An 80-year-old political leader and some others are killed in Orissa by a group of suspected Maoist insurgents. Political parties blame the murders on a religious community. Religious violence breaks out, and many people die. Others are forcefully converted and humiliated. The state government looks the other way, for the most part.

In a different state, a young political leader forms his own party. In his greed for votes, he incites violence against people of other communities, in the name of protecting what he calls sons-of-the-soil. Many people (including sons-of-the-soil) are hurt, a few die, and there is fear and tension all around. This government looks the other way too.

Terrorists cross the border from other countries, and find the general public dissatisfied with a lot of things, and easy to divide on religious or other grounds. There are 'terrorist' attacks all over the country.

News channels monger fear and panic, using everything from ghosts under trees, to particle accelerators, to rumors about terrorist attacks, to the ineffectiveness of the government's security measures in preventing said terrorist attacks, to the fall of the stock market. They try to divide people along lines of 'people vs the government', 'people vs foreign investors', and even 'people vs science'.

In the middle of all this, a group of scientists of different castes, from different states, and following different religions, manages to launch a mission to the moon.

We seem to be a country of contrasts. Easily divided, easily provoked, easily offended, easily scared. And yet, when some of us put our minds to it, we can accomplish so much. Even the moon doesn't seem so far.

To think of what we could accomplish if everyone stopped trying to divide us, and worked on unity instead...

At 6:22am Indian Standard Time today, India's first unmanned mission to the moon successfully took off from India's satellite launch centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, 80km from Chennai.

The success of this mission, which will attain lunar orbit 15 days from now, will bring no little pride to our country. And yet there are people who question the very basis of the mission. "Do we really need it?" they ask. And the reasons they give for why this mission is a waste of time and money?

The money (386 crore) could have been better spent feeding the country's poor.

and

Other countries have already gone to the moon. What new can we learn?

D-uh.

First of all, this is an advancement of the country's technological prowess. As Dr K. Kasturirangan, chairperson of ISRO said when the Chandrayaan-I project was announced

It is not a question of whether we can afford it, it's whether we can afford to ignore it.

In dollar terms, the mission has cost India only US$80 Million. That's pocket-change when compared to NASA's Billion dollar space-probe budgets. And the returns will be great.

Antrix, the Indian Department of Space's commercial arm, earns valuable foreign exchange every year, by launching satellites for other countries, selling data captured by its satellites, and also selling hardware and software. This lunar mission will not only strengthen India's position in the commercial satellite launch sector, but will also give India more experience in the various aspects of space travel.

A mission to the moon - accomplished by only five other countries till date - will put India in the elite group of space-faring countries. So when humans do start visiting or living in space, India will not be waiting in line to be piggy-backed there. We'll be able to get to space on our own. And we'll probably be giving other countries a ride just like we did this time.

And as far as the question "What is there to learn?" goes, there's always something to learn. This particular mission hopes to capture the following information:

• Map a 3-d atlas of the moon with a spatial and altitude resolution of 5-10 metres.
• Get information about the distribution of various minerals on the moon

Apart from this, we also hope to get information on Helium-3 deposits, which will be useful for nuclear fusion research, and may be one of the answers to our energy problems.
Additionally, today's successful launch seems to have already cleared the hurdles towards government funding of our man person on the moon plans. There were earlier reports that the government was rethinking that mission because of the high cost.

All the attention that ISRO get out of all these missions might also help some of the brain-drain of scientists from India. I mean as of today, how many people you know actually want to become scientists working for the government? The idea of possibly working for something as glorious as your country's space program, can pretty motivating.

Of course, today's only been Stage 1, the easiest of all stages. India has been sending satellites into space for a long time now, and is so good at it makes money out of the exercise. The next couple of weeks will be really interesting, and will be the true test of Indian capability.

I'm not much of a believer but I think I'll have a chat with my friend just in case.

Update: DesiCritics.org has two good posts on the benefit of the mission - here and here.

Here I am, breaking my year and half long self-imposed Maun Vrat (Oath of silence?), to do what I love doing more than anything else.

Complain.

Some things never change, eh?

A friend of mine, often pronounces certain words wrongly differently from what I consider the correct pronunciation, and refuses to correct herself when I point this out, because she says

You can pronounce proper nouns however you want.

A-hem. No, no, not that one! I mean like the sound you make when clearing your throat. Of course, that's more like Ghhmhhmghm, but I digress.

So, where was I? Right.

A-hem. No, you cannot pronounce proper nouns however you want!

