This is my World

What problems could threaten the integrity of a developing nation in the 21st century ? Poverty ? Corruption ? Inequality ? At present, these are not the issues that is troubling the biggest democracy in the World the most. Instead, it is men's age old disease called lust that is the rocking the boat this country is sailing on. Over the past few months, this lust has manifested in many different forms across the lengths and breadths of this country. The disease has consumed the flesh of its victims with a grin on its face. It has poisoned the souls of many and destroyed the lives of many more. It hasn't even spared our children.  Sought after for long is a cure for this disease. But with no breakthroughs after so many years, it has only grown more vicious and contagious. The steep rise in the number of lives it affects and the brutality with which it strikes has us all wondering what has gone wrong? The ever "responsible" media offers a cure. The death penalty !...

It is a longstanding ritual in some of the cultures across the globe where men and women shave their heads and offer their hair to a god in return for a favour. People, over the centuries, have ridiculed it as weird ceremony which has no spiritual bearing.  These allegations are not without reason. It is these same cultures that consider tonsuring their heads holy, consider hair inferior. They even use this very word as a derogatory term to refer a person who is dull/lame/stupid. To quote a dialogue from a Tamil movie, Ratha Kaneer(Tears of blood), "Uyira kodutha kadavullukku mayiraya da kodukura?"(Is it fair to offer the lord your hair? - Sarcastic) sums up the contradiction in the beliefs of these cultures.  In this article, I am not going to defend/criticize the practise because fools will always be fools(Note: I haven't said who the fools are, the ones who shave their heads or the ones who don't. I leave that to your judgement). Instead, I am going to ...

[What led me to write this article was the recent controversy surrounding the IPL] In the wake of Tamil Nadu government's decision to ban  Srilankan  players in matches to be played at Chennai, a lot of my friends, both knowledgeable and uninformed, have taken to Facebook and Twitter demanding these matches be moved to a different venue so that they can have the privilege of watching a handful of  Srilankans  sledging and slogging. While sports and politics are two different things, is this decision the first of its kind?  Hell no, is the answer.  During the apartheid era, ICC banned South Africa from International cricket. After the Mumbai attacks, our very own BCCI banned Pakistan from playing in its soil. And about a fortnight ago, it banned China, Myanmar and Bhutan so as not to form non-political connections with these countries.  None of the above were done for sporting reasons. Instead, all these are symbolic bans intended...