At long last Bombay is going to get its Metro! But according to the media: "There has been some criticism of the Metro railway project by the city's environmentalists who say it will mar its skyline."
Are they serious?? Have they ever seen Bombay's skyline? I haven't..... coz I cannot! It is physically impossible...... Now now, if you are going to say that gaze out from Juhu etc, then, my dear fellow, the Metro is a surface and underground feature...... NOT an over-water one!
arrrrrgghhhh! The epidemic of grey-cell reduction is going to be the death of me.........
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
Kudos to Brigadier K K Chopra
Wonders of wonders...... just when the manhood of the Indian Army was at stake Brigadier Chopra came out of nowhere in the form of an Indian Army Spokesman to set things straight. The woman army officer 25 yr old Lt Sushmita Chakraborty who committed suicide yesterday was, according to him, "......satisfied with her job but was being treated for depression". Thank you brigadier, for making an example out of this lady who dared to enter the job which is a monopoly of men as it should be! Again, thanks also for not going into the details of the actual reasons for her depression. You never know, these media people might actually stumble upon the truth. But the way you made the statement, there will be no more uncomfortable questions. Again.....kudos to you!
Flashback 2003 - A Story of Two Udays
In January 2004, I came across two different stories and I realized that the two central characters had the same name. Do read the following. The web links given here are active and working as of today......
A STORY OF TWO UDAYS
The lives of two young men ended within a couple of days of each other thousands of miles away from each other. Both were in the twenties (one was 21 and the other 28), both were Indian citizens, both were in the army, both came from army families, both were fighting terrorists when they died and both had the same name......... Uday Singh.
The similarities end there. US army specialist Singh, 21, died on December 1st (2003) after an attack in Habbaniyah in Iraq while Indian army Special Group Major Singh, 28, was killed in a midnight operation against militants in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir on November 29th (2003).
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The 21 year old U.S. army Singh was born, raised and schooled in India and had migrated to the US as recently as 2000, the family said. He apparently first visited the US in 1998 and took up a job in a local McDonald's outside Chicago, earning his own paycheck as a teenager for the first time and discovering the magic of immigrant opportunity in America. "He loved it," said his aunt, Harpreet Datt told the local Chicago Tribune. "He saw that the country gave him opportunities on a personal level. He had freedom to try new stuff, he had the freedom to earn a living." The teenager then returned to India to finish high school and came back to the US in 2000, when he enlisted in the Army and served briefly in Kuwait while waiting to advance his Green Card into US citizenship (permanent residents are allowed to serve in the US military).
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Right from when he passed out of the 100th batch of Indian Military Academy, the 28 year old Singh served in counter-insurgency operations — first in Assam, then in Kargil and subsequently in the Kashmir Valley. A former colleague who served as his team commander remembers Singh’s outstanding maturity in the face of aggression. ‘‘Uday was always very keen on joining the Special Forces. He could read the ground situation brilliantly. Once in the Valley, there were just the two of us and we came across 15 or 16 militants holed up in a house,’’ he says. In such a situation, he says, one has to take a split-second decision — whether to attack immediately and face the risk of the militants overwhelming you and escaping into the night; or if one should call for back-up, which could mean the terrorists escaping anyway. ‘‘That night, Uday volunteered to go back for reinforcements, and because of his cool head in the presence of danger, we managed to get every one of them that night,’’ he says. Singh went on to receive the Indian Army Sena medal for bravery.
Singh’s mortal remains, which were flown in from Srinagar by a special flight, was cremated with full military honors on December 1st. I hope U.S. army Uday Singh’s remains will also get the same treatment and not be flown under the cover of darkness to an “undisclosed location”. (Update: His body was flown to India where he was cremated)
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Terrorism is taking its toll all around the world. I pray for God to give the families of all the Uday Singhs of the world the courage to withstand such terrible life events.
The worst is yet to come.
News articles on these two stories can be found at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/338052.cms
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=69471
A STORY OF TWO UDAYS
The lives of two young men ended within a couple of days of each other thousands of miles away from each other. Both were in the twenties (one was 21 and the other 28), both were Indian citizens, both were in the army, both came from army families, both were fighting terrorists when they died and both had the same name......... Uday Singh.
