Norway and Right-wing Extremism

Just another lazy sunday sitting on the terrace as I write this.
There's been disappointing news from Norway. Guess even the Christian
extremist groups are adopting terror tactics. Just how much of the
Bible do they know? It's as if they were trained to be ignorant of the
teachings contained in the holy books and to depend on their own
self-appointed teachers to spread violence and terror.

The problem is one of greed and sexual satiation. Greed and sexual
hunger leads man into a cul-de-sac where nothing matters except its
satiation. What happens in other religions also happens in
Christanity. People are promised riches in heaven if they kill people
in this world. It's a seemingly easy trade off, not very difficult to
enforce because of our own fraility. Churches are filled with people
who advocate mayhem and malevolence while Christ preached peace and
love. They said "right-wing extremism," which is what it is.

An American student who came to do a course in Pondicherry was
molested twice in a day. One by a guard in the hostel she was staying
at. What you taking? Right? Yes, a guard who was supposed to protect
tried to molest her. When she decided to leave the country because of
this incident she was molested on the way to the airport by the
rickshaw driver. Are we insane? Is this the way to treat a visitor to
our country? What image might she take to her country after the
incident. Oh God, I cover my face in shame.

I Am at Rank 920 on Pinstorm's India Influencers. Humour Me with Re-tweets

Tried out Pinstorm's India Influencers ranking to find out where I stand in rankings. Way down after the Dalai Lama, the filmy dregs, Sidin Vadakut, Shashi Tharoor and Gul Panag I stand at number 920.

Surely, not among the top hundred (I mean influencers who are the stars on Twitter and Facebook whose Tweets and Statuses are avidly lapped up) but it is nice to be among the top thousand. Mean to keep improving this as I go along.

Also if you are on Twitter search my trending topic #johnism. I have some witticisms (droll) and philosophies (stale) for your reading pleasure. Do humour me with your re-tweets and replies.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Google Plus Took Only 16 Days to Reach Where FB Took 852 Days

Facebook took 852 days to reach 10 million members

Twitter took 780 days to reach 10 million members

Google + took just 16 days to reach 10 million members.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Vancouver Is Going to Be Greenest City

It says on Lisa Lubin's blog that Vancouver is going to be the greenest city on earth. She says Vancouver has lots of tree cover and a maze of bicycle lanes. Makes one wonder, what about Bombay? Our green spaces are littered with plastic and other waste I need not mention here.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Polarised Social Milieu and the Rise of Stray Violence

We live in a world splintered into special interest groups and secret cabals of interested people. We don't know what's happening in the neighbour's house but we know what our friend had for dinner and what he/she is wearing (courtesy: Facebook, Twitter). "Had dinner," "slept a little," "am having coffee," aren't these the sort of things our friends tweet and facebook? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I am not an expert on social impact of social media so I wouldn't hazard a guess.

 

But, yes, we are a splintered and multi-layered group of people. The train is full of people engrossed in their gadgets to even look at neighbours. What happened to train friendships? I am good friends with my train friends of the nineties when we used to meet every morning on a fixed train schedule and spend the time chatting and exchanging information. Now they have gravitated into different orbits and at the most are nodding acquaintances. These days the boys don't chat, they are either listening to pirated music or engrossed in some movie or game on their mobile phone. Sometimes I wonder where these people come from.

 

Another alarming trend. We socialise with our work colleagues than our friends. A friend once remarked that our schoolmates made bad friends because we don't have much in common with them. What he covertly meant was that we should be friends with the people we work with, or, with people we do business with. I was taught that this is a wrong thing. At work we should be professionals working with other professionals, not friends. A company can make an enemy of a friend with consummate ease. How does one avoid a sense of betrayal at the workplace? Doesn't socialising in the workplace lead to rumour mongering and gossip? 

Are we turning apathetic and violent?

Is it any wonder that when a man was killed in Coimbatore in full view of public, no one came to his rescue. This one's a video showing the gruesome incident. In Bombay a man stabbed his girlfriend in full view of the public but no one bothered to intervene. The man was given a life sentence recently. Yes, they took pictures, but nobody did anything to help. Both died without any help. 

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Spent a Quiet Sunday Listening to John Lennon and Jim Morrison

Spent a quiet Sunday listening to music. Some Jim Morrison and some John Lennon. I like their music. In those days it was music that was supposed to change lives, bring about a revolution with its fantastic lyrics. I don't know if it so today. Today's music seems so hedonistic. Okay, okay, dismiss me as some old codger, or something, reminiscing of the sixties and seventies. But, I must say, that was the golden age of English music, Indian music as well. So how was it living through the golden age of Western and Indian music? I can't say. I was too busy planning my future then.

I must say youtube.com is a great site for music. I can watch music of my choice and videos too. Didn't go to church as it was raining heavily. Sat on the terrace and watched the rain. Mesmerised by the sight and I kept watching it for a long time. Didn't know how time passed. Then came down and worked on the novel. 

Things are pretty much staid. The newness of being longlisted for the Grey Oaks Short Story Competition wore away. I am now waiting for the short list. Hope I am there. So keeping my fingers crossed. It means a lot to me as nothing has been forthcoming for a long time. No good news, I mean. Wish me luck!

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Longlisted in Grey Oaks Short Story Competition, Work on the Novel Continues

Heartening news. I have been long listed in the Grey Oaks Short Story Competition. Publication in US Bright Lights will be for the short listed stories. Anyway, it's some good news after a drought of good news in my writing career. So, I am sharing it with readers of my blog here.