Take the case of a name, like 'Rajesh' (that's my name, in case you were wondering). My name has a specific pronunciation, and pronouncing it "Rahash" - "j" is pronounced "h" in spanish/latin/mexican - would be wrong.
Similarly, it is not okay to pronounce the Indian name Dhillon, as "Dhee-yo-n", even if Quesadilla is pronounced as "Ke-sa-dee-ya". "Amit" is "A-mih-t", and cannot be pronounced "A-mite" or "Aim-it". "Iraq" if pronounced "Eye-Rack", is being pronounced wrong, even if it's being pronounced by the President of the United States of America!

Names derived from new additions to the English language are all the more problematic, since you often see the words in print long before you actually hear them. The "Wiki" in Wikipedia, is pronounced "Wih-key", not "Why-key". (On a related note, if you do decide to use the term "LOL" in real speech, then it's pronounced "Ell-oh-Ell", not "Lole"! Of course, I would recommend actually laughing instead.)

A proper noun is a name, and mangling someone's or something's name is not polite - to say the least.

So, the next time any of you decide to change the pronunciation of any so-called "Proper Noun", do consider taking the permission of the owner of that name.

Is it acceptable to take animal life or cause harm or pain to an animal, in the interests of science?

This isn't a new question, and it's not one that both sides are going to agree on in the near future, if ever. Me, I'm all for science. But I'm not happy with animal rights being violated either. (For the record, I eat meat but don't think I'm a hypocrite for being against fur.)

Still, how can you make a decision?

Take for example this story. Scientists are apparently trying to figure out how some animals grow back body parts, so that the same technique can be used with humans. If they figure this out, there's no end to the benefits for medicine. 50,000 people lose a body part to amputation every year in the US alone. If scientists can make the technology work, all these people could have their fingers, hands, arms, and legs back in a matter of weeks or months.

So that's a good thing, right?

Not for the animals that have the regenerative abilities.

Take for example Salamanders. These animals can apparently grow back an arm if it gets severed. How often must scientists make cuts in a salamander's body to find out what chemicals, enzymes or glands are involved in the regrowth? How often does someone cut off a Salamander's body part to observe what happens?

Scientists have got far enough to grow extra arms on salamanders. Does the salamander feel any pain when it is cut, or when it has an extra arm coming out of where there should only be a simple rib? Unless the researchers are extremely careful with anesthetics, there's probably a lot of pain involved for the poor creature. Does the salamander know about the value of the sacrifice it is making? Surely not.

A hundred years from now, the number of people who will have benefited from regenerative technologies will probably be close to one billion. There will still be those who demand that researchers stop testing revolutionary medicine on animals. They will still be right. But so will the scientists.

There are a number of people out there who have quit their day jobs to maintain their web-sites full-time. This includes bloggers, like Jason Kottke of kottke.org, Matthew Pullerits of CyberWyre, Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration and popular web-comic writer Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary.

If someone with the security of a permanent job decides to quit, how do they expect to earn enough? Well, common sources of revenue include advertising, referrals, merchandising and in some cases from donations by fans. Of course, to be able to convert blogging into a full-time career, you need to be popular. And if you intend to depend on advertising or referrals to make money, the design of your page is very important. Amit Agarwal has a number of articles which show you how to optimize a blog for advertising, using real blogs as examples.

Blogging for a living sounds like such a nice job. No commutation, working from home, and no boss!

Well, it's not that easy. If you work for yourself, you do your own taxes, don't have health benefits, and taking a vacation directly impacts your income! And blogging isn't really an easy job. As Amit Agarwal mentioned recently, he spends 10-12 hours a day on his blog. And if you take into account the fact that he blogs 7 days a week, that works out to between 70 and 84 hours a week! That's as much as I spend in my job during the most hectic of projects!

Like I said - making money seems to be a lot of hard work. So it's back to searching for that dream alternative career for me. The one where I work maybe an hour a day and still earn enough to retire at 40.

Amit Varma writes that there's a new newspaper out. It's called Mint and the bit he loves about it, is

finally, India has a newspaper that explicitly supports the values of freedom, in all its forms, that I hold so dear.

And this newspaper that "explicitly supports the values of freedom", gives you "free" access to all content on its website, as long as you give up the following information

• Your first name
• Your last name
• Email address
• Gender
• Country
• City
• Year of Birth
• Educational Background
• Occupation
• Whether you "currently subscribe to print newspaper" (Whatever that means)

In addition to this, it also requests you for your

• Mobile Number
• Industry
• Household Income Range

The reason they ask for all this information is

Registering with us signifies your complete agreement with our terms and conditions. [Emphasis mine]

These terms and conditions, or terms of use, never actually show up during the registration process, by the way.

