Am I Safe In My Own Country ?

Tomorrow is this Ayodhya verdict and everybody is shit scared. I am not too bothered for tomorrow as whatever the decision is, will be challenged in the apex court. But the people who endorse violence will soon regret themselves. Whatever happens tomorrow, no one can change the fact that in India, Hindus and Muslims can not live without each other. Cheek by jowl. I decided to write this blog after I spoke to my mother on phone today.

Last month we had a family trip to North India. We were twenty people mostly women and children. We finished our pilgrimage in Ajmer and arrived to Agra Fort station on 8th August 2010. As soon as we got down from the train a middle aged guy approached us and asked if he could help us in getting a hotel. I understood he was just a thug who wanted to loot us. I told him that I had already booked a nearby hotel. When I mentioned him the name of the hotel he was aghast.
"Saab, ye kya kiya aapne?. The hotel which you have booked is in Hindu area"
"So what?" I asked him back
"Saab, no Muslim ever stays in that hotel. Instead they stay in Taj Gunj, a Muslim area. Also do you know about the Shiv Mela?"
"What’s that?"
"There is a Shiv temple next to this hotel. And today and tomorrow is the Mela. Tens of thousands of devotees gather there chanting and singing with trishuls. It will be so crowded that Auto rickshaws and vehicles are prohibited there. Isn’t it such a risk to take Burkha clad women and children there?" He told as if I had committed a crime.

With some apprehension I called the hotel manager and he agreed that it was all true. He also gave me confidence that nothing untoward should happen but again if I wanted I could cancel the booking. It was already 9 in the night. And since it was a weekend I had doubt if we could get good hotels elsewhere. I called up Bebo. She asked me to cancel the hotel and not take any risk. She also told that my mother (who did her Hujj pilgrimage) wouldn’t like it after a holy pilgrimage in Ajmer.

I had to decide then. I closed my eyes. I could have seen the fear or communal disharmony or a safe exit. Instead I saw two people. Gandhi and Nehru.
"India is democracy. Every Indian has right to stay in any corner of the country as long as he has money" I told my family and decided to shift to the hotel.
Hotel staff did help us in moving our luggage to the hotel and since there was no transportation in the area, we had to walk the 200 meter distance to the hotel. Amidst those many devotees, Sadhus and mostly young boys, with some heartbeats we reached the hotel safely. Sigh.
We still could hear the chants of the devotees outside but rooms were quite comfortable and safe, I thought. My uncle did give me a look saying ‘why the hell we chose this place’. In the morning we checked out and had to walk a kilometer or so to reach the nearby auto rickshaw stand to visit Taj Mahal. Then we caught our train in the evening.

From that day till today I hadn’t asked Mom how she felt about all that. I was bit hesitant thinking what if she reprimands me for taking that risk in Agra.
When I called her today she said she was fed up of non-veg food these days and is longing for vegetarian food. When I asked her when she had her best veg food ever, she thought for a while and said,
"Vo Agra mein hum thehre thhe na hotel mein, I still can’t get over the taste of the simple veg food we had there for the dinner. That dal fry was just amazing. If we happen to go to Agra again, we would stay in the same hotel again beta"

Then there was a big smile on my face. I again closed my eyes. And I again saw two people. Gandhi and Nehru, who gave us this democratic, secular piece of land. Jai Hind !

PS: It's been only serious topics unfortunately. Next blog will be an out and out comedy. I promise.

Kamaal Karte Ho Pandey Jee...

Salman Khan can’t cry. Salman Khan can’t laugh. Salman Khan can’t run. Salman Khan’s can’t act. Yet he mesmerizes you with his impeccable screen presence and his very unique, never seen before dialogue delivery which leaves you lost in his world. Salman has struck gold with Dabangg. And how!