The similarities end there. US army specialist Singh, 21, died on December 1st (2003) after an attack in Habbaniyah in Iraq while Indian army Special Group Major Singh, 28, was killed in a midnight operation against militants in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir on November 29th (2003).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 21 year old U.S. army Singh was born, raised and schooled in India and had migrated to the US as recently as 2000, the family said. He apparently first visited the US in 1998 and took up a job in a local McDonald's outside Chicago, earning his own paycheck as a teenager for the first time and discovering the magic of immigrant opportunity in America. "He loved it," said his aunt, Harpreet Datt told the local Chicago Tribune. "He saw that the country gave him opportunities on a personal level. He had freedom to try new stuff, he had the freedom to earn a living." The teenager then returned to India to finish high school and came back to the US in 2000, when he enlisted in the Army and served briefly in Kuwait while waiting to advance his Green Card into US citizenship (permanent residents are allowed to serve in the US military).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Right from when he passed out of the 100th batch of Indian Military Academy, the 28 year old Singh served in counter-insurgency operations — first in Assam, then in Kargil and subsequently in the Kashmir Valley. A former colleague who served as his team commander remembers Singh’s outstanding maturity in the face of aggression. ‘‘Uday was always very keen on joining the Special Forces. He could read the ground situation brilliantly. Once in the Valley, there were just the two of us and we came across 15 or 16 militants holed up in a house,’’ he says. In such a situation, he says, one has to take a split-second decision — whether to attack immediately and face the risk of the militants overwhelming you and escaping into the night; or if one should call for back-up, which could mean the terrorists escaping anyway. ‘‘That night, Uday volunteered to go back for reinforcements, and because of his cool head in the presence of danger, we managed to get every one of them that night,’’ he says. Singh went on to receive the Indian Army Sena medal for bravery.
Singh’s mortal remains, which were flown in from Srinagar by a special flight, was cremated with full military honors on December 1st. I hope U.S. army Uday Singh’s remains will also get the same treatment and not be flown under the cover of darkness to an “undisclosed location”. (Update: His body was flown to India where he was cremated)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terrorism is taking its toll all around the world. I pray for God to give the families of all the Uday Singhs of the world the courage to withstand such terrible life events.
The worst is yet to come.
News articles on these two stories can be found at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/338052.cms
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=69471
Monday, June 12, 2006
A new lesson
I just learnt a new thing today....... if you are being held in a jail and being tortured for months on end, and THEN if you commit suicide then you have (by committing suicide) done an 'act of war'..... or better still, you have made a 'good PR move'.
Man! The things you learn through media.........
Man! The things you learn through media.........
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Nothing to write...... or too much to write?
Haven't felt upto writing anything on this blog....... not that I didn't have the urge to do so atleast once every few days..... but it was more along the lines of who the fuck cares!
What do I write about? Should I write about the various trips I had in the past few months where I had the time of my life...... or should I write about the life of people in Iraq (drastic contrast u may say)? Should I write about how life feels when one is married for a few years or should I write about how one may get to know the true meaning of marriage after it is over? Should I write about the great things going on in my home country or should I write about child marriages and rapes (which I think BBC does a good job of)? Should I write about the Zero-World life of Scandinavian countries or the Fourth-World life in parts of Africa (get it?)? Or should I take the easy way out by condemning the US media about reporting about a kidnapped guy as their cover story while thousands were dying in the Indonesian earthquake?
But then again..... who the fuck cares?
Or should I write about something lighter? Like Sehwag getting fined for dissension while Brian Lara gets off scot free? Or like some people in India going nuts over a Mauritius-Indian-French guy being inducted into the French World Cup Soccer team (who may not even play in the final XI)? Or like the kid who built a helicopter in his backyard but did not get the license to fly it...... how did he know that he succeeded you might ask...... !?
Naaahhhh....... I think I will just go and watch the original STARWARS trilogy for the umpteenth time....... this time I am going to watch the Bonus DVD material also....... yippeeee :-)
What do I write about? Should I write about the various trips I had in the past few months where I had the time of my life...... or should I write about the life of people in Iraq (drastic contrast u may say)? Should I write about how life feels when one is married for a few years or should I write about how one may get to know the true meaning of marriage after it is over? Should I write about the great things going on in my home country or should I write about child marriages and rapes (which I think BBC does a good job of)? Should I write about the Zero-World life of Scandinavian countries or the Fourth-World life in parts of Africa (get it?)? Or should I take the easy way out by condemning the US media about reporting about a kidnapped guy as their cover story while thousands were dying in the Indonesian earthquake?
But then again..... who the fuck cares?
Or should I write about something lighter? Like Sehwag getting fined for dissension while Brian Lara gets off scot free? Or like some people in India going nuts over a Mauritius-Indian-French guy being inducted into the French World Cup Soccer team (who may not even play in the final XI)? Or like the kid who built a helicopter in his backyard but did not get the license to fly it...... how did he know that he succeeded you might ask...... !?
Naaahhhh....... I think I will just go and watch the original STARWARS trilogy for the umpteenth time....... this time I am going to watch the Bonus DVD material also....... yippeeee :-)
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