The "Registration-required" debate, when it comes to news sites, has been going on for years now. As Adrian Holovaty says in a post on the subject , the news sites seem to be saying

The benefit of registration is that you get the content.

One of the articles that Amit's linked, is titled "What you can expect from Mint." You need to register to read that article too, of course.
So in the case of Mint, the benefit of registration is that you get to find out what kind of content you can expect.

For a website that Google doesn't even know about yet (screenshot for the sake of posterity), I think they're approaching this the wrong way.

So basically, if ever I decide that I really want to read something they have there, I'm going to use Bugmenot. Otherwise I'll probably Google for the info and get it from somewhere else.

This is why I should blog about my opinions on stuff.

When I learnt that the Kazakhstan government was protesting against Sacha Baron Cohen's depiction of Kazakhstan in the movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, I thought they were ignoring the potential of making it the tourism campaign of the century.

What I felt they should have done, was build a fake village on the outskirts of Astana their capital, and call it "Home of Borat" or something. A tour would then take people through this fake village as well as actual tourist-worthy locations.

It's all worked out well, though. Borat has triggered a tourism boom in Kazakhstan. And realising the benefits, their government is now changing its stance. A popular Kazakh newspaper has dubbed the movie "The best film of the year"!

Well if they do implement my idea, I want royalties.

There's a new film out called This film is not yet rated. (If you're reading this at work, you might want to be a careful before clicking on that link. The poster for the movie is a little explicit, and forms the background for the website.) The makers of the film have tried to bring out the dissatisfaction of moviemakers and movie-goers with the way the MPAA assigns ratings to movies released in the US. There's also a petition on the website that aims to fix this. Below, excerpted from the website, are the salient points of their issues with the MPAA's functioning.

• MPAA ratings are ill-defined, subjective and inconsistently-applied. This makes them confusing for both film-goers and film-makers.
• The rules of ratings determinations and the details of the deliberation process are secret, as are the identities of members of the Ratings Board and Appeals Board.
• Raters have no special qualifications and receive no training. Professionals from fields such as education, media studies, sociology and psychology are not involved in the process and may even be intentionally excluded.
• Film ratings are not applied uniformly regardless of content and viewpoint. The disparity in treatment is especially apparent with regard to films dealing with sexual orientation.
• The NC- 17 rating deprives individual parents of their right to make choices for their own children and dramatically limits the ability of adults to see films.

The last statement refers to the fact that films with an NC-17 rating find it extremely hard to get screened in cinema theatres in the US. Many reputed stores will not stock DVDs of a film rated NC-17. This film is not yet rated was initially given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. The filmmakers later surrendered the rating. As a result, it's now being screened at a very limited number of movie halls across the US. The filmmakers recommendations to fix these problems (as mentioned in the petition) are excerpted below.

• Objectivity: We ask that the MPAA develop and publicize objective guidelines for rating films.
• Transparency: We ask that the MPAA publicly identify all participants in the rating process and their qualifications, background or experience.
• Professionalism: We ask that the rating and appeals board be comprised of qualified individuals representing a broad cross-section of views and experiences, and that they receive training in the objective criteria for rating films.
• Fairness: We ask that the MPAA develop fair procedures for rating films and hearing appeals, which includes the right to be heard through a representative of one's choice, the right to present relevant evidence and arguments, the right to a majority vote and the right to a written decision specifying the grounds for the rating determination.
• Personal Choice and Responsibility: We ask that the NC-17 rating be replaced with a category that describes content fairly and accurately, but does not restrict the rights of individual parents to make their own decisions about what their minor children may see or limit the ability of adults to see films.

I recommend reading the comments of people who've signed the petition to give you an idea about public opinion on this matter. A good number of parents seem to feel that the rating system is arbitrary, and reduces their capability to make good decisions about what they should allow their children to watch. There are apparently a good number of movies that are rated R when they could have been just as easily rated PG-13, and if parents allow their children to watch these, then it's hard to justify not allowing them to watch other R rated movies.

Now read this interview (link courtesy Selective Amnesia) of Sharmila Tagore (Chairperson of the Indian Censor Board). The article is about the fact that she's in favour of allowing adult scenes in movies in India, and also getting rid of the ban on airing adult content on television. However, to quote her from the article, she

"... wouldn't endorse [her predecessor's proposal to permit pornographic films in the country]. I don't think society or the Indian people are ready for it. There's a cultural difference between India and the rest of the world."

"Indian people are not ready for pornographic films". I'm trying to understand what that statement means. Maybe the local VCD/DVD library owner will know. I wish I was back in India. I'd be able to ask him.

