All right, here is the thing. We have so many rakshaks of our Indian culture. One of them, Sri Ram Sena attacked girls in a pub in Mangalore because they claim that women going to pubs is not in accordance with Indian culture. Just in case you do not support the heroics of Sri Ram Sena (i bet you do love and support SRS,whats with opposing Sri Ram Sena anyway? heh), this valentines day, you can send a pink chaddi to Sri Ram Sena as a mark of your protest. Why pink chaddi? Because chaddis are forever! Its a great idea courtesy http://thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/, which is a “consortium of pub going, loose and forward women”. (more…)

Rafael Nadal marched his way to glory by beating former world number one, Roger Federer by 7-5, 3-6, 7-6, 3-6, 6-2 in the Australian Open 2009 final in Melbourne. The greatest player of all time for me, Federer was bidding for a 14th grand slam to equal the record of Pete Sampras but he was halted like he was at the French Open and Wimbledon. The sensational and upstoppable Spainiard now has 6 grand slam titles including 4 at French Open and 1 each at Wimbledon and Australian Open. He had never won a grand slam on hard court before and by winning tonight, he now has titles on the three surfaces; hard,clay and grass. And with his age(22), you can be sure there are many more slams coming his way.
The way he lays his tennis is just incredible. He just hates the ball dropping in his court and thus runs like a rabbit and make sure ball doesnot bounces more than once in his side of the court. Verdasco said after his defeat against Nadal in semifinal that you have to win a point three times against Nadal. That is how difficult it is against the man who plays amazing muscular tennis.
I mentioned in my post how I wanted to write about Federer winning is the final but it isnt the case now. I am always rooting for Roger so it is obviously sad. But do you know what is heart breaking? If you have seen this match you know it.
It was the scene when at presentation ceremony the great Roger Federer broke down and cried inconsolably. Man, I could not bear those scenes. Roger said” May be ill try later. God, its killing me…” and then he broke down cried his heart out for long time. A tsunami of emotions at that very moment. A terrible sight for tennis fans. I would have written about how he played the match but after watching this, I am not in a position to write anything. It was just so overwhelmingly difficult to see him sry. That shows how much he wanted it (a win against Nadal in finals) and how badly it hurts him losing yet again to Federer. But I dont think the loss again was the factor that made him cry. Nadal has just gotten so deep.. ahh…forget it. I wont say anything. It was just too hard to see that sight. For the champion he is, I cant believe it.That is one sight I will never forget. You are still the champion and still the greatest Roger.

Here is the video that says it all:

A few more pictures: (more…)

India is a democracy, infact we are the biggest democracy in this world and we takes proud in the fact. I learnt in my civics lesson in my school that democracy empowers us with many fundamental rights one of which is “Right to freedom of speech”. Many a times the powerful people in our country try to silence the voice of media,print or visual and they all come all guns blazing crying foul. They bear the responsibility of keeping the citizens informed, keeping the wrong doers on their toes and to strenthen the people thereby. They do it with their right to freedom of speech. But the very instituion that relies on freedom of speech to criticize even the most influential people in the country cant stand the same right to be used against them.

This is exactly what happened in the case of ckunte and NDTV+ Barkha Dutt.

Mumbai terror strike on 26 Nov last year saw many bloggers around the globe joining along with those who were saddened and affected by the tragedy in criticizing the terrorists. The world took a renewed oath to wipe terror from its root. Attack also witnessed a huge social media participation and people were saying there were more lively pictures portrayed by twitter than the television media itself. So frequent were the tweets on twitter that the Indian goverment asked twitter to stop #mumbai tweets as they feared that the updates were assisting the terrorists. Update: As Patrix mentioned said,it turns out that it was just a rumour.
Apart from this, many blogger expressed their anger over irresponsible and insensitive journalism by many reporters. They felt that the information the journalists were giving out (regarding the positions of the security personnel) was helping the terrorists. Also they were appalled by the reporters sticking their mics in front of those who were affected, or to someone who just lost a dear one in the attack.

