GRAPHiti

BHM Nite, 2012

BSP Trophy comes home to Kumaon House, 6th time in a row. 

Kumaon's performance on FUSION NITE - Pirates of the Caribbean!

Anna Hazare: Assassin or Saviour?

The following article was originally published on Infinity IIT Delhi website - http://infinityiitd.com/anna-hazare-assassin-saviour/

India is on the threshold of writing history; thanks to Anna Hazare and company. I respect Anna Hazare, but I am not a big fan of his attitude and his methods. The way Hazare is handling things is totally against a democratical form of government.

Our government is elected by electoral processes and not by mere revolt by a group of people.

A law is made by the discretion of the parliament, a body which is capable enough to amend and make laws. People can only suggest the parliament to make certain laws, not bully the institution. Who has given authority to Anna Hazare and his entourage to negotiate with the government? We are disrespecting our prime minister. Our acts are only demoralizing the government.

Right to Information act, a first of its kind bill was introduced by the present government only, and this is the reason the past decade saw so many scams being unravelled. Manmohan Singh is no fool. He is wary of the situation of the present government. He knows that letting in an extremist bill won’t be of much help. Making a new law won’t stop the people from taking or giving bribes. The mentality of the people needs to be changed. By punishing the criminal, crime cannot be liquidated.

 In the current situation, the system is diminished by the hollow ‘revolutionary’ gestures of the crowd. A nation’s general public collectively cannot make or amend laws. Only the representatives chosen by the public have the true power to make laws. A ‘crowd’ has no name, no accountability, no sense, and no brains. They are blind followers and sometimes even bought. Babri Masjid was demolished by a ‘crowd’; riots in Gujarat were an act by a ‘crowd’; the mass killings of 1984 were also initiated by a ‘crowd’. Thus, a crowd is not legitimate enough to support the bill.

Winning general public’s support or being popular doesn’t suffice to authorize someone with electoral rights. Hazare is setting a wrong example by taking public support into account to pass the Lokpal Bill. Tomorrow someone else will propose a new bill and tag it with public support. Baba Ramdev is a recent example of the same. The public is seeing only the bright side of the bill and doesn’t know the inner politics behind it. They are blindly supporting the ombudsman; half of them don’t even know what the Lokpal Bill is. We are ourselves weakening our institutions by our very own hands. The voice of Arvind Kejiriwal is not the voice of the whole country. He is imposing his thoughts in the name of public’s.

Anna says that Jan Lokpal Bill will reduce corruption by 65%. My take is – if all the people pledge not to give or take bribes, all businessmen pledge to honestly pay taxes, then corruption will reduce more drastically.

Comparing Anna to Gandhiji is disrespectful to the latter. Gandhiji fought against a foreign rule. Anna is fighting against a government chosen by the citizens of India. Gandhiji’s voice was solely his own, but Anna seems to be borrowing voices.

Anna Hazare has said what he had to, which has come to the notice of the whole nation and the government as well. Now he must rest his case and give the government enough time to complete the cause.

Precognition

The night was engulfed in black with little stains of white here and there. She had admired the night so many times that she didn't even give it a second look. Her heart was hammering so hard that it would explode any moment. There was chillness in the wind which was stopping her to take a step forward. Her eyes had swollen up due to the inevitable events which she had been circumventing till yesterday. She had wept to an extent that tears seemed just another body part. The train took a turn and she could see in the distance the reflections of the moon in the river. She gripped the bars more firmly. As the train took the bridge she slowly closed her eyes. Breathing deeply she offered herself to gravity. She jumped off the train into the cavity below. She could count the seconds in mid-air. She was floating, or was it the sensation one feels after dying.

                Akshita woke up from the terrifying dream. Her head was aching and she felt all wet in the abstract sense. It was 4 in the morning. She could not sleep thereafter. These dreams were tearing her apart day by day. She could no longer take them. Few hours later in the morning newspaper she read news of a girl who had committed suicide by jumping off a train over a bridge. How could this have happened? This couldn’t be true. This had happened to her herself in her very own dream. Or was she just trying to make a connection between her dream and the news? She needed to tell this to someone. She readied for the day and on her way to college called up Anchal, to meet her first thing in college.

                Akshita narrated everything to Anchal in the longest possible way. Anchal had hardly seen her best friend look so uncomfortable. She didn’t want to sound very serious or to upset her more so she simply told her that the connection seemed very vague. But this was not what Akshita was willing to hear. She knew no one would believe her because of the dreamlike element in her talk. Agreeing to Anchal she also tried pushing away the thoughts.