The work on the novel continues. I am in the last stretch of line editing and still I am changing a lot though not the plot. I have mentioned before - in a forum - that I had the plot written in Excel and pasted on a cardboard in front of me when I was writing and revising. This is because I don't want to meander. Some writers find this useful. There are also writers who say that they don't plan anything ahead of what they write. As does Stephen King. But I find Stephen King tedious. There are sections where he goes on and on, on what can be termed pretty much as a tangent.

I read somewhere recently that you cannot divest words from the culture of its people. The study of words, the writing of words is one of the world's best and biggest human enterprises. Now news is rife in channels and newspapers The News of the World (NOTW) has been closed by Rupert Murdoch. This is not good news for the printed word. Isn't the printed word the transmitter of thought, ideas, incipient literature? A newspaper article is literature in a hurry. Much of the veracity of this statement has been tested in recent times. Newspapers these days contain gory aftermath of terror attacks with scant regard for reader's sentiments (see the latest coverage of the terror attack in Bombay in the press and television). There should be some restriction on showing of blood and gore. Foreign media blanks out such news, or, has a rider, "the following program may be unsuitable for certain audiences." Then it becomes a choice of the viewer.

Well I am rambling. Will stop now.

Once Again Bombay Is in the News for the Wrong Reasons

It happened again. Bombay was named after a ship loaded with ammunition blew up in its harbour (this was when Bombay was a minor port used by the British to trade with India.). Disclaimer: this is apocryphal; not real. Many claim the city was named after Mumbadevi, the goddess of the seas. However, this Wikipedia article has a good summary of the bombs that have gone off in Bombay in the past nearly twenty years causing much anxiety to people who are residents of this megalopolis. Dilip D'souza has an interesting report of yesterday's blast here.

Yesterday was no different. As I set out to work, I never imagined there would be another bomb attack on the city. It was raining heavily in the morning and the trains were late. I watched men scurrying like rats to get inside a train. Then I knew what the "rat race" was all about. The blasts occurred in crowded areas, the more the better. We were packed as wet rats in a compartment, doing the usual lazy things before we reached our place of work. We did our work as many of those killed out have, then we left for home. Hearing that a bomb had gone off in "Khau Galli" I was surprised because I had left it only a few minutes ago. That added to my confusion.

However, son does phone and tells me of the blast when I am in V.T. He says to get home as soon as possible as more bombs may go off. So I rush to my train and catch the first one I can board comfortably. I think of the day of this attack when I had passed around a hour ago before it took place. In the train the talk is about the carelessness of the authorities. How nothing changes and it's greed that drives the city.

It's sad. I have been in the city for around 46 years and I am saddened to see that my city is becoming popular for its bomb blasts.

As usual actors were called to comment. Priyanka Chopra said, "A request please do not cause panic by tweeting and spreading rumours." Guess people depend on tweets to know the truth these days. I was wondering why my tweets stopped coming. Have you noticed? When you need your mobile phone it stops working. It's jammed to let not any messages pass at times when we need communication like the last straw we can hang on to.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Pulitzer Award Winning Journalist Admits to Being an Undocumented Immigrant

In what should be of use to media watchers and scribes alike, a Pulitzer Award winning journalist has admitted that he is an undocumented immigrant (meaning illegal, I presume). This raises issues about journalists upholding high ethical standards for themselves which they so readily apply to others. Something to mull over for the journalist community.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

A Blogger and Some Retail Therapy

A visit to a mall is therapeutic. No wonder they call it retail therapy. The noise, the music (it seems as if they play the music to drive people into a frenzy of spending), the eating, the displaying of clothes, the soft lights, the dressed up mannequins (some of them so life-like), the well-fed round bodies putting the thinner ones to shame, the display of nonchalance as those gorgeous beauties with straightened hair and made-up faces sashay towards you. Oh, it's such a different world, as if paradise has been re-created in this country. Nobody even thinks there's a recession on. Everyone is happy laughing, smiling, joking, flirting, fooling around.

 

I go to Raghuleela Mall in Vashi to buy a pair of shoes as the old one is falling to pieces and no amount of repairing by the cobbler is making a difference. This time I would like to buy a Woodland as the tough brand seems to understand Indian roads and walking conditions. There's a discount. I buy something I fancy. Rs 1370 gone. Inside the store a woman stares at me. Have we met? I don't know if I am famous or something, or I am out of place, but she stares as if she has seen a ghost. I know I am a bit unusual-looking, however, I don't think I am so unusual as to be stared at. I would like to ask her if she knows me from somewhere, or, if she knows I am a writer, poet and blogger. But I am not so confident in public, I am diffident, so I don't.

 

I buy my shoes and then I see them. They are sitting facing a chair, three of them, waiting to massage customers. The chubby boys and girls don't look around, they seem to be meditating, looking steadily at the chair in front of them, concentrating, as if their lives were in peril if a customer didn't come to them. One thing about recession is that you can get people like them to work for you.

 

I buy corn at Rs 45, a lot of masala added to it. I buy a kurta. I like kurtas. I am wearing one. Is that why people are staring? I don't know. As I exit, a youth stares at me. His face is oddly familiar. I don't know if we have met. Is he my son's friend? He has a tiny beard on his chin as has my son. Again, I wonder if I am famous, or something. Should I start wearing dark glasses to escape attention? Not likely, because bloggers can't be famous. They don't make much money, you see.

 

Out on the street there are imitations of famous brands of shoes on sale selling for Rs 75 each. Corn on cob sells for Rs 10, lime and masala rubbed on it for taste. Inside burgers sell for Rs 50 and outside vada-pavs sell for Rs 8. There's no music except the plaintive cries of the vendors. The night is dark and it's raining.

 

Retail therapy! Nobody cares there's a recession on in the world. Even I don't. There's plenty of money to splurge. We all fall into the deep chasms of our own making.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.