Holy Cow!

A few days back, the Environment Ministry issued a notification which basically banned cattle slaughter. It is not a blanket ban because the ban on cattle slaughter is only targeted at animal markets, but it will hit more than 95% of the industry since very few sources exist which can actually sell beef legally. The notification which is an amendment to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 also adds procedures and directions as to how to handle and sell cattle apart from the rules and regulations on the holding of animal markets. This notification is what has been widely called, as the Beef ban.

*Throughout this article, this notification will be called BB

Why BB?

  1. It is one of the directive principles of the state to prohibit and prevent cattle slaughter. (Article 48 of the Indian Constitution) A Directive principle is like a guideline which a government must keep in mind before framing laws. While there are a lot of other directive principles which the government could have given more importance to, our government probably thought “Cows rule” and implemented this.
  2. The BJP government has completed 3 years at the center and has come under fire for not fulfilling a lot of its poll promises. This seems to be a diversionary tactic employed by the Government.
  3. A few states, including the primarily Hindu vegetarian state of Gujarat, are going to polls soon and this move seems to be aimed at consolidating the Hindu majority and gain their votes.

 

The Ramifications of BB:

  1. There has been opposition primarily from the North-East, West Bengal, and Kerala, where beef consumption is prevalent. These states have expressed their anger and said that the government shouldn’t dictate the eating habits of the people. I, for once, agree with them. I strongly believe that the government shouldn’t interfere with the eating habits of the people. People who do not believe in consuming beef, please, by all means, don’t. It’s unfair of the government to tell me what I should and shouldn’t eat.
  2. There have been a lot of PIL’s filed in the courts saying that this order is impugning upon the fundamental rights of people to consume meat. This subject also falls under the state list and the state should have the final call on how to go about this, but since this is being pushed through the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960, it supersedes the state list effectively making the states helpless. This is another reason as to why the states are protesting.
  3. Cow vigilantism, which was already rising, will now reach new heights.
  4. The punishment for cow slaughter is more severe when compared to crimes like rape, culpable homicide, sexual harassment, etc. in a lot of states like UP, Gujarat, Bihar and the other states of the “cow belt”. Yep, the governments have their priorities sorted. 😀

 

I personally am very annoyed at this BB and I think that the government should focus on fulfilling its promises, rather than resort to such cheap tactics for political mileage and vote bank. I hear a lot of people saying stuff like “The government will decide based on the wishes of the majority of the people.” To them, I say “Oho :)” This isn’t the first time, religion has influenced the lawmakers. I strongly believe that separation of Religion and the state is very important since India is a secular country and shouldn’t favor one religion over the other. 

-An Anti-Indian and an Adarsh Liberal

Vignesh Ramakrishnan

Pornography

Pornography

This is one article, that I’m going to attract a lot of flak for. But, I felt it was a topic that needed to be talked on.

Disclaimer: Don’t read further, if you get offended easily and don’t want to accommodate a different opinion.

Everyone is familiar with the button (I Agree, Enter the Website), Just kidding. I don’t even know of such a website’s existence. Pornography is like the friend who exists, but you choose to ignore him because you don’t wanna associate yourself with him, but you love him in secret.

Why is there a moral stigma attached to Porn?

Somehow, there’s a social and moral stigma associated with anything related to sex and Pornography isn’t spared either. Everyone watches porn, but when someone comes out and says “I do watch Porn” Society treats him/her like they’re immoral. This stigma is stronger towards women than men (In most cases) I think this whole immoral thing is absolutely ridiculous. There’s nothing wrong in watching Porn as long as you can differentiate reality from fiction.

Is Porn completely good for the society?

Pornography, like Prostitution has witnessed a lot of illegal human trafficking and people being forced into the industry. This is a reason why I believe Pornography should be regulated by the government. If it comes into the legal purview, then definitely the numbers of illegally trafficked girls or women forced into this industry will come down, and more people will be willing to work as a pornstar because it is an actual industry. Of course, for this to work, the society needs to change and remove the moral policing of the Pornography industry.

Argument against legalization

This is the most common argument, I’ve come across, apart from what I mentioned above (Illegal trafficking).

