DYSTOPIA

NYTimes journalist, Anand Giridhardas once asked Mufti Shabbir Alam Sidiqi, an important Islamic cleric, whether disenfranchised Muslims were losing faith in India and taking solace in fundamentalist ideas.

“What you have in India you have in no other country,” he replied. “In this republic there are rights. We can demand our rights, speak out. In other countries: eat, drink and shut up. Go to Saudi Arabia: you can’t speak. There is Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai, Iraq, Iran. These things are nowhere. They are all dictatorships.”

Indian democracy should not work. Democracy brings little to the poor, the state is corrupt, politicians lack principles and ideas. Yet we as citizen with no reason to hope continue to believe, vote, speak, petition for better India.

One fine day, to understand life of people practicing Wahhabi Islam and searching about censorship on blog in Middle East, I came across this blog: The Religious Policeman.

It states on its first page: In Memory of the lives of 15 Makkah Schoolgirls, lost when their school burnt down on Monday, 11th March, 2002. The Religious Police would not allow them to leave the building, nor allow the Firemen to enter.

That shivered me deep inside and I dig the digital archives for complete archaeological survey. The blogger has been commenting on Saudi Arabia, off and on, for two years. I have read it completely now and the whole trauma of horrifying real life stories is not going way. Power, Politics, Money and Religion have clubbed together for violation of each good emotions, humanity stands for. It has confirm my worst fears that we humans are living in dystopian society. Here is living example of George Orwell's "1984" in this world. A concrete jungle made on petro dollars..

And then I just cherish in vanity that I have taken birth in India. How lucky I am to have freedom and human rights.......

I had got a mail...

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

"Does observation affect outcome?" Yes, it does in writing. We can assume the unobserved event functions the same as the observed event in a rare case of writing where external observation is not needed. Sometimes event is self conscious. That is the beauty of writing, it makes you reflective...

I insist everyone to write and to clear their point of view or express experiences. Or it may serve the purpose to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity. This has happened to me long back ago. A great fellow from 'downsouth' had given me his valuable time and comment to improve my writing skills. I got a mail on asking his opinion on one of the blogpost. The email can be traced back on the date of 16th June 2007 when my blog was just 3 months old with full of spelling and grammar mistakes (Later I edited and republished blogpost on his advice). The person has asked to keep his name hidden here in public sphere. Enjoy that email which is still one of the guidelines followed in mine writings and helped in standing out than fitting in the blogland:

"You need to improve your grammar drastically. I had read a few of your posts earlier too (way to IT-BHU, legacy etc.) and the worrying part (sorry to say so) is that your grammar has not improved much. Elementary grammatical mistakes are accepted today but gross mistakes tend to suppress the feelings that are brought out through the medium of writing.

Your narrative style is excellent with a chronological and sequential flow of events. I can sense that you have that keen sense of memory and observation with an eye for the fine details (something I hav not been able to develop till now) and would provide a lot of entertainment and nostalgia if you can put the bricks together. I must admit I was in peels of laughter reading the post. My suggestion would be to write shorter, read it once before posting it and review errors as perceived by you and get both reviewed by someone so that you can have a feel about your grammatical sense.

I also feel that you write without a lot of reading and it simply doesn't work that way. Read slower and and try and appreciate the sense of the sentence. Bahut fatte ho gaye ab ke liye. Keep calling for help.

Cheers,

Senders name

Not everyone knows how to express creativity, but everyone has the capacity to be creative.

Shit does not always float. Things change!

In the words of Irshad bhai only-- "हर आदमी जो सही दिख रहा है, कही अन्दर से टूटा हुआ है। "
And in mine words-- "जीना महँगा हो गया है और ज़िंदगी सस्ती हो गयी है."

I am just sum of these two lines in reality. Rest written here is broken and chaos of my mind.

I am trying hard to inculcate and dissolve ideas into mine reading material, thinking and writing. From now onwards, the frequency of posting on blog will be low and only original matter will appear. More composition, less compilation and adaptation. Instead of plagiarism, a phase to produce mine naive thoughts has came. Shit does not always float. It has to be flushed in sewer one day. Things had changed inside me now!.

