Tag: Hinduism

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2023-36

About: the world this week, 3 September to 9 September 2023; Invasion; The G20 in India; Sanatana Dharma; Barbie; and the Rolling Stones.

Everywhere

Invasion

In what is easily one of the worst attacks in months, in the Russia-Ukraine war, Russian missiles struck a market in a Town in eastern Ukraine killing 17 people.

The attack on Kostiantynivka, in the region of Donetsk left about 32 others wounded. Kostiantynivka is close to the front lines around the city of Bakhmut and most often loaded with military personnel.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive enters its fourth month and the war, started by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, is only getting bloodier. The United Nations has said that more than 9500 civilians have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began.

G20 in India

The Group of Twenty Nations-G20-2023 Summit, is being held in New Delhi on 9 and 10 September 2023. It is the first such summit to be held in India as well as in South Asia. It will be chaired by India’s Prime Minister under the current G20 Presidency of India, as well as it being the hosting country.

World Leaders, from across the globe will arrive to discuss: Green Development, climate finance & LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment); accelerated, inclusive and resilient growth; accelerated progress on sustainable development goals (SDG), technological transformation and digital public infrastructure; women-led development; and multilateral institutions of the 21st Century.

Significant outcomes are expected after multi-level meetings and discussions.

Key participating countries are the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, China, Japan, Italy, Australia, European Union.

New Delhi is being spruced-up and ‘culturally decorated’ to receive participants, and serve them the ‘taste of India’.

In a first, the invitations for the G20 were sent out in the name of the ‘President of Bharat’, which created a frenzy ‘country name change’ speculation in the media. In the Constitution of India, Bharat is an alternate name and was always used when the Government communicated in Hindi.

Sanatana Dharma

This week the buzzword in India – on almost everybody’s tongues – was the word ‘Sanatana Dharma’. Everyday someone was offering a definition and social media was flooded with tons of them.

‘Sanatana Dharma’ is the name by which, what is now known as the religion of Hinduism was known before words such as ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’ even came into being. There was no need for any other name, as over 3000 years ago, as it was ‘the way of life’ and perhaps the only religion around-after religion as we know it today, was defined. Sanatana Dharma encompasses a wide range of beliefs, practices, and traditions that have evolved over thousands of years.

Sanatana Dharma means ‘eternal or absolute duty’ and is transcendental and universal. It is the absolute set of duties or religiously ordained practices incumbent upon all human beings, regardless of class, caste, or sect. In general, Sanatana Dharma consists of virtues such as honesty, not harming living-beings, purity of thought and action, goodwill, mercy, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, generosity, and asceticism. Sanatana Dharma is the same for everyone.

While Sanatana Dharma is the ‘ideal and absolute’ duty – call it spiritual – of a person, there are other duties that one needs to engage in, to sustain himself in life according to his inherent characteristics – call it material- which is bundled under what is called Varnashrama Dharma or ‘One’s Own Duty’.

Varanasharma Dharma depends upon the intrinsic nature (svabhava)-social classifications-and the situation or stage in life (svadharma) of a person.

These two Dharmas – Sanatana and Varnashrama – are not be confused with one another: one is universal and eternal; while the other is ‘personal and internal’.

As one goes through life, the potential for conflict between the two types of Dharma will occur and how to go about it in any particular situation is beautifully explained in the Bhagavad Gita. E.g., between the duties of a skilled warrior fighting a war to establish good over evil and the general injunction to practice not-harming or non-injury on the battlefield, one’s own duty must prevail.

Now, what’s this thing about one’s nature, caste, class, and the kind?

One’s personality manifests in the outside world of the living, depending upon the domination of one or more combinations of three basic types of intrinsic qualities in all of us, called ‘gunas’: The Good – called Sattvik (Sattva); The Passionate – called Rajasik (Rajas), and the Dull- called Tamasik (Tamas). No person ‘exclusively possesses’ any one of these gunas and they are present in each one of us in various degrees.

