Dandi March

Anniversary celebrations are on this week, over the Dandi March, which heralded Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagrah movement.
Enough with the history lesson. This event is being taken as yet another opportunity for the country's media and youth to take pot shots are Gandhanian belief's, ideologies, and tell us all why they are outdated, and won't fit the times.
Rubbish.
Now, I don't idolise the Mahatma(yes, I realise that the past sentence contains logical fallacies), he was a man, not a saint, and his life wasn't saintly, to say the least, when you read his memoirs. Neither, will I say, were his political views or choices the best and brightest our nation was witness to, any man who chose Jawaharlal Nehru to lead our free nation quite obviously didn't have the smartest viewpoint going around in that respect.
But this is a man who single handedly changed the course of India, and pretty much made our country what it is. He ensured through his way that we did not achieve freedom through a violent struggle, and thus did not end up in the same lot as that of nations in Africa, or even Asia.
Let us take a look at the fate of most nations that attained freedom through a violent struggle. Most of these are in Africa, some, like Pakistan, in Asia, and almost all of them without fail have been involved in tremendous civil war and strife after independance. India, on the other hand, apart from pockets of terror (Read 1984 Riots, Gujarat), has lead a largely peaceful existence. If we are secure today, we have the Mahatma to thank, and if my generation cannot come to terms with such a simple fact, then I must say, something is very wrong.

The second argument put forth by "The New Brigade" is how outdated Gandhanian concepts, such as Ahimsa, and turning the other cheek are in "today's" world. Yes, today's world. A world where we do not fear arrest from a foreign government, a world where violence from the state, from police, from revolutionaries, and from communal rioting does not DAILY affect our lives, this is a world where we claim "Non Violence Will Not Work".
lets grow up. We live in far far more peaceful times than the 1930's, than the 1940's, that saw bloody and bitter wars, that decimated entire populations. Ahimsa worked then, so it seems highly suspect to me when a bunch of young hyper-agressive Gujrati youth, who probably aren't getting laid enough, or at least not jerking off enough, lay claim to how times have changed, and the world today can't take non-violence as an answer.

So criticise someone else. Try the Nehru-Gandhi family for instance, if you're going to get political. Mahatma Gandhi did what he set out to do, and he did it his way. Respect him for that, understand him for that, and forgive his migivings.
And don't ever make a saint out of anyone.

The Case of the Inconsistent Toast

Right, so in the evenings, I enjoy having a little snack, these days. Brittania has just come out, or more likely, we have just noticed that Brittania has very nice mozerrela cheese, and Papa got some excellent pasta tomato sauce from Campbells Co., now availible in local grocery store. These two go quite well together on a grilled toast, and I was just preparing the same, for my evening munching pleasure.
Here's what happened. The thing grills in the oven. After five minutes, I check on it, and one toast is unfortunately minorly overdone, whereas the other is Completely overdone! Not burnt, of course, for I would never let that happen to anything that goes into my belly, but still, overdone is a tragedy in itself. The part that really bothered me was how, two toasts, that had both been in the grill for the same amount of time, had both been rotating around the grill (for that is what the oven does) for the same amount of time, could possibly have gotten done differently.
Now, I'd love to have made a detailed study of the above affair, but there was a slight snag in my plan.

I ate the evidence.