Why I love Mumbai

Well, to begin with, you can’t smoke here, neither a fag nor a joint. Cigarettes are banned most places. Joints, everywhere, barring prison where you can buy them openly. Now you can’t drink as well. Not unless you are 18 with a licence. You can’t go a bar and watch pretty girls dance. That’s banned too, even if they dance the Kathakali. The more exciting dancing girls have long gone. Their kothas have shut down. Sahir’s sorrowful poems have died with them. Bling shops have hijacked the red light district.

Eating out late is not permissible. Last orders are at 11. Even with a licence you can’t drink after 1. Lady Gaga can’t come because concerts shut down at 10 even if you take 342 days to get all 137 permits required. If you marry at 17 you get rapped for rape. If you neck by the sea. Dhoble’s goon squad will beat you with hockey sticks for immoral conduct. (Cops can however pick up college girls on Marine Drive and rape them in the chowky at will.)

Our CMs with a long dhobi list of scams can whoosh into the Taj with a cavalcade. You and I must wait in queue till our chaddis are checked. Wherever we go, our chaddis are checked because every hotel, restaurant, mall and Government office suspects we carry bombs between our testicles. Bombs? Moustache trimming scissors and pickles are banned on flights. As for gun licences, no one’s allowed one ever since Mallika’s duh brother tried to teach Mahesh Bhatt’s son how to fire one and missed his hapless neighbour. The cops won’t help you either, even if your life is threatened. So you sit at home, waiting for some idiot to come and kill you because they can’t find anything worth stealing in your flat.

And why can’t they find anything worth stealing? Because after paying so many taxes, no one has any money left to steal. Never look closely at your bill in a 5 star restaurant. You may get a cardiac arrest seeing the taxes and duties slapped on. And, when you recover, you will get another one seeing the hospital bill. If you enter Mumbai by road, you have to pay octroi on all that you bring in, even if it’s your own. If you are a Muslim, you won’t get a flat to stay in. If you eat meat, Malabar Hill won’t have you. If you are a Hindu, Byculla won’t. And if you are young and unmarried, no one will. If you have a pet, it gets worse.

Muslims have got Satanic Verses banned. Hindus have banned Husain. So no gallery dares to show the art of the city’s greatest son. You can’t show sculptures with genitals, not even Michaelangelo’s David, though you can see any number of genitals on the streets where people openly pee. You can’t watch The Dirty Picture on 9 pm TV. That’s outlawed though it won Vidya the National Award and every kid has loved it. You are lucky Donald Duck ain’t banned because comics and cartoons in text books are banned. My Savita Bhabhi is too. So are, sneakily, many websites.

You can’t call friends home because after they've gone, guys from the local police will come and demand a bribe. You can’t keep 3 whisky bottles at home or carry Rs 20,001 in cash even if your mother’s sick and may need sudden hospitalisation. No hospitals take you in without cash, or allow you out even as a corpse. You can’t fly into Mumbai with an iPad. The Customs demand duty even if it’s your own. If you carry in personal stuff worth Rs 26,000, which is $400 today (and could well be $100 tomorrow) you must pay duty and penalty. They have announced that the punishment will soon be stiffer. Maybe they will hang you for it.

There are no open air street cafes. No dance bars. No nightlife. Even Voodoo’s shut down. A few asphixiated trees gasp for breath. There are no sparrows left. You can’t see stars at night. All we see are vast crowds of people rushing nowhere. Footpaths have vanished. So has free speech and live music. The State eavesdrops on your sex chats, be it on phone, chat, BBM or social networking sites. Try courier pigeons.

`Welcome to Mumbai. I simply love it.

By: Pritish Nandy (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/extraordinaryissue/entry/why-i-love-mumbai)
 

ETYMOLOGY OF THE NAME INDIA

The name of India is a corruption of the word Sindhu. Neighbouring Arabs, Iranians uttered‘s’ as ‘h’ and called this land Hindu. Greeks pronounced this name as Indus.

Sindhu is the name of the Indus River, mentioned in the Rig-Veda, one of the oldest extant Indo-European texts, composed in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent roughly between 1700-1100 BC. 

There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the Iranian Avesta, often associated with the early culture of 2200-1600 BC.

The English term is from Greek Ἰνδία (Indía), via Latin India. Iindía in Byzantine ethnography denotes the region beyond the Indus (Ἰνδός) River, since Herodotus alluded to "Indian land". Ἰνδός, Indos, "an Indian", from Avestan Hinduš refers to Sindh and is listed as a conquered territory by Persian emperor Darius I (550-486 BC) in the Persepolis terrace inscription.

