All Izz Well or All Izz Hell?

Recently a post by a certain Dr. Rangwala got viral on Facebook. Later she wrote it as an article for Huffington post titled "My Husband And I Are Thriving Muslim Professionals In India. We Have Only Felt Acceptance". 

First of all, it's a very well written piece. She describes how she and her IIT educated husband faced no hatred towards them for being Muslims. She questions the recent debate in the country on Intolerance, and calls it "fake". She spent first 18 years of her life in Kuwait and finds India much better in comparison.

One can argue about whether or not intolerance is increasing in the country, or whether it's only getting more "visible" these days. 

She says 

An ordinary citizen like my husband and I are not facing any such issues, then what have they (the Khans) faced? 

This is a valid question. It would be very interesting to ask our superstars what discrimination (if any) they personally felt over the years. But the underlying assumption here is that one can protest about something only when they are directly affected by it. In fact it is the duty of every citizen to to fight against any ills of the society, in their own capacity. When parliament members make statements that are hateful and incite violence, no person is directly affected by mere words. Still, they must be condemned. Why did so many people protest on the roads in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya case? They were not directly affected by it. Why then? 

My second problem with her post is the last two sentences.

How long can I expect majority of Hindus to tolerate this nuisance? It's high time that Muslims understand the value of the freedom and acceptance that we enjoy in India and if not, I pray that my Hindu fellow citizens continue to keep their patience.

It is highly patronizing towards both Hindus and Muslims in India. It gives an impression that Hindus should be praised for not "rioting" and Muslims should not complain (about any actual discrimination they might have faced) because India is better than some other regressive countries. This is unfair towards people with legitimate grievances. It is like telling a married woman that her abusive husband is good because "at least he does not hit her, like some other husbands". Note - I am not saying that all Hindus are inimical towards all Muslims (and vice a versa). In a country of the size of India, one cannot assume *any* absolute generalization about society. In India you can be discriminated against on the basis on your gender, caste, religion, food habits so on and so forth. 

Instead of comparing our country with some regressive countries and being satisfied with it, we should rather strive for what is ideal. By all practical means, India may be a better choice when compared to Kuwait or other middle eastern countries; but that does not mean we are perfect. One cannot take either extremes. Dr. Rangwala's personal experience does not invalidate the hostility faced by some other sections of Muslims in India. We should be balanced in both criticism and praise of the Indian society. Shouting either All Izz Well or All Izz Hell, does not help. No matter which side of the debate you are on, once you talk in absolutes, the other side stops listening.

Does that mean positive success stories of Muslims in Indian society, do not serve any purpose? Not at all. They should certainly be written and spread around, but not be used to deny some other unfortunate incidences that happen from time to time.

For more views about what is it like to be an Indian Muslim - check out https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-be-an-Indian-Muslim

6-6-15

So today I was g-chatting with a friend on random things and suddenly the topic of  TWMR came up. This movie has become talk of the town and everyone seems to like it. The movie is good overall. K was superb in the Haryanvi accented "duplicate" role. I almost didn't think that was double-role in initial scenes, it was a completely different character. The duplicate role was quite symbolic in that M realizes that even though the duplicate looks like T, he still likes T for what she is, personality-wise . On another note, both M and the purana premi shouldn't have fallen for the duplicate; if you were breaking up with someone it seems to be a very bad idea to pair up with someone who would remind you of them. 

Nevertheless I wanted to grouse a bit. 

First of all, T and M never logically discuss their bones of contention face to face. They start fighting at the start of the movie and reunite at the end, just like that. Just because they realize that they "love" each. It may be a momentary feeling. What if tomorrow they go down the same path? There is drama-rama-rona-dhona in the end, it's Bollywood after-all, but I wished there was some sincere rational talk as well. 

 I still doubt if T still completely likes M, may be she's now become more tolerant of his "boringness"? Has M changed a bit though? He still seems to be the same person fundamentally. So the movie lacks a satisfying end IMO. 

Or may be they have both matured a bit unknowingly, without needing to explicitly communicate. Perhaps. 

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Reading The God of Small Things. Good book. Like the dry/dark humorous style of writing. Kerala is described in manner that might evoke nostalgia, even though you may not have been there before! I was a bit surprised when my friend told me that it was the only book she wrote. Then googled a bit about her life story .. very interesting. And here is how the book came about.

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For a change, instead of a song I'll leave you with a Shruti Box recording. 

Random

I had recorded a short video while we were traveling by car in the ghats some days ago. Somehow I recorded it upside down and to my amazement, it looks much cooler that way. See for yourself! (Watch in fullscreen 1080p HD)

The sky feels as though it's a sea ..

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Recently saw Piku. Shouldn't have made Amitabh look fat, it doesn't suit him. Good acting, esp Irrfan. Fav scenes - the one in which Irrfan Khan shouts Choop! when people around him are arguing - and the one in which the maid comes back to work at the end, what nerve she has! On a serious note, it's a breath of fresh air to watch a believable portrayal of a "normal" family. I still can't relate to Amitabh's character though, where do such ultra-crazy-liberal fathers exist?

