My Conversations with my growing 13 year old(now turned 14) precocious nephew
Hallo Tauji,
Papa told me that you are also into Garhwali culture, history,language etc'. I of course don't even know the language! but still I am fascinated by our culture. Today I was just fooling around on the net and when I started searching on Garhwal, I realized just how little Information there is on this great culture. I did find some information but I feel there is more to the culture than just dancing and singing. What I know about Garhwal is that we have descended from the Aryans, Mongoloid races and the Huns. We have our own language(or dialect) which is at present spoken by over 4 million people but unfortunately this language is fast vanishing and replaced by the language of the people of the plains, Hindi. Our History shows that we were(and still are) a brave race and that our people fought off many invasions to protect their Motherland. Garhwal lost its soveriegnity in the early 19th Century AD to the Nepalese. We have been under foreign occupation ever since. I can't say if the rule of the indian Government is actually occupation or not but I do know that our people deserve better. Our language and culture should be recognized and foreign culture should not be imposed on our people. I feel our culture and traditions need more respect from the Government 'cause our people are'nt a bunch of Kashmiri peasants. And do you know the story in which Dadaji claims that we have descended from a Rajput general who was sent to Garhwal by Aurangzib to arrest the king because he had provided refuge to Aurangzib's defeated brother's son. It might be true or maybe untrue but today I found out on the net that Aurangzib's brother's son did come to Garhwal and was provided refuge by the Garhwali King but I could not find much about a Gerneral. Only the great Gods know the truth! Goodbye and Hail the Motherland!
From,
Drona (Charu)
Dear Charu,
very interesting questions...luckily Garhwal was not very accessible and therefore remained largely insulated from the great powers like Afghans and Moghuls....it was also not very rich and therefore prospective invaders did not try hard enough...nepal ruled garhwal for only 15 years during the same period that Napolean was in France....after that with British and Sikh help they were driven out...but the British took over 3 of the 5 districts of Garhwal as payment for their services and only Tehri and Uttarkashi were left with the king of garhwal....so at the time of independence of India, the kingdom of garhwal was tiny and the king(really a small zamindar) had a revenue of Rs 30,000(silver coins) a year only....the king was still authorized a 13 gun salute by the british inspite of the small size of his kingdom...this is also the reason that dehradun, mussoorie and pauri are much more developed than tehri and uttarkashi....The british garhwal deputy commissioner was seated at pauri and his boss was the commissioner at nainital who in turn reported to the provincial governor at Lucknow....that is how garhwal became part of UP...
The rajputs of garhwal are much the same as the rajputs of the plains...just as the brahmins of garhwal are from the same background as their friends from the plains....the indigenous tribal races of grahwal have largely got assimilated into the migrants from the plains...except in some pockets like Jaunsar (chakrata area)...
Grahwalis are tough like all mountain people, but that happens to anyone livings there for a few years....garhwali music is quite pleasing as it has the ring of the mountains, but all culture and art development needs rich patrons...usually the kings and their courts...since garhwal was never very rich...the arts did not really flourish and remained folksy always....
Regarding dadaji's strories about our ancestors....there is no such evidence....he cannot trace beyond half a dozen generations...of course the story of auranzeb's nehew (dara shikow's son suleiman shikow) is correct....the king of garhwal did host him for a year before he was treacherously handed back to aurangzeb to be executed....it is also true that our ancestors were close to the king's court at srinagar before they lost out in court politics and were shifted to the interiors....but that was before the nepalese came as by that time they were already out of srinagar....they continued to be regarded well by the king inspite of being out of sight...as they were never punished for not paying their revenue collections in time....
Rajputs are thought to be huns who migrated to india between 0 and 500 AD starting with kanishka...probably not the original aryans...the next influx from central asia and afghanistan was of the muslims in 1100 AD as islam had come to central asia by that time,,,,so rajputs were probably the last non muslim invaders/large scale migrants to india...that is why perhaps they were comfortable mixing with the afghans and mughals who came 500 to 1000 years later...but india was always too large and all invadors got completely localized over time....rajputs converted to hinduism and started calling themselves kshatrias...while later muslim arrivals retained their relatively modern religion of islam....and in fact successfully converted hindus to islam in large tracts like pakistan and bangladesh...
Dear Tauji,
Your facts and figures are really enlightining and it always is good to get to know more on one's culture and heritage. I really did'nt know that Rajputs were actually Hun invaders, now I do understand why they were the toughest people in South Asia. It makes me kind of proud to know that from either the Garhwali or the Rajput side I would be having some Hun blood in me. My knowledge of the Huns is little but I do know that they were one of the fiercest Barbaric invaders the world has ever known. They had butchered the Europeans and ransacked Asia, they were also the cause of the demise of the Roman empire(the western one). The Moslem invasions of South Asia are according to me a very sad part in History. So many were lured by them to betray their people and join them. I believe that the arrival of the british was actually a boon, not only because of their modern technologies but also because they liberated the Hindu people from the tyranny of the Islamic rulers. Some believe Islam can coexist with the Hindu religion in South Asia just as the Buddhist, Sikh, Zoarastrian and many other faiths do but History tells us that the Rise of Islam has destroyed many cultures and Faiths, whereever Islam goes it fights against the local beliefs and Fatih. In other words there is always intolerance towards other Religions. Once Islam came it never faded away. The Islamic population is on the rise, the percentage of people of the Islamic faith are increasing. From a mere 14% of the Total population of British India in the 19th Century they have risen to about 33% of the Total population of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan today. The figures show a small but steady rise every year and decade. If this trend continues, we will in some hundreds of years have a Moslem majority in India and much of South Asia and probably even the rest of the World. The question which arises is how do we control them? There are some Races in the World which have realized the danger which they face today. For eg the Jewish Race. Jews are actually the most hated people in the world. From Germans to Palestinians, from African Americans to Arabs, from Russians to the Brits everyone seems to dislike them. But this is the only race which can save us and the world. They are powerful and influential and as they form considerable vote banks in the United States they influence US policies too. The present United States war on terrorism is futile and soon they are gonna be kicked out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Their Strategy is useless and pointless. The US should take some lessons from the jewish State of Israel. Israel has always been successful in its war agianst the fundamentalist Islamic people. If the Jews had resources as large as the United States' or maybe if the were totally in control in the United States, then they would teach the Extremists and their Jihad a lesson which would never be forgotten. Our future lies with the enemies of our enemies. You might find these views of mine very extreme and maybe even stupid but think why is there any country like India?is'nt it because of Hinduism? Why does this country fight the Pakistanis? Is it because its Moslem? but if the indian troops are fighting them because they believe the Pakistanis are a radical Moslem Nation then what about the Moslems within the Country? I hope I hav'nt bored you with all this History and stuff!, Thanks for reading!
Dear Charu,
you have raised lots of interesting debating points....regarding Huns, they were from the cold deserts of central asia and like all desert people they would organize raiding bands or armies and feed off the surrounding civilizations of China, India, middle east and europe....similarly the Arab nomads were from the warm desert areas and they too fed off the adjacent civilizations of Iran, Turkey, India and southern europe... It is just a historical chance that the Arabs had islam and fought in its name and the huns had no civilized religion...but basically they attacked other more civilized people because they had no resources of their own...
The aryans who invaded india 4000 years ago were also from central asian cold deserts and were the ancestors of huns...the dravidians who lived in india that time were civilized people but had no chance against the aryan nomads....and were simply wiped out, enslaved or pushed south...
The aryans formed kingdoms and empires across india but were were never able to prevent continuous migrations and invasions from the north west...they lacked the brains of the dravidians and the vigor of the central asians and were always defeated in battle after battle....usually the outsiders would easily defeat indian armies ten times their size....it was fashionable for young lads from central asia to organize a few thousand friends, raid the indian plains and return home rich with booty...those who chose to stay in india would adopt the local religion...actually hinduism is hardly a religion....it is more a chaotic collection of superstitions....
By the time islam came to central asia, the desert nomads had settled down and become civilized...so when they came to india and relocated in this country, they had no reason to change their religion which was far more advanced and egalitarian than the ancient vedic rituals based hindu religion...on the other hand they successfully converted large areas to islam...
In the middle ages religion was used as an instrument to expand political power....this was true of islam and christianity, both of which aggressively sought to convert the non believers...since the guys who espoused islam were originally nomads from the hot deserts of arabia, they were less subtle than the christian preachers who were from the civilized southern and western europe....
Islam like christianity and judaism is a product of middle eastern thought....just as christianity was an advancement over judaism, islam was a further refinement of christianity....the difference is that christians like hindus are superbly adaptable and flexible....so inspite of having an much older holy book they are more modern in their outlook...most muslim areas on the other hand have shown historical rigidity and tried to fix themselves in times which are a thousand years old...that is why superstitious india makes more progress than theological pakistan...
the universal truth is that we cannot change the world....we can only change ourselves...for that we must remain adaptive and flexible so that we can improvise according to the times...in this respect, probably the muslims of india are perhaps far less rigid than those of pakistan and the muslims of pakistan are more flexible than the jehadis from afghanistan....
Hallo Tauji,
your reply is very fascinating and the points you have shown are quite interesting. I think it is true that as many people of the World lived by ransicking their neihbours, as in the case of Huns, Aryans, Mongols, Manchus, Vikings etc. It is true in some ways true that Islam "was" a further refinement of Christianity. When European Missionaries came to Africa they were very intolerant of the local beliefs and also discriminated between christians and non-christians, whites and blacks. They used many wrong and illicit methods to convert the African people. Islam in the north on the other hand was not as intolerant and did not discriminate. Christianity is a completely divided religion and they are many different groups within Chistianity such as the Roman Catholics, Protestants, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans and many others. Islam is also divided but basically into two groups, the Shias and the Sunnis. Islam started off better than Christianity but today it is basically a completely radical, extremist and intolerant faith. Hinduism on the other hand is more tolerant and provides a more scientific and logical explanation to everything. Thanks for reading!
Dear Charu,
The last ice age ended 10,000 years ago and Agriculture was first invented only about 8000 years ago, before that human societies were nomadic or even hunter gatherers...agriculture was first practiced in modern day Turkey in the foothills where some grasses like wheat and rye were first domesticated and from there spread to Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley and Europe...@ 1 to 4 Km a year approximately....so within 2000 to 3000 years of that invention all the old world civilizations had been settled in an agricultural mold...
Central Asia, Arabia and Sahara had too hostile a climate for easy agriculture and therefore continued to support a pastoral way of life....
It is thought that the Dravidians of the Indus valley has come to India by sea from mesopotomia or other parts of the agricultural middle east and traveled up the river valleys to create the indus and saraswati valley civilizations....
In Europe, agriculture advanced from greece to italy to gaul and finally to the british isles....only after the coastal regions had been populated did the expansion to the harsher interiors of central europe start...in fact central europe maintained a mix of pastoral and agricultural life style well up to 400 AD when rome was sacked by the goths (germans, may be descendants of aryans who would have migrated there from central asia 2000 years before)...
Another interesting thesis is that humans originated in east africa and small bands(a few hundreds at the most) crossed over to asia thru' the yemen and then quickly beach combed their way to iraq, iran, india, indonesia and australia....about 100,000 years ago....
then the super massive lake toba volcanic eruption happened 70,000 years ago and killed all humanity except small pockets in india, east africa, china and australia....it is estimated that the human population of the planet was down to less than 5000 after that catastrophe....
It was the small pocket from India that then traveled north and west to populate the ancient world of Eurasia....till the discovery of agriculture reversed the population movement back towards india about 6000 years ago...
India's pre-dravidian population is represented by the tribal groups like bhils, gonds and santhals who would be similar to the aborigines of australia in genetic vintage....
It is the pre-historic agricultural civilization who invented god(s).. India had the pantheon of vedic gods and godesses and the greeks had corresponding ones quite similar in temperament....then suddenly middle east came up with the idea on a single GOD and judaism with its old testament was born probably in 1000BC....this was followed by chistianity and the Islam in 600 AD...
In india bhuddism and jainism happened in 600BC and they were definite improvements over the amorphous hinduism...the country in large parts swiftly converted to these relatively modern faiths but the continual agression of the huns and others from the north west created a volatility which helped the continuance of the older vedic traditions....then in 800AD adi shankaracharya came with a reform agenda for the vedic religion and he was able to push out buddhism and jainism in this process...
unfortunately adi shankaracharya died at the age of 32, so while buddhism and jainism were successfully overthrown, he died before hinduism could be reformed to a modern version...so india lost buddism and reverted back old ritualistic and superstitious hinduism which continues till this day...for his brief life, adi shankaracharya preached advaita vedanta or non dualism which lays down that the atman(self) and brahman(universal) are the same...it thus goes way beyond the single GOD hypothesis of the middle eastern religions....which still discuss about GOD and Man separately...
It was only after Sikhism or the Khalsa happened in the 15th century AD that india had a highly modern religion developed locally...but by that time islam had also spread far and wide and the muslim rulers actively and violently discouraged the spread of sikhism...therefore it remained geographically confined....
Hallo Tauji,
I guess it has been a long time since I checked my account! My exams are gonna start sometime in september. Your information is great. I do doubt if the Germans were the descendants of the Aryans. Aryans were probably from somewhere more towards the eastern part of Europe. But one can't exactly trash the claim that the Germans are also belonging to the Aryan race. It is very unlikely that the Aryans had blond hair and blue eyes, more likely they probably had some sort of the Slavic features.But who knows as that was many thousands of years ago andhistorians have not found out about the Aryans as of yet. Goodbye!
Dear Charu,
The immediate descendants of the Aryans were the Huns and their descendants in turn were the Turks....all these filthy nomadic races coalesced and originated from the Asian steppes and radiated in all directions including Europe...by the time they started calling themselves Turks, they had become semi agriculturalists....especially south of the steppes in central Asia...remember the Iranians also continue to call themselves Aryan(2500BC to 1500BC) though they were subsequently over run by the Huns(500BC to 500AD), Turks(500AD to 1000AD), Arabs(1000AD) and Mongols(1400AD) in that order...North Indians (especially Pakistanis) also suffered the same fate, though for religious sentimental reasons the Pakistanis are quite proud of being over run by the Turks and Arabs...
The Aryans nomads who over ran Eastern Europe up to Germany increasingly met with settled agricultural populations as Western Europe was by that time fully agricultural...Nordic Europe including Scandinavia was still nomads and fishing communities and their descendants were the Slavs who migrated southwards towards Germany and Eastern Europe(1000BC) already populated with Aryans descendants...This was followed by fresh invasions of Europe from the East by Huns(500BC to 500AD), Turks(1000AD) and Mongols(1400 AD).
The Greek and Roman civilizations were primarily mediterranean and were impacted peripherally by these rumbles origination in central Asian steppes...
Hi Tauji,
Thank you for your information and I hope some day the dodos at the CBSE board also realise what to teach the kids. My exams are getting close now( I hate 'em). Today as you would be knowing was Teacher's day, I participated in a dance with one of my friends and I also sung a Garhwali song for the teacher( it was real tuff).I don't know where the Garhwali folks get that funny accent ( very tuff to copy). I did only about 3 of the original 6 paragraphs in the song! My teachers kind of liked it I guess but I do think that garhwali songs need to sound better than how they do, the songs I think are the best are of the Arabs. I think that arabic songs are the best in this entire world, they completely charm a person while garhwali is still developing as a language. The indian government needs to give more recognition to our culture and language and it should try and stop flooding the mountains with Biharis and hindi speaking people of the plains. They hardly contribute anything to Garhwal and are generally unkilled labourers. The indian government has exploited the mountain people. Our people are capable of much much more than what they are doing at present. The indian govt. should not waste our money on educating the dodo barbarians from the plains. Litaracy rates are pretty high in the mountain areas of South Asia while the people of the Gangetic plains are still suffering from their illitracy. Our literacy rate could have been higher and human development could have been better if not for the Govt. of India. I watched a documentary on TV a couple of days ago about Uttaranchal/Uttrakhand, I was shocked to see the lack of proper jobs and facilities for our people. Many of our brothers in Garhwal go into the Indian army as lowly paid Sepoys( soldiers) 'cause they have nothing else to do. Most of them are literate or atleast semi-literate. The Govt.'s got to stop all this humiliation and exploitation.I still wonder why there has not been any demand for a seperate mountain republic of our own. By now our people should have already risen in revolt and taught the dodos a good lesson or two. I don't even understand why we should be part of India, the development of garhwali as a language has halted because of us being part of India. What is the difference between living under Chinese and Indian occupation? Just because we are Hindus does not mean that we have to be part of the Indian Union. We were given no choice ( maybe that Tehri princey was given a choice but not us). Even when the mughals had conquered huge swathes of South Asia, Garhwal maintained its independence, We have never been part of any sort "india nation" before except when the brits got us. The Third Reich of Garhwal shall be established( I hope so!).
Bye,
Drona the Liberator( in the near future or maybe not)
Dear Charu (the liberator),
I wish you luck...but I must add a word of caution that all Himalayan states are inviable economies and would quickly go bankrupt if not supported by funds from the central government...this includes J&K, Himachal and most of the north east....so the hill states are mercilessly exploiting the republic of India and not the other way around...in fact it makes a lot of economic sense to give away J&K to Pakistan and let it be a financial millstone around their neck....with the amount of money that India has spent on J&K since independence, India could have bought dozens of J&Ks by now.....
The reasons that hill states are inviable are easy to understand....because of the extremely harsh topography and distance from commercial centers and transportation hubs like ports, it becomes economically infeasible for any industry to operate out of these locations....because industry can only survive if it is competitive and there is no way to ensure that...
The reason why laborers flock to the hills is because they get work opportunities there...the hill people are employed mostly in the government sectors like defense and public sector and a substantial part of hill economies run on the money that they remit home (much like Indian workers from middle east remitting money home)...that money in turn is used for constructing houses and other work which attracts unskilled labor from the plains...the Government also spends huge amounts on public works like roads, water works, electricity generation, transmission and distribution, schools, colleges and health services in the hills and this activity also generates employment for labor...
