An ad that shows you don't need a 3D TV

That is supposed to be a video commercial for a 3D LED TV by Samsung. It shows the "possibilities" that a third dimension adds to our visual experience. Fair enough.

Now the only hitch is that I am able to see and feel all of that on a plain 2D LED screen of my laptop. So I ask -- do we really need a 3D TV?

[I have had the same question every time I saw an HD-TV ad on a normal TV!]

The Business of Killing and Getting killed

The tribals are forced to shoot the easy prey -- the poor jawans from Bihar or Orissa who hardly had any choice but to join the forces.

The poor armymen and the police in turn are forced to kill the poor tribals.

Because they are the people who come face to face.

I am tired of the reasonings of why the tribals side with the Maosists -- I know they have incentives to offer, like an alternative goverment, a justice system in place as opposed to a corrupt and failed state judiciary.. I'm also tired of the 'success stories' of Salva Judum -- the state also has incentives to offer in getting the tribals to fight among themselves.

Both the 'Naxalite' thinktanks and the 'state', with all their good or bad intentions (be it the money in the mines, the social justice they read in books, sheer existential dilemma, an urge to save the tribals from the goverment and Multinationals or a similar urge to save the same people from the Maoists' hands..) live "happily ever after". This happiness includes the pride in giving up the silver spoon for a social cause.

Then there are cleansing methods like areal strikes, in which big guns can operate themselves without the fear of getting hurt.

A third party who makes hay in this mess is the 'Parivar', who want to take the Adivasis into their army and prepare them for other types of genocides.

I am sure the days are coming when the people realize they are being taken for a ride, and kick all these outsiders out. I mean, if any of them remain.

Where the women and cattle are kept

I don't think all opposition to women's bill can be equated with the male fear of 'women taking over'. Wrote about it here.

[Image: Cartoon by Ravi Shankar in Hindustan Times, 2010 March 16]

Copy Left, Right and Centre

Sharat said that in the end titles of his film on Chengara. Salutes to the committed filmmaker who I never met.



[Photo: Irom Sharmila, Sharatchandran's profile photo on facebook.]

Khan Saheb, you better remain Rahul

Scene one: SRK and Obama

Shah Rukh: "My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist."
Obama: "Yes I know that. Sorry for that airport incident."
SRK: "And my son in the film -- he is not a Muslim, he is actually a Rathore -- is also not a terrorist."
Obama: "I know -- I am sorry for him too.."
SRK: "But all other Muslims excluding my immediate family -- they are probably terrorists. And if they talk of Palestine or Israel, then you can be sure."
Obama: "Mm.."
SRK: "And yes, a terrorist has to be a Muslim, that everyone knows, right?"

* * *

Scene two : SRK and Shiv Sena

SRK: "My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist."
Shiv Sainiks: "But we are.. and it is people like us who decide who should be called a terrorist. You see, we can even execute a series of riots in a communally sensitive atmosphere and make people remember only the blasts that followed.."

* * *

Scene 3: SRK and audience

SRK: "My name is Khan.."
Audience: "Sorry you better be Rahul. Otherwise we are not going to fill your cinema halls. No matter how much ever a good guy you try to be."

* * *

Scene 4: SRK and me

SRK: "His name is Karan Johar, and he is not a terrorist".
Me: "You want me to believe that, after Kurbaan and MNIK?"

* * *

[Related News: Sena terror prevails; MNIK not to be released in Mumbai
Let those who love Pak-lover SRK watch MNIK: Thackeray]

[Related fact: I went at 6:25 for 6:30 show on the opening day, and got tickets comfortably. The show was not full.]

[Related post: Where does Aamir lead us?]

[.. and a related e-mail]

Anu on Chitralekha

".. I have no wish to debate the details of the case or repeat the rapidly spinning tales around Chitralekha. As I find it deeply offensive and denigrating to all my intersecting identities with Chitralekha - dalit, working woman, wife and mother.

Instead, I would like to use parallel anecdotes from the lives of Ruby Bridges, Savitribai Phule, Barbara McClintock and Chitralehka to frame these questions: How are pioneers perceived? And whom does a pioneer facilitate?"

Anu writes : Chitralekha a perceptual divide. [on Insight round table]