[Goanet] (no subject)
sorry. computer got the date wrong. should be jan 13, not feb. --- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---
[Goanet] news flash by rajan parrikar
i agree with rajan wholeheartedly. the indian influx is bad news. over the past several years i have seen people piss and shit in public like everywhere else in india. how can this be stopped? would be nice to have some suggestions. meanwhile one question: rajan, what citizenship do you possess? also can you suggest ways goa can be detached from the indian republic? --- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---
[Goanet] mum's kitchen
i agree with anna that mum's kitchen has good food and good service. maybe five times out of ten. many a time the food has been mediocre and the service indifferent. i don't know the owners but anna seems to know them. perhaps she should tell them many fans and well wishers are concerned about the hit and miss experience. i live part of my life in goa and have not been to the restaurant with guests and friends for months, simply because i don't know whether it will be a hit or a miss. this is a comment from a customer who prays the mum's kitchen experience remains consistent. --- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---
[Goanet] message 8 and 9
no need, rajan, to become so apoplectic about differing views, opinions and lifestyles. civilization is about dealing with differences without recourse to violence, actual or in words. --- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---
Re: [Goanet] english: an indian language
THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO RAJAN PARRIKAR'S POST IN VOL 6, ISSUE 659 rajan, your comments are so stilted and prejudiced...in so many dimensions...that to respond, i would have to descend to the rabid level of declamation that you have achieved. there is no special place in heaven or in the after life reserved for those weaned on the simple and righteous ways of hindu culture and religion. i grew up in a home steeped in conservativism but we were not tradition-bound. as such i grew up respecting the enlightenment that set the west free and scornful of hidebound indian mores that are the source of inequality. and this lack of an egalitarian ethic is the evil that has sapped, saps and will continue to sap india. rajiv.
Re: [Goanet] ships discharge radioactive water...
mr kakodkar, i would like to see some evidence of your alarmist charges. unless you have specific proof that japanese ships are discharging radioactive water into the sea at mormugoa, your post can be considered criminally irresponsible. also you seem to imply there is a government attempt to cover up the matter. are you a member of the rumor spreading society? rajiv desai.
[Goanet] Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Rajiv Estelle
[Goanet] (no subject) u g barad
in the past i posted a warning that this u g barad is a hindu fundamentalist. it's fair to give him space to vent his weird opinions on religion, politics and culture. but it's important to remember he is part of the anti-constitutional saffron brigade. just a reminder! * * * Was life in the *kudds* glamourised? Who said, It appears that the Goanese (sic) are a roving people, prepared to go to any part of the world for well-paid employment? How did Goans find their first toehold in the Gulf? Find your answers in Selma Carvalho's *Into the Goan Diaspora Wilderness*. Buy from Broadways Book Centre, Panjim [Ph +91-9822488564] Price (in Goa only) Rs 295. http://selmacarvalho.squarespace.com/ * * *
Re: [Goanet] All Religions for Human Integral Development
this person u g barad is clearly a saffron propagandist. his posts are abominable. From: U. G. Barad Further to my earlier post of today on above subject I was taken aback when I opened 9th page of Times of India - Goa addition. This page takes detailed stock of how Italian catholic church rocked by gay sex scandal...Priests filmed having sex at clubs in Rome. The original news appeared in Panorama - a weekly magazine owned by Italian Prime Minister - supposed to be responsible citizen of Italy. * * * IS YOURS one of the stories of Goans on board the S.S. Dwarka, or at the Strait of Hormuz, Basra or Bahrain, Dubai, Swindon, Mombasa, Poona or Rangoon? Selma Carvalho's new book *Into the Diaspora Wilderness* docks at many other ports. Get your copy from Broadways, Panjim [9822488564] Rs 295. Pp extra. http://selmacarvalho.squarespace.com/
[Goanet] 26/11
it's a 48-min long video. please watch. my blood is still boiling. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1e4_1246490858
[Goanet] Merry Christmas Happy New Year
Merry Christmas Happy New Year Rajiv
[Goanet] The Butterfly City
the new terminal in Delhi look like a provincial airport in some remote African country. The city is abuzz with new and lasting solutions to urban problems. They have no power cuts, a brand new water supply and sewerage system and piped cooking gas. On the other hand, Ahmedabad remains among the most polluted cities in India. There is no getting away from the ugly commercial and private buildings. Its climate has to rank among the worst in India, thanks largely to the absence of trees and greenery. Already, though, with water in the river, you can feel the climate is changing for the better. The vastly improved and well thought out infrastructure is bringing pride back to the city. As such, this maggot of a city is about to be transformed into a butterfly, albeit with ugly wings. Copyright Rajiv Desai 2009 Posted by Rajiv N Desai at 6:43 PM 2 comments Labels: ahmedabad, Bus Rapid Transit, gujarat, Sabarmati River, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel airport, urban renewal
[Goanet] cedric prakash
i have observed with keen interest the back and forth on the activities of cedric prakash. nothing i have read so far convinces me that he stands for a positive cause. all his platitudes about human rights and social justice are planks in a long discredited platform, especially in the age of genuine liberalism (which prakash and his leftist and jholewala supporters call 'neo-liberalism'). as leaders of the world's two largest democracies, sonia gandhi and barack obama have revived the liberal cause that prakash and his ilk had expropriated. like medha patkar's, his is an oppositional mentality: he opposes modi and the bjp (and so do we all), he opposes the congress; he opposed the indo-us nuclear deal; he opposes all forms of development. his ideology seems to a confused mix between the left that stands for very little but knee jerk diatribes against capitalism (especially the usa) and the hind swaraj mindset that excoriates modernity (seen as something that is not indian). as such cedric prakash has no appreciation for the two most transformative forces of the 20th century: capitalism and modernization. he can get the 'alternate nobel' for what it's worth. but he remains today a destructive force in gujarat and indeed in the rest of india; especially among us liberals.
[Goanet] cedric prakash
I'm afraid I would have to disagree with the suggestion that Fr Cedric Prakash has rendered yeoman service in Gujarat. In 2002, when I was the chief publicist for the Congress Party during the state elections, I had the opportunity to meet Fr Prakash. I arranged as meeting for the Congress campaign team with him and his band of activists, mostly left-wing ideologues and jholewalas from outside Gujarat. Their behavior was boorish to say the least; they lambasted the Congress culture and told the Congress team that they were constrained to support it for the lack of options. My colleagues were shocked and speechless, wondering if the Congress needed their support or just how much of a difference Prakash and his band of activists would make to the outcome of the election. Later, in talking to other groups opposed to Narendra Modi and the BJP including the small community of Catholics in Ahmedabad, we learned that the activities of Prakash and his group were in fact a disservice, helping to consolidate support for Modi. From several such groups, we heard that the activists aroused such ire that even those who supported the Congress were put off. Prakash and his band somehow seemed to convey that Gujaratis, as a people, were communal and that their work was a missionary crusade to help save Gujarat from the Gujaratis. They have become hate objects much like Medha Patkar over the Narmada Dam issue. I have a special concern for Gujarat in that I was born there as was my Goan Catholic wife. Fr Prakash and his group are seen as outsiders and their activities only served to facilitate Modi's clever switch from Hindutva to Gujarati pride. In view of the recommendation made in your digest of July 9, 2009 that Cedric Prakash be nominated for the Alternate Nobel award, I thought I'd share this information with your readers. comma Communications Management Comma Consulting A1/288 Safdarjung Enclave New Delhi 110 029 India Phone +91 11 4135 4400 Fax +91 11 2616 1578
[Goanet] Jawaharlal Nehru: November 14 1889 to May 27, 1964
Jawaharlal Nehru died on May 27, 1964. That, Roland, was during the summer holiday before XI B at St Xavier's. Rajiv Desai www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com.
[Goanet] re':shrikant barve
i've often been tempted to write about this communal fathead who raves and rants on goanet. now that i have written, i'll not waste my time with such a contemptible pamphleteer. people like this are the bane of our nation.
