Accenture has just opened their office and it sits bang across the street from WIPRO. That shud
be cause for worry for our management. I hope it is :)
The building is nice, the entrance is quite inviting. I also find myself looking more at the
building then the road ahead, while driving back home.
Should I take the left turn .................
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Sunday, September 04, 2005
TOTD
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.
--ROBERT FROST
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.
--ROBERT FROST
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Imperial Hubris
I have come across a couple of mails that show an interact b/w Madhu Trehan and a US based Indian. The gist of the interact is - how Madhu proved that we are better off then what NRIs think.
GAWD .... I just can't tolerate this everything-is-fine attitude. I am reproducing one such mail and then my take on it.
============================================================
Madhu Trehan writes regularly for Outlook magazine.one of her readers responded to her mail and she is replying to that letter. Both the letters are shown below.
******************************************************************************************************
Hi Madhu,
I have read your articles ever since I was a kid and you were at India Today. You have often come across as a balanced person not prone to Gandhi nonsense, until now. I live in a White Nation (the US) and have never felt like a second class citizen. Only a blind and a deaf person can compare the pride of a US citizen with the indignity of being an India.
A US citizen trusts his government, knows his/her death will never go unpunished, while an Indian solider is there to die. Elite is a bad word in India because 95% of our country lives in abject poverty.
Next time ask the waiter in Taj who served you the Rs 400 drink, how much he akes in a month. The Durban who opens the door for you, ask him how much he makes? I bet his monthly salary will be around your dinner bill.
Shame on you and journalists like you who have failed India in the past with coloured reporting and are doing so now. They should feel ashamed. Rather than calling bush names, maybe we should hang our heads in shame on PM's like Vajpayee who is too old to walk, too much of a coward to protect his people.
Maybe, just maybe, the day people like us (the English educated hence smarter) start feeling ashamed enough we will start making changes in India rather than just exploiting our servants and labour class. It anguishes me to read this national character articles. A nation that cannot feed its people (a la Orrisa) has no character, a nation whose children move around *** (Mumbai) has no reason to feel proud, a nation whose elected reps call religious riots "opposite reaction" has no future. Once again, shame on you and all of India. I am ashamed to be an Indian and shame on you for suggesting anything else.
Chet (C haitanya)
***********************************************************************************************************
Her response was:
Hello Chet,
I will answer your letter point by point.
Your name. You can be Chet or Jet, stay away from the sun, fake an American accent, but you will never be able to run away from Chaitanya. He will always be there even though you hate him today.
Gandhi, whom you hold in such contempt, despite all his controversial behavior, is largely responsible for the fact that there is no white boot on a part of your anatomy today.
You live in a white nation but you are not white and never will be. You can fool yourself to believe that you are not treated as a second class citizen. You choose to forget the Dot Busters, the Sikh who was killed because he looked foreign and rampant racism. How many times a week do you have to explain where you are from and spend your time EXPLAINING India to Americans? I cringe to think what you say to them about India. We do not need spokesman such as you. You will never be able to share a good desi joke with any of your new friends. If you can't laugh together; you cannot understand each other. You will always be an alien.
Yes, we are economically poor compared to US but we do not have to suffer the highest rate of teenage pregnancies, kids coming into schools and killing students and teachers, the highest rate of suicide among college students, alienated parents and children, lonely old people dumped into old age homes, drugs being offered to eight year olds (as my daughter was when she was in the UN school in New York), serial marriages and divorces.
The US had a president who was senile and deaf (Reagan), one who turned out to be a serial *** offender (Clinton), and now you have one who didn't know the heads of state of major countries and ignored warnings of a terrorist attack months before it took place. The US is responsible for massacres in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Chile and the list goes on. The rest of the world does not view America with the rose-coloured glasses you have been brainwashed by the US media to see thorough.
And, how much does a waiter in Jean Georges restaurant in Trump International Hotel in New York make compared to the price of the drink he is serving? The labour class in exploited all over the world.
You seem to very upset that I am pointing out we have a national character to be ashamed of and we should do something about it. Your insistence that we stay ashamed and do nothing about it is perhaps to make it easier for you to live in a country where the only religion is to hang out at malls and accumulate consumer items you don't really need but have been dictated by advertising to buy that, to keep the US economy going. It is not by accident that Americans are flocking to yoga and meditation classes to buy happiness.
You have done well to leave a country you are ashamed of. Call yourself an American but sooner or later your disguise and American Halloween costume will frighten you enough to get rid of it. I love America's energy and have good friends there. New York is a centre for an enormous outpouring of creativity and imaginative thinking. Every country has its own problems. It is for the people who belong there to take responsibility for change.
If you are so far removed from India, ask yourself why you are so anguished with my article. Chaitanya is raising his head, Chet is in trouble.