As to the obvious comparison between censorship related issues in the US and India, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

I could choose to be angry about this. I could choose to find it irritating. Or I could just choose to find it funny. But it's not really funny. And I'm tired of being angry or irritated. So let me just be philosophizing.

I'm sure most of you already know what I'm going to say, but let me make it a little clearer.

First there were the 7 bomb blasts in trains in Mumbai. (Full coverage here) A lot of people died, a lot more were injured, and everyone around the world knew about the blasts in a couple of hours. That's the kind of thing the internet and satellite TV makes possible in this information-hungry world. There was no censorship at the time. In fact, some people felt that news channels should think twice about the content they choose to broadcast. That was on the 11th of July. Tuesday.

Then there was the amazing work done by the World Wide Help group at the Mumbai Help blog in coordinating relief efforts, as well as just simply providing information to those who needed it. There's that word again. Information. Remember it. I'm going to use it again.

Fast forward a few days. It's the 15th of July. A Saturday. (Not Sunday - which is the day to drink before sunset.)

Reports are coming in of people not being able to access blogs on Blogspot - which by the way, is the domain that hosts the World Wide Help and Mumbai Help blogs (and of course, in case you forgot, this blog too). People wonder if it is a couple of ISPs specifically blocking the *.blogspot.com domain. At this point, all there is, is a lack of information. See? That word again. I told you I'd use it. But wait. I'm not done yet.

Time passes, more domains (including but not limited to *.geocities.com and *.typepad.com) appear to be blocked, and the problem spreads to most ISPs around the country. There are rumours that this is the result of a directive from the Indian government to ISPs. This is confirmed on speaking to the customer service departments of various ISPs. A number of bloggers cover the issue and suggest workarounds. Even the mainstream media jumps in. And the issue goes international.

Soon, it starts to appear that the Indian government didn't ask to block blogspot.com or any of the other domains. Apparently the list of sites that should have been blocked numbers 18 specific URLs. Some of these may be specific blogs, and some of them may be other websites or pages. Not entire domains.

Then what's wrong? Why can't people reach Mumbai Help? Or India Uncut?

Well, apparently the ISPs couldn't figure out how to block specific subdomains, and so ended up blocking the entire domain in each case.

Yes, I was tempted to laugh too.

There are two important aspects to the problem here. One is Censorship, and the other is Incompetence.

Let's tackle Censorship first. As Neha says (and she says it very well; you should listen to her, there's a very smart brain in that head), let's not use euphemisms. Let's call it censorship. Because that's what it is. It's not "balanced flow of information" as CERT-IN wants us to believe. What it is, is "an infringement on our right to information". Even if that information is an instruction manual on building your very own hand-grenade.

Censorship is based on the idea that there are two kinds of information. Good information and Bad information. Bad information is the kind that puts the wrong tools in the wrong hands, spreads fear, doubt, and all those other things that your average government worries about. Most people wouldn't argue too much against censorship of Bad information. And that is where the problem lies.

Too many people try to keep their children away from information about sex and contraception, because they believe that doing this protects their children. A lot of people now believe that early sex education is the only solution for tackling problems like AIDS and teenage pregnancies. What parents do, is censorship. They deny their children information, when the only real solution is to supply even more information.

And that's what the government does. It provides the wrong solution. A solution that does more harm than good. Which brings me to the second point, Incompetence.

I'm sure a number of people out there have shifted the blame from the government to the ISPs, who don't know enough to do their job well. A block on a specific blogspot or geocities site becomes a block on the domain. Those network engineers just don't know their job, do they? They're all a bunch of fools. No?

Don't deny it. There's at least a small part of you that thought this, at least for a small amount of time.

Well, yes, not being able to block specific sites does seem to be a sign of incompetence, at least to us geeks who think we know more than we actually do. I can't imagine why it's so impossible to block a specific sub-domain. But then what do I know about the how their servers are set up?

No, I wasn't referring to the incompetence of the ISPs, though I'm tempted to. I was referring to the incompetence of the government.

Let's make an assumption, which starts of giving all the credit to the government. (For the record, I'm not making all this up. It seems to be the gist of the speculation about the government's motive behind blocking those sites.) Let's say some terrorist group has been using some blogs and other web-sites to pass on information to their cell networks. This mode of communication must be cut. Or we could be looking at another set of bomb blasts in some other part of the country. So the government identifies 18 specific URLs that are key to stopping this mode of communication. It then uses the word "government directive" to enforce a block on these URLs, which is eventually implemented by most ISPs in a couple of days.

Let's say that the ISPs had not botched up. Let's assume that the block had been only on these specific URLs. What exactly would that have achieved?