[Goanet] Savoring the Drift
This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at i...@comma.in THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2009 http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2009/01/goa-journal-january-2009.html Goa Journal, January 2009 Savoring the Drift
[Goanet] barad
i have been following the saffron adventues of this person, barad, with a great deal of academic interest. propaganda and pamphleteering was the subject of my dissertation in grad school. among my conclusions, propagandists achieve success when they create pamphleteers. barad is a pamphleteer created by the master propagandists of the saffron parivar. like all such creations, barad is not very skilful. some time back he was caught saffron-handed doing a crude makeover of an honest reporter's factual narration. over the past couple of weeks, barad, who had dropped out from the list of contributors, began to edge his way back in. his latest post is a crude attempt to twist the proceedings and the soul-searching of an archdiocesan congress to suit his bigoted worldview. Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Go to http://messenger.yahoo.com/invite/
[Goanet] The Dalai Lama Lecture
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * ANKA SERVICES For all your Goa-based media needs - Newspapers and Electronic Media Newspaper Adverts, Press Releases, Press Conferences www.ankaservices.com kam...@ankaservices.com This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at i...@comma.in SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2009 http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2009/01/capital-city-journal-january-17-200 8.html Capital City Journal, January 17 2008 The Dalai Lama Lecture At the annual Madhavarao Scindia Memorial Lecture today, the featured speaker was the Dalai Lama, who was to speak on Non Violence: A Strategic Tool. The monk dissociated himself from the strategic tool aspect of the speech and went on to deliver a series of unscripted bromides. His rambling address would have gone down well in Santa Monica, California or in Hollywood, where he has acolytes like Richard Gere. But on a cloudy afternoon, in Teen Murti House in Delhi's Diplomatic Enclave, before an audience that included India's power elite, the Dalai Lama's speech was applauded in the sycophantic manner that is common in such audiences. He has an infectious laugh, a personable interpreter he uses to great effect and plays his audience like a finely-tuned stringed instrument. Summed up, his message was as follows: * Non violence would be unnecessary if there was no violence. * Dialogue is the key to avoiding violence. * Violence can be avoided if you can instill compassion in the hearts of people. * Given the religious diversity of India, only secular values can help avoid violence. * India is a net exporter of non violence. * It needs to push non violence at home. Like Jim Morrison of The Doors, the monk said love is the answer. It's a wonder the audience that applauded several times did not break out spontaneously into the signature Beatles tune, All You Need is Love. A very dear friend of mine, who is a highly-regarded technocrat, put his arm around me after the event and asked me if I, like him, thought the afternoon was a waste of time. In the event, there is no hope for a free Tibet; the Dalai Lama is a creation of the Indian establishment and a darling of angst-ridden celebrities all over the world. The Chinese have nothing to fear. copyright rajiv desai 2009 http://www.sphere.com/search?q=sphereit:http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/200 9/01/capital-city-journal-january-17-2008.html/ Sphere: Related Content POSTED BY RAJIV N DESAI AT http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2009/01/capital-city-journal-january-17-200 8.html 12:27 AM https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=3146114 276917400328 0 COMMENTS http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2009/01/capital-city-journal-january-17-200 8.html#links LINKS TO THIS POST http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=31461 14276917400328 LABELS: http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Dalai%20Lama.%20Delhi DALAI LAMA. DELHI, http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/india INDIA, http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Non-Violence NON-VIOLENCE, http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Tibet TIBET http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?pub=rnhdurl=http://rajivndesai.blogspo t.com/2009/01/capital-city-journal-january-17-2008.htmltitle=Capital%20City %20Journal,%20January%2017%202008 Bookmark and Share email:- rde...@comma.in
[Goanet] Don't Shoot the Pianist
This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at i...@comma.in Friday, December 19, 2008 Don't http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/12/dont-shoot-pianist.html Shoot the Pianist Fifty-year old Schubert Vaz, pianist at the Oberoi-Trident, Bombay narrates his nightmarish night of November 26 when terrorists seized the hotel. I was playing the piano as usual as I have for 27 years at the sea-facing lobby of the Oberoi, when I heard gun shots. As soon as I realized that gunmen had entered the lobby and shooting people, I ran into the Opium Den bar. They had already killed two bell boys. Other bodies were on the floor but the terrorists were going into restaurants and firing. Along with some Oberoi staffers and guests, we next ran into the computer room. We felt that was also not safe. We next headed for the back-up systems room which had batteries and so on. I could continually hear gunshots. I called up my brother in law over the cell phone and spoke softly to tell him that terrorists had taken over the Oberoi, but not to tell my wife. If I was delayed, I asked him to tell her that a guest had invited me to play in his house after my duty hours at the Oberoi. If I did not come home by morning, it meant I was in serious trouble. We were hiding in the back-up systems room when one of the terrorists entered. He started firing from his machine gun. He shot a 20-year old Oberoi management trainee Jasmine, She died. He killed some guests at point blank range. I thought my time had come to die. I could see the image of my family flash before my eyes. At that time I prayed, Lord, save me. The terrorist stopped firing. We were very lucky as for some reason he did not spray the room with bullets as he could have done with a machine gun. He just fired single shots. I could not see him, but could see the muzzle of the gun from where I was hiding. If he had sprayed bullets all of us in the room would have died. The terrorist did not say a word while he was killing people. He was not angrily shouting, but appeared calm and methodical as he was shooting at us. That made him scarier. The terrorist left the room. I asked others in the room, including some foreign guests, to put their mobile phones in silent mode. We waited, after about 30 minutes; we began to think of how to leave the hotel. We decided to leave for the Regal Room, and there we found our senior managers who were wonderfully helpful. They asked us to keep calm, and told us security forces will rescue us. We were then taken in groups out of Oberoi, to the nearby INOX theater where we waited until morning. At about 5.30 am, I took a local train to my home in the suburbs. I have been through the Bombay bomb blasts also in 1993. Bombay suffers from two kind of terrorists: the terrorists who come from outside the country, and our political terrorists within the country who take advantage of our tragedies. Our politicians have destroyed the country with their divisive politics. Our divisive problems started with the Rath Yatra (conducted by Lal Krishna Advani) and destruction of Babri Masjid. We don't need any political yatras. We have the Jazz Yatra, and that is good enough! We are Indians; it does not matter whether we are Hindus, Christians, Muslims or Sikhs. I know I am alive now only because the terrorist did not spray bullets as he could have done. Yesterday, I attended the funeral of an Oberoi colleague John even though I did not personally know him. I know it could have easily been my funeral. Bombay is not afraid. I am determined to get back to work at the Oberoi that is my second home for the past 27 years, to playing the piano that is my second wife. The first song that I will play is Anne's Song by John Denver. It was the favorite of the 20-year old Oberoi management girl Jasmine, who died in front of my eyes. She was such a sweet, wonderful human being and killed for no reason by madmen http://www.sphere.com/search?q=sphereit:http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/200 8/12/dont-shoot-pianist.html/ Sphere: Related Content Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/12/dont-shoot-pianist.html 12:08 PM 0 https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=3413437 736479301770 comments Links http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/12/dont-shoot-pianist.html#links to this post http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=34134 37736479301770 http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=341343 7736479301770 Labels: bullets http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/bullets , gun http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/gun , INOX theatre http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/INOX%20theatre , mumbai http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/mumbai , Oberoi-Trident http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Oberoi-Trident , terrorists
[Goanet] The Failure of the Political Class
This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at i...@comma.in Wednesday, December 17, 2008 The http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/12/failure-of-political-class.html Failure of the Political Class The political class is like the public sector, which seeks to run a modern enterprise in a bureaucratic fashion that died abruptly with the Soviet Union. Likewise, politicians and bureaucrats and their cohorts in the academy try to operate a modern nation-state with command and control techniques more suited to the colonial era. This contradiction was outlined in stark relief by the terrorist strikes in Bombay. Not even the most modern nation-state could have anticipated the strikes; however, the key is the response. Right or wrong, governments in the United States and Western Europe responded swiftly. Certainly in the US there has been not even a minor incident of terror since 9/11. Now compare that to the dithering, uncoordinated response of the Indian authorities. A cogent approach might, at the very least, have contained the number of casualties. It took nearly ten hours for commandos to show up. Plus the police proved once again unable to do the simplest job of sanitizing the area. Instead, you had crowds of curious onlookers and the inevitable television crews and reporters. What's more, television reporters, in their eagerness for Breaking News, were oblivious of the impact that their coverage could have, especially in keeping the terrorists informed about the commandos' tactics. Plus various spokesmen fed the media with information about police plans, government strategy and commando tactics in a random manner. It was clear that no one was in charge: not the union home minister, not the state chief minister, not the state home minister, not the NSG chief, not the police commissioner, not the state and central information ministries...it was a comprehensive failure of governance. The question arises: could politicians and bureaucrats done any better? Of course, they could have. So why didn't they? Why did it take the state chief minister so long to grasp the true nature of the attacks? Why did his deputy, who also serves as home minister, downplay the magnitude of the problem? Why did the center take so long to wake up: what was the national security adviser doing? What was the home minister doing? A National Disaster Management Authority office was established recently. Was this not a disaster included in its terms of reference? Nevertheless, let's not play the blame game; instead let us analyze why things went so terribly awry. My 27 years of intimate acquaintance with the political process leads to the following answers to questions raised above: 1. The position of a politician in any party is vicarious. Except for the supreme leader, no one is secure. This puts a premium on sycophancy that cascades through the ranks and explains why politicians wear rings, undergo elaborate religious rituals and are deeply superstitious. Their survival is not on the basis of performance or leadership; if he or she should in some way displease the leadership, it's curtains. Neither chief minister Vilas Deshmukh nor any of the Patils (central and state home ministers) was capable of getting anything done except ceremonial posturing that in their minds would please their overlords. In such a culture, politics becomes process rather than goal oriented. Meaningless gestures and flatulent rhetoric are all you get. Hence Deshmukh's terror tourism trip to the Taj with Bollywood celebrities or Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's gift of money to the family of a slain security officer. Compare that to 9/11, when the New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani took charge and directed the response. 