Regards,
Madhu Trehan
============================================================
My riposte starts now:
Note that Madhu's response starts out on a totally tangential plane. She informs Chaitanya
that he will never be able to run away from himself. How in the name of the holy fcuk is
that related to the arguement at hand is totally beyond me.
Also how Madhu has inferred that Chaitanya hates himself is again something that
goes over the top of my head. Is that just because the poor fellow addresses himself as Chet "also" ?
Out here in Chennai I find it difficult to pronounce some of the names. So I call them
with convenient shortforms. Does that mean I hate them ? Sh!t ..... & I didn't even know it :)
Many of us here in India also have shorter names. Does that mean we hate ourselves ????
Then she proceeds to inform us that because of Gandhi, "there is no White boot on a part
of your anatomy today". I think she is referring to our collective brown ass :)
Around the time we got independence (Note: we GOT independence; we did not
TAKE/GRAB/SNATCH it), many other former colonies of GB became independent too.
They did not have Gandhi or leaders of comparable stature. Or even leaders who followed the
same methodology of achieving self-rule !!
The plain truth is that GB, at the end of the 2nd WW, was too weak and highly indebted
to US. There was NO way it could have held on to the colonies without getting into some
major-league sh!t. Does that mean Gandhi had no role to play ? Hell, of course, he was
instrumental as the "symbol" of our resistance. But giving him major credit for our
independence, is stretching it a bit too far.
Madhu proceeds to inform Chet that "he is not white and he never will be". WTF is that ?
Where in the article does Chet claim that he is white. He only implies that even though he
is "NON-NATIVE", "NON-CHRISTIAN", "MINORITY" - he is not treated as second
rate citizen.
Now comes the best part ... Madhu tells the original poster that he is treated as second class;
even though the poor guy himself is claiming otherwise !!!!!!!!!
Does Madhu know something about how Chet is treated that Chet himself does not know ?
:P
From my personal experience in LA I can certify that US is a mind-bogglingly diverse
nation. At least in the cities.
I am not talking about the Bible belt or other areas. It almost comes close to India in
diversity. Also, even here most of us have one or the other biases against other Indians. Has
any of the 'mainland' Indian ever given a fucking thought about how people from the
North-East must be feeling when they come to the 'mainland' ?
No nation is perfect, but claiming that there is widespread racism in US is a LIE. I did not
have a single such experience in over 4 months of stay whereas I could feel it within 10
minutes when I landed at Frankfurt.
You want to experience racism ? Just go to Germany.
Taking example of Dotbusters and anti sikh violence is plain BullSh!t. There are freaks
in most socities. I can also take example of the thousands of Hare Rama Hare Krishna followers.
What would that prove ??
[God Damn FUCK !!! I thought I will write a complete riposte to her letter to Chet. But I
don't think I will be able to do that. There is so much crap in her response :( ]
>> ....but we do not have to suffer the highest rate of teenage pregnancies..
Has she done a comparison of the teenage pregnancies there vis-a-vis in India ? I think that
count shud include child marriage, marriages out of poverty etc. While we are at it why
not include other problems that are unique to this country like Dowry burnings & female
infanticide. Ha loser.
>> ... kids coming into schools and killing students and teachers...
Is this Madhu out of her mind ? Yeah, there were a couple of high profile incidents that did
happen in US. But these were isolated incidents whose causes are much more complex.
I definitely recommend the short feature "Bowling for Columbine" to those who want to
understand these reasons. By the way, does this moron called Madhu Trehan live in
Cuckooland ?
She is completely oblivious to the fact that our schools and colleges are heavily politicised.
There are cases where college students have openly threatened/harmed teaching staff and
gotten away with it. Does she have any mother-freaking idea about the volience that is
prevalent in some of our colleges ???
[Good Lord, I am getting better at it :) ]
>> The US had a president who was senile and deaf (Reagan) ....
Did Reagan turn senile while in office or after it ? Is this something that he or the American
public had control of ? Is being handicapped a sin ? Can we know the full context in which
Madhu has made this claim ?
>> ... one who turned out to be a serial *** offender (Clinton)
If Clinton is a sex-offender then Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a fucking pervert.
He used to sleep naked with his nieces !!!!
By the way, the definition of an offender is applicable when an offence has been committed. But what he and Monica did was consensual. Yes, morally it was wrong. But the main point is
that his wife did NOT take him to court for cheating on her.
>> ... The rest of the world does not view America with the rose-coloured glasses you
have been brainwashed by the US media to see thorough...
No Misses Madhu. You are very wrong jee. We, the normal people, criticise US too when
there are logical grounds to it. The only difference b/w you & us is that we acknowledge when
other countries have bettered us.
I could go on and on and on and on ........ and then some.
