Gandhiji's true legacy

In a few days from now, famous UK auction house Christie's is going to auction off a bunch of letters written by Mahatma Gandhi just days before his assassination. These letters were written for the journal "The Harijan" and asked Hindus and Muslims to unite and forget their differences. Because they were his last letters, there is a significant amount to sentimental value attached to them. And predictably, many Gandhians and NGO groups are going all over town urging the government to acquire these letters and reclaim the legacy of the Mahatma. The government cannot directly take part in the auction and thus is trying to use diplomatic channels to stop the the auction, though the prospects of this happening look bleak since the seller is a private enterprise and auction is taking place in an open market.

But here, there is an important point to ponder. Do a few letters, represent the true legacy of a man who not only led India to independence, but also helped end the distasteful practice of Apartheid? Is the message of the Mahatma getting lost in midst of mindless symbolism by us Indians?

How sincerely are the Gandhian principles of honesty and non-violence being followed in modern day India?

From the peon in the government offices, to the babus and the netalog, everyone is swimming in the dark and murky waters of corruption which is polluting the lives and minds of a 100 crore Indians. Be it getting a driver's license or a passport or a transfer or even a job, one has to dole out money to people just to make them do the job for which the government and the taxpayer is paying them for. No large building project or tender is awarded until significant kickbacks are promised to the ministers.

Another of Gandhiji's much preached principles is Ahimsa or non-violence. It meant so much to him, that he called off the nationwide agitation Non Co-operation movement because of the stray incidents of violence in Chauri-Chaura. But today violence is become a part and parcel of life. Communal riots take place, many people in the country live under the constant shadow of insurgency and terrorism, a community holds the whole nation to ransom for a week demanding ST status. On the slightest provocation people take to the streets burning buses and damaging public property, despite the fact that these are paid from the very money paid by them as taxes.

WE have countless roads, cities and towns named after the Mahatma. Statues, memorial museums. Every government office has a framed photo of Gandhiji, his image is what appears on the currency note, his birthday is a national holiday and every organization observes one minute silence to honour him on Martyrs day. But what is the use of all this symbolic honour and respect when we fail to follow his teachings and stray from the path he dreamed for our country?

Its about time that we realized that the true legacy of the Mahatma is not in the letters he wrote for us, but rather in his ideology that we are so conveniently ignore while complaining that the government is not doing enough to honour the great soul.

The bloodshed continues

The bloodshed in Iraq has no shown no signs of abating with yet another string of suicide bombings killing 45 people on Monday. The total body count in Iraq has now reached 3567 U.S troops and 72910 Iraqi civilians. The cost of the war could surpass an unprecedented 1 trillion dollars.

What was the benefit that the United States derived out of killing more than 75000 people and spending so much of their own money? True, Saddam Hussein was a ruthless man who mercilessly butchered anyone who dared to rise in rebellion against him. Using nerve gas to kill hundreds of thousands of Kurds was the vilest of all acts imaginable. But at least the ordinary civilians were unaffected during his time. People had uniterrupted access to power and water all day round. They did not have to live under the constant shadow of death looming over the horizon in the form of a stray U.S missile or suicide bomb attack to blow them to pieces. There may not have been happiness in Iraq under Saddam Hussien but there was stability.

The United States as a nation has gained absolutely nothing out of the Iraq invasion. America came under huge amounts of criticism and its quest for political hegemony in the region has won it countless enemies. The money spent on the invasion could have been used for more pressing issues like healthcare and education. According to Micheal Moore's latest documentary "Sicko", America is on number 38 of the list of the countries providing efficient healthcare to its citizens, which is even below Costa Rica. It is a pity that the world's richest nation has a trillion dollars to spend on war but so less to spend for the health of its own people.

On the other hand, individual politicians have reaped rich benefits from the Iraq war. Companies close to the Bush administration have been awarded several billion dollar contracts for reconstruction and oil exploration. Companies manufacturing defense equipment struck it rich with the demand so high. Money from these firms will surely flow into the campaign funds of several senior republican politicians when they face re-election in 2008.

The United nations which makes so much noise about the human rights violations all over the world has not yet found the nerve to put its foot down and issue a firm ultimatum to the United States setting a fixed deadline for troop withdrawal. How many more Iraqi civilians have to die before the Mr. George Bush realizes that its time to let the Iraqi people manage their own lives and try to rebuild their lives from the ruins this war has left Iraq in?

I am back....

Hi guys, the hiatus is over....going to return to blogging pretty soon....missed you all a lot.

