Freedom of Speech

When I heard the news of Indian Government regulating the social networking sites like Facebook and twitter, some sovereign citizens of our country, on a popular news channel, were debating about the right to ‘Freedom of speech’. I was not able to restrict myself from writing on the topic.

The Indian Constitution guarantees freedom of speech to every citizen. In India, citizens are free to criticize politics, politicians, bureaucracy and policies, not yet satisfied? just try doing this in China, Iran or Israel. For the matter of fact, Article 19 of the Indian constitution states that:

All citizens shall have the right — 
1.

  to freedom of speech and expression;

I guess we all will agree on this, as long as we are able to call Mr. Manmohan Singh as ‘Robot of a waitress’ and successfully cursing Vilasrao Deshmukh, saying it’s all the deeds and scams, when the poor guy was already on death bed. Misspelling Digvijay Singh as Dogvijay Singh, calling the government impotent, and again opposing saying politicians as government’s illegitimate sons like the one Mr. N.D. Tiwari had. We can say, yes, we have freedom of speech and expression. Point out if you disagree.   

2.        

to assemble peaceably and without arms;

Just spread the word ‘peace’ and viola, you can gather in hundreds or rather in thousands, who cares if you got the permission for it or not, it’s our right, don’t agree? Ask Mr. Raj Thackeray and of course you must be without arms but why is that required when you already have arms, twice than your head count. So what do you think? We have peace, we have arms, bingo.  

3.        

to form associations or unions;

Go ahead and form your own, Indian Mujahidin, ULFA, Jaish-e-Mohemmad, United National Liberation Front, Babbar Khalsa International, Tamilnadu Liberation Army, Students Islamic Moments of India (SIMI), LTTE and many more such unions, I assure, nobody will stop you.

4.      

 to move freely throughout the territory of India;

You can attend any rally and activity in any part of country, whether the flag color is orange or green, nobody will stop you, this is the power of our right to freedom of speech.

5.        

to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India;

Of course you can settle in Maharashtra if your origin is Bihar and of course you can settle in Karnataka if you are from Assam, of course you can settle in Delhi if you are a Kashmiri Brahmin, who stops you? Sheila Dixit? Or a party with colorful flag? Doesn’t matter… 

6.        

to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.

As long as you are paying tax which goes not into managing country, but in accounts of Swiss Bank, or as long as you do not belong to civil society or the India Against Corruption moment you are free to work, how do you think they would get rich if you don’t work? You are you, a common man and they are they, a common politician.

If you think it’s all done, wait a second, there is no such thing as a free dinner, everything has its cost and limitations, B.R. Ambedkar was a smart guy, he just included few more points saying,

These rights are limited so as not to effect:

The integrity of India - all groups listed above are banned because of this one clause.

The security of the State - applies on all gatherings and if the group is poor, consists of female gender and children then there is huge possibility that you are going to be a victim of some lathis and tear gases from the otherwise helpful Indian police. Sigh if you didn’t get the humor in this.

Friendly relations with foreign States – who Pakistan? Of course we maintain our friendship. You can find their citizen resting in the guest house of Arthur road jail in Mumbai.

Public order – this is for the public who try to effect their own order. So no comments.

Decency or morality – you can ignore this, no one cares about morals now, so forget about this one and ask your women not to step out after 9 and not to go anywhere alone as this part of freedom of speech is null and void.  

Contempt of court – if someone involved in murder, harassment or scam (talking about digits greater than 8, 9, 10) and is set free by the court, dare you protest, you are dishonoring Indian constitution, article 19.

Defamation or incitement to an offense – I will say something about this, once I found the proper definition of offense.

Writing this post, I just used my freedom of speech. You are free to use yours and can comment, after all our constitution gives us the power to express whatever you think. Jai Hind.

Independence day !!

First things first – wishing u all a very happy independence day…

But it is not the only thing I want to say.

Coming to the sole motive of this post, I just want to ask, is this enough?

By sharing National flags, few heroic quotes, some videos of national heroes on facebook, twitter and other networking sites…

So that people will like and share and see how much you love your country…

Still the question remains same…

Is that enough? And we all know the answer…NO, it’s not enough.

