I am against terrorist attacks
I am against cruelty of any form - be it cruelty to mumbaikars, kashmiri pandits, kashmiri muslims, palestinians, israelis, iraqis. i condemn it.
I am against any religion changed to suit your own purpose.
I am against nuclear warfare, time, money, energy, resources spent making weapons to kill each other. I am against war.
I am against dirty politics - politicians who dont care that all you really want is to live a good life
I am against people who force their beliefs on you.
I am against the trend of becoming immune to violence and people saying "yeh to chalta hee rehta hai" - that is not ok.
I am against things that go opposite to your logic, your kindness.
I am not going to be played by politicians, religious facists who promote their own agenda.
I am not going to lose faith in people. Thanks to nameless employees/people/NSG/police at the hotels who put themselves in the line of fire.
I am for education.
I support the freedom of expression.
I consider right to life as sacrosanct.
I still have hope for tomorrow.
I believe in equality.
I am against poverty.
I am for democracy.
I am against stereotypes because I and so many I know do not fit the cast
I am Muslim
I am Indian
I am Human
This post has been taken from Heena's Blog. She wonderfully stated so much of what I felt. I have added a few things to the original which can be read here. http://life-in-prose.blogspot.com/2008/12/i-i-am-against-terrorist-attacks-i-am.html
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Movie reviews Part 1
So in the last couple of months , I have seen an incredible number of movies in the multiplex within the campus(Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the place I work for has a private 1040 seater multiplex for employees only). I therefore thought I would review few of the movies for the few people who sometimes wander onto my blog.
a) Oye Lucky:- Its another Khosla ka Ghosla type of movie. Pure fun to put it mildly. There are no moral messages, only one theif living his life king size. Must watch.
b) Kidnap:- One of the dumbes movies I have seen. The story borders on the realm of fantasy, its full of logical faults, the screenplay is a sham affair. Avoid it at all costs.
c) James Bond-Quantum of Solace:- The latest of the James Bond series, this is one dark dark movies, exploring the idea of revenge as the main theme. The Bond girl in this case is just not a side character. She is essential to the plot and as motivated by rvenge as James Bond. Danil Craig portrays the ultimate killer with not a hint of emotion. Must watch. Gives a lot to think about.
a) Oye Lucky:- Its another Khosla ka Ghosla type of movie. Pure fun to put it mildly. There are no moral messages, only one theif living his life king size. Must watch.
b) Kidnap:- One of the dumbes movies I have seen. The story borders on the realm of fantasy, its full of logical faults, the screenplay is a sham affair. Avoid it at all costs.
c) James Bond-Quantum of Solace:- The latest of the James Bond series, this is one dark dark movies, exploring the idea of revenge as the main theme. The Bond girl in this case is just not a side character. She is essential to the plot and as motivated by rvenge as James Bond. Danil Craig portrays the ultimate killer with not a hint of emotion. Must watch. Gives a lot to think about.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Change is the theme
Anyway this is a thought that came to me the other day. I was back in my home-town after a long time. Now about six months back my dad had shifted to his personal residence from the government accommodation. We had retained that accommodation for nearly 15 years. By army standards this by itself is a record.Mostly officers are posted from one location to another location every two to three years. The families also move mostly. However its one funny tale how we managed to stay in the same location for so long. Dad of course kept getting posted -east,west ,north and south.
But that, alas is not the tale. I am meandering to another side of the story.
Anyway while I did not spend much time there during my engineering I sure did spent a solid 11 years there. So when we actually came near to talking about shifting to another place, I always used to think it would be very hard. I had so many memories about the place. I thought I would forever remember it. So on and so forth.
Anyway so now that I am home ,I passed by the street where our old house was. As I was driving down the street, I instinctively slowed down and peered over the wall. I saw the garden where I had spent so much time playing cricket. I thought a lump was forming in my throat. I was getting emotional.
And then it occurred to me!! I was feeling nothing.There was no nostalgia, no longing , no regrets.
I had moved on.
The same thing happened with Pune. While I loved the city and miss it quite regularly, the fact is I actually miss the friends and the malls etc. And I don't really have all that trouble living elsewhere.
And so here is the message-"I think we all underestimate our ability to handle change". We think we cannot handle it but the truth is we are made of firmer stuff.