Farewell to college

College is almost officially over. They gave us our course completion certificates and deleted our library accounts. Me and my classmates decided to make the most of the time left and went for a farewell tour. Here are some pics. The picture quality is very bad, a cellphone camera was the best we could manage.

Remembering Olive

This is a repost. I posted it in memory of Olive, my only pet, which had an ephemeral existence of just one day. Its been more than a year since she died.


I guess the animal biotech mass murders were troubling everyone's conscience for the last one and a half months. It wasn't long before someone decided to do something about it. That someone happened to be 'damn-it', my classmate. While coming out of the animal biotech lab last week, he had a glint in the corner of his eye and a mischievous smile on his lips. I instantly knew he had done something naughty. On further interrogation, he revealed that he had managed to smuggle out an egg from the lab. I know stealing is a sin, but here the ends justifie the means. It was done to save a life.

After much deliberation we decided the best place for the egg would be in 'Dil' 's room which was the closest to the college. So we constructed a makeshift nest using an old CD box and some hay. Dil kept the nest close to a bulb where it would remain warm and we also draped a Luke warm cloth around it to keep the embryo alive. The egg was there for 5 days.

Finally 2 days back, when Dil came back after having his dinner, there were sounds coming from the egg. There was a beak which was jutting out from it where the shell had cracked. But some annoying ants were swarming all over the egg biting the chick just as it was preparing to start it's life. After the ants were blown away, the chick was still struggling to come out. At this point the egg had cracked to quite a sufficient degree.









After waiting for about 10 minutes for the chick to come out by itself, Dil and his friends took the chick to a lady who lived nearby. She happened to be quite skillful with chicks and broke off the whole shell really fast and took out the chick which had some red colored stuff sticking out of its backside. Some of this was cut using a pair of scissors and the rest just fell of its own.










The chick was really tired for the first few hours and had to be force fed some Rava and broken rice which we were told, was the food that chicks eat. It was given a corner in the room and the light was not switched off lest it felt cold. Next morning, it was completely active, making cute little sounds and waking up everyone early. It drank water and even ate food of its own without being forced to do so. It was sooooo cute and plump, that anyone who saw it once would instantly fall in love with it. Then came the debate over choosing the name. Nisha had suggested the name Olivia the day before. After going through a million names, we followed her suggestion and named it Olive Oyl. Damn-it agreed to take it to his home the next day and help Olive find a new home where it would remain safe. But fate had something different in store for poor little Olive.










That evening around 7o clock, there was a power cut in the room. When supply was restored an hour later, Olive was not moving. She never moved again. Nobody knew the exact cause of the death. It may have been the ants, the cold, lack of food or water, or even bird flu. But I didn't care anymore. Olive was dead and there was nothing any of us could do to bring it back.

It is really heartbreaking to lose a pet, even if it has only been yours for 24 hours. I was experiencing it for the first time and that made it all the more painful. I have decided that the only pets I will keep from now on will be turtles who will surely outlive me.

Though Olive's death was a setback to all of us, I took consolation from the fact that at least she died in dignity. Unlike many of her peers, Olive was not pulled out of its blissfully ignorant sleep in the egg and have forceps slash at her heart and a pair of scissors cut her neck away. NO, Olive died a peaceful death and given a decent burial by those who loved her.

To see the pics of the experiment we did in the lab, Click Here

May your soul rest in peace for eternity.....We will all miss you very much...

Break from Blogger

My final semester exams are nearing, starting next friday actually. So I am a bit tied up at the moment. Will return to reading all your blogs latest by May 15'th

Graduation Time....

No this is not about my graduation. That is at least 6 months away provided I clear all my exams, a scenario which currently does not look all that feasible. This post is to congratulate my nephew who graduated last week. Before you guys have any doubts about my age, let me clarify that he graduated from Pre-school to Nursery. Congrats, Kid. May God Bless you.

College days....

College life is drawing to an end. It is very hard not to look back at college with nostalgia even though I have cursed it to no end and continue to do so. It just feels like yesterday that I stepped into the mysterious grounds of SRM as a fresher forever looking behind my back in the fear of being confronted by rowdy seniors and being forced to part with even a fraction of my very limited monthly allowance. I was fed with horror stories about ragging by my school friends whose elder siblings were studying in medical colleges and Delhi University.

The first thing I learned was that the seniors were bunch of cowards who kept their ragging activities off campus for the fear of heavy fines by the management. Mostly seniors just wanted to know the names of the so called "hot" girls in our batch. I made up most of the names, which satisfied the dimwits who walked away with their faces beaming with pride as if their sole purpose in life had been fulfilled due to that useless piece of information.

