Urban Naxals: The Making of Buddha in a Traffic Jam

by Vivek Agnihotri

People seek the truth. In media. In art. In cinema. Since nobody tells the truth, and it is acceptable, we succumb to the apparent emotional needs of an audience like feeling happy or feeling sad; the truth remains the least priority for the artists of Bollywood.

“After poverty, inefficiency is the second biggest curse of Indian society.”

It’s strange, how we find more honest and righteous people as we climb down the economic strata. More low-income people have surprised me with their honesty than the moneyed ones.

do we love making speed breakers? Maybe it’s a subliminal reflection of our system’s psyche that thrives on creating as many hurdles as possible on our way to success. More hurdles mean more corruption, more money for the law enforcers.

Some moments get imprinted in our mind’s photo album. Some in the Nature folder, some in Family, some in Travel, some in Food. But some photos don’t fit in any category.

I don’t believe in God but I do believe in Godly moments.

Diversity per se is certainly a beautiful thing. But politics around diversity and desperate and unethical attempt to keeping everyone happy is an ugly game. Diversity, in a competitive, electoral politics is the reason why we are in constant conflict, and therefore, poor and stagnated.

Everyone in India has a story for their failures, stagnation or decay.

Nehru judged history and filtered it to what should be told to an independent India and what should be hidden. He made sure that the history reinforced his ideology and made him look like a hero. His daughter Indira Gandhi and later her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi tuned our history to further their political agendas. In independent India, only a certain kind of narrative is allowed; the one that suits the ruler's agenda.

And mediocrity is very addictive. Anything which makes us escape from the challenges of life is addictive. The awareness that you are living a mediocre life is worse than being mediocre.

I dont agree

A problem is not a curse but a means to actualize life.

Hell is not a place. It’s a state of mind.

The foundations of the unprecedented corruption that we see today were laid by Nehru’s economics.

Like his hero, Majumdar also believed that war was nothing but politics with bloodshed. He was often found quoting Mao’s now famous statement: 'Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly, and modestly. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.'

They take up genuine issues with the aim not to solve it but to create unrest and anger against the system and make people believe in armed struggle. This is how the 'vulnerable group' unknowingly becomes their vanguard. Like I became, under the mentorship of my professors.

Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hyderabad Central University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Allahabad University, IIT Madras, Jadavpur University are the citadels of urban Naxalism.

Naxals are cleverly exploiting this sentiment to their advantage – caste conflicts in Bihar, resentment against landlords in Andhra, discontent against forest laws in tribal areas, unemployment amongst youth and radicalism among Muslims are all given the prescription of capture of power through the gun as the ultimate solution of all their problems.

According to the Gita, the soul is immortal. It can't be born and it can't die. It only changes the body. If souls are constant then how is the world population ever increasing? Where are these new souls coming from? Animals. Because animals are becoming extinct. That's why so many people these days behave like animals.

‘The only point in creating something is to watch it die. Like a story that must come to a climax, what I have done will not be fulfilled until the end has arrived.’ - Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

Eric Berne's Games People Play

I just can't believe it. Ideas float in the universe. People who are tuned on to a certain intent catch those ideas, often at the same time.

Quality doesn’t exist in isolation. We understand quality only in comparison.

In Zen, they say that a good teacup is the one that doesn't smell of its potter.

The Indian audience is very patient with film lengths but international audiences don't appreciate films that are longer than a hundred and twenty minutes. There is a legend that this length was invented by Alfred Hitchcock as he believed that the length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. Ninety to hundred and twenty minutes was assumed to be the endurance time.

First, never go by hearsay and always check out the facts yourself before accusing anyone of corruption or dishonesty; and second, corruption takes place mostly when you are ignorant, desperate, and seek shortcuts.

appears that Communists have a ‘speech template’ and all their leaders are given training in speaking the same way. The strategy is simple: take an unattainable, high moral ground, raise concerns over all evils of society, divide people but never present a plan to eradicate these evils. They have mastered the art of creating a fake narrative.

This is why I do not trust Leftists. They only raise questions. Never give answers.

In India, wisdom (Saraswati), wealth (Lakshmi) and power (Durga) are manifested as goddesses while globally, we rank extremely low on women empowerment.

Liberalism is defined by attacking and ridiculing the majority while secularism is practiced by appeasing the minority.