2. National priorities are much lower in the politician's hierarchy of values. Every situation he faces is judged on the basis of whether it strengthens or weakens his position. In addition to sycophancy, the political culture celebrates opportunism. This explains why the chief minister of a neighboring state rushed to Bombay and the Oberoi, where he swaggered before the assembled media, charging the government with failure and calling for new laws and what have you. If ever Modi was stripped of his recent image building sheen, this was it. He was shown up for what he is: a small-time opportunist with an agenda that is clearly too large for him. Meanwhile opposition leader L K Advani, with his refusal to support the government, wrote his obituary as a possible prime minister. Contrast that to solidarity shown by American and European politicians in the face of similar terror attacks. 3. Innovation and ideology are an intrinsic part of modern political cultures. Barack Obama steamrollered his way to the presidency of the United States with a high-tech campaign and a message of change. In India, Mayawati is feted for
[Goanet] Eyewitness to Terror
This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at i...@comma.in Friday, December 5, 2008 http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/12/battle-ground-st-xaviers-college-ap prox.html Eyewitness to Terror BATTLE GROUND : St Xavier's College approx 9.40 p.m. onwards There's been some firing at V.T. station, he said. It didn't sound too serious. But within minutes, the scenario changed - and how! TV channels blared the news of a possible gangland gun battle at Leopold's Cafe, in Colaba. By 10.15 pm, frenzied reporters on all channels screamed, we have a terrorist attack...shooting at the CST station reportedand they have entered the Taj Hotel in Colaba. Suddenly, unexpectedly, all hell broke loose around St. Xavier's College. Machine guns fired (sounds very different from the ' rat-a-tat ' that we hear in movies) and grenades blasted around us. We listened in hushed, frightened silence to the deadly news that the 'atankvadis' - terrorists- were in the neighboring Cama Hospital premises. Some of us huddled in the recreation room before the TV; some, standing on the long third floor terrace, watched disbelievingly at rifle-toting commandos enacting battle-like scenes before our eyes; and, some slept! Standing in the corridor facing the Azad Maidan, Paul Vaz was visibly shaken. He saw a man shot in cold blood, just in front of our college driveway on Mahapalika Marg. Proof, that the 'terrorists' had scrambled past our main gates! Peering over the railing of the terrace facing St. Xavier's School, Joe Velinkar and Arun watched in disbelief. Just a few feet from the College side-gate (the one facing Rang Bhavan), two men were crouched behind a white car with a spinning red light atop it. Then, with guns firing in the air, they coolly, according to Velinkar, walked past the Rang Bhavan, and entered the G.T.Hospital complex. Sometime between these two happenings, in this same area, brave policemen met their deaths in front of the Corporation Bank, which is situated at the extreme end of the college building. Bullets whizzed - dented the door of the bank and the red, steel electric sub-station. This is the spot where ACP Ashok Kamte (an alumnus of St. Xavier's College), Hemant Karkare, the ATS Chief (his daughter had completed her studies last year at Xavier's) and Vijay Salaskar met their end. Presumably, the young terrorists escaped in these officers' Qualis van - the same Qualis that fired indiscriminately, killing two youth living in houses behind our college. And then later, on bystanders at the Metro junction a few meters away. But, within our college stone walls, surrounded by hours of bloody violence, someone surely was watching over us and our hostelites. That same someone is now prodding us to work harder - in and through our Institutions - to bring about change; to make a difference - in our beloved India. If you prayed for us...THANK you Lawrence Ferrao SJ Fr Lawrie, principal of Bombay's prestigious Xavier Institute of Communications, was the celebrant at our daughter Pia's wedding in Goa, November 24, 2008. He sent me this eyewitness account. http://www.sphere.com/search?q=sphereit:http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/200 8/12/battle-ground-st-xaviers-college-approx.html/ Sphere: Related Content Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/12/battle-ground-st-xaviers-college-ap prox.html 6:44 PM 0 https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=7979872 823804118206 comments Links http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/12/battle-ground-st-xaviers-college-ap prox.html#links to this post http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=79798 72823804118206 http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=797987 2823804118206 Labels: bombay http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/bombay , Cama http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Cama%20Hospital Hospital, GT Hospital http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/GT%20Hospital , Leoppold's http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Leoppold%27s%20Cafe Cafe, mumbai http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/mumbai , terrorst http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/terrorst , VT station http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/VT%20station , Xavier's http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Xavier%27s%20College College http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?pub=rnhdurl=http://rajivndesai.blogspo t.com/2008/12/battle-ground-st-xaviers-college-approx.htmltitle=Eyewitness% 20to%20Terror Bookmark and Share email:- rde...@comma.in
[Goanet] father cedric prakash
as a gujarati with a goan wife and a rlong-time esident of goa, i totally agree with john fernandes (subject: godhra and kashmir). cedric prakash has siangle-handedly destroyed the secular cause in gujarat. even those of us who hate narendra modi find it difficult to deal with cedric prakash's unidimensional leftist, jholewala line. he has done more to destroy the secularist line in gujarat than modi. cedric prakash, who i have met, is a disgrace to the jesuits and a negative factor for those of us who are trying to fight modi in gujarat. people like this so-called jesuit priest are responsible for the rise of mutant hindus like modi.
[Goanet] Opportunities in Meltdown Crisis
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * ANKA SERVICES For all your Goa-based media needs - Newspapers and Electronic Media Newspaper Adverts, Press Releases, Press Conferences www.ankaservices.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thursday, November 13, 2008 Opportunities http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/11/opportunities-in-meltdown-crisis.ht ml in Meltdown Crisis It is the yearning of most middle class Indian to send their sons and daughters to go to Harvard Business School. That's not surprising, given the Indian obsession for job-oriented training rather than a liberal arts education. When your children get into elite business schools, you feel you've fulfilled your dharma. After that, they get lucrative jobs in Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and what have you. There they work with men and women from around the world whose Arjun-like focus is to make piles of money: an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a spectacular beach house in the Hamptons, a skiing holiday in the Alps, a summer place in the south of France, a villa in Tuscany, an apartment in Paris or a great hotel in London. Well, just as American assumptions about finance have been upturned by the dismal reality of economics, your idea of dharma is about to take a beating. The chickens have come home to roost. Twenty-eight years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unlamented demise of Soviet communism, we are witnessing a massive assault on the skewed capitalism unleashed by global finance. When a bunch of ambitious yuppies is given the run of the markets, you should expect immature behavior. A thousand points up, a few thousand points down: the masters of the universe thought they were invincible. We've seen this in India in the first four decades of Independence. Young people with means and connections attended elite schools like Oxford and Cambridge and returned to high positions from where they pushed the intellectual ideas of the day. The result was Fabian socialism that created and favored the elite. The Leftish intellectuals who ran the country advanced distorted notions about egalitarian growth from positions of privilege. They pushed weird ideas: a 'commanding heights' public sector; restrictions on private enterprise; outright nationalization of 'core' sectors deemed vital to the country; 'development' banking, subsidy populism. The entire edifice came crashing down in 1991 when the government went bankrupt. Slowly and painfully, a new structure arose in its place: a tentative reform regime frequently held hostage to mindless moffusil politics practiced by con men and goons, bigots and activists who fill party offices. One thing is obvious; the old elite have had to make way for ambitious interlopers, whether in politics or business. Their next generation largely opted out of public service and made their homes largely in the global financial community: in New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore. This is where the story becomes intriguing: at the intersection of the next generations of the Indian elite and the world of global finance. Once a secure and lucrative place, it is now the center of the meltdown. If the recovery is long in coming, these young men and women will most likely head home. As they pour in looking for elite perches, they will encounter the crass interlopers who now occupy such positions. It could make for an interesting political turn. In alliance with modern-minded politicians found in the Congress and in some regional parties, they could power a new equation in the country's politics. The global financial bust could actually re-invigorate politics. The moffusil mafia that now holds the Indian state to ransom could face a challenge. Chances of overcoming the current anarchy could improve dramatically. As things stand today, civil society (not the jholewallahs but the real thing: a middle class with civic values) is under assault. All manner of low life, including criminals, assembles under a 'leader' and wreaks chaos and mayhem in cities, towns and villages, without let or hindrance. You have Hindu bigots killing tribal Christians in Orissa and Karnataka; street hoods enforcing a chauvinist agenda in Bombay; Mamata Banerjee forcing the Tata Nano venture from Bengal; a regional party playing to its ethnic base by seeking to influence Indian policy in Sri Lanka; the Left playing ideological games to strap a government they were in alliance with; a BJP that is
[Goanet] comments
i am surprised at the debate over the submissions of comments on non-goan issues to goanet. i am disappointed that the historic victory of barack obama in the us got caught up in internecine political arguments. goa has huge interactions with the world, in a real way, as opposed to merely business and finance. you should open up your platform to the discussion of various national and international concerns. otherwise you risk making goa insular like the rest of india. that would rob this paradise of its cosmopolitan charms and by default cede public debate to venal panchayats, misguided activists and corrupt partisan politics. you should not allow your wonderful platform to be hijacked by narrow local issues. there's much more goa has to offer than arcane preoccupations about language, ethnicity, social divisions and political intrigue.