So basically the Government collects money by taxing the very very poor people of the plains and spends it on the inviable hills....no wonder Indian economy has grown slowly since independence compared to South Korea and Taiwan which were worse than India in 1947 but are 15 times per capita richer now...A country is like a family...it cannot grow rich if it spends its scarce money on inviable projects...
So even if Garhwal were to become an independent country, it would immediately collapse economically without the support of Indian funding....there is no way all the roads, water works, electricity infrastructure, government schools and colleges, and health care centers and government hospitals could be maintained locally...there would be no money to pay the salaries of all the local government staff and markets selling goods would close down as customers would have very little purchasing power....
In human civilization, the earlies societies were of hunters and gatherers (including fishing communities). The next stage was domestication of animals (nomads)...this new form of social organization supported many times the population that hunting and gathering did. Then came agriculture and the population that could be supported grew hundreds of times...next was industrialization again with another level jump in population....now some parts of the globe are moving into a post industrial phase...
The hills states have increased their populations to correspond to industrial levels without actually having any industry...this has been made possible by transfer of wealth from the plains with government force....the only way a hill state can support such high levels of population and remain independently viable is by moving to a post modern society which provides services to the global customer...for example having a vigorous software or BPO industry or be developing into a global educational or health services hub or becoming a tourism and entertainment(casinos) industry hub...
If you are able to Liberate Garhwal....it is going to be a real uphill task from thereon...
Hallo Tauji,
I do not if you are correct or I am correct about the exploitation but
I do know one thing and that is that I want to see a better Garhwal.
You don't need to worry about our economy after the liberation 'cause
the Chinese nowadays are always trying to look for places to invest
their money in. I consider the Chinese people our allies, If all our
people had'nt been brainwashed by the Indian Govt. then maybe more of
them would have thought something like me. The Indian Govt. tries to
brainwash the kids from the starting of their life, talking about
India being a Nation state which really is a joke to me. They tell
them how the british "oppressed" the Indians instead of ever telling
the Mountain kids of Garhwal the Truth that the British came and
liberated us from the Nepalese. Why do we care if a bunch of Punjabi
folks got massacared in some place in those plains? I am sure the
Chinese will understand our situation in Garhwal and supply us with
whatever we need to fight a liberation war. I do think that you are
right about the topography stuff and many people think its a curse but
I think that it is a boon. If we were in the plains the Indians would
crush any uprising within days but in the mountains we are the hunters
and they are the ones who're gonna get hunted. If we ever able to
achieve Independence then we shall have to build a strong economy to
maintain a strong military(with chinese help of course). Well when we
look at the problem of having a stong economy we find that Garhwal
cannot supply enough labour to both a Stong Economy and a powerful
Military force. We will also need to grow our own food 'cause we can't
just keep on begging the chinese for food all time. The problem with
the food supply is that there is not of couse a lot of good fertile
land in the mountains. The solution to all our worries and problems
shall be found in the Punjab. The Punjab has lots of people( to use as
slaves) and lots of fertile land for us.They also have industries
which we can take over and which will boost our economy. There is only
one line in which I can describe the Punjab to our mountain brothers
and sisters, "Free Land and Slaves for Everyone!". If we get
Independence then of course our natural sphere of influence is going
to be all the Himalayas in South Asia. With our Big Brother China to
back us we can try and "liberate" the other mountain people. If the
Gods will be with us, we will be able to forge an empire so huge and
mighty that its tale shall live on thousand of generations. My theory
of this empire for our people is still a dream and will remail so
until I decide to work on it.
Regards
Drona
I do not if you are correct or I am correct about the exploitation but
I do know one thing and that is that I want to see a better Garhwal.
You don't need to worry about our economy after the liberation 'cause
the Chinese nowadays are always trying to look for places to invest
their money in. I consider the Chinese people our allies, If all our
people had'nt been brainwashed by the Indian Govt. then maybe more of
them would have thought something like me. The Indian Govt. tries to
brainwash the kids from the starting of their life, talking about
India being a Nation state which really is a joke to me. They tell
them how the british "oppressed" the Indians instead of ever telling
the Mountain kids of Garhwal the Truth that the British came and
liberated us from the Nepalese. Why do we care if a bunch of Punjabi
folks got massacared in some place in those plains? I am sure the
Chinese will understand our situation in Garhwal and supply us with
whatever we need to fight a liberation war. I do think that you are
right about the topography stuff and many people think its a curse but
I think that it is a boon. If we were in the plains the Indians would
crush any uprising within days but in the mountains we are the hunters
and they are the ones who're gonna get hunted. If we ever able to
achieve Independence then we shall have to build a strong economy to
maintain a strong military(with chinese help of course). Well when we
look at the problem of having a stong economy we find that Garhwal
cannot supply enough labour to both a Stong Economy and a powerful
Military force. We will also need to grow our own food 'cause we can't
just keep on begging the chinese for food all time. The problem with
the food supply is that there is not of couse a lot of good fertile
land in the mountains. The solution to all our worries and problems
shall be found in the Punjab. The Punjab has lots of people( to use as
slaves) and lots of fertile land for us.They also have industries
which we can take over and which will boost our economy. There is only
one line in which I can describe the Punjab to our mountain brothers
and sisters, "Free Land and Slaves for Everyone!". If we get
Independence then of course our natural sphere of influence is going
to be all the Himalayas in South Asia. With our Big Brother China to
back us we can try and "liberate" the other mountain people. If the
Gods will be with us, we will be able to forge an empire so huge and
mighty that its tale shall live on thousand of generations. My theory
of this empire for our people is still a dream and will remail so
until I decide to work on it.
Regards
Drona
Dear Charu,
the chinese have been investing in Nepal for the past half a century, but nepal's per capita income remains 75% of india....the chinese have also been supplying arms and propaganda literature to the rebels of north east for the past half a century but the net result is misery for those people....those people have not come anywhere closer to independence....
even if in the extremely unlikely event that china were to succeed in detaching any state from india, they would ensalve it like they have done in tibet and eastern turkestan(xinjiang) where the people live crushed under chinese military boots...
we need to remember that china's prosperity is based on cheap back breaking labor oriented exports to the US and Europe...now with those countries in recession, china's economy is slowing down very fast...india's wealth on the other hand is based on software and services exports which is the result of a very high level of intelligence of our younger generation and therefore india's software exports are still growing at a healthy rate despite the recession in the west....the customers just have no choice....they cannot go to china for software...india's young people are the most talented in the world and it is likely that india's progress will be more durable than china's....
I agree about the indian "nation"....it is true that india was seldom a united country except briefly when large parts were consolidated into empires like maurya, gupta, mughals and lastly the british....since the aryans came to india 4000 years ago, india would have been united only for a total of 500 years...
it is also true that the british were governing this country very well and things deteriorated very rapidly after 1947....the indian economy was growing at 11% under the british and then the rate fell to 3% from 1947 to 1990....the poverty that we see today is a direct result of that gross mismanagement....
But after 1991, india has changed....the politicians and bureaucrats who were interfering in every thing and preventing india's progress have gone back to their "barracks" releasing the energy of the indian people....indian's are the best traders in the world...it is said that an indian bania can buy from a jew, sell to a scot and still make a profit....it is not surprising that indians like laxmi mittal, swaraj paul, ravi tikkoo who escaped from india and did their business in free economy countries have become some of the most successful and richest people in the world....
after 1991 we now have home grown success stories also....dhirubhai ambani of reliance, narayanmurthy of infosys, sunil mittal of airtel are single generation success stories...now in india one does not have to have a rich parent to make it big...only honest hard work and a little talent is required...
hill folks have so far not succeeded in business, but they have done well in defence and government service....that is because traditionally hill people did not have a knack for business as there were no role models to follow...even today in a big city like dehradun, young kids wish to grow up and join government services as the preferred choice failing which they can opt for professional streams like medicine, engineering or business management...opening and running your own shop for a living is still strictly taboo...
besides "liberating" garhwal, what do you wish to do for a career....
Hallo Tauji,
Well it is true that the chinese have invested their money in many countries and in the case of Nepal this bore no fruit. This might be because the chinese did'nt put their heart to it 'cause at that time the Nepalese did not have some huge Communist and Maoist groups taking over. They commies have got most of the seats(the CPN(M) and the CPN(UML). Even if those maoists don't run the country now but still they are the largest Political party in Nepal. As for the people of the North-east, they do not fight a huge guirella war, they just sit and do nothing and most of them are asking for peace. The Chinese need some group whom they can trust, someone who can be successful against the Indians. It is true that without direct intervention from the People's Liberation Army of China we may face tough challenges but I know that we can win. As for the Chinese gobbling us up what difference does it make,
to live under Indian or Chinese occupation? At least we would be part of a country which is the next superpower and is one of the Greatest of Republics.I have also heard about the Tibetans and the uighurs but don't you think the Indian govt. is just showing us what they want us to see. Who knows what the truth is ? Maybe those people really live a life which is better than life under someone else then the Chinese. Thinking about my Career, I have totally no idea of what to do, on one side a love reading about wars and conflicts but I would really hate to join the Indian Army. I like the Social Studies subjects such as History and Civics but my marks show something else. They point me towards the direction of the Computers, in which I am not much interested but my marks are best in this subject. I have somtimes thought of becoming a lawyer as it would pave the way to join politics but I am not too sure if good money can be earned by lawyers easily. When I was a small kid I thought about becoming a businessman but now I think I know that being a busineesman might make me rich(after decades of hard work which I hate) but it does not sound adventurous or interesting now. Choosing something which recquires anything to do with Science(except computer science maybe) sounds totally wack. So I still don't have much idea about what to do except for fighting some mountain war and creating trouble for some big country.
to live under Indian or Chinese occupation? At least we would be part of a country which is the next superpower and is one of the Greatest of Republics.I have also heard about the Tibetans and the uighurs but don't you think the Indian govt. is just showing us what they want us to see. Who knows what the truth is ? Maybe those people really live a life which is better than life under someone else then the Chinese. Thinking about my Career, I have totally no idea of what to do, on one side a love reading about wars and conflicts but I would really hate to join the Indian Army. I like the Social Studies subjects such as History and Civics but my marks show something else. They point me towards the direction of the Computers, in which I am not much interested but my marks are best in this subject. I have somtimes thought of becoming a lawyer as it would pave the way to join politics but I am not too sure if good money can be earned by lawyers easily. When I was a small kid I thought about becoming a businessman but now I think I know that being a busineesman might make me rich(after decades of hard work which I hate) but it does not sound adventurous or interesting now. Choosing something which recquires anything to do with Science(except computer science maybe) sounds totally wack. So I still don't have much idea about what to do except for fighting some mountain war and creating trouble for some big country.
Regards
Drona the Doubtful
Dear Charu,
being doubtful is the first step towards achieving success...those who are full of conviction usually end up too rigid and set themselves up for nasty surprises...being perpetually in doubt is indeed a healthy sign...it promotes curiosity and fosters creativity...
you could consider learning mandarin and in a sense build further on your present admiration for china....as it will help you know more about china culture, history, their sins, crimes, great deeds and misdeeds...it could be a good investment also as china is well on its way to becoming a super power economically...most of this century may indeed be dominated by china...people who know their language will enjoy significant advantages over competition....as an example suppose you are a software engineer who knows Chinese, you would probably be offered very attractive top flight assignments and responsibilities in some future software multinationals in shanghai, tianjin, hong kong or singapore.....and you would not have much competition...
but for becoming a well regarded high quality computer software professional, one has to first get a basic engineering degree from an IIT or an NIT if possible....entry to these institutes are very very competitive and are based on very tough entrance tests like JEE and AIEEE....these are not everybody's cup of tea....these are considered the toughest exams in the world and only the top 99.5 percentile make it through JEE...that is why you have IITians running 50% of silicon valley in the US....with modest brown skinned indians lording over fair skinned, blue blooded europeans and americans...there is a joke in the silicon valley that if a company wants to quickly raise venture capital it must have some krishnamurthy or ramaswamy on its board of directors...
I remember when 34 years ago I had cleared my JEE....i had actually started preparing from class IX...i had solved all the maths problems of all the books for class IX, X and XI while i was still in class IX...and in the next two years i was always looking out for tougher and tougher problems to solve....and actually maths was not even my favorite subject....that was physics...nowadays there is a lot of specialized coaching available, but there is no substitute for one's own curiosity and desire to learn and overcome challenging subjects...
but if your dislike for science is so intense that you cannot achieve excellence in those subjects then you can look at alternative career paths...i do not believe that god has created individuals school subject-wise....evidence is that those who are good at maths are also good at languages, history and social subjects...if you look at the topper of your class he or she would be topping in most if not all the subjects...the only exceptions are subjects like painting, drawing, music, drama, dancing, games, sports, politicking, quarreling and fighting, where one can be exceptionally talented while being a dud otherwise...but if one is good at history,chances are that one will be good at science and languages and maths as well...
the reason is that all conventional academic subjects use the left logical hemisphere of the brain while painting and music etc use the lateral thinking creative right hemisphere....
Hallo Tauji,
Your advice on learning Mandarin is great, I must say. I pesonally would really like to learn a new language. In Botswana as a subject I had french for three years which I could truly never put my heart to because I had and still have a great dislike for the french. When I started schooling here in the 8th grade I was very unfamiliar with Sanskrit so instead I gave a french exam(APS Kolkata does not have french as a regular subject but they have a so called "french club" in the School) Besides me only one other kid(also a friend of mine) gave the French exam in the Entire school. In other languages I know a few words. I have recently started learning a bit of Hebrew(online). I have learnt how to read and to write(I am still very bad at it and many times forget some letters) Hebrew till now and I have also learnt a few phrases and words in the language. I have also found a website to learn some German. Before this also I had taken a learning German book from my library at JMS(High) in Botswana last year. Recently I had taken a pictorial book from a library here in Calcutta which taught basic German(though I must add, it was very old). I got to learn a few words and phrases from these books though I did not read them much. I have noted down some more German stuff from the website and hope to maybe progress further(I really doubt myself). But there is one thing, the German teaching "software"( if I may call it a software) is really not innovative and seems to be boring while the software which the jews have created to teach Hebrew seems to be a wonder(No wonder Hizbollah and Hamas get whipped by the Jews). Some parts of it are tough(I hav'nt gone past the 2nd stage of the 5 to 6 stages which there are to learn Hebrew in the software) though I really kind of like the software. I really look forward to learning some mandarin but at present I should try an finish what I have begun. There is one more problem with the german thingie, it does not seem to have any audio part to it so that one could learn how to pronounce the words. There are Softwares which could be bought at stores and the market and stuff, maybe I can try getting one of those at my birthday or maybe when I return from Dehradun this time( I seem to be rich every time I return from DDun). Another language which I would really like to learn is Garhwali(I'm seriously unsure if it is a language). I have also found a website to learn Garwhali(it also teaches Kumaoni) and it seems kind of simple as it is using English as the medium and I am kind of familiar with Garwhali pronounciation and accent(surely one will be after hearing all those songs). Maybe I'll even make a Garhwali movie one day. About the Maths stuff I have to say that I am amazed how you solved all those books(I can't solve the 8th grade problems). But I do seriously think that the Indian folks get a little too obsessive about this paritcular subject. In Botswana I did pretty well in Maths but here I hate the subject. The Maths they teach there to grade 9(known as Form 2 in Botswana) would probably be taught here in the 7th grade!, so you can probably understand why I am so troubled with Maths here. Now I have just about 2 exams to go, computers and Maths. Today I gave my English exam which went pretty fine(actually it went the best yet). Nowadays there's all this buzz about the Chinese "incursions" and stuff and I am personally hoping that a war does start(It will be deeply amusing). It will again prove to the Indian folks that they are wack and China is better than them( I am sure you also know that the Indian Army is gonna get a lesson by the Chinese). We all know that India is gonna lose(I'll bet my lunch money on it!) and China's gonna win. I can't even believe that the Indian Media even thinks that this country is capable of fighting China. This is like saying that the French can whip the Germans anyday, which probably means a frenchman daydreaming again!
From
Drona
Dear Charu,
the last time the french whipped the germans(and indeed all europeans) was under that little guy from the corsican island....napolean bounaparte... 200 years ago....after that the germans have been consistently winning except during world wars....
the chinese beat india comprehensively in 1962 with many more casualties on the indian side than on the chinese...this is different from what government propaganda says...the chinese were better armed, better trained and had far superior generalship....during the entire war the chinese lost only one battle and that was when a brigade (3000 men) of china was wiped out by a battalion (1000 men of 4th Garhwal Regiment) of indians...the chinese then brought in more men and of the 1000 Garhwalis 800 were killed and 200 captured...Brigadier Dalvi wrote in his famous book "Himalayan Blunder" that if the entire indian army had fought half as intelligently and bravely as the 4th Garhwal regiment, india would have won the war...
the chinese incursions are not likely to lead to anything serious as india and china are great trading partners and have too much at stake to risk a silly war....whichever side wins the war only gains a few thousand square km of barren, harsh, hostile himalayas with dozens of lacs of ultra poor populations who will need to be fed and spent on....in fact india should voluntarily give himalayas on rent to china and let them take care of those poor hill devils and pay india for the privilege...same remedy can be tried out with pakistan for kashmir...give it on a 99 year lease to pakistan....
learning new languages gets more difficult as one grows older...and once learnt they need to be constantly used lest you forget them...even if you learn hebrew and german with great effort, they would fade away without use....(i knew good german once upon a time and even have a diploma with first class distinction in that language but remember nothing now)...it may be a better idea to learn chinese because in kolkata there is a china town(many other large cities in the world also have such china towns) with tens of thousands of people of chinese origin and if you can make some chinese friends there, you could get some opportunities to practice the language...i am not too sure anyone can learn a new language by listening to audio materials...the best and easiest way is to converse in a language with real people about subjects of real day to day interest....
indians are good at maths and that is also the reason they are good at computer software...i also found maths difficult and that is why i focussed on it first...once this scary subject was out of the way, i breezed through physics which i like anyway...i remember i solved the entire 3 hour IIT-JEE physics test in one hour and walked out of the exam hall....the invigilators thought i had given up and asked me if the paper was that tough...
garhwali is a full blown language written in the devnagari script....in india many north indian languages use the devnagari script just like many european languages use the roman script...
since i learnt garhwali, english and hindi in that order (yes english before hindi), i still feel more comfortable in garhwali than in hindi....i was born in garhwal and therefore my first language was garhwali...then i went to a school in mussoorie where talking in any other language than english was forbidden...chindlren were punished severly if they were even heard speaking any other language...i learnt the devnagari alphabet in class 3...
like all north indian langauges, garhwali is also derived from sanskrit and has a very rich vocabulary....suited for colder temperate climates...english to garhwali translations are much more natural than english to hindi translations...many emotions being very similar...when garhwal was an independent kingdom, the language of the court was garhwali....the king and his ministers understood sansktized hindi but conducted business in garhwali quite unlike delhi where the offcial language was persian or some derivative like urdu during muslim rule....
but the language is dying out now and integration with india has meant business being conducted in hindi....in my opinion, it would be great idea if uttrakhand could make english the official language there and also the sole medium of instruction in schools...the hill kids would learn english fast and also get more employment opportunities in modern service industries like BPOs, travel and hospitality...