The Sattvik are the highly evolved: scholarly, intellectual, pure, honest, wise, engaged in continuous study and learning, pursing knowledge and truth, maintaining equanimity at all times, and being noble in their dealings. They recognise different living beings as expressions and manifestation of the one and the same truth – oneness of the World. A Sattvik person serves the world in a sense of self-fulfilment and inspired joy.

The Rajas are the restless, wanting to conquer the world with their physical and mental powers, valour, ambition, and desire for material success and ownership. They recognise plurality of the world by reason of separateness. They are constantly undertaking tasks of heavy toil involving great strain and face the consequent physical fatigue and mental exhaustion of their activities.

The Tamasik are the dull, unreasonable, lazy, and prone to inactivity. They consider the world as existing for their pleasure alone, failing to recognise anything existing beyond their ego. They are self-centred, generally fanatical in their path and devotion, and in their views and values in life. They hardly enquire, question, or try to discover the cause of things and happenings. They have no regard for the consequences of their actions. They surrender their dignity, capacity, and subtle facilities all for the sake of pursuit of a delusory goal in life, and instant gratification.

Based on the inner mental make-up of a person – not always determined by heredity or accident of birth -it became a practice to classify and prescribe different duties or tasks for each person, in ancient times. Again, not based on the texture of a person’s skin, the colour of his hair.

The predominantly Sattva, with a little Rajas and minimum Tamas, were called Brahmanas-the spiritual and learned, the Priests, the Gurus; the predominately Rajas, with some Sattva and a dash of Tamas, were called the Kshatriyas – the Kings, Rulers, and Warriors; the predominately Rajas with less of Sattva and some Tamas, were called the Vaishyas – the businessmen, merchants, craftsmen, landowners; the predominantly Tamas, with a little of Rajas and only traces of Sattva were called the Sudras – the common unskilled workers, servants, peasants.

In medieval times we did not have medical, engineering, law or other degrees and this classification was an intelligent means of choosing people for gainful employment. The four classifications or castes were never intended to be ‘walled structures’, but a means of putting a person to work based on his inclinations and attitudes to draw out the best in them.

Unfortunately, down the ages, the classifications lost much of their meaning and have come to signify a heredity birth-right in society, a mere physical distinction that divided society into castes and sub-castes. And people built walls around their caste groupings, as superior, inferior; and later another outside the caste system called ‘untouchables’ crept in, which was never meant to be. For. e.g., a true Brahmana is necessarily a highly cultured Sattvik person with almost perfect mastery of his mind and control of his senses. And can raise himself to the highest levels of self-control by meditation and other ‘rightful’ means. One cannot be a Brahmana or obtain the qualities by birth alone, without striving and deserving.

Dharma is often translated as ‘duty, religion or religious duty’ and yet its meaning is more profound, defying concise English translation. The word itself comes from the Sanskrit root ‘dhri,’ which means ‘to sustain.’ Another related meaning is ‘that which is integral to something. For e.g., for the sake of illustration, the dharma of sugar is to be sweet and the dharma of fire to be hot. Therefore, a person’s dharma consists of duties that sustain him, according to his innate characteristics. Such characteristics are both material and spiritual, generating two corresponding types of dharma, as elaborated in the preceding paragraphs.

Sanatana Dharma came to be called Hinduism when the Greeks who invaded northwestern India under Alexander The Great designated the people living on the banks for the River Indus (River Sindhu in Sanskrit) as ‘Indoos’ or ‘Hindus’.

Going further, and nearer home to the present times, the Supreme Court of India said the following about the Hindu Religion:

“Unlike other religions in the World, the Hindu religion does not claim any one Prophet, it does not worship any one God, it does not believe in any one philosophic concept, it does not follow any one act of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not satisfy the traditional features of a religion or creed. It is a way of life and nothing more”.

