Paramendra Bhagat's Blog
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Amitabh is nowhere close to slowing down.
- Superstar at 63 Screen India, India
- Bollywood: Amitabh Bachchan to play Gabbar in Ram Gopal Varma's ... Bollywood Mantra, CA
- The desire of Amitabh Bachchan Apun Ka Choice, CA
Friday, July 29, 2005
Check out this commerical: Cumming.
This has become a weird thread.
My approach to issues in ethnicity and race is much more scientific than autobiographical. And so little details from little incidents from a long time back have little currency. And my approach to the political solutions aspect of it is entrepreneurial. If the Madhesis have grievances, Madhesi leaders and otherwise politicians should come up with programs that will garner Madhesi votes. After the vote mechanism is established of course.
Someone mentioned Nuru Lama, not by name, but as much. I had coffee with him in Harvard Square in January 2004. Whoever wrote the justified illustrious piece on him seems to know a lot about him, except one, that Nuru never has been too strong on SEBS as an organization. There is almost this suggestion that SEBS is but a brihat Bahun sammelan, and Nuru is not among the most political people I know.
By the way, I know a Madhesi who is at Goldman Sachs, not a BNKS person, who is among the strongest supporters of the Sadbhavana I ever met. So Goldman is not exactly a name that can be used to dilute the Madhesi cause.
Another thing of interest: Shailesh Ghimire is among the more frequent pop-ups in my Inbox.
I keep thinking, there are all these people who only got into BNKS after I had left, and they still claim to know specifics about some events I was part of. That is kind of weird. Can it be an expression of the glass walls and ceilings people from the Global South encounter in the established institutions in this otherwise great country!
The conclusion has to be that I still have not found any takers for the idea that more people should participate in the movement back in Nepal the Wiki way.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
This is a spillover from this SEBS thread. I composed a reply there and when I tried to post it, I lost all I had written. So I am going to post my response here, and post the web address to this blog entry there at the thread.
Re: Parmendra Bhagat ...... Yubraj 7/28/2005 1:32:50 PM EST Paramendra dai:....Will get back to you re: your involvement in different organizations/businesses........ Honestly though, don't you sometimes get frustrated with yourself that you have been sailing on whatever credibility you gained while at BNKS although it's been almost a decade since you left that institution? You mention that after several thousand years, the world will be divided into pre-internet and post-internet era; drawing on the same analogy, looking at your own life history, it almost seems like you had a glorious pre-A-level era and a more gloomy post-A-level era. Looking at the biography, it seems like you are blaming your pre-A-level era to cover up your post-A-level era!...... (More questions to follow when I need another break; don't afford to get fired yet! Smiley)
Re: Parmendra Bhagat ....... Ke 7/28/2005 3:21:48 PM EST ....... I am not one to agree on a lot of issues with Yubaraj, but I think he has a point.......m Paramendra dai's involvement in everything is admirable ....the fact that he takes risks, takes on adventures and dares dream big are all solid attributes./........ However, his ideas are also very incoherent, not backed up, and over time, have lost credibility. And if he does all that willingly in the public eye (relentless self promotion), then what is so wrong with what is only fair criticism?
200B 7/28/2005 4:03:56 PM EST........ Paramendra,.....I was one of the School Prefects that witnessed the incidents that you refer to in your biography. But i didn't see any backstabbing done by the deputy captain to you. Did i miss something, or isn't it that you proposed sweeping changes to the system when the school captainship was offered to you and the administrators refused those changes. You, credits to you, didn't budge based on your princples so the Administrators offered the captainship to Shailesh. How is this backstabbing? To accuse someone of backstabbing in public without any proof is uncharacteristic of any leader. How can you propose and implement these grand ideas about Nepal when you dishonor your own friends with unsubstantiated accusation. Aren't these roles being played by the likes of GP and MKN, the same corrupt bunch that you want to replace.......thanks.
