Theres a common phrase ‘a solitary reaper’ and people generally attribute a negative connotation to it. I have always been a bit of a loner.I love quiet places sometimes ,to drift off on dreams ,to conjure up hypothetical situations or just laze around. Its not a real place but keeps you cocooned from it. A warm,safe haven from the rest of this mad barking world.Once in awhile reaping the bliss of solitude is good. I miss the NITK beach. It was a magical place.I come from the city of Marina hence its not the beach that attracts me in Surathkal ,its the stillness of time there. The place is so quiet that every cry of sea gulls and the roaring sound of waves crashing on the shore could be heard almost in synchronization with your heart beat. There would be times when you could just gaze at the vast ocean losing yourself in the enormity of the power of nature. In Marina its hard to do that amidst cacophony of large crowds.
The past few months I have been surrounded by people of all kinds from lab mates to friends to house mates. I have found out what it is to engage in conversation with people from different ages at IISc . Its weird sometimes, sometime fun and sometimes its a forced learning curve but life just takes you along on a juggernaut.
Its that beach I miss, a symbol of eternal passage of time yet an illusion of time standing still…
Archive for ramblings
Precious moments of solitude
Shopping is always good fun
Either you love it or hate it but you never escape it,thats a very cheesy way of putting across the experience of shopping but I would take that. Shopping like all the things in life which is fun but injurious like smoking,drinking,doping and blah blah is addicting. And its a costly and a time consuming addiction. There is an art involved in it. You need to know what to buy and where,bargain the correct way,see the most susceptible face and catch hold of that shop keeper and get yourself a good deal.I always love the whole experience.I still remember the blast we had in college trying to get ourselves cocktail dresses in a boutique. We would try out all clothes and pose for pictures and the shrewd owner would pretend not to notice because she knows we would ultimately fall for one.
There have been whole set of research papers on why women like to shop and men dont. People have come up with all kinds of suppositions and theories that I would come to believe it holds a vital key to unlocking the human psychology.And i really dont give a damn. I think people should work on how to open men up to the possibility of showing an ounce of patience when on a shopping trip.that particular evolution needs to come along. I have shopped in many places but the place I loved the most so far is Goa’s flea markets. They are designed for you to sin ,literally.Its the kind of place where your bank account would always take a nosedive,so throw your cards out before you enter the shop lest you end up spending a fortune.
But theres always a moderation thats needed and its with time you learn not to buy everything you see like a kid in a supermarket.But whats most interesting while shooping is to observe the riot of colors on the streets. its always fun to shop on the streets than showrooms. You save money and you enjoy yourselves. Its often a photographer’s delight.The people crawling across,the expression on their faces ,the vivid madness of it all is always worth capturing.I find the entire experience rejunevating and why not you are after all buying yourself some good stuff and thats always fun!
Chetan Bhagat’s ‘2 States ,The Story of My Marriage’-A Review
Chetan Bhagat’s latest offering exactly takes off where he last left with 3 Mistakes of My Life.By now you as a reader would have settled into a familiar rhythm with this fellow. From the mandatory number in his title to his sense of humor you must have seen it all.But the reason why he clicks is also the reason why rom coms are a hit-its fun. His latest book is perhaps the best one after that much promising debut. Its tailor made for a movie and I want to see one by Imtiaz Ali.The story is about cross cultural differences and their significance in a love marriage.His sense of humor is at its easiest best.By now we know his books are always semi autobiographical and Hari,Shyam,Krish are all same at some level. He takes on the vibrant Punjabi culture and the more conservative tamil counterpart with a perfect sense of familiarity and alieness combined. His mockery as he says in the prologue is laced with liberal doses of affection.
So if you are a tam bram or a punjabi you would all the more enjoy this book if you have the ability to laugh at your own community Some of his one liners are just on the dot like the one where he says there is absolutely no love left between a couple by the time you convince both the families for an amicable marriage.Another one where he says what a marble is to a Punjabi is the same as a foreign degree to a Tamil.Or his poking fun at the quiet tamil households and fat punjabi aunties is equally fun.
He gets most of his facts right from the various tamil ceremonies involved to the lifestyle of the people. Thus he notes all that would be familiar to the people from the community-the idlis in the morning,quiet lunches,carnatic music,hindu,even Bay Area in US,obsession with IITs and IIMs and so on. The only place where he slips is when he confuses a nakshatram or a star with a jaatakam and the name manjunath is hardly a common tamil iyer name more likely to be a kandu one.
