Of human rights

A cyclone devastates a South Asian country. Thousands are dead and hundreds of thousands are missing, presumed dead. The world pitches in to help but the regime that governs the country holds the supplies and then distributes the supplies to its trauma stricken citizens as propaganda. They then hold a referendum among the people to make sure they stay in power.

An African country is ripped apart by civil war. A refugee crisis of unthinkable magnitude originates. Rape, murder and other acts of genocide take place on a daily basis. The refugee's are starving and wake up every day knowing that they will either die of starvation or will be killed by a state sponsored militia. What does the world do ? The world debates on whether or not it's genocide and whether or not they should interfere.

A man in an Islamic country is harassed because he put up some offensive materials on his website. The website is hacked and a death threat pasted on the front page. The man is told that he will face charges but nothing is done about the death threats.

A woman and her lover are killed in a remote village in India. The killers are her own father and brother. They wanted to restore the honour to their family which the woman lost when she decided to live in with her lover after divorcing her husband. The family drags her and the lover out of their house and beats them to death in broad daylight. The villagers watch and applaud.

March 15th 2008. Human Rights Day. Are you kidding me ?

Have you heard of the Geneva Convention ? It was supposed to make war civilized. We've had a lot of wars since the convention ... has anyone of you witnessed a civilized war ?

Have you heard of the UN ? It was supposed to protect human rights. That was it's basic objective. "Never again" was the catchphrase used during the Armenian genocide. The Jewish Holoucast occured after that but there was no UN to stop that from happening right ? What about after the UN was formed ? Rwanda, Serebrenica, Darfur ... to name a few. And please dont tell me that the perpetrators were caught and put on trial. We're supposed to stop such things before they happen, not swear that we won't allow it to happen ever again.

"Never again" is what everyone says. I say what the f**k were we doing when it happened the first time ?

You know what's ironic ? The cavemen that we thought were dumb and stupid according to our standards are the one's who enjoyed human rights. The advanced and civilized us have none.

So stop kidding yourselves. You have no rights and never will earn it ... until the day you're fellow human has it.

Of Pangea Day

Pangea Day was broadcast live all over the world on TVs, internet and mobile on the evening of May 10th which by the way turned out to be 11.30 pm for us, which meant I watched the program on May 11. For those of you who don't know what this was all about Pangea Day was an innovative program featuring short films from all over the world in an attempt to make people understand that emotions, however different they may seem are actually basically the same everywhere. In other words we are not different from the people who we consider our enemies and that we are all the same irrespective of where we come from.

As a movie critic I really liked the show which showcased some brilliant short movies (which are the hardest to make) including two from India. there were three movies that I really liked : J'Attendrai Le Suivant from France; Elevator Music from the UK and More from the US. If you'd like to watch these movies and the others featured on the show; you can do so here.

On the humanitarian side I thought this was a very brave and novel approach to world peace. There were some truly touching scenes in the show but none more touching than the finale where an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man came on stage hand in hand after having lost direct relatives and still believing that peace will come to their troubled lands.

Touching, truly was. But, just being touching is not going to help. The question I asked myself was exactly how effective this show was.

While I sat there watching it, I couldn't help but think of the many people I know personally who would have scoffed at the show. I thought about the people I knew would ridicule the Egyptian group for the music and their language. I thought of the people I knew would consider with contempt the movies made in the Islamic world. These people wouldn't have even watched this show and even if they did they'd probably have just walked out after an hour or so.

It's not just the people in India. I'd bet you the people over at shelleytherepublican.com would have screamed treason if they ever saw Operation Homecoming. How do shows like this get to people like them ? Simple answer: they don't.

So, was it an exercise in futility ? No. It was a start and believe me that's better than nothing at all.

When you live in a place where multitudes of culture's meet at crossroads it's easy for you lose hope in humanity. Sadly, India is one such place. The distrust and hatred that exists on so many levels of racism is so thick that you can almost smell it in the air. A colleague of mine once told me he hated Muslims; my neighbor laughed as he watched a news report on how Hindu mobs were slaughtering Muslims in Gujarat. I have listened as five Muslim men ridiculed and laughed at a documentary on Hindu customs and traditions. One went so far as to call Hindus the "damned" people who would never see heaven. This person was fully aware that I was in the room.

