A step closer to freedom....

The picture you are seeing is of the "Unknown rebel". This was taken during the famous 'Tiananmen Square' protests of 1989 in Beijing when thousands of people assembled to protest against the Communist Party of China (CPC). It symbolizes the helpless voice of a billion people against being denied of basic human rights like freedom of speech.

These immediate reason for these protests was to mourn the death of the CPC secretary general Hu Yaobang, who had been removed by Deng Xiaoping due to his role in the earlier pro-democracy protests of 86-87. Deng Xiaoping was a wonderful leader, who not only corrected the mess left in China by Mao Zedong, but also put China on the path to becoming the 'factory of the world' by initiating many economic reforms. He declared Marxism to be irrelevant in today's world. Remember the famous quote ""No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.

Many intellectuals and students in china thought of the removal of Hu as very unfair and assembled at the Tiananmen square in China to register their protest. It was largely a peaceful and well-ordered protest except one stray incident of violence when three young men threw ink on the huge portrait of Mao Zedong that was hung at the square. These three men were arrested and each received sentences in the range of 15-20 years.

But the party started getting nervous about the escalating scale of the protests. After a series of debates, Deng declared martial law and ordered the military to quell the protestors. This was done in the harshest of manners. People were dragged, kicked, shot and what not. Many of those who were arrested were executed for engaging in counter revolutionary activities. The official figure for the number of deaths was 300, the number of actual deaths could well have been more than 5000.

This dastardly incident always reminds me of our own Jalianwala bagh massacre, in which hundreds of protestors were killed ruthlessly. We got our freedom 28 years after Jalianwala, when will the Chinese people get theirs??

50 posts......

This is the 50'th post on my blog. When I started to blog, I never thought that it would hold my interest for so long. But blogging is such a fun activity, that it is hard to leave it.

Blogging is the second big thing after e-mail on the world wide web. When it was invented, the internet was just a boring network of geeky scientists who used it to share information. Accessing the net was expensive and the speeds were painfully slow. Add to this, the high costs of a personal computer, and the net seemed like a passing fad.

Then came e-mail. This brainwave of Sabeer Bhatia revolutionized the internet and the common man was thrilled that communication could be done at the click of the button and distances were rendered meaningless.

PC rates started falling, more and more people became netizens. 56 K dialup connections which were considered ultra-fast at a time are now the turtles of the Internet. Broadband, DSL are the new buzzwords.

Then came net 2.0. When people use the net more and more to connect to each other and the world. Blogs are a part of this. Blogging can not only be a fun and personal activity, bloggers can also take up social causes. Like the Blank Noise project initiated to end eve-teasing.

Moral of the Story: KEEP BLOGGING

9/11

It has been five years since that dastardly act of terror which killed thousands of people in the WTC twin towers. The incident gave Bush the excuse to carry out his 'crusades' against Islamic countries taking the lives of millions of innocent civilians who have not committed a single act of terror in their lives.

The main perpetrator behind 9/11 is still holed up in some cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan laughing at the rest of the world while his organization continues to carry out blasts in the name of Jihad.

Let us all spare a moment to pray for all the dead people in the last five years due to this mindless incident, and seek to erase all boundaries of race, religion, colour, caste and creed and join hands to fight terror and terrorists all over the world.

A longtime wish fulfilled!!!!

Last week, I and my roomies went to tirupati, abode of Lord Venkateswara alias Balaji. Tirupati is about 150 kms from Chennai, a three hour train trip. From there on, it's a roller coaster ride up the mountain to Tirumalai full of dangerous hair-pin bends and blind turns which can be pretty scary. The view is excellent though, provided you are not a heart patient or afraid of heights.

I have been to Tirupati only once in my life, and even then I didn't enter the sanctum sanctorum, afraid of the huge crowd there. So this time, I was determined to get a darshan. When we booked the darshan, we got the time 30 hours later. And that process is pretty hi-tech for a religious place. The temple people took a computerized scan of my fingerprint and a webcam was used to take a picture. On the printed receipt given, there was a barcode. Two days later when we entered the temple, the barcode was used to cross-check our photograph.

The first lesson that I learnt in Tirupati was that there is a queue for everything. Nothing can be had instantly; you have to wait for everything. I found it quite a humbling experience. Talking of queues, we had to stand for almost two hours for getting a cottage.

Lesson number 2: The more you pay, the more conveniently you can get the darshan. Free darshans can take up to 8 hours even in the off-season times. Paid ones take much less time- 2-3 hours maximum. With a VIP letter, the darshan queue is even shorter. For people who donate more than 5 lakhs get a special entry for three days in a year. The maximum privilege is extended to VVIP's who can walk in the temple through the front entrance and see the Lord. There is an interesting mythological story behind this. It is said that Lord Venkateswara borrowed a large sum of money from Kubera- the god of wealth.
And that, he repays the loan through this temple. It is also said that only the interest for that loan has been paid and the principal has been not touched. Thus the money part is very important in Tirupati. And the wealth of Tirupati is immense. The Idol alone is said to be covered by more than 1000 kgs of gold, not including other precious jewelry. The annual income of the temple town is at least 10 billion rupees or 1000 crores, making it the second richest religious institution after the Vatican. The whole gopuram inside is made of gold.

The time allotted to us was on Tuesday morning, so we were free for the whole of Monday. We decided to use this time to visit other places in Tirumalai. One is Papavinasam temple, a popular superstition is that if we take a bath in the sacred waterfall there, all our sins will get washed away. Though I didn't believe in that, I still went along to avoid being alone. Other temples were the Venugopala Swamy temple and Akasha Ganga.

On Tuesday morning, we went quite early to stand first in queue. After waiting for about 30 minutes, we were let inside the temple after the photographs were verified. There are many halls constructed in which devotees are kept seated. After one hall gets filled, it is closed and the next opened. Similarly, the halls are opened one by one to let out the devotees into another queue. This took another 1 hour for us. From there, it was another one hour waiting where the queue moved slowly inch-by-inch. There came a point where all the queues are merged and this leads into the sanctum sanctorum. I was able to see Lord Balaji for hardly three minutes. The crowd behind just kept pushing me forward. After waiting for 30 hours, it was a bit disappointing to leave in 3 minutes.

There are two things that are the brands of Tirupati. One is the tonsured head. Many people coming to Tirupati have their heads tonsured. In fact 250,000 kgs of hair is collected every year and exported. Tirupati makes India the largest exporter of human hair in the world.

The Second is the "Laddu". The Tirupati Laddu is the delicious Prasadam offered at the temple. It became very famous for its huge size. But nowadays, the Laddu size has decreased somewhat.

What I saw in Tirupati, was capitalism at its subtle best. The temple town provides thousands of blue-collar jobs for the local population, not including other people who benefit directly from it. Everything was well organized and managed. It is not easy to manage an average of 32000 visitors daily. While returning back to Chennai, the cries of "Govinda, Govinda", were still reverberating in my ears

Yesterday

Lyrics of the Wonderful Beatles song, Yesterday:

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away

Now it looks as though they're here to stay

Oh, I believe in yesterday

Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be

There's a shadow hanging over me.

Oh, I yesterday came suddenly

Why she had to go I don't know she wouldn't say

I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play

Now I need a place to hide away

Oh, I believe in yesterday

Why she had to go I don't know she wouldn't say

I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play

Now I need a place to hide away

Oh, I believe in yesterday

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