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this song is pure bliss and lull inducing. heard it four years ago. Vienna by Matt Costa.

A not so evil plan

Sick of reading gruesome news about acts of violence towards men, women and children everyday, I thought of a grand solution to this problem once and for all. No, it's not better laws and their strict implementation. Neither it is teaching the principles of Buddha and Gandhi to the masses, hoping that they will grow up towards non-violence. People can go astray anytime. I wanted a foolproof answer.

Steven Pinker says that human violence has surprisingly declined and

"we may be living in the most peaceable era in human existence."

But I think humans should strive towards taking this issue head-on rather than waiting passively for world-peace.

Gun rights advocates say "Guns don't kill people, people do". I agree, so let's fix the people.

Here is the plan. Study the brain activity during acts of aggression/violence towards other living beings. Identify the chemical reactions and then come up with a new medicine that would make anyone who is injected with it non-violent. Sure, situation of personal and group conflicts could occur any time, but no one ever has thoughts of physically harming another person. They could choose to communicate logically, communicate nonsensically, or choose not to communicate at all .. but no actual violence. No violence at personal level will "automatically" result in no violence at international level (no more wars with guns and drones). I think Bill Gates should fund such venture rather than anti-ageing research which I think has less of use to human race as a whole. Well, not really. Anti-ageing research is useful too, otherwise how will humans travel light-years of distances trying to reach newer planets without dying in between? But overall the problem of violence seems more critical and resulting in greater good to me.

I know, it sounds crazy. Brain is not a computer despite the similarities. The problem is not as easy as finding a bug in a piece of software and fix some lines of codes. But let's assume that through Herculean efforts, our neurologists manage to find a permanent solution to physical violence without side-effects on other brain functions. What will be the issues once that milestone is reached?

First, we need a plan to inject every human with this Medicine of Peace. Biggest hurdle will be to convince everyone to get injected. In today's times, some people don't even trust vaccines, so how can we hope they will trust this? 

What would be main challenges any such peace-plan will face?

1. Violation of personal freedom

I agree. But there is no other way to fix this problem, is there? We have to collectively understand that however well-meaning a person might be, there could be times at which slip-ups may happen resulting in violence. Hence we need to temporarily give up personal freedom, for the sake of humanity.  

Some people might argue that only known violent criminals should be administered this medicine. Kind of like "sterilization of stray dogs" if you pardon the example. But this will create problems for these persons when they get out of jail, unless they are well versed in self-defense. Other people could exploit them.

2. Rogue elements

Practically speaking it's not possible to inject every human at the same time. World population is 7.x Billion right now and we don't have a database of all the people. Even if we had a database of every country's citizens and each country manages to inject every known person with it, there will still be a number of people hiding and waiting for everyone to turn non-violent and then attacking them for their own benefits.

Another possibility is that the politicians could form a nexus and make all the citizens non-aggressive and then commit a lot of crimes, because there will be no physical retaliation.

Both the situations can really be disastrous. 

3. What about animals?

People might argue that if all the humans become non-aggressive, what if jungle/sea animals take control of the world after observing that no one is trying to harm them? Frankly, I don't think this will actually happen. Planet of the Apes will not happen because (IMO) animals don't have tendency to harm humans, as long as we don't disturb them.

4. Who will go first?

Obviously, Indian government will not allow administration of any such solution until Pakistan does it, and vice a versa. Only a stupid would want to send letters of condemnation when the enemy is busy firing guns. This diplomatic deadlock will not allow any progress towards this goal. 

--

 

How to surmount these challenges? I can't think of any solution at the moment. Perhaps any such universal plan will have to take place after the next world war when our population has reduced to a large extent (I hope this doesn't happen, but WW3 is a real possibility) and people are more prone to act sensibly and easier to convince since their number is smaller.

It is super ironic that in order to have a non-violent society, we first need to have a massive war!

Besides the above issues there is one other crucial issue. Even though the anti-aggression medicine will make everyone non-violent, what if aliens attack us tomorrow. We can't sit defenseless. Brains should still be capable to use force in self-defense.

So may be making such a medicine and giving it to everyone is not a sound plan. 

Sigh. I guess there is no quick fix to peace.

Hehuanshan

So last weekend four of us planned to go for a one day trip to Hehuanshan mountain in central Taiwan.

We left via car from Taipai at ~10 pm, rested once in the night and were in time for the sunrise at 5:30 am. It was windy and chilly there at 4°C.

Our route to sunrise spot, walked up a small hill to reach the top (red)

Pre-dawn

Turtle shaped cloud gliding across

Mystic Haveli

Lenticular clouds on the left

The atmosphere was quite refreshing hues in both sky and on land were awesome. In fact not even slight brightness correction was required in any of the photos! We stopped by at a few locations to take snaps.

just perfect

Clouds across the cliff (Watch in full-screen HD to get better feel.)