[Goanet] Res Gestae : Goa Unplugged
rajiv desai has sent you a link to a blog: for inclusion in your mailing list. Blog: Res Gestae Post: Goa Unplugged Link: http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/10/goa-unplugged.html -- Powered by Blogger http://www.blogger.com/
[Goanet] Goa Unplugged
This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wednesday, October 8, 2008 Goa Unplugged http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/10/goa-unplugged.html After All, It IS India So here we are in Ucassaim, Goa again. The monsoon is at an end and now there's bright sunshine; warm humid days, cool starry nights. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. There are high-pitched songbirds in the morning; an irritating rooster with five-o'clock-alarm regularity; peacocks romantically a-braying at the prospect of snakes. The bread guy, the egg man and every other vendor has this little rooty-tooty horn that starts blowing from five in the morning to midday. Our little village is, as such, a bucolic place. After three days of rain and a day of sunny blue skies, you can sit in the verandah and still hear the water dripping from the trees at night. You get up from your armchair and look up at the million trillion stars in the sky to see if it's clouded over again and it's raining. And you realize with some impeccable insight that dripping water is the main event in Goa during the monsoon. Even after two days of sunny skies, despite the star-filled, moonlit nights, the drip-drop of the water from the trees never ceases. It is soothing, almost mesmerizing. The wonder of this place is that is a feast of vision and sound but also of heavenly aromas of food: the overwhelming smell of feni, the pungent odor of Goa vinegar and the lustful noseful of seafood. Apart from the hedonistic cornucopia that is the very essence of the place, there are other, more mundane aspects: good roads, polite drivers, great bars, good restaurants. It is fun to wander through the towns, villages and beaches during the day and eat a simple dinner at home or find a buzzing place to dine in. This time, however, the pleasures of Goa were tinged with a black penumbra. It turns out our bucolic little village is full of greedy and envious neighbors. We've tried to reach out to them but their world is so different. The amount of money we spend going back and forth from Goa in a year surpasses their annual earnings. If we were white foreigners, nobody would hassle us; if we were rich, we would have people to contain them. Being neither, we face the hostility of neighbors, who are nice to talk to; it is clear they have a hidden agenda. And they operate stealthily through the Panchayat. In our case, they cannot complain in terms of religion or caste: my wife is a Goan Catholic; I am a Hindu Brahmin. Between Pereira (my wife's maiden name) and Desai (also a Goan name), we easily blend in, especially because we live the local life. The problems our neighbors are causing us are petty but stressful. One neighbor is a policeman; he had a wicket gate leading into our garden from his yard and enjoyed a free run of our property. We sealed off the gate. Now he is extracting revenge. He has filed a complaint in the panchayat against the boundary wall we are seeking to repair. He even brought in his loutish fellow cops to threaten us. Another neighbor started an ambitious project to build an additional floor but ran out of money; a third has cattle in his living quarters and the family is always at war, using loud voices and sometimes even physical combat. All these years, we've ignored them, valuing the physical allure of the village. We've weaved that attraction into a pastoral experience. I was hoping to write poetry like William Blake,; instead I am constrained to write a Marxist tract. Now that we are sprucing up the property for our daughter's wedding in the next few months, we've had people coming out of the woodwork, objecting to walls; this, that and the other. All complaints go to the Panchayat; there are inspections, without any reference to the alleged transgressor. In the past few weeks, we've had all manner of harassment from neighbors. They are of a completely negative frame of mind. One neighbor complained that we had encroached into his property; another complained, and he lives across the street, that the wall would block the breeze in his house. A third simply said we could not do it unless we built ten feet into our property, giving him the land for free. We come to Goa to get away from it all. We stay at out second home, mind our own business and reach out to the locals. There is, however, such a simmering pot of envy that you can neither touch nor swallow for fear of burns. We have decided to fight it. Never mind religion or caste, the hostility has to do with socioeconomic differences. Though nowhere rich by global or even the new Indian standards, we nevertheless pay our caretaker more than the per capita income of the village...we probably spend more than that on dinner, when we go out. That is the truth. But I see no reason why they would gang up on us, except because they believe they can wring a
[Goanet] The Acrid Stench of Death
This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Monday, September 22, 2008 The http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/09/acrid-stench-of-death_22.html Acrid Stench of Death Grief Eases, the Smell Lingers On September 21, my mother would have turned 86. She died five months ago. But lest anyone thinks this another obituary, I want to make it perfectly clear that it is not. Rather I want to talk about the phenomenon of death and how it hits you in the face, even while you are busy making a life. To begin with, there's no escaping it. We are all on some supernatural death row from the minute we are born. Certainly, we give our lives meaning. We do amazing things: we build nations, machines, welfare systems, philanthropic organizations; we do astounding research in medicine, physics, chemistry; we sing songs, play guitar and make it snappy; we write symphonies and operas, novels, poetry, even columns like this one. It is our only shot at immortality. Buried, burned or otherwise disposed off, our mortal coil is just that: mortal. Remember the root of the word is Latin for death. It's not my intent to be a Woody Allen and obsess about death. We don't need that because the fear of death is programmed into our DNA. We eat healthy, we work out; we give up cigarettes, booze and the libertine lifestyle. All in the hope we get a few years more on this planet. That desire drives people who live in sylvan estates or in deplorable slums; the investment banker who lives on 95 and Fifth in Manhattan as well the tribal in basic Africa; the person on a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean as well the illegal immigrant stowing away on a cargo ship. Nobody told me that death is the only certainty in life for all the years I spent in respectable educational institutions. In school, there was an unstated belief in God that the Jesuits pushed; university life was girded by the Calvinist ethic of hard work, burning the midnight oil. After that, the job was the Holy Grail. You must find one, keep one and rise in the ranks. Better homes, nicer cars, club memberships, business class travel and various other diversions take your mind off from the inevitability of death. So we build the tangled web of ambition and relationships. It diverts our minds, stuck as we are on this wonderful death row that we call life. I have a sunny disposition like Louis Armstrong, who in 1967 sang What a Wonderful World, a song that was written for him by the legendary jazz impresario Bob Thiele. Its opening lyrics went like this: I see trees of green, red roses too See them bloom for me and you And I think to myself what a wonderful world I see skies of blue, and clouds of white The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night And I think to myself what a wonderful world We enjoy this world: springtime in Chicago, autumn in New England, a night in Manhattan, a drive on Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles, (corny though it sounds) an evening in Paris, a drive through the English and French countryside, a Beatles number, an Ellington tune or some good old Hindi songs by Rafi, Kishore, Mukesh or Geeta Dutt; even more mundane experiences like a drink at the retro bar in the air force station in Ayanagar on the Delhi-Gurgaon border, dinner with friends in Bandra, a singsong at our house, a great movie, a good concert, an absorbing play, a stirring opera. And for many of us, the satisfaction of work and the concomitant rewards, both spiritual and material. My personal preference remains Goa in the Monsoon. There are trees of green and flowers too. But the skies are grey; the clouds are black and ominous; the night is indeed sacred and dark with sheets of rain and gale force winds. Contemplating the violence of nature, I am reminded that we are mortals and we can be swept away by the sinister forces of nature. These experiences define our lives. Otherwise there is a void, a few lonely years in a death watch cell. We seek love and solace. When we get that, we are immortal; others want more and they are Shakespeare, Blake, DaVinci, Einstein, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Mozart, Beethoven, Edison, Burke, Jefferson, Voltaire, Freud, Marx, Gates or any of the IT pioneers. People like them advance civilization. The rest of us just enjoy the fruits of their genius. In the end, there is no greater comfort and joy than sharing a daily dinner table, a weekend lunch in the garden or Christmas with the family. These experiences run for a good 50 years or so in an individual's life until the children, both us and ours, grow up and move away, sometimes physically but always emotionally. We enjoy it while we can and then contemplate the sunset years. Some of us are lucky to have friends to brighten up our evenings and weekends; and work to keep us busy through the day. Into this cocoon of happiness that we build and protect,
[Goanet] Lifetime's Experience
this article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Saturday, August 30, 2008 Lifetime's http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/08/lifetimes-experience.html Experience A Posh Flight to the USS Nimitz Early one Tuesday morning, I found myself sitting in the naval terminal at INS Hansa in Dabholim, Goa. A young officer from the American navy strode to the front of the reception area and began to brief the assembly about the flight we were about to take to the USS Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that was sailing 300 miles west off the Goa coast. The officer, who was also the pilot on board the C2A Greyhound turboprop, said things about safety gear, water-landing and whatnot. He made it sound fairly normal. So we geared up with helmet, goggles and flotation device and walked out to the aircraft. It was a posh aircraft. No, there were no nubile flight attendants, 18-channel entertainment system or anything of the sort that is generally associated with the word posh. It was a no-frills aircraft with not much beyond 14 regulation-issue seats facing backwards and two portholes for windows; no sound-proofing, no second skin, a couple of lights and that's pretty much it. You had to wear your earphones else you risked deafness. But it was posh, in the sense that passengers faced away from the pilot. Port Out, Starboard Home, the British called it, referring to the cabins on the port side of the ship as it sailed to India and those on the starboard side as the ship sailed back to England. The idea was to catch the last and first glimpse of my own, my native land. In this instance, we faced the shoreline of India, a comforting factor for a white-knuckle passenger like me confronting what they call an arrested landing and saw the back of the Nimitz as we were catapulted into the sky in the take-off back to Goa. As we took off from Dabholim airport towards the Nimitz, everything seemed normal just like