My Dear friends,

The other day Headlines Today's (as high headed as most other TV Channels) office was ransacked by a mob of Sangh loyalists. At least this is what most of us have been led to believe. I have few points to share in this regard.
1. Regardless of the political overtones which this incident no doubt has, it is abundantly apparent that the "TRP" war is at the root of it.
2. The channel simply had it coming. The people manning the editorial dept. either simply or conveniently forgot that the power of the media is dependent on responsible and careful use of its independence. Sadly, media houses are acting like any other business organization and rarely are independent, in fact mostly they are partisan.
3. All of us who watch BBC or CNN must have noticed that in a month of regular viewing there are hardly four or five "Breaking News". Indian TV news channels, on the contrary, live from one breaking news to another- and the process is never ending.
I wonder, given the intense no holds barred "TRP" war, some day we'll be subjected to a screaming breaking news on some odd TV News Channel-"Third fart in a day by the Agriculture Minister" or worse still "Bollywood No 1 is not a Khan but a Khansama"
Ponder my dear friends.

My dear friends,

The following piece is in fact the comment I posted to an article from Mr. Nicholas D. Kristof in the NYT, published on 13th May, 2010.

"You, on the one hand, seem to understand the real problem both USA and Pakistan are facing in Pakistan, but the remedial measures suggested by you will not succeed.The reasons are not far to seek. Pakistani ruling elite (read Pakistani military) will never allow this treatment to cure the disease, because it will rob them of the charm and authority, they command in Pakistan. More importantly, the US administrations in the last 40-50 years have always managed to find justifications (howsoever flimsy or unbelievable) to support military dictatorships, though every US President and his officials always announce their support for democracy in Pakistan.Can't we all see that USA will never like democracy to flourish in Pakistan as it would be dicey and the White House/Pentagon bureaucrats always find it easier to deal with military rulers.In the light of yawning gap between the words and deeds of both American as well as Pakistani rulers, your Gandhian remedies are destined to fail."

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China and Google

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Thank you for your submission. Submissions are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

Pankaj Kumar

Muzaffarpur, Bihar (India)

April 1st, 2010

10:11 am

Though you have a right to have a opinion, yet in this case, I am afraid, people who matter in the Capitol Hill may not like it.
While it is true that China and its giant strides in becoming a economic-military power house, can't be ignored or wished away, it is also true that China will have to take the first steps to ensure it is regarded as a welcome guest and not as a gate crasher. China would be foolish if it thinks that it can bulldoze its way to the party in the park.

Dear Friends,

Just on the eve of "HOLI", I was pleased to receive a gift from my younger sister "Nani Didi". Knowing my fascination for photography (though my younger brother "Pappu" is much more accomplished and is an old practitioner of the art), she bought me a SONY Cyber-shot with 12.1 mega pixel feature. You can understand my surprise and pleasure at her grand gesture. She has always been kind to everybody particularly me. I must thank her.

With the Sony camera began my daily ritual of catching any thing or moment which I find interesting. I must admit, though photography is a very demanding passion which requires great amount of dedication and sincerity, the modern digital cameras have removed the hassles to a great extent. You can always shoot and delete the poor shots at will. It doesn't cost you anything.

Now, I guess, it's about time I shared some of the snaps (all flowers except one street cat) with you all.

Disclaimer: I must be excused, keeping in view my inexperience and limited ability, if these photographs fail to impress you.

Dear Friends,

It has been a long time since my last post appeared on this blog. More about it, later. Today, I received a mail from my brother which had an attachment-a blog piece from Mr. Tarun Vijay (as far as I know, he is the editor of "Organiser"). I need not elaborate it as it is so very topical and beautifully written. Not to say, it is eminently readable.Just read it!

http://blogs. timesofindia. indiatimes. com/indus- calling/entry/ my-name-is- not-khan

