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March 18, 1999
SPECIALS
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'Hindus are nice guys, and nice guys get pushed around!'
How Readers responded to Varsha Bhosle's recent columns
Date:
Fri, 12 Mar 1999 08:47:05 -0500 (EST)
Varsha does have a point about banning serials and books to "protect" children and society from harmful influences. It is a knee-jerk reaction and an ineffectual one at that. But I do not agree that children should be held responsible for losing their lives because of Shaktimaan. Rather, it should be their parents because they have not taught their kids the difference between fact and fiction. It also reflects the lack of good programming for children on TV. Kids do not often understand the difference between fantasy and reality. In the 1980s, when Ramayan was on TV, there were a lot of eye injuries because of children shooting at each other with bows and arrows. Some of them are going to do stupid things no matter what, but part of the responsibility that society and parents have is to teach them to be sceptical and discriminative. Sincerely,
Roopesh
Date:
Fri, 12 Mar 1999 07:54:42 -0600
This writer should be taken off the staff. I have read her last 3 articles and they are pure drivel. It is really our turn to say HELP!!! This column is pure bullshit.
Date:
Thu, 11 Mar 1999 21:27:54 -0500
Apart from the stray column where she genuinely tries to engage in meaningful dialogue -- make that diatribe -- I seldom find much to admire in Ms Bhosle's grandstanding. And this time, after running out of targets for her venom, she appears to have descended to calling children "daft", and accuses them of "staggering imbecility", "cerebral feebleness", and "singular stupidity". Perhaps it should be pointed out to Ms Bhosle that children do not come out of the womb totally prepared for this world. Young children, especially, often exhibit behaviour that signifies they do not recognise the border between reality and fantasy. When a child jumps off the roof, or sets itself on fire, all under a mistaken conviction in a fantasy, it doesn't mean that the child is so stupid that it deserves to die. It is an accident -- one that any right-thinking person would want to prevent. The manner of prevention is debatable. I agree with her that banning Shaktimaan is totally unwarranted, even if all the allegations about children causing injuries to themselves are true. But it would serve Ms Bhosle well to aim her words at what she often calls the 'PC brigade'. Children, even the ones who aren't too bright, never deserve to die for believing in superheroes. Jayant Chaudhary
Date:
Sat, 13 Mar 1999 10:02:56 -0600
Though I usually disagree with most of your views, this article had me laughing my head OFF!!! A most well-deserved jab at the PC crowd. Looks like everyone suffers from a "victim" syndrome (me included, sometimes) these days. This has assumed epidemic proportions among various populations. To them, I say: GET A LIFE !!! Life is not always fair. GROW UP and ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF!!! Or, as the song goes: get a haircut, and get a real job. Now, time to get off my soapbox, retire to my armchair and my favourite mag...
Suman
Date:
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 09:26:10 -0800
Hi, Ms Bhosle, we enjoy reading your articles. Looking at different points of view is something I cherish. The day to day hassles prevent any normal, working individual to research and update himself on events. The mantra now is to increase sales. It's high time that responsible individuals see this and read between the lines. Keep up the good work. We may not agree with you on certain issues. But it will give me great pleasure to get your views on the major headlines of the week. Regards, Ashvin
Date:
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 17:22:27 -0000
Whoa! *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* !! Wooh! Wooh! Wooh! *whistle* *whistle* ... And I always thought you liked revolutionists dear, be it in politics or in life. Dear Readers of Rediff On The NeT, India's millennium quote will be 'A Tooth for a Tooth, And an Eye For an Eye' .... "Hum eeit ka jawab patthar se denge"... It would be simply great when we shall hear kids talk in the 3rd millennium: "Hey how many Micro bombs are you carrying , I have only 2, a blue germ bomb and a green gene bomb," "I killed that person the other day, cos he was not a Hindu/Christian/Muslim/Sikh/.... "instead of asking about toffees, stamps... Ha, what a beautiful world that will be!! It's ur space, it's ur opinion, it's ur mind, it's ur pen, it's ur time, it's ur energy .... Above all, you are getting paid for what you write ... Hell! Can you ask for anything more?
