For those you work with or interact with regularly .. get a notebook and write down positive aspects of each of those people.
Write down the things you like most about them (don’t expect change from them).
Most of the times we complicate the relationships around us by pushing our own expectations onto the other person. And then when they fail to meet up to them, we get negative about them. Every small thing they do starts annoying us, we start to look for excuses to avoid them, to answer their calls and talk to them. We form an almost demonic entity of them in our mind and stick with it, no matter how others perceive this person. He or she could actually be a nice, friendly person...maybe just a little awkward around you because you two don't have much in common...or maybe they're shy or like you too much. And most often, they don't have a clue about the going ons of your mind. They don't know what hits them, when you unleash your behavior on them at full throttle.
All I want to say is don't judge anyone. They are exactly the way God intended them to be.
Having higher expectations of people is justified to an extent because our standards are high but maybe we've got to realize that they're already at their full potential.
Be it a co-worker, class-mate, your partner....being judgmental will only be detrimental to your personal growth and peace of mind.
Give them a chance, without any pre-conceived notions and see where it leads. What happens might actually surprise you. And if they're exactly what you thought of them, or it doesn't work out for some entirely different reason, well...at least you gave it a shot. Laws of attraction will not put you in the same space together if your frequencies don’t match....read it somewhere.....amen in that case;-)
Friday, August 12, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Don't want to......
When you feel down and out, take to writing. Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that writing is cathartic!
Write your script. When you see things you don’t want, don’t think about them, write about them!
I wish there were groups out there that focussed on helping people like us with our long list of don’t wants, especially..
the don't want to be in pain anymore, don't want to feel so low anymore, don't want to be a failure anymore, don't want to be single anymore, don't want to wear a facade anymore, don't want to go on with this sorry life anymore......
.....but unfortunately not many tell us how to deal with our demons, our insecurities, our worries and our pain, not unless you're moneyed and can dole out serious cash to sit an hour with a shrink everyday!!
People say that talking to your friends helps a lot.....I have close friends, married friends, friends with kids and in-laws, dealing with their own lives the best they can right now....do I really want to get together and talk serious emotional turmoil with them? I mean.....who out there hasn't hidden a small slice of their lives even from your closest friend! They love you, they'll feel for you, they'll advise you, they'll hold your hand for you, they'll pacify you. ......but at night when you're in your bed (in my case....alone), feeling your most vulnerable, all you have is YOU.
Its so easy for self-help gurus to ask you to remove your attention from the don’t wants......and to take back the reins of your life and be in control!!!
For a cynic like me, it doesn't cut it. It's so easy to say and so very difficult to implement. Ask a recovering addict and he or she will tell you. Each day is a struggle, a fight to survive. The will to hang on is where our hope and faith springs from.
The hope that everything will eventually get better one day and your faith and belief in that....keep you alive.
It may never get better for us maybe and we'll just go on with our lives...ticking off each day as it ends OR things might just happen....we might make them and then look forward to each day as it dawns!
Laying supine on a couch or bed, all alone in your room....it's so easy to get crushed under the burden of our own emotional baggage!! Sometimes our situation may not be that bad but because we refuse to act on it in time, we just make it worse.
Remember, that opportunity knocks on every door. You just 'don't want' to lock yourself in a room crying about your raw deal, when it knocks. You might just not hear it.....
Write your script. When you see things you don’t want, don’t think about them, write about them!
I wish there were groups out there that focussed on helping people like us with our long list of don’t wants, especially..
the don't want to be in pain anymore, don't want to feel so low anymore, don't want to be a failure anymore, don't want to be single anymore, don't want to wear a facade anymore, don't want to go on with this sorry life anymore......
.....but unfortunately not many tell us how to deal with our demons, our insecurities, our worries and our pain, not unless you're moneyed and can dole out serious cash to sit an hour with a shrink everyday!!
People say that talking to your friends helps a lot.....I have close friends, married friends, friends with kids and in-laws, dealing with their own lives the best they can right now....do I really want to get together and talk serious emotional turmoil with them? I mean.....who out there hasn't hidden a small slice of their lives even from your closest friend! They love you, they'll feel for you, they'll advise you, they'll hold your hand for you, they'll pacify you. ......but at night when you're in your bed (in my case....alone), feeling your most vulnerable, all you have is YOU.
