Mayaaaaaaawati the statue

Mayawati mayawati the darling of log aam
her heart in a flutter for kanshi kaanshi raam
Suddenly Mayawati felt she needed lots of statue new
to proclaim to the world the dalit love so blue and true .....

The money ?cash no problem bhai Mayawati se queen
of Uttar pradesh and its millions of no simple means
said she ...in her thundering speeches let them feast on our images
bhai oh behn we will give you lots of mirages ......

we the greats were born only to to uplift the poor
but then we have to start with ourselves for sure
let everyone not stop with water but also have the finest beer
said by me truly like Mary antoinette my peer ..........

Statues are forever and forever
See now we are part of history ,how clever
and how much we make by way of the contracts
depends on how we play the game with knack and tact .......

Dalits will be Dalits forever but why gripe
when one among them rises above the tripe
so we shall build statues forts memorials and malls
and our name and fame will be shining and tall .........

my dahling depressed downtrodden men and women
look at statues of me and kaansh kaanshi raam often
and then your empty stomachs will be full
life to you and me would then never be dull ........

all are jealous of our statues and memorials and parks
the reason they never tire and continue to bark
Uttar Pradesh may always be in the dark
but for kaanshiji and mayawatijiji it would be a lark .......

so my dear backward class bonded trodden ones
try to emulate us the chosen ones
watch us with our statues having all the funs
but never stop voting for us in tons and tons ..........

bhayyo behnno mayawati se aapke pura log se thanyavaath

Sasi Tharoor Twitter comments

When Mr Tharoor was asked if he will travel in cattle class the next time he travels to Kerala, he retorted back saying,

"Absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows."

The Twitter comment from our sauve UN returned writer has landed him in neck deep trouble .

when I first heard of this over the UAE Asianet Radio and also the furious reactions from malyalees ,( the show organiser was also totally biased against Sasi Tharoor !! )

I was both amused and sad .amused that the so called educated intelligent Keralite should never deserve that name because they missed the point entirely !

The question asked was a leading one and Sasi Tharoor had the honesty not to change the word cattle into a very diplomatic economy class .

what is wrong in calling it by the same name the common classes are always called cattle class ,that never says people travelling in it are cattle( from thier reaction I do have my doubts )

well moving away from that, the real focus of the furious reaction to this comment by the congress was never this word cattle class which our malayalee men and women caught wrongly and focused all thier revelutionary fervour upon .

it was the word holy cow that caught the congress cow by its udder
this was what made Jayanti Nadarajan see RED ,

after all when the living deity of a Rahul Gandhi travels in Aam janata class in trains ,and his mother the reigning party queen in planes in economy or cattle ( sic ) class symbolising the
GREAT AUSTERITY DRIVE none dare ridicule it

never a congressman at that

never a minister from the congress

and that too somebody who is a newcomer !!

a babe in the woods

where is gratitude gone ?
someone who is not a home bred Keralite
and that too someone who thinks in engleeesh
bah

That is sacrosant !

blasphemy for the great party

unheard of !something

that needed due punishment indeed !

cant afford such comments to become a habit can they ?
"never allow mediocrisy to rise above hypocrisy " the motto of the oldest party in India cannot be reversed

sorry but what a bunch of hypocrites and fools we indians are ?

we have people like Mayawati swindling public coffers to build her statues while thousands suffer from drought and starve ,
we have our own state bred politicians who have dipped thier hands into Canadian business houses and continue to sermonise ,

we have quasi terrorists in the garb of religious leaders who spit fire and fume in public meetings
we have politicians with itchy hands in planes out to grab the nearest good looking female who get aquited to reign as ministers again
we have corrupt politicians ruling us left and right with a rare sprinkling of good ones ,
just because they use the right words and give great speeches to hoodwink us we fall for them

havent you seen movies where the politiican after hugging a slum dweller for a photo crinkle his nose later ?
we believe in them

many really believe these austeriy drives
i dont
let us calculate how much these ministers have been spending for thier office remakes ,
how much have they been spending for thier foriegn trips ,
thier iftar parties
thier phone calls
thier black cat commandos
thier wasted debates inside assemblies and parliaments when they either slouch or walk out or just disappear

how many crores have they swindled in and out of power

the late VP Singh former prime minister used to travel to UK for getting a treatment available in India with his whole family and stay in the most expensive hotel in london for months incurring huge bills paid by the state and he was supposed to be a politiican who fought for the downtrodden the backward class !

