Musings Own Thoughts

The optimist in me answers no to both the questions, however the danger of one or both happening is distinctly possible. Hinduism has been defined by the supreme court and by the first real international representative of the religion , in the form of Swami Vivekananda, as an ethos or a way of life. This is very well expressed as a sanatana dharma,  a code of ethics, a way of living through which one may achieve moksha (enlightenment, liberation). The religion evolved from the Vedas which are author less books, passed on from generations through the spoken and the written word culminating in the Vedanta or the end of knowledge. The upanishads and the last one the Bhagavad Gita, are the end or epitome of real knowledge. The adherents of this faith never seeked to proselytize or conquer or subjugate others. The absence of a single universal teacher or papal structure allowed the Hindu to evolve from lowest forms of worship to the highest discovery of the presence of divinity in all...

Well finally the question which a few years ago was asked in inaudible whispers, but lately had become completely audible whispers, has been answered. Will he? won't he? When will he? should he? shouldn't he? Where will he? were all being asked. The game of cricket has always been a game of talent skill and above all temperament. Special talents bordering on the genius come but once in a generation and the cricket crazy nation India was lucky to get one such in the form of a young cherubic boy named Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar,who burst on the scene 24 years back. He had even before starting his international career, been noticed as a prodigy waiting to burst on the scene. Many a talent of this kind has fallen by the wayside and examples of such so called prodigies and the next Bradman's and Gavaskar's have flattered to deceive. The fact that Sachin was able to carry these huge expectations as one of the youngest player ever to have ever played first class and internatio...

Greatness is defined in many ways and is always relative and comparative, however in the rare cases a person excels in his field, but even if he is not the greatest he is a class act, a class apart. Rahul Dravid well and truly in my books comes in the latter category. Even if statistics and numbers are taken as a measure of greatness, Rahul is a legend, but Rahul's greatness lay in terms which are immeasurable. In a career spanning almost two decades, there is not even a whiff of controversy. No tantrum, no cheating, no dissent, no wild gesture, no show of inappropriate emotion, no financial impropriety, no indiscipline. I doubt there can be any person in any field who can play at the highest level for so many years in this way. At the same time, despite his great qualities, he was not lacking in passion and exuberance, but like his game, everything was measured and precise. While he was a copy book, technically sound player, he had the unique ability to reinvent himself and a...

These are a few observations and thoughts about the continent and country Australia, my own observations with love for all and malice towards none. While Australia and India qualify to be literal continents, they are really a melting pot of different people and cultures. While one is a nation of immigrants, the other has a bewildering mix of indigenous cultures and people as different as chalk and cheese. The contrast that hits one in the face is the inverse relation between population and space. Australia with large barren spaces, with majority of its people living in Sydney Melbourne Brisbane, Perth  and Canberra but still the populated zones not nearly as densely populated as small towns of India. On the other hand dense cheek by jowl urban slums and large rural populations, with  less space and small land holdings characterize India. The sheer noise, odours and vibrant colours contrast with the very standardized look of every center street or town with nearly the sa...

The NaMo interview is too tempting for me not to blog We will analyze each answer and see. Is it frustrating that many people still define you by 2002? People have a right to be critical. We are a democratic country. Everyone has their own view. I would feel guilty if I did something wrong. Frustration comes when you think “I got caught. I was stealing and I got caught.” That’s not my case. You can say what u want but i do not care since i was not caught. I made sure that i destroyed as much evidence i could, bought over and threatened as many witnesses i could and rewarded or punished the police officers who obeyed or disobeyed me. So who can catch me??? Do you regret what happened? I’ll tell you. India’s Supreme Court is considered a good court today in the world. The Supreme Court created a special investigative team (SIT) and top-most, very bright officers who  overlook oversee the SIT. That report came. In that report, I was given a thoroughly clean chit, a thoroughly cl...

This is an issue existing for a long time and in particular in a vulnerable soft state like India, the popular view can easily lead to dangerous consequences. An overburdened inefficient criminal justice system, along with pliable unaccountable investigative agencies will often allow criminals and terrorists to escape, the clutches of law. So then many citizens believe that terrorists whose crimes are inhuman cannot expect to be recipients of human rights. When someone wages war against state in the name of religion or in retaliation for perceived injustice then that person risks getting killed like in a war situation. Is this acceptable for a democracy like India? Specifically where the political polarization on religion lines reaps rich electoral dividends and even national security becomes a victim of adversarial politics, should we accept encounter killings of suspected or confirmed terrorists as the price for national security. While no state or political system is perfect, we ...

History is full of lessons but we are in an era of short term memories and instant gratification, so we lack vision and visionaries. The last three days have seen images and signs of hysteria with a build up reminiscent of what was seen in 1930's in far away Germany. It led to the rise and rise of a leader called Adolf Hitler and the fall of a nation and its people leading to a shame which continues to haunt it. While 2013 is not 1930's and India is not Germany and Modi is not Hitler may be true, but it is time for right thinking individuals to stand up and thwart the NaMoniacal NaMania that can potentially lead to a situation that Germany found itself in. There are so many what if's that are worth recollecting today and ironically 11 years back at the same venue a leader with a visionary image which transcended party lines had an opportunity to live up to his image and create history. Atal Bihari Vajpayee instinctively knew that the occurrences in Gujarat 2002 were not ...