Hallo Tauji, Well it is true that the french were able to whip the other Europeans but that was under that Napolean(who was Corsican). Of what I know I think at that time the Corsicans spoke some dialect of Italian and considered themselves non-french(even if Corsica is a part of France now), I guess they were Independent before the french guys under their idiot king came and pillaged the little island. And actually I presume it was not France but the Allies as a whole who whipped the Germans in the 1st and 2nd World War. IN the second war the french did nothing and they were overrun without much trouble to the Germans. In the First War the French dodos were able to save themselves but only with the support of the Brits and of course the Germans had to fight a War on two fronts so it was even more difficult for them but they still did not fall the Russian Roosters or the French Fools. Everyone knows that National Socialism was a better system than what the Brits and the other guys(who cares if a couple of million jews, communists,gypsies,poles,slavs,social democrats,retards,Homosexuals,physically challenged folk etc got exterminated) had. It was able to save the German Economy and bring jobs for the people and most Germans(Nordic Aryan Germans) who lived at that time recall that they saw the time of the Third Reich as a time of hope and most of their troubles started to fade at the time of Hitler's Reign(before the war started).
About the stuff you have written about our Garhwali folk I really have to thank you for telling that to me. It proves that we are better than the dodos from the plains. Those jerks even need us to fight their wars for them(as all the war the Indians gernerally fight are in the mountains and the mountain people such as the Kashmiris and the Mongoloid tribes from the North-east hate the Indians, the guys from Himachal are busy herding their cattle and sheep so they just have us left and maybe even the Kumaonis), their own troops start running back to their mommies on the face of the commies, no wonder they were conquered by the tommies (nice rhyme I guess). The Indian govt. keeps on saying that they are prepared to face anything but I am sure once the Indian troops see the Chinese they are gonna run like thunder(not towards the Chinese but backwards). I have seen the Indian soldiers and have to tell that most of them have learnt the art of polishing shoes better than the art of fighting by being in the Indian army. These guys keep on trying to brainwash the kids of the Mountains that Hindi is the language of India and that it should be the mother tongue of all the so called "Indians". How do they expect us to respect a language(hindi) whose own native speakers think that it is a useless language and is for the illiterate(I hope I spelt it right). Most Indians presume English to be a better language( which it is) than Hindi and try to make their kids learn it and use it(most Indians think that speaking in English is something good and Intelligent and literate and that all people who might be using it are literate). Well the thing I have to say is that it is only the current lingua Franca for the world and will soon be replaced and it is just another language and if knowing English means being Intelligent or literate than the Govt. of UK,US,australia etc would'nt have any illiterates(which they do of course have especially the Amercians) in their countries. And actually it might be that just the guys in India and some other countries"think" that English is the Lingua Franca but there are other languages which are also spread greatly around the world such as spanish and maybe even french. Mandarin speakers greatly outnumber Anglophones but they are not spread around the world and also many people know English even if they are not counted as being speakers.
It is great to know that Garhwali is a language, but many people still consider it to be a dialect. I personally think that we should do away with Devnagri and make our own script. I even have have an Idea for this script, It sould be written from right to left(so that we never again are included with the Barbarians of South Asia), it would have a sort of line just like in Devnagiri but the differnce would be that the whole words would be divided into two parts ,some letters will go up the line and some will be below the line depending on something of which I had an idea about 2 years ago but I have kind of forgotten so maybe I will again think of something. Good to hear you learnt German but I agree it is hard to remember it if one does keep on practising the language somewhere.
Regards,
Drona the non -jew, non -slav, non-social democrat, non-communist, non-capitalist, non-socialist ................................................................................................................................................................
Dear Charu,
Garhwalis were always good professional soldiers...in fact the first Victoria Cross(british equivalent of param vir chakra) winner of Hindu India was Darwan Singh Negi of Chamoli for his bravery in november 1914 in world war I in France....just a few days earlier a muslim minhas rajput from pakistan called Khudadad Khan had also shown similar bravery in Belgium in october 1914 in world war I and won the same award....considering that both were from the small rajput community of a vast subcontinental india gives some message about the war like temperament of this little group descended from the huns...in fact many rajputs are muslims and in pakistan and even bhuttos of pakistan are rajputs....
English is the international language of commerce now and will likely remain for the foreseeable future...Chinese is likely to gain importance but is unlikely to rival english...spanish is spoken in former spanish colonies of latin america and indeed once upon a time spain was the richest country in the world and spanish currency was what the dollar is today...but with the rise of the british empire first and then the US, the center of gravity shifted to the anglo saxons...
Hindi is not really an important language of commerce outside of north india....that is why instinctively indians give more importance to english....even the dalit chief minister of UP has made english compulsory in all UP primary schools...soon perhaps your maids from UP and Bihar will communicate with you in english....not a bad thing...
Even in Europe most countries have adopted english as a second language...all french know english though they pretend not to understand when you address them in english and insist on speaking french whether the listener understands or not....
chinese are frantically trying to catch up and indeed some indians have caught up with the opportunity and are giving english classes to chinese kids over the internet and making good money....but chinese will find it difficult because mandarin is structurally very different from indo-european languages like english and hindi....(or the parent languages like sanskrit, greek and latin)
as an example an essay of 3000 words in english translates into approximately 3000 words in hindi but only 500 words in mandarin....because mandarin is structured around contexts and a lot of meaning is implied with a very few words once the background context or perspective is understood....
as i mentioned in an earlier mail, even the genetic distance between indians and europeans is much smaller than that between indians and chinese, because essentially all indo-europeans emanated from india 70,000 years ago after the lake toba super volcanic eruption in indonesia...in fact chinese are genetically closer to red indians that to real indians....as red indians migrated to the american continent only about 20000 years ago when the last glacial froze the bering strait and sea levels dropped several hundred feet and made cross over from asia to america possible over the northern latitudes....
Hallo Tauji,
I have just returned today from Dehra Dun and it was pretty fun in Dehra Dun. I did'nt get to check my account there so I read your message today. It is great to hear that we are good soldiers and physically strong(maybe all rajputs are). In DDun it seems that entire villages are Garhwali populated and if one keeps his ears open then he can hear people speaking Garhwali in many places in DDun. DDun has become part of Garhwal not just in name but also in soul. But there are still many "outsiders" there like Biharis and Punjabis etc. I also met Avi and Robo there and they do seem different. You seem to think that english will remain unchallenged but who knows what will happen in the future. Chinese speakin people are spreading in the world. Many small countries whose' economies run on tourism will probably go bankrupt if not for the Chinese tourists(you can see large groups of Chinese tourists with cameras taking pics of everything they see in Europe)! The USA now has the largest no. of Chinese living outside China. Have you ever noticed that whichever country the US is competing with has a huge no. of its people living in the USA. Take Russia for example. Before the Cold War, when the US population would have been much smaller than now, Russians were the people who immigrated to the US the most(its in millions). So most probably, a huge lot of the Americans are descendants of Russians. Same is happening with the Chinese now but they still are'nt coming in huge waves as the russians were and plus the've got a much larger pop. in the US now so they might not be able to dominate there. What we see with English is that it has been the official language of the world's superpower for more than 200 years(or maybe even more). First the Brits and then later on(after WW1) the Americans. But now you will see that China has the potential to be the next superpower and as you wrote the Chinese will find it more difficult to adapt to English. Even if the Americans remain world no.1 but still who knows if they will still use English later on as a large part of America speaks spanish now and the Spanish speaking population keeps on increasing(thanks to Mexico and Cuba). Even in the 18th Century French was a more important language than English and was used by the upper class of other countries too for eg Russia. These things keep on Changing, at the time of the Roman Empire(or maybe the Republic as it was for some time) Latin earned great power and respect which was to live on even after the end of the Romans. In the later Medieval period in Europe Latin was much more important than any other tongue. Even in Britain Latin was known by most well educated people and Latin was regarded as a language of knowledgable people and it probably was to the Brits what English is to the Indians today.
Regards
Drona
Dear Charu,
Regards,
good to hear from you after a long time...Garhwali is spoken in DDun and it is easy on the ear...but languages follow the dominance theory....the Turkic languages are spoken in a wide arc from anatolia(modern day turkey) to mongolia due to the fact that these areas were ruled by Turkic people for significant periods of time...so even though modern Turkey is ethnically closer to middle east and europe, they still speak a central asian language....
similarly, if the british had not banned persian in india, we would all be speaking persian which was the language of the ruling muslim classes in india...
when rome was the civilizational capital of europe, latin was the language of dominance and learnt by all wanting to move up the social hierarchy.
Later on when the Holy Roman Empire(which was neither holy nor roman but actually german) controlled europe, german languages dominated.
The norman invasion of britain made french the language of ruling classes there and most vocabulary for high life and fashion continues to have french roots....
Spanish conquest of america and discovery of silver in south america handed over language dominance to spanish till the british and US took over....
If China does grow as projected, chinese language will gain ascendancy and people who are more familiar with mandarin will no doubt enjoy some competitive advantages in their respective professions....
Hallo Tauji,
Thanks for the info in the reply(some of it was new to me)! I think that Garhwali should also have its own script and it would be better if we stop using the Devnagri(i have no idea how its spelt) script. Whenever I see a signboard in DDun and if its in Devnagri then its probably Hindi and not Garhwali. I think that Garhwali people write too little of their tongue. Garhwali has become a language which is generally just used for speaking.We should have had some sort of written script after so many hundreds of years. Maybe the rest of the pahari people could use our script too(like the Himachalis and Kumaonis or maybe even the Nepalese). In all the years Garhwal was an independent Kingdom why did we not develope some sort of a script? I am not sure which script the Turkic languages used but yes I have seen the similarity between the different Turkic Languages(on a page on Wikipedia). It appears that some of them use the cyrillic script(for eg Kazakh) but the others I have no idea(maybe they use the Arabic one?). Even now as people speak English we know that a lot of words have Latin and Greek roots but still English is considered to be in the West Germanic group of languages. In India the two main groups might be the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian group(whats that group of the Northeastern guys?). The Indian govt.'s language(hindi) cant even reach the 50% speaker mark of the population(its a lot less than fifty, more like in the lower thirties). Most people in India probably hate the system and want reforms. Our constitution is so whack (even I could make a better one ,you know). People hate the Indian police(now that I can guarantee). Most people dont want their kids to do govt. jobs, and many people dont trust govt. schools. Indian Railways needs drastic change. Air India is the most useless airlines I have ever known( I guess so).
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
Turkey uses the standard Roman alphabet(what we use for writing English)...Turkey was carved out from the Ottoman empire after the latter lost in the first World War...till then being an Islamic empire they used the Arabic script...Many central Asian countries use the Cyrillic script as they were part of the Soviet Union.......after the collapse of the Soviet Union some of the countries being muslim may have reverted to Arabic or may have adopted the Roman script to broaden their internationalization... Cyrillic script was actually derived from some Greek alphabet after the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire(which was largely Greek culturally) and was widely used in Eastern Europe including Russia...The ottoman empire which geographically(but not culturally) replaced the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire being Islamic adopted the Arabic script...
Today Roman script is easily the International script of communication...even in countries using other scripts like Arabic and Cyrillic, Roman is also concurrently taught in schools...
By definition, the written alphabet is meant for long distance communication compared to spoken language which is for proximate conversation...you have to be within hearing distance to communicate orally...
It is therefore important that the written script be recognized widely even if the language it codes is only understood by translators....that is why globally there are very few written alphabets compared to spoken languages...
That is why there would be no benefit of having a separate script for Garhwali....who would be the recipients of such communication and how would they recognize a strange new alphabet...
It would on the other hand be best to use the Roman alphabet for writing Garhwali....some of the advantages would include migrating to an international alphabet from Devanagari, more self confidence in people using their language for official work and business, more widespread use of the written form and hence longer reach, richer and more complex expression of intent and emotion, standardization and growth of vocabulary...and so on....
The north east languages of India probably have Tibet-Burmese roots, though the vocabulary would have gain from contact with Bengali and Assamese....
The Indian constitution is derived from the British, but the implementation is typically Indian...very weak.....they try to follow the letter and do not understand or care about the spirit of the legal framework....that includes the judiciary itself....that is why all the debate is about what is written in the constitution and not about why it is written....
Government is in business in India...so that weakens its regulatory capacity...it is like an umpire also playing the game....it obviously will detract from the umpire's impartiality...that is why Railways and Air India are unable to function as competent business organizations...Air India was rated the world's best Airline when Tata used to run it...then the Government acquired it and rest is history...
When government runs large sections of the economy, purely administrative roles like Law and Order (Police department) also start acquiring a taste for running their services like businesses and that is what is happening to many services like Police, Judiciary etc...they run like private businesses....for the official's private profit...so corruption and bribery becomes a norm...
Why should anyone be surprised....
Hallo Tauji,
Its also a good idea to adopt the roman alphabet for Garhwali(devnagari=very tough). So many countries in Europe and elsewhere have adopted the Roman alphabet so it is Geographically greatly spread. But the way the Chinese, koreans, japs etc write their language based on an idea or something sound more complicated and maybe even more scientific and better.
Nowadays Indian govt. and paki govt. are both fighting wars. The pakistanis seem to be winning against the Talibs and the Indians seem to be losing against the Maoists. Indian police is very corrupt and useless, maybe the indian army can help. CRPF,COBRA and paramillitary forces will be crushed by highly motivated maoists. The Maosists are fighting a people's war and even though I am no commie, I do have to say that they are winning. The CPI(M) is present in 20 of India's states.
Dear Charu,
The maoists are basically poor people and tribals who have not got a chance to enjoy the fruits of development so far...they feel exploited by the system and feel that since the Indian state does not listen, the only way to conduct an argument with it is through arms...the Indian state has almost infinite resources relatively and therefore is vastly better at fighting pitched and gorilla wars and the maoists are actually just a small nuisance though they will continue to make media headlines...it is a fact that the population below the poverty line has increased from 25% to 38% in the last 25 years...and the poor have indeed got poorer....so there is some logic in the maoist rebellion...but these poor chaps have no chance of being heard leave alone winning this debate....
The Talibs in Pak on the other hand are a potent force...a Frankenstein offshoot created by American money to fight the Soviets...the Pak army has been the chief implementer of the US project and now both the partners are having to deal with the problem that they themselves created...
The poor sent their children to madrasas (religious schools) indirectly funded by Americans in pakistan where they got free food and clothing but also got indoctrinated to fight the infidels(Soviets)....when the Soviets left, they turned their attention to the bigger infidels, their financiers the Americans....so the Americans and the Pak army are like fish getting fried in their own fat...it is difficult to sympathize with the Americans and Pak army for the jam they find themselves in...
55% of Pak population is either Rajput, Jat or Gujjar and in addition there are the fighting Pathans and Baluchs...so Pakistan will not be beaten by the Talibs....but the Talibs are mainly Pathans so they are even better natural fighters and will also not give up against the might of the Pak army....it is likely to be a stalemate and India can stay on the sidelines and enjoy the entertainment show as long as the Pak nuclear assets are safe(the Americans will possibly ensure that)...
How are your studies going on...did your maths test happen...
Hallo Tauji,
Maybe the Maoists are generally poor and illiterate people but many people who are with them are highly educated people such as some of the Human rights activists and they belong to the group of society which is not affected by all the mining and stuff.
The Taliban have now found new buddies in Punjabi and Kashmiri islamic extremist groups.
Some Tribal Militias in FATA are also allied to the Taliban. The present face off between the Pakistani army and the Taliban ongoing in South Waziristan has many Uzbeks, Saudis, Morrocans and Jihadis from around the globe fighting of the side of the Pashtun dominated Taliban. Nowadays if in any islamic country or region the local islamic people face repression by non-islamic forces, jihadis from around the globe flock to that region, for eg Chechenya, Bosnia, afghanistan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia etc.
Nowadays studies and school are going fine, and the grading system is to kick in for us too.
Today was a good day I got a 1st prize for some linc spelling cometition in my school(but it did spoil my break time as half of it was missed by the time that jerk for linc pens gave me my certificate,batch and prizes). They gave me lots of linc ball pens and pencils, if you were here i would have gifted you some of those pens! It was a great feeling when everybody in the school congratulated me(and asked me to give a free treat too). After this I think winners from other school are going to compete in the next round. The spellings were pretty easy, my little knowledge(its just as much as I can distinguish between a french and German sentence and stuff like that, many guys cant do that i guess) of some foreign tongues. Words like Kindergarten came in the second round which many kids didnt know how to spell. I knew the spelling and the meaning, it comes from German words, Kinder and Garten, literally meaning Children's Garden or some crap like that. I have also given my name for some debate thingie and quiz. The topic of the debate is "Information Technology will help in reducing corruption"(i think so) and I think I have decided to be for the motion. Inputs from your side on this topic will be welcome.