The name India was known in Old English (between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century AD) and was used in King Alfred's translation of Orosius. The name was, under French influence, replaced by Yndeor Inde. It went into Early Modern English (the latter half of the 15th century to 1650 AD). Thus, Indie appeared the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare - both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English. The name India then came back to English usage from the 17th century onwards, may be due to the influence of Latin, or Spanish or Portuguese.

Here is a timeline of the name beginning with the ancient Persian dynasty:

Date	Name	Source	Definition
c. 486 BC	Hidush	Naksh-i-Rustam	"Says Darius the King: By the grace of Ormazd these (are) the countries which I have acquired besides Persia. I have established my power over them. They have brought tribute to me. That which has been said to them by me they have done. They have obeyed my law. Medea... Arachotia (Harauvatish), Sattagydia (Thatagush), Gandaria (Gadára), India (Hidush)...."
c. 440 BC	India	Herodotus	"Eastward of India lies a tract which is entirely sand. Indeed, of all the inhabitants of Asia, concerning whom anything is known, the Indians dwell nearest to the east, and the rising of the Sun."
c. 300 BC	India/Indikē	Megasthenes	"India then being four-sided in plan, the side which looks to the Orient and that to the South, the Great Sea compasseth; that towards the Arctic is divided by the mountain chain of Hēmōdus from Scythia, inhabited by that tribe of Scythians who are called Sakai; and on the fourth side, turned towards the West, the Indus marks the boundary, the biggest or nearly so of all rivers after the Nile."
c. 140 AD	Indoi, Indou	Arrian	"The boundary of the land of India towards the north is Mount Taurus. It is not still called Taurus in this land; but Taurus begins from the sea over against Pamphylia and Lycia and Cilicia; and reaches as far as the Eastern Ocean, running right across Asia. But the mountain has different names in different places; in one, Parapamisus, in another Hemodus; elsewhere it is called Imaon, and perhaps has all sorts of other names; but the Macedonians who fought with Alexander called it Caucasus; another Caucasus, that is, not the Scythian; so that the story ran that Alexander came even to the far side of the Caucasus. The western part of India is bounded by the river Indus right down to the ocean, where the river runs out by two mouths, not joined together as are the five mouths of the Ister; but like those of the Nile, by which the Egyptian delta is formed; thus also the Indian delta is formed by the river Indus, not less than the Egyptian; and this in the Indian tongue is called Pattala. Towards the south this ocean bounds the land of India, and eastward the sea itself is the boundary. The southern part near Pattala and the mouths of the Indus were surveyed by Alexander and Macedonians, and many Greeks; as for the eastern part, Alexander did not traverse this beyond the river Hyphasis. A few historians have described the parts which are this side of the Ganges and where are the mouths of the Ganges and the city of Palimbothra, the greatest Indian city on the Ganges. (...) The Indian rivers are greater than any others in Asia; greatest are the Ganges and the Indus, whence the land gets its name; each of these is greater than the Nile of Egypt and the Scythian Ister, even were these put together; my own idea is that even the Acesines is greater than the Ister and the Nile, where the Acesines having taken in the Hydaspes, Hydraotes, and Hyphasis, runs into the Indus, so that its breadth there becomes thirty stades. Possibly also other greater rivers run through the land of India."
c. 590 AD	Hind	Istakhri	"As for the land of the Hind it is bounded on the East by the Persian Sea (i.e. the Indian Ocean), on the W. and S. by the countries of Islām, and on the N. by the Chinese Empire. . . . The length of the land of the Hind from the government of Mokrān, the country of Mansūra and Bodha and the rest of Sind, till thou comest to Kannūj and thence passest on to Tibet, is about 4 months, and its breadth from the Indian Ocean to the country of Kannūj about three months."
c. 650 AD	Five Indies	Xuanzang	"The circumference of 五印 (Modern Chinese: Wǔ Yìn, the Five Indies) is about 90,000 li; on three sides it is bounded by a great sea; on the north it is backed by snowy mountains. It is wide at the north and narrow at the south; its figure is that of a half-moon."
c. 944 AD	Hind, Sind	Masudi	"For the nonce let us confine ourselves to summary notices concerning the kings of Sind and Hind. The language of Sind is different from that of Hind. . . ."
c.1020 AD	Hind	Al-Birūnī	"Hind is surrounded on the East by Chín and Máchín, on the West by Sind and Kábul, and on the South by the Sea."-
1205 AD	Hind	Hasan Nizāmī	"The whole country of Hind, from Peshawar in the north, to the Indian Ocean in the south; from Sehwan (on the west bank of the Indus) to the mountains on the east dividing from China."
1298 AD	India the Greater India the Minor Middle India	Marco Polo	"India the Greater is that which extends from Maabar to Kesmacoran (i.e. from Coromandel to Mekran), and it contains 13 great kingdoms. . . . India the Lesser extends from the Province of Champa to Mutfili (i.e. from Cochin-China to the Kistna Delta), and contains 8 great Kingdoms. . . . Abash (Abyssinia) is a very great province, and you must know that it constitutes the Middle India."
c. 1328 AD	India	Friar Jordanus	"What shall I say? The great- ness of this India is beyond description. But let this much suffice concerning India the Greater and the Less. Of India Tertia I will say this, that I have not indeed seen its many marvels, not having been there. . . ."
1404 AD	India Minor	Clavijo	"And this same Thursday that the said Ambassadors arrived at this great River (the Oxus) they crossed to the other side. And the same day . . . came in the evening to a great city which is called Tenmit (Termez), and this used to belong to India Minor, but now belongs to the empire of Samarkand, having been conquered by Tamurbec."

