Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Hail to the Chief !

Nouri Al-Maliki, had just finished explaining to the visiting UN chief Ban Ki Moon about the progress being made in Iraq. (28 sec video)



I don't understand Al Jazeera's arab commentary, nor Dubya's Iraq policy.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Bollywoodland !

"I have been offered this award before but did not accept it because the time I felt was not right. But today I'm going to be a mother-in-law all over again to a wonderful lovely girl who has great values , a great dignity and a lovely smile. I welcome you to the family, I love you. So I thought this would be the right time to accept this award.", Jaya Bhaduri said after accepting the "LifeTime Achievement Award" from Filmfare.

After watching the Bachchan family drama on Filmfare stage, I was not in a position to actively think on what was Jaya Bhaduri Bachchan's life time achievement for hindi cinema. I agree that Bollywood, considering its vast resources has achieved very less and all Jaya Bhaduris sitting with a 'Devil' can grab any award in our tinsel town. Watch this video at your own risk.



As far as I see it, this couple, standing there on stage for around ten minutes going on and on about how their son married , how their daughter got pregnant and why that is a lifetime achievement, with the whole of Hindi film industry sitting there and listening is a spectacle - that is exactly what makes the hindi films suck - inertia to get out of that bullshit pit. Every speech on the filmfare stage has to pay homage to the Bachchans or the Chopras or the Roshans. Everyone is addressed as uncle or aunty. Every movie is so full of bullshit. And Hrithik is the best actor for Dhoom2.


Can we get over it guys ? Your family values. Are we still not fed up of this family drama and Koffee couches. Is there a single award night in recent memory where the family hasn't tortured us. Isn't it time Bollywood borrows some professionalism from hollywood or outsource this bollywood farce to good film makers in Bengal, Chennai or Kerala. Bachchan once said Academy awards are not for us, our art is different. Yes sir ! your art is different and so full of bullshit, which is shoveled down the average movie goer's esophagus like "Eklavya"

Let us not live under the impression that these folks are the best we have, they are not. There have been genuine movies like this and this, which came out of the same bollywood. These families are the cancer of the hindi film industry and they make a mockery of cinema, perhaps the most important medium of our times - and thats a crime. There are a lot people who stand accused, but the main culprit could be six feet three with a baritone voice.

P.S : If you still haven't watched Black Friday, as Taran Adarsh put it, do yourselves a favour - go watch it.

P.P.S : Now that 'Lifetime' has been presented to Jaya and Rekha, how about checking out names like Nihalani and Benegal before giving it to Aishwarya.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Mother of all Nightmares

"...I am sure, thousands like me will be shocked by the Nandigram incident. Please, please have some regard for those who feel that socialism is not terrorism, but humanism; and misrule by gun will not be the rule of the Left in State authority."

V.R.Krishna Iyer
in his open letter to Prakash Karat.

Beat the squares with the tramp of rebels!
Higher, rangers of haughty heads!
We'll wash the world with a second deluge,
Now’s the hour whose coming it dreads.
Too slow, the wagon of years,
The oxen of days — too glum.
Our god is the god of speed,
Our heart — our battle drum.
Is there a gold diviner than ours
What wasp of a bullet us can sting?
Songs are our weapons, our power of powers,
Our gold — our voices — just hear us sing!

- Mayakovski,1917

When did the Communist government in Bengal forget to sing, when did the lover of Marquez and modernism start writing his whim around the echo of a bullet shot, why did the communist lose his vow of burning patience. Every excuse of governance from the Writer's Building notwithstanding, the bottom line is a democratically elected communist government opened fire on its own people, killing them. A left front government used the brute force of state machinery to repress its own people. This is unprecedented and shameful.This is not revolution through parliamentary democracy, this is not 'struggle and governance', this is the mother of all nightmares and this will haunt the leftist struggle in India for years to come. This is sad.

Buddha could argue citing the metaphor that Agricultural Bharat met eyeball to eyeball with Industrial India in Nandigram. He could argue that rapid industrialization is key to India's growth with the agricultural sector growing at one third the rate of industrial growth and that a failure in Nandigram and Singur will have national implications. But try explaining the Hindu growth rate to the farmer and the farm labourer who is wedded to his soil -its hard ; but then, thats why we need communists and them compassionate.

Buddha could argue citing the facts that the rule of law had to be brought back in Nandigram, that a chief executive has to make hard decisions, that the Trinamool, fringe left and Muslim groups in Nandigram and across Bengal are dangerous and he had to act, that the villagers in Nandigram are under siege by external elements. But why can't a democratic communist government with its roots in the hearts of Bengalis talk with its own people, convince its own people. If Trinamool and the Naxals are able to convince the villagers, why can't the Communist party do it. A progressive movement which is impotent to talk to its own stakeholders, be it due to the arrogance of power or reactionary influences on the people will be in due course of time be relegated to its rightful place in the waste paper basket of history unless it changes its course.

