Mohd. Afzal Guru - Terrorist or Victim?

By now, most of us would have forgotten the attack on Indian Parliament on Dec 13th 2001 and the pandemonium that followed. We might vaguely remember that Delhi Police had miraculously cracked the case in two days flat - they had identified the terrorists who had been killed in the attack, tracked and arrested their accomplices and got their confessions also. Probably the name S A R Geelani would still ring a bell to some of us owing, mostly, to the media circus that had followed after his arrest. He was a professor of Urdu literature in Delhi University branded as a terrorist by media even before he was convicted. As a matter of fact, he never was convicted. He, along with Afsan Guru (another accomplice who was arrested) were acquitted by the Supreme Court. Out of the remaining two convicts - Shaukat Hussain (Afsan's husband) and Mohammad Afzal were handed 10 years imprisonment and death sentence respectively by the apex court.

Most of us would have probably dismissed the whole affair with either 'Good, one terrorist off the face of the earth is many lives saved' or ' In India one life less doesn't really matter' or a more callous 'Who cares? All this is happening in far away Kashmir/Delhi. It doesn't affect me in any way'. I, for one, would never have known the truth behind arrest, confession and eventually conviction of Mohd. Afzal Guru if I had not received this extremely insightful article by Arundhati Roy from a friend. Ironically, the day I read this article was the day the news of chief investigating officer of this case ACP Rajbir Singh (famously called Encounter Specialist of Delhi Police) being killed was flashing on all news channels.

What Ms Roy has very simply pointed out in her article (which, of course, the mainstream media has conveniently forgotten to bring to the notice of common people) would make even a layman see through the whole case and figure out that Mohd. Afzal is just a victim and not a hardened terrorist that he is made out to be. More importantly, Ms Roy's article also points out how the protectors of law & order (Police, Army, Judiciary) have abused the system and made a complete mockery of it. All the information that she has provided is, as she herself mentions, not a work of spectacular detective work on her part, but has been gathered through public records of Mohd. Afzal's trial.

The whole case is a myriad of false/doctored evidences, callous investigation, confessions extracted by torture, serious lapses of procedure - screaming to be noticed during Afzal's trial. But for most part of the trial Afzal did not have a lawyer (let alone a decent one) and during the most crucial part he was asked to cross examine the witnesses himself!! This, as all the lawyers appointed by the trial court had refused to take up his case. It comes as no surprise then, that Afzal has been convicted and given death sentence based on circumstantial evidence owing to the collective conscience of the society.

Afzal's death sentence and the incidents that led to it raise far more questions than answers. To me, he appears to be a victim and not the culprit. A victim of the failed system of the biggest democracy of the world. While he would be hanged some time soon, the real culprits walk free.

But is anyone listening? I don't think so ...

P.S. Afzal was scheduled to have been executed in October 2006 but he is still lodged in Tihar Jail, waiting to be executed. His clemency petition is lying with the President of India. If you believe Afzal should not be executed, here is an online petition you can sign.

What would you take - life or divorce?

Today's Bangalore newspapers were splashed with the news of a software professional first killing his wife for allegedly having an extra marital affair and then committing suicide. They were married for just one year.

Few years ago - another software professional was killed while returning home after an evening out with his wife. It appeared that it was a case of mugging-turned-murder. After some months of investigation, it was found out that the newly wed wife and her boyfriend had plotted to kill the husband. When I last heard - verdict was pending for the accused.

Both cases involved educated, upper middle class, supposedly responsible people. I don't understand one thing - why did these people choose to take lives of their spouses instead of just divorcing them? Is murder less condemnable a crime than being divorced? Or does love turn you so blind that the life of the person you love becomes less important than your love for him or her?

I really need to ..

.. do something about my habit of noticing spelling mistakes. I mean, I really really need to (and that makes 3 reallys in 2 sentences). I did the same thing in Goa too. Sometimes I feel all these bad spellings make themselves distinctly visible when I am in the vicinity so that I can take a note. Anyway, enough of my conspiracy theory. Noticed these during my Hyderabad trip -

You are hear - on a board giving directions inside Salar Jung museum

Credit card mission not working - on a placard in the bookshop at ISB

Way to face/hand reeding - on a board in Shilparamam

And this one was written on almost all the walls in Hyderabad - Genious Men's PG

Alongside Genious Men's PG were Happy Home Women's PG ads at most of the places. So men are expected to be genius and women are expected to make happy homes?