When you read a bhagat you read it because its entertaining not for literary value, so grab a hot mug of coffee,recline on a sofa or bean bag comfortably ,put on some good music and munch along a bag of chips as ypu read his latest book. Its fun,light hearted and entertaining!
Lectures,Sermons & Musings
The past few days I have been reading Ayn Rand and her lectures and views on various topics.I am not an Ayn Rand fan ,in fact I consider her philosophy and take on most issues a collection of hog wosh.I consider her views insidious and harmful to the functioning of society at large.While her premise of using rationality as a basis is worth admiring and accepting ,her subsequent take on numerous issues such as morality,freedom of speech, Man vs Woman,God vs Man, State vs People are too insular.Her views directly contradicts the Hinduism view of life.Its not that which bothers me ,its an application of pragmatic principles in an ideal manner discounting any medians between the extremities that disconcerts me. the irony in her philosophy is that its probably the only one that brackets the left and the right in the same set.If I have to repudiate Ayn Rand it would take a large amount of time and blogging space,So I leave it to rest here.
I have also listened to considerable amount of sermons on Vaishnavite philosophy the past few days. I realized I have hardly ever read anything related to this.I should have read substantially on it considering I belong to that tradition. It would help explain our views on God,on salvation,on life,on significance of rituals and so on.So if anyone knows any simple book that I can read up on it please do let me know.
The last of the lectures I wanted to blog about is the one I attended at the faculty hall of IISC yesterday.It was a lecture that sought to explain the presence of sensuality in sacred temple art throughout the country.It was a highly interesting and engrossing lecture that had as its basis that presence of erotic art in temples was normal back then and nothing is licentious or bad about it as people saw it as a symbol of fertility. Fertility the lecture sought to tell was the central motif.It was a method of transcending the barrier between the real(physical) and the surreal(divine or spiritual), a celebration of both.
The lecture was delivered by Ms.Vidya Dihijea(I am not sure of the spelling). Anyone interested in this can buy and read her book The body Adorned.
I have a few reservations though. If you were to look at the temples of India (atleast the ones in South) and the Khajuraho temples theres a glaring difference.While all temples have voluptuous dancing girls tanatalizingly poised and copulating pairs on its pillars none of them brazenly celebrate it as the ones built by the Chandela dynasty at Khajuraho.The erotic art there in its scale,intimacy and number out does most other temples.I said South because I have seen only those temples. I have wondered why.Its known that the Chandelas were there during the height of Tantrik following. Tantrik philosophy is different.it speaks of attainment of salvation through sensual pleasure. Obviously as a nation we were not uncomfortable with the idea at all. afterall a substantial part of Hindus,infact most of them are Phallic worshippers.I wish she had explained the phallic worship and the tantrik ideology after all its integral to the theme of the sacred and sensuos.
The lecture was peppered with quotes from ancient Hindu texts on Gods.the example of soundaryalahiri and bhagavad dhyana sopaanam were given to show that detailed physical description and a celebration of it is also a way of acknowledging the spiritual one I think. The thing is these are intended as mere physical descriptions. Both adi shankara and shrimad thoopil vedanta desikar are ecstatic describing the beauty of the blemishless(what Rajaji called korai illadha govindan) God. both the names of sopanam and soundarya lahiri stress on this aspect.There is no hint of anything uncomfortable in those lines even for the devotee who reads them. a better example could have been the description of lord shiva and parvati by kalidasa in his kumarasambhavam.
Interesting lectures are always a welcome change, I was not entirely convinced though.
Where’s the sense in the reality?
the recent furore about sach ka samna evoked some strong responses from both sections of the case. While,freedom of media should not be curbed it needs to be checked and regulated from an administrative point of view and on high moral grounds.whats so disgusting about this show or for that matter media’s coverage of the arushi murder case is that underneath all the guise of reporting there is a deliberate ploy by the channels to get the public hooked to something thats not right,not needed and morally wrong. some one asked me why not sach ka samna when people read freely about actors and public figures. in short we are a group of people who love gossip. we are interested to know if shahid kapur is dating priyanka chopra or if Mr. X across the street is cheating on his wife. But the problem here is that there is a significant difference. actors,politicians or sport stars are public people. that sets a limit to the privacy they can enjoy because they are made by audiences and followed by millions and adored by people throughout the nation and sometimes globally. Thus its necessary to know if the late michael jackson has been convicted of paedophillic charges or not,its equally important to know if gaguly was distracted because of some illicit affair during his captaincy.As a cricket fan or a music lover you are entitled to know why you are not getting your money’s worth.Gossip about actors is not necessary in the strict sense and can be avoided but there’s always a fascination amidst the public for larger than life icons.That curiosity may be bad but its present naturally and substantially.
