Missing The Point

This post is one of the smaller posts on the blog. It’s about the DelhiGangRape of a 23 year old Medical Student. The news of the atrocities of barbaric lust spread like fire in summer. TV channels, newspapers, celebrities, politicians, social media hid nothing and poured out all the anger after her anguish.  The chills of her torture chilled the people of Delhi more than the cold air of Delhi winter.

The politicians sticking to their profession spoke of and about each other. Some spoke of more laws and reforms, but on the very same day there was a scuffle in the parliament (ministers hitting and fighting each other literally) and the house was adjourned at half day. 

NGO’s, Human Rights people, Women’s Rights people and hundreds and thousands of people came down to the streets to protest. People came down to meet the CM and question her about each other’s safety in Delhi, but the reply they received was jets of water from a police hose.

Just today I got a message on my whatsapp, it read

Dear Delhi,

I know I don’t have your 4 lame roads, and metros, and posh kothis, my people drive on narrow roads, live in small houses, travel in non-ac locals. Maybe your winters have made all your hearts cold. My women are safe, irrespective of their cloths, the time or the mode of transport, because I am always watching, I never sleep.

Sincerely

Mumbai

I was both shocked and saddened by this. It’s adding insult to injury. It looks like the Mumbaikars just see this as a chance to undermine Delhi. Would they really do that? The people of Mumbai are better than that.

Another, rather popular concept is that our society tells women what to wear than teaching men not to rape. Yes, that does sound good, and also seems to make sense. But does it really??

In the two scenes above, we have looked at two different things,

1.       It’s about Delhi

2.       It’s about men

But we have forgotten the heart of the matter; the crime.

Delhi might have the highest number of rapes, eve teasing or other assaults on women, but it’s not about the place or the people. It’s the weakness of the system that fails to curb or punish the crime, thereby failing completely to instil any sort of fear in the perpetuators.

Coming to the second point; there is no meaning to making the crime sexist. Of course, we live in a male dominated society and women have been victimised even in this era. In most rape cases when women come forth to complain or fight, they have been called to be the reason for the rape, calling them (the victim) to be the reason for the crime. People have spoken as if the women deserved to be raped, and that’s where they said that women need to dress responsibly. Women or anyone would take offence at that. And that’s why there came the expression of “women are taught to dress instead of men taught not to rape” 

Anyone who holds the victim responsible is surely out of his senses, but there is no reason to make it sexist. See the crime as a crime. 

Why do we lock our doors at night? To save ourselves from being robbed. Does someone come up and say we live in a society that teaches us to lock our doors instead of teaching thieves not to steal? No.. because theres no problem in seeing a crime as a crime there. But when it comes to rape it suddenly gets sexist. Maybe if we had some male rape victims or female rapists then the story would’ve been different. But as Batman said, a criminal is not complicated. Nor is a crime, as long as we can see what’s in the heart of the crime and not what’s around its perimeter.

Fashionataion

Hey why don’t you post it on your blog too? I’ll give you a free shirt :P thats the reason for this post :D

A friend of mine just joined hands with one of his friends from his days in the UK to deal in fashion. I didn’t really understand what they meant to do but I had a feeling that they were gonna make an online clothing store and sell cloths. As simple as that. But as it turns out, its not that simple. 

I found out about the real deal of craziness… or lets say freakological obsession with fashion and sense of style was clearly pointing to the fact that they had their heads working on doing something bigger.  My friend asked me to write an seo article that could help route traffic towards their site. It  wasn’t  really that hard, but this was only my second article on fashion. The first one was on nail art! :P

Anyway so as I went on writing I did realize that some of the things I said in the write were actually true! :O I know! That never happens in advertisement articles right? At least not mine! :P So I went ahead and looked at the site.. they really did have designers live on the site.. and I just wondered for a sec if I could get someone to stitch me something that’s exactly my size! :D ok im not that bothered about cloths.. cuz I kinda believed that it’s the ‘who’ more important than the ‘what’ or maybe I said it cuz I just couldn’t find fitting cloths :P (just in case your thinking I’m fat.. im not :P)

Ok so heres the article I wrote for him... I’m posting it here cuz hes my bud and well… yeah also for the free shirt :P 

Fashionation is not a real word, at least not yet. It’s a made up word for fashion and fascination. Fashion in a bird’s eye view can mean a way of life where everything you do or wear intrigues and makes a statement. The general perception of fashion is looking good or using something that can make you look good. A fashionable phone or a fashionable article of clothing is generally perceived to be a good looking merchandise that brings you appreciation. Sadly, that’s probably the worst way of defining fashion. 

 

 As I’m writing this article in the wake of a new online clothing store that I saw over the weekend, let’s stick to cloths as fashion. Clothing is probably the biggest way of looking fashionable, and over centuries, people have been expressing themselves by creating and wearing different kinds of cloths. This idea of expression of feelings, thoughts and ideas through dressing cracked open a whole new world of designers and trend makers across the globe. Today as we make way for a world of freedom and expression, we see more and more people taking up this creative way of expressing and adding the much required glamour and valor to the cause.