the dozens of flights I have taken out of Goa. In flight, the plane settled into a vibration mode that lulled me to sleep until I heard the pilot through the headphones, saying, We're three-quarters of a mile away from the ship. Awakened, I sluggishly tried to peer out the port-hole, hoping to see the ship. Suddenly, I saw two crew members, who were sitting directly in front, waving their arms frantically. Then there was a roar, the plane's throttle opened up to full speed, a thud and a few seconds of eternity as the COD (carry onboard delivery) plane came to a screeching halt. Later, standing on the flight deck, as I saw a series of F-18 fighter jets land, I saw a hook being lowered as the plane came in to land. The hook grabbed one of four cables stretched across the width of the four-and-a-half-acre deck and made what they call an arrested landing. I began to understand why I thought the few seconds to it took our plane to go from over 120 miles an hour to a full stop in just 30 yards seemed like an eternity. At that point, it's between the skill of the pilot and the Maker: split-second timing rather than fancy high technology made the difference between an arrested landing that enabled me to have lunch with the commander of the ship and a crash landing that might have set me in front of the Maker, worrying about all the stuff I may or may not have done in my life that He might question. The hours on the ship zipped by and its dimensions-18-storey height, 9700 tons, 1000 feet in length, 4.5 acres landing deck, 5000 sailors, 110 planes-are gargantuan. Pretty soon, I found myself in the posh plane as it taxied to line up on the steam-powered catapult that would launch the plane into the wild blue yonder at 120 miles per hour on a runway that was just 30 yards long. Despite the restraints, the top part of my body bent over involuntarily to where my head touched my knees and then snapped back as the catapult released the plane in a whoosh of nuclear-powered steam. By the time the plane straightened out and set course for shore, I experienced eternity again. The entire trip to the Nimitz lasted close to six hours. It occurred to me that we had seen the full majesty of American power. What struck me the most about our landing and takeoff was that it is based less on high technology-think about the arrested landing and the catapulted take-off-than on relentless training and the bravery of the men and women, who do this as part of their daily routine. In the end, I concluded that these brave and well-trained twenty-somethings should try driving on the streets of any Indian city. We do it daily. It is far scarier. from daily news and analysis october 10 2007 http://www.sphere.com/search?q=sphereit:http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/200 8/08/lifetimes-experience.html/ Sphere: Related Content Posted by Rajiv N Desai at
[Goanet] The Karmayogi Hall of Fame
This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thursday, August 21, 2008 The http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/08/karmayogi-hall-of-fame.html Karmayogi Hall of Fame An Obituary for My Mother It is four months to the day my mother died. I miss her comforting presence. What strikes me is life goes on as if nothing happened. Hello World, I often say to myself, my Mom's gone; show a little concern, some respect, and some grief. Relentlessly though, things grind on and she is consigned to be a fading memory in the minds of those who knew and loved her. How easily we are reconciled to the passing of a loved one! My Mom was difficult to love; she had a way with guilt. Whenever she came with my Dad to visit us in Chicago or in Delhi, she always made me feel I did not spend enough time with her. In some way, her complaint was legitimate because we lead busy lives: long hours at work, many social engagements and many friends to visit and to entertain. I refused to take her guilt trip, which made her angry. Within days of landing in our house, she would start up about going back to her home in Ahmedabad. My Dad was always the fall guy, coming into my study with wads of banknotes, asking me to book their tickets back. Four months ago, when she died holding hands with me, I felt bereft. I didn't cry or anything but just felt a deep gash in my heart. For some reason, we believe mothers are immortal and they will always be there to remind you of your checkered youth and then, after they have layered you with guilt, to comfort you. When you come to think of it, they are immortal because everyday of your life something happens to remind you of your mother. In many ways, grief is important; it helps you come to terms with the loss. My problem is my 88-year old Dad, who suffers from Alzheimer's. A few days after my Mom's death, he came to me, looking distraught. You know, I feel helpless. My mother just died and I did not have enough money to give her the best medical care, he said to me. It is true that his mother also died of cancer in 1966 and he may have felt as an upright government official that he could not provide the care she needed. I was devastated. I realized then that the major outlet of my grief, to share the loss with my father, was denied to me. Sadly thus, my grief has remained bottled up in some obscure corner of my mind. I could become a psycho like Anthony Perkins in the Hitchcock movie of the same name and end up as a mass murderer or a suicide bomber. No, let me hasten to add, it's not about to happen. The point is it's important to express grief and while I have a hugely supportive family, I have no way to commiserate with my Dad. As such, we are the principals and yet we can't share the emotions of the loss. Apart from the dementia, my Dad is a fairly healthy fellow with no aches and pains and a zest for life. When he turned 75, he told my daughters he still had at least 25 years to go. Amazingly, he's more than half the way there. He just needs 12 more for his century. Even today, in a state of dementia, he tells us he did well at school, was highly respected in his job and exercised relentlessly, so there's no reason why he should not live to be a hundred. Though it is difficult to get through to his Alzheimer's blocked mind, I can say with pride and confidence that he is the progenitor of my sunny worldview. Many friends say that I am wildly optimistic in a righteous sort of way. I consider it a compliment and have only now learned to attribute it to my father. His memory is compromised but he has the heart and soul of a 40-year old; he frequently says that. And he will live to be a hundred or even more. He now lives with us. He is doubly troubled: dementia as well as a the dysfunction of a displaced person. We brought him with my mother from their home in Ahmedabad in March this year. My mother died and he has no way to go back to his comfortable life in the house he's lived in since the 1960s. He is unsettled and still lives out of a suitcase. We just have to deal with it and can only hope he stays independently fit. I've never been big on yoga and Hinduism. But if ever there was a Karmayogi contest, please welcome my Dad to the Hall of Fame. copyright rajiv desai 2008 http://www.sphere.com/search?q=sphereit:http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/200 8/08/karmayogi-hall-of-fame.html/ Sphere: Related Content Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/08/karmayogi-hall-of-fame.html 1:46 AM 0 http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=50716997 05205192327 comments http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=50716 99705205192327 http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=507169 9705205192327 Labels: ahmedabad http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search
[Goanet] Magical Mystery Tour
, Clapton, Jethro Tull, Chuck Berry and on and on. We thought we were in heaven. Goa rocks in the Monsoon. Copyright Rajiv Desai 2008 http://www.sphere.com/search?q=sphereit:http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/200 8/08/magical-mystery-tour.html/ Sphere: Related Content Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/08/magical-mystery-tour.html 3:01 AM 0 http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=83517609 38511539087 comments http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=83517 60938511539087 http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=835176 0938511539087 Labels: baga http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/baga , cavala http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/cavala , Divar http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Divar , Goa http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Goa , incredible http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/incredible%20india india, Tiracol http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Tiracol http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?pub=rnhdurl=http://rajivndesai.blogspo t.com/2008/08/magical-mystery-tour.htmltitle=Magical%20Mystery%20Tour Bookmark and Share e-mAIL ID : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[Goanet] The Existential Pleasure of 'Dal Dhokli'
.' It is a dumpling where 'dhokli' is pasta. They too add ghee, lots more of it. It is very tasty but the quality we seek is being ethereal. Forced to choose between the two, I would unhesitatingly plump for the Gujarati dish. And no, that's not a provincial statement...it is an honest choice. So here I am back in Goa, the land of spices and New World produce. Between the various curries and the chili fries, meat, fowl and fish, I get my fill. The crispy bite of batter fried calamari, the sensuous swallow of hot and sour shrimp curry mixed into coarse red rice and the sumptuous crunch of rava fried fish are enough to make humble table wines taste good. I am suffused with the exciting taste of Goan food and sated by excellent desserts that include jaggery and coconut stuffed pancakes, seductive coconut cakes and honest and upright custard. I can't get enough of the feast. Nevertheless, a couple of bowls of 'dal dhokli' in Benaulim add to the enjoyment of fish curry, chicken caffreal, beef chili fry, fried shrimp, calamari, mussels and teesriyos. To my mind, Gita's 'dal dhokli' is an added and growing attraction of this lush green enclave on the west coast that serves for us as an escape from the uncivil catastrophe that the rest of India has become. , http://www.sphere.com/search?q=sphereit:http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/200 8/08/existential-pleasure-of-dal-dhokli.html/ Sphere: Related Content Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/08/existential-pleasure-of-dal-dhokli. html 1:21 AM 0 http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=60507494 9008653025 comments http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=60507 4949008653025 http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=605074 949008653025 Labels: benaulim http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/benaulim , caffreal http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/caffreal , calamari http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/calamari , chili fry http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/chili%20fry , curry http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/curry , custard http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/custard , dal http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/dal , dhokli http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/dhokli , Goa http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Goa , gujarati http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/gujarati%20cuisine cuisine, india http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/india , lentil http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/lentil , methi http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/methi , mutton http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/mutton , pancakes http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/pancakes , pasta http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/pasta , rajiv desai http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/rajiv%20desai , shrimp http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/shrimp , spices http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/spices , western http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/western%20cuisine cuisine http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?pub=rnhdurl=http://rajivndesai.blogspo t.com/2008/08/existential-pleasure-of-dal-dhokli.htmltitle=The%20Existentia l%20Pleasure%20of%20\ Bookmark and Share E-mail ID : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[Goanet] Scaling Heights, Plumbing Depths