I participated at this thread so as to draw attention to the ongoing movement for democracy in Nepal, more specifically my blog, For A Democratic Nepal, for it gives interested individuals the option to invest as much time, or as little as they might want. But the talk keeps getting sidetracked. I guess policy talk is dry, not juicy enough. So people have to resort to personal stories, residing somewhere between facts and fiction.
I am aware somewhere along the way I became a small scale public figure. And when that happens, your social reality is slightly different from those living their private lives. These two diagrams throw light on that: Zone 3/The Blue Zone: Positive, Creative Group Dynamics, Social Concentric Circles. And if I were to keep doing what I am doing - politics, business, the world of ideas - this "problem" will likely only get "worse." There is this background noise, this background radiation you learn to live with. A Bahun in the Nepali context, or a white male like Bill Clinton in the American context might weave into the threads of existing institutions. But for a Madhesi, South Asian like me, it is the other way round. Especially true of the two institutions I have participated in, Budhanilkantha School, and Berea College, both of which collectively try to paint me in ways I find unsavory, and mostly untruthful, more like feeding hay to their respective prejudiced, predominant ethnic and racial group collective identities. There are attempts to totally disregard specific facts about specific incidents. There are attemtps to portray me as a failure. How could he have succeeded, he asked too many questions, challenged too many of our collective assumptions! There is talk of let-bygones-be-bygones, when the prejudice and the racism at a larger scale remains intact. There are major efforts to dissociate: you are just an individual, we don't have such a thing called collective identities. That being the favorite weapon of the prejudiced, the racist. When they hit you, you are not an individual, you are only a member of this or that group, to be vilified. When you complain, you are just an individual, and hence any grievance based on any collective identity has got to be anathema. Be it pale-skinned whites, or pale-brained Bahuns, the basic rhythm is all too similar.
In politics, when you get hit, you hit back. Politics is a contact sport. Those who stay "above the fray" lose. So when I am getting hit now, I feel the need to hit back. It is almost like I need to go through that phase, to finally steer the conversation to the policy talk at hand. The bigger reason though might be out of concern for those of my backgrounds who might come after me. I feel the need to get into some of those specific incidents from the past, to rescue them from distortions and demonizations and caricatures, for the cause of social justice. There is the Mr. 95% Pahadi, and the Mr. 4% Madhesi, compromised, internalized, and then there is me: the Mr. 1%, the third point in the triangle. That is at the ideas level. But that is not the political map. On that map, there is the DaMaJaMa coalition, a winning one.
".....don't you sometimes get frustrated with yourself that you have been sailing on whatever credibility you gained while at BNKS although it's been almost a decade since you left that institution?"
I am a Bahun, and so I am an institution, but you are not, and so you are but an individual. If BNKS is an attempt at a "national school," I am the only person who ever went there - student, teacher, or Britisher - who got the message. So I am the institution, you are the individual.
This whole "frustration" talk. It is supposed to make you feel like I am this failed person who might have succeeded had he just "got along." Come to think of it, they tried to kick me out of BNKS three different times. And I was actually a "good" student, academically and otherwise. Makes you think.
I wrote a book in 1993 that got me an admission into the University of Chicago into the Economics program, top in the world. They basically ignored my "grades" from BNKS. In 1997 I got myself elected student body president at the number one liberal arts college in the Bible freaking Belt South, a college record that stands. In 1999 I was one of the founding members of a dot com that raised $25 million in its second round of funding. In 2005, I have these: Proposed Constitution, Reorganized UN, Methods. Before you talk "frustration," tell me of another SEBSer who has anything remotely close to this track record.
BNKS did not make me. I survived BNKS. Berea did not make me. I survived Berea. Both failed to break me.
There is this other blog entry from 2004.
