It Happened in Bangalore!

After Mangalore, it happened in Bangalore on 6th February, 2009.

Edited to add: Other than this, 4 more incidents of attacks on women have been reported in Bangalore. Read another victim, Archana’s  account here. More reports pouring in Hindu. See comment section and PCC blog for more links and updates.

Different people, different intentions. But base point remains same. Lack of law and order. Unfair treatment met out to different citizens based on status, gender and connections. It scared me. I am not ashamed to say that. But it also enraged me. It made me more determined not to cow down. I hope, after reading this story, we can find more ways to engage in something more powerful than usual chest-thumping that we do online.   😦 Your take?

A Nude peace protest against Bush's War policies in New Orleans. Undignified?

I came across this post via Goofy Mama’s blog. This is not written by me. It is written by a courageous girl Saugata Chatterjee. Story, in her own words that was first posted here:

Freedom of Expression and Amendments to CrPC

Now don't forget Article 19 (2) either.

19-year-old IT student, D. Ajit from Kerala, has been slapped with a criminal case for initiating an Orkut community criticising  Shiv Sena, for its “moral policing.” The case was registered after complaint by a Shiv Sena official by Thane police in 2008.

My blog’s Second Birthday

My blog, Visceral Observations, turned two on 16th Feb, 2009. 5 days after I celebrated my own birthday. 🙂

On this occasion, I wanted to dedicate my meagre blogging success to few of my blogmates. 🙂

Anti-Moral Policing Protest in Delhi

The Stand Up to Moral Policing protest in Delhi was worth a visit. 🙂 Well, I was not a visiter, I travelled half the Delhi (not to mention sacrificing my morning sleep on weekend :P) to be there to protest against moral policing. And I was not alone. There were others who too had traversed the whole length of the city on the Valentine day’s eve for the same cause. 😀

Movie Review: DevD

DevD is not a movie for the prudes. Because it has an ‘A’ certificate, it is not a porn movie. It’s realistic. Despite knowing that DevD is modern day adaptation of Devdas, movie could hold me through all along. 🙂

Blog Action 2

After Blog Action part 1, here is Part 2

I am sure you must have heard of Pink Chaddi Abhiyaan, an initiative by The Consortium of Pubbing, Loose and Forward Women.  Idea is to collect pink panties and send them to Ram Sena chief Ram Muthalik in protest of his dictum at Valentine’s day. This is not in view to uphold Valentine’s day but to oppose unnecessary morla policing against women.

Blog Action

After my preious post that blogging is not only about ranting, I found two action-able points.

Thanks to our media, we are all warned about Manglore-incident-accused Ram Sena Chief Muthalik’s endeavor on 14th February. Good thing is bloggers in Delhi are meeting this Sunday, 8th February to protest. Here’s where you can find the details: Stand Up to Moral Policing

This protest is not because we want to uphold love-is-in-the-air sentiment of Valentine’s day but because it is our right to mix with opposite gender. Its about standing up against any regressive moral policing.

Blogging is Not Only About Ranting

Blog Effect

I admit I do no longer derive happiness from blogging. I sometimes feel it is futile expression of my thoughts. Buck stops at just expression of thoughts.

These are helpless times. I have read hundreds of blogs condemning comments by Sanjay Dutt/Manyata or condemning Managlore incident or condemning NDTV’s patronising of a blogger. Needless to say, I support all these causes. I, too, want to put a stop to criminalisation of politics. I detest all the regressive thought processes. I detest hurting innocent people irrespective of gender/region/religion in name of ‘culture’. I detest it that a very-champion-of-free-speech spawns to seize freedom of speech of other, when faced with criticism.

Now that I have firmly established that I am with these thousands of bloggers, what else can I do? We need to do something else, because our politicians are clearly not listening to us. Ours rants are limited to blogosphere, at best we find a tid-bit space in newspaper. They are ineffectual.

Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire and Luck By Chance

Slumdog Millionaire has hogged too much of media headlights. There was a debate about west lapping up India’s slums and how the movie was so sentiment-evoking. I am disappointed on both the counts. Our own Indian movies have shown poverty/child prostitution/people on fringes in much more evocative manner: Do Bigha Zameen, Traffic Signal, Kalyug, Chandni Bar, Summer of 2007. And a substantial part of movie Slumdog Millionaire is similar to Traffic Signal. Though, latter takes it on a deeper level. Wait, I am not accusing Slumdog Millionaire of plagiarism. All I am saying that this movie that has been immensely moving to West, has been seen by us Indians several times before.

I have not read Vikas Swarup’s Q and A, but whatever things his story has weaved in: we have read often in magazines, watched in our movies, heard in news. It has every single thing we know: police mutely watching in case of communal riots, guides of Agra, begging business, child prostitution and last but the least our call centres. The entire story ahs been weaved in the background of Who wants to be millionaire?, which could be easily be replaced to winning a lottery to show a rags-to-riches story.