, despite enjoying the exalted status of opposition leader, Advani allowed, nay encouraged, these dubious players to enact the cash drama in Parliament. My personal view is that Advani is the most corrosive politician in India today. He stands criminally accused for his role in the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992 and for his recklessly provocative rath yatra two years before. He is so blinded by his ambition to become prime minister that he has lost all sense of balance. How can Advani focus on the so-called sting operation that members of his party conducted during the vote of confidence? More than 50 people have died in the terrorist attack in Gujarat (which Advani represents in the Lok Sabha) and Karnataka, both states run by the BJP. Shouldn't he be asking questions of the BJP chief ministers there as to how this happened? He clearly has come unhinged by the government's convincing win on the floor of the house. Where he should stand shoulder to shoulder with the central government, urging his party chief ministers to move quickly to arrest the perpetrators, Advani has shown he has the mentality of a municipal councilman. As such, he will continue in his cynically graceless manner to yell and scream from the margins to which he has relegated his party. Under the burden of his ambition, the BJP, which could be a useful right of center alternative in the political mainstream, has been reduced to a rump of naysayers and whiners. Meanwhile back in Kasauli, we agreed that politicians like Advani would naturally draw an extreme response from Islamist formations like the Indian Mujaheedin, who have claimed responsibility for the blasts. Advani bashes on relentlessly: sponsoring foolish resolutions to oppose the government's plans to speed up reforms; egging on the egregious Sushma Swaraj in her wild allegations about the blasts; forgetting his own dismal record as home minister. It's time for him to adopt a vow of silence and maintain it for the remainder of this government's term. copyright rajiv desai 2008 http://www.sphere.com/search?q=sphereit:http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/200 8/07/scaling-heights-plumbing-depths.html/ Sphere: Related Content Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/scaling-heights-plumbing-depths.htm l 1:15 AM 0 http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=44167712 60579778928 comments http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=44167 71260579778928 http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=441677 1260579778928 Labels: advani http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/advani , ahmedabad http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/ahmedabad , bangalore http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/bangalore , bjp http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/bjp , bomb blasts http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/bomb%20blasts , kasauli http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/kasauli , terrorism http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/terrorism http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?pub=rnhdurl=http://rajivndesai.blogspo t.com/2008/07/scaling-heights-plumbing-depths.htmltitle=Scaling%20Heights,% 20Plumbing%20Depths Bookmark and Share E-mail ID : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[Goanet] The Defeat of Evil
are empty, set the stage for the rapid decline of India into bankruptcy. The man who presided over the mortgage of India's gold reserves to the Bank of England was Yashwant Sinha, an equally incompetent bureaucrat who served as finance minister after Dandavate. Sinha is today a leading light of the BJP, partly because he is among the few articulate people in the saffron combine. The communists and the communalists joined forces in opposing the government over the nuclear deal. The communists' objection is bigoted; they hate the US; the communalists' opposition is purely opportunistic because they would rather have done the deal. Who can forget Jaswant Singh strutting around the place, dropping names: My friend Strobe. A senior British executive told me that he was struck by the number of times this obstreperous BJP minister dropped the name in a 15-minute conversation. This is why, despite the desperate 11th-hour drama of dubious BJP MPs smuggling currency into Parliament House, the Advani Karat pact was defeated convincingly on July 22. They are the forces of darkness and India has already awoken to that Tagorean heaven of freedom, where the mind is without fear and the head held high. copyright rajiv desai 2008 http://www.sphere.com/search?q=sphereit:http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/200 8/07/defeat-of-evil.html/ Sphere: Related Content Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/defeat-of-evil.html 11:17 PM 0 http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=66743906 81728918779 comments http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=66743 90681728918779 http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=667439 0681728918779 Labels: advani http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/advani , bjp http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/bjp , communalists http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/communalists , communists http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/communists , congress http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/congress%20party party, evil http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/evil , gita http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/gita , india http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/india , indian http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/indian%20parliament parliament, Indo-US http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/Indo-US%20Nuclear%20Deal Nuclear Deal, karat http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/karat , manmonham http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/manmonham%20singh singh, trust http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/trust%20vote vote, upa http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/upa http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?pub=rnhdurl=http://rajivndesai.blogspo t.com/2008/07/defeat-of-evil.htmltitle=The%20Defeat%20of%20Evil Bookmark and Share E-mail ID : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[Goanet] Halfway point for the UPA
* This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) * you can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Halfway http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/halfway-point-for-upa.html Point for the UPA The Way Things Are Going... When the Congress Party came to power nearly three years ago, middle class hearts were gladdened. Having supported the Neanderthal Democratic Alliance led by the BJP, many were dismayed by the 1998 nuclear tests, following which India became a pariah of the international community. In 2004, the Congress-led UPA won a mandate. Tragically, the Congress think tank, which consisted largely of people who played the role of the palace guard for 10 Janpath, interpreted the result as a vote against the BJP's India Shining campaign. The Congress continues to believe that Indira Gandhi was their talisman with her garibi hatao and her 20-point program. They see in Sonia Gandhi glimpses of Indira, when really she represents a continuation of her husband Rajiv Gandhi's vision of ushering India into the 21st century. Many of us who worked closely with him remember when he met Jack Welch, the head of GE, who started the first BPO operation. The rest is history. Today, we are not just the world's back office; we are solving complex business problems on the basis of our information technology expertise. Yet the Congress rank-and-file believes that the socialist nostrum is the way forward. They now talk about inclusive growth. There can be no denying that the fruits of India's screaming economic success, led by the BPO industry, should also include the poor and that the government must play an active role in ensuring that they are equally distributed. But that's not why the BJP-led NDA coalition was defeated. The middle class that voted it into power in 1998 deserted them, frightened by the communal agenda and more so by their incompetence in governance. The BJP sees things in black-and-white: they propagate that the Congress is an anti-Hindu party and seek votes by raising the basest communal passions that were tweaked by the Partition. The Congress also takes a similar zero-sum view and pits the rich against the poor, stoking the fires of class conflict. It is unable to shake the Soviet mindset of state control over all aspects of human endeavor. Both parties tend to ignore the middle class. In the old days, the middle class was small and easily forgotten; today it is a substantial, creative force that chose to oust the communal die hards of the BJP. And this is the very group against which the Congress seems to have taken up cudgels, with its divisive agenda of class and caste differences. It has increased taxes, squeezed credit and supported irrational quotas based on caste. Neither party has taken into account the aspirations of this fastest growing segment of the population. There is something abroad in the world; it's called the India story. No political party seems to understand it. After Manmohan Singh, as finance minister, scrapped Soviet-style controls on private enterprise in 1991, the economy boomed. Unfortunately, the sacking of the Babri Mosque derailed the reforms the very next year. The economy began to drift and that saw the comprehensive defeat of the Congress in 1996 and the emergence of carpetbagger politicians, who slept in different political tents every night. In 1996-1997, there were two weak Congress-backed governments under whose dispensation the bureaucracy was able to stall any further reforms. In 1997, when it was clear that the Gujral-Deve Gowda regime had run it course, the bureaucracy unleashed a series of demand management measures including a rise in interest rates that reined in the growing economy. The recession that followed lasted until 2003. In the interim, BJP-led coalitions came to power but proved unequal to task of reigning in the demand managers. It resorted to ad hoc measures such as the poorly designed national highway program. In the event, the BJP-led NDA crashed to defeat in the 2004 election. For two years, the UPA government focused on setting things right. But the internal contradictions in the Congress and the nihilism of the Left saw its goodwill erode. The Congress is losing elections everywhere but its sycophantic leaders believe that Rahul Gandhi will deliver them from the morass of ignorance and intrigue that is sapping the party. Such complacency will cost them dearly. from daily news and analysis april 18 2007 Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/halfway-point-for-upa.html 12:26 AM 0 http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=90827965 76290773189 comments http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=90827 96576290773189 http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=908279 6576290773189 Labels: bjp
[Goanet] The Fall on India's Berlin Wall