Regads,
the guy with lots of useless linc pens(Drona)
Dear Charu,
Congratulations for winning the spelling competition...I will pick up my share of pens when we meet next...just keep them safe for me...
You are right about Maoist leaders...like all leaders they look to fish in troubled waters and sure enough the whole country is there for them to harvest...the problem are deep rooted and will not go away by apprehending the leaders....but yes violence can be defeated by the might of the Indian state...but the undercurrents may grow even more....very difficult to predict the shape of things to come.
The Talibs do have a sprinkling of non-pashtun members but it is doubtful if they generally consider some of them like the Arabs as good fighting material...they probably use these people more for logistics and propaganda to help spread the shariat brotherhood...their funding is largely opium based so international connections can be a major advantage for the business end too....of course some of the foreigners like Chechens and Uzbeks are excellent fighters but there aren't too many of them....Uzbeks don't have much love lost for Pahstuns any way...
On Information Technology and Corruption, it is true that Information Technology can help fight corruption. As an example in earlier days Railways staff used to extract bribes from people looking for last minute bookings. With computerization, everybody logs in to the net and can see exactly if any seats or berths are available and plan accordingly. The Information Technology makes it possible to eliminate the information broking middle man who often happens to be a government employee.
Same principles can be applied to all government service. The main difficulty with providing government service is the vast number of people that the service has to be provided to. Without Information Technology, the delivery machinery has to be designed with several layers of officials to maintain accountability and control. This creates opportunities for discretion and therefore corruption. With Information Technology many services (or at least part of services which have to do with information processing) can be provided to vast number of people on self service platforms. Railway Ticketing is an example.
Let us consider some other examples.
You want to file an FIR(first information report when a crime happens) with the police. Today police take bribes to file FIRs. Suppose it was possible to apply on the net to file an FIR, there would be a record of people wanting to file FIRs and it would become difficult for police to avoid their responsibility.
You want to apply for admission to a school. Suppose you can do it on the net. You would be able to track the progress of your application and also clearly know if it has been rejected and why.
You want to book an appointment with a doctor at a government hospital. Suppose you can do it on the net. It would help you and the hospital to organize time and resources optimally.
Somebody wants to call a taxi. He calls up a call center of the taxi company. The company's taxis are fitted with GPS devices and therefore each taxi's location in the city is known. The call center can see all the taxis on their system and instruct the taxi closest to your residence and you do not have to go through the trouble of finding a taxi and then haggling over fares etc as the taxi company knows the route that the taxi is taking.
Suppose all the property records were computerized...lots of litigation would get resolved much faster and with much less pain....now a days when you buy property, you pay 2% of the property value as bribes to registrars' officials to get the transaction recorded in government files.
In general more transparency means less corruption. That is why the government has appointed Nanadan Nilekeni as the UID chief with cabinet minister rank. Nanadan was the co-Chairman of Infosys and left the company to help deliver this project...if successful it would bring in a big change in the way the government interacts with its chief customer...the common man.
Hallo Tauji,
Thanks for your advice and examples on the debate, it really helped me pen the entire thing perfectly.
Nowadays every day there are 2 or 3 articles on the situation in Pakistan in the newspapers. Everytime there is a little blast there, it makes headlines here. Our media seems to be more worried and tense than the pakistani people themselves! I do think that the rise of the Taliban in pakistan would be worrying for the indian State. If the Taliban take control of Pakistan, there's be nuclear weapons launched on India and hundreds of thousands of talibs will flood into India. Maybe the Indian army will be able to tackle them or if not then we'll be all doomed(Chinese rule will be better than the jihadis I guess). The situation will be as bad for the west and the rest of the world. Maybe if some ultra-right wing hindu party was in power in India, they would send troops to fight the Taliban and the rest of the fellows. If the Indian State truly believes in the trash they feed the kids in school, then they would have taken control of bangladesh when they had the chance and created one united Bengal, they would have worked to establish their so called "United India".
The Pakistani establishment is actually not only religiously intolerant but allso racist. They have exploited the people of Balochistan(Kalat) for a long time now and they also murdered 3 million innocent Bengalis in east Bengal in the last century. The dominant group is the Punjabis(Indo-Scythians), one of the most savage and barbaric people in South Asia. They have ethnically cleansed millions of people out of their hatred. Many citizens of Pakistan don't even have a sense of belonging to any specific area or region of Pakistan, as their ancestors were immigrants from Modern day India.
Most educated people,the west and the jews would like to have the right wing groups of India to take control(at least the Jewish Task Force[JTF] guys say so). Jews conrol the largest economy on planet Earth(you know, the blue round thingie with green stuff on it) and they can finance India if it is determined to fight Islamic mujahideen and Jihadis.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
The job of the media to to sell news...that is how they make profits...the more sensational the news, the better for their business...that is why they try to appear very worried....
If the Talibs take control of Pak nuclear weapons, they would not waste them on India.... they would target the US and Europe...that is why it is unlikely the US will allow Talibs to gain control of Pakistan...
The chances of Talibs taking over India are less than zero...they could not even defeat the tiny northern alliance (just 15,000 men) ably led by the Tajik Ahmed Shah Masood...the only reason the Pak army does not throw them out of Pakistan is that the Pak army considers some of the Taliban as strategic assets...even now they are fighting only those factions of Taliban that they dislike...the majority of Taliban are living in Pakistan as honored guests of ISI and the Pak army...Also these Pahstuns live in the arid hills and are among the poorest people in the world(same standard of living as some poor Africans)... and Pakistan has always found it too bothersome and expensive to extend formal government administration to the tribal areas...of course they are very good fighters, but that is not something which they can make a decent living on...
Most Panjabis are jats, but a significant percentage in Pakistan is Rajputs(over 15% of pakistani population)...in addition there are gujjars...it is thought that after Alexander left India, some Bactrian Greeks migrated from northern Afghanistan and Central Asia to the northern plains of India and mixed with the Aryan and other Indians already there...and Jats may be descendants of those peoples..Shortly afterwards the Indo-Scythians(an Iranian group) tried to force its way into India but were blocked by the Bactrian Greeks and Mauryan Indians in Panjab...so they by-passed them and through Balochistan headed for Sindh and Gujarat and then swung north towards Madhya Pradesh and Southern Rajasthan...the Gujjars are probably the descendants of those migrant nomads, and that is how Gujarat got its name....then the Kushans(from Chinese Turkestan) came and conquered the northern India territories and Finally the Huns came and spread out over the norther Indian Plains these were probably later labelled Rajputs...
Of the three groups, Jats are the most assimilated into India....Rajputs are the best camouflaged as they assimilated the Hindu religious mumbo jumbo best and people thought of them as indigenous natives of india...similarly in Pakistan the Rajputs quickly adapted to Islam... Gujjars till this day demonstrate their nomadic pedigree to great lengths...
With this background, India fighting Pakistan is like a quarrel in a family...India and pakistan should actually get together and stop this shadow boxing...The ancient Indian vedic hindu rituals based religion is actually a creation of aryan brahmins to help them earn a livelihood without having to do honest work...
The hindu rightist parties are only succeeding unwittingly perhaps in taking the country back into those dark ages....a modern educated indian would have little in common with these mandir and khaki shorts guys...
The jews of course would empathize with and encourage indian rightists as they also perceive muslims as adversaries...The fact is that Israel was created by Europeans so that they could banish the Jews from Europe...the poor Arabs watched helplessly as the Europeans carved out their land and declared the creation of a jewish state...this happened because Turkey(ottomans) lost the first world war and her empire was carved out among the victorious English and French....who then proceeded to create new artificial states like Israel and Kuwait out of Arab lands...in the case of Israel they even transplanted a whole jewish population from Europe there...so there is some understandable logic to muslim anguish regarding Israel...
But now several generations of Israelis have grown up there and arabs needs to accept their right to live there...historical atrocities cannot be undone...
What India, Pakistan and Bangla Desh(and even Nepal and Sri Lanka) need is a free trade region with free movement of goods, services and workers and a single currency like in much of Europe...it would create a mutual interdependence and foolish arguments like those over Kashmir would cease....
Hallo Tauji,
I have to thank you for the information you provided for the debate, I was able to use some of your examples(after modifying of course) to prove my point. I was the Best speaker for the motion(some fat teacher with grey hair announced that), and now from inter house I'll go to Inter school. Another girl was best speaker against the motion. but overall, maybe because of my teamate's poor performance my house came second by just one point(we got 92 they got 93). But anyways maybe my performance was good(I could'nt reach my class as everyone I met on the path wanted to shake my hand and congratulate me) and I am preparing for inter school. It might have not been possible without some of your stuff. Probably I am gonna get a certificate or some other form of prize tomorrow.
I agree that probably the pakistani establishment discriminates between different sort of Islamic extremists(who have now united to create an islamic caliphate in modern day pakistan). I've been able to get my first phone(yes, in my life, my first personal phone). it's a Motorokr E6(by the motorola brand). I had a choice between e6 and e8. e8 is a more expensive phone but i don't understand why? I liked e6 more, its touchscreen, has bluetooth, camera,mp3 player & mp4, GPRS, FM,handwriting thingie, games,voice recorder,BCR and lots more. e8 has most of the same stuff, but it also has some qualities of an ipod and plus it has a morphic keyboard, but one great whack thingie, its not touchscreen. That's why I took e6. Papa(you know,the old guy whose face is of a miser) got it at a cheaper rate than the MRP(about half of it) through some friend of his who is a marketing manager of Motorola here. He bought it for 5,500 INR.( a lot of it was money I got from Pattiyon and from balbir road, so you can imagine papa's little contribution ).
Saudi Arabia, the greatest ally of the US in the middle east follows wahabi islam, same as the greatest foe of the US, al qaeda. Wahabi islam has destroyed hopes of world peace and all the wars are a contribution by Wahabi islam to the world.
Regards,
Drona negi
Dear Charu,
Congratulations on your performance in the debate...keep it up!..and Good Luck for the next round....congratulations also for your first phone....
I just read somewhere that Warren Buffet who is the richest(or second richest) person in the world started trading stocks when he was just 14 years old, almost same as your age perhaps....and he even said he wished he had started earlier...in earlier days people used to achieve success in life by invading and defeating others in physical battles...now a days perhaps people achieve success by inventing and running new businesses...
The Pakistani nation is run by their army which in turn is controlled by the US...the US needed to control Pakistan as they needed a staunch dependable ally in South Asia out side of NATO... The army in Pakistan keeps playing tricks within the country and with the neighbors India and Afghanistan....The US even helped the army keep control of its nuclear weapons of which the poor civilian government has no clue...the US needed the Pak army so badly that they winked and looked away when the army was clearly developing nuclear arms with active help from China...even now the US knows that the army is sheltering Talibs and Qaeda in the border areas but doesn't push them too hard....
The Wahabis are indeed a rigid sect of Islam and do create hindrances in the modernization of the muslim world, but even in the land of their origin, Saudi Arabia, life goes on smoothly...Arabs are highly practical people and do not let religion cramp their nation building activities...the real grouse they have is the ugly history of creation of Israel...the Arabs being nomadic in disposition are proud people and the presence of Israel in their midst reminds them of their helplessness and exploitation by crafty, cunning, ungrateful and unrepentant westerners(only westerners, not Indians, not Chinese, not Arabs could have created a Hitler)...that is what breeds all the desperate violence.
The Jews of course have been prime victims of Western intolerance, but being Europeans themselves, racism comes to them naturally....they are haughty, have a superiority complex and do not want to mix with the uncivilized brown skinned Arabs...otherwise Arabs would have assimilated them with open hearts....and there would have been no problem...
The real evil race on this planet is the Europeans...they look like angels but at heart they are like reptiles, completely cold blooded and inhuman...the way they ran the slave trade for centuries...hunted poor Africans, tearing them from their families and transporting them across oceans to works as indentured labor...the way they exterminated red Indians, the way they captured Latin America through guile....they are a violent race masquerading as civilized people....unluckily Genghis Khan died early otherwise the Asians would have ruled over Europe and the world would have been a much saner and safer place....
Hallo tauji,
thanks for your congratulations and I have now given my interschool debate and it went pretty much ok. I hav'nt got the results yet but it was pretty tough as there were some 20 schools there(some of the best in kolkata).
Share markets seem to me as a bit confusing, i really don't understand how they work but they do seem to be an opportunity to make good money(or lose it). I find investing in property and land more interesting and i'd like to do something of that sort some day.
A lot people of India have a sort of mindset(as a lot of them are not properly educated) that makes them talk just senseless rubbish about topics which they do not understan and have just read about it in the newspaper or seen on tv. Its good to see that you understand that the arabs who are fighting the jew are not terrorist, even if most of them are considered to be by the indian media(Indian media=socialists) and govt.. Actually the jews were widespread from ancient times also. Jews are also are believed to have lived in some parts of africa(apart from egypt). Black jews are also supposed to have existed. Jews were basically people from the middle east, who migrated everywhere and are spread around the world today. Originally them would have been of the european white skin tone but over time physical changes must have taken place(to the jews settled in europe) because of natural reasons. There must have also been interracial marriages thus creating the modern jew. But we must not forget that the jewish race had also migrated to India, Russia, central asia and now they are basicall almost in all continents. I personally do not have any problem with slave trade(unless of course I'm also a slave!).
If there is ever a garhwali nationalist movement and if we are able to get independence from the union of India, then we could use slavery to our advantage. The mountanious region will probably never sustain the growing population. I've heard that in Garhwal in olden times, Rotis made of "atta' were supposed to be a delicacy! So to feed the population we'd need to expand out of our natural sphere of influence(Garhwal, Kumaon, Himachal, Nepal, mountanious regions north of east bengal or as the indians say north east) too and expand into the plains(most probably the punjab). But then the problem arises, where would our war and agriculture industries get all the labour, and that's what slavery would solve, it would make life easier for 5 million people and ruin it for hundreds of milliions of other less important homo sapiens. Slavery would also make our people happy and none of them would ever have to do lowly jobs which would be unsuitable for a noble people.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
Investing in urban property in India is a "no brainer" because the prices just keep rising no matter what happens to the broader economy. The reason is corruption. The government agencies prevent supply increases by restricting conversion of agricultural land to urban category, and even within urban land there are a plethora of rules and laws which make it very difficult for ordinary people to build property quickly and cheaply and sell it for profit unless they pay bribes to government "babus"...
The demand for property is very high because only a tiny percentage of population owns urban property...most people(70% in Mumbai) in urban India live in slums in sub human conditions and there too they live on rent...everyone aspires to have own urban home one day...
So pent up demand being so high and increasing everyday and supply being choked by corruption, the laws of supply and demand ensure that urban property will keep appreciating for ever...as long as Indians remain as corrupt as they are...and since moral character cannot be easily changed, urban property will remain a "no brainer" investment...
The only problem with property investment is that it is a big ticket item....so not all people are in a position to invest...you have to save for a lifetime to buy an urban house...in Europe or US or Singapore or Australia it takes only 24 months of an average family income to afford a decent house....in Mumbai it would take 150 months of an average family income to afford a house...considering that people are able to save only 15% of their earnings, in Mumbai it would take 900 months(75 years) of a family's savings to buy a house...which means an average family on Mumbai will never have a house....
That is where share markets come in...being small ticket investments ordinary people can invest small amounts as they save and if done intelligently can multiply their savings well enough to buy a house one day...of course risks are there but as they say "no pain, no gain"...
In socialist India only 2% of household savings go directly to stock markets....in developed countries the figure is almost 50%...so there is a long way to go...and therefore a lot of potential too...
Jews according to the old testament would started to form with Abraham who migrated to Palestine from Iraq...they were the first "mono theists" or single God believers....powerful kingdoms around them like Egypt, Greeks and later on Romans believed in multiple gods and goddesses and threw out most of the Jews from Palestine...many of them resurfaced in Europe and being urban people took to commerce and trade there....some handfuls ran away to Ethiopia, India, and other places where some of them became black Jews...
Most Jews who remained in Plaestine converted to Christianity and later on to Islam which were actually an improvement on Judaism in several aspects as they were much more modern in outlook...some residual Jews in Palestine stubbornly continued with their old faith and that is how traditions survived...
For Jews to say that because their religion originated in Palestine entitles them to form a state there is ridiculous to say the least...
Europeans of course disliked Jews there because Jews being urban and somewhat educated were smarter than them and also because Europeans are fundamentally racists and always look out for plausible reasons to discriminate....Jews provided a soft target and there is a history of "Pogroms"(state sponsored butchery) against Jews in Europe going back 2000 years...
Jews being smarter people continued to thrive and prosper in Europe and reconciled to losing a few thousand people every 50 years to "Pogroms", seemed a small price to pay for citizenship of Europe....that is till Hitler came along with his "Final Solution"
Being prosperous people, they found it easy to mix with Europeans and modern genetic research confirms that there is no difference in the racial genes of Europeans and Jews there...so the only difference that remained was faith...and Jews have been fanatical about their faith from the beginning...we think of Muslims as fanatical about their medieval Sharia laws, but so were the Jews about mono theism 3000 years ago...they did not tolerate other what they called "pagan" faiths and ultimately got expelled from Palestine...
Regarding the "noble" Garhwali race, just about 150 years ago, 65% of Garhwalis were classified as "Khasiyas"...only 35% were Brahmins, Rajputs and Harijans(Doms)...
Current census estimates are 20% Brahmins, 40% Rajputs, 20% Harijans and 20% Tribals (Khasiyas and others)...so where did the balance 45% Khasiyas go...my guess is that they got largely reclassified as Rajputs....as a comparison, in Nepal(which has a much higher Tibeto-Burman population), 45% population is still classified as Khasiyas...
