Teer-lil-lilli-dong: Chuck and Geck and Other Books by Arkady Gaidar

Teer-lil-lilli-dong!
Teer-lil-lilli-dong! 

Who remembers Arkady Gaidar? At some point in my childhood, when the sky was full of stars, I happened to read the adventures of Chuck and Geck,  their long journey on the Trans-Siberian railway and on a sledge across the hoary taiga in search of their adventuring father.

It was probably the best children's book from the Soviet era: it found a readership across continents, and touched the hearts of many eight-year-old kids who lived in cramped Indian cities. Alongside heroes and villains of Indian and British-American persuasions, their good friends were the brave Chuck and Geck, Vasilisa the beautiful, Ivan the dragon-slayer, and Makar the unlucky Yakut. They dreamed endlessly as they stared across muddy roads and dusty alleys that they knew led to exotic lands filled with adventures: they talked to their friends in their dreams. It was such a good book written in wonderful prose, and beautifully illustrated in black and white.

Now that's all far, far away, and the eight-year-old children have all grown up. For those of them who are still alive, the Soviet Union has become a dull and disturbing subject filling many history books while the publishers of these wonderful books (Mir, Vostok, Raduga) have ceased to exist. Most of these children live like old people now: their adult selves uneasy with the horrors perpetrated in the name of communism; uneasier still, witnessing the way commodities nastily distort the dreams of the children they see around them.

But in the middle of the night, in the strangest moments of reminiscing childhood, those older children--the readers of Arkady Gaidar-- have curious dreams.

They dream of a thousand lives, they dream of lonely death. From the darkened hovels where they live in, from the smoggiest zones of some Indian city lit with a thousand neon signs, they dream of  strange loud bells ringing in faraway Moscow on a Christmas night. On a hot sweaty summer night, they smell the snow falling on the fir trees of the endless Taiga, and breathe at ease. They see the bear and the wold leap across their windows: they are not afraid. But as they drift off to sleep, they wonder: what do children read now?

For those like me still searching for the works of Arkady Gaider in the ether, here are the download links to three pdf files: three books from the forgotten master. It's still a great pleasure to read them, but ah, the pictures and wonderful illustrations, the dog-eared pages of a book thumbed breathlessly a thousand times, and the eight-year-old mind are badly missed:
Chuck and Geck
Timur and his Squad
The School

Youth

A young couple pose for a photo in front of
Jinshui Bridge in Tian'anmen Square, Beijing, on March 23, 2009.


Student protestors struggle with soldiers from the Chinese Army,
the PLA, at Tian'anmen Square, on June 3, 1989.

Both the pictures share two common features: youth and Tian'anmen Square.
No points for guessing the difference.

Incidentally, this month marked the 20th anniversary of the Tian'anmen Square Protests.
Mourn. Celebrate. Remember.

(Pix Credits: The first is from The China Daily, a showcase of photographs by 100 photographers, part of the 'Chinese Revolution's 60 years celebration that is coming soon. The second is from the Asian history section of About.com which records the butchering of student protesters by the PLA. )

"Remember When"- Sharing is Caring

In this world of webs, deceptions, and sickening credit-carded entertainments, and where strangers walk the nights of the ether in their wakeful solitude, it's rather strange that the act of sharing survives. It's made up of one of the oldest and noble human sentiments that made us humans, and it's still the only act that makes you feel alive, at least on the net.

Sharing. An act of courage and extreme gentleness that survives the hostility of governments, and other rabid censors of free expression.

Imagine a world without the silent uploader, her pirate eyes alight with the warmth of the incandescent cathode ray screen, spending sleepless nights to share a movie, an album, a book she knows you're sure to appreciate.

Imagine a world without the patient seeders on the portals who seed and seed for years, risking their systems to known armadas and unknown hostilities, and planting new trees of hope in every island of a recalcitrant computer connecting to this nether regions.

Or imagine a world without trees.

Yes, trees and photosynthetic life forms and images that survive and blossom inspite of a million leeches who've never bothered to put a decent "thank you" comment on a post. They nod in silence, share light and oxygen, lifting their branches and leaves up into the ultramarine sky and breathe life everywhere, and right now, as you're reading this, they weave life in all its varieties.

Listen carefully. Let me whisper it once more in your ears. "Sharing is caring."
And gentle reader, remember it well.

What follows is a Not-Copyright Comics on the "piracy" issue by Dylan Horrocks, a wonderful artist from New Zealand:
(Click on the image for a better view)

Miraculous and sacred stoopidity

Growl! I received that mail for the umpteenth time! Earlier I had it from MBAs, corporate executives, NGO scions, smart-ass journalists, and from postgraduate people whose CVs exhibit a dose of 'liberal humanistic education' comprising Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Marx, Foucault, and also all that post-colonial shit.

After a never-ending list of people it is forwarded to, you get to see a picture of a grim-faced deity (I guess of Tamil origin) and a message drafted and highlighted in red and blue by someone who hadn't learnt elementary grammar in primary school.

Class 1 Officer of Indian government received this picture and called it 'junk mail', 8 days later his husband died. A man received this picture and immediately sent out copies...his surprise was winning the 10 crore rupees & promotion in job

T. Ratan received this picture, gave it to his secretary to make copies but they forgot to distribute: she lost her job and he lost his family.

This picture is miraculous and sacred, don't forget to forward this within 1 days to at least 20 people. Do Not Forget to forward and you will receive a huge surprise!!

My usual response had been:

I happen to be an atheist, and I don't believe in luck.
Please refrain in sending me these kinds of stoopid messages in the future, or you might make your goddess really angry. Thanks :)

Or sometimes I had come out sarcastic:

I had lost my brand new Nataraj pencil last week. A Persian god and a Scandanavian god appeared in my dream, and asked me to send it to you and ten other stoopid people who believe that they'll have a box of crayons soon by forwarding this mail.

Don't ignore this mail, or the wrath of 10, 000 Tibetan and Malaysian gods will fall on you. Amen.