Now,moving to Mr.X across the street ,it should be strictly none of your business whom he shares his bed with unless of course you are Mrs.X ,but even if you do gossip it should not be on a grand scale on national television. It was wrong to begin with,to aggrandize it and popularise it is profane. you are not only degrading by washing people’s dirty linen in public but you are letting those people taking part denigrade themselves. It sort of reminds me of two things1) the roman mobs that immensely enjoyed gladatorial contests where men and beasts tore at each other in all the glory of bloody brutality.This show is somewhat similar just that its more emotional while those bloody contests of yore were starkly physical.2)the movie requiem for a dream.watch it you will understand why.
As for the high court’s order on switching off your television sets, it does not make complete sense. We see it necessary to have censorship boards to monitor movies. No one told the catholic community to just not watch the Da Vinci Coide or the Hindus to simply boycott the Fire and The Water.From parental guidance to ratings we see it necessary to monitor entertainment to secure the fabric of the society.Then why not ban this show? No one told the people to just not visist that orkut community when some arbit bloke wrote some not so nice things about Mrs.Gandhi!Why? because its necessary at all times to see that a sense of decorum prevails.
Maybe one day pornography would be telecast on national television and the supreme court will just ask you to turn your sets off, by then of course the sense of reality and the sensibility behind it would have gone for a toss!
Cricket is no longer a gentleman’s game
Cricket today is on an all time high showing no signs of the depression that is strangling the rest of the world.India,the economic powerhouse of the game is also now finally the super side of the game.But there is an inherent charm the game has lost.Cricket was never the beautiful one, that tag enviably belongs to that sport that drives half the world crazy and causes a nine percent increase in chances of a heart failure while watching it,football.But cricket was always the gentler one,the one without the fuss.Batsmen walked when out,on the pitch brawls were seldom witnessed and umpires were never argued with .these are of course trivial facts.But what rattles me is that the game has changed to one of money,mindless hitting and more money.
I was an avid fan of cricket once. Its perhaps technically,physically and mentally the most demanding of sports.In this game there is seldom a reprieve ,its not a team sport; essentially,its a game played by a team of 11 individuals.What i am trying to drive at is the fact that individual performances stand out clearly.You are out for a duck you are gone,there is no another point to come back like in tennis or another attempt at goal.If you drop a catch its almost always over for your side.Its a pressure cooker situation.
But whats spoiling cricket is the fact that the game is being changed into one that caters to a mass audience as a competitor to football.And therein it loses its charm.The game’s beauty lies in he fact that it can be played for five days without a result,the gentle flick of the wrists,the majestic square drives,the dominant strides of a bowler they all make the game click.its like one big jigsaw puzzle and the picture is fascinating only when it is completed.if at all you can give it an epithet you can call cricket an intelligent game. A bowler takes an over and sometimes a spell to set up a batsmen,the batsmen on the other hand must read the difference between a yorker,a slower one or say an away going one each and every time.Its a complex mind game.
But sadly today the game has been reduced to a uni dimensional affair, one of a batsman’s paradise.It was once breathtaking to see Wasim Akram come thundering down the pitch against Lara,Warney mesmerize you against Gatting,Ganguly pick Muralitharan off for a straight six or Tendulkar match wits against that lethal Aussie,McGrath.The era of Alan Donald,Waqar Younis,Anil Kumble and targets of 200 are over.Once upon a time a target of 230-240 was considered good,infact it was not very long ago.Today is the age of heavy bats and Dhonis,Yuvrajs,Sehwag and Pontings. Its great hitting ,awesome display of power,athleticism talent and even skill but you miss the fact that you look around the game and you do not see one fearsome bowler,no seaming tracks and definitely no awe inspiring contests.Cricket is now a batsman’s game.
