फ़िर भी दिल है देसी Phir bhi dil hai desi

Total Recall?

2005-08-26T17:30:00.000-05:00

The 90s Arnold Schwarzenegger movie seems to be the guidebook for the new breed of interplanetary imperialists. Ok, that was an overdramatized statement. I was actually referring to the latest idea floating in space science fora-colonizing Mars!

Our satellite-man Dr. U.R. Rao thinks that it is very possible for us to settle Mars in the space of a few centuries through a very simple yet powerful means. He proposes that huge plastic sheets coated with a reflective substance be placed on the surface of Mars. The reflected sunlight would then fall on Martian ice and wet its soil for the first time in several billion years. This could be the start of a new world, sez he. Loony as it sounds, it cannot be ruled out too. People like Dangerous Dubya make it appear the next logical step in the face of a nuclear war. Source.

Another news which has had interesting reactions from the general public is that of the introduction of the study of intelligent design in US schools. One of the reactions was the creation of a new "religion": Flying Spaghetti Monsterism. Yes, you read it right! Read more about it here and have a few hearty laughs.

Weird word of the day...

2005-08-18T11:35:00.000-05:00

I never knew there existed a word such as "winningest". But, yesterday, I came across the word in "TIME" and until I actually looked up the word on www.dictionary.com, I believed it was the printer's (or Adobe Pagemaker?) devil at work.

So, what's next? losingest? moronest? The limits to which the English language can be stretched truly amaze me!

Songs I am listening to...

2005-08-16T01:25:00.000-05:00

Of late, three songs play over and over again in my mind and my Dell Inspiron 700m nonstop. These songs'll have me hooked until I play them for the 556,783,452^th time this week!

AR Rahman - Anbe Aaruyire (Aa.. Aah..): A definite listen for any ARR fan and just about anybody else too. I love the heavy bass guitar bit that repeats throughout the song. Portions of the song remind me vaguely of some other song I've heard before, but as usual, I'll call that a coincidental similarity :) Listen at: http://www.raaga.com/channels/tamil/movie/T0000690.html

Natasha Bedingfield - These words: I haven't yet been able to understand why I like this song so much. Maybe it's for the originality or for the hip-hop/reggae kind of beat. Or maybe for the voice :) Nevertheless, a pretty good song that you'll like after a few unsure listens. Listen to sample at: http://beta.music.msn.com/album/default.aspx?album=41680573&stab=1

Malkit Singh - Jind Mahi: This one's an old number but still I play it out until the mp3 file gets corrupted in frustration. Did I ever tell you that I am a big time Punjabi/Bhangra fan? There is something in the music/culture that I can strongly relate to but can't explain. Maybe I was a Sardar in a previous birth :) I couldn't find it online but if you can get your hands on the OST of Bend it like Beckham, you can find it there.

Mamihlapinatapei

2005-08-08T11:00:00.000-05:00

Wikipedia translates this word as "It describes a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that neither one wants to start". Coming from the Tierra del Fuego language of Argentina, it is thought to be the most succinct word in any language. Such words, to some, signify the sophistication of a language. To me, it means the opposite. A language which is bulky is hard to learn, inelegant and cumbersome. Any language that readily builds complex ideas using simple words is much better than one that has a thousand expressions to explain an equal number of situations that rarely happen in one's life.

One conclusion I can safely draw from this word is that most Tierra del Fuegean people are lazy and of kaamchor type. Or else why would they take pains to create a word for something that other people rarely come across in their life? This must be a common phenomenon there. In another article at Wiki, one of the ten hardest words to translate to English is a Tamil word: செல்லாதிருப்பவர் (Sellathiruppavar). I've never heard the word myself but Wiki defines it as a type of truancy.

An eventful weekend

2005-08-04T22:50:00.000-05:00

This weekend will always be remembered for the first and only major trip I have ever made while in the USA. Major for many reasons -- the first trip I made along with some 15-odd people, and all of them desis! Remember, desis are a tough lot. They staunchly believe in the democratic policy, "Each member of a team is a captain". So I consider it a huge achievement that, for the most part, the trip was a huge success, as we covered all the places we wanted to, and in time! I can also call the trip major because we visited a lot of places in the span of just two days.