But these deeply religious and mortally afraid people have refused to relent. I wish I could send something materially hard (like a bamboo with nails sticking out of it) to the original sender of this mail, without hurting his religious sentiment, so that the person could shove it up his ass, and stay put in religious serenity. Things like that are not possible in a secular state of things, I know. But the wish grows stronger by the day.

Too many people have died

Pete Seeger has grown old, Bobbie Dylan has changed, and what you thought were your tunes and words have died. But yes, too many people have also died in the meantime. You learn it from the sophomoric television that Israeli planes are dropping bombs at Gaza. Men, women, and children wiped into oblivion under the fire and the debris.

You've watched...

You've watched the flames rise up on the screen as the newscaster on some Indian channel switches to discuss the weather over New York sky, even when you're across the globe. Or when she invites someone who's an expert on global recession, CO2 emission, on Obama's radicalism and Chomsky's pacifism, on aardvarks, emus and intergalactic refrigerators aboard India's moon mission, someone who'll now discuss with a serious face all the implications of the UN chief Ban Ki-moon's sudden discovery: "Too many people have died." Really?

When was the first time you had watched? Oh, it had been the CNN coverage of the bombing of Baghdad in the early nineties, you and your friends played "Scud" and "Patriot" in the courtyards of crumbling colonial houses. Or simply gaped at Pranoy Roy showing his GK in World This Week as how the UN could never tolerate such an aggression on Kuwait. And now since you've grown older, you remember important events as how you watched or missed them on TV, and under what circumstances, often or not as glimpses that left without visible traces.

You had been doing a maths homework, and planning to watch Superhit Muqabila (the old crappy Channel2 TV show on Indian TV that listed the most popular movie songs), when you caught a glimpse of Russian planes bombing Chechnya. Did you, at that time, think that children of your age were getting killed in their sleep? Oh no, you had been busy playing with a toy Uzi and a model fighter plane and bombing terrorist hideouts in the backgarden.

Then time had flowed, the sun rose, moved across the sky and set, and you were reading Kundera, laughing, forgetting, and eating a crampy cheese-burger at the canteen when the twin towers crumpled. An undergrad was yelping like Tarzan as he ran across the university, spreading the news: "Hello! Everyone! Pentagon has been fucked." You returned home and watched the tragedy and all the melodrama that followed. You saw it again and again, and thought why America is hated throughout the world.

You now know the answer why.

You had heard of bombs being dropped in Afghanistan, and had rushed to the canteen where they were busy watching a cricket match. No, you couldn't switch the channel. No, not even during the advertisements when beautiful females and macho males were gulping down Pepsi, Coke, or similar toilet cleaners, and asking you to do the same. You had to wait till you could travel back to your district home, and be content with the few seconds of national television news that told you little of what happened in Afghanistan, but what every revolting politician said, shouted, screamed, winked or farted to the media during that day. (Radical flag marches, effigy-burnings of Bush followed, you melted in a universe of hot-blooded slogans, but to what effect? The killings continued, the marchers felt bored, and left)

You also know by now that 24/11 is never the direct coefficient of 9/11; just some stoopid Indian journalists pretending to be too intelligent apes after the Mumbai attacks, which some people suspect might be a covert operation of Mossad. You never know, but you know exactly why you hate these TV journalists. It's perhaps why you had stopped watching the idiot box after you had 'grown up'. Ah!

What do you feel like in 'newsless' oblivion?

The second attack on Iraq was part of shared office excitement and individual searches. Your colleagues clustered around a desktop as you together watched Saddam swinging. And you watched all the pictures of the dead Iraqi kids, shifted uncomfortably through innumerous blogs and YouTube videos posted by Iraqi bloggers who thought that they would make the world understand, and you felt like screaming. But then, time flew, and before you knew the occupation of Iraq had become so commonplace that a hundred people killed everyday ceased to be 'news'. But now, since the bombs are dropping on Gaza, what will you do? Will you sit before the TV, and switch to another comfortable channel that speaks of lifestyle? Or do another survey of blogs, videos, and podcasts, and rest content that at least you're more informed than the others?

I don't know, but gentle reader, once again, let me wish you all my scorn and hatred for all the military-industrial empires of the world. And for all who've died in Gaza, it will be very easy to say in the glib way of those like us who can lead uninterrupted placid lives far from their pain that the oblivion they suffer would be a fate worse than death. But no fate is worse than being roasted alive, believe me.

The stoopid smoking ban in India

Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than the others. Rabid anti-smokers for instance. And here are we at it again.

The same stoopidity, the same stubbornness, the same utter unconcern for people who smoke. "Wohi zaag, wohi safedi," and increased stoopidity in the bargain as "India becomes smoke-free" from 2nd October, 2008.

Have you ever heard of big industries being heavily penalised in India for spewing up smoke and chemicals? You didn't. Though everyone knows that they account for maximum air pollution.

Have you ever heard of big automobile manufacturers being fined for creating machines that deplete the ozone layer? You didn't. Instead you watched governments, even self-proclaimed socialist ones, welcome them with red carpets. Though your lungs know how it feels, smoker or not, to breathe in the city air.

Have you ever heard of the Indian government coming out big against tuberculosis and malnutrition? You didn't, though these cause the maximum number of deaths in present-day India.

Some idiots have even started a smoke-free countdown blog. But if you thought this means no more hazardous fumes from carbon exhausts, no more toxins from the smogging cities, no spewing of industrial chemicals and smoke from automobile exhausts, you're in the wrong. For the Health Minister Mr. Ramadoss and his crowd of hysterical followers think that this (what?) has got exclusively to do with smoking, the inhalation of innocent tobacco smoke by individuals across the Indian subcontinent. If the police can't do it this time, there will be the "empowered" NGOs penalizing "smoking ban violators" in the King's Name.

And while no one thinks of smokers' rights, there's the good old Indian media highlighting people like Monica Arora (who?), convener of the Advocacy Forum for Tobacco Control, a never-heard-of-before NGO suddenly lobbying for tougher anti-tobacco laws. You learn that they've even carried out a snapshot survey of sorts and found that "Nine in 10 persons in India’s four metros support the proposed ban on smoking in public and workplaces from October 2". Aha? Even though your eyes find the contrary, and you spot nine in 10 persons smoking around in India. Mostly people who've never bothered anybody or thought that their right to smoke would be done away with sudden legislation and advocacy, and without their permission.

