ARC

Here is an extremely well written article by an Indian software developer, who is also a Muslim, putting across the real idea of Islam and how terrorism and its critics have taken things out of context to justify their respective actions. Islam is not a violent religion. Like all religions it promotes peace and brotherhood. To criticize all Muslims for the acts of a few is unjust and ignoring the larger picture.

Yes, there have been few voices of dissent in the Islamic world against terrorism but one has to understand the situation before pronouncing judgment. This article provides a much needed and balanced view of the issues surrounding Islam today. Let us hope more ordinary Muslims come out and speak their minds in this manner.

Your images
Keep flashing
On my inner eye

A long kiss in the woods
Confessing inner desires

Sleeping together
In the quiet afternoon
Our love entwined
Between us

—–

A long train
Of moving pictures

You and me
In love

The burning kiss
The lingering embrace

Warm

Like your red lips
And my brown eyes

Glistening
With slow desire

—–

I remember you
Still

That shy smile
That secret glint
That quiet wisdom
That hidden strength

The playful hands
And sensuous eyes

Touching the root
Of my wild desires

—–

Do you remember still?

That surprised night
Awkward and fumbling

You not ready
Me undecided
And confused

But
Do you regret
Letting down your guard

So suddenly?

I died
A thousand births
In your intimate words

A petition seeking dissolution of so-called parallel Islamic Courts has been filed in the Supreme Court of India, resulting in the apex court issuing notices to the Center, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Islamic seminary Darul Uloom, and the High Courts of various states.

If this establishment of the parallel religious courts turns out to be true then why not throw open the gauntlet to others? Let us flush our constitution down the toilet. We can give the Sringeri Mat similar legal hold over Hindus and the Church over the Christians. Let us integrate religion into the State. What fun that will be!

Hindus will be banned from eating beef. Reservations will be abolished and the Brahmins will rule again. Abortion will be illegal for Christians. Women, in general, will become second-class citizens. Now, let us all contemplate this brave new world in quiet and peace.

Siddarth Varadarajan has done a nice interview of Amartya Sen for The Hindu: Magazine about his new book, The Argumentative Indian. In the interview Prof. Sen talks about how India has had a long tradition of secularism and democracy and how “…these have tended to be blotted out, because we often trace these ideas, which are seen as Western, to the manifest presence of the British. My book, to some extent, counteracts this.” He also points out the need for greater public discussion of economic policies and how employment guarantees could be used to reduce poverty. He counters the argument that China is a threat to India and instead illustrates how engaging China is better than containing it. You can read the complete interview here.

For once here is someone who talks about the true tradition and heritage of India in an objective manner and is aiming to counter the Hindutva propaganda in the best way possible. He does not have the cynicism of a Naipaul nor does he give in to jingoistic nationalism. His arguments are level-headed, objective and logical. I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the wider release of this book.

Close
Your eyes
And see
The prism of my longing
Split the colors
Of my love
Into a rainbow of loneliness

I saw
You at 3 am
In a distant dream
Pensive and withdrawn
Collecting marbles
Of desire
From the mantelpiece
And arranging them
On the coffee-table
To form my name

—–

At 10 am
I heard your voice
Whispering in my ear

I smiled
And cupped your sounds
In my fist
And jiggled them
To gel with
The sound of my love
And then
Hung them in the sky
To match
The colors of the rainbow

—–

At midnight
We exchanged
Dreams sleeping
In our eyes

A bond
Of trust
And inner fears

Rivulets of passion
Flowing through
Our thoughts
We slipped into
Liquid love

Thrust into this dark well of despair I begin to imagine your beautiful body in my hands. The way your hair cascades down your neck and always smells fresh, a faint perfume lingering in its depths. Your forehead hiding heavy thoughts behind its broad expanse as I give it a fond kiss. Your ears with their rubbery taste, teased by my tongue, making you squirm with erotic delight. Your eyes, mirrors of desire, and gazing at me with that naked look of love that sends a thrill of joy down my spine. I kiss your eye-lids, leaving gentle imprints of my love on the windows to your soul. I rub my nose against yours, uniting our breath for an instant that lasts an eternity. I shift a little and gently trace my tongue over your lips, waiting for the faint quiver. They glisten with raw want. I kiss your mouth, hungrily, my tongue shooting in and searching for yours. There…I found it. And our tongues begin their sensual dance around and over each other, rubbing, rolling, caressing, and squeezing every ounce of emotion. You take my lower lip into your mouth and suck on it, trying to drink in my desire and I reciprocate by taking your lip and tasting the love waiting to explode behind it.