“Porn shows youngsters to be morally irresponsible.”
There’s nothing moral or immoral in porn. Why do we, have to thrust the responsibility of creating good samaritans on Pornography. This is the same with the Film Industry. We as parents, friends, teachers, elders and fellow citizens don’t take the responsibility of creating morally responsible citizens, but rather we want to conveniently thrust the blame upon the Film and Porn industry. Stalking, yep. Films have spoilt the youth. Murder, yep. Films have spoiled the youth. Rape, “Bro, I’m telling you no, porn is the cause for this!” Absolute bollocks. It’s high time we took responsibility and became responsible for ourselves than shoving it on industries which are only here to make money.

Like I already mentioned, if you know that what’s happening in porn is not real, then you can be responsible.

Why do we turn to Porn?

In my opinion, Pornography is no different from a movie. We watch Porn for the same reason, why we turn to movies. Entertainment. I agree, watching two people do “it” gets boring after a few minutes. It still is something different, and you might even learn something out of it. Added to that, I guess there’s a sense of rebellion when we discreetly close the doors, put on headphones or turn the speakers to a low volume and press Ctrl + Shift + N. We feel, we are rebelling against society (in some cases, our parents) when we watch porn.

How to effectively monetize Pornography?

Like I already said, by legalizing the industry and removing the social and moral stigma attached to it, we can improve the lives of people working in the industry and also attract more people to it.

(You may not understand anything in the following paragraph if you haven’t watched porn)

India is one of the largest consumers of porn. The Indian Porn industry, however, is pretty bad. No one in their right mind would actually willingly consume desi porn. Even if they do, they probably are full of regrets as to why we have such low-quality porn. To those novices, who haven’t watched Porn. Think of Indian Pornography as the made in China equivalent. Coming back to the point, I think if we invest in the Porn industry, like how the USA did, with br***rrs or na***hty america, we can definitely get high returns.

I have a dream, that everything I’ve talked about above, doesn’t remain a dream forever.

With Sanskari greetings and love

Vignesh Ramakrishnan.

I’d love to know your views on the issue, I talked about. If you want, comment using a fake name 😛

 

The Lion, The Bull, and The Government

All of India has been astounded by Tamil Nadu’s sudden show of solidarity. The protestors at the Marina Beach, have been protesting for close to 5 days. This is not the highlight of the protest. The highlight is that, despite there being no controlling leader, the protest has been non-violent, the protesters have been cleaning up the mess that they generate, there have been multiple situations when the light was turned off in a vain attempt to make the protesters disperse, but their hands simply reached into their pockets, took out their phones and used the torch. No hand even thought about harming a woman or misbehaving with her. I salute that with all my heart. We did not involve a political party, although some claimed to be aligned with us and ended up inconveniencing the public, which was one thing we didn’t seek to.

This blog post isn’t about why Jallikattu shouldn’t be banned. It’s more of a request to everyone protesting, be it on the roads, or against insensitive people over social media. I have a few requests for you all.

  • It is absolute and total bullshit to ask for a separation from India. We are Indians, we have been Indians and we always will be Indians. How can we forget the contributions of Tamil freedom fighters to India? Are we going to let their blood and sweat go in vain? Just because the National media is being stupid, doesn’t mean we should bring ourselves down to their level. We chose to be inside the Indian Union for a reason. We may be Tamilians first, but we are Indians too.
  • Banning Foreign products in India is completely ridiculous. India is a mixed economy, which means it has capitalist elements along with socialistic characteristics. In a Capitalistic/partly capitalistic economy, it is natural that companies do whatever it takes, to maximize profits. We have the socialistic part, only to keep those immoral values in check. We’re forgetting that Coca-Cola, Pepsi have factories all over the world and in developed countries too. The difference is that developed countries had strict and stringent environmental standards, that the company had to meet before it could start a factory. Our government didn’t do that, and it gave them a license. Not to forget the factor of corruption which comes into play whenever there’s a large project. It is the fault of the government which should have kept in mind that the interests and safety of the people comes first. Banning all Foreign goods will boost the profits of domestic manufacturers for a short amount of time but over a long period of time, it will make the economy crumble. These companies pay a huge amount of tax, they bring in the much-needed production for the country and, they also have invested in the country in terms of FDI. Take away all these, and the economy is sure to sink.
  •  PETA has been unfair to Tamil Nadu by fighting for banning only Jallikattu and I wholeheartedly support the protests. Let’s not stop at just this. For every unfair thing that the government has done/will do. Let’s protest! Let’s protest against corruption, let’s protest against rapes, let’s protest against female infanticide, foeticide, let’s protest against all the social evils that plague India! This shouldn’t be the end, this should be the beginning.

