Saving the Female Fetus nasah:

I completely agree with you on the IMA....like probably most professional organizatiosn in India, the IMA can barely look beyond its and its members extremely narrow self-interest....there is not even a remote awareness of anything called the larger public good...i remember in the mid-1990s when the govt. tried to include physicians within the Consumer Protection Act- that would have made it easier to hold govt. hospital physicians accountable for malpractice towards the generally poor patients (and god knows that is needed)- the IMA raised such a huge hue and cry, and came up with such creative and patently dishonest arguments, that as a medical student even i could see the absolute dishonesty of their position and total absence of any regard for public good....the CPA itself had several clauses that would have disallowed petty lawsuits, but the IMA representing what is an elite group of people against a largley disorganized and unaware group`s interests, not surprisingly got its way

A Lot is Rotten in the State of Denmark ...one of the more interesting things to be seen in this discussion is how closet RSS sympathisers are seeing the liberalism and virtues of Christianity when it comes to baiting Muslims....some RSS habits die hard, even if they contradict each other......when its time to burn Christians in Orissa or tribals in Gujarat, Christianity is the imperial, illiberal, intolerant, converting and Islam-like religion....but now that its a convenient handle to bait Islam, it is anything but! ....the sad fact is that RSS sympathisers defending RSS inspired atrocities with semantics about the age old nonviolence of Hinduism sound just like Islamist apologists explaining Islam as the misunderstood religion of peace...
...its slightly more difficult to get when you are the one caught within those intoxicating notions of age-old victimisation...a few facts can always be obtained to marshall any given belief (Muslim invaders, shah bano, et al)

..that said, the idiocy of the author and his supporters here, and other Muslim intellectuals who are perpetually caught in the victim complex is staggering....i wonder how these intellectuals go to bed at night perpetually whining about atrocities against muslims across the world when they do absolutely zero to stem the fascism towards minorities so obvious in muslim countries....how come there is practically no visible organization or movement to defend minority rights and ask for fairness to all religions within Muslim countries?!!

A Muslim Pope? hi sridhar

...thanks for the welcome, but it shd be welcome back ; ) ....i`ve been here quite a bit earlier and we`ve interacted before

...i`ve heard abt the movie and it promises to be a good one...anupam kher is a good actor and i still remeber being impressed by his first movie many years ago- the mahesh bhatt one....but i`ve been disappointed by his right wing political inclinations....i can understand career politicians and post-Godhra like goons parroting the RSS line; but it hurts when apparently sensitive individuals lend creibility to the same primitive ideas (however well packaged they may be as cultural nationalism or `chaal, charitra aur chintan` style talk)

..reg. arundhati roy (though her name is typical bengali after her father), she grew up in and identifies with her kerala christian upbringing- some RSS types have gotten wind of it and use it to attack her `anti-national` writings, though it was always in the open in GOST, if only they coudl get their noses out of Golwalker`s theses to read it...

..personally, i am more against the RSS type of politics in India than the elitism practised by the pretend democrats like manto/sarwari/musharraf in pakistan...its been pakistan`s fate that pretend democrats will pretend fight real army dictators, and all this will be witnessed by an elitist upper middle class who will show pretend anguish on the plight of the masses....the fact is (west) pakistan never got its hands dirty in real politics- the empowerment kind- starting right from Jinnah and down to pretend fights between various classes of elites.....the real action is in india, where democracy is always upsetting traditional equations -and perhaps was the real reason for partition- but still needs to rid itself of primitive ideologies that keep re-invigorating, like rajnath singh`s ascendancy into BJP`s presidency ousting a reformed advani..

...i guess this sounds liek a rant, but just got an occasion to ventilate on politics after some time ; )

..and a happy new year to all

A Muslim Pope? Dear Salim

I have been reading several of your posts and feel that warm glow of a united Hindustan myself, although I have always been and remain a skeptic. I am not the RSS type Akand Bharati, but when a Pakistani himself articulates such an idea, the previously mentioned luminescence cannot be helped ; ) In fact I am not a Hindu myself- I am a minority among a minority in India – a Syrian Christian from the state of Kerala (the arundhati roy kind, if u know her)…..but India has always been more than fair to me, and as I know personally, to every minority within her. Yes there has always been inefficiency, corruption –but that too has been fair and democratic- everyone got an equal share.

