The Doll’s House

re:#2 by BruceLee
There is always a reason for everything. I recently noticed how Farzana bibi`s articles are being published on TFT. May be, flaunting her Islamic credentials and hatred for the hindus is one way of impressing people across the border, who in turn reward her with such opportunites. Farzana bibi`s journalistic future in Indian may or may not be bright but she has a bright future in Pakistan.
Sridhar

# 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64 and 65...seven missives(missiles?) fired by the good doctor and then he threatens @64...[I will post a detailed reply another time].. bijness must be dull...;)

LOL, some of the reactions on this thread are killing me.

tenaliramanna,

``Islam has not allowed a non muslim to prosper as Sanatana Dharma allowed other religions to prosper.``

I don`t know much about pakiland, but I know that those Muslims who prosper in modern India do so (in/dis)spite of Hinduism.

To FV you asked: ``(w)hy is ``respecting`` the culture/religion/language of the land such a scary thing for you ?``

It`s not. What`s scary is when people demand you respect, and their notion of respecting is adopting and accepting as part of practice. Sorry, but I`m not interested in Hinduism`s polythestic or mythic aspects. Newsflash: demanding Muslims accept anything from hinduism is no less ``tolerant`` than Muslims demanding Hindus ``accept`` islam`s strict monotheism. That quote you and FV presented is just plain dumb, since one faith group demanding change from another is hardly understood as an example of tolerance, wheather it`s in Pakistan, Saudi, America or India.

Now, does that mean I can`t respect others who decide to follow another faith? There`s this ``you have your religion, I have mine`` kind of respect, but you guys don`t want that do you? You demand we buy into the ``my religion is Indian, yours is not...so you better take as much of mine as you can so I can bless you with the title Indian`` kind of `respect`. Screw that. In the modern nation state of India, Islam is as Indian as Hinduism is. If Hindu bigots don`t feel that way, then they can do the world a favor and die so they can take it up with the founding fathers in their next lives.

``Our president EMBRACED the native culture and yet continues to be a muslim``

LOL, Mr. President proclaimed himself a non-practicing Muslim, and is one who proudly claims to read the Gita every morning. Ha, I think someone is pandering to the sentiments of certain elements within the majority community...I shouldn`t have to say who...I think your smart enough to figure that out...

But it raises a point...why is it that no Hindu is ever asked to confirm their Indianness, whereas Muslims are almost always asked if they are Muslim or Indian first?

``Your blood should boil when you think of this beastly rape to Indians. Yet, you don`t care.``

LOL, does your blood boil when hundreads of thousands of karsevaks literally raped and pillaged the Muslim populace, and tore down the Babri masjid? No...boiling blood can only be for Muslim wrongs a few hundread years ago. Hindus can do no wrong because they are ``tolerant``.

``If you don`t know the pain, I wish you`d go to a Mecca and Madina which has been ravaged by some other religion (say Christianity) - with a church standing on their ruins and feel the pain.``

Correction: a proper analogy if some mysterious site in, say, Lebanon was thought to be the site of the Ka`ba, and a church was standing there instead. Okay, I thought about it...and I don`t feel the pain. Sorry...

``Post partition, IMs have lost nothing (infact they gained much) but Hindus did. As an example, if Hindus had ``X`` sq Kms of land (say from Afghanistan to Kanyakumari.. and Pakistan - incl to B`Desh incl), post Invasion of they lost 20 %. Post partition, they lost another 25%. NOw with Kashmir they will lose another 10 %. ``

Say what?! Dude...newsflash...Muslims ``lost`` all of India except Pakistan and Bangladesh if your thinking along those foolish lines. India is a modern construct. It never existed prior to 1947. India has no claim over Pakistan or Bangladesh. Nor does it want to. Nor was there ever a unified India prior to that which included all this territory. What kind of backwards thinking is this?

re: #46 by arjun_m
``How many people even know golwarkar? I sure as heck don`t..sounds like a fellow ghati..``
She even spells it wrong. It is Gowalkar not Golwalkar.
How many would spell Gandhi wrong?
Sridhar

FV,

Extreme nationalism is bad for health. So, I am not advocating to or expecting it from you. But lets take a look at your statements. Its quite bad that you give a communal stroke to each of them. Should the Indian Hindus who read this article, take your views as those of Indian Muslims, or just as yours? If they are just yours, how come you make it seems as if you are speaking for all of IMs? If they are those of many IMs, Indian Hindus, probably have to go many miles in making India less communal, for its always the horrible Hindoos who have a making in causing the tragedy that is today, Indian secularism, right??