But the point is, Chet was just highlighting some of our more glaring faults. And Madhu
proceeded to kill the messenger when the message was bad. Let us all stop getting
worked up when someone points out our faults. Lets just keep working towards improving
ourselves.
Wow, I feel better now.
Back to my day-job now !!
GAWD .... I just can't tolerate this everything-is-fine attitude. I am reproducing one such mail and then my take on it.
============================================================
Madhu Trehan writes regularly for Outlook magazine.one of her readers responded to her mail and she is replying to that letter. Both the letters are shown below.
******************************************************************************************************
Hi Madhu,
I have read your articles ever since I was a kid and you were at India Today. You have often come across as a balanced person not prone to Gandhi nonsense, until now. I live in a White Nation (the US) and have never felt like a second class citizen. Only a blind and a deaf person can compare the pride of a US citizen with the indignity of being an India.
A US citizen trusts his government, knows his/her death will never go unpunished, while an Indian solider is there to die. Elite is a bad word in India because 95% of our country lives in abject poverty.
Next time ask the waiter in Taj who served you the Rs 400 drink, how much he akes in a month. The Durban who opens the door for you, ask him how much he makes? I bet his monthly salary will be around your dinner bill.
Shame on you and journalists like you who have failed India in the past with coloured reporting and are doing so now. They should feel ashamed. Rather than calling bush names, maybe we should hang our heads in shame on PM's like Vajpayee who is too old to walk, too much of a coward to protect his people.
Maybe, just maybe, the day people like us (the English educated hence smarter) start feeling ashamed enough we will start making changes in India rather than just exploiting our servants and labour class. It anguishes me to read this national character articles. A nation that cannot feed its people (a la Orrisa) has no character, a nation whose children move around *** (Mumbai) has no reason to feel proud, a nation whose elected reps call religious riots "opposite reaction" has no future. Once again, shame on you and all of India. I am ashamed to be an Indian and shame on you for suggesting anything else.
Chet (C haitanya)
***********************************************************************************************************
Her response was:
Hello Chet,
I will answer your letter point by point.
Your name. You can be Chet or Jet, stay away from the sun, fake an American accent, but you will never be able to run away from Chaitanya. He will always be there even though you hate him today.
Gandhi, whom you hold in such contempt, despite all his controversial behavior, is largely responsible for the fact that there is no white boot on a part of your anatomy today.
You live in a white nation but you are not white and never will be. You can fool yourself to believe that you are not treated as a second class citizen. You choose to forget the Dot Busters, the Sikh who was killed because he looked foreign and rampant racism. How many times a week do you have to explain where you are from and spend your time EXPLAINING India to Americans? I cringe to think what you say to them about India. We do not need spokesman such as you. You will never be able to share a good desi joke with any of your new friends. If you can't laugh together; you cannot understand each other. You will always be an alien.
Yes, we are economically poor compared to US but we do not have to suffer the highest rate of teenage pregnancies, kids coming into schools and killing students and teachers, the highest rate of suicide among college students, alienated parents and children, lonely old people dumped into old age homes, drugs being offered to eight year olds (as my daughter was when she was in the UN school in New York), serial marriages and divorces.
The US had a president who was senile and deaf (Reagan), one who turned out to be a serial *** offender (Clinton), and now you have one who didn't know the heads of state of major countries and ignored warnings of a terrorist attack months before it took place. The US is responsible for massacres in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Chile and the list goes on. The rest of the world does not view America with the rose-coloured glasses you have been brainwashed by the US media to see thorough.
And, how much does a waiter in Jean Georges restaurant in Trump International Hotel in New York make compared to the price of the drink he is serving? The labour class in exploited all over the world.
You seem to very upset that I am pointing out we have a national character to be ashamed of and we should do something about it. Your insistence that we stay ashamed and do nothing about it is perhaps to make it easier for you to live in a country where the only religion is to hang out at malls and accumulate consumer items you don't really need but have been dictated by advertising to buy that, to keep the US economy going. It is not by accident that Americans are flocking to yoga and meditation classes to buy happiness.
You have done well to leave a country you are ashamed of. Call yourself an American but sooner or later your disguise and American Halloween costume will frighten you enough to get rid of it. I love America's energy and have good friends there. New York is a centre for an enormous outpouring of creativity and imaginative thinking. Every country has its own problems. It is for the people who belong there to take responsibility for change.
If you are so far removed from India, ask yourself why you are so anguished with my article. Chaitanya is raising his head, Chet is in trouble.
Regards,
Madhu Trehan
============================================================
My riposte starts now:
Note that Madhu's response starts out on a totally tangential plane. She informs Chaitanya
that he will never be able to run away from himself. How in the name of the holy fcuk is
that related to the arguement at hand is totally beyond me.