                Later that day Akshita went through the details of how the newspaper girl had come in terms with suicide and she found that she had had a harrowing time with her parents over some issue which wasn’t coming to light. Fear and anxiety had made their abode in her mind.

                The day had been somewhat unusual and tiring. It was quite late for her to go home and she couldn’t even find a public transport. Sauntering on the footpath she was somewhat surprised to see the road deserted except for the two guys behind. The two guys! They were following her since she had left work. Her heart missed a beat. She quickened her pace on the narrow pavement and kept looking over her shoulder at short intervals to check whether they had lost her trace. The men were only a few decade meters behind her. She could sense the uneasiness inside her.  She tried calling 100 but her call wasn’t getting through. She typed her whereabouts and her grim condition on her phone and selected the Send-to-many-option in such a hurry that she didn’t even know to whom she was sending the SMS. And the next moment she was running. Her action was reflected by her followers. But she couldn’t run. She tried all her might but the world seemed to have plunged into slow motion. The men now were only a few feet away from her. The last thing she remembered was her arms being held by a pair of wicked hands followed by her dreadful scream.

                Akshita woke up, all sweating. Her breaths were audible enough to confirm that she had had a stroke of asthma. But that wasn’t the case. Her mobile phone beeped. Who calls at 2 am in the morning? What? No? She knew what was coming. Reluctantly, she picked up her phone. It was an SMS from Anchal and it read – “m @ the crossing of mg road nd lxmi ngr. 2 men folwng me. SOS!”

                Terrified, she hurried out of her room and hastened to the colony police station on her two-wheeler, without even realizing that she had left her room open. There were exactly three policemen on duty, two of whom were dozing off and the third on the verge of drowsiness. It took her a good 20 minutes to shake off the cobwebs of sleep in them and convince them to come with her to Laxmi Nagar crossing. Obviously she didn’t speak about the dream, covering the story with a fake call from Anchal. En route the crossing in the police vehicle, she tried calling Anchal for a third time but still the cell phone was switched off. Tension was spreading its roots inside her body. Retrospection of her dream sent shudders down her spine.

                They reached the exact place which Anchal had texted her. The place was indeed devoid of any living soul. Akshita climbed out of the jeep and began zooming in her eyes in all possible directions to get a sign of her friend. It didn’t take her long to locate a body lying beside a tree at a distance of a few meters from where they had parked the jeep. Her heart quickened its pace in accordance to her feet. She was running towards Anchal. The policemen followed her. Anchal lay there with scratches laced on her arms and her face all red. One of the policemen brought the jeep and they quickly took her to the nearby hospital. Akshita was weeping. Anchal lay unconscious on the seat of the vehicle. They headed straight to the emergency ward. From there the attendants took over. The receptionist asked Akshita what had happened. Akshita was not in a state to talk let alone explain the series of events. And what drove her mad was how she had come to know about Anchal’s condition. It was a precognition. Now she started fearing her own self. She didn’t want to sleep any more.

To be continued………

Dual Nature of My Heart

I look at her and then afraid of getting caught stealing a glance I pretend to look in a direction away from her. Then my eye balls start rolling to the side of the face and play a game of hide and seek. My detective grey cells spring to life and eye upon half a dozen other male members of the class playing the same game except that their neck plays the game instead of eyes. And then I chuckle at my fate. I know I can just be a distant admirer because the duality of my heart checks in to liquidate the flow of my emotions. The dual nature which was born in the recent past has become so mature at an early age that it just pisses me off.

The urge to be different and my ego keep me away from the pit of love. At an age when lust is always mistaken as love we tend to fall in this pit. The latter 4 letter l-word is a responsibility and carries a deeper meaning; meaning which our juvenile brain is not ripe enough to understand. Remembering a person sitting miles away, writing letters which carry superfluous meanings, giving presents, etc. is not love. Unbiased care and affection add to its meaning which is long forgotten in today’s definition of the word.

Just one practical class in a week and during that golden period also my heart doesn’t allow me to sketch the full image of her in my mind. And what about the other officious rodents who are always hungry for a petty chance to make their presence be felt? The look on her face manifests that even she is aware of their ‘ready to mingle’ approach. Like them, I also don’t need her but I just want her. The purity of thought which travels in me is so strong that in a world full of sycophants I feel diminished. But I am proud of this purity because this sets me way apart from others.

I often question myself - does she even know that I exist? Why is she so special to me? Is it her simplicity? Is it her smile? Is it her laugh? Or is it just her face? It’s actually the mere thought of her which brings to me joy and a tiny smile and also a bleak hope that one day she will become my responsibility. My heart skips a beat whenever she comes in my 5 meter radius. I am afraid that due to my non gregarious eccentricity this radius will take more than a lifetime to reduce to 1.

