Originally from Delhi, I fully endorse every word the celebs interviewed have spoken about the capital (Why Delhi Sucks, May 1). It is a callous, crass, characterless city. That being the case, I fail to understand the enormity of the excitement about Delhi hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Either all the participants, officials, guests and visitors should be trained to handle AK-47s or each of them be escorted by sharp-shooter guards. Frankly, I dread the event will only help tarnish India’s name.
Jonaki Bhattacharya, Pune
I love the way Shuddhabrata Sengupta has defended "apni Dilli"
(Thank You, Shobhaa
De, May 15). I’m not from Delhi, but my occasional visits to that city have left the impression of it being vibrant socially and culturally. Of course, there have been instances where I thought some Delhiites lacked good manners, but where in the world would you not find such people?
Divya Dwivedi, Saint Paul, US
True. Delhi died the day it had the first refugee from Pakistan. Soon the rot started, and over the years Delhi lost its ‘tehzeeb’, culture, values, cuisine and its soul. Rest is history but the refugee mentality still prevails.
Sushant Kumar, Sydney
What more can one expect from a people born on the crossroads of civilisation?
Syed Abdul Karim, on e-mail
Just a peek into the harmonious lives of people living in Shahjahanabad or the Walled City—that’s what Delhi is historically—would have painted a different picture of the city.
Hayat Yar Khan, Sharjah
A Punjabi with family settled in Delhi, I’ve had my education in Bengal, Andhra, Dehradun and UP. Now having worked in both Mumbai and Delhi for two years each, I should admit that the coming back to my own city after a long tour depresses me (Delhi: Rude City, May 1). I squirm reading the capital’s crime stories, especially the assaults on women. I shudder at the thought of negotiating the traffic with my vehicle coming into a crunching contact with Blueline buses. Putting an affectionate arm around my wife’s shoulders has got me into an argument with cops, who even