The greatest story ever told

STATUTORY WARNING: All of the views expressed here are solely my own (of course they are, I’m not a plagiarist). I also expect that after reading this article, a lot of my friends will switch sides. But if my ‘friends’ abandon me for something like this, good for me.

Today I want to share with you indisputably the most fascinating story I’ve ever heard. Last year when I was in Delhi, I bumped into a guy during the lunch break at a seminar I was attending. 

Now I have this habit, one that I love and which leaves the rest of the world divided. The habit of hounding my prey with questions, a lot of questions, hey sometimes, I start getting on my own nerves.

Anyway, so this guy happened to be my latest prey but thankfully he belonged to that part of the world that doesn’t hate me for asking so many questions. He was in fact pretty outgoing and curious himself. During our conversation, he came to know that I study Sociology and take a keen interest in society, people, customs, thoughts, beliefs and so on. He said, “then I have to tell you something. The story of my village. You probably wouldn’t ever find a village this fascinating, anywhere else in the World”. This was enough for me to make the transition into hunting mode and I unleashed a barrage of questions at him with my eyes stiller and my ears straighter than ever waiting for my prey to leave the slightest room for another question.

During the course of our conversation, I discovered that he hailed from the village of Rajhoot in Jharkhand. Rajhoot is a very tiny village just a few hundred kilometres away from the State Capital of Ranchi. The social structure and vital practices of the people of this village deserve a collective P.hD from the entire faculty at Oxford because it is just so remarkable and fascinating.

Rajhoot has a population of just over a 1000 people. The supreme authority in the village is the usual mukhiya who has a huge house at the edge of the village with dense bushes surrounding it from all sides. Just as he had reached this part of the story, I shot my first arrow: “How did he become the mukhiya?” (as I’ve always been fascinated with what factors determine the origin of a local governance structure). His answer was perhaps the most shocking answer I have ever heard during the course of my numerable hunting sprees. He said that no one in the village knows this, in fact no one in the village has even met or seen the mukhiya. Instantly, my hunter instincts went into a frenzy and my mouth was curling up for unleashing another round of venom, he noticed this and stopped me right there. He said “wait, let me explain”. He said that this is something that worries him and also others of his generation as well. But the moment they start thinking about finding out more about the mukhiya maybe by sneaking into his home or wondering about the idea of a new village chief, their parents snarl and stop them right in their tracks. 

My senses were at an all-time high, I asked “WHY?”. He said that the parents tell them that their great-grand-parents knew the mukhiya and ever since then, the following generations have had to accept his supremacy. I said “Hey, your great-grand-parents are supposed to have met him? Then he must be dead by now, wont he? Wont he too have great-grand-children by now?”. 

He replied, “that is something I or no one else knows”. I shot back “but why don’t you go to his home and find out?”. His expression instantly changed into one of extreme fear and he answered, whispering now (almost as if the mukhiya was right there in the seminar hall in Delhi) “that is a strict no-no in our village. In fact it is forbidden and is considered a sin to even go near his house. On many instances, children have been beaten by their parents for mistakenly wandering near his house while playing bat-ball”. I was wondering whether it was a bhoot-bangla from a Hindi movie or an actual house.

By this time, I had dug my teeth deep into my prey and was in no mood to let go. I went through everything again: “so no one of your generation or the one before yours has seen him or anyone from his house and no one is even allowed to go near his house. Hell, for all you know, he may have died without a family tens of years ago and all you’ll find there will be his skeleton. How can you people be so stupid? Okay fine, even if that is the case, then how is he the mukhiya? How does he take decisions and control the functioning of the village if no one has even seen him or if he never steps outside?”. 

He answered: “Oh that! Munda ji controls that part” (now who the hell was this Mundaji?). He went on, “It is believed that Ramesh Munda’s great-grand-father used to be the Mukhiya’s right hand man and he used to consult the Mukhiya on all happenings within the village and come back to the people with the Mukhiya’s instructions. So now his great-grand-son (Ramesh Munda) takes care of all the matters of the village as his family are considered the custodians of the mukhiya’s authority. So everything that happens in the village is controlled by him and even all wrong-doings are punished according to his judgments”.

By this time, my senses were at wit’s end and I just couldn’t fathom all that was being unleashed at me. For once in my life, I hated myself for asking questions. How could people be so illogical, irrational and bloody superstitious? I scoffed at him sarcastically: “I hope this Ramesh Munda is at least visible with a human body and not some invisible bird believed to be residing on some forbidden tree”. He calmly smiled and replied “oh of course, we meet him daily and he takes care of us”.