--- http://www.GOANET.org --- 2008 International Goan Convention Toronto, Canada http://www.2008goanconvention.com --- * This article is from the blog res gestae(www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) * You can reach the person mamaging the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Monday, July 14, 2008 The http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/fall-of-indias-berlin-wall.html Fall of India's Berlin Wall Comrades Sent Packing Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last. (Martin Luther King). Prakash Karat cuts a sorry figure today. His ideological posturing has cost the Left dearly. In 2004, his predecessor, Harkishan Singh Surjeet offered the UPA support and enabled the Congress-led coalition to form the government. In 2005, Karat replaced Surjeet and almost immediately the relationship between the Congress and the Left turned sour. The dogmatic new general secretary unveiled a new era of hectoring the Congress and pushing an unreconstructed ideology that survives only in Jawaharlal Nehru University. Elsewhere in the world, the communists have been pushed to the fringes after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Between April 2005, when Karat replaced Surjeet, and Tuesday July 8, 2008, when he foolishly withdrew support to the UPA, the Indian Left enjoyed more influence over the Indian government than Israel has over various US governments. And they blew it. Karat's obduracy has painted the Left out of the reckoning. Beijing's mandarins cannot be very pleased. This is abundantly clear from foreign secretary Menon's statement that China will support the Indian application to the Nuclear Suppliers Group. His dour, immature brinkmanship cost the Left its invaluable influence over government policy. The current crisis is of Karat's making; it has rocked the India story that the world believes is crucial both in geopolitics as well as in international economics. What the commissars don't understand is that the entire world in banking on India's emergence from a regional to a global power. US President George W Bush was among the first to grasp the importance of the transformation. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says, the whole world is rooting for India to emerge from its poverty and its Third World victim mindset. Should India succeed, it will set an example for poor countries. It did that in the 1940s when the Indian National Congress won independence from Britain and presided over a relatively smooth transfer of power. India's economic transformation will send a more powerful signal to the world than China's phenomenal growth. The only other large nation that succeeded in wiping out mass poverty is the United States more than two centuries ago. Sure, China has lifted more people out of poverty than India; at the same time, it has clamped down on political opposition. An iron fist in a velvet glove, a Chinese-American scholar once called it. What China lacks is soft power. That's what the Olympics exercise is all about. The fact is that without the fuzzier aspects of power, it will always be an outsider wanting in to the world milieu. On the other hand, between cricket, Bollywood, the increasingly competitive and aggressive business community and the English-speaking, highly accomplished emigrant community in the West, India has more global influence than China. The charge that India's communists are a Chinese fifth column is not lightly made. Many in the highest levels of government believe it to be true. Any rational explanation of Karat's latest move must factor it in. If, we give Karat and his commissars the benefit of the doubt, the only conclusion left to draw is that they are irresponsible and dogmatic. Any which way, they do not deserve to have a veto on government policy. Either as Quislings or as juvenile ideologues, they should be banished to the fringes from whence they sprang. So Karat has now wrought his masterpiece of absurd theatre. It reminds me of a scene from the acclaimed film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. With the forces of the law closing in on them, the duo found themselves at the edge of a cliff with a river flowing furiously below. They had no option but to jump. Sundance was hesitant because he couldn't swim. Butch told him not to worry because the fall will kill you anyway. That's the fate of the Left today. They have pulled the plug and find they are the ones who will be flushed down the drain. The Congress is a mighty political player with over a century's experience. It ran circles around the juvenile commissars and emerged triumphant. from the times of india july 14 2008 Posted by Rajiv N Desai at
[Goanet] Goa in the Off Season
* THIS ARTICLE IS FROM THE BLOG RES GESTAE (WWW.RAJIVNDESAI.BLOGSPOT http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot/ * YOU CAN REACH THE PERSON MANAGING THE LIST AT [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thursday, July 10, 2008 Goa http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/goa-white-trash-desi-detritus-it-is -off.html in the Off Season White Trash, Desi Detritus It is off-season in India's only civilized state. Late diners, prowling the strip between Calangute and Baga, find a haven in Cavala, a hostelry that has a great bar and a nice outdoor restaurant. And so it was that we found ourselves ordering dinner late one evening. As we waited to be served the food, we ordered some beer and various cocktails. One gulp down the hatch, I nearly choked as the drink went down the wrong tube. That was because I saw a barefooted white guy walk through the restaurant into the bar, wearing only a ponytail and a saffron loincloth. Mercifully, he didn't stay there for more than two minutes but it was long enough for me to be offended Goa is famous for its tolerance but blue-collar tourists and just plain white trash types are stretching it to the limit. In the end, they spend less than tourists from other parts of India, who are equally obnoxious in that they believe and behave that Goa is all about unrestricted and inexpensive alcohol consumption. They drink themselves silly and venture out into the sea, unable to swim, to become the latest statistics in drowning deaths. Both the white trash and the Indian yobs detract from the wonder of this place: its gorgeous landscape; its fresh seafood and its charming lifestyle that is unrivaled anywhere on the Indian subcontinent. Whether you stay in a five-star hotel by the beach or especially if you live in a seductive little, off-the-map village like we do, the living is easy. Nowhere in India can you find the blend of European charm and desi comfort. Where in the world can you find a place today that is simply shuts down between 1 pm and 4 pm: siesta! In the circumstances, it is easy to be what Bombay call bindaas. Why get exercised about loincloth-wearing white trash types or beer guzzling desi morons? For one thing, both behaviors are obnoxious. On the other hand, many people like us have made Goa into our haven, away from the ugly chaos of modern India. If we must put up this, we may as well live in Bihar or Thailand. Our retreat is threatened by white trash and desi jerks. The locals in Goa are too busy to care; they are either applying for visas to Dubai, Canada and Australia or selling heritage properties to developers. An hour's drive around the place shows up the ugly condominiums and resorts that are springing up like topsy all over Goa; plus there are these little boutique developers who buy properties for a song, develop it and sell them at egregious profits. Indeed there's one like that in our village that a Delhi-based boutique developer bought for 16 lakh five years ago and flogged it for 80 a few weeks ago; you can be sure no local bought it. Such stories spread like wildfire in the small gossipy community that is a Goan village and soon, every gent with a broken down old shack is looking for 30 or 40 lakh. Where all this will end is difficult to say but the state government, in a ham-handed way, is looking to curb foreigners from buying property in the state. It is an easy populist posture but the real threat comes from developers like the Tatas, Rahejas and various other national developers, who are offering to make Goa into a place that could resemble Gurgaon near Delhi or the hideous Hiranandani township in Powai, Bombay: as ugly as sin and as crass as Disneyland. On the other hand, Goa is full of self-righteous NGOs set up by has-been journalists and retired advertising agency types. They are against all development and would rather Goa retain its traditional ways. Their misbegotten idealism has condemned the wondrous place to be a jobless economy; net exporter of locals to Bombay, the Gulf States, Australia and Canada. They fight to retain the old feudal ways and oppose all development of any kind; their idealism is only matched by their serious wrong-headedness. As I prepare to head back into the rubble-strewn, loud and garish world of modern India, I take comfort in the fact that I will come back here again soon to this constellation of different worlds: a retreat; a home to fly away from; a loud vacation spot; a milk-cow for political plunderers; a virgin land for unscrupulous real estate developers; a place to vent self-righteous NGO indignation. Sometimes these orbits cross as they did for me that evening on Baga beach. The results are often distressing. from daily news analysis september 13 2008 Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/goa-white-trash-desi-detritus-it-is -off.html 8:17 PM 0 http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=48703929 65659039808 comments
[Goanet] A Trip Down Memory Lane
Saturday, July 5, 2008 A http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/going-home-thirty-five-years-and-tw o.html Trip Down Memory Lane Going Home Thirty-five years and two months is a long time to stay away from a place that you hated to leave at all. The thought crossed my mind as I wandered the streets of the old city of Surat, looking for familiar landmarks and for my family home. Is that my cousin's house opposite the temple? I can remember playing cards there on a sweltering afternoon in May 1964 when news came that Jawaharlal Nehru had died and admonishing my cousin for her less-than-respectful demeanor. My outburst surprised her for she did not expect a teenager with an Elvis-style pompadour to be politically sensitive. A few steps down and there's the building that housed the all-girls school that my great-grandmother founded. As we stood and looked, an official came up and greeted us. When I told him of my interest in the school, he became nostalgic and reminisced about my family. However, he got confused between my grandfather, the doctor, and his brother, the lawyer, both of whom were active in public affairs. Just down the street is Gandiva Sahitya Mandir, the publishing house famed for its Bakor Patel books that brought Disney-like anthropomorphic characters into the homes of the Gujarati middle class. It was into this family that my younger aunt was married. Sadly the `press', as it was called locally, was torn down some years ago. Across the street from the press is the house where my grandfather's brother lived. He was the lawyer, whose prominence in the city was the stuff of history. However, I remember him for his great collection of mystery books: Sherlock Holmes, Sexton Blake and Ellery Queen and for his ability to produce a coin from behind the ear of any person less than 10 years old. His house was part of the old family home that was really two grand old buildings connected by a bridge. On the ground floor was my grandfather's dispensary, where a quaint old compounder mixed all the good doctor's prescriptions. My interest in his rudimentary pharmacology led some to insist that I would follow in my grandfather's footsteps to major in medicine. As it turned out, I did follow the old man's trail, not in medicine but in public affairs. Between the two houses is the narrow lane that led to my grandfather's house, where I was born and raised and visited regularly till April 1966 when he died. My eyes brim over as I walk through the alley into the house that was a home and is now a rich trove of treasured memories: of those who have passed like my grandfather, with his inspiring vision and my grandmother, who gets my vote as the sweetest person of the 20th century...and of those who remain, inheritors of strong family ties that have weathered the passage of time and the alienation of distance. Thirty-five years on, I feel the swirling confluence of the past and the present: as though the youth who lived in that house had journeyed into the future and returned with a 50-year-old man in tow. then the youth disappeared into the past, leaving the older man to luxuriate in the warm and fuzzy memories of the house and its people. from the times of india august 20 2001 Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/going-home-thirty-five-years-and-tw o.html 6:27 PM 0 http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=12604090 4583038333 comments http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=12604 0904583038333 http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=126040 904583038333 Labels: bakor patel http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/bakor%20patel , disney http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/disney , family ties http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/family%20ties , gandiva http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/gandiva%20sahitya%20mandir sahitya mandir, E-Mail ID : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[Goanet] The Dev Anand Legend