Hinduism does not have a founder. It is a fusion of various traditions. To put it in another way, it is like ‘free’ Linux software – say, with Sanatana Dharma at the core – around which ‘other systems’ are developed and built, each one freely choosing a path accordingly to his nature. This unlike, say ‘licensed’ Microsoft software, which is strictly walled and controlled. Sanatana Dharma, that is Hinduism, predates the word ‘secular’ and in many ways is all-embracing, all-accepting, and truly modern.

Hinduism is believed to be one of the World’s oldest religions with scriptural texts dating back to over 3000 years: the Vedas is one of them. Also in contention is Zoroastrianism, founded in Persia (now Iran), and Judaism – the foundation of all other Abrahamic religions and the oldest monotheistic religion (rising from Moses’ Ten Commandments). Next we have Jainism, which originated in India; Confucianism with roots in China and believed to be in existence for over 2500 years; then we have Buddhism, again originating in India, about 2500 years ago.

Polytheism, although not one specific religion is perhaps the oldest form of practiced religion often occurring in pagan practices that aimed to worship a plethora of Gods. The earliest forms were seen in Egyptian myths and recorded on Sumerian tablets. Example are the multiple Gods of Ancient Egypt, Greece and of the Roman Empire.

For religion to emerge, be used, and spread they should be a human civilization, right?

Most scholars place the earliest cradles of civilization in modern-day Iraq (Mesopotamia), Egypt, India (Indus Valley), China, Peru, and Mexico, beginning between approximately 4000 and 3000 BC. These ancient complex societies formed cultural and technological advances, several of which are still present today. A great many of the details of modern life, have origins that go back for thousands of years to the ancient cultures in their respective regions.

With this background, if a responsible person holding political office in India, says Sanatana Dharma should be eradicated like we do mosquitoes, dengue, and the kind, he must definitely be out of his mind. And very uneducated, un-evolved, and wholly drowned in Tamas.

Barbie

The movie Barbie, which released world wide in July 2023 has officially become the year’s biggest box office hit, after the doll’s big-screen earnings overtook the Super Mario Bros. Movie movie’s total.

Barbie has now made over USD 1.38 billion (bn) globally, which has taken it past the USD 1.36bn earnings by the ‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’. Barbie has also helped the United States summer box office reach the USD 4bn mark for the first time since the pandemic.

The ‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ is an American computer-animated adventure comedy film based on Nintendo’s Mario video game franchise. It is produced and distributed by Universal Pictures, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and written by Matthew Fogel. The film is about brothers Mario and Luigi, Italian-American plumbers who are transported to an alternate world and become entangled in a battle between two fantasy Kingdoms.

Rolling Stones

This week, the Rolling Stones announced their first album of original music is 18 years, called ‘Hackney Diamonds’. The band, who formed more than six decades ago said it ‘heralded a new album, new music, new era’. The album will be the first since the death of the band’s drummer Charlie Watts in August 2021.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood – the surviving core of the band – announced the new Album with clips of a new song, ‘Angry’ this Wednesday at an event in Hackney, London. Hackney Diamonds will feature 12 tracks and be released on 20 October 2023, preceded by the lead single, Angry.

The new album will feature Steve Jordan in Watts’ place, a drummer the band knew from ‘way back’ and who filled Watts’ place on tour. Said Sir Mick Jagger, “Of the album’s 12 tracks, most are with Steve, but two are tracks we recorded in 2019 with Charlie”.

American Actress Sydney Sweeney famous for the TV series ‘The White Lotus’ and ‘Euphoria’, features in the up-beat music video for the song.

Over the week, I listened to the song and saw the music video with Sydney Sweeney sprawled all over in an extremely edgy leather crop top busier, paired with sexy star cutout pants. She rides in the back of a red Mercedes-Benz convertible on Sunset Boulevard, writhing and playing air-guitar on the hood of the car. It’s an absolute blast – I had my tongue hanging out for more! The Stones are definitely on a roll.

More rolling stories coming-up in the weeks ahead. Dance with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2022-39

About –the stories of the world this week, 25 September to 1 October 2022: All kinds of tensions – religious, nature blowing, stealing land, a country making a right-turn, homeland surgical operations, and a classic Tamil novel becomes a movie and hits the cinema screen.

