Category Archives: Politics

Pending

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I think it has become our compulsion to use the word “Pending” again and again. Maybe we use this word most in the whole world. We have most number of legal cases pending before courts in the whole world. People file a case and spend their lives but never get any result. Now people feel better settling the case on their own.  I never want to go either to the police or to the court for any reason.

If I go to the police then I have to bribe them and if I go to court then I have to bribe and wait both until the judgement is given. And sometimes judges are also bribed and their judgement is not judgement. Once I filed a case against a computer shop from where I had bought a computer about eight years ago. I filed this case because he had given me wrong price. The same computer I had bought from him was worth Rs. 23,000 but he wanted to charge me 43,000. 

I told him to either give my money back or take the computer back. He took the computer back and gave me two post dated bank cheques. When I went to the bank to get my money from his account, the bank clerk said that there was no money in his account. I informed the computer seller about it and he told me to go to the bank again after few days. I did it several times but never got any money.

Finally I decided to go to the court for it and filed a case. It took more than seven years and a lot of my personal time and lawyer’s fee and finally judgement was given in computer’s seller guy. I had made the computer guy write on stamp paper that he took my computer and had given post dated cheques, I had receipt of the computer, I had everything to prove that I was cheated but still judge gave judgement in favor of computer guy because he was bribed. So it took eight years and no judgement.

I had applied for a tour guide license two years ago but have not got it yet. The whole process is stuck in the several courts of India. First of all it took almost one year for government to see the paper and organize exam and then later old guys sued government because they don’t want new blood to come in this sector. Even though I have qualified the exam but Government has been giving temporary license which nobody likes at all, we need training and a permanent license. I don’t know when I will have the training and permanent license, but doesn’t seem like I will get it within next one year.

I applied for one other tour guide license which is issued by state government about two and a half years ago and same thing with this program as well. Government was sued by old guides and the case is still pending in the court. To be honest I had forgotten about it and I believe it must be same with everyone. We had to pay Rs. 500 with application which doesn’t seem to come back to us again. Maybe this exam will never ever be organized because we have not heard of any hearing of this case.

I applied for a registration for paying guest house before one and a half  year but have not got it yet. They call me after ever fifteen-twenty days and tell the same thing that they are doing survey and will start issuing the license soon. Once they told me to apply again because they had lost my papers. It was not expensive to apply, but it again took at least few hours. I have been hosting guests at my place without having license. I just inform to the local intelligence unit but I will feel better if I have a license.

Terrorist attack on Mumbai

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Taj Hotel before attack

Taj hotel before attack

Mumbai was attacked by terrorists on 26th of November. Almost one hundred and seventy five people were killed and over three hundred and fifty people were injured. Terrorism has been effecting India continuously for the past few decades but still the government is just making the same kind of boring statements and not doing anything to stop it. I think in this kind of crucial situation all the political parties should have come together but again this time both of the biggest political parties- Congress and BJP were against each other.

Everybody is abusing to the government and the police. Media, Indian intelligence department and FBI tells that these terrorists were trained in Pakistan. Police have found a lot of evidences that proves Pakistan’s involvement in this attack but Pakistan government doesn’t want to hear anything. Indian government gave a list of twenty terrorists to Pakistan government and told them to give these terrorists to India but Pakistan government refused it. They say first of all you prove that there was Pakistan’s involvement in this attack and then we will think about it. 

Smoke coming out of Taj hotel

Smoke coming out of Taj hotel

All the terrorists that India demanded are known for being terrorists in the whole world but still Pakistan needs evidence. Dawood Ebrahim, the guy who helped terrorists to get them to Mumbai via sea route, has already been declared as a most wanted terrorist by the US government but Pakistan government still wants evidences against him. The whole India wants Indian government to take some action against these terrorists this time but I am sure nothing will happen. 

We have very good support of international community after Mumbai attack. The US and Israel government have promised to provide all kind of help to fight against terrorists. But the sad thing is that our government seems super smart taking help of international community to built nuclear power plants which will produce the waste that we can never get rid off and could bring disaster in the future, if not taken care properly, but they don’t seem like taking help to finish terrorism.