When trying to control the exit of a felon from a city, all the exits are monitored, and every vehicle passing out is checked. When terrorist groups are using cell-phones to communicate, lines are tapped. What the police doesn't do, is revoke the felon's driver's license. Or disconnect the terrorist groups' cellphone subscriptions. Because the police knows from experience that this is not really going to work. What is required is to use even better technology to beat the criminal at his own game. If the bad guys have information, then what the good guys need is to get even more information.

Then why does the government not seem to understand this in matters of technology? Why didn't the government instead, decide to monitor access to these URLs instead, and try to find people who were frequenting these sites. Or why don't they try to identify cities, towns or villages where there seems to be a higher probability of hate-fuelled unrest? Why does the government opt for the simpler and less effective solution when it comes to the internet?

The fact is, that however much we may wish to claim that India is playing an important part in the technology revolution and that every important new technology has at least one Indian behind it, back home we're still struggling to use technology to solve problems. Whether it be stopping terrorism, or irrigating our fields.

It all comes down to information. We need it. A lot of it. And we need it a lot more than we realize.

For a couple of hours after I found about the recent blasts in Bombay, I was in a boiling rage. "They've attacked my home", I thought. "They've attacked my family". I wanted to get back at them in any way possible. For a couple of hours, I understood why so many Americans gladly supported bombing out Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11.

I've always had this talent for being stoic about bad things that happen around me, as long as they don't actually happen to me. Of course I worry about them at times, and try to think up solutions to some of these problems, but I generally don't get too worked up about them. Call me selfish. Or call me a guy with a short attention span.

But this time, they struck too close for comfort. As soon as I found out (11:00am EST, 8:30pm IST - the world really is growing smaller isn't it?), I remembered that my brother takes a train between Andheri and Borivali everyday to travel to and from work. I got through to him on his cellphone pretty easily (considering that people even locally were having trouble reaching each other), but the first words he said to me were "Rajesh, I can't reach Daddy."

Apparently, my father had gone to South Bombay for some Annual General body meeting. He's retired, spends most of his time close to home, and usually drives wherever he needs to go. The last thing I'd expected was for him to be using the trains. After about an hour of telling each other that he never travels by first class on the trains, and that he'd never travel by train during peak hours, and that he usually takes the bus, and that the fact that his phone was ringing, meant the phone was okay, and if the phone was okay, it meant he was okay, and that he never answers his cellphone anyway, my father reached home safe. He'd spent three hours in a bus trying to get home.

The simple fact is, that when you hit the mode of transport that is used by a majority of the city's residents, and you hit it at peak time, those 186 dead and 714 injured, could be anyone. They could be your brother, your aunt, or that guy you went to school with, that friend you made last year at a conference, the girl you've been wanting to ask out for weeks, your Maths teacher... anyone.

I work in Manhattan these days, and the blasts were immediately noticed by New Yorkers who've been hearing rumours about terrorists targetting New York's subway system. Suddenly those rumours seem a lot more possible.

Of course, in India we have the additional worry that an incident like this could be used by political parties and/or jobless youth to spread even more fear and kill/injure even more people. Even though our cities generally tend to show solidarity rather communal disharmony in such situations, the political climate in the country tends to give rise to fear anyway. A few hours after the blasts, everyone was expecting riots in the city.

Anyway. The important thing is to ensure that it's a lot tougher for terrorists to do something like this again. But what?

While I don't think that it is feasible for the police force of any city to keep an eye on every single spot where a bomb could be hidden, I think the statements by bloggers and journalists that indicate "it's impossible to stop such terrorism", are too simplistic.

After 9/11, every train station, and every airport in New York asks passengers to be vigilant and "report suspicious behaviour". These messages are broadcast on public announcement systems, and seem to be more frequent when intelligence reports indicate a higher risk of attacks. The police force has only so many eyeballs. What we need to do is get the public involved. And by that, I don't mean beating up the next guy you find wearing a turban, a beard or just unwashed clothes.

We need hotlines that people can call up to leave reports of people doing suspicious things, or suspicious looking packages in public places. We need to confiscate every bag left unattended for more than 30 seconds in a public place. We need a police force that can work hard enough to look into at least 80-90% of these reports for the first couple of weeks. Initially, the number of false reports will be very high. Paranoia and the general excitement of having a forum to voice your suspicions to, will cause that. But soon that will die down. And we will need to repeatedly broadcast messages for people to keep their eyes open, and to tell someone about anything that might seem important. God knows how many people die in terrorist attacks, because the few people who did notice something ignored it because they had to get to a meeting, or catch a train, and didn't think it was important, or didn't know how to let someone know.