Everywhere

The protests in Iran on the killing of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, while in Detention by the Morality Police, over improper wearing of the hijab-headscarf continues. Over 70 people have been killed in the unrest and thousands arrested. Women cutting off their hair and burning the hijab has become the signature of the protests against the stringent Islamic Dress Code. Iranian Authorities are struggling to put-down this bold defiance, uncovering after quite a long time, in Iran. And the excessive force being used probably unveils how things went wrong in the first place.

In the United States, a force of nature, Hurricane Ian made landfall along the southwestern coast of Florida as a powerful Category-4 storm. It’s one of the strongest hurricanes in recent times to hit the west coast of the Florida Peninsula. The extremely dangerous conditions unleashed by the Hurricane including catastrophic floods, and life-threatening storm surges continued as the storm advanced inland. In a second landfall it battered South Carolina after leaving a trail of destruction across Florida.

Religious Tensions

Leicester is a city in England’s East Midlands region close to the River Soar, where the National Forest area ends. And it is one of its oldest cities with a deep history. Leicester Cathedral, which has stood for over 900 years in the heart of the city is where Britain’s King Richard III was reinterred in 2015.

Leicester has a population over 4.5 Lakhs with a demography of Whites being the largest ethnic group at over 50%, followed by Asians at about 37%.

Recent Hindu-Muslim violence in Leicester caused shock and outrage, and was alarming as the city is known for its diversity, its multiculturisim roots, and has been a model of cohesion for decades. And such unrest is extremely rare. Some tensions in Leicester had been brewing for a while, but it had never got to the point of confrontation before.

The recent disturbances in Leicester first began last month after an India-Pakistan cricket match. On 28 August, cricket fans from Hindu and Muslim communities clashed after India beat Pakistan in the Asia Cup T20 tournament in Dubai. Eight people were arrested on suspicion of assault and violent disorder.

In the weeks following the incident, several disturbances in East Leicester led to more arrests. The tensions reached boiling point on 17th September when a group of Hindus peacefully marched through Green Lane Road, which has predominantly Muslim-owned businesses, chanting, “Jai Shri Ram (Hail Lord Ram)”. Then fights broke out, bottles were thrown, property was smashed and a religious flag was pulled off a Hindu temple in the area. There were even roars that this is a ‘Muslim only area’ and how dare others enter. Over last weekend, multiple retaliatory marches and protests further escalated tensions.

However, this may not be as straightforward as a sporting feud that has got out of hand: It seems like there were simmering tensions before this cricket match. A pointer is an incident which occurred before the 28th August incident in which a young Muslim man said that he was assaulted by a Hindu gang. No one has been charged, but the allegations alone appear to have been enough to stoke further tensions. It is learnt that particular pieces of misinformation such as this fuelled tension in the run-up to the worst of the disorder on the weekend of 17-18 September. One false story was referenced several times.

“Today my 15 years daughter was nearly kidnapped,” read a post uploaded on Facebook, supposedly by a concerned father. “Three Indian boys got out and asked her if she was Muslim. She said yes and one guy tried to grab her.” The post was liked hundreds of times, not on Facebook but on Twitter after a community activist, tweeted the family’s story on 13 September. He also shared a message from the police, which he said was “confirming the incident which took place on 12 September”. But there had been no kidnap attempt. A day later, Leicestershire Police issued a statement after investigating and stated that the incident did not take place at all. The community activist deleted his posts and said the attempted abduction had not happened and that his initial version had been based on conversation with the family making the allegation. But damage had already been done and this false kidnap claim kept being regurgitated on other social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram. Messages forwarded many times over were initially taken by some as the truth. On Instagram, profiles – some with hundreds of thousands of followers – shared screenshots of the original post and allegedly accused a Hindu man of being behind the ‘failed abduction’.