It would seem that Garhwali Rajputs originally from the plains mixed with the indigenous Khasiyas of the hills and the latter got upgraded in the social heirarchy in the process till they reclassified themselves as Rajputs...that may also explain the toughness of Garhwali Rajputs compared to other Rajputs from the plains...
I would hesitate to call Garhwali Rajputs "noble"...they are probably a tough bunch of semi Khasiyas not really designed to rule over other races...that is why they do not run large modern day empires (businesses), they are more comfortable working for others whether in Government or Private sector....
Khasiyas were probably part of original Aryan migrations to India 3000 years ago, but quickly settled along the Himalayan foothills from Kashmir to Bhutan...and in the process got isolated and fossilized...being originally nomads, they had no developed understanding of an agricultural economy, had not written script and no concept of education...they made a subsistence level living out of razing cattle, sheep and goats...and were not organized in any form...that is why when the Rajputs came to the hills 1200 years ago, the Khasiyas offered no resistance and were quickly subjugated....
Hallo Tauji,
Its good to know that there is a secure place to invest one's money in! I don't know why people like to settle in urban areas and get property there. Maybe its also because of the facilities available there, but us garhwalis traditionally don't have and big towns or cities. We've got a sort of city now(Dehradun) but even that's filled with immigrants and proper garhwali culture does not exist there. Probably we are supposed to be a rural people.
There are so many people in the Indian Union fighting against the govt. for the independence, why has'nt any of our guys thought of that? Most of them get beaten of course. Indian millitary is just too big for some armed guirrella force of some small ethnic group in the Jungles of Assam. The only forces which can give some trouble to the indian side are the global jihadi forces(they're pretty strong). But they hav'nt started extremely intense warfare in the Indian Union except for in Kashmir. All they do is blow some train or kill a few hundred civilians some sunny day. If the Islamic forces had been as angry on India as they are on the Western world then they would have done a lot more(something like dozens of thousands of jihadis attacking indian troops and indian troops running away, breaking world speed records) to India. They also use propaganda much better than the indian govt., suppose if our govt. is getting kicked around in Kashmir then who would care?(at least I would'nt) but if something happens like some little ethnic cleansing in Serbia then the entire islamic world would jump in to help(the moslems,not the serbs).
I think that jews are a pretty evil race, and they have lots of advantages over the palestinians too. Physically they are more stronger than the palestinians( a jewish man could pick up two palestinians as if they were little kids and jews look like giants in front of palestinians). Jews are much more well nourished. They have more money. They have better equipment and weaponry(which they won't hesitate a moment to use to kill thousands of innocent palestinians). They have stronger allies(United states of Atheists, ungreat Britain, the unfrank french and the modern day reich of Germany). They have better leaders. They have a better trained army. They have world sympathy. They have more resources. They control the world's economy too(some guy on youtube claimed so). The war is extremely unfair. The Arabs have tried for years to kick out the jews but it seems impossible for them(they are pretty lazy and dumb sometimes). You might have heard this saying,"The Arabs unite against anyone who tries to unite them".
The Indian govt. also probably will think of the innocent palestinian people as terrorists but of course that's not true, they are just fighting in self defence. You can get many "awareness" videos about palestine from youtube and get to know how the jihadis function and where they are situated, what are they fighting for etc. According to Islamic law jihad is a good thing which is not at all unlawful. Jihad could have many different meanings, not only the one which is common nowadays but whenever the Indian media(Indian Media=literate dumbos) hears about Jihad the first thing which comes to their mind is terrorism! If that were true then Prophet Muhammad would also be a terrorist but would Sonia Gandhi or Manmohan singh dare to say so? No, of course not, they need the votes. But a Jihad also has to follow some rules and regulations for eg no women, children and innocent people should be killed but these rules are sometimes neglected by the modern jihadis which is completely wrong.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
The developed regions like the US, Japan and western Europe have 95% of their population living in cities and towns and only 5% live in rural areas and produce food for the balance 95% as well as for exports to other countries .
In comparison, 70% of India's(and other backward countries) population lives in villages but is not able to produce enough food for itself or the balance 30% living in urban areas.
Urban living is based on the theory of division of labor. Take an example of making a paper pin pointed at one end and headed at the other.
The process for making a pin starts with cutting a small length from a wire roll, heading the pin at one end, sharpening it at the other end, cleaning it with chemicals and then electroplating it with chromium to give it a shining surface.
If one worker is engaged in making these pins, he will make about 20 pins of high quality in one day. If we modify the process such that one worker only cuts the wire, another heads the pin, a third one sharpens it, a fourth one cleans it with chemicals and a fifth one electroplates the pin, we find that the five workers can produce 5000 pins in one day(or 1000 pins per worker)
Thus by dividing labor into smaller tasks the productivity has gone up by 50 times.
People living in villages do a lot of their work themselves. They produce their own food, they collect own fuel(fire wood), they fetch their own water from distant springs or wells, they repair their own clothes, they heal themselves when injured or sick, they repair their own furniture, they paint and repair their own houses, they educate themselves without specialized tutors, they resolve their own conflicts through panchayats and so on....
People in cities specialize in small tasks...someone works in an office, someone works in a factory, someone is a driver, someone is an electrician, someone is a plumber, someone repairs electronic appliances, someone is a sports coach, someone is a lawyer, someone is a doctor, someone teaches music....they get paid for these services and with that money they buy everything else they need.
The productivity in cities because of division on labor is hundreds of times that in villages. The prosperity of cities is based on this specialization of work.
Garhwal is more backward than some other states in India and hence more rural, but it is also better than many others as Garhwalis are relatively more educated and potentially specialize in some urban skills for which they migrate to cities in India where the demand for those skills exists.
The Jehadis are unemployed muslim youth who find something to do by joining those anti social organizations. That is again because the muslim world has not developed and modernized to a level where it can support those large populations. In desperation these people try to resort to violence in the hope that something will work out for them....
Jehad as a concept was a fight for justice against all the ills and exploitation in society in medieval times. It was swiftly transformed into a political tool for expansion of political power and has remained so since then with the original intent completely forgotten.
With modern democracy and free market economics based on fair competition and equality of opportunity, even the need for Jihad in its original form may not be really there....so even those folks believing in original Jihad would be perhaps fighting imaginary battles for justice...at least in places like India...
Most people who fight for independence from large countries are also burdened with an identity crisis. In a post modern human society where even the distinction between living and non-living may soon get erased, harping on one's group identity betrays lack of confidence in one's own individuality and capability....much like sheep huddling together when a carnivore is sighted...it is instinctive where people seeks safety in numbers...the next logical step is to then demand political independence....people form groups based on caste, language, ethnicity, profession, education, hobbies and interests, income, ideology and so on.....but they are perhaps all the same....basically weak people seeking refuge against imaginary threats....
The Jews are mostly Europeans and physically the Arabs have a similar build. It is only orientals like the Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and Japanese who have a shorter and lighter build....even well fed Indians are not different from Europeans and Arabs...of course some pockets like Holland in Europe and some areas in Africa have above average physiques, but these are exceptions...
Jews are not really evil only a little rigid in their beliefs....evil would be Europeans and higher caste Indians who have practiced the evil caste system for 3500 years...to ensure that there is no equality of opportunity for other people's children....
Hallo Tauji,
Nowadays most of the people do love the towns and cities as proven by your facts! Recently I viewed some videos on youtube which were really educational. They were basically about the varying Intelligenz Quotient(IQ) of people of different racial groups. The highest IQs were of the mongoloids(which really compensates for their physical shortcomings). Their average IQ was shown to be around 105. Caucosoids were'nt much far behind with 100. The negroids were supposed to have an average of 75. The people of India, Arabia, Persia, North Africa, Afghanistan etc were shown to have some genetic similarities and they had a very poor show with only 85 to 90 as an average. Personally I don't believe that we belong to this group. We might be citizens of India but we must not forget that these people are giving stastics for the whole of India. And of course as it is known, we haves some traces of the mongoloid race groups and we might also be classied to be semi-mongoloids(chinkie in common man's language). probably the average of the mountain people's IQ would surpass 100(seriously speaking I really don't think I am dumber than George Bush). There might also be other factors invloved in judging the Average IQ such as maybe caste. It might be that the lower castes have a very low IQ and the upper castes enjoy averages over 90.
I've tested my IQ a couple of times with extremely varying results which means that some of them might be inaccurate. My IQ would probably be around 125 to 130 according some reliable tests I've taken online.
The workers of India compared to workers of other countries like China are highly inefficent which might be because of the reasons that you have stated.
Garhwalis who migrate to cities forget their own culture and abandon their tongue and switch barbaric languages such as Hindustani or Khariboli. Garhwali culture till now has only strived in rural areas.
It might be wrong to call all jihadis anti-socials as most(or maybe all) of them are viewed by their own people as Martyrs. Of all the forces present in our planet Islam is the strongest of all. All shall fall before it. In my school we had the communal harmony week in which some kids sung poems and read speeches, most of which were extremely boring, pathetic and filled with rubbish. for eg. in a speech the following lines were there, "all of us indians are brothers and sisters whether we be hindus , muslims or
Dear Charu,
Garhwalis would have some mongoloid (more accurately Tibeto-Burman) genes as some overflow from the other side of Himalayas has constantly taken place all the time....it shows up in the facial feature differences with our neighbors the Himachalis...they have sharper noses on the average than Garhwalis....
IQ tests mostly measure only the left (logic)hemisphere of the brain and leave out the equally important right hemisphere(imagination and creativity)...Jihadis are perhaps more creative as seen in their attack on US and India even if they may have lesser developed logical faculties...
In any case one must not read too much into such classifications....Obama is half African but must be having a high IQ...even George Bush had an IQ of 124...an average US president IQ is 127....
In India if you have an IQ of 130, you fall in the top 4% of the population...An IITian has an average IQ of 140 and an IIM graduate has an average IQ of 142....An IAS officer has an average IQ of 120...that is why India is such a competitive place...not many Garhwalis make it to IITs or IIMs...though as a proportion of population they are well represented in IAS and other public services....
But I would again caution against categorizing people even by their IQ....it is yet another way of "affinity mongering" which is a hallmark of a psyche deeply lacking in confidence...I am sure people who lack IQ(logic) may excel at some other unmeasured mental strengths like memory, imagination, creativity, social skills etc...
Hallo Tauji,
This Computer had suffered corruption in its hard disk so I was'nt able to reply. It is sort of fixed now.
I think maybe it is true that one can't just say that someone with a low IQ can be just classified as incapable of doing anything as of course people do have other qualities. There might also be people who are high in intelligence but can't get access access to good education and a proper atmosphere for learning so their intelligence just gets wasted as they do manual jobs because of their illiteracy. But overall IQ does make a huge difference in the competition between different races. IQ studies might be able to explain why the Europeans were able to colonize almos the entire world, probably because they were smarter than most of the other races. But if that was the only criteria then the Mongoloids would have been even better at being supreme. They probably did'nt turn into great powers because the Mongoloids preffered at that time less interaction with the outside "Barbarians"(I hope this does'nt inlcude me!).
You must be aware that the US is sending in more troops to Afghanistan. President Obama is being a fool, they should understand that they cannot win. They are just wasting there money and after they leave Kabul will fall to the Global Jihadis and the power of Jihad will be clear before the world. They Communists made the mistake of invading a muslim countries and try to subjugate moslems and they paid for it. Soon America would be vanquished too and as we know will be replaced by China as the lone world Superpower. We should understand that the failure of the United States in Islamic countries will increase the morale of the moslems of the world. That will make sure that the Jihadis step up their attacks and soon one will be able to see Islam conquering huge parts of the world. The Kaffireen would then surely fall for ever.
I think the new system that has been implemented for the 9th Grade is a step in the right direction and even if Kapil Sibal belongs to the Socialist Congress I have to thank him for his new innovative ideas. But many of my classmates feel that the new system of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation(CCE) is a pain for them. We have to give many worksheets every week, do role plays, do debates, do powerpoint presentation, participate in the subject Quiz, make a nice looking notebook, write reviews on movies and books, have group discussions, make files and we are jujdged on many more things too. But I think this is a better way of learning than the previous thingie in which there would be just exams and stuff.
Regards,
Charu
Dear Charu,
Your computer is crashing too often...it may be due to viruses....just make sure that you update the anti-virus program everyday...I update mine manually everyday before I start working on the machine....I use the free AVG system and have never had a problem for the past 12 years.
You may also be having these problems if your Windows XP is pirated...just check if it is original....the vendor would have given you a CD...just check if it has the microsoft hologram....
God has given our family a very high IQ range....your Sony didi has a measured IQ of 160....she scored 99 percentile in the CAT test...your Micky bhaiyya has an IQ of 120....I am sure you would also have an IQ of over 130....All these figures are very high compared to average Indian IQs of less than 90....
But IQ indeed is not everything...it measures only half the brain's capability...we as a family are all weak at music, painting, sports etc....success in life comes to those who have both logic and imagination...that is perhaps why inspite of very high IQs we all have so far had only modest successes....
I think the Jihadis will wait quietly for US to leave Afghanistan and then quickly takeover once the Americans are out...at least that is the logical thing to do....I feel that may be the proper end to the whole mess created by the Americans and other Europeans including Russians....I feel Europeans should not try to transplant their political system on other people....what works for Europe need not work for the middle East and the Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist worlds....
In any case I see democracy in Europe as a reward for bloody sacrifices given by ancestors of Europeans over a millennium....they have violently fought and snatched their rights for social equality from despots and tyrants....the Arabs and others including Indians, Africans and Chinese have no such history and therefore do not understand the benefits and implications of democracy....so they must be left alone...We have first hand experience of the mess Indians have created with democracy which is fundamentally an alien concept to us....
The changes in the school education system being introduced by Kapil Sibal seem to be in the proper direction....children will surely become more capable with this kind of education which includes continuous and comprehensive evaluation....though in village Government schools where only half the teachers even come to work(and take full salaries) and there is no accountability, it is just a matter of time before they subvert the new system as well....
So intentions may be correct but the implementation is likely to remain weak....of course in urban well and tightly managed schools such as yours, real benefits in terms of higher student learning and capability will definitely follow....and the gap between the students of these schools and their rural brethren will grow further...
Hallo Tauji,
I'm grateful for your advice, there might also be something wrong with the internet as it keeps on stop working after every 10 or 15 minutes and then one has to restart the computer to make it work again.
I think our family has many more advantages besides IQ. for eg. In my class there are about 40 kids. there might be many who might get better marks than me but that's not all that matters. Many of them might belong to the families of soldiers and maybe they don't enjoy a good atmosphere, they don't have properly literate parents, their parents might not be able to send them to proper coaching classes later on and may not be able to send them to good universities etc, these are some of the financial difficulties which some might face. They might also be of a backward caste or maybe not good in communication and other skills and may fail in interviews. If I look at myself then I should realize that I am in at least the top 10 % of the Society's kids. These 10% are the ones who make up the 40 kids in the class. and if our of the 40 I belong to the 10 previliged ones and out of those ten previliged ones I am much smarter than 5 then I belong to the top 2.5 % lucky kids of the Indian Union.
In terms of nobility of blood I should probably be one of the most noble blooded ones in my entire School.
These are the downtrodden people of India on whom I have no pity, according to our religion they are probably sinners from another life who are being punished and we are the Rhiteous ones.
But still not all of our people are so previliged but all are equally noble. We should rule. Would'nt it be great if the mountain people grew are powerful and influential and became the masters of all other races. The Garhwali independence thing is basically an instrument to grow more powerful and noble and share the new power with our people. But at my age I do not know if I can do anything for the Garhwali people, maybe I can maybe I can't but one day I surely would.
I today realized that I have earned about 1 cent(US) by publishing articles through TRIOND. This is maybe something I am really proud of. I am trying to increase my earning. Well, I've written 2 articles, one posted about 2 weks ago and one about 2 days ago. I think the basic trick to earn more would be to post more stuff on the website. I presume that for about 5 views I am getting 1 cent and if I can get 1 view in 3 days for each article(I have 5 views for the first article and 2 views for the second one) and then if I have about a 1000 articles then I could earn a thousand cents or 10 dollars in 15 days or 20 dollars in 30 days. If some articles go better than predicted then I'd be able to earn much more!
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
If the Internet connection disconnects frequently, it should still not crash the computer. Connection failure can annoy you but should not harm you. On the other hand, viruses may be causing the connection to break frequently...but whenever the connection fails you should immediately call up your ISP(probably BSNL) and confirm with them if there is any problem from their end....If they say there is no problem from their side, then it would be something in your computer or your modem which is causing the connection to break...call the person(from BSNL) who installed the modem to investigate. If he rules out any problem with the modem, then the issue has to be with your computer....
We as a family do have higher IQ than an average Indian, but we are also weaker in music, sports and other "right brained" capabilities than average and overall we would be probably average only....
Of course since your papa earns much more than an average Indian, you have the benefits of better education, more travel, better living standard, more aware than an average Indian...but that still does not automatically make you a better person or a more capable person than an average Indian....for that you have to honestly work hard like your papa...he is a great role model for you...
He was brought up in a village like Pattiyon which did not have any facilities worth the name...those days there was no running water, no electricity, no road, no TV, no newspapers...even the postman would not deliver letters and he had to go to the post office 5 Km away to check if there were any for the family, but he still made it through the extremely rigorous selection process for the Army...that is because he is inherently a very hard working sincere person with above average IQ ....He walked to school everyday which was a good 6 Km away....I doubt he believes that Garhwalis are noble people or we as a family are noble people....
I also believe we are ordinary people with above average IQ, but work hard to make the most of a God given gift...I am happy to be ordinary and indeed am proud to be ordinary...If in the process I can help society and contribute to its well being, I am happy to do that too...but I have no delusions about being superior(whatever that means) to others and do not think it is right to be vain about being born to rule...
