Holi Day!

It's Holi night.You are a hosteler. For dinner, you go to one of the few restaurants in the area. You find the place to be excessively crowded.And then you notice something bizarre....Much of the crowd consists of families, yes full families competing with the insti kids for a place in the restaurant - on a day which the families are supposed to celebrate in their homes - teach the young ones the significance the festival - cook delicacies and exchange good wishes with relatives and neighbours. I wonder what kind of memories the children of these families will grow up with. I agree, this is only a fraction...a little fraction and perhaps a particular subclass of the people living here, but still it is very much unexpected and disturbing. This cheap imitation of "eating out" trends in metros being copied here in this town could be understandable had it been some kind of an alien "XYZ day"...but it's a traditional Indian festival! I don't know how much and in what ways the traditions are changing in other parts of the country. I wonder if we are heading towards a cultural void!

The first time I encountered this was on 1st year's Diwali. We learned our lessons and this Diwali, we reached a restaurant for dinner by 7:15...It worked...in 15 minutes or so the place was full. During this Holi, since it's kinda mid-sem break very few ppl stayed back in the hostels..And so the real tussle in the restaurants was among the families...No wonder we hadn't even finished our dinner the waiter put a "reserved" board on the table!!! And as we were coming out, we saw chaos outside the door..kind of...

Genetic Evidences Against AIT

Well, it's been quite a while sice I last jotted down something on my blog. And the last phase of my post-graduation has already begun, so will be quite absorbed in research and simulations. And since me and my blog have kinda implicit understanding that under normal circumstances, I won't be publishing technological stuff here, the long hiatuses will be a consistent feature of this blog!

Continuing from previous posts - here and here, on the impossibility of the Aryan invasion, here is yet another post. That the AIT does not have any archaeological or literary basis - is now pretty well known in today's academic circles, still some iota of confusion or lack of clarity due to lack of knowledge can always be there - as far as non-experts are concerned.This iota stems from the differences in the skin-color and physical features of the people from the northern and southern parts of the country. This dissimilarity is often used over-zealously to claim that the Northerners are Aryans- outsiders and such crap stories.

And to add some scientific flavor to these theories some people claimed that some genetic study has shown higher degree of genetic closeness between upper caste north Indians and Europeans. Although it does not prove that there was any invasion , the AIT supporters used this to fit it in their story by saying the Aryans are of foreign origin. Why don't they consider the other possibility - that the foreigners have Indian origin !! Well that's another way to look at it indeed, and as I will mention in the following paragraphs, it is in fact proven by some geneticists!.

The genetic analysis do have a lot of importance. But the various genetic studies done have not produced identical results. For example, this particular paper by Bamshad et al(which is sometimes quoted as "proof" of foreign Aryans!) says that mtDNA analysis shows each caste in India is more similar to Asians than to Europeans but the similarity with Europeans increases with caste rank.While the Y-chromosome variation each caste was found to be more similar to Europeans than to Asians.The way this paper indirectly attempts to reach to the AIT conclusion is too sloppy and not only that, the Bamshad paper has remarkable inconsistencies of which I came to know from this article.

In contrast, I found a good number of papers in scientific and historical journals that point to no genetic discontinuity throughout ages and among tribal and caste populations. Most interesting is the fact that the great human migration that started from Africa some 50000 years ago had India as a stop-over point. Europe and Australia were populated by humans coming from India.This is a non-refutable scientific fact. So I guess, even if some study finds similarities between Indians and Europeans - it's pretty much natural, and not due to some imaginary invasion. In fact in current historical research, the "Out of India" theory is also being studied in the light of new linguistic and genetic insights; though nothing conclusive in this regards can be said as of now.


Here are some interesting links to articles and papers from journals that espouse my points mentioned above:

Genetic studies by Stephen Oppenheimer have shown that people moved into India from Africa initially and rest of the world population were descendants of this group. So if there was a
migration, it was from India to Europe and not the other way.

Genetic studies by Kivisild et al: Indian tribal and caste populations derive largely from the same genetic heritage of Pleistocene southern and western Asians and have received limited gene flow from external regions since the Holocene.

Macaulay et al., claim to have found evidence that there was only a single dispersal of modern humans from Africa and that this dispersal was through India. According to this account, several generations of the ancestors of all non-African people would have lived in India. The ancestors of Western Eurasians (including Europeans) would have spent several thousand years in India until the climate improved to allow them to migrate North and West out of India about 45000 years ago.

