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What is going on in Kashmir?

  After being asked the above   question fourth time in my office lift, I have finally sat down to pen my thoughts. Firstly, to all dedicated citizens of India, I will recommend that one should neither try to understand Kashmir conundrum nor try to speculate over it. Because no good has come to any one with their association with Kashmir. The roots of this problem are too deep for anyone to spend time and understand it properly and the other issue is “Kashmiris”. Kashmir and Kashmiris have a different culture, a different language and a very different outlook, which you may point out is the case with every-other state. But what you forget is there are other facets of Kashmiryat too. One, the closeness to Pakistan and another Islam. This makes a seemingly simple linear equation into a full-fledged lagrange theorem that too in Urdu, so good luck to you. In the meanwhile, if you have other important things to do, such as buying the correct liquid detergent for your washin
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Let the Magic Begin!!!

Hi, I stopped writing about 2.5 years ago. Why?  I guess I didn't like the smell of my own shit. Weird huh!! Well, that happens right!! Self-doubts, low self-belief and mostly poor sentence construction and grammar issues.  Have I overcome those? Naaa, still work-in-progress. So, why am I writing again? I think I have a sane explanation for that at least. Writing when taken as a job or as a serious vocation becomes impossible for me. It simply ceases to be fun for me.  One more reason for not having written much from last 2.5 years is that I became better at managing my emotions, hence I stopped using my blog as my refuge. So, guys bring out your reading glasses and your coffee mugs because it is going to be a long read. My fingers are working on an auto-mode. The process is so fast I am unable to keep up with it. I am barely able to breathe. God! Have I missed it?  It is like touching yourself again after a month-long "celibacy" vow

Bihar

One word which kept ringing in my head during my trip to Bihar was "unapologetic". Everything I saw or heard was in its raw form. There was no tact or attempted sweetness. The Auto rickshaws did not wait for you to move off the road, but somehow without scratching you, they will pass right through. Driver will turn his eyes towards you for a brief second and then spit the pan on the other side. "Chawtiya" was his assessment of me followed by peels of laughter from the other c ramped passenger whose one butt cheek was hanging like an overgrown pumpkin. I did not mind. Neither did I revert. I just smiled and walked. It was around 9 am. The market was already bustling. We stopped at a dingy sweet shop. The owner was sitting on a tall stool as if he was judging a tennis match between Rafa and Federer. We asked him the rates of the plates. He just showed us in and indicated V with his finger as his entire mouth was overloaded with Pan induced Saliva. The walls wer

TORRENTS and KASHMIR

I don't know the name of the founder or the owner of the Kickass-Torrents site, and frankly, I never bothered about it. There was no Wikipedia entry on where he went to school. Did his ancestors come to America on a ship or an Alien craft? Nobody knows or cares. All I wanted is to just find the damn torrent, hook it to the Bit torrent and just wait till the download was complete. Nobody batted an eyelid and everything was hunky dory. I even thought it was all in good faith and purely legal. There were a couple of banners on the site saying get a VPN to avoid getting tracked. But, we the people of India are very well aware of the tech savviness of our  Police. Plus, who gets arrested for downloading a movie. No one. The site had so many amazing features, you could search the movie by the genre and even by the actor's name. I remember once searching for Collin Farell movies and stumbling upon a gem of a movie called   In Bruges . What a movie it was. It was never rel

The cycle of Violence

Another body was lowered in the ground in Kashmir. This time the direction of the violence was from the other end of the Jawahar tunnel, an area which is known as the safest place in Jammu and Kashmir. It is almost a garrison town, surrounded by Army cantonments and ranges. The summers are less harsh in this area. I am talking about Udhampur, the place where the two kashmiri truckers were attacked. I don't know whether their actions warranted this kind of vicious attack, or the other technicalities of the case. But, what I am worried about is the cycle of violence that will get unleashed aftermath. More coffins, more graveyards, more protests, more violence. Again and Again. This time it is the cow-meat debate, next it would be Quran desecration, cartoon from Denmark. In short, any thing which is out of normal will lead to a complete breakdown of the normal life in the Valley. When are we going to look up, take out our head from this sand. Has any one single journalist ever

Ikk Kudi Jeda naam......Udta-Punjab-Review

Finally, the mavericks at Phantom have started to churn out movies which can both stir the social curry as well as money counters. 38.8 Cr in the opening weekend must have been a big deal for the producers. It's been a long time since the money came in crashing for them. Udta Punjab is a treat to watch, for a lot of reasons. Is it an unconventional movie?Yes. Is it entertaining?Yes. Does it have a message for the society? Yes. Does Alia have an item Song? No. Sorry. She was not paid that much or even Kareena for that reason.  The latent stench of a documentary has been well camouflaged behind the long flowing locks of Shahid Kapoor. Within ten minutes of the movie, you get a feel that the director means business. There is no excess social drama that usually forms the part of movies which are on Drug menace-A poor family with a little source of income and the main earning member hooked to the syringe-No, Sir. This one started right at the barbed Indo-Pak border of Punjab

The Rage of Arjun

Sun had already begun his descent. Maybe, he could no longer bear to look at the mayhem humans had created on the battlefield. Dead bodies of soldiers lying on the ground for miles. Hordes of Hyena’s and Vultures were fighting over the carcasses. The main architect of this carnage was not stopping even to take a breath as if some devil had taken hold of him. It was just difficult to digest the fact that a week ago same warrior refused to take up arms. Even the lord of three worlds who had reins of the horses in his hands looked perturbed. There was no stopping him. It seemed that Kauravas had already surrendered to his might. Arjun’s quiver was fast emptying as the sunset was close. Kaurava foot soldiers were praying for the day to end. His deadly arrows have rained on them, piercing men and animals, earth and sky alike. It would take them all night to clear bodies which Arjun had left in his wake. It was the bloodiest day yet in the Mahabharata. On the other side of th