Sharbat Gula -----The Search for Faith

IC—814, Mr.Katyal and Masood Azhar still stay green in our memories. Qandahar, of course has puranic ties with our land. Now and then, it has always been the instrument of opposite. The reason for the then opposition is immaterial in the present condition but the now reason is more of a hegemonic drama by the more arrogant ruthless powers of the world.
The land of the tribe Avghana as referred to by Varahamihira in Brhat samhita, has always been a land of war. This was supposedly one of the main regions of Aryan settlements. Afghanistan has always served as the buffer region between the Persian Empire and the empires in India. For the most part, it was a part of the greater Persian Empire. It was at this place most of the battles have taken place. The land might know every single horse of Alexander, Gengis Khan, Babar, the Persians and the Indians by name.
“Alexander is great; Gengis is brutal-----same pinch!”---Another lesson from western history.
Later in the day came the weird but the most common fascination: The fascination towards the ideas of Marx. This is the fact that is totally shrouded, the egoism in communism. Capitalism is business as in USA but communism is not business as in soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Cold War, as it was called, it was really cold: cold blooded murder of innocent people. And Afghanistan fell in the Star Wars chapter. The then Commies invaded to support the Parchamies favoring communist rule in Afghanistan.
Here comes Uncle Sam’s all important Charlie Wilson’s war. The movie is worth watching.
The famous American game starts here. The game originally belonged to the British. After second world was, though the British ended on the winning side, they were heavily indebted to USA. So they gave their game for adoption as a payment of their debt. The game is the famous “divide and rule”. World’s most feared word is starting to get fostered in safe hands, Mujahideens. A simple message from Carter to Obama, “Our life is simply a reflection of our actions”. No wonder, the “Americans” voted for Osama for deStalinization. The wonder is still at large.
12 + 1 for Pandavas and 14 for Ram, what is it for Sharbat Gula? So far 17,Nobody has the answer for how many more?
Gandhi needed a non violence to take the Indian struggle to the world community; Dalai Llama needs Buddhist peace speech for world recognition of Tibet; Mandela needed a Robben Island to bring to light the apartheid in Africa, but just a photo of Sharbat Gula spoke to the world about Afghanistan.
“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
But a Microchip geek says,” A picture is worth a thousand words but occupies three thousand times more space!”

Sharbat Gula is the famous NGC magazine front cover afghan girl. Steve McCurry was surprised to even find her after 17 years: 13 - 30. All her life she has fled the carpets that destroyed the villages, the Kalashnikovs and Remingtons that netted the civilians and lived as refugee. The first photo fetched her great fame of which she is totally ignorant. I just could not believe it when I saw her second photo the first time. Later I was able to make out, it was the same girl atrophied due to the brutal and the savage world around her: Cheeks drained, eyes still green tinted but lackluster and void of life. Her eyes speak volumes about what she has gone through. Civil wars, strict laws, poor health, unsteady economy, selfish foreign powers, unreliable national leaders, a nation at war being constantly trampled down and a family to take ambitious care: She is an unsung hero and no matter what she is an icon.
Her face today stands for the face of the whole nation, Afghanistan. The miseries of the people are reflected in her face. You know her answer when asked about her life? “It was good under the Taliban.”
So, who spoiled her feeling of content? A tacit but obvious answer.
Can she forget the past? Some may say yes some may say no. But when people ask you to forget the past, what does it exactly mean? Be it something very good or bad, the intensity can never take it away. Suppose you try, what else is there to remember? Control over this highly jinxed process is something the evolution has not seen so far, for god-fearing ones creation is not that easy yet. The truth is that selective control of memory could be termed as the seventh sense which at least humans are devoid of. Something like in Ghajini would not work either. Automatic Amnesia or temporary memory loss could land you on the other side like in the movie. People with voluntary selection of amnesia are being hired for lead roles in high budget movies in all kinds of woods. Even huge stresses seem to be futile and fade away. Well, the keyboard is missing “Delete” and “Backspace”. It’s a practically no win situation either.
But what will the Gulas erase even if the process is selective? What is there to remember?.............

The following is an excerpt from the cover story by Cathy Newman about the Afghan girl:
How, she was asked, had she survived?
The answer came wrapped in unshakable certitude.
"It was," said Sharbat Gula, "the will of God."

