KARAN AND HIS SENA

movies,sports and politics this is the golden triad of the indian media. the moment any two of these crosses paths that makes the news even more engaging . this is what an intelligent producer like karan johar banks on to get free publicity for his movies . every time any of his movies are to be released there will be some sort of controversy to propel it to the national headline and all the time he uses the senas of mumbai for that.

first it was WAKE UP SID then KURBAAN and now MY NAME IS  KHAN the common thread in the publicity campaign for these movies are the protests from mns or shiv sena .lets recap the promotion strategies for all these movies

scene 1 WAKE UP SID

this was the third movie of the kapoor kid where he was paired opposite konkana sen sharma. due to the low market value of  the lead pair at that time the buzz surrounding the film was  nil.though  its another fact that the movie did good business in urban centres due to its fresh content , mr johar and party took some bizarre steps in its publicity. on the day of the release we saw mns protesting the use of Bombay rather than Mumbai in the film. the news channels ran breaking stories of mns ‘threats’ to halt the screening of the movies unless bombay was replaced by mumbai , by evening as the story had its blockbuster sales at the news channels we saw mr johar going up to raj thackrey to apologise and said he would beep it out. every thing was fine from then on – no protests, no threats  and surely no breaking stories. what this whole incident did was to give free publicity to the movie.

if this issue of mumbai and bombay was serious why wont mns attack the BBCs mumbai office as they still uses bombay or the Bombay stock exchange. and why did karan johar apologise to a person like raj thackrey?. did n’t you get the script?

scene 2 KURBAAN

a movie publicised for the kissing scene than its decent content. the publicity team took the help of the women’s wing of the sena, we saw live picture of them covering kareena kapoor’s bare back with saffron saree. the incident took place just a day before the release though the same poster was there for weeks.

think about this in a country where cleavage in movie posters never make heads turn these days how could a bare back make such furore. even   in a conservative place like malappuram I have seen more provocative posters than that. why this ? why then?

scene 3 MY NAME IS KHAN

this movie is karan johars directorial venture after the disaster that was KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA . I still remember the buzz surrounding the film and how eager i was to see it , but after seeing the never ending torture that was the movie i vowed never to see another kjo movie. i think there will be millions like me who would kill themselves than sit through another of his sagas. so to create buzz he have teamed up with his old friend the ” sena”. after the whole ipl- pakistan fiasco we had srk saying some thing what mr chidambaram told a few days back that it was shameful to exclude pak players. this ignited the indianess in the sena which said they were ashamed of srk and he must have  taken birth  in pakistan than india. will they say same about chidambaram no – thats the trick  now the media comes, they interprets the senas outburst and gives explanation that srk was targeted as he was a”KHAN” . I think this whole controversy is baseless

firstly shahrukh is the owner of kolkatta knight riders he must have forced his team to buy a pak player which he didnt

secondly shahrukh always proudly says about his origin and being a pathan or from what now is pakistan then why is sena bashing him now for some thing which is not at all relevant as no pak player was bought  in the auction.

so we have the only indian newspaper which cares more about  news than sensationalism ‘the hindu’   writing   on its front page

“stepping into the city in the midst of raging controversy over his ipl statement and the apprehension over the release o his film my name is khan ….”

even a journalistic gem like hindu could not escape the lure of the pr hungry johar camp .

MUSLIM MALABAR – HISTORY

Islam constitutes about a quarter of the population of the state of Kerala ,their population is unevenly distributed with the bulk of them concentrated in the districts of malappuram and kozhikode.Islam came to the malayali shores through trade like anywhere in the indian ocean region, a few of these arab traders took malayali wives(mappila = groom), settled here. for centuries they were the trading class that constituted the spice trade in malabar,being concentrated in the towns with no representation inland. like christians or jews who propagated their religion before them they also wanted to distinguish themselves from the rest of the populace , so they  developed vocabulary with introduced arabic words ( for eg:padachavan for god which was adopted from jewish malayalam) , had customs like tying the mundu to the left and eating food on the dorsum of the plantain leaf. for nearly a thousand years islam was a minority religion just a few thousands in their number grew slowly with converts . the difference between the muslims of kerala and the north was the lack of forceful conversions , they lived in harmony with the society but largely confining to themselves with little or no interaction culturally with others. the local rulers never considered them as the sons of the soil but just as some foreign implants like the romans and jews before them.but surely there were exceptions like the arakkal royalty which embraced islam.