The ban on smoking is however part of a larger issue.

The Indian government has always been known to bypass serious problems and instead focus on certain fringe issues that would give them perfect media attention. It was during the late seventies that several thousand Indian males were forcibly castrated to fulfill the government's vision of population-control. The smoking-ban follows the same lines. Problems like perennial hunger, the large number of tuberculosis deaths, undernourishment of children, and complete absence of health infrastructure for larger sections of the population are ignored on basis of what the government decided as its priority. And now, with the ban on smoking, these problems remain intact, as smokers throughout the land will be penalised for no reasons.

I know that this legislation will turn out to be a damp squib. And cornered urban smokers will move around the corners to smoke with the policeman who will pocket the small bribe and light up on his own. (The official fine would be Rs 200 though, and the government is trying to amend the act and in future the fine may go up to Rs 1,000.)

As I write this lines, I assert my right to smoke, as long as I am not disturbing others. I cannot, however, account for the disturbance caused to the manic, the hysteric, and the rabid anti-smokers. (Other suggestions, Mr. Rajnikant?)

I know millions around will be doing the same in newly-defined 'public spaces', including private offices, hotels and universities. But for rural smokers, and those from poorer sections of the population, this legislation will provide further proof that the government doesn't really care about their real problems. Guess what, it never did...

[For those who want to know about the myths associated with smoking, here's the link to one of my last year's posts:
The Right To Smoke]

Dr Binayak Sen, My Brother, Our Hero

For those who've come in late, on 14 May 2007, Dr. Binayak Sen was arrested from Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh state, India.

A year and almost a half later, Dr. Sen remains in prison. After people have protested throughout India. After really-important people such as Noam Chomsky, Amartya Sen, Arundhati Roy, Shyam Benegal and many eminent medical professors and scientists in India and abroad have protested against the illegal detention. And after twenty-two Nobel laureates had pleaded in vain for his release to the Prime Minister of India.

Dr. Sen is a paediatrician, public health specialist and national Vice-President of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), India. He is the first Indian and South-Asian recipient of the 2008 Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights. Dr. Sen remains a wonderful example of a person committing his life to the health needs of the poorest people and to the defense of the human rights of tribals and other poor people considered invisible in present-day India.

The immediate crime that led to his arrest was that Dr. Sen and the PUCL had helped draw attention to the unlawful killing - on 31 March 2007 - of several adivasis (indigenous people) in Santoshpur, Chhattisgarh. Upon orders from the State Human Rights Commission, bodies of the victims were exhumed from a mass grave in the week immediately preceding Dr. Sen's arrest. And as the police investigations "continued", Dr. Sen was arrested under provisions of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2006 (CSPSA), and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967).

While the detention and subsequent torture of Dr. Sen under custody speaks volumes about the state of things we're really in here, here's a moving account from his brother Dipankar Sen, a resident of Antwerp, Belgium, whose return to India is a rediscovery of many important things and realisations...

The courtroom was hushed as the prisoner stood awaiting sentence. The judge donned his black skullcap as he deliberately passed the death sentence. That is the sweat drenched nightmare that I sometimes wake up to. The prisoner is no ordinary man: he is my brother, Dr Binayak Sen.

Recently, I went to visit him again in prison in Raipur in Chhattisgarh, just before his last court hearing. I saw him again in court. The courtroom itself was far from the courtrooms that we see in the movies. No pictures of a toothless smiling Gandhi or Subhas Chandra Bose hung from the wall behind the judge, a Sikh, Mr Balinder Singh Saluja. There were just two benches, one for the lawyers and the second for visitors. The dock, a 1.5m x 1.5m enclosure, was just enough space for the three standing prisoners while the lawyers argued their case. Binayak stood leaning against the railing of the dock.

The expression on his face and his body language did not betray any anxiety or distress of this unnecessary prison experience imposed on him through an intricate web of lies. There, standing within touching distance was my Dada, handsome, dignified, ever driven by the force of conviction, all of which showed up in the gentleness of his composure and the calmness in his eyes. I asked him how he was. "Without a purpose," was his reply. And that, I suspect, must have been one of his weaker moments, because he actually said something about himself. His reply would normally be, "I'm ok, don't worry about me. I am just fine. How is Ma? Tell her not to worry. And how are you?"

As the proceedings started, there was a witness in the dock on the other side of the room, closer to the judge. He was identifying the seizure list. The list was long, and the monotonous but hypnotic tapping sound of the typewriter caused my mind to float away. I looked at Dada and my mind drifted to the tune of "Where are the green fields," which he would whistle when we were kids in Pune in 1965. He had just passed his Senior Cambridge exams from Calcutta Boy's School with brilliant results and had every reason to be chirpy. He had a lot of friends and we would go out hiking, which meant a lot of walking through the wild grasslands then surrounding the camp area in Pune.

I was just a fat 11-year-old then and often had problems keeping up. Dada often had to carry me piggy back so that the tall grass would not cut me with the sharp blades. By the time he became a doctor, his care for the little brother had been replaced by constant concern for the health of poor Indians, the tribals, workers, the dispossessed or others that are in the process of joining their ranks.

Around May 9, 2007, I had called my mother in Kalyani, when I was told by my niece that they had learnt through journalists that their father was supposed to be arrested but was reported to be absconding. Binayak and his entire family were at Kalyani then, spending some of their holidays with my aged mother. My mind did not even register the urgency or the gravity of the situation. I just thought it was some stupid mistake that the police had made. After all, who could have anything against Dada...the poor man's doctor and helping hand? I had even nicknamed him Father Teresa, except that he liked Kingfisher beer.

I suddenly realised that I knew very little about The BINAYAK SEN. It had been a long time that we had gone our ways. But the prospect of arrest and prison for Dada were a long way off from anything that we as a family could have imagined.

