Monday, April 17, 2006

Rang De Basanti effect

I did not watch it. Heard about the story and got mixed reviews. And I am too lazy to go to theaters and waste Rs 150 to watch some movie which isnt highly rated. And the storyline did not appeal much to me. Yeah now I do care about our air force pilots but not the way some bunch of college dropouts do. I know the story so I did not watch it.

Aamir Khan seems to have taken his role in the movie seriously. He has gone out to support Medha Patkar on the Narmada issue.

Now the place where I spent my early years. A small town in Gujarat, a state where about three fourths of the land has perennial water problems and constantly under drought threat. I visited my old home town, since someone in the family had expired. Quite some number of relatives visited home. The water is supplied about once in two days and in small quantities. The water is quite saline and the salinity keeps increasing over the years. It just about suffices for a family of four. Deodorant sales must be good in Gujarat, I had to bath alternate days to save water. Quite often, we had to pay for tankers of water to deliver at home. There are announcements by the local municipal authorities about when will water be delivered. You have to keep notice of that. Most housewives deal with water management issues at home daily. There are days when you have to keep notice that you have water left for only a day and the next time water will be delivered will be after two days. So you try to avoid drinking water!

Now would our dumb dear Mr Aamir Khan go to the interiors of the dry Gujarat heartlands and live like the people do for about a month. Would he pay Rs 500 for a tanker of water everyday to make sure that he has sufficient water to bath himself, his ugly wives and his dogs (in case he has any). It is easy to support a cause without knowing the whole picture. Now the way mostly commercial page-3 type newspapers like TOI (Toiletpaper of India) present it, makes the people of Gujarat look like villains. I wholly endorse the protests in Gujarat.

Aamir Khan on TV says that he is not against progress , but for rehabilitation of people affected by the dam. Oh yeah, what do you think Aamir, the people will lap up whatever trash you speak emotionally on TV, is it. If you dumb nuts are not against progress, why are you putting a stop to work on the dam. You can agitate for rehabilitation without getting the construction of the dam stopped. NO, you are agitating for stopping the dam construction, and not for rehab. How come then you are not anti-progress.

Aamir, you typically sum up a Bollywood actor - Dumb people who cannot even operate a cellphone properly. You are considered the most intelligent in Bollywood. If this is the best you can be, I can judge other film actors as well, where they stand. Plus you are not an engineer, so you wouldnt obviously know how the height of the dam affects the hydraulics of the system. You need pressure to push the water over long distances with minimal use of pumps in the pipeline. So the height needs to be higher to send water to remotest parts of the state, and use of pumps be minimized. Greater height also means greater amount of electricity generated. But of course, all these advantages are lost on you, like they are lost on Medha Patkar.

Bhakra Nangal project in Punjab transformed the state. IIRC, the waters from the Beas enabled Rajasthan to carry out some wheat farming. The same thing can be done for dry parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, MP and Maharashtra.

It would be good for him if Aamir Khan sticks to mouthing inanities on the silver screen, and lusting after women on and off screen, rather than meddling in serious issues. That way he wont reveal his IQ ;-)

11 Comments:

Blogger Winnie said...

As an information hungry individual I clicked here from your comment on Rashmi Bansal's blog in search of some intelligent counter arguments. Unfortunately I was left sorta dissappointed. Most of your your tirade is either too personal or it hits below the belt. I can understand your pro-feelings towards the dam having persoanlly gone through harrowing water-saving times. I am not a great Aamir Khan fan. But I think we can argue in a more respectful and dignified way.

April 18, 2006 8:06 AM  
Blogger One in the crowd said...

Wasted effort coming to your blog. No offense meant, but your post isn't worthy of a comment.

April 18, 2006 9:49 PM  
Blogger Gamesmaster G9 said...

You just don't get it, do you?

April 18, 2006 9:50 PM  
Blogger In The Shadows said...

@Blah - Thanks for not commenting. Or for commenting, should I say?

@GameMaster - Ok then can you explain please. I havent hit puberty yet and I eat bubblegum and blow bubbles.

@Winnie - Ok, if you read, I have given my counter arguments with facts related to the dam. Fact is that I know people from Sardar Sarovar Nigam Ltd. The imported kaplan turbines had cost a crore per annum just to maintain them in an as-is condition before they start working. Yeah, i did hit aamir khan below the belt, but he deserves it ;-). In his RDB zeal, he tries to support a cause with half baked facts. Ok, good he came out to support a cause, but NBA is an organization with dubious credentials itself. Will I be not guilty if I donate a million dollars (wish I had a million) to al qaeda and then claim that I dont know that its a jehadi orgn.