The film doesn't have any great story but it's the character Chulbul Pandey that does the trick. It's one of the most powerful hero characters seen in bollywood. I think the last time I watched such a stylish hero in a movie was in Dhoom 2 and Don. In the movie, character names are different and catchy. UP accent had never sounded such funny before. Sonakshi looks fresh and songs are too melodious. All in all it's a perfect bollywood masala film.

For a while now, the hindi films those were being made were Pa, 3 Idiots, MNIK whose protaganist was not a hero type. May be the mass audience didn't enjoy such movies. But when Dabangg hit the screens, it was a treat for the aam small town junta. Look at the small screen earnings of Dabangg. It's way beyond those of 3 Idiots. In a day or two Dabangg would cross the life time nett earnings of Ghajini. And it may end up earning a nett Rs. 145 crores with a distributors' share of Rs. 80 crores. It's very unlikely that it may cross 3 Idiots total nett of Rs. 200 crores plus. Bebo didn't like the film mainly because she had thought it would be better than 3 Idiots. But no way. One can never compare Dabangg and 3 Idiots. Contentwise, storywise 3 Idiots is way way ahead of Dabangg. No second thought about it. Having said all that Dabangg will go down in the history of hindi cinema as the only 17th All Time Blockbuster movie.

I enjoyed Chulbul Pandey so much so that I can even mimic him now. Just need a stage and an audience..
Kamaal karte ho pandey jee.... Itne Chhed karoonga... Conphuse ho jaavoge... hahahaha awesome !

PS: I also liked Ronit Roy's character Bhairav Singh in Udaan. It's bit negative but very powerful. These days I'm Smitten by both Bhairav Singh and Chulbul Pandey. One trivia. While Abhinav Kashyap has written Dabangg(he also directed it), his brother Anurag Kashyap has written Udaan.

Kamaal Karte ho Sowmya Pandey... Hamein Chhodke Kahan Dijappear Ho Gaye :-) lol

Islam Vs Modernity!!

(Note:This piece was written a week before)

Exactly one year back I had traveled to my hometown to celebrate Eid with my family. It was after a gap of three years that I was reuniting with them and expectedly I was pretty excited about the celebrations. I had bought gifts and sweets before I left Bangalore. In Islam, the lunar calendar is followed and the moon is to be sighted on the eve of the Eid day.

At my place, the day prior to the Eid, when the moon had to be sighted, it was all cloudy. Nobody could see the moon. But majority of the country did sight and declared the Eid the next day. Generally Eid is declared by 7 pm or 8 pm. I went to my cousin Shahid to understand why there was delay in my town. He said the sole authority to declare the Eid was in the hands of the Imam of the main mosque and he would be following certain protocol before announcing if Eid would be celebrated the next day or not. Then I rushed to the mosque to know what the status was. There were around couple of hundred people congregated, anxious like me to know if there should be Eid tomorrow. I inquired a person and he explained me that as per Islam if a place doesn’t witness the moon then a pious person who has sighted it from a nearby place should come down and meet the Imam in person and testify else if he can’t come then he should sign a letter testifying that he did see and send across to the Imam. Then would Imam announce the Eid. That day the nearest place where moon was sighted was Gulbarga which was 500 km away from my place. And it was already 10:30 PM in the night.

I went back home and explained the story to my family. They all went to bed and asked me to wait at the mosque till the Eid is declared and wake them up and convey the decision before I went to bed. Again at 12:30 AM I went to the mosque and inquired the status. Someone said the guy who sighted the moon had come down to Hubli from Gulbarga. And he is denying to comedown to our town which is again 90 km away. Hence someone had gone to fetch the signed letter from him. Someone else said people from my town had acquired the letter and were coming down in a car. And it would take 2 more hours for them to reach. Then I asked him "Why can’t they just fax the letter?". His face brightened up. He went to the Imam to ask but came back disappointed. He told me that the Imam didn’t approve of the idea.