We got freedom by non-violent protest. I’m not a huge fan of Mahatma Gandhi, but he was successful in getting us freedom. By non-violent protest and non-cooperation. Let’s do the same until the Government thinks “If we bring in an unfair law, the people will protest and the city will come to a stand-still”

I rest my case.

-Vignesh Ramakrishnan

The Spirit of Deepavali/Diwali

The festival of lights is upon us and it’s not uncommon to suddenly find a burn mark on your new clothes. You smile, brush it off and say “Now in which street did this happen?” Diwali/Deepavali is one of the most important for Hindus and is widely celebrated in all of India regardless of religion. Yesterday, when I was going back home with my Mom, I couldn’t help but notice that the streets wore a pretty deserted look. The night before Diwali would be filled with Crackers and fireworks not letting you sleep, but this time it was very sporadic. The biggest competition used to be “My street has more Cracker wrappings, than the nearby street B|”  But, I think over the years, Deepavali/Diwali has become less about crackers and more about watching the new movies, wearing new clothes and eating sweets. This blog post just muses about the possible reasons for the decline of bursting crackers during Diwali.

1. Skyrocketing Prices:

The most important aspect of celebrating Deepavali/Diwali was by bursting crackers. Legend has it that, Narakasura (The demon to whom we owe Diwali) wanted a wish that his death be celebrated every year. People started lighting lamps and bursting crackers to show that they were happy that the demon Narakasura has been vanquished. Fire is seen as a purifier in Hindu Mythology and the metaphor conveyed by the bursting of crackers is that “Pessimism is removed with the sound of these crackers and the laughter of the people” In recent times however, the price of crackers is unbelievably high. Just a Single Saram (Electric Crackers) 2 or 3 packets of Lakshmi Vedi will definitely cost you Rs. 200 – 300. Everything is so expensive that people have begun to think “I’d rather spend the 300 bucks in getting myself a T-shirt or at least something that I’d use for some time” Since this mindset has set in, people are reluctant to go and buy crackers, something that lasts for less than a minute for such a high price.

2. Green Diwali

These people suddenly jump out of nowhere and during the 2 days of Diwali/Diwali you can spot them saying “Bursting crackers isn’t true Diwali spirit! #GOGREEN!! #ISupportGreenDiwali” These people are the ones who don’t put plastics in dustbins, who don’t dispose E-waste properly, who don’t carpool in order to save the world from pollution, who don’t walk short distances and these are the ones who want to ban Jallikattu, but don’t raise their voices against other animal atrocities happening openly in India. In short, these are the hypocrites. Sure, there are quite a few people who truly do their part in saving the environment, the above paragraph was not meant for those people.

3. Lack of Interest:

Till I was 14 years old, I could be spotted on the street, a week before Diwali/Deepavali bursting every single kind of Firecracker available. As I grew up, I no longer had the obsessive need to pester my dad to buy me crackers. Between “Dad let’s get one more thousand wala” and “Dad, please don’t buy even a single Lakshmi vedi” I grew up. I realized that sleep was more important to me and I felt I’d get a T-shirt instead of fireworks. To everyone who is not bursting crackers because they no longer have the interest to “Cheers!”

4. Pet owners and Animal lovers

Most of the animals are terrified of the sounds of crackers and often cower under shelter out of fear. My friend’s dog is usually very brave, but during Diwali/Deepavali he won’t stop shaking and my friend has to stay near him during the 2 days of Diwali/Deepavali. He seeks to stop people from bursting crackers because the animals run helter-skelter and many even die. I think that a possible solution for this could be, isolating a few areas during Diwali/Deepavali and prohibiting people from bursting crackers here. That way, the animals can stay in those shelters till the crackers die down and be safe. This idea does have a lot of practical difficulties, but just a thought.

Despite all this, Diwali/Deepavali is still a nostalgia for me. The care free times when I used to burst bijilis and otha (Nope, not what you’re thinking) vedis with my cousins in the afternoon. Throwing the cracker and watching it burst mid-air, the entire family gathered up at night and watching the sky in awe. The beautiful lights and the tasty sweets, the colorful clothes and the smiles on people, growing nails, just for “thiri pikkardhu” and having your hands turn grey because of the vedi marundhu (the chemicals used in the vedi). I miss it all…

Do you burst crackers? Why/Why not? What’s the thought that crosses your mind when you celebrate Diwali/Deepavali. Please do comment I’d love to hear from you.