Perhaps we are built to dislike change. But we surely are made to handle it.
But that, alas is not the tale. I am meandering to another side of the story.
Anyway while I did not spend much time there during my engineering I sure did spent a solid 11 years there. So when we actually came near to talking about shifting to another place, I always used to think it would be very hard. I had so many memories about the place. I thought I would forever remember it. So on and so forth.
Anyway so now that I am home ,I passed by the street where our old house was. As I was driving down the street, I instinctively slowed down and peered over the wall. I saw the garden where I had spent so much time playing cricket. I thought a lump was forming in my throat. I was getting emotional.
And then it occurred to me!! I was feeling nothing.There was no nostalgia, no longing , no regrets.
I had moved on.
The same thing happened with Pune. While I loved the city and miss it quite regularly, the fact is I actually miss the friends and the malls etc. And I don't really have all that trouble living elsewhere.
And so here is the message-"I think we all underestimate our ability to handle change". We think we cannot handle it but the truth is we are made of firmer stuff.
Perhaps we are built to dislike change. But we surely are made to handle it.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Foot in the mouth
It appears Indian politicians lose every bit of honour they ever had, once they are elected. To get the votes there appears no depths to which they will not stoop. Indian politicians as a rule live on rhetoric and invalid arguments only.
So we had A R Antulay, the minister for minorities welfare who in his entire tenure has not really done anything useful asking out loud whether the death of the top Maharashtra ATS officers who were probing the Malegaon bomb blasts case was actually part of some conspiracy to eliminate upright officers investigating the case.
Predictably this has caused a furore in political circles with opposition parties baying for his blood. For now however A R Antulay has been labelled by the PM and Congress as misunderstood and represented by everyone.
However Muslims have a reason to be furious with Antulay. By questioning the facts in a case that played out before the entire nation, he is eroding the Muslims case for equality and fairness. As a minister of Cabinet rank Antulay could contribute constructively elsewhere.
Malegaon bomb blasts investigation is a vindication of the voices who said there is likely to be involvement of the Hindu right in bomb blast cases too. The evidence was right there(Nanded explosions) but it took nearly three years for someone to investigate it. The question should be "Why did the CBI dilute the cases against the accused initially " and were there lapses in the investigation initially.
By giving credence to childish conspiracy theories, A R Antulays makes a mockery of the entire Muslim community. Because lets face it that while bomb blasts could be done by anyone, in India it would a very surprising thing if even now anyone else than Islamic extremist groups s could brainwash youth for suicide missions except perhaps the LTTE(even Maoist and the Bodos have more sense). Muslims have done a lot to dissociate themselves as a community from terror through peace marches , edicts and have even gone to the level of denying burials in graveyards for the terrorists. And a little known fact is that a lot of Muslims have died in the terror attacks, indistinguishable from the other victims.
Muslims are not the perpetrators. The perpetrators are terrorists. We are the victims. Just read the names of people who died at CST and Leopold Cafe.
What Antulay remarks do, is shake the foundation that Muslims are trying to create. There should be inquiries into everything about the Mumbai attacks especially how three such senior police officers got killed but the minister should have kept his words to himself. As the minorities minister he implies a link to the minorities.
Moving on however I believe that while the minister was wrong in stating the conspiracy theory, the opposition parties especially the BJP have no locus standi to raise a voice. It is the same party that so vehemently defended "Hindu terror" as just a response to Muslim terror. As an Indian I am offended by the entire act and the silly justifications. Because if the BJP is willing to see even one terrorist acts as a reaction to previous acts, they should then accept most Islamic terror acts in India nothing more than responses to acts that the party and its constituents themselves are responsible for.
I will not accept violence as a means to anything. I will also reject all opinions that belittle one murder as compared to another. An innocent is an innocent,one life is as precious as another.I am a MUslim, I am an Indian, I am also human.(borrowed from Heena's blog)
Anyway read this article. While I do not agree with everything the author says, still he is talking about the right things.
http://www.countercurrents.org/rabbkhan241208.htm
Adios for now
So we had A R Antulay, the minister for minorities welfare who in his entire tenure has not really done anything useful asking out loud whether the death of the top Maharashtra ATS officers who were probing the Malegaon bomb blasts case was actually part of some conspiracy to eliminate upright officers investigating the case.
