Comments on: Terrorism’s #1 target

By: Shawn

Shawn — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 01:08:45 +0000

Just goes to show you that there is violence and terrorism everywhere. I write about such things in my blog.

It is less prevalent in developed countries, but in emerging, third-world nations, terrorism is rampant. Just recently, Sri Lanka flared up once again with the violent, gang-like, Tamil Tigers.

By: siddhartha m

siddhartha m — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 17:27:26 +0000

The blog is actually employing a technique taught in poetry and creative writing classes, called "Found Poetry" ... I vividly remember an assignment where we picked an article from a major magazine (newsweek, whatever. I think I used Rolling Stone) and rearranged the text so that it would read like a beautiful poem, instead of an essay or article.

thanks desidancer, you make a good point. at some point when i am looking for a new way to procrastinate other than hanging around here with all you excellent people, i imagine i'd do well to subject some of my own work to this exercise.

Nobody's hatin, just kickin some rhymes.

would that it were so!

peace

By: Eswaran

Eswaran — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 17:13:00 +0000

Seeing that there is still confusion on the actual color of (imaginary?) Ram's skin, I am here to enlighten you folks!

It's neither green, nor blue, somewhere inbetween. I have seen my mom refer to saris as having ramar color, aka mayil kazhuthu (peacock neck) color. It's a mixture of dark blue, dark green and dark purple - wonderful, isn't it?

By: DesiDancer

DesiDancer — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 16:43:56 +0000

Like Rumsie's poetry? Take it home to grace your coffee table.

Better yet, crank it up on the stereo.

By: Manish Vij

Manish Vij — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 16:31:02 +0000

Yes, Sengupta is getting the Rummy treatment. Behold the poetry of Rumsfeld.

By: DesiDancer

DesiDancer — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 16:29:22 +0000

WRT Saurav's link , and Siddhartha's comments

those of you who write, subject some of your own prose to the same test and see what happens

The blog is actually employing a technique taught in poetry and creative writing classes, called "Found Poetry". Though Wiki's example is not very in-depth, I vividly remember an assignment where we picked an article from a major magazine (newsweek, whatever. I think I used Rolling Stone) and rearranged the text so that it would read like a beautiful poem, instead of an essay or article.

Nobody's hatin, just kickin some rhymes.

By: Al Mujahid

Al Mujahid — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 15:05:48 +0000

Avinash, I dont have a problem with her beliefs. I have a problem with the exoticism of Hinduism and for that matter of all Non Western cultures in the US. As I pointed out earlier, Jesus is usually depicted as blue-eyed and blond. When the Church in Bethlehem was taken over by the Palestinian militants, I didnt see New York Times reporters referring to the Church of Nativity as the birthplace of a blue-eyed blond haired Jesus.

By: Avinash

Avinash — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 14:54:23 +0000

gosh…not my day…herez the link

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLG%2CGGLG%3A2005-24%2CGGLG%3Aen&q=+lord+rama

By: Avinash

Avinash — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 14:53:14 +0000

oops…sorry for the absence….here is the google pics link for the search term “Lord Rama”…duh…that aint blue??…hmm..shall we suggest indigo?? And the point of my post was not whether Lord Rama was blue or not…it was this comment from Al Mujahid “Does she really believe that Ram had blue skin because hes depicted as such?” Thats why I said that she can believe what she wants…

By: Saheli

Saheli — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 13:55:07 +0000

I just wanted to say that I totally accept the phrase might not be Sengupta's (though if she's bureau chief. . .hmm), that it's an easy thing to mess up, that it might not even be messed up (though most Vaishnavs would say that Neela megha shyama - color of dark clouds -- applies to Krishna, and there are theological reasons for denoting the color variations between various avatars), etc. etc. etc. But I do think that, when taken as a whole, the coverage of papers like the Times gives a very skewed idea of who Sri Ram actually is to the hundreds of millions of people who believe in Him. Which is important.

As for the substance of the blogpost: this is a real problem. I often remind people that India was asking Americans to more actively fight terrorism long before 9/11. I think it's a real testament to the deep Indian desire to keep working and keep trying that this is a somewhat surprising statistic, and that it hasn't slowded India down even more. That famous not-so-controlled chaos keeps rolling out with effort. It's pretty impressive.

Patriotic, security-obsessed American that I am, I wish we two giant Republics would work together better, for some very pragmatic reasons. Butthough there's no good way to say that without giving people (like some of the commenters we've attracted) the wrong idea altogether.

BTW, let me take this opportunity to gratuitiously, again, plug the work of Susheela Raman's Love Trap which has an absolutely rocking rendition of a poem by Tyagaraj addressed to the Emerald-hued One.