( all he did was took the country many steps backwards by his mandalisation and also in the process got a few youngsters burnt to char )just an example
we have so many paswans ,lallus ,and karunakarans
why are we cheating ourselves like this ?
no wonder we never progress because we deserve only such nincompoops to rule us
our country needs educated intelligent people who call a spade by its name and not as something else
I would advise Sasi tharoor to go back and continue being a writer

the country does not deserve specially the congress and specially Kerala state never deserves people like him ,
thier needs are fulfilled by the present bunch and they will always be in the same sorry state
sad but true


harimohan

Dubai Metro

9/9/09 9pm 9 minutes and 99 seconds

This would be a date and time etched into the history of Dubai the city

Recently dates have always been associated with unfortunate events this has been a positive change .

four years back when the plans for a metro started this date was mentioned ,hats off to the powers that they kept thier word in spite of the recession .

The Metro in Dubai is another example of the far sighted vision ,commitment and hard work and dedication of its leadership .

49 months 30,000 workers and 28 billion dirhams later Dubai has the longest most modern unmanned fully automatic Metro in the world .

Every Emirati and Exaptriate in U.A.E. are exited on this great day .

for a city dependent on roads and heavy traffic this would be a welcome change .

the country has never experienced Rail travel so far !

for a start out of the 47 stations only 10 are open today but by february all will open

the red line would have 29 stations 24 elevated 4 underground and one at ground level

next comes the green line .,it would have 18 stations of which 6 would be underground

there would be two transfer stations UnionSquare and Burjuman

the Metro would be a part of an integrated transport system with buses and boats ( near water areas )

( Kochi administrators please note this .....Kochi in Kerala is eminiently suited for water transportation this was recognised by the British who started good boat services but today sadly our politicians have effectively destroyed this ,the kochi Metro is still a dream yet to fructify )

Every metro station would have feeder buses and more than 787 buses would be started .

most forms of Tickets can be used in all the three types of transport .

(new unified automated fare collecting system)

one could plan ones journey to the last second by going to RTA site and clicking on journey planner ,this would give you options for getting from one place to the other and approx time needed ,an animated interactive portion even would show an image walking to nearest bus stop ,bus moving and stopping at metrosn and train moving to destination !

Each train has five compartments one half called Gold cabin or first class the other half is for women and children only ,rest four are normal compartments called Silver ( Economy )

The train would have pleasant colours ,water and air themes ,special facilities for disabled ,elderly and pregnant women ,needless to say evryhting would be disabled acessible

Tactile floor guidance ,Braille signs would be available .

audiovisual announcements and CC TV would be there in all compartments .

they have the best safety feutures available today .

All Metro trains and stations are WIFI enabled with free internet acess

more than 60000 tons of steel have been used in the construction

Two Tunnel Boring machines have been used in its construction

643 passengers in every train 23000 passengers can be carried every hour in the red line each train would have five compartments and have the best safety feutures in the world today

they would be controlled centrally .

Naming rights have been given to private firms for the stations and so we have stations like Diera city centre ,Mall of the Emirates ,Ibn Batuta Mall ,Dubai Mall ,Nakheel etc the rights are sold for a period of 10 years

Both elevated and underground tracks are part of the Metro .

a pop group has already dedicated an album to the metro and below is the lyric of one of the songs

Lyrics of Blue Streak written by Nikhil Uzgare
Goin for a ride on a blue streak, it’s a damn good ride for the mean streets
Gona zip thru the city in my blue streak.
I’m gonna fly !
Beating the traffic in my blue streak, gonna sweat no more in my old jeep
Gona zip thru the city in my blue streak.
Paradise !
Some days are meant for boredom, doing your little nothing squatting flies
Some days are not that bad, I hit my sack, just about in time
Some days are made for speed, but the radars keep me back in line
Some days are slow as hell, wish I had a jet to fly
We’ve got damn strange occupations. Now am zipping thru my stations.
And when I’m off the tracks. The blue streak brings me back!!
Goin for a ride on a blue streak, it’s a damn good ride for the mean streets
Gona zip thru the city in my blue streak.
I’m gonna fly !
Beating the traffic in my blue streak, gonna sweat no more in my old jeep
Gona zip thru the city in my blue streak.
Paradise