Days later a mob of more than 200 people, mostly Muslims, attacked Durga Bhawan Hindu Centre in Smethwick, Birmingham, and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ slogans. And following this an Islamist group shared posts calling for a demonstration outside the Shree Sanatan Hindu Mandir in Wembley. This is the latest in a series of incidents targeting Hindus in the United Kingdom in recent days.

In a video posted on Twitter, an Islamist could be seen provoking Muslims in the city, calling Hindus gangsters, and mocking the religion.

Hindu-hatred and Hindu-phobia seem to be the new words in Town.

Russian Tensions

Tensions are rising in Russia. Last week, Russia kicked off a five-day referendum in the occupied Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine. The question on the ballot: “Do you wish to secede from Ukraine?” It comes as Russia announced a troop surge of 300,000 and its first draft since World War II amid mounting nuclear concerns. Meanwhile, thousands fled the country to escape the draft.

Ukrainians report that Russian soldiers are going door-to-door, coercing people ‘under a gun barrel’ to vote in favour of annexation. When ‘The Results’ were announced there was no surprise – all four occupied regions of Ukraine voted to join Russia.

Ukraine and Western countries including the US have condemned the vote as a sham. The United Nations Security Council said it will never accept the results and the four regions will remain part of Ukraine.

That’s a sham referendum for sure, but late this week Russia went ahead and declared these territories as Annexed to Russia, and henceforth people living in them are Russian citizens. That’s cold-blooded land-grabbing.

Italy: Right Turn

Italy is turning in the ‘right’ direction. The ultra-conservative Brothers of Italy Party led by Giorgia Meloni won 26% of the vote and along with coalition partners, The League – led by Matteo Salvini (8.8%) and Forza Italia – led by Silvio Berlusconi (8.1%) secured a clear majority in Parliament. Together with a smaller party representing less than 1% of the vote their right-wing coalition obtained 43.8% of the total votes. All this translates into 237 seats in the 400 seat Chamber of Deputies-called the Lower House, and 115 seats in the 200 seat Senate of the Republic – called the Upper House. Their main rival, the centre-left Democratic Party won 19% of the vote with 84 seats in the Chamber and 44 seats in the Senate.

Giorgia Meloni, 45, is all set to become Italy’s first female Prime Minister leading the most far-right government since the fascist era of the Second World War. It’s expected to take weeks for a new government to be formed. And President, Sergio Mattarella will have to nominate her, which is expected to happen during the month of October.

Meloni entered Italy’s crowded political scene in 2006 and co-founded the Brothers of Italy in 2012, a party whose agenda is rooted in Euroskepticism and anti-immigration policies. In the last election, in 2018, the party won just 4.5% of the vote, but its popularity has soared in recent years.

Meloni differs from coalition partner leaders on the issue of Ukraine. Whereas Berlusconi and Salvini have both said they would like to review sanctions against Russia because of their impact on the Italian economy, Meloni has been steadfast in her support for defending Ukraine. She is deeply conservative, openly anti-LBGT, and has threatened to place same sex unions, which were legalised in Italy in 2016, under review. She has also called abortion a ‘tragedy’ raising fears for the future of women’s rights in the country.

Meloni has a daughter with her partner Andrea Giambruno, a journalist who works for Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset TV channel.

A Cool Homeland Surgical Operation

The Popular Front of India (PFI) is an Indian Political Organization founded in 2006 with the merger of the Karnataka Forum of Dignity (KFD), the National Development Front (NDF) of Kerala- established in Kerala two years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid to protect the interests of the Muslim community – and the Manitha Neethi Pasarai of Tamilnadu. It was formed to counter Hindu groups and engages in radical and exclusivist style of Muslim minority politics. It is said to be a resurrection of the banned, terrorist Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), and affiliate of the Indian Mujahideen and also has links to the Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangalesh (JMB)- another proscribed organisation. That’s danger written all over. The PFI has various wings such as National Women’s Front and the Campus Front of India.

The PFI’s stated purpose is to establish Islamic rule in India.