As I mentioned in earlier mails, Garhwalis are probably semi-khasiyas and therefore a little backward in their thinking and value systems compared to more organized sections of Indian society...Garhwal has traditionally been a poor region because of little resources of its own...many Garhwali youth would migrate to places like Delhi and work as domestic servants with rich families....when we came to Delhi a quarter of a century back, even I was a few times politely asked by my colleagues if I could arrange for some servants from the hills as they were seen as simple, hard working, honest (and perhaps too stupid to try anything adventurous)....I know several Garhwali brahmin families in Delhi who changed their surnames to "Sharma" to avoid the stigma of being associated with a region supplying domestic servants....
To call Garhwalis a noble race(whatever that means) would be stretching credulity...but there is nothing wrong in being average too...as I said earlier, I am proud to be average...
I have also said in my earlier mails that we should avoid seeking affinity based on region, language, religion, caste, education, profession, hobbies, interests...or whatever....it suggests a lack of confidence in our own capabilities as individuals....saying that I am a Garhwali and Garhwalis are noble and should rule is perhaps an example of sub-consciously seeking affinity with a grouping we feel comfortable with...it is best avoided if we have to have a chance to grow strong on our own individual merits...
I am glad that you earned one cent for your writings on the net...it shows that you have some "right brained" capabilities...but try to enjoy the writing and try to ignore the earnings...that way the quality of your writing will improve without getting distracted by the "earnings" factor....and if the quality is good, word would spread and "views" would multiply....but keep this as a hobby only....you should also pay keen attention to subjects like maths which you do not like much...how did you do in your last test...
Hallo Tauji,
I think the internet connection has stabilized now and I think that this windows XP is pirated as it could not pass a validation test.
Maybe you believe that we should live like ordinary people and it might not be good to seek affinity based on region, language etc. It might be because in your life you have spent a lot of time with the Indians and maybe you believe that their version of society is right and maybe you might not want and maybe most garhwalis wouldn't want any sort of war to erupt and maybe because they fear that what they have built over the years will be easily lost.
There is no wrong in being powreful(I hope so) so I don't really care what happens to the Indians till the time my people and I get power. I have to admit that I lust for power but that is just one of the reasons I want Garhwal to be free. That will happen one day. If all the Garhwali people were with me then I could conquer the entire world(except for antarctica,I don't like penguins).
Papa might be a role model for me but one should realize at thatt time a lot of kids did'nt have proper facilities and his life was better in many ways as his parents were able to send him to a good school, he had a good place to live in, supportive and good parents, and he was from a good family background so there was no reason why he couldn't do all the stuff that he did. I personally will not join the Indian Army(except for if I'm really starving). I really don't think they are proffesionals and they don't really do much work and plus most of them haven't heard of the terms " human rights".
I think I got the thing about 1 cent per 5 views wrong as i've got about 25 views and am still stuck on 1 cent! In this term we had a few maths tests and I scored around 8 or 9 out of 10 in most of them so the new system is working to my advantage.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
Good to see that you are making some progress with your maths! Congratulations!...try and keep it up to make sure that it is no flash in the pan....
Unlike most subjects like social sciences or languages, it is possible to score full 10 out of 10 in maths....you would observe that every year in each board exam for class X and class XII, there are several students who score 100% in maths...
Garhwalis are quite intelligent folks and like Greeks and Romans of history they like high achievers to lead them...it is less likely that they would accept your leadership if you score only modestly in school academics...so if you wish to lead Garhwalis, all the more reason for you to start working really hard...
Also before you can get to lead a state of 50 million tough hardy people, you should try and lead a class of 40 normal Indian kids...and the easiest way to do that is to get accepted as one of the most competent kids in class by everyone else including the teachers....for that you would have to once again work really hard....remember talent is just one thing that can be helpful but putting that talent to work is not everyone's cup of tea....
Of course since the syllabus in India is tougher than South Africa, it will take some more time for you to catch up, but it is still worth trying your level best....and you do have a few years before you conclude either way...
Your papa got selected for the Army when it was a really prestigious career option for even big city kids...there were few employment opportunities those days and India's economy was largely in the doldrums due to "socialism". It was a great achievement for someone who had to walk alone six Km to school from the age of seven....day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, in rain, sunshine or bitter cold. That time nobody else in Pattiyon village sent their kids to good English medium schools.
Nowadays the economy has been doing much better for the past dozen years, but the Army remains a reasonably good career option....of course many other alternatives have opened up now....to join the Army, you have to first get through the extremely tough selection process....it is not easy....many people pretend that they do not wish to join the Army, but those are mostly stories of sour grapes....
Hallo Tauji,
I agree that it is possible to score full marks in subjects like Maths But let me explain that it might sometimes also depend on other factors. In my classwe have a Maths teacher who is cutting marks for absolutely stupid reasons. for example, I drew my diagrams from a black pen and not a pencil, i lost one mark out of ten for that. But these are things to small to even recieve any attention, things as such happen.
Garhwalis might be an intelligent people, but that does not neccessarily mean a very literate people. It is true that they have a high literacy rate but the quality of education offered by the Indian govt. is very low. The govt. considers people who can just simply sign their own names literate, and that is way off from families like ours.
To lead my class? I've not thought of that, I'm not a prefect, but that is more due to the fact that I've not been in the school for long enough. When I'm sitting in my class I feel like one messenger of the Civilized world is sitting surrounded by barbaric hordes( i'm the civilized guy). Leadership, well I'm not too sure if I would have "leadership qualities" but maybe I even do. When we are made into groups for skits or group discussions, it is generally me who gets the whole group together and does a lot of work for the group and tries to make everyone understand their roles(even if people don't vote for me when we are choosing group leaders). To tell the truth I think, people have a mindset of thinking of me as a quiet person with very good good behaviour and morals. In a test people expect me not to cheat, in the class they expect me not to swear and not to fight.I'm thought of as kind and helpful. An example to expalin how people percieve me is, once I was sitting for a test in a place. A boy wanted to sit at my place so that he could cheat from his friends, so he politely asked me to move, I explained to him the reason why i couldn't move from that seat, His friend told me that I was anyways not going to cheat so why not let the other guy sit otherwise he's fail, so I moved. another example would be that when I was in the library I was reading a book on a large desk, surrounding which were other student, a guy from our class came and said he wanted say a joke and I saw that no one was able to hear him due to the fact that everyone was discussing something, so I asked him what was the joke that he wanted to say, he replied, Its not for you drona! Its a non-veg joke! By that he must have probably meant that the joke was obscene and immoral and he thought it was not suitable for a guy like me.
In schools like mine Hindi seems to be the commonly used language by students, I personally do not seem to like the language. It seems to be difficult and I find harder to express myself. I generally speak to peers in the english tongue, I don't know if they find that good or not. My hypothesis would be that never speaking in Hindi with them might actually make them not understand me and maybe that's why I think many might not think of me as a normal close friend. But our school administration tells us to speak in the medium of the school, and avoid speaking in hindi or bengali, for me that does not even matter much, i'd still talk in what suits me best. Chetan on the other hand converses with his friends generally in Hindi and seems to very fluent. Its not with me that I'm can't speak the tongue, I can speak it but one of the things one will encouter in the indian education system is that spoken "hindi" is different from the official hindi of the union. This is due to the fact that the spoken hindi is not actually the hindi taught but khariboli or Hindustani. In Pakistan the same is known as Urdu, the lingua franca of Pakistan. In the Indian Union they call it hindi. Knowing hindustani can't get me very far in the subject of Hindi. Another reason why I don't find the language good to speak is that, I feel I am garhwali and i've got the excuse that the language is a one imposed on our people. By this excuse I don't try to converse in hindi and that's maybe why I am not astoundingly great with it. I did'nt always dislike it, but after coming here, the realization came that this language is not given any respect by its own native speakers so what's the point in giving it any respect from myself.
I would agree that the Syllabus is tougher here, but that would'nt actually mean that the education system is better. I think I "learnt" more there than I'm doing here. Here everything is about marks. The system is so mechanical and students have no real interest in the subjects which might be due to the foreign medium which is used. In botswana I never thought of how much marks I'm to get in my report guard for the project or speech i'm doing. Ther were hardly any exams. Their main aim was to make the child aware of everything, and to try to make the child understand stuff and gain knowledge and to actually learn about a variety of different things. I think they achieved that aim with me. It will benifit me for my whole life.
Many people see the Indian economy booming and see India emerging as a world power, but that is proven to be false. China will be great. Indian cannot and will not become any sort of superpower.Except for their IQ problem, they first need to respect what they have and their own culture and identity to move forward.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
If your marks were deducted for some silly reason like using a pen instead of a pencil, you can safely ignore that...it is true that in India there is a lot of emphasis on marks with mechanical rote learning and less emphasis on true understanding of the subject. but at the highest competitive levels the two almost converge...like it is impossible to successfully compete in IIT-JEE just by mechanical learning....you have to have a very very very deep understanding of the real stuff...in any case pursuing deeper true learning does not eventually prevent high marks in school too...you may not top but you would still be in the top 10% in class...and still retain your unadulterated love for "pure knowledge"...
I have known many successful IIT graduates who would score about 80% in boards, but their real knowledge was hundreds of times deeper than many people scoring 95% in boards and that is why they cracked JEE...on the other hand there are many board toppers who breeze through JEE as well as they not only score good marks but also have the real required depth....
Human society has always been and always will remain a pyramid...narrower at the top...so it is not physically possible for everyone to reach the top....filtration starts to happen at school level and goes on continuously throughout life....
Human IQ keeps growing till the age of 16 and then starts declining after 25....your success partly depend on your IQ too...so it is somewhat helpful if you cultivate a time regime which fosters the growth of your IQ...like solving puzzles etc...
Leadership is less about you and more about your image engraved in other people's minds...you can be a criminal but if others believe that you are a saint and look up to you for guidance, then you are a leader....so for a leader it is more important to cultivate the image than the real person behind the image....of course the results that the leader achieves modify the initial image and become increasingly important subsequently and determine if the leader remains a leader for long....and results depend as much on competence as on luck...
If you are far aloof from people, it is likely to be more difficult for them to accept you as a leader as they probably believe they do not know you well enough to trust you...it is the perception not the reality that counts....so even if you do not cheat, other cheaters must be able to appreciate why you do not cheat(it prevents efficient learning)...and respect you for that....just as you could fully respect their need to cheat as their social circumstances(like going out with friends) may not have given them enough opportunity to work long hours....they would then as close trusted friends respect your wishes enough to not pain you by asking for help in carrying out cheating activities...
You are right about Hindi...it may not be a useful language for business but it doesn't harm also...Narsimha Rao an ex-prime minister could fluently converse in 17 Indian languages....actually proficiency in languages is a sure sign of a higher IQ....in your case if conversing in Hindi can bring you closer to your classmates, it is well worth it...in fact they can also gain if you intersperse your speech with English too....indeed they will quickly see the value of socializing with you...
Hallo Tauji,
Something went with the computer again I think, but this time the computer folks sort of got in an original XP and not a pirated one.
Sometime ago we saw the match between india and Sri Lanka(cricket), it was the first time I had seen a live cricket match. But it was a bit boring too, better than that I liked the live Polo match which I saw yesterday, It was quick and nice. I've managed to get an Avatar DVD and I saw the movie, its pretty nice and if you havn't watched it I advise you do. I really think it would have been much better if I had watched it in a Theatre but Calcutta is a big city and parents don't have time.
I didn't know that IQ would keep growing till one's 16, thank you for telling me that. I do sometimes solve Sudoku puzzles and I can do a 9 by 9 puzzle which has about 32 cells filled in maybe 11 to 12 minutes, I hope that's not too bad. The Easier Sudoku puzzles, I can finish much quicker.
Indian society is divided as we all know, and the Union is sort of disintegrating(maybe thats been going on for quite some time), previous revolts against the Indian Establishment were brutally smashed but this Century the Indian govt. will have to face the Socialist Communist Extremist Rebels(simple word= Maoists), who are confined to no specific region. I think that in maybe the next 5 years or so the situation might become so bad for the Indian govt. that people will realize that they are facing Civil War. Seperatists in all parts will be strengthened, we should be ready for what might come. This situation will be a gift, some people will exploit it(like me), to forge their own realms. If we look at the Chinese communists then we can understand that it took them many years to establish the People's Republic, the CPI(Maoist) has only started war a few years back befor which they were probably some divided and weak communist groups and maybe were all pupils of Charu Majumdar(I hope I spelt it right). They've got a lot of time. Probably in another decade we could see complete destruction of the Indian Establishment, but with the destruction of the Establishment might come the destruction of all those who were part of the Establishment, people in the Army, Navy, Airforce, Civil Services, other Govt. branches, Ministers, Members of Parliament etc. Even their famillies might be targeted by the communists.
Life here seems to be boring sometimes or maybe its just that I am more of a Loner, many times when I am with the Indians a thought comes that they are basically inferior to me, barbaric and foolish. I don't know if that is true or not but I think I always look for something that distinguishes me from the rest, many of the Indians seem to me as so stupid, just believing in something without analyzing the facts. Most of them will not know what is Aksai Chin, or what does Azad Kashmir refer to, never will they try to think why the others, the Chinese or the Pakistanis are fighting against them but they just believe that they are right which is contrary to what even many western analysts believe. Most of the Kashmiris are muslims and Islam does not permit muslims to be ruled by the Kaffireen(I think so), so it is not religiously incorrect for the Pakistanis to occupy all the Muslim Kashmiri lands but it is wrong for the Indian Union. Muslims are followers of Islam first and a nationality second. The Indian govt.'s propaganda keeps on telling the citizens that Pakistan is evil and is wrong to fight for Kashmir, the people just believe it and that's where their stupidity lies. It can never be that their country is right always and is the one innocent. Even many of the Americans fail to realize that they are on the wrong side in many wars that they fight. i do not say that they should believe everything that I think is correct, but before believing something else they should analyze all the facts and think neutrally.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
you can try the site http://www.websudoku.com/ for sudoku puzzles...it has options for Easy, Medium, Hard and Evil levels of difficulty...I am able to solve the Evil level in about 8 minutes...just see what is your timing...of course I am old now and after the age of 25 one's IQ starts to gradually decline....so with a little practice you should be able to do it a little quicker than me...
You should also try other kinds of brain training games and puzzles like those for enhancing Memory, Attention, Focus, Speed, Language, Visual Perception, Spacial Reasoning, Problem Solving, Fluid Intelligence, Stress, Reaction Time, General Health etc...
I was reading somewhere the other day that Uttarakhand is the fastest developing state in India...of course much of that is perhaps due to the generosity of foolish central government policies, but it may also be partly happening because hill people are more educated and intelligent than others in the country.
I do not expect Maoists to succeed in India, because Indians are fatalists and by and large accept whatever level of exploitation they suffer....they are more inclined to silently go through abject poverty and deprivation than to take risks and rebel to fight for their cause.....even at a country level a tiny Pakistan is able to constantly needle India and most of the time Indian leaders claim that terrorists are killing and maiming people because of desperation....some convoluted logic!
India is of course changing with the opening up of the economy and is one of the fastest growing countries in the world, I hope this continues for some more time...but for intelligent enterprising people the still better option is to quickly get educated and then migrate from the country to places where our merit is more valued....in any case we now live in a global village and should think of ourselves more as global planet Earth citizens rather than as Indians or Chinese....
Indian people are very good traders and businessmen and if it were not for the traitorous government, India would have been as developed as South Korea or Taiwan by now....do you know that South Korea was poorer than India when India got its independence, now it is at least 10 times richer....
Hallo Tauji,
I tried the website and I really think that some of the easy puzzles are really easy, but the evil puzzles seem to be not so tough too.
I happened to come across something interesting on Youtube yesterday, in the videos with Pashto songs, the voice seems to be very similar to the our own people and the other Paharis of south Asia. There might be more similarities than just the sound like the Physical build and the Intelligence level. I also noticed that many of the videos were Anti-Pakistani and Anti-Punjabi, many of the comments were also seemed to show anger against the Punjabis. It seems like the Pashtuns hate the Punjabis(even I don't prefer them). As is known, the Punjabis are like the ruling community or linguistic group and they have always tried to keep the others downtrodden. They killed millions of innocent Bengalis too in East Bengal. They seem to be a cunning and evil people, but they seem to lack intelligence. I have noticed that many of them don't have a very sharp memory and on average they don't seem to be quite smart.
It might be that the Indians are still so backward due to the corrupt and inefficient governments they have always had but IQ might also come into play here, the Koreans are a High IQ race, while the average IQ for the Indians would put them in the Below Average or maybe even weak category. India's growing economy cannot change this fact and that the Indian Union as a whole might probably never become a Global Superpower. With us Garhwalis the problem might just be that as we live in the mountains, we don't have enough fertile land to cultivate on and also not enough people to build a very strong society.
As you have previously said in the past too huge Indian Armies have been defeated by much smaller armies from Central Asia and other parts. Even the present Indian Army might not be able to take on waves of Cenral Asian tribes(if they decide to migrate). The Pakistani Army seems to be better trained and motivated than the Indian Army but they have been generally defeated due to the fact that the Indians always had the weight of numbers behind them.
Noting the Similarities between our people and the Pashtuns, it might not be wrong to say that the Paharis of India(and also maybe Nepal) could be a formidable foe to any great power. Afghanistan has been the Graveyard of many empires, the people might be conquered but they cannot be subjugated and dominated, the British, Russians and many others have paid the price for trying to subjugate the Afghan tribes. We might need to learn some of these things about protecting honor and pride from them.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
What kind of time did you score for solving evil level Sudoku puzzles...mine is around eight minutes...there is another interesting numbers game called kakuro....you can play one free puzzle a day on www.kakuro.com....just check if you like it.
Any recent updates on your maths scores in class tests etc?..by now you would have come to speed with respect to Indian standards...
