India. My India today.

Ha ha ha.. We are all still alive.

Well, the news is that the world hasn't changed a lot overnight. Thank god for that. The snow in the balcony is still there, our dear victim of the monstrosity of the Delhi gang-rape is still alive with people supporting her and still calling for death for the rapists. And yes of course, which should be done - which should teach all rapists a lesson for now. And, all mothers in India to raise their sons a little better rather than "kuchh bhi karo, meri monu ko kuch nahi honi chahiye" ("Do anything, I don't want anything happening to my Monu.")

My heart goes out to that poor girl and millions of other girls who have been raped and have been denied justice. To quote No One Killed Jessica "Justice delayed is justice denied." I read an article a couple days back, about how quickly Delhi police have acted in this case arresting the rapists. Well, kudos to the cops. And also, I noted how interesting it was to see that the judiciary was also taking an active interest in questioning the cops when they thought the reports needed to have much more detail. Kudos to the judiciary too.

Why do we have rapes happening in such alarming frequency in India? I would think that rapes might have been a lot less in the times when man roamed naked. Ask people in India, even the educated would try to say that it's a woman's clothing that provokes one to rape. Answer this - if your sister dressed herself in a so called provocative dress, would you rape her or would you allow another man to rape/leer/pass lewd comments at her? So, now, dressing provocatively is a cause for rape?

We always tell our girls at home to dress properly and not to stay out late. Has anyone ever not told/not been told behave properly with a girl? Food for thought.

Spare a thought for all those martyrs whose sacrifices to win freedom seems all in vain today. Spare a thought for all those soldiers guarding our borders, sacrificing family life just to ensure that we can sleep in peace. That too seems to be in vain. All of them made/make such sacrifices each day and I feel ashamed that we are a country which calls itself a civil society, where there is nothing civil. Rape of a country. India is crying and bleeding, will there be hands to wipe the tears and stop the bleeding?

And sad how the world's largest democracy treats its peacefully protesting citizens. Lathi charging and tear gassing. Truly sad. Looks more like a throwback to the British era rather than of Gandhi's dream of a free India where Indians will be respected and treated with respect in their own land. The common man being treated like criminals, while criminals get all amenities possible.

The World Is Not Enough.

"The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry." - Brooks Hatlem (the old guy who gets released on parole and ends up killing himself in the movie - The Shawshank Redemption).

True, how it is. A big damn hurry the world is in - to see its own end, isn't it? Take a look around. It is not easy to say or even believe that the world is indeed decaying. Each and every country is decaying. Law of nature? Maybe.

Every good thing has to come to an end right. Probably. It is probably even time to acknowledge this fact.

This one song makes a lot of sense to me. ONLY PEOPLE WHO UNDERSTAND TAMIL  will understand this song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT2l77q-tTo

That's the kind of decay that every single person in any country will realize about themselves or even about their country or even about India.

Warring nations, ready to nuke each other up at a moment's notice. Countries starved of food and water and yet nations choose to arm themselves with hi-tech nuclear weapons than actually care for humanity. People killing people just because they are from another country/another state despite speaking the same language, and (yet you care for each other like you were born to the same parents when you are together in a different country, just because you speak the same language). People in power swindling billions and virtually putting up an entire nation for sale just because you want to live large.

It was said in the Bhagvadgita - "Whenever there is a decline in dharma being carried out in the world, then I will set things right by coming back to earth. Whenever good people are being dominated by bad people, then I will be reborn time and again to help good over evil."

Is the time coming for all evil to end and for the world to start afresh? or is it a complete beginning of the end? 2012 perhaps?

We will never know. Wierd things happen. Chaos.

P.S: Too abstract, I know.

What's in a name?

A name - that's all we really need to judge people. To find his religion, to find where he comes from and in some cases even leaves people guessing what sex the person is.

Wow. Really? Yes. For instance, I know a Mr.S, whose name suggests he belongs to X religion, but however he belongs to Y religion. Like that!

Well, name pronunciation. Most people, sorry to say specifically - in America cannot get even the simplest of names right. How hard is it to say a name properly? Never mind all of the world's population, just for kids to have a name that they can say out loud or even with pride at times, people in China give them "English" names. And that's because Chinese parents feel that their kids need to have a name that a person in America will be able to pronounce correctly.

The trend seems to be catching on India as well. I have noticed that some people have started changing their Indian names to something fashionable? Just because your boss/counterpart somewhere on this planet cannot pronounce your name properly - should you change it? A name that your parents kept for you so lovingly?