Last week in a superbly planned surgical operation called ‘Operation Octopus’, India’s National Investigative Agency conducted large-scale raids in the ‘tentacle premises’ of PFI and its affiliates across the country on charges of terror funding and money laundering. And at the end of which about 100 PFI leaders and activists suddenly found themselves behind bars.

The raids had the stamp of good homework and not many had an inkling of what was coming up. It was conducted in a flawless manner with the entire PFI top leadership caught unawares and picked up in single swoop – meticulous planning by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and ‘India’s James Bond’, National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval.

This week, the Indian Government, loaded with solid evidence used the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) to declare that the PFI and its associates as an unlawful organisation and banned it with immediate effect, for a period of five years. PFI and its associates have been indulging in unlawful activities, which are against the integrity, sovereignty, and security of the country. And have the potential of disturbing public peace and communal harmony of the country, as well as support militancy in the country.

A notification to the effect was issued by MHA, on 27 September. Eight associate organisations of PFI have been declared unlawful associations: Rehab India Foundation(RIF), Campus Front of India(CFI), All India Imams Council(AIIC), National Confederation of Human Rights Org (NCHRO), National Women’s Front, Jr. Front, Empower India Foundation and Rehab Foundation, Kerala.

The MHA has also revealed that some of the PFI’s founding members are the leaders of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and had connections with ‘Global Terrorist Groups like Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)” and that the PFI and its associates have been working ‘covertly to increase radicalisation of the Muslim community’ by promoting a sense of insecurity.

Investigations showed that the PFI and its cadres have been consistently engaging in violent, subversive, and terrorist acts, including chopping off the limb of a Malayalam college professor, and murder of several persons in the States of Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu; cold-blooded killings of people associated with organisations espousing other faiths; obtaining explosives to target prominent people and places and destruction of public property.

Looks like the Octopus has got itself a prize catch!

Tears Play

Perhaps it was the music that stirred emotions, with British singer Ellie Goulding bringing a memorable night in London to a conclusion, or maybe it was the volley of memories or the replays in the mind, and there are plenty of those shared between these tennis greats, being brought to the fore.

As Nadal sat alongside his friend and great rival at the O2 Arena in London last friday night, the pair cried. Fans chanted Federer’s name, the pair hugged and Federer received one last standing ovation. There was no doubt that this was it, the Swiss great’s final professional match in the ATP’s Laver Cup. He retires in a rally of tears – a genius who made tennis look effortless.

Please Yourself: Relieve Tension

Ace Indian filmmaker and director Mani Rathinam’s magnum-opus Ponniyin Selvan (son of River Ponni – Cauvery) based on the eponymous literary masterpiece by Tamil writer Kalki Krishnamurthy released this week, on 30 September, in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi languages.

Its Trailer became the first of a Tamil Film to be screened in Las Vegas, USA.

The film is directed by Mani Rathinam with Music scored by Academy Award winner A R Rahman, Lyrics by Vairamuthu and others, Art Direction by Thota Tharani, cinematography by Ravi Varma.

The casting includes most of the brightest stars of South Indian cinema and includes former Miss World Aishwarya Rai in a beautiful role. And the promotions have created a never before seen anticipation of a movie release.

The movie is about one of the greatest Kingdoms the world has seen, the Cholas of South India and the story is being told in two parts in a budget of over 450 crores. It is produced by Mani Rathinam’s own Madras Talkies and Subaskaran Allirajah’s Lyca Productions, which is a sub group of Lycamobiles.

Ponniyin Selvam is a historical fiction novel, first serialised in the weekly editions of the the popular Tamil magazine Kalki from 29 October 1950 to 16 May 1954, and later integrated and released as a novel in five volumes of about 2210 pages in 1955. It tells the story of early days of Arulmozhivarman who later became the great Chola Emperor Rajaraja Chola I (947 CE – 1014 CE).

Ponniyin Selvan is widely considered to be the greatest novel ever written in Tamil. The craze for the series which was published weekly was such that it elevated the magazine circulation to reach a staggering figure of 71,366 copies – no mean achievement in India of the early days. Even today, the novel has a cult following and and enduring fan base, across generations for its well-etched characters, tightly woven plot, vivid narration, wit of dialogue, and sketches/drawings of the Chola period brought alive by famous artist and painter Maniyam Selvam.

