Bye Bye 377

Today is a big day in the life of gays in India. Its been long overdue. A colonial law that criminalizes homosexual relationships was adopted in to the Indian Penal Code when it was written in the 50's, has been deemed unconstitutional.

I have had several conversations with people near and far about the rights of homosexuals to be with one another, their rights to marriage etc. It, of course, was a rallying issue during the U.S. presidential elections. In the U.S. the homosexual marriage rights becomes a platform issue during every election cycle but the speed of news cycle with all the 24 hour news channels, it gets on the backburner sooner than later, sadly.

I first read the news about the Delhi High Court's judgement that it is not criminal to practice homosexuality in India on google news feed and read some more related stories on BBC and other news websites. I also wanted to read the comments section on some of these stories to see the reactions of people who feel compelled to actually login and comment on these news sites. I have never had the motivation to actually register and comment no matter how compelling the storyline is. A lot of the times I get put off by reading the comments on these sites because it quickly degenerates in to name calling, racist taunts and all that and I could not associate myself with it, so I never felt the need to comment there.

The comments fell pretty much along two lines: homosexuality is a sin and immoral, and this high court ruling is shoving homosexuality down their throats, and the other view was supportive of the ruling. BBC also published views of people from different walks of Indian life as well. One that really caught my eye is the following:

"Dr PV Cherian, medical doctor, Chennai - I am not very happy about this ruling.I am a Christian believer and I think homosexuality is a sickness affecting men and women, that is increasing these days in our affluent materialistic society.God intended us to enjoy normal sex between faithful heterosexual married partners. Discrimination is not a good thing and I everyone should enjoy freedom of choice. But freedom of choice is a dangerous thing, because sometimes we choose the wrong things. Freedom is harmful. I pray for homosexual people to realise their mistake. They need to be educated."

Here is a medical doctor, who has got the best possible education - definitely lot more than an average Indian. He still thinks homosexuality is a sickness. Firstly, he is wrong in saying that homosexuality is a sickness. Secondly, he does not know how much freedom people should be allowed to have. Thirdly, he contradicts himself within the space of two sentences. He thinks discrimination is bad but also, freedom of choice is only applicable, when the choice is something that he can agree with. What a hypocrite! He needs to be educated in the meaning of freedom.

This brings us to a more relevant point. Although the courts have ruled that it is prefectly legal to engage in homosexual sex in India, how will an averge Indian view it? Of course, it will take a long time before a majority of Indians accept the homosexual lifestyle among some of their fellow countrymen. The current activist movement seems to be more concentrated in urban areas. At the very least, this ruling guarantees the rights of ALL Indians to engage in whatever sort of personal relationships they may deem fit and its no body else's business but theirs alone. At the very least, the gays of India do not have to fear for Policemen harassing them. At the very least, they could be tested if they like, for HIV in a clinic and receive treatment if needed, without fear of 10 years in jail. At the very least, this is the first stepping stone for couples like these.

Here are my thoughts on this: The courts needed to deal with the civil rights issue. People are unneccesarily bringing in their moral values in to the equation. The Indian constitution guarantees all the basic personal freedoms and rights. The rights of the homosexuals come very much under this umbrella. They too are citizens of India and no worse or better than any other Indian. To prevent a section of the country (however small or large it is) from exercising their rights based on moral opinions that have been derived from their religious faiths is unconstitutional. For example, it was illegal in a lot of the states in the U.S. for people of different races to marry till 1967. In the current day and age, that sort of law sounds extremely ludicrous. However, you'll be surprised to know that it did not come off the books in the State of Alabama till 2000. Although, no one was arrested or persecuted in Alabama for interracial marriages, the fact that the law was in the books is utterly unbelievable and unconstitutional.

Similarly, the overwhleming majority of homosexuals in India were not arrested or harassed by policemen eventhough the Indian Penal Code 377 professed homosexuality as a criminal offense. However, its unconstitutional and it needed to go and finally, it has. I do not know how long it will be before homosexuality is accepted in India by a overwhelming majority of Indians. This ruling alone is not gonna make it happen. Its an uphill fight for the LGBT community and all the other rights groups in India but I am sure, this ruling has given them a renewed sense of purpose and filled winds in their sails.