My hunting instincts were starting to die down thanks to the sheer disbelief I was feeling at what I had just heard but I didn’t want to hurt that poor guy just because I didn’t agree with the customs of his village. I asked him what I assumed to be one last question: “Anyway, is this Mr. Munda doing a good job of running your village? No problems I hope?”. Instantly, he bowed his head down and in a matter of seconds, his eyes turned wet. I felt so guilty for maybe having asked the wrong question or unintentionally hurting him. As I was about to place my hand on his shoulder to comfort him, he replied “What can I tell you Sir? All of us are so troubled and worried. In the past one year, six women have been raped and four of them have been murdered. My wife was one of them. My kids are left without a mother now and we have to bear the stigma of a ‘rape-victim-family’. We don’t even have any money to shift outside the village to another one.” With tears in my eyes and an instant urge to help him with all I’ve got, I asked him “Didnt Mr. Munda help you and what about the culprits?”. He replied “Oh the two brothers who raped and killed my wife stay right next to us and they share a wife. Mundaji said that it is your matter and I cant do anything to help you. You help yourself”. 

WHAT, WHAT, WHAT THE HELL. I stood up with the pace of a NASA Rocket and was swelling with enough rage to give birth to a gun and go to his village right then to shoot the two brothers as well as the bloody Munda guy. He noticed the wrath in my moves and placed his hand on my shoulder, asked me to sit down and said “please, don’t make this any worse for us than it already is, Mundaji is great. He has passed the right judgment. We have to obey him; his family is very close to the Mukhiya and their word is law. I have accepted what happened as a bad memory and a test for us and have decided to move on. In fact, my parents are looking for a girl for me from the neighbouring village”.

As much as I wanted to hug and kill him simultaneously, I decided it was best to leave that room right then. I barged out and was almost running for I don’t know how long, then I rushed to the first pillar that I found and lay my head to rest on it for what seemed like days. I asked myself what I will ask you now.

As the writer of this article and as someone who has either moved or bored you more than ever before, I request you to pause a bit here and think – What would you do – 1. From a third-party perspective? and 2. Putting yourself in that guy’s shoes? Please think of all possible answers and only then scroll down.

Assuming that you are a cheat like me, I’ll come up with an unimaginative remedy and insert a huge space below to make cheating a bit tougher for you:

















What answers did you come up with? Let me tell you mine. At that point of time, I wanted to take a gun and shoot those two brothers, the self-proclaimed custodian of the Mukhiya – Ramesh Munda, go to the Mukhiya’s house and shoot whatever I found there (even his skeleton) and then go to each and every one of the 1000 villagers of Rajhoot and drill some sense into their dumb superstitious heads. That is what I wanted to do. If you don’t agree, you are either asleep or Gandhiji or maybe a criminal yourself (feel ashamed and go surrender to the police).

Even to this day, every single one of the details he mentioned, first the ridiculous ones, then the gory ones and then his atrociously unbelievable take on all of it, is as clear to me as if it were just yesterday that I met him. Every time I recall that strange and painful day just as I did now, I feel the same amount of anger and pain that I did then.

Now let me come to the most intriguing part of this article... 

This story was just that – a story. All of this never happened. I never met anyone who told me any of this. It was all false – BIG BIG LIES. RAJHOOT village does not exist and is in fact just JHOOT. There is no ‘guy’, no mukhiya, no munda family, no rapists.....nothing. You must be feeling like how Anil Kapoor’s character must’ve felt at the end of ‘Chocolate’. Ya I know you want to kill me, but read on (kill me later).

Then why did I take the pains of imagining all of this, writing it down and taking up the past so many minutes (exactly how many depends on whether you are Wordsworth or worth any words) of your precious life? Simply to use this carefully constructed story as an analogy to explain my take on the most serious topic there is.

Imagine – the Mukhiya is God. The Munda family are self-proclaimed custodians of God (or sons of God or messiahs/prophets or saints/sadhus/mullas). And the ‘guy’, the two rapists, their shared wife and all the other 1000 odd inhabitants of Rajhoot are us – you and me –common conflicted mere mortals.

What happened? All the wrath you felt at the Mukhiya, the Mundas and the rapists is gone, right? The Mukhiya was God and the Mundas were custodians of God, so everything is forgiven, right? And the others were just us, we are born saints, washed with milk (borrowing ridiculously from a Hindi idiom), how can we ever be wrong, right?

The fact that your answer to all these “Right?”s is “yes” or not entirely “no” is reason enough for an atheist like me to think, write and propagate my beliefs.

For once in your life, let go of all our assumptions and existing beliefs about GOD and think about this neutrally (don’t worry, your parents are not quietly peeping into your computer right now, be brave). 

The MUKHIYA is GOD because: 

1.    Just like GOD, The Mukhiya is only a ‘he’. 

2.    Just like GOD, no one has seen him and asking or inquiring him is a strict no-no and almost a sin.

3.    Just like GOD, the whole aura surrounding the Mukhiya is described to the new generation with more ‘do-nots’ than ‘dos’/more negatives than positives/more fear than love 

4.    Just like GOD, although there are absolutely no signs of him, he is still considered the almighty and the supreme unquestioned (using ‘unchallenged’ here would be a far cry) authority.

