indian

‘Axone’ Serves The Understated Hatred So Tastefully

Axone

The savagery of racial injustice has come to haunt humanity, yet again, with the brutal murder of George Floyd, 46, on the streets of Minneapolis in broad daylight. The incident instantly made headlines because law enforcement agencies were involved while a 17-year old had the presence of mind to film the brutality on her phone. These bellicose emotions often hurled towards visible minorities is no less ‘xenophobic’ in nature — from the Greek Xenos, meaning “stranger” or “foreigner”, and Phobos, meaning “fear”. In short, it’s a fear or hatred of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange. On those lines, Axone (‘Aa-Koo-Ne’) is a praiseworthy narrative and an attempt to address that systemic xenophobic mentality towards the culture and the people from the North-Eastern states of India. Also, I love movies that are made with the capital city of India, New Delhi, as a backdrop, and I assure you that there are only a few of them.

By the way, I’d suggest not reading any further than this if you haven’t watched the movie yet (it’s playing on Netflix right now) and if you don’t want the spoilers to ruin all the fun.

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Who Can We Identify As An “Indian”?

Someone on the Internet responded to a rather contemplative question on who amongst Sonia Gandhi, Sundar Pichai, or Satya Nadella could be considered as ‘Indians’. But this individual’s answer extolled endlessly why Sonia Gandhi was an Indian but not the others who are business leaders on their own merits because today they’re Americans, also including some Nobel prize winners. I smiled because, in reality, I believe that they are all Indians! There’s always a broader perspective to such questions, but personally speaking, my understanding of this argument hangs on two parameters which pertain to ‘technical’ or ‘cultural’ viewpoints. Inasmuch as to call oneself belonging to a certain country relies strongly upon not just one’s nationality but also the genetic and cultural attributes, besides breeding a sense of pride in identifying ourselves with a certain country and culture regardless.

So technically, although she was born and raised in Italy Sonia Gandhi is truly an Indian national. In contrast, Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella are culturally Indians by birth and by race but not by their nationalities. Therefore, countless persons like Pichai and Nadella, whether they have settled in the US or relinquished their Indian citizenship, their genetic & cultural identification remains ‘Indian’ so long as they exist, and subsequently, their future generations would continue to display the Indian lifestyle depending on how they have instilled the values. Coming back to the issue of ‘technicality’ on nationalism, there was some certainty that scores of ‘Non-Resident Indians’ would have willfully also continued as ‘Indian’ nationals if India had recognized dual citizenship status, which is not the case today for political or historical reasons. And instead, these NRIs are recognized as having an ‘Overseas Citizenship of India’ and given an OCI card which is beside the point.

Would you die down as an ‘Indian’ just for relinquishing your nationality? Or would you continue to identify yourself culturally & genetically as an ‘Indian’ too? I would dare to characterize an ‘Indian’ as someone who belongs to India by birth, but also identifies with, adopts, and nurtures the ethos of India with its rich tradition, moral fiber, and the respective regional cultural values, anywhere that he or she chooses to call a home. Eventually, I feel, it is not just the Pichais or the Nadellas who are subjected to circle through such an unwarranted controversy, and to put it plainly, so long as their heart yearns for their roots anyone should be okay with recognizing themselves as an “Indian”.

The Revival of SurfUnion

I was in a discussion with a friend last weekend at her swank new office. Suddenly we came across a point in social networking and SurfUnion popped up in my mind. If I ever come out with an autobiography there’s sure going to be a chapter dedicated to SurfUnion — a designers forum of which I was a proud member and an architect. Unfortunately the founding of SurfUnion is more interesting and worth discussing than the way we managed it.

In late 2003, five of my close buddies had wanted to do something worthwhile. We were at best designers with creative skills but worked out of home; some of them like me on a paltry sum. On the night of October 2nd, we launched a ‘designers only’ forum hiring some space on Buttclencher’s server. We decided to call it ‘SurfUnion’ or a group of surfing designers. The name took the imagination of all the admins as we liked to call ourselves and later we were joined by many. One of them was a geeky guy nicknamed Bane and was located in Colombo. Five of us – myself, Kreativea (Aadesh), Buttclencher (Raunaq), RanTen (Ranajit Tendolkar) and FlashKid (Isaac) operated from Mumbai. Thus we had a majority stake in the decision making process while LimeIce (Gursimran) located in Delhi and Ryche (Fahd) in Kolkata completed the admin lineup. The fabulous tagline of ‘We put the Desi in Design’ was suggested by Ryche in one of our online sessions. During our tenure, we arranged competitions and meetups that helped bring varied talents face-to-face.

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Who's Children?

A sunny summer morning, as I walk past the trees and the lanes, bypassing the crowds to reach office on time. Droplets of sweat are marching down my face, as I try to stop them helplessly with my handkerchief. I approach a bus stop on my way, when suddenly the morning calm is shattered by a wailing child. As I look around, I find a mother chasing an urchin girl with a stick in her hand. The child, barely 2 years and only in her undies had already received the first blow on her thigh and was crying aloud in pain. She was running away, howling and trying to save her skin from further destruction. The mother was unrepentant though. She was swearing at the poor child and threw the stick at her which missed her narrowly. This chase had to end now unless the child gets brutally crushed under an oncoming bus, I said to myself still walking away from the incident.

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India-SA again: Let's pray we Win!

It was a sad event that the hosts were knocked out of the Champions Trophy in the early stages. And the nation was recovering from that just when India lost miserably to South Africa, getting bowled out for a paltry 91; in spite of playing 7 specialist batsmen. Just to remind you that, South Africa had defeated the Ozzies in a match early this year and had bowled them out for 93 – It was Ntini who ran over the formidable Aussie batting with his career best 6-22.

The expectations from Greg Chappell and the Indian team has risen. The country is showing zero-tolerance towards meek surrenders like the one witnessed in Durban a few days ago. The media wrote on the performance of the team especially on Munaf who should be bowling quick (looks like somebody is misguiding him). Even Irfan Pathan who has lost the magical swinging deliveries somehow. This series is crucial since India wants to go to the world cup with some confident wins. India HAS to win the 3rd ODI to retain the interest of the fans for the rest of the matches in the series and in Indian cricket in particular.