One of the terrorists

One of the terrorists

I was watching a interview of a politician from Israel who said that India should do something for themselves first and then hope for international community to help them. I loved his idea. How can we hope for others to come and help us until we start helping us ourselves. After all the terrorist attacks our politicians say something boring and that’s all. Neither they start helping India nor the international community comes forward to help us.

Media is also fed up by reporting about terrorist attacks. They were also saying that enough is enough. They just don’t want to see blood on the road and report about it again and again. Media was appreciated for the way they had captured this whole news. They had reached at attack spots before the police and stayed there until the whole operation was finished. The very interesting thing was that media had pictures and videos of terrorists but the police was keeping telling that terrorists are hiding and they could not see them.

One injured person at hospital

One injured person at hospital

I heard a terrorist calling to a news channel and putting their demands. He was asking Indian government to release all the terrorists who are in the jail and to declare Hyderabad as a Muslim state. When he was asked where was he from, he said that he was from Hyderabad, India. He said that he belongs to a organization called Deccan Muzahidin. Everybody knew that he had very very Kashmir accent, I am sure he was not from Hyderabad. Later the reality came that all these terrorists had come from Karachi, Pakistan. 

Once TV host asked a terrorist about what did they have to eat and he said that why do they need to eat. They said that they were going to Allah, and Allah would welcome them with lots of good food. TV host told him- Do you know that NSG commandos and other forces have covered you and they will kill you within few hours and he said that- The world is watching who is being killed. He said even if he dies, he will go to heaven, and will get blessings of Allah.

CST Railway station after attack

CST Railway station after attack

When they were asked for reason behind this attack they said that Hindus kill Muslims, rape their mother and sisters and demolish all the mosques. I don’t know of any place in India where these kinds of activities take place but the sad thing is that this is what they were taught. Babri Mosque was demolished by Hindus and this is the only mosque I know that was destroyed in my whole life. If they mind Hindus destroying mosques then they should also mind Muslims demolishing Hindu temples as well. Thousands of temples have been demolished in Pakistan itself. 

Once the terrorist said that people of Kashmir want to live in Pakistan but Indian government is putting them in India forcibly. I asked the same question to a lot of people when I was in Kashmir and each and every person told me that they wanted to be in Kashmir controlled by India. Kashmir is still a very poor state just because of terrorism and all the Kashmiri people know it. If these of terrorists care about people living in Kashmir, then they should immediately stop thinking about them because the world knows that we can provide Kashimiri people a better life because Indians have more opportunity than Pakistanis. 

Fire coming out of a window of hotel Oberoi

Fire coming out of a window of hotel Oberoi

I was talking to my friends and they said if this whole terrorists activities are only because of Kashmir, then fuck it and give it Pakistan. It is a big change I have noticed. I also support this idea because people of Kashmir would never ever have good life until this problem is solved. And people of all the states of India have been targeted, they are killed. And what do we get, a tour of Kashmir? If Indian government ever puts this option of giving Kashmir to Pakistan, I would support them because I know it very well that Indian government can never ever solve this problem. 

If terrorists or the group of people who care about Muslims of Kashmir are concerned about Muslims in Kashmir, they should be concerned about the Muslims living in other states as well. If they are demanding for Kashmir to provide better life to Muslims, then maybe someday they will demand for the whole India because we have Muslims in all the states of India. I think we give them Kashmir but on one condition that they will have to accept all the Muslims of India and take them back to Pakistan or wherever they want to take them. 

Will they accept all the Muslims? No, impossible because they are not concerned about the Muslims, they are concerned about our progress and wealth. They just want to disturb our economy and Mumbai attacks are the perfect example of it. Why did they choose Taj and Oberoi? Only because they want to effect our economy and tourism which is a big source of income of India. I know that all the Muslims are not bad but these terrorists are putting their ideas forcibly on Muslims and making them disrespected in the society.