What matters is what you do for your country, not what you think of doing…

And I know we are just spectators and we do just…NOTHING

Now one will ask, How? Answer is not that complicated, just do something which will make a difference in someone’s not so good life, which in turn will make a difference in society and eventually to the country, we call India.

There are many NGOs, Trusts, Social welfare organizations which work towards the betterment of the nation. Be a part of them. Help them, whichever way you can, in achieving the noble cause they are performing.

Few days back I came across one of such Organization ‘Relief India Trust'. The main objective of the Relief India Trust is to facilitate better quality of life in all its realms and help people to overcome their sufferings.

Come ahead if you really care and if you really appreciate your independence.

Step forward to help people who are not capable enough to achieve their share of freedom, freedom from sorrow, freedom from helplessness, freedom from poverty.

Only then our country will be free and only then it will be true celebration of Independence Day…

Jai Hind, Jai Bharat!!

should have asked for an apple !!

Looking at the lamp, beside the heap of garbage and plastics, one of which was in between the jaws of mother of millions of Hindus, cow, trying to chew it just to reach to some manmade content inside it, I thought what if I rubbed it and a blue colored genie appears in front of me and says, ’duh, cant you people just live and let live? What is your problem? You know richter scale reading in my house because of your stupid act, you have any idea? Idiot humans, now tell me what you want and leave me in peace’ I gave up the idea of chafing it, not because it was a part of garbage and not because to reach it I had to cross the two horn animal and also not because there might be a stupid genie cussing me and the whole clan of humans but I dropped the thought as I myself had no idea what I wanted as a wish from him.

Human mind acts weird sometimes or rather all the times. It always wants something which is not available or which is out of one’s reach and if you get that somehow, the mind strikes back saying ‘well they were just tests, now I want something which again is out of reach’.

‘Oh common man, just tell me what you want and spare me from this trauma, feeling real sleepy listening to all this philosophy’ someone shouted, he was already out, to my surprise, without even me rubbing the lamp.

‘it will take time okay, I need to think what I want as I don’t want to ask something stupid and miss this golden chance, did you get it?’ ‘Yeah yeah I got it; it seems you are tomato ketchup rather than my previous engagements, its different you know. Okay let’s see if I can help you in deciding, of course if you wish so’

‘Oh yes why not, just tell me what you gave in your previous meetings with humans’         

‘Last guy asked for a bungalow in a posh area of Delhi, you know how difficult is to get some land in posh areas, so I had no choice, now he is suffering, , illegal encroachment, property more than income, huge property tax, extra burden on maintenance, calls for ransom and many more issues. Moral of the story he is not happy ’

I took aback from the above description, now a bungalow was out of the list. ‘Any other encounter with humans?’ I asked crossing my fingers. I heard ‘car’ and I stopped him and left my fingers free; considering fuel price, it was already out of the list. ‘Nevermind, anyway you won’t like the story because at the end he is also not happy’ he said adjusting his dark blue hair, which was coming to his eyes. ‘then there was this other guy who asked for a real high salary job, so I put him in software industry, and viola, very high salary’ he shouted.

‘Leave it, I know how it works over there, I am one of them, so I know at the end he is also not happy’ I told him trying not to make my frustration public. He winked. ‘Wait a minute, is there anyone, you ever met and granted a wish, is happy?’ I shot a question, quick but relevant one. He started drumming his chin with a finger, eye towards the sky, left eyebrow stretched higher than the right, thinking in a very expressive manner, he turned his gaze back to me and sang ‘nopesy nopesy nopes’.

‘Bingo!’ I shouted ‘I want to be happy’ he almost disappeared back in the lamp, leaving his one eye out to observe me, ‘how is it possible? I cannot grant someone to be happy. It’s not material, it’s a feeling you know, you have to feel it from inside, it cannot be granted’ he was pleading me to change my wish but I knew what I wanted, I knew what it needs to enjoy the life, its happiness.

‘I just want to be happy’ I was firm. He came out, heads and shoulders down, hands hanging lifeless, ‘okay, from now onwards you will be happy’ he said slowly turning his head towards me and vanished. Before I could turn to my way home, he appeared again and smiling sheepishly said, ‘forgot to take the lamp’ and vanished again, this time with the lamp.

