Impressing is your job, expressing is mine.

I dont know if i am trying to sound intelligent in my writings.. I honestly never intend to. I am an artist, not an intellectual, I am more concerned about expressing myself than about being politically right. ANd i like expressing myslsef, that's y i own this blog- my own piece of land in cyberspace.
Unfortunately, some ppl recently are getting it a bit wrong. THis is my blog, my space, an outlet for how I feel about things. You can disagree wid me, beyond doubt, coz no two people think alike, certainly not when I am one of the ppl. I write what I want to... If someone has a problem with it, its their problem. put it down on your own blog, dont fill up my comment page with hatemail. (specially if u have a problem with my typos)
I have been calling some ppl peudo-intellectuals, I dont know if they are. Being an intellectual's bad enough. Its always intellectuals that cause war. Pseudo-intellectuals can be disastrous. I'd rather this world was full of hippies or kindergarten kids or artists athn intellectuals. they live in their heads and they talk out of some crappy piece of mental furniture that have been imbedded in them involuntary, they have never experience huinger, they have never lived in ahnut with no electricty, they have never been caught in war in a third world country, they have never become refugees adn lost their identitities.. tey've gronw up in plush luxuries and have a third person view of the world that will never materialise.
ANd they tend to think I am talking crap. I probably am, if i am, i will, its my freaking blog.

I sometimes don't understand how cops can get their preferences so no right. They need to crack down on bombers and militant meetings, but what do they do? They kill a nice cozy trance party in Mumbai. Apparently, they were caught with ecstasy pills. LSD and charas. And that leaves a few questions to be answered.

1. How did the ecstacy and LSD get there in the first place? How come there are so many loopholes in your own system that such narcotics can be freely carried around?
2. How come you have never broken down militants meeting but manage to screw up a harmless party? How come you aren't able to crack down on people spreading and practicing hate but manage to kill the mood for a bunch of youngsters spreading the love?
3. How come these questions are so clear in my head but they are not making sense when I write them down?
4. HOw come you have NEVER broken down on larger scale raves that happen all the time but manage to corner on this poor pub?

Nyways, the law is teh law. I have no problems with the cops, I guess they are almost matured enough to decide their own course of action. They can't be as cheap as the traffic cops in Hyderabad, the ones I buy off for twenty bucks when caught. (Whatever happened to self-esteem?) WHoever said inflation is on the rise? I can still buy my way out of a challan for 20-30 bucks.

I do have a problem with TV reporters. ANalyze this, a bunch of kids were partying and getting high on substances, all right. They got caught and are hiding their faces form the camers.
Now why are you guys trying to get a shot of their faces? What if they had not done drugs? Nothing's been proved against them. Maybe some of them just went to the party for the music. By trying to get them on camera, you are doing them serious harm.
Even if they did do drugs, you are just screwing up their chances for improving in the future. A camera shot of their face is a permanent identification proof of a 'crime' they once committed and can kill all future prospects for them. None of these people will be doing drugs twenty years down the line, when they have kids and families. It would have been an incident for them, an experience, but thanks to you and your cameras, it becomes a scar.
Now, I don't usually watch TV, not the newschannels, specially. The day they showed the end of the world two weeks back was the day I lost it; that was the day I lost every inch of any respect I had for news channels; if tragedy occurs, I log on to the internet or wait for the next day morning's paper, which I still respect. Watching News channels on TV is a sin, it is encouraging degrading practices among teh fourth estate, it is encouraging of blatant commercial sensationalism and it is a sign of bad taste. I f I had the choice, I would remove every india news channel from my set top box.
Today, I happened to be watching TV. And when these arrested kids were being taken into police vehicles, I heard the videographers hitting sarcastic insults at them "Ek toh battamizi, abhi media k saath bhi battamizi".. etc when one guy tried to push away a camera that was poking into his face. For heaven's sake, get that camera off his face, even if you do get his face, censor it on TV. Why are you afte rthat guy's life? has he harmed you? has he bombed any city in the country? has he slaughtered Christians or Muslims? No, he was partying and feeling at one with the universe.

And then I got it, the reason behind the videographers sneering at them.

