Made in India, Banned in China

I woke up early to wish my sister on her birthday. The day also brought about one of those days when I’m early to office. Well, on time actually. The Wednesday started early, and there were few mails that caught my interest; except the one from a colleague from the China office.  The Chinese Had visited India a few days ago and I had actually managed to get close enough to be able to ask them to open my blog after they got back to China. I had always wanted page views from China. Ever since the rise of India and China cliché, I had my eyes set on China and well, getting Chinese eyes on my blog was also important.

Hi H,

Bad news for you, your blog is also banned in China. :(

Regards,

SY

  The first reaction was fear. Have I don’t something wrong? Have I written something bad? Am I in trouble? I was scared. But I hadn’t written anything about China at all. In the Anty Life post, I remember saying “But isn’t China doing good?” and that was the only time I had ever used the word! Why would you ban me? I recently wrote a post onPakistan, but that was also promoting Peace. Maybe the Chinese don’t want India and Pakistan to be in peace :P Thinking more, I remembered the Rich andResponsible Posts, where I had again mentioned China, but it was a post against America, or rather against Obama, did the Chinese like Obama? Everyone knows China has a lot of Forex and export business with USA, so maybe they don’t want their people to see me talk bad about USA. 

 

After the first few minutes of fear passed, I felt happy and even started to feel a little proud. I had caught the eyes of the Chinese after all. My posts got to China! Wow that sounds so awesome! I’m actually a banned author! People would use proxy servers! search for me on Google and Twitter! And wait for me to make posts on other underground sites and blogs! I’m a banned author! So exhilarating! 

Then I suddenly remembered there was no twitter in China! SY and AC had told us a little about China, there was no facebook, no twitter, no self-owned homes and no one cared if your house came in between a road widening project. It goes down! It takes a hundred years to take down a stray temple in the center of the road in India, leave alone houses! Why temple? even a cud chewing cow is stronger than a honking Million Rupee SUV!

‘Do you have strikes in China?’ I asked AC over some tea on their last day in India. 

He said, ‘oh no no!’

‘There are never strikes in China. You can do Strike if you want, but you will be thrown in prison, maybe forever.’

The four of us had a hearty laugh, but fell silent. All of us thinking why we laughed. 

This memory of banning, censoring and silencing came back when I was told I was banned in China. So like any other smart person, I Googled:

Why is my blog banned in China?

There were many results and a link to Wikipedia read, list of sites blocked in China. I hit it and saw some really good sites, facebook, twitter, youtube, Pikasa were all blocked in China! The number 13 on the list shot down my snout and showed me why my Blog is banned. It’s not me… it’s the whole of Blogspot!

Democracy with an H

It’s not hypocrisy; it’s just democracy with an H. That pretty much summarizes how the politicians… No wait.. Why just politicians? That’s how all of us think. The last few days have been so shameful and disgusting for the democracy of India. What makes it worse is no one knows what is right and what wrong. It’s true that right or wrong are relative terms, but the events of 5^th june really negate every little bit of hope that the common man has in reason and justice. 

Looking back into India, corruption has always been a part of any society and it remains to date. People come to power only to make personal use of it. Defining democracy, it is a form of government where citizens elect their leaders to serve them. Over a period of time, the serve has been replaced by rule. So now, people in power are just rulers and not really leaders or people who come to serve us.

Speaking about the recent events, we all know who anna hazare is, he is an ex army soldier and now a popular social reformer. Ok I won’t bore you with his facts.. moving on.. anna hazare fasted to bring the jan lokpal bil into act and can be called to have been successful(hopefully) to a certain extent… but what his fast did was it raised a hope.. and there he was, world famous over night and had lots and lots of followers (including kids like me who decided to skip dinners and got yelled at by mom) now if this was it.. it would’ve been great.. but we’re all humans, and everyone wants a piece of action and so it was with popular leaders, diplomats, movie stars and that.. is where baba ramdev comes in.

Baba ram dev is supposed to be a samyasi who took to teaching yoga and pranayama and lived a (supposedly) peaceful life.. like all teachers and “good-doers” he wanted to spread his goodness and started with a few things like yoga research centers and stuff.. all this is cool.. but in September 2009, he bought an island for 2 million pounds!! How can someone do that? So he has this huge “aashram” in haridwar, has an island where he again has his “aashram”(which I think is actually just a spa) and flies in a private jet.. this has got to be the most coolest “sanyasi” in the history of sanyasies.

Ok so the deal about 5^th june.. now one cant really point out whos wrong and whos right.. it seems that a few reports and papers say that baba ramdev hired the ram lela maidan to conduct a yoga camp, now how can he call for a protest satyagraha?? If you ask the bjp.. I guess they would just say “its immoral but not illegal” anyway.. so that was the baba’s bad.. what about the government? From going to the airport to receive a “sanyasi” to sending cops in the middle of the night and breaking apart a crowd of more that 50k people, does anything make sense? everything makes the government look like a confused and desperate flock of crows.. and now we have the political tamasha of everyone digging history, making allegations and hurling stones and shoes at each other.. where am I? where are you? Or where is any citizen of India? long live democracy huh? 

From what we know, a sanyasi is supposed to be someone whos abandoned everything and lives only for god.. this doesn’t sound like ram dev baba now does it? Actually that’s how its been with all spiritual leaders, everyone has some part to play in politics or with big money. So if the learned, enlightened, holy men who’ve abandoned everything and have inner peace(sorry, saw kung fu panda yday) cant keep their hands off money and power, how do you expect the politicians to be clean? 

What I mean is, the government may not be perfect, democracy might not be working, and not all gurus may be leaders, but you are you... What I mean is… some people look for leaders and some for followers, you.. Just need a path. If your path is right... everythings right.