The Journey

I found myself at crossroads often
I took that road the one less taken
Although they said it ain't worth it
I knew that they were all mistaken

Onward I trod with a bold resolve
Kept on following my spirit divine
Through dark woods through shady streets
Through lonesome trails through crowded line

Task after task Herculean each
I had to endure the perils and dreads
As every milestone came and went
Both soul and sole had visible treads

I claimed that glory comes as a fruit
I aimed to clinch the olive wreath
As I vanquished the demons and ghosts
I even mocked at mighty death

But as the journey went on forth
To the edges of the world I'd ever been shown
The great Rewards I eagerly sought
Seemed I could never come to own

The trophies I craved as the justful end
The titles and fame for wanting to dare
The urge to bet and play the game
All seemed less thrillsome I stopped to care

I paused and stared back at my past
The ungotten accolades the unwon triumph
I failed to grasp why I was forsaken
Why my ways were now causing me to slump

And as I stared down deep onto my self
Etched upon and forever to stay
Were the humble scars and the enduring signs
Of all those gusty and perilous ways

Alas it all quite came to me
Grandeur isn't there to attain
The journey, the trials and the travails of life
Are the real fruit, which is worth the pain

- Theodore "Todd" Klarke (thats actually my western name)

Everyone's Stake in democratic Afghanistan

There is again a run-off for the tainted Afghan Election. The opposition should be commended for their confidence and insistence that election malpractices happened and eventually led to the November re-election. Interestingly Conan O'Brien once talked about the Afghan United Front leader Abdullah Abdullah as - "The Abdullah is so nice they named him twice".

Hamid Karzai's run for the past 6-8 years has been of ups and downs especially for the diminutive war torn Afghan state, with the constant threat of radical Islam resurfacing in the region and the lack of visible progress in the nation nor a guarantee of security. No matter who wins the election, the truth is that this is a bitter test for democracy to succeed in a nation that has not seen a single peaceful week since 1975.

Hamid Karzai has been foreign educated and speaks good English and was the US sponsored choice back in 2002. Abdullah Abdullah is an ophthalmologist who studied in Soviet Afghanistan, helped the refugees displaced by the Mujahideen warring the Soviets and later joined the Northern alliance against the Taliban rule (He was close to Ahmad Shah Massoud who was assassinated 2 days before 9/11).

In this year of elections, this is perhaps the most important one for many parties at stake -
#1 Afghanistan herself - it is perhaps the last chance for her as a nation to stand up and embrace peaceful transfer of power and hope for a peaceful future.
#2 USA - to state their credibility as an foreign power that wants the good of the nation it is occupying.
#3 Pakistan - A Stable Afghan system would serve as a shameful reminder of Pakistan to embrace a functioning democracy rather than one wrought with internal mistrust and hatred.
#4 India - For it would endorse India's efforts to push for democratic republics in the neighborhood and would give it arm wrestling space to fix Nepal and Burma with Afghanistan as an example and check Chinese interference in India's contiguous neighborhood
#5 Iran - Many Afghan tribes are Shiite and Iran has logical gains if they have some say in new government. Also A lot of Western Afghans speak Persian, making Iran the stakeholder in Afghanistan

It should closely be seen how the results come out. For India Karzai would be welcome as he has a soft corner to the place he was educated in, whereas Abdullah Abdullah would be a good choice for Afghanistan as that would mean that a democratic, peaceful change of power can indeed take place in this troubled nation .

Pakistan's Bhasmasur Moment

This week marked 8 years of Unites States Presence in Afghanistan after Bush ordered attack on Taliban controlled Afghanistan using the Northern Alliance of Late Ahmad Shah Masood in late 2001. Lot of events have happened after that. Almost every nation on the planet (barring Latin America) has been involved in some way or other with Islamic militancy and terrorism. Everybody knows but is not saying that the centre of all this is Pakistan and is funded by Arab oil funded Wahabbi Sunni Islam and Iranian Oil funded Shi'ite Militancy. Leading analysts and states-personnel are wary of how to handle the countering of Islamic terrorism.

Interestingly from a India-Pakistan conflict standpoint, Pakistan has seen more suicide attacks and casualties on its own land since 2006 than India has seen from start of Islamic militancy in late 1980s. This weekend Pakistan's Army Headquarters was attacked by Taliban. After this embarrassing standoff Pakistan is more and more having its Bhasmasur Moment.
You may know the legend of Bhasmasura, who was the demon who had the vardaan that he would turn anything he touched into ash. And eventually he turned one Lord Shiva and other devas after which Vishnu intervened in Mohini roopa and made Bhasmasur touch his own head.