* ``The world was made to see how easy it is to make a spectacle of the Indian Muslim.`` FV, honestly, don`t you think the over-zealous Indian media would have done it to a Lance Naik Pappu Yadav, or Krishna Kumar or John Kutty, if they were unfortunate enough to fall in a similar situation? Its a different issue though that even if they were that unfortunate, their respective community or religious leaders would not have turned to scriptures to decide the woman`s fate so cruelly. Depends on who is willing to go that extra mile to bring a bad name to themselves. Think about it.

``The subtle message being that he is a nationalist and therefore acceptable by the majority community. He has a right to reclaim what he wants.`` Again, you are reading too much into everything. Is this a betrayal of your seige mentality living amidst so many Hindus?? I hope this is just your ``observation`` of that ``subtle message``, not that of other IMs. If it is, something is really wrong with the thinking of IMs. What if the majority Indian Hindus start reading too much into the lives of IMs ? Would they not be called paranoid? Of course, naturally communal, something applicable to only the Hindus !! Let me soothen your heart, Indian Hindus are not looking for such ``subtle messages``.

``Sitting right beside him was his wife in a sleeveless kameez. What he was doing was playing to the gallery, showing that his family had ‘progressed’ from hiding even their nails to expose much more.`` Well, are you suggesting in someway that the Hindus forced that family in some way to be like that ?? That it is wrong if they made the bold choice to be different? That it is wrong that they pointed so? Too much of watching, reading, and giving a communal stroke to everything.


More to follow, read few paragraphs and it already hurts. The burden of carrying Indian secularism seems to be entirely on the Hindus, it seems. Depresses me further to note that IMs (hope it is just you with this seige mentality) can never be made to feel part of the whole that is India.

A suggestion, in your future articles, tone down the tenor, make the arguments seems plausible and of course, be bold enough to accept that IMs DO have a making in their pitiful fates. NO, I am not talking of the IM leaders

---

I am talking of the average Abdul Quadir, Mohammed Ghouse Pasha who so easily get fired up for the silliest of reasons. An example, few years back, in Bangalore, a muslim mob torched state run buses, because in a traffic jam one of the drivers honked to get the vehicles infront of him move. It also happened that it was prayer time for the muslims. You see my point? No one led the mob, just a spontaneous reaction, saw it infront of my eyes. Your take?

Hamid - may I recommend the ``orrible indoo`` - it has a nice cockney touch to it. ``Ooo I say the orrible indoo as been at it again``.
There was an orrible indoo
who ate nothing but vindaloo
oh such a terrible being
`e reeked of `eeng
and talked like a paindoo

``I wake up not to the sound of the azaan but the dhin-chik, dhin-chik from some Hindu pandal or the other.``
When I was in a boarding school, during a certain time of the year Anthony the chowkidar used to walk in the dorm at 4 am to wake-up a group of students, so they may get ready, dress and eat during the month of R. Unfortunately J, whose bed was next to mine, never woke up on time. Instead all those who were sleeping in the same area always got up. Being possessed of the sweet nature at that hour we normally set up on J - ``wake up you baste#d`` along with some football practice. It did help that N the hefty nutcase Arab student used to get involved in our cause. But in spite of all that we never held a grudge against J (well actually not entirely true J was the only one who hoarded his home-tucker without sharing. Kept in a trunk where it rotted till the end of the term - but that’s another story). And afterwards when I moved to the junior college hostel I remember Ganesh Chaturthi as the noisy time of the year. Not recommended when one has been out till the early hours of the morning. Of course I have to say Durga Puja times were quite nice when we hungry lads from the hostel went out trawling for free food. But the point is that all these sights and sounds were a part of our life, and while we may crib good naturedly against them we never harboured any resentment. It’s hard to argue but we are essentially noisy folks – our festivals, our weddings and even our funerals.

“I drink tea made with the milk of gau-mata, delivered at the door by Kishore.”
Milk of gau-mata ?? Funny my parents never used that on me to make me drink milk. I always had good old bhains-ka-doodh, in fact it tasted much better when my dad was posted to unit set in rural environs. The milk was so much better than the horrible stuff we were getting in the city. There was a time when due to health reasons I was told to drink gai ka doodh, fortunately modern science and a gifted surgeon were able to save me from that fate.