Its so easy for self-help gurus to ask you to remove your attention from the don’t wants......and to take back the reins of your life and be in control!!!
For a cynic like me, it doesn't cut it. It's so easy to say and so very difficult to implement. Ask a recovering addict and he or she will tell you. Each day is a struggle, a fight to survive. The will to hang on is where our hope and faith springs from.
The hope that everything will eventually get better one day and your faith and belief in that....keep you alive.
It may never get better for us maybe and we'll just go on with our lives...ticking off each day as it ends OR things might just happen....we might make them and then look forward to each day as it dawns!
Laying supine on a couch or bed, all alone in your room....it's so easy to get crushed under the burden of our own emotional baggage!! Sometimes our situation may not be that bad but because we refuse to act on it in time, we just make it worse.
Remember, that opportunity knocks on every door. You just 'don't want' to lock yourself in a room crying about your raw deal, when it knocks. You might just not hear it.....
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Islamophobia and the 'Ground Zero Mosque' Debate
Islamophobia and the 'Ground Zero Mosque' Debate
Opposition to a proposed mosque near Ground Zero swelled into a furor this week after its planners on Aug. 3 passed the last municipal hurdle barring them from building it. New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg spoke passionately in defense of the project. "Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans," Bloomberg said in a speech that day. "We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2009147,00.html#ixzz0xkJv5eOM
Bloomberg's predecessor didn't agree. The former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, claimed that the project, which is partially intended to be an interfaith community center, would be a "desecration," adding that "decent" Muslims ought not object to his opinion. Other GOP politicians and talking heads who have far less to do with the events of 9/11 — or, for that matter, New York — have joined the chorus, arguing in some instances that a mosque near Ground Zero would be a monument to terrorists.(See the moderate imam behind the "Ground Zero mosque.")
Such Islamophobia is unsurprising in the post–Cold War age of al-Qaeda and sleeper cells. And Islam, of course, has long been a bogeyman for the West. For centuries, a more advanced, more powerful Islamic world haunted the imagination of snow-bitten Christendom. When the Spanish arrived in the Americas, they brought the language of the Reconquista with them, sometimes referring to Aztecs and Mayans as "Moors" and to their ziggurats as "mosques." The Sultanate of Morocco was the first government in the world to recognize the existence of an independent United States, in 1778. But it was America's naval expeditions to North Africa — the two early–19th century Barbary Wars — that first marked the U.S.'s arrival on the global stage and crystallized a new American patriotism at home.(See pictures of the richness and diversity of Muslims in America.)
The early history of Muslims in the U.S. was a lonely one. While there are isolated reports of "Moorish" sailors and even an Egyptian dwelling in corners of the colonies, the first significant populations were slaves from West Africa. Bilali Mohammed was born in Guinea in roughly 1770 and died in 1857 on a plantation on Sapelo Island in Georgia, leaving behind a 13-sheaf document in Arabic. It's a treatise of religious jurisprudence specific to the society of Muslim West Africa and one of the earliest classic slave narratives. Abdulrahman Ibraheem Ibn Sori, like the literary figure of Oroonoko in Aphra Behn's famous 1688 novel of the same name, was royalty from a Guinean kingdom before being abducted and whisked away to slavery in Mississippi. As word of a lettered, regal "Prince of Slaves" spread across the country, Ibn Sori won allies and friends and was eventually freed in 1828 by an order from President John Quincy Adams. He left the U.S. for the former slave republic of Liberia in Africa but died of fever soon thereafter, never to return to the land of his birth.
Most Muslim African slaves were far less lucky, and memory of their varied cultural heritage dissipated over generations of enslavement. Black Islam would be revived in the first half of the 20th century as a creed of empowerment and redemption. The Nation of Islam, founded in 1933, sought to step away from the indignity of the past with a wholesale rejection of the predominantly white, Christian nation that surrounded them; to this day, the website of the now much diminished group identifies black Americans as descendants of a "Lost Nation of Asia." For prominent activists like Malcolm X, Islam was a badge of otherness, of distinction and pride in the face of old injustices.
