The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal

Some years back, I thought of four friends and if their close friendship will last.
It may, I thought. But don’t trust the eye that does not imagine the valley of flowers.
Many things don’t last. And the exceptions are etched in glass.

There was a boy in college. He spoke of his four friends, “this too will not last”.

Many years later and after a myriad of tribulations, he phoned one friend. “It did not last”.

He was at once a mixture …

Kartikey Sehgal

The second page of a two page write-up called “Polyamory in India: Then and Now”, published in Psychology Today,  prompted me to write this story. The author “Deborah Anapol, Ph.D” guides a married woman named Leela towards sleeping with her friend Karna. According to the author, Leela’s husband Sandeep must come to terms with his jealousy. In my opinion, the application of polyamory here is utter rubbish and a subtle form of radical feminism that is making weaklings out of …

Kartikey Sehgal

The ‘conservative’ fathers end up marrying off their daughters to morons that their daughters would have otherwise chosen for themselves.

It is not expected that the conservatives know better about human behaviour than the ‘others’. They are conservative because they are expected to be conservative. Fathers asked their sons to be conservative because, well, that’s the way to be, or because that’s the right way of life, or because that’s the job of a man. Their children are told that keeping your women …

Kartikey Sehgal

Talented people are often alone and relegated to lower ranks in a social group.
Unless:

• They are conventionally good-looking
• They behave like they are conventionally good-looking
• They are very rich/powerful
• Brilliant women are a part of the group

Otherwise, they are ‘respected’, a term that has come to differentiate the talented from the ‘others’. He becomes an ‘other’ who is talented, and who may not pose any immediate threat to the position of the ‘haves’.

I was scheduled to attend three of the …

Kartikey Sehgal

The modern man thinks that he is free because he can change between jobs; leave an organisation, join another. However, even slaves wanted to be transferred between masters. They didn’t want to sit idle. Slavery gave them food and security. They also compared notes. Who ate what and who got treated well.

What has actually changed is the perception of slavery. ‘I am not bound to any one company’. But you are. How are you going to otherwise survive and if you do, …

Kartikey Sehgal

While reading a document on ‘Women in Hinduism’, I noted the sentence:

“While today we normally assume that the ‘husband is the breadwinner of the household’, traditional Hindus say that it is Devi Annapuurnaa who is the presiding deity of Foodgrains.”

Of course. This is how it works. A man goes to earn food for himself and his family. To what man would Devi give food? To a man who is honest and hardworking. And what is this idea of praying?

Take this …

Kartikey Sehgal
(written for print media)

Festivals are opportunities to meet and discus shared interests and the success of any film festival should be measured by the discussions it provokes among the audience. The ongoing MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Image) film festival offers hardly any scope for the participating audience to meet and comfortably discuss the films. So much so that the Mumbai Young Critics’ Special Jury, organised by the management to promote youngsters to watch international films, seems like a lost …

Ananth Venkatesh
(written in August)

Kashmir of India has been under a state of belligerence over the last two months, which is heartrending. A segment of the Kashmiri remonstrators, inevitably hostile to India, has fierily invaded the lanes of pretty Kashmir, in the company of children. The national security personnel along with the provincial police have been the targets of the rage of these remonstrators. The mercilessness of these protestors is evident in their transportation of impressionable children to the Kashmiri boulevards in order to …

Shaival Thakkar and
Kartikey Sehgal

In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, ‘Everybody Hurts’, a popular song by the alternative rock music group R.E.M. was used in a fund raising concert for the victims’ families.

In this video, music aficionado Shaival Thakkar talks about the charm of R.E.M. and his love for alternative music. This video also suffices as an introduction to alternative rock music. If you like meaningful lyrics and ‘soft’ music—relatively softer than the strains of hard rock music—then you may like alternative …

Kartikey Sehgal
(Rated Mature)
A relation between ‘media writing about rape and society reading about rape’.

1. Media Covers Rape

The media knows all about rape. How it happened. When it happened. How many and what they did. If they are connected to someone powerful. What was the girl wearing. The time. If she was alone. Should she be alone. If she shouted. If she was gagged. Her sisters or brothers. The family of the rapist. And much more.

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