Anyways, I won't bore you much and get into the nitty-gritty details of my trip. Our trip was to the White Mountains area in New Hampshire. It is very well-known for its picturesque locations with all sorts of natural structures (for want of a better word :) like mountains, lakes, forests, gorges, rivers and so on. We started out from Maine (where I live) at 4.30 AM on Saturday. Yeah, yeah, it was really an odd hour to start but the drive was at least 3 hours, so we didn't want to spend all day on just driving.

The first place we went to was Attitash. The place is well-known for the Attitash Bear Peak, which is around 2500 feet high (pygmy by Himalayan standards). They have a lot of tourist attractions there like the usual resort, ski zone, water slides etc. But the highlight is the aerial chairlift. It is basically a stripped-down version of a cable car.

As you can see, the ride to the top was a bit scary because we were open on all sides but for a restraining rod that went across the chair. But the view from the chair was breathtaking. It was well worth for whatever we paid. When we reached the top, I felt like I was on top of the world. I could see miles of land in all directions. The faraway Mt. Washington seemed to say "Hi" to us. You could see how happy I was in the photo below:

The next stop was Lower Falls. It was basically a small rivulet that ran over a bed of pebbles and rocks. The description sounds very mundane and ordinary but the view that was in front of us was just awesome:

The water was not too cold and just right for swimming. Besides it was knee-deep at most places so we just needed an excuse to cool our heels (literally!). The next place was Sabbaday Falls. No prizes for guessing how the name came up. Despite the pretty ordinary name, the falls were (or is it "was"?) very beautiful. Some of the adventurous kind, like G and Y, climbed the narrow walls of the mini-gorge formed by the falls.

Of course, in the picture above, the guys are standing on a platform. Next up on our agenda was the beautiful Kancamagus Highway. The name sure was a tongue-twister (I assume it is a Native American word) but by the end of the 30-mile long journey on the road, we all had mastered the exact spelling!

We had to stop every 5 miles or so for a photo session with a mountain, swift-flowing river or gorge as the background. The weather was as perfect as could have ever wished and hence our spirits were at their highest. Add to that silky-smooth roads and any such place is guaranteed of a steady flow of eager tourists. Our tourism ministry has a lot to learn from America! The next station (oops, I am drifting into railway-travel mode now!) was Flume Gorge. It was the highpoint of the first day of our trip. The following picture will tell you why:

This is one of my favorite pics of the trip not just because I took it but also because this picture captures what Flume Gorge is all about. The place is actually a natural gorge with about 50-ft high walls and a small-but-fast flowing river at its base. There is a boardwalk on the side of one of the walls that winds its way parallel to the river. The feeling is just amazing when one walks over it -- it's like floating over the river but without actually swimming in it! The sun rays create a magical effect as they get reflected in all kinds of ways off the walls. There was also a small waterfall at a distance:

Beautiful, isn't it? There was also a small cave called "Wolf's Lair" or something similar that snaked its way below a bunch of huge boulders. To pass through it, one had to squeeze their way through narrow spaces but it was worth all that trouble. It took us a good one-and-half hours to get done with Flume Gorge. There was just so much to see and so less time. Anybody visiting New Hampshire shouldn't miss this place for anything!

The next day was allocated exclusively to Mt. Washington, the tallest mountain in the Northeastern USA. At more than 6000ft high, it is probably not tall by world standards but it has one of the harshest weathers at its summit. The world's highest wind speed was recorded here in 1931. Any guesses? Hold your breath - 231kmph! That's as fast as a TGV!! Indeed, to match up to such speeds, the buildings at the top (yes they have buildings there! An observatory, a Victorian inn (!!) and a few others) are tethered to the ground by means of thick iron chains. So with all this information in mind, we started our trip eagerly the next day.