A press journalist commands respect till date. You won't find press reporters coming to you and asking you "Your child has died, how do you feel about it?", you don't find press reporters filing up the entire paper with the sam enews when a kid falls into a tunnel. and Aarushi's murder case is a column in the newspaper, it does not fill up the entire page while neglecting news on inflation and the N-deal.
A TV reporter has lost every ounce of respect he once commanded. that is why TV reporters are beaten up, abused. I am not syaing they should be manhandles. I am saying if only they handled themselves a little more respectfully, it wouldn't have come to this. CLimbing a tree to take videos of Abhi-Ash wedding? Showing MPs watching a belly dancer- I mean, ok, whatever, but there are kids watching the TV, don't show the dancers shaking their boobs around. More than TV reporters, I think the News Directors need to get a life, they are the ones sending people behind all this aren't tey?
Now, TV reprters are considered so uncool that they will NEVER be invited to a trance party. NEVER. I can imagine a press journalists having a night out and letting their hair down, but not TV reporters. They are fingery b******s who will never be invited to good parties, who will never be invited to trip along and who will never get laid.
And when they see al this happening to people, they get sheer jealous. AND they sneer.
Now, if you imagined inviting a videographer to your closed group party and got him smoked up and all happy, what do you think he would do? probably have a hidden camera tucked away inside his shirt.
nyways, whatever, bottomline, TV reporters! get some degree of self-respect and hunt for news, not crap.
ANd to those channels that forecast the end of the world, I am still living, sons of bitches, don't you think you owe me an apology for disturbing me, for disturbing kids and for causing one girl to commit suicide????

I have finally decided that my blog's tired and that she needs a new look. If you were, in any case, about to ask me why my blog's feminine, do the following. Find out from the Spanish why the Radio is feminine and cinema is masculine, ask the French why the glove is masculine while the tie is feminine, and you shall find your answer.
The idea of re-dressing (not redressing as in redressing a grievance) my blog came to me after I saw Kartick's. He'd done his up well, so I decided that the best way to do my blog up would be to ask Kartick to do it. He did it, and here it is.
Just to give it the finishing touches, I added the photo of the Dog shitting. (Who else could have come up with that?) And the line to go along with the pic.
Crap (popularly known as shit) and I have a long history. For one, I call out her name whenever something shitty happens.
(If you are asking me why shit is feminine again, consider this. Food is feminine in spanish, portugese and Italian, so processed food remains feminine, too, right?)
I am also very selective in her distributing her. Come to think of it, there are so many I don't give a shit to...
Incidentally, I also don't take shit from anyone.
So, isn't it only fair that crap should adorn my page?
As for the dog connection, don't even ask.
Apparently, Diamonds are a woman's best friends. A man's best friend... is a dog.
Who the fuck came up with that? That's gender discrmination directed against us!

We started off with a tour of the Elephant orphanage at Kegalle. The sight of elephants feeding and later, much to the joy of tourists, bathing in the river was delightful. The baby elephants seemed to be having the time of their lives playfully spraying themselves. As for us, we felt glad seeing them in an environment where they weren’t made to carry logs or overweight people on their backs. Immediately after that, we headed towards the South coast. (The Northern Side is where peril lies, so we avoided it altogether) It sure was a long drive but amazingly memorable. What took away our breath was the roadside view. We were driving along the coast, so there were houses by the road and their back doors opened up to the ocean. How would you feel when you are driving along with waves crashing 20 feet away from your window and the blue ocean stretching to infinity? We could, of course, see some reminiscences of the Tsunami- a few felled trees, a few broken houses here and there to remind you of what an ugly disaster hit this beautiful place. I shook such painful thoughts away from my mind and stuck my eyes on the window to soak in as much of the moment as I could.

(Abaauw: A view of the coast from outside the car window. I repeat, Roadside)

As we neared Ambalagonda, the view kept getting more beautiful and the twenty feet that separated us from the ocean grew increasingly painful. Sensing our temptation, our driver (who in total knew four words in English- van, late, OK and beer) graciously stopped and we ran out. It wasn’t like we hadn’t seen a beach before. It was just that we hadn’t seen such a clean beach. The only thing lying on the shore was a single rose with a red ribbon somebody must have rejected, or left it there to tempt Neptune to come pick it up. We climbed rocks, chased crabs and I was lucky enough to fall down and hurt my toe- giving me something to remember the golden moments by.