The next day, and everyday after that, I called Kalyani, and realised that Dada's situation was much more serious than I had thought. That is when I started begging him to come to me, in Belgium. Run... do anything but don't go back to Chhattisgarh. He just said that he could not betray the trust of his patients, who would be waiting for him from the May 14, 2007. He insisted on leaving as scheduled, on May 13.

While sitting in an Italian restaurant in Paris on May 14, I heard of his arrest. His older daughter Pranhita first called to say that he was called to the police station in Bilaspur to give a statement, but that the police would not arrest him. About 15 minutes later she called again to say that he had indeed been arrested. It was around 12.45 in Paris that my life turned its page on political innocence. I suddenly grew up.

During the course of Dada's year in prison, I read about him in the press, both national and international. I found him on Wikipedia. I found his name on numerous internet sites. There were the admiring letters that he received in prison, and that must have helped to keep his sanity. Then came the recognition from the Indian Academy of Social Sciences, the Keithan Gold Medal, the Jonathan Mann award, the 21 Nobel Laureates writing to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the demonstrations in India and around the world.

But I began feeling guilty and embarrassed. Because of my long absence in Europe since the 1970s, I learnt about Dada's greatness, above all about his work, through the press and through the mail of his admirers from distant lands. I did not know about the hospital he helped build in Dalli Rajhara, his work in Ganyari near Bilaspur, the Mitanin project, the Right to Food campaign.

Nor had I heard of his work with the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), or of the dedicated band of people that worked with him. They included doctors, lawyers, journalists, filmmakers and the man on the street. His circle of supporters included doctors from all over the world, the most active among them being his own former teachers and class mates, as well as some who were not his contemporaries at Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, but had attended the same college. I learnt details about his career from his former teachers and colleagues at the Christian Medical College, which bestowed on him the Paul Harrison Award to recognise his work that exemplified their best ideals of a doctor.

There were two images of my brother - the more familiar one of a fun-loving man who liked good food, good music, and enjoyed horsing around with his family and his many good friends; and the other of a serious doctor with concerns - expressed even while he was a student -- about the health of poorer communities, and its roots in their social and economic deprivation. This is what his former teacher, Dr P Zachariah, wrote in a tribute to his student:

"Binayak is a very rare doctor - a man with a deep understanding of the social and political dimensions of health. The governments of the world, the World Bank and other organisations are now worrying about food security and alternative food policies; Binayak was decades ahead of them all."

None of this apparently moves the State, which refuses to budge from its position. If you ask someone in the government why Dada is in prison, the reply is standard: "He is a Maoist leader and sympathiser, and we have enough evidence against him."

So I asked the DGP of Chhattisgarh, so why is he not returning the computer seized from Dr Binayak Sen over a year ago, especially since forensic examination of the hard disc had failed to turn up any incriminating evidence. He said that the Forensic Institute in Hyderabad could not break into a code. When I reminded him that teenagers are hacking into banks and the Pentagon everyday, his reply was patently evasive.

I also reminded him that I had heard that not one of the police witnesses gave any credible witness/evidence against Binayak. He countered with the possibility of a supplementary chargesheet that was in preparation based on some 53 pages of telephone conversations with someone who is a known Maoist. Like an astrologer, he predicted that the lower court would probably convict him but the higher court would release him.

Now, how long the process would take is anybody's guess. Common sense tells me that it could be years.

Back in the courtroom, my mind suddenly woke up to the noise of some strong protests from defense lawyer Mahendra Dubey. He had just found that a letter had been planted by the police and had clearly stirred some excitement in court. The insistent tapping of the typewriter had stopped. The judge looked worried.

A letter to a senior Maoist party member which the police were claiming had been found among the documents seized from his apartment was printed on a plain sheet of computer paper, and did not even have his signature. Moreover, it did not appear in the list of seized documents that Dada and the police had co-signed at the time they were seized. It was indeed a plant. The old public prosecutor did not bother to look embarrassed, he simply denied any knowledge of it or how it got there.

I left the court dejected and heartbroken as he was driven away in the police van. An entire State was conspiring to subject upon my brother a life without a life... without a purpose, without any privacy, without any space of his own, denying him the very means of contributing to society in a way that even the State itself had acknowledged when it had implemented his ideas to start the Mitanin programme. They are imposing a punishment upon an innocent man in the full knowledge that they are doing wrong.

Now that we are convinced that his imprisonment is based on false and trumped up charges, we will want to know who would want to inflict such a fate on this man and above all why? Then we could have a possible basis and a clue to engage in a sensible dialogue with them to secure his release.

My Dada was one who, at a very early age, wondered why we could not invite the servants in our home to eat with us. At the age of five, he had the sensitivity to write:

I saw a bird in the morning sun

Flying high up in the sky,

A man shot it down with his gun

And I began to cry.

He does not deserve this fate. But for someone who has withstood more than a year-and-four months of prison, solitary confinement, harassment, humiliation but not shame, we have a simple message: Tum akele nahin ho Dada... My brother!

[Credit: Dipankar Sen's article is from a special edition of HardNews. Check http://www.binayaksen.net/ and http://www.freebinayaksen.org/ for more information and updates]

Something really bad lurking in Google Chrome

Gentle reader, I would like you to think about a sinister attempt of proprietary inclusion by Google who've launched their latest web-browser application called Google Chrome. There are some serious security flaws (which will be fixed, I guess) but something really bad is also lurking.



Each time you use the Gmail through Chrome, you lose all rights to your mail and all its contents under the Terms of Service (TOS) you had agreed to with Google while setting up Chrome, (we never go through any of these, do we?). And all your personal communication, images, sensitive data, etc. becomes Google property. Yes, you somewhat retain copyright, but Google can do whatever they want with your stuff. The possibilities being endless.

This is quite shocking, and enough to deter anyone from using Chrome and switch back to good old Firefox, Opera, Safari or even the extremely irritating IE. Just go through the full section of the Chrome Terms of Service listed below:

11. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.

