Dedications

Punjabi now becomes the 4th top language in Canada. Just shows the grit and determination of a hard working community who have travelled to foreign lands and created an identity for them and gained respect of the local community where their language now is respected and signboards have directions in Punjabi language, besides English, French, etc. This was a community on who was the butt of all jokes in India, now rocks the world.

Back home in India, we have a brigade of political parties in the state of Maharashtra who feel that Marathi as a language must be forced and muscled into society. So it is forced into the school curriculum, which kids learn it disgustingly as it adds to the pressure of already burgeoning amount of academics. Then traders are threatened with vandalism if their shops don’t have Marathi signboards. If a politician takes his oath for his swearing in ceremony to office in the National language in Hindi, he is beaten as he did not take his oath in Marathi.

Marathi a very beautiful and sweet language is now getting pushed to a language of being hated and repulsive. Hated and repulsive again thanks to the politicians whose speeches are just of inciting violence, dominance and hatred to other communities. In the process these parties don’t even make it to State elections. When they were in power it was ruling the state inciting fear of learning the language or you get out. So development, infrastructure and investments into the State dwindled. The State wanted to carve itself as an independent autonomous entity where outsiders were not allowed, language imposed, so now Bombay City which was the first preference as a port of landing for trade and commerce from pre colonial times, is a city which is a literal mess.

Punjabis wherever they migrated it was not easy for the first generation who labored in factories and most have great success stories of fortunes made. They never forced recognition of their language, but the sheer respect of their peaceful coexistence with the local community got the community reciprocating respect of not just recognizing their language, but also having Punjabi people who are in Canadian Parliament. Recognition of Punjabi as a language came about with local Punjabi radio stations urging Punjabis to register the mother tongue as Punjabi. In Bombay radio stations are forced to air Marathi songs, theaters vandalized if they don’t show Marathi movies. Why would Radio Stations and Theatres not run Marathi programs or movies if there was a commercial gain? Today Punjabi Radio stations are a rage across Europe and Americas. Bhangra music is a part of the International Disco circuits. Would International audience be bothered about Punjabi if there was no entertainment and commercial gain?

South Indian languages and culture which were also a butt of jokes in India, is now dominating the entertainment Industry in India. Bollywood actors cannot command anywhere near the remuneration earned by actors in the South. South Indian cuisine is fast catching up globally. At the same time Maharashtrian cuisine was doled out subsidies in real estate to serve Maharashtrian food at cheap prices. These outlets were called ‘Jhunka Bhakar’. How many Jhunka Bhakars does anyone know off in Bombay? How many would take their families there for a meal. So with the language the politicians even degraded the culture of Maharastrian cuisine. Maharashtra cuisine is not just ‘vada pav’ the politicians have made it to be.

Being a Maharashtrian by birth, I want to revel In Maharashtrian culture and music. I don’t want it pushed onto people of other cultures from India who made Maharashra their home, I want people yearning and craving for it. I wish my Bombay to be a city of dreams where people like Dhirubhai Ambani come from a foreign land like Aden and create history, where an Amitabh Bachhan comes from Allahabad and becomes a legend, where we are proud daughter of the State like Lata Mangeshkar, where a Rajniknath who is a Maharashtrian rocks in South India. If Punjabis can make it in Canada, I want Indians to make it in Bombay. If an Italian can make it in India, its time Indians make it India and not abroad. Its time Maharashtra made an identity, not by force or power and bullying of few politicians but by sheer talent of the Maharastrian people and by people across India.

When I think Punjabi it is Balhe Balhe…..so when I think Marathi I should be Dhina Dhin Da, ekdhum solid dhinchak. Jai Maharashtra.

After hearing the banns of marriage announced in the Church, it was shocking to read a notice on my Church notice board from the biggies who run the Catholic Church in Mumbai. It was discouraging Catholics from marrying outside the faith of Catholicism.

Like how if we disobey God, the wrath that would follow on sinners, and how we would rot in hell, the notice was similar to what will happen if you marry outside the faith. I remember during my teenage days we had a discourse on marriage. One youngster from the audience asked the priest speaker, “Father how can you talk about the marriage, when you priests practice celibacy”? The reply to the question was a nice one, where the priest replied “A doctor does not need to have cancer, to treat it”.

For me it was conviction that priests can help in marriage counseling or preparation and also another loud conviction, many years late though, that marriage was akin to cancer. The cancer part was to see the amount of marriages breaking down. To make it worse Catholic religion not recognizing the need for divorce, makes couples live in the cancer of failed marriages. Though a back door exit is which is even more painful can be exercised called annulment. The point is when so many marriages within the community are corroding, what is being done to salvage that.