Mahesh 'Mashya'
Date:
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 11:46:15 -0600
Hi Varsha, Quick question: Does the Indian Constitution really say that conversion through allurement is not allowed or are you simply making it up? I am not being sarcastic here. I just would like to know whether it is the case. I personally don't think it is the case. Say, if I become a Christian today by getting 50 bucks from a Christian foundation, do you think it is illegal in India? I think not. It is just repulsive for some people. May be I am wrong, the Constitution really says something like that. If that is the case somebody needs to apply for a PIL against it, as such a law intrudes into the privacy of Indian citizens. BTW, if so, why were the police not arresting the missionaries in the first place? Allurement can be of any form including a better life after death or something similar. Feedback on your fights with readers: In India, laws are being constantly twisted or not enforced to protect the hegemony of communities on individuals. If this is left unchecked we will be also taking about "Asian Values" and be taking out the rights of individuals one by one. I think there should be an open debate on the perceptions about different communities in India, for that we need to have freedom of speech. Conversions are a personal thing and I believe a person can convert into any religion whether he/she is paid to do that are not. So the constant harangue against Christian missionaries do not hold up in the Indian court of law. Despite the work by the Ramakrishna Mission, mainstream Hinduism has hardly budged from its caste centric views. The need of the hour is for the main stream Hindu acharyas to openly come out and denounce caste distinctions. Urbanism and service-based economy will banish caste distinctions further. It is high time they do something gutsy and really spread their interpretation of Hinduism to the so-called lowest of the low Hindu communities in India. It is like business: if you don't innovate somebody else will do that and take away your market share. End of rambling, Cheers, Nagaraj
Date:
Fri, 12 Feb 1999 02:00:50 +0800
Great, girl, keep it up. We are more in need of a Rani Lakshmi Bai (Varsha ) than Shivaji (Balasaheb). I often visit this site to check your articles. One request -- don't waste your time on answering these ill-minded, so-called secular, modern people. You have to wake up the Indian (Hindu) society. We should accept that there are evils in our society and we should try to get rid of bad things.
Date:
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 12:05:31 -0600
Dear editor, Everyday, when I open Rediff, the first thing I do is look for Varsha Bhosle's article. She is one of the very few who writes naked truth. We need a lot more writers of her calibre and dignity. Ravinder
Date:
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 11:07:01 -0700
Dear Rediff, You've got a winner in Varsha. I have not read her a whole lot, but she seems quite well-read and intelligent. If not for her column in Rediff, she could have easily passed as an upper middle class, Malabar Hill-living, Mithibai vibes-giving, 'mod' Mumbaiite. But she is passionate -- unlike the pseudo-secularists she hates so much. And that, possibly is the gift of her genes. But first things first. All those readers who tend to call her a ghati or a ghatan (and there are a few of those) in a derogatory manner may be reminded that it was ghatis who went all the way to Atak (in today's Pakistan) to extend the boundaries of the only indigenous (mind you, I didn't say Hindu) empire India has had since Ashok (namely -- Shivaji's Hindavi swaraj). The nationalist fervour in ghatis can be challenged only by that in Bengalis -- as a cultural group -- my humble opinion. Having said that, I hereby come to Varsha's rescue. Poor guys, all those who go after her blood so religiously and request Rediff to take her off: YOU are the reason Rediff gets so many hits. And of course Varsha. She has the courage to say what she feels in a society which is mortally afraid of confrontation and bad vibes among each other (namely ours). I believe in peace and love and all that -- and I am not in love with Bal Thackeray or Varsha -- but the fact remains that if we are letting Pakistanis play cricket in India, we are re-enforcing India's image of being a country of spineless people. And maybe we are. People who have no respect for the thousands dead defending against Pakistan. Christians, Staines, Muslims, Babri, the BJP and Shiv Sena are all part of the same problem. Hindus get taken for granted. Because they are not united by a ghetto mentality. Because they don't have/never had anybody to fight with. Because they are increasingly self-critical and self-defeating. Because they are not a 'religion' that needs to be protected, but a way of life that is intangible and can be easily attacked. Because their rich cultural diversity works against them in dividing them. Because unlike any other religious/cultural/ethnic group in MAJORITY ANYwhere else in the world, they don't force others to live by their code of conduct. Because they are 'nice' guys and, as they say in the US (which as a much more primitive civilization than ours), 'nice guys get pushed around,' even if they form 82% of the population. THAT is the problem. And THE Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal are just rashes on the body. A natural defensive reaction of the body's immune system against a perceived threat. I prove my point as anybody can see that there are MORE Hindus attacking the Shiv Sena and the BD than Muslims or Christians. Varsha just wants some respect for her Hindus like MOST (mind you, I did not say all) of the Hindus show other religions. May be Varsha should tone down her rhetoric a bit. She will do herself more harm if she sounds increasingly like Bal Thackeray. I read her for her intelligence. She should use it to her advantage. And....can you tell me if she is married? : )
Ravi Kanaskar
Date:
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 13:50:36 -0500
Varsha Bhosle is a rabid Hindu fanatic, who is bent on creating more hatred in India than ever before. There is not even an ounce of journalistic quality in her articles. She would be better of shifting her words of hatred to some official mouthpieces of the VHP or some such.