Candle light procession

Candle light procession

This time people response is amazing. People protested all over India against this terrorist attack. Mumbai people did a candlelight march where more than one hundred thousand people were present. Everybody was claiming the government first and then terrorists, and I completely agree with them. How is it possible to bring all the bombs and other weapons through sea route all the way from Karachi to Pakistan if our police was not involved in it. I am sure our police and navy also helped terrorists.

The Mumbai want to see change in political system. They want each and every political leader to be educated but I don’t completely agree with it. I am sure education will change a lot of things but there are thousands of examples where educated people have done worst and a lot of uneducated people have changed the world by their efforts. I think honesty is the most important thing and it could bring only and only from bringing honesty in the government services.

Whenever anybody asks to a young Indian about if he would also take bribe after getting job and there is only one answer- No. But when somebody sees a lot of corruption and bribes a government officer to get a job then obviously he would also be involved in accepting bribes when he works. People bribe police officers to get a job in police so they also take bribe when they have a job. How can we hope for a honest family if the head of the family is completely corrupt? 

Taj Hotel was also appreciated by its clients. I was watching a interview of a Taj guest who was staying there on the day Taj was attacked. He went out of hotel around 5 o;clock to join some party at other hotel. By the time he was getting back to Taj around 9 o’clock, he got a SMS from Taj saying that there was some security problem and they advised him to not come back to the hotel. He went immediately to an another hotel and saw the news that Taj was attacked. 

A lot of other guests who were inside their rooms for the whole time until the operation was finished also appreciated Taj administration. They said that Taj employees were continuously informing them about what was going on and were helping as much as they could. All the government departments were completely failed and each and every individual was related to private sector did his job perfectly. I think we should not blame Pakistan or any other terrorist organization, we better improve our system first. In my view there are only two things that made this attack happened:- The Indian Government, The police and Navy.

Will No Smoking work in India?

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It sounded like a joke when the Indian government prohibited smoking in public places. They introduced this law on the 2nd of October, the birthday of Gandhi. I was always suspicious whether people would follow this rule. In the very first week after the law was implemented, media people took pictures of people smoking at public places and showed it to the DM (district magistrate) and asked if this rule was made for Benares or not. DM said that they hadn’t got the written copy of rules yet, and that is why they did not know in what case they should stop people.

I was in Delhi few days ago. I went to the Delhi High Court for some work. I was surprised to see that a lot of advocates and the police were smoking inside the high court premises. First of all I thought that I had come to the wrong place because I just could not imagine that law makers would go against the laws that openly. There was a canteen inside the court premises where people could smoke, I am not sure about it, but a lot of people smoking outside of the canteen and most them were advocates.

I came out of the court after finishing my work. There was a tea shop about 50 meters away from the high court. I went there and asked for a tea and a cigarette. The shopkeeper did not have cigarette. I asked him where was the nearest cigarette shop and he said – inside the high court. I asked why he was not selling cigarettes and he replied that it was not allowed to sell tobacco products near the high court area. Then I told him that I had seen a lot of people smoking inside the high court. He also did not know why it was allowed to sell tobacco products inside the court but not outside.

I often see people smoking at public places including inside the trains and buses which has been prohibited for years. All the restaurants that are for foreigners allow their customers to smoke. People talked about this law for the first few days after it was implemented but I am sure nobody ever followed it, and nobody will ever follow it. Just nobody just cares about it. Everybody makes fun of this law. They know that it will never work in India.

Indian government made the law to stop the smoke that comes from cigarettes but the same government took the law called ‘POTA’ (The Prevention of Terrorism Act) back, which was implemented by the last government of BJP, to stop the smoke of gunpowder (terrorism). Terrorism still existed even when this law was in, but it was not too much. Terrorism was very much under control. The number of terrorist activities have increased rapidly after the government took out this law.

