Nellai Suresh puts in black and white

Karunanidhi has become a laughing stock across India for the blatant and crass manner in which he sought ministerial berths for his kith and kin. But shameless as they are, these politicians do not get any lump in their throat while giving out a lie or seeking a favour. Impunity again, to the sentiments of millions who voted them to power. A cartoon in Times of India today beautifully depicts. Karunanidhi is standing before Manmohan Singh with a baby in his hand and the latter says that he would not hesitate to accommodate the former's great grand child also but they did not have any baby-seats in the cabinet. Nothing can be more disgusting than this. Even Dr Ramadoss looks very graceful in demanding a berth for his qualified son in the face of this man demanding a cabinet post to his son who is neither educated nor experienced. Fortunately, the hands of the PM are strengthened so much that he can keep these elements in check just like he showed the door to SP and RJD. May God give him more strength in disciplining the criminals and the corrupt in his regime.

Talking of the hypocracies, we saw many during the great Indian tamasha called the General Elections 2009. We saw losers being ungraceful - I don't say disgraceful - in inventing all sorts of reasons for the debacle, voting machine frauds, counting frauds, money play etc. But the best aspect of this election is the door shown by the Indian electorate to all sundries who were having a field day during the last 5 years, like the Communists, Lalus and Mulayams, Ramadosss and Pawars. All those who created havoc during the last term were put in their places. This will be a stable set up - be it Congress or BJP, all the tails that wagged the head have been chopped off. Even DMK could not talk from a position of strength. It had to go abegging. The initial signals are encouraging to indicate a cleaner rule.

Another piece of news that attracted me was US asking China to help Pakistan to train its forces to face terrorists. Are they trying to take coal to Newcastle? The country which for well over 5 decades specialised in training terrorists and sending them to India needs training to counter it - best joke of the millennium. Instead of pulling the pipeline of supplies of arms and money which everyone in the establishment knows where it lies, they are beating around the bush. Somebody has to call their bluff.

Obama does not want companies in US to outsource on a large scale. He wants to give jobs to Americans first. But when it comes to war in 'AfPak' region, he blissfully outsources it to Pakistanis and Afghans by throwing in a few dollars more. Taliban who were created by Americans are now being fought by Pakistanis and Afghans at the bidding of Americans. Long live American hypocracy!!!

Nearer home, DMK is another champion of hypocracy. Karunanidhi will preach atheism to every one in his party. He will have a jibe at those who believe in God (only of they are Hindus - Muslims and Christians can believe in God, he has no temerity to mock at that). But his son Azhagiri starts his election campaign after offering obeisance at Narasimhaperumal Temple near Madurai. This temple was selected because it was believed to be good for those who were born in the start Swati and Azhagiri is one. So for the father of rationalism in Tamilnadu (he seems to have replaced EVR), his son believing in astrology and God is not objectionable whereas other Hindu believers are objects of mockery. Long live DMK's hypocracy!!!

And if you start recording the hypocracies of the Indian politicians during these elections, probably a new server is needed to blog all of them. Advani calls Manmohan a weak PM when he released a terrorist and cried over the demolition of Babri and Manmohan talks of Advani melting. Mulayam wants computers and English to go whereas his children and his wheeler-dealr Amar Singh live out of them. Mayavati talks of uplifting the poor when all she has done is uplift herself. The MPs from the suicide-ridden Vidarbha in Maharashtra have incresed their wealth over the past five years when farmers have resorted to more and more suicide out of poverty. The list goes on and on and on.

This is a mail from a very young friend of mine
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When people who wallow in gutters scream for help, it doesn't necessarily mean they want to be rescued. Instead in many cases, when someone on firm ground reaches out compassionately but naively, they get dragged into the muck themselves. And what does one do then? You first swim away from the person who dragged you down, since as long as you are next to them, they'll never let you get out. Once you are at a safe distance, you pull yourself out, cleanup, and move forward. The next time someone else reaches out, don't ignore the person; don't lose out on your compassion. Instead look for the signs to determine if the person genuinely wants to be rescued; and if you can't figure it out, err on the side of compassion rather than caution. But make sure that you are smarter this time and have your feet firmly on the ground, so that if you start feeling dragged, you can pull away before it happens. Of course there's a possibility that the person is very strong and you end up getting dragged despite your best efforts. Go through the process again since the person will loosen the grip on you when they find somebody else to drag; and rest assured they'll find another one.