On the sidelines of these struggles, other Muslims were more than happy to try to fit in. By the end of the 19th century, immigrants from the Ottoman Empire began settling in pockets across the U.S. Some of the first active Muslim congregations in the country began in towns like Cedar Rapids, Iowa (led by Lebanese), and Biddeford, Maine (led by Albanians). In 1926, Polish-speaking Tatars opened one of the first mosques in Brooklyn. By the latter half of the 20th century, the majority of Muslims moving to the U.S. were from South Asia and Arab states. Today, there are an estimated 7 million Muslims living in the U.S., from myriad communities and all walks of life. To speak of them in generalities would be pointless.
Nevertheless, since 9/11, a spotlight has fallen on American Islam and the potential extremists in our midst. There are villains: from Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian imprisoned for life for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, to New Mexico–born Anwar al-Awlaki, an Islamist lecturer who is thought to have preached to a few of the 9/11 hijackers and is now in hiding in Yemen, the first U.S. citizen to wind up on a CIA targeted kill list. Curiously, a conspicuous number of U.S. jihadists have come from non-Muslim backgrounds, like the "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, who grew up in a prosperous San Francisco suburb, and David Headley, a half Pakistani born in Washington who, before allegedly planning the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November 2008, was running a bar in Philadelphia. Concerted Homeland Security measures seem to rope in occasional terrorism suspects — like the 14 arrests this week of U.S. residents allegedly linked to the al-Shabab militant group in Somalia. But many Muslim communities have come under siege, facing a barrage of media scrutiny and xenophobic bluster.
In this context, figures like Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf — the Arab-American cleric behind the mosque project near Ground Zero — stand out. A consummate moderate who has made a career preaching about the compatibility of Islamic and American values, Rauf has been cast as a dangerous radical by the mosque's opponents. Few of them are moved by the name of Rauf's proposed building: Cordoba House, named for the city in Spanish Andalucia where Muslims, Jews and Christians once co-existed for centuries in an extraordinary flourishing of culture and science. In these times, the richness and diversity of Muslim experience, in the U.S. and elsewhere, seem far from the minds of most Americans.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2009147,00.html#ixzz0xkJv5eOM
Sunday, June 14, 2009
THE DREADED 'D'
DIABETES is a condition which affects all major organs of the body, when it is not well- controlled. The good news about it though is that you can control it well with a good diet and a daily walk of about 45 minutes. Medication plays an important role also and it is imperative not to skip your doses or stop taking your medicines at will.
Diet-wise, a high fiber diet is the key to controlling your blood sugar. Fiber raises sugar in your blood slowly instead of causing a rapid rise which is seen when one indulges in sugary foods. It is also important to eat smaller meals, frequently as this will avoid a sharp increase in blood sugar and will also stop you from going into hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).
Getting diabetes is not the end of the world...most often its not even our fault as its the number one hereditary condition....but yes, obesity is also a leading cause of diabetes and hence its important to be your ideal weight or close, since an early age.
Follow your normal diet, just cut out sugar and sweets. Also reduce oil, ghee, cheese and butter intake to in order to lose or maintain weight. There are no 'miracle' diets for either weight loss or diabetes, but just cutting down the quantities of foods eaten normally, helps. For example: instead of eating 4 chapattis with ghee, eat 2-3 dry phulkas...
Certain foods are of help in maintaing blood sugar:
DIABETES is a condition which affects all major organs of the body, when it is not well- controlled. The good news about it though is that you can control it well with a good diet and a daily walk of about 45 minutes. Medication plays an important role also and it is imperative not to skip your doses or stop taking your medicines at will.
Diet-wise, a high fiber diet is the key to controlling your blood sugar. Fiber raises sugar in your blood slowly instead of causing a rapid rise which is seen when one indulges in sugary foods. It is also important to eat smaller meals, frequently as this will avoid a sharp increase in blood sugar and will also stop you from going into hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).
Getting diabetes is not the end of the world...most often its not even our fault as its the number one hereditary condition....but yes, obesity is also a leading cause of diabetes and hence its important to be your ideal weight or close, since an early age.
Follow your normal diet, just cut out sugar and sweets. Also reduce oil, ghee, cheese and butter intake to in order to lose or maintain weight. There are no 'miracle' diets for either weight loss or diabetes, but just cutting down the quantities of foods eaten normally, helps. For example: instead of eating 4 chapattis with ghee, eat 2-3 dry phulkas...
Certain foods are of help in maintaing blood sugar:
- Wheat Bran : Take for breakfast with low fat milk, or add to your chapattis.
