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' :-)