Yeah. Make it fashionable. Kuppusamy is never going to run out of fashion. Traditionally modern - yes! Old Sanskrit names now seem quite fashionable don't they? Attention new moms and dads (**winks**).

Truly, honestly, losing traditional names just because some guy somewhere cannot get your name right is something against what you have been, whoever you might be.

After a hiatus...

After a hiatus of a few eons (or so it seems to me), I am back on my blog.

Well, a quick update as to why I have been missing. My book has been published. Yes. I am a published author now.

What's the book about? Mumbai, November 2008. Almost all of us know what happened in Mumbai in November 2008. For those who don't - There was a dastardly terror attack in Mumbai and 10 men had kept the city under a siege for nearly 3 days. Countless lives were affected - directly or indirectly. And the story is about some lives which were affected by this attack.

What's the name of the book? [LIVE] from Mumbai.

Where can I get it? Flipkart has print copies available for India only. The ebook is on smashwords.com
Flipkart link: http://www.flipkart.com/live-mumbai-8192349918/p/itmd8psax3bduktk?pid=9788192349916&ref=ad7ecd6a-e218-462e-b8fe-d4a79248feb0

Ebook link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/172202

And if I want to contact the author to give him a few of my choicest words? This is the author's site : http://karthik.scribe.im/index.php/page

Ok.. apart from my book being published, I read a couple other books and a couple other experiences giving me a whole greater perspective on a human mind (OMG.. another lecture). Humans are not always good or bad. One man's hero is another man's villain.

Man is not black or white - he is grey. He his composed of good, bad and ugly. Most people may not understand this, but yes, good, bad and ugly - all of them exist within us. Evil is not something that we find around us, it lives inside us and comes out at an instant when no one knows when.

It's in the middle of the night that I am typing this rather abstract and meaningless post, but I do hope, sometime, someone may actually understand the rubbish that I have typed here.

And btw, please do send in your comments once you have read the book - you can always catch me on twitter - @karthiknj or tweet #LivefromMumbai.

Why this Kolaveri?

Within the past few weeks, some of the safest jobs in the world have turned into ones that people might fear to take up. A bank was robbed in broad daylight, a bus driver goes crazy and kills people by running the bus over them, a teacher was murdered by her own student.

Is 2012 really going to happen? Chaos all around already. But really, that kid murdering his own teacher? What were you thinking? Killing your teacher is revenge?

Well, to be honest, inherently we (read - Indians) have always been blaming someone else for even the tiniest of our faults. Would that kid have gone to the extent of killing his teacher had his parents raised him properly? The thing with us as Indians is that we always beat the floor up if our kids stumble and fall. That's to make the child feel that "my parents are protective of me."

What could have happened with that kid so badly that he went to the extent of killing his teacher? Most of us have faced failure in academics (to varying degrees of course) at some stage or the other. But really, killing your teacher? and the reason is you were influenced by a movie? Where did you leave your brain, boy?

When most (generations of the 70's-80's) of us were growing up, we didn't have so much of violent movies, and even those which had scenes of a knife dripping blood were given an "A" rating, so that only mature audiences could watch the movie. In fact, movies which didn't have too much of violence or sexual content used to get an "A" certificate. The movies that come out today... well.. and kids these days too "mature" quickly.

Parents of today don't really have the time to sit with kids and talk to them, neither do kids for that matter. Nuclear families, no influence from the grandparents, working parents who return late from work, kids who run from school to tuition classes to extra curricular classes, etc -  all that hardly leaves any time for interaction between the parents and their kids. Fast paced, hectic life has taken out what matters the most to growing kids.

Adolescent kids, specially boys tend to do all sorts of nonsense growing up. It's at that time when a parent's or a grandparent's guidance is most important. And when that's not there for the kids, you never know what may happen. In joint families (seems like way back into stone age huh?) there was always an elder person in the house who used to take care of the kids. My parents never had to worry that their 10 year old son was all alone at home. My grandparents, my aunt, my uncle and even my great-grandmother were all there to take care of me. Stories, tales of people with good virtue used to be told to the kids to make sure they had the right kind of influence growing up.

When us kids from the 70s and 80s grew up in India, we didn't have too much of technology or western influence on us, which made us go bonkers at every opportunity. And also money. Money makes the world go round. Apparently, this particular kid came from a very affluent family and was given enough pocket money. And that money went to buying a weapon for himself to take his teacher's life. Indirectly, the parents themselves had sponsored a woman's death.