Tunisian Revolution 2010-11

A revolution had sparked in Tunisia in the December of 2010 against their then President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who is currently on the run. This revolution was the initialization to the falling monarchies of the Arab World which resembles the falling of dominoes.

Tunisia is a country in the northern part of Africa, smaller than the state of Karnataka. It first gained popularity during World War II when it was under the French rule. A major battle victory was accounted here for the Allied Forces led by USA. Tunisia achieved independence from France in 1957 and Habib Bourguiba was declared its first President. In 1987, he was declared unfit to rule and it was then that Ben Ali stepped in as President of Tunisia.

Ben Ali’s regime saw a decent increase in the GDP of the nation, strengthening of its economy and an increase in foreign investment. With rank 34 Tunisia ranks above India (rank 41) in the list of World Tourism Rankings. But behind this fake façade of Tunisia lies what led to the revolution. Ben Ali and his family were accused of great corruption, which was a major contribution to recent events all across Tunisia protesting the theft of Tunisian wealth, and lack of opportunities for average Tunisians. Whatever the country earned used to go into the luxuries of the president’s own family. Ben Ali’s wife Leila Trabelsi, supposedly Tunisia’s First Lady, is accused of travelling to Europe’s many fashion destination travelling in Business Class all of which were not part of her itinerary.

Tunisia continued to suffer from a high unemployment, especially among youth. In spite of a rising economy, left out of the prosperity were many rural and urban poor, including small businesses facing the world market. Tunisia under Ben Ali saw problems of human rights violations, such as freedom of the press, highlighted by the official treatment of the journalist Taoufik Ben Brik who is a prominent critic Ben Ali. In 2000, he was accused of publishing false information and other spurious charges, and went on a hunger strike in protest. He has been periodically detained in Tunisia, and his family has also been harassed as a way to intimidate him and prevent him from speaking out against the regime. Concerns were raised during the 2009 presidential elections about the fairness of the elections. Tunisia did not allow international monitoring of elections. There also were reports of mistreatment of an opposition candidate. Candidates standing opposite Ben Ali were given few luxuries of speaking in public and of advertising their party, as a result they never became much popular.

The 2010–2011 Tunisian revolution was sparked when an unlicensed vegetable cart vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi burnt himself. On December 17, 2010 a policewoman confiscated his cart. In return Bouazizi tried to bribe her as he used to do since the last 7 years but the day was not his. He was greeted with a slap in return. The policewoman even spat in his face, and insulted his deceased father. When the local municipality officials also refused to hear of him, not able to withstand the humiliation casted on him, he set himself on fire which led to public outrage. This immolation and the brutal response by the police to peaceful marchers caused riots in Sidi Bouzid, the place where Bouazizi used to live and had burnt himself. He died 18 days later.

Gravity was eager to cast its spell on Tunisia, all was needed was a push. The protests saw an exponential growth in the number of people getting involved in the days to come. Marchers brewing with indignity went up to the country’s capital, Tunis expressing their anger against Ben Ali and his government.

Ben Ali declared a state of emergency in the country, dissolved the government on 14 January 2011 and promised new legislative elections within six months. However, events moved quickly and the armed forces and key members of the legislature had lost trust in the president and had decided to take steps on their own. With the army surrounding the Presidential Palace in Tunis and perhaps in fear of retribution, Ben Ali and close members of his family hastily fled in four helicopters bound for Malta, a small island North of Tunisia

On January 26, 2011, the Tunisian government issued an international arrest warrant for Ex-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali accusing him of taking money out of the nation illegally. He was also charged with illegally acquiring real estate and other assets abroad. On January 28, 2011, Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Ben Ali and his six family members, including his wife Leila Trabelsi.

The people of Tunisia wanted a brand new government, so the cunning Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi resigned his membership of the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD - the political party of which Ben Ali and Mohamed Ghannouchi himself were members) on 18 January. His resignation was followed by similar action by other RCD members within the government; but on 27 January Ghannouchi carried out a major reshuffle of the government to remove all former RCD members other than himself.

Mohammed Ghannouchi said he would remain in his position as head of the unity government until a general election was held within six months. He also pledged to allow all political parties and to lift a ban on the country's main human rights group. In addition, anyone suspected of corruption or of having amassed huge wealth under the previous government would be investigated.

On 17 February 2011 it was reported that Ben Ali had suffered a stroke, and had been hospitalized for an indefinite period in Saudi Arabia.