the community was forced out of  its cocoon of isolation by sword-  the invasions of hyder ali and tippu sultan.as they marched down from mysore through wayanad or through the coast down from mangalore blood flowed like rivers , neither tippu nor hyder were fanatics to the degree of  their north indian counter parts but the shear objection of slavery in malayali minds made them to revolt. there were reports of revolt in the malabar under tippu on a regular basis the only way to suppress it was brutality. then came the age old method of suppression killing of men, raping women and taking slaves. the nairs who spearheaded the revolt were declared as the lowest of the casts their tharavads looted men and women  given choices either to convert or die.thousands opted the first. so the muslim population in malabar multiplied a thousand fold. with the  defeat of Mysore in british hands many families who took refuge in travancore came back to take their possesions. many of the major aristocratic families who stayed back had taken islam . the british took over their properties  and distributed it  among the returnees. many wanted to return to hinduism but the returnees objected as they would have to give back the property they took from the neoconverts. this frustration and helplessness  made the converts to embrace their new religion with ferver.this resentment brew below the surface till the 1900s when it exploded as the mopila rebellion, the anger they felt for generations was let loose conversions ,killings and rape followed especially in valluvanad and eranad.this could be seen as the first sign of muslim upheavel or their first attempt to get back the dignity they lost with conversion.this time also saw the consolidation of muslims politically with setting up of many islamic fronts.

the malabari muslim identity hence forged was the unique combination of arab coastal communities and the nair and ezava heartland of eranad , valluvanad and kolathirinad. this is what the malayali muslim is – a unique blend of arab ethos with malayali values.

NRI’S CAN VOTE

while addressing the  pravasi Bharatiya divas prime minister manmohan Singh hinted about allowing the non-residential indians to vote in the next general elections. this is a very ambitious plan which is certain to have its ripples felt in the political corridors of Kerala.

malayalis are known to be politically aware whether he be a residential or non residential.the first thing a malayali does is to glance through the day’s newspaper (which are nothing more than tabloids) , then discuss the days politics at work or street corners(whether employed/not) and in the evening fight with his wife and kids to watch some news channel.though he is unaware about things happening outside the state he would be a phd in state politics.

nris make up about 3.6% of the population of the state mainly men in their prime.though politically aware and active they could not vote as they were outside the state. if they are allowed to vote the election they will be a significant force who may decide the outcome like a swing vote bank. this will be more profound in the Malabar. in districts like kannur and kasargode .

demographically speaking muslims constitute the biggest chunk of the nrks from malabar, if they are allowed voting rights their vote is expected to  go the udf way. but the twist in this tale is the fact that irrespective of the religion a person returning from gulf will be having a right-wing mentality.my observation may be controversial but if you take a sample survey among the nris in the gulf majority of the hindus would be discontent due to the curtailment of their religious rights and the muslims , due to the interactions with the brethren from else where would have adopted the hijab way.so a hindu is more likely to swing towards the bjp and a muslim – away from the iuml.this muslim votes may go to pdp or other right wing parties . so bjp and pdp will have the final bargaining power.they may switch allegences.as bjp is not in a place to win in kerala its vote will be a deciding factor in districts like kannur,thrissur and palakkad. the pdp factor will be more visible in malappuram,kozhikode and kasargode which as of now will go to the cpm.

but we all know the politics of kerala. by the next LS elections congress will be in power, there must have been some scandal before the election and there will be a pro ldf wave that will bring the udf tally back to single digits. but if the regular cycle gets interrupted by any chance and the nris are allowed to vote the bjp and pdp factors must be king makers.