- Fruits such as apple and pears which can become ideal mid-meal snacks instead of wafers, chips, cookies or cakes.
- Soy products such as soy flour, roasted soy nuts, roasted soy khakhras/rotis.
- Green tea (without milk, without sugar) for overall health.
- Apple Cider Vinegar which you can add to your salads (1 tbsp) or in lukewarm water.
- Seeds such as methi, flax, sunflower can become a part of your daily diet.
- Gourd vegetables can be used in soups or taken as raw juice on an empty stomach.
- Take an omega-3 supplement daily.
- Walk for 45 minutes, 7 days a week for that insulin boost.
The above tips can be included in your normal diet.....follow seriously and they'll help you lose weight and improve your blood sugar levels!!!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
WORK THAT HEART
One of the best things you can do for yourself is EXERCISE! Its good for your body, your overall self-esteem, keeps you healthy, and your heart in tiptop shape!
Walking is the best, most convenient form of exercise and when coupled with a good diet, it helps you lose a lot of weight as well. A 30-45 minute walk can help build your endurance as well as strengthen your heart. Combine your walk with an inclusion of heart friendly fats called omega 3 in your diet. Flaxseeds, almonds, walnuts are good sources. Limit out fat and sugar intake in your diet as well and high cholesterol and those dreaded triglycerides will become a thing of the past.
Going to the gym works for me! A good one-hour workout has helped increase my stamina, endurance, muscle strength and flexibility. Above all, it de-stresses me like nothing else....its even better than shopping!! Three days a week of cardio and abs workout, and three days of weight training can help you lose weight as well as give definition to your body. If you have the world's best excuse ready i.e. if you don't have the time to go to a gym, there are certain gym exercises that you can do at home such as: Squats 20 each (2 reps), Lunges 15-20 each (2 reps), hold 3-5 lbs weights in your hands and do lunges eventually, Push-ups 25 each (2-3 reps) and ab crunches 25-30 each (2-3 reps). Of course there are a lot of variations in each that you can look up on the net and perform. Invest in 5-10 lbs weights initially or use 2 lt water bottles and do basic bicep, tricep work-outs as well.
Yoga is very beneficial again, for weight loss as well as for people suffering from heart complaints, diabetes, blood pressure, osteoarthritis etc. An exercise called Suryanamaskar is considered to be the best overall work-out for the body. 5 repetitions of this asana is equivalent to a 15-20 minute walk.
So people, get off that couch now! and get your daily dose of exercise or as I call it.....Vitamin X!
Walking is the best, most convenient form of exercise and when coupled with a good diet, it helps you lose a lot of weight as well. A 30-45 minute walk can help build your endurance as well as strengthen your heart. Combine your walk with an inclusion of heart friendly fats called omega 3 in your diet. Flaxseeds, almonds, walnuts are good sources. Limit out fat and sugar intake in your diet as well and high cholesterol and those dreaded triglycerides will become a thing of the past.
Going to the gym works for me! A good one-hour workout has helped increase my stamina, endurance, muscle strength and flexibility. Above all, it de-stresses me like nothing else....its even better than shopping!! Three days a week of cardio and abs workout, and three days of weight training can help you lose weight as well as give definition to your body. If you have the world's best excuse ready i.e. if you don't have the time to go to a gym, there are certain gym exercises that you can do at home such as: Squats 20 each (2 reps), Lunges 15-20 each (2 reps), hold 3-5 lbs weights in your hands and do lunges eventually, Push-ups 25 each (2-3 reps) and ab crunches 25-30 each (2-3 reps). Of course there are a lot of variations in each that you can look up on the net and perform. Invest in 5-10 lbs weights initially or use 2 lt water bottles and do basic bicep, tricep work-outs as well.
Yoga is very beneficial again, for weight loss as well as for people suffering from heart complaints, diabetes, blood pressure, osteoarthritis etc. An exercise called Suryanamaskar is considered to be the best overall work-out for the body. 5 repetitions of this asana is equivalent to a 15-20 minute walk.