Buddha needs to understand that we live in an India where state violence in Bengal and Naxal violence in Chattisgarh are both called Red Terror. The removal of this Indian cataract will be a long and painful journey, in which songs will be more effective than bullets. Being the darling of capitalist enterprise might be hailed by the media which believes in gulping rather than savouring, but the leftist struggle in India draws its energy not from the news cycles but from the ground realities which are strangled by the news media. The Indian news media never asks what the Naxalites want, then the Naxalites are terrorists.


The Buddha government and the party in Bengal needs to go through a process of self-critical analysis on what went wrong. The decision to accept the peoples' verdict on Nandigram will be the first step towards that. The damage that has been done will take time to heal, but the 'astounding arrogance' of the CPIM will have to be cured now. There are a lot of difficult questions that will haunt CPIM for long, Buddha better have some answers or else the humility to ask for forgiveness. Millions of Hindutva sympathizers died exactly five years before in Gujarat, a lot of Indian communists died on March 14th in Bengal. The death toll is rising, maybe, Buddha should go.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Forrest Gump Confesses

The Forrest Gump of Global Terror has confessed. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one of the three hundred and twenty seven (courtesy : random number generator) people the US considers to be Al-Qaeda No 3. This Global terrorist was arrested in March 2003 in Pakistan and was placed in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The terrorist confessed on March 10th of 2007.

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You might have heard this one, but can't resist, this is my all time favourite. Once, way back in early 90's there was a competition for the best police force in the world. The top three finalists were the Russians, Israelis and Kerala police. The challenge was to go into the Muthodi forest and catch three "absconding" tigers.

The Russians took the first turn, and after a day returned with the tiger. Next the Israelis went into the forest and caught the tiger in half a day. Finally, Kerala police went in. Days passed without any news and after a week a search team was sent out to look for them.

The search team found the KP guys just half a mile into the forest. There was a Bear tied to one of the trees and a constable was standing next to it, punching the bear in the stomach. The bear was wailing "I'm not a tiger,I'm not a tiger". The Kerala police chief said " we caught the tiger in less than ten minutes, but this sonofabitch is not confessing".




Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to personally beheading journalist Daniel Pearl, 1993 World Trade Center bombing,Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States,''Filka Island Operation'' in Kuwait, Bali bombings, Shoe-bomb plot for bombing trans-Atlantic flights, plotting to bomb Sears Towers and Empire State building, Plotting to assassinate all American Presidents including Jimmy Carter, Plotting to attack Straits of Hormuz, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Port of Singapore,Panama Canal, Heathrow Airport, Big Ben ,Canary WharfS,NATO headquarters in Brussels, Israel Embassies, US Embassies, plotting the Bojinka Operation to take down 12 American planes in Indonesia AND planning to Kill the Pope, Kill Musharraf and Kill Clinton.

Read full confession here (there are many that I left out after fainting)

Khalid is not just the Forrest Gump of terror, he is the James Bond of terror or rather the Rajnikanth of terror. Osama Bin Laden is reportedly fuming in his cave despite the Afghan winter. Reports say he feels betrayed and mugged in broad daylight. OBL is planning to confess and take responsibility for JFK assassination, Katrina Hurricane and Global Warming to regain his terror status.

Khalid in the meantime on a fast track to terror sainthood in Pakistan and the middle-east might claim responsibility for "plotting" in this mega case as well. That might be another feather in the cap for FBI and Kerala Police.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Women's Army and Jhansi Rani

"My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women's army," they read. "I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina's country."

they read the Vagina Monologues aloud and then they were suspended

So sad. What about those men who were fired for using the "V" word at work.

and back in India on this Women's day,

'A study on all aspects related to women officers in the armed forces, including induction in combat roles was conducted under the aegis of the Chiefs of Staff Committee -,' Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha. 'The study has recommended exclusion of women officers for the present in close combat roles where chances of physical contact with the enemy are high,' Antony added.


Neihal, says Women's right activists have "slammed the findings of the study as the height of male chauvinism"

What is with this male chauvinist (but armed) pigs, this is the height of discrimination, that too in the land of the great and "highly successful in battle" Jhansi Rani. And whats with this "Physical contact" , haven't these morons heard about this thingy called "Guns" which other armed forces in the rest of the world have successfully put into use. Don't tell me we settle disputes with Pakis by playing kabaddi and wrestling (extreme physical contact conditions) - Indian army had decommisioned those weapons after the Chinese routed us.

Does anyone remember those rape cases, remember Jaffna of 87 ? Having women in the army*provided they have guns* will arguably reduce the chance of sexual abuse - well who knows. Now about winnability and compromising national security, when was the last time we fought a full fledged war - 1971 ? did we actually see the enemy in Kargil, let alone physical contact. So let these women be, give them whatever they want. Do whatever is needed to shut those feminists up. Oh those shrill voices.

According to me, all our Jhansi Ranis in short skirts must be given the freedom to go to hell in any frickin way they want. Say NO to discrimination in combat roles in Indian Armed Forces !!