Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Something different -- bits of my life

Sunday, August 27, 2006

God and Country?


Song and dance over 'national' anthem....

A few days ago, the chief Muslim Mullah who presides over the historical mosque named Jama Masjid in Delhi, proclaimed that 'true' Islamists should not sing a song in praise of the motherland called 'Vande Mataram', because it says that the motherland is to be worshipped, and according to him, Islam says that only Allah has to be worshipped....

This caused an uproar, especially as the Hindu right and their cohorts the RSS, the Bajrang Dal, and the vishwa Hindu Parishad immediately went on the offensive, lambasting Bukhari as well as the Indian muslims...

Interestingly, the Muslim composer AR Rehman who reworked this great national song written during the Indian national struggle against the British by Bankim Chandra chatterjee and made it an instant hit among the hip generation throughout India...

Most Indian Muslims will not care a fig about what Bukhari says ... but once again, this controversial Mohammedan leader has served to push the Muslim community into a ghetto... there is , even at this moment, an upheaval within the Muslim community within india, with a lot of money from saudi Arabia coming in to fund hardline and fundamentalist preachers who run 'madrasas' or islamic schools in many impoverished muslim settlements....

The Taj Mahal built by a Muslim king is the abiding symbol of love and of India ... one can only hope that the fundamentalist Hindu, Muslim, and Christians won't tear apart the fabric of this polycultural , polylingual and polytheistic country that is unique in the world... a country called Hundustan by the Mughals, Bharat by the Aryans, India by the Europeans .....

The mere singing of a song that equates the land of one's birth with God does not give one the stamp of a patriot ...nor does the refusal to sing it necessarily make one an enemy ...

Vande Mataram!

Sunday, August 20, 2006

"After a While"

After a while you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company isn't security.
Kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises.

After awhile you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes open,
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build your roads on today,
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain
and the inevitable has a way of crumbling in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns,
if you stand too long in one place.
So, you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone else to bring you flowers.

And you learn you really can endure,
that you really do have worth.
You learn that with every good-bye comes the dawn.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Congrats ... Shilpi

A 17-year old girl from Bihar has won the British Open Deaf Tennis Championship - a first by an Indian.
Patna's Shilpi Jaiswal won the under-18 championship title Saturday at Nottingham, Britain. She defeated Sweden's Fatima Tebibel in straight sets 6-2, 6-1 in the final.
Shilpi, who is deaf by birth, is the first Indian girl not only to win the title but also to participate in this championship.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

I AM .....

I am the boy who never finished high school, because Igot called a fag everyday

I am the girl kicked out of her home because Iconfided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobodywill hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long beforeher time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital becausethey would not let my partner of twenty-seven yearsinto the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the onlyloving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself justweeks before graduating high school. It was simply toomuch to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the managementcalled on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says Iam an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found thesupport system grow suddenly cold and distant whenthey found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted toteach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the woman who died when the EMTs stopped treatingme as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didnt have toalways deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

I am the person ashamed to tell my own friends i'm a lesbian, because they constantly make fun of them.

I am the boy tied to a fence, beaten to a bloody pulp and left to die because two straight men wanted to"teach me a lesson"

~Author Unknown

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

"Pagett, M.P."

The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where each tooth-point goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.

Pagett, M.P., was a liar, and a fluent liar therewith --
He spoke of the heat of India as the "Asian Solar Myth";
Came on a four months' visit, to "study the East," in November,
And I got him to sign an agreement vowing to stay till September.

March came in with the koil. Pagett was cool and gay,
Called me a "bloated Brahmin," talked of my "princely pay."
March went out with the roses. "Where is your heat?" said he.
"Coming," said I to Pagett, "Skittles!" said Pagett, M.P.

April began with the punkah, coolies, and prickly-heat,
--Pagett was dear to mosquitoes, sandflies found him a treat.
He grew speckled and mumpy -- hammered, I grieve to say,
Aryan brothers who fanned him, in an illiberal way.

May set in with a dust-storm, -- Pagett went down with the sun.
All the delights of the season tickled him one by one.
Imprimis -- ten day's "liver" -- due to his drinking beer;
Later, a dose of fever -- slight, but he called it severe.

Dysent'ry touched him in June, after the Chota Bursat
--Lowered his portly person -- made him yearn to depart.
He didn't call me a "Brahmin," or "bloated," or "overpaid,"
But seemed to think it a wonder that any one stayed.

July was a trifle unhealthy, -- Pagett was ill with fear.'
Called it the "Cholera Morbus," hinted that life was dear.
He babbled of "Eastern Exile," and mentioned his home with tears;
But I haven't seen my children for close upon seven years.

We reached a hundred and twenty once in the Court at noon,
(I've mentioned Pagett was portly) Pagett, went off in a swoon.
That was an end to the business; Pagett, the perjured, fled
With a practical, working knowledge of "Solar Myths" in his head.

And I laughed as I drove from the station, but the mirth died out on my lips
As I thought of the fools like Pagett who write of their "Eastern trips,"
And the sneers of the traveled idiots who duly misgovern the land,
And I prayed to the Lord to deliver another one into my hand.

-- Rudyard Kipling

Notes:koil (usu. koel): Indian songbird
punkah: fan
Chota Bursat: the early rains

Kipling was never one to suffer fools lightly, and his intolerance has takenthe form of numerous highly satisfying poems and caricatures. Today's poem,the predictable-as-a-train-wreck account of a pompous politician's visit toa land notably lacking in the comforts of home, is typical - Kipling had adeep and informed love for India, and was often openly contemptuous of thosewho did not measure up to its rigours. (The theme is not uncommon - RobertService was later to write even more extreme poems along the same lines,about the men who did not measure up to his beloved Yukon.)This is Frontier poetry in the grand tradition, the division lines drawnclearly between the Men of the Frontier and the effete pen-pushers back homewho would presume to govern them. And what shines through every line of thepoem is an unimstakable ring of authenticity, the pervasive feeling thatKipling knows what he is talking about, and perhaps even that he has earnedthe right to his mockery.