Am I busy?????

I don't really know whether to call myself busy or I'm wasting my valuable free time. Before going into the details, one "good" news to you all. I've been elected as the Executive Committee member for Telugu Kala Samithi(TKS) for the current year. TKS is some sort of a group of Telugu people living here in Bahrain. They conduct various get-together for Telugu speaking people in Bahrain etc. and most importantly, they do a lot of Social Welfare works(mostly pertaining to house maids and labor).

I've been entrusted with the position of the Membership Secretary and set with some goals to be reached by the end of my tenure. I was also included in the team for the Social Welfare. So far, everything sounds good and rosy.

Here starts the thorny part. Every week for two days, each member of the Executive Committee is supposed to stay at TKS premises for various reasons. And we have to meet regularly before any major event/festival. And we have weekly meetings too. This way, each member has to go to the TKS premises at least thrice a week.

So my daily routine is something as follows: Get up at 5 30 AM and reach office by 7 AM. Again reach my flat from office by 4 30 PM or so. Then immediately have to go to gym and work out till 6 30 PM. Then go to TKS by 7 PM and stay there till around 9 30 PM. By the time I finish my dinner and call it a day, the time is at least 11 PM. This routine repeats at least 3 times a week..

And these days, work in office has increased to a great extent and sometimes, I feel like quitting this job. But thanks to the world-wide recession, I am forced to stay back at least until the situation is normal. On top of that, my server stopped responding for no apparent reason this morning. We were able to recover it back just now and still we don't know the cause for this failure.

That's it folks. I may not be able to post for some more days, until I become comfortable with TKS and office issues. But I promise and assure that I'll keep reading all your posts and leave my stupid comments there.

Mangalore Massacre

I hope most of you read or heard about the Mangalore pub incident. For those who didn’t know about that, let me tell you what was reported in the news about that. A group of people, all members of a religious outfit called Sri Ram Sena, stormed a pub in Mangalore and beat up the persons who were partying inside, irrespective of the gender. And some unknown sources also reported that some of the girls were molested too. The reason for the attack as told by the Shri Ram Sena outfit was, these people (who are partying) were violating the rich Indian Culture.

Now, here is a small piece on interview of Pramod Muthalik, the founder of the Shri Ram Sena.

How can you continue to justify the Mangalore incident?
I will always stand by my statement that the intention behind the Mangalore attack was correct and we did nothing wrong in raising this issue.
What is wrong in opposing the pub, drug and club culture? Someone had to raise this issue. We decided to do so as no one else seemed to be bothered about it. We have a responsibility towards society and we need to safeguard Indian culture. Pub culture is Western and we don't need it.

Who has appointed you a moral policeman?
Nobody needs to appoint me. This is a democracy and we have the right to raise our voice if we think something is wrong.

Why do you resort to violence? You have no right to hit anyone, especially women.
I am saddened by the fact that the incident turned violent. There was never an intention to resort to violence. But the reports of attacking women and molesting them are wrong -- they have been created by the media.

Why do you have a problem with people who want to have some fun in a pub?
As I mentioned earlier, pub culture is not Indian and we do not need to ape the West. Girls are resorting to all sorts of rubbish due to lack of guidance. We will continue to raise our voice and will also take the help of law enforcement agencies to ensure that students do not tread the wrong path.

Your answers indicate that there will be more trouble in Karnataka.
There will be no violence, but we will raise our voice. We will not allow Valentine's Day celebration as it is not part of our culture. We will take the help of the police and college students to ensure that nobody celebrates Valentine's Day.

Now, anybody who saw the clippings of the attacks will strongly disagree the way the attack was carried out. The way the girls were bashed made me rethink whether this is India(where females are highly respected) or some other alien nation. In one clipping, a running girl was beaten hard on her face with such a force that she literally flew down.

In my childhood, I used to hear that in Muslim countries, women are beaten up for indecent acts and men are castrated. Now I work in one of those Muslim countries and I never hear about incidents like this here. This makes me wonder whether our “rich Indian Culture” permits these insane acts.

If you see the revered Mr. Muthalik’s interview, you’ll notice the phrase “This is a democracy and we have the right to raise our voice if we think something is wrong”. Now Sir, we too live in the same democracy and we too have our share of rights. Also, why the hell are you voicing your opinion about girls resorting to taking drugs, boozing, wearing mini-skirts? Are the males OK to do this?

Do the following with perfection before carrying out any more indecent acts like this:
• Ask your followers to stop wearing western dresses like jeans, tees.
• Tell them to stop boozing and smoking.
• Tell them to get up early in the morning and do puja to all the sacred Indian Gods.
• Restrain them from celebrating the New Year Eve, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day etc.
• Tell them not to work in MNC’s (as management expect the employees to respect the client traditions).
• Advice them to stop eating noodles(Chinese), pizzas and burgers(western) etc.

These are only a few of the things you should do before questioning others and please note that there are a lot of other issues and methods to protest in our country. Please let us live the way we want.

Also, it’s sad to see that all the 27 accused got bails instantly and they are roaming freely among us.

All my friends out here, please join me in saying “Get well soon, Mr. Muthalik”.

Click here for the news report.
Video Courtesy --> NDTV
Interview Courtesy --> Rediff