self-appointed authorities

To Raj Thackeray and his troop of monkeys (yes, I mean monkeys though the one Harbhajan used would be more appropriate for you all, in fact, it’s an insult to monkeys to equate you with them). Anyway, all you buffoons out there hell bent upon making peoples’ lives miserable, I challenge you, any one of those who are a part of this gang of scared kids, to a duel, hand to hand. I’m nearing 35, have a smoke infested, drug-abused, unshapely, body which is in such a pathetic state that I can’t climb three storeys without having to take breaks for rest at least twice. But I can take on the physically strongest among you, I’m sure, because you guys are such pathetic losers that even if you do subdue someone physically, you will be the one will who suffer and the next moment try to find someone else who is the bane of your existence. You’ll make up another gang of your deprived brethren and vent out your combined frustration at your impotency on some new unknowing target. You would never realize that no one else is a bane; it’s your existence which is a bane. Right now, you are fighting north Indians, later you’ll fight south Indians, still later you might fight someone else. What you don’t understand is that your being good-for-nothing has nothing to do with them. There have been many instances like these in the past; many mad caps like this inconsequential bug raj Thackeray in history, Hitler, amin, Mussolini, all of them attributed their troubles to an identifiable group which was easily targetable. All of them knew that the best way to gather disillusioned loafers was to make them believe that they are wronged, and point them towards it. But at least these Mussolini and Hitler’s have their moments of glory; at least they have power, money, what about you, you all couldn’t do that either, reviled, kicked around, hated by everyone, the likes of you are an object of ridicule, destroying MF Husain’s paintings, burning posters of taslima nasreen and harassing people on valentine’s day. It is laughable, at least the earlier villains of the piece had some ideals, some conviction on which they based their tyranny, their evil. You all, even you don’t know what the basis off your sporadic attempts at violence are. youre almost like the bunch of stray dogs who stay down when alone on the highway but start running after every car and bike if they are ion groups, without any tangible reason, just because they are more in numbers.

The meddlesome fools in our country

While reading the article “Protests, yet roses all the way” on the back page of the Feb 15th Bangalore edition of the Hindu, I experienced that familiar sensation of impotent rage, which afflicts a substantial majority of us, surging up yet again. We all have felt that sickening helplessness at some time or the other, being heckled by a prejudiced cop, getting roughed up by an errant shopkeeper, or simply being shoved out of a queue by someone. This is probably the single most damning affliction which impedes those with an honest intent to improve things from entering the mainstream.

Quite evidently, there aren’t any practical ideas by which an individual can take care of this menace. The onus is on our judicial and legal system. Why shouldn’t the organizations like Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, RSS et al be labeled as militant outfits and banned? These outfits, which have had reporters, policemen and the whole nation being witness to their destructive tendencies, are flourishing in our midst, and there is no conscious effort to curb their influence. These outfits are aiming to destabilize the entire social structure and if they had their say, India would soon turn into a rogue nation closed to the outside world. It is really distressing that people are actually predisposed towards the ramblings on a supposed ideology which doesn’t really exist.
Another significant aspect of this whole mess is the moral right of these outfits to stand up for Indian culture. Most of them wouldn’t know Khajuraho from the Statue of Liberty; the number of heritage sites in India, or the capital of Jharkhand. In no way does the Indian or any culture commemorate communal violence and disparage the noble vision of togetherness celebrated on Valentine’s Day. It’s high time we stopped allowing ourselves to be dictated by a set of individuals who have no capability to interpret anything but claim to have interpreted the glorious Indian culture?