Next stop was a turtle conservation center where we played with turtles of all shapes and sizes. One of them even managed to whack me with its flippers. And believe me, they sure aren’t as soft and vulnerable as they look!
It was getting pretty late so we hit a guest house and before we could even keep our bags, we rushed to another beach. The sun was setting, and the feeling was incomparable. It was like us and the sun on two sides of the ocean. As we dropped clothes and ran into the waves on this side, the sun sank into the ocean on the other side. After exhausting all energy we had, we lazed on the shore with the ocean washing our legs and filling whatever clothing we had with sand. And as I looked into the ocean (it was grey now), I realized how small I was, how small and powerless we all were. The tiniest of waves could wash us two meters away. The full fury of the ocean was unimaginable. It suddenly struck me that if nature wanted to, she could finish us all, including the mightiest of men and the tallest of buildings without having to waste a tenth of her energy. And as I walked back, I suddenly felt this growing respect for the seas.
That night, we ate from a table that seemed to have a menu that was as endless a the Ocean itself and dead cheap, considering the complimentary beer that came along with it.
The next day’s trip started with a visit to Maduganga- a huge backwater lagoon near Ambalagonda. The three thousand Sri Lankan Rupees (Twelve hundred in our money) we paid was worth every paise and more for the hour long boat ride on the green water that included two stops- one at an island temple (where giant squirrels came kissing our camera lenses) and another at the famed Cinammon island. As we passed under canopies, we saw huge, powerful and smelly water monitors lazing on the rocks. We also were lucky enough to see two crocodiles ambushing just below the surface with their eyes and nose made visible only by the air bubbles bursting around them. (Abaauw: A water Monitor, Still more abaauw: Maduganga Boat house)
By this time, we were all wondering why we had chosen to live in such polluted, crowded cities where the only wildlife one can see is stray dogs when there are indeed such beautiful places still on earth. In the same frame of mind, we hit Hikkaduwa beach. It was pretty crowded with a lot of tourists, most of them from inland Germany (and two breathtakingly pretty ones probably from Korea) soaking up the sun. We hired a glass-bottom lake and rowed (not exactly, it was a motorboat) towards the horizon.
A hundred meters from the beach, the water was still as clear as crystal. And right underneath our feet, was a sight that beats every Discovery show hands down. Brightly colored coral reefs grew from the bottom and black striped yellow coral fish darted in and out of them. They were so close to us, all we had to do is look outside the boat and we could see hundreds of them swimming fast and random. The boatman gave us food to feed them, we dipped our hands into the water and the little yellow beauties came and licked it clean from our fingers. (Now you are getting jealous, aren’t you?). Just to make the Discovery show complete, our boatman (I wonder how long he had been in the business to predict the animal’s routine) steered our boat right on top of a probably century old Olive Ridley turtle. We stood transfixed, our eyes not leaving the glass bottom. Sir Olive Ridley did not even notice a boat above his head. He just swam about non-chalantly.
Resisting the urge to go scuba diving (which could have proved financially suicidal), we headed towards Galle, the ‘Capital of the South’. We drove along the coast again, this time the view getting only better. At Galle, we went to an ancient fort that the Dutch had built sometime in the 16th century, to protect against a possible Portuguese attack from the sea and locals from the inland. The fort is today a free tourist spot and a lover’s paradise. Dozens of couples sat along the fort walls, covered from the world by their umbrellas and least bothered by tourists around. We had on one side an aerial view of the city and on another of the never-ending Indian Ocean. We wondered what the next stop would be if one started swimming along towards Australia. (We were, of course, joking. It’s humanly impossible)
We took a long ride back to Tholangamuwa, stopping at Colombo for a brief while to shop for our loved ones back home. (The fac t was that we were so engrossed in the beauty that we missed very few people, but we didn’t want them to know that).
I had to leave the next day. I came back and went to work directly from the airport. My friends were lucky enough to spend another three days visiting the most beautiful places in Sri Lanka while I was taking in the pollution. Three long days where my body was in office in front of my comp but my mind was back with the rest of them, in Sri Lanka, driving along clean roads, running along its beautiful beaches and jumping the waves of the godly Indian Ocean.

With my fallible understanding of Telugu, and my infallible understanding of Telugu slang, I heard today the most interesting explanation of the origin of AIDS- from a sixty year old man.

I was on my way to another of our brainstorming and lung-burning sessions at the hookah shop, travelling by good old 25S, footboarding when:

I heard a senior citizen on the last seat speaking bad words.

Now I like old peopel who swear, I think they're KOOL! I think the Koolest peopel are old women who swear. This one was a man, but just to live up to it, his gaalis were of the top order (Lanjakoduka, !@#@#$$#... etc).
I was impressed.

I don't know what he was talking about, till the guy beside him got up and gave me the golden opportunity to sit beside him. I sat there- with this old man (our hero) on the right and another young guy (around yours n my age), who was his object of oral homicide, on the left- window seat.

By the time I sat, Uncle Bad Words (henceforth referred to as UBW) was talking about hospitals, giving his frank opinion that hospitals like Apollo, NIMS etc were only for the upper class, and not accessible to the grassroots.
Then he started on the issue of how rich peopel were so sickly- always falling sick, crying for the slightest headache etc.