Writtenby Sanujit, published on 13 January 2011 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Bathroom Statistics

Yesterday while driving back home from office, I heard on radio that a government department has done its bathroom renovation for Rs. 35 lakhs. The RJ followed the news with discussion with some contractor and asked him if he fits all world's best bathroom items how much a government office big bathroom can be renovated in. The maximum figure, till I signed off, came Rs. 12 lakhs. 


My elder brother (Nalin Saxena, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1012273344), taking a short break from is IT job and interest in photography, history and flute, has done some interesting calculations which I thought should be blogged and shared. So here it is - 


Now that's called statistics!!!!

Assume a person goes for pissing 4 times a day in office.
In a year of 250 working days he pisses about 1000 times (250*4)
In 5 years (assuming bathroom renovation happens in 5 years), he pisses 5000 times.
Hence 60 people in planning commission would have pissed 60*5000 = 3 lakh times in the office bathroom (that too when you assume that they are coming for 250 days a year to office and are not on any foreign trips)
Now they have spent 35 lakh for renovating the bathrooms. This means it is costing Rs 12 for every piss (35 lakhs for 3 lakh pisses) these guys undertake!

That means it cost Rs 12*4 = Rs 48 per day for pissing 4 times in office alone.....more than the 32/day poverty line...just to satisfy basic pissing needs!

This is INDIA

Two religions, one family, and a court approval

Fourteen-year-old Akbar’s appeal to the judge to let him remain with his Hindu guardian instead of transferring him to his Muslim mother has shot Aiku Lal Sandil to national headlines. However, for the tea vendor from Baradari, Lucknow, taking in Akbar wasn’t something he thought twice about. Having been raised by a Muslim man himself, Sandil couldn’t just look away when he found the six-year-old lost boy in a Lucknow park eight years ago. 

“I am a Hindu brought up by a kind Muslim man. When I found Akbar, it was like God telling me that it is time to return the love and care I got from His people. I was never forced to change my religion and, having got that education from my guardian, it was my duty to take care of the child and bring him up as per his own religion,” Sandil says.

The bond the two share was acknowledged by the Allahabad High Court in January 2008 when it turned down Akbar’s biological mother Shahnaz Begum’s habeas corpus petition. Shahnaz had argued that since Akbar was a Muslim, if Sandil raised him, it would “create dichotomy and disharmony in the social sphere and in their relationship”.

Dismissing her petition, after Akbar said he wanted to live with Sandil rather than his parents, Justice Barkat Ali Zaidi said India is a secular country where the consideration of caste and creed should not be allowed to prevail. “...If there can be inter-caste marriages... there can also be an inter-caste ‘father and son’ relationship and that need not raise eyebrows,” the judge said.

Shahnaz has now moved the Supreme Court, and last week it asked her to file an affidavit on her monthly income, the property she owns and the school where her other two children study.

What the high court found strange was that Shahnaz approached it in 2007, four years after Akbar went missing, and that she had not even filed an FIR in the intervening period.

Akbar’s parents first stepped forward to claim their son after they saw Sandil on TV, recounting his story to mediapersons at a political party’s office in Qaiserbagh where he briefly worked. “They came to me... I did not know them. Later on, the district administration decided that since they had not lodged any FIR, Akbar would live with me,” says Sandil. Later, the parents moved the high court.

A six-year-old at the time he got lost, Akbar had gone to a liquor shop with his father in Allahabad, where they lived. While the father was busy buying liquor, he strayed away and somehow landed up in Lucknow.

