Become an intellectual in 10 easy steps

10. Love Mother Teresa.... any person with hint of humanity can be an intellectual.

9. Have coffee at the India Coffee house of your city.

8. Lean left on all things but deny by accusing others of leaning too far right.

7. Your day should begin with finding someone to blame.

6. Now find an issue to blame them with.

5. Accuse your country and people of plotting against those who wish to wage war against it.

4. Write a novel that no one can understand except the booker prize judges.

3. Be an old fan of Jyothi Basu. Accuse Budhadeb of being the cause of all that is wrong for the past 30 years and become a fan of Mamta... it is definitely downhill from here...

2. Use your freedom of expression to accuse your fellow countrymen of being in a sham democracy.

1. Get ready to be gassed for expressing yourself to your old Maoist friends.

The 60 year EcoMani curse.

I watched 5 mins of big debate or fight something on NDTV. It had Mani Shankar Aiyer, MP (RS) talking about how every 60 years or so after birth of industrialisation or some form of large scale economic change, there was a revolution. He gave examples of French revolution, the collapse of Soviet regime and even the changes in downtown London since Oliver Twist asked for more.

I (and Mani) immediately realised that India too was close to something like this. Mani thought that this was manifesting itself in villages as Naxal attacks and that middle class should wake up to the fact before the Naxals come calling in the cities.

But I think Mani was a bit is wrong. Naxalism is how the villages are handling it. Feeling of helplessness, loss of control and the general apathy in the cities may be for different reasons but just as strong as in the villages. We have stopped bothering with participation in elections. Power is out most of the day, many middle class household send out their children to fill containers of water from the local borewell or water tankers, you need to pay a bribe for everything from getting a ration card (state government), running a shop (local police station) to government hospitals... and as far as real estate goes, children are participating in singing contests to win a house not money. Middle class is taxed heavily. Kaun Banega Crorepathi? You cant buy a house in Bangalore! Half the winnings would go in taxes and the rest in stamp duty for the house. You cant write or express what you feel as you may hurt the sentiments of the a particular community. Cant say Tamil Nadu has a point on the water sharing issue in Karnataka as Girish Karnad found out. Cant say Rajnikanth's Robot is the biggest flop since Atlantis. Everyone in city knows money is not enough. It can be taken away with a phone call from Ravi Poojaris and Dawoods. Power, control and freedom are in short supply nowadays. The situation can very easily reach boiling point. A friend of mine said Indians don't complain enough. But we sense the injustice. If we don't or aren't complaining, it is going to eat into our psyche. And it will express itself.

Revolution may be closer then we think and the enemy would be us.

Godzilla for real

I saw the dumb ass version of Mathew Brodderick starer Godzilla last week. Bits and pieces. It was too stupid. This Godzilla hardly breathed fire, didn't really bother to flatten the wonderful New York skyline and was more interested in laying eggs. Why this over grown lizard from ILM, Hollywood would come all the way to NY to lay eggs is more perplexing than the behaviour of smoked Salmon.

In order to get rid of the after taste, I have started to download the original Godzilla. The one who loved attacking downtown and sometimes uptown Tokyo. These Godzilla flicks never starred people you might know except for Raymond Burr, who made a cameo, when he thought Perry Mason was going to be canceled because TV was being introduced. No this Godzilla was real. And his growl... yes sir, crew were watching Japanese porn, when they came up with that.

Politics - What do you watch out for?

Capitalists, which includes Bill Gates, hate people who can make a lot of money, which includes his good buddy Warren Buffet.

Communists, which includes Maoists, hate intellectuals which includes Arundhatie Roy.

Religious types which includes Buddhists, hate new ideas, which includes anything.

People living in a democracy, which includes all of us, hate freedom of expression, which includes anything and everything.

I wish life could be simpler but where is the challenge?