My name is not Khan, I am Mr Kaul




Tarun Vijay, 22 December 2009, 08:55 AM IST



I am not Khan. My name bears a different set of four letters: K A U L. Kaul. As those who know Indian names would understand I happened to be born in a family which was called Hindu by others. Hence, we were sure, we would never get a friend like KJ to make a movie on our humiliations, and the contemptuous and forced exile from our homeland. It's not fashionable. It's fashionable to get a Khan as a friend and portray his agony and pains and sufferings when he is asked by a US private to take off his shoes and show his socks. Natural and quite justifiable that Khan must feel insulted and enraged. Enough Masala to make a movie.
But unfortunately I am a Kaul. I am not a Khan.
Hence when my sisters and mothers were raped and killed, when six-year-old Seema was witness to the brutal slaughtering of her brother, mother and father with a butcher's knife by a Khan, nobody ever came to make a movie on my agony, pain and anguish, and tears.
No KJ would make a movie on Kashmiri Hindus. Because we are not Khans.

We are Kauls.
When we look at our own selves as Kauls, we also see a macabre dance of leaders who people Parliament. Some of them were really concerned about us. They got the bungalows and acres of greenery and had their portraits were worshipped by the gullible devotees of patriotism.
They made reservations in schools and colleges for us. In many many other states. But never did they try that we go back to our homes. They have other priorities and 'love your jihadi neighborhood' programmes. They get flabbier and flabbier with the passing of each year, sit on sacks of sermons; issue instructions to live simply and follow moral principles delivered by ancestors and kept in documents treated with time-tested preservatives.
They could play with me because my name is Kaul. And not Mr Khan. I saw the trailer to this fabulous movie, which must do good business at the box office.
There was not even a hint that terror is bad and it is worse if it is perpetuated in the name of a religion that means Peace. Peace be upon all its followers and all other the creatures too.
So you make a movie on the humiliation of taking off shoes to a foreign police force which has decided not to allow another 9/11.
The humiliation of taking off the shoes and the urge to show that you are innocent is really too deep. But what about the humiliation of leaving your home and hearth and the world and the relatives and wife and mother and father? And being forced to live in shabby tents, at the mercy of nincompoop leaders encashing your misery and bribe-seeking babus? And seeing your daughters growing up too sudden and finding no place to hide your shame?
No KJ would ever come forward to make a movie, a telling, spine-chilling narration on the celluloid, of five-year-old Seema, who saw her parents and brother being slaughtered by a butcher's knife in Doda. Because her dad was not Mr Khan. He was one Mr Kaul.
Sorry, Mr Kaul and your entire ilk. I can't help you.
It's not fashionable to side with those who are Kauls. And Rainas. And Bhatts. Dismissively called KPs. KPs meansKashmiri Pandits. They are a bunch of communalists. They were the agents of one Mr Jagmohan who planned their exodus so that Khans can be blamed falsely. In fact, a movie can be made on how these KPs conspired their own exile to give a bad name to the loving and affectionate Khan brothers of the valley.
To voice the woes of Kauls is sinful. The right course to get counted in the lists of the Prime Minister's banquets and the President's parties is to announce from the roof top: hey, men and ladies, I am Mr Khan.
The biggest apartheid the state observes is to exclude those who cry for Kauls, wear the colours of Ayodhya, love the wisdom of the civilisational heritage, dare to assert as Hindus in a land which is known as Hindustan too and struggle to live with dignity as Kauls. They are out and exiled. You can see any list of honours and invites to summits and late-evening gala parties to toast a new brand. All that the Kauls are allowed is a space at Jantar Mantar: shout, weep and go back to your tents after a tiring demonstration.

Mr Kaul, you have got a wrong name.
A dozen KJs would fly to take you atop the glory - posts and gardens of sympathies if you accept to wear a Khan name and love a Sunita, Pranita, Komal or a Kamini. Well, here you have a sweetheart in Mandira. That goes well with the story.
And you pegged the movie plot on autism.
I wept. It was too much. I wept as a father of a son who needed a story as an Indian. Who cares for his autistic son, his relationship with the western world, his love affair with a young sweet something as a human, as someone whose heart goes beyond being a Hindu, a Muslim or a proselytizing Vatican-centric aggressive soul. Not the one who would declare in newspaper interviews: "I think I am an ambassador for Islam". Shah Rukh is Shah Rukh, not because he is an ambassador for Islam. If that was true, he could have found a room in Deoband. Fine enough. But he became a heartthrob and a famousl star because he is a great actor. He owes everything he has to Indians and not just to Muslims. We love him not because he is some Mr Khan. We love him because he has portrayed the dreams, aspirations, pains, anguish and ups and downs of our daily life. As an Indian. As one of us.

If he wants to use our goodwill and love for strengthening his image as an ambassador for Islam, will we have to think to put up an ambassador for Hindus? That, at least to me, would be unacceptable because I trust everyone: a Khan or a Kaul or a Singh or a Victor. Who represents India represents us all too, including Hindus. My best ambassadorship would be an
ambassadorship for the tricolour and not for anything else because I see my Ram and Dharma in that. I don't think even an Amitabh or a Hritik would ever think in terms Shah Rukh has chosen for himself. But shouldn't these big, tall, successful Indians who wear Hindu names make a movie on why Kauls were ousted? Why Godhra occurred in the first place? Why nobody, yes, not a single Muslim, comes forward to take up the cause of the exiled and killed and contemptuously marginalized Kauls whereas every Muslim complainant would have essentially a Hindu advocate to take on Hindus as fiercely as he can?
If you are Mr Khan and found dead on the railway tracks, the entire nation would be shaken. And he was also a Rizwan. May be just a coincidence that our Mr Khan in the movie is also a Rizwan.
Rizwan's death saw the police commissioner punished and cover stories written by missionary writers. But if you are a Sharma or a Kaul and happened to love an Ameena Yusuf in Srinagar, you would soon find your corpse inside the police thana and NONE, not even a small-time local paper would find it worthwhile to waste a column on you. No police constable would be asked to explain how a wrongly detained person was found dead in police custody?
Because the lover found dead inside a police thana was not Mr Khan. No KJ would ever come forward to make a movie on 'My name is Kaul. And I am terror-struck by Khans'.
Give me back my identity as an Indian, Mr Khan and I would have no problem even wearing your name and appreciating the tender love of an autistic son.

Classic Na"Pak" Raga

Dear Friends,

This evening, while I was checking my mails on a popular site, I was drawn to a news item in which Pakistan's eagerness to resume bilateral talks even in the face of Indian reluctance, was featured. It said- "Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in a wide-ranging interview to a TV news channel, dispelled the impression that there is a deadlock between India and Pakistan over New Delhi's call for Islamabad to take action against outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawaah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed for his links to the Mumbai attacks and demanded legally tenable evidence against the Lashkar-e-Tayiba founder."

I was not at all surprised by the rather shameful statement of the Pakistani Foreign Minister. In any, case it speaks a lot about their legal and social systems and what else you would expect from a country which treats terrorists as "strategic assets" and where mostly overt and sometimes covert support to the killers, is part of normal state craft and discourse. Pakistan, as we, in India, always knew and world has known post 9/11, is the mother, father, uncle, grand pa, sister, brother and son of almost every terrorist act, no matter where it unfolds, in the recent times.

If a nation, worth its name, cannot prosecute a terrorist of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed's repute and cannot make a legally tight case against him, with all the evidences presented by Indian Government and FBI besides having an Interpol "red corner notice" in his name, then there is definitely something terribly wrong with that nation. We have seen that when others tell them to take action, then it is regarded as interference and left to them selves, everyone of us knows, they would rather heap praises on such rogue individuals and organisations and treat them as national heroes.

The question, which needs to be answered by the rational Pakistanis (I know, there are some after all), is that where this wayward and deviant policy will lead their society and their country in days and months to come. (I don't think they have years to find the right answers)

If the Pakistani establishment has a death wish and is in a "self destruct mode", then we can only pray and wish them well.

Shahrukh's experience of the US hospitality

Dear Friends,

This is my first blog entry in the month of August. Some how, I never was able to excite myself enough, to be compelled to share my views with you.