By the time the letter arrived it was already 2:30 AM. Then the Imam announced that there would be Eid. I returned home, woke my brother up and informed him and went to bed. I didn’t get sleep though. Lying on bed I was pondering over the events those had happened. Eid of Ramazan or Ramadan is the one most important day for any Muslim. And people from my hometown were making mess of it. So much of preparation is needed for the celebration of Eid. People have to get their clothes ready, arrange for food, women apply Mehandi on their hands, people like me should plan their travel, leaves. Most affected are the butchers who had to supply meat to the shops from the night itself. If there won't be Eid then people should arrange for fast. Amidst all this confusion and chaos the Eid was announced around 3 am in the morning. Why so much inconvenience to the people? One thing I don’t understand is that why are the Muslim clerics anti-modernity or anti-science? Why the letter which had to be brought down from Hubli couldn’t have been faxed?. If the person has sighted the moon in Gulbarga then why couldn’t he just take a mobile and call up the Imam and confirm? It would have taken just minutes.

When Islam emerged during the 6th century, it’s quite understandable that there were little means of communication. If the moon wasn’t sighted in a place, then someone from nearby place must have physically used to travel to the other place and convey. I am sure if there were mobiles and pagers, people would have used them and they wouldn’t have been declared haraam. But then why are we assuming that usage of any modern day technology is anti-religion? In fact we all use technology in our day to day life. Even a beggar in my place knows what a Bluetooth is and many illiterates have asked me "Tere phone mein WiFi nahi hai kya?". It’s just the matter of thinking what’s better for everybody. The intent was that if the moon is not seen at a place and if it is seen in a different place then with the confirmation of the person who saw the moon, Eid can be declared. Similarly is the case about photography. I heard that last year someone from Delhi denied his hajj pilgrimage just because his passport demanded him of a photograph. He argued that photography is not allowed in Islam and he wouldn’t compromise. Now, that the gentleman only knew that photos are not allowed but little did he know the purpose behind why photography is not allowed. It was to despise and discourage idol worship. I feel most of us go for the literal meaning of the scriptures and miss the real intent of them. People have become literalists. I think religion is not just rituals or external thing but it’s all about what you feel from within. It’s internal. Islam came as a blessing for the mankind when barbarism prevailed in the Middle East but today people are using Islam for wrong reasons. I myself am not spiritually educated much but this is what I believe in. It’s not about just following the religion blindly but more important is to understand the religion. It just requires common sense. It’s not just about educating or empowering the downtrodden, it’s also about changing ones mindset to accept the needed change for the betterment. There’s no wonder why 14 million Jews have won 180 Nobel prizes so far and 1.5 billion Muslims a mere 3 ! It’s such an irony that among monotheist religions Islam is the youngest but Muslims are the most backward. It’s high time people embrace modernity and not assume that anything modern is anti-Islamic. If I was the Imam and if I couldn’t sight the moon because of clouds then I wouldn’t hesitate a bit to go up in a jet over the clouds and sight the moon just to give a wonderful day(of Eid) to all those who are waiting eagerly. Today world is galloping at a rapid pace and if you are left behind you will be extinct. It’s very easy to loath Americans or Jews but Muslims don’t make an effort to be as developed as them. It looks as if Islam stops them from developing. No, it’s people’s mindset. Ulemas and clerics misinterpret the scriptures and blind people preaching that anything to do with modernity is a sin. Once Muslims were famous for art, music, architecture and food. But it’s a pity that today we see Muslim names mainly in terrorist groups, underworld dons, match fixers, law breakers and so on. Backwardness is a curse to Muslims just like how caste system is a curse to Hindus. If people don’t wake up and become modern they will not flourish, but perish. Time only will tell how the future unfolds. Today media is showing a terrorist offering Namaaz, I wish some day the same media will show an astronaut offering Namaaz in space. Insha Allah !

Tomorrow after one year I am again going home. Again there will be moon sighting. Again there will be preparations for the Eid. I just hope I don’t go to bed at 3 am in the morning pondering over that day’s events. Eid Mubarak to all!!