In Hyderabad

What struck me most about Hyderabad as soon as I stepped out of the airport was its wide roads and smooth flowing traffic. This, in spite of it being a work day and morning traffic. I guess being from Bangalore does that to you - it seemed quite unbelievable. On my way I passed by beautiful bungalows in Banjara Hills & Jubilee Hills and true to their names, these places had been hills as I could still see some rocks being cut to make space for another bungalow. But for me the best place was the sprawling campus of ISB in Gachhibowli. On entering the campus, for some distance you don't see anything except greenery and after about half a kilometre, the main structure - the Atrium suddenly appears. It is a huge circular building where classes and most of the academic activities are held. The circular courtyard is so huge that there were children practising roller-skating :). The weather was extremely good the first day making campus tour by Rajesh & Anshuman very pleasurable.

After seeing the new Hyderabad, it was time to discover the old one the next day. Unfortunately, it was hot, sunny & humid but that did not stop us from heading to Salar Jung Museum at Dar-ul-Shifa. It is a palace owned by the Salar Jung family who were the Diwans of Hyderabad Nizams. The museum houses personal collection of luxurious artifacts of the family - from Persian rugs, ivory horse-carriage, marble statues, paintings and sculptures from all over the world (Europe, China, Japan, Egypt). The main attractions in the museum were an Italian sculpture of 'Veiled Rebecca' whose sheer veil was so fine and her coy expression so real that Amit almost fell in love with her. The other main attraction - the tower clock was a little disappointing.

Once out of the museum, we headed straight to 'Eat Street' immediately owing to our hunger pangs. Eat Street is a food court like those in shopping malls - except there is no crowded shopping mall to spoil the fun .. just the beautiful (and a little dirty & sometimes stinky) Hussain Sagar lake along side. All three of us (Rajesh, Amit & me) ate almost everything that was available - frankies, button idlis, roomali rotis, paneer butter masala, Chinese, kulfi, falooda, rabdi ... yummm!

A short walk to the near-by Necklace Road MMTS station in hot sun was more than welcome. And there I saw, arguably the cleanest train station in India. It was quite unexpected because MMTS is not a metro rail but a regular local train service. It took just a 20 minute train ride to reach Hitec City which earlier in the day we had covered in more than 2 hrs!!

Next - Shilparamam.

Anniversary

My parents celebrated their 38th wedding anniversary on 9th March. It was a quiet family affair; just four of us - dining at Gufa and later cutting the cake at home.

I kept annoying them by asking how they managed to be together for so long without getting bored of each other :)

Sarod

Did you know that while playing Sarod, the strings are not pressed with fingers (like in guitar or other stringed instruments) but with the tip of the nails? If the strings were pressed with fingers, the sound would be very flat. That's why you will see Sarod players filing their nails on stage many times during a concert.

This small bit of information was given by Ayaan Ali Khan during a spirited performance given by him along with brother Amaan Ali Khan on the last day of February at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bangalore. It was a Hindustani classical concert with a pinch of fusion music. Apart from the usual ensemble of tabla, mridang & taanpura the other instruments in their band included keyboard and percussion pads. The brothers also rendered some vocals - a piece by Ameer Khusro and then one from their album Reincarnation.

Unfortunately the event lasted only an hour and a half. I wouldn't call them maestros yet, but Amaan and Ayaan performed extremely well and left us all asking for more...

My Radio Week

I find it a little strange that I was 'randomly' picked by two FM Channels in Bangalore during the same week to participate in on-air contests. That I have been sending responses to questions thrown open to junta on these channels for the past few months makes the coincidence even more strange. Yeah yeah, I do these things too :). But you see, I have this very boring and long commute to work during which I constantly listen to the radio. And can I stop myself from SMSing an answer if I know it?

Anyway, first it was Rohit & Rajesh from Fever 104 who called me on Monday to participate in their show Back to School (the one where they ask questions from 1st std to 10th std and if you pass 10th std you get some prize money). And not surprisingly, I failed in 1st std :). Now, why does it happen that you seem to know all the answers when they ask questions to others, and when your own turn comes you go 'a country whose flag is not rectangular? Err ummmm .. is this really a 1st std question?'. Today it was Vasanthi from Radio City who called me for the show Bollywood Genius. To be honest, I had very little idea about the rules of this one. While on air she asked me the Bollywood song whose English lyrics would translate to You keep sitting in front of me. And as expected, I went 'Err ummm .. I have no idea'.

But both the times it was fun to be on air (of course, winning would have been more fun ;) ). And to add to the coincidence - when I told them that I was from Ranchi (during those little chit-chats RJs have with participants, off air), both Rohit & Vasanthi told me that they, too, have spent some years in Ranchi.