And India has connected me to unparalleled diversity, cultures so varied and rich, which I would not have known existed, had not the arbitrary nation state (that Manto so derides) called India existed. My mother tongue is Malayalam- but I understand the fine nuances of Ghalib’s poetry, speak Bengali and a mongrel-ish Hindi/Urdu fluently, appreciate the understated-ness of serious Bengali cinema and the buffoonery of Bollywood, and can even jive to bhangra. I love the noisiness of Indian politics- the ideological as well as the power politicians, the rise and rise of the un-scrubbed (Laloo and such)- to the discomfort of the middle classes, and the institutions that continue to exist among all this clutter. And I have always known that partition was a tremendous mistake, just because I have known how India has treated me. Yes I have been disappointed by the BJP’s rise and the fascination it still holds for some middle class Hindus. And nothing has affected my notion of India so negatively as the post-Godhra riots- esp the Gujarati Hindu silence on it. But I am aware these are essentially aberrations and of the corrective forces at play in India, and will continue to hope.

India after all is a civilization, the true melting pot, where cultures have blended and enriched each other, whatever our own specific identitities. And yes I am a very big admirer of Gandhi, even his supposed eccentrities, and know you have to be at a certain place to appreciate him. I became interested in Gandhi because the idea of India intrigued me. I now know that Gandhi is the true embodiment of India - its spirituality and non-violence, its essential inclusiveness and its constant struggle with itself, and indeed its ability to lead the world with ideas. If you have an agenda, Gandhi and his life is the easiest to rip apart, as some here have perfected. But lets not debate that now because Manto and Sarwari, with their transparently dishonest intentions, will come up with their shallow quotes and breathless semantics to denigrate him.

Best wishes for the new year!

Gandhi in The Handmaid’s Tale Gandhi’s life and evolution was complex, as all human thought and growth is…….it is when you try to extrapolate this complexity into an idiot’s comprehension, you come up with conclusions ylh and sarwari so easily arrive at……

...the quality of ylh’s arguments is so third grade and petty that the responses to them seem disproportionately intelligent.....its really an unfair debate (unfair to ylh) because he is so short on substance and tries to make up by volume.....despite of the fact that his responders entertain him (probably beacuse Chowk treats him seriously by giving him article space), his reasoning skills are essentially that of a sixth grader....combine such reasoning skills with the unlimited data the internet provides and the choice to be selective (along with his obvious personal and national identity crises)- then you have the pat conclusions he comes with: Gandhi was racist, sexist, casteist and little else -repeated ad infintum.....conclusions so easily arrived at and which if true would make the lifetime work of scholars and philosophers who have studied Gandhi’s life in all its complex detail futile

...his wife, the author, is a trickster on a different plane than ylh.....she knows the limitations of the arguments ylh makes, which is essentially hers too, but masks it with layers of semantics…..she hopes that her arguments will attain a respectability proportional to the difficulty of language she uses....and she writes or quotes language irrelevant to the debate and barely understood even by her: ``a dystopia in a world without feminism. In it she outlines the most distinguishing feature of a totalitarian patriarchy to be an obsession with a woman’s ovaries to be viable.``

Gandhi’s life was about the evolution of a regular guy with all the regular guy limitations- aping the Englishman, ‘lust’ and (the most humane interpretations of) a few contemporary prejudices….he never claimed he was the son of god or a last prophet…… But the most important message of his life is the evolution of his beliefs, which he openly and honestly talked about……it’s the level of sincerity in his communications that is astounding and always strikes the impartial observer….and which gives these and other fools ammunition to attack him……you can rest assured that when the same person is attacked for mutually exclusive crimes (being pro-muslim and later pro-pakistan by the RSS kind and being a hindu fanatic and fundamentalist by Pakistanis and muslim fundamentalists), there is something fraudulent in the criticisms..….Gandhi was in Time 2000’s two most influential persons of the century (with Einstein), a conclusion arrived at after a year long process of feedback from around the world…..Churchill who was Time’s man of the half century in 1950 was nowhere on the list, and perhaps is an indicator of how timeless Gandhi’s message is and how it will increasingly resonate with time……

