Gandhi - Relevant or Dinosaur

Saw Lage Raho Munnabhai the other day and entertainment apart, the movie raises pertinent question - Gandhi, the Mahatma (by the way) is he relevant today or is he a dinosaur? And as an ironic co-incidence I was reading an article- the New Gandhi; in Outlook (Issue dated Sept 11 2006) where the youth (I don't mean pumped up teens) of today is re-discovering Gandhi and I mean re-discovering. The way they do it and how Munnabhai does it is very similar. No Gandhi caps, Khadis stuff (pity the cloth has now turned to be a totem pole for Corrupt politicians). Normal, average everyday person you meet on the road, the stranger for whom you don't waste a second thought are trying to find out the meaning of Gandhism or as Munnabhai says - Gandhigiri (Will be using this word; kinda like it). Using India's current core-competency - Information technology to idealise Gandhigiri, these young folks are ringing in a new revolution - a revolution against "chalta hai" attitudes, a revolution against the so-called "don't look the elder in the eye" generation. And what are the values that the movie and the article talks about. Oh! nothing vedic about it. Plain truths and simplicity, and love for your motherland is what the movie and the article talks about.

As an after thought, Raj Kumar Hirani must be credited with re-inventing the Hrishida kind of feel-good films.

Does Indians as a Nation Have an erect Spine

Post the recent Mumbai train blasts, there was this vehement argument between me and my colleagues that we don;t have a spine to defent leave alone attack and mind you I am not talking about the DEFENCE forces who are beyond reproach; but rather I am talking about the average normal Indian i.e. you and me. The talk veered to the recalled op-parakram whose objective was terrorist camps in POK (Hell! I hate that abbreviation). Please excuse the profanity. The much touted nationalistic pride of the BJP fell flat on the face after the pull back. My point was how much longer are we going to accept "this as a normal affair and that if there is no blast somewhere, then something is wrong somewhere". My collegues contend that it was a good step by not going in as world repurcurssions would have been terrible. Bullcrap (please excuse me again). And as time progresses, my respect for the Mumbaikar has only been increasing without a slight dent. For me Mumbai was always an enigma, it was a place I never wanted to be seen dead. But now, crisis after crisis, the winner is not INDIA I regret to say but Mumbai. If anybody have a spine I must say it is the Mumbaikar. Hail Mumbai! I Kneel in respect to you.

Pasted below in verbatim is a forward I got and I must say it answers the question, How could Mumbai come back to normal so soon. And I wish (I never wished this ever) that the Coward(s) who did this fail in their maksad what ever it may be and by God, I am sure they have failed.

Dear Terrorist,

Even if you are not reading this we don't care. Time and again you tried to disturb us and disrupt our life - killing innocent civilians by planting bombs in trains, buses and cars. You have tried hard to bring death and destruction, cause panic and fear and create communal disharmony but everytime you were disgustingly unsuccessful. Do you know how we pass our life in Mumbai? How much it takes for us to earn that single rupee? If you wanted to give us a shock then we are sorry to say that you failed miserably in your ulterior motives. Better look elsewere, not here.

We are not Hindus and Muslims or Gujaratis and Marathis or Punjabis and Bengaliies. Nor do we distinguish ourselves as owners or workers, govt. employees or private employees. WE ARE MUMBAIKERS (Bombay-ites, if you like). We will not allow you to disrupt our life like this. On the last few occassions when you struck (including the 7 deadly blasts in a single day killing over 250 people and injuring 500+ in 1993), we went to work next day in full strength. This time we cleared everything within a few hours and were back to normal - the vendors placing their next order, businessmen finalizing the next deals and the office workers rushing to catch the next train. (Yes the same train you targetted)

Fathom this: Within 3 hours of the blasts, long queues of blood donating volunteers were seen outside various hospital, where most of the injured were admitted. By 12 midnight, the hospital had to issue a notification that blood banks were full and they didn't require any more blood. The next day, attendance at schools and office was close to 100%, trains & buses were packed to the brim, the crowds were back.

The city has simply dusted itself off and moved one - perhaps with greater vigour.

We are Mumbaikers and we live like brothers in times like this. So, do not dare to threaten us with your crackers. The spirit of Mumbai is very strong and can not be harmed.

Please forward this to others. U never know, by chance it may come to hands of a terrorist in UK, Israel, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Pakistan, US or Iraq and he can then read this message which is specially meant for him!!!

AND WESTERN PEOPLE SAY MUMBAI IS THE RUDEST CITY IN THE WORLD. DROP DOWN YOUR PANTS IF YOU CANNOT SEE WITH YOUR EYES AND FEEL THE DIFFERENCE!!!!!

With Love,

From the people of Mumbai (Bombay)

Leave you with a song from Border; ;Yeh Mera Watan, Yeh Mera watan

The lost species of Freedom Fighters

Have our generation of Indians lost contact with those involved in the Freedom Struggle. Barring a few who made up the coterie of decision makers we don't know any body else. Tis makes it look as if a handful of people took on the British, drove them out gracefully and then declared we are free, set up the constituent assembly, adopt the constitution (Oh! such marvellous words - "we give unto ourselves this constitution...") and whoosh we are independent nation. What about the next gen the Y-gen or Genext or whatever mishmash name you give them. Don't we owe more than a token remembrance to the freedom fighters. I was forwarded a link and boy am I glad. You bet. that link was more to me than a link which points out Panditji' books or something else. It started a thought - who are our freedom fighters??? Who really are they? Where are they? or as Guru Dutt would say "Jinhe Naaz hai Hind, par who kahan hai, Kahan Hai, Kahan hai?????