Kunal Singh Speaks

Nigerian police has arrested a Goat, on the charges of armed robbery. As per the police, the armed robber has transformed himself in to a Goat, using black magic.

Dress code debate is quite common in India. Every now and then, educational institutes, professional organizations and religious foundations come up with dress code at their campus. Often this dress codes is aimed at enforcing some minimum level of decency on women wearing western clothes. Though Women are forced to have so called decent dress code, Men generally can easily get away with scant clothes. But things are bound do change now. SVNIT has decided to close its doors for Men who are dressed up in shorts. It must be a big blow to male chauvinists. Is it?

Do you Tango? If not you should think about it.

I brought out Tango, because Tango is in news, as the Tango World Championship is currently being organized in Buenos Aires (Capital of Argentina where Tango was originated). However, you can as well try out any other form of dance (based on your taste).
Dancing is a great form of performing arts. It has manyfolds benefits - it helps you to stay physically fit, it helps you to keep the brain active (needs a lot of creativity), and it gives a great Joy to mind, body and soul (which every one starves for). What more can you ask for?

There are many good dancing schools in Bangalore (or in any other Indian Metro - if you are not in Bangalore). Shiamak (western and fusion), Shambhavi (Indian Classic) and Dance Studio (Salsa) are some of the famous names in Bangalore. There are also a number of “Bharatnatyam” Dance Schools.

In case you are a bit scared of big names, you should be easily able to find a good number of options around your place. Just look out and have fun.

“Baahar Aao” is a Hindi phrase, which means “come out”. Today lot of Indians are carrying this wish on their mind. They want Sanjay Dutt to come out clean (frankly speaking clean or dirty does not matter much to them), as soon as possible.

I am a big fan of Sanjay Dutt. I am sympathetic to him for the personal tragedies as well (specially his teenage struggles). He has been a fighter all along his life and I like fighters (Maradona and Serena add to the list). Sanjay has been sentenced to six years imprisonment (under arms act) - Another fight for him.

But can the personal liking justify impunity from law? Specially when some one is involved in anti-national activities? And what if one’s activities COULD have (but not proven) led to the death of hundreds of people. What if these activities could also have shook the national pride and jerked the National Economy? My opinion is that law is same for all. And no one deserves impunity, even if the crime commited was not as grave as I mentioned above. But, unfortunately a large part of Indian population think otherwise. This the reason that special treatment which Sanjay Bawa is getting in Jail is being positively accepted by public and media. And there are different sections, who are hoping for Sanjay to come out soon, though for different reasons.

Fanfare: Sanjay Dutt has emerged as a great actor in the second innings of his career. Vaastav, Haseena Maan Jaayegi, Daud, Kurukshetra, Kaante, Ek Aur Ek Gyarah are some of the movies which his fans watch again and again. But his master piece has been “Munnabhai Series“, which has won him fans all over the globe. Fans are over-emotional human beings. Some of them never believe that their stars have done have any thing wrong (they smell a conspiracy). Some other believe that stars are above law. But almost of all of them never want their starts to be punished (what a great human bonding). This is the reason, why fans all across India protested court’s decision (do they not know that court are the highest authorities in India?) to sentence Sanjay for six years. They also decided to start a signature campaign to show their support to Sanjay (I hope that this campaign is not secretly sponsored by his film financers).

Film Financers: Though Sanjay’s fans are driven by altuistic motives, there are people who have pure business interests in Sanjay. As of today there is more than 50 crores (INR) of investment on Sanjay’s under-production movies. This sect of people is desperately wanting, Sanjay to come out (and shoot their movies). If we belive in “Money Power: Biggest Power”, then we can hope to see Sanjay out very soon (may be on bail).

Sonia Gandhi: Sonia Gandhi has also laid her support to Sanjay and his family in his tough times. This is the biggest surprise of my life. I am not sure what are the basic reasons behind her support. Is she a fan (which I doubt considering her Hindi understanding ability) of Sanjay. Or is this motive political? I will need a few days to arrive at a conclusion. There is a big possibility that by that time Madam might change her mind, and deny any such statement having been issued by her.