Public wants to see huge sixes being hit, grand totals and faster games. Commercial swings have ensured that the bowler is left out cold.Perhaps India is to blame for that.Flat tracks and huge totals was a virus we exported and enforced with the help pf sponsors and a powerful board.Today the game no longer accomodates the wizardry of Laxman in its short version or the resilience of Dravid.But i am perhaps one of the very few lamenting such a cause. Most people want fast and furious T-20 s and find test cricket insipid.Today the game has lost its soul to such an extent that the IPL cant wait for general elections and cricketers are willing to risk life and pride for playing in the IPL.Globalization and commercialization is unavoidable the reason why ESPN will telecast EPL over the much more aesthetic La Liga.But who’s complaining?as far the sixes keep coming…
A celebration of life-Maargazhi maadam
What the vibrant city of Bengalooru does consciously with Bengalooru habba its quiter counterpart Chennai has been doing routinely with maargazhi. Its almost unconscious like some endemic clock that programs a city together during the month of dec-jan every year.i do not know the reason for the significance of the month nor the origin of the customs followed during that period. At a point when I am finding it increasingly difficult to find time to be in Chennai its this month I miss the most.
The thing with maargazhi is that it transcends communities and castes .I lived for 21 years in Nungambakkam .I liked it there; you saw different kinds of people unlike mambalam or triplicane. Even now I find areas such as the latter suffocating because you see people only in one mold always. Anyways now I no longer live in Nungambakkam but somewhere in me I shall always belong there.
You know its maargazhi when ullikayam (garlic) and venkayam(onion) become a strictly enforced taboo. It always is but no one cares .No amount of begging and throwing tantrums would work with your mother. So its also the month I eat out often. You see when something is forbidden its all the more irresistible. Its like when, though you may be an insomniac for days before vaikunta ekadeshi you sleep at nine and eat for three people that day. But apart from no garlic maargazhi is also the month you get up early. When I was younger and more at home it used to be five or six, now it’s a more earthly eight or nine. For a person like me who sleeps at five and gets up at two in holidays(you escape the hot sun that way) such early timings is a sin but its impossible to sleep later than nine even if you wished. For, Maargazhi is the month of the fourth veda of tamil , that of aandal’s thirrupavai. So, every channel and hence every household blares that and in some like mine my mother recites that loud enough to make my sleep uncomfortable and yet not disturb the neighbours. It’s an achievement that none of my friends in college have been able to achieve. She has this strategic point outside my bedroom that lets her disturb my utopia, keep an eye on the kitchen, watch T.V and chat to the aunty outside. When you hear elle illankiliye innam urunkudiyo you give up and get up. That’s the point she knows she will break me and hence takes the high pitch there. Its thirrupavai that’s so integral to this month, so wonderfully framed it’s my greatest regret that I don’t know thirrupavai properly. It is chanted everyday in the morning. You hear it in temples, mutts, households, TV, in the katcheris in the evening or the discourses in the morning it’s all pervading during those few weeks.
Apart from thirrupavai it’s also the month of discourses in the morning. Every sabha, auditorium or even schools has one. But what maargazhi is world famous for is its concerts in the evenings called katcheris. from junior artistes to the best you see all of them. while traditionally a carnatic stronghold you can also get to hear music from around the globe at that time. the crowds flock all the concerts, toursists come to the city and its when daily conversations begin with “inniki sudha enga padraa paaru?” each one has their favourite artiste, the connosieurs devour the chance, critics descend like a plague and newspapers devote sections to musical reviews, aunties debate who is the best this season ,the sarees and jewellery of singers become the latest fashion statement and little children(like I was a long time ago) lose their evening cartoons. Today as a part of SPICMACAY I realize why the movement or concerts fail to excite me as it does to some of my friends, its because when you are a part of maargazhi ,concerts are what the city breathes and you as a part of it fall into the rhythm. A lot of things pale in comparison to that.
Rangolis are another aspect of the month.i no longer see them in my street but when I was 12 or 13 I used to get up and assist(more like disrupt) my mom’s rangoli. You could see a whole lot of kids and aunties doing the same, everyday every house has this huge rangoli in front of them. I was generally given a small one to fill up seperately next to my mother’s. Not a single soul later in the day would appreciate my piece of art. Everyone even your maid will point at the bigger one and seem impervious to the beautiful small one next to it. You see I had my limitations I was given only those shades not needed in the main one and I experimented a bit(like not filling it all inside the white outlines) and apparently it wasn’t that appealing.
Lastly its that time of the year when you get venpongal with ghee everyday. prasadam in each temple out does the other and idlis and vadas and sambar mirror the spirit of the city more then than anytime of the year.
A day in the life of a blogger-con&porn and a bit more.