Right from the outset, the concept of IPL has evoked mixed feelings among the cricket fans. The purists and real lovers of the game have always looked upon this version as a fast furious brainless power game, lacking skill finesse and a test of real attritional skills and character of an individual. India's unexpected T 20 World Cup triumph in 2007 led by a Captain cool, with a bunch of untried untested talent mixed with some experience led to T 20 becoming a new kid off the block ready to entertain in an era of life in the fast lane, where attention spans were shorter than ever. I cannot imagine anybody sitting to watch a Gavaskar or even a Shastri play through a whole day with less than a hundred to their name and the team with just over 200-250 scored in a day. One cannot help but point out the irony of the moment of a young cricketer called Sreesanth catching out the Pakistani Misbah off the unsung Joginder Singh, giving a nation its great moment of joy contrasted with the sam...

Yesterday along with my family I attended the May Queen Ball, an annual event of the Rustom Baug residents association. For the benefit of my non-parsi brethren it is a beauty pageant to show case the Parsi aspiring models/actors. It has a long history and like in all parsi events become a battle for ploitical upmanship among the warring groups. Without getting into those issues, this was my first time in attending the show. Parsis are demographically an ageing declining community with a glorious past and a pioneering zeal in being the first to adopt all things modern. To this day the community can boast of some great or some average achievers in the showbiz industry of India with talented singers, dancers, actors, models and production houses headed by Parsis. Maureen Wadia the queenbee of beauty pageants in India was the most prominent of these persons present on the occasion. Fitness guru Mickey Mehta, along with TV stars many of whom were unknown to a non tv buff like me....

The country is in count down mode to the annual democratic mela called the colorful loud Indian Election. The obvious choice seems to between two of the main formations UPA vs NDA and the logic of anti-incumbency points to advantage NDA. But is it all that simple? Obviously not, or else no reason to blog. We have an UPAII run by a caretaker PM who appeared to be in charge at the beginning of his term, five years ago seemingly running a comfortable majority government. A regime beset by massive unprecedented corruption, naivety in political management of agitations by civil society and an inability and unwillingness to lead in any form. Besides, this aam aadmi projects like NREGA also in bad shape should mean bad news. However, on the positive side the government has steered the ship in the face of a floundering world economic situation to relative stability. Also no   communal agenda is partially negated by an image of minority appeasement and being soft on terror. An ...

So much has been said and written and said about these words in the context of Sanjay Dutt that more on the same may lead to indigestion or revulsion. However i have a few things to add. I do not want to talk of merits demerits of the case. All i want to say is that the words which form the title of this post apply to every person differently. Pardon for a celebrity but none for a commoner. Mercy for juveniles accused of the worst bestiality but none for under trials wrongly framed and incarcerated in jails. Crime when a person murders with a motive but none when mass murderers get elected repeatedly. Punishment and that too capital on statute, but used as a political tool by a state to counter opposition and deflect attention from pressing issues. Who can pardon? President, Governor or really an executive on whose advise the latter act. Or should the persons affected by the acts of the criminal have a right to pardon. Can one allow both or either one of them to exercise this rig...

Afzal Guru has two faces, depending on which side of the divide we stand. The bearded Muslim stereotyped terrorist, accused and found guilty of being a co-conspirator in a crime which in sheer magnitude if completed could have led to a cascading sequence of events potentially leading to the end to our existence. The other face is of a wronged Indian citizen treated harshly by a biased state. The logical end to a successful attack on Parliament would be nuclear conflagration leading to annihilation of large parts of our nations. This debate would then have been completely irrelevant for a law higher than the laws of the land would have run its course. However, destiny willed otherwise and the presence of mind of the security personnel and the collective karmas of our much maligned political class led to both nations surviving. While none of us seem to have learnt our lessons and we lurch for one disaster to another, today we need to ask the cliched question, Is justice blind? ...

I have been following the debate on the Rape issue and feel that there is a lot noise and not enough substance. We are all trying to drown each others voices and views thinking that we alone are custodians of wisdom and are always right. The phenomenon of rape is really a form of violence and we have based our whole society and its values on violence. It starts with birth and abortion when we allow a child to be killed legally as it is born as a consequence of sex before legal marriage or merely because the child is female or conceived with a defect detected before birth. Nobody seems to condemn that violence. Then we feed ourselves with animal products and milk, by killing the animal for our pleasure or stealing its milk and eggs and even going to the extent of unnaturally and artificially rearing the animals to use them for human dare I say "inhuman" consumption. Then we daily rush to earn money so that we can spend and when we have excess, we spend excessivel...