 

Wishing everyone a happy, safe and prosperous Deepavali/Diwali.

PS: I know that some of you must have gotten annoyed because of the constant Diwali/Deepavali. In my defense, even spellings are used to spread hate. Peace!!

Cheers

-Vignesh

 

Taking a Year’s break

Only 3 months remain for the year to end, yet I now take up the keyboard and begin to fervently type about my choice to take a year’s break and prepare for an Entrance exam.

It so happened that I had screwed up my entrance exams and I was selecting the best college I would get with my marks. Sadly, there weren’t many. I narrowed down my choice to one, prepared my mind for college life and suddenly my brother says “Did you consider taking a year back and preparing” I said “No, the idea wasn’t even on my mind” He asked me to think about it and if I was truly interested and motivated, to take a year break and prepare. His logic was “A good head-start you get by joining a good university, will definitely reward you well” I thought and thought and thought about it. I couldn’t make a decision. Faced with indecision and doubt, my family came up with a plan. I would take a week to sit and study for the exam, if I couldn’t do it even for a week, I wouldn’t be able to study for a year (Yeah, duh) The first week passed, I was able to motivate myself to study and I decided to take the year’s break and study. The initial reactions of people to my decisions were of shock, encouragement and “Unnala mudiyuma?” I highly doubt that my blog is being read my people outside my circle. But I will translate anyway. It means “Can you do it?” I ignored all the opinions and started my preparations.

 

The first month of my preparation was marred with my Facebook wall being flooded with “X is at Y University (Feeling Fabulous)” My reaction was (-_-) and I told myself “Don’t get annoyed, focus!” After sometime the posts changed to selfies with captions like “First class #CollegeLifeHereICome” I was literally like “T_T I have got one more year till I can post stuff like this too” The only consolation I gave myself was “Don’t worry you can watch Kabali FDFS, while they can’t B|” Life’s reply was “Nope. Not happening” Anyway, aside from all this. I joined foreign language classes to pass my time and do something useful. It was a completely new and refreshing experience and I came to interact with people much older than me.

The next month, I was tortured with my close friends posting selfies with their friends “First outing with College friends!!!” And apart from feeling left out from my friends. I started losing contact with most of them. Even now, I haven’t spoken with most (Read as all) of my classmates or schoolmates. But apart from that, I started feeling doubt. Would I be able to actually crack the exam? Will be able to do justice to this year’s break? I started losing confidence in myself. But one incident, made me gain confidence in myself. I had done extremely well in my Foreign language exam for the first level. I felt good, I felt alive and most importantly I felt that I could crack this exam. I also attended Quora meetups where I could live my passion for speaking, debating and listening to many opinions.

That sums up what I’ve been going through this year. I realized the importance of time spent for yourself and I came to enjoy it. I started enjoying the experience of learning a new language properly. I met new people and enjoyed debating and voicing out my opinions to them. I was able to devote time for writing and started writing everyday. I was able to spend time with my family and had lots of fun with them. My Mum has become my movie partner now.  Though the doubt and fear encloses in, but in some way I was able to find a solution to that and stop it.

I don’t really think that this blog post has meaning to it, it’s just a rant of sorts. However, I do want to say to everyone who will be writing their 12th Boards next year. Do consider taking a year break if you aren’t satisfied with your results. But on a lighter note. Don’t worry you will get the results you want!

Peace

-Vignesh Ramakrishnan

A Man raped. A new era of sexual violence?

We all have been disgusted, and enraged by the growing number of young girls, being subjected to sexual violence, and rape. I guess, it’s not just going to be girls anymore. But men too. Gone are the days when you needed a vagina to be raped, gone are the days when the government turned a blind eye to sodomy, and men subjected to forced sex.

A man was reported to be gangraped and murdered. This incident happened, in Hyderabad, in the early hours of Monday. The victim who was a 40 year old, was also reported to have suffocated to death. The officials were baffled about which case to book the FIR under, because according to the IPC, rape doesn’t apply to the same sex. And section 377 doesn’t deal with forced sex. This just goes to show, how much we have assumed, in framing the law. “Men can’t be raped, Men can only rape.” There has been a growing number of cases of women forcing a man, against his consent to have intercourse. But according to many, such things don’t exist. We need to open our eyes, we need to talk more about sexual abuse, and sexual violence. New laws have to be framed pertaining to forced intercourse, and Section 377 (The homosexual law) Must definitely be scrapped. Otherwise, I think we’ll see more incidents like these. Comment your opinions on what can be done.