How I met your mother - Barney being eloquent about Bimbos

Lilly gives Barney a choice between Bimbos and Love (Robin)

Barney : I choose bimbos
Lilly : What?!
Barney : Hey Lilly, Bimbos make me happy.
Lilly : (Sharp intake of breath)
Barney : (continues) Bimbos make me feel alive. Bimbos make me want to pretend to be a better man.
Lilly : (Shaking her head knowing she has lost)
Barney : This whole thing with Robin was just a fling but at the end of the day, my heart belongs to Bimbos
Lilly : (fighting back) No no this is just a defense mechanism because you are afraid of getting hurt. You are just confused.
Barney : (rising to a crescendo) Oh, I am not confused Lilly. You know who is confused? Bimbos! They are easily confused. It is one of the thousand little things I love about them. I love their vacant trusting stares. Their sluggish and unencumbered minds. Their unresolved daddy issues. I love them Lilly.. And they love me
Lilly (Lost it now)
Barney : (continues) Bimbos have always been there for me. Through thick and thin. (Thoughtfully) Mostly thin. B men don't do thick crust. Whaddup?! (Raises his hand for a high five).

Lilly walks out.

Its been a long time...

I have not visited my own blog in a while. Been busy with work and workout. Workout stopped due to some back injury this week. There is no constant pain or even anything when I turn but I feel a certain uneasiness in the lower back. Enough horror stories of injuries of this sort to make me want to give a break for a week and see how it goes.

Learn Tamil (my mother tongue), Kannada, Java, Art of Living are some of the plans up ahead. I wonder, if I will be able to do any of them?

Prabhakaran and LTTE are history... Lankan Tamils are not

I had an argument with my uncle, a stanch supporter of LTTE and its late supremo V. Prabhakaran, about whether or not Lankan Tamils were served by Prabhakaran.

The Lankan Tamils were mistreated since Sri Lankan independence from Britain. Their language and culture was not recognized as part of Sri Lankan. They were slowly relegated to second class citizens. Sinhalese leaders did it deliberately and efficiently. The Sinhalese population also rioted against the Tamils over issues such as language. The disenfranchised Tamils started a popular uprising against Sri Lanka. This was supported by India. Their brethren in Tamil Nadu gave them all the support required. The largest of the militant groups fighting in Sri Lanka was the LTTE led by its leader Prabhakaran. By 1980s with Lankan army bogged down by several Tamil militant groups and India receiving constant stream of Lankan Tamil refugees, the Indian government forced Sri Lanka to a peace accord that would allow for devolution of powers and autonomy to Tamil majority areas in the northern and eastern parts of the country. Among the militant groups LTTE was not happy with the accord but agreed to it in theory. By theory, I mean they went ahead with launching attacks against Lankans. There are many storylines of who did what and why. But there is no doubting that Prabhakaran was not in support of the accord and did everything to bury it. He was confident of a military victory. In the end, the Indian peace keeping force ended up fighting the LTTE that India had initially supported with training and material support. History has recorded these events. LTTE retaliated against India by killing Rajiv Gandhi.

Today, the situation is same as before. I support the Lankan Tamils rights. But LTTE is a different matter. It is fascist movement led by a dictatorial leader who killed his own comrades, people and put guns in the hands of little children. Every war crime known to man, he has committed. Democracy is not something he believed in. Majority of the Lankan Tamils did not trust him!!! Even if my uncle did. They never did. He killed off every other popular Tamil leader. He believed that militarily he could win. Killing off friends and making enemies.

Many idiots like Vaiko believed Tamils support for LTTE was as unquestionable as its support for Lankan Tamils. It is NOT. Indian Tamils are Indians first. Our leader was killed. His children tried to make sense of the bloody history by visiting the people who killed their father and forgiving them. Jayalalitha thought Vaiko had found some holy grail during election time. She too tried to drink from it with allegations that Priyanka Gandhi’s visit spurred the Sri Lankan army to hit harder at LTTE.

When the news of Prabhakaran’s death was announced, my sense of sadness was only for the Lankan Tamils. As with all dictators Prabhakaran had killed anyone with a voice of his own and left his people like sheep. They have no leaders to speak for them or to pursue their rights. It is only hopped that the Sri Lankan government understands the war will never end until they address the aspirations of the Lankan Tamils for protection of their rights and autonomy.