Whom are we protesting against?

As a human and as someone having a "heart", I felt sad, lugubrious and pessimistic when I read about the recent Delhi rape saga.

Then I stumbled upon the news of wide spread protests against the act and that made me feel we have finally got out of the "chaltaa hai" (don't care) attitude. As I say it, I also wonder that whom are we actually protesting against? 

• Are we protesting against the policemen who indeed carried the injured couple to the hospital as the common public stood there like mute spectators? 
• Are we protesting against the judiciary which in 2004 sentenced a man to capital punishment when the brutal rape charges against him were proven? 
• Are we protesting against the government which is not giving us a one bodyguard per citizen facility?

Why are we not protesting against ourselves?

• Why are we not protesting against the men who rather than saving a girl from a moron actually co-participate in the rape?
• Why are we not protesting against the society which lays more stress on a girl's virginity rather than her other definitive qualities thus making rape a bigger taboo resulting in victims not exposing the culprits?
• Why are we not protesting against the society which puts the whole burden of avoiding rapes on the girls, rather than the perpetrators of this shameful crime? 

Our administration needs to "step up" to curb this menace but that's because we as a society have "stepped down". I wonder if any of you guys protesting would actually dare to marry this girl and live in the same society. 

Just a thought.
 Jass

Reply to the OPEN LETTER of "THE" MADRASAN

(This is a reply to a RUDE letter in the same way. Personally, I have South Indian friends and they rock..!!)

Dear Madrasan,

Satsriakal from the North of India, or as you may like to believe, from the Punjabi world. I never thought of living in your self acclaimed "evolved" part of India but I am still alive, spirited and full of life. Though I haven't been in a relationship with you or your kin (now I thank my instincts), it's not hard to make out that arrogance, snobbishness and false self pride are your ingredients as much as grounded rice, urad dal and maida are for dosa.
Your reputation hasn't flown anywhere except your 5 states (there maybe 6 but we care the least) just like your superstars, who people mistake for spot boys elsewhere. I understand your obsession with saris as it takes a real beauty and proportionate body to look good in fitted Punjabi salwar kameez or skinny Levi's. I wonder why your film makers rope in Punjabi girls if there is a pool of beauty in your own paradise of south and your guys go crazy for them as if they don't have the opposite sex in their own species. You can boast about your body strength but that doesn't match with the evolutionary idea of a man and a woman. We have better things to do than wrestle with an idli maker. Congratulations on your matriarchal family system if it ensures gender equality or oppression of men but I don't see zero rapes in your world or ladies ruling the roost anyways. India has seen many lady administrators from the President to PM to CM to Governors and I am sorry to say but the so called North has been the major provider of such fairer sex. Jayalalitha is your only hope and if one day northies too turn so dumb to vote for showbiz, she'll become the PM.
If you think driving an SUV, having fancy gadgets and enjoying in pubs is synonymous to attitude problem then you need to see the world outside those parameters of books, IITs and moustache. It's not our problem that that you think that bucks are to be kept in banks just because both start with a "b". Amazingly you boast of your English but can't get out of that beautiful accent ever. If you think knowing the correct grammar makes you a super woman then please fly up and up and give your classes on Mars. Even people up there would tell you that "L" is not "yell or hell".
Good to learn that since the age of five you love your southie guys (I hope they start liking you too). Yes we were brought up listening to Gurdas Mann, attending election rallies and knowing about happenings around because we believe in overall development of the brain. If you don't know about Devinder Bhullar then we blame it on your GK which you thought was just little less than an encyclopedia. We weren't taught that chess is the only game you should play and classical music is the only truth of life.
 If one of us falls in love with one of yours (still thinking of an example) then yes, we Punjabis have hearts big enough to follow your traditions and marry you. Now that doesn't mean your mallu aunties can spill all shit on us. A Punjabi woman is capable enough of handling tens of yours and making fried pakoras out of their dis proportionate voluptuous flesh and then burp so loud that your lungi uncles would go deaf. We like to celebrate and thus you may see gunfire on our weddings. Make sure your relatives don't run helter skelter like mice on watching such flamboyance.
As far as you not liking us goes, I again say it doesn't matter because we like girls who are girls. We like them  talking like birds, shopping like there's no tomorrow, clubbing and dancing like free souls and not at all trying to be a GUY. We like tandoori chicken and masala dosa side by side but hate people doing hare rama hare krishna on watching any non veg on their table. Did your parents forget to talk about table manners with you while they were telling you that keep a distance from North Indians because they drove us down during Aryan invasion? Lastly on the black colour, it's strange how you crib and cry on your color. If you are so ashamed of it, stop calling yourself an Indian and get layers peeled of your skin until you find an appropriate colour. About getting irritated on receiving messages of gurpurabs, learn to be tolerant and open to new things in life, there's a world beyond uttapams and temples not allowing dalits.
This letter has to stop and be limited just like your outlook of the world.
In the end I would like to stress that we can wear lungi and still not look cheap like your heartthrobs, we can eat sambar, rice and rasam and still look civilized with clean hands and we can keep a moustache which looks like a manhood symbol and not a black tape.
Next time you vomit your shit, a Punjabi guy can cut your tongue leaving you as a dumb (literally) self acclaimed dark chick.

Yours
Punjabi Gabru
(Everyone can call me that because we take pride in our origin.)