It sure has been a week of coincidences for me!

Fireflies all night

The theme for this year's dawn to dusk Fireflies Festival of Music was 'Concern for the plight of Tribals in India'. And it was evident in the lyrics of the song titled 'WTO' by Esperanto (a Bangalore-based band) - the first performance we saw after settling down with bedsheets, blankets & cushions (which we had carried from home) in the rustic amphitheatre of Fireflies Ashram. The lyrics were as interesting as the festival itself. Fireflies Festival of Music is an annual event organized since 1999 by Fireflies Ashram located in Dinnepalya Village, off Kanakpura Road, Bangalore. The place was about 25 Kms away from my home. Although I was a first timer there, I had heard so much about it from Rajesh that I didn't really feel like one. The stage was set under a huge banyan tree and the amphitheatre was surrounded by trees in their natural setup and not the carefully landscaped ones that we see so often these days.

Back to the music - the lyrics of the song WTO essentially said, in very simple words, that what is touted by governments & industrialists as development of Aadivasis is actually their road to death. The next performance was Veena recital by RK Padmanabha of Mysore. Unlike any conventional performance, there were quite a few experimental notes/raagas. And although the ensemble was essentially Indian (Veena, Mridangam, Ghatam), sometimes it sounded quite like fusion music. Oh, and we did enjoy the expressive performance of the Mridang player Raghunandan. This was followed by a performance of Karnataka folk dance form by group Puje Kunita. The traditional drum beats reminded me of those played during Durga Puja in Bengal & Bihar.

Then there were Shabnam Virmani & Dipta singing Kabir's dohe with a touch of Malva folk music. Shabnam Virmani is a documentary filmmaker turned singer who was so inspired by the folk musicians she was filming, that she eventually turned into a singer herself. Shabnam & Deepa's rendition of Journeys with Kabir was very profound and impressive. It also turned out to be my mother's favorite performance of the evening. The next band to perform was Emergence - an Acoustic Indo fusion band from Auroville, Pondicherry. Their music was interesting but their lyrics could have been better. The lead vocalist Krishna (a French, I think) spoke Tamil with such a perfect accent that people started demanding a Tamil number from him :)

It was already past midnight by the time Emergence played their last number and we were reluctantly ready to leave for home. And as always, we noticed some interesting things (besides the music). There were quite a few foreigners (mostly Europeans) who had come to Bangalore especially for the event. The crowd was as eclectic as the music and sometimes it was fun just to look around. There were some people who had not come there for music as we found them sprawled far away from the amphitheatre and busy socializing. Rajesh also said that the crowd has grown manifolds since his last visit two years ago. Oh, and did I mention about the small adventure when a baby snake crawled out from the cracks of the stone seats just ahead of ours - probably to enjoy the music but caused a small commotion in the crowd :)

Overall, a very enjoyable & unique experience. I am already looking forward to the next year's event and am planning to stay the whole night too.

The New Home

Last Saturday we had our Grih Pravesh for the new home. We had some friends and family over and we all had a good time along with the customary pooja and of course food. Some pictures -

The Pooja

Family

The Aarti

Women at work

Khana-peena

The home

Other homes around

View from the balcony

A Musical Tribute to Bangalore

A jugalbandi by two Hindustani music maestros - Ustaad Zakir Hussain on tabla and Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma on Santoor was a concert to remember for a long time to come. The event was promoted as 'A Tribute to Bangalore' and was held on the evening of 9th Feb 2008 in Gayatri Vihar, Palace Grounds.

My plans for attending the concert were finalized just one evening before the event when my friend confirmed booking of tickets. I, along with my parents, reached the venue a little ahead of schedule after battling the now infamous Bangalore traffic for over an hour. The concert started half an hour behind the schedule. But once Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma started the first notes of alaap on Santoor in raag Jhinjhoti, we all knew that the wait was worth it and we had an evening of great music in store for us . Ustaad Zakir Hussain joined on tabla for the next performance which was in raag Dadra followed by raag Pahadi. When they were playing raag Pahadi, as if on cue, a wisp of cool breeze brought along a bunch of dry leaves from a nearby tree into the area where we were seated.

The two maetsros played continuously for 3 hours enthralling the audience with their mellifluous music. When they played in drut, their hands moved with lightening speed. And as always, the best moments of any jugalbadi (in my view) are - when the two performers play the exact same notes on their instruments, preferably around reaching the crescendo, and give those perfect 2-3 second pauses simultaneously, followed by a content smile on their faces.

Absolutely beautiful!