Ambimama - India

The country’s fastest train between Delhi and Agra covers a 198 kms in one hour and 56 minutes. It travels at a maximum speed of 150kms per hour. It was flagged of on Wednesday, February 15, 2006, from New Delhi by Railways Minister Lalu Prasad. 

On the maiden the train reached Agra late!!

My personal experience of traveling by Superfast and Shtabdi express has always been a very bad experience. Be it Brindavan, Kovai or Rajdhani. They always arrive late and I will be at the mercy of auto drivers demanding equal amount of money that I paid to travel on train, to reach my home. The reasons given by Railways are many – track improvement, un-manned level crossing and chain pulling.The distance between Coimbatore and Madras is 497 kms. If the Superfast train travels even at 100kms (the track can withstand a speed of 120kms) we should reach in 5 hours. But Railways official travel time announced is 7and ½ hours. And it never does that. It always takes 8 hours or more.Why make tall claims, news when Railways are not practical? 

Off-topic I had a Muslim friend who was coming back from Haj. He brought back with him the holy water ZAM ZAM and some dates as Prasadham. He said Zam Zam water is very pure and bragged on about it. I added comparing it with the pure Ganges Water. He then added saying that it is not good though for Hindus to worship the River as a form of God. I asked if you can worship God the creator then why not worship his creations? We then dropped the argument there for good reasons.

But Hindus worship the Ganges for many reasons which are irrelevant now.

To the main topic now: All of know about it now. In short, Danish media published some cartoons which they though were funny, just funny. But the Mulsim population were obviously offended and started to protest. The protest spread slowly and now has turned to riots in most part of the Muslim world.

Re-track:   

30 Sep    Danish paper publishes cartoons
20 Oct    Muslim ambassadors complain to Danish PM
10 Jan    Norwegian publication reprints cartoons
26 Jan    Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador
30 Jan    Gunmen raid EU’s Gaza office demanding apology
31 Jan    Danish paper apologises
1 Feb     Reprints in France, Germany, Italy and Spain
 

Yes, cartoons clearly crossed the line. Agreed. But the response in the form of riots and violent attacks on innocent people is totally uncalled for. Even Prophet Muhammed would certainly not encourage these immature acts of rage and racism.

There are bzillion jokes and cartoons about Jesus Christ and Christianity in Newspaper, magazines and even in Movies. There are lots of jokes in Movies about Hinduism and Brahmins. In fact some Dravidian political parties have publicly abused Brahmins back in the 80s to win elections. There have been worse incidents than the “Danish cartoon incident”. But they were just ignored by the people concerned. They were not blown in to acts of violence and riots.

Dozens lost their lives around the world during demonstrations against the cartoons. Who is answerable for this loss? What crime did those innocent people did to loose their lives? But the shameful part is, even after all this no one cares to put an end to this. The people in charge who actually brought these cartoons out must be appreciated for their extraordinary insensitivity to human values and practices.

If you have not see the Danish Cartoons on Muhammed, here take this:

http://64.246.44.90/cartoons/Mohammed-drawings-newspaper1.jpg 

Enough has been written about the “Kushboo Incident” in the blogosphere and every other form of media. But now, there are rumours that she might contest or support the election manifesto for AIADMK in the “1000 Lights” constitieuncy of Chennai.

At this time, let us recall some of the facts about what happened in the “Kushbu pre-marital sex” incident.

 Kushboo - Quotable quotes

There is nothing wrong in women having pre-marital sex as long as they took protective measures
                - Kushboo said in a magazine interview

She would not have even dreamt of this hue and outcry that had raised . She finally tendered an open apology to Tamils

“Even in films, I never undertook roles that lowered the image of women”
                - Kushboo justifying to Tamilnadu press & media

This television interview of Kushboo made zillion rounds in all Tamil Satellite television channels. They thought maybe this is more important than anything else that’s happening in the State.

“I have the greatest regard for Tamils, especially Tamil women. If my remarks have hurt anybody’s feelings, I tender an apology. I am one among you and will always remain with you.”
                            - Kushboo’s apology

This is a way too far Kushboo madam. Excuse me for being a critic here, but what does she know about Tamil women or culture? I am not being a moral advocate here or something, but this really made me laugh.

Then our famous Suhasini jumped in to the arena with all support for Kushboo. Look at her dialogue here.

“If Kushboo was forced to apologize, it is a blow to a democratic culture of freedom of expression”
                            - Suhasini’s statement in support for Kushboo

Ok. So you are saying this is blow to freedom of expression. How about she herself being forced to withdraw her statement and then in turn apologize publicly? Comedy. Absolute mockery of self-respect and human values.

Other quotes from the blogoshpere

“To all the Politicians who are agitated by the remarks that Kushboo had about pre-marital sex, SHUT UP you hypocrites!”
                            - http://arigatho.blogspot.com/2005/12/damn_27.html

“I am sure the public must be having their last laugh at all this. Their letters in “The Hindu” express their anguish at all this hypocrisy. What are we supposed to believe? That debauchery and excesses hardly exist in the world of showbizz?”
                            - http://arigatho.blogspot.com/2005/12/damn_27.html

“I’m sure all of you are aware of this horrific incident. First it was Kushboo, then the ridiculous “moral policing” in colleges and now this. This is the kind of repugnance that our society has been reduced to. What makes it all the more worse is that inconsiderate and insensitive people think it’s their birthright to give judgemental and retrograde opinions on the matter.”
                            - http://arigatho.blogspot.com/2005/12/damn_27.html

Personal opinions on the existence or non-existence of premarital sex should not be taken as insult to communities or cultures. What she said was true after all .. Do we mean to say that premarital sex does not exist in Chennai . Of course it does !!

If you have observed , Moral policing is widespread across the country and its target are mainly women. If a popular actor had made the same comment , would the outcome be so dramatic ? Definitely not !!

The politicians and all the people who had protested against kushboo’s comments should raise their voice against incidents of Sex- related violence, kidnapping of girls for forced prostitution, female infanticide, dowry deaths, eve teasing and so on ..

Just watch this video. I got goosebumps all over when I watched this video.

The one and one master…. master blaster! Sachin may out of form, but certainly not out of class!

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As I recall some of his best blasts… Indian was playing Australia in Sharjah back in late 90s. Australia has a bowler by the name of Michael Kasprowicz. Fate maybe that this guy was unfortunately bowling to Sachin when he was at his peak. Indian had to make 243 or something in 44 overs to qualify for the finals at Sharjah. India failed to win the match, but Sachin made sure we were in the finals by better run rate compared to the third team in the tournament. Statistics apart, the shots that he played that day, the hits against Kasprowicz is totally out of this world. Am sure Kasprowicz would have been questioning his own bowling ability that day. But poor guy, little that he would have known that any bowling attack on that day was destined to be murdered by the Master Blaster, Sachin Tendulkar. To me, that was Sachin’s best tournament ever and I have my doubts if he would be able to perform the same feat again himself.

In that calendar year(1998) he scored 9 centuries and scored about 1900 odd runs in total.