Yesterday was one of those days when you had a lot to tell but was lazy enough not to do so.Apart from the fact that i came down with a bad cold and sore throat and my laptop is teetering over the edge with a con virus , it was a pretty uneventful day. The virus in my laptop is a porn watcher’s delight. It made me give 2 significant frustrated outbursts.One was about how i dont even watch porn and yet the virus , ppl found that funny. So funny that every person who has so far promised to set my laptop right has laughed at me, my comp or in the case of shiny ended up watching movies on it.This led to the other outburst- more a cry that went ‘ i dont want windows’…you see with Windows its like the ants in the basement story. There are ants all over the place in the room next to yours. yet you believe it wont be your room next.It takes a good few bites to realize and go and get a lakshman rekha.This moral holds ofcourse for the average laptotting ,non-open crazy ,non-geeky,non-Gates basher whose ultimete utilisation of the comp is watching movies,like me.
Then there was this speech in the afternoon organized by SPICMACAY. I dont even remember the guy’s name. He was ok, conservative,praising the media and believing in Utopian ideals .The worst part was that heair gave the sppech in Kannada. Now thats discriminatory in a national institute of technology.
Back in school i used to have this wonderful long discussions on a lot of topics. We fought, badgered but always discussed. It mattered to argue whether reservations are right or not,about dvaita and advaita, open relationships,whats diff btw american girls and indian ones,that Scarlett O Haara was perfectly justifiable or the run of the mill Tamilnadu politics. It did nothing but to increase phone bills, reduce the concentration in class hours and lead to small phases of ‘i wont talk with you’.
It also strengthened bonds of friendship,made you understand people better,helped you to while your time in sanskrit classes and most importantly it molded me into a debator and a pretty successful one at that till i crash landed at NITK.The prob was a large number of ppl i met as a naive first year did not take such discussions in the right sense. They called it giving fundae and still do .The thing with such discussions is that they are meant ultimately to be taken in the right sense,its not about who is better its about what you think. Of course opinions vary for some wierd reason and you need to live by that.
Lastly I read IWoz and realsized that Wozniac belongs to a rare breed of ppl.If its indeed the triumph of the nerds then its the triumph of this guy more than the other for Gates is like a poisonous ivy in your backyard and a shrewd bussisnessman(at some level they mean the same
) and Jobs ofcourse is this rockstar cum politician cum visionary cum streetfighter all rolled into one. My god there is no geekiness in him, he is the larger than life CEO whose charm is at best irresistible.As for Michael Dell,packard and others we will leave it for another day.
P.S: the answer to that question abt the girls is .. mind you i quote,” To an American girl its important that you always have a boyfriend and to an Indian girl its important that you ever had one”. I dont own anypart of that statement its been copyrighted elsewhere.
As for the guys by mutual consent we came to conclude not much of a difference . afterall after a certain drop it does not matter if its left or right.
The myth called the Indian Government
Much has been said and written about the attacks in Mumbai but will something at all be done is the big question mark.the attacks are a blow not only to the morality of the nation but also confirms our worst fears, the Congress and the UPA has turned the nation into a soft target for terrorists.There is enough anguish in people to use up the whole of blogosphere and may be we are all being turned into agony aunts and uncles. Barkha Dutt in all her dainty diplomatic glory said that its always easy to blame the politicians and the government at such moments but its the solidarity that matters. Maybe she is partly right but that successive governments are to blame and especially the National Congress is a biting reality that the aam admi has known for long.And here’s why
Minority Appeasing
while a nation as diverse as India needs to pride itself on its unity and secular structure our politicians have played the monkey here ,never really doing enough to uplift the minority and not willing to address the problem that haunt the nation because of people who are unwilling perhaps to get integrated.Discrimination and caste structures and BJP’s hard stance are the often cited excuses for the mess, especially when Union Minister Kapil Sibbal is asked to comment on national television. Unfortunately for him and quite a few others, this problem of the jehad brand of extremism is not isolated to India alone. It is a world over phenomena surely, our brahmins were not there everywhere to discriminate!That the BJP did a grave mistake by promoting the atrocities in Gujarat violence is not to be doubted but to cite that as the reason for an escalation in terror is sheer impotency.That the US,Spain or UK did not have a single major terror attack since their respective ordeals is a testimony to their anti terror mechanisms.
we on the other hand do not crack down on the madrasaas, were reluctant to ban SIMI, will cite human right and minority violations when convicted criminals are hanged, will dismantle terror laws and cosy up to the nation across the border even after repeated evidence of its complicity in anti-India activities.
the worst problem we face is whom to choose, one party promotes extremism against its own people the other fails to recognize any kind of trouble at all. that the nation’s security is foremost on the agenda is something the government must wake up to.
