Sad eyed lady should I wait - Bob Dylan
March 30, 2007 | Filed Under bob dylan, songs i love | 4 Comments
There are going to be many Bob Dylan songs on this list. These songs take me to another time. Blonde on blonde is an ethereal album. I rate it as the best Dylan album ever.
American Pie
March 20, 2007 | Filed Under songs i love | 5 Comments
Songs I love - I am compiling some of my favorite songs.
“When the world writes its history, you will be remembered, For all that was good and beautiful and worth living for.”
Don Mclean - American Pie
Terrorist?
March 1, 2007 | Filed Under Mumboji | 5 Comments
One of my friends passed me an interview of Mohammed Afzal. He has been given the death sentence for the parliament attack that happened in India.
The guy finds himself alone in his struggle as he has not been allowed a fair representation at the courts. In fact, I fear, this interview will probably be the only time we will hear his side of the story. There is no greater injustice in a democracy than to muffle the voice of a person.
Kashmiri’s have never had it fair. Both India and Pakistan are fighting an ego war on the land of Kashmir and it ultimately leads to someone becoming the scapegoat.
Here’s a part from the interview that really moved me:
What comes to your mind when you think of your wife Tabassum and Son Ghalib?
This year is the tenth anniversary of our wedding. Over half that period I spent in jail. And prior to that, many a times I was detained and tortured by Indian security forces in Kashmir. Tabassum witnessed both my physical and mental wounds. Many times I returned from the torture camp, unable to stand, all kinds of torture including electric shock to my penis, she gave me hope to live…We did not have a day of peaceful living. It is the story of many Kashmiri couples. Constant fear is the dominant feeling in all Kashmiri households.
We were so happy when a child was born. We named our son after the legendary poet Mirza Ghalib. We had a dream to see our son Ghalib grow up. I could spend very little time with him. After his second birthday I was implicated in the case.
What do you want him to grow up as?
Professionally, if you are asking, a doctor. Because that is my incomplete dream.
But most importantly, I want him to grow without fear. I want him to speak against injustice. That I am sure he will be. Who else know the story of injustice better than my wife and son?
[While Afzal continued talking about his wife and son, I could not stop recollecting what Tabassum told me when I met her outside Supreme Court in 2005 during the case’s appeal stage. When Afzal’s family members remained in Kashmir Tabassum dared to come to Delhi with her son Ghalib to organize defence for Afzal. Outside the Supreme Court New Lawyers chamber, at the tiny tea stall on the roadside, she chatted in detail about Afzal. While sipping and complaining the tea for excess sugar she told about how Afzal enjoyed cooking. One picture she painted stuck me deep—one of those dear private moments in their lives, he would not allow her to enter kitchen, make her seated on the chair nearby and Afzal would cook, holding one book in his band, a ladle in the other and read out stories for her.
I agree that terrorism is a bane. And even if we assume that Afzal is the culprit, I wonder what leads one to terrorism. How does one inspire someone to create inhumane acts. Of course there is a constant brainwashing of individuals leading them to feel the atrocities all the more. But we as countries too do things that we can feel ashamed of. And later they come back and haunt us.
I can’t believe that someone who names his son, Ghalib, can be a terrorist. The poet in me refuses to accept it.