THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

24 February 2015 Hello everyone! If you are a regular visitor to my blog, The Indian Commentator, I would like to address an issue more in tune with what you might be feeling right now. At last, we have a blog post live, you might be thinking.  There have been a series of events, good and bad, confusing and confiding that altered the path of my life as a regular blogger into a fortnightly blogger, and that again into a monthly blogger. Although I eagerly wish to avoid this gap that has been occurring in my blogging schedule, the firm decisions made by the Cosmos are taking me into territories traversed never before. I am talking about those same events that mattered more than blogging. Ensaf Haidar, wife of jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi Perhaps, you might read an article online talking about pitfalls in blogging, and find “not attending one's blog for a considerably long period of time” as one of the reasons for low number of pageviews. Needless to say, the ...

Two things have changed since I understood what Valentine’s Day is and why some people get excited when this day arrives on 14 February, every year. One—they have started using the term “V-day” for Valentine’s Day these days, as if it's Vagina Day or Victory Day or something. Two—some extremist parties have proclaimed Valentine’s Day a “No Love Day” in India. Adding to the farce, (I mean the second change I mentioned about Valentine’s Day) the Indian state of “ Chhattisgarh renamed V-Day as ‘Matru-Pitru Diwas’ , meaning the ‘day for mother and father’. In other words, by “loving” on Valentine’s Day, you might get yourself beaten up or in some unfortunate cases, killed. In Chhattisgarh though, you may be arrested and send to prison because the Matru-Pitru Diwas is announced by the government itself. Image Courtesy: www.mygatherblog.com I have felt it always easy, when writing non-fiction, to use a thought or quote from a book I read. Ideas and concepts from prev...

I am about to do something I haven’t done in years; a political commentary. It is true that I started out my blog with an observe-and-comment strategy with political affairs. The reason behind that move wasn’t as much of social commitment as it was the urge to keep on writing. When I chose the defining strategy of my blog, The Indian Commentator as ‘observe and comment’, I had in my mind a firm idea that I will never lack topics to write about. Later in my career as a blogger, I realized that things weren’t as I expected them to be. I never found the stream of ideas empty regarding the publication of The Indian Commentator. However, I did find it difficult to use my observe-and-comment strategy frequently. This strategy forced me, occasionally to reveal the political ideology I am inclined to. In truth, I am not inclined toward any political idea or ideology. I do not have participation in any political party, until this moment. In future too, I wish myself to be kept awa...

I feel talking about a clumsy affair, a delicate event gone terribly wrong. This, perhaps, is what we can say for sure about National Games 2015. Many leftist and Hindu Right wing newspapers as well as channels have already come forward with cases against the sports minister of Kerala. Which newspaper you read is a big problem. The selection of newspaper will decide your point of view. However, from what I understand, every newspaper is printing the stories with the same ugly truths. It feels like reading novels by different authors, but all with same characters and stories. It wasn’t a surprise that in 2015, National Games, the Olympics of India, the largest democracy in the world, would be held in Kerala. Thirty years back, in 1984 Kerala hosted National Games, and this year we celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of that event. The arrival of the Games back in Kerala was after a long time of waiting. No one cared much about thinking why have we not been able to host the even...