A Conversation with Om Puri in New York City

Neptune/Zafar/Sadna

re: The Hydra School

Think of these interactors as the stick figures of dialogue. Some of us can have conversations as fully equipped adults; certain Chowkwallahs have the intellectual, spiritual and emotional capacity of a stick figure drawn by a child in crayon.(They are not even cartoon characters-cartoon characters are more dimensional than these impaired individuals.)

saminashah:#33

Your posts are so sweet & full of innocuousness they make me envious of you.I fully understand your frustration but please consider this:

This is CHOWK where one would expect to meet all kinds and it would be free for all.Even in Parliaments & congresses there is seldom the kind of decorum you have been trained to expect.

Lest you get the impression that I condone or not condone any post here all I can suggest that such responses be ignored.

There is lot of stuff in your posts which I do not agree with but as long as no one ventures,with shoes on,into the territory I consider sacred I would ignore it.

The whole idea IS to find out what makes others bristle and to let others know what bristles me.

CHOWK is where ``shurfaa`s`` do not assemble.

PS:I could have regaled you with my meeting with Rushdie 12 years ago,but I do not consider it worthwhile to narrate it now simply because I think he has forfeited that attention as far as muslims are concerned.

PS2:This is a discussion group like anyother.Please do not take it so seriously.Whatever is written or discussed here is meant to either tickle,itch,or scratch someone.Intelletualism & sociologiness is good only to get ngo kind of jobs.Real world is run by those who are never mentioned in University Curriculums----the intellectuals/professors despise them because these latter always have more money & power.

I reiterate that I really enjoy your bubbly & spritely worldview.

Duaa aur pyaar.

WASSALAAM.

sadna:#34

You learn fast.Good girl!----Girl?

Now why would you assume that I am a teetotaler?HaanH? or that I may NOT be a Ba Ba Blacksheep myself?HaanH.

Ryaaz Khairaabaadi wrote the best khumryaat in Urdu poetry....but he never even as touched a drop of liquor.Jinnah,no matter how he dressed or what he drank,was a stubborn & unflinching crusader for Islam & muslims--was he a Ba Ba Blacksheep?not in my books!& who cares what ANYONE says or thinks.Do I listen?only what I choose to.Am I a bigot in someones eyes?----you bet!Do I care------NAAAAH! & NEVER.

There is NOTHING personal here on chowk.The day you understand this you may throw away your prozaic or whatever they issue you from the government.

WASSALAAM.

bapu:#32

Now I have not read the newsitem but from what you are saying it seems that their is no amount of stupidity of which both India & Pakistan are not capable.And yes they deserve ``credit`` for that.

For Allah sake how do you PROVE that something or someone is NOT there?



A man was watching another man for sometime with some curiosity & amusement.With his ear glued to the wall for sometime this Watcher walks over and also puts his ear to the wall.

After sometimes he says to the other:``I don`t hear anything``.

The other says:``How can you?you are here for only five minutes.I have been glued to the wall for five hours and I have not heard anything yet.How can you conclude this in only five minutes?``

Moral:A lot of people conclude and pronnounce that nothing is there only after such 5 minutes--whereas such is a lifetime endeavour and should only be announced either from deathbed or as a posthumous testament.;)----:).

Now see the sparks fly.Isn`t CHOWK great!

__________________________________________________

Voh baat saaray fasanay mein jiss kaa zikr naa thaa

Voh baat unn ko bohut nagavaar guzree hai``

__________________________________________________

Indeed Mushharraf deserves credit------for stupidity galore!

WASSALAAM.

FARANGI_KUSH # 38

``CHOWK is where ``shurfaa`s`` do not assemble.``

Bhai aap nay yeh kya ghazab kar diya.hai,hai.

Yaani yeh ``shurafa`` ki jagah naheen hai?And I was

under the impression that at least there were two:

you and I :))

vaa hasrata :(

saminashah, sadhna, scout,

You ladies may ignore as *holes like faranti-phus, ali1, and the hydra-headed shah/Aamir/bijli/bapu/bhardwaj. You will benenefit nothing by talking to these foulmouthed, racist, religious fanatic, sexist pigs. Everybody on chowk knows them. These pigs only deserve pigs like me.

Gowardhan,

Don`t be silly; you are more than welcome in our conversations. In fact, when you are not busy cutting of the Hydra`s many heads, you can hang out with us.

regards

Banjaaraa:#41

``Vaa hasrata key yaar ney khainchaa sitam sey haath

humm ko harees e lazzat e aazaar daikh kurr``

``inn aablon sey paaoN key ghabraa gayaa thhaa mein

jee khush huaa hai raah ko puur khaar dekh kurr``.

Ajee vallaah kyooN nahaque kaantoN mein ghaseettain hain.Mein nacheez aur aap jaisay shurfaa key mudd e muquabil aayooN?Astaghfur-Allah!yeh CHOWK hey huzoor zaraa dheeray bolyay gaa.Kissi baankay luchhay lafangay ney sunn liyaa to shehr bhurr mein thhooo thhooo ho jaaeygee humaaree.Jee haaan iss fidvee kee dO kauree kee jo izzat rehgaee haii,kyaa uss ko bheee paiymaal kurnay purr kamar bastaa hain aap? AiiiN?