And then he said it- AIDS also, it happens to the upper class vaalu, not to the middle and lower class.

I disagree, I thought. A large portion of PLHAs (People living with HIV/AIDS) are from rural Coastal Andhra, slums, brothels etc- the lowest levels of Indian economy, said my Brain.

Shut up! said my heart. You don't stand a chance debating this guy. Don't act like Mr. Know-it-all, don't ruin the fun.

"Adi enti? Kukka toti samparkam?" (What's that? Intercourse with dogs?), he continued, appparently some fancy orgy tale he had heard.
"Upperclass pillalu ki assallo intilo evar ledu, mummy daddy pani ki pote lonely ga huntadu."
(Upperclass kids have no one at home, mom-dad go to work, so they get lonely)

Just an interruption. Intercourse with dogs isn't something new. When I was interviewing a Nurse Practitioner at an ICTC in East Godavari this summer, she had told that the strangest case she had come across was of a girl from Rajahmundry who had sex with an "Alsatian dog".

For UBW (Uncle Bad Words)'s kind info, this girl wasn't really a millionaire's daughter.
So much for rich kids being alone at home.

(An alsatian's a dog, undoubtedly, you noticed how we say German Shepherd Dog, but not alsatian dog?
That's coz a German Shepherd could be a shepherd also but an Alsatian can't be anything but a dog. WTF? I'm in the mood for PJs)

Comin back to Uncle Bad Words, he continued: (We were at how rich kids are alone at home)
"Vaalu ki Bore kottadi, aithe Kukkalu ki "Caam, daarling, sweetheart, caam, caam ... (in the most sarcastic of voices and broken english)..let me give you kiss...umm... koncham sep tarvaata, F*****g, F*****g with chinna doggy"

I was laughing like a hyena inside, smiling and nodding my head outside. The guy on ma left was wondering if he should jump out the window coz UBW was talking so loud everyone could hear us, including the lady conductor.

And then UBW leans towards us (in the context of Rich kids screwing dogs) drops his tone, pulls up his bass, and lets out to us the biggest secret in the history of medical science:

"Assalga...(pause)... AIDS ee kukkalu nunchi wachindi"
[Actually, AIDS originated from these dogs]


WHATTTTT?

Reaction:
1/10 seond it took me to actually realize what I had heard.
For a second, I was speechless, trying to digest that.

You'd think I dismissed itas rubbish or burst out laughing.

I swear, on you, (n u still alive which means I'm not lying) for three seconds I actually tried to rationalize what he said: could it be true?

And then, I burst out laughing. The guy on my left took an equally long time to react, we were both hysterically laughing our heads and asses off.

Uncle Bad Words was least bothered.. he continued about how middle class children were scared of their parents and would not make out, while rich kids could do whatever they wanted, and how Faith and Respect (apparently Middle Class Values, which are apparently demonstrated by not making out) for parents could save you from AIDS.........

He finally, and thankfully, got down at Lal Bazaar, the Lady Conductor gave us the strangest look in the history of looks, as if we were his partners in crime. We left the bus as soon as we could....

So much for AIDS awareness, maybe now the Govt should lift the self-imposed ban on sex education in schools....

Before we go into details, I reckon you don’t know what Shuddi means. It’s an act of purification done, something to wash away your sins.

If the Deccan Chronicle front page report of today is even anywhere close to the truth, then… I don’t know; complete this sentence for me after you read it.

I guess you all know about the tribal women who were allegedly gang raped by policemen in Vakapalli (August 20)
Forensic tests at APFSL and further ‘investigations’ said no rape had taken place.

However, the government has said (in a written reply to a question on the alleged incident) that it disbursed Rs. 20,000 as Shuddi to the families of the victims apart from utensils, food grains and clothes.

WHAT?!!!!!!!

Now, first place, why would the tribal women cry out ‘rape’ if no rape had taken place? There never is smoke without fire. And in cases like these, even if the point isn’t proved in court, we know, deep inside our hearts what the truth is.

And anyway, if the rape didn’t occur? Why’d the state government give “purifications’?

Now, the point- if the gang rape DID happen, in fact, chuck the ‘if’, we now know it happened, what exactly is the government doing by publishing false reports and giving compensations? Trying to save the image of the police? (yeah, right!), the home department? The ruling party? What?

