Cast a caste !!

Being from a traditional Indian Hindu family, I was often taught to be confined in the narrow perimeter of religion and caste. I think one of the most deadliest concept prevailing in Asian countries like India is the concept of caste that I strongly despise. You cannot label somebody saying that he/she is from "some blah-blah" caste and then control his/her life by that label just on the basis of the family he/she is born in. This is sheer ridiculous. We have already seen enough destructive, and bloody consequences of this system - the recent Gujjar incident in Rajasthan being the latest. This is often used by politicians as their game on dirty political playground - examples? I guess Indian readers can find out numerous themselves.

But what more concerns me is its dangerous effect on one's personal life. Having being stuck with a label of so-called high-class Brahmin family, I have seen such incidents in my family myself. Marriage, probably the biggest decision on one's life, is often controlled by caste rather than individual choice !!! You love somebody? Is he/she the one you have been looking for all the time? Oh great - then let's get married. Hey hold on, it's India I am talking about. These are quite secondary questions, the primary being "Is he/she from the same (bloody) caste?" No !!! sorry mate, you are in big trouble. Every second person, whom you might have never heard of before, who might have never bothered if you are alive and dead all these days, will suddenly turn out to be your well-wisher and start advising you that you must bury your "love" there and then. Now seriously how many of you think this is logical and sensible?

The fact that troubles me more is that this is happening now also, in the 21st century among the people of new, high-tech, cosmo generation. When I was a child, I thought this type of irrational, unjustified customs will go off once my generation, the young educated (??), vibrant generation will take the lead and stand against such evils. But I am disappointed and annoyed to see some of my friends and colleagues openly supporting the same or not uttering a single word of protest if they are forced to follow the same and make the ultimate sacrifice in their personal front. Come on !! open up. Break these barriers, the world is far more beautiful when it is open and vast. Let's give our next generations a more free, more justified country to live in where they can follow their heart.

Photoblog : enthralling North East India

Some postcards collected to depict untouched picture-perfect serene beauty of North Eastern part of India and its colorful culture:

Beautiful Arunachal


Tea estate in Assam xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxBihu dance, Assam

Rongali Bihu, Assam xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxEnchanting Meghalaya

Loktak Lake, Manipur xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Colorful Nazo festival, Nagaland

Bamboo Dance, Mizoram xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxMawlai, Meghalaya

Scenic valley, Arunachal Pradesh xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxManipur

Kaziranga National Park, Assam xxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxManas Tiger Reserve, Assam

Ujjainti Palace, Tripura xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxzzzzzzzzzzxxTripura culture

For more on North-East tourism, please visit individual state tourism sites (or Google):

Assam: www.assamtourism.org/
Arunachal Pradesh: www.arunachaltourism.com/
Meghalaya: megtourism.gov.in/
Manipur: manipur.nic.in/tourism.htm
Mizoram: mizotourism.nic.in/
Nagaland: nagaland.nic.in/potential/tourism.htm
Tripura: tripura.nic.in/ttourism1.htm

The love of the game and one legend

During the ongoing India-Australia series, one placard at the SCG read "Commit all your crimes when Sachin is batting. They will go unnoticed because even the Lord is watching." Arguably, the greatest passion in India must be Cricket. An old saying, which has almost become a cliche in India, goes "Cricket is religion, Sachin is god". Cricket is the talk of the street, it is the center of gossip for Indian youth. The whole country turns into a bunch of cricket experts during any cricket series featuring the home team. News channels can create hour-long programmes even on the hair-cut of cricketers. The fans swing between two extremes; one day - if you are national cricketer and you failed miserably in a series - your effigies could be burnt, your house could be stoned; on the very next sunny day - if you score some runs or take some wickets; all forgotten, all excused - well, you could be the national hero too. Cricket is not just a sport in India, much beyond that. One may argue Cricket is a media-created hype that has grasped the youth, one may argue cricket has made other sports insipid in the country. But if you are cricket lover, and it's a cricket season - who cares - it's excitement time, it's time for celebration in win, it's time for desperation in loss. Cricket runs in the blood of India today.
And one man; no ordinary man, one great, one legend, one true human - who has made Cricket so popular, so exciting for every Indian is Mr. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. The name itself is enough to get incitement running through your spine. Oh !! what a player, and most importantly what a human being !! Untiring contribution to Indian national team - stylish, elegant, fearless yet humble, soft-spoken, dignified. He has been nightmare for every bowler in every cricket playing nation, yet every cricketer - doesn't matter where he hails from - has a respect for this little fella. People get tied to their seats to see this genius architect building yet another splendid cricket innings. He competes with himself, he tries to excel himself. We leap everytime he sent a dancing ball out of the fence, we weep everytime he has to walk back to the pavilion. He controls the emotions of billions watching him. Yes dear, Lord must be watching him play ... and criminals too !!!

Colorful India

When I started this blog almost a year ago, I thought of making it a technical one with some high-funda copy-paste stuff. But after one year and only one post (!!), I decided "nah!!"; forget it. I deleted my sole stupid technical post and decided to better use this to scribble something on an exceedingly boring office day like this one where I am wondering about which page to browse and how to kill my time.
Getting painstakingly bored enough, I decided to have a chit-o-chat with somebody. Being a festival day today in India, most of my office buddies are on vacation and the place is unnaturally calm and empty today. I walked over to one of my Bengali* colleagues in next aisle and started a discussion. If it's festival, naturally the topic would be culture, celebration and tradition. And if you are an Indian, you can spend a whole day discussing about all the colorful festivals and all those amazing cultural traits seen across India. Isn't it amazing how people possessing completely different cultural values, traditions, attire and speaking completely different language can co-exist as a single nation? Everytime, I think of of it, I get spellbound, amazed and animated. The festival we are celebrating today (generally known as Sankranti) is celebrated almost across the whole country, but with completely different manners and rituals. And every Indian community has a unique name for the same festival too !!! If I can continue writing, in one of my future posts, I would definitely like to write how this is celebrated in our state or community. Controversy apart, but I would never in support of saying that my country is great and his is not OR my culture is superior than theirs. May be these are all excuses of not improving what we have today or not adopting an obviously better trend from others. But every culture has something unique, something lively, something astounding in it. And if you have a number of such different cultures and billions of people belonging to those cultures living in one single country, imagine the "joie de vivre" of India. Imagine "colors of India" !!!

*Note: Bengali is one of the many languages spoken in India.