5.    Just like GOD, everything that happens in his village is credited to him and of course everyone is expected to conveniently credit the bad stuff to themselves and forget it as either a ‘test’ or a ‘bad memory’ and move on

RAMESH MUNDA is the self-proclaimed custodian of GOD because:

1.    Again, he is a ‘he’

2.    It is rumoured that centuries ago, someone from his family used to be close to the Mukhiya and conveyed his messages/commandments onto the people thereby very cleverly creating a position of authority for himself

3.    Even today, based on everyone’s illusion of a Mukhiya who supposedly existed so many years ago, the self-proclaimed custodians of the Mukhiya’s authority do what they like, how they like and no one can question them

The ‘GUY’, the ‘RAPISTS’, the ‘SHARED WIFE’ and the other 1000 odd ‘INHABITANTS’ of Rajhoot are us because:

1.    Most of them were again ‘he’

2.    Sharing a wife gave them an obvious edge in terms of the power equation between the two genders

3.    They committed crimes and made mistakes

4.    Most importantly because we are stupider, superstitiouser and ridiculouser than all inhabitants of Rajhoot since we, as a collective, bear a thousand times more than them, still credit all the good to a non-existent illusionary GOD, justify all the bad as either ‘God’s will’ or ‘a test for us by GOD’ and revolve our entire lives in one way or the other around GOD and practices that seemingly appease GOD.

The main reason for which I decided to use such an analogy and de-construct the whole concept of GOD is because nonsense in our Society has reached an extent where we don’t question something the way it is. It becomes necessary to discreetly compare the existent to the imaginary and later contrast them.

Every moment of my life, the world has forced the concept of GOD onto me. This is my first public answer to all those who have. If you deserve the right to propagate your views, I too will settle for no less. And if you think I don’t, then you better close this web-page and switch to your Facebook page or your favourite porn site for no amount of arguments from my side will convince you otherwise (read my earlier ‘Kya logic hai?’ for a better understanding).

If you are still here, you are either a fellow atheist (Hello Comrade) or an open agnostic (Good, stay here, you are a potential target) or a disguised theist (Be brave yaar, the atheist community is larger than you think). There is a very limited possibility of you being a staunch theist and still being here (mainly because you are a theist and will obviously not want to be questioned or challenged for you know that you wont have good enough valid answers).

Why do I not believe in God? Simple:

1.    I cant believe in something I cant see, hear, touch and most importantly - feel. Three-fourth of the people on Earth, parents and Society indoctrinating children with this concept is not a good enough reason for me to believe in something. Come on, ask yourself – had you not belonged to a strict theist family and not been forced to practice religion every single day of your precious childhood, would you still believe in God? Or would you believe as much as you do today?

2.    Why does someone have to be invisible, live up in the sky, walk on water, make the dead alive and be larger than life to be God? Why cant someone in our everyday lives who we can see and feel, who loves us, helps us and is kind to us be our God? Think of all people around you. Do good people and their kind nature get the response they deserve? We don’t value everyday people who do us good even though we can see and feel their deeds, still we worship an illusion who has done nothing for us and in fact only harmed us!

3.    If there is a God - why is the World what it is today? Why do most people in this World have a life that is worse than the worst? Why do most people suffer as a result of other people's doings? I am not willing to accept any stupid justifications (like the usual “God’s will”, “His test for us” or “Karma”) on this one because we wont understand this till we experience their plight. Theists will have to answer for and justify the plight of all those people.

8 years ago in Gujarat, I had seen the photo of an unborn foetus (who had been cut out of his pregnant mother’s womb with a sword) pinned to the roof of his house with a sword through his stomach just because he belonged to a certain religion. Believers should try to go and explain “the power of God/how it was a test for the unborn child and his mother/how it was God’s will/how the unborn child must have some piled up bad karma in his past life” to the dead child and his dead mother. Should I mention more examples? Because I assure you that there are crores more.

Think of the limited positives in the name of GOD, if any, that you can come up with and weigh them against all negatives in the name of GOD. And if you justify this by saying that that is man’s fault, then remember – you yourself claim that everything and everyone has been made and is controlled by God.

4.    If there is a God and if this is the way he runs this world, if this is the way he ‘punishes’ us, then I considered him the most cruel phenomenon this World has ever known and would take great pleasure in punishing him the same way I would have punished the Mukhiya.

I have a long list of various atrocious negatives in each religion separately but I don’t want to go into those since my intention is not to hurt theists, but simply awaken them from their conscious slumber. Think about all religions yourself. Can you name one that is not patriarchal, that does not propagate a single entity’s power over the rest, that came up with stories that are fully believable and practical?

