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Yes, it has been more than a year. But I have legitimate reasons. This year has been the most significant year in my life. I got married. To the Best Girl in the WorldTM. Or, The WifeTM. In the midst of a whirlwind romance, a quick engagement and a wedding, I suddenly found myself quite busy. Too busy to blog. Of course, my job ensured that my free time was regulated as well. Continue reading Aand…I’m back!
This is just an aside.I am threatening to start my blog all over again. Be scared. Be very scared. Continue ignoring this blog, if you know what’s good for you.
A very happy new year to all. New Year’s Eve is an arbitrary point of time. What makes it special or significant is the meaning we attach to it. Here’s hoping that all of us are able to provide a rich meaning to our lives in the coming year. I generally don’t like to cover current events and blog about them. I like blogging about the same event twice even less. But since there are so many interesting examples of spin available and I have some free time with me, I cannot but blog about it. In my earlier post, I had talked about media playing a partisan role, especially channels like NDTV. here are some samples of how Raj Thackeray’s press conference was reported. Rediff.com: talks of Raj Thackeray saying "My good time will come". As one reads, one realizes that Raj T has clarified his position, saying he is not against religious festival(s), but against using these as political platforms and as events to do a "show of strength". However, rediff.com has by far the most balaced reportage amongst the sampled news sites. NDTV.com: "Pressure on Maharashtra Government, Raj remains defiant" screams the headline on this site. Under the headline, there is an interesting sentence about Raj Thackeray defying the court order and conducting a press conference. The exact sentence is:
When you click on the link, way down in the 10th and 11th paragraph, the site says:
Notice the subtle fact that Raj T was not really doing illegal? (well, at least that’s what NDTV.com admits to saying) Of course, the screaming byline insinuates that he is doing something quite illegal and in contravention of court orders. So, where is the defiant part? The defiant part is in the first paragraph, where he defends the Mumbai Police and State Government for the action taken against Raul Raj, saying that RR was shot not because he was Bihari, but because he was dangerous. The only people he is contradicting are some of the Bihari politicians. Aajtak.com: the Hindi online version does not seem to feel the need to cover the clarification made by Raj T. I did not find it even after some diligent search. The focus of the coverage seems to be on people like Kalraj Mishra and Amar singh criticizing Raj T. IBNLive.com: The headline only says: "Learn Marathi, Raj tells migrants in mumbai"…again, no coverage to his comment about not being against Chhat Puja or supporting the shooting of RR in the headline. The same news report, once you click on the headline, tells you about his views on unauthorized slums etc. There is enough coverage to his remarks on Chhat Puja in the article, but just a passing reference to learning Marathi. And guess what gets highlighted? Sify.com: Talks of how the upright servant of the downtrodden masses, world famous psychiatrist, (Dr.)Amar Singh, compares Raj T to Hitler and comments how Raj T is mentally ill, just like Hitler in the past. The same headline is seen again on in.yahoo.com. Interestingly, mid-day.com has probably quoted Raj T correctly about his views on RR’s death, apart from rediff.com:
rediff.com also says:
mid-day.com has a much more factual headline. "Raj: no politics over Chhat Puja". Is it any wonder that Raj T and people who follow news with some interest get disgusted with the biased slant of news channels?
This has been the longest break ever from blogging. And for no particular reason either, just that..I have been busy. I have been twittering, if you care to read the twitter feed. But that is all. I shall soon be back, but I know not when.I know not how. One day, I expect to re-enter the blogosphere in a blaze of riotous colours. Till then, this blog will be dormant. Thanks for your patience and all that.
