Thursday, July 08, 2010

Supersunday !!!

This coming Sunday is definitely a special Sunday not only the FIFA finals but also the Bangalore Derby. I am going crazy with excitement!!.

I happen to read Joel Stein’s article in Time Magazine few minutes back, well one is not comfortable with references like Dot heads (juxtaposing that with Naipaul, will make you cringe…isn’t that how you define racism, xenophobia?). This article seemed to have ruffled lots of feathers in net but I do share that sentiment of the writer when one’s favorite places are being mutilated without much consideration. The new architectures that have started to dot Bangalore (some shamelessly copied from west in its entirety, Morons of Mediocre times!!) is painful. Unaesthetic, ugly buildings that make no attempts to gel with the surrounding, the climate, the culture, indeed it is arrogant, crude and everything that is wrong with market economy. It is a shame. It makes me extremely sad seeing these buildings, they have so much money they could have been innovative and could have created something unique, something that is a marvel, compatible and sustainable. I guess that is modernity. Add to it they have cut some huge trees (particularly next to jail museum, they have made such a bad road that it itself is a masterpiece. I am bangalored!!) and also created a horrendous looking blue wall. Funny part is it was chosen through a competition!!. Shouldn’t they demolish this and maybe use this space to create a garden or some beautiful eye pleasing art. It is amazing the level of mediocrity.

Yes I agree with offensiveness of dimwit ads portraying Africans as savages…well you cannot really expect anything much from fair and lovely world. One marketeer says the ads were “well received by young crowd”. Another instance of youngistan ka wow!!. Indians have racism ingrained. Diepiriye Kuku, a Delhi-based Nigerian-American says “These ads could never be aired in the U.S" he says India is decades behind the U.S. in addressing racial issues. Kuku wrote an article titled "India Is Racist and Happy About It" in a leading Indian newsmagazine last year (taken from Time magazine). The issue here is hypocrisy of communities like Indians that has not experienced or have empathy towards outsiders have any right to protest in support of "people like us" for what they face in other countries. I though don't agree with Mr. Kuku on people staring...don't know whether that can be seen as something as strong as racism. I recall when I saw African people for the first time, I was around eight years old, I kept staring at them for long time since I haven’t seen them before (the same is true of Europeans, when I schooling in pune there were lots of Europeans, in the beginning I stared later I got used), it takes lots of acclimatization not to behave differently. People who look different or dress differently generally attract attention but that is not same as stereotyping them like the marketeers are doing in India. What these ads are showing is africans are buffoons. Morons who make such ads should be punished...we don't share Coca Cola's "light heartedness"