You are probably right about average Indian IQ being a little below Koreans, but IQ measures only half the brain capability, so it is quite possible that Indians may be better equipped on the right side and overall the handicap may not be significant.
I think Indians are normally gifted people and if you were to randomly pluck out a small child from a very backward tribal family living in a remote village or even a jungle and educate her properly, she would easily transform into a high caliber software professional within a short span of time....I have come across many such real life examples of people who have over come all odds and have now migrated to US or Europe to live lives of great fulfillment...
When the British ruled India, they started out from Madras and Calcutta. Their staff were all from those regions and were doing a good competent job for their white masters. Even their armies initially were manned with supposedly cowardly Madrasis and Bengalis but were easily able to repeatedly defeat much larger armies of so called brave martial races of Rajputs, Marathas, Jats and Pathans...
It perhaps depends a lot on the kind of leadership coupled with intelligence, education and skill that makes the difference....A Garhwali or Pathan is good only if he is well educated and equipped with modern day skills for competing with others....and all that requires a lot of money invested up front....the same holds for Punjabis(more accurately Jats)....Pathans can rail against Punjabis, but that would not take them far...those Pathans who take the pains to educate themselves do very well even in Panjabi majority Pakistan....
It is true that in the past small armies of people from central Asia easily defeated Indian armies ten times as large...but that has nothing to do with Indian people's fighting capabilities...even British army's Indian regiments have defeated much larger local feudal Indian armies...
According to one reliable story, Emperor Shah Jehan sent an Army of 30,000 to conquer Garhwal under the command of one Najabat Ali Khan....the Garhwalis let them come up into the Alaknanda Valley very close the capital Srinagar and then sprung the trap by blocking their retreat. All 30,000 were captured and Najabat Ali Khan's nose was cut off and sent back...the poor Khan committed suicide.
This is a case(if true) of a tiny Hindu kingdom successfully taking on the might of the Mughals and their armies of central Asians...it all depends upon training and preparation...Hindu armies which were defeated by central Asians were not really disciplined, trained forces...they were more like mobs hastily collected to somehow avert the impending doom...it was easy for small disciplined bands of outsiders to defeat and disperse them...
The Afghans of today are a pathetic people, abjectly poor, hungry, malnourished and drugged....it would be uncharitable to compare today's intelligent, competent, professional Garhwalis with those unfortunate people...(by the way do you know that at 13 years, 4 months, 22days India's youngest ever Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi is a Garhwali , in fact in Chess history he is the second youngest ever in the world till date)..
The Pakistanis who killed millions of Bengalis were actually led by a Pathan, General Yahya Khan who was the president and the actual butchery operations were clinically carried out by a Rajput called Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan who was heading their forces in Bangladesh(then East Pakistan) ...so Panjabi Jats were not really involved...except that after the genocide Tikka Khan left for Pakistan and handed over to poor Lt. Gen Niazi who was a Punjabi and was the commander who surrendered to Indian forces....
Wish you a Happy New Year full of good marks in Maths!
Hallo tauji,
Happy New Year(Gregorian)! I tried it around 2 times and got around 8 something minutes for the second one.I keep playing Sudoku on my phone. I've heard of Kakuro and I also have a PC game for Kakuro but I havn't tried it so maybe I'll check out the website.
Its been many holidays, school started today but I didn't go(for no good reason). We'll probably have a couple of Maths worksheets in the new term. There will also be the Final Exam. Average IQ being lower in India may also be due to the fact that most people live a pretty miserable life here in poverty while in South Korea poverty is not as much, so the poor are undernourished and also there is a larger amount of children and of course we can't expect people living in such conditions to have IQ scores.
Plains Indians might be gifted in some field but that does not generally mean intelligence, many of them do better than western students due to the fact that they work much harder in their studies due to the kind of the Society they live in. But I wouldn't call them Intelligent.
Hindu Plains people might not have noticed but in just the last to hundred years the muslim population has doubled in percentage size on the Indian Subcontinent, they probably now make up a third of it. Thats one interesting thing about Islam, its just like some people come to your land, your country and before you know it they are the majority, so majority rules and the local folks come under islam. Thats what's happening, maybe we should just let our religion fall anyways.
The Bengalis and Tamils are also in many ways more developed than many of the martial races. They were more organized under the Europeans and of course had better arms so there is not much point about martial race or no martial race.
It seems that low IQ people many a times try to hold back smarter people, which is of course unfair. Many of them are in powerful places and they are probably jealous of 'better' people than them. I have to admit that winning against mughal soldiers would probably have to do with the geography and topography of our country.
In Iraq the US govt. is spending so many hundreds of billions of dollars and also in Afghanistan. A country like India could never have managed that, so that shows us that if India invades a muslim country, suppose a country like Bangladesh which has a population much larger than Iraq, it is likely that they would soon withdraw. it seems so amazing to see how the citizens of a small and poor country can become a huge headache for a huge power.
The Indian Armed Forces seem unprepared to tackle many threats. Suppose an educated guy, even of a low age, cann infiltrate Indian millitary HQs and attack and even kill high ranking officers. With help from different sources he can kill hundreds of civilians. There are thousands of websites on the Internet which can teach one how to make a bomb and explosives. Many of the extremists might be just too stupid at times to get caught. It seems that Wahabbi Islam hasn't extensively infiltrated the Union yet as there are hundreds of millions of muslims in India and tons of feasible targets, this would be a great destination. There are some strikes but only a few in a year. Compared to Afghanistan or Iraq its as if nothing.
Wahabbi and Qutbist Islam seem to spread very quickly throught the "Ummah"(Muslim World) and Wahabbism might be soon if it is not already the dominant type. So in the Global Jihad we are all "Kufr" or "Kaffireen" who have commited atrocities against innocent moslems and taken away their lands and also to add, we are the oppressors. So what choice do we infidels have? To convert or die. But the situation hasn't worsened that much yet, but at the pace of expansion of Islam, it is easy to predict that soon Islam will dominate the entire world.
Here are a few translations from arabic Nasheeds,
"I am imprisoned O my Lord for no guilt(except determination)"
"Torture them(disbelievers) for you are Al-Qadeer(able to do all things)"
"I see our Heroes chained by the worthless(disbelievers)"
"Motivated by the call of Jihad"
"O Allah tighten the dunya upon them"
"O unshakable ones you will roar and you will revenge(for the sake of Allah(swt))"
"May Allah(swt) free our beloved Sheikh from the hands of the Kaffireen"
"The despicable ones have even wronged"
"The have forgotten we are defiant ones"
We are the ones who trampled with our steeds, the thrones of the Empires"
"We are those who built our forts out of skulls, which we brought from the lands of the Tyrant"
"So they destroyed a head of Aggression, And humiliated every opprressor, War against every Aggressor"
These are just a few translations of some Islamic Nasheeds, and as you might have noticed not many(or I should say not any) speak good of us the Kaffireen. There are a few moderate moslems too but the new generation coming up is Wahabbi dominated. who knows if the Kufr will win or the true believers, I personally believe that taking into account History and the present situation it is highly likely that the community of Islam will only expand.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
Technology is not only changing human society, it is soon likely to change humans themselves too.. .it is too late to wait for evolution to do the job....all classifications of humans based on faiths and beliefs are rapidly becoming obsolete....so even if Islamic people multiply faster than others it is utterly inconsequential...
The fact that the US is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan is due to their own stupidity...they need not have been there in the first place....they need not have toppled Sadam Hussein...he was doing a splendid job for them...smuggling out Iraqi oil at dirt cheap prices....
Afghanistan is another example...they funded the madrasas to grow the Mujahiddin/Taliban and when the Russians left, they withdrew all funding to these miserable, pathetic, unwashed, starving, unfortunate people who still had deadly weapons supplied by the US....so naturally the Afghans suffering from the US withdrawal trauma became desperate and sought financial and emotional support from Laden....the US having created the Mujahiddin should have funded a pension program for the retiring fighters in return for their surrendering their weapons...and even funded the conversion of the Madrasas into regular convent schools...Afghanistan would have been peaceful and there would have been no Laden...
In fact a well designed pension and school education program would have cost the Americans and Europeans a tiny fraction of the money they are now spending on pacifying the justifiably indignant Afghans...
Of course it is easy to say all this in hind sight...but there is the moral aspect too...if you create a mess, you should also take the onus of cleaning it up....The Americans in their war against the Russians were very well served by the Afghans even at the cost of criminalizing Afghan society...having won that war, the Americans owed the Afghans a great debt which they amorally ran away from....in a way the west is paying for its lack of basic morality...
It is true that large parts of India's population is malnourished and mental development cannot happen if the physical body is wracked with hunger and deprivation...it is however also true that only 1200 calories a day is sufficient to keep the physical body in sustained equilibrium and that only costs a few rupees which nearly all Indians are able to afford....so the situation is not that bad for Indians....that is why the moment you pick up any Indian from back of the beyond, they respond very well to knowledge and educational inputs(which are far more expensive than 1200 calories of food a day)....
The Islamic quotes that you refer to were formulated in medieval times and had lots of justifications in a despotic world ruled by tyrants...these thoughts actually promoted social consciousness and ultimately led to uprisings and spread of the welcome light of Islam...of course now times have changed but illiterate fanatics keep mouthing these calls to arms...and some desperate impoverished people respond too...
Indian hinduism is also equally if not more obscurantist, though less belligerent...but Indians are far more flexible and adaptable and do not need to first convert to Islam....they can jettison the baggage of hinduism and directly leap frog to post modern thinking and many are indeed doing that....
Have you heard of Ray Kurtzweil, the great futurist....some of his predictions are:
Speech-to-speech translation features will be available in cell phones in either 2009 or 2010.
By 2017, computers will have become even more ubiquitous in the environment, largely owing to smaller size. Some will be woven into clothing and will be "self-organizing."
By the same year, practical virtual reality glasses will be in use. The devices will work by beaming images directly onto the retinas of their users, creating large, three-dimensional floating images in the person's field of view. Such devices would provide a visual experience on par with a very large television, but would be highly portable, combining the best features of the iPod and a widescreen TV. The glasses will deliver full-immersion virtual reality.
By 2017, "augmented reality" will exist: The V.R. glasses previously mentioned will have advanced computers and sensors built into them that will be able to recognize elements within the user's environment and then provide appropriate information and assistance through visual or auditory means. If the user looks at a building or a person's face, the computer will provide information through a "heads-up-display" beamed onto the person's retinas. The devices could also be used for keeping track of schedules, navigating, and querying for general information.
By 2022, medical technology will be more than a thousand times more advanced than it is today, and the "tipping point" of human life expectancy will have been reached, with every new year of research guaranteeing at least one more year of life expectancy. Kurzweil also states that 3-4 months of life expectancy were added in 2007 due to the development of new medicines and treatments.
Cell phones and PCs will be increasingly woven into a global grid of computers wirelessly connected to the Internet. Instead of each device just sending and receiving its own data, more and more of the machines will be tasked with processing foreign data, creating a huge, interconnected network with millions of nodes.
By 2027, accurate computer simulations of all parts of the human brain will exist.
Hallo Tauji,
I think that in the modern world, technology will grow at an even faster rate than before, due to the fact that now many communities and races which had been previously deprived of a lot of knowledge and technology in the past, but as now is a "small world", they too can greatly contribute to the advancement of modern techonolgies.
It is actually very much true that no. only wouldn't get Islam far, as for an example, the Islamic community in India is probably contributing almost nothing for Islam and its expansion, even as it is so huge. Jihadis have to many times come over from Pakistan to fight here.
The Taliban were probably an indirect creation of the United States, but a foolish thing after the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda the Americans did was that they invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. That makes even more muslims hate them. So more moslems would now be hating America and the west than there were before. They could have just hired someone else to do their job like another armed group in Afghanistan or maybe given more support to the Kurds in Iraq. They allied with the Northern Alliance but their foolishness was actually goind beyond covert support and actually sending troops(That was Bush's fault). So to most Afghans(or maybe more correctly to most Pashtuns), it became religiously justified to fight the Americans as they were the kaffireen and had dared to come armed to the teeth to muslim lands. Same is the case with Iraq.
Most of Ray Kurtzweil's predictions seem to be driven by logic but I'm not sure if all are a realistic. Hope the one with human life expectancy is correct, I'd like to live long. Of course this person's actually different from some other figures who predict the future of our societies and the world by some extraordinary or supernatural power. One is some old Slav(dead now) called Baba Vanga, she predicted that the third world war will start this year in november. I'd be really surprised if thats true.Interestinlgy she also claims that the Christians will be annihilated in Europe by the muslims by chemical and nuclear warfare. Then she says that China will become a world Power sometime after the war. It continues to thousands of years in the future. I personally really believe all of this is crap. But some people claim that she had predicted about the 9/11 attacks.I've already seen some of these type claiming stuff that was supposed to happen last year, which didn't happen.
The Translations are actually of Modern Nasheeds written and sung this Century with the singers very much alive. You can find a lot of them on Youtube. Some hail heroes of the past like Salah Ad-Din or Salah Al-Din, more commonly known in the western world as Saladin. The Mujahideen ofcourse fighting in Afghanistan against the soviets were not properly educated people but now many of the Jihadis are proffessionals and as i said earlier Wahabbism is infiltrating the Muslim Youth's minds. Even most of the members would actually be literate if seen as literate by Indian standards, In India literacy would basically mean being able to read or write, so those high percenage points we see of literacy in many states are greatly constituted of people just able to read and write. Some even claim that the Indian Govt. recognizes anyone who can just sign their names as literate. Most members of the Taliban can read and write in the Arabic Script as many have come from Maddrassas. And we know that Osama Bin Laden wouldn't be illiterate and also Al-Zawahiri wouldn't be. Many of the rich muslims are also joning the Jihad against the west.
It is the Students of course who are increasingly turning extremists.
The war the Kashmiris are fighting against the Indian Union would be seen as rhiteous by most Muslims and religiously justified. But wars in the North East don't have that kind of "International" support. So would probably be the case with us if we decided to pick arms but if Garhwal were to be Islamic then fighting for Seperation would be more justified and would find more sympathy.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
Prof. Ray Kurtzweil is as different from soothsayers as chalk from cheese...he just projects past technological progress into the future and renders it in layman's language...so even if he may not be totally accurate, his direction is very good. About general soothsayers the less said the better...
If human brains are in foreseeable future going to get augmented with artificial embedded electronics, the whole concept of races, religions, faiths, holy wars, kafireen, IQ etc. just gets tossed out of the window...
Of course on this journey countries and communities which welcome and embrace this overwhelming change will benefit relative to countries which are stuck in medieval theologies and identity mongering...in that sense a flexible adaptive communist, christian, buddhist or hindu does have enormous advantage over a rigid, fanatical Islamist or Jew....bottom line being there is nothing whatsoever to worry about whatever is happening in Afghanistan, Iraq, middle east or North Africa...
Whatever Laden and other like minded people do are not even pinpricks and will have no effect on the broad sweep of human progress....
Garhwalis need not worry...they are very intelligent gifted people and their educational and social development being funded by the poor people of India, they are doing very well in most walks of life....it will be tragic for them if they start dreaming about so called independence...like mean parasites they are feeding off well on poor India and things couldn't be better for them...of course till India realizes how Garhwalis are fooling it and gifts the region away to a stupid China....
I am impressed with your score of 8 minutes for solving Evil level sudoku puzzles without much practice...just look at the "how good is my timing" button and check what is your percentile score....I think the global average is 11.5 minutes....with practice and by the time you are 16, your score should significantly improve....
Hallo Tauji,
It is very true that most of the soothsayers are fakes, even the Astrologers are probably wrong all the time. If the third world war really comes in the near future, then I am really sure I am more prepared than many others(neighbours, friends, classmates etc.).
I hope you're right that the " War on Terror" won't be spilled over to other regions, but the Jihadis are tough nuts. I'm ofcourse as you would have probably found out by now, not an extremely Patriotic citizen of the Indian Union. So I don't actually expect myself to spring to the Union's defence if its attacked(who would?), I'd join the winning side.
Giving away to the Chinese, the Indians wouldn't probably do that, but they'd lose to the Chinese, that they surely could. They have the better economy, more allies, more sort of 'vassals'. Many countries in Africa are on their side too, hoping for Chinese investment to turn their countries' economic growth positive. It would actually seem unbelievable that Osama bin Laden, son of a billionaire, left all for dedicating his life for a religious cause. Maybe he really does believe in Jannat filled with angels.
I havn't gone to the sudoku website in sometime, but I'll do that soon, and check out the global average. I do generally regularly play Sudoku on my phone, the level of difficulty would actually be more difficult than the ones offered at the website, but it feels more comfortable to play Sudoku on Phone rather than on a PC.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
The word war is already on...only this time it is not being fought by crude weapons of physical violence but by efficiency of economies, and China seems to be gaining advantage with each passing day...Last month, they overtook Japan to become the second largest economy in the world and it is predicted that by 2025 they would overtake the US to become the largest...last month China also over took Germany to become the largest exporter in the world...
India of course is nowhere in the rankings even though the economy has been doing well for the past 15 years or so...probably that is because most Indians are too backward in their thinking...they think in terms of castes, religions, wars, physical violence, power grabbing, identity mongering, patriotism etc...such people will find it difficult to progress in a fiercely competitive world...
Your idea of learning mandarin will probably turn out very profitable in the long run...this looks like it will be a Chinese century...now China and Asean(South East Asia) have signed up for free trade and it is perhaps just a matter of time before all these countries start creating their reserves in yuans...this block will easily overtake the Euro block and the center of gravity of world economics and therefore politics will permanently shift to Asia...Japan may resist for a while but will soon join once South Korea comes on board...
India is also taking baby steps to integrate with Asean...let us see how it works out...like you India also wants to be on the winning side it seems....
Laden may have his reasons for whatever he does...but surely people like that do not count...the best they are doing is keeping the West occupied with silly security issues and making it even harder for them to compete with China and the East....in that sense Laden is working like a small ally of China....