Well, life will go on.. life will find a way.. May that soul rest in peace...

No title...

Some of you might have read a previous post of mine saying "Love stories"... Well... I do hate most love stories to be honest... And that's because I've never had the patience for that.

2 Love stories... or rather 2 Reel life love stories that I have enjoyed immensely are Alaipayuthey and Mayakkam Enna.

Alaipayuthey can be described as the more sedate movie of the two. Well, those who haven't seen this movie -  too bad, too sad, you've missed probably one of Tamil cinema's classic love stories. But some of us may have caught it as Saathiya in Hindi. Well, nothing can ever match an original.

Alaipayuthey is the story of Karthik (Madhavan) and Shakthi (Shalini) who are in love with each other and after their parents don't agree to get them married, they get married secretly, without their parents knowing. The movie showcases the love between the lead pair and what happens in their relationship - the stresses, the strains, the anger. The story weaves itself and is one beautiful movie to watch.

I know it's a bit of my mokka....

Mayakkam Enna - what do I say? One stunning movie featuring iron strong characters. Yamini (Richa Gangopadhyay) is one hell of a woman. Yamini spells out her love for Karthik (Dhanush) more than any other couple in any movie that has been made. The character has been portrayed as a woman with nerves and a mind of steel. She doesn't leave Karthik even when he's at his lowest, nearly what people would call mental. She stays with him and supports him in his perseverance to become a world class wildlife photographer. At the end of the movie, one can only say "Whatta Woman".


One thing about both movies is that how strong the pairs were in their relationship. At any point, either of the pairs could have broken off, but it took them a lot of courage and a lot of strength to stay and be there for each other.

And at this point, I am reminded of a couple of pairs I happen to know in real life. Both the pairs I know, I have known them over quite a period of time and I also happen to know how strong they were in their relationship. They wanted to get married only after obtaining their parents' consent and which they managed to. All the struggles that they had to go through... and finally its such a special thing when you get married to the person you love...

"Love doesn't come to everyone, but if you find the person you love, never ever let go of him/her..."

The end of the month....

Yeah... the month is ending... not news to most of us I know...

As a month draws to a close, how many times have us (read - male Indian bikers living in India) faced the situation of being caught by a traffic cop, just for the sake of filling up his "quota" or to fill up hi pockets for expenses the coming month?

That is the most common and CHEAPEST and UGLIEST form of DEMANDING BRIBES that you can every see on the roads. I have hated and still hated traffic cops just for their cheap behaviour. I have immense respect for the guys in Khakhi, but to be honest, and many Indians will agree with me on this - No respect at all for those cheap buggers.

I live in probably the busiest part of my city in India and I have never ever seen a traffic cop on the road till say the 25th date of each month and suddenly they are omnipresent as they date ticks past 25.

Every single person earns his money through hardwork and here are some assholes which sit at some roadside tea shop drinking tea and eating samosas for free, pocketing a few thousand rupees for not working and earning as much as 5000 Rs. in a couple of days. Taxpayers money goes down the bloody drain like this.


And if you ask why this happens, the answer would be "People give, so we take." People wouldn't want to part with a paisa of their hard earned money unless and until they are forced to do so and in this case -  unscrupulous traffic cops. People would rather part with 100 Rs. easily than go to court and argue their case after losing nearly 5 times the money due to loss of pay leave, transport and hours of waiting at the court for the judge.

Sheer disregard for the people in the largest democracy in the world and we have a republic day too. Shame.

How many times do you notice a traffic cop who is on duty every single day, in proper uniform, performing his duties properly and not expecting the month end bonus?

And the reasons that the give to extract money from you -  atrocious. Speeding when you don't even have a chance to go over 25 kmph. You might be just at the stop line when they decide to pull you aside and take a chance.

As a traffic cop, you are expected to clear the way for an ambulance. How many cops do that? Who knows what happens in the lesser cities and villages....

If you ask a cop to justify his actions - it is a long sad story too. Almost every cop who has donned the khakhi or the white shirt would say this. I had to "pay an amount" to get this job. And I am still paying the interest on that amount. This might even be true.

The root cause of all this leads back to corruption. Bribery.

Well.. who knows for how much longer. Earth's countdown might have well begun???

Something to think about... 2 sides to that coin...