Source of news: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/220316/man-allegedly-gangraped-killed-in-hyderabad.html

-Vignesh

Math paper horrors

So, it’s been almost a month since I blogged, and I type away on the keyboard to talk about something which has been plaguing my mind, since this morning from 10:15 am. The time, I opened my Math paper. I, like many of my classmates, walked in to the exam hall with confidence hoping to boost my total and cutoffs with Mathematics. My world was turned topsy turvy, in 15 minutes. At first look, the paper wasn’t easy, but I can do well, I thought. As I started doing the sums, I got stuck here and there, although most of the sums were doable, it was tough. You had to think, for a while and then do the sums, in that way, this paper was way way tougher than last year. The graph was tough, probability was tough, Calculus wasn’t easy. And most of the questions hadn’t been seen in previous board papers. All in all, though if it had been a school paper, it would have been considered a decent paper. But, since the future selection of Colleges is dependent on this, and since math plays a vital role in the cutoffs, it was a very tough paper, and it wasn’t expected to be this tough, because last year was difficult too. So I’d say that the paper took many by surprise. Although there’s nothing much we can do about it anymore, we can only hope that CBSE is lenient in correcting the paper, and moderates quite a bit. I request all fellow students, to share this post, comment your thoughts below, so we can do our part in getting the difficulty of the paper to CBSE. Pray that the next papers don’t turn out as tough 😛

Cheers

Vignesh

Intolerant?

A huge debate had been going on, as to whether, India is intolerant or not. Although it was a few months back, I was urged to write about it again, when I saw a particular incident on the newspaper. While, there have been certain times, when Indians, suddenly unite, and stand together, there have been other incidents which have been marred by bloodshed, and violence. The Dadri lynching, spraying ink on a delegate who simply came to promote a book, making an artist cancel his peaceful concert by threatening him, the stripping of an innocent Tanzanian woman and burning her car, for the fault of a totally different man, who belonged to the same continent, not even the same country! All these outrageous incidents, incite and fuel the intolerance debates. We must ponder, as to why, such incidents are happening? Why is the eating of beef, an offence so grave, that an entire mob sets out in blood thirst?! Why is this country, a safe haven for all religions and cultures, coming under scrutiny for intolerance? Will a few incidents, make India intolerant? or Will it set off the air, for more such incidents in the future? My personal opinion is that, these kind of incidents bring a taint upon the accommodating culture of Indians, they also might pave the way for more such gruesome incidents in the future.

Please do comment your thoughts below 🙂

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Paris Burning, Chennai Drowning

Water water everywhere,

Not a drop to drink,

Water water everywhere,

All the houses did sink.

Chennai, has been facing torrential rains, and being tossed about between depressions and low pressure areas. As a result, not only did the city’s reservoirs fill, but also the streets and houses. Rainwater seeped into many houses, causing power to be cut, leaving the residents in darkness and misery. The subways were filled to the brim, and looking like swimming pools. Yes, the major part of the reason for the city’s misery has to go to the inept corporation and it’s lack of precautionary measures, but everything cannot be attributed to the government. A week, filled with holidays, continuing after Diwali. But, another woe of many people was tuning into news channels, unable to find a neutral channel, what with Sun TV filled with people narrating their difficulties, which multiplied tenfold because of the government, and Jaya TV filled with people hailing the government for it’s relief schemes. The weather predictions went for 30 seconds, the interviews went for the rest 30 minutes. As Chennai, was being battered in the rain, Paris was barraged by bullets and explosions, Cuddalore, Kanchipuram being completely flooded. In this week, after Diwali, so many lives have been lost, to Nature’s fury in Tamil Nadu, and Mankind’s madness in Europe and Middle east. My condolences to the victims who lost their lives. As of now, the sky has cleared up, the ground hasn’t, Chennai remains a water world. Schools remain closed for the 5th consecutive day, but rumors and speculation about another cyclone, sends the residents jitters. Let’s hope for the best, and do whatever we can to get the city back on it’s feet.

-Vignesh