INSPIRATIONAL REAL (OR REEL) LIVES !!

recently, there was a huge celebration in media and across the country of sachin completing his 20 glorious yrs in international cricket .. truly, a remarkable feat that goes to show his dedication and passion for the country and cricket ..

however, seeing the celebration on TV news channels made me wonder whether sachin has had only success in his lifetime ?? perhaps the only hardships and difficult times he ever faced were his tennis elbow problem and ofcourse the 99 WC when he returned from his father's funeral to hit a century against Kenya (indeed an inspirational story for ne one); however, there was no mention of the not-so-famous Sialkot test, which was the last in his 1st Test series against Pakistan, where he was hit on face by a Waqar's delivery and still continued to bat to save the test fr India; (i read it in an interview of K Srikant, who was the captain of Indian side then; click here to read the complete interview) ... one can be quite sure that there would be many more such instances, but since they do not belong to his glorious/glamorous years (which arguably, start from the famous sharjah series against team australia) most of us would be least interested in such stuffs; and the same reasons why media is not interested in such stuffs coz such stuff wont sell in today's consumerist world .. almost similar was the case when Big B recently completed his 40 yrs in B'wood ... and looking @ the media coverage made me wonder did he start his b'wood career with Zanjeer !! he gave up his job as a freight broker for a shipping firm in kolkata to move to mumbai in 1968 and Zanjeer came in 1973 ... but again, those 5 yrs, (when he appeared in more than 10 movies which, barring movies like anand, were not commercial hits) dont form a part of his glorious yrs, and so the lack of interest .. in fact, many of those reading this blog might be surprised to know that he even slept on the pavement and benches of Marine Drive (click here) during his initial days in mumbai!!

these legends are truly an inspirational story in themselves .. they hv written their own destinies with an effort that's characteristic of super humans, but y i made above comments is coz i believe many of us want to live in our world of fantasies where ppl become legends and earn name, fame, money and power without much of a struggle ... and in today's world of fast paced life, call it the side effects of globalization/commercialization or nething, but we want success easily and with little efforts .. and hence, these "success stories" are as well moulded to suit our fantasies: coz if these legends can do it without much struggle, so can we!! we probably want our b'wood actors (dont know what acts of heroism they do that we love calling them heroes) to succeed in their reel lives the way the likes of Sachin and Amitabh succeeded in their real lives so that we can draw an inspiration from their reel lives, knowing fully well that their hardships wont continue for more than 3 hrs!! (prob thats the reason we love to take inspiration from the movie lakshya by remembering the "tough times" Hrithik Roshan had in the movie but not the numerous real videos of army which are easily accessible) ...

AS I SEE THE FATWA AGAINST VANDE MATARAM

The recent controversial fatwa issued by JEU (Jamait-e-Ulema Hind) at its Deoband national convention meet, wherein, it asked all Muslims to shun singing Vande Mataram as some verses of the song are against the tenets of Islam (specifically Tawheed (Islam's faith in monotheism), as I read somewhere on the net), is rather unfortunate, to say the least.

The original Vande Mataram, as it appeared in Anand Math, was longer than the current version; however, the INC in its 1937 session decided to adopt only the first 2 stanzas of the song as the national song; as the later stanzas contained references where the motherland is likened to Goddess Durga and Laxmi. It was pointed out in the same session that the first two stanzas begin with an unexceptionable evocation of the beauty of the motherland and hence they would aptly make for the national song (for details, click here). Thus, its just the first 2 stanzas from the song "Vande Mataram" that comprise our national song. Hence, it's clear that the "objectionable" content of the original song "Vande Mataram" is no longer a part of our national song...

However, still, the issue of whether or not to sing Vande Mataram is best left to an individual (as Supreme Court also observed); after all, merely singing a song doesn't make one patriotic .. however, there is a difference in making the singing voluntary and its quite the other thing to issue a religious decree against muslims singing the song .. while the former is explainable, the later makes it unnecessarily political and has probably best been described by Mr Swapan Dasgupta, in his TOI blog, as "doctrinaire intolerance" (click here) .. by issuing the fatwa, JEU has thus, violated one of the basic requirements of a democratic society, that of tolerance .. this fatwa is now being used by several extremist groups to make singing Vande Mataram a measure of "Indianness" of an individual ... when Home Minister P Chidambram, in his speech at Deoband convention, asked majority everywhere (including Australia!!) to protect minorities and their interests, he was absolutely right .. however, he prob touched on only one side of the coin .. coz the other side that he shud hv touched as well is: do the minorities organizations hv no obligations towards the society (not the majority) in which they live ? we studied in our civic lessons that rights and duties always go side by side ... are such lessons only for learning at school ?? ...

The issue, once raised before (in 2006; when UPA Govt made singing of Vande Mataram mandatory on September 7; to mark the 125th year of the song's creation; only to make it voluntary later) is again back in limelight; and the cts discussion of such religio-political issues at the national level politics sometimes amazes me whether all the social issues e.g. poverty, illiteracy, terrorism hv been resolved ...