You may or may not agree with homosexuality. You may think its a sickness. You may think they need to be saved and cured. But one thing you can't deny in a democratic society is the fundamental rights of people. You can't deny the rights of an individual to be with someone they love. You can't deny their rights to be married to each other. At least, not forever.

Lord Sachin is Mr. Cricket

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/2282979/Lord-Sachin-is-Mr-Cricket

Cricket state of mind

From Cricinfo: Dhoni took it a step further. "Mentally we are right there. When it comes to the mind it depends on what you're feeding into the mind. The mind doesn't know if it's Napier or what you're feeding. You come and say 'this is Napier', and it believes it's Napier. If you see, it's an abstract. When people say 'he's in form', nobody has seen form. It's a state of mind where you are confident and you think very positively and everything you think about, you think it's very achievable. It's about how you treat the mind. One day here, one day there doesn't really make a difference. Preparation-wise, we are up to the mark."

Guest Spot

Every few days, while sitting on the couch, I open up Subash's blog and make a sad face at him to remind him he hasn't posted in a while. Today's pouty face was met with the suggestion of my making a guest post. 

And so, hello everyone, this is Kathleen, the person in love with your dear friend.

I've been thinking a lot lately about traveling. The weather warmed up for a brief moment, giving a fleeting reminder of what it feels like to wear flip flops and be free of the heavy layers of winter. Subash and I have only been on 2 "real" trips together, one to Chicago and one to Florida. We have talked about future trips, though, and I simply can't wait. I feel very lucky that we are together and I get to travel with him--he is one of those people that makes friends wherever he goes, and always seems to get by no matter what. I can't wait to go on adventures together, walk unknown blocks, eat street food, collect stones from beaches, fall asleep in small patches of sun, watch out the window of planes, buses, cars, and trains as old and new landscapes roll by. 

I don't know exactly what else to write about. So, I think that I will change directions and leave you with a completely different kind of story. No one was there with me to share the moment at the time, so I will force it on all of you now instead. 

Today on the way to class in the morning, while fighting some driving winds that had appeared out of nowhere, a little squirrel and I crossed paths. It was eyeing a giant slice of pizza with only a few bites out of it that had been left on the ground. It looked at me, looked at the pizza, and made a run for it, grabbing the crust in its mouth. It tried to get away with it, dragging the pizza across the ground as it awkwardly ran to the nearest tree, a thin spindly thing only a little taller than me. It hauled the pizza up the tree, climbing out to one of the thin side branches, where it began shoving the slice between two branches with it's eager little paws. It stuffed it there and turned to look at me, wary and victorious. 

I looked all around for another person that could acknowledge how ridiculous the site of this giant piece of pizza in the high branches of a tiny tree was. As mentioned, no one was around, and so here we are. 

I think that's all I've got for now, but hopefully Subash will post again soon. Until then, I hope everyone is doing well and having a great time. 

Until next time!

-Kathleen

SH!T

Some of you may have seen this episode of South Park where they say the word, Shit. Of course, you cannot say the word, Shit on basic  cable TV in the U.S. It gets bleeped. Its one of the 7 words, made famous by the late comedian George Carlin. These days the FCC in the US has gotten so high and mighty, that anything they consider remotely offensive, crude, explicit... they bleep the shit out of it.

Anyway, When I was in Montreal, Canada last week on business, I was watching TV and it was some random talk show. The guy was interviewing James Cameron, the famed director of Terminator, Titanic, Alien etc. Apparently, he has got a star in the Canadian Walk of Fame. They have one up there as well, similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. So, durin the course of the interview, the host drops the "shit" word and since I have been conditioned the past few years of living the U.S. of A, my ears perked up pretty quickly. I saw few more shit droppings on other shows as well. Then, it dawned on me that its okay to say Shit on Canadian TV. Now, India has something in common with Canada. I was reminded of the times in India where you could say Shit! 