I do not believe or disbelieve in God as of today. But if I was a believer, then I would also like to believe that God took the form of these people so that he could be my teacher. And I bow down and salute them for making me realize that I'm not as intelligent or strong or wise as I think, and pushing me in the direction of being a better human being in all these respects. And I'm grateful to them that most of my hurt has been emotional - not financial, physical, social, or legal. Because, as of today, I feel that only with emotional hurt comes a strong guarantee that it can be overcome.
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This is not from any book - this is a thought which has germinated in my mind as I'm trying my best to forgive some people whom I loved and cared for immensely, and who instead hurt me back because I was capable of giving. Though I'd never claim that this is a completely original idea - I'm very convinced that years of reading, listening, pondering, and conversing have lead to this moment. I'm hoping this will help me overcome my current sense of loss, and the pain from my past which still lingers.

The last para of an article by M J Akbar in TOI dated 08.03.2009 detailing how the state of Pakistan failed.
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On the day that terrorists attacked Sri Lankan cricketers, I had a previously arranged speaking engagement at a university in Delhi before largely Muslim students. I began with the suggestion that every Indian Muslim should offer a special, public prayer of thanks to the Almighty Allah for His extraordinary benevolence - for the mercy He had shown by preventing us from ending up in Pakistan in 1947. The suggestion was received with startled amusement, instinctive applause and a palpable sense of sheer relief.
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I exclaimed twice when the TV bludgeoned that Gandhiji's memrablia had been purchased by the Liquor Baron Vijay Mallya and that they would be given to the government. Once, after knowing the amount (just $1.8 m or INR 90m), because there was not one soul in this country who could afford this much of money for saving a memory whereas parties spent billions in elections and advertisements. The Congress Party which had the greatest opportunity of claiming Gandhiji as its own just did not wink an eyelid. The government was mired in its bureacracy and lethargy rather than acting quickly. No other businessman who has amassed wealth from this country could think of shelling out just 90m rupees or was not willing.

I shouted the second time because the saviour is none other than the industrialist Vijay Mallya and the irony is that most of his income comes from the liquor business which Gandhiji wanted people to move away from. As the Tamil proverb goes, the money got by selling a dog will not bark. But more than that by such an act, can we treat Mallya to have wiped out a significant part of what we consider as 'Sin' of manufacturing liquor? My biggest cheer for this man is that he did it without publicity and very discreetly whereas many chatter boxes were making huge noise of participating in the auction and bidding for the items. Hats off to you Mallya or will this be better --- Three cheers to you Mallya!!!!

(The writer is a teetotaller but has moved a lot among 'drinkers')

When I look at the late night news, Ambika Soni, the Culture (definitely not Cultured) Minister says that The Indian Government was always in touch with Mallya's representatives and got it executed through him. Promptly comes the denial that no one ever contacted him before or after the auction. Just like he took back Tipu's sword, out of his own interest, Mallya has taken this. Shameless creatures, these!!!

==== Article by Santosh Desai in TOI dated 8th Mar 2009
"Now that India is affluent, who dare buy our ancestral heritage even if we do not fully care about it personally? Gandhi is ours to ignore, and by god, we shall put good money to protect that right."
"We treat Gandhi as many parts of the world treat their women, with an air of proprietary indifference"
"For there is no question that we have no particular desire to be reminded of Gandhi and his ideas. Buying back his glasses for crores of rupees is an act of naked tokenism. But the manner of doing so is richly symbolic. As it turns out, what this symbol points to has nothing to do with Gandhi. Could we have bought back Gandhi’s things and sold Gandhi down the river? "

Every time I visit a new country, I tend to compare it with India and get excited about certain new things in the country and at the same time draw consolation from some other aspects that India is a better place on any day. When I visited Indonesia, I was under the impression that I was visiting a country lower than India and so expected it not to be better than India in most aspects. But surprisingly, this country at first sight seems to be a better place. The airport is quite small or at least it is not gorgeous but it is efficient. The people are courteous and the taxi service is definitely very efficient. The roads are good and I did not find many signals on my way from airport to Kuningan where I stay and also when I went to Taman Safari on a Saturday.

