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Changing Education Paradigms

hpk — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:58:03 +0000

Sir Ken Robinson once again at it. I am grateful that my design school (NID) recognized that intrinsically and give so much freedom to all of us. This video is kind of key to clearing NID entrance exams. :)

Jan Saab

hpk — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:49:25 +0000

Jan Saab, originally uploaded by hpk.

My best friends father. What a handsome man!

Guide No more

hpk — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 21:09:41 +0000

Dev Anand died.

Image Source

India v/s Pakistan - Cricket Rivalery

hpk — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 06:20:17 +0000

India v/s Pakistan. Today's cricket world cup semi final match goes life in less then two hours. Roads have virtually no traffic, offices are half closed, businesses are closed! We've made plans to watch the match at a friends place with roughly 20 people. TV has had nothing but cricked for the past 5 days (since we beat Australia).

However, this makes me wonder why such a fervor for India v/s Pakistan match? Would it have been the same for India v/s Australia or India v/s South Africa? I doubt. Besides the fact that thousands of corores in illegal betting are at stake and media has hyped up the match as the biggest thing after World War II, what is driving this frenzy?

I remember when in Jamia, we used to have a dividing line in the dorm room marking the India and Pakistan boundary. Indian supporters would sit on one side and Pak supporters on the other. We used to have great fun taunting each other when our teams did well. Passions would run high in tense moments. All that was fun. No one ever got killed. We rationalized people were supporting Pak due to religious affinity and as a political decent owning from various perceived and real grievances. We didn't take this seriously. No one did. Out side Jamai, people made great deal about muslims rooting for Pakistan. Parties like BJP used this as a political instrument. And raid question about the entire Muslim populations allegiance to the Indian nation. It was sad. And if were simply a faith based thing then why don't we see the same happening when India plays Bangladesh? While the reason for some Indian Muslims supporting Pakistan should be looked at as a form of political decent and more often then not just plain mischief, I am more interested in the hind take in India/Pakistan cricket encounters.

Behind the veil of cordiality when people talk about Pakistan and how we should be friends with Pak and how we are the same people, etc... an overwhelming majority of Indians do not believe Pakistan is a friend and see it as an enemy state. Deep sense of injustice and betrayal is felt by the people of India. All the wars, terrorist attacks et. al. have convinced Indians that Pakistan is an enemy which by extension is felt on any and every field where the two nations compete. Be it a cricket field, UN assembly or economic forums, etc. competition with Pakistan is war. Inferior Indian cricket teams in the past have aggravated this notion of hurt. And this is why today's match is being treated as war and not as just another cricket match, which is what it is. India is fighting an enemy. Weather its a good idea to attach one's national pride on a cricket match is another matter. No matter how every one sugar coat their words, the naked truth is that its both counties national pride that's online. Its absurd in the same way as parents equating their pride and social standing with the percentage of their children's school examination!

India have moved ahead from Pakistan in almost every field and domain, but I wish we understood and believed it.

Conversion in India

hpk — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:24:27 +0000

There is a great debate happening on "Rare Book Society of India" group on facebook. Some one has come up with a book detailing how western powers are financing identity politics in the garb of humanitarian work for dalits and Dravidian folks in India. All this to undermine India's growing clout using human rights violations and cast / identity issues. Debate goes into conversion etc...

Some things I said on a FB group debate:

I do not believe Indian dalit is a radicalized, strong, united, and of ambiguous identity group. Its not even strong enough to protect its members getting raped, killed, humiliated on a daily basis. Even when in power, say in UP, dalit members of our society have not shown signs of "making them pay of historic injustices" type of behavior or conduct. So by clubbing them with terrorist movements be it Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Isai (i.e. christian) and not to mention Maoists, we are doing more harm then good. It will add another section of our society to our righteous list of enemies.

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By the way, why so serious about conversion? Why should it be a state concern? Or any bodies concern? For centuries, esp. after the formal advent of the clergy in 1857 a christian bartania sarkar rule us but it couldn't make a major dent to our hindu population, I am muddled with numbers, but the number of Christians converted or other wise, were not big enough to warrant any political concessions or accommodations. Then why so serious? Even the Moughal's couldn't convert (supposing they were trying to)much of India. So now when we have a "secular" government and these evil conversion forces are working with a big handicap of not having governmental patronage. Why so serious?

And why does a Hindu become our brother only when s/he decides to convert? Why not before? Why don't we kill Muslims, burn churches in advance? After all we all know who-where-what of these gullible Hindu brathern, the once who have a propensity to convert. Had it not been for political gains, gingoism, and bigotry we wouldn't even care about the dalits and the Dravidian.

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?@Rare Book Society of India: A linguistic correction: We've got into the habit of talking about our social suppression / oppression of dalits and associates in past tense! Not true. It still continuous.

Also, when India was created in 1947, the prevalent option in the world was that India will disintegrate into pieces and return to 16th century scene with 560+ parts. Ever since, every decade has donned with the promise of breaking India into pieces due this threat or that. Unfortunately the idea of India has become bigger then the Indian. India is fine, people are F*****! Amen. :D This politics of fear and grievance is tiresome.

And oh by the way, which I understand the violent resistance to the seminal book (on this group), but why such aggressive peddling of the same? I've decided to give it a go. :)

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This came afte some one quote a list of so called rogue organizations and individual who are working on the evil plot to destablize India by promoting conversion and identity politics in Dalits and Dravidians:

Wish such deep sympathies for the poor / innocent tribal is shown before they convert. Done any one here know how many tribes we have, what are their customs, what do they do for a living, will we marry in their clan, what is their per capita income, what is their approximate population, what are their problems, what is their language, what is the condition of women, do they have safety from the elements, is their natural environment safe, do they have good schooling etc. etc... any one can lament quoting generalities. Had 10000 adivasies converted to Hinduism (we simply assume they are Hindus) would we have talked about it? Has any one here gone out and given a damn's worth of effort for the welfare of these dear ones?

Why such pain at seeing people convert? If all the dalit and adivasi population converts to say Muslims or Christians whats the problem? Won't they still be Indians. Or are we afraid that then they'll demand their rights? Or are we just jingoistically afraid of Muslims and by extension too many Christians? Or is the Hindu majority afraid of loosing its majority?

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More later.

Debate in question: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150174385916675&set=a.212955701... (login required for full debate)
The book in question: http://www.breakingindia.com