Now let me come to a revolutionary take on Religion and God, one that will shake the foundations of theist and atheist belief from the core, one that will provide an entirely new perspective, one you can never imagine – Karl Marx’s perspective:

“According to Karl Marx, religion is like any other social institution because it too is dependent upon the material and economic realities in a given Society...In Marx’s opinion, religion is an illusion that provides reasons and excuses to keep Society functioning just as it is. For him religion is irrational, alienating and hypocritical. Religion is irrational because it is a delusion and a worship of appearances that avoids recognizing underlying reality...It negates all that is dignified in a human being by rendering them servile and more amenable to accepting the status quo; the state of being oppressed. It is hypocritical in the sense that though it professes valuable principles, it sides with the oppressors.

Marx says that religion is meant to create illusionary fantasies for the poor and the middle classes. The poor are dominated and ruled by the ruling class, which owns the forces of production. Religion becomes the opium of the masses by making them accept their reality and stopping them from fighting against it under the pretext of ‘fate’ and waiting for illusionary happiness in their ‘next life’. Religion also makes a virtue of the sufferings produced by oppression. It is preached that those who bear the deprivations of poverty with dignity and humility will be rewarded for their virtue in afterlife, in a way making poverty more bearable...”.

WOW. If there must be a God, he should be Karl Marx. If you consider yourself mature, knowledgeable and exposed enough, then ask yourself – Is all that this man said more than a 100 years ago true or false?

Let’s move on to all possible arguments people come up with for their belief in God:

1.    “I have faith in God” – Give this a thought. What you now assume to be faith, would it have even been born had you not been indoctrinated by all quarters of social life? 

2.    “There has to some power behind this World, someone controlling everything” – Quite apart from scientific answers and Darwin, just because you don’t have an answer to this question doesn’t mean you should credit and worship an imaginary creation

3.    “When I ask myself a question, I hear an answer from within in the form of God’s voice” – Probably, a huge reality hasn’t dawned on you so far. Dont worry, I don’t blame you, it is a pretty complicated reality. Let me give you some breaking news. You have something called a heart and a brain in your body which are supposed to think and feel. They are what guide you through life and they are what give you all the answers you are looking for.

4.    “Whenever I’ve asked something from God, I’ve got it” – By that logic, Santa Claus should be God you selfish excuse of a human being

5.    “I am spiritual but not religious” – A fashion statement these days, very common amongst today’s elite Youth. Oh and remember, if you claim to be spiritual and not religious, then you don’t believe in God, you just believe in the human spirit as against material possessions. 

6.    “Because everyone says so” – May your God help you

7.    All the rest, in my opinion, are either fundamentalist beyond repair or closet atheists – To the former – You might want to run for the post of Indian Prime Minister. To the latter - Stand up for what you believe in. If you feel something is wrong, speak up for it. Try to voice your opinions to your friends and you’ll be surprised to know how many agree with you. They too are scared of their parents and of Society just like you. Give them a voice, your voice.
 
In my opinion, everyone needs faith (and I think this and also propaganda by capitalist forces is why this lie has attained the kind of global reach that it has). Everyone needs something on the basis of which you can survive. Someone/thing you can talk to and hear the answers you want to hear. Something that doesn’t fight/answer back. In the end, everyone is on their own and its survival of the fittest, its always good to have a silent imaginary companion. Everyone can and should have it. Sometimes in a creation we name God, at other times in love, family or friends. At times, even inanimate objects like teddy bears etc become great friends. But that’s all. Claiming us to be subordinated to that imaginary silent human creation and crediting it for all the good and justifying the bad makes me say this: Either there is no God and if there is - I refuse to believe/follow God and have a serious problem with God.
 
I’ve often wondered that in a World that is as obsessed with God and does all that it does for God, how can you expect any logic, any good or any hope?
 
“God helps those who help themselves” could quite possibly be the creation of a brilliant but careful atheist who meant to say “God wont do anything, help yourself”. Think about it.

Is logic logical?

RING RING.

Me: “Hello”

Him: “Raju bhai?”

Me: “Wrong number”

CUT

2 minutes later...

RING RING.

Me: “Hello”

Him: “Raju bhai?”

Me: “Maine aap ko kaha na bhaiya wrong number hai”

Him: “Mujhe kursiyo ki welding ka order diya hai aur ye number diya tha. Abhi aap bolo main kya karu?”

Me: “Arey bhaiya ye wrong number hai, main kya karu?”

Him: “Abhi aap batao main kya karu, mujhe to yehi number diya hai na, abhi aap aao, paise do aur kursiya le jao”

Me: “AS@F*DS#D%SS:D^AF”

The incident written above is not yet another brilliantly hilarious invention by what resides at the highest altitude of my body but in fact a true happening of which I was the victim. The first question that came to mind after this happened was “Kya logic hai?”.