I kiss you again and again, full on your mouth, hungry for you and your body. My hands move all over your soft body wanting to greedily touch everything at once. You pull my head back and latch on to my mouth, thrusting your tongue in, wanting to pour what you feel into me. Like meteors shooting across the sky we burn with fire and desire.

My lips travel down your neck, breathing in deeply your basic smell, kissing it lightly, blowing my warm breath along its sinuous curve. I find your breasts, my fountains of desire. They glow with an inner light, the light of passion wanting to be touched and felt. My mouth envelops them one after the other. My tongue hungrily sucks on your nipples and feels them going taut. You squirm and moan, your eyes watching my mouth work magic with your body. I go on, wanting more and more, rolling your erect nipples over my tongue, kneading your other breast with my free hand. I travel down your body, tracing my tongue along the long highway between your breasts and your darkest depths, I linger along your belly-button, exploring its shallows, and I examine with the edge of my tongue the contours of your stomach and the twisting curves of your pelvis. Your sighs increase in momentum as I near my destination. The pressure of your fingers on my hair increases by that small amount. And I reach home.

The well spring of your desire and the playground of my dreams. I run my tongue along the outlines, gauging the wet heat emanating from your center. I prolong it, to tease you. I linger and linger along the outer edges while you stare down at me with a fierce hunger in your eyes, wanting to urge me on but failing to find the words for it. I take pleasure in watching your frustration grow and just when you are about to shout I thrust my tongue in. Instantly, I’m enveloped in your basic smells, in the searing heat, and the raw raw taste of you. I lick and suck to all my hearts content. I search for the spots which will melt you like butter and concentrate on them, the thick mound of flesh just on the outer edge, and the upper part on the inside edge. Your voice is high-pitched now, your eyes are closed and your hands are holding on tight to my head as if you are afraid that you will take off into the air. A hot flush runs through your body and normal senses desert you. You are on the threshold of another world, a world where lust and desire are your masters.

Suddenly, I stop. You are slow to notice it, your eyes open up reluctantly and look at me, confused. I smirk with the happiness of the one in control and return a look of disarming innocence. You realize that I’m up to my old games again. Without further ado you plead with your eyes and pull on my hair with mounting frustration. I would like to extend this little game but today I’ll indulge you. So I go back to what I was doing. I kiss your mound and suck on that little overhang. It is time now to go into the highest gear. Faster and faster I thrust my tongue, in and out. In and out. Your legs are thrashing around me. I hold them with my hands but my tongue does not stop. I go deeper if it was possible to go any deeper. You flail your hands and try to pull me off. But I cannot be stopped now. I go mad with my own desire and try to plumb your depths with my shooting softness.

In that instant you explode. Like an underwater volcano your raging depths release their contents and drench my mouth with nature’s purest juices. You shudder and thrash. You shake and pant. Your moans reach a crescendo which no soprano can ever match. You are in that world now where words do not exist. You experience the purest pleasure possible, untrammeled by any physical boundary. You are one with the elements.

I watch all of this silently, taking pleasure in having given you such sublime joy. You return to your senses, slowly. We disengage gently and stare at each other. We share the unparalleled bliss of fulfilled desire, reveling in the warm glow of our bodies entwined like thread in cloth.

The film ‘Matrubhoomi – A nation without women’ is an exceptionally powerful one by new comer Manish Jha. The theme dealt with is female infanticide in rural India. It is a fictionalised description of a village where there are NO women left because whenever a girl child is born she is disposed of. The director tries to imagine what life would be in such a setting. How would the absence of women affect life? What would the nature of interpersonal relations between the men be? The setting is eastern UP or Bihar.

The film is extremely well crafted. Cinematography by Venugopal is excellent. The ambience is authentically recreated and the lighting is marvellous. The background music is amazing. You can feel an undercurrent of tension running through the film which hits you with the force of a sledgehammer later on.

I found some flaws in the film. One of the criticisms is that the lone female protagonist is depicted as a helpless persone and the director has not given her any agency. I would argue that that is the reality in villages, particularly in North India, so whats wrong with depicting it? And I thought that the way he depicted the caste violence was a little amateurish. And ‘kalki’s(thats the name of the female protagonist – newcomer Tulip Joshi) hindi sounds a little out of place. The others in the film are obviously theatre people and authenically manage to carry off the dialect prevelant in the area.

Apart from these flaws, I think the film is a genuine attempt at exploring one of the burning issues in ‘Bharat’, unfortunately one that not many people in ‘India’ care about. But I would be interested in getting a feminist perspective on the film. I want to know what women think about it. So please watch this movie.