Predictably this has caused a furore in political circles with opposition parties baying for his blood. For now however A R Antulay has been labelled by the PM and Congress as misunderstood and represented by everyone.
However Muslims have a reason to be furious with Antulay. By questioning the facts in a case that played out before the entire nation, he is eroding the Muslims case for equality and fairness. As a minister of Cabinet rank Antulay could contribute constructively elsewhere.
Malegaon bomb blasts investigation is a vindication of the voices who said there is likely to be involvement of the Hindu right in bomb blast cases too. The evidence was right there(Nanded explosions) but it took nearly three years for someone to investigate it. The question should be "Why did the CBI dilute the cases against the accused initially " and were there lapses in the investigation initially.
By giving credence to childish conspiracy theories, A R Antulays makes a mockery of the entire Muslim community. Because lets face it that while bomb blasts could be done by anyone, in India it would a very surprising thing if even now anyone else than Islamic extremist groups s could brainwash youth for suicide missions except perhaps the LTTE(even Maoist and the Bodos have more sense). Muslims have done a lot to dissociate themselves as a community from terror through peace marches , edicts and have even gone to the level of denying burials in graveyards for the terrorists. And a little known fact is that a lot of Muslims have died in the terror attacks, indistinguishable from the other victims.
Muslims are not the perpetrators. The perpetrators are terrorists. We are the victims. Just read the names of people who died at CST and Leopold Cafe.
What Antulay remarks do, is shake the foundation that Muslims are trying to create. There should be inquiries into everything about the Mumbai attacks especially how three such senior police officers got killed but the minister should have kept his words to himself. As the minorities minister he implies a link to the minorities.
Moving on however I believe that while the minister was wrong in stating the conspiracy theory, the opposition parties especially the BJP have no locus standi to raise a voice. It is the same party that so vehemently defended "Hindu terror" as just a response to Muslim terror. As an Indian I am offended by the entire act and the silly justifications. Because if the BJP is willing to see even one terrorist acts as a reaction to previous acts, they should then accept most Islamic terror acts in India nothing more than responses to acts that the party and its constituents themselves are responsible for.
I will not accept violence as a means to anything. I will also reject all opinions that belittle one murder as compared to another. An innocent is an innocent,one life is as precious as another.I am a MUslim, I am an Indian, I am also human.(borrowed from Heena's blog)
Anyway read this article. While I do not agree with everything the author says, still he is talking about the right things.
http://www.countercurrents.org/rabbkhan241208.htm
Adios for now
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Home, thats where I am
So I am finally at home after six months. The good news is that the project I was working on, got over withh all targets being met. Infact the customer actualy appreciated our efforts. The funny thing is whenever we failed to meet weekly targets we(the state team, ME in my case) got the blasted the next day for sure but when we got apprciated ,the appreciation took a week to reach us. We were in the midst of another meeting where we were being blasted by the manager and the team lead, "Why did you not meet yesterdays target??, this is high risk project ,etc Why do some of you leave by eleven(gosh you leave after 13 hours and they are still glum)", when the manager suddenly goes like,"Last week you met the test pass percentage and the client was genuinely happy with us and appreciated your efforts". And we are all like "Gosh, is it true?". So I wonder why does this appreciation news take so long to filter down to us while al the acidic mails are immediately shown to us.
Maybe they reallly put efforts to ensure our morale is low and we are always feeling sorry about ourselves. SAD EMPLOYEE'S a study found made less mistakes.
Anyway the project is now over and for the time-being I have the bench status but its unlikely to last long. I am expecting to be put on another project soon.
The reason I took leave now is tha it is christmas time and normally its a lean period in the IT industry especially the services sector as all the contracts are being renewed etc, so there is less of work. Also with the present economic situation, its very unsure where I will end up some time down the line.
Thus I decided to club two days of holidays during christmas with the meagre(its actually very less) amount of earned leave I have managed to save( imagine showing up for work for six months each day and ending up with just 7-8 days od earned leave). Anyway I initially planned to be save some of the earned leave for later and take only about a week or max 10 days off. But then my hopes got raised that I would be given compensatory leaves as promised for two saturdays that I had worked beyond the fourteen hours I had put on week-days.