For those who have read the story and are also familiar with Indian movie stars, the star cast is a galaxy: Karthi as Vallavarayan Vandiathevan, Vikram as Aditya Karikalan, Jayam Ravi as Arulmozhi Varman, Trisha Krishnan as Kundavai, Aishwarya Rai as Nandhini, Shobitha Dhulipala as Vaanathi, Aishwarya Lakshmi as Poonguzhali, Jayaram as Azhwarkadiyaan Nambi, among many others

Read more about Ponniyin Selvan at:

https://kumargovindan.com/2020/03/31/on-first-reading-kalkis-ponniyin-selvan-2/

More stories coming up in the weeks ahead, to break-down tensions. Watch the world with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-43

About: the world this week, 17 October to 23 October 2021, Haiti’s waywardness, shooting in Space, Hindus under attack, floods in Kerala, India reaches a vaccination landmark, and a shooting gone bad.

Everywhere

Haiti

Haiti is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles Archipelageo of the Caribbean Sea, to the east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Haiti is the world’s leading producer of vetiver, a root plant used to make luxury perfumes and essential oils among other things. Vetiver is derived from the Tamil word ‘வெட்டிவேர்’ meaning ‘root that is dug up.’

About half the population of Haiti have roots in the agricultural sector but it still relies upon imports for most of its food needs. And Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the World.

In July this year, its President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in an attack on his private residence and the ‘root’ of the forces behind is yet to be dug up. Mercenaries appear with ease and ‘rowdy gangs’ seem to be able to spring-up from the ground at will and get away with whatever mischief they do.

Last Saturday as many as seventeen American Missionaries were kidnapped for ransom by gang members in Haiti, including three minors. The missionaries were travelling by a vehicle to Titanyen, north of the capital Port-au-Prince, after visiting an orphanage, when the kidnapping occurred.

Haiti may need to import help, to root out this ‘dangerous plant’ of violent gangs that is spreading through the country, keeping it the grip of violence, and strangulating its rise.

Russia

In a first of its kind, the Russians are ‘shooting’ in Space. Well, really!

Over the course of 12 days Producer-Director Klim Shipenko, Russian Actress Yulia Peresild, and cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy filmed a movie, called, ‘Challenge’ – the first feature film shot entirely in space – working from the International Space Station. The had docked on 5th October and undocked on 16 October 2021, to safely return to Earth.

The movie tells the story of a surgeon, played by Peresild, who has to operate on a sick cosmonaut in space, portrayed by Novitskiy, because the cosmonaut’s medical condition prevents him from returning to Earth to be treated.

Previously a few films have been shot on board the space station, including a 2002 IMAX Documentary that Hollywood Actor Tom Cruise narrated. ‘Apogee of Fear’, a 2012 science fiction film running for about eight minutes, was also filmed in space by entrepreneur and space tourist Richard Garriott. Tom Cruise and Director Doug Liman revealed in 2020 that they were working together on a movie to be filmed in space, with NASA’s cooperation. The project is being developed in collaboration with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. It’s a ‘mission possible’ that Tom Cruise could stay in the Space Station sometime this October. And he probably got the hang of it during a chat with the all-civilian SpaceX Inspiration-4 crew during their recent trip to space.

But, Russia has become the first nation to do this kind of shooting: they always seem to be one small challenging step ahead of America’s NASA. Some Big Steps coming up?

Bangladesh

Muslim majority Bangladesh – a nation which India enabled to come into being, in the first place – in under severe stress with radical Islamists unleashing violence against the minority Hindus, under the garb of blasphemy.

Brutal attacks, vandalism, looting, and arson has returned to haunt Hindus in Bangladesh’s Noakhali district, as close to 150 households were attacked and at least three killed in a deadly clash on 13th October. A day later, a frenzied mob of radical Islamists attacked the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) temple in the Noakhali district in the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh. The sculpture of its founder, was burnt down during the arson attack on the temple. In another incident, in Hajiganj Upazila, Chandpur District in the Chittagong Division, Islamists also brutally raped an entire Hindu family including a 10 years old girl.