There is a fake competition in ylh and sarwari’s minds between Gandhi and Jinnah…..which is the original motivation behind such articles and posts…..like Jinnah himself, these guys believe that just because he was a successful lawyer and aped the English near perfectly, he deserved the greatness that was Gandhi’s…..but they should know that aping a people never earns their respect, which is exactly what Jinnah found out….that constitutionalism which is trumpeted as one of Jinnah’s everlasting qualities is simply another way of saying that he agreed to and insisted on playing by the unfair rules the British imposed……to ylh and sarwari`s eternal bitterness, Jinnah never amounted to anyone even among Pakistanis and the world is blissfully unaware of this great “constitutionalist”……they should know that the world is full of good lawyers, but greatness in a person is a different ballgame, one not easily attained by wearing fine cut suits or espousing constitutionalism


…all this probably would have been harmless except that these are the kind of people who will articulate the next generation Pakistani worldview….and because its wellsprings are bitterness and envy -even against a person as benign as Gandhi- you can be sure that the country is headed towards more disasters like benign dictatorships, support to Taliban and other misadventures…..Pakistan needs a generation that is confident and able to belong to the word’s mainstream, acknowledging and accepting the good in the world (including Gandhi)…...it has to stop living in its cesspools of paranoia driven ideologies, even if masked as liberal and secular, such as by these two

Gandhi in The Handmaid’s Tale ``However, Gandhi was a clever man, for every crude comment against women, he had 10 that supported women to go out and campaign, suggesting empowerment.``
....the lady is agitated that Gandhi wont simply roll over and play dead to all her mis-contexted quoting.......btw did she just refute everything she said elsewhere in teh above two lines?!!

...Ylh and this author`s juvenile ``oh we`ve just excavated the real Gandhi that others didnt know about``, inspite of all the detailed research the man has been exposed to for years and all over the world, reveals more about their enviousness than anything about Gandhi...
..unfortunately this exact mindset is what created and maintains Pakistan as a disaster state- spitefulness....it was there in Iqbal, in Jinnah, all the comedy acts that followed till the latest prizewinning act of Musharraf....

...you guys think that Gandhi is all about a debate (and winning it)....if you and your kind only knew what the unprejudiced world sees in Gandhi to find inspiration from him for all sorts of struggles- if you only knew, because you too can claim him as heritage- your country would be a much better place than it is today......if it is Jinnah loyalty that is blinding you to the greatness that is so easily accessible to you, then it is a

``It surprises me to no end, that MK. Gandhi is praised for spirituality but he never understood its basic fact that, the soul is developed only though interaction with the material, and not in isolation of it.``
....so here, thousands of years of spiritual experimentation across a number of cultures is blithely reduced to a two line, apparently very obvious opinion of an unrecognized author!!

The Creator of Legends OV Vijayan was indeed a phenomenon and Legends of Khasak must truly be recognized as one of the finest pieces of world literature of the last century........like for so many others, reading LoK was a discovery for me, of a whole world that I`d been unaware of- Indian regional writing....Rushdie discredited no one but himself by not including it in his collection of the best Indian writing since independence....I for one know that LoK, even in translation, is far superior to the experience of Midnight`s Children, and i have read and loved Midnight`s Children
....the other surprise in reading the translated LoK is knowing that the english translation was done by the author himself....i can only imagine what the original must have felt like....interestingly, the translation actually disproves Vijayan`s assertion on co-Keralite Arundhati Roy`s GOST release- that powerful fiction can only be communicated in one`s native language!

...regarding Vijayan`s turning away from communism to spirituality, i think it was an understandable and sensitive evolution....and not really a conversion to Hindutva, like Rajeev Srinivasan in his rediff columns occasionally tried to make us believe

Action To Support Displaced Community in Gujrat By: Nishrin Hussain (the daugther of the late

martyr Ehsan Jaffri).