The whole world is making new laws to stop terrorism but I think India is the only country which is taking the existing laws back. This law was taken back only because of political reasons. We had sixty-four bomb blasts within the last six months. I don’t know how many people died but we had never seen this many bomb blasts.

photo documentary about Ganga

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A student from Singpore is staying at my place. She had contacted me through couchsurfing. She just wanted to meet me. But when I saw that she was doing research about Ganga, I asked her if she would be my paying guest. She was also looking for home stay so she decided to rent my apartment. She is making a photo documentary called Son of Ganga which will be about people’s relation with Ganga in Benares. She says that it was her own personal research motivated by her father but when she informed her school about it and asked for leave, her school told her to do it with them.

She wanted to do her research with Sankat Mochan Foundation. She wrote them about twenty days ago but hasn’t got any response yet. I had already talked to her a lot about pollution in Ganga. I took her to a place where sewage is discharged directly, without treating, to the river. She was shocked to see the quantity of the sewer water. She said that she never thought that Ganga was this polluted. When I told her that there were more than 10 places like that in Benares alone, she just could not imagine it.

I showed her another point of sewage discharge near Shivala ghat and Assi ghat. Assi ghat sewage drain has a funny story. The Government spent a lot of money to divert this drain and mix it with Nagwa one so that people don’t see a direct sewage discharge. But now Assi ghat drain has started again. It again has a lot of sewer water that mixes with Ganga in front of people. I never understood why government spent that huge amount of money just to hide it. They could have spent the same money to built a small treatment plant.

There is an another river called Varuna in Varanasi which has become a complete drain now. The Hindi word for drain is ‘nala’ and this river is known as “Varuna Nala” by the locals. I never knew that Varuna River and Varuna Nala are samething. I just came to know about it few days ago. There is a religious walk called Antargrih where people start walking from Manikarnika ghat and cover all of Benares. One part of this walk is to walk along the Varuna River and do some rituals where it mixes with Ganga.

Most of the Muslim neighborhoods and slaughter houses are along the Varuna river. All the animal waste from more than ten-fifteen slaughter houses is dumped directly into the river. There is lots of sewage discharge also. Varuna River is the best place for criminals to throw murdered bodies because nobody wants to walk along this river. So it is not rare to find human bodies as well in this river. And it all mixes with Ganga after seven or eight kilometers.

This walk is sometime this month and I and Nadia have decided to do it. I have heard that people drink the Varuna’s water when it mixes with Ganga. They walk along the river, see all the waste mixing in it, human and animal bodies flowing in the river and a huge quantity of sewage discharge, but they still drink this same water just because of the religious reason.  I can not imagine what I will be seeing but I am so excited for it.

Good people and bad people look for jobs

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The title of this post is upside down because I have noticed a few things where quality is thrown out and garbage is being collected by our people and government. First off I want to talk about my brother who is an Italian interpreter and works for a very big travel agency in India. He lives in Delhi and has been working as interpreter and escort with Italian tourists and researchers for the last two years.  He doesn’t have a tour guide license but he has very good knowledge.

A lot of Italian travel agencies recommend him for their groups. He started working two years ago and his first group was of only two people. His last group consisted of sixty people. It means that he progressed rapidly. He has to hire a government-authorized tour guide in all the cities he goes to with his clients because non-licensed guys are not allowed to work. The guides that he hires are supposed to be quiet and let him work. They are hired just to protect him.

A lot of government authorized guides don’t like him anymore because he gets big groups, and those guides have to be satisfied with small groups. Last week he went to Jama Masjid in Delhi with his clients but he was stopped by the licensed tour guides at the entrance gate. They asked for his license but my brother did not have it, but he had a licensed guy with him. Government authorized guides asked this other licensed guy if he knew Italian. This other guide was a English speaking guide and did not know any Italian.

Government authorized guides told my brother that he could not go inside the Jama Masjid because neither did he have a license nor the licensed guy know Italian. Even though they are not authorized to check the license but they did it. All the guides have same license, it doesn’t not talk about any specific language.  You just need to have a license and then you can work. But those government authorized guides wanted my brother to have an Italian speaking guide. I am sure this was all done to disturb him.