But then think of it, let me ask you “Would you pay a bribe?”, if your answer is “Yes”, you are excused (for the purpose of this hypothesis). If your answer is “NO”, let me ask you “If your mother or lover is dying and there is only one hospital nearby and the doctor there refuses to admit the patient until you pay a bribe, would you still refuse?”. Unless you are Kamal Hassan’s father from ‘Hindustani’ (also played by Kamal Hassan), you will. Will I blame you? Never. Even the greatest idealist is driven to do what he hates when in need. So does that mean, he is selectively or conveniently idealistic/right? Does that mean that all the instances when he refused to pay a bribe now hold no significance? Does that mean he too has now become a criminal beyond repair? “Kya logic hai?”

After the recent Dantewada massacre, I read a post by a friend on my Facebook wall which said: “Killllllllll the fuckinggg Maoists!!!!! Why should my soldiers die?”. Question 1: Never in my life had I ever heard him speaking of Maoists or “his soldiers”, why the sudden hatred for one and affection for the other? Question 2: On that day, if you read the front page of all editions of the highest-selling Indian daily newspaper – Times of India (which I like to call TOIlet paper), you’ll find that in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad etc, the headline read “Naxalites massacre CRPF men in Dantewada” and if you read the Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Jaipur etc editions, the headline says “Maoists massacre CRPF men in Dantewada”. Do people even know the definitions of ‘Naxalites’ and ‘Maoists’, the similarities and differences between them, why a paper as famous as TOIlet paper uses one term half the times and the other for the other half? I bet most people don’t even know that Mao is till today a much loved figure in China. “Kya logic hai?”

Soon after the massacre, the entire country was fuming and gunning for ‘Maoist’ blood. I too was of the firm opinion that killing anyone is wrong and a very inappropriate response to anything. Then Booker Prize winner and ‘Walking with the Comrades’ star – Arundhati Roy came on TV talking about the brutalities the tribals of Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Bengal and so on suffer at the hands of the government, police and judiciary who are being used by capitalist forces who are out to exploit the geographically rich resources of those states. So a person killing another is WRONG, a person killing a policeman is WRONGer (at least according to conventional wisdom), but a victim of police atrocities killing the perpetrators, though wrong is still comparatively understandable. All three had their reasons, all three committed the same crime and broke the same law, then why the difference in reactions? “Kya logic hai?”

Talking about something much more easier to comprehend, imagine coming outside a cinema hall after watching a Yash-Raj film (which are quite ridiculous more often than not), we think “Wow yaar, kya mast love story thi, loving hero, lovable heroine, hero uske peechhe ghumta raha, dheere dheere woh maan gayi, ha problems aayi, par dono ne end me kitne achhe se sab kuch sambhaal liya”. Is life ever that simple? Leave alone the end or even the courtship part, just think of the conversations you have with your boy-friends, girl-friends or parents. 6 times out of 10, you won’t get the reaction you or what you said deserved. 7 times out of 10, life will take out in a totally opposite direction to what you expected. “Kya logic hai?”

“Papa, main love marriage karungi”. “NO WAY, tu wahi shaadi karegi jaha main kahunga, apni hi jaati mein, apne pasand ke bina aib waale acche khandaan ke ladke se”. The ‘papa’ seems to have failed to notice that he has the biggest ‘aib’ himself. “Par kyu papa, main kyu nahi kar sakti?”. “Sharam nahi aati tujhe, Sharmaji kya kahenge aur Aroraji ka socha tune? Arey kum se kum, kuch nahi to, yehi sochle ke tere tau kya bolenge?”. If ‘Sharmaji, Aroraji and Tau’ are the kind who will protest to a love marriage, then they will protest to an arranged marriage too, because their problem is not with the kind of marriage but with protesting. Fathers in India are more worried about those who never spitted on them (borrowing ridiculously from a hindi idiom) than the blood they helped give birth to. “Kya logic hai?”

I have family and friends and the customary opposite sex person I like. But the mistakes my friends make hurt me a lot, the ones my family make hurt me a little [Kya kare, jhak maarke us hi ghar me rehna hai ;-)] and the ones my Raj/Simran makes are forgiven easily and compromised with. All three are close to me, I love all three and all three love me but I choose my reactions selectively. “Kya logic hai?”  

Even the gaalis we use are so ridiculously illogical. If you stay in Delhi beyond the routine tourist holidays, you can’t help but notice people repeating a rather insulting, yet interesting set of words more often than a “Hi” or “Hello”: “Behen ka ***** (referring to the male groin)”. I’ve always hated abusive language but this one and the frequency with which I heard it made me pause and think - “Kya logic hai?”    

Can/do we follow all constitutional laws? Can/do we obey moral codes? Do we have static inflexible principles and values? Do we treat everyone equally? Do we get treated by everyone equally? “Kya logic hai?”

Is there anyone who is ALWAYS right or ALWAYS wrong? For that matter, what is RIGHT and what is WRONG and who decides that? 100 year old grey-haired bespectacled ‘leaders’ don’t have the right to tell us what to do and what not to do just because they look like Shakti Kapoor. Are there any ABSOLUTE truths or ABSOLUTE lies? Anyone who claims to have never lied just lied once again. Is there anything that has simple WHITE and BLACK areas and absolutely no GRAY ones? In the end, everyone has their own set of simple laws which are: What I do and think is RIGHT and what others do and think is WRONG. “Kya logic hai?”