Studies by scientists in Calcutta with colleagues in other countries.

California School Textbooks Issue
Attitude of some Westerners
==========================================================

Movie Review!

This one is due to Jazzy:

Given the sTupidity(T) of the audience is constant, the number of Prizes(P) won by a feature/movie is inversely proportional to the factual and logical Validity(V) of the script. Mathematically:
PV = kT, where k is a constant of proportionality.

-- Boyle's Law (Danny Boyle), 2008 AD.

Mission Dehradun!

Accomplished. Nothing serious, but important nevertheless!
Need to get some sleep now.

Blissful Moments

Just got a little time..
Off my degenerately doped life
A moment to think about nothin
An opportunity to ride on a fling

Felt at peace...
These days, peace to me is akin
to an evening after rain...
When the horizon looks clear...
and a fresh, cold wind comforts you

I yearn for minutes like these..
Free of the clutter and
the usual hustle and bin.
When I can stare blankly at the
color-splashed, noiseless sky
Without mulling over the many
things that have (merely) been.

A Nation On The Edge

The empty ashtray toppled...
Nothing else moved...
making the fall seem illegitimate..lonely..
The mind wandered, changed course...
Like Kosi did, a few days back...

The dampness was tell-tale,
the smells, familiar ...
and so were the wails...
Receding waters had left a trail,
buoyancy had betrayed,
like everyone else...
Handpicked by a strange looking child
was an old, plastic, mud-bathed toy...
Reminiscent of the old, almost carefree boy..
Who had once played with paper boats in the rain..
The contrast was saddening...the situations
so different...

No resistance and negative gain...
The weary mind wandered again.
The storyline got snapped by the so called "myths"
and supposedly "misunderstood" tenets of a "faith",
that have been proven to be true, umpteen times..
From medieval ages to the modern days...
On the streets...in local trains...market places...
temples, stock exchanges, even hospitals...

Seems time has run out...
The menace has grown manifold.
And if this were not enough,
Now some people are on overt "missions"
to "harvest" souls..

An impotent government, funding biased shows
Macaulay's children taking anti-national vows
A country engulfed by dangerous pseudo-isms,
and taken hostage by evil, immoral attitudes
while it's people bereft of any moral certitude...

Lost in the swinging flashbulbs,
and reverberating dark shadows on the wall...
Thoughts got stuck...suffocation was in the air
Don't know if people can still live as if
"Sab chalta hai"..."Hota rehta hai..."

Continuity of the Indus-Saraswati Civilization

Attended this lecture by Michel Danino. He is a French author and had participated in the translation and publication of the works of Shri Aurobindo and of The Mother. He was also associated with the preservation of tropical rain forest in the Nilgiri hills. In 2001, he convened the International Forum for India's Heritage (www.IFIH.org). He has lived in India for quite sometime, and has done lots of research on the history of the Indus Saraswati Civilization. He is the author of "The Invasion That Never Was", a book refuting the Aryan Invasion Theory.

Interestingly, a few weeks ago, I had a small debate on this same very issue with a friend here at IIT Roorkee. Since the time I came across this stupid theory long back during my school days, I knew something was seriously wrong. The (boring) NCERT texts would proclaim "1500 BC - Aryans invade India"...damn.... In fact I probably believed in those times(class 4/5 or so) that Aryans were a race like the other invaders like Shakas, Huns, Kushanas etc and like them all, it too disaapeared later..But the stupidity of the theory struck me when in later years (class 9th), the meaning of the theory actually became clear - that the so called foreign Aryans who displaced the orginal inhabitants were OUR ancestors and Hinduism, Vedas and everything we hold allegience to is linked to a nomadic tribe from central Asia or northern/western Europe!!! Damn!!! And that 'our' culture was established in India only after 1500BC! Since I have alwayas had lots of interest in Indian history (mostly ancient history and the history of the freedom struggle), I have had done a bit of study on the issue on the internet myself and was convinced by the tons of archaelogical evidence against the invasion theory, so when I and my friend were discussing the various aspects of this invasion theory, I had my facts ready to counteract the old school of this crap theory. Unfortunately the Indian textbooks are still propagating this myth kept alive by it's ardent supporters, even though the current historians have conclusively disproved the theory.

