Churchill had said – Democracy is the mechanism to ensure that people get governed by a government no better than what they deserve. But unfortunately in India, and more specifically, in West Bengal & Kolkata, the same holds true other way round too. With people so glad to be puppeteered by the power-mongering parasites camouflaging as politicians, added to the fact that illiteracy, poverty, blind faith and lack of respect for humanity take precedence over civic sense, humanity and self-respect, no force in the world can bring about an atmosphere of civilisation. If you widen your eyes and push back your chairs to ask me if ain’t what we live in, is civilisation, I’d say – NO. Not by the farthest stretch of imagination.

Had it been, I wouldn’t have been writing this in the first place. Now, cutting on the
prelude, let’s take a look at what happened. An Islamic organisation called All India Minority Forum (in India, the word minority = Muslims) , which is not even known by people (i.e. minorities) in Kolkata itself, let alone ALL INDIA (as its name suggests), decided to organise a CHAKKA JAM (Road Blockade) between 9 AM – 12 Noon in Central Kolkata, which is the nerve center of the city with many arterial roads leading to schools, offices etc.

This protest was against the Communist West Bengal State Government for allowing Taslima Nasreen to stay in Kolkata. Here there are few things worth mentioning, which are the crux of the matter.

1) It is a prerogative of the Central Union Government and NOT the West Bengal State Government to decide who is going to stay in the country and who not

2) It’s not been that Taslima came into Kolkata recently, in fact she has made Kolkata her home since long time back, so why the protests now?

3) By parading a rowdy group of people which consisted mostly of teenagers and people who don’t even know what the dynamics of the situation are, what could have been achieved in the matter, if anything at all?

Incidentally these areas of central Kolkata also house a vast density of minorities in various pockets. After a couple of hours of peaceful protests, no matter how much trouble they cause to general public at large, violence started erupting suddenly as mobs starting chanting slogans laced with religious sentiments and started to pelt stones at shops, vehicles, and whatever they could see. In fact, more than 15 vehicles, including 4 Media vans, were set ablaze, more than 200 vehicles smashed and damaged and many journalists beaten up. They tried their best to prevent the media from covering the deadly dance of chauvinism and the rampage only increased.

Without any valid cause, people were barred from moving around, kids stuck up at schools and colleges, shops looted and hooliganism portrayed throughout the day. After the police could not control the situation, para military forces were brought which fired tear gas bullets and lathicharged, but even that couldn’t sort the menace out. So the last resort had to be taken in the form of Army which staged a flag march to dampen the ill spirits of the demonstrators and reinstated peace to some extent.

Night curfew has been imposed in the 6 affected localities of Central Kolkata – Entally, Beniapukur, Karaya, Topsia, Park Sreet and Tiljala.

Under the guise of Nandigram, Rizwanur and Taslima, a handful of people today carried out the wishes of unscrupulous anti-social elements, whose intention to de-stabilize the state government seem to be getting larger and larger. Already the state of West Bengal is cursed with a government which in its reign of 30 years has done nothing but hammering nails in the coffin of the state’s fate and that of its people, complemented by an even worse opposition political culture where the only wise activity seems to be rallies, bandh, protests, agitations and every other anti-people activity which take us further down the barrel.

What is more appalling is that the majority of people of West Bengal, be it Hindus, Muslims, Communists or whatever, have imbibed this culture so deeply and religiously, that any attempt to awaken them is futile. The world is moving at the speed of light, so are West Bengal and its people, but in the opposite direction.

Leaving REAL ISSUES aside, like those of poverty, agriculture, industry, unemployment, terrorism, population etc. the masses deem it fit enough to cast their support in favour either the so-called people-oriented government, or the good-for-nothing except bocking roads and organising rallies, political oppositions, both of them having only one motive: continue making a fool out of the junta and taking the state as far away from civilisation as possible.