Possible, one of the many explanations to the many questions I have asked and the many more that exist is: one of the definitions of ‘logic’ which says – “reasoning conducted or assessed based on reason and knowledge rather than emotional response”. By counting ‘emotional responses’ out of the equation, we are almost taking out the Human from Society. Humans emote and the heart is perhaps the most unadulterated part of our bodies. We cannot claim to be stone-like and act without being emotional. That is not possible and that in my opinion is what makes logic illogical.

I don’t even know why I wrote this article. Am I right or am I wrong? Can logic work or is it illogical? “Kya logic hai?”

Abbreviated emotions

Abbreviated emotions

Me: “Good morning. Hope you are fine. Have a great day. Take care. Be happy :-)”

‘Friend’: “Gm ttyl tc”

Amongst the many mixed outcomes of Facebook and SMSes, is that of abbreviated emotions, abbreviated thoughts and thus abbreviated relationships. If the good morning message quoted at the beginning wasn’t hurtful enough, every day one can see hundreds of such lame and lazy conversations all over the Internet and in SMSes (Thankfully, this disease has not contaminated verbal conversations as of yet). 

If ‘wassup’ (Also the name of a daily programme on a highly commercialized, capitalist and popular Youth channel) meaning ‘What’s up’, ‘gotcha’ – ‘Got you’, ‘wanna’ – ‘Want to’ were the first symptoms of this deadly illness, then symptoms like ‘brb’ - ‘Be right back’, ‘ttyl’ - ‘Talk to you later’ and a recently discovered ‘bmj’ - ‘Bhaad me jaa’ have signaled the spread of this epidemic. Even an emotion as pure and scarce as happiness is abbreviated as ‘lol’ – ‘Laugh out loud’ (Sometimes misinterpreted as ‘lots of love’. Thankfully love is not one of this disease’s victims so far), ‘ROFL’ means ‘rolling on floor laughing’, ‘LMAO’ means ‘laughing my ass off’ and ‘LMFAO’ (an aberration of an aberration) meaning ‘laughing my fucking ass off’. And then, the good old ‘tc’ (Take care) is always omnipresent.

Words that convey one’s feeling for the other at different times of the day like ‘Good Morning’ and ‘Good Night’ haven’t been spared either with days starting with ‘gm’ and ending with ‘gn sd’ (Sweet dreams). Also note the lowercase form of all these abbreviations. Why should we even press an extra button to give a word or letter the uppercase respect it deserves? “Doli me bithake, sitaaron se sajake, zamaane se churake, le jaunga, saawariya” par ungli hilake full-forms kyu likhunga. Quite apart from murdering and insulting a beautiful language, emotions and relationships are brutally and inhumanly abused and demeaned every single moment.

It is no veiled truth that this disease has contaminated almost all youngsters (who can afford the luxuries of high-tech communication) but thankfully very few grown-ups have been diagnosed with this highly fatal condition.

What is it that drives us youngsters to such painfully peculiar extremes? Is it our love of short-cuts or our ever-decreasing love of relationships or does this signal the end of respect for love itself? Or is it our immaturity? I think it is a combination of all of these being topped off by the same old reason – not really caring much, not thinking about what one does, simple ignorance or disinterest even in ourselves and our own deeds.

I wouldn’t even like to go inside the other contents of our forwarded messages for if a majority of the fowarded SMSes circulated within a country were reflective of the country's collective IQ, then God help India.

I think it is wishful thinking to hope that this disease is a temporary infatuation of today’s youngsters like Aamir Khan’s ‘Pehla nasha’ in ‘Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar’ and will pass away with time and elusive maturity. So preserve your pre-disease past in the form of memories and embrace yourselves for a much bigger epidemic in the future:

-    EARLIER: "Good morning. Have a nice day. Take care of yourself"
-    NOW: "gn sd tc ttyl"
-    SOON: Blank message (Why should I even take the pain of using my golden fingers to type anything?)
-    THE FUTURE: No message (You should have guessed that I was thinking about you)

As for me, well what can I say. I don’t mind being the lone idealist in a World where people will lol, rofl, lmao and lmfao at me, all I wanna say to them is gn sd tc & u can all BMJ.

Too young to be true

(As published in ‘Issues of Indian Muslims – Some Progressive Writings’)

Who is a Muslim? Who is an Indian? Is a Muslim just as Indian as other citizens or is a Muslim’s Indianness always under doubt? Does a Muslim deserve equal rights? Does a Muslim actually have to bear more than other Indians? Are Muslims actually as bad as they are assumed to be nowadays? If the world had its way, I would be told that my opinion on these issues is unimportant or that I just shouldn’t have an opinion. Maybe because I am too inexperienced or too immature or maybe I am just too young.