- Jass Oberroi

Church Of The Highest Goddess!!!

A very basic question but I've failed to get an apt answer to it from the intellectuals and the not so intellectuals of varied degrees. Includes me too and I often wonder in which category do I fall. I'm not taking any sides on this and just asking you and myself - WHY IS PROSTITUTION treated as a debauched and a libertine profession? What's there in this exchange of service that we find so disgusting and thus look down upon a prostitute as a last grade human being?

Being an Indian I can still quickly put the onus on the prevalent cultural values and say it's because sex itself is seen and treated as a "don't say it" word and thus anything attached to it gets the same treatment (then my question to you would be why sex is treated as such here). And though the west societies have progressed a lot in every f***ing sense but the stigma with the sex workers still remains. Why are we unable to respect a human being who lets us use his/her body to satisfy our need in lieu of a fixed rate that we both decide before doing that act of pure need and desire? What makes it so different from a service of a body massager, a hair trimmer, a pedicure provider etc etc?

We've been witness to many evils in society in past few centuries and slowly and steadily they've been wiped out with the evolution of the society. Prostitution on the other hand has grown in leaps and bounds all over the world right from the 18th century. Does this make it as naturally not so evil for the society? The argument may not impress you much but I fail to recognize the evils attached to prostitution. The one who doesn't want to visit a whore is not being forced and the one who wants to is free to do so. Just like no Sikh guy is forced to visit a hair cutting saloon located in the same locality that he lives and crosses it 13 times in a day.

I think it's enough to tickle your brains on this issue and get some ideas and answers out of you. Sex according to me is a need both physical and psychological for the human body and someone is just giving you food at his restaurant by charging you. It's your wish to have it there or not but can you really look down upon him/her running that business?

Jass Oberroi

P.S.- 1) *** stands for "uck"
2) No offenses meant by the title. The author (wow! happens to be ME) just loves playing with the "god" concept.

YOU and ME equal?

Is everyone of us EQUAL? Equally intelligent, equally fair, equally honest, equally smart or equally human? If your answer is "YES" then I'm making a fool proof prognostication and that's you not liking the remaining post.

Whether 'intelligently crafted' or 'just by chance' (surely another topic of gross debate), we all are just not so equal or uniform. If we venture out of our species the differences become huge but even if we stay in our very own homo sapien class the variations do surprise us. So just as two different parts of a system have different roles to play we ought to play DIFFERENT roles in this society. So am I drifting towards secretly legitimising the taboo of "caste system"? Not exactly but yes I gave you a vague idea of the origin of such practices.

So on what basis do we actually demand EQUALITY? On what grounds do we support and justify "Reservations"? You may come out with the old long word 'discrimination' as a universally accepted answer to this but I'll actually TALK to you about this today. Let's take the example of SC reservations in India. Roughly 22% of seats everywhere from education to employment are reserved for people belonging to this category (purely caste based). The justification given is that they were treated badly by the wicked upper caste ( today's poor general category) in earlier times so they are down trodden and need help to rise to the same level. I myself agree to this justification till this point but my definition of help differs. Should we provide them equal opportunities ( like schooling, tutoring, finances etc) or undue advantage? Like if a child is born in one such family and another in an upper caste family and they receive equal kind of schooling and coaching etc etc then aren't they equally deserving for admission into a prestigious college?

Plainly speaking I'm against glorification and success of undeserving people. Nature is a great leveler and I staunchly feel that given equal opportunities only the deserving pop up and that's how systems run efficiently. By painting red as blue we aren't making the sky beautiful but creating a fake cloud.

P.S. - the writer shouldn't be accused of 'caste-ism' --- he just doesn't love 'equality'.

Jass Oberroi

Challenging the very PREMISE of Sensory experience

Jason returns home after a long tiring day at work and finds his wife, Terra and friend Siddle cosy in his bed. Before Jason says something Siddle asks him a QUESTION... "Whom will you believe? Me or your eyes?"

I read this joke somewhere and smiled just amused by the situation but there's more into this. Is Siddle challenging the premise of SENSORY experience? What sort of data is certain? The one collected by our senses or the one formulated in our mind by belief or trust etc etc? Can't the vision be a hallucination and taking any action based on it be wrong? So which way of gathering facts is more dependable and why?

-Jass Oberroi

DEFINING KNOWLEDGE

For discussions and comments on this blog.The figure above should be taken as a definition of knowledge and any person claiming to be knowledgeable should meet the above set criteria.

JustifiABLE Biasing?

How fair and natural it is to be partial and biased?
2 guys fighting it out real hard on the grass tennis court. You passionately supporting the guy in red. Most likely reasons of you doing so would be that maybe you two are from the same land or region or family... (or maybe because you like his eyes!!!). Seldom do people devotedly support the better of the two players.
Is it rationally, morally and ethically right and justified? If yes, then doesn't favoritism of any kind also fall under this category of pseudo-warranted act. Why do we stand up against the bunch of people who discriminate against another bunch that doesn't belong to their group? Be it caste, color, ethnicity, religion or any association one favors his/her core group over others naturally.
Should we assist this natural feeling or curb it to make humanity the only group? Or is humanity also a selfish group and we should treat all living beings as kindred? Or is it that we just don't know where to draw the line?

Jass Oberroi