We need to go to every school out there and tell children to keep their eyes open. Any parent will tell you how observant children can be. And how much smarter than us adults.

Make it easy for people to drop a report. Ensure that any cellphone can call that number. Let it get recorded on voice-mail. Allow people to send SMSes. It might help if the person making the call thinks they won't have to waste time "speaking to someone". At the same time, give them the choice of a human interface.

You never know what someone might notice next.

Update: Great. The BJP supports communalism, and the UPA supports casteism.

First there was the announcement of an increase in reservations in the premier educational institutes of our country.

Then there were students protesting the hike in reservations.

As it generally happens in our country, things didn't go very well.

And today there doesn't seem to be much of a solution in the offing.

I've been against reservation in principle, since 1990, which was when I stepped into this country as a student for the first time. My education until then had been in an Indian School in Kuwait, where I'd read the word "caste" only in Social Studies textbooks.

I've asked myself over the years whether pro-reservationists are really all that unreasonable, and whether reservation does achieve anything more than keeping caste-differentiation alive in the minds of our youth, who are the first ones to be affected by it in modern society.

Affirmative Action has good intentions, and reservations are an implementation of that idea, but is it the right implementation?

It has been my belief that Indians as a people, are intelligent. Maybe my belief is just a kind of patriotism. Who knows? Still, I have believed that even if we are not any more intelligent than the people of other nations, we are nonetheless intelligent. And if we are intelligent, then the people we vote to power must be intelligent too. (What are you laughing for?)

Still, more than 50 years after the provision for reservation was made in the constitution, why is it that only a tiny segment of SCs (Scheduled Castes), STs (Scheduled Tribes) and OBCs (Other Backward Castes) have benefited from it?

I'm sure that the number who've benefited can't be large enough, because if it were, that large number of people would be interested in getting rid of the "backward" tag, don't you think?

Going by surveys, at the very least, 29.8% of India's population are OBCs. At the most, the number is 52% - that means there are between 300 to 500 Million people in our country who are considered "Other Backward Castes". That's one in every 20 people on the planet. 50 years after our leaders wrote for us a constitution guaranteeing Equality, this huge number of people in our country are called "Backward".

Aren't our politicians intelligent enough to know when a solution to a problem isn't working? Or do they simply not care?

Who has been voting this chap to power over the years? It's not the first time that he's won an election, right?

The answer seems quite simple. The average Indian, is stupid.

That includes me, of course. And you.

Yes, yes, I'm alive. Against all expectations to the contrary. I guess you'll need to pray harder.

And we break our silence (No, it's just me. The plural is just for the heck of it) to disagree with a man who is probably the most popular Indian blogger on the planet. As the Tamil saying goes, I think I've got horns on my head. (Yes, I've been in Chennai too long. No, I don't know the Tamil saying itself. I only know what it translates to. Don't ask me to explain. I'm blogging after two full months. I'm supposed to be incoherent.)

Amit Varma's got a post linking to the results of a new scientific study. While I agree with the intent of the post in general, I completely disagree with the title of the post.

Being gay, is not like being left-handed. Which hand you use to write or eat with, isn't dependent on biology. It's more a matter of luck. And, of course, on whether your mother made you hold the pencil in your right hand when you were learning to write.

A left-handed person can learn to write with his/her right hand, if the necessity arises. Right handed people can teach themselves to do things with their left hand. All it takes is practice.

But no amount of practice can turn a gay man (or woman) straight. Or vice-versa.

In fact, I think the biggest problem that people have with homosexuality is the fact that they believe it is like being left-handed. That you can change it if you try hard enough. That it is something that can be fixed if you catch it early enough. That not letting your kids know that there is such a thing as homosexuality, will keep them straight.

Being gay is more like being black. Or brown. Or white. Or yellow. Or red. Except that it's not hereditary. (How could it be?)
You can't change it any more than you can change the colour of your skin.

I've seen this point mentioned on other blog posts written for the Blank Noise blogathon, and it's got me thinking. I believe that the first step to getting any closer to safer streets in our country, is to stop calling it Eve Teasing. It's not "teasing". It's the violation of the modesty of a human being. A violation of the exclusive right of a human being to their own body. A violation of one's right to peace of mind. A violation of the right to be in a public place without fear.

It's Harassment. Sexual Harassment. It's time to call it what it is.

Updated with links. Look at the bottom of this post.

I almost didn't write this post.

Procrastination is one reason. A genuine lack of time is another.

But the most relevant reason, really, is that I didn't really know.

