Chomsky reffering to Mayawati

In recent article by Noam Chomsky, he reffers to Mayawati of Uttar Pradesh in following way:

Reactions to the election from across the spectrum commonly adopted the “soaring rhetoric” that was the hallmark of the Obama campaign. Veteran correspondent John Hughes wrote that “America has just shown the world an extraordinary example of democracy at work,” while to British historian-journalist Tristram Hunt, the election showed that America is a land “where miracles happen,” such as “the glorious epic of Barack Obama” (leftist French journalist Jean Daniel). “In no other country in the world is such an election possible,” said Catherine Durandin of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations in Paris. Many others were no less rapturous.

The rhetoric has some justification if we keep to the West, but elsewhere matters are different. Consider the world’s largest democracy, India. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, which is larger than all but a few countries of the world and is notorious for horrifying treatment of women, is not only a woman, but a Dalit (“untouchable”), at the lowest rung of India’s disgraceful caste system.

It is up to Indians if they want to feel proud or feel sorry.  

What do you think….

It was summer of 2005, I was working in Delhi and going home on weekend. I was catching an overnight train to Kanpur. I couldn’t manage to get reservation for the sleeper berth. So, I choose to go using general class. It wasn’t that crowded day. I easily found place to sit. I found a compartment with 3 more people sitting. 2 of them were facing me and 3rd one was sitting next to the window besides me. The 2 facing me were traveling together. One of them sitting just next to the window and, by his appearance, he seems to be some pundit(hindu priest). His fellow passenger was very lean middle aged man. He seems to be unhappy just by design. He would tell me his name but all I remember that his name ends with ‘ram’ so lets call him Sitaram. Sitaram kept asking Panditji time to time if he needs something. Sometimes, he whispers in the ears of Panditji and then Panditji mumble something, with noding his head, to give him some kind of assurance. The guy next to me was dosing all the time. He seems to be annoyed by every single utterance of a word in the compartment.
I was reading a book on quantum physics. After half an hour on the train, Panditji interrupts me and asks, “What are you reading?”
First, I was puzzled by the sudden question. If you have a habit of traveling in higher class then you would never experience such questions from strangers. I had no idea how to explain quantum physics to a layman and specially in hindi.
I started, “I am reading a book about physics. It is a field of science which tries to explain behavior of physical objects. Quantum physics is one of the theory which explains some activities of our surroundings. This is very special kind of theory which revolutionize the way people look at the world. Can you follow me?”. I stopped and asked if he wanted me to blather more about it.
He kept nodding and said , “Go on!!”
“This is a special kind of theory. Very hard to comprehend. It is not because of its mathematics but the view of universe it tries to propose. …….” Then I kept speaking for next 4-5 minutes and he kept nodding harder and harder.
At the end he asked, “Why are you reading this book? Which exam are you preparing for?”
“No, I am just reading because I want to know. It is exciting.”
Then Sitaram jumps into conversation, “Educated people behave weird ways!” ( padhe likhe loogoon ki alag hi baat hai!!)
Sitaram asked me, “What do you do?”
“I am an engineer working for a company which makes microchip for you mobile phone.”
Then I asked, “What do you do?”
Sitaram responded or lamented, “I work for railways at Kanpur railway station. These days it has become harder and harder to work at the station. Time is getting harder.” Pointing at Panditji, he says, “He is known priest. He is full of knowledge. I am taking him to my place to do some prayer for my kids. They are extremely naughty. I have 2 son’s and a daughter. 2 sons ran away from home about an year ago. I used be bit tough on them but it doesn’t mean they should run away. I looked for them all over the city but I couldn’t find them. I complained in police and they wouldn’t do any thing until I pay them. You know I am just a poor railway worker. I just unload and upload on goods carriage. How can I pay to those police officers.”

I was in little shock to hear the story. He continued, “Then, I went to known Guru in Unnao. He told me that I should go to south-west of kanpur then I will find my kids working at some road side food stall. I went on my bicycle for 200km on jhansi-road but I didn’t find my kids. I had to come back. I was dis-hearted. I couldn’t believe how can that Guru make a mistake”

“Did you find your kids?” I asked with excitement.
“I came to Delhi to meet this priest. He told me to go back on bicycle and look for kids on the way. To my surprise, I found my kids working in a tea shop around 50km north of kanpur.”
I thought what an odd that the first priest just missed it by direction but he got rest of it right.
“I knew that my elder son made all the plan. Younger one just followed. I will see if he doesn’t try to run away again.”

I hardly believed his story. Various thoughts were floating in my head. He might not have found his kid when was coming back from delhi. They might have returned just by themselves. He might have found them somewhere else. He might be deluding himself that he found his kids because of miraculous capacities of the Panditji. He might be saying things just to flatter the Panditji. He might be saying thing because you make up stories when you gossip with strangers. The thought, that he was a deliberate liar, never came to my mind. He might be just trying to grab some stranger’s attention.

Then Panditji started, “Look this man is so unhappy. I had to help him. I don’t take much money for helping people. Look I agreed to travel on general class because he can’t afford sleeper class ticket.”
Then he turns to sitaram, “Sitaram! God will help! and I will make sure he will! You have to just follow the right procedure of prayer.”
“Only you are the available help to me! God knows how else I will cope!”, Sitaram said after touching his feet. I saw bits of tears in his eyes.
This was a scene for me. Sitaram then sit back and PanditJi says, “This guy regards me very much, like many others. I don’t know how to help all of them.”
I said with sympathy, “It must be tough.”