At the same time another group of my brother’s travel agency came at Jama Masjid and they had an Italian-speaking government guide. My brother sent his group with this Italian-speaking guide but he could not work. Same thing happened with him in Rajasthan also and again he had to find an Italian speaking government authorized tour guide. Finally he gave up and has stopped working now. He says that he will work with a few groups that had already propositioned his travel agency to send him with them and then maybe not work in the future.

He is not working this year. Now he has switched to operations. He never worked in operations but now it is his compulsion to work in this new department. He says that maybe the government guides will never let him work in the future therefore he needs to learn something new. I am not concerned about his future because he is very smart and can get a job very easily but I think about the politics in tourism industry. A guy who has very good knowledge and experience has been thrown out and the other guys who are outdated and don’t know anything are given work and support. UPSIDE DOWN.

Another story is about one of my relatives. He is a twenty-four year old guy who never wanted to go to school. He always wanted to be a criminal. He has been arrested by the police several times for several reasons. He went to school for a few years but never as a student. His father works at a Sanskrit university in Benares. He arranged 10th and 12th class certificates for his son by bribing some school in the state of Bihar. Later he arranged a graduation degree from his university. Now the son has a graduate degree without going to school ever.

His father got him admitted in a B.Ed. (Bachelor of Education) course somewhere in a university in Gujrat state. This was also done by bribing because the son never participated in any kind of admission test. The son still stays at home and is involved in the same kind of bad work that he has been doing for years but his record at the university is maintained properly. So after three years he will have a B.Ed. degree and will become a teacher. His father says that he can get a teacher’s job at some government school for his son by bribing government officers.

Last year I saw a news paper advertisement for peon job in the municipality of Benares. The requirements for this job were 8th class passed certificate and knowledge of bicycle driving because peons are supposed to visit the nearby areas and watch the illegal construction. But a lot of Masters and Ph.D degree holders had applied for this job. It shows that even Masters and Ph.D degree holders have no job here. Finally the municipality invited all the highly educated guys for the interview, and Masters and Ph.D degree holders got jobs as peon.

They said that since they were facing job problems, they decided to just start something. Now Ph.D degree holders will drive bicycles and watch the illegal construction and report it to the municipality. Their whole lives labor did not help them. I am sure they will be involved in lots of bribing because peons get very little money and usually they bear their expenses by getting bribe from the people who do illegal construction or do any kind of municipality-related work.

So a guy who never went to school will become a teacher in the future and the guys who have Pd.D degrees are working as peon in this municipality. I was wondering what my relative could teach to the students- how to loot people? or how to beat someone? And the guys who did research, did a lot of labor have the lowest job in the industry. UPSIDE DOWN.

Meeting advocate for tour guide lawsuit

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I went to Delhi on the 9th to be part of the case that is going to be filed against the Ministry of Tourism for the Government of India for not the starting tour guide training program in 2008. This training was supposed to start from the 6th of October but could not because the Guide Association of Jaipur sued the government for organizing training in different way than their training. I had a lot of work to do in Delhi but I could not do anything except meeting the advocate because the train was delayed for three hours and the advocate was busy with someone else.

I was supposed to arrive in Delhi at 9 o’clock but I reached there around 12 o’clock. I had planned to get my laptop and camera checked at some store in Delhi, and get some photos of the hills of plastic around Delhi city but I could not do anything because of the delay of the train. I went to meet the advocate at the High court of Delhi. He was already busy with some very important person. I had to wait in his office for more than two hours. The advocate said that he was talking to the DCP (Deputy Commissioner of Police).

The advocate said that there was some case against the DCP related to extra income beyond normal salary. I heard them talking that CBI (Central Bureau of Invistigation) was also involved in this case which means this DCP was too corrupt. A DCP gets around twenty thousand as salary, but all the DCP rank officers have very fancy cars, bungalow and a lot of other luxury items. How do we hope for a good system if the system makers are not systematic? If a DCP is corrupt then everyone working under him must also be corrupt because the bribe never goes directly to the upper officers, it always passes through the lower management people.