On the way, we stopped as someone in our 5-car long cavalcade said they spotted a moose. We all pulled over to the side of the higwhay and ran back a good distance only to find a black bear! It was really frustrating but I took a picture nevertheless. Moose are very shy (and very dumb too) animals that are rarely seen outside the densest of forests in the Northeast. That explains why they are sought after by amateur photographers (like me). We hit the road after a while to continue our journey to the big daddy of Northern peaks - Mt. Washington. It won't take a genius to guess why they named this peak in the Presidential Range (of nine peaks) after the first president of the US. Anyways, we reached the base of the mountain soon enough and hired a stage van to take us to the top. After a 30-min long edge-of-the-seat thriller of a ride, we reached the summit. Remember, the road was damn narrow and there were quite a few bends. Add to that some dust and fog and swooshing cars on the opposite lane and you have the perfect recipe for a heartstopper! This is how the earth looks from 5000ft high (when we were closing in on the summit):

There are many ways to get to the top -- rent a stage van, take your own car (not the thing for the weak-hearted ones), hike up (if you are blessed with a good pair of legs and boots), or take the Cog Railway! There are such trains in India too, but what makes it doubly difficult out here is the steep climb the train takes when it goes up. When we reached the top, we just saw a train entering the "station" at the summit:

As you can see, all that huffing and puffing that little engine is up to is not for show! The driver told me the engine was built in the 1800s!! They still ply on centuries-old track! Talk about quality engineering. If you noticed carefully, there is a thin "track" running between the usual two, in the picture above. Actually, it's not a track but a row of metal "teeth" that help the train grip the track and not roll down as it moves up. My engineering curiosity got the better of me, here's proof of that below:

Mt. Washington was not just the highlight of day two but also of our entire trip. It cost us an arm and leg to get up there but when we got up there all our cribbing vanished into the thin air of the mountains. It was definitely worth more than whatever they charged us.

We came back home on Sunday night at around 11 PM tired but loaded with lots of memories of the wild countryside of New Hampshire.

I learnt a few things from the trip:

1. Tourism is all about intelligent marketing and creating the right atmosphere. All the places we went to were accessible to the average Joe, someone who isn't a rock-climber or mountaineer. Yet we went to all kinds of gorges, valleys, mountains without risking our lives more than crossing the road outside our homes. There is an important lesson here for Bharatiya Paryatan Vibhag (Dept. of Indian Tourism) to learn -- make all places accessible to the general public and maintain them well. And watch the dollars, dirhams and deutsch marks flow in torrents!

2. Desis never learn to enjoy a place without thinking of money. A desi will travel all the way to Mars paying a billion dollars but still think twice whether to buy the $5 extra oxygen cylinder. Ok, I am exaggerating here but you get the drift, don't you?

3. Once in a while, even I can compose a long essay.

That brings us all to the end of my travelogue.

Untitled document

2005-07-27T16:16:00.000-05:00

If you just finished reading the title of this post -- no, I didn't type this text in M$ Word. It's just that I feel totally blank. It's one of those days when your imagination forsakes you in frustration.

I am just gonna be cribbing about a few things that bother me a lot. First on the hitlist is careless handling of stuff. The other day someone borrowed a CD from me and when I got it back, I could see tell-tale signs of its journey through different hands. It had more scratches than wrinkles on a 150-year old man. End result: I couldn't listen to my favorite album anymore.

Others specialize in borrowing stuff and forget about it totally altogether until you need it one day. Heck, by that time even you won't remember who you lent it to! A few find maniacal pleasure in taking stuff away from you without even asking. The other day I thought I had lost a book until a few weeks later a friend came back to return it.

Why is it that people assume that they can take such sweeping liberties with someone else's stuff? I, for one, would feel extremely uncomfortable holding on to something I borrowed and would return it at the first opportunity I got. Of course, I would handle it more carefully than my own stuff. Yet, I fail to understand why this is not a common virtue among well-educated and civil individuals.

Maybe I sound like a hopelessly fastidious and eccentric soul but I am sure there are still a few people in the world who have a sense of right when it comes to dealing with others.

The whys and wherefores of blogging

2005-07-23T14:52:00.000-05:00

One question's been haunting me for quite some time now. Why do I need a blog? Why should I tell people all over the world about the movie I just saw or the recent trip to Acadia? What is the point in it all?

