Child Labor

In my previous post I spoke about personal tragedies and awe-inspiring courage. Is it a strange coincidence then that I should coem across two intriguing stories a few hours later.

The first one was about Sarah Kruzan, a 16 yr old, African American child in CA, USA, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole because she killed her pimp. The guy who raped and sold her to others. Fascinating and absolutely disgusting sometimes, the world we live in. I am not going to ignore the fact that there may be nuances of this case that need to be closely studied, but my understanding of the justice system is that it's always about the intention. Was it malicious, was it self-defense and so on. This case seems to have an awful lot of loopholes for it to be have been neglected as such. The 16 year old child is now a 29 year old woman who has spent 13 years of her life in prison. Do you ever stand to wonder how lucky you are to have the support of your family and friends?

The second one is about child labor - specifically the irony of children in India who labor to make balloons so that our children in USA and other 'developed' countries can enjoy them at various celebrations. This story in pictures of 6 year old children in India struggling in horrendous conditions is heart-breaking. Although I have some serious concerns about the way a Texas Middle School went about teaching their students about child labor, I cannot close my eyes to the atrocities that occur in the world. I think a simulated lesson will make everyone including you and me more aware of such cruelty. Do you ever stop to think about the child whose ahnds are rubbed raw trying to create that balloon you are holding in your hand?

introspective or opinionated or narcissistic?

I just realized that this blog marks my 3/4 century point in my blogging past...people speak, this is my 76th blog. Now I wonder, does this mean that I am turning introspective or opinionated or that I have become horribly narcissistic.

Whatever the reason, it's rather exciting to keep my blog updated. Talking about exciting things, life seems to be at a standstill lately, yet I've never felt life / time flow by so fast. It's already the end of June. For the longest time, I kept saying to my self, school starts in August, and that's a long while away so I have time to do etc-etc-etc. Now, I suddenly find myself with a week to go before my month long vacation in India and a mere 8-9 weeks away from my scheduled move to Baltimore.

I find myself at cross-roads before I feel prepared to face such decisions, yet isn't that what life is about, making choices and facing the consequences whether you are ready or not? Guess so, and I'm going to quit being so philanthropic in a bit :) Life's too short to be introspective all the time, eh? Returning to my once-in-a-blue-moon philanthropy, I'm walking away from the only career path I've known for the last 3 years to explore a passion in a totally different field, hoping that my passion is realized in a career which matches my skills, let's wait and see. Someone wise should say some deep meaningful 'stuff' for folk to refer to in such situations. All I can think about is, I'm ending one path, and I'm looking forward to another. Change is daunting yet exciting. The mere idea of a vacation refreshing. The financial challenges are thought provoking, whereas the academic innovations are making me rethink my mental limitations. Hopefully at the end of the day, I'll find what I want and figure out another new path :) :)

Yey, I'm going on vacation next Monday, so maybe someone will miss me and my beautiful words (***tsk tsk tsk, pretend you care you ignorant folk!!lol***) :) :)

I miss you..

..my faithful lil ol blog :(

It sounds rather pathetic (yikes!), harsh yet true..how can you miss an inanimate/virtual item...but I miss blogging..the outpouring of thoughts and emotions had became a way of life. I would come home, read something interesting, and I would write all my thoughts for the world to read and comment upon.

Lately, I find I've become rather self-intensive...but now I'm back to my usual bubbly self!! My grad school applications have all been finalized, I was accepted into all my favs with fin aid, I might add (tootin my own horn, I know, I know)...my decision is final (I'm off to Johns Hopkins in the Fall, yey!)..I've planned for most contingencies and am now counting down to the start of my vacation period..

The thought of vacation...especially one where I do not have a set time-frame to return to work...is absolutey enchanting. I love work, but I find the thought of a long vacation just right...a nice long holiday before grad school has me smiling..constantly I might add :) :) :) ...oh, and the fact that I am going to India shortly, and get to see my grandma and aunts and uncles and cousins and a baby niece and nephew might have something to do with the constant smiles as well :)!

