Free Binayak Sen! Or pretend we are still a democracy.

This is not a political blog. I do have political views but i do not use this blog for those. This blog was supposed to be about letting the funk flow. The small things, the simple things. But there are somethings that cannot be ignored. Binayak Sen is not Jessica Lall. He is not glamorous. Bollywood celebrities have not spoken out for him. (Although Konkona Sharma did tweet about it if that counts) His case is set in Chattisgharh, not in one of the "cool" metros. And he is not a socialite. But I'll telll you what he is. Binayak Sen is a social worker who could have gone towards a succesful and prosperous career after finishing his education from Christian Medical College, Vellore.

But instead, Binayak dedicated himself to social service and became a human rights and health activist.He and his wife played key roles in the foundation of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha's Shaheed Hospital, which is an interesting model in community healthcare. The hospital owned and operated by a workers' organization. The couple also run a community-based NGO called Rupantar.He is also an advisor to Jan Swasthya Sahyog, a health care organization.

But this is not why Binayak has made himself an enemy of the state. Sure, the mainstream might find it amusing that a man should sacrifice everything for the greater good of the people, but surely they cannot want to crucify him for that. Granted, they had a whole other reason for that.

That reason is the PUCL- People's Union for Civil Liberties. As national vice president and Chattisgarh general secretary of the PUCL, Binayak had stepped on quite a few toes. Big ugly ones. He was involved in various investigations against human rights violations in anti-Naxalite operations. He especially spoke up against the vigilante terrorism of the Salwa Judum, an anti-naxalite group backed by the state that engages in horrific atrocities on tribals with even a vague link to Naxalities. And sometimes even that vague link is not needed. Women have been raped, children have been killed and houses have been burnt. Binayak Sen spoke out against that.

The case of sedition for which Binayak was arrested in 2007 is a joke at best. He has been accused because he was accused of being a courier between Narayan Sanyal, a jailed naxalite and businessmen Piyush Guha, who has been accused of having links with Naxalites. And oh yeah, he visited Narayan Sanyal 33 times. Of course these visits were all approved by the police and he was there in his capacity as a doctor. None of that matters ofcourse. The evidence against Binayak is even more ludicrous than the accusations against him. The "incriminating" documents that the authorities found include Das Kapital, communist literature and some articles on the Naxalite movement. Wow. That evidence is rock solid. Hey I know someone who has a copy of Mein Kampf. Can i report him as a genocidal Nazi?

On christmas eve, Binayak Sen has been sentenced to life imprisonment. This is a shame. I am not a political person but the Naxalites cannot all be killed. Movements like this need rehabilitaion. But who will rehabilitate them if social workers like Binayak Sen are singled out for their courage and convictions and then brutally crushed? Amnesty International has expressed solidarity with Binayak Sen. As have intellectuals across the globe from Ramchandra Guha to Noam Chomsky. I would finally like to end with a quote by Noam Chomsky that simply articulates what we have all been thinking.

Noam Chomsky: Dr Sen's arrest is clearly an attempt to intimidate PUCL and other democratic voices that have been speaking out against human rights violations in the state.

Don't we always brag about how we are so much better than China and Pakistan when it comes to an idea of democracy and freedom of expression? Can we really really cling to that conviction anymore?

Live to eat not eat to live

I woke up in the morning craving Chinese food. Actually more specifically I was craving chilli chicken with fried prawns on the side and chicken hakka noodles. With soya sauce and that delightful red chilli sauce which brings tears to my eyes for reasons of spice and joy to my heart for reasons of life. Shakespeare once said, "If music be the food of love, play on!" Well I say if "Food be the music of my gut, then cook on". I enjoy the epic concerts like those wonderfully elaborate meals with starters and a main course and that delightfully indulgent dessert. Chocolate Mousse or Blueberry Cheesecake? Ohh La La, to mousse or not to mousse, that is the question. But I also enjoy the nice little extempore performances like a quick chicken roll off the street or a few puchkas off the corner (panipuris to Mumbaikars and golgappas to Dilli people). I like the classical compositions like the legendary Hyderabadi Biryani but I also love the contemporary fusion like the chicken tikka pizza. I love a good beef steak but I also cannot help but admire the culinary genius that is the cheese chutney sandwich.

I have never been a slim person but thankfully I have always had a healthy body image. Ofcourse the feminists will scream, "Because you're a man and society does not pressure you". Maybe they're right. But that's another conversation. I also have a metabolism that is conducive to lend my shape a somewhat spherical form. But the way I see it is I have one life to live and all this amazing food to taste. Not eat, taste. There are few joys as satisfying as when you hit that sweet spot with the perfect taste. Well there is another experience that is in the same zone but that requires contraceptives. So go ahead, munch those samosas, lick that ice cream and ravage that tandoori chicken. After all, if we don't enjoy such a pure and simple indulgence as food, well there is no hope left for us then is there?

The small things

I don't know if Arundhati Roy reads my blog( i should certainly hope not!). But Ms. Roy, if you do, this is not a take on "God of small things"- that book you wrote that is the only reason we tolerate your endless rants on everything and anything under the sun. So if this came up in a partial search on google, it's not about your book.

With that out of the way, comes the question that even Ms. Roy might ask if she did happen to stumble upon this page. What is this about? Well, the small things for me are the simple pleasures, the tiny liitle moments that fill our lives. Most of us are painfully blind to how very funky these moments can be. For example, have you ever really stopped to wonder how amazing chocolate ice cream tastes when it's in that transitional state between melting and not melting? Or have you ever come back home from a hot and sweaty day of dealing with this shitty city (or city shitty) and then rested your feet in a bucket of cold water? It feels marvellous. Or the sheer joy of sucking the fruit out of a mango, old school Bihari style.

I could go on.But the point is, life is tough and we all have our problems and our pain, our hardships and our baggage. And some of us are also unlucky enough to have wives on top of all that. Okay, that's a joke. Humour. That's another small but wonderful gift we have that can light up a day like a thousand christmases and diwalis all at once. But we need to live for these moments to see them. I always make it a point to make time for myself to enjoy the small things. I am a communication professional and I spend 10 hours a day, five days a week, 51 weeks a year and god knows how many years a life in a cubicle. So it's important for me for my life not to just be a variable on a bell curve. I take time out for myself. I love performing and writing songs so I stil ldo my hip hop thing when I can. I still spend hours on video games. I have a xbox 360 and a ps2 and I never feel the need to outgrow these passions. I savour the tiny joys of beheading the boss in god of war as much as when I spit a tight flow at the open mic as much as when I have that chocolate gelato ice cream when it's just about to melt. Sure there are the big things like succeeding at work or maybe getting a record deal or falling in love. And those are great. But it's the small things that make life worth it. It's the small things have the directions to the big things in life. You miss them and you'll just drive off the road. That's all for now. So now back to getting past this alien horde in gears of war. Damn, I need a new video game.