Blogs, I understand, are like just about anything that you don't have. The moment you realize everybody has that something which you don't have, your primal instincts prod you to go get one. When you are a kid, you see other kids with nice remote-controlled toys. You go home and throw tantrums until your parents get you one too. What do you do after that? The toy lies in your cupboard as nothing more than a trophy. Your interest in it ends with owning it.

So is a blog a status symbol? Back in my college days, when I first got to use a crude Windows 95 system, I got my first email address. Every other kid in my class had an email id, so why not me? Isn't that cool? memyself@coolmail.com? (Trust me, there was an email website like www.coolmail.com; they morphed into www.electronmail.com and right now they lie hidden in some dark niche of the World Wide Void.)

Or is a blog a symbol of sophistication? Is it a high-tech avatar of that ubiquitous trait that all well-groomed Victorian gentlemen shared -- keeping diaries?

These debates will carry on forever. For, I realize, the reason behind all this furious typing is the inanest ever -- typing practice!

La Identidad

2005-07-23T01:56:00.000-05:00

How often is it that people mistake you for someone that you are not? Maybe not too often. Most people get by with what they actually are. They never have to struggle with "imposed" identities. Not a very bright start for my newest post on this blog.

Anyhow, I was rambling about the kinds of notions people have about you, in terms of what they perceive as your identity. Simply put, there are enough dumb people on this planet who will invariably identify you as a lost Martian!

Recently, during one of my ritual visits to the grocery store here, I was given a new identity. Ok, I think I am overusing that word now :) Anyway, when I checked out of the counter, there was this white kid that looked at me and said, "Hola!". I barely noticed what he said and muttered hello and went away. Later, it struck me that I looked like a Mexican to that kid. That set some wheels in motion in my mind.

I remember at primary school, the kids often thought I was Bengali, just because I happened to know that language from my decade-long stay at Kolkata. Some thought I was Christian because my name sounds very similar to "Sebastian". Even some teachers used to call me so!

Some people feel flattered when a stranger thinks they are from an exotic place/culture when they actually are from elsewhere. I don't. Rather, I feel irritated when someone mislabels me. Not that the "Hola!" incident was racist; on the contrary, the kid probably thought he was being nice to the friendly neighborhood Chicano.

Next time, I'll wear a sombrero and poncho so that the "Hola!" doesn't seem out of place. But you know what, the same kid'll be there, but this time saying, "Num-uss-tay". Darn!

The pleasures of watching a movie alone

2005-07-19T00:53:00.000-05:00

Watching a movie in public should be like watching it with your mouth taped shut. Or at least that's how I think it should be. But a whole bunch of desis would disagree with this. Most desis specialize in inserting footnotes after every single dialogue in the movie.

[The movie dialogues below may not be accurate]

"Yeh dosti hum nahin chhodenge...."
Desi: "Dharam paaji badly wanted to do Amitabh's role, did you know that?"
Me (half-interested): "Yeah... knew that"

"Tumhara naam kya hai, Basanti?"
Desi: "Hey, did you know Dharmendra is from Punjab?"
Me (trying to end conversation; eyes still hooked on screen): "Yeah... and so was his dad"

"Yeh haath mujhe de de thakurrrrr"
Desi: "Oh man, MTV made a super-duper spoof of this part"
Me: ...

"Basanti, in kutton ke samne mat nachna"
Desi: "I heard Dharmendra and Hema Malini fell in love on the sets of this movie"
Me: Really...? (thinking "this special piece of information or vishesh tippani will not save the world, or will it?")

"Yeh dosti hum nahin chhodenge..." (and movie ends with a swan song)
Desi (stretching arms; ironically, the mouth did the most work): "Yaar yeh movie humein wapas dekhni hai, itni achchi hai" ("We have to watch this movie again, it is so good")
Me: "Haan, kyun nahin.... zaroor" (Translates to: "Yeah, after all the talking, you really DO need to see the movie again!")

About the "About"

2005-07-14T02:47:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I wonder if the "About" section was just a random thing that popped out of my mind or if it's something that makes sense. It does make sense when I feel like my blog is the last blog on the world *frustrated*

Cyber-citizens seem to have better things to do than waste their time in this cyber-pitstop. Heck, and this is like the second post in the day for me! So much for being a dedicated grad student...