Where the Shahi Imam himself says after such horrendous acts as of today – “This was no violence, this was raising of our voices against anti-Islamic forces”, and where another leading religious leader proudly gives the government 2 days of time for corrective action, else warns of dire consequences, where the most inconsequential temporary immigration of a foreign author takes centre stage beating back the more serious concerns like health, wealth and hygiene of one’s own people, and where widespread violence and vandalism is followed by its justification as a means to CLEANSE the society – WE ARE LIVING IN SUCH A STATE.

SHAME.

Whoever wanted DEMOCRACY in this country…….

KOLKATA DURGA PUJA IMAGES – DAY 2

CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO SEE FULL SIZE

A SMALL BUT BEAUTIFUL PUJA ON C.I.T. ROAD

A traditional Santhal dance being performed in front of pandal

Decorative lanterns on trees

A 12 storey Vodafone banner at Ekdalia!

DESHAPRIYA PARK (Google Maps)

A replica of he famous TIRUPATHI Temple in Andhra Pradesh, India

The idol at Deshapriya Park

PARK CIRCUS

Replica of the famous Golden Temple, Amritsar, India

The Goddess at Park Circus

As I had promised, I’m back with more pictures of the breathtaking Durga Puja scene in Kolkata right now. The fervour is electrifying and the craftsmanship simply scintillating. It seems as if the whole of Kolkata is out on the streets (it actually is!) during Pujas, and the sights throughout the night remain the same, forcing you to believe that the clock has stopped! Anyways, I’ll cut the crap and below are the snaps of Golpark, Ekdalia Evergreen in Gariahat, Singhi Park opposite the former

CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO SEE FULL SIZE

GOLPARK (Google Maps)

THE EKDALIA ENTRANCE -GARIAHAT (Google Maps)

Awesome illumination work

The huge pandal from a distance

Must have been thousands out there!

The traditional Durga idol at Ekdalia

Chandelier!!

RELATIVELY SMALL PUJA OF PHALGUNI SANGHA, BESIDE EKDALIA

SINGHI PARK, BANG OPPOSITE EKDALIA

Its Halloween time!!

Is it Durga Puja or Vodafone Puja!!

The magnificent Singhi Park deity

Intricate artistry inside the pandal

HINDUSTAN CLUB PUJA, BEHIND SINGHI PARK

It was Mahasasthi, 1st day of the famous Durga Puja and I ventured out in the evening for some pandal hopping. Didn’t cover much, but saw 3 famous Pujas of South Kolkata. Below are some of the pictures I took with my cellphone. Will be posting more and soon, better quality pictures taken from digicam.

CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO SEE FULL SIZE

PANDAL IN ANANDA PALIT (in my locality – Google Maps)

IDOL AND PANDAL NEAR LAKE TEMPLE ROAD, SOUTHERN AVENUE (Google Maps)

SHIV MANDIR PUJA COMMITTE – LAKE TEMPLE ROAD (Google Maps)

Brilliant Lighting arrangements!

The Puja theme is awesome – intricate artistry

It is Rotating!

The Main Pandal

On the walls

The Idol

LAKE YOUTH CORNER – BESIDE SHIV MANDIR

The pandal has been designed like a Banyan Tree!

And its all earth! Clay cups used for construction!

The Best Idol I saw yet

MUDIALI (Google Maps)

A PUJA IN A LAKE GARDENS PARK

LAKE SOUTH CLUB – LAKE GARDENS

THE FAMOUS JODHPUR PARK PUJA (Google Maps)

MY LOCALITY PUJA C.I.T ROAD (Google Maps)

The auditorium was good enough with a capacity of around 150, well-airconditioned and the stage space more than enough. The LCD projector could have been more to the center of the stage, rather than just behind the dais, with speaker coming right in between the screen and audience. The only and a very big disappointment from the arrangements point of view was the absence of microphone!! Huh! A seminar without a microphone! Well, the equipments were there but the keys to them were with a gentleman who preferred skipping the college that day and was untraceable!

So after lot of failed efforts by the volunteers to get the microphone working – they even brought another one, but it didn’t work – the event got underway at 11:30 AM, 1 hour behind schedule. Hussain was the first one to start off on RIA – Rich Internet Applications. It was a great insight on the Web 2.0 client side technologies which are riding most of the snazzy websites today and threw light on AJAX, Flex, Flash , OpenLaszlo among others. His thoughts were well received by the audience with quite a few questions popping up on the subjects.