[Reference: Read Marshall Kitpatrick's excellent write-up on ReadWriteWeb, Does Google Have Rights to Everything You Send Through Chrome? , for more on the curious TOS set up by Google Chrome. And do go through all the comments to his article.]

On another note, I spent the whole afternoon yesterday trying really hard to read and make sense of Scott Lash's Critique of Information (2002).

I agree with his "informationcritique" to the point where he finds that present-day informational power has a "non-discursive, illegitimate, preconscious" nature, but I disagree with the conclusions reached at:

The global information order itself has... erased and swallowed up into itself all transcendentals. There is no outside space any more for such critical reflection.

If a critique is impossible because of the collapse of the seperate social and mental spaces needed for sustained reflection and critical thinking, I wonder where the externalised and extraneous ideas of the critic shape themselves, and how they find themselves inside a well-priced book, the intellectual property sense asserted with "All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced..." blah blah blah.

If you find this amusing, think of the space within which your mind's operating. Is it possible for you to manouvre,browse and sort, and reach your own conclusions? Does your mind retain its independent functional capability under the information cloud?

Update:

The Google people have revised the TOS for Chrome. The EULA for Chrome now contains the following concerning Content License:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

But since the EULA is governed by what they call Universal Terms of Service (its clause Eleven in its entirety quoted earlier), the criticism stands...

Who believes in Harvey Dent?

The face of the beautiful psychopathic Joker can make you forget all. But try hard, you’ve got to remember Harvey Dent. For there's a confusing question.

In the silence of the multiplex that grew illegally atop a marsh to the south of this mad city, and in the middle of popcorn-munching SAYTMDHMs (Smart-Ass-Young-Things-Made-Dumber-by-Hollywood-Movies), your mind fidgets uncomfortably as the arch-villain to the Dark Knight whispers across space to Harvey Dent, the injured district attorney sprawling in Gotham Hospital. Your ears prickle as the Joker edges closer and says:
“Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It's fair.”

The words sink in as Dent flips his coin, and he has begun to show two faces. I mean officially. For everyone in the movie has two faces, irreconcilable and mutually incompatible. And you’re alone in the dark with your grimace, your realization of this stereotypical double-facedness that pervades the silver-screen glare and gives you strange stomach aches. Burp! Oops, the last one was a stretched metaphor.

But consider the Joker.

On the one hand, he’s almost the stereotypical embodiment of a bomb-gun-and-scheming Guy Fawkes type anarchist social crusader (“This town deserves a better class of criminals...It's not about money,” says he as he kills a stereotypical Chechen goon of Hollywood stock and burns the heap of bank notes saying, “it's about... sending a message.” “Everything burns”, that’s his message.) On the other, he’s the stereotypical cold-blooded murderer, who plans but refuses to acknowledge his planning, displaying a spontaneous but stereotypical professionalism which masks his stereotypical smile that refuses to do anything without being paid in monetary or symbolic terms (“If you're good at something, never do it for free”).

Or Lucius Fox.
The man has no objections to his using a device to map and record everything of the private spaces of the stereotypical scheming Chinese gangster Lau (and the violation of international airspace in Hong Kong, eh?) but then offers to resign when Bruce Wayne eavesdrops on every telephonic conversation in the American city of 30 million damned souls. Ah, numerical and geographical morality once again, the same good old Patriot!

Or consider James Gordon, the Bat-friendly cop, who believes in the stereotypical principles of law while arresting Joker (he calls him “son of a bitch” though, I distinctly remember) and even consents to hound the Batman at the end (“and so we'll hunt him, because he can take it”).
But always believing in the deux ex machina extra-judicial legal apparatus consisting of a caped millionaire in a spandex costume beating cleaning up the streets with “his bare hands” (the improbability of this, even in movie-time, is testified by Lucius Fox before his junior staff), Gordon lights the lamp to his deity.

And even Bruce Wayne, with or without his spandex suit, has two stereotypical faces. As Wayne, his concern is restricted to the undefined betterment of Gotham, may the world outside Gotham and America rot and burn. Consider his conversation with Alfred Pennyworth:
Bruce: That man in Burma, did you ever catch him?
Alfred: Oh yes.
Bruce: How?
Alfred: We burned the forest down.

Bruce nods and passes on without a comment. Follow the thread of logic here: you support the burning down of an entire forest to catch a fugitive. Now, did you ever hear of bombing down an entire country to catch a person, a tyrannical president maybe? You didn’t?

The answer comes from the man in the suit that could give you muscular cramps if you tried it for real. Much later in the movie, the Batman says: “Sometimes, truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.” (Remember you had willingly bought your way into the hall, indeed, you deserve to be stereotypically rewarded, no matter what that is). It's a matter of faith, you've got to believe!

The scene where Batman beats up Joker inside the police lock-up is the best naturalised justification of extra-judicial torture witnessed in movie space in recent times. With the audience cheering, that's where the new Batman beats good old Rambo outside Guantanamo.

And after surviving all that stereotypical double-facedness, I know it will be really hard to remember what sort of values the official Two-Face Harvey Dent stood for in the movie. I am still so confused 'bout it all.

The man was sort of goody-but-stern replacement to the Dark Knight, if you go by his appearances in the movie as the district attorney to bloody Gotham, stars and stripes ablaze. In the comic books, he was twenty-six, a smart and handsome district attorney, the youngest ever to serve, and nicknamed "Apollo" for his good looks. 40-year-old Aaron Eckhart is too old for that, but never mind. Also forget the question of choice between love and commitment to Battick principles in the movie, it’s so stereotypically Hollywood. You had watched that in the Spiderman movie, you watched in The Incredibles, and even in Scooby-Doo.

Harvey Dent plays Ron Paul to Gotham (if you again excuse the confusing metaphor), and lives up to his quote as Two-Face: “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” (Mind it, it’s a Dent-ed quote). But at least, he’s an admittedly confused White Knight who gets a hard push from the caped crusader and thrown off the board. And with no moralizing words of closure.

