At The Edge

There was an interesting write up in today’s Hindustan Time (pg 10). It’s a response from Balram Misra to Sitaram Yechury’s article Lotus in the mud (DEC 28, 06) The article quotes an interview of Golwalkar done in 1962 and later used in an 1980 essay of Panchajana to prove that Golwalkar did not believe in the book We,or Our Nationhood Defined. Here’s how the interview goes: The interviewer asked Golwalkar, “Country, race, language, religion and culture are said to be five syndromes of a nation. If all these elements are found together on their full bloom, shall we say that nationhood has been attained?” Golwalkar shot back,”[This] concept of nationhood…belonged to the 19th century. Now it is obsolete. It is not necessary that all these five elements be available together at a given point of time to indicate the group consciousness of nationalism.” Interviewer asked, “ Doesn’t your book…interpret nationalism onn the basis of these five elements?” Golwalkar replied, “ forget ...

When Google came up with CSE (custom search engine), I knew this was a big thing. So, I promptly joined in the party. I started thinking about how I can use this cool tool. First about the things that CSE can do- * Place a search box and search results on your website. * Specify or prioritize the sites you want to include in searches. * Customize the look and feel to match your website. * Invite your community to contribute to the search engine. It’s the fourth feature that really got me going. Every time I typed Kashmir in the Google search box, the top results were like this: info on Danish Rock band, news about 2005 earthquake, views of the whole world about Kashmir conflict, tourism site, government site, many useless sites and nothing about Kashmiri Pandits; no news about us. It actually bothered me. I wanted that when I type Kashmir, I should get results about my community. It enables you to make your own CSE (custom search engine).Instead of searching the whole net,...

A few weeks ago I saw the movie The Man Who Would Be King . The movie based on a story by Rudyard Kipling. It is a pure delight and a complete entertainer.Sean Connery perhaps in his best performance, completely over shadows Michael Caine. More about the movie and my cyber search for Kafiristan later. Also, I won’t talk about The White Man's Burden and all the other stuff. The movie took me back to the classic by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book . Here is a gem that appears in The Jungle Book, it's the poem: The Law of the Jungle. Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back -- For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep; And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not t...