When I was around fifteen, a cousin of mine from the US who was visiting India took a train ride with her father from Churchgate to Andheri. My uncle had not lived in Bombay for a decade and a half and simply remembered the Virar Local as being "a little crowded" at peak hours. Now you don't leave a thirteen year old girl alone in a strange city, so of course she rode with her father in the general compartment. Needless to say she was sobbing uncontrollably when they got home. When I landed there, all the women in the family were crowded around her trying to offer comfort. The men of course were berating my uncle for using the "Viral Local of all trains".

Now despite my claim that I'm from Bombay, I've only lived in that city for a little more than four years. And I've been inside a Virar Local just twice. So on that day the only reason I felt bad for my sister was because she had to ride squished up inside a train compartment full of men, for a journey that must have lasted almost three quarters of an hour. It wasn't a big deal. Girls cry over anything.

You see, I didn't really know.

A couple of years later, again in Bombay, I was walking down a lane, my college bag slung on my shoulder, probably whistling a tune on my way to the bus stop. There were a couple of girls walking a few yards ahead of me, who must have been around fourteen or fifteen. I noticed them when a tall boy of around my age walking in the opposite direction, bumped into them quite hard. He'd apparently been pushed by a couple of his friends with the sole intention of crashing into the girls. As you would expect, the boy simply walked back to his friends laughing away to glory, while the girls quivering with shock held on to each other and walked on without a word.

For a second I felt like I should teach those boys a lesson. But I've never been very brave. One of me. Three of them. I walked out that lane ashamed of myself. Ashamed for not trying to right that wrong. What's the point of good intentions if you don't have the guts to carry them out? As I walked past the girls, I even considered apologizing on behalf of men in general. I don't know if it would have made a difference, but the fact is that I felt too guilty to do even that. My inaction had made me an accomplice. I wasn't any better than those boys.

It's not easy to forget such moments of weakness. But I walked out of that lane still not really knowing.

Yes, I'd heard about eve-teasing. I'd heard about guys on the street singing songs like "Choli ke peechhe kya hai" to harass women. I knew it was the right thing to do to escort a female friend home at night. I knew it wasn't a safe world for women. But I didn't really know what women have go through in the streets of this world. I had heard about "bottom-slapping" but had never really seen the point of it. Surely it didn't happen very often?

I read about incidents like what happened to Hemangini Gupta on a train to Chennai, and lauded the efforts of victims who tried to ensure that the molesters got punished for their acts. I know a girl who beat a guy with her sandal at a bus stop. Another kneed a man in the groin once. But really, I didn't think of these as anything more than "one-of" incidents.

So when I heard about the Blank Noise project, I nodded my head about how sexual harassment was a real problem in India and thought I should try to write something about it for their blogathon.

I'd probably have forgotten all about it, though, if not for this post. Annie has written a powerful account of what a woman has to go through in our cities. It hits home the fact that these things are not "one-of" incidents. That women suffer this harassment throughout their lives. That there is a real problem out there. It's a post that we men need to read more than the women. Because we need to know.

Two of my cousin sisters grew up in Bombay. Two more are still in their teens. It makes me shudder to think what they must have gone through or what experiences life still intends to show them.

And I feel ashamed once again. Just as ashamed as I was in that lane almost a decade ago. Ashamed that I represent a gender that knows no limits. A gender that perceives a woman as weak, and then proceeds to take advantage of that weakness. A gender that goes on to blame the women for attracting the attention in the first place, when their only fault is that they were born female.

This post is for those two girls in that lane. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry.

Update: As part of the blogathon, Neha Viswanathan has written a powerful post about harassment in India.
Megha writes about child abuse, and lists helpline numbers in the US and India.

Update 2: Megha Krishnan writes about sections of the penal code under which harassment is an offense.
Thalassa_Mikra proves that it doesn't matter to the men what a woman is wearing. Even a burqa isn't enough protection.
Charu points out that no place is sacred. Men seem to know that God is blind.
Incognito shows that it doesn't matter if you are in a crowd or not.
M. gives tips for retaliation. Use them with care.

A few years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to this wonderful country song that is so simple, it takes your breath away. It's called "Love, Me" and it's by Collin Raye.

I read a note my grandma wrote
back in nineteen twenty-three.
Grandpa kept it in his coat,
and he showed it once to me.
He said, Boy, you might not understand,
but a long, long time ago,
Grandma's daddy didn't like me none,
but I loved your Grandma so.
We had this crazy plan to meet
and run away together.
Get married in the first town
we came to, and live forever.
But nailed to the tree
where we were supposed to meet, instead
I found this letter,
and this is what it said:

If you get there before I do,
don't give up on me.
I'll meet you when my chores are through;
I don't know how long I'll be.
But I'm not gonna let you down,
darling wait and see.
And between now and then,
till I see you again,
I'll be loving you.
Love, me.