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging! Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
The LOTR trilogy is one beautiful story. It has everything, right from the normal good versus evil to environmental awareness. Of course, many people have complained about the fact that there are too many ‘three page descriptions of a single tree’ and I wholeheartedly agree with that. But what I simply love about the LOTR is the ending, more specifically, how the ring is destroyed. It is so arbitrary, so random, that one cannot but marvel at it. The scene is: Frodo and Sam are standing on a precipice over a river of lava in the womb of Mt.Doom. The Ring can only be destroyed if it is thrown in that lava and nothing else can destroy it (But of course.) Frodo is overpowered by the Ring and his ring-lust makes him change his mind. He refuses to throw it in the lava. (The small fact that he and Sam have overcome unbeatable odds,as read by yours truly in the 1000 odd pages before, does not stop him, such is the power of the Ring. I really felt sorry for Sam when I read that. If I were Sam, I would have pushed Frodo into the volcano, no questions asked) Sam, the patient one, tries to persuade him to do the right thing. The sub-villain, a cute, bonny looking creature (hey, don’t judge him by his appearance) gets really pissed off at this, because Frodo and Sam, those little lying runts, had taken his help as a tour guide without telling him that they intended to destroy his preciousss ring. So Gollum takes a jump at Frodo and Frodo puts on the Ring. Gollum manages to locate the invisible Frodo and jumps on his shoulders and manages to bite his finger off, the very same finger that has the Ring. A 1in 10 shot and this guy gets it right! What a winner! So far, so Hindi Filmy. Then comes the twist. Our bonny Gollum, reunited with his ring after a few thousand years (it must be a few thousand years. LOTR operates on a geological time scale, not a human one), throws away the finger and starts dancing wildly, Ring in hand. As he dances, he loses his balance and falls into the lave along with the Ring. And the Ring is destroyed. And that, my friends, is that. Tell me, what sort of sadistic genius comes up with an ending like that? A thousand odd pages, all made from precious trees (each of which deserve a three page description for their futile sacrifice), all for a random ending where one guy (surprisingly!) loses his balance while dancing on the edge of a hill and falls to his death? Wow. Conspiracy Theory Alert: I suspect there is a strong link to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution here. Just look at the connections: Weird creatures, half men, half Hobbits, biodiversity of monsters (from a Balrog to an err…Olliphaunt), operates over geological time, random path of storyline, the Race of Men becoming the dominant race- it is all there. The implications are clear: LOTR must be banned in USA or alternative explanations must be given to the way the story ends, otherwise the Intelligent Design lobby will be up in arms. All the cities that I have lived in for more than a month have now been the target of bombings. Not just bombings, serial bombings. Nothing seems to have changed since I read out the horror of the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts to my grandfather, sitting beside his hospital bed. The perverse novelty and audacity of the attack have dimmed. The twist in the stomach, when the news hits, still remains. Places which I have walked, passed through, looked at, bought stuff, watched moives : Century Bazaar, Plaza Cinema in Mumbai, Forum Mall in Bangalore, Maninagar in (or near) Ahmedabad-I have been there. There are many reasons to justify violence. And there is one reason to justify peace: We have our lives to live. Carrying the spectres of the past on your shoulders, like King Vikramaditya, has the same danger as seen in Vikram and Betaal: the spectre does not allow you to keep quiet, threatening to blow off your head if you do . If you manage to speak wise words to the spectre, it flies away, setting you back into your quest. The solution , very probably, is to not go after the spectre, at all. How many wrongs of history can we right? How many spectres can we carry on our back? And how many people need to die and turn into spectres – faint wisps of memory, painful to recount- for us to realize that we are really of the same blood, same species and have the same desires, fears and aspirations? This does not mean that the perpetrators shall go free. They have committed a crime that cannot but be punished. There can be no justification for the misdeeds of the present in the mists of incidents gone by. Indian mujahideen or whoever they are, will face the wrath of the majority of a billion Indians, Muslims and Hindus alike The tragedy is that it was preventable. If only the brainwashing and the passionate appeals to religion are stopped. We need some anti virus software that can stop stupid ideas passing unnoticed in the guise of religion. The less of organized religion, the better it would be, generally, is my frank opinion. And we need a Government machinery that anticiptes these issues, that goes beyond ration cards, elections and caste/religion politics. A State that is humane to its people and unforgiving to terrorists. This was an emotional, meandering post by me, not lucid, more coming through in fits and starts and certainly, not impartial. But how else could I have written this? They were (and are) all my people.
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