"...I was one of the School Prefects that witnessed the incidents .... isn't it that you proposed sweeping changes to the system when the school captainship was offered to you and the administrators refused those changes ..... "
It is not possible, if you were a prefect, that you witnessed any of the events. You were not there when the Sudarshan Risals and the Brian Gartons of the world played foul with me. These are people who played foul with me in 1989. And just when I was getting over it, and came up with a very positive agenda and was working to assemble a 12-strong team, they played foul again. I asked for a 12-strong team, Garton said no. I said will you say yes if I get the rest of your school governance committee teachers to say yes to the idea, he said okay. I got all members on that committee to say yes. And then Garton said no. And I am thinking, this is not logic, I am not dealing with a regular, fair Homo Sapien over here. This guy is doing to me now what he did to me in 1989. A group of students beat up one of my friends at the city buspark, these mofos punished my friend, not those hoodlums. Risal-Garton did not mean to nominate me, they did because they had to. But then they went out of their way to sideline me. I made a last ditch attempt to stay the ground by enlisting the Vice Captain nominee. But during that phase, the Vice Captain nominee and the office holders from the previous batch coalesced to throw me out of the race: Bahuns have something called "valency." And it did not stop at that. Even in the post-BNKS phase, I was made to feel like the Irish leader in the movie Gangs Of New York who lost.
If I had made some compromises, let them rub my nose in the ground, I doubt I could have come up with these: Proposed Constitution, Reorganized UN, Methods. Short term prices were paid, long term gains were made.
And, by the way, I am not a Nepali politician waiting in the wings.
My thoughts are about tomorrow. Like it says at the Swapn site: If your memories from your past .....
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Today I got myself two widgets, a scientific calculator (I imagined it in Fall 1999) and an alam clock. Yahoo just bought this three-person company.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
I just added a section to my personal Google News page: Hillary Clinton. For the first time yesterday I came to feel she is running for president in 2008. She is the leading candidate and she will win. In her own right, and also because she is going to have a great campaign manager in Bill Clinton, the best in the history of presidential elections. She will get it and keep it for eight years. That's for sure.
It is like America is having a monarchy, between the Bushes and the Clintons, none else need apply!
I have always felt, rather strongly, that she should run. And that she will win. But I have also felt she does not want to run. For the same reason Colin Powell does not want to run. They both have feared major attacks from right wingers. Frankly they both fear assassination.
It goes back to JFK. Because he was the first non-WASP, he got whacked down. The first woman. The first black. They might also get whacked down.
I guess those fears are there. On the other hand, if those fears are there, that is a challenge to democracy and the democratic process itself. If Hillary runs, and she loses at the ballot box, I will be perplexed, but that will be fair enough. But if some wacko right winger somewhere thinks he can make life and death decisions on presidential hopefuls, it is an attack on democracy. A major attack.
The right wing political groups might work over time. Progressive, activist types tend to attract a lot of attention and attacks. I think it is because you are trying to ignite change. And change of the more difficult kind: social change. It can be like fisting into a beehive. At a very small scale I know that from personal experience. But after the two Clinton autobiographies, very little mud will stick. Because of that added transparency, Hillary actually might be in a rather unique position to be able to really focus on issues and policy deliberations. She might actually get a better chance than Bill Clinton did in 1991, 1992. I offer her this.
And going by how brisk her book sales were, there is that clear silent majority for her. A few isolated, mean right wingers should not be able to drown them out. I mean, who are those people who keep her high up in the polls! They are there. The votes are very there.
I think she is just amazing.
As for physical fear, noonne knows. But then noone knows also about a score of other political individuals. Jesse Jackson seems to be doing fine, and he is in direct lineage from another fallen hero: MLK. And the secret service as an institution is far more sophisticated today than it was in the 1960s.
So my reading of the situation is Hillary should run and turn the tide for the Democrats. She will do just fine. If the right wingers are going to get noisy, they will see a Dean crowd they have not yet imagined. I mean, I have met the top Dean people in NYC, and when you meet them it is like Dean never lost.
I am a huge fan of the Clintons. Anyone who knows me knows that. The Clintons in America, the Bachchans in India.
I am a New Yorker. Hillary is my Senator. I would like to see her in the White House. I am not a voter yet, but I am a resident and a taxpayer, and my voice counts!