 

I am the daughter of the former Member of

Parliament, Ahsan Jafri, who was brutalized,

burnt in his own house and killed on February

28 during Gujarat violence that took place in

the wake of Godhra incident. It was hard for

me even to believe that he is no more, that he

is taken away so untimely and with such

cruelty and brutality. As he was burnt and we

did not find his body, there is no closure for

me on his death. During the past 5 months, I

have swung wildly between the extremes of

faith and hopelessness, brotherhood and

utter disbelief in humanity, our ancient values

and wisdom, and the displayed dance of

immorality and violence in Gujarat. Over this

time, I even confronted my roots and religion.

But thanks to the power of my father`s

teachings and the support of my family, I have

now regained my balance, overcome my grief,

even if only partially. Partially, because I still

fail to control my emotions while thinking

about the sword that ripped him, the fire that

burnt him, the people who killed him. But I can

now share with you my memories of my

father, what he was to me, what he endured in

his services to his family, his country, and how

proud he has made us all.

 

He was my hero.  The moment I close my

eyes the entire period of my life from my early

childhood to the day I got married and left my

family in India, plays back. Repeatedly. He

was with me every moment of that life and he

is with me, in spirit, now as I write this letter.

 

``My dear Abba [father], I love you. We all love

you. We all miss you. We thank you for your

devotion, your faith, your courage, your values,

your sacrifice. You have taught us to be

selfless and not put ourselves first. Ammi

[mother] is never tired of recounting the

incident when in the bedroom of your old

house while you were sleeping, the small

kerosene lamp on the side of the bed fell off

and the curtain caught fire. You were sleeping

on the side of the fire and Ammi was next to

you. As the heat woke you up and you saw the

fire, instead of jumping out of the bed

immediately, you first woke Ammi up and

asked her to get to the safety. But as she

woke up and saw the fire, she thinks she

quickly jumped out of the bed and ran to the

door without even knowing where you were or

what you were trying to tell her. It is more than

40 years since, but she still remembers and

regrets that incident and feels guilty of putting

herself first that day and not grabbing your

hand as she ran to the door. In the wake of

what happened on February 28, as she was

upstairs in the house while you were being

brutalized and burnt in your efforts to save the

lives and honor of over hundred men, women

and children who had gathered in your house

seeking protection from the violent mob, that

guilt has become unbearable for her. She

sees that 40 year old incident replayed, yet

again, only if under different circumstances

and with not so bearable consequences.

Thousands of books in your library, the books

on law, literature, philosophy, humanity,

religion, national unity and your own poems

articulating your understanding of all that,

have turned into ashes- the treasure you had

safeguarded and saved for your children and

grandchildren. The sparrows in your office,

are no more- their nests burnt. I remember

how you used to encourage and assist the

sparrows make their nest in your office, lay

eggs, rear their chicks and teach them to fly.

You would keep one office window open all

the time, even when we go out and lock the

entire house. Only so that the sparrows can

get in and out freely. Several times a day, you

will happily clean the mess sparrows will

make in your office in the process of making

their nests. When the sparrows had little

chicks, you would put a tape on the fan switch

never allowing to turn it on even by mistake.

You will work in the heat rather than risk

injuring the chicks by the fan. We also miss

those sparrows.

Kaliya, the young boy who had foot infection

cries and recalls how you took him to the

doctor and used to personally dress and

bandage his wounds. He also tells how he,

whom no one else would even touch, used to

feel embarrassed to sit on the chair while you

would sit down and tend to his feet. Dozens of

those whom you helped over years also come

and reminisce your kindness and generosity.

Many of them also know how you used to ask

them to white-wash the house, paint the

doors, or remodel the toilets, kitchen, or

garage in our house, not because that was

needed, but because you wanted them to

work and make a living for themselves. They

all miss you.

Abba, I know if you wanted, you could have

earned a lot of money through your practice or

the political career. But instead, constant with

our ethos, the Indian ethos, you chose to lead

a life of simple living and high thinking. If you

wanted, you could have become a very

powerful and pragmatic politician. But instead,

constant with the values of your mentor and

the ideal, Mahatma Gandhi, you chose to

serve the people of our community, our

country. Your poems on communal unity,

national integrity and human dignity will

continue to guide generations.