Chyetanya Kunte was a little known blogger who also happened to dislike the media coverage and expressed his anger over at his blog like many others did. He criticized NDTV and Ms. Barkha Dutt for revealing the deatails of the locations of the victims hiding in the hotels. He also alleged the reporters could also have ben responsible fo death of security personnel. Even though he is an Indian living in Holland, he had every right to raise his voice and express his views, whatever they were.
But Ms. Dutt and NDTV just could not take it,the criticism which is vital for improvement of every person on this planet. (more…)

[poll id="2"]
The shameful incident of 40 odd self acclaimed “protectors of Indian culture” attacking girls partying in a club in Mangalore has been drawing severe criticism from all parts of the country and from all intelligent and humane sections of the society.

The incident happened on January 24 2009 when 40 activists of  “Sri Ram Sena” (SRS), a hindu group attacked girls who were just having some quality time with their friends. They were brutally beaten and harrased at the hands of SRS goons. They were slapped,pushed,made to hear derogatory remarks about their conduct. So much hooliganism in the name of religion and culture.

We today claim to be a super power, we talk about giving reservations to women, giving them their rights, but the truth is that from inside we just dont respect our women. We still see (or a large section) them as someone who has to sit at home keeping our houses,feeding our children and bearing our non sense all the time. We treat them not as humans but as animals,or even as objects. These people are talking about culture? How civilised do they think when they lay their hands on a female. Do they think you are “men”? They are cowards. A man will never physically harass a women. I saw the pictures of the assualt and they were extremely terrifying and I could not post them here on my blog post.I find it hard to believe how can someone actually treat women like that.

I was watching the interview of one of the victim on news channel. She said that they were molested,harassed,their skirts were pulled down,were even called prostitutes (WTF!!!) and other derogatory remarks. Another victim described the whole incident as a traumatic expirience.

Which religion/culture teaches us to dis-respect women? Its just in the mentality of Indian men that we cant accept women working shoulder to shoulder with us. We may be in 21st century but our thinking is not in sync with the current times.

This is not just an isolated incident. These hindu groups and so called “keepers of the Indian culture” have been practising these kind of attacks for a long tme now. Couples have been repeatedly targeted,harassed, beaten since years, specially on Valentines Day. You can bet this will happen this time too. I am really sick of these groups;VHP,SRS,Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena etc.

These kind of incidents makes women believe they are not safe among us,that they can not walk freely even in daylight,they are not free to move anywhere they want or do anything they want. I read many news papers and activists have rightly called this “Talibanisation of India“. (more…)

Underdog Slumdog Millionaire,a Danny Boyle directed film, won 4 awards at the 66^th annual Golden Globes award.

Slumdog Millionaire was nominated in four categories and it won all the four awards in which it was nominated.

It won:

• Best picture-Drama
• Best director (Danny Boyle)
• Best screenplay – Simone Beaufoy
• and Best original score – A.R. Rahman

Heath Ledger won the award for Best actor in a supporting role for his stunning portrayal of “The Joker” in “The Dark Knight” Director of TDK,Christopher Nolan accepted the award on behalf of the late actor
Other notable winners are:

- Best picture, Musical or Comedy: “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

- Actor, Drama: Mickey Rourke, for “The Wrestler.”

- Actress, Drama: Kate Winslet, for “Revolutionary Road.”

- Actor, Musical or Comedy: Colin Farrell, for “In Bruges.”

- Actress, Musical or Comedy: Sally Hawkins, for “Happy-Go-Lucky.”

- Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, for “The Dark Knight.”

- Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, for The Reader

- Foreign Language Film: “Waltz With Bashir.”

- Best Animated Film: “WALL-E.”

- Original Song: “The Wrestler” for “The Wrestler.”

With Slumdog sweeping the Golden Globes, chances of it succeeding at the Academy have gone very high. Story about a slumdog who participates in the Indian version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” to win over his childhood love,has been winning hearts across the globe. I myself loved the movie, and have watched it three times in the last 20 days. (more…)