The biggest dread of all fashion enthusiasts is keeping up with fashion. Being aware of where to find what and when to do what is another major road bump. Just the other day, my friend visiting Bangalore for the first time asked me ‘who’s cloths are hot in Bangalore this winter?’ I fell face first at that. I had no idea of the designers in Bangalore, I always bought from sites or stores that had decent looking cloths. I Looked up a few regular sites online, but couldn’t find anything that tells me who’s selling what. That’s when I stumbled upon www.mydesignersales.com

 

mydesignersales is the online store of a Bangalore based Clothing and Fashion Corporation called United Fashion Mart. The firm itself deals in the manufacture and sales of apparels and accessories with zeal for spreading awareness and tasteful sense of fashion across masses. mydesignersales being the online store makes access to fashion more reachable and affordable to all.  Plus Being in Bangalore, it’s only a matter of time before there are free reigning fashion stylists running amok on the streets!

mydesignersales takes a whole new approach to selling cloths online. It’s like an online version of a boutique where you can get to personally see, meet and socialize with your designers online. mydesignersales has a list of the top selling fashion stylists from different cities across India, or maybe even the world. Going to Delhi for a week? Buy the top selling designs of Delhi in Bangalore and blend in to the Delhi crowd! Try! Designers like Julie Kagti, Anu Nagappa and Arjun Agarwal are some of the top selling labels on mydesignersales. 

Apart from giving you the advantage of meeting your designer, if you’re really really nice and of course ready to pay a little, you can even place requests and get your own designs loaded onto the website! That’s definitely got to be a first! mydesignersales clearly has a lot of new things to offer. In the end, making people express themselves and reflect their personalities using the powers of fashion is what these FashionFreaks aim at. That’s why they say, each time you visit mydesignersales, you’re assured of fashionation! ;)

That was it! Buy clothes from my frn y’all :D 

Oh btw.. if you think Im good at seo then.. you can mail me.. I write for free shirts all the time :P

Psalm E Pakistan

The climax of the movie border always leaves a warm fuzzy hangover. Though it’s about a war, the song at the end does make you feel that the war was a mistake and both of us have so much more to worry about than fighting over boundaries or anything for that matter. I was always interested in Pakistan, and writing about Pakistan. Any Indian or Pakistani of the Present day or at least the youth would have strong feelings about the whole partition of India episode. Some objective and some perspective, but all of us have views, bends, feelings and a stance. 

India was one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 50s and 60s while the USA and the USSR were busy making pacts and treaties to make their respective power blocs bigger and stronger. Now one might say the Non-Aligned Movement was started by poor or the then 3^rd world nations because they just couldn’t risk supporting one and be the target of the other’s fury. As it is, the Non-Aligned Movement is based on a bigger idea. Its about Believing that it is possible to remain neutral at any time by anyone. And being an advocate of being objective I support this theory and hence have always held an objective view over Pakistan. 

A few months ago, say 2 or 3 maybe I picked up Shashi Tharoor’s Pax Indica. It basically talks about India’s foreign policies, foreign relations and India’s place on a global setup. He spoke extensively about Pakistan and India. The chapter was rightly caller Brother Enemy. Pakistan is after all born out of India and the people are more or less Indian. They always have. 

Mr. Tharoor speaks of partition, Kashmir, the different wars we’ve had and finally talks emphatically about terrorism. His points are straight and precise, and so yet sensitively carved live the curves of Megan fox. (Sorry whenever someone says curve I think of her :D)

He talks at length about the gaps between the INTELLIGENCE and the civilian government of Pakistan. Its a known fact that the INTELLIGENCE is sitting on tones of cash. In fact the INTELLIGENCE gets almost or more than half the total budget of 1 fiscal year. So in a situation where there is a serious lack of schools, hospitals, or in general amenities of life the army and INTELLIGENCE suck all the money out of the people of Pakistan. The army isn’t too keen on listening to the will of the civilian govt. and caters to its own goals, which may not always be intended at the best of India, and in turn resulting in the bad of Pakistan it self.

I was torn in half when I read these. Of course I knew that the army or Pakistan and the civilian govt. don’t always see eye to eye, but the revelation of the fact that the govt has limited hold on the army did raise my brows, like my eye brows was one with my hair.

Another question boiled into me was who’s gonna tend to the people?  The politicians made a lot of noise and puffed up the people that theres a need to end Musharraf’s rein as president and there a need for proper democracy and what not. So the people did get excited and come out on streets and after a lot of crazy things (beyond my comprehension) there were elections and Muhammad Mian Soomro was elected president.  And after Benazir Bhutto’s murder, the PPP was elected to power and Asif Ali Zardari became the President. All this is fine but what are these people doing? 