India may not win against China(I am referring to the real economic war not some silly shoot out in the Himalayas), but India is too big for the Jihadis...they can do little physical damage here.
India also does not take its security too seriously, we are quite comfortable with dozens of bomb blasts and thousands of people getting killed in terror attacks. So unlike the west who have jammed up their economies in response to Laden, Indian economy keeps rolling on quite unmindful of what the Jihadis may be up to....in that sense Laden is an ally of India too because he makes India relatively more competitive vis-a-vis the west....
Have you tried out websudoku evil level again this week...what is your current score....
Hallo Tauji,
Economically, yes the world war has already probably begun, Millitarily, there is still some time, it might also be that there would be no world war at all. The Economic weight of the US was able to finally defeat the Soviet Union in the last Century. We have an organized economy now, a big war will take a huge toll. I had heard about the largest exporter thing, but not that the Chinese had ovetaken the japanese, that seems interesting, it might be the beginning of a new era, an era maybe of competition between the Chinese and the Americans.
India is divided, none can do anything about that, there is no justification for the formation of the Country except for that all the people have Hindu History, which the govt. won't acknowledge as the basis. Same with Pakistan. At least in China, the majority of the people, over 90 percent belong to the same group, ethnically and also linguistically(not differentiating between the different Chinese dialects).
There might be more advantages of learning Mandarin, if there is any 3 world war, then people knowing the languages of the winning side will have more advantage. So if the War does start this year, or any time soon, my bet would be on learning, Chinese and Arabic. Hebrew might also help. Russian probably won't. If you type in How to survive the Third World War on Google search, then you will come up with some results from ehow, these articles will tell you that you should move to a safe place, a place which will might remain unscathed by the war. Then they tell you to amass food, and some stuff to keep off the radiation, and also fresh water. They also advise you to learn the language of the country you think would win. I've found the ehow website very useful, you can get results for many things. It is astonishing to find that you can easily learn to make explosives on the internet, I saw articles on Dynamite, Pipe bombs, Smoke Bomb, Molotov Cocktails. Molotov Cocktails are basically simple, child's play. Dynamite is more confusing but it is also simple enough for an average person. These things could also get in the hands of people who'll use them to target innocent people. Pipe bombs have been used by rebel organizations and are much tougher to create. One only needs the materials, even these are simple. For example to produce Dynamite the guidlines are,
Nitroglycerin, make from nitric acid + glycerin + Sulfuric Acid.
Combine with something absorbent, Contain the mixture in something, wrap the concoction in paper and gently place it in a bottle or some other type of container, stick a fuse.
So, I'm now a 14 year old kid, who got this in a few minutes, people who have been listed as terrorist by the Indian Union can do a lot probably with this, this must not be very difficult to create. So maybe they should try and censor such info form being easily available.
8 something is one of my best score, it sometimes also gets to 9.
I presume we'd be coming to Delhi soon, I'll get to probably meet you in person a lot. I hope its a good place to live. This is one thing I hate about the army, moving around.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
the world has evolved beyond physical violence...wars used to be "pursuit of state policy through violent methods"...now that is no longer required...people who even think about physical violence are obsolete and will not survive...
There will therefore be no military world war...it would be too stupid...
Competition between China and the west has already started and Chinese seem to be winning...the US economy is 14 trillion dollars, Europe is another 14 and China is 5, but China is growing at 10% and the US and Europe are barely growing...so by 2025 China will be bigger than US....and Europe would have fallen behind...in comparison India is 1.5....
India is a country which is desperately trying to integrate with the rest of the world...globally also borders are becoming permeable...goods, services, capital are already flowing smoothly with ever declining tariffs and other barriers...now even labor is moving more freely between countries...so the concept of state/country is getting diluted...
The internet can even show you how to make a crude atom bomb....most of the stuff relating to explosives is there in school chemistry books...but only few people like Laden and Taliban are stupid enough to use that knowledge...most modern professionals have better things to do...
The Palestinians would have been far better off if they had focussed on educating themselves rather than on making bombs...it is idiotic actually to imagine that in this date and age you can get your way through physical violence...
Look at Japan or Germany, they have small negligible armies but big economies...they get the stupid Americans to guarantee their defense and even make them pay for the privilege...no wonder they did so well for themselves for the last half century...
India could have done the same thing....get Pakistanis and Chinese to guard our territories, give them Kashmir and most of Himalayas in return and get on with life...
Hallo Tauji,
Now of course the Chinese are probably way ahead of the Indians, maybe at least a few years ago there were comparisons between the Union and the People's Republic but now that would probably be absurd, as you have rightly shown through the statistics displaying the economic might of both the countries.
But the Indians are still in their dreams, thinking of their country as a rising superpower. The country is still of course divided and the govt. doesn't not even indirectly try and get one group to dominate so as to make their own life easier. The Communists in China support the Han Majority, that's why the no. of han throughout the country has increased, especially in Xinjiang where the Uighurs now feel extremely marginalised. So by getting the majority to migrate to other areas, and dominate them too the chinese republic is reducing the influence of the minorities.
The Indians have to realize that they cannot be a superpower with no proper basis for their union. I hope they get more brains soon. Palestinians actually are trying to go forward with education and healthcare, organizations like Hamas and Fateh are helping in that too.
This country's leaders wouldn't understand your ideas, they're too dumb for such thoughful proccesses.
Regards,
Drona
Dear Charu,
I do not believe Chinese are racists...the fact that the Han are migrating in large numbers to Tibet and Xinjiang has less to do with racism and more to do with political ideology...it just so happens that the Han are more trained(you could call that brain washed as well) and conforming and faithfully carry out the directions laid down by the all powerful Communist Party in Beijing....the Tibetans have deep feudalistic roots and the Uighurs are somewhat influenced by anarchic and adventurous Islamists...so it becomes natural for the mandarins in Beijing to repopulate those provinces with the faithful...
It is thought that Beijing thinks and plans 50 to 100 years ahead...certainly they are on course towards Asia domination if not world domination....before the industrial revolution started two centuries back, China was the most civilized, advanced and powerful country in the world and was like that for all of recorded history...so they are merely reclaiming their past...
India does not have a glorious past like China...in fact it has always been just the opposite....repeatedly conquered, ruled and settled by barbaric and filthy outsiders who form almost half the population now...as a Persian saying says "Caravans kept arriving and Hindustan kept getting inhabited"...that is very different from the way China grew up...
As the enduring caste system shows, India is far more racist than China...indeed after Europeans, Indian Hindu higher castes are the most race conscious people in the world....of course there is still hope...modern technology is breaking down every social silo and Indians are quite intelligent and creative people who are quickly adapting to the fast changing realities...
In any case, race does not guarantee anything...look at North and South Korea, same race but South Korea is 15 times richer....look at erstwhile East and West Germany before they got reunified...same race but West Germany was 15 times richer at that time...look at Hong Kong and China before China started its economic liberalization process...same race but Hong Kong was 20 times richer...
It is the political and economic system that counts more than anything else....so China populating provinces with the Han is meaningless one way or the other...
Hallo Tauji,
It is obvious that the chinese are not extrmists, they never show that too. They've controlled the threat that Islam poses to them by administrative means rather than violence towards the muslims.
It is of course reality that the Tibetans are a people, whose lives were not too good even before the Chinese arrived to occupy them,and their lives would have actually become better.
Almost every Kaffir Nation feels threatened by the same thing the chinese feel threatened by, the expansion of Islam. I recently gathered some information which predicts that by 2050, many of the European countries will be Islamic Republics due to demographic change. The Muslims of France for example, had a fertility rate of about 8.1 in 2008. The White Frenchmen had 1.8. In the Netherlands half of the infants born were muslim. And going by these statistics it has also been predicted that there would be over 50 million muslims in the US by 2030. So it is probably just a matter of a few decades before Islam dominates the US and Europe too. I have compared this data with my previous knowledge on the Demographics of the West and found it very true. Some analysts do suggest that western civilization and Christianity have reached such a state of decline, which is irreversible.
I presume if just in these few coming decades, Europe and America fall to the Muslims, it is only some time before the rest of the World of the Kaffir does too. I had been thinking about this particular topic for a couple of years in my head, and till a few months ago believed that if we all stood up against Islam, we could stop its expansion, but this does not seem feasible anymore, I think the Kaffireen have already lost, so there's no point saving the religion/religions which are doomed to die out. Maybe I'll soon buy a Koran!
I've written a collection of short poems, and collected them in a notebook, I've made a soft copy of that recently. I have sent the soft copy of the collection of the 32 poems to a Publishing company named Whitmore Publishing. They are going to reply within 6 to 8 weeks. Any advice on publishing the Poetry book would be more than welcome!
Dear Charu,
there is nothing to fear about Islam...it is the west's propaganda which demonizes these people as evil...they are not evil...just a little eccentric and emotional...in fact people living in colder countries are colder in their thinking as well and better candidates for evilness... an African or an Indian would rarely have evilness in them....they are from warm climates and therefore open hearted....same with most Arabs...
Look at our own mountain people from cold climates like Garhwalis or Kashmiris or Afghanis...they are so cunning and calculating....
Of course just because the muslim population is growing does not mean they will dominate...in India the lower castes have a much higher population growth rate but they continue to stay at the bottom of the social and economic pyramid and their condition keeps getting worse...in fact larger families in villages means less resources available per child and therefore less expensive inputs for mental development....so these children from large families get exploited throughout their lives...
So logically, communities which have higher population growth rates are destined to stay at the bottom of the social hierarchy and the sooner they realize it the better for them...
In China of course it is compulsory to get government permission to have children and more than one child is not permitted...parents can lose their jobs if they have a second child...so China is developing very fast and will rise up to the top of the affluence graphs...
In Europe the urban pressures and life styles discourage people from raising families or postponing having children...that is one of the reasons for their development....now of course they have gone to the other extreme and are not having enough children to replace the older people who are retiring...so it is possible that their muslims may provide their workforce of the future if educated Indians don't get their first...
Part of the reason the middle east is so underdeveloped despite free oil wealth is their large families...same for India...and within India some communities are worse off than others...
The Koran like the Bible prohibits restricting family size, but as usual Christians are flexible and don't take that seriously whereas gullible muslims try to follow whatever was laid down thousands of years ago when infant mortality was so high and life expectancy due to war and disease so low that it was difficult to keep populations from declining.... so it was natural for religious books to exhort people to have large families...but now with modern welfare states and free or low cost medicines and relatively war free environments there is no natural check on population growth...so people should have amended their religious books...nobody seems to be doing that...even the pope continues to preach the virtues of large families...thankfully nobody in Europe listens to him...
Hallo Tauji,
Actually, instead of fearing Islam, I have great admiration for the religion now. It gives a sense of belonging to people who've been left out by the Society(as many in the West), that is why many convert to Islam. It is not only a religion but a way of living one's life.
The lower castes do increase in no. but that hardly changes anything for them or us, and their increase is mostly recent, in the older days even the upper castes had a lot of children. Muslims are not the lower castes, they more like the powerful and the just(they are not weak). I do agree that having more children provides a lesser no. of resources to a family but as the Quran does suggest, it is God's will. I personally believe that if one has enough money to bring up many children, then it is no wrong.
Islam will dominate the world in a few decades,both the Kaffirs and the Moslems agree on that. As history shows Islam has taken over many countries and regions. If suppose in 50 years there are 60 per cent muslims in Germany, then they will make sure that they dominate the govt. and the country becomes an Islamic Republic(as shown in many African countries), they'll also make sure that in some more time the rest of the 40 per cent also convert to Islam.
It is agreeable that what is written in the Koran was laid down many thousands of years, but as muslims do believe, it is the word of God, which has to be followed whether it is laid down yesterday or 2 thousand years ago.
I am sending a copy of the translated version of the Koran attached with this Email(in PDF format).
Dear Charu,
Most modern thinking people are indifferent towards religion...even if God is there, it is doubtful He finds us important enough to take any interest in us humans...he has probably created the universe with a set of physical laws like gravity, electricity etc...and after that we are pretty much on our own...
Even if Muslims become 100% of the population, these things will not change...in fact Muslim nations are some of the worst governed in terms of rights of people, social and economic inequalities etc....which shows that the Muslims too do not take their religion as seriously as they claim to do...
If Islam is just about reading and memorizing the Koran and then going about passionately pursuing your wish lists, then there is nothing different about Islam....everybody of every religion and even the non-believers do the same in any case...except these other guys do not read the Koran...just because someone calls himself a Muslim does not make him different.
It may just be a ruse to distinguish yourself from others...an artificially created affinity for the purpose of gaining some pecuniary advantage...
Hallo Tauji,
Of course, there is no way to tell which religion is true or if there is any religion or not, but if so is the case, then it wont matter, so I think whichever one is most beneficial and suitable should be adopted by one.
I still am not sure what has kept the muslims from recapturing Palestine and Jerusalem and demolishing Israel, there are so many groups, with some like Hamas(Harkat ul Muqawamat al Islamiyah), which had around 15000 well armed men in 2007. Then there is Hezbollah, who have much more strength in terms of material, but they are a Shia organization who are not as radical as Hamas. I just viewed a Quote of an Islamic Cleric which was,"Blessings to whoever put a belt of explosives on his body or on his sons and plugned into the Jews, crying:Allah hu Akbar, praise be to Allah,There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger". This shows us the direct support of the clerics to suicide bombings, but some others do claim that Islam and the Koran prohibit Suicide(bombings).
The feeling of hatred and anger towards the west amongst the muslims if natural. Just a few hundred years ago, the whole of South Asia was under them, Half of Eastern Europe, All bowed to the Caliphs. After that, the Christian Europeans colonized the Arabs and muslims who just a few years earlier themselves used to colonize the world. From being the masters of the world they became the poorest of the poor countries. And on what used to be the Islamic Mughal Empire, the Union of India has been formed, that means most of that land went under the direct control of non-muslims. But this century, I believe might be the century of the Clash of Islam and the West, and maybe we'll have a winner by the end of it. Some might feel that the Jihad has failed in many areas, but if we look at history it will take time for the Kaffirs to be defeated. So it can't be said that the muslims have lost in Kashmir, they are still growing, and maybe a decade or two later things might be different in Kashmir.
Communists like the maoists will probably be a better force to fight the Jihadis than the Indians. If just look at the example of Kashmir we can see how much trouble the Jihadis have caused the Indian govt.. There are hundreds of thousands of troops in the part of kashmir under the rule of Indian Kashmir. The region which is "insurgency affected" is very tiny indeed. So If the Jihad was more extensively spread in Jammu and Kashmir, then hundreds of thousands of more indians would come. If the Jihad was spread to other areas too then the Indians would have a big problem. There are training camps in Azad Kashmir and in Afganistan and Pakistan which train the Jihadis but of course like the United states the Indians can't do anything about it, due to the fact that there govt. lacks will and is not strong.
Regards,
Charu
Dear Charu,
The real issue is that Islamic areas except Turkey (and to some extent central Asian countries of the erstwhile USSR) have still not got onto the development bandwagon...most continue to be ruled by despotic regimes supported by the West...this makes their populations restive and Islam becomes a rallying cry....these desperate people are then misguided by religious fanatics who use all kinds of extreme tactics(like suicide missions) to stay relevant...
Kashmir is a different issue like Chechnya in Russia....the population does not wish to be part of India and would not want to be even if India was an Islamic country...probably they do not wish to be part of Pakistan too but they cannot say that openly lest Pakistan stop supporting them with money, fighters and weapons...
Kashmiris are probably ethnically closer to Afghans and Pashtuns than to Indians or Punjabi Pakistanis....but they are using Islam as a pretext to keep India off balance...basically we must remember that they have a cause which is not entirely unjustified....what is very difficult to understand is why India wants Kashmir...the state is poor and has no resources...like all hill states it is a parasite on India...even if they were not fighting India, they would still be a liability and a millstone around the neck...for the money India has spent on Kashmir, it could have bought dozens of Kashmirs by now...
Islamic countries were never monolithic...the largest Islamic empire was the Ottoman empire based out of Turkey followed by the Mughal empire in India...the two hardly talked to each other...When Ottomans sided with Germany in the first world war, their fate was sealed...they lost and their empire was broken up into small countries like Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine(later Israel), Kuwait, UAE, etc.....now most of these countries are autocratic dictatorships and people feel stifled...their only recourse seems to be the idea of a throw back to Islamic way of life which has some hope of gaining wide support...once they succeed in throwing off the yoke of the despots, they will naturally revert back to basic bread and butter issues including development of their economies....
The Mughals ruled India for less than 250 years and the Marathas would have taken over from them if they had not lost the third battle of Panipat...Mughals defeated the Afghans in Delhi to establish themselves in India...Afghans ruled India for almost 500 years....but both these people had little to do with the middle east which was ruled by the Turks....the Arabs after having exported Islam, were themselves subjugated and exploited by the Turks...even Egypt was ruled by the Mamelukes who were originally Turks employed by the Arabs who then turned their rulers....if you go further back in History, Egyptians are actually of Greek Descent after Alexanders's conquest of Egypt...even Cleopatra was a descendent of Ptolemy (a Greek general who became king)....later on they mixed with the Arabs...so there is no question of some Arabs feeling bad about losing the Indian Mughal empire...
Creation of Israel was bad but now it is there and history cannot be reversed...it is a very powerful country and what Hamas and Hezbollah can do are only small pin pricks for Israel...it is time the Arabs reconciled to Israel being a permanent neighbor and used their energies in more fruitful activities like education and development....Israel is a far lesser problem to Arabs than their own tyrannical rulers who are remotely controlled by the West because of the oil reserves under the sands...today all the wealth from sale of oil is shared between western companies and the Sheikhs...screaming about Islam and blowing up a few suicide bombers is not going to change that harsh reality...
How are your studies coming along...any exams or tests lined up...have you tried solving the Rubik's Cube....?how many Evil level Sudoku puzzles have you solved and what is your average time...?
posted by Unknown at 4:50 AM
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