Also how Madhu has inferred that Chaitanya hates himself is again something that
goes over the top of my head. Is that just because the poor fellow addresses himself as Chet "also" ?
Out here in Chennai I find it difficult to pronounce some of the names. So I call them
with convenient shortforms. Does that mean I hate them ? Sh!t ..... & I didn't even know it :)
Many of us here in India also have shorter names. Does that mean we hate ourselves ????
Then she proceeds to inform us that because of Gandhi, "there is no White boot on a part
of your anatomy today". I think she is referring to our collective brown ass :)
Around the time we got independence (Note: we GOT independence; we did not
TAKE/GRAB/SNATCH it), many other former colonies of GB became independent too.
They did not have Gandhi or leaders of comparable stature. Or even leaders who followed the
same methodology of achieving self-rule !!
The plain truth is that GB, at the end of the 2nd WW, was too weak and highly indebted
to US. There was NO way it could have held on to the colonies without getting into some
major-league sh!t. Does that mean Gandhi had no role to play ? Hell, of course, he was
instrumental as the "symbol" of our resistance. But giving him major credit for our
independence, is stretching it a bit too far.
Madhu proceeds to inform Chet that "he is not white and he never will be". WTF is that ?
Where in the article does Chet claim that he is white. He only implies that even though he
is "NON-NATIVE", "NON-CHRISTIAN", "MINORITY" - he is not treated as second
rate citizen.
Now comes the best part ... Madhu tells the original poster that he is treated as second class;
even though the poor guy himself is claiming otherwise !!!!!!!!!
Does Madhu know something about how Chet is treated that Chet himself does not know ?
:P
From my personal experience in LA I can certify that US is a mind-bogglingly diverse
nation. At least in the cities.
I am not talking about the Bible belt or other areas. It almost comes close to India in
diversity. Also, even here most of us have one or the other biases against other Indians. Has
any of the 'mainland' Indian ever given a fucking thought about how people from the
North-East must be feeling when they come to the 'mainland' ?
No nation is perfect, but claiming that there is widespread racism in US is a LIE. I did not
have a single such experience in over 4 months of stay whereas I could feel it within 10
minutes when I landed at Frankfurt.
You want to experience racism ? Just go to Germany.
Taking example of Dotbusters and anti sikh violence is plain BullSh!t. There are freaks
in most socities. I can also take example of the thousands of Hare Rama Hare Krishna followers.
What would that prove ??
[God Damn FUCK !!! I thought I will write a complete riposte to her letter to Chet. But I
don't think I will be able to do that. There is so much crap in her response :( ]
>> ....but we do not have to suffer the highest rate of teenage pregnancies..
Has she done a comparison of the teenage pregnancies there vis-a-vis in India ? I think that
count shud include child marriage, marriages out of poverty etc. While we are at it why
not include other problems that are unique to this country like Dowry burnings & female
infanticide. Ha loser.
>> ... kids coming into schools and killing students and teachers...
Is this Madhu out of her mind ? Yeah, there were a couple of high profile incidents that did
happen in US. But these were isolated incidents whose causes are much more complex.
I definitely recommend the short feature "Bowling for Columbine" to those who want to
understand these reasons. By the way, does this moron called Madhu Trehan live in
Cuckooland ?
She is completely oblivious to the fact that our schools and colleges are heavily politicised.
There are cases where college students have openly threatened/harmed teaching staff and
gotten away with it. Does she have any mother-freaking idea about the volience that is
prevalent in some of our colleges ???
[Good Lord, I am getting better at it :) ]
>> The US had a president who was senile and deaf (Reagan) ....
Did Reagan turn senile while in office or after it ? Is this something that he or the American
public had control of ? Is being handicapped a sin ? Can we know the full context in which
Madhu has made this claim ?
>> ... one who turned out to be a serial *** offender (Clinton)
If Clinton is a sex-offender then Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a fucking pervert.
He used to sleep naked with his nieces !!!!
By the way, the definition of an offender is applicable when an offence has been committed. But what he and Monica did was consensual. Yes, morally it was wrong. But the main point is
that his wife did NOT take him to court for cheating on her.
>> ... The rest of the world does not view America with the rose-coloured glasses you
have been brainwashed by the US media to see thorough...
No Misses Madhu. You are very wrong jee. We, the normal people, criticise US too when
there are logical grounds to it. The only difference b/w you & us is that we acknowledge when
other countries have bettered us.
I could go on and on and on and on ........ and then some.
But the point is, Chet was just highlighting some of our more glaring faults. And Madhu
proceeded to kill the messenger when the message was bad. Let us all stop getting
worked up when someone points out our faults. Lets just keep working towards improving
ourselves.
Wow, I feel better now.
Back to my day-job now !!
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