But did you ever, inside or outside the movie, believe in the values embodied in the confused attorney’s character?
(The quotes used above are from IMDB and can be found here)

Picturing Gorkhaland: Via Darjeeling and the Bengali mind

(Spot the screamer: At Darjeeling taxi stand. June, 2008.
Click on the image for an enlarged view)

I had been waiting for the pictures to appear. Pictures that would prevent me from saying overtly political things in this precious little space I had saved for myself.

But my photographic senses let me down; the negatives carried only the dark shades surrounding the images I had hoped to register. And strange green spots. Only a few pictures materialized from the darkroom. Bless you.

Or else, you could be seeing pictures of the serene mountain mists sliding down windy wet terraces, once again, pictures of balaclava-clad Bengalis in dhotis enjoying a three-day spell of pleasant winter chill and attempting horse-riding while summer was blazing on the plains, Prasant Tamang singing in a cracked voice to a crowd of youngsters, and the silent blazing eyes of women marching for an autonomous Gorkhaland through the streets of Sukhia Pokhri.

For my return from the Darjeeling Hills coincided with escalating violence in the region; violence that simmers right now, but violence, like all violence, that feeds on itself and waits for an opportune moment to spring in.

The newspapers published from Kolkata that I still happen to read each morning had shamelessly fed on the violence throughout the last month. “Tourists hounded off the hills”— had been the frenetic refrain. Nothing of the sort, except a few awkward glances of people encountered, isolated acts by those idiots who always think in terms like “we” and “they” and squabble, squat, spit, bicker and bite, creating trouble for others, burning buses, deliberately hurting “them”, always believing that their political leaders will make the world a better place for "we" to live in and give "us" identities, at least recognition of some sort, and finally, the alacrity of people who always find themselves on the receiving end.

“Believe in me, I’ll give you Gorkhaland,” goes a small poster bearing the picture of Bimal Gurung, that I saw stuck on many walls in Darjeeling. I found it strange that people are believing in Gurung after they had experienced Ghising. Many hill-people I talked to during my trip, made exclamations of this sort: “We’ve little of a choice. At least we know now he’s one of us, and trying hard.”

Repetition of a horizontal level of comradeship that has been absent, but one that has always imagined in similar nationalistic imaginings of antethetical nature. Or how would you explain an eight-year-old Bengali boy working for fifteen hours at a stretch in a Mall-side Darjeeling hotel owned by a Bengali, if they share a common bonding of some sort, let's say, er, hmm, a colonial past? But you find that it’s stranger that the desperation, that drives hill-people to believe in the GJMM’s capacity for change, is often ignored.

This desperation is not fired by a political imagination, true, but is also nurtured by a series of serious iniquities. As Mahendra P. Lama, the man who prepared the first Development Plan of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council in 1989, puts it in an article:

Today, the people of the Darjeeling district are demanding answers to questions such as why the entire tea and cinchona industry is in the doldrums, what happened to the rich forest resources, why are there starvation deaths in the Dooars tea gardens, why are the three hill subdivisions still crying for drinking water and basic health facilities, and why Darjeeling has only two drinking water reservoirs in Sinchal, built in 1910 and 1931 by the British administration. There are various other signs of neglect by the state government. There are no panchayats in Darjeeling and hardly any Central government schemes are implemented here. Except in the state assembly, the people of Darjeeling figure nowhere in the decision-and policy-making process of West Bengal... (Storm brewing in the Mountains)

With or without considerations of Gorkhaland autonomy, or whether the GJMM is capable of redressal, these are the questions people living in West Bengal, and those on the seats of power, should also be asking.

The problem, I think, has another important dimension. Not to be found in Anjan Dutta's movies, though, even when it got something to do with the average Bengali's mindset.

There are some deep-seated sickening notions of a racial nature that are left untouched, especially by Bengalis, who form the dominating group in the region, and are simultaneously nostalgic, romanticizing and ignorant to the region from afar. Self-critical Bengalis have no problems with hill-people as long as they are loyal domestic helps and servants, lovingly called “Kancha” or “Bahadur”, irrespective of their proper names, and relegated to work relating to broadly-defined manual labour, or infantry-level military service. And note, how the pictures of retired Gorkha soldiers peacefully marching for autonomy and beaten up mercilessly by the West Bengal police, have conveniently receded from media memory. That communal Bengali organisations like Amra Bangali have found space in and around Siliguri, and support from the ruling parties, shows that the mindset of greater Bengali “racial superiority” has not changed much in years.

As long as this stupid segregration of peoples exist in the minds of the dominant group, the birds, flowers, clouds and hill-peoples, and also all the people living in the plains, I fear, have further trouble waiting for them. I can only share an apprehension. And meanwhile, no worthwhile images to be displayed that have survived my trip.

(Birds on the wire: from the balcony of Kanchenjonga Lodge, Manebhanjang.
Click on the image to enlarge)

Find Dangerous Drugs Here: "Reiteration"

India has become a dumping ground for banned medicine; also the business of producing that is booming. Apart from spurious medicine sold from registered medicine shops, there are some dangerous drugs that have been globally discarded, but are freely available in India, with or without the doctor's prescriptions.

Never did I know that Enteroquinol, the one I used to pop in from time to time, caused damage to eyesight. Or Nise, that painkiller I preferred for I didn't have to use an antacid, causes trouble for your liver. You, too, might have surprises waiting for you.

Do check the list below to see if you have been using any of these.
And spread the word.

