looking to read Chosen( a book that deals with the second coming of Christ and how people would react to it and whether anyone would believe it, with a nasty surprise ending). Considering that my favorite comic was Lucifer it was perhaps a loaded question to answer. But it did cause me to pause and think about my beliefs. When I was younger, I stayed with my grandmother, who other than lighting a diya at 7:00 p.m. sharp showed no other religious activities (that and making the dosa with the sweet milk and insisting we eat it at gokul ashtami). It was ofcourse more fascinating for me to watch the diya burn down. School was the first time i think i was exposed to a different religion. With the inherent curiosity of if we had moral science and they (look the religious divide begins) didnt , what did they do in that time?.Most friends were reluctant to answer what exactly was different or what they were taught. But Stanislaus was a good place. I remember a friend who carried one image of each religion he could find in his compass box, it helped him pass the exams he said. My first brush with the problems of religion came when The Satanic Verses were banned. I and everyone at home were against the ban and going up the stairs i casually remarked about it to a friend , who replied "rushdie should be kicked out of britain ,how dare he etc. etc" to which i kept mum. My friend was a muslim. It did make me think at that time is it better to treat every religion equally or to simply ignore it altogether?.But those days it was more important to run to the playing field at recess time than to ponder glumly over philosophical topics. We always went to bandra fair. And my grandmother leg got into problems because of a wound and she was diabetic. So instead of putting the two wax children as offering (meant for my brother and me) we also started putting a leg. My grand mother who would always have come with us , couldnt anymore , but she would say put the leg for me. I believed. I believed it would cure her. And i prayed as much as i could. It never occurred to me that i was praying to some other religion, God was one i knew. And then they were the TV serials. The never ending ramayana and its successor the dont take your eyes of the TV set Mahabharata. I guess i owe thanks to ramanand sagar for my profound dislike of the ramayana. I always wondered what was godly of some guy trying to rescue his wife from some powerful guy who wait for it is powerful because of boons granted by the other gods? Oh and before i forget all this to kick out his wife. It did start me thinking.It also raised the questions that if it was right in the mahabharata to go to war against relatives for kingdom why wasnt it right in the ramayana where instead banishment is accepted meekly? And how could a god say it was right to go to war , when it also means killing up 1000's of those rounded up extras in the shower of multiplying arrows? The Mahabharata was much more fun to watch. Its successor the bible ki kahaniyan however wasnt (more to do with the production quality than with the stories themselves). My knowledge of christianity however came earlier due to an amar chitra katha'ish comic bound up with phantom and mandrake and flash gordon which i read and was impressed and was angry that the hero died at the end. Islam was something followed by the people in the building. The ladies in the building didnt wear a burkha at home , but did when they left the house ,i assumed that was because they liked dressing up. It was strange for me because one set of neighbours were boris(burkha wearing) and the other werent. But noone cared. So i passed out of school with my feelings towards religions mostly of the sort , all religions are equal, you dont bother me , i dont bother you sort of attitude. And then i moved on from mostly detective mysteries to reading some scientific material, Asimov, Sagan and their ilk. Reading about the idealistic way to doing science, the continuous questioning of data, the rationalist thought and philososphy, The everything is a hypothesis , when you get more data either the hypothesis is reinforced or it is discarded. But a hypothesis it remains. It came to me that while science doesnt preclude faith, it does say that when you question it , the faith grows stronger or you have to discard or atleast change some aspects of faith when you find information that contradicts your faith. Whereas religion believes that if you question your faith , your faith grows weaker. You must just believe!.Supremely egoistic i believed that i had been given a brain so that i could understand god's plan than merely be a part of it. And given the choices i'd rather believe in the scientific way. And so i questioned everything. I wouldnt read an out and out religious book so i would only read something that dealt tangentially with religion which essentially meant that i would end up reading about matters related to Christianity. But it wasnt a problem. all religions are similar so what would apply to one should in someway apply to the other. So therein started the journey of "if thou shalt not kill doesnt it apply to god as well" "if an earthquake is god's doing why does it kill indiscriminately" "if we are to be judged eternally based on life spent on earth what happens to infants who die?" "if god is our father why would there be a hell even if we sinned" "how can god be most forgiving and condemn us to hell" "if god is all powerful then why do children suffer due to no fault of theirs" "why did god show himself 2000 years ago but doesnt do so (atleast not directly) anymore" "if god is in all of ours whats the need for holy places and holy men?" and so on.And then i realised that a lot of what we heard and attributed to "god" was really hearsay. Who says the ramayana occurred as it did?certainly theres lot of material saying that what we read is a cleaned up version. Same too for the mahabharata. Ditto for the old / new testament. Its then that i believed that religion is a man made structure and like every other man made structure it protects itself first and foremost. I also realised that while there may be a lot of good in all the religions , there is material that may be bad or atleast open to interpretation or illogical even if harmless (like the jains who cant eat onions). And that i would respect the brain i got and follow what i deemed was right. that i would pick and choose what i wanted to follow from any religion.So where does that tie in with the things i read?The ability to choose brings with it one responsibility. That you should make sure you have enough information to make that choice. And while im too old now to read the bhagvad gita or the bible or the torah i dont mind reading other peoples opinions of it. Its surprising sometimes how when the point of the story has religion only as a side issue , the observations you can make.In chosen the most important part is the writers conversation at the end. In it peter gross is asked by his 4-5 year daughter that if he draws stories about the bible , are the stories true or false? And he says he replied that it is the stories and what you learn from them that are important. Whether they are true or not isn't. And he says as a story teller , stories are his religion. Something to think about , found in an unlikely. Mike carey in lucifer makes other important statements.And heres the secret good authors write and it makes you think. That it may deal with religion is unimportant
So what am i looking for? A good story that makes me think and question my faith

