Annie Zaidi's Blog, page 39

An open letter to the UPA ladies

Dear Ladies of the Ruling Coalition,



What was that about? The water-cannons and unnecessary
beating up of citizens in Delhi… You were all acting like frightened rabbits
cowering in a hutch. Maybe you too were thinking – what is this about?

Clearly, this gang-rape had no politician involved, nor cops.
And once the rapists’ brutality had jolted them into action, the police did
arrest the

Tweaking our food, making us pay?

There have been some interesting developments in the tweaked food department.Maharashtra has admitted that cotton yield is likely to reduce by nearly 40%. Bt Cotton has allegedly ‘failed’ in more than 4 million hectares of land. A report sent by the state agricultural department to the Centre says that the estimate of the net direct economic loss to cotton farmers in the state will be in the

The brutal question

So, she is in hospital in critical condition. There are injuries mainly on her face and stomach. The men who attacked her were armed with iron rods. And we are talking about the need for closed circuit TV cameras.

We are not asking what part of hitting a woman on her face is about sexual desire? What part of a woman’s body deserves to be damaged, ever? And we are not asking, because we are

Imagine this procedure

Imagine this situation. You go to work. In the evening, you say goodbye to colleagues. You come home. And you find someone waiting for you.This someone wears khaki. This someone says he’s a cop. This someone begins to ask you questions about where you’ve been, who your friends are, do you know so-and-so? You say, no. He says you must come to the police station. You ask, why? He does not tell you

what price, shopping?

I hear it’s the wedding season. Which means a lot of people are shopping without dropping. In any case, the new Indian middle class no longer waits for festivals or weddings. Shopping is weekend entertainment.

This is possible partly because of an abundance of low-priced readymade garments. Another big change is that we now shop for labels. We no longer pick out our own style. It is enough now

Book Review: My dear Bapu

There are some things we know about modern India — that Mahatma Gandhi, or Bapu as he was fondly called, was the largest wave in the great tide of freedom sweeping across India between 1920 and 1947 and his chosen tools were civil disobedience and non-violent satyagraha. We know of leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Pt Madan Mohan Malviya, and C Rajagopalachari. What

Yohoho and an armful of force

A friend posted a note online saying how proud he was that
India has never attacked another nation. It made me puff up with pride too. But
I also wondered why – Is it because a billion people are pacifist, content
human beings with no awful greed driving them? Or is it because most of our
aggression is turned inward?



Consider recent news. Eight houses in a Dalit colony were
set on fire by

ek red colour ki love story

A poetry film. A bit of an experiment with cityscapes and words. The script was 'found ' in the sense that the story was constructed around images or situations that already existed and inspired a line or two of poetry in my head. Watch if you can. Like if you like.  

Unbecoming India

I’m currently reading a book that spans the 1920s-60s. It
reveals a lot about some of the men who organized and led the freedom struggle
– Gandhi and C Rajagopalachari, Nehru and Vallabh bhai Patel. And I’m wondering
what these men would do if they knew that, in the sovereign land for which they
went to jail and organized strikes and suffered attempts on their lives, two
young girls would be

Get rid of that damn purdah

Here’s a question I have long wanted to ask of our security
providers. I understand the need to scan bags and jackets. But how do you
explain those monstrous curtained cubicles created especially for women?



Police, security agencies, mall owners, government, someone,
explain! What do you think is being accomplished? Women fliers or cinema
patrons are checked by other women. Purses or