Meenakshi

sharam tum ko magar aati nahi

Instead of meenakashi, this story should have been about Fatima, Safia, and Batool - half of whom were burnt alive after gang rapes and other half sold into brothels all across India by their fellow Hindu countrymen.

urstruly. . .

on second thought. forget it. i will let everyone else take panga with you on that remark. i just want to ask you why it feels so good for you to devalue the death of a hindu, versus the death of a muslim? but you and i have been down this road before. i just think it`s bloody shameful. bas.

No. 2

I ``devalue`` the death of a hindu because I understand all too well the difference between a ``riot`` (as our authoress puts it so innocently) and an all out, full-blown genocide conducted in collusion with the brutal efficacy of the state apparatus. Unless and until you understand and appreciate the difference bewteen the two, keep your pontification to yourself - hypocrites like you disgust me equally.

your disgust is noted. . .and reciprocated. at least in that, i am not much of a hypocrite afterall.

my apologies to the rest of the readers here. the irony of the viciousness of the exchange between trulyyours (though definitely not mine!) and myself here became apparent.
forgive me.

Now you regret and apologize? There is a proverb in urdu for people like you - pehle tolo, phir bolo - try it sometimes.

Hi Archana:

I thought you were building on the apparently humdrum life of Meenakshi rather well. A real story about a real person, interesting in its simplicity. I can understand your intent, but this place is for discourse, however much we may dislike certain aspects of it.

Your post-script will be seen in a political light and being an Indian living in India, like you are, I feel that it is only natural. Which is why I am a bit flummoxed...how was she or her family affected by what happened in Godhra (not to be confused with the Gujarat state-sponsored terrorism)? What was lost? What did she/her family lose?

It must be a poignant story, but the loose ends do not hold it together. Also, Meenakshi is an unusual name for a Gujarati (and if she is not, then it would have helped to know really what she had lost and why) and eating aloo-parathas is even more unusual. I would have seen these as minor aberrations, but for that last bit which makes one want to know more. Who is she really?

If you wanted it to be deliberately hazy, then it is your artistic right.

Best wishes for the road ahead...

Farzana

Urstruly
//....and until you understand and appreciate the difference bewteen the two....//

I understand the difference. Any case - hindus are vicious people - I am sure you know that already. So why do you expect anything better?

urstruly #6 you write to nooralain ``pehle tolo, phir bolo ``

If any man needs this advice, it would be you. As I said before to the hindutva eleven on chowk, a murder is a murder. And the killing of any individual is murder unless done in pure self defense as accepted in criminal law in virtually every country in the world today. The killings at Godhra do not fall into the definition of self-defense, and so are murder.

I am explaining this at length so you get a chance to ``pehle tolo, phir bolo``. Of course, if you are happy to be at the same level as the hindutva scum from India that I have seen condoning murder just like you are doing, then dont bother to reflect on what I have written.

Nooralain was quite right in taking you to task on this. She need not apologize to anyone on chowk.

Urstruly is really peturbed by `Meenakshi`.

Hii ...thanx for reading ...am sorry if the article offended anybody

subhanallah..urstruely is around.

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First get your facts right.
If I am not mistaken, there were no riots in `a small town of Godhra`. Unless Meenakshi was on the train which was burnt there, curfew was the maximum that she had to contend with.
In which case, all was not lost.

Hi Farzana
Thankyou for patiently reading my story(which as pointed by you, has so many abberations ,not to mention gramatical errors!)
I have no idea whatsoever about Gujrati names or their food habits,just a few stray nuggets of information collected over the years.But,Godhra carnage and the riots that had followed was something that has left an indelible impression on me,and meenakshi was a character that i weaved out of the scenario.Meenakshi could be Fatima ,Safia or Batool as well, because all of them were innocent victims in those riots.
Apart from facing inhuman attrocities and degradations what all of them were really robbed off, in those unspeakable and terrible acts of savegery,(`them` includes every sensitive right thinking humanbeing in India)was their `peace of mind` , their `blissfull existence` .
As for the `loose ends` ,I will learn from my mistakes.
love,
Archana Satpathy

Urstruly # 1 - as far as selling of young girls into flesh trade is concerned, do all of us here at chowk a very VERY big favour, please depute somebody to visit Wagah/Pakistan Border Checkpost or Lahore Railway Station on the days the train from India comes in . . . and tell all of us here what the religious denominations and nationalities of the organisers of the flesh trade are? Frankly, I couldn`t tell about their nationalities . . . though I did get a good idea of their religion by the clothes they were wearing. But I want you to please re-confirm, thank you.

Nooralain # 2 - Meenakshi, in India, could be as much the name of a Muslim as ``Shah`` or ``Kulkarni`` or ``Bhatti`` or ``Gloria`` or ``Johhny Greene`` or ``Rashmi`` or ``Furkan`` or ``Helen`` or ``Sameera`` or even ``Ram Rahim``. No big deal lately.

Farzana # 7 - taking matters strictly in chronological sequence, and assuming that state sponsored terrorism is the strictly correct definition, would you venture forth the possibility that the initial burning of the train which catalysed matters in Godhra was also state sponsored terrorism? And if so, which state, and how long before the actual event did this start? Would we be correct in assuming that ``The State`` came in to the picture when it permitted or maybe even provoked radical fundoo elements to broadcast hatred from the loudspeakers of otherwise peaceful mosques in Signal Phata and other parts of Gujarat?

Otherwise, in your opinion, at what time in the sequence of events did the State come in? (To understand what I mean, let us take the example of a few other rather similar area, the slums around NSD Docks in Kolkata or Dagd Chawl in Bhaikhula or some of the backlanes near Palton Road Police Station in Bombay. ``The State`` has, for years now, chosen to or been unable to enter these area. So what is ``State Sponsored``? The evolution of Signal Phata, was that ``State Sponsored``?)

I think that Archana has brought out simply that ``M`` had a rather abrupt change in her life after the Gujarat riots. What has her religion got to do with it?