After having breakfast at a roadside place we went to see a place called Qingjing farm It looked beautiful on the net so we decided to check it out. When we reached there, a large family crowd was buying entry tickets (200 NT/person).

Entry to QuinJing farm

inside

It was scenic, and very well maintained.

Each sheep has an identification number stitched to its ears.

After entering, we went straight to a place where there was sitting arrangement for ~200 people around a "sheep castle".  A guy from New Zealand was handing the whole show and gave us the idea of life on a sheep farm. The sun had turned unbearable now and clouds had vanished. After watching the sheep show we were feeling exhausted and decided to ditch another show (which was about horses) and return after wandering a bit Everywhere I saw people were busy getting clicked getting their money's worth of FB likes perhaps, but hey, who am i to judge ..

After getting out of the farm we decided to return to Taipei but via a different route (towards Yilan) which turned out to be not so wise decision. It took us a lot of time to cover the same distance through mountainous path. Temperature dropped a few notches and at times it was too foggy to see the road.

Fog and jam

Miles of cabbage farms

The End

Jewish humour

So there seems to be a class of humour called 'Jewish humour'. Had a good chuckle at the following ..

A young housewife living in the town of Chełm had a very strange occurrence. One morning, after buttering a piece of bread she accidentally dropped it on the floor. To her amazement, it fell buttered side up.

As everyone knows, whenever a buttered piece of bread is dropped on the floor, it always falls buttered side down; this is like a law of physics. But on this occasion it had fallen buttered side up, and this was a great mystery which had to be solved. So all the Rabbis and elders and wise men of Chełm were summoned together and they spent three days in the synagogue fasting and praying and debating this marvelous event among themselves. After those three days they returned to the young housewife with this answer:

"Madam, the problem is that you have buttered the wrong side of the bread."

Tianmu

Had an afternoon to spend and heard a bit about Tianmu trail (~ 2.8 Km) so went there today. Weather was slightly cold and pleasant

First reached Shipai MRT and from there caught a but for Tianmu. After walking a bit from bus stop saw the Tianmu circle from where the upward journey began.

Most of the initial path is made up of stairs with tiny heights.

After about half an hour of uphill walk, the stairs disappear.

It further diverges into two trails.

Some scenes along the path ..

In the middle, a lot of birds were chirping. Recorded a bit (sorry for VGA quality).

This trail is famous for Macaque monkeys as this warning board shows. Didn't see any of them though (due to noon perhaps).

After finishing the trail in about 90+ minutes I reached a quiet residential area. No people on the roads anywhere.

Saw this interesting stone chair :)

I was looking for a bus stop nearby; walked quite a bit and found this "Floriculture Center" instead.

Some glimpses within it ..

OMG, so many petals ..

Above flower had an awesome blue tinge along the petal borders.

White fern?

I wonder what causes these trees to grow steep .

 People enjoying holiday.

The End.

Listening to SmritiChitre

Long time ago I overheard an aunt recommending the autobiography SmritiChitre by Laxmibai Tilak. A few days back, I found this book. Not in printed form, but, to my delight, in the form of an audio book. As such Marathi audiobooks are a rarity, and this was a free download on top of that! This is a well narrated audiobook (Narrator: Vidya Hardikar-Sapre) with proper character voices. I have not listened to the complete book so far, only the first part (there are four parts in total).

The book is set in a 1870-1930 Maharashtra. It starts with childhood memories of author in an orthodox Brahmin family. At the age of 11 her elders decide to marry her to a young man named Narayan W. Tilak. That name reminded me that there was a poem by "Reverend Narayan Tilak" in one of our Balbharati school textbooks. Indeed, he was the same guy. He converted to Christianity later in his life. Why he converted, is an interesting story. Basically he seems to have fed up with hypocrisy of some Hindu customs, casteism and people around him. Apparent simplicity of Christianity seems to have attracted him.

Laxmibai's life story is full of interesting characters. She lived in very poor conditions and at times didn't have money even to buy food for her kid. The parts that bothered me were wherein she casually talks of domestic violence (towards her mother-in-law by F.I.L.) and general cruelty towards herself by her F.I.L; without explicitly saying to the reader that she thought it was "wrong". She is quite objective while describing people. From time to time her husband (who is a noted poet and teacher) keeps vanishing for weeks and months leaving her on her own in financially harsh conditions. She seems proud of poetic side of her husband even though she is fed up with his not caring about money and donating things to other people. It's not all a sorrow story and humorous incidents occur here and there. We can infer a lot about social customs in Maharashtra at the time from it. It is interesting to know how a formerly uneducated (and smart/perceptive otherwise) woman like her went on to write her autobio.

Good read/listen.