The number of Toyota vehicles I see on the road is simply mind-boggling. I heard from Oman, our driver, that there are 28 models being produced in Indonesia by Toyota. Of course Benz vehicles also ply a lot apart from Hondas, Nissans, Mitsubishis and Suzukis. Two wheelers are their own masters here too.

There is a rule that cars cannot ply on certain busy roads with single passengers. So boys and girls called Jockeys stand by the side of the road with their hand raised. You can ask them to get in and travel till the end of the restricted roads for a price of IDR 15000 roughly equal to Rs 65 or US $ 1.3. Contrary to this two wheelers earn money by carrying you on pillion for a price. Man is really enterprising.

There are lanes and bylanes but SUVs like CR-V or Innova are driven with ease by the drivers here. And people create traffic jams occasionally by parking their cars in these lanes but people do not get angry too soon. Another interesting aspect is that junctions in the lanes are managed by volunteers who control the traffic well. Pure volunteerism, hats off to the people.

A very good thing I have noticed is that walls are not defaced by notices. Here too there are 40 political parties but their leaders are greeted by posters which are placed in a non-intrusive way. And people don’t spit indiscreetly or throw garbage. Poverty is visible but it has not affected the cleanliness of the city. I have to visit the rural side to validate my opinion.

The country gets copious rains because of being on the equator and also being an archipelago. The islands are very green and one does not encounter vast dry expanses at all.

The Taman Safari is a beautiful place. Zebras, Ostrich, Lions and many other animals walk on the road and all the animals are allowed to roam freely with safety for the visitors. Going by a car, I got to pass by a lion sitting in the middle of the road. And a tiger going by the side. It was thrilling. More than that, I got a leopard cub sit on my lap for a fee and naturally got it photographed. That will be one of my prized possessions. Another one was the parrots eating out of our hands, sitting on our forehand or even the head.

The whole area is a forest on a hill and there is a beautiful water fall. A cow boy show is a not-to-be-missed item in this safari. Wild West is recreated so nicely that one can consider the films as inferior to this. For 45 minutes, we are taken through a fight between the cow boys and the Indians with the Sheriff and his man winning in the end, but it was the amazing continuity that is maintained that boggles your mind.

The currency is a joke here. IDR 500 is like a 50 paise coin in India. Its value is like Rs 2. People talk in terms of hundreds of thousands, like milk sells at 28000 for a litre. However, I find that it is costlier than India. Can I assume that this is a more developed country than us?

Language, for me, is just a medium of communication. Its beauties are to be enjoyed. It should not be used as a weapon to fight unwarranted battles. But, throughout history, after man created languages, he is fighting over them. Just like the saying, ‘The biggest enemy of global peace is patriotism’, ‘Love of one’s mother tongue’ is again an enemy of peace, not necessarily among countries but within communities inside a country. If it is not so, we would not have seen wars between French and English, English and Spaniards, French and Germans, Germans and Austrians, Czheks and Slovaks, Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Christians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, Tamils and Hindi-speaking, Malayalees and Tamils, Kannadigas and Tamils, Kannadigas and Marathis, Marathis and Konkanis, Japanese and Chinese. The list seems to be endless.

What provoked me to write this blog was a casual remark by a friend that there was no language like Tamil which could express humour in so many ways and so beautifully. This sort of a feeling is harboured by almost every one. Even those who do not have script for their mother tongue – they are just dialects, they express similar thoughts. Another friend of mine remarked that Hindi had all the pronunciations in the world. Having learnt about 7 languages so far in my life, my strongest belief is that no language is superior to another. Each one has its beauties and its limitations. If one starts listing out the limitations, one is ostracized. Tamil being my mother tongue and English being the second language I learnt as a child, my love for these two is immense but that does not border on chauvinism. I can boldly say that these two are not phonetic languages just like any language which has Sanskrit as a base like Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. In the latter set, we speak as we write and write as we speak. They can accommodate most of the pronunciations one normally encounters. This is not the case with many other languages like Tamil and English because the alphabets of these languages are a very small set. This is not to belittle these two languages. Over ages, people have invented new letters or new styles to express words from other languages. Each language is almost complete to express the needs of its people but only when it interacts with other languages does the trouble arise. Here historically, the person ruling over others has imposed his language specialties on his subjects and the subjects have willingly or unwillingly accepted. Thus we had Urdu language, for example when Persian could not be completely spread here.