PHENYLPROPANOLAMINE:
cold and cough. Reason for ban : stroke.
Brand name : Vicks Action-500

ANALGIN:
This is a pain-killer. Reason for ban: Bone marrow depression.
Brand name: Novalgin

CISAPRIDE:
Acidity, constipation. Reason for ban : irregular heartbeat
Brand name : Ciza, Syspride

DROPERIDOL:
Anti-depressant. Reason for ban : Irregular heartbeat.
Brand name : Droperol

FURAZOLIDONE:
Antidiarrhoeal. Reason for ban : Cancer.
Brand name : Furoxone, Lomofen

NIMESULIDE:
Painkiller, fever. Reason for ban : Liver failure.
Brand name : Nise, Nimulid

NITROFURAZONE:
Antibacterial cream. Reason for ban : Cancer.
Brand name : Furacin

PHENOLPHTHALEIN:
Laxative. Reason for ban : Cancer.
Brand name : Agarol

OXYPHENBUTAZONE:
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Reason for ban : Bone marrow depression.
Brand name : Sioril

PIPERAZINE:
Anti-worms. Reason for ban : Nerve damage.
Brand name : Piperazine

QUINIODOCHLOR:
Anti-diarrhoeal. Reason for ban : Damage to sight.
Brand name: Enteroquinol

(from an email forwarded by a friend who's a public health activist)

The Right to Smoke

This is not a funny post. And I am serious about smoking as long I don't disturb people. And as long, people don't disturb me because i do, and will continue to exercise my right to smoke.

The office where I am presently working doesn't have NO SMOKING boards stuck up anywhere. But it is a carbonated( air-conditioned) office, with burly security guards with faces of mastiffs and rottweilers loitering on the corridors, and it is implied that you cannot smoke inside the office.

I never tried it— for I fear losing my job right now— but I hear earthquake alarms start ringing with the slightest whiff of smoke... and I wish I can have a glimpse of that, before I quit office...

What smokers usually do—and they are a considerable number— they climb down three storeys down the back staircase, punch their cards, and step out on the road to smoke...

they smoke in the rain if it rains, they smoke in the piss, if it pisses, they roast under the sun, when it blazes, but they have to stay outside the wrought-iron gates....and smoke unfazed...

Today I went down for a smoke and rabbited, er dodoed, back silently to my desk.
The gentleman sitting next to me, made a face like a blue nicotine patch and shrieked: "EEEEEEEEEE! You smell like...."
( He said that in that Benglaic English, and didn't tell me what I smelled like...something horrible, for sure, perhaps he called me a yeti who never had a bath, or something worse!)

Now smokers, and the most of them excluding the machos and the stereotypical, are by nature decent people. And I pretended to be one while I seethed in anger....

I had nothing to tell to this gentleman, and I felt a sense of guilt, I dunno where it sprang from... Smoking is harmful, everyone knows that, blah, blah, blah... But OK, this gentleman helped me learn, for I started to google and chanced on The Smoker's Club...

Here follows a wonderful dispeller of myths....

I wish I do a Martin Luther with it and put it up in large bold types on the walls of all the offices, the insides of long-distance train compartments, and everywhere where a irrational dogmatism tries to impose its codes of conducive action....

The Ten Biggest Lies about Smoke & Smoking
By Robert Hayes Halfpenny

THE LIE: Cigarette smoke and Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) or Second Hand Smoke (SHS) Causes cancer.

THE Truth: Simply stated there is no known cause for any type of cancer. With all the testing that has been done with every type of chemical, gas, inert matter, and substances that have been altered through exposure to heat or chemical reaction, nothing has been proven to cause cancer. NOTHING! In some instances specific substances, in massive quantities, have been administered to laboratory rats. In these cases many of the animals might have developed a cancer. These sorts of tests may be considered Junk Science in that they have no relationship to a real life scenario.
The World Health Organization ran one of the most exhaustive tests on SHS ever done. After years of meticulous record keeping of all the data, their ultimate findings showed no measurable relationship of SHS to any form of cancer or other illness. The only measurable fact they did discover was that of all adult children who came from homes where both parents smoked had had a 22% better chance of NOT contracting lung cancer than did adult children who came from homes where both parents did not smoke. The W.H. O attempted to hid these facts from the public until several astute reporters forced them to make their facts public.

THE LIE: The desire for smoking bans is a grass roots movement.

THE TRUTH: Smoking bans have almost exclusively been started by organizations such as The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, A.S.H., the Heart, Cancer, and Lung Organizations and major pharmaceutical corporations. Over one billion dollars, from the Master Tobacco Settlement has funded the activities of many of these organizations for the past 5 years. Promoting smoking bans is big business for these organizations, especially the drug companies who are reaping huge profits on their almost worthless smoking cessation products.
When all sources of money are added together, nearly $1,500,000,000.00 have been squandered in bring about smoking bans in about 155 municipalities across the nation. The average money spent on each of these municipalities equates to about $9,675,000.00 per location. In simpler terms it will take Jerry Lewis's Muscular Dystrophy Telethon 30 years to collect the same sum of money at the rate of $50,000,000.00 per Telethon. When a properly informed public is given the opportunity to vote on a smoking ban issue, they invariably will vote the ban down. This has already happened on numerous occasions and it is expected to occur in New York City by 2005.

THE LIE: Second Hand Smoke is a public health issue.

THE TRUTH: It is impossible for SHS to be a public health issue for the simple reason there is NO proof that SHS has hurt anyone. In fact, according the W.H.O. (see above), SHS may have some beneficial effect on children. The smoke haters like to point out that the Health Departments have a right to control smoking issues for the same reason they have the right to check on health conditions in restaurants and bars.
This is a specious argument primarily because true health issues in food service establishments relate primarily to microbes and organisms that have an absolute direct effect on heath and sanitation. It is the Health Departments' sole responsibility to see to it that health standards are maintained. If individuals are concerned about SHS a simple notice stating that smoking is allowed is all that is needed for the public to make a decision about patronizing and establishment. This concept is called, PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!

THE LIE: Smoking bans are good for business.

THE TRUTH: Of all the nonsense put forth by the smoke haters this concept is nearly the most ridiculous. There was no basis in fact for this idea when originally stated. Now that the financial results of the bans are being felt in many different cities it is becoming painfully obvious that many businesses are being irreparably harmed. Many of the smoke haters who not only are experts on SHS would also have you believe they are experts in the field of accounting. They will site tax records and other data to prove the business of bars and restaurants are up since the bans were imposed. Their numbers however are egregiously manipulated and include figures from establishments that normally wouldn't be part of such a survey.
The fact of the matter is the anecdotal evidence is far more realistic. There is a hardly a restaurant or bar that hasn't been adversely affected by these bans. Business has dropped off from between 20% and 50%. Many businesses have been forced to close. Jobs have been lost, a life time of work in building a business has been lost, and city tax revenues have been adversely affected.