Pulling... Streeling... SPELLING!

2005-05-31T07:11:00.000-05:00

Why do South Indians spell 'Sita' with an 'h', as in 'Seetha'? And why is 'मदन' always 'Madhan' south of the Vindhyas? This is one of a few such questions my North Indian friends keep asking me. For them the South Indian spelling sounds something like 'सीथा' and 'मधन'!

The problem lies with the funny language called English. It is one of the very few languages that writes one thing and pronounces it as another. Anyone remember the infamous "ghoti" example by Bernard Shaw? Anyways, the English script (or Roman script, to be precise) does not write down sounds the way they are voiced. The script is a rather incomplete attempt at representing the full range of basic sounds in English. So using such a hopelessly inadequate script to write down words in another language that is equally, if not richer in sounds is like making a blind guy write a report on a tennis match!*

So 'Sita' could also be 'सीटा' and 'Madan' 'मडन'! Readers with one of these two names will now be highly tempted to sue me left and right for defaming their name :)

Anyways, desi public forget all that crap and learn one another's language.

* Ok, that was a politically-incorrect statement!

Back in action

2005-05-30T23:33:00.000-05:00

After nearly half a year, I finally found the time out of my busy agenda (that which most people prefer to spell as 'laziness') to scribble, or rather punch in a few keystrokes, to make sure my blog doesn't expire.

One piece of useless information for the uncurious: I am in India right now and 'heating' my heels doing nothing but beat the crap out of my old Pentium-4 warhorse. Thanks to BSNL for DataOne or else dad would be staring at an n-thousand rupee telephone bill.

Anyways, I don't know which reader is going to come back to a blog after nearly 6 months of glorious inactivity, but let me remind you that I am a member of the half-full-glass club. I promise to get back with my unsightful (or was it insightful?) articles on apple to zebra on a regular basis.

All expungable comments may puhleeze be directed to desibanda-at-gmail-dot-conm (remove the 'n', it was meant to con email harvesters).

A lost people

2005-01-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

Sometime this week, I came across an article on the Net about an extinct tribe called Guanche. So what, you might ask. Well, the Guanches were a puzzle unsolved by anthropologists. So who were the Guanches and what's so special about them? The Guanches originally inhabited the Canary Islands (an archipelago off the coast of Northwestern Africa, or the territory of Western Sahara). The map below shows the location of the islands:

The Guanches were a primitive tribal community and had (supposedly) lived in isolation from the rest of the world until the Spanish 'discovered' them in the 15th century. From then on began a systematic elimination of the Guanches until they became extinct by the 19th century. With them their culture and language vanished into history. But then, what's so new about this story? Haven't colonial empires sought to destroy or convert native communities of lands they wished to annex? What is different here is the fact that the Guanches were a white tribe not much different in appearance from the invading Spaniards. The greed for land and wealth was the basic guiding force behind all imperialist fancies, which was often justified by lame pretexts like civilizing the savage or bringing piety to the pagans. Of course, there was also racism involved when the hunter and the hunted belonged to completely different races. The victory of the aggressor established its dominance and gave it a sense of superiority of its race over that of the vanquished.

From an anthropological and linguistic point of view, the Guanches were a peculiar people. Their language (surviving in colonial documents and other relics) is completely unrelated to any known European language. They seem to be have been remnants of some very ancient civilization, possibly from pre-Indo-European times. However, they don't seem to be related to the Basques too. Some have suggested that they could be descendants of the mythical Atlantis civilization. Others claim they could be related to the Berber tribes in western Africa. This, however, has not been proved yet as the linguistic differences between Guanche and Berber languages are too vast to have had a common ancestor. Moreover, they were in complete isolation for several centuries, possibly millennia, thus ruling out any connection with any mainland African tribe. Unfortunately, these and many more questions regarding the Guanches will remain unsolved thanks to their complete extermination from the face of the planet.

