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Thursday, September 30, 2010

Perfect Storm ain't so perfect after all!

Too early to say, but generally I’m happy with the Ayodhya verdict. No – not because Ram Janmabhoomi is now accepted by the court. Not because Muslims got a share. Not because 1/3rd of the jury was Muslim, so that there’s fair representation. And, not at all because a temple is going to be built in Ayodhya.

I’m happy because my country is not burning. Happy for the thousands who could possibly have lost their lives. Waris Mazhari*, editor of Urdu magazine Tarjuman-e-Dar-ul-Uloom reacted: "I think if the Sunni Waqf Board would have won the entire case then our community would have suffered more. I strongly believe a large number of Muslims are fed up of the Babri mosque issue and we want to move ahead."

It is a fact that a unilateral ruling would have ignited unprecedented passions. It is also a fact that a lot of political mileage could have been drawn from such a verdict. Thankfully, that’s all over. Indian judiciary has prevailed.

I’m reminded of the Maha Bharath in which the Kauravas denied the Pandavas even the space to plant a needle. That obstinacy led to one of the biggest wars in mythology. We can be thankful for the fact the heads of the Allahabad High Court did not think like the court of Duryodhana.

I had written in my last post about the perfect storm. Part of it has been averted. It is in moments like these that you believe in God!

@ Waris Mazhari and everyone:
Allahabad
means the City of God in Persian (I think the obvious reference is to Allah). It is in the City of God that the honorable judges declared their verdict. Incidentally, Allahabad is also called Prayag, which in Sanskrit means place of sacrifice. Let’s sacrifice our egos and move ahead. Both these religions believe God is omnipresent - with or without a place of worship.


*Thanks to Rediff

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Perfect storm

A bunch of Naxals
September 24th - Ayodhya verdict
Past few months - A burning Kashmir
October 3rd - Commonwealth Games
Obama in November
IM does try...a few shots outside Juma
OM

Thursday, September 9, 2010

foxes alone may pass

Please feel free to click on the images for larger versions.

Now, one or two who check this blog occasionally have told me personally about the typos and grammar issues in this blog. And I tell them that I just type out stuff and don't check it later for errors (thus denying them the thrill of what would otherwise be a valid case of gotcha) . Well, I can afford it, coz it's just a blog. It ain't no newspaper. Actually this blog stands somewhere in the long continuum between a news paper and the other paper that people use for less benign purposes. But newspapers and organizations should know better. Here's why. Look at this one for instance:


"Is golf is giving up on Tiger Woods?" Now that's a sad title even for Tiger. If you agree with me on that, here's something less intensive. It's just a typo. But a typo in a title? Hmm!



Anti naional? Whatever. Now for mother lode. The Hindu. Stop dropping your jaws. The Hindu won't give you typos. What it gave was this:
"Sensex surge on better growth concerns" Better growth concerns? How can a stock market surge on better growth concerns? Hindu - may be this was your first faux pas in 122 years.

Move on to the Harvard Business Review. This ain't a typo or a grammo. I was trying to get a subscription and was looking at payment options and here's what I found:

Now if the only option is a credit card, why should we have a drop down menu for payment options. May be that will be the next HBR case study.

Unrelated, but this peculiar thought sets me thinking tingly (a.k.a un thoughte a la peculiare a mon souffle:). Should we call the process for a grammar check, a grammogram?

This one to sign off. Rediff getting paranoid about Shashi Tharoor:



Monday, September 6, 2010

Tsen 3

A PG is a Poor Girl's accommodation. Thus a PG is actually a PJ.