If things could go on this way, I mean, if someone could rape and then get away by giving rice and dal, dammit!, the state government might as well as start a rape-for-money scheme where you buy a quintal of rice, offer a few thousand rupees and rape women in broad daylight. Revenue for the state, increase in sex tourism and employment for the women.

See? You flinched at that, didn’t you? When I said that last sentence. You now realize that these tribal women too were just ‘women’ – like the others in and around us, those we love and are ready to die for, and you realize that even they are equally vulnerable in this ‘Justice’ system. It pricks on our conscience- because this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. How wrong can things go?

Rape is bad, gang rape?
Gang rape by drunken men in a state of semi-consciousness should beget a death sentence or a lifer, but gang rape by policemen in full consciousness?
Delayed justice for rape victims is bad enough, but compensation in the form of rice and dal and money?
“Here, you got raped, I reckon, keep this money, buy yourself a new sari, and here’s some utensils to cook in. Now shut up about the whole incident.”

Dammit! man, this is civilized society, this shouldn’t be happening even in the reign of absolute monarchs, even a prince would be punished for such crimes. A gang of bloody hawaldars? Why is the state government going so far, or rather dropping so low to save them?

See what role everyone’s playing over here

The cops who raped

Cops are the saviors of the law. They round up people for eve teasing and punish those who commit rapes. What happens when they start raping? What did they think- wearing a uniform gives them a license to commit crime- one as horrendous as rape? Thought they’d get away with it because they wouldn’t book themselves?

And sadly, that IS what happened, isn’t it? They got away with it.

The cops who didn’t rape
What about the rest of cophood? If someone in our family committed such a crime, we’d throw him out of the house, hand him over to the police. I swear I’d shoot him in the head.
Can’t the police stop uplifting its criminal image and at least denounce the ones who were booked? Or at least condemn the incident?

The Justice system
How flawed can you be? How silent can you be? How much demanding of proof can you be when crime’s taking place in front of your eyes. Your daughters are getting raped in front of your eyes and you are turning the pages of the constitution to determine if there’s an alternative explanation? Your daughter’s getting gang raped in your house and you are waiting for your neighbor to come and tell you that yes, this does constitute an act of crime? Go drown yourself. If the 1,00,000 pending cases in your drawers weren’t enough, here’s another fourteen women whose trauma, helplessness, and miserability is just another fourteen files for you.

The State Government
This is democracy- and the government’s king, the government’s god, the government’s the solution to all our problems, the redeemer, the savior, the protector.
Is this your way of protecting? Giving utensils and rice so that these women won’t go hungry in the time it takes them to recover from the physical pain, leave alone the mental agony?
If this sort of government is who I pay taxes to, whom I complain to, whom I trust to take care of me and my family, what sort of life am I living? What will happen to me if a similar crime, god forbid, where to happen to ones I knew- I don’t even dare imagine the ones I love.

The families and the women
I don’t even have the guts or the imagination to get into their shoes. I can’t, and I know, you too certainly can’t put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s been raped in broad daylight- by not one man, but many, grinning and laughing as you screamed, or in the shoes of someone whose wife, or daughter or mother has been raped by men whom you go to when someone commits a crime against you.
Ever had that feeling when you dive deep down underwater and then someone grabs you from inside? You can’t release yourself, you don’t want to breathe in the water, you can’t kick back because the hand that’s grapping you is too strong, and that fresh, free air is just a few feet above your head- you can see it but can’t actually make it to the top.
And you finally give in, and breathe deeply in through the nose, or mouth, for the last time.

The Investigators
What price will you sell for? How mush of money or threat does it take to make you sell your professional ethics? And submerge facts that could have given someone the satisfaction of justice, even if not a renewed life?
How much does it cost to make you write a false report? Would you have sold yourselves if the women who were raped had been your daughters or wives or sisters gang raped on their way back from shopping?

Us
Losers like me will log on to mutiny and write an article and go back to ma friend’s shop for a hookah. Losers like you will read this (if you do) and then say what’s the point?
There is no point.
We thought of taking out a bike trip and carrying hardcore messages- something that would make people turn and look and think. We are too scared for our families and ones around us, and too lonely. That’s why I said losers.

Women in Manipur stripped themselves naked to protest against the rapes by people in uniform, and screamed “Indian Army, Rape us” in front of their children and grandchildren who had no idea of what was going on, who had no idea of what rape is.

They probably got their demands fulfilled, if you know what I mean.

The Armed Forces Special Powers act has still not been revoked, though it goes against all human rights principles.

Most of us have forgotten about the incident, some of us think that happened in China or Burma; None of us are bothered.
Want to do something about it? Let me know.