The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal
“I held his hand for a few seconds but the waves pulled him inside”, says Siddharth Patil, a lifeguard at Mumbai’s Aksa Beach at Mudh Island, where a man lost his life while swimming in high tide waves at around 1 p.m. on Sunday, April 26.

Siddharth was tired and angry after his attempt. “I had warned them twice to not go into the water but they are like animals; they don’t pay any heed to safety.” Siddharth claims that this is the first drowning in six months at the beach that is known for death by drowning.

Kartikey Sehgal

About the personal and cultural disintegration of a tribal village

There is a small tribal village in India. Malathi belongs to this village. The women here are happier than women in Delhi.

After puberty, Malathi was inducted into the village dormitory where she learnt weaving, knitting and other arts from the elder women and men. She also learnt the art of love-making through practice. By the time she was out of the dormitory, she was sexually and socially confident. Unlike the city girls, Malathi and her friends did not face ‘growing-up problems’ or ‘attitudinal disorders’ that lead you to the psychologist.

Kartikey Sehgal


[Fiction]

“Oh, you know him not!”

I said to my friend while walking along a peaceful country road. He is a patient of chronic back-ache and today was especially a troublesome day for him.

“Why is he blue? Because he is conscious of having brown skin like Indian men.”

My friend was aghast. He said that the colour blue was only symbolic and that nobody would bother if you drew him brown or black. He also urged me to come back to my senses.

Kartikey Sehgal
You never remember me
Except when I am setting
At morning, you shudder at my sight
At noon, you look at me through tinted windows
And at evening, you look at me melancholy
And remember your loved ones
Wait till it is winter
And I look at you through tinted clouds

Santa Singh
It is difficult to make friends who are free of any associations. All of us feel strongly for some institution or the other; religion, political party, language and even food.

Let me give you a recent example. A Muslim talked to me about problems faced by ‘his people’.

Santa Singh
[Gunmen have carried out a series of co-ordinated attacks across the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay), killing *** people and injuring *** more.] Source

God bless terrorists! Without them, the country is plunged into darkness. Maharashtra is fighting Bihar and Karnataka is fighting Tamil Nadu. Or somewhere in north-east India, separatists are killing tribals. In Orissa, Christians and Hindus are blaming each other for communal tension. When terrorists strike, all these factions become united for a short time. So God bless terrorists.

Kartikey Sehgal
Background.

[Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra and the financial capital of India. In the 21^ST century, 50% (or more) of Mumbai's population lives on streets. Politics is very competitive. Currently, politicians are dividing people on linguistic lines for the sake of votes.

The hard-working Mumbai resident must do anything else but fall for political games, but he is frustrated with pathetic working conditions, filth, corruption and is ready to believe that his misery is the result of outsiders; people who come to live and work in Mumbai.

This story, however, concentrates on political games in Maharashtra.]

Kartikey Sehgal
Journalists from Hindi and Marathi newspapers remarked that Raj Thackeray would be a good change for politics in Maharashtra. According to them, Raj never had problems with youngsters canoodling in beaches and parks. He planned to send his party men to the streets on February 14 to ensure safety for couples in love. He had also decided to protect shops selling Valentine cards and other ‘love’ merchandise irrespective of the owner’s religion or language. Raj wanted Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) to serve as an antidote to the partisan politics of Shiv Sena and thereby muster support of the people.

Kartikey Sehgal

[The author visits a pandal during the Durga puja festival and appreciates the effort to make it an artistic event. Certain unconfirmed names have not been mentioned]

Festival is the celebration of culture. You don’t have to be an anthropologist to partake the songs, dances and Gods during the ongoing Durga Puja.

In the last three days, I have listened to Bengali music and listened to Rabindranath Tagore’s idea of music and literature.

Ananth Venkatesh

Terrorism has scourged India uncontrollably ever since the inception of anti-national militancy in Jammu and Kashmir in the late 1980s. The ineffectual rejoinder of the Indian polity to terrorism has intensified the misery of the victims here. The ineffectual response stems from:

* The inability to arrive at a feasible consensus on the issue of anti-terror laws
* The incapacity to steadfastly enact appropriately harsh laws against terrorism.

Terrorism, abetted by the brazenly divisive communalism of some political outfits such as the Congress, the Left front, etc, has become such a common phenomenon in India that people have accepted it to be an immanent constituent of their lives.