“My medicines come from Harshadbhai’s pharmacy and household provisions from Deepak; the watchman in my building insists on being called Bahadur but he is a bhaiyya from UP; my banker is a Kashmiri pandit”
So? In one of the schools I studied in, lunch was home food delivered and fed by Babu Ram, who was a harijan (damn there goes my Brahmin claim). Zainuddin regulary makes a trip to our house before Diwali as he knows it’s around that time when we get our house painted. In fact Zainuddin is a great one to learn tolerance from. For many years, until he died, his partner was this quite Marathi painter (married to a deaf mute but again that`s another story). The loquacious Zainuddin always has a point to make and his honesty and bluntness is always appreciated.
When my father passed away last year we were visited by the Ghulam M, the Kashmiri merchant who we have known for years. He always comes to Delhi in winter sell his wares and as usual had come to pay us a visit. He gave me and my mother courage at our time of need and hoped how Allah would always look after us. Did we resent his Islamic faith being thrust upon us? No we did not! We were touched by his kindness and the words that he spoke.

But then I am not from a minority so have never looked at life from that perspective (actually come to think of it at the present moment I am a member of a minority community). But then not having come from a family of religion-in-your-face-all-the-time maybe I find it hard to understand what it can be for a someone from a religious minority to live amidst a different religion. Is there so much polarisation now that we are now less tolerant and accepting? Is it really more difficult for minorities to live in India now? Does everyone look at life from a religious prism? I mean quite frankly the Gudiya incident could have happened to anyone else irrespective of their religion. The channels are chasing ratings and will do whatever they can to sell their product.

I come to chowk every now and then to get a whiff of the verbal tear gas.

In return, I point to a NYT article:
http://nytimes.com/2004/09/29/opinion/29kris.html?hp

by Nicholas Kristof, and his statement there:

``So although I did not find Osama, I did encounter a much more ubiquitous form of evil and terror: a culture, stretching across about half the globe, that chews up women and spits them out.``

No points for answering what culture he`s referring to.

My point is simply that you`re fighting the wrong battles.

Subroto
G` one mate

Daniel Pipes is probably the friendliest non-apologist commentator of Islam
in America, and this of his is worth reading:

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2110

re:#53 by fahadist
Guy,
You need to understand the fact that Farzana is a frustrated soul. She blames all her failures on India and the majority population. Does this ring a bell? The muslims all over the world today blame the West for their failures. This seems to be an Islamic pasttime.
For an aspiring Indian muslim (aspiring in the material realm), Shah Rukh Khan should be a role model. When was the last time u heard him whine about his muslim identity?
Those who fail in their lives find a scapegoat. For FV and her ilk, India and hindus are the scapegoats.
Sridhar

re:#61 by simran
For Farzana bibi, the solution is to move to Pakistan. For some one like u, the solution is to migrate to Canada where the voice of Khalistan is still strong and you need not have to talk in whispers. Of course, u will still be a minority there and face a different kind of problem.
BTW, do u see Gurbani on Zee TV every morning. I do and it is very inspiring.
Sridhar

State of India vs. Kingdom of India

Who do you feel will ultimately win?

The secular state of India or the `Hindu` Kingdom of India?

By `winning` I merely mean which will outlast the other and whose dominance will be supreme at the end of the day.

Poor Gudiya! Her one shot at happiness gone. Zee TV was just doing its job. These days news channels are EXPECTED to be brash and insensitive and in-your-face. That`s what gets viewers apparently.

Not sure what all this has to do with Indian Muslims though. Is Gudiya a Muslim? Was the Zee TV producer who put her on teh show a member of the RSS? Does anybody give a sh1t?

macGupta #72 While you imply that the culture he is talking about is the muslim culture, that in fact is not the case, as this quote from the article shows: ``I firmly believe that the central moral challenge of this century, equivalent to the struggles against slavery in the 19th century or against totalitarianism in the 20th, will be to address sex inequality in the third world.`` While the article gives the example of mukhtaran bibi - do you deny that countless females from poor families in India are raped every day even though their cases do not make it to the NYT.

Thus, it is the ENTIRE third world culture, not just muslim culture, that he rightly points to. So both you and versey are wrong: it is not muslim culture, not hindu culture, but the culture of poverty. The economic poverty of the poor in the third world, the moral poverty of the elite of the third world (where educated men like you - and many of your countrymen on chowk - are unable to rise beyond the primitive tribal and religious affiliations).

Farzana,
About Gudiya.
First of all, never again will I scoff at a Hindi film for being unrealistic.
Secondly, if you want to blame Zee TV, go ahead and do it, but it is the media which should be blamed here, not Hindus. The same media that made a hero of Dhananjoy chatterjee. The same media that you are a part of.
And yes, I am concerned about people like Arjun Singh. He makes such a big deal about secularism that no one looks at where the money is going.
Who is this fashion designer?? If it`s Shaina, is NC a Rajput?? I thought he was a Rajasthani, but Rajput?