This morning, while we all were busy watching The Prime Minister making his routine and rather lack luster Independence Day speech from the Red Fort, TV news channels broke this news about Shahrukh Khan's interrogation at the Newark NJ airport, on security grounds. It was as if India's Independence Day had lost its importance and significance in just few minutes if not seconds, if one were to go by the coverage of this incident, by the Indian news channels.

I,being the eternal non-conformist, thought that it was most whimsical of us to sermonize and to tell US, how it should go about ensuring its security. While I have all the sympathy for Mr. Khan, I do also feel that we should instead appreciate that US Government is alive to its primary duty of protecting its citizens, much unlike India.

Do not forget, we Indians are good at nothing-we cannot protect our leaders (Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi) nor can the Indian Government ensure the security of its citizens (I don't think you require the long list of terror attacks which has killed and maimed thousands). Whereas, after the 9/11 attacks in2001, not a single bullet has been fired by a terrorist on the US soil, much less bombings and grenade attacks, of the scale and style we witness in India rather frequently. Isn't it to the credit of "no nonsense" approach of the US authorities, when it comes to their security and national interest? The United States Government is first answerable to its citizens and then to anybody else in India, where pontificating and sermonizing comes naturally to us, in keeping with our tradition of saints and tolerance.

If anything, we should emulate and appreciate their zero-tolerance policy to tackle the menace of terrorism. And, till such time we, in India, find a better way of protecting the precious lives of our leaders and the countrymen, and at the same time not insulting the vanity and pride of Bollywood stars and their ilk, let us not preach. God forbid, if the Americans start going soft on terrorism or if they become sentimental like us, then the consequences would be catastrophic, to say the least.

PS-(18th August,2009): Today's press conference by Shahrukh and his utterances , perhaps were an admission by him, though oblique, that he has come to his senses after all.

Remember the old adage-

"When you are in Rome, do as the Romans do". (If every other American sheds his/her clothes at the drop of a hat, why shouldn't Shahrukh?

Supervision of Higher Education in India

Dear Friends,

I have just about completed the rather difficult task of sending my son to a management institute at Delhi. I cannot really explain, how difficult a task, it has been, to first select a reasonably good quality institute and then to get my son admitted in a two year PGDM course.

I think many parents can be saved a lot of troubles and uncertainties if the statutory bodies like AICTE, perform the tasks, they have been entrusted with. But, just go through daily english or vernacular newspapers and you will be surprised by the sheer number Institutes offering so called "Quality Management Education".

Invariably, they inform you about "Free Laptop" and "100% Placement Assistance" (only God knows, whether this 100% will make any difference to your ward's employability or not). Next, they tell you about their faculty- " Faculties from IIMs and IITs ". It makes you wonder, if all the combined faculties of the 8 IIMs leave their Institutes to teach at the more than 500 odd private "Quality Management Education Institutes", then why the mad rush to appear in the CAT, worry about the percentile and the cut-offs and the desire to get into an IIM. After all the IIMs will not have any teachers left to teach. Besides, you always end up thinking if the Institute, you or your ward has selected, can have the "Faculties from IIMs and IITs" in time to finish the course, as academic sessions commence at the same time and more or less the syllabus is also similar.

As if the failure of AICTE and similar supervisory bodies were not enough, the UGC has decided to grant "Deemed University" status to any organisation run and managed by a scamster or by people of dubious backgrounds, ready to grease the palms of UGC administrators. Now, we are blessed with universities with funny names-"Lovely Professional University" is one good example. Next, if we are more lucky, we can have "Sweet Heart University" or "Darling Dilruba University". How I wish we could study at such "Centres of Excellence in Romantic Academics" during our college days.

It is about time, the new cabinet minister for HRD Mr. Kapil Sibbal takes the bull by its horns and manages to have a serious look at the status and direction of higher education in India. The present situation is just not acceptable.

Dear Friends,

I have been going through the email of New York Times (I am on their mailing list), this evening as usual. It provides not only a bird's eye view of what is happening around us, but also gives you the American perspective of the major global and domestic events.