Pride

It feels good to take some credit for the existence of this

Rickshaw corruption

One of the things that keeps occupying my attention these days is the price of a rick fare from my home to office , which should be about Rs 48. Occasionally some crooked rick guy would charge 55. But these were few and far between. These days however the situation is the opposite. More ricks show up with meters of Rs 55 and a few exceptional one’s Rs 60. The one’s which show the correct fare are now almost non existent. Perhaps the correct question is how come that there are still some ricks with the correct fare instead of how come everyone is becoming so dishonest. I think it’s a sign then of where we collectively as a city are going. The common man is not above cheating the other common men. The rich , well they always bent the rules. Its funny then seeing the various articles stating how Mumbai has had enough of people praising it for its resilience, they want funds and an end to the corruption that exists. It won’t.
Was this city always this way? Who knows.

Current Controversies

Its been a month for controversies starting with Da Vinci Code, Aamir khans comments and the subsequent banning of fanaa , the OBC quota, the pope’s comments on anti conversions laws. If you look at it closely almost none are debate worthy. All of the controversies above have a relatively straight forward answer and do not need any moral hand wringing. But controversies they are and the debate rages though everyone I know seems to have the same view and so does the media so who’s the debate against? That probably speaks more about the people I know than it does about the controversial aspects of the issues. So for the record
Da Vinci Code - Its fiction, free speech and all related stuff. If you don’t like the movie don’t see it, if you don’t like the book don’t read it. If your faith is shaken by the book then you don’t have much faith, if it isn’t then wheres the problem?. All the controversy does is increase the number of Mary Magdalene books that are popping up.
Free speech again. As Aamir has reiterated, the government must rehabilitate the farmers , that’s its duty. Everything else is silly ego battles
No reservations on basis of caste,religion,community ever. Economically backward or in other ways handicapped, reservations may be possible but cannot be a number (what is the meaning on 10 or 25%?)
The pope can say whatever he wants, free speech again. People should be free to choose always whether its what they believe , what they watch , what they do so long as it affects only them..
And it’s a wonder how in a so called democracy the peoples views are mostly ..irrelevant. Theres not a single party opposing reservations so that you could say , fine , next elections we shall show you. Why is there no liberal , progressive non votebank oriented party in India?. Ok fine for that matter the world?. What is it about the nature of governance that forces good people to become stupid? Or is it the nature of governance that attracts only stupid people to begin with? Did you also try coming up with a politician who is not stupid? Hard task right?

Reservations

The Government decides to have 27% reservation for OBC’s in IIM’s and IIT’s as well. Everyone has reacted as expected. The parties are all in favour. No one wants to lose out on the vote banks. The students and industry are in uproar.
The tragedy is that there our constitution writers screwed up. Reservation in any form was always bad. Reservation based on caste and not class is worse. Reservation once given cannot be withdrawn with the affected parties screaming murder, discrimination and the works.
I remember I had colleagues in engg way better off(monetarily) than I was but in engg thanks to SC/ST/Sindhi quota. And I wonder how reserving seats for already uplifted people is helping. Which is not to say that there aren’t people deserving of some concession (id rather it be in the form of scholarships and monetary concessions though).
Its not an easy problem. And perhaps the attitude of most Indians can be summed up by the answer of one student. “What can we do about it. I can only hope it will be implemented next year”
There doesn’t seem to be a single party in India which is capable of thinking beyond the next election.
The last time VP Singh, champion of the masses , champion of stupidity(it is disconcerting how often these are the same thing) imposed reservations , people died but the reservations remained. I hope it doesn’t happen this time. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Rang de Basanti

For change there has to be a catalyst and sometimes the catalyst needs to be violent. Close your eyes and think who might say something along the lines. Now tell the truth did you think of bhagat singh? Or are you thinking of some more contemporary character probably holding a machine gun?And perhaps that’s the biggest problem with rang de basanti. Its based on a flawed premise. But brilliantly executed with a rousing score and with all the actors being top class. Of course there are the expected clichés , a bunch of teenagers college bunking , boozing , wild driving and ofcourse their hearts are pure gold. With a foreigner who along with the death of their friend awakens something in them.The movie is good and worth watching. The only thing negative is the end which is a very bollywood in style and the message that the movie tries to send out, is frankly out of place in these times. As always I think I could’ve done a better job , so here goes. Tone down the the young generation is always out having a party thing. Either the end has to have more of the diary or the character has to be dropped. You cant start out with emphasis on the brit female and suddenly drop her out of the picture. And enhance the lathi charge scene and end the movie there. For e.g. the bjp character meeting the muslim point is made as effectively in the lathi charge without needing the melodramatic holding hands and dying sequence. However the movie makes you think. And in these days such movies are few and far between.

Googling

Its quite interesting to see the current uproar against google for censoring its search results in return for being allowed in china. In a purely practical sense google is of course correct. The Chinese government suppresses information anyway (the great firewall of china), you can atleast make a buck this way. In idealistic terms this is a sellout. Especially after google took the moral high ground when the US government asked for its data. I remember msn took a lot of heat when it censored subject lines in msn spaces. What is right? Obviously telling the Chinese government to take a hike. China has a lot of smart people . Hopefully they’ll find a way to access the information they need.
Is it that easy? Obviously not.
Id guess id be much more comfortable if google cooperated with the us government and refused to do so with the Chinese government. Googles motto is Don’t be evil. Perhaps it is time to change that to Be Good.