Next came Pradeep with a talk on what is AJAX and how to implement it in Web Apps. He showed some nifty piece of code on how to create xmlHTTPRequest and fetch data from the server in asynchronous mode. Also included were examples on how to use JSON instead of xmlHTTPRequest to implement AJAX. The content of his presentation is available at http://www.go4expert.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6829&referrerid=146 and can be downloaded from http://www.slideshare.net/s_pradeep/building-applications-using-ajax

Shabbir bhai resumed the proceedings after a well deserved lunch break with his expertise on optimising web pages, and gave a lengthy (detailed) talk on Speeding up your Web Pages. He covered topics such as Database Design, Query Optimization, Web Server & Programming tips and tweaks among others.Although his soft voice was finding it hard to make up for the lack of mic, he too put up a great show.

I was next on the block. With fears of rushing too fast and getting over with my stuff in 10-15 minutes, I started off on Web Development in Perl. Since most of the audience were students with little or no previous exposure to Web Development, Programming and Perl, added to the fact that previous sessions were a bit too technical for most of them, I had to make it as simplistic as possible. So I stressed most on the introduction part which dealt with explaining the Web Development cycle, internet in general and programming. Yet, technicalities about Perl needed to be covered as they were a part of my presentation and most importantly, were the focal point of the show! After around 30 minutes Hussu started prompting me that we were running out of time and I needed to pack up fast! So I hurried with the last part of the presentation by going through the points of difference between Perl and PHP.

The presentation can be downloaded from http://www.slideshare.net/naveeng/web-development-in-perl/

The first of its kind Web Technology Conference on Open Source Technologies, WEBOSS ’07 is being organised in Kolkata on Saturday 13th October, 2007. I was pleasantly surprised when Hussain (Hussu) , friend of Pradeep, called upon me to ask whether I would be interested in speaking at the event. The event focuses on Web 2.0 technologies and is a great attempt by Hussu’s Teks to create awareness about what standards and practices are dominating the industry today. Other speakers include Hussu himself – on RIA, Choosing the right Technology and Ruby on Rails , Pradeep on AJAX, Shabbir bhai on Speeding up Web Apps.

I will be sharing my thoughts mostly on Perl and CGI with some flavour of Web 2.0 as well. Its really exciting to be a part of such a great initiative and kudos to Hussain and his team for pulling it off!

The venue will be WBUT Main Campus (West Bengal University of Technology) in Salt Lake, Kolkata – Click Here for Google Maps Location. So a good proportion of technology students, who will be joining the industry very soon, will be a part of the audience.

It is a free for all event and participation/volunteering is highly appreciated. The details of the event can be found at http://weboss07.pbwiki.com/ . So register yourself for the event and be a part of tomorrow. Sponsorships Welcome

Flash Movie Courtesy – http://www.friendskolkata.com/

Durga Puja, or better – Durga Pujo. You don’t need to be a Bengali by birth to know the significance of this great festival. People like myself, who have become de facto Bongs by the virtue of making Kolkata their home city, have long felt the fervour that prevails during the Pujas in this part of the world. The four days bring with them a lot more than joy, belief, celebration, shopping and what not. The city becomes the scene for the most electrifying display of artistry, faith, madness, populace and sheer awe, anyone can ever witness, anywhere. Thousands of pandals are setup in different themes housing Goddess Durga along with other Gods and Goddesses, and are thronged by millions of devotees from all over the globe all day all night. The craftsmanship is jaw dropping, illuminations – just scintillating, and crowds – maddening. Many people take this opportunity to have a vacation somewhere else, but its the bustling streets and lanes and by-lanes which reinstate the fact that India is a country driven by its culture, a culture so rich that in spite of all the wrong doings that blemish her almost every moment in some corner or the other, sanctity finds its way out to the open air and compels even the hard core atheists to simply stand and take notice!