Pakistan is now reaping with dividends what it sowed. The much praised dud operations in Swat valley seem to have only increased teh Zeal of the Taliban Militants. It is not surprising that Muslims in Indian Kashmir (forgive me for the political correctness wrt the west), have become wary of both independence and Pakistan. An Independent or Pakistani Kashmir will only lead to the doom of their life and livelihoods.

So Pakistan has a double whammy against it. First - It had almost lost the Kashmir war, and the Kashmir issue has tilted in Indias favor thanks to the Taliban attacks and instability in Pakistan. This undermines the only reason of Pakistans existence which claimed a nation for Subcontinental Muslims. The second whammy is the threat to Pakistan from US's weariness in Afghanistan. With huge natural gas supply boost from Alaska, Canada and Russia, the Afghan gas reserves no longer seem a good prospect for any US company. Also day in and day out from radio and TV shows in US the US feels that the only way to negotiate with the Taliban is like compromising with the enemy. This will only boost the resolve of Taliban. Every intelligent man knows that Taliban, Al Qaeda, LET, Hamas, Hezbolla, Mehdi Army, The regular armies of Pakistan, Afghan tribal Fighters, Militant Uighurs, radical Indonesians all form not a loosely connected force, but a strong ideologically connected Muslim army at war with the infidel world.

The biggest mistake the west and US is making is that it feels that the terrorists are a separate entity from the regular civilians. A recent explosion in Peshawar, the accused was a respected school teacher and was aiming at blowing up US and UK troops in Afghanistan. The school teacher was arrested and was remorseful for killing Pakistanis but said he will beg Allah for another opportunity to kill Americans or Britishers. What kind of moderation is this? All around the Muslim world an increasing majority of people are now baying for the blood of Indians(Hindus), Israelis (Jews) and Christians (US and UK). It should be noted that this is completely different from the earlier presumed notion that the majority Muslims were moderate and only a select minority were brainwashed for Jihad. From Britain and Denmark to Nigeria and Philippines, everyone is

Muslim faith is only nourished by the oil and natural gas money that flows into the Middle East and North Africa. Other than that there is drug money from Marijuana that grows in Central Asia. Although on the outside, this may not seem to be a holy war, but in reality the entire muslim world is indefinitely at war with the Infidels. They are bolstered not only by the violent words of the Quran, but also by the oil-drug money and nuclear capabilities of Pakistan, Iran, Libya.

If the US negotiates with terrorist Taliban - It is bound to commit a huge blunder that will rip Pakistan apart and create a huge threat of global Islamic Terrorism more formidable than ever.

Terrorism == Islam && Islam == Terrorism

Well I have been officially branded as a right wind nutjob thanks to my recent endeavors to highlight a certain incident where something I adhered so dearly was mutilated by the Oil Money Powered Abusive members of the "Minority Community". Enough Political correction. Haven't we had enough appeasement? Haven't we given them enough freedom? The Infidels from Denmark and Holland to Gujarat and Maharashtra, infidels from Tel Aviv and Haifa to Lagos and Manila, infidels from New England and Missouri to Armenia and Croatia - Its time to unite against Islamic terror.

I am a staunch Wildersian, as the world faces dangers of radical Islam day in day out, only people like Geert Wilders and many upcoming Right Wing European and Israeli politicians have heralded the grave thread Islam is posing to all of Civil society. My friends and apologists who defend Muslims are again defying their own conscience and the gory history of Islamic conquest of the world in the past 2 millenia. I have absolutely no enemity or grudge with Muslims - I have extreme reservations about Islam. Islam is an incendiary time bomb that has been planted 1400 years ago in Human Society and has gone off time and again - taking with it heads of us infidels. It should be time and again noted that Muslims do not believe in any constitution outside of Islamic Sharia Law. Muslims willfully want to subdue female rights, Muslims want to willfully accept honor killing, genital mutilation, male polygamy, misogyny as state law. They want jihad - they believe in political deception and lying to protect Islam and migrating to non muslim nations to Islamicize the place in a similar way Muhammed did.