After waiting for two hours I finally met the advocate. I was surprised to see that a young, only 30-35 years old, High-court advocate knew nothing about computers. He was not even able to type properly. He took at least ten-fifteen minutes to type my name and address. He told me to type on his computer but I did not do it because I had enough time and because I wanted to see a High court advocate struggling with a computer. He printed the wrong paper three times. He would write my name but print someone else’s paper.

After spending one hour watching the advocate struggling with the computer my work was finally done. He told me to call him on the 22nd of this month to see the judgment of the court. He charged me Rs. 3000 as his fee. He had charged Rs. 2000 last time for the same kind of case so I don’t know why he charged me Rs. 1000 extra. It is worth giving three thousand if he can get me the permit. He said that this time he will appeal the court to order the Ministry of Tourism to provide a license which would be valid until they start the training program.

Last time permit was only valid for one month and I had to go to Delhi again and again to get it renewed. I hope this time they don’t do this. I walked all the way from High court to Cannaught place and took some time there just watching the modern people of modern India. I think now the time has come for the government to introduce some health-related subjects to all the students. I saw a lot of, lot of young fat people. I am sure it is neither from meat nor from ghee (butter). It is all impact of western culture.

People in modern cities of India like to have lots of fast food and soft drinks which is the prime cause of obesity. The percentage of literate persons is higher in big cities than small cities, but health of the people is still better in the old cities like Varanasi. I see a lot of people driving Mers and other luxury cars or the people who look very educated opening the window of their car and throwing rubbish on the road. I think we need a huge change in our education system.

I had planned to take some pics of dumped plastic near the railway track but could not do it because it was already so misty, and anyway I had already taken few photos morning time. I think I have to take pics in Varanasi. It was not very successful trip but neither do I regret I went to Delhi. At least I will get the license.

Hindi or English???

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I went to Delhi public school, Varanasi branch yesterday with my friend. His nephew goes there. There was some kind of music festival in the school yesterday. I liked everything there but did not understand why all the kids and teachers were speaking English to each other. All the parents were supposed to meet the warden, but my friend did not want to because his English is not good. He said that even though he speaks Hindi to the school staff but they always talk him in English.

My friend told me to talk to them. I talked to them in English but they spoke to me in Hindi. And finally I had to switch to Hindi. It was second time when I was talking to them in English but they talked to me in Hindi. I had talked to same guy to whom I talked this time about four-five months ago for my friend and he spoke Hindi to me. My friend was wondering why they speak English with him. I think the warden speaks English only to non-English speaking people.

English has become a fashion nowadays in India. A lot of people speak English to each other. A lot of families, maybe 80% of the upper class and 50% of the upper middle class, in the big cities like Delhi and Mumbai have adopted English as their first language. They never speak Hindi. On some television shows where people call and ask questions to some expert, big city people call and speak English. Usually these shows are Hindi shows therefore the host of the show tells these people to ask their questions in Hindi but they say that they don’t know any Hindi.

Now I see people in small cities like Varanasi speaking English to each other; they don’t want to learn speak Hindi. It is impossible to get a good job in India without knowing English, and it is very good for everyone to learn English; but I don’t like the idea of adopting English as the first language. A lot of foreigners come to India to learn Hindi but Indians have started adopting English and English culture. It seems strange to me. What is the need to do this?

Once I was working with Krista, a research scholar from University of California, in Mehndiganj. We went to interview a Coke worker but an American was already interviewing him. So we had to wait until her interview. She had a translator with her who was from Delhi and worked for an NGO called ASHA. She was translating for that American girl and collecting some information for her NGO. She said that her NGO was going to publish a book, and this information would be printed in that book.

I was also there and listening to their interview. She would often speak English to a village guy who did not know any English. She knew very well that the interviewee did not know any English but she was asking questions again and again in English. And the interviewee would just shake his head and it was the answer for her. What could be more stupid than that? I never understood why she was speaking English or to whom she wanted to show that she knew English.