It was Sandil’s neighbour Kushmavati Devi who first noticed Akbar on a cold winter evening in 2003, playing with her children in a park next to Baradari. “As the children returned home, he started crying. He said his name was Akbar and that his father had gone to bring food and also that he lived in Pan Dariba. Sandil was also here and I handed over Akbar to him,” remembers Kushmavati.

With five children of her own, Kushmavati has been a foster parent to the boy. It’s at her house that he drops in for most meals.

Sandil says when he found Akbar, he had liver problems, weak limbs and an infected foot which made it difficult for him to walk. “I took him to doctors; I also massaged his limbs with medicated ointments. Once he broke his hand and I carried him as far as Etaunja to get treatment,” say Kushmavati.

Sandil recounts how he himself was brought up by Chaudhary Mujtaba Hussain, who was a member of a governing body that looked after the well-known Baradari moument. “I have seen Aiku living with my father ever since I was a child,” says Chaudhary Hasan Imam, Hussain’s son.

Hussain taught Sandil how to read and write English, Hindi and Urdu, though he never went to school. Despite his meagre income, Sandil has ensure that doesn’t happen to Akbar. “Initially, Akbar was enrolled in Prathamic Vidhyalaya, Qaiser Bagh, Refugee Camp, and two years later, he was enrolled in Queens Inter College. Recently, I shifted him to Mumtaz Inter College, Aminabad, where the classes are more regular,” says Sandil. He also pays Rs 100 a month for a daily, one-hour tuition in a nearby area.

“My income is not much but I am doing all I can to educate Akbar. I hardly save Rs 500 per month,” says Sandil.

Every Friday, Sandil also ensures, Akbar goes to the masjid to offer namaaz. “Abhi namaaz yaad to nahin hai par main jumme ke jumme masjid jata zaroor hoon (Though I do not remember the prayers as of now, I definitely go to the masjid every Friday),” says Akbar.

If the Supreme Court directs that Akbar be given to his parents, Sandil says, he will abide. “But if it is against the will of Akbar, I will not leave the child crying with his mother.” 

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/aiku-&-akbar-two-religions-one-family-and-a-court-approval/831716/0

Proud to be an Indian.. Really ?

15th Aug 2011, 64th Independence Day of our country and as is the custom; people are sporting the tricolor in every street and corner in every possible way. Social networking sites are abuzz with comments like "Phir bhi dil hai hindustani", "India is the greatest country of the world", "East or west India is the best", "Proud to be an Indian" so on and so forth… All of which is very heart touching of course. However what I want to know is, what ARE we proud of??!!

The corruption? The population? Illiteracy? Broken Infrastructure?? Or The inflation?

We keep saying that India is the greatest country in the world. Can anyone tell me, in what category? In our country for every right thing, we have a million things that are wrong and still we say we are proud of our country. Being optimistic is good; turning your back on reality is foolish. We have set up an image of our country in our minds that does not match with the reality at all. Let me tell you about the reality of our great country.

Democratic India

A democratic country where everyone has an EQUAL status except Hindus, Muslims, SC, ST, OBC, and Hindi speaking community, Marathi speaking community, Tamil speaking community, the elite, the poverty ridden, a girl child, and a boy child. Constitution gives us equal rights and states very clearly that any kind of discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, gender or any such thing is punishable under law. In parallel we have reservation on the basis of caste, creed and gender under the same constitution.

Secular India

Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai sab hain bhai bhai. "Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians are all brothers". This has to be the biggest lie ever told. We all know it and still we pretend that everything is all right. You don't agree with me? Well ask yourself if any of your relatives opted for an inter cast marriage, what will be your stand? Anyways I will not write anything more on religion for two reasons. One, Religion is a very sensitive topic and two, as I am an atheist my views on the topic will be very biased. One thing that I would like to mention here is that our country will become a secular country in the true sense of the word the day when inter Caste marriages are not a taboo any more.

Politics – the gutter of India

Politics by common consent is considered the gutter of India. The amount of money laundered in the various scams that have surfaced recently is thousand times more that what the British took from us. People like Kalmadi, A Raja who we all know are the idols of corruption are still roaming free. The people who were supposed to take care of our country are the one’s who are ruining it and we are the spectators. Of the two big parties Congress and BJP, who can run the central government? Congress is functionally disabled and BJP is morally disabled and as far as a third option is concerned, we don’t have one.