Date:
Sun, 14 Feb 1999 14:48:38 PST
"I have taken pains to mention my name at the end so that you may have no difficulty identifying which caste/community I am from. Some of your reactions to reader responses specifically allude to the respondent's community in a very mean-spirited way -- I just wanted to make your task easier s/d Shankar Venkataraman" In response, Varsha Bhosle wrote: " Madru, gird your veshti/mundu before questioning this ghaatan. Please return to school for a course in deductive logic. Like I should know that Anita Pratap, Priyanka Vadera, Ajit Jogi and Pritish Nandy are Hindu? *More* fallacy in logic..." Dear Varsha: Tsk, Tsk.... Such language! Your ignorance is matched only by your arrogance. Community/Caste are different from religion. In any event, you totally miss the point -- my comment was that your reactions "to reader responses specifically allude to the respondent's community in a very mean-spirited way." Which is precisely what you have done again. "Shankar Venkataraman = Madru". Now how did you make that great leap of logic? How do you know that I was not born and brought up in "Aamchi Mumbai"? I wonder who should be going back to school for a course in deductive logic. In any event, before you do that, you must seriously consider attending a course in basic civility. From one of your responses: " I aim to be gratuitous! And, ALL my articles are self-indulgent. No writer is anything but. Which is why *we* write -- and you read" Hmm. Such modesty! Please do not presume to speak for "writers" as a community. I am sure that most of them would not agree with such a brash assessment of why they write. Just because someone is willing to publish whatever you write does not mean that you are some kind of demigod whose views must be lapped up with reverence and humility by your readers. Shankar Venkataraman
Date:
Thu, 11 Mar 1999 08:29:24 -0800
Nobody could have done it better. Varsha's article tells us how stupid we are, shows us that instead of focusing on supervision and love, we are busy assigning faults to everything around us. The blacks of America have had genuine problems in the past and present, but the blacks have themselves not done much with the resources that have been available to them. Education is the single passage to acceptance socially, economically and spiritually. Bihar always takes the cake in stupidity, we should soon have more Bihari jokes instead of Sardar. Armed gangs have dictated what is right and wrong for many centuries, like the anti-abortion groups of America. Nobody has seen god and is still alive, but every guru has a scare tactic to blame the problems on someone else.
Date:
Thu, 11 Mar 1999 20:53:15 PST
Suggest Varsha practise some precis-writing. Looks like at school she hasn't done any!
Date:
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 11:45:01 -0500
Dear Varsha: Whether there is anything else or not (which I there is), one thing that your articles do have is zest. You've got a tough attitude and that's definitely good for a columnist. Way to go, girl! Reading your articles, I often thought the same as some of your other readers have, ie, you vacillate from one side to the other. But that, I don't see as a bad thing but rather a real good feature. That tells me you may be an open-minded character, ready to change your mind and present both sides of a case. That's good. We don't want old, mentally stagnant and closed, and fixated columnists all the time! Open-minded journalism must be welcome. Also, open debate about controversial issues is about speaking one's mind and listening to responses, refining ideas etc, isn't it? Isn't that what a debate or discussion is all about? Isn't that what educated readers should expect out of a journal? A bit of friendly advice. Your writing style is good, but refrain a bit from using common American terminology in your text. Terms such as "ding bats" are not easily understood by most America-based Indians, let alone the ones at home. Though I like the style of your columns I believe you may appeal to a bigger audience if you refined your presentation to make it a bit easier to follow. But all said and done, WAY TO GO, GIRL!
Srikanth Nathella
Date:
Fri, 29 Jan 1999 07:38:07 -0500 (EST)
Dear sir/madam, I found this article quite well-written, witty and reasonably insightful. Personally, I am of the opinion that Ms Bhosle is much better at writing on these sorts of topics than topics which are more politically-oriented. Sincerely, Rakesh Barve
Date:
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 08:12:18 -0800
Hi Varsha , I regularly read your articles & highly appreciate them! You & Arvind Lavakare (& sometimes Dilip D'Souza!) happen to be my favourite columnists! Just curiosity, do you live in India or the USA? (Because, some readers accuse you of not knowing much about India as you are in the USA!). It would be good idea to publish a small photograph of the columnist besides his/her article. That helps in identifying/personalising the column. (I still remember the photographs of Pritish Nandy/Tavleen Singh/Shobha De!) Rediff editors, please take note! I especially liked your strong attack on the Madru! (No, I am not affiliated to ShivSena/Bajrang Dal) I am only a strong Hindu/strong Marathi Manus! (In the same order!) Keep it up! Unveil these pseudo-secularists! Let them know they are living in a fool's paradise!! Jai Bharat! Regards,
Prashant Pimpalekar |
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