My manager or my ex manager(he ceased to be my manager when the project got over on tuesday) agreed to grant me compensatory leave by using a lacuna in the rules to sort of give me on duty leave. FOr a day I was on cloud nine. But alas some things are not meant. In comes my bench manager who refuses to let me use the facility saying there is no policy of compensatory offs.
But now my imagination had been aroused and the one week that earlier seemed sufficient suddenly seemed so less. So I decided to empty all my earned leaves quota and simply party at home.
So I am now at Allahabad after a twenty four hour plus journey which included two bus journeys, a flight from Bangalore to Delhi and a train journey to add to it.
I sometimes wish that I was closer to home, that it was not so difficult to get home. But then I console my heart and say that some things are probably not meant to be.
"We alwys wonder about the tales that are never written"
Maybe they reallly put efforts to ensure our morale is low and we are always feeling sorry about ourselves. SAD EMPLOYEE'S a study found made less mistakes.
Anyway the project is now over and for the time-being I have the bench status but its unlikely to last long. I am expecting to be put on another project soon.
The reason I took leave now is tha it is christmas time and normally its a lean period in the IT industry especially the services sector as all the contracts are being renewed etc, so there is less of work. Also with the present economic situation, its very unsure where I will end up some time down the line.
Thus I decided to club two days of holidays during christmas with the meagre(its actually very less) amount of earned leave I have managed to save( imagine showing up for work for six months each day and ending up with just 7-8 days od earned leave). Anyway I initially planned to be save some of the earned leave for later and take only about a week or max 10 days off. But then my hopes got raised that I would be given compensatory leaves as promised for two saturdays that I had worked beyond the fourteen hours I had put on week-days.
My manager or my ex manager(he ceased to be my manager when the project got over on tuesday) agreed to grant me compensatory leave by using a lacuna in the rules to sort of give me on duty leave. FOr a day I was on cloud nine. But alas some things are not meant. In comes my bench manager who refuses to let me use the facility saying there is no policy of compensatory offs.
But now my imagination had been aroused and the one week that earlier seemed sufficient suddenly seemed so less. So I decided to empty all my earned leaves quota and simply party at home.
So I am now at Allahabad after a twenty four hour plus journey which included two bus journeys, a flight from Bangalore to Delhi and a train journey to add to it.
I sometimes wish that I was closer to home, that it was not so difficult to get home. But then I console my heart and say that some things are probably not meant to be.
"We alwys wonder about the tales that are never written"
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Solitude or loneliness??
So I have been feeling very low recently? It appears all the joy has gone out of my life? I think its the weather but the fact that I have put between 12-15 hours daily at work for the last four weeks also contributes to this. Quality of life a theme that I clamour for and also the reason that I swapped from Bangalore( great city but long commuting hours ) to Mysore (idyllic and sleepy city but it takes me five minutes to get to work) has gone into the trash.
To that extent I am genuinely tired. Also I feel loneliness. Normally I enjoy such phases walking head stoically but I have started to crib a lot about the hours.
Can we genuinely work 14 hours and not suffer a burnout down the line. Or even survive to face the next appraisal. Thats the question?
Anyway I normally see solitude and loneliness as different faces of the same coin.
However this quote by Thoreau published in 1859 in a series of essays made me see differently. He says in solitude a person exists with his inner self and there exists the chance for a dialogue and he is not really alone. However loneliness is the desertion of that inner self too and then it becomes genuinely lonely for the individual is alone?
Anyway enjoying a Sunday. Had to work the last four Saturdays too , so Sunday suddenly seems so fleeting and temporal.
Hoping that these insane schedules end soon.
To that extent I am genuinely tired. Also I feel loneliness. Normally I enjoy such phases walking head stoically but I have started to crib a lot about the hours.
Can we genuinely work 14 hours and not suffer a burnout down the line. Or even survive to face the next appraisal. Thats the question?
Anyway I normally see solitude and loneliness as different faces of the same coin.
However this quote by Thoreau published in 1859 in a series of essays made me see differently. He says in solitude a person exists with his inner self and there exists the chance for a dialogue and he is not really alone. However loneliness is the desertion of that inner self too and then it becomes genuinely lonely for the individual is alone?
Anyway enjoying a Sunday. Had to work the last four Saturdays too , so Sunday suddenly seems so fleeting and temporal.
Hoping that these insane schedules end soon.
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