Kartikey Sehgal
India is losing land to her neighbour. The author says that “it should be no surprise that Indians are getting restless or communal or impatient as is often reported by writers and thinkers in the print and television medium.”
Land is sacred for Indians and it presents one difference between the nationalists and the others. They former love land and land is equal to religion for them; you can pray to the universe or you can pray to the idols…
Kartikey Sehgal
[Fiction]
On 26TH January, 2010, every state of India paraded its best to the nation. Maharashtra presented the much celebrated dubba wallas who travel in sweat and danger on (in, over) local trains. Who ensure that the food reaches the Mumbai residents on time. These men, marked for their punctuality and honesty, live in a state that sees farmers dying in Vidarbha.
Among the celebratory troops of states were men, or at least one, who wondered if the salutes…
Kartikey Sehgal
Read the first part on this page
The respondent is unconcerned about the topic. She is unaware of discussions on casteism and racism in the media. She tells me that there are many like her; they have belief in dharma and don’t bother about what allegations others put on their way of living. Often I have to reconfirm what she says; “there was lots of bloodshed between the brahmins and kshatriyas” where bloodshed means that the boy’s…
Kartikey Sehgal
I came upon this information during a conversation on casteism. The lady told me, “There has never been much caste problem in my home town [Jammu] )".
She continued:
“We recently discovered that a family belonging to the shudra caste is actually a brahmin family. The ____ (surname) were brahmins at one time and shifted to a lower caste probably to defend themselves.”
Here’s the backdrop; two families in Jammu have been friends for many decades thought they are from…
Kartikey Sehgal
Love is nature’s ploy for reproduction; lust is nature in crisis.
It is possible to love one woman for the rest of your life and there are many such women available.
Women are marketeers when it comes to marriage. They make a man believe that he wants it and his time will run out.
Marriage is a compromise for men. Women just have to decide between options.
A man (man) remains a man despite the allurement of beauty.…
Kartikey Sehgal
A walk to Dr. Ambedkar’s memorial prompts thoughts on ‘dalitism’.
Did Siddhārtha envisage Indian Buddhism as a sect of people bickering about the validity and significance of a particular famous leader? Or a sect that frowns upon and overtly discourages a boy and a girl from holding hands? If we consider Buddhism as a religion without rites and if then outlaw ‘couples’ then doesn’t it become a religion of rites; that one rule spawning several other rules about public decency…
Kartikey Sehgal
–Drugs and economic disparity in the Indian home of the Dalai Lama. Standalone story. Other parts of the series here.
“Hey gorgeous, nice shoes”, they call out to a foreigner who is wearing shining dark red shoes. She turns to look at them; “thanks”. As a rule, the duo avoids complementing Indian women and any woman with a man. “Hey baby! You look beautiful” and “Wow, you are lovely”, they call out to women in their…
Kartikey Sehgal
Aman Ki Asha (AKA) is the new romantic buzzword between India and Pakistan formulated by mostly those people who have not suffered terrorist attacks and have their family and limbs intact. The movement, historic, has been celebrated by a 20 hour gun salute in Srinagar with instructions on laying the table and selecting the dishes coming directly from Pakistan.
According to this new peace movement, artists from India and Pakistan will get together and sing…
Kartikey Sehgal
Many people pursue higher (master’s) education without thought
We often study to stay away from our passions*. Studying is comfortable and acceptable for parents as it lives up to their ideal of coping-with-the-west. Pursuing activities other than the hobby of studying makes them terrified and often violent. They are not proper parents in the sense that they will not encourage the child to do what his heart desires. Any extra-curricular activity must be an appendage to the ultimate goal of…
Kartikey Sehgal
–Drugs and economic disparity in the Indian home of the Dalai Lama
A standalone story. Part One and Part Two of the series.
McLeodganj, with its constant buzz of commerce may not be comfortable for everybody. On all the streets you see some hapless faces calling out to you to buy their products. There are noticeably no beggars but the sellers—especially some of the Indian locals—have little self-respect; some of them try to trick…