College was mostly a pleasant surprise. It was much better than I had expected it to be. It was by a stroke of luck that I missed getting admission in the architectural course at Sathyabama University because of the seats getting filled at the last minute. Someone up there sure likes me. God knows how I would have put up with that modern day Nazi concentration camp filled with Idi Amin clones where living is worse than being gassed to death. Till date, I thank my stars for landing in SRM where freedom was not a scarce commodity, and making my college life worth remembering.

The college was good, granted. But obviously the worst was saved for the last. These were the dreaded corridors of K.R.S hostel. Where, four students were cramped into a room so small where you couldn't even turn without bumping into someone else. To spare you of the discomfort of throwing up all over your computer screen, I shall restrain myself from describing the horrendous common bathrooms and toilets at K.R.S.

I had always wondered why a dining hall was called a mess? It was after seeing the K.R.S dining hall that I discovered the reason. I can safely state that, if Oliver Twist ever had the misfortune of eating in the KRS mess instead of the london dining hall, he would have never asked for more. Even if he did, he wouldn't have lived to tell his story.

The breakfast was the sign of what to expect later in the day. Served Idlis were so hard that you could break windows with them. Idiyappam was quite colorful but not at all digestible. The Upma tasted like mud. And, I have never seen water added to jam except in my mess. Merely looking at it rid me of whatever appetite I would have had left. One of the biggest mistakes I committed in my first week was to drink the coffee that was served with breakfast. And It didn't take long for me to realize that, at most 5 minutes. The speed at which I ran out of the mess, there could be no prizes for no guessing where I was headed....

Disclaimer: The pics posted of the dishes are purely of an indicative nature. They have absolutely no connection with the stuff served in the hostel mess.

TO BE CONTINUED......

Lets Pray for Bermuda

India is the most consistent team in the world cup. We are the only ones who can regularly fail to deliver whenever the situation demands. There is no use criticizing last night's match. We obviously don't learn from past mistakes.

Team India could do well to start packing their bags. We are almost out of the tournament. The only outside hope for us to make it through to the next round is that Bermuda should beat Bangladesh. But the way the Bangladeshis are playing, that seems impossible.

India or no India, the current world cup will remind everyone of one thing above all. The murder of Pakistan's coach. It has been confirmed that he was strangulated to death. And now the Dubai underworld is being linked to his death saying that Dawood ordered the hit. I don't know how much this is true, but I can say for sure that the Pakistani players were involved. He was obviously going to blow the whistle on something criminal going on in the team. Most probably a match fixing syndicate.

The Jamaican police should not allow the Pakistan team to fly back home. The Pakistani government has a habit of pardoning the crimes committed by its citizens. Look at A.Q.Khan who was pardoned for smuggling nuclear bomb technology. Or the recent incident of a clean chit to Akhtar and Asif. Even if the involvement of players is proved, they would probably be let off with a two match suspension.

Let us hope that the murderers are caught and the punishment fits the crime.

Brilliant in parts...

At last, a victory for India. The Bermuda team was never in a position to beat us at any point of the match. Our batting was near perfect with every batsmen clicking except Uthappa and that can be excused when the rest of the team played so well.

Our victory looked great on paper. We completely outplayed Bermuda. What concerns me is our bowling. The team was never aggressive enough. Now, mistakes may go unpunished against minnows like Bermuda, but no way against the top notch teams. Agarkar was deeply off colour and even Zaheer and Munaf were not up to the mark. It was like the bowlers and the fielders were waiting for the wickets to fall down instead of trying to force mistakes. Crucial attacking bowling changes were either made very late in the game or not made at all. It took Dravid 43 overs to decide to bring Sachin on to bowl who is a renowned partnership breaker. Overall, the team members were not looking inspired at all. They played as separate players and not as a team.


Ganguly who played a solid innings earlier in the day could have been asked to bowl. Though overall, his performance was good, one mistake was glaring. He didn't even try to catch a lofted ball off Ajit Agarkar which could have broken the 9'th wicket partnership earlier. This showed an extreme lethargy and a vacuum of the fighting spirit and the killer instinct in him.

The Bermuda team were not up to the standard of an international team in any department of the game. The only flash of brilliance was Hemp's classy innings against a lacklustre bowling attack. Their catching though was quite good with the big man Leverock picking up a beautiful one handed catch to dismiss Uthappa.


Team India must look to regroup in their next match. I wonder why Sreesanth is being kept out. He can be brought in and Kumble must be retained. One change could be to bring in Karthik in place of Uthappa. The players would do well to spend the next three days in introspection and give a stellar performance on the important day.