THE LIE: Restaurants and bars are public businesses.

THE TRUTH: All restaurants, bars, and any other businesses that have been set up by an individual or group of individuals are PRIVATE ENTERPRISES! There is no getting around this fact. It is carved in granite. Our Constitution mandates the rights of private property as one of the most important rights we have! The fact that anyone should think they have the right to abrogate the very tenets of our Constitution demonstrates a colossal arrogance that we can not afford to have in this country.
When a small group of people attempt to force their own jaundiced views on the citizenry it is called an Oligarchy. Our elected officials are our SERVANTS! They are in office for only one purpose and that is to see to the needs of all the people Henry David Thoreau said in the 19th century, "the government that governs best, governs least". He was right then---he is right today.

THE LIE: Technology does not work

THE TRUTH: Dr. James Repace, the self appointed expert on second hand smoke, once stated to the effect that a 300 mile per hour hurricane couldn't clear out the danger of SHS in an enclosed space. In Atlanta, Georgia there is an organization that deals with some of the most dangerous infectious germs and bacteria in the World. Out of very obvious necessity, the filtration system they use must be 100% effective, 100% of the time. The system they use (which does contain several built in redundancies) is not out of "Buck Rogers" but one that is very similar to the type of commercial systems most restaurants or bars use.
Several St. Louis Park food service establishments had their air tested by an independent organization. The results of these tests showed favorable results and the overall effectiveness of properly maintained filtrations systems. If Atlanta, Georgia can have an organization that deals with Anthrax, Small Pox, Bubonic Plague and other organisms that could kill people by the 100's of thousands with no fear of exposure, common sense dictates that similar filtrations systems should work on the relatively benign particulates of SHS.


THE LIE: 3000 lives a year are lost due to SHS.

THE TRUTH: Originally the number that was first generated by the E.P.A. was 53,000 deaths per year. They published this number before even running their "test". The "test" is in fact not a test, but rather what is called a META survey. This survey took 31 different reports and compiled all the data to come up with a figure of only 3,000 deaths that were attributed other undefined causes. The first number E.P.A. published was a piece of hypothetical misinformation. The second number of 3,000 they put forth was a deliberate lie. A Federal Judge by the name of Osteen ruled the 3,000 deaths attributed to SHS by the E.P.A. was a deliberate lie foisted on an unsuspecting public. Judge Osteen determined the number of 3,000 deaths was not attributable to SHS and that the E.P.A. told this lie in the expectation to harm the legitimate business pursuits of the tobacco industry. Judge Osteen completely vacated the findings of the E.P.A. So that there is no misunderstanding as to this decision, it should be noted that another court partially overturned Judge's Osteen decision for purely judicial reasons. THEY DID NOT, in any way, repudiate Judge Osteen's basic premise concerning his comments about the E.P.A. or their motives.

THE LIE: Most people approve and support smoking bans.

THE TRUTH: most people who do not smoke really don't care one way or the other about the smoking issue. It is only a very small but well funded group of smoke haters who want to see these ban invoked. When these bans are ultimately passed and the true effect of them is fully realized, then people start to speak out against them. In New York a poll was taken to see how the people felt about the ban. 86% of those polled stated the ban went way too far. At this point in time there is reason to expect the New York may be rescinded in part or in full sometime in 2005.
Canada, one of the most strident nations in attempting to enforce a smoking ban nationwide, is currently facing wide spread rebellion against their Draconian measures. The reports of businesses being financially ruined run rampant. Politicians who supported the bans are being voted out of office. Cigarettes, which are now literally worth their weight in sterling silver,
are being stolen with increasing regularity and then sold on the black market. These very same actions will and indeed are occurring in the United States as well. If the bans were truly supported would such occurrences happen?

THE LIE: Smokers and smoking impose a heavy cost on society.

THE TRUTH: Of all the lies told by the anti smoke haters this one has to be the most ludicrous. For example, if smoking kills people well before their time, the saving of Social Security and Medicare benefits would be significant. The extra medical costs to the "State" are more than exceeded by the outrageous taxes currently paid by smokers. Contrary to reports that smokers miss more work time than non-smokers is a completely unsubstantiated number. Indeed, there are so many variables as to why people miss work, it would be impossible to determine whether smoking was a significant cause or not.
Furthermore, it has been a policy of long standing that insurance companies assess smokers a higher rate for insurance premiums. This has been done in spite of a lack of any definitive proof that smokers, because of smoking, contribute to higher medical costs. It is astounding that an otherwise healthy person who watches his weight, exercises, eats a healthy diet, and drinks only in moderation if at all, has to pay a higher insurance premium than an obese person who eats and drinks to excess and doesn't know the meaning of the word exercise, but does not smoke.

THE LIE: Smoking statistics do not lie.

THE TRUTH: In this World there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Never has an argument been won based on statistic alone. They can serve only as a point of departure. In a free and open society people must be allowed to operate as free agents without the fetters of the doomsayers. Life is a risk, but it is that risk which gives it zest. When we allow ourselves to sacrifice our freedoms for the sake of safety, we deserve neither safety nor freedom. Accepting statistics at face value will lead us down that garden path. There are many statistics that can be cited that make the danger of smoking seem mild by comparison.
For example, the use of cell phones, hair dryers, and electric blankets have higher risks that SHS. About half of the smoking population has quit over the past 30 years, yet there has been no comparable increase in life expectancy. The smoke haters will quickly tell you this is because of the effects of second hand smoke. The fallacy of their argument is that if there has been smoking there has also been second hand smoke. In spite of the decline of smoking, childhood illnesses such as asthma, ear infections and A.D.D are rapidly increasing. Cigarettes and/or smoke have about 4,000 identifiable chemicals. Your daily diet has about 10,000 such chemicals. Arsenic which is considered a leading cause of lung cancer is found in significantly larger quantities in a glass of water than in a cigarette.
(i dont mind advertising for the smokers club.... )