So people, get off that couch now! and get your daily dose of exercise or as I call it.....Vitamin X!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Detoxing
As a dietition, I'm frequently asked about 'detox' of the body by my clients. Well, detoxing is actually a relative term. Anything that helps in elimination of toxins from the body will help you detox. Just by drinking a couple of liters of fluid everyday, increasing your consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, by including fewer meat and dairy products - will reduce congestion and speed up elimination. Apart from diet, other elements of detox include various treatments such as aromatherapy, massage and body scrubs which you can get done at a spa or even at home. A 'home spa' should include a clean and tidy room with a comfortable rug or duvet and lots of pillows, good reading material, some essential oils like lavender, rose or jasmine, scented candles and soft, soothing music.
Going on weekend detoxification is convenient as well as rejuvenating and relaxing. For a change, eat light over the weekend. Have lots of fluid in terms of water, thin buttermilk, vegetable juices, herbal teas, warm water with lime, a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, a selection of nuts and seeds, brown rice, skimmed milk yogurt and fresh herbs. Make up your own menu from the list of foods suggested. Here's how your diet should look like:
- UPON RISING: A glass of lukewarm water with lime and honey
- BREAKFAST: Fresh fruits + a handful of nuts/dry fruits + herbal tea (w/o milk and sugar)
- MID-MORNING: Spinach + mint + coriander + lime juice or any other vegetable juice
- LUNCH: Green salad + grilled vegetables with tofu + brown rice + thin buttermilk
- TEA: Herbal tea (w/o milk and sugar) + 1 fruit
- DINNER: A bowl of vegetable soup followed by a fruit
Avoid caffeine on this diet. Avoid the use of salt and oil, instead use fresh herbs and lemon or lime juice to dress and season your food. Eat smaller quantities of food in order to give your digestive system a rest. Try to eat a piece of fruit or raw vegetable when hungry.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Media Terror
Gnani Sankaran- *Tamil writer, Chennai.*
Watching at least four English news channels surfing from one another during the last 60 hours of terror strike made me feel a terror of another kind. The terror of assaulting one's mind and sensitivity with cameras, sound bites and non-stop blabbers. All these channels have been trying to manufacture my consent for a big lie called - *Hotel Taj the icon of India.* Whose India, Whose Icon ?It is a matter of great shame that these channels simply did not bother about the other icon that faced the first attack from terrorists - the Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station. CST is the true icon of Mumbai. It is through this railway station hundreds of Indians from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Tamilnadu have poured into Mumbai over the years, transforming themselves into Mumbaikars and built the Mumbai of today along with the Marathis and KolisBut the channels would not recognise this. Nor would they recognise the thirty odd dead bodies strewn all over the platform of CST. No Barkha Dutt went there to tell us who they were. But she was at Taj to show us the damaged furniture and reception lobby braving the guards. And the TV cameras did not go to the government run JJ hospital to find out who those 26 unidentified bodies were. Instead they were again invading the battered Taj to try in vain for a scoop shot of the dead bodies of the page 3 celebrities.In all probability, the unidentified bodies could be those of workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh migrating to Mumbai, arriving by train at CST without cell phones and pan cards to identify them. Even after 60 hours after the CST massacre, no channel has bothered to cover in detail what transpired there.The channels conveniently failed to acknowledge that the Aam Aadmis of India surviving in Mumbai were not affected by Taj, Oberoi and Trident closing down for a couple of weeks or months. What mattered to them was the stoppage of BEST buses and suburban trains even for one hour. But the channels were not covering that aspect of the terror attack. Such information at best merited a scroll line, while the cameras have to be dedicated for real time thriller unfolding at Taj or Nariman bhavan.The so called justification for the hype the channels built around heritage site Taj falling down (CST is also a heritage site), is that Hotel Taj is where the rich and the powerful of India and the globe congregate. It is a symbol or icon of power of money and politics, not India. It is the icon of the financiers and swindlers of India. The Mumbai and India were built by the Aam Aadmis who passed through CST and Taj was the oasis of peace and privacy for those who wielded power over these mass of labouring classes. Leopold club and Taj were the haunts of rich spoilt kids who would drive their vehicles over sleeping Aam Aadmis on the pavement, the Mafiosi of Mumbai forever financing the glitterati of Bollywood (and also the terrorists) , Political brokers and industrialists. It is precisely because Taj is the icon of power and not people, that the terrorists chose to strike.