Even if for a while I concede that all these accusations may be true, still I am human and I too have a heart that feels and a brain that thinks just as much as someone ‘experienced, mature and old’.

When I was even younger than I am now, my heart asked me why my friends left me the moment they discovered that their friend who displayed no visible or audible signs of belonging to a particular religion is actually a Muslim? My heart wondered why I used to be so scared of filling up the ‘Religion’ field in all school papers and forms? My heart dreaded the next question that was usually posed after people heard my uncommonly unreligious name. My heart mourned when it saw my Muslim friends being scanned by glances full of disdain and contempt whenever they dared to venture into non-muslim areas wearing a traditional kurta-pyjama after the Friday namaz. My heart was torn into pieces when we had to run for survival to an entirely Muslim occupied ghetto during the 2002 massacre in Gujarat because the locality we lived in was too cosmopolitan to not get burnt.

Having existed through the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 in the fourteenth year of my life, one night I saw my mother unexpectedly waking up from her sleep, standing on the bed and shouting hysterically assuming that a mob of rioters had come to burn her. As shocked as I was then and as amusing as it may sound now, that incident moved me. It told me what my otherwise silently enduring mother was passing through. It brought me face to face with the emotions playing havoc within the person I valued the most – my mother. The chain of thoughts that started within me after the initial shock subsided caused me to think – Is this what every single mother goes through? Is this what every single Muslim goes through? Does a Muslim or any human for that matter deserve this extent of fear, hatred and brutality for no apparent fault of his?

After repeated attempts at being secular and cosmopolitan were disallowed, I tried to seek solace within people socially assumed to be my own – Muslims. To my utter disbelief, they too ostracized me because their beards were at least a few inches long as compared to my clean shaven face. Because when we kids played on the streets and their parents came out shouting at them to rush to the masjid to offer namaz, they hid in their parking lots to make it appear as if they were busy praying and I continued to play. Because I wore shorts and they wore pants. Because when the maulana from the nearby mosque passed through our neighbourhood while all of us were playing, all my friends hid inside their houses and I refused to hide and defiantly continued to stand right there. Because when my friends told me that the maulana had told them to stop watching television, I fought against them. Because when my Muslim neighbours got into discussions of apne waale (our people) against unke waale (other people), I refused to add my red pepper to their already boiling and overflowing chutney. Because they offered namaz five times a day and my formally Muslim, habitually non-practicing and mentally unreligious family never forced or asked me to pray.     

I felt like how a child would feel getting abandoned by his parents, then getting adopted by foster parents and then being abandoned again. I could go neither here nor there. My guardians refused to accept me and my own disowned me. If being Muslim was a crime in the Indian uncivil code, then being a questioning and non-practicing Muslim was a crime in the Muslim uncivil code.

When I heard that a magazine was being taken out on the progressive voice of Muslims, I tried to evaluate what this title meant to me. To me, a progressive voice of the Muslim community would include two aspects:

1.    The want for treatment of Muslims as equal citizens and an immediate end to all injustice against them and all others on religious lines

2.    The development of a greater degree of tolerance amongst Muslims and an urge to give at least equal, if not more importance to education, knowledge, exposure and logic as compared to the practice and interpretation of religion.

Let me try to evaluate and compare the Indian Muslim Youth’s perspective with the above two points taking references from the ‘Study on the Mindsets of the Youth’ by a Youth group of which I am a founder member – ‘The Difference’.

Out of the 832 18-25 year old respondents interviewed in Ahmedabad and Delhi under this Study, more than 11% were Muslims. Questions on issues like Religion, Gender, Politics & Governance, Stereotypes and Youth’s contribution to Society were put forth to the young respondents and a range of interesting responses were received.

When arguably the most debated topic of today’s times – Terrorism – was touched upon, a surprising outcome was seen. In ranking terrorism in order of priority with other issues like corruption, unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, gender bias and communalism as threats to the nation, Hindu respondents ranked terrorism 5^th whereas Muslim respondents ranked it first followed by communalism. This could indicate that Muslims are equally or probably more concerned about terrorism thanks to the kind of stereotyping that has risen in recent times. Also 17% of all respondents except Muslims said that terrorists are always Muslims. When asked if they feel safe, a much higher number of Muslim respondents answered negatively as compared to respondents from other religions. During discussions on the topic of marriages, quite a few respondents said that they wouldn’t mind marrying people belonging to other religions except Islam. Although not very major, but still a reasonably substantial prevalence of injustice against the Muslim community was evident from the outcomes of this Study.        

On the flipside, when another highly discussed issue – Marriages – was put under the limelight, the Muslim community was the only one where a majority of both males and females desired to have an arranged marriage. Muslim females occupied the most major chunk of respondents out of those who refused to get married to someone of another caste, religion or someone younger to them. Also, while most other respondents were comparatively more open to the idea, 92.31% Muslim female respondents refused to marry against their parents’ wishes. These results implied a degree of intolerance and fundamentalism within the Muslim community.