I was already feeling happy. As I reached home, threw my bag on the couch and removed my id card to put in the shelf, my eyes went to my name on it; it said ‘Mr. Happy’ ‘Mr. Happy???’ I repeated to myself, ‘holy shit, holy cow I was tricked, I was fooled, I was a victim of a scam of some stupid genie’ I shouted on myself and I was no more feeling happy. Phone started ringing, I picked and the voice from the other side said, ‘hey happy, how are you man?’ I cussed him as hard as possible and fell on the couch, beside the half opened book Shantaram, my eyes got stuck on one of the lines, which said,

‘Happiness is a myth; it was invented to make people buy things’

Looking at my changed name, it seems to be true. 'better I should have asked for an apple, not the iphone you fool, the fruit, eating an apple makes one happy...its science...it has chemicals which stimulates happiness harmon in brain...oh forget it...'.

India against Corruption....is it ???

Today I went to apply driving license. Unlike you, I thought I will directly go to RTO office and apply it myself which will save some bucks, which goes in pocket of some agent. The lady on the counter was in her sixties, I was surprised to see that in this age also she was not yet retired. The news of general V.K.Singh’s age dispute just flashed to my mind. Ignoring her age I asked for the application form for me and my friend, who was accompanying me. Looking at both of us she gave a weird look, I guess she was just used to watching agents. She handed over two forms saying ten rupees each. My friend saw two rupees printed on the corner of the form and said to the lady ‘but madam form is of two rupees only’ and we got a an immediate and almost perfectly scripted sentence in response ‘son, who is forcing you to take it, if it feels it is costly, leave it, it’s a free country’ the tone was so rhythmic, as if she was having patent of the sentence. We looked at each other and smiled, it was a smile of helpless and powerless common man.

Next moment we were in front of assistance clerks table and he was looking at the door instead of us. Seeing his disappointment I felt like saying that there was no agent coming, and you have deal with us. When he was sure that no one else was there with us, he took the form and said ‘seventy rupees, two forms, one forty rupees’ my friend poked me showing the instructions painted on the wall just behind clerk’s chair, ‘Applying for driving license is free, don’t pay any money to agents’ I ignored him, anyway it was better that nine hundred rupees, which was a fixed amount charged by all agents. I paid. He took the money and rang the bell. A man entered the room in khaki dress. ‘Take their test’ he shouted.

 We both were sitting in a room with a question paper in hand. Our faces disappointed. ‘Do you know what is signal 17?’ ‘I know only red, green, yellow’ ‘in what case you will hand over your driving license to traffic police?’ I repeated the second question and with any time lag I got reply from my friend ‘as soon as the cop asks for it, what option do we have anyway’ I saw the man in khaki smiling. ‘Can you help?’ I turned to him. ‘No one can, only he knows the answers’ we both looked at each other, disgusted. ‘Two hundred rupees’ he said, ‘that too if you had come directly to me’ he added. ‘Now it is three fifty’ he gave a broader smile. Before I could think, my friend counted seven hundred and handed it to him.

He came out of the clerk’s cabin and pointed us to go inside. We were again in front of his table, test papers still in our hand. He stretched his hand to take the papers and dint even look at it. He handed over the application form to us, with a brown stamp showing ‘approved’. ‘Hundred rupees, two forms, two hundred rupees’ without any question, without any reaction, we passed two hundred rupees to him; this is what we can do in our free country, just surrender if you want something to happen. ‘give your photographs at the counter and Come after two days‘

‘Hello, are you there?’ my brother asked me once he was done. ‘Yes, am listening’ I replied. ‘Have you ever watched a TV serial called ‘Office office’, it used to come on SAB TV I guess’ He said. ‘Office office, yes I have seen it and thought it was a fiction’ I said still busy thinking of the situation. These people are everywhere, at every level, situation is better in private sector but public sector is completely out of way and we talk about India against Corruption. Those bunch of people fighting, struggling and starving against the system to achieve a corruption free India. But is it possible? Is there any way we can stop these people?  I guess, no, whom will you complain? The lady taking ten rupees instead of two, will you go and tell this to the clerk? Who himself wants two Hundred rupees?

We live in a corrupt society and between corrupt people. And these people and the society in turns make a corrupt country. A person who is not corrupt, if at all exists, cannot survive.