You have touched many hearts. A majority of

Hindus and Muslims have come together in

mourning you. You were an apostle of peace

and an advocate of humanity and human

dignity. Most of our Hindu friends express

regret and shame over what a few misguided

radicals who they believe were Hindus did to

you and to the thousands of other innocent

people in the Gulberg Society and Gujarat. 

Bearing a feeling of guilt, these friends often

come and apologize to us for the Gujarat

violence. But we tell them, as you would have,

that it is not they who must feel guilty. It is not

Hinduism that is responsible for the carnage

and should be blamed. The misguided

radicals were the extremists, the followers of

extremism, which is a religion in itself. Hindus

are as innocent, as kind, as compassionate,

as God fearing and law abiding citizens as

those Muslims who were made targets and

killed in Gujarat by those extremists. We tell

this to all of our friends, here and everywhere.

We love them, respect them and respect their

sincerity and faith in our values just as you

did. We share their concern and resolve to

work together to eliminate the monster of

fascism injecting and spreading the poison of

hate in our society, our country.

Abba, there was a time when I was totally

overwhelmed with my loss, when I repeatedly

kept asking myself, why my father? Why him?

But thanks to your teachings, the teachings of

always seeing the bigger picture of events

and the bigger picture of our lives, I have

recognized that there are thousands of others

like me - men, women and children - who

have lost their near and dear ones and who

are also asking, why them? Scores of children

have become orphans and scores of parents

have become children-less. I also recognized

that some of the likes of me are in Godhra

and in Kashmir. Their pain is no less than

mine. Their loss is no less than mine. Their

innocence is no less than mine. So I ask of

those in power who have carried out this

carnage and who from time to time commit

such crimes against humanity, why us?. And

with all humility, humbleness and a sincere

heart, I ask God, why not those who preach

the hatred? Why not those who spread

communal intolerance? Why not those who

propagate the violence against His creation?

My dear Abba, I remember you telling me

there is animosity in the world, but there is

also peace, harmony and love. There is pain

and miseries in the world, but there is also

happiness, progress and prosperity. There is

fighting and brutality in the world, but there is

also brotherhood, peace and tranquility. It only

depends upon where and how you look at the

world. Thanks to your optimism and my

upbringing with a positive outlook, I choose to

see love, brotherhood, peace and communal

harmony in India. I choose to believe the

violence and communal intolerance we saw

in Gujarat was only an aberration and that

soon it will pass. The hate mongers with a

divisive agenda will be defeated and the

people in India will come together, regardless

of their religion or race, regardless of their

color or caste, regardless of their political

orientation or ideology, to realize your dream

and the dream of millions of others like you -

that of a united, progressive, prosperous,

secular and proud India.

My dear Abba, thinking about you and your

teachings revitalize my resolve to go out and

help thousands of those homeless men,

women and children produced in the wake of

Gujarat massacre who have been suffering

what is insufferable, who have been enduring,

what is unendurable. I am not bitter against

any individual, or a community. Following in

your foot-steps, I with your son-in-law Najid

Hussain, am working to the best of my

capacity and capability, to help those destitute

people. We have help from several

individuals, institutions and organizations. We

are working to provide those people

rehabilitation, guarantee their safety and

security and work to ensure justice in Gujarat.

Bless us Abba. And bless the country you

served all your life with distinction, honor and

a selfless devotion. Bless us and guide us so

that we can clearly see and tread the path you

showed us-- the path of kindness and

compassion, of unity and integrity, of peace

and harmony-- so that we never have to see

Gujarat repeated ever again. Thank you. We

love you. We will always love you. We also

miss you.``

[taken from aiindex@mnet.fr]

Piece of What? ...for the unmindful and the mindless....those

who think appearing cool is more important

than having it (protesting dams?! how uncool,

anti-modern, anti-national).....if you cannot

understand, or even think, dont try to belong to

a herd:

excerpts from a writeup by amitava kumar on

a roy:

......The successful enter into the Faustian

contract: they sell their souls to fame and

become its servitors. Roy didn`t. On the

Narmada issue, as after the nuclear tests,

Roy has chosen to go against the popular

grain. Her words have contested the pious

dogmas of the business-as-usual, safari

suited, bureaucracy-cum-political

establishment as well as its supporters.