But the fact that quite a few Muslim Youth now want to change and grow for the better was clearly visible too with quite a few of them conceding that the practices they have seen so far have been far too orthodox and they feel a need for change. Most of the Muslim respondents expressed a desire to get educated and supported reservation for women, SCs/STs, minorities and for the economically backward. The number of Muslim respondents was also the highest when asked if they would want to take up social work as an occupation.

At the cost of sounding authoritative and asking forgiveness for any misrepresentations, I would say that by and large the Indian Muslim Youth of today too hope to see their country India evolve into a nation free of injustice and their community full of tolerance, growth and free of fundamentalism.

Whether the experienced, mature and the old make this happen or allow us – the inexperienced, immature and young to help remains to be seen...

- Arastu Zakia Jowher

ManUnich

Last night, Bayern Munich knocked out Manchester United from the UEFA Champions League 2010. According to me, Man U lost because of 4 main reasons: 1. Very poor defending by Evra at the end of the 1st leg (that allowed Olic to score their 2nd goal), 2. Rafael's immaturity, 3. Sir Alex's shocking decision to not substitute a striker for 20-25 minutes, 4. Brilliant strike by Robben.

Rafael should have applied some common sense. Exuberance of Youth is fine, but not at the cost of sanity and thus - the trophy. In a way, his exit from the pitch started United's downfall. Soon after his exit, Fergie substituted O'Shea for Rooney and then Manchester were without a striker until Berbatov was brought into the game for Carrick around the 80th minute. Those interim 20 minutes between these 2 substitutions won Bayern the tie and will probably take them to the Bernabeu. For those 20 minutes, Nani, who probably had the best game of his life, was made the makeshift striker and was wandering near the half line waiting for the ball to come to him, but it never did. Bayern dominated possession, Ribery and Robben were persistently bombarding the United back line and then Robben did what he's been doing for Bayern this whole year, winning them the game, with his unbelievably precise volley.

The 80th minute substitution of Berbatov was a mere formality and most people knew that Berbatov has not been able to make an impact in a 90 minute game this whole season, so expectations of him turning it around for Man U in the last 10 were low, to say the least.

Where do United go from here? I'd say - the transfer market. Sir Alex has got to bring in new capable talent. Man U cant be expected to win the same trophies they won with Ronaldo and Tevez without them or without suitable replacements. Berbatov is no Tevez, Valencia, though brilliant, is not Ronaldo. Gabriel Obertan & Mame Biram Diouf have had amongst the most disappointing debuts and Paul Pogba hasnt been seen on the pitch so far. Giggs, Scholes, Neville, Van Der Sar will retire either this season or at most the next. Park, Carrick, Evra & Hargeaves (if & when he finally returns) will soon touch 30. Berbatov is hardly a striker. He is so languid and ruins the pace of Man U's natural game. He occasionally displays amazing technique and wizardry but 'occassionally' is not good enough when you play for a club like Manchester United. Owen has been more unfit than fit for the past many years. So Rooney, Nani and Valencia are the brightest prospects of the future but they need to be complemented by more solid players. Even if money is a problem for MUFC (according to the recent revelations about their debt and the consequent uproar against the Glazers), their authorities have always claimed that Fergie has the money he got from the Ronaldo sale and possibly also the Tevez sale. The two combined were sold for over 120 million and that should be more than sufficient for the great man - Sir Alex to bring in good talent.

Talking about who he should bring in, this is one aspect of Sir Alex's managerial skills that I deeply admire and respect. He does not have a capitalistic mindset when it comes to buying players. He'll never splash exuberant amounts on 'stars'. He buys reasonably priced players who are not stars and turns them into superstars. No one knew about Fletcher, Carrick, Evra, Park, Valencia, Ronaldo etc before they came to MUFC and became what they became. According to transfer rumours and speculations, MU have been linked with strikers like Villa, Benzema, Hulk and Di Maria; midfielders like Joe Cole, David Silva and Franck Ribery and Goalkeepers like Akinfeev, Lloris, Neuer and Lopez. Douglas Costa of Gremio too has been a long sought after target. Man U need at least one goalkeeper (Van Der Sar is almost 40, Kuszczak is good but not great, Foster is painfully inconsistent), two midfielders - preferably one center midfielder and one winger, a right back (if Neville retires, then Rafael will be the only good RB they are left with) and at least one striker. If this wasnt exciting and interesting enough, the other top 3 - Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool too are looking at a major overhaul of their sides. In fact, this season the EPL has been far better for the 5th-10th place sides as compared to the top 4. How much of this actually happens, if it happens, who comes in, and what happens once they come in will be very interesting to watch and will have great consequences on the future of the greatest football club in the World - Manchester United.

My First Post

This is my first post on this blog....Wont write much. Will just let this be - 'The historical 1st post' :-)