Will the Sun ever shine in the land of Pashtuns? Hamid Karzai and Karim Khan, can they do the magic?

dePRESSion

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“Fourth Estate” as in the novel of Jeffrey Archer, is a serious word coined by an 18th century Scottish satirical writer, Thomas Carlyle; author of Heroes, Hero worships and the Heroic in history (my present reading). The term fourth estate has played some very important roles in the early history of revolutions and formation of democracies. Though several meanings are attributed to the term, yet eight fingers veto for “The Media”.
The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Deccan Herald, Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle , The Hindu, Statesman etc., are some of the major dailies that have been holding sway over the courses of the events in the country, the mind of a commoner, aspirations of a politician and the bigger role of connecting people. Though the first daily in India dates back to 1700s, “The free press” facet showed up much later, after independence. The role of media widened with technology: Radios, Televisions, Internet , resulting in shrinking of the world.
Guys, wake up, drink some water but pour a pot full on your head and realize that your dreams and bookish definitions are more like Sir Thomas Moore’s Atlantic island, Utopia. Let us face it the John Milton way in Paradise lost. The system is confused. The job of media is now Sensationalism driven by the only motive of business profit for surviving as the fittest king of the ring. Association of every news daily or television channel to different kinds of political parties for the sake of monetary gain is the other thing that is corroding the fourth estate. Things are now how the world looks at them. Misnomers such as addressing family news channels as national news channels have caused discrepancies in the actual news causing confusion in the mind of the people.
The attempts to single out the faults on the side of media have been many without a single apple falling down. One dialogue that impressed me with regard to sensationalism is the one that Shayaji Shinde shouts at the media person shooting questions at him in the Telugu movie Pokiri. Page-3 as a movie shows the struggle of a female reporter, Madhavi Sharma enacted brilliantly by Konkona Sen Sharma. The movie shows the media profession in black and white. However these are always forgotten after the pop corn and pepsi get over.
Elections are probably the only time when at least some real issues of the people and country are addressed in the dailies in place of bash-babi second honey moon, the packs of khans, brothers from Jharkhand : cricket and politics, jitt-polie babies and the rest anointing the west. The truth and the essence of the news gets veiled forever in the aura of nepotism and sensationalism. Journalism in India is full of nepotism and sensationalism.
It has been bad times of india right from the beginning of (hin) doosra sthan times brimming with the full flow of the anti- Hindu news which even a secular Indian doesn’t Express (expect). The press drama is a really old one. It dates back to its juvenile days during Indian independence and reached its peak in Indira days.
It was Vasili Mitrokhin who did the damage. He was not aiming to malign the Indian media rather his attempts were to bring to light what he thought as the planned evil when he was reading the Russian archives. Mitrokhin was the first chief directorate of KGB. The archives containing the stealth operations of the KGB and the Soviet Intelligence operations were carried by him to Riga and then to Britain from where he started publishing them as books. All the exploits are explained by Mitrokhin and Andrews in Parts I and II of the Mitrokhin archives. The part two is the one with chapters shedding light on the KGB operations in India, infiltrations in to Indian intelligence, communist party and the Congress. It stresses on the role of the ruble in the Indian politics to an extent that rubles decided the party that formed the government and the person who can be the prime minister: former defense minister Krishna Menon, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi were some of the ruble beneficiaries. Moraji Desai is an example of a person who ended on the other side.
An excerpt from the archive reads as below.



Now that Russia is not a superpower, rubles don’t rule but for sure something else is. Anyways the press is not free.
Just like everything else in India, journalism exists only in name does not exist in its true spirit; it is another cover up word for exploiting the disparities in the society for personal hypes working in tandem with business gains. Given enough technology and motivation each press in India can become Danny Boyle and nominate their channel news for Oscar!

Now for a lighter moment:

The Asp

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Culture is more than a thing that can fascinate an alien. A culture with common sense is what is lacking in today’s world. The Egyptian, Persian, Mesopotamian have all been replaced with a newer culture which is a mix of many. The Chinese culture is communism……….ho ho ho ….. It’s authoritarian …. Do you call it culture? The Greek interests were usurped by Constantine to his grave, probably they RIP (Rest In Pieces) on his tombstone. Culture is yet to bloom in most of parts of the Dark Continent. The rest of the world, the land of immigrants which are being hailed as the new world absolutely has no culture.
There is one place where culture has carried with it the common sense as its back bone through ages. The land that stretches between the Himalayan fangs and the colored sand beaches has metamorphosed on the anvil of God several times with the backbone intact. Come what may, the culture of the land has remained the same removing the aging effects. The God of the Buddhists, Gautama’s talk just tried to rob the people to a great extent, up to even 3 lakh people in one discourse. The Muhammadians ransacked, looted, desecrated, raped, threatened, killed and what did they not do, the faith remained strong though divided as always. Then it was the queens turn to try her tricks, it was the cross instead of the crescent this once. The peaceful coercion by the Light of Asia and the blood on the Sword of the Prophet and the wiliness of the Union Jack were all absorbed in: the extraction became the incarnation, the desecration is now conviction and the final deception is the connecting diction.
All these reflect the unique greatness of the culture. The culture has been known as Sanatana Dharma and is now being commonly referred to as Hinduism. The wrong notion of many east bashing philosophers is that the Hinduism is a religion and so believes the few ignorant Indians.
The “few” denotes the count which is little greater in number than the Indian General Election percent turnout.
Stoic to any change or perhaps the better way to put it is subordination to any kind of authority shows that the people are not of revolting kind. The parody I would like to site, “the land of Jagannath and not Juggernaughts”. In a history spanning over many thousands of years, richness stuffed aeons after aeons, there has not been a single revolution at least a successful one. I wonder how democracy is the best suited form of government for country with such people. This is just a weak donkey under a tiger skin. Lal Mohan and Man Kishan can perhaps spend their time usefully trying to decipher a new name for the form of governance in India for the past 62 years instead of the useless verbal war already under contract. We can even recommend their names for Nobel Prize in literature. I, helping the duo with the first suggestion, “Hoaxocracy”.
On the track again, we see that India had an ice box which no other place on earth had. You know what that ice box is? It came in the form of the caste system. Brahmins have played a vital part in the preserving and passing down the age old knowledge to the present days. This helps us a lot in how civilized our ancestors were and put a check on the other countries’ wrong claims of “Firsts”, practically making us feel fleetingly proud.
The Brahmins preserved everything orally for many years and then later in the form of writings, things that were both relevant and irrelevant to them. The ancient caste system expects the Brahmins to be learned and authorizes their authority over scriptures, ceremonies and education. There were so many divisions among the Brahmins and still continue to be. Apart from the normal Brahmins that we all know today from our daily interactions and from the history lessons, there is a group of Brahmins that fascinate me. The Dutt Brahmins from Punjab: Their story is one of a great deal. These people feature in the Islamic history fighting for Imam Hussein voluntarily, not out of force or coercion.
A short glimpse of the 626- 680 AD shows the struggle for succession following Prophet Muhammad. Abu-Bakr is named the first Caliph disputed by followers of Ali who happens to be the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet: husband of Fatimah. After Abu-Bakr, Omar and Usman, Ali becomes the Caliph for five years. After five years Ali was wounded by a Kharijite but died shortly. He was followed by his two sons Hassan and Hussein. While Sunnis believe in the four Rashidun caliphs, the Shiites believe in the twelve Imams starting with Ali. Hussein is one of the Imams. Due to difference of opinion between the caliph Yazid and Imam Hussein, there ensued the Battle of Karbala (in modern Iraq). For this the Dutts from Punjab came to fight the war on the side of Imam Hussein. Though Imam Hussein was beheaded in the battle, still that day is called as Moharram by Shiites around the world. Most of the Dutts came back while some settled back there in Iraq.
The “Sanju Baba - Sallu Bhai” story is not a new one, well; you see it’s just the continuation of the 1500 year old story.
Getting back again, the Brahmins were always consulted by all the kings on major decisions. They even formed the pivotal reason for many Kingdoms. One of the most noted is the Maurya kingdom. Chanakya was the man instrumental in shaping up the kingdom. This was one of the biggest and the greatest empires in the Indian history.
Well, the tradition was passed, preserved and again it is getting passed. So what? Enough of the apotheosis. The snake of the Eden showed that Apple comes with mortality. That’s the first, this is the second snake. The Brahmins should be thanked and respected for their help to this culture and not adored or worshipped. This is their duty: to read the scriptures. After all, the scriptures were written by Brahmins and they were passed down the generations by Brahmins. Why should not anyone doubt them for writing it for their convenience, faking it? They are humans too?
Faith is a very bad thing most of the times and good sometimes.” Most of the times “refer to 99.5 % and “sometimes” refer to 0.5 %. They write and pass it down and everyone has to believe it. Why would God talk to them alone, if he prescribed the duties himself? Would not he be concerned towards all his creations? I believe in God and I also believe that he would not do such a non-sense as to believe in something or someone to pass on his wishes and words.
He is God, not a human. And what if his faiths and believes are shattered……? Maybe he does not have a heart!--A highly advantageous mutation.
All these segregation of duties and demarcation of people into castes and religions are artificial and I can only say that these are either the results of the anthrophilic aspirations of an individual or a group gone wrong because of the changes in time or the crooked selfish aspirations of the same individual or a group gone right. In either case, I do not approve the non-sense. Not only the kings revered the Brahmins but the British did too. Brahmins formed the highest percentage of civil service holders during the British rule in India. This was in a latter period and it was partly due to richness in the gene pool of Brahmins due to thousands of years of scripture reading and partly due to the well known slyness of divide and rule of the British Raj. Now that the gene pool is diversified and diluted, it is not shown out glaringly. The words Brahmin and anti-Brahmin need to be reformed.
Dharma is all about self consciousness and world welfare consciousness. No one needs to preserve these in scriptures but nurture these in individuals. That is what this culture is great in doing. That is what the need of the hour is. Brahmins and the scriptures are to be respected if they are good but not glorified even if they are bad. That’s what the society has been doing till the early 20th century.
I do not know how this works, but one of these two is true:Brahmins seek power or Power seeks Brahmins. They can never be a king, but always a king maker.
Though I loathed the self respect movement launched by E.V. Ramasamy, affectionately called as Periyar, it must have been a very much needed movement to strike a balance in his period, though I doubt its need for its continuation even today by the other Dravidian movements. The part that went wrong with these movements is that, when they try to malign the Brahmins, it was the values and culture that the Brahmins were carrying that were maligned too. Well it is actually difficult to separate the two: like sorrow and joy they come hand in hand. Periyar went to an extent quoting to his followers, “Kill the Brahmin first and then the snake in case of a simultaneous encounter”. This was extreme hatred and fanaticism and was the result of ideology running on political wheels.
Brahmins are not the snake of Eden or that of Periyar. They are humans with aspirations in their blood like any other human being. It is hard to find the difference between the God that punishes and a devil that protects from the inside of the black box.
However Life without the Hindu values is like seeking pornography in spirituality.