MEDIA JUSTICE

the problem with the  indian english language media is that if it gets a news it feeds on it for weeks. this time the  media have re discovered its passion long forgotten since the jessica lal case – “fighting for justice for the north indian urban upper middle class”.

the ruchika murder/suicide and the following cover up was one of the shameful incidents done in the confines  of our system, which boasts of equal rights for all. its pity that the police officer who is said to have molested the girl got a minisculest verdict that he deserved . it’s the duty of the media to fight for justice and we must all fight against such inherent problems in our system and try to make it perfect.

my point here is that the so-called third eye of the society fights its battles only for a particular strata . the criterion are -

1.the victim be  from the punjabi north or  goa( tourist or catholic native). who can fluently speak english.

2. from upper middle class , that is who can tweet,use face book et al.

3.the perpetuator from a powerful background.if  politician the best. so that they can chant all the anti politician slogans.

4.the family/friends of the victim able to conduct rang de basanti type candle light vigils.

some of you who chance up on this article must  have gotten hyper by now so for them I like to give an example for the injustice of media justice.

in kerala there were two such cases involving rape(even serial rape) and murder . that too of girls of the same age as ruchika’s. one of them anakha- a brahmin girl from poor background was raped by people who were having connections with many prominent politicians in kerala. the girl and her family committed suicide that is how the whole story came out in open. the malayalam media was very active in finding the truth but their smaller reach meant smaller effect. the story slowly died down , no one except some scape goats were arrested.the other case is  of shari ,with some of the same people involved.

had anakha or shari be born to some rich punjabi family their justice would have been done by now. in anakha’s case the culprits killed a whole family,is anakha’s justice less important than ruchika’s , why isnt the english media taking up its arms for the victim? or asking the home minister of the country(that too for a state matter) the all important “questions”. the answer can be found in the above mentioned criteria.

there are many unheard anakhas or sharis in other parts of the country the culprits in their cases may not be big guns , they may be a zamindar or a petty police constable. so the media must widen its area of vision to incorporate all of india, not just focussing on one core group. the middle class anger against the system must be also be diverted to the fight for justice of these poor lads too .

the ctn I started must be taken up urgently or we as people will fail these hundreds of unknown ruchikas .

ODIYAN

our valluvanad was one of the final frontiers of western civilization.a land of immense beauty lived upon by mysterious people with strange  traditions and practices . where kalari was a way of life for the menfolk and their women the most liberated of their contemporaries . that world which existed till forty years ago now lives in the stories that grand mothers tell kids , many of them renegated as fables.

odiyans were the assassins of the time. they were hired by the nairs of rival families , mainly hailing from panar,pulayar and choklear communities, were feared for their extreme physical stamina and powers which could be matched only by mantrikans(powerful magicians).

the powers

the odiyans used to apply an oil obtained from the a killed human fetus  on their ear and assume shapes that they desired. they never changed into that object but the person seeing them had such a perception. they would assume shapes of bulls , cats , even rocks and when their victim approaches he would be killed instantly. but here there was a problem, if they took the shape of an animal like a bull ,the bull  appeared three-legged or tailless so that a person who is careful could understand what he was seeing and act accordingly. there is a story about a mantrikan who once returning home at night saw two bulls,he soon realized the trap and tied the two together and took them to a riverine and washed their ears  . the next second he saw two naked men standing in front of him.

the oil

the oil the odiyans used was made from unborn fetuses. their targets were women in their first pregnancy.during the day they would give some signs while working in the houses of their victims and in the night these women would walk unconscious in their sleep to the odiyans , who would split them open with sharpened knifes made of bamboo and took the fetus out. the women walked back home as  nothing happened only to die in their bed. in the morning everyone would assume the cause of death to be natural as the wounds in the belly would have gone by then. the fetus was hung from a pole so that a special fluid would be drained from it.the amount was so small that it would last only for a handfull of odi tricks.

what happened to them

with the modern education, the western lifestyle and more importantly the emancipation of panars and pulayars there were no takers for this tradition.so it died out without revealing many of its secrets like many other Indian traditions.