Wednesday, July 2, 2008 The Dev http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/evergreen-optimist.html Anand Legend Evergreen Optimist As I stood there shaking hands with him when he came to receive the Dada Saheb Phalke award, the years seemed to melt away. It was as though I was in my pre-teens, having just watched Nau Do Gyarah , Munimji , Paying Guest or whichever film I first saw starring Dev Anand. I can remember going straight into the bathroom, wetting my hair and trying to work up the stylish pompadour. Dev Anand was my absolute favourite screen personality and I religiously caught every single film he ever made. My friends say I am an inveterate optimist, that's why I came back to India after nearly two decades in the US. The optimism has its roots in my early exposure to Dev Anand's http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/497808.cms films. Since the late 1950s and through the early 1960s, he was my favourite hero, not necessarily because he was a good actor but because he stood for hope. While Dilip Kumar represented the tragedy of the Indian condition, Raj Kapoor the misbegotten ideology that messed up India, Dev Anand stood for what India could be, smiling and stylish with a http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/497808.cms song on the lips. Dev Anand represents the most modern of all creative idioms: Find talented people and let them grow. Through his organisation, Navketan, we were introduced to Guru Dutt, S D Burman and dozens of others, who entertained generations with movies and http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/497808.cms music that today are part of our memories. About the time Dev Anand began to be recognised as an entertainer, the operative mood in Indian films was down-in-the-mouth, a victim of the colonial experience. The theme song was Duniya mein hum ayein hain to jeena hi padega, jeevan http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/497808.cms hai agar zahar to peena hi padega . Along came Dev Anand with his worldview expressed best in the song from the film Hum Dono : Barbadiyon ka shok manana fuzul tha, har fikr ko dhuein mein udata chala gaya . His films filled me with hope, the ultimate global value that was in short supply in India at that time. Congratulations on the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, and thank you Dev Saheb, you instilled me with optimism about India before I reached my teens. In the words of your immortal song: Jeevan ke safar mein raahi... de jaate hain yaadein . Indeed, you have given me, a fellow traveller in the world, a rich lode of memories, never mind your lyricist's other lines, which I have left out in the ellipsis. from the times of india, february 16, 2004 Posted by Rajiv N Desai at http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/07/evergreen-optimist.html 8:14 PM http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=67911 07445253251625 http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7537489380457243489postID=679110 7445253251625 Labels: bollywood http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/bollywood , dadasahed http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/dadasahed%20phalke%20awards phalke awards, dev anand http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/dev%20anand , dilip kumar http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/dilip%20kumar , guru dutt http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/guru%20dutt , hindi http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/hindi%20films films, hum http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/hum%20dono dono, navketan http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/navketan%20filsm filsm, raj http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/raj%20kapoor kapoor, s d burman http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/s%20d%20burman E-mail ID : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[Goanet] Education: India's Achilles Heel
performers. We have three types of education. The first was the classic Oxbridge type where it didn't matter because you came back to an appointed place in the elite establishment. The other was a technical sort of training where you had no place in India but found a perch in multinational corporations or universities or other institutes of higher learning in the West. Now you have the third variety: of trained personnel focused on specific cog-in-the-wheel jobs. Whatever happened to liberal values and civil norms as crucial objectives of education? Their lack is India's Achilles heel. copyright rajiv desai 2008 http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/06/education-indias-achilles-heel.html
Re: [Goanet] Incredible India: Going to Hell in a Hand Basket
thank you, selma. - Original Message - From: Carvalho [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994! goanet@lists.goanet.org; Goanet [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 6:09 PM Subject: Re: [Goanet] Incredible India: Going to Hell in a Hand Basket --- Rajiv Desai [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 Incredible India Going to Hell in a Hand Basket - I will say this, I have not come across a more superb article than this is a long time. I shall frame it to re-read over and over again, when I feel my own convictions wavering. Selma
[Goanet] Pater Noster
and the funeral had to do with his mother, who died 42 years ago, when he was just 45. He has no remembrance; at least not that is publicly expressed that his wife is gone, just 20 days short of their 60th wedding anniversary. In the 12 days since my mother went away, I have grown to be the 59 years that I am. Until April 21, I felt I was just 19. copyright rajiv desai 2008 http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/05/pater-noster.html
[Goanet] The Vulgarians
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 The Vulgarians India's Emergent Lowbrow Culture After a cool and relaxing week in Goa, I flew back to Delhi on a Spicejet flight. It was then that the new reality slapped me in the face. My experience on the plane made me turn monkish, in the hope I would avoid hell when the time comes for me hand in my dinner pail, kick the bucket, breathe my last, expire, die. The two-hour journey tested me so much that I forgot about my fear of flying. Even though we had a bumpy flight, my white knuckles were overshadowed by the sheer frustration I felt at the uncouth behavior of some fellow passengers. I realized that, just in case there is heaven and hell, I certainly don't want to go to Satan's estate in the event I find all the crude people there that were on the flight. To that end, I have sworn to exercise more and do good turns, even if I have to drag old ladies across the street; or eat sickly sweet offerings from temples or face Mecca and bow several times a day or go to confession in a Catholic church. Heck, I am even prepared to eat health food. Coming back to the flight, I was granted my request for an aisle seat by a pleasant staffer at the check-in counter. Not just that, I was pleased as punch to note that the middle and window seats remained empty as the doors closed. This was truly fortuitous because these low-cost airlines pack people in like sardines. I thought I would have a pleasant, undisturbed flight. I pulled up the hand rests and prepared to stretch my legs across the two empty seats once the seat belt sign was switched off. No sooner than the doors closed, the guy in the row behind me loomed over me, gesturing at the window seat in my row. Politely, I got up to let him through, figuring I would still have an empty seat in between. He had four seats.three where his wife and two sons sat and him across the aisle. When I got up, he hurriedly blocked me and got his two sons to move into the two seats next to me while he moved across the aisle to sit with his wife. Stunned by this display of uncouth behavior, I told him what he did was unfair. He was not conversant with English and his breath was foul so I let it go and buried myself in my book. As the plane took off and when the seat belt sign was switched off, an obese guy in the seat in front of me pushed his seat back as far as it would go, leaving no room for my legs and my book. I asked him to straighten his seat and he launched into the air equivalent of road rage. You don't own the airline, he told me in his convent English. If you have a problem, move to another seat. Or fly another airline. Stunned by the man's rude outburst, I kept silent and wondered at the hectoring culture of this new and crude India. He was fat and out of shape.clearly a crass Delhiwallah with black money, the type that resident Goans abhor. I asked the steward to move me to another seat. For the record, I have been a cheerleader for this upwardly mobile, emergent middle class that poses a challenge to the privilegentsia: the clutch of academics, bureaucrats and sundry others who feed off the trough of the state. The privilegentsia proved a thorn in the side of the international community; their pretentious outlook proved offensive to many in the West and left India bereft of friends in the liberal world. But the emergent culture of 21st century India that seeks to replace the elitist lot can only be called vulgarian. Much of it is reflected in the popular culture: on television and in Bollywood films; also in the ostentatious celebration of age-old rituals like Diwali and Holi and in the re-awakening of misogynist festivals like Karva Chauth and criminal practices such as dowry. Talk about the devil and the deep blue sea! http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/search/label/vulgarian
[Goanet] Res Gestae : Ruby Tuesday
Subject: Res Gestae : Ruby Tuesday rajiv desai has sent you a link to a blog: Blog: Res Gestae Post: Ruby Tuesday Link: http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/04/ruby-tuesday_06.html
[Goanet] Res Gestae : Dark Clouds on Goa's Silver Lining
rajiv desai has sent you a link to a blog: please publish Blog: Res Gestae Post: Dark Clouds on Goa's Silver Lining Link: http://rajivndesai.blogspot.com/2008/03/dark-clouds-on-goas-silver-lining.html -- Powered by Blogger http://www.blogger.com/
[Goanet] postings
--- 2008 International Goan Convention Toronto, Canada Early Bird Discount Registration closes March 31, 2008 http://2008goanconvention.com/registration.html --- urge readers to check out www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com.