Yeh woh Manzil to Nahin:
This is not the article I want to publish here just a day before. A disorganised, disoriented and unthemed writing. But this is how life is, unclear and changing our subjectivity of perception on recollection. Too much order was taking the breathe of the blog, hence a break from established pattern.

Under any 'ism', man exploits man, so the idea of utopia or holy struggle goes in smoke and a grand illusion surrounds regarding every topic. If racism, religious intolerance, and sexism are wrong, can nationalism which is so often upheld as noble, be right? All the emotions can be manipulated in wrong direction by radical falsehood thrust of oration skills. Logic and analysis fail and everybody is happy to just follow. There are thousands who claim to have read Bhagvad Gita but have yet to meet person who actually understood the philosophy and practiced it.Take a example like the principle of Karmayoga only. More than deliberate blasphemers of a scripture, the unconscious misinterpreters of a sacred text are the innocent criminals who bring about the wretched downfall of its philosophy for their own convenience and prejudices. There is no use to fight over the credibility of God who will ever come out to prove himself right or wrong.

I don't want to be fed any boring facts and figures. I'd rather starve my mind a bit and have to search out nutrition in stranger places. People want to breathe a live of luxury and flamboyancy with the route of credit also. The luxury industries is doing what it takes to cater to the whims & fancies of rising class. The aspirational lifestyle doesn't limited to material objects but it has evolved into unique and personal experiences. Our society has taken voyeuristic path and children turning on to the habits of adults. People love to see other's in pain. Yet there are those who have managed to find the balance, ensuring they do their bit to propel their nation forward. That gives me inspiration to preach and express my feelings. Acceptance, Care, Respect and Recognition are terms for which a man struggle. Parallel cinema to caste discrimination or gender inequality, everything revolves around these 4 words only. In the Rebel against the establishment, getting wasted on high dose of liquor or drugs and crashing bike in high speed around a blind turn is no solution. To rebel means to stand for something what you truly believe in till last breathe. The modern idea of world is about equality and the transcendence of social barriers, not about narrow dividing walls. In this sense inspiration may well have come from Rabindranath Tagore’s song: Jodi tor daak shuney keoo na ashey tobey ekla chalo rey. (If none heeds your cry to march together, just walk alone, no if or whether.)

A good news for my fans that I was quoted in a international e- magazine;India: A wave of suicides among farmers. Just learned one lesson of lifetime yesterday: To lead people walk behind them.

My views in yours words

"Blogging won't make you a millionaire, so you should only blog if you love doing it. If you don’t enjoy yourself, your readers won’t enjoy reading your blog." -- Unknown.

It is the first step for start of writing original writeup only. This post is written in the series of flushing collection of other peoples writing from my mind. Reminder, this post is full of plagiarism.

Education-- Tell me about yourself: a brief introduction, talk about your skills relevant to the position, experience are transferable to position available and career objective. It is the sort of basic questions faced by us. For me, a college degree shows not that its holder has learned something but rather that he is the kind of person who could learn something. Today, a hybrid talk on education.

Schools or Universities are places where most young people come together crossing the old boundaries of religion and caste. It is here where the new nation is being constructed in the minds of coming generation.

"Universities, are no longer ivory towers. They were meant to remain above politics, but are very at the very centre of it." -Deepak Nayyar former VC of Delhi University.

In the process of discovering alien side of things, one begins to lose one's identity and falls into the trap of becoming an alienated person contemptuous of everything natural and uniquely inherited in him. Rote memorizing involves the brutal repetition of material just as it stands.The fidelity of memory is greatly affected by the intention. Students like me make a great mistake when they study for the purpose merely of retaining until after examination time. We retain facts after they are once impressed. The ability of retention purely depends upon the way it is impressed onto the brain. Recall is the stage at which material that has been impressed and retained is recalled to serve the purpose for which it was memorized. Recall is thus the goal of memory. Whenever a remembered fact is recalled, it is accompanied by a characteristic feeling which we call the feeling of recognition. It has been described as a feeling of familiarity, a glow of warmth, a sense of ownership, a feeling of intimacy. I learned in graduate school that "knowledge is power" but found that it is not correct ! Knowledge is 'potential' power depending upon how it is applied (if it is applied at all.) It's not what you know, but how you use what you know !!!

