The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal

[Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement: reference]

So these people are not the anti-corruption heroes? Ask around, see how many of the supporters know about them.

J. Gopikrishnan, second from left (with mic) [photo source]

Subramanian Swamy [photo source]

Without the brains (head), how does the body function?

Or is it just easier to support whosoever is ‘in the picture’.

We complain of the caste system, but is it not ‘the legs’ that gets the most mileage? [Along with the arms?]

Mumbai …

Kartikey Sehgal

How the people of Mumbai (and India) are stagnant

When we are attacked and killed, we look for ways to humiliate ourselves. This Indian habit is seen through the media, particularly the newspapers. Hindustan Times carried out a series on potholes in Mumbai roads. They did not investigate the habit of terrorism in Indians. That is a difficult and a controversial topic. DNA invited arm-chair columnists to make up for their lack of investigation. They printed an article by Subramanian Swamy and then …

 Kartikey Sehgal

Black leather shoes that casually stepped on a child’s yellow faeces spoke better of India’s problems. The faeces had more character than the men.
At best, these people will offer you condolences should you lose somebody in a bomb blast. That would be insufficient, considering that these are people with no vision, who choose to live in dirt and muck… What can they possibly offer you intellectually or spiritually.  

“Would you like to visit Dadar and Opera House together? I could get …

Kartikey Sehgal

(Written in 2005, a few days after the floods of 26TH July. The garbage collectors are often blamed for inefficiency.)

“We collect garbage, we are not garbage ourselves.”

These are the words of the Solid Waste Management Department (SWM) of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The SWM, with 24 centres spread across 24 wards across the city is responsible for Mumbai’s garbage disposal and maintenance.

Tuesday, July 26. The rains had paralysed the Mumbaikars but the 22000 strong labour force of …

Kartikey Sehgal

(Also published in the Hindustan Times, 2008)

The author encounters a Miss India contestant on a train journey. The experience makes him feel like he is both, the villain as well as the tragic hero of this tale.

A young and attractive Miss India contestant sat down opposite my seat on our way to Mumbai from Indore. My relatives, some twenty or thirty of them, decided to ‘glimpse’ at this light eyed beauty and took turns to sit next to me. Those …

Kartikey Sehgal

Development is an umbrella term that hides many truths. It assumes the status of progress and many times this assumption is kept out of the periphery of observations.

A common social and political rhetoric states that Mumbai is progressing. It implies that buildings are erected over slums, without any relocation or other plans for the slum dwellers. Thereby, the seeds of class conflict are sown.

One important progressive area of Mumbai is the stretch between Goregaon and Malad and it houses the well-known Inorbit Mall and the Mindspace complex that hosts several IT companies and BPOs. There is something special about this place.

Kartikey Sehgal

The Taj Mahal hotel is lonesome at night. The Gateway of India is sealed. Only gunmen patrol the area. Stray visitors are asked to move away quickly.

The lonesome Taj does not reflect the resplendent mood described in newspapers and magazines, when the 105 years old luxurious hotel re-started its services.

The gunmen are still and wary. They ask me to not go near the Gateway and to hurry with my walk along the area.

Kartikey Sehgal

[The author visits the sites affected by terror and meets some security personnel.]

“I could hear the blasts all night long. I shut the windows and bolted the doors. After all, they had just passed the lanes near my home. They could have come to this building and taken entire residents as hostages.”

She is the wife of an Indian Naval Commander who missed her husband on the night terrorists attacked Mumbai at various places.

Ananth Venkatesh

Terrorism, a poison that has historically maimed a plenteous number of blameless Indians, rocked India once more for nearly 3 days. Mumbai’s Taj Hotel, a legendary symbol of architectural splendour, was targeted by Islamic bigots. The Oberoi-Trident was also brutalised by the bloody insaneness of the terrorists. Mumbai, familiar with such bigotry, had to endure the chilling ramifications of another intelligence blunder and the ineptitude of the law-enforcement machinery.

Kartikey Sehgal
Everyday, around 10 people die on Mumbai local train tracks. But that is not ‘The Taj’. No foreign national comes and kills them. Their death is standard legitimate death. And not sufficient to make headlines.

If a man/woman falls from a train and dies, then the event is deserving of our apathy and disinterest. If a foreigner pushes a man out of the train, then it is an attack worth some media coverage.