Danino's lecture was focussed towards showing the continuity of the Indus Saraswati Civilization
that had it's mature era from 2600 BC to1900 BC, to the culture of the region belonging to times later than 800 BC....and continued to today's India. Danino's lecture had lots of pictures of seals, artifacts etc from the great civilization and maps, satellite images also. Some important points from the lecture:

• Firstly the civilization should be called Indus-Saraswati civ and not just Indus civ since comparable number of sites have been excavated on the banks of the river Saraswati in the last century. There is data from ISRO's research on the river to show the path of Saraswati river and how it used to meet the sea at the runn of Kutch.
• The Indus-Saraswati civ was quite advanced than the other cultures, say those of Egypt etc...interms of architecture, well calculated town planning, use of proportions, number systems...
  
• Surprisingly the weight system was binary based - in powers of 2.
  
• The drainage system was quite well planned. People had individual bathrooms. The famous "great bath" was probably used for some rituals.
  
• No palace kind of structure was found in the remains, indicating the absence monarchy.
  
• The bricks used were of very good quality.
• Another interesting fact was the use of trapezoidal bricks while constructing wells, a remarkable feature not found in any other civilizations.
• Statuettes of horses have also been excavated , as also some horse bones, disproving the theory that the so called Aryans brought the horses!
• Similarity in architectural designs of the Indus-Saraswati civ and later times(many of those can be traced to even today) signifies continuity.
• Swastika symbol's presence in Indus-Saraswati civ and it's significance in Hinduism(and even in Jainism and Buddhism).
• A couple of Shiva lingas have also been unearthed.
• Similarity in the artifacts of those days and these days.
• Then there was a statuette of a woman who was wearing lots of bangles on her arm(between the joint with the shoulder the elbow) - part of the traditional attire of many Rajasthani women.
• The geometry of the fire alters was one of the three types used in Vedic traditions.
• Use of vermilion/color on the head where the hair part (maang!) found in some women figurines, again pointing to the Hindu custom of applying sindur.
• The similarity of the boats depicted in seals and the boats used by the prsent-day people of theregion of the Indus river. etc etc...
• About the Indus script : Though many people have deciphered it , (e.g by Natwar Jha and Rajaram (who say the language is Sanskrit)), many linguists don't accept these as the inscriptions on tablets are not long enough to establish one-to-one relationship; and secondly absence of any bilingual tablets which could validate the decipherment.
• No Biological/Demographical discontinuity has been found.
  

The death of the invasion theory has been accepted by most historians. But still many people in the academia cling to this absurd theory because ...I'd quote Danino - "they have built their careers on this", and these anachronistic historians can't disown their own preachings now even though the archaelogical evidences point otherwise.

Also, NO archaeological proof has been found to support the invasion theory. Isn't it strange!!! No remnants of the so called Aryan's culture have been found, no mention of the land from where they had supposedly come has been found in any of 'their' literature! The vedas worship the mighty Saraswati while it had dried up by 1900BC (Proved by researchers from TIFR that no fresh discharge took place in the river after 2000BC or so), clearly making the vedas a lot older than what the invasionists would like us to believe! Then why keep clutching to this illogical theory? Why ?

Archaeological evidences have proved the continuity of the Indus-Saraswati civilization through ages.Unfortunately, Indian children are still being taught the incorrect history about their country. As Danino said "Indian history textbooks are lagging behind by 50 years' time". Hopefully, Indian history textbooks will be soon re-written to teach the truth-the correct history to the school children and Indians in general.

Aryan Invasion Theory - Debate!

Well, this post contains parts of the debate that took place last month between me and a friend on the Aryan Invasion Theory. The debate started over some document containing a time line of Indian history in which I found some absurdities. It was an xl document titled "The Royal Chronology of India". Try Googling. U'll be able to find it....Read On...
====================================================================
TD:
"The Royal Chronology of India":