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PS: I hope that Sanjay gets bail and finishes his ongoing movies. He might have to serve his sentence, but I am sure that he will come out as a stronger person. He is “Bollywood no 1″ as per me (who else has given so many hits in recent years?).

Motion of most objects in universe is periodic - Earth’s revolution along its axis has a period of 24 hours. Earth’s rotation around the sun has a period of 365 day (you can add 0.25 if you are used to being accurate). Weather changes across the year are periodic. Solar Cycles are periodic. Every one observes periodic mood swings. Probably you know of more periodic things than me.

Coming back to Shilpa - Is her latest success period over? Going by the statistics Shilpa Shetty has a bloom period of seven years (sigh… its really long), after which she goes in to a flop spree. Her first Bollywood hit (Baazigar) was released in 1993. She gave a series of flop movies after that and she had to wait seven years for her next success, Dhadkan. Her recent lime-light romp (thanks to cheap stunts @ Big Brother) came again after exactly seven years. Shilpa holds the credit of working in dozens of flop movies (some of them were super-flop as well) between these peaks of her career.

We all know what kind of cheap publicity stunt led her to recently re-invented stardom. She overnight became a front-page news for world-wide media and PR companies started lining up for fat contracts.

But as per the recent media reports, her bloom period seems to be over. PR companies are no more trusting her public appeal and glamor. She is also facing allegation of breaking in to the marriage of a UK-based Indian film producer (No doubt, Shilpa craves for publicity, but I am sure that she may not like the publicity created by this news).
Now an article in british tabloid, has tried to completely tarnish the false persona around Shilpa. The article criticizes Shilpa for her Zero acting talent (which may be true going by her success ration in Bollywood).
Looks like Shilpa has to now wait for another seven years, for something starry.

Are you a Shilpa fan? My Sympathy with you.

I hate fools. I can not stand them.
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Recently I happened to watch Rakhi Sawant’s interview on TV. Considering my inability to stand intolerable, I should have shut down the idiot-box. But, contrary I got glued to the TV. It was shocking. And disturbing. And puzzling. And shocking again. I need to admit that I remained depressed for a few days. I feared some grievous mental damage (which is quite likely given that I work as a SW engineer in Bangalore). Sigh… I was wrong. I am still the same.
Last week, I attempted to watch HR starer “Aap Kaa Surroor”. I finished a three hours movie in 30 minutes (trick mode play) and still had to suffer from headache for next three days. So I believe that my mental system is still upright.

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Then what was the case with Rakhi? May be she is really not dumb. May be her interview was not really foolish. Now if I recall, it was much below the level of foolishness. Undoubtebly, one needs to possess an extra-ordinarily high IQ to fall (or rather appear to fall) below the levels of foolishness. Any blind guess on Rakhi’s IQ? I feel she is definitely 130 plus.
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PS: I am again feeling depressed thinking why I gave her a space on my blog. But may be she deserves it.

Teenage pregnancy still remains to be a major problem in most parts of the world. In the third world countries (most of Africa, and many parts of asia), teenage pregnancy is mainly because of Child Marriage, illiteracy, and unawareness about the danger of teenage pregnancy (a teenage mother and her kid is likely to suffer health problems). However in developed countries like USA, where most of the teenage pregnancy occur amongst unmarried grils, the problem mainly exists because of lack of sex education amongst teenage kids.

With the changing social and economic scenario in India (where girls are increasingly becoming self-dependent and they stay away from their families for education and work), teenage pregnancy amongst unmarried girls is rising very fast. Though the teenage pregnancy amongst unmarried and married girl is equally harmful, but mostly unmarried girls are under more social, economic and psychological pressure. In most cases, in case of unmarried pregnancies, girls do not feel comfortable discussing the issue with their families and close friends. They can only talk to their partners, who themselves do not feel very comfortable with the situation. In case the couple is not-working (students), they have to also bear the financial pressure and they try to choose the cheapest options (which may not be very safe).

In India there is a great need of counselling centers for teenage pregnancies (pregnancy over all). Also there is an increasing need of sex education at High School level. In USA and many european countries, there are many NGOs working on such issues and they have been successful to a great extent in reducing the rate of childhood pregnancies. We need some similar effort in India.

Some resources on Teenage Pregnancy:
Some useful Information
Fact sheet
Liz Mason’s Site
More Info

If you are a girl and you have turned fifteen, Here is a good (or may be not so good) news for you. You can save three precious years of your life. Rather than waiting to become eighteen,  you might be able to choose your life partner and get married.

In the changed social scenario most of us (or may be some of us) start taking independent decisions  before we enter the teenage. We choose our career (most important part of any one’s life), we choose our friends (most influential people in our lives) and we choose many other small and big things. But, I am not sure if fifteen could be the right age for some to decide on his or her life partner. Though we start making choices in the teenage, but these choices shape our characters until we become old enough. The small or big choices which we make every day as a teenager, keep on bringing drastic changes in our personalities. Our personality stabilizes only after we finish our education and we  get settled in career - that is when we grow up. Some small changes still persists, but most of the character has been formed at this stage.

If we want marriages to be stable, we need to make sure that both partners have matured enough at the time of marriage. Fifteen may be a good enough marriage to choose a friend and even to initiate a physical intimacy, but this age is far from marriageable age.

Geeta and Babli are the pioneers of same sex Marriage in India. Probably they are the first one to disclose same sex marriage publicly in India. Interesting fact is that despite being socially oppressed, here is the Woman again, leading the front. I am not sure if their step is socially and morally correct, but definitely it is bold and courageous.

Is homosexuality in India more amongst woman: I believe that in India homo-sexuality is more amongst woman (than man). I do not have any figures to support my claim but I firmly believe that it is true. I hold the Indian social structure primarily responsible for this.

In India women remain to be socially oppressed and are deprived of basic human rights. I am talking about that India which still forms more than 80% of Indian population. So, the people who have only seen remaining 20% of India may not agree with me.

(1) Though primary education for woman has improved, but still in majority of India families, higher education for woman is not supported. Higher educations means (a) late marriage for the girl child and (b) a troublesome search for a better educated groom for the girl. Both of these are a big headache in Indian families. Un-educated girls are mostly financially dependent on their life partner. This dependency means that they are open for any physical or mental abuse by their life partners. And this abuse happens in large number of families. The girls growing up watching all this abuse never feel comfortable in presence of a Man and are therefore inclined towards another Woman.

(2) There is a high rate of child molestation in India. Children (mostly girls) are abused by close relatives and friends. But most of these incidences never come up: (a) Children is never courageous enough to inform their parents about such incidents (b) Even if parents are informed they try to hide such things fearing a social stigma. The kids who face such abuses, never find themselves comfortable in the company of the sex which abused them. Since the abuse is mostly done by Males, there are more chances that girls will become comfortable with girls.

(3) From early childhood, girls are advised not to mingle much with opposite sex (in schools, at social gatherings, and at work place). This continuous advise is likely to cause a mental frame work in girl’s mind that they are never safe with opposite sex. Also, since girls are not free to have close friendship with boys, they grow up sharing all their problems and concerns with some one of same sex. In the old times, where Man was the sole bread earner for the family, girls had no other choice but to surrender in front of a man after marriage. But in changed times, there are girls who work and become financially independent. Such girls some times refuse to compromise with the family pressure of getting married and they continue to live a bachelor life. They maintain close friendship with other girls (which need not be of sexual nature), and look for mental shelter in their friends.

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ANOTHER EXAMPLE of how easy it is for a Man to come out clean after sexual abuse