Good news in the Morning

Sleeping on Friday night after hearing the news of Bangalore blasts was bad enough, waking up on Sunday to the news of Ahmedabad blasts made very bad news for the morning. Monday morning, no bad news, should I feel happy or should I feel sad for those who passed away?

The poor average Muslim joe in Gujarat now has to fear more than anything else as he might have to wake up to something like Godhra news again. The Hindu fundamentalists now will come out in full force, no thanks to those Muslim fundamentalists who planted the bombs.

Blasts in Bangalore

Again, these bastards (whoever they are) did this. 2 dead as per reports. All the hype about how the Indian spirit won't die and people will go back to work tomorrow will be played over and over again. And if there was a cricket match scheduled it will go on.

No one will take long term steps to fix this. Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur and now Bangalore. While the government will continue playing cash games in the Parliament.

Hopefully not many people are affected and more hopefully, the Indian government now takes some concrete step about this.

6 Reasons I won't get the iPhone tomorrow

Tomorrow the new iPhone 3G will start selling in 23 countries including in Australia. I won't get the new iPhone because:

1. It is too costly. If I wait at least 2 months, I would probably get an upgraded model or the same thing for cheaper.

2. It is a new model (3G) and with all electronics there may be a few technical glitches that may need fixing.

3. Contract. Sure, in Australia I have a choice with three different providers, but if I want to move between providers I will have to break the contract and pay termination fees. I should be able to buy the phone outright and then plug my SIM card in and be able to use it.

4. I am with Three. The only mobile carrier which is not offering the iPhone. This may change in the future.

5. Everyone will have it and it is not a novelty anymore. Whenever the price decreases, I can be able to point and feel smug about how I still have the same thing they have and I didn't have to mortgage my house to get it.

6. And the number one reason I won't get the iPhone tomorrow, is because I am broke. :(

The Haneef issue

"Wow! You are getting new roads around here.", I stated the very obvious happening in the streets of Hyderabad. "Yes, it's an election stunt", was the rather smart reply coming from my 10 year old cousin. Oddly, the part of new roads being an election stunt was very obvious as well. That was back in 1991.

Any casual observation of a politician's activities in a democratic country will make things very obvious that most of the good deeds they are doing is an election stunt. Even 10 year-old's cannot be fooled.

Caught in such a good deed by Australian immigration minister Kevin Andrews was the Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef. Being a distant relative of the suspects in a terror attack in the UK made Haneef find himself in detention in Brisbane. Subsequently, charges were laid and due to lack of evidence, bail was granted. In what involved knees and its jerks (pun-intended) the honorable Immigration Minister promptly cancelled Haneef's work visa on character grounds. At this point it is worth pointing that Dr Haneef had a temporary work visa in Australia and his departure from Australia was viewed as suspicious.

One would dismiss such an act as an unfortunate misjudgement on the minister's part, but for the subsequent acts of his office. The office leaked selective information without context to the press to show that Haneef was indeed guilty. Laying mortar is a relatively easy task accomplished for another tenure in office, but these kinds of slip ups was enough battery charge to kick start the Australian opposition parties into laying it thick on the ruling party and demanding enquiry into the whole fiasco..

What both parties unfortunately overlook is the protection of law and order (rather respect to it) and ultimately Haneef's well being. As Australia gets closer to elections, I hope everyone here sees through both party's pithy bickering.

As an aside, this is what happened to another terror convict David Hicks. Another pre-election stunt? You decide.

Gap uses Child labour in India

See here.

International clothing company Gap has called an emergency meeting with suppliers in India, following the discovery that some of its clothes have been made using child labour.

If you didn't know what GAP is, it is a major clothing store chain in the US. This is nothing new in India and on a very small discovery in the great labour scene of India. GAP clothing is also going to destroy all the stock made by these factories who employ kids. Just giving it back to those kids would've made their day or month or year depending on the quality of the cloth as these kids probably work for kapda (Clothes, trio of roti, kapda aur makaan or Bread, Cloth and Shelter that so many Indians work day-in and day-out for).

Monkey kills senior official in New Delhi

See here. As inconsequential as news this really sounds, the reason I am blogging about it is because I read it in an Australian news site.

A WILD monkey that attacked the deputy mayor of New Delhi has been blamed for his death.

This, when news about Hyderabad blasts went largely unreported here in Australia. I guess the giggles factor counts. There is nothing funny in 35 people dying due to a terrorist attack.

The Race Card

Walking into any Indian restaurant one is likely to find many whites savouring the seriously watered down versions of Indian dishes. This is not just to prevent the highway murder which would be result as a consequence of the spicy food to an untrained mouth, but also to gain more customers in the long run.

On one such event recently (of walking into an Indian restaurant, not highway murder) I saw the all familiar group of one or two whites sitting with a big family of Indians. Indians like to boast of their culture at the drop of the hat to anyone who is remotely interested. Coming to an Indian restaurant with an Indian family would qualify as being interested in the food and culture. I would imagine the whites were given a fair dose of the culture by the all too proud family around the table.

Prone to imagination as I am, I turned this situation around and tried to see myself with an African family at an African restaurant eating their food and listening to what they say about their culture. If such a situation comes around, I would relish both the food and the company.

Such a scene of an Indian sitting with a group of Africans/Japanese/Europeans would not be too common in a multicultural place like Australia. One can accuse me of gross generalisation here but I cannot really say us Indians to be really interested in other cultures. Apart from trying to westernise oneself which is the cool thing to do, Indians are not really interested in anyone other than themselves.

Why then, I would like to ask would Indians who want to leave India so desperately and travel to western countries but absolutely do not want to know others? Why is Australia (or anywhere else) is just to make money and send it back home, but not mingle and celebrate the diversity? Isn't calling westerners racist and at the same time trying to isolate oneself from all others while living with them hypocritical?

Traffic

On the busy road today back from work at the traffic lights, I heard a siren wail and suddenly realised that there was a Fire Truck two cars behind mine, in the bumper to bumper traffic all the cars tried to create space by moving into their side lanes to make a partition. Then the lights turned green and everyone was still looking behind if there is space for the truck to go through. My car was the one obstructing the truck and then I floored it as all traffic in front mine cleared, going over the speed limit so that the fire truck can go faster.

Two weeks ago, when in Hyderabad, when crossing the road (on foot) in bumper to bumper traffic cars and bikes refuse to let me get through, would they have let a fire truck or ambulance through? Not sure about that.

At the Hyderabad airport when the guests (of the travellers) to travellers ratio was 15:1 and a queue to get in the terminal, every other person broke in not allowing the patient ones to get through and one foreigner turns around and tells his friend, "Same rules as traffic!". I guess it will take some time for us Indians to think about others, if only for a second.