What we need indeed is a dynamic and systematic anti terror mechanism and a government willing to pursue that giving it whatever that takes.Till then, probably as Prahlad Karkar put it, its the rape of Mumbai and in a larger picture,the whole of India we witness as mute spectators.
The media circus
the media as usual had a fieldday. Repeatedly showing the Taj , Orient and Nariman house and occasionally dropping in the names of other places where the attack took place.why the hell on earth would NDTV want to interview Mahesh Bhatt at such moments is something that escapes me. The man is obnoxious even in normal circumstances. And of course yes, the mandatory ” how do you feel Mr…. knowing that your son -in-law is trapped inside?”, he must have stuck a finger up the nose of the female who interviewed him.
That it was a collective failure in strategy and a case of being caught unaware when three major officials were shot dead is something thats hardly mentioned. But of course its indeed a time to salute all the brave people who staked their lives sucessfully and otherwise to fight the terror that gripped the city of Mumbai. Even while you ponder on that surely you can hear the politicians bickering for diplomacy with neighbouring countries and for the minority votes?
The not so great Mahatma
Every time Mahatma Gandhi is celebrated with great fan fare which happens to be January 30th or October 2nd disregarding here of-course the rare sense of Gandhigiri euphoria generated by an unexpected source such as Munnabhai ,we come across the inescapable phrase which I feel has been much abused-a Hindu fanatic.It seems there is almost a compulsive obsession to mention that the Mahatma was shot dead by a Hindu fanatic.This of-course makes Godse sound like a deranged lunatic .He was far from that.Nathuram Godse as the quirk of fate would have it in such cases was a highly disciplined man and a better one at that than Gandhiji himself.He was very much like Hitler -a failure at everything else till he joined the RSSS and gunned down the Mahatma.His act to shoot dead a wizened man like Gandhi is cowardly and despicable but was not without reason.The Gandhian philosophy of non violence I have always felt has been sadly not one espousing the cause. To limit violence to mere physical nature would be shallow and wrong.Violence of thought and the emotional pain inflicted is often more painful.Gandhi’s repeated fasts unto death holding a nation to ransom by merely exploiting the love and respect people had for him in general I have felt was an act of violence.The problem with Gandhi’s philosophy is that its closer to inaction than non violence.I find the old man never got the difference between the two.Here are some of the Gandhian principles which seem definitely today anachronistic and unrealistic: 1.He advocated India and for that matter all the Allied nations and supporters merely offer themselves to the invading Axis forces without resistance.His reasoning was that by doing so he hoped to change the minds of the aggressors and bring about a change of heart.This of-course undermines the very cause of the law of action,the role of the protector and the ruler.
2.He saw modern science and technology more of a sin than as an aid. He refused to have a hypodermic needle be used to give the life saving serum to his wife,the reason why she would die.He believed that all cures lay in India’s villages and each man needed to earn enough only to eat and wear a khadi dress.He clearly said he saw no role for industrialisation in modern India.
3. He asked the Hindus not to hit out against the Muslims and proclaimed historically that not even a puny muslim child should be harmed even if all the hindus are killed.Yet he kept quiet on direct action day when the muslim league butchered the hindus.A statement of that nature when the Punjab was plagued by partition riots could have disastrous proportions. for a man who has lost his beloved or seen her being raped, Gandhiji would sound blasphemous.It was indeed one such person’s horrifying tale that would add to the conviction of Godse to assassinate Gandhi.
4.His great tool of civil disobedience while being lethal against the British sadly would turn against the new independent nation. all acts of strikes and bandhs today could be traced back to the Mahatma’s first strike.Interestingly though Gandhi would accept that his movement succeeded only because the British were fair as administrators.He wouldnt have suceeded against say the Nazis or even the current Indian politician.
5.He would undertake his final fast onto death to support Pakistan and force India to deliver the promised sum of money amidst widespread antagonism.Idealism for the sake of it without reason is wrong. On a morality basis involving the nation in a struggle,fasting,using British hatred as a rule to break law count equally as violence.
Subhash Chandra Bose’s INA is a greater and an astounding achievement often not given its due. We as students read about Gandhi,Nehru,Patel but never was I thought about the freedom fighters of my own state.Gandhiji is praised as a Mahatma but never has his follies been told nor will they be and probably must not be.