"Whoa Whoa Whoa - Shriniwas Are you carazy - What are you saying? You have been brainwashed!" Muslims are peaceful. blah blah.... people will place the case against my argument - Let me clarify one by one

Myth - Islam is peaceful -

Reality - What happened from 700 through 1800 in Muslim world cannot be termed peaceful. Islam has flowed more infidel/non beleivers blood than all other totalitarian regimes put together. Read up. FYI no country where muslims are sizeable minority is peaceful. Philippines, India, Nigeria, Sudan, Caucuses, Serbia, Chechnya, is peaceful. You name them - they pick a fight in the name of Allah. Their religion is soaked in blood of us non believers and they are hell bent on the governments of these nations to impose Sharia over Muslims. Any Christian, Jew, Buddhist and Hindu should remember that they have suffered most under Islam. Women should especially be aware how Muslims ill treat women in all walks of Life, how women are given second class status under Islamic law, how women are denied civil rights of respectfully choosing partner or respectfully ending a marriage, how women are tortured and crimes are committed in name of 7th century laws. From Taslima Nasreen to Salman Rushdie, from Theo Van Gogh to Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas - every person who wishes to express himself or herself is under grave threat from Islamo-fascism,

Myth - Muslims are law abiding citizens/tolerant

Reality - Check again - Muslims only think Quran is the law. Any constitution is not acceptable for Muslims. They believe any non Muslim state is barbarian and their job is to fight the infidel. Thats what the prophet ordered and thats what they will do. Ask me proof. Check out how brutally other religions are suppressed in Islamic countries. In 21st century, if Muslims were so advanced, they should have allowed other religions to flourish in their countries. All non muslims are outlawed to practice their faith in any Muslim country. In Nations where muslims immigrate - they consider themselves Muslims first then that country's citizen. Example - Prophet Cartoons in Denmark, Protests in UK when soldiers came back from Afghanistan. Killing of Theo Van Gogh in Holland, Stoning of Ganesha, etc etc etc ...

Myth - Modern Muslims are advanced thinkers in religion philosophy law etc

Reality - The foremost of Muslim thinkers are doused in religious hatred. Fueled by easy Oil money the nefarious expansion plans of Muslims have defied all reason and rules adhered by civil society. Suicide bombing, Talibanization, brutalities on non Muslims, blasphemy laws, you name it they have one retrograde step for everything modern society stands. Muslims are hell bent to go back to the 7th century.

This list is endless. Some of my friends argue that Muslims become terrorists due to socio economic reasons. Well Having ton of free oil money is not a socio economic problem. Arab, Turk, Egyptian, Persian, Pakistani, Indonesian, North African, East European - All type of muslims though they hate each other, are in agreement of the Islamic jurisprudence of 7th century Sharia law and are desperate to bring the world under the Sharia law. There is an army of 6 year old kids to 60 year old men and women who are brianwashed in reading the Qoran as the ultimate word of God, ready to die for Islam. This is even worse than Communism and Fascism as those thoughts never interfered with Scientific and Civilian beliefs.


Frontline -
1. Israel
2. India+Thailand+Sudan+Nigeria+Philippines
3. Europe
4. N America

Why Now? Whats the Solution?
A lot of thought and action is needed to solve the problem of radical Islam.

1) Stop OIL money to Arabia, N. Africa and Persia - How switch to non petroleum fuel ASAP
2) Stop Quran based schooling / Madrassas and stop small kids from memorizing Quran
3) In EU, US and India, Muslims should be educated to respect the constitution over religion
4) Promote Peaceful Non Arab interpretation of Islamic Scripture and deny Visas to radical preachers
5) Force Islamic nations to allow other religions preach/teach.


STOP ISLAM or humanity has no future

Poem time - For Software Engineers/Programmers only

Ode To The Codesmith

The die is cast in the brain storming session
Specs, docs, designs outline the mission
As every hour passes the deadline looms
The focus then moves off the conference rooms

Deep in the mire of the cubicle maze
Blending in the mist of the LCD haze
Armed with all high tech gizmos to play
The legendary codesmith toils night and day

Powered by caffeine and Diet Coke
Bemused so often by the mathematical joke
The codesmith has no sense of earthly time
His clock just ticks at a bit wise rhyme

The cubicle looks like a scientist’s den
With unopened figurines and light saber pens
And spaceships and toy trains and robots for gimmicks
Darth Vader and Cartman and Sméagol he mimics

He downloads and installs all tools of the trade
Just as the swordswright welds the blade
The codesmith gets the machines to train
And make them behave like a human brain

Alas, this is easier said than done
Software battles are seldom won
As soon as the coders may pull the plug
There appears the dreaded and treacherous bug

With break points and logs and step run modes
The codesmiths try to cleanse their code
Though his lieutenants (QA) will try their best
The codesmith himself does all sanity tests

The battle still on, the managers speak
The program is scheduled for release next week
The codesmiths will putsch for a final stand
Their battle cry reads "nothing should hang"

And then as the dreaded release day dawns
Bloodshot-eyed they trickle in with incessant yawns
As the CEO speaks, they listen, all breathing bated
"Gentlemen, the software we released is already outdated"

- Shriniwas K



This is a program poem I wrote as a tribute to all software engineers! - enjoy responsibly - and excuse/forgive me for using the male gender in the poem. Also I wanted all to be in this note, but there is a limit of 30 tags (duh why 30? I would have accepted even 32, 64,128 or 256 but 30 ????)