Attacks on Hindus is increasing at an alarming rate across the free World. In America a three-day online conference, ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva,’ which was held last month with at least 30,000 attendees generated a lot of heat & dust. Some said it failed to adequately distinguish between Hindutva, generally defined as Hindu nationalism, with Hinduism, the religion, which is a way of life.

Hinduism is the oldest religion in the World and has been harmlessly coexisting -even baby-sitting- with all the newcomers, over centuries. And it should be respected – left to be.

India

God’s Own Country, Kerala, as been on the Indian News headlines for many reasons, from initially being an example in tackling the pandemic – during the first wave- to having outrageously high and consistent daily infections – the highest in India – and maybe earnestly trying to set an example of how not to tackle the coronavirus – during the second wave. Poles apart, with the virus caught in between?

Now, Kerala is among the rains, with floods causing havoc, killing people and cutting off towns and villages when rivers started to overflow their banks. For eg.,several houses were washed away and people became trapped in the district of Kottayam. Days of incessantly heavy rainfall has caused deadly landslides and the Indian military has joined rescue efforts.

Akin to its experience with the pandemic, Kerala sees heavy rains every year bringing with it deadly floods and landslides- happening almost religiously despite its best efforts at managing the situation. Kerala probably has to do something new and different to prevent the effects of this almost recurring too-easy-to-predict event. You cannot expect different results doing things the same way. Can you? Stronger construction and clever selection of places to build Houses would be one approach; better preparedness and forewarning residents in flood prone areas would be another. Maybe moving-in to the famous backwater boats – with stronger moorings- during the rains, would be yet another? God and his country should decide!

COVID-19 Vaccination

India scripted history this Thursday by crossing a huge milestone in having done 100 crore or one billion vaccinations in less than 9 months, for a population of 1.38 billion.

So far, India has fully vaccinated about 30% of its adult population and given one dose to about 75%.

China is at the top spot with over 2.25 billion vaccine jabs and Russia is close behind India, having itself crossed the 1 billion mark, a day after India did.

Please Yourself

This Thursday, Hollywood Actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun that accidentally killed a 42 years old woman Cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and injured the Film Director while shooting for his latest movie ‘Rust’, in a New Mexico set. For now, the film production’s been put on hold indefinitely as authorities investigate what happened.

Alec Baldwin famously played ex-US President Donald Trump in the Television series, ‘Saturday Night Live’. Some of the movies he has acted in are, The Hunt for Red October, The Marrying Man, The Getaway, Pearl Harbour, The Aviator, and Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation…

What are prop guns? What comes to mind is a non-functional weapon or a toy gun that fires caps to produce smoke. Actually the term refers to real guns used as props. The reason a film production company would use a real gun is to lend authenticity especially in close-up shots. Prop guns are used with blank cartridges that have all the elements of a real bullet/cartridge except the projectile at the tip, which strikes the target. When you pull the trigger, you only get the bang, the recoil, the muzzle flash, and an ejected shell. Tragedy can strike if the prop gun isn’t loaded properly – or from ‘rusty’ planning-say when a cartridge with a projectile tip had unknowingly become stuck and when fired the projectile hits the target.

This is not the first instance of a fatal accident on a film set due to a prop gun. Actor Brandon Lee, son of the legendary Bruce Lee, was fatally shot by Actor Michael Massee with a prop gun during the filming of the movie, ‘The Crow’ in 1993.

Similarly, in 1984, actor Jon-Erik Hexum fatally shot himself with a blank discharged from a Magnum Pistol, while jokingly playing with the pistol on set, amid repeated delays in the filming of the television series ‘Cover Up’.

More real shots coming up in the weeks ahead. Nothing to cover-up: it’s all in the open and everything to crow about. Stay with World Inthavaaram.