Naacheez,kumtareen,aap kee naa`leen khaak.

bandgee aur uzz hudd aadaab.

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FARANGI_KUSH # 44.

Goya chowk par aanay ka matlab hua ke,

``iss aashiqi mein izzat-e-sadaat bhi gayi``

Qibla yeh tau sareehan zulm hai,dobaara ghaur kar

lijiye.Koi qaanuni nukta nikaal lein,aap tau masha

Allah ``shara`a ke bhi maahir hain. :))

zeyaada hadd-e-adab.

AAmir:Banjaara:

AAmir aur Banjaaraa sahibaan.

Shukraa bohut bohut!

Kyaa khoob shai sunaayay aap ney.

``Ho halqua e yaraan tO baresham kee tarah nurm

Ho maarkaa e razm tO faulaad hai momin``

aur ueh vuzahat bhee yahaN zarooree hai kay momin honay kay liyay musalmaan honaa bhee zarooree nahee hai....ulbatta muvvahid aur muttaqui hona shart hai.Aap(sww) nabee honay sey pehlay bhee momin thay.Nabbavvat spoiled track trecord vaalon ko naheeN utta hotee.

baa avaaz e bulaand!

Laanut burrr daktur younas sheikh mardood O raanda e dargah.

Please say salaams to ALL your friends at the apartment building viz:Bijli,shah,studebaker,AishA,Bhardawaj,Bapu,Ali1,UQAB,etc etc (I have a feeling I must have missed mentioning a few with apologies to them).

``Ho na ho upnay qabeelay kaa bhee koi LASHKAR,

muntazir ho ga andhayroN ki faseeloN sey udhhar,

Upnay sholON key rajaz uss ko pataa to daingay

dooor hai kitni subah---itnaa bataa tO dengay!``

WASSALAAM.

Coming soon:

To a theatre near everyone:``Return of Jehadi``;)

;):);):);):);)-;):);):)

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PROFILE

A Brahmin`s Cow Tales

Beef—it`s the oldest shibboleth in the Indian mind. It is with textual evidence from Hindu, Buddhist and Jain canons that historian D.N. Jha takes on the sacred cow.



SHEELA REDDY



For over a month, the mild, balding professor of history, Dwijendra Narayan Jha, has been shuffling to his classroom in Delhi University escorted by a police constable. Teaching ancient history does not usually endanger one`s health, but ever since Jha went public with the best-kept secret in Indian history—the beef-eating habits of ancient Hindus, Buddhists and even early Jains in a book titled Holy Cow—Beef in Indian Dietary Conditions—his phone hasn`t stopped ringing. ``The calls are usually abusive,`` says Jha, ``but sometimes they demand to know what evidence I have, and one day late in July it was an anonymous caller threatening dire consequences if I ever brought out my book.``





``If they want to ban my book, they will also have to ban the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Sutras and the epics.``







The calls had two effects on the 61-year-old historian: he called the police and braced himself for battle. ``There is a cultural war going on and academics have a role to play,`` Jha says calmly. But it`s not the kind of war that he had anticipated. Even before





his book could hit the stands, the vhp exhorted its cadre to confiscate and burn copies. The bjp followed suit: one of its MPs, R.S. Rawat, wrote to the Union home minister demanding not only a ban on the book but also the arrest and prosecution of its author and CB Publishers. But before the book could be burnt or banned, the Jain Seva Sangh stepped in. Outraged by Jha`s reported assertion that their founder Mahavira ate meat, the Hyderabad-based organisation sought a court injunction against the book, leaving the nonplussed historian without the words to fight his war. Anticipating controversy and debate, Jha meticulously scoured ancient texts, culling material from original sources for over two years. ``If they want to ban my book, then they will have to ban the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Sutras and the epics. Where will they stop? I have given evidence, if they have counter-evidence, why don`t they come forward with it? But they are so illiterate, they haven`t even heard of those texts, let alone read them. I have texts and they go by blind faith,`` he says. ``That is what a historian can and should do: counter faith with facts,`` he adds.

Jha`s interest in dietary history began a few years ago after reading French historian Fernand Braudel`s history of early modern European diet. But he soon became intrigued by the beef-eating habits of Indians which existed in Rig Vedic times and continued till the 19th century and after, despite repeated Brahminical injunctions against cow-killing. That ancient Hindus, including Brahmins, were beef-eaters, willing to incur the minor penalty that an agrarian society began imposing on cow-killers, and that this fondness for cattle meat had nothing to do with Islam or Christianity came neither as a shock nor surprise to this unconventional Brahmin, whose first name Dwijendra means ``the holiest of Brahmins``. ``No serious historian, not even `Hindu` ones like R.C. Majumdar or K.M. Munshi, has ever disputed that ancient Hindus ate beef,`` says Jha. However, convinced that repeated Brahminical injunctions not to kill cows reflected a popular proclivity for beef, Jha went further and unearthed irrefutable evidence of cow slaughter and consumption by Hindus of all classes, including Brahmins, until as late as the 19th century. ``I was expecting this,`` says Jha, who tasted beef for the first time nearly 30 years ago at Cambridge. ``It was difficult to believe Brahmins were laying down norms without a reason. I think there is much more evidence than I got.``

The cow as a sacred animal, Jha believes, did not really gain currency until Dayanand Saraswati`s cow protection movement in the 19th century``.







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