All offices, whether they are government or private sector, have printed their letter pads saying that – They appreciate if you communicate in Hindi. But most of the time they communicate in English. People get their more attention if they have a letter written in English. If they write a letter to some office in English then their work is done quickly. I think offices communicate in Hindi only on Hindi day. Which means there is only one day for Hindi and 364 days for English.

Raj Thakarey- Chief of MNS

Raj Thakre, the chief of a political party called MNS from Maharashtra, protests against Hindi speaking people from U.P. and Bihar living in Maharashtra. His boys beat people who speak Hindi and destroy shops who have stock written in Hindi. They don’t want to anyone to speak Hindi in Maharashtra. They want everyone to speak Marathi. Hundreds of people have been killed in riots in Maharashtra regarding the issue of language. The Government is not doing anything.

There is no problem if they want everyone to speak Marathi, but nobody should have rights to stop people from speaking Hindi in India. Hindi is our national language but it’s a shame that a group of people don’t want Indians to speak Hindi in India. People are getting killed only for speaking Hindi. I think it would be better if they protest against English. It doesn’t make any sense to protest against Hindi in India. The Government supports them because of politics.

MNS guys beating Hindi speaker in Mumbai

They want to separate the Marathi vote. The biggest and strongest party in Maharashtra is Shiv Sena. Basically it is party of Marathi people. The nephew of the chief of Shiv Sena formed his own political party called MNS. This was a good opportunity for Congress to get the Marathi vote split into these two parties headed by the chief of the MNS and Shivsena.  And Congress supported him so that he would get more attention and separate the Marathi vote, which would be beneficial for Congress.

Raj Thakare was arrested two-three times but never stayed in jail for more than two days. He was arrested only so that people would think that Congress was doing something. Congress did this so that people living in U.P. and Bihar wouldn’t neglect Congress. I don’t know if this whole drama will increase Congress vote or not, but one thing is sure that our politicians would do anything for getting vote. They don’t care if people are dying or what is going on. They just need votes, and that’s all.

I learnt English to get a job and I never want to speak English to any Hindi speaking person. But a lot of people think that they will be considered as smart if they speak English. I think if language is gone, then the culture is also gone. Language keeps people connected to the culture, and India is good so long as it is India, Indian people are good so long as they are Indian. We can never ever live a better life or develop by adopting English culture.

I think girls want to be more modern and show off a lot. They think if they speak English to a non-English speaking person, they will get more attention. When I hear girls talking to each other, they want to use as many English words as they can. It sounds funny to me. I don’t like Hindi speaking people speaking English to me. I am sure we understand Hindi better and we can make people understand us better if we speak our first language.

It would be a shame for us if we lost Hindi. I don’t know what will happen after ten-twenty years when a lot of people will have adopted English as their first language. If Hindi is gone from India, it means India is gone and Indians are gone.

Another case against tour guide training

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Now it seems like it will take another year to complete the guide training program. The guide association of Jaipur has sued the government again. They want the government to organize training exactly as it had been done with them. Their training consisted of classes for three and a half months and a orientation tour for fifteen days. This time the training is like forty-five days of classes, fifteen days of orientation tour and two months of research. I think this time training is better than the last one.

The guide association of Jaipur says that some candidates of this year program have submitted fake documents. They are asking the government to get each and every document checked through related office. I am sure they just want the training to be delayed as much as it could be. They don’t want new guides to work during the Commonwealth games 2010. About ten million tourists are supposed to come to India to watch the Commonwealth games and they don’t want anyone else to take benefit of it.

Since our training is postponed, the candidates of this year’s program are going to sue the government again for not starting training. I got a call from the advocate who is going to sue the government. He says that the government will issue temporary licenses to all the candidates who are supposed to get training this year. I will also go to Delhi to get the temporary license. I don’t know how long will it take to get the permanent license, but it is overwhelming now going to Delhi again and again and paying advocate’s fee.