And before I forget, yesterday was my beautiful sister's birthday...so to mah darlin nutty sister, Happy Birthday buddi :) :) :)

and I will end my ramblings tonight with these words...

pristine forests all around
a rambling brook close by
a rock protrudes into my path
as we amble along the river's edge

behind us lies a rocky valley
the past which we have overcome
before us I see a high mountain
the future which we must conquer

rocks, valleys and mountains
are merely life's lessons
many more we must face together
before we can cross into the sky

- Angela Archana Vincent

Abu Ghraib and Death Metal in India

It's been a long time since I've been fascinated with a specific book. I am an avid reader, and I typically have 2-3 fav authors. However, I predominantly like to visit the library or Indigo's and browse through the shelves, until I find a few I want to read. Today, I read this blurb about Abu Ghraib, froma book written by Lewis Alsamari, and am fascinated:

"...

The notoriety of Abu Ghraib was enough to chill the fervor of even the most revolutionary citizens. It was said that thousands of men and women were crammed into tiny cells and that abuse, torture, and executions were daily occurrences. The regime tested chemicals and biological weapons on the inmates, and some prisoners were given nothing but scraps of shredded plastic to eat. Chunks of flesh were torn from the bodies of some prisoners and then force-fed to others. Gruesome tortures involving power tools and hungry dogs were routine, and thousands of people who entered the doors of that fearsome place were never heard from again. It was known that mass graves existed around the country, and it was known in general terms where they were situated; but of course nobody dared to hunt out the final resting places of those poor men and women who had become victims of the enthusiastic guards at Abu Ghraib, for fear of becoming one of their number.

The four AIDS-stricken women were dealt with in a fashion brutal even by the standards of the prison. Stripped of their clothes, they were placed, alive and screaming, into an incinerator so that they and their “vile disease” could be utterly destroyed. In this way Saddam “delivered” our country from the horrific infections of the West and from the inequities of the “evil Zionist state.” I kept quiet about my maternal grandmother’s Jewish heritage. She was one of only a handful of Jews who remained in Iraq during the great exodus of 1950. Before that time there were about 150,000 Jews living in Iraq; now there were fewer than a hundred, and it would have done me no favors if anyone suspected that I might embrace Zionism.

Other atrocities took place more openly. As living conditions became increasingly intolerable, many women were forced into prostitution in order to make enough money to feed themselves and their families. It was an occupation deemed unacceptable by the state, punishable by death. The swift hand of justice was left to officials of the Ba’ath party, who were given orders to seek and behead all those suspected of prostitution. The standard of proof required was low, but the enthusiasm with which these officials carried out their work was high. Accompanied by two “witnesses” from the local community, they forced their way into the house of a suspect then dragged her out into the street, where a specialist executioner was waiting with a sword. He sliced off the head of the screaming women with one deft, well-practiced stroke. The head hung outside the woman’s house for two days, and her front door was branded with the warning “Hathihee Al-Qahba’a.” “This is the Whore.”

I remember a parade down one of the main thoroughfares of Baghdad when I was a child. The road was closed to traffic, and thousands of people joined in the march, which was intended to celebrate the glory of Saddam. As the day wore on, however, a small group of insurgents became vocal in their criticisms of the regime and started to shout anti-Saddam slogans. There weren’t very many—certainly only a small proportion of the crowd—but the Republican Guard was quick to react. A helicopter immediately flew overhead, and white paint was poured over the entire crowd—insurgents and noninsurgents alike. Heavily armed soldiers were then dispatched with orders to shoot anyone stained with white paint. The whole operation took less than an hour. A few lucky souls with paint only on their clothes managed to escape the crowd and change, but people with paint in their hair or bodies, where it was more difficult to remove, fared less well. The military scoured the area and shot dead anybody suspected of being part of the “uprising.”

..."

The brutality is mind boggling. Amit's comments about this book are insightful (as usual)...

"It underscores something that many of us seem to have forgotten in our idealogical zeal: Iraq under Saddam was a hellish land. Yes, the Americans bungled their invasion, and with their arrogance created more enemies than the friends they expected. (I foolishly supported the invasion at the time.) But I’m not sure they made Iraq any worse off. "

I will end my ravings tonight with a link to another article. This one is by Akshay Ahuja from India/MD, USA, and reflects his journey in the Indian Death Metal music-o-sphere (does that word even exist? too tired to check dictionary.com now)...here is a brief section:

"...

On the mp3 page, the band said that they wished to compose pieces that combined “melody and brutality.” The three songs on the website were named “Shattered Shield”, “Perceiving Resurrection”, and “Removal of the Fetus”. I tried “Shattered Shield”, which was identified as being about police and government corruption.