Pakistani people are still struggling against the terrorists, there are criminals hiding in Pakistan thanks to the INTELLIGENCE’s invitation and reformers and socially responsible civilians are killed in broad day light.  And if you’ve been complaining about the raise of fuel prices in India, the fuel price is way over a hundred rupees in Pakistan, and its gets worse, price determination happens every week! 

So is the democracy drama and all the things these politicians did to overthrow Musharraf an eye wash? I asked my Pakistani Orkut friend of 3 years. 

Yes! 

The one answer with an exclamation mark was like a gun shot at point black.

He went on to say, 

Things were very good in Musharraf regime, call him a dictator or whatever you want to but he is the man who supported freedom of media. Even pak's economy was boosting. And now things are pathetic. You know, he was the one who set Pak before Islam. That’s what a country needs. 

It felt nice to listen to him. I probed more and asked,

Ok what do see for Pakistan in the Future?

I can not say anything here. If you see the history of pak, there have been some good times. But when they start building up they falter somewhere. so I can only hope that future is bright; which is only possible by imparting proper education. There is a dearth of rationality among masses and one simply CANNOT understand religion without education. Thats my opinion yours can differ obviously.

I definitely had no reason to differ there. I was also stunned at his strong emphasis on improving education. I liked that. I had never spoken much about national politics with this guy. It had always been about Harry Potter and cricket. Except one odd day when he’d told me he wanted to be a computer engineer. 

So I bit the bullet and finally threw a tough ball at him. 

Me:

cool... one big question thats really been eating me

your cool right?

He:

haha

yeah

Me:

yeah.. so

the question is

how does one remain patriotic and try not to be ashamed of his country and not choose to make rash decisions when there are so many figures pointing mistakes from outside and so little action been taken from those responsible?

He:

thats a tough one

and mature people here in pak do think about that

Me:

but good question right? ive been thinking a lot

He:

yeah good question!

but majority satisfies itself by conspiracy theories

it may sound weird to you

but majority here thinks that all these nations are anti Islam

anti pakistan

and that is the reason why all this blame game is being played

Me:

some ppl get high on substance.. some on religion

He:

true

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

It was really something. It gives a lot for the Brain and Heart when there are people thinking and acting like this guy. The teenager Malala is a example. She’s another example of the youth wanting rights and education for their people. She was a strong, neutral voice talking of the truth and that offended many a bad man. Too bad the system just won’t let such people run the country. It also reminds me of a beautiful video featuring mid/high school girls from Pakistan talking about how they really feel and how they are made to feel about the Indo-Pak relations.

Rounding up this post, I’m not going make comments on the partition of India or the numerous wars or other difference India has had with Pakistan because this was never a political write, the post was aimed at talking about the people in Pakistan. (I don’t know if they call themselves aam janta :D) I wanted to say that we need empathize with the people of Pakistan. On the one side there is the adamant army and intelligence with its own agenda (no one knows what the army wants) and on the other side there is the helpless civilian govt and politicians fishing for power and money. In this quarrel... what’s to happen of the people of Pakistan? Does anyone care about the people anymore?

 

Kaveri Amma

I actually posted this on FB first.. but bah! no reason not to copy paste.. plus i can add more pictures here :D yay!

Considering only the monsoon season, the chart above shows, Karnataka gets 75% of its rains in the SW monsoon in the period of Jun-Sep, and the remaining in the NE monsoon in the period of Oct-Dec.

In case of TN, 40% rains are received in the SW monsoon and the remaining in the NE monsoon.

The problem that occurred this year was that the rain gods failed to show up. The SW monsoon disappointed all and there were severe water shortage in all parts of the country. 

Scenario in September.

TN asks KA to release more Kaveri water and accuses KA of being illegal and inhuman.

You’ve seen the stats.

TN gets its major chunk of rains after Sep. KA hardly gets any rains after SEP, and this year especially there was a draught declared in close to 16 districts.

It’s true that SW monsoon has been a failure even in TN. But there is still hope for them in the NE monsoon, but for KA; NE monsoon doesn’t promise much, and in this situation where there won’t be much rain from now on, is it really wise to release KA’s only source of water?? Will TN give back kaveri water when they have rains in Nov? or does KA suffer from draught all over again in the winter?? Please think. 

ok so thats all the things i posted on fb.. now a few more things I had worked out but couldnt get it on fb.. think on these too..

The biggest argument of TN is that Karnataka receives more rains than TN.. well sure the total average might be more.. but theres more to it.. the malnadu regions get thousands of mm of rains per year.. but the bayaluseeme plus north karnataka is as bad as a desert.. 

secondly.. tn uses more Kaveri water than its a reason for.. all the tributaries and the rain thats the reason to fill up the Kaveri is used by tn.. and yeah.. there are hardly any addition to the kaveri from any rivulets in tn.. 

well... before i go over board.. lemme hand the staff to a better person who knows better to explain this...

just follow this link... 

Some guy who knows more than me 


ok i worked late into the night making this list.. so damn! i gotta post it somewhere!! :D