While justifiable outrage has occurred to protest against the brutal rape of the medical student in the capital city, the cynical view is that this is just the cycle of anger followed by life as usual. Nothing will change unless we understand that a society based on a collective consciousness of naked pursuit of wealth and power divorced from human values cannot be free from such cycles of violence. While human nature is essentially divine, the creature called man is capable of rising above all to reach divine levels, but is equally capable of sinking to levels of bestiality that can make the most ferocious creature appear tame. While not alluding to specifics, i wish to recall the episodes of Satyameva Jayate where domestic violence against women on the issue of dowry, the brutalization of children by close relatives, murder of the girl child and violence against elders were highlighted. We lamented the waste of a Sunday morning and criticized...

Disclaimer : I am not an economist nor an expert on this matter, but as a citizen of this nation, I have to decide what is best for me and my country. So where do we begin?? The basic premise is that the development model India is pursuing is probably now nearly completely divorced from the vision of the welfare state that India saw herself as in 1947. This debate is not new and it surfaces every time the monopolies and licence permit raj is dismantled. However, like in all situations extreme positions lead to disastrous situations. The Congress justifiably says that the opposition speaks the language of opposing when out of power, only to enact the same legislation when in power. So where is this debate on FDI in retail different? The demography of India is slowly changing and an agrarian society based on low scales, massive production losses and lack of technology needs to get a boost. However, the boost cannot be at the cost of loss of bio-diversity, native wi...

India as a nation in 2012, after 65 years of existence chooses to punish and execute, by due process of law an ignorant, uneducated and indoctrinated terrorist in a clandestine hush hush manner. To top it all, its educated ministers gloat about it and back slap themselves and our home minister leads us to believe that he decided a month back on the date and chose not to inform the PM or the super mom PM about this decision. Executing terrorists was a routine occurrence and part of his daily chores as home minister. If all this does not qualify to be called bizarre and absurd, then the contention that the Government can escape its fate in Parliament on burning issues like FDI in retail etc. takes the cake. Also the eagerness of our government to take on Narendra Modi and beating their breast and proclaiming "I am macho man"  coz. I hanged Ajmal Kasab (a radical animal like man who was unrepentant and thought that he had been conferred his ticket to heaven). A matur...

THE GREATER COMMON GOOD Renunciation, sacrifice, living for others, giving up individual rights for the benefit of society are the different terms used and abused by those in power all over the world. A few days ago the Supreme Court used this phrase in the context of the judicial reference made to it in the 2G spectrum allocation case. The basic question that needs to be answered is that in a welfare democratic state where inequalities exist, should the Government intervene for the welfare of the disadvantaged? If the answer is yes as our leaders with socialistic leanings from the Nehru-Gandhi era thought, then why did the welfare state go horribly wrong? The next question that needs to be answered is can the state allow market forces to rule the roost and believe that such market driven GDP measured growth will benefit the poor by the so called “trickle down theory”? The last question to be asked is that are the present policies favouring corporate India at the cost ...

It is a quirk of fate or a sign from the celestial that India saw two judgements pronounced on the same day, supreme court giving the verdict on the Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab and the Gujarat courts giving a verdict on Dr Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi. Both courts found the accused guilty and deserving the maximum punishment there are many similarities and differences between both actions. Both crimes were committed in the name of religion, but both crimes could never be considered as religious acts, by even the wildest stretch of imagination. Both of them represented their masters, who conspired to get their foot soldiers to kill indiscriminately and brutally persons of a particular religion who were defenceless and innocent bystanders. While Kasab claimed that the crimes committed in Gujarat gave him enough reason to do what he did, the Gujarat accused claim that act of burning Kar sewaks in Godhra prompted them to do what they did. Fundamentalist attitudes fe...

I have just returned from the funeral of our beloved teacher Dr. Jamshed Taraporvala. He appeared a pale fragile figure a shadow of the ever smiling, young "buddha" that we fondly called him in our JJ days.  I have known him and learnt from him from my undergraduate  days where his anecdotal description of conditions like frozen shoulder remained etched in our memories. Then when fate destined that I specialize in Orthopedics, my colleague chose unit II over unit I in JJ enabling me to work under JCT directly. Grand rounds were an event lasting 4 hours on Wednesdays, with every patients problems discussed threadbare, the levels of academic discussion reaching high academic levels meant for exam going students and also catering to fresh housemen like me. The importance of treating patients ethically and giving the correct management without succumbing to the temptation of operating just to learn was firmly imparted to young knife happy youngsters. Conservative treatment...

All cliche ridden superlatives can fit the man who passed away and while he was there he was fondly remembered by  the generation which grew up seeing him, but in his death the magnitude of media coverage has left many youngsters dumb struck. Recently we have lost quite a few actors, but their death got the usual stories and a few movies, but i think the way Rajesh Khanna is being relived on screen is certainly more than our wildest imagination. By today's requirements, Kaka was a mis fit. He had no great physique, height or dancing ability, but he had expression and emoting capability which none of the contemporary  Khans, Kapoors or Roshans or Hashmis have. His style, mannerisms and looks spawned a generation which lived and died with each nuance and expression he immortalized on screen. While many thought that he had limited acting ability and a stereo typed acting style, i beg to differ cause his range of movies covered the masala romantic magic along with really meaningf...