My argument is - NBA should protest for rehab, not for stopping the dam project, which is what NBA is doing.

BTW, aamir khan never impressed me too. If you notice, he doesnt have much acting skills. See Sarfarosh, he seems kiddish. Its just that he has a good sense of movie scripts and picks up good movies to work in, and so he is successful.

April 18, 2006 11:40 PM  
Blogger s c r a p s s t u f f s said...

Just because some people in Gujarat want water to drink is it justified to deprive people in other states of their land. What makes those people in Gujarat more important than those people in MP? It seems, in your opinion, that people in other states can go to hell as long as some Gujaratis get water.

My opinion is that construction of the dam should be stopped until the people who are already displaced get rehabilitated. Only then should the construction go ahead. Since the dam is a fait accompli its construction cannot be undone, but its only fair to rehabilitate the displaced before starting to increase the height. If height is increased before those already displaced are rehabilitated, then when more families get displaced (because of increase in submerged areas) it will add to the backlog.

The governments concerned have not done the complete rehabilitation (there wouldn't be large scape protests otherwise) therefore they are suspect when they say that rehabilitation will go on simultaneously with increase in the dam's height.

April 19, 2006 11:57 PM  
Blogger In The Shadows said...

@scrapstuff
No, its not about Gujarat vs MP vs anything. Whether the people are Gujaratis or Marathis or (whatever MP walas are called) is not the issue, nor is any state having more priority than the other. Its about progress. Please read my other posts on this issue and also the links I have posted.

The same emotional argument that you stated can be turned back. Should a few thousand villagers decide the future of a million people of Gujarat and Maharashtra.

I agree with you on the rehab part, but I doubt NBA's intentions. I think it will come up with some other reasons once rehab is complete.

April 20, 2006 12:59 AM  
Blogger Thus Spake KJ said...

I could have said that your post is trash. But it isn't cuz you have a valid argument, even if its ill-informed. The NBA is against the construction of the dam, no doubt. How else do you protest the injustice of taking away someone's land? I dunno where you live, I live in Delhi where the MCD is carrying out a huge sealing drive, sealing commercial establishments in residential areas; shops which the MCD itself authorised a few yrs ago. Of course it is unfair. So is taking away someone's home hearth. And that is exactly what the authorities have gone ahead and done, with malicious abandon. And when the pleas of the NBA to relocate the dispossessed fell on deaf ears, they had to take a radical stand, that of opposing the construction of the dam itself. And taking a radical stand is exactly how you get attention. That is what you do when have to shake someone out of the inertia of inaction. I say the following at the risk of sounding crassly jingoistic. Bhagat Singh thought so. The Naxalites think so. I think so. And I also think you should have watched Rang De Basanti for what it is. And not relied on received opinions of it. Just as you have relied on received opinions of the NBA.

April 20, 2006 11:06 PM  
Blogger In The Shadows said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

April 21, 2006 2:26 AM  
Blogger In The Shadows said...

@sand dunes -

is rahul bose a phd in civil engg. really? He doesnt seem to be so :)

I agree, you cannot trust the intentions of career protestors like arundhati, medha, nafisa, azmi, prafool bidwai and the leftists.

April 21, 2006 2:37 AM  
Blogger In The Shadows said...

@thus_spake_kj

Please read my other posts on that. My view is that NBA should not stop dam construction.

Also, what business did NBA have to stop demolition of illegal slums in Mumbai.
Here
I must say that Medha Patkar is a compulsive obsessive protestor, much like Arundhati Roy. Now, first of all, you grab land belonging to somebody else and if the owner takes action, you cry foul. Thats what it is, plain and blunt.

Yes I am attacking Medha Patkar, its important here. Given the history of NBA, it does not seem to be a genuine front. Medha patkar is also not above suspicion.

There are some flaws in most projects undertaken in India. By that logic, we would not be having most of our dams and airports today.

Yeah, MCD demolishing the very structures that it itself legalized is wrong, i agree.

April 21, 2006 2:43 AM  
Blogger In The Shadows said...

@sand_dunes

LOL.. how true. I guess nobody points it out their lack of knowledge to the self-proclaimed liberal intellectuals, for the fear of being rude.

April 22, 2006 7:22 AM  

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