A Mughlai feast

2005-01-02T11:01:00.000-05:00

I recently got hold of the OST of Mughal-e-Azam 2004. A few seconds into the first song and I was wonderstruck at the unbelievably rejuvenated version of the classic. It was as if the song had been recorded a few weeks back and released as a CD yesterday. The crystal-clear sound enhanced the original score by Naushad by a few orders of magnitude. Lata Mangeshkar's (I have never been a great fan of Lata, thanks to her discordant musical experiments in later years) voice never sounded so youthful and enchanting. I had never paid much attention to the songs of Mughal-e-Azam (MeA henceforth), partly because all I ever got to hear were grainy versions played on good ol' Akashvani and it was not possible to make out the words unless one forgot about the music and concentrated hard on the lyrics.

Added to that difficulty was the language itself. Being a true-blue Madrasi, I never found it too easy to grasp the beautiful Urdu poetry in MeA. Not that I am a total amko-Indi-nai-maalum type, but I feel more at home with the likes of Sanju bhai and their Mumbaiya lingo. However, the second edition helped me cross at least one of the hurdles; I could make out the words in the songs. Helped by an online Urdu dictionary, I finally understood the meaning of the verses. I could not stop admiring the beauty that lay hidden (from my intelligence) in the lyrics of each song. Especially, the following lines from the song "Pyar kiya to darna kya" held me captivated:

"Purdah nahin jab koi khuda se,
Bandon se purdah karna kya?
Pyar kiya to darna kya"

"When I have no veil between God and I,
Why should I try to hide from His servants?
When I have loved, why should I fear?"

The depth of the words are lost in my poor translation of the original verse. The words show the polite defiance of Anarkali, the courtesan who fell in love with Prince Salim, when she performs in the durbar (court) of Emperor Akbar after realizing that the biggest hurdle to the fulfilment of her love with the prince is the emperor himself. Akbar, was apparently against his son Salim (he assumed the name of Jahangir later) marrying a lowly courtesan. The other song that struck me was "Bekas pe karam kijiye". The tune aptly conveys the emotions of Anarkali while the words blend with the tune like sugar in milk.

My memories of MeA as a movie date back to the days when Doordarshan screened it. All I can recall from then is the rather pretty face of Madhubala and a few melodious tunes. I have not seen the movie (in its colored avatar) yet so I don't know if the colorization matches the quality of the restored audio but from the stills posted on rediff.com the movie holds a great deal of promise. I am looking forward to MeA II now that I can understand the language better as also the mature theme of the story (I was a kid when I saw it first on DD).

One interesting thing I noticed since the release of MeA II is the barrage of eulogistic reviews on almost all major websites related to Bollywood. While I do agree on the superior quality of the movie in all aspects, I wonder if the original would have received so many raves when it was released back in the 60s. I can imagine a few decades from now, Sanjay Leela-Bhansali's Devdas would be resurrected (after some sort of editing) and would be called a 'timeless masterpiece' - a phrase that I encountered in all websites while referring to MeA. I know I have already invited a gazillion rotten eggs in my direction for even daring to compare MeA with Devdas, but realistically speaking, if MeA had been so overwhelmingly accepted then how did lesser (in comparison to MeA) movies like DDLJ manage to stay in Indian theaters much longer?

This probably has to do with the hyper-nostalgic mentality of Indians, and desis in general, that rises to the level of eulogizing something that is only as good as it is worth. This is rooted in the love for the past that we Indians cherish. We only bask in the glory of our forefathers' achievements but never in our own, not because we are neglecting our current achievements but because we have achieved precious little in the present. Analogically speaking, when someone criticizes Sachin Tendulkar for his waning form, people always harp about the 34 centuries he has scored or the awesome innings he played as a youngster. But then, there is no denying that MeA is a fabulous work of art and will remain one. I was only trying to squeeze in a random thought that occurred to me.

The songs can be listened to online at:
http://www.musicindiaonline.com/l/17/s/movie_name.7589/

Who wants to be a philanthropist?

2004-12-31T01:25:00.000-05:00

The recent tsunami tragedy has resulted in a great devastation of a number of littoral countries on the Indian Ocean. As of now, about 120,000 or more lives have been lost. On the economic front, loss figures for each nation runs into the billions. Help from the *developed* nations has so far only been in trickles. In fact, nations like India and Malaysia that have been affected by the disaster have themselves offered to help others. Only recently, a top ranking UN official commented about the stinginess of the richer UN members in sending out aid to the affected.

