Raja's read only memories

Reports that a Russian court has dismissed the ban on a commentary titled The Bhagawad Gita As It Is , based on the Bhagawad Gita, a holy scripture of the Hindus, reach the heavens, where Lord Vishnu, a form of whom – Lord Krishna – was one of the protagonists in the scripture; the other being his disciple, Arjuna. We now attempt to hypothesise what would have been a conversation between the Lord and his disciple in the wake of the dismissal of the ban. O Lord, forget me, save the Gita from the controversies clouding it Arjuna: O Mahavishnu, have you been acquainted with the latest developments? Lord Vishnu: My child, you seem to be agitated, as you were at the start of the battle at Kurukshetra. What is it that bothers you now? A: The ban on the Bhagawad Gita. L:  Oh, the trial in a Russian court against what was once an old conversation between us? Do tell me, O Arjuna, what has happened now? I must confess that I have failed to update myself on happenings in the ...

Appeared in City Express , the daily supplement of The New Indian Express , on Tuesday, December 27, 2011 A still from Rajapattai... Has the director bitten more than what he can chew? Despite having an enviable star cast, and a noted director and music director at its helm, Rajapattai (king's way), a masala movie in essence, has a storyline that makes the viewer realise that stifling yawns is more daunting than playing rapid-fire chess. No surprises in this love plot 'Annal' Murugan (Vikram) is a gym instructor who aspires to become a villain. A righteous person, he saves Dakshinamurthy (Vishwanath) from goons who are out to bump him off. It transpires that Dakshinamurthy was fleeing his greedy son (Avinash), who wants him killed for his wealth. In offering support to the geriatric, Murugan makes many an enemy, and by extension a slew of fight sequences follow. In exchange, the senior citizen helps his protector in his conquest for love, who is cupid-struck wi...

Flipping through the newspaper the other day, a report caught my eye, for reasons far too obvious. It was titled “Former Israeli president jailed for rape”. The article detailed how the former President, Moshe Katsav, harassed his women colleagues sexually, including rape, while serving in different capacities, and how he was forced to step down when matters came to a head that his continuance in the office of Israel Presidency was untenable. And yes, he did, all along the while maintain his innocence, to  no avail. The irony was that he had to begin his jail term not long after his 66 th birthday. A fact one needs to highlight here (bold, italicise and underline) is that he was forced to step down from office to face trial, and get convicted eventually. Contrast this with some events that happened in our country: a) A woman went missing in Rajasthan; Bhanwari Devi to the uninitiated. Although the needle of suspicion pointed to senior Congress minister Mahipal Maderna, the gov...

Enough is enough, Mr Kapil Sibal Scarred by scams and scandals, of which the UPA-II government seems to be mired in abundance, and pushed on the backfoot by the opposition on virtually every issue of national interest, it seemed as if the government was waiting for an opportunity to release steam. Hence, Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal’s – no greenhorn to the foot-in-mouth syndrome himself – epic blunder of a proposal that social networking sites, Google, Facebook and Twitter in particular, ought to be brought under censorship. Unsurprisingly, India’s netizens have railed against the proposal. In fact, stating so may rank as the understatement of all time. In one imbecilic statement, Sibal signalled his return as the new butt of jokes that serenade the nation, upstaging titans such as Digvijaya Singh and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, to name a microscopic few, in the process. Sibal’s rationale for gagging the internet in India is as laughable as the proposal itself. According to ...

Bellary, synonymous with illegal mining, rampant corruption and ex-minister Gali Janardhana Reddy, is in the limelight, for the right reasons, for a change: it is all set to get its representative to the Vidhana Soudha, the seat of power of the Karnataka Assembly, after it went to the hustings recently. If C and HTML programming and even mundane tasks like cooking can have a dummy’s guide or a dictionary, then the chequered past of the iron-rich district of Karnataka, too, can have one. So, here goes: A – stands for AP Mines and Mineral Development Corporation (APMMDC), whose director V D Rajagopal (not to be confused with this author!) was arrested in connection with illegal sanction of mining leases to the behemoth that is Obulapuram Mining Company, owned by jailed former minister G Janardhana Reddy; also stands for Anantpur district in AP where OMC was also said to have obtained the permits for mining; also stands for ‘able independent’ which JD(S) state president H D Kumaraswam...