Veni Vidi Vici

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“Pomp and plunder is the hours blunder”, everywhere around the world. “ism” s are sporadic and dominate the world we live in today. The Jehad ism rightly coined as religious fundamentalism fostered in the middle eastern countries, the imperialism even under recession can be termed as USA ism, the hegemonic attitude of china’s communism which is more of anti-Indu ism are the today’s top liners and eye catchers. These isms have a goal and whether the goal is right or wrong, their march towards the goal is worthy of appreciation.
There are also other isms like Mayan’s 2012 apocalyticism, europe’s “second fiddle” ism, zoism as expressed in the post “Exodus” and I cut short the lengthy list with India’s NA absurdism leading to rapid growth which is illusionism (focus).
The various desperate war prevention channels opted by the Man from Tikrit: talks through Iraqi intelligence, Egyptian national security advisor, an aide to Syrian president, 2000 FBI agents, providing oil concessions, handing over al-qaeda terrorists, co-operation for arab-israeli peace and into exile with 1 billion USD. The answer to all these attempts to avert war, save many lives, preserve peace, above everything else, save one’s own life was, “We will see them in Baghdad”.
Was the man really caught in Tikrit? Was he really hanged? Is he dead for sure?
The answer is obvious because it is like gravity. We can never see the effect; we know that objects fall down due to gravity because we have been taught so. The answer to what happened to the man from Tikrit is on par with the gravity explanation. This is now history and as always is written by the victorious.
I wouldn’t expect a dictator of such authority to get caught in the cage like a garden rabbit. Personally, I feel that this is like the ego tussle between Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in Prestige with the only difference being that truth is stranger than magic. The arrogance and the caesarian attitude of the Americans have gone out of bounds. Uncle Sam has been wielding the big stick for a long time now. The 2003 Iraq liberation invasion was a lot different from the earlier gulf war by father W in it this was unprovoked and did not even have the support of UN.
The outcomes are forgotten: a man was hanged totally absolved from the criminal reason cited for the war- there were no WMDs.
The surprise visit by Obama and the additional $83 billion for war in Iraq and Afghanistan shows no change in attitude. The plan to extend the stay of the troops in the region till 2011 just deepens the budget. Is there any reconstruction going on after all?
I am afraid. Are all these efforts liberating the 24 million people in that region or enraging them increasing their hatred towards the western world?
What is the next generation in that region experiencing? We can only hope that they are looking at the water in the cup though very little and not at the big emptiness.
Unless and until there is an amicable relation between the two nations in place of the present Hunter-Hunted hostile feeling, the war in Iraq is nowhere near to ending.
What is the world keenly looking at now: The nuclear power plant functioning in Iran, the satellite launch cover up of North Korea or the summit of Americas for Hugo Chavez? With the recession still echoing heavily, wielding the big stick and playing snooker is probably going to be a tough task for Obama. The world cannot stand another meaningless war causing inflation of commodities all around. Additional head less bodies can only result in more chaos and more volatile world. We can only hope that the big think tanks don’t create more Iraqs, Afghanistans or Pakistans out of Teheran and Pyongyong , rather try reforming the regions experiencing the pain.

The nicely written article by Fareed Zakaria: http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/020507.html
Another article on ending war on Iraq:
http://www.tomhayden.com/strategy.htm

American soldiers teasing Iraqi children:


Humvee in Baghdad: