Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Book haters Club!

Since humans learned to write, they have been writing books. It does not look like the human race is going to stop writing them anytime soon. So by now there are many books and many book lovers. I for one would prefer to spend my evening with an interesting book rather than with Paris Hilton. Trouble is that all books are not that interesting ; at least not to everyone. They can be a lot of trouble though ! As various authors have found from time to time. There is something forceful about a written word that increases its potency manifold , compared to if it was just a spoken word.

Books have launched civilizations , like Bible and its various versions can be safely said to be the guiding light of western civilization. Books have launched wars like crusades and Jihads. Expansion of Islam throughout the world was entirely guided by Koran. Even now most of the wars and violent acts have a Koranic angle to it . Some are fighting to preserve it and some are just fighting to save themselves from it. Books like Das Kapital have launched successful revolutions such as the Soviet one . Even its Chinese version was guided by Mao's Little Red Book. Nazi revolution was guided by Mein Kampf. Later on The Iranian Islamic revolution was again achieved by the book.

Some books can get you killed or almost killed as Salman rushdie found and some can get you banished into a gulag as Solzhenitsyn found, some books can get you expelled from your own country as Taslima Nasreen has found . Some books are less potent and they can get you expelled from a political party as Jaswant Singh has found. Even then I am confidant that none of these authors hate their books.

So there are good books , there are badly written books, some books go on to become great classics , some are kept in the library and some go in the trash bin right after you have read them. Some books are so bad that all you can use them is for making paper bags and some times beautiful paper machie. Obviously books can not be ignored , you can only be in awe of them unless you happen to be in love with them like me.

Any book haters out there ?

Monday, August 3, 2009

A house for Mr. Hashmi


Emran hashmi is not able to buy a house. No , no he is not living on the streets of Mumbai, He has a home . A fairly good one. He just wants another. He has tonnes of money, he has lot of fame, he has success lapping at his feet , yet he was not allowed to buy the home that he wants. Looks like the person he wants to buy his home from is not willing to sell. The building society in which this flat exists also has some rules and procedures that Emran does not wish to comply with. But he wants the home. So he goes to town with the best strategy in contemporary India. "Muslim Persecution". He is not being sold to because he is a Muslim. Well there may be a grain of truth in it. In fact there maybe a lot of truth in it. Maybe he is a Muslim? Although there is some doubt there since he has mixed parentage, but let's grant him that. He still seems to be missing a big point here.
All everyone is concerned about is his rights. How about the rights of another hundred odd residents of the building. Do they have a say in who they will live next door to?
Let us say there is a room full of asthmatics chatting and sharing their good and bad moments together. Suddenly a chain smoker enters the room and insists on joining the discussion and stay for dinner and be invited for all their future meetings. Is this group of asthmatic people within their rights to feel trepidation at the thought of having a chain smoker in their midst? Are they within their rights to try and discourage this chain smoker? What if the smoker is named Emran. Can he turn around and say that he is being denied entry because he is a Muslim?
Almost all Jama masjids have a number of shops attached . let's say someone wants to rent or buy a shop in order to conduct a business of selling barbecued pork chops.
So he is not allowed to rent or buy, for obvious reasons. Let us say this fellow is called Sher singh. Would you say he was denied a fair chance to earn a living because he was not a Muslim? Laughable,but that is the kind of argument Emran and his supporters are making.
The other thing is his identity as a Muslim. Is this how he has defined himself so far? I thought he always projected himself as a very liberated actor. He cultivated his image as a bold lover boy, a serial kisser. He never said that people watch his movies despite his being Muslim.
Apart from that he is also a young male and lot of other things. Did he even stop to think that maybe it is one of the other identity that is the cause of his trouble ?
Then how about the seller; can he decide if he wants to sell or not, and to whom- no ?
The real issue is less houses more people. If it was otherwise such controversies would not arise.
And he should not forget that Individual rights are important but they can not be more important than collective rights.