I was stuck by an article by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF. He has just been to Pakistan and seen the penetration of the society by the so called "Jihadi" elements. I can not but marvel at the dedication and guts of Mr. NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, because we all know what happened to another US journalist Daniel Pearl, sometime back. He paints a very dangerous and scary picture of Pakistan. If one has any doubts about the instability of both Pakistani nation as well as society, I suggest this article. It is an eye opener (if they ever needed one) for the American establishment in particular and the world opinion in general.

I have quoted a few lines from the article so that you can judge for yourself. I think, US would be very short sighted, if it still ignores the dire warning signals. Worse still, failure of American leadership and policies in Pakistan, would affect every nation sooner or later.

"Terror Creeps Into the Heartland

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

A poll of Pakistanis released this month by WorldPublicOpinion.org found that one-third believed that the Taliban intended to gain control of all of Pakistan, but 75 percent thought that would be a bad result. Two years ago, only 34 percent of Pakistanis believed that Islamic militants constituted a “critical threat.” Now, 81 percent do.

Unfortunately, the United States has acted in ways that have often empowered the militants. We have lavished more than $11 billion on Pakistan since 9/11, mostly supporting the Pakistani Army. Yet that sum has bought Pakistan no security and us no good will.

In that same poll, 59 percent of Pakistanis said that they share many of Al Qaeda’s attitudes toward the United States, and almost half of those said that they support Al Qaeda attacks on Americans.

One reason is that America hasn’t stood up for its own values in Pakistan. Instead of supporting democracy, we cold-shouldered the lawyers’ movement, which was the best hope for democracy and civil society."

Dear all,

Today we all were witness to a great celestial event. It was perhaps chance of a life time. It provided a great opportunity to the astronomers and might have helped the scientific community to improve their knowledge. All this will become evident in days to come, I am sure.

What made me worry, though, was the rather incessant parade of astrologers of doubtful credential, on various Indian TV channels. The Hindi channels were particularly prone to cross the limit of reasonable editorial freedom in the selection of what should and what should not be featured on their channels.

If one were to strictly go by the predictions and prescriptions of the "learned astrologers" who were only too happy to share their "insights" with us, we would not have been able to do anything worthwhile but to spend rest of our lifes, worrying about the effects of the eclipse on our individual sun signs.

I think some moderation was in order. Or was it another case of mindless battle for TRPs.

Dear friends,

Today the TV news channels started flashing "breaking news", announcing the thaw in the Manmohan-Gilani talks at Sharm al Sheikh, on the sidelines of NAM summit.

This made me wonder- whether we have learnt any lessons from the November attacks in Bombay, or worse still, have we, as a nation, forgotten the tragedy.

The Pakistani side rather cleverly sought to delink the bilateral talks from the ever present danger of more terrorist attacks, in future. Now, while this may serve the Pakistanis well, the question before us is what concessions, if any, has Dr.Manmohan Sigh managed to extract from the Pakistani Prime Minister. Or is it the same old capitulation to Pakistani trickery, as has happened so often in the past. I wish to draw your attention to the great blunder committed by Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru in 1948. Subsequently, in 1971 when Indian military was on the periphery of Lahore, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto again managed to pull a fast one on Mrs. Indira Gandhi, during Shimla talks. He gave nothing and walked away with JK problem still alive.

This is worrisome. In international affairs national interests are always supreme and negotiations are always a means to further protect them. Here, I find, the Indian Government has been taken for a ride yet again.

Preface

My Dear Friends,

I seek your blessings and support. In the days to come I will be sharing my views on a variety of topics which interest us all. I am sure you will be a partner in our journey towards wisdom and more wisdom.

"Kailash Parwat", the name of my blog, has been chosen deliberately as it is connected to (for the benefit of those not accustomed to Hindu Mythology) Devadhidev Lord Shiva, who though part of the Trinity has always been a contrarian. This blog will try to put across- the so called "other side" of the view- because it has now become rather fashionable to go with the herd.

Finally, I welcome you to my blog and invite you to share your views-the more out of the box the better.

Bhola Baba