I read those words just hours before
my Grandma passed away,
In the doorway of a church
where me and Grandpa stopped to pray.
I know I'd never seen him cry
in all my fifteen years;
But as he said these words to her,
his eyes filled up with tears.

If you get there before I do,
don't give up on me.
I'll meet you when my chores are through;
I don't know how long I'll be.
But I'm not gonna let you down,
darling wait and see.
And between now and then,
till I see you again,
I'll be loving you.
Love, me.

Between now and then,
till I see you again,
I'll be loving you.
Love, me.

What a wonderful way of saying that when you love someone, you wait for them...

The Big Boss was on TV today. The news channel wanted a one-on-one with him. Covering the richest man in the country apparently makes big news.

The Boss normally carries this aura around him, something in his bearing, which tells you that you are in the presence of greatness. That aura was missing today. And to make it worse, the show was only half an hour long, compared to the usual one hour. I guess the interviewer wasn’t much fun either. Probably killed the Boss’s enthusiasm. Like my roommate put it, ‘there were a number of moments where I could picture the boss slapping that guy’. Or maybe he’s just become a little old. Hmmm?

Warning: This is a serious post.

I was sent this link today - Arranged Marriage, with the words -

You believe arranged marriage is not bad. Here is an article. See how you can justify now.

Well, first of all, let me make my opinion a little clearer. What I say is that, in today's scenario in India, while I do agree that young men or women have the right to choose their own life partner, we should not get too carried away.
I believe, that today, in India, an arranged marriage probably has a greater chance of being successful, than a love marriage.

I don't have any statistics to prove this, other than the fact that in the US, where love marriage is the norm, has a much higher divorce rate compared to India, where arranged marriages are the norm. And now that love marriages are becoming more common in India, the divorce rate is also going up. Flaky statistics, I know.

The first flaw in the above argument, of course, is that divorces don't necessarily happen because of love marriages. The reason for a higher divorce rate is also because of better education, and because women are no longer afraid to take charge of their own life, and because the taboo of a divorce is slowly lifting from Indian society.

But before I start tearing up my own argument with counter-arguments, I should probably state what I feel clearly.

A typical Love Marriage in India today, is very different from a Love Marriage, say, in the US. Before a marriage in the US both the man and the woman experience a lot more than their counterparts in India. There are relationships as teenagers, they spend months or years together (on average), they even live together, and only then, do they tie the knot.
A typical Indian Love Marriage is more like - Falling in Love -> Courtship -> Proposing -> Getting Married.

Yes, I know, things are changing. But I did say "on average".

When two people are in love, the equation is very different before the matter of commitment comes in. There are expectations built up, when you are in love, that aren't very east to live up to, after marriage.

Simple examples are, like promising to give up non-vegetarian food, or drinking, or smoking after marriage. It's quite simple to make these claims, but I haven't seen many people who live up to them. There are other expectations which are not vocalised, but are there nonetheless. The disappointment from these expectations not being fulfilled, leads to discontent with the marriage, specially since things seemed so perfect before the knot was tied. "You've changed" is a common refrain.

In an Arranged marriage, both the man and the woman are predisposed to the idea that they will have to adjust. Both sides know that the person they are marrying might not be the one of their dreams, since they don't even know that person very well.
And arranged marriage today is not like the arranged marriage of 1950, where you met each other the first time at the time of "girl-seeing" and the second time at the wedding. Maybe not even at the time of "girl-seeing". Today, you meet each other, spend some time together alone, maybe even go out on a couple of 'dates', and then decide.
And all the stuff about who will cook, whether the woman works, where they will live, are cleared in a much more informal setting, which means that disagreements on these are not even likely.
By the time you tie the knot, you are comfortable with each other, so the old fears of arranged marriage being between two people who don't even know each other are no longer completely valid. Plus, since the expectations are low, and the willingness to adjust to the new person in your life is already there, the chances of success will be higher too.

So, that's my opinion.

Coming to the article that my friend sent me, it has these words highlighted, that I take complete exception to.

Arranged marriage starts from a fundamentally evil premise - that any parent or relative has the moral and legal right to force someone to marry against his or will, or to prevent him or her from marrying for love.

I mean, hello? Which century are we living in? My idea of arranged marriage today, is when the son/daughter tells his/her parents that he/she is ready to get married, and that is willing for arranged marriage. Anyone getting married to someone against their own will, is making a mistake I won't even discuss here.

So, have I given up on Love Marriage completely? Ha! Not on your life!

Another interesting write-up on the topic, is here - Say I Do?