Work environment of the place can make any job or academics interesting or boring. Choosing a field and being adamant about it is just restricting yourself unnecessarily. Interest is not something which a profile can develop, it depends more of on the work environment you nurture your mind in. When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

Cinema--
The majority of people retain better things that are visually impressed. Hence, cinema can be consider as more effective tool than literature for spreading awareness. The idea is to engage an audience and uplift them in some way and take them into an experience which is emotional at many levels. Cinema no more reflects the society because we no more live in a society. Today we live in a market. And like all other products the market forces also control cinema. In the words of Sudhir Mishra - A great film is a film where you lose the distinction between how a tale is told and the tale itself; where there is an investigation into the truth but simultaneously the idea of being wrong is also present. You want to know the truth but when you reach it you also have an idea that maybe that’s not it. A genuinely vibrant cinema that does not necessarily have to be realistic or naturalistic. All we have to do is not to succumb to those who force to mimic or imitate in the name of 'inspiration'.

Cricket--
A wise team does not depend on recoveries. Cricket is a simple game that can be made to sound very complicated. The people who do the simple things well are the people who are most successful. Simple is repeatable and repeatable is successful. Cricket is execution not a game. Cricket is an isolating and yet public game. Soccer players suffer when they miss a penalty. Cricketers risk that collapse every time they go out to bat. It is not a sport at all, it's an execution. --- Peter Roebuck

All about Kanpur

This is an aspirational information-gathering article. Don't consider it as an inspirational or nostalgic writeup for a land of the leather industry, Kanpur. Kanpur is a big city rich in history. The summed-up details are available on Wikipedia and Kanpur unofficial website .For highly irrational opinions take a joy ride with me.

Tourism: Places of Interest in Kanpur.
For more queries contact: Official blog page of the District Magistrate, Kanpur Nagar.

Hotels and Food:
A lot of hotels are established to cater to thousands of guests yearly. The Landmark Hotel, Kanpur with Mehak Restaurant restaurant serves authentic Chinese and traditional Indian dishes. The names are like this--Angithi Restaurant, Little Chet Restaurant, Chung Fa Restaurant. One person has taken a taste & reviewed nearly all of them. FYI, it's not me. Reviews are at --- My experience with Restaurants in Kanpur.

Cuisine:
Dish name : Kanpur Chapathi.
Processing Technique is explained with photos here.

Scholarly works on Kanpur History: (videshi university se bhaiyaji)
Forgetting the Violence, Remembering the Report: The Paradox of the 1931 Kanpur Riots by Priya Agarwal.

FM radio is now more popular than Vividh Bharati ki prasaaran seva ka kanpur kendra. Times have changed now.

IIT Kanpur:
In my all post, I have not described in detail a heaven on the land of Kanpur, especially for me. That was indeed IIT- Kanpur. It has got a huge campus with a peaceful environment where a feeling of respect & humbleness arises inside the heart. It has sent out many distinct students to the world to spread the name of India.

Official website of IITK.
Again take a look at Kanpur and IITK from a foreign angle: Kanpur Kanpur and IIT.
Excerpt of the talk with Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala about IITK history.
Forgotten chapter of the History of IITK & MIT together.

Cricket:
Kanpur is also famous for the exaggeration of a simple line. Sahara once was in talks for IPL franchise before the recession. Nothing is yet final but people are damn sure than Subrato Roy about IPL Kanpur franchise. And forget to mention a special series of incidents a few years back would be Crime: A take on green park stadium. The incident was the entrance of a dog in one-day matches. It has happened 3 times at least in live in front of me. Pretty Hilarious interruptions of the whole police squad running after one dog. Also, GP is a brown park wicket for Ranji teams and turns into the lush green for international matches. Enjoy the account of Ken Herr about watching a match in Kanpur. You will be amazed, why I always give the point of view of foren baba's about Kanpur? For introspection, I am here na with Kanpur Series !!!