In the mind of at least this reader of Roy, her

efforts in alliance with the Narmada Bachao

Andolan signify her resolve to build a republic

of many. A republic that is mobile only in the

sense that it represents a movement -- a

broad movement of the disenfranchised who

are fighting for their rights. ........

According to the journalist Kalpana Sharma,

the results of Roy`s interventions are fairly

plain. Roy`s essays, Sharma wrote in The

Hindu, ``have reached an audience which any

number of well-argued, erudite pieces

appearing on the editorial pages of

mainstream newspapers would not have

reached.``

Among such an audience are the youth from

many Indian cities who have been making

their way to Narmada to learn about their

countryfolk themselves.

And the charge of celebrity hunting that Roy is

accused of?

Sharma raises a provocative question here:

Would Roy have been subjected to harsh

criticism if she had stuck to genteel tasks like

cutting ribbons and appearing at functions?

It is imaginable that had Roy not made

nuclear missiles and large dams her targets,

more ink would have been spilt on her poetic

syntax and her smile.

.......There can be no gainsaying the fact that

Roy`s latest leap into the public fray marks the

emergence of an important intellectual who is

both public and political.

There are people who make history. Roy is

one of them. But, she is also one who has

been made by history. Velutha, the tragic,

untouchable hero of her novel, has found his

flesh-and-blood counterparts in the Narmada

valley. Roy`s struggle to articulate this fact

makes her perhaps the most important writer

in India familiar to the West since

Rabindranath Tagore.

The winner of the Nobel Prize in 1913, Tagore

had renounced his knighthood in 1919 to

protest British repression against Indians. He

was also a writer who had turned from his

early days of romantic revivalism to a strong

vision of a fight against oppression. Roy`s

decision to march with real-life Veluthas

recalls that earlier conversion.

Piece of What? AR could easily have settled into the lifelong

comfort of celebrity and attention.......gone to

inaugurations, get invited by people in power,

say nice things about the country and similar

useful things....like so many of our other

celebrities do......but like she said, you cannot

unsee what you hv once seen (what she

doesnt know is that many ppl do that)......its

her obligation to her intelligence..infact all our

obligations to our intelligence not to unsee

things

....and with her skill for language, she has

been able to relate the criminality of such

usually vague things as the nuclear bomb and

huge, diplacing dams to the insular middle

classes

....now that affects certain people, whose

propagandists are out in full force and due to

lack of ANY reasonable counter-arguments,

have been spreading the line abt her being

publicity-crazy!....and because she is also an

intelligent woman who just doesnt say that

her role model is mother teressa but actually

gets her hands dirty, its too much for the

gerontocracy in india to take.....thankfully there

are still enough people in the media

unmindful of the inspired hate mail she

receives to give her space

btw unlike what much of the pakistani press

(typically) mentioned, her mother did not fight

and win a SC case for equal rights of

minorities, but for equal inheritence rights

within a minority- for syrian christian

women.....similar to the shah bano case i.e. a

minority woman against the minority

establishment

Piece of What? ref my post # 26

..actually AR had donated her Booker money to NBA….what she gave the KDSA was rights to ``translate GOST into the original malayalam..`` and all ensuing royalties

Action To Support Displaced Community in Gujrat In Your Face # 18:

