Kusum Choppra

Kusum Choppra So many aspire for an Indian passport and citizenship. But how many are willing to accept responsibilities and duties along with the privileges of being Indian? The spectacle in Kashmir is worth noting. They want to be part of the Indian democratic exercise but their leaders shy away from elections every time. They want the privilege of settling in any part of India and purchasing property there, but do not want any non-Kashmiri India to acquire property in Kashmir. They want to render all possible assistant to the terrorists, local and those from across the border while making loud accusations of high handedness against the armed forces whose duty is to flush out those militants. And now they don’t want the Republic of India to carry out a legal sentence against a self confessed terrorist, only because he happens to be Kashmiri. And they have the audacity to threaten that violence and terrorism will be stepped up if that death sentence is carried out. We have had trag...

They give it the guise of religion; but the fact of the matter is that sati is enforced by those who are out to grab the property of the deceased and amass more wealth from its glorification; we saw the Jain version recently in which a woman took her own life by refusing food and water until she died. The husband first glorified in his wife’s ultimate sacrifice; later fearing the adverse reaction, someone tried to propound that she was dying of cancer and this was a short circuiting of the inevitable trauma to self and family. How then is it different from euthanasia? One of the reasons trotted out against it that it could be misused by greedy relatives out to ensure the early demise of a wealthy or landed relative. Is it not already being done under the guise of religion, be it Jain or Hindu or any other where women are given rights on paper, only to have them snatched away in effect

Some of the most genuinely amusing moments in recent times have been the shadow boxing between our Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh and Pakistan President Musharaff. There is Musharaff, quick off the mark in shooting his mouth off, ready repartee for every question and many for those not even asked, the darling of the quote hungry media. Lavish promises, usually unfulfilled, ready excuses for failures and the blame for that on everyone else, just like the errant school boy he appears when he is constantly trying to make debating points in his speeches, without actually doing anything concrete for either Pakistan or towards the war against terror. The Prime Minister is a sharp contrast to the errant schoolboy; rather he is the perfect foil to the bubbling and babbling Musharaff, rapping him on the knuckles for all the world like a school principal would do a schoolboy. On the way to Havana, while Musharaff waxed eloquent on possible outcomes, Manmohan Singh soberly warned media person...

Why does Amitabh Bachhan need security cover paid for by the ordinary citizens of India? Why does a man who earns hundreds of crores from various sources need the exchequer to underwrite his personal security? No doubt the state provides security for the president, the prime minister and various other state functionaries, depending on the assessment of the threat to them. But here is a person who is an actor, who had deliberately stepped down from any relationship with the state apparatus, declaring politics to be a cesspool. Now, befitting his larger than life icon status, why did he not speak up and tell all those buffoons from Allahabad to lay off the silly rhetoric when they bombastically declared that they would ensure state security for him. Why was no noise made about the downgrading of the security cover to various police officials and to one of the greatest actors that India has produced, one who, in his own way, abides by his social commitments, Dilip Kumar. Is it merely ...

Some 75 professors in the US have declared that they see an “inside” hand in the WTC blasts of 9/11. What does come to the mind immediately is that the Bushes, father and son have proven financial and economic links with the Saudi royals who fund terrorism worldwide as well. Even Osama has a Saudi royal connection. Although he has been declared personal non-grata by the Saudi royals, the rest of his family has not. So it would prove truly ironical if it is established that the Saudi royals funded the WTC plane crashes as well as the bombs placed inside the towers in collusion with their bush ally on one hand and Osama on the other. Would that prove a bush-Osama link, which would explain why bush talks so much about him but does not actually kill or capture him? Truly ironical. What says?

After the Pope's speech, so many have spoken out in outrage, calling for apologies etc. and some has resorted to actual violence. Does all that have any meaning beyond physical and costly damages that will come out of our pockets, yours and mine? Will the papal sorry wipe out what he has already spoken and has been carried in the media worldwide? How much more effective would it have been if the leaders of the community had actually taken the time to look up the reference that the Pope quoted and then very authoritatively pointed it out to the media and through media to the Vatican that it was A CASE OF THE POT CALLING THE KETTLE BACK. Both Islam and the Catholic Church subscribe to the conversion philosophy. At the sword point or not is beside the point. If Islam has carried out innumerable brutal conversions, the record of the Church and its savage Inquisitions do not give it the right to speak on that topic at all. That would have effectively shamed and shut up the catholic wor...

Did you know that perhaps the earliest forms of air conditioning evolved in the middle eastern deserts? For years I had been asking those who lived there about the old Dubai, its history. But the standard reply was that Dubai is a modern trading country, which has left its history behind. It boasts of huge modern docks, tall buildings like the famous Burj and the World Trade Center and massive malls. In the midst of all these, history has been very carefully and beautifully preserved from as far back as 3000 B.C. A visit to the Dubai museum is a must. Located bang in the middle of the Meena Bazaar, it is housed within the beautifully restored Al Fahidi Fort, which was erected around 1799 to defend the city against invasion. The fort is small by the standards of the massive forts we have in India, but the the space has been used effectively by taking the museum underground. At the ground level are replicas of the houses of the olden days, complete with perhaps’s the world’s first form...

On Friday last, I went to see “Chicago”, the musical that has been making lots of noise in the entertainment world. It was a beautiful evening and a wonderful setting, although the stage was smaller than I had expected and most of it was filled with the orchestra, leaving, I felt, very little space for the dancers. But it was truly amazing how they managed to utilise that little space to dance and tell a story of the 30s Depression and the mafia rise of Chicago, coming and going with minimal props to tell the story of how women are driven to murder. What actually came home to me was that Hindi movies have long been pilloried for song and dance. Once upon a time 10-12 songs were not considered unusual for a film. Then came the vilification of Hindi cinema for its musical slant and the music content has slumped to remixes. Chicago was just like a Hindi movie; except that it was being performed live on a stage with the dancers who also sang, walking on and off the stage for more than thre...

THE SWING I entered with a big delighted grin on my face. " Aaj pata Maine kya kiya ?" ( you know what I did today ) Perhaps it was that grin that acted as a damper to his mood. He sat down heavily and picked up his paper " Kya ?" " Main jhoole pe baidhi ..." " kahan ?" " garden me" " Hoon ". The grump in that response effectively evaporated my grin. *********** Why, I ruminated, did women love swings ? Isn't it curious -- except for trapeze artists, you never see men on swings. It is always women and girls who are on the swings, in the gardens, the public parks, the playgrounds, the private jhoolas in homes, everywhere, all the time, in art, in literature, in song, in festivals, in the seasons, whatever. What is the special link between women and swings ? I had never given it another thought until that morning. One morning when I had walked through the almost somnolent ga...