-Royal ???
-Contains some historical inaccuracies and erroneous interpretations (esp in the comments).
e.g. Indo-European Migration before 4000 BC??? never heard of this!!! :D ...the guy who wrote this doc has tried to pre empt any attack on this migration story by setting the timing between 10k-4k BC!! hahaha!!! utterly stupid though....Initially I thought it to be the Aryan Invasion Theory(the 1500 BC wala), but then later found that the doc mentions AIT later(and RIGHTLY calls it a myth)....All this makes me think that it is written by some amateur guy (other than the usual Marxist dominated and influenced, often doctored, propagandist , anti nantionalistic history of India that u find in history textbooks in india ) who has made a fool of himself in some parts of the doc...Though I think the guy has done a tremendous job on the whole by compiling it at one place...good work....but has to be taken with a pinch of salt...
-Blasphemous comments on hindu gods makes this doc unreliable.(at least the sources from which these sections were lifted were the works of some anti-hindu/marxist historians)

COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT RELIGIONS/DHARMAS:
-seems to be a very personal interpretation of hinduism and divisions thereof. seems stupid...


KBS:

Response to your comments on Royal Chronolgy

Yes, Even I take it with a pinch of salt
Secondly I havent studied it completely myself
Also the problem with mythology is that people
tend to take very binary stance on things
To me Vedic history is a combination of fiction
and incompletely understood facts, difficult to
separate (gray not B/W)
The fiction is primarily due to exaggeration of
facts during history reporting of that period,
a phenomenon not uncommon in history

Regarding dating the chronolgy to 4000BC,
there have been two schools of thoughts on this
The general academic acceptance (including Marxist)
is that Vedic/Arya civilization dates to 1500BC to
500 BC, after decline of Indus Civilization, and
before birth of Mahavira/Buddha

TD:
-Firstly,
It's pretty clear the guy who wrote this doc has done so by compiling the data from a varied number of sources (from wherever he could!!), and doesn't seem to subscribe to any specific group of historians as such, and most probably is not any of those self proclaimed "eminent historians". So, obviously, u will find that the doc is not 'coherent' with regard to any particular "school of thought". And portions of it do belong to the communist historians which when examined critically (without giving in to any assumptions), clearly show rampant bias and distortions. So, let's forgive the poor author of that doc [:D].

u said: "To me Vedic history is a combination of fiction and incompletely understood facts, difficult to separate."

- That's ur personal assumption.
KBS: yup it is.

Studying history has to be based on archeological, documentary and socio-cultural evidences and logical arguments and not on plain assumptions. Moreover, there are ppl all around the world who have understood the Vedic stuffs that u haven't.
KBS: yes there would be.

u said: "The other school of thought which is a bit weak in its argument is placing Mahabharata at 3900BC "
-How is it 'a bit weak' ? Any pointers?
The Indus Civilization is dated to be 2600BC-1700BC, and by putting Mahabharata at 3900BC, we have overlap, yet Vedic literature does not mention things as excavated in Indus civilization, neither do we know why Indus language/script is so different from Arya language and why no mapping (I do not think Indus script has yet been deciphered)

TD:
u said : "Vedic literature does not mention things as excavated in Indus civilization"
td: ARE U KIDDING ? Read my previous reply on AIT. & about Indus civ from other sources.

What do u mean by "Arya Language" ? Actually, although the proponents of AIT made up stories of nomadic Aryans invading and settling in India, they never bothered to propose any theory or unearth any details about who the Aryans were exactly? What was their exact land & culture before suddenly turning into sages and settlers with stable communities? And of course, in none of the literature/vedic scriptures do we find any mention of any foreign land from where the Aryans might have arrived. Instead all the literature is full of praises for their "new home"!

Anyway, I think u mean to refer to Sanskrit as the "Arya Language" ? . FYI, The Indus script has been deciphered by scholars' in the last couple of decades. The findings were that the Language was indeed Sanskrit, and that the Indus script was similar to the Brahmi script which came later. I guess not many ppl know abt this. The writings on the famous seals found in Indus civ have been decoded. No question of mapping as it was Sanskrit and not any other language.
U can google and u'll get authentic info(details of research work and books containing the decoded script in detail ) on this. I had read abt it on the internet sometime back. Dont remmbr the authors/researchers' names.

Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT)/ Aryan Migration Theory (AMT)

======================
First, abt the timing: I don't know abt any historian claiming the Invasion/Migration before 2nd millennium BC. So the 10k-4k BC timing seems to be a gross error, rather than the view of ANY 'school of thought'.

Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT)
------------------------------------
The AIT has been thrown into the dustbin by most modern historians as no conclusive archaeological evidence to support external origin of ppl in the northern part of India has been found - neither around 1500 BC nor in any prehistoric time. AIT was just a theory that was too absurd to be true, and was forced on the academia by the divisive British and zealously supported by the Marxist historians of India and other "racial(read '19th century Biblical'; 'White Supremacy' etc) schools" of thought. And later research have conclusively shown non-occurrence of any demographic changes/ invasion by nomads. I can continue and elaborate on the proofs & arguments on how the AIT myth got broken, but that will require a lot of time...

Aryan Migration Theory (AMT)
---------------------------------------
It's nothing but a modified version of AIT. When no proofs of invasion or it's effects were found (it's now well accepted that decline of Indus valley civ was due to environmental changes, and not by invasion of any nomadic, virulent tribes from central asia/eastern europe. A major jolt to the "Indians are non-indigenous ppl theory" was the discovery of Saraswati river, and it's well known that vedic literature is full of references to the Saraswati river....incidentally Saraswati river dried up before or around 1500 BC, I m not sure of the dating here.).


And when AIT was discarded by modern historians, AMT came up, which is even weaker and more absurd than AIT as a theory. It's preposterous to think that migrants (instead of the killer tribes of AIT, were they cattle rearing shepherds or what?) can displace the original inhabitants from their homes, and force their culture, language and religion on the original inhabitants. General trend in history is that it's the migrants-turned-settlers who adapt to the local way of life and culture, and sometimes religion too, not the other way round. Of course, if the local ppl are all-encompassing ppl (like us Indians through out the ages), an exchange of ideas does take place and have taken place all along history, but without the extinction, displacement or domination of the locals and their culture by the migrants.

'Aryans' & the Language Connection:
----------------------------------------------
During the infancy of AIT/AMT, linguists grossly misunderstood the origin of the Indo Europian languages of modern Europe and their relation to Sanskrit and the Dravidian langs...and used those primitive research to explain AIT stuff...But Linguistic research done in the last century have refuted those claims...I am not an expert on this , so can't go into details, but u can find lots of stuff available online on this and other aspects of AIT/AMT.

Epilogue:
=======
THOSE NCERT TEXTBOOKS WE READ IN SCHOOL ARE NOT THE ONLY THINGS KNOWN TO ARCHAELOGISTS AND HISTORIANS ACROSS THE WORLD. We Indians have the misfortune of being taught the biased history written by a bunch of historians like Romila Thapar & Co. Kids in the schools should be encouraged to question any Theory that seems absurd and dissect history scientifically without any constraints of being "politically/ideologically correct". History has to be seen the way it was, not the way anybody merely believes or wants others to believe it to have been.

-td. 9 Aug 08

TD: u said :"The political reason for the second school of thought is to assert the indegeniety of Vedic/Arya and identify them to be same as Indus civilization, since dating of Indus civilization is now irrefutable and immovable."

-I don't get it. 2ndly ur comment on dating of Indus civ is WRONG if u think it to be around 1500 BC.

KBS: (I am not putting it at 1500BC, but 2600BC-1700BC)
TD: 1.Dating of the Indus civ does NOT prove any Aryan invasion or migration either in 1500 BC or in 4k BC.
KBS: Yes It doesnt, I do not hold Arya speaking people responsible for decline of Indus civilization, but if we out Aryan migration to 4k BC, we cannot explain the overlap as explained above
TD: Refer to the beginning of my email
TD:2. Though the AIT is asserted to have 'taken place' in 1500 BC, IT DOESN'T MEAN that no civ existed at times much prior to 1500 BC, e.g. Indus civ was itself flourishing in the 3rd millennium BC...Loads of archae stuff been dated to such times.
KBS: Very much Agreed

TD: # Excavations done at numerous sites around both sides of the Indo-Pak border (e.g Rajasthan, Haryana and punjab province on the other side) yielded data that provided conclusive archaeological proof of the Saraswati civ (that existed circa much earlier than 1500BC) along banks of the river Saraswati(which dried up long ago). It is now well established fact, DATING 4TH MILLENNIUM BC. Satellite data confirms the Saraswati basin etc fundae. So the civs in the subcontinent existed at times much earlier than 1500 BC and were NOT localised to Indus valley only.