i dont get what you are trying to say...who

objects to not mixing politics with

charity.........what i`ve written are my political

views, i`m not mixing that with anybody`s

charity......if u object to my views u can say

that.....as far as i am concerned, never in

independent indian politics has right and

wrong been so clearly defined as in gujarat

today.....the closest was the Emergency and

`84 riots.......this was a state sponsored

pogrom by an elected government......and its

not that they are ashamed of it, they are

actively trying to make capital of it......if it works

this time, it can be repeated

everywhere........and its no time to be polite or

diplomatic about who is responsible, even if

they are in power and have many, unthinking

followers.....its good that the NHRC and EC

have spoken against it, but thats not

enough.....a national outrage about what

happened there has to be sustained....its not

sufficient that the BJP be `shown its place`.....it

has be to be ejected politically and

prosecuted for murder of innocent civilian

indians

...btw i have an opinion on kashmir.....its that a

plebiscite outside the indian constitution

cannot be allowed for the simple reason that

the result would not reflect sane, reasoned

thinking......just as an election in immediate

post- communal polarization gujarat yielding a

BJP govt cannot be considered to reflect the

democratic aspirations of an average gujarati,

a pan-islamist, pakistan executed oppressive

militancy throwing up an anti-Indian result in

any plebiscite will not reflect the the moderate

muslim kashmiri opinion.....for that we need a

stretch of peace and development, of which

there had been periods earlier........however

an election conducted by the EC, in a free and

fair manner, even if boycotted by

secessionists is credible enough to me if

there is no attempt to influence results

between the various parties who are

agreeable to the indian constitution

Piece of What? rsaxena # 29

``....as opposed to you, whose argument is simply that because she`s written a book, she should have the podium to mouth off?...fact is the woman has no credibility in india..``

..you do not or cannot follow my argument....i do not see another reason for u`r conclusion...

...btw who decides credibility in India?? Is having u`r essays on 2 leading national magazines on the cover, that too twice each, and several times more within covers - other than in leading international magazines/newspapers- a sufficient index of credibility in india?...or is your index of credibility the massive trashy criticism of her spawned by several closet Sanghis on numerous websites -who are so impressed by their own mediocre and self serving political insights? or certification by Messrs Advani and Modi?

...i used to think seeing ur expert comments that u may hv read any of her articles.. but u havent....who do u think shd hv the podium to speak on nuclearization or killer dams that affect every citizen?...i guess she was talking to ppl like u when she said ``so shall we leave it to the experts?!``

...learn to think, rsax....theres life beyond one-line witticisms or market economics

Action To Support Displaced Community in Gujrat arjun_m:

..his email is already posted...its ajayraina@vsnl.com

rsridhar:

...there probably was a temporary error..i have posted mine- a message thanking you appears when you are done......and spread the word..eventually its institutions like these that differentiates us frm most countries around, and its crucial that these are not undermined by smooth talking criminals and baby-killers pretending to be ministers!

Piece of What? rsax # 20 and others

..through all u`r posts i am yet to see u say

anything substantial against Roy....u`ve been

saying stuff abt her chasing cameras- care to

substantiate? u shd probably stick to making

witticisms abt stuff u know- like scout.....

..and what do you expect a writer/ activist to do

other than write abt things?...btw do u care if

she has done anything - u obviously know

she`s been doing a lot of work for NBA...whats

her fault if the cameras chase her?!...btw NBA

work is not easy...and she is dedicated....i

was at a malayalam literary function in Kerala

in 2000, where she suddenly, out of the blue

(and many thought inappropriately- in

presence of luminaries like adoor

gopalakrishnan, kamala das, mukundan,

pavan varma, etc) started talking abt NBA ,

asking for possible help.......are u aware how

much in $ terms the publicity she has

generated for NBA(and the international

support it has translated into) comes

to??.....do you know that she has contributed

the entire Booker prize money to the kerala

dalit sahitya akademi- `` i give this in memory

of Velutha`` (in case u read the book, which u

wouldnt hv)....

...a just publicity-crazy individual wouldnt hv

the stamina to last this long, and still be at

it.....she could hv easily played it safe, written

another book or written/acted in offbeat

movies....written abt the struggles of a writer

or an unconventional woman or such

stuff....but she isnt.....she is putting her money,

and limb, where her mouth is

...if ppl like u cd actually try to follow what she

is saying, rather than be so eager abt

parading u`r own attitude and smart-

aleckiness.....and be less infatuated with

symbolism like naidu`s laptop, india wd be a

much better place

Action To Support Displaced Community in Gujrat pankaj # 4

..i think the idea behind not accepting foreign

donations is so that our Sanghi friends and

government in gujarat are not able to spread

the canard that the education of children

orphaned by them is being ``funded by foreign

elements``.......the joke of course is that most

of the apparently austere Sangh and sanghis

are floating on foreign $s (apart from petrol-

pump rupees!)

...you cd have some family/friends in India

send money to them....there is also a similar

initiative by Outlook magazine +

schoolnetindia.com that accepts US/intl credit

card payments :

http://www.schoolnetindia.com/specials/

outlook/#