Urdhu .........the origins

The origin of Urdu as a language became a topic of intrest in one of our department meets when the unique word Roz connected with Id fasting rose as a matter of discussion ,this was a word of Persian origin .
How was Urdu born ?

became a question of intrest to me on that day so I did some browsing and came up with this blog post .

I am thankful to the articles in the net from which this blog post has been literally copied ,I apologise to the authors for doing this without thier permission but I hope they forgive me in academic intrest ,the attitude was well intentioned and for spreading knowledge and nothing else .

Urdu is derived from Ghaznavid Persian, which is in turn derived from Avestan via Sassanid Pahlavi. It shall thence be evident that the ultimate ancestor of Urdu is Avestan, making it a member of the Iranian family of languages.

The first and most basic evidence which strikes an observer is the Persian-Islamic script of Urdu, as well as the extremely high percentage of Persian words in Urdu vocabulary. In fact, even in Musalmani (Muslim Bengali) an eastern dialect of Urdu spoken mainly Bangladesh and influenced by Bengali, one finds a significant proportion of Persian words. At least 60% of the vocabulary of Punjabi, a rustic western dialect of Urdu, is of also Persian origin:
"If more than 60% of the words are common in Punjabi and Urdu (Shriram 1928:67) it is due to the influence of Persian." [1]
More detailed investigations only confirm the precurosry impressions. Indeed, several researchers have traced the origin of Urdu to the camps of Mahmud-e-Ghazni. Thus, K.K.Khullar notes:
"The birth of Urdu language was the direct result of the synthesis between the invading armies of Mahmud of Ghazni with the civilian population of the Indian cities. The word Urdu itself means Lashkar, derived from the Turkish language meaning armies." [2]
Indeed, the Ghaznavid origin of Urdu follows from the very name of the language - Zaban-e-Urdu, or "Language of the Armies". The word "Urdu" is derived from the Turkic "Oordou", meaning "camps" or, as Khullar notes above, "armies".
Urdu was thus self-evidently the language of the soldiers of the armies of Mahmud-e-Ghazni, the only militarist sovereign of the era who maintained a large enough army for a considerable period to provide sufficient time for a new language to develop. It is for this same reason that the earliest surviving Urdu literature is that of Sufi saints who accompanied the Ghaznavids during their expeditions.
Noted Iranologist Dr.E.C.Sachau, translator of al-Beruni's India, further elucidates the Ghaznavid origin of Urdu:

"Tilak, the son of Jai Sen ... studied in Kashmir, [then worked as an] interpreter first to Kadi Shirazi Bulhasan Ali, a high civil officer under Mahumd and Masud (Elliott ii.117,123), then to Ahmad Ibn Hasan of Maimand, who was grand vizier, 1007 AD-25 ... and then 1030-1033 under Mahmud and Masud, and rose afterwards to be a commanding officer in the army (Elliott ii.125-127). This class of men spoke and wrote Hindi (of course with Arabic characters) and Persian (perhaps also Turkish, as this language prevailed in the army), and it is probably in these circles that we must look for the origin of Urdu or Hindustani." [3]
Dr.E.C.Sachau also notes the existence in the 1850s of remarkable Urdu manuscripts surviving from the Ghaznavid era:
"The first author who wrote in this language, the Dante of Muhammedan India, is one Masud, who died a little more than a century after the death of King Mahmud (525AH=1131 AD), cf A.Springer, Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and Hindustany manuscripts of the libraries of the King of Oudh, Calcutta, 1854 pp.407,485. If we had any of the Hindi writings of those times, they would probably exhibit the same kind of Indian speech as found in Alberuni's book." [4]
Having traced the origin of Urdu to the camps of Mahmud-e-Ghazni, the identification of the "mother language" becomes the next necessity. The question of the origin of Urdu thus becomes linked to the language spoken by the soldiers of Mahmud. It is proposed that this source language for Urdu was Ghaznavid Dari.
Several facts support this view:
1. Ghazni is geographically located within the traditional Dari-speaking area of Afghanistan. Hence Dari was likely to have been spoken by many of Mahmud's soldiers.
2. The "Ghaznavi" dialect of Dari is still spoken [5].
3. Mahmud-e-Ghazni was a patron of Dari literature, hence he would have encouraged its usage amongst his soldiers.
4. Most soldiers in the Ghaznavid armies were of East Iranic stock, consisting of the local population of eastern Eranshahr, along with a substantial Turkic contribution.
5. Mahmud traced his descent to the Sassanids and Achaemenids:
"Subooktugeen [Ameer Nasir-Ood-Deen Subooktugeen Ghiznivy] is said to be lineally descended from Yezdijerd (the last of the Persian monarchs) who, when flying from his enemies during the Caliphate of Uthman, was murdered at a water-mill near the town of Merv. His family being left in Toorkistan formed connections among the people, and his decsndants became Toorks.
His genealogy is as follows: Subooktugeen, the son of Jookan, the son of Kuzil Hukum, the son of Kuzil Arslan, the son of Ferooz, the son of Yezdejird, the King of Persia." [6]
Mahmud was thus proud of his Iranian heritage - the blood of Cyrus the Great which flowed in his veins - and deliberately fashioned his empire in the mould of his Achaemenid and Sassanid ancestors. The Later Timurid Mughal Empire of Akbar and Aurangzeb was in turn the direct successor state of the Ghaznavid Empire, implying a direct historical parallel for the derivation of Urdu from Dari. For the lay Urdu speaker of today, the traditional descent of the Mughal Empire from the Ghaznavid Dynasty and thence from the Achaemenid Empire is the simplest historical proof of the Iranic origin of his language.
According to Ibn al-Muqaffa (translator of the Book of Kalila and Dimna) towards the end of the Sassanian Empire, three Iranic languages had developed in Eranshahr: "Parsi" (Avestan), "Pahlavi" and "Dari" [7].
Dari is generally viewed as "Vulgar Pahlavi", the vernacular spoken by the masses which developed as an offshoot of Sassanid Pahlavi. Dari is thus analogous to the "Vulgar Latin" stage in the development of Romance languages. Old East Iranic languages such as Bactrian (Bahlika of the Prakrit grammarians), Sogdian, Sakan (the Sacara of the Prakrit writers) and Tokharian (perhaps the ancestor of the Takki Apabhramsa of the Punjab) provided a substratum for Dari (a West Iranic language), while Turkic and Altaic provided a later superstratum.
Urdu, like all Iranic languages, is thus linguistically and historically derived from Avestan, which is for Iranian languages what Latin is for Romance languages. It should be considered a member of the Iranian branch of languages. A short language tree would be:
Avestan -> Pahlavi -> Dari -> Urdu.
This article should remove all doubts about the real origin of Urdu.

The greatest flourishing of northern Indian culture, art, and imperial strength undoubtedly took place during the reign of the Mughal monarchs of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Mughals were Central Asian descendents of the great Mongol warriors Ghengis Khan and Timur (Tamerlane), whose hordes of cavalry swept across the Eurasian steppe in the 13th and 14th centuries, conquering everything between Beijing and Budapest. But by the turn of the 16th century, the great Mongol empire has splintered; the many royal descendents of Ghengis and Timur fought over the territorial scraps and did their best to hold on to their own minor sultanates.
One of these sultans, Babur, was not satisfied with his small kingdom of Ferghana (now in modern-day Kyrgystan and eastern Uzbekistan), and he tried and tried again to permanently reconquer Timur's greatest prize, Samarkand. He never succeeded. So instead, Babur turned his attention south to the sultanate of Delhi in northern India, which had been ruled successively by five dynasties of muslim warriors from Afghanistan since the late 12th century. As history would show, Babur's campaign against the Delhi sultanate catalyzed the foundation of one of the greatest dynasties in the history of south Asia: the Mughal Empire.

Ordhoo or language of the barracks is now spoken by more than a third of humanity

My grateful thanks to the authors .