TECHNOGAY-

Himanshu Bansal

• If I had to choose between Neeraj and Akanksha to accompany me for Dinner, I’d choose Neeraj. ‘Beer beats food any day.’

P.S :: I am tired of this. Women Please wake up and listen – liking pink is not gay—liking men is.

Homosexuality is not about eating salads and dressing smoothly, it’s about being sexually attracted to the same sex.

I am Gay !!!

 At least that is what my friends claim to have discovered about me. Most of these friends are women.

The fact that I do not have a girlfriend somehow strengthens their claim. Though nobody has ever cared to inform me about the origin of the tag I have so involuntarily received, everybody gives reasons, which are both unconvincing and baseless.

So I thought if I were to introspect a little, the cause would be clearer.

• I like the girl in pink, which means I like pink. As per Rule 1 - Guys Don’t- read cant - like pink.

 

• If I had to choose between Mohit and Akanksha to sit beside me on the first bench, I’ll go with the former.

 

 

 

May the Real Marathi Manoos
Please Stand Up!

-Arindam Mohanty

Nasik had always been one of the more peaceful cities in modern day Maharashtra. It being the first stop-over for anyone traveling from Mumbai for the pilgrimage to Shirdi, the populace of Nasik both caters to and co-exists with people from all over the country. Travel a few kilometers east of Nasik and you’ll come to Ozhar, the township which is home to India’s state owned and premier aerospace design and manufacturing concern, the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. or HAL. This massive township, comprising of hangars, maintenance facilities and housing colonies for the staff, is a representative microcosm of the Nehruvian dream- the secular, multi-ethnic and diverse India living in the depths of a few men’s’ dreams. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, somebody dragged them out from their idyll.

<

Much has been said about the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, a exiled version of the Shiv Sena headed by Raj Thackeray, who can at this point of time in Indian history be referred to as one of the many mistakes the Thackeray family has made in the duration of its morally illegitimate stranglehold on the people of Maharashtra, mainly Mumbai. Much has also been discussed about linguistic chauvinism, the platform on which the erstwhile cartoonist Thackeray has based his entire campaign of Maharashtrian emergence. So lets demystify the situation a bit - culturally distinct populaces (the Marathas) who have their own state in the union of India are suddenly facing an identity crisis? Mumbai, India’s city of dreams, made by people from all over India and indeed the world is suddenly too small to accommodate the dreams of the very same people who sweat it out to make the megacity what it is? Besides, is it actually believable that the Marathi populace, who have for so long peacefully co-existed with men, women and children from other parts of the country both in their own state and outside, change their stance overnight?

It is not even a matter of cultural distinction- the lives of people living in India and more so in Mumbai, irrespective of their class, caste, religion and ethnicity, are so irrevocably intertwined that it is simply asinine to suggest any sort of division that will meddle with the socio-economic interdependence of the people.

Armadas Haribhau Dharrao was an unfortunate victim of a power hungry individual who hasn’t stopped at anything to prove his mettle to senior Thackeray. In fact, from a purely academic point of view, one can suggest that the nephew Thackeray needs to see a psychologist, considering the depth of issues he has with his family. Why else would an adult talk of Marathi Manoos when all he is really trying to do is show off like a little child that he too can ride his bicycle without any support?

Nasik was yet another example of how a complacent public can get influenced by the most base and selfish of politicians. An alert public would never have accepted the gall with which this man made hate speeches against North Indians. To make an issue out of identity, to allege that North Indians are responsible for the apparent down-trodden conditions of the Marathis, to come close to saying that the Marathi language needs to be learnt by whosoever sets foot on Marathi soil is ample evidence of a political leadership that has become increasingly deranged in its pursuit of power. Nasik and indeed India needs to be careful. The plague of opportunism in people as pathetic excuses for leaders is a real and present danger. If Armadas’s case is anything to go by, your ethnicity in this diverse country is loose change for the larger ambitions of a few. Perhaps its time the Marathis found their real ‘Manoos’.