What the Church fails to realize is marrying outside the faith which may have its limitation, is as good or as bad as marrying within the faith but from different communities or cultures. So I guess when that realization dawns the Church may start preaching to marry within the community like within Goans, Mangaloreans, Keralities, Tamilians, and with the diversity of India, the list is endless. I remember once chatting up with a Goan family who were proud to be Catholics, and even more proud to be Brahmins. Where did Brahmin lineage come into Christianity? It was an evil medieval practice of caste system of ancient Hindu tradition where the priestly class of Hindu priests was known as Brahmins.

Then with the diversity of India as mentioned, Catholic marriages became a potpourri of traditions, where in many Christian communities the bride wears the Mangalsutra, a gold chain decorates with black beads to show a marriage status, which is a part of Hindu culture. Keralite brides wear a small pendant called a ‘thali’ again a Hindu culture. Most brides decorate their hands and feet with Henna, which is more an Islamic tradition. Brides sporting sindhoor on the forehead and with dowry still negotiated which is another evil medieval practice across all religions. Some of the rituals like tonsuring the head in South Indian Churches of pilgrimage, offerings of coconut and sweets which is again a Hindu tradition are cultural influences into Christianity.

If so much good of tradition and culture can be incorporated from other religious beliefs, what’s the harm in marriages happening within different religious beliefs? Was not Sister Nirmala Joshi who headed the Missionaries of Charity after Mother Teresa a Hindu? So if a good vocation into Catholic faith can come from other religion, it’s time the Church awakened to the reality that maybe with interfaith marriages we could have better vocations like Sr. Nrmala Joshi who can run the Church better and build a better unity amongst the many communities with Christianity and a stronger unity of the country at large.

Next time I hear the banns of marriages announced in Church, it may sound like a ban on marriage.

When the alleged terrorists skyjacked planes and rammed into the World Trade Centre in the US of A it was an act of terrorism. When a similar act is conducted by Americans in Pakistan or Iraq earlier it is an act towards ending terrorism. Just gets me wondering how killing of one Bin Laden can bin terrorism? Now if US of A is a super power as it alleges why did it take so long and nearly a trillion of dollars to hunt one man? Journalists were successful in meeting him. His audio tapes to Jazeera News Channel had courier routes, which could have been long ago intercepted and led to him. If Bin Laden was found hiding in a close ally country of US that is Pakistan, why is it still pouring the billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan?

Why did US not share information with Pakistan about Bin laden’s whereabouts and allow Pakistan to handle it? Where is the United Nations in all this? Does it still want to prove it is a prostitute in the hands of US, and has it whorehouse headquartered in US for that reason? Why couldn’t concrete evidence not be shared with Pakistan about Bin Laden’s evidence and then if they failed to deliver, question them? Why question them after raping their sovereignty, and justifying the action?

To conclude that Bin Laden was right under the nose of a Pakistani Military establishment and no one in Pakistan Government or army knew of it as unbelievable, is also as good as concluding that terrorists of 911 carried with them knives under the noses of the security of the US Airport Authorities, and they boarded flights from US soil, and no one knew about it. These knives were not butter knives that could have been just passed off during screening. Under the nose of the entire world Iraq was invaded by US under the pretext that it has weapons of Mass Destruction, and found none. Is this not terrorism by the US?.

Why this fabricated theory of Bin Laden’s body was buried in the sea, so his burial site would not be a shrine. How remote figment of a stupid theory is that? Are there not any other places that his sympathizers build shrines and pay respects too? Terrorism is guised as a part of religion, be it the IRA in Ireland or Hindutva in India and the latest branding of terrorism with Islam. So with religion a shrine can be built anywhere. In India we have shrines built in memory of cine actors who are still alive.

Where is all the war convention agreements of how an enemy should be handled in custody or a body of an enemy handed over to the country it belongs too? Or are there separate rules for the US and separate for the rest of the world? Same fate of Iraq holds good for Pakistan for its getting to bed with US of A. Just that Pakistan turned out to be difficult partner in bed for the US, as Pakistan is a faked democracy that is actually veiled under an army rule and its intelligence service agency ISI. Unlike China which is governed by an authoritarian Communist rule, and has its share of problems including corruption, human rights abuse, etc, its aim towards building infrastructure, strong defense and economic force is something that is scaring the US of A. In Pakistan everything is focused towards only one goal of corruption.

So in such a scenario like a prostitute Pakistan will go to bed with US of A, Al-Quaida, harbor terrorists to create strife with India, take aid from China, and in the process if it has to make an arse of the US it will do so, and US will continue to remain so……….The United States of Arseholes.