A few decades back, the UN stipulated that the developed nations contribute 0.7 percent of their GDP annually toward international aid. Only a handful of countries meet that figure. The US is the second largest donor in the world (after Japan), but spends as little as $0.1 for every 100 it earns. GW Bush was quick to justify that number saying Americans gave out around $250 billion in charities directly. But frankly, how much of that is accurately reported? Who maintains the statistics for that? What really shows up is the aid donated by governments. Whatever individual citizens do with their money is their prerogative. It does not make up for what their government does not do.

As the BEP ask, "Where is the love?"

A small request to anyone who is reading this post: please follow this link and see if you can donate some money to those hit by the tsunamis.

Desi disinformation

2004-12-28T23:41:00.000-05:00

Ever seen an example of modern-day Goebbelsian propaganda? Look no further than here. It is an official website of the Pakistani government. I quote directly from the website (italics and emphasis are mine):

Pakistan emerged on the world map on August 14,1947. It has its roots into the remote past. Its establishment was the culmination of the struggle by Muslims of the South-Asian subcontinent for a separate homeland of their own and its foundation was laid when Muhammad bin Qasim subdued Sindh in 711 A.D. as a reprisal against sea pirates that had taken refuge in Raja Dahir's kingdom.

This is one of the most ridiculous statements I have read in an official account of a country's history. Efforts to establish Pakistan started only in the early 1930s. Until then, most mainstream Pakistani leaders were engaged in a struggle against the British for complete independence for a united India. In fact, its founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, himself was a fierce nationalist fighting alongside the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Patel for independence. Until the Nehru report of 1928, Jinnah was a staunch nationalist. So how was the foundation for Pakistan laid in 711 AD? Muslims of the sub-continent never believed in a separate motherland until 1940, when the Pakistan resolution was passed and Partition became a concrete idea. The millennium that Muslim rulers ruled the sub-continent was mostly a syncretic era, even if there were spurts of anti-non-Muslim laws and taxes during certain regimes.

While the official website makes attempts to present non-Islamic portions of Pakistani history, most other sources fail to do so. There was this article I read somewhere that described how Pakistan's decline into fundamentalism began with ZA Bhutto's regime. In the quest for a national identity, the official history books started to reflect only the Islamic parts of Pakistani history and in a few cases (e.g., madrassa-promoted textbooks), they promoted rabid anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh ideas. The whole idea was to disinform the masses. No wonder that the official website now states that Md. bin Kasim invaded Sindh in order to quell the pirates active in the region. This idea toes the oft-quoted "fact" that Sindh, in those days, was a highly corrupt and lawless land run by hegemonical Brahmin chieftains. I am not sure how true those claims are but I also came across another view of the Sindh conquest at this website. Again, I am not sure how credible this source is, but the view that the Arabs invaded Sindh in order to wreak revenge on the Sindhis for sheltering the conquered Sassanian prince does not seem to be unreasonable. It seems more credible when seen in the context of the grand Islamic conquest that was taking place in that region. The Arabs did not want to lose Persia after having conquered it comprehensively. Persia was very important to the Arabs also because it was on the crossroads to Central Asia and Europe. The third reason was of course historical; the Persians routinely subjugated the Arabs.

Inspite of these obvious reasons, Pakistani and some international historians still harp on the lame pirate story that can only be equaled by the WMD claim of Bush. The curious fact that is often overlooked here is that many Muslims have raised a hue and cry on the Iraqi war that was supposedly based on a false premise but they do not think in a similar light of the war that was waged by the Arabs on Sindh.

Hello blog world!

2004-12-25T04:34:00.000-05:00

This is my first ever post at my blog. I never really caught up with the blog revolution until recently. Hope this post is the starting point for many more useful ones to come. I would request all my readers (if any, because at this point I dunno how many people would be interested in a near-empty blogsite :) to make a ritual visit to this site and get a regular glimpse of my (un?) intellectual sparks of wisdom!