During the business meeting, the consultant also mentioned the word a few time, with the word bull thrown around generally in front of it bunch more times.  He even dropped the F-bomb once. Now, I am aware even in Canada,  you can't say the F-word on TV. But for a business consultant to do it in a professional setting and no one react adversely to it, it was an interesting sight for me. I wonder how it would have been received in the U.S. I work in a place where things are pretty informal but we still don't curse very much. 

I have always considered these rules by FCC extremely stupid. I understand you shouldn't swear on TV because little kids mght be watching and/or its just plain offensive to people. But, there definitely is a time and place, where no other word could substitute for a good curse word.  I hope someday the people that  work in the FCC get to their senses and get down from their snooty positions and provide some wiggleroom for cursing on TV and other media! Its about fucking time. 

Update 1: Funny.. I uploaded this post and went home, only to see the aforementioned South Park episode come on TV. Weird!

Update 2: You know how the Canadians in South Park episodes always say 'aboot' and have 'flopping heads'. Only one of the two is actually correct. 

O Canah-duh!!

I am traveling today to Montreal with my boss and my colleague on a strategic business planning meeting. We will be meeting with our sister company north of the border and discuss the present and future of the company. Some sort of business consultant will be helping us in sharpening the focus of the company, I suppose. Whatever. Its all mumbo-jumbo for me. I am supposed to make a presentation on "Knowledge Capture". All I know is to send Mithun Chakraborty in a police/military officer uniform, he can capture anything! (I suggest you watch the hindi movie "Cheetah" to really understand what I mean by this).

Hypocrisy

As an Indian, the stance taken by the U.S. and a lot of the western world regarding the "response" taken by Israel on Gaza smacks of double standards and plain ol' hypocrisy. When elements that originated from Pakistan held Mumbai under siege for 3 days (beyond any doubt has been proven, except for the fact that the Pakistan government refuses to accept it, even when the father of the only living attacker corroborated that it was his son), everyone including the U.S. through Condaleeza Rice's visit to India and Pakistan, urged restraint and let things cool down.

I understand that any rash decision by the Indian government to attack training camps within Pakistan (there was tremendous support for that from the people of India, no doubt, similar to post 9/11 in the U.S.) would have pitted two nuclear-armed neighbors in a battle that could have very quickly escalated. So, I was a supporter of letting cooler heads prevail before any decision was taken, putting sustained pressure on the Pakistani government to come clean and lead up to closing of the training camps within their territory. 

However, with the charade that the Pakistan government does, of detaining a few "leaders" (that previously didn't exist on their soil, by the way), and placing them under house arrest till the dust settles and be back to its own merry ways, really pisses me off. I am actually glad this time, there is at the least, a sustained media and diplomatic pressure on the Government of Pakistan by the Indian government. 

Coming back to the original point about American hypocrisy diplomacy, There are many talking heads from both the Republicans and Democrats, justifying Israel's response to mortar shelling from across their border. That's fair enough. One of them said, "Listen, wouldn't we (The U.S.) react if Canada were to lob bombs across the border on to Seattle?" and the other said, "Hey, How do you think We'd react if Mexico were to drop shells from Tijuana on to San Diego" and so went all the metaphors. Very fair, I think. Every sovereign country reserves their rights to protect their soil against any external attacks. 

However, If India were to actually launch a military offensive on Pakistan with the goal of destroying the terrorist training camps and taking out a bunch of their leaders etc, 1) It could easily escalate in to a full scale war that might go beyond conventional weapons 2) pakistan will have to redeploy its troops from its western border with Afghanistan to resisit India. Point #2 severely disadvantages the U.S. in their fight against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. I think I have a working understanding of geo-politics and I see why nations make decisions that they do. But when I see the Bush administration come out and flat out support Israel on their response and tell India to simmer it down, is bullshit. I am glad when Mr. Obama responded - on the heels of the Mumbai attacks whether he thinks India should respond to it the way U.S. did after the September 11 attacks - "Every Sovereign country reserves their right to defend it, on their own way of choosing, and I'll leave it at that". Thanks Mr. Obama for calling it like you see it.