Developing India

Stats will show that India has progressed a lot in the last 64 years. Standard of living has increased many folds. 64 years back we didn't have roads, today we have roads connecting all major cities [with potholes of course]. Back then we did not have proper living conditions; today we have air conditioned offices, buildings and hotels right beside the biggest slums in the world!!!! We are progressing at a steady rate of 8%. Yes we are crawling ahead like a snail when we could have flown like an eagle. Lets take the e.g. of Mumbai, the economic capital of India. In the ECONOMIC CAPITAL of India 80% of population lives in slums. [Source: Times of India]. Every monsoon Mumbai turns into a gutter which we brave somehow and then talk about the Unbeatable Spirit of Mumbai. Every now and again Mumbai is rapped with terrorist attacks and the security forces unable to do anything to stop them again give us the spirit of Mumbai jazz. We make illegal skyscrapers using black money on the land reserved for the families of war victims and then we even have the indecency to name it “Aadarsh” (Moral)!!!!

Young India

Whenever we start counting the problems of our country, the commonly given solution is "The youth of India". Youth of India has the capability to solve these problems. Their ideals will save the day. I agree that youth of India have great ideals. But what happens when the Idealistic youth is afraid to speak in front of his parents who are Anti-Hindus or Anti-Muslims?

The idealist who is educated but unemployed or doing a job that he doesn't like. The idealist who can not get admission in his chosen stream because of reservation. The idealist who works under a corrupt employer and has to support his family. The idealist who thinks he is a proud Maharashtrian and every outsider is a lesser being. The idealist who is a “bhaiya” and thinks it’s his right to do every wrong that he can think of. The idealist who is frustrated because he can’t get a smoke. The idealist who can’t walk straight cause he is drunk.

Will this Idealist be able to speak for an entire nation?

Youth has ideals but youth is not independent to act on those ideals. Ideals without independence are worth for nothing. Our idealist youth is bound by their families and their so called values, their frustration, Alcohol, Smoke, illogical ideologies, Problems that they themselves do not know how to tackle.

Education System in India

The most important tool to shape the future of our country. India is the proud owner of the 2nd largest work force in the world [source: Times of India]. Every year thousands of engineers, doctors, pharmacists, Accountants pass out from various institutes across the country, increasing that workforce. So shouldn't this mean we are doing well in the field of education? Well think again. Nowadays, education is the most happening business in India. The increasing commercialization of education has shifted the focus from a student based organization to a money making operation.

As if this was not enough we have added a whole new dimension to the problem by introducing the concept of reservation. We have a total of 47 % reservation for SC, ST and OBC in all government colleges. Because of reservation almost 50 percent of the students don’t have to prove their merit to get admission for a particular stream, which in turn forces many eligible candidates to settle for lesser degrees. To top it all this is being presented as the only reasonable path to establish social equality. Reservation is nothing but a ploy to hide the gross incompetence of the administration in providing primary education to each and every child and a very successful propaganda to garner votes from SC, ST and OBC.

To understand the problem we can look at the cut off percentages of IIT-JEE for admissions in the 16(including the 9 new ones) Indian Institute of Technology, the most prestigious institutes for technical education in our country. Since the introduction of reservation the cutoff marks for SC, ST and OBC students has never been in double digits and the same for general category students is usually around 60 to 70 marks in IIT-JEE. [Source: Times of India].

We, the People – Problem of India

We are the people who live by a very strict code. And what is that strict code... "Be Practical!", "Who doesn't compromise these days", "Nobody can get more than what is written in his so called kismat". We are the most practical people in the world. We break traffic rules, we bribe our way out, we plant the seeds of corruption and then WE complain about it!!!!! If we don’t get something that we want, we don't fight, we compromise. Why? Because that is what we are taught all our lives. Any body who tries to preach any sense is forced to shut up by the Practicality of the situation. “Aise thode hi hota hai”! (Things don’t work like this!).

If someone told us that government has put a fine on spitting in any public place, we will laugh and spit in the first public place we go to and when somebody takes a stand against any problem we are the first ones to say “Nothing is going to change so what’s the point in ruffling the feathers”.

We have become so acclimatized to our current socio-economic environment, that we have stopped distinguishing things as RIGHT & WRONG and limited our choices to WRONG & NOT SO WRONG.

I can write a lot more on this topic but I think this should be enough to give a picture of the reality of our country. I am not saying that everything about our country is bad but many things are, which we conveniently ignore. Problems never solve themselves; Problems stay until we take notice of them and do something about them, So stop saying “Proud to be an Indian” and start doing things that will make our country proud of us.

Note: All facts and figures used in the article are taken either from the Times of India website or the news paper.