# The indus civ + saraswati civ was quite a huge civ (ppl have the common misconception of the Indus civ as a tale of just 2 cities - harappa & mohenjodaro!!! ...pity them). And it was quite an advanced civ in terms of agri, metallurgy, architecture, urban planning and trades(these were seafaring civs...remember Lothal port?).

Bottomline : U don't need to have any "political reason", for there are enuff "factual reasons". And yeah, if u are under the impression that the AIT rebuttal is some "Indian right wing" idea, you are completely wrong. Historians and Indologists of repute all round the world have discarded the invasion/migration theory after detailed research. Do a bit of googling and u'll know. Of course, our anachronistic and biased communist historians are still clutching to it.

KBS: The political thought for/against the entire AIT/MT was by the British to justify their Indian invasion. It was at first seconded by the elite of the country trying to align themselves as cousins of white Europeans, later turning into opposition. The theory then degraded into a North-South / Dalit-UpperCaste theory with each group supporting/opposing it for selfish reasons without verifying the veracity of it.

TD: True. The British supported the AIT to justify their own invasion. And the reasons for the Marxists support mainly stems from the class/caste related implications of the AIT, which is at the centre of their existence.

TD:
Saturday, August 10, 2008.
Let me clear a few things first:
The debate is not on
AIT/AMT in 1500 BC Vs AIT/AMT in 4000BC or before.
What I am/was arguing about is AIT/AMT Vs NO AIT/AMT ever.

The Dating Issues of Vedas wrt AIT:
If one assumes AIT to be true, the dating of Vedas and other scriptures is also assumed to be after 1500 BC.
Else if one subscribes to the "NO AIT" theory then the datings of the Vedas etc are not constrained to times after 1500BC.

BTW, I had read that all this AIT and Vedic literature's dating was influenced by the Christianity based notions of beginning of earth's civilizations etc at the beginning of the Julian calender (i.e. beginning around 4000BC). I guess, the British theologists didn't believe in humanity's existence before 4000BC.

The Dating of Vedas : I am not very sure of the exact dating ascribed to the vedas by current historians. As much as I know, Vedas are dated to times before 3500 BC. In the Vedas u'll find copious mention of the Saraswati and other rivers of the north western region.
This fact proves that the Vedas predate the time when Saraswati river dried out (the drying occured sometime during 2000 BC....). One way I have know of the 3500 - 4000 BC dating of the Vedas is based on the astronomical/astrological data available in them which were recorded when some astronomical phenomena took place at those times, & it is confirmed by astrological back-calculations by scholars in modern times.

The Dating of Mahabharata: I didn't know this before as I never read abt it's dating or discussed abt it's dating with ppl...I googled a bit and found this http://www.boloji.com/astro/00325.htm .The approach is similar to the dating of Vedas based on astronomical events.The page suggests two possible years : 3129 BC
and 2559 BC.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - -

KBS: I never had the chance to read NCERT history, and my study of Arya theory in school was largely confined to a couple of chapters in Std-V i.e. 1993
I however had reading Romila Thapar in the last couple of years, and I do not think that the Marxist historians have a blind support for AIT/AMT (Please read the Thapar Article I have uploaded if you have time - I read it a long time ago and I do not remember what she says)I think its just that we have two different view on the topic, that identifies Vedic/Arya civ to be same as Indus-Sarasawati Civ and another view that doesnt both of which cannot explain every things.

TD: Marxist historians DO have a blind support for AIT/AMT. If u think otherwise, then perhaps u don't quite understand the attitudes and the heavy ideological baggage carried by these orthodox Indian communists.

History as reported by Marxist historians contains too much of bias against Hindus, and the indigenous cultural heritage of India. Suppression, omission and deliberate wrong interpretation of many important and well known historical facts about the spread of Islam and Mughal rule in India is a much criticized aspect of their biased history. And of course, when anybody tries to correct them with solid proof, the resort to neglect, negationism, lies and name calling (e.g anything that doesn't fit their scheme of things is termed as "Hindu fundamentalism", "communalism" etc etc..), and even violence - the well known tools used by them the world over. The effect of the pseudo-intellectuals' hypocrisy, biased history teaching by the Marxist authors and continuation of the Macaulay-type education in India is quite apparent. Even in this age people find it fashionable to follow the Marxist/Eurocentric interpretation of our own history and many of us don't go against them for the fear of being termed "Hindu fanatics".