The terrorists have understood after several efforts that the Aam Aadmi will never break down even if you bomb her markets and trains. He/she was resilient because that is the only way he/she can even survive.Resilience was another word that annoyed the pundits of news channels and their patrons this time. What resilience, enough is enough, said Pranoy Roy's channel on the left side of the channel spectrum. Same sentiments were echoed by Arnab Goswami representing the right wing of the broadcast media whose time is now. Can Rajdeep be far behind in this game of one upmanship over TRPs ? They all attacked resilience this time. They wanted firm action from the government in tackling terror.The same channels celebrated resilience when bombs went off in trains and markets killing and maiming the Aam Aadmis. The resilience of the ordinary worker suited the rich business class of Mumbai since work or manufacture or film shooting did not stop. When it came to them, the rich shamelessly exhibited their lack of nerves and refused to be resilient themselves. They cry for government intervention now to protect their private spas and swimming pools and bars and restaurants, similar to the way in which Citibank, General Motors and the ilk cry for government money when their coffers are emptied by their own ideologies.The terrorists have learnt that the ordinary Indian is unperturbed by terror. For one whose daily existence itself is a terror of government sponsored inflation and market sponsored exclusion, pain is something he has learnt to live with. The rich of Mumbai and India Inc are facing the pain for the first time and learning about it just as the middle classes of India learnt about violation of human rights only during emergency, a cool 28 years after independence.And human rights were another favourite issue for the channels to whip at times of terrorism. Arnab Goswami in an animated voice wondered where were those champions of human rights now, not to be seen applauding the brave and selfless police officers who gave up their life in fighting terorism. Well, the counter question would be where were you when such officers were violating the human rights of Aam Aadmis. Has there ever been any 24 hour non stop coverage of violence against dalits and adivasis of this country?This definitely was not the time to manufacture consent for the extra legal and third degree methods of interrogation of police and army but Arnabs don't miss a single opportunity to serve their class masters, this time the jingoistic patriotism came in handy to whitewash the entire uniformed services.The sacrifice of the commandos or the police officers who went down dying at the hands of ruthless terrorists is no doubt heart rending but in vain in a situation which needed not just brawn but also brain. Israel has a point when it says the operations were misplanned resulting in the death of its nationals here.Karkares and Salaskars would not be dead if they did not commit the mistake of traveling by the same vehicle. It is a basic lesson in management that the top brass should never travel together in crisis. The terrorists, if only they had watched the channels, would have laughed their hearts out when the Chief of the Marine commandos, an elite force, masking his face so unprofessionally in a see-through cloth, told the media that the commandos had no idea about the structure of the Hotel Taj which they were trying to liberate. But the terrorists knew the place thoroughly, he acknowledged.Is it so difficult to obtain a ground plan of Hotel Taj and discuss operation strategy thoroughly for at least one hour before entering? This is something even an event manager would first ask for, if he had to fix 25 audio systems and 50 CCtvs for a cultural event in a hotel. Would not Ratan Tata have provided a plan of his ancestral hotel to the commandos within one hour considering the mighty apparatus at his and government's disposal? Are satelite pictures only available for terrorists and not the government agencies ? In an operation known to consume time, one more hour for preparation would have only improved the efficiency of execution.Sacrifices become doubly tragic in unprofessional circumstances. But the Aam Aadmis always believe that terror-shooters do better planning than terrorists. And the gullible media in a jingoistic mood would not raise any question about any of these issues.They after all have their favourite whipping boy - the politician the eternal entertainer for the non-voting rich classes of India. Arnabs and Rajdeeps would wax eloquent on Manmohan Singh and Advani visiting Mumbai separately and not together showing solidarity even at this hour of national crisis. What a farce? Why can't these channels pool together all their camera crew and reporters at this time of national calamity and share the sound and visual bites which could mean a wider and deeper coverage of events with such a huge human resource to command? Why should Arnab and Rajdeep and Barkha keep harping every five minutes that this piece of information was exclusive to their channel, at the time of such a national crisis? Is this the time to promote the channel? If that is valid, the politician promoting his own political constituency is equally valid. And the duty of the politican is to do politics, his politics. It is for the people to evaluate that politics. And terrorism is not above politics. It is politics by other means.To come to grips with it and to eventually eliminate it, the practice of politics by proper means needs constant fine tuning and improvement. Decrying all politics and politicians, only helps terrorists and dictators who are the two sides of the same coin. And the rich and powerful always prefer terrorists and dictators to do business with. Those caught in this crossfire are always the Aam Aadmis whose deaths are not even mourned - the taxi driver who lost the entire family at CST firing, the numerous waiters and stewards who lost their lives working in Taj for a monthly salary that would be one time bill for their masters.Postscript: In a fit of anger and depression, I sent a message to all the channels, 30 hours through the coverage. After all they have been constantly asking the viewers to message them for anything and everything. My message read: I send this with lots of pain. All channels, including yours, must apologise for not covering the victims of CST massacre, the real Mumbaikars and aam aadmis of India. Your obsession with five star elite is disgusting. Learn from the print media please. No channel bothered. Only Srinivasan Jain replied: you are right. We are trying to redress balance today. Well, nothing happened till the time of writing this 66 hours after the terror attack.