How do you reach these people ?

I've tried to change the thoughts of a few people dear to me, but other than them I really don't think people will want to listen. They have been brought up in a society that has told them that they are superior. And these people are not illiterate. They have been taught both sides of the story: the scientific and the spiritual; the humanism and the fundamentalism. And in today's day and age it's frightening to know that many still believe in the spiritualism and the fundamentalism.

How do you reach these people ?

Pangea Day was a noble effort. But did it reach the audience that should have watched it ? It's success cannot be measured by the number of viewers but by the number of people whose thoughts and views it changes. Until then, it will remain as an effort and only that; one among the countless others.

Of Ash and the ever increasing idiot media

Two days ago I was watching flipping channels on the tele when the red block letters "BREAKING NEWS" caught my eye. It was Star News and the breaking news was footage of Aishwarya flinging what looked like sand or some sort of brown colored powder out her front gate. Apparently this is was some sort of ritual one does when one believes that an evil eye has been cast upon oneself or oneself's family.

The channel kept showing the footage at regular intervals between stock footage of Ash and Abhishek. They were even circling the aforementioned powder in red so as the viewer would not miss it. The reporter was talking in an all important investigative reporting style about the various scenarios this particular scene could mean. Who was Ash doing the ritual for ? Upon whom had the evil eye been cast ? Who might have cast it ?

Remember the media frenzy when Britney was thought to be pregnant ? Good God, this has to be wierder than that. At that point of time the big news was that the "Kidney kingpin" had been extradited to Delhi, and they were concerned with an evil eye ? And its not the first time either. I distinctly remember experts analyzing footage of Sanjay Dutt praying in a temple and trying figure out what he was praying for. And Aaj Tak showed Big B, Abhishek and Ash praying in another temple a few days after the marriage. Again the so called experts were trying to figure out if the marriage was happy from the couple's faces.

When did Star News and Aaj Tak change from mainstream media to something worse than tabloids ? Is it because they cant find any visually appealing stories ? Or do they think that the Indian public would rather watch celebrities in the every day life than current affairs. Good Lord people, the world is in such a state of distress everywhere and all you have to think about is what Sanjay Dutt is praying ??? If you're an entertainment news channel say so ... dont try to portray yourself as a leading news channel when you report anything but.

Scenario: Couple of years in the future. Ash and Abhishek have a child.

Breaking news: We have amazing footage of the Bachhan child shitting on thir front lawn.

(Footage of a chubby kid without diapers walking on the lawn. The kid abruptly stops, his face strained and the material in question drops .... with a red circle around it)

We now turn to our child specialist, Dr. Gupta. Doctor, from this footage can you tell if that healthy poop or not ? Can you also tell what it might have been so we may try to understand what this child has been fed ?

Dr. Gupta: (clears his throat, hair and tie) Well due to the solid nature and apparent free fall I have to say that it does look healthy. However without an odor analysis I am unable to 100 percent say that it is healthy or what it might have been for that matter.

Meanwhile ... outside the Bachhan compound, the executive producer recieves a message from his boss. He reads the message and barks to his reporter : "We need smell. Jump over that fence, smell that shit and tell me what it smells like .."

The reporter proceeds to jump over the fence while thiking to himself: "This is so not worth 20k a month."

Of cancer, laws and sympathy

I was cruising through my reader a few minutes ago and this caught my eye.

Apparently a 39 year old cancer struck Ghanian woman was deported back to Ghana after her visa expired. She had already committed an immigrant violation when she started working on a student visa. The woman was taken from the hospital where she was undergoing treatment and accompanied back to Ghana.

While the debate rages between the doctors and officials that wasnt what surprised me. What surprised me was this quote from a reader in Portsmouth.

"Why should the British public be expected to pay for someone who technically should not be here. The Lancet needs to be reminded that it is the national health service not the international health service."

I really dont know what to say to that. If you are to argue on whether he's right or not that would take ages without result.

But lets not forget thats a human life we're talking about. Shouldn't we show some sympathy ?