Manu Smriti

Two unrelated articles coming out of India made for interesting reading. In one article, for the first time, a doctor was convicted and jailed for helping identify the female foetus carried in a pregnant woman (unlawful in India) and offering to get rid of it.

The other article was about a recent discovery of a woman who was locked away for two decades by her own husband for fear of losing her.

Both these practices are not an anomaly but part and parcel of daily life in India.
India has always been a male dominated society with the woman rarely reaching a state of equality.

Most of these practices can be traced back to the Manusmriti translated as "Laws of Manu". Manu, one of the progenitors and founders of Hindu Society and Law codified a series of laws describing the role of castes, society and people in day to day life.

Nothing much seems to have changed in how it is followed over the centuries.

Manu says the following about women
"Her father protects her in childhood, her husband protects her in youth and her sons protect her in old age; a woman is never fit for independence."

This fit in well with the past and current male dominated Indian society, leading to the skewed sex ration where thousands of female foetuses are killed off every year.

A female child is seen as a burden on a parent, especially during marriages where it is the duty of the parent to marry off the girl child with huge sums of dowry.

After marriage, since a husband is supposed to be the protector of women, most women are illtreated (also giving rise to the practice of sati)

Unless Indian society and women start speaking against atrocities committed against women, such incidences will continue to be part of Indian life

National Socialism in America ... alive and kicking

This is something which happened to a friend and not something which I'm making up.

My friend is a very social person and meets quite a few random people. A week or a couple of weeks ago, she met a new group of people out of which, one of them introduced himself as a National Socialist. She did a double take and thought she might have mis-heard it. When she asked him again, he clarified that he was indeed a Nazi (and probably proud of it). I'm not sure how she might have felt, but when I heard about it, I was speechless. I mean who really meets a Nazi ..... in America. We read about neo-nazi's and skinheads in europe, but europe is a weird place anyways.

So it seems during conversation, this guy asks my friend if she has ever been with or around "them" - standing for Jews and Blacks. What world would a person live in to still believe in racial purity and hatred for everyone unlike themselves. My friend who's a fiesty little creature (sorry, I was itching to say that) made her feelings clear, but it got me thinking of how prevalent could it be.

I googled it (does this give the government another reason to sue google) and was surprised to see the number of organizations floated in america devoted to this cause. Everyone espouses hatred in one form or the other. One of the more prominent ones seems to instill fear in its supporters with this on the main page

White girls who refuse the advances of Negroids, are publicly gang-raped so as to serve as examples to other shuddering Aryan females. Children are now taken from their houses, by force, to be brought up in a "Multi-Cultural" home of Negroids, Arabs, Muslims and Gooks, all in the name of "brotherhood and love"...

This hate seems all encompassing from hating all non white people, to hating mexicans to even a website dedicated to creation of a "negro nation" located within the black communities of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

A former US Armed Force Officer and a founder of one of the Nazi Parties in America once wrote 'As an example of what I mean, take Cicero, in Chicago. There's no "Klan" in Cicero.

Instead, EVERY citizen of Cicero is ready, willing and EAGER to fight the FIRST nigger who tries to move in.

While they have been successful in ramming niggers in all over the South, I truly believe the whole Federal Government, the Army, Navy, Air Force and nuclear bombs won't get one nigger into Cicero. They haven't dared even TRY, yet. They might get ONE nigger into a house in Cicero, but he'd get right back OUT again - either with his black feet going as fast as they could - or not moving at all.'

This was a very true statement as the citizenship figures around that time indicates a 99.9% White population to a 0% black one.

The main headquarters of most of the racial supremacist organizations are also in the Midwest region, something uncomfortably close to home.

Little seems to have changed with time.

My friend summed it up nicely "Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but they should know the costs attached to them"

Will The Real "Anoop" please stand up

In an ego quenching exercise, I was googling my name one day. Funny how your entire life can be summarized in three google links.

While sorting through the results I came across a forum wherein one guy had started a thread about Anoop. It seems he had come across my namesake who was bullshitting his way through life. My namesake seemed to have pissed a lot of people.

That seemed to have hit upon a nerve in quite a few people and the post became a general rant about anyone who seemed to be bullshitting his way through life.

I'm sure there are people who are still looking for anoop to revenge the wrongs done to them. Not a very comforting thought ... gulp

On the flip side ... I'm famous!!

Forgive us, since we have sinned ..

Since this is the Lent season, I thought I'll talk a bit about christianity and catholicism in particular.

I was reading about the guy who put his soul on ebay. The winning bidder was a catholic priest from seattle who in return asked the guy to attend a few church sermons and write objectively on his thoughts (which is a very bold move and I'm glad christianity is promoting introspection).

A few of my friends are giving up things for lent and I thought about the origin of the concept.

Now according to the bible (carried over from the old testament):

Creation occurred in six days as described in Genesis 1:1 to 2:3:
* Day 1: creation of light and its separation from darkness.
* Day 2: separation of the sky and oceans.
* Day 3: separation of land from the oceans; spreading of plants and grass and trees across the land.
* Day 4: Creation of the sun, moon, and stars.
* Day 5: Creation of sea animals and birds.
* Day 6: Creation of the land animals. Creation of man.
* Day 7: God rested.

Now if god is all powerful and can create the entire universe, why would he be tired enough to rest on the 7th day. Also if he created the entire master plan why would he create just ONE man, didn't he see that it would lead to extinction (and Darwin would have to find work as an ironsmith).

So He looked back and thought of giving Adam company, so he created eve (out of adam's rib), which again doesn't make sense (won't it hurt). So in effect since we are all descended from adam and eve we have by default violated the seventh commandemnt "Though shall not commit adultery" - incest is covered (I checked)...

So in effect, if we have already sinned, does following anything for lent make any difference?

p.s. Is this the all important theory of intelligent creation being promoted by the Republicans as an alternative theory to evolution?