Watching at least four English news channels surfing from one another during the last 60 hours of terror strike made me feel a terror of another kind. The terror of assaulting one's mind and sensitivity with cameras, sound bites and non-stop blabbers. All these channels have been trying to manufacture my consent for a big lie called - *Hotel Taj the icon of India.* Whose India, Whose Icon ?It is a matter of great shame that these channels simply did not bother about the other icon that faced the first attack from terrorists - the Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station. CST is the true icon of Mumbai. It is through this railway station hundreds of Indians from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Tamilnadu have poured into Mumbai over the years, transforming themselves into Mumbaikars and built the Mumbai of today along with the Marathis and KolisBut the channels would not recognise this. Nor would they recognise the thirty odd dead bodies strewn all over the platform of CST. No Barkha Dutt went there to tell us who they were. But she was at Taj to show us the damaged furniture and reception lobby braving the guards. And the TV cameras did not go to the government run JJ hospital to find out who those 26 unidentified bodies were. Instead they were again invading the battered Taj to try in vain for a scoop shot of the dead bodies of the page 3 celebrities.In all probability, the unidentified bodies could be those of workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh migrating to Mumbai, arriving by train at CST without cell phones and pan cards to identify them. Even after 60 hours after the CST massacre, no channel has bothered to cover in detail what transpired there.The channels conveniently failed to acknowledge that the Aam Aadmis of India surviving in Mumbai were not affected by Taj, Oberoi and Trident closing down for a couple of weeks or months. What mattered to them was the stoppage of BEST buses and suburban trains even for one hour. But the channels were not covering that aspect of the terror attack. Such information at best merited a scroll line, while the cameras have to be dedicated for real time thriller unfolding at Taj or Nariman bhavan.The so called justification for the hype the channels built around heritage site Taj falling down (CST is also a heritage site), is that Hotel Taj is where the rich and the powerful of India and the globe congregate. It is a symbol or icon of power of money and politics, not India. It is the icon of the financiers and swindlers of India. The Mumbai and India were built by the Aam Aadmis who passed through CST and Taj was the oasis of peace and privacy for those who wielded power over these mass of labouring classes. Leopold club and Taj were the haunts of rich spoilt kids who would drive their vehicles over sleeping Aam Aadmis on the pavement, the Mafiosi of Mumbai forever financing the glitterati of Bollywood (and also the terrorists) , Political brokers and industrialists. It is precisely because Taj is the icon of power and not people, that the terrorists chose to strike.
