Islam and Muslims

Does an innocent Muslim have to share blame of terrorist activity if it was done in the name of Islam? Absolutely not. And people shouts that Islam is the religion of peace and these persons are doing this for their own greed and evil motives. This is where I didn't agree a bit with all of them. Then, you have to see countless videos on YouTube with people proclaiming their religion as best and elimination of Jews from the earth in the name of Islam. The point of difference is that these so-called terrorists don't act barbaric for their own good but perform it voluntarily for bringing reign of Islam. Don't even get me started over hate teaching education to next generation.

Of course, one has to distinguish between Islam and Muslims. The source of the problem is in Islamic doctrine, and not in cultural accretions. Stereotyping all Muslims as backward thinking is wrong way to have an opinion on Islam. Islam became rigid in hands of Mullahs that want to define every walk of life through religion only. The identification with Islam has become in such an ethical orientation flow pattern, which is largely about the theological concept's haram - the Forbidden - and halal - the Permitted - structured. These prohibitionists made a serious miscalculation: they reacted to their failure by demanding the laws be tightened even more.

It is the fear of understanding the other and eventually becoming the other. For if Muslims understood their motivations, they would have to accommodate their worldview in themselves and that would be very problematic indeed for Mullahs army dictating Koran. Mullahs calls for punishment or at best, forgiveness, but never understanding.

When Mullahs ban a popular addiction (sex, alcohols) that millions of people want, it doesn't disappear. I have not even started about books, painting, kite flying or any other entertainment stuff. Instead, it is transferred from the daily life into the hands of criminals. Even the attempts done on moralistic approach fails because they were, beneath all the blather, a war on human nature.

We must not forget that too much divine power in a priest’s hands would corrupt him as much as that in any other individual’s hands. Zealous priests who can preach deliverance cannot rule.

We Live Cinema!

I have quite "diverse" movie-watching and reading habits. As someone who feels equally comfortable watching Kurosowa and cheaply-made B-grade movies, the principle of diversity holds good. The fundamental principle of aesthetics is to acquire excellent taste one has to be able to recognize both ugliness and beauty, which is applicable to the whole range of human experience. It is important to understand what should be accepted and what must be rejected.

Cinema is there to reflect our lives, dreams, ambitions, and hidden desires on the celluloid. Reality and Myths can't be separated but diversion towards one will lead to an uneven balance of the world view. We don't watch cinema for consumption only but to refresh ourselves with entertainment or reflect on our lives.

It took great effort to create the art by an artist. It is so much greater than what it costs us to consume only. The experience may be greater than consumption but the filmmaker is giving us gifts without a doubt. A filmmaker is an artist who creates an uneven exchange, brings himself closer to the recipient, creates change, and does it all with the right spirit.

One of the great joys of cinema is the ability to be transported into another time and place with the theme of universal appeal. Looking at Indian Cinema all these years, we ought to have produced some directors who could have captured our imagination and brought crowds to watch cinema of world standards.

Cinema is deeply personal like any other form of art. The Western expectation of Indian cinema continues to be exotic (read "poverty porn") and according to defenders of Bollywood fare, it should be infused with song and dance aka Broadway style. Such an expectation of the West from every bit of non-Hollywood cinema will tend to distort our cinematic vision. The originality will disappear when we always want to prove our quality without rooting our films in our own culture.

Originality and dareness to speak truth is the prime responsibility of any artist. Even a Kafkaesque cat-and-mouse game of promotion and censorship holds on the content of the art. No cinema-loving filmmaker will finish his piece of art as a propaganda film. And even in the threats of hooligan groups, it's the responsibility of each artist to take a stand. We need to be inspired by the stand taken against institutionalized oppression of government by Chinese, Iranian, or Russian filmmakers.

A new generation of filmmakers in India is now engaging with the most varied facets of a society that is oddly locked in the tension between optimism and stagnation, between attraction towards the past and fascination with the computer age. And the high point is that this new generation of filmmakers is embedded with a socio-economic confidence lacking in the previous generation. We are living in cinema with these filmmakers. By questioning the conformist norms of society through the medium of cinema, I will live the life of a cinephile. I am here due to a pure love for cinema, a middle ground between the ignorance of the mobs and the pseudo intellects with an attempt to drive their film love to this new horizon.

Ten Issues - 4

1- Half-life of the Coal Child : Not many know that the dangerous and suffocating rat mines of Meghalaya are worked by 70,000 child miners. Following them into hellish pits, Kunal Majumder exposes the dark veins of an exploitative industry.

2- Glory, piety and politics : With Pakistan’s two main political parties looking exhausted by being made to play a continuous game of cat and mouse with the establishment, the new generation of young Pakistanis began to look elsewhere.

3- A Short History of Rebellion" : TSI discovers that most fade away or come back ‘home’. Some do make history–for better or worse.

4- Interview of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad given to the famous journalist Shorish Kashmiri for a Lahore based Urdu magazine, Chattan, in April 1946.

5- Of grids and groups: An alternative view of "open" and "closed" societies.

6- Over 200,000 Narmada Dam oustees still to be rehabilitated; A crime that goes unpunished for 25 years.

7- Killings of Ahmadis unleashes fresh soul-searching over Pakistan’s identity : The soul-searching is particularly acute given that the suppression of the Ahmadis is officially endorsed by the state.

8- The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People : The thing about habits is that for good and bad they require no thinking.

9- Invisible environmentalists : They forage the city, collecting and sorting often hazardous waste when the city sleeps and by day they are gone. Most of them are women and we have no long-term policy in place that looks at their welfare or health, writes Kalpana Sharma.

10- The Great Bhopal Killing : Read here complete history of Disaster.

In Between, Abhishek Singhvi who is the spokesperson of Congress is also the legal representative of DOW Chemicals (the company that purchased Carbide). Not only that, he is also a member of the committee that is supposed to investigate the Bhopal incident. So on the one hand he is an investigator, and on the other, he protects the legal interests of DOW. What a wonderful world !