The song loaded. A single guitar played arpeggios on a slow, dark three-chord progression. The drums came in, and then some fairly complicated ornamentation from a second guitar. Wow, I thought, they’re pretty good. Then the drums started pounding bapbapbapbap, the guitars raged, and the vocals came in—grunts, growls, screams, all emerging from some place deep in the back of the throat. I couldn’t imagine what connection the words had to the Indian police force.

...

We got back in the car and drove through the empty streets, the blue coming into the sky. We reached my home just as dawn was breaking on Independence Day. I gave Pradyum a hug, and we promised to see each other again soon.

When we did, more than a year later, Gorified had broken up—the others weren’t serious enough about it, Pradyum said—and Pradyum had formed a new band called Infinite Dreams; their music was softer, more melodic. His band mate was headed to London for a six-month course in audio recording, and Pradyum would hopefully follow him there. Then they would try to really make it abroad. He and Anitha were married now, and she was moving up the Alamo chain. Pradyum was making good money too; he had started a real estate company that, he told me in an email, dealt in “total real estate solutions.” The rural land around the city was being bought up for office buildings, and Pradyum brokered deals with the farmers and secured the land for the companies, making sure, he assured me, that no one was cheated.

From the calls he took on his cell phone, I could already tell that he had the necessary combination of forcefulness and charm. I told him that he must be good at his job and he seemed offended. Music was his life, he said; this was just temporary.

We drove in his new car around this stretch of land, beautiful and green after the monsoon. We were heading towards the Nandi Hills, an hour outside Bangalore. There were buildings going up everywhere.

I asked him about the guitar, and he told me, half sheepishly and then with a smile when he saw that I didn’t mind, that he had sold it. It wasn’t right for his new band, he said. He had made a rather sizable profit on its sale.

I remembered what he had said about identity music, and wondered how much of your life you had to give to something before you could claim it as identity, and how you could measure the level of that allegiance. Was it in clothes and nose rings and how many hours a day you spent doing each thing? Or maybe all of that was irrelevant, and it was purely how you looked at your life, even while selling real estate or being an engineer or taking midnights calls from Americans.
Pradyum turned the stereo up—it was Judas Priest—and we headed towards the mountains.

..."

Peacock or Chicken..an Indian dilemma

Columnist Jug Suraiya for the Times of India calls for a change of the Indian National Bird from a beautiful Peacock to the smaller statured Chicken. Why? Simple. He describes the current Indian political attitude as 'chicken hearted' and cites the Taslima Nasreen incident and Tibetan protests as evidence.

Although I read quite a bit about the events in Tibet, I did not hear about Taslima Nasreen until his article. For those who don't know, here is a little bit of background from Jug's article:

"Forced into exile from her native Bangladesh by religious fanatics who didn't like her feminist writings, Taslima sought sanctuary in Kolkata in whose Bangla milieu she felt creatively comfortable. However, after street riots instigated by local goons disguised as religious zealots caused the Marxist state government to decide that minority-appeasing discretion was the better part of secular valour, the writer was bundled out of the city and taken first to an undisclosed hideaway in Rajasthan and later to Delhi, where she was kept in virtual isolation."

The Indian political response, after bundling the author out of Kolkata and isolating her?

"Made to apologise for her 'anti-Islamic' views, she was warned by no less than the information and broadcasting minister - supposedly the custodian of the fundamental right to freedom of expression as spelt out in the Constitution - that she should not say or do anything that might hurt the religious sensibilities of any group."

Finally, Taslima left India for sanctuary in Europe/North American. Jug's article states that she is Scandinavia, but in a brief interview with TOI before her connecting flight out of London, Taslima comments about her stay in India and the proposed sanctuary location:

""If I disclose my destination my security will be compromised. My face has now become recognisable and I could be target of religious fundamentalist", Taslima said, adding that she will not hesitate to discuss what she said the traumatic experience she allegedly went through during various international seminars lined up in Europe in the next few months. "I was put under tremendous stress but I could not speak out as I was under their (government) surveillance and could be harassed by them," she said in a choked voice. "The government is no better than religious fundamentalists," she said."

A rather sad state of affair, don't you think?