And you know what, I think Bill Clinton is nowhere close to retired. He is as good as engineers come. The guy is Michael Jordan. This southern boy from Arkansas. If he can move from Arkansas to America, he sure can take the next step. And he does have time. I think the guy should move towards becoming a UN Secretary General. He will have to work to reorganize it first. And he can like few other people can. But then Hillary can not declare her candidacy until after 2006. And Bill can not go public with any UN ambitions until Hillary has been in the White House at least a year. Something like that.
These Clintons, it is like they have not even started yet. Just you watch.
One aside: the moment the Monica thing surfaced my thought was it was about Ken Starr. The guy got sick and tired of his wife getting hounded. These two are in love. It is just that they are a near equal couple in a largely sexist country and world of unequal marriages, and so the rest of the world is taking its time to catch up with them, with their idea of the Clinton marriage. Hillary in the White House could be the best thing that could happen to women globally. Politically speaking. That in itself is reason enough. Hillary is pragmatic, but she is also quite an idealist.
And so I think she will do it. Bill Clinton has been working on her too.
Monday, July 18, 2005
I just saw this video on Google Video. Looks like Hillary will run for President.
Monday, July 11, 2005
I just learned some rather humblig facts about the MTA.
MTA subways, buses, and railroads move 2.4 billion New Yorkers a year, about one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders.
MTA bridges and tunnels carry nearly 300 million vehicles annually — more than any bridge and tunnel authority in the nation.
This vast transportation network — North America's largest — serves a population of 14.6 million people in the 5,000-square-mile area fanning out from New York City through Long Island, southeastern New York State, and Connecticut.
Wow. Now this is something.Saturday, July 09, 2005
Physical exercise is religion to me: I am kind of casual about it.
Friday, July 08, 2005
I just downloaded the new version of iTunes, for the advertised free podcasts, but instead found all these online radio stations. Oh, all that music, talk and news for free. I sampled some comedy, am now listening to a NYC station that offers BBC.
Podcasting is greatly democratizing, but old names are not going away. They bring quality. They will adopt the new technology.
Now I get to listen to all this music while I surf the web. I don't think I will get iPod or its equivalent. When I am out there, I am seeing the city, I am meeting people, I am thinking, reflecting, digesting. Creative Zen Micro. Maybe down the line. To get into the same league as Bill Gates!
Down the line perhaps. To celebrate business success.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
The unfortunate London blasts have brought the Al Qaeda to the forefront of global attention again. Makes you think. They target soft targets. Like passenger trains. The psychological and political impact is much larger than the number of lives lost. It is almost disproportionate. This so-called War On Terror is definitely of the proportion of the Cold War. The Qaeda might be globalization's first serpent. They show no signs of abating. They strike with eery regularity. It is almost as if the Qaeda and its enemies work in two different worlds. So even when the enemies hit back, they keep missing the target. Two very different terrains are in play.
The military response is reflex and unavoidable. But this might be more an intelligence war. They move like "fish through water." You don't catch fish with submarines. The true solution might be political. To make it a mega project to establish the one person one vote mechanism all over the world.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
I just downloaded Google Earth. Wow. It is such an amazing feeling. I have never had any web experience like this before. This is an out of the world, out of body experience.
You guessed it right. I rotated the globe. And tried to navigate to Janakpur. Ended up in Kalaiya. So did a search on "janakpur nepal." I am staring at my town from 3543 feet in the air. Wow. But actually the image is a little hazy that close. From 20,000 feet it is much clearer. I can see Parikrama Sadak, Janakpur's "Ring Road."
I moved on to Jaleshwar. What is all that blue? Has the area flooded?
I am trying to locate my village. Is that it? That brown patch?
And then a tour of the earth. Take yourself to 20,000 feet,then 30,000 feet, then 50,000, and just let the earth rotate. It is fascinating. I saw most of America in a truck. Now time for a world tour.
I also tracked down how I would fly from New York to Delhi. It is over Russia for the most part.
Then my Brooklyn neighborhood. It is true you can see your car parked in the street. I saw my entire neighborhood.
Went all over Prospect Park.
Over to Manhattan. I think I saw Ground Zero.
Not a bird's eyeview, but a satellite eyeview.
Wow.