I love all the languages I am fortunate to learn. But the so called lovers or protectors of languages like Tamil or Hindi or Marathi, are simply not worried about the degeneration that has been introduced by the TV or video or radio jockeys. Language is being used to make a livelihood by provoking people.

Oh what a week it was!!! India has so many places that compete with the best in the world. If only our rulers, officials and the people show some more care and discipline, one need not go to any other country for seeing most of the wonders of nature. Man made wonders also abound here as we saw in Halebeedu and Beluru. The sculpture there was so intrinsically carved that it threw us into rapture. The procession of elephants and horses and Yaalis (the mythological animal which looks like a lion), the different postures of the dancing, a student learning dance from teacher, the lady with a mirror in her hand, the naaga veena or the veena of serpent, the squint eyed woman, people wearing helmets, the 48 pillars in Beluru, the most exquisite of them, the Narasimha Sthamba which is having the miniature versions of all the dancing postures on the outer walls, the story that says that the creator had left some vacant areas in that pillar for a better sculptor to complete it, the single stone bull, the reliefs on the ceilings were just a few of the details I could remember. It needs a day or two and complete details from Internet to go through each of the items.

Shravanabelgola was another excellent place to visit even from a fitness point of view if not from a religious angle. The 600 odd steps on the hill are so steep that they easily make you almost breathless. But the view from atop is too good to remember the hardship. The Kalyani tank looks great from the top.

Kodagu district is again God’s own country. The meandering road to Madikeri from Kushal Nagar and then to Talakavery is easily one of the best sceneries nature provides. The Kaveri Nisarga Dhama (the abode of natural disposition of Kaveri) is set in an idyllic and serene environment. The Talakaveri and the hillock by its side provide another breathtaking view of Nature’s bounties. If only one gets to rest in these places for just a week in a year, one gets rejuvenated, physically and mentally. Are we missing so many things in India or at least are we aware of these to know what we are missing?

Singapore trip in November 2008 brought back nostalgia. After 8 years, I was going to Singapore. But unlike last time, I was better equipped this time with the help if Internet. I could get good details of the geography. My stay was in Serangoon Road and that made matters more interesting. I could meet my cousin who was working there. Mustafa is like a pilgrimage center for me and I visited it almost every day. I spent a day with my friend and her family. The Sentosa visit was worth remembering and I have captured it in my Panasonic. The butterfly park, the dolphin show, the Jurong Bird park and all the other places I visited were quite exquisite. More than anything else, my friends enjoyed my cooking and had very good variety.

Cho is perfectly right when he often repeats that by saying DMK is a family, Karunanidhi means just one family that is his family. All is out in the open today with MK's charges against Marans and the latter's counter offensive. It was all hearsay but now it is official. It is the money that was the reason for the split. MK and his family were given 'just 100 crores (one billion rupees)' for offloading their shares in Sun whereas they were worth several billions. And Marans say that it was under MK's suggestion that this was done. Again the opinion poll that infuriated the mob was creating divisions in the family, as per MK. And how brazenly he defends the killing of 'innocent' people in Murasoli office by the mob? No remorse whatsoever? Hey Ram, agreed that politics is the last refuge of scounderals but is it also the last refuge of remorseless murderers? Nepotism is the byword of MK now (and for that matter for the past few decades). He wants to run the party for his family. And the poor buggars in the name of party workers are striving to keep the family flag up and running. If you look at the other side, it is the Sasikala and family which provides the alternative (JJ will only be a head). Is it that even God cannot save this state?