Sadder still is the Indian response about the protests in Tibet. I love Jug's sarcastic comments...

"In the case of the Chinese crackdown in Tibet, India's official response has been so politically correct, not to mention politically chicken, that it has earned praise from no less than the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao (who might have made special mention of the Indian Left whose non-response might be summed up as 'Tibet who?'). Despite China's continuing claims on Arunachal, and despite its proven nuclear proliferation to Pakistan, New Delhi walks on eggshells where Tibet is concerned and seems vaguely embarrassed by the Dalai Lama's presence on Indian soil. Why? Because then, maybe, China will support India's admission to the UN Security Council. Or at least stop using Pakistan as a foil against us. Or sell us cheap pichkaris for Holi. Or something."

Well said...and oh yes, we should tie in the chicken to these stories right? Here is the grand finale to end this sad story..

"Can't move mountains? Find convenient molehills, turn them into mountains, and then move them. That seems to be the recipe. Not just for the health minister but for the entire sorry mess which might aptly be called Indian chicken curry."

Indian business men and their evolving images..

Growing up in India, and later growing up within the framework of Indian culture, my vision of traditional heroes was limited to our freedom fighters or the movie stars. Yes, Nehru, Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, SRK, Amitabh Bachan and Salman Khan played a predominant role in my image of Indian heroes. As I grew older, and moved to Canada and noted other individuals like Bono, Lance Armstrong, Warren Buffet, Michael Dell, Bill and Melinda Gates, Oprah and so many more, I always noticed a lack of prominent Indians.

Again, let me be very clear, I am not desperate for prominent Indians on the international scene (refer back to my previous article about patriotism and Indians), rather I was seeking the presence of Indian media, businessmen or artists (who thrived on social, political, economic or business challenges) on the local/Indian stage.

Today, I found this article quite interesting, and felt the need to share it. Someone who recognizes the changing trend/need for an evolution in the image of the modern Indian businessman. Obviously, we are no longer satisfied by dreaming/idolizing movie stars or our cultural history. Rather, we look at upcoming, smart, and savvy businessman as India's future. Excellent!

Here is a brief quote from the article (love the way Amit writes!):

"Consider that earlier this year, Ratan Tata, the successor to J.R.D. Tata's empire and the chief of Tata Motors, unveiled the Nano -- a car expected to retail for approximately $2,500. Some complained about the increase in pollution that it might cause, and other worried that it would add to traffic congestion in big cities. But most of India applauded. Mr. Tata's ingenuity and vision will bring vehicle ownership within reach of millions of people who could otherwise have never dreamed of it, and it demonstrates what business does best -- improve the lives of people, and help them fulfill their dreams, all in the quest of that "dirty word," profit.

The heroes of the old India were film stars, cricket players and, perhaps, freedom fighters and politicians. The heroes of the new India include businessmen. In 2003, when MTV India held a poll among its predominantly young viewers to pick the Icon of the Year, Anil Ambani won. The people he beat included filmstar Shah Rukh Khan and cricket hero Sachin Tendulkar.

India's successful businessmen, even as they enter lists such as the one compiled by Forbes, embody the hopes of their country more than their elected government possibly can. India is finally beginning to give them their due. "

brutality..a new and intimate form

For the last few weeks, the headlines in Canada have been focussed on the Pickton trial, where a pig farmer kidnapped, brutalized and murdered so many women in Western Canada. He was found guilty earlier this week, and the newscast was inundated with the faces of the victim's families and their emotional response to the verdict.

Today, however, I read this story, of an Indian man brutalizing and kiling his wife. Atleast in the Pickton trial, I could say, the man was a maniac, unknown to the victims, and a psychopath. What can be said about a husband, who cuts his wife's tongue, tries to burn her, and then drags off to the crematorium to burn her alive on a pyre, while she screams and begs for water. This event does not have an ending - the polica arrived in time to rush the woman to the hospital where she died, but the man and his family, who helped him torture this innocent woman have 'absconded'. What does that mean? With the status of women and the police in India, it could well mean, that they all, somehow, managed to escape the police's clutches, or that he is a local big-wig, and everyone is covering up his crime. Injustice seems almost common and trivial when stories such as these are never heard or acknowledged.

Brutality and torture, when we experience these from those we love and trust, I would think that betrayal would be worse than anything else we can feel or imagine...