Then this conversation ended. I think it was a longer conversation but I guess that I have forgotten most of the details. May be we had spoken about corruption in Indian Railways. May be about cultural degradation in the youth. After an hour of silence Sitaram speaks again,

“What do you think? Is America’s time over? Their pot of sin must be over flowing by now!”

( Kya kahete ho aap, Lagta hai amrika ke din pure ho gaye hain.. paap ka ghada bharne waala hoga!! )

I stopped myself in bursting into laughter. I didn’t know how to answer that so I just nodded and closed my eyes as if I was trying to sleep. I am almost sure he hardly knew any facts about the sins of America. All he must be knowing that America is rich so Americans must be living a fanciful life. India is miserable and He is poor. So, all the blame of his problem goes to the rich America. He must be hearing all the time America bashing blathers. So, He concludes America is doing sins at very fast rate therefore their pot of sins should be about to be full. It was not filled yet otherwise God must have started taking its vengeance on the America. Apparently, God is giving all the things that Americans want.

Facist face of India!

Hindu right of India is getting more and more attention therefore receiving lots of sympathy, support, loathing, and detest. But, They are all the time in news. Thanks to SABASE TEZ news channels .

Recently, they attacked S.A.R Geelani by spatting on his face. The professor of Delhi University who was accused for parliament attacks and acquitted by the supreme court. He has been attempted to be assassinated.

Worth reading his opinion and experience at Tehelka

Mystery of Spoon

According to European standards, there are 3 kinds of spoon which you will find in the kitchen: Table spoon, Tea spoon, and Coffee spoon. Table Spoon can carry 15ml. Tea Spoon can carry 5 ml. Coffee spoon can carry 2-3 ml(I guess).
In my childhood when I used to read cooking guides or watch cooking TV program, I used to notice mention of 2 kinds of spoon – Table spoon and Tea spoon. In my home, I always saw only one kind of spoon that was just spoon. I couldn’t really understand what do they mean by ‘table’ or ‘tea’ spoon.

When I came to Switzerland, I saw 2 kinds of spoon. Bigger one using which you eat or drink soup and a smaller one using which you add sugar in your coffee. I observed that the bigger spoon was bigger than the one we used in India and the coffee spoon was smaller. Well, different cultures different size of spoons fair enough!!

Now! I am in UK. Here I am renting a room in a fully furnished old 1950 house. When I was going through the utensils of the house, I found spoons which are exactly of the size we used to use in India. Wait a sec! British use the same size of spoon as Indians use? I also found the bigger spoons which are the same size of Swiss spoons. Something is going on here!!

The spoon Indians use all the time is tea spoon in British sense. Because, Swiss people don’t drink tea same way as British do so they don’t have tea spoon. Most probably British brought British tea drinking  in India and along with tea spoon.

May be, Indians might have thought why to have two different size of spoon so let us pick the one which is smaller and cheap. So, Tea spoon become simply spoon in India.**

**This conclusion is just based on my personal observation. My observation can be wildly wrong.

What is new in Obama?

Victory of Obama is celebrated all over the world. Euphoria is also felt in India. As I understand Obama’s position on issues, it makes little sense to me that people should be wishing Obama to win. At least the people in India shouldn’t.

Obama is a bad news for India. He has been arguing for bringing laws that curbs outsourcing. He wants to bring a taxing model which will discourage outsourcing. He has threatened to attack Pakistan and Bush has already started attacking Pakistan. He wants to pull out from Iraq not because it is an illegal and criminal war but because it is a fiasco. He has positioned himself very strong with Israel. Alignment with Israel put US in a situation where it left with very little space to adjust its policies. This almost fix general framework of Obama’s foreign policy.

So, Why such a euphoria? Answer- Obama is not arrogant.

At the start of this century, It has been a decade since the fall of Soviet Union. There was no serious challenger of American power. There has been little trouble here and there. As someone said, “Americans have been sleeping with snake for 40 years. One day they wake up and found that snake is dead. And they found lots of mosquito flying around.”

Another observation is the growing economic strength in places where America does not have a direct control, such as China and India. This must have caused some American policy makers to think that American position can be challenged. So, American vision for 21st century was to maintain world dominance of America.

Combination of above two factors gave way to the hawkish side of American foreign policy advisers. They mocked the cautious voices. They took control the white house along with Bush. They thought they will clean up this planet from “mosquitoes”. 9/11 happened and they got their chance. After Iraq war, It turns out that America is not almighty and not that powerful to fight multiple wars in parallel and contain the conquered population.  It is time to take a step back for American power. Rethink and reshape or, we should say, re-package American foreign policy.

Obama is a new face of the American vision but vision is almost same. He doesn’t speak with arrogance. He doesn’t reflect American power in his speech. That gives him an appeal in rest of the world that now America will become a humble and just power.  For some it always been a just power and in Bush times it just went off the track.

People are already saying that if he tried to modify the fundamental nature of American power then he will face an enormous resistance from all the power centres. All the way from “John Bolton” to “The Economist” are threatening in their meek wordings. It seems to me that Obama is not even is a mood of doing any of it.

Simply Comlicated!

Last few years in Europe has given me an opportunity to speak all kinds of people. I have been speaking to many religiously oriented people. I always try to understand how exactly they have convinced themselves about their set of believes. Most of them say that one day in their life they realized that this particular faith is true faith. They tell you a specific experience after which they couldn’t deny their faith.

This particular experience, which gave them this light, is the key to unlock to their framework of thinking. I have tried many ways to talk. Some times I try to debunk the experience. Or sometimes I try to invite them to help me understanding their position.

I have been vary unsuccessful in avoiding their anger. Most of the times, I say something miscalculated and they get furious immediately. I still don’t know how to deal with these conversations.