Comments welcome!

© Creative Commons Attribution - All the copyrighted names used belong to their respective owners...

India's pathetic parliamentary democracy

Despite the nature of the Lok Sabha elections in Pune that were ironically and I still insist that wrongly fought on basis of local issues like public services, traffic and power supply, the city is being ditched by all  aspiring MPs namely Bhai Hotel+Travels Kalmadi, dada Petrol Pump + JM road Shiroles and ex IAS slum destroyer Bhatia have ditched their constituency as soon as polling was over.

The rickshaw strike for revision of tariff and now the garbage strike by the land fill displaced villagers (2 services which are highly important for functioning of the city) paralysed the city the pleas of the PMC officers fell to deaf ears of MLAs and aspiring MPs. Its a shame that representatives have lost all sense of responsibility and only eye for the prized gaddi. I particularly feel more ashamed as now as I see how town councils and city councils in Arizona work and how effective they are in resolving many issues that too under public eye (all proceedings are televised). I honestly feel parliamentary democracy and the loosely defined federal nature of our states, have become serious hurdles in all administration in India. The lethargy of the judiciary is also partly to blame for copying the Westminister system of parliamentary democracy for a republic like India.

With so many disputes, only educated and determined decision making leaders can stand up to the occasion - but parliamentary democracy has made a mockery of all relevant issues in resurgent India and replaced it with the precise non issues like caste, gareebi and aam aadmi. A presidential form of government has the scary prospect of the complicity of the army with a powerful politician who can become a dictator, but in a  diverse land as ours, we can quickly ensure checks and balances by empowering the judiciary and giving legislature enough powers to avoid such a thing. The urgency of India's issues is so magnanimous with the backdrop of the global economic downturn, persistent poverty in India and Indias perilous neighborhood. The situation is even more aggravated as the affluent and educated classes now think that India is a banana republic where no one in power can affect their lives, while in fact they should be cogitating as to how the current system can be improved and made more efficient.

Ambedkar's copy paste constitution may have worked so far, but its high time educated Indians pushed for judicial, electoral, labour and police reofrms. Both Vajpayee and Dr MMS had envisioned a better polity for India and often its not that hard to conjure up majority for national issues in the parliament (provided  it has nothing personal against anyone). A push for a presidential style democracy and the ability to incorporate proportianal representation, improving federal structure of the states and slow and steady removal of linguistic barriers by promoting English as an administrative language should be considered as priorities.

Efficient administration often has nothing to do with caste, ideology, religion, economic ability or education level. Its more like a well oiled machine's output. Our machine is neither properly in place, nor producing enough fair output. Do the SC/ST smell the stick of the garpage piled up on Pune streets any more than an upper caste person? Does a yuppie in a Mercedes Benz smell that stench any less than  some poor student on a bicycle? Time is running out. I honestly hope this election will turn tides, else we are doomed and will face a nasty jolt for progress ...

Duplicity

An amazing collection of double standards. - I confess I stole this from a comment posted to a TOI article

Sikhs getting slaughered in thousands = A MISTAKE.
Hindus getting killed in Kashmir = Political problem.
Muslims getting killed a few hundred = Holocaust.
Poor protestors getting shot in WB under Left Govt = Misunderstanding.

Banning Parzania in Gujarat = Communal.
Banning Da Vinci Code and Jo Bole So Nihaal = Secular.

Kargil Attack = Government failure.
Chinese invasion in 1962 = Unfortunate betrayal.

Reservations in every school and college on caste lines = Secular.
Reservations in Minority institutions = Communal.
Fake encounters in Gujarat [Sohrabuddin] = BJP Communalism.
Fake encounters under Cong-NCP in Maharashtra [Khwaja Younus] = Police atrocity.
Talking about Hindus and Hinduism appeasement = Communal.
Talking about Muslims and Islam = Secular.

BJP freeing 3 terrorists to save 100+ Indian hostages = Shameful
Congress freeing 4 militants to save just a life of one daughter of I Home minister in Kashmir [Rubina Sayed] = Natural Political dilemma.

Attack on Parliament = BJP ineptitude.
Not hanging Afzal Guru despite Supreme Court orders = Humanity and Political dilemma.
BJP questioning Islam = Communal.
Congress questioning Lord Ramas existance = Clerical Error.

Update - Teesta Setalvaad was cautioned by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India that she concocted macabre tales during Gujarat riots. This did not find a mention in any of the country's major networks, press or magazines - what a sham.