I too had read the Thapar article long ago....if i remmbr correctly, the lady tried to leave the AIT shrouded in mystery and as other Marxists do, she didn't accept the demise of the theory. Anyway, it looks too boring...can't read again... :-)

TD:
u said : "I think its just that we have two different view on the topic, that identifies Vedic/Arya civ to be same as Indus-Sarasawati Civ and another view that doesnt

both of which cannot explain every things "

td: It was indeed the situation a few decades back. Not anymore. The fact is : AIT myth has been busted. U don't need to get this fact attested by Thapar or her tribe, just like the fact that "sun is at the centre of the solar system, not earth" need not be attested by the Pope. Period.

My First Composition!!!

I did it!! Well...I mean it happened...just a few mins back...It's all of five lines only currently....For the first time poetry came to me in the form of a song...And the strange thing: It's in Bengali!!! I haven't written anything in Bengali for the 'don't know how many years'...Well...well..what I wrote is not something that will make Robi dadu feel proud of me...Perhaps it's all crap :D...But I like it...And that matters!!! I took my guitar, and tried some chords....and that's it...Jotted down whatever felt right... It feels great...yeah...really great to play it on my guitar!!!! I won't publish the poem(or song or whatever one might want to call it) as of now. Let me see if I can complete it (someday :D). It's called "Shei Purono Din". Whoooaaaa!!!!

Summer Song

Tanha.... Main Akela
Tuta Tara....Koi
Aasman Mera...Meri Zameen
Manzil Khoi Khoi
_____________________
(Kishore Da)

Raison D'etre

For me, the purpose has always been more important than the act. But sometimes the intention behind doing something may get lost in the rigmaroles of the society we live in and the 'system' that we are part of. So much so that we might be made to believe in a different set of 'goals' that we are supposed to strive for...so much so that we may lose sight of the final cause we had originally planned to accomplish...And sometimes the alternate motivations that drive the anachronistic 'system' are something you might have always despised...something that belittle the very act itself. It's a difficult situation then...As the world around you sings to a different tune, a tune you scorn at, while you feel like you have lost your own music.

What is important is that one shouldn't get so much disillusioned that the 'act' may seem to be of no value. True, the juice has to be worth the squeeze, but the worthiness has to be measured carefully, with an eye on what we truly want and where we were headed towards when we had begun the journey.

Silk Route @ IITR

Date: Yesterday,
Venue: ABN grounds, IITR.

The first band to perform was something called musafir...What a piece of crap that was.....The worst performance I have ever seen. Mostly they just covered some songs..And in the process they murdered the songs...cheap stuff..pretty ordinary...Certainly not better than a decent college band.If that was not enough, it was sickening when they performed 'bc sutta'...I don't have any liking for stuffs like that...Damn...they sucked.I guess they could have done better...

Then, it was the turn for Silk Route - the reason I was there at the concert.It was a good show.Silk Route's unique style and rich sound was enthralling. They started with Jaadugar, then came a previously unheard song in English, called The Wind, then Sapne, Saujha, Boondein, Sabse Peeche Hum Khade - all my favourites and off course Dooba Dooba. Also they sang Chakkar Ghor hai, Tumse Hi (from Jab We Met)and another unheard song called Dosti.It was a great experience to see one of my my favourite bands performing only a few feet away. Guitars, mouth organ, saxophone, tabla, drums and a soothing voice with brilliant original compositions that in someways you close to nature and close to yourself....that was music for the soul...Though I ended up inhaling tonnes of dust in the process(some people did dance..even to Sapne, Boondein ..donno how!!! i guess ..they danced just for the sake of it...for some people it doesn't matter if it's heavy metal or bollywood item no or light music...they danced because they had to.!!!)...Whatever..all in all...mazaa aa gaya.

Sapne hain..sooni aankhen...Jane kyoun kho gaye...
Socha Tha Saahil Pe Milega...Thehra sa Ek Pal...Ek Pal...

Chaandni hain ye raatein...fir bhi tute sitaare ...
Dhoondhte hain ye zameen pe.. Thehra sa Ek Pal...
Andheri daastaan ...Kho Gaye Kahan...
Hum to rah gaye fir wahin

Aati hai ek sadaa ...Waadiyon se kahin...
Ajnabi rahon pe milega...Thehra sa Ek Pal...Ek Pal...