RE EVALUATING INDIAN HISTORY

sixty years have passed since india gained independence . a lot is changed now , we as people are more united than ever before , as a country we are starting to assert ourself in the world stage and more importantly we are deciding our history for the first time in centuries . but as a people we still find it  hard to accept our history or even to see it in a fresh light.

history gives identity to people . it has the power to drive millions at will , hence a nuclear bomb in dangerous hands . we as people have thrived for millenia , from times when every other country except a few were still far away from civilisation. even today a newborn indian inherits many practises which could be traced to that period. indians never saw history as a distinct branch of academia here it was always mixed with fables and super natural to be made into something that was far from real. the arab invasion brought historical recording to india , but it was restricted more to the ruling elite of the time and they never found interest in the history of the years before them . during the islamic rule it was always the us and them view. the rulers being muslims were least  interested in the idolatry populace and the populace were suspicious of their rulers . this period saw the indian civilisation coming of age , till then mostly an indigenous culture it started adopting things from the outsiders whom they despised for centuries.we as a country became cosmopolitan .

then came the british rule . the white man saw india as an exotic land – the land of superlatives . the renaissance  injected a sense of  superiority in their mind which made them to view others through those glasses .

the problem with indian history is that written text of non religious content is minimal and  archaeologically the remains are few . so we have no pyramids or Colosseum to tell our tale. this made the british to frame the indian history with respect to that of the other regions. one of the mistakes they did was to conclude that all the indian scriptures were fables, so our history came to be based on what others told about us rather than what we knew about us. these foreign authors knew little about the people or the culture of the time and never cared to take it seriously , so we have megasthenese who speak of strange humans and animals , the chinese records which were purely buddhist .  they talked only about the Buddhists and Buddha who by the way never became a large majority here.

constructing our history in this manner made large holes in some cases of many centuries which remain dark. so there are Mauryans and guptans and a patchy history in between.similarly we are taught about Vedic people worshipping Indra and then suddenly were hear Asoka being a Saivite or Vedic people suddenly becoming vegetarian by early centuries of christian era.

then there is the chronological mess. no one really knows when Asoka lived or is he really the piyadassi told in the edicts. the Alexander’s brief  stint into india acts as an anchor in this context. the small greek enclave in Gandhara was told to be expelled by a sandrakodos who came to be called Chandragupta Maurya . so piyadassi becomes Asoka, here comes the problem we have two historical figures similar in nature to the piyadassi -  vikramaditya and Asoka. both were great warriors, both of them united india and both became preachers of non violence later. so why can’t sandrakkodos be Chandra Gupta – the first Gupta king.

then comes the Shankaracharya question and the revival of hinduism. the date given is around 1000 AD .this process must not have completed itself in a single century or so when Islam knocked on our doors.

these descripencies are always overlooked , it is high time that we review our history and find it our own without being interpreted by overlords from across the sea,

VALLUVANAD DISTRICT

valluvanad was one of the early administrative divisions of the Chera kingdom.it once stretched from the Arabian sea to the attapadi hills and from nila up to melattur.the area passed through various hands including samuthiri and tippu sultan,intermingled with years of self-rule. under the british most of the region came under valluvanad taluk of madras state.post independence and with the creation of the malappuram district the region was split up among the palakkad,malappuram and thrissur districts.

a new district of valluvanad could be carved out of these district owing to the following reasons:

1 the immense size of palakkad district.to get to palakkad one have to travel nearly 70km from the western most parts of the ottapalam taluk

2 nearly 36 lakh population of malappuram district

3 cultural similarity of ottapalam,perinthalmanna and mannarkkad taluks and their differences with the rest of palakkad district.

4 ottapalam taluk in itself has a population higher than wayanad district,and the fact that nearly 40% of palakkad district resides there . but this region is far away from the district hq

the district of valluvanad will be composed of as i said earlier – ottapalam,perinthalmanna and mannarkkad taluks, together with parts of talapally taluk and parts of ponnani taluk. the proposed district will have a population of over 20 lakhs and will be financially viable as the region has many important towns like

ottapalam(pop 50,000)

shornur(pop 45,000)

perinthalmana(44,000)

which are municipalities

and others like

mannarkad(pop 44,000)

cherpulassery(pop 30,000)

pattambi(pop 24,000)

the district headquarters could be either at perinnthalmanna or ottapalam ,though ottapalam have better infrastructure including a kendriya vidyalaya.

the mannarkkad taluk must be partitioned so that attapady region remains with the palakkad district and the subsequent creation of an attapadi taluk, can bring about development to the region.the border regions of talapally taluk like thiruvilluwamala and cheruthuruthy  could be added to the district .this is mainly because of the cultural affliction of these areas to the erstwhile valluvanad.

the bifurcation of malappuram and palakkad districts is the only way forward as malappuram’s population explodes and palakkad remains far away from its most populous taluk.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND INDIA

some hackers who hacked into the university of east Anglia have brought forth emails which shows that the theory  human made climate change is fake.the emails reveal that scientists tried to suppress data showing the reversal of trends in global climate pattern,and that earth was actually cooling.this new revelations have cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Copenhagen talks.

whatever the truth behind the emails may be ,we indians must go forward with the development of alternate fuel sources.this can make us less dependent on the volatile gulf sates and the us oil mafia. we must switch over to solar and wind power and rely less on diesel and coal, we must produce more of  hybrid and electric  cars .this way india can be a world power in the field of renewable energy. being a huge country with billion plus population the emphasis we give on public transport must remain in place so that the roads become less crowded, a clean and efficient public transport system can ensure the development of people of all strata.

so lets just don’t care about what happens in Copenhagen and move forward with our plans on self-reliance in energy.

NATIONAL LANGUAGE

the topic of national language have always been a raging topic especially here in south for the past century or so.the imposition of an alien language or a culture is always detested by those on whom it is imposed . the world outside the hindi heart land is no exception. hindi which is our national language is spoken by 40% of the population,which again is of different dialects and sub languages.hindi in its present form is one of the youngest languages and in literary content one of the least developed,but many of the regional languages like Tamil or Bengali is rich both historically and in language.even the youngest of the regional languages – Malayalam had evolved into its standard form centuries before Devanagari was adopted for Urdu. the imposition of such a language over these well established ones was one of the greatest mistakes done by the post independent india.hindi after splitting from Urdu started to adopt words from Sanskrit so that it can mask its persianness .but the hindi used in daily life was more or less same as Urdu which is alien to most parts of the country.

english on the other hand is the language of the world.every one needs to study that to succeed in life,its like the modern persian. but the adoption of english as the national language will affect india’s future position as a global power. our use of english as a medium can only make us inferior to the Anglo saxon power block. their  attitude towards india is more evident in the british media and legalization of english can only legitimize their colonial mentality.

in this scenario i would like to propose the use of Sanskrit as the link language between the indian populace .it is the bed rock of all languages including the three of the four southern languages.moreover every one need to learn a second language and there will be a level playing field for all.even tamil have 20-30% of its words from Sanskrit.the use of an indigenous language can act as an advantage when india develops and can act as its soft power as english is doing for america.the use of sanskrit can decrease the fear of extinction or inferiority that may languages face as they can flourish in their own ways.

the religious tone of Sanskrit is the main disadvantage of the language. this can be overcome by developing the language in the secular front , new secular literature can be written in Sanskrit or many of the best secular literature of other languages could be translated to it. this can give an added advantage as people in different parts of the country can get to know about each other. think about this – parts of thirukural being studied in a school in Punjab  or geetanjali taught in Kerala, that too  in Sanskrit.

there will be oppositions to my view but adoption of english can only make us colonial puppets and that of hindi will be a crime done to other  languages which have a huge literary history.

TIMES NOW-LETS MAKE IT RESPONSIBLE

TIMES NOW represents what is wrong with the urban middle class India today-the new post liberalization world where morality and integrity have been sacrificed for wealth and power.

times now started late but soon came to the fore front by a simple trick ’sensationalism’.the channel is known to see everything with suspicion.even the minutest detail how irrelevant is scrutinized and made into a big issue of mammoth proportion.the anti Pakistan rhetoric  that is visible all the time is the major example for its sensational nature.though mumbai attacks were tragic, a war with Pakistan would have been many times a disaster.all the anti china war cry so often heard in it was actually responsible for creating anxiety among Indians in the past few months.

so today on 3rd dec 2009 lets start ‘CLEAN UP TIMES NOW’ (CTN)movement.this is not a movement against times now but against the modern indian mindset.lets all take an effort to bring back the indianness that we have lost.