The terrorists have understood after several efforts that the Aam Aadmi will never break down even if you bomb her markets and trains. He/she was resilient because that is the only way he/she can even survive.Resilience was another word that annoyed the pundits of news channels and their patrons this time. What resilience, enough is enough, said Pranoy Roy's channel on the left side of the channel spectrum. Same sentiments were echoed by Arnab Goswami representing the right wing of the broadcast media whose time is now. Can Rajdeep be far behind in this game of one upmanship over TRPs ? They all attacked resilience this time. They wanted firm action from the government in tackling terror.The same channels celebrated resilience when bombs went off in trains and markets killing and maiming the Aam Aadmis. The resilience of the ordinary worker suited the rich business class of Mumbai since work or manufacture or film shooting did not stop. When it came to them, the rich shamelessly exhibited their lack of nerves and refused to be resilient themselves. They cry for government intervention now to protect their private spas and swimming pools and bars and restaurants, similar to the way in which Citibank, General Motors and the ilk cry for government money when their coffers are emptied by their own ideologies.The terrorists have learnt that the ordinary Indian is unperturbed by terror. For one whose daily existence itself is a terror of government sponsored inflation and market sponsored exclusion, pain is something he has learnt to live with. The rich of Mumbai and India Inc are facing the pain for the first time and learning about it just as the middle classes of India learnt about violation of human rights only during emergency, a cool 28 years after independence.And human rights were another favourite issue for the channels to whip at times of terrorism. Arnab Goswami in an animated voice wondered where were those champions of human rights now, not to be seen applauding the brave and selfless police officers who gave up their life in fighting terorism. Well, the counter question would be where were you when such officers were violating the human rights of Aam Aadmis. Has there ever been any 24 hour non stop coverage of violence against dalits and adivasis of this country?This definitely was not the time to manufacture consent for the extra legal and third degree methods of interrogation of police and army but Arnabs don't miss a single opportunity to serve their class masters, this time the jingoistic patriotism came in handy to whitewash the entire uniformed services.The sacrifice of the commandos or the police officers who went down dying at the hands of ruthless terrorists is no doubt heart rending but in vain in a situation which needed not just brawn but also brain. Israel has a point when it says the operations were misplanned resulting in the death of its nationals here.Karkares and Salaskars would not be dead if they did not commit the mistake of traveling by the same vehicle. It is a basic lesson in management that the top brass should never travel together in crisis. The terrorists, if only they had watched the channels, would have laughed their hearts out when the Chief of the Marine commandos, an elite force, masking his face so unprofessionally in a see-through cloth, told the media that the commandos had no idea about the structure of the Hotel Taj which they were trying to liberate. But the terrorists knew the place thoroughly, he acknowledged.Is it so difficult to obtain a ground plan of Hotel Taj and discuss operation strategy thoroughly for at least one hour before entering? This is something even an event manager would first ask for, if he had to fix 25 audio systems and 50 CCtvs for a cultural event in a hotel. Would not Ratan Tata have provided a plan of his ancestral hotel to the commandos within one hour considering the mighty apparatus at his and government's disposal? Are satelite pictures only available for terrorists and not the government agencies ? In an operation known to consume time, one more hour for preparation would have only improved the efficiency of execution.Sacrifices become doubly tragic in unprofessional circumstances. But the Aam Aadmis always believe that terror-shooters do better planning than terrorists. And the gullible media in a jingoistic mood would not raise any question about any of these issues.They after all have their favourite whipping boy - the politician the eternal entertainer for the non-voting rich classes of India. Arnabs and Rajdeeps would wax eloquent on Manmohan Singh and Advani visiting Mumbai separately and not together showing solidarity even at this hour of national crisis. What a farce? Why can't these channels pool together all their camera crew and reporters at this time of national calamity and share the sound and visual bites which could mean a wider and deeper coverage of events with such a huge human resource to command? Why should Arnab and Rajdeep and Barkha keep harping every five minutes that this piece of information was exclusive to their channel, at the time of such a national crisis? Is this the time to promote the channel? If that is valid, the politician promoting his own political constituency is equally valid. And the duty of the politican is to do politics, his politics. It is for the people to evaluate that politics. And terrorism is not above politics. It is politics by other means.To come to grips with it and to eventually eliminate it, the practice of politics by proper means needs constant fine tuning and improvement. Decrying all politics and politicians, only helps terrorists and dictators who are the two sides of the same coin. And the rich and powerful always prefer terrorists and dictators to do business with. Those caught in this crossfire are always the Aam Aadmis whose deaths are not even mourned - the taxi driver who lost the entire family at CST firing, the numerous waiters and stewards who lost their lives working in Taj for a monthly salary that would be one time bill for their masters.Postscript: In a fit of anger and depression, I sent a message to all the channels, 30 hours through the coverage. After all they have been constantly asking the viewers to message them for anything and everything. My message read: I send this with lots of pain. All channels, including yours, must apologise for not covering the victims of CST massacre, the real Mumbaikars and aam aadmis of India. Your obsession with five star elite is disgusting. Learn from the print media please. No channel bothered. Only Srinivasan Jain replied: you are right. We are trying to redress balance today. Well, nothing happened till the time of writing this 66 hours after the terror attack.
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