A kiss could be really dangerous sometimes

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Richard kissing Shilpa

Richard Gere kissed Shilpa Shetty in public and had to go to court. It happened during an AIDS awareness program where Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood actress, was the hostess. Richard Gere has been working with lots of NGOs in India that educates people about AIDS. He came on the stage and started kissing Shilpa on her cheeks. At first everybody started screaming, clapping because they enjoyed for sure seeing a Bollywood actress get kissed. Since kissing is a very private activity, and is always hidden, it was a fun time for people.

But later some some Hindu organization sued Richard for doing sexual activity in public, and he had to go to the court several times. I am not sure what happened to this case, but one thing is for sure that neither Richard nor Shilpa would like going to court several times. The same kind of thing happened with� Rakhi Sawant (a Bollywood actress) and Mika (a singer). It was Mika’s birthday party and Rakhi was also there. First of all Rakhi kissed Mika on his cheeks, and then Mika kissed Rakhi’s lips.

Mika kissing Rakhi

After this kiss, Rakhi went to the police and lodged a case against Mika for kissing her forcibly. Mika said that she started first so he also kissed her. She kissed Mika on his cheeks and Mika kissed on her lips, that’s all. But Rakhi did not agree to hear anything. She was crying in front of media people, and was saying that Mika forcebly kissed her. She said that she was an Indian girl. She can get kissed on cheeks but not on the lips. It was one of the funniest things I had ever heard.� All this drama was just to get publicity. Later they compromised and case was taken back by Rakhi.

I met my friend Sharad yesterday who works at DHL, New Delhi. He books the parcels. He said that few days ago a foreign couple came and booked a 1.5 kilo parcel. As they entered in the office, they started kissing each other. Then they went to my friend and gave him the parcel. After giving the parcel, they were kissing until the booking process was done. Later they got a call from another office saying that they had found a packet of heroin booked by a foreign couple.

This call was to alert all other offices to not accept any package from such a couple. It made my friend remember about the couple who had booked a package. They checked the packet and found that it was also a heroin packet. This couple had booked the same kind of packet at two different offices. They did the same thing at all the offices- gave the packet and started kissing. Other offices had also accepted the parcel, but it was caught during the screening process.

I am sure foreigners know that we don’t kiss in public, but this couple was still doing it just because they knew that Indians would not be able to concentrate if someone was kissing in front of them. There are lots of stories in our religious books when demons sent girls to disturb saints and stop them from meditating. In some cases girls were able to do what they wanted to. Now it seems like we have to learn how to fight against this new Western weapon.

Effect of inflation on celebration of Diwali

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Inflation is killing India nowadays. Everything is at least twice as expensive as the usual price. It was Diwali yesterday but it didn’t fell like the Diwali five or six years ago. Usually people like to buy lots of crackers, buy new clothes, bring something new to their homes but this year everything was so… I think most of the people just stayed at home, cooked food, decorated their home and that’s all. Very few people fired crackers. I believe that it is good for the atmosphere if there are fewer crackers, but there was still something missing.

A lot of people didn’t buy crackers because it was too expensive this year. Usually all the chemicals that are used to make crackers come from China where they are cheap. But this year the Chinese used all the chemicals for the Olympics and delayed supplying them to India. So Indian factories had to buy the chemicals in India which was expensive for them. This whole thing affected pricing of crackers a lot and made it at least two times more expensive.

One of the biggest reason behind people not firing many crackers is that everything is so expensive in India nowadays. People have a hard time, so they prefer to arrange their living needs first. I bought tomatoes and it cost me Rs. 50 per kilo. It was never ever expensive like this before. Uncle Udo says that tomato costs Rs. 70-80 per kilo in Germany. So there is not much difference in the price but there is a huge difference in the income of the people.

I know that foreigners spend more money than us on agriculture, so it must be expensive there. But why it is so expensive here? I asked a lot of people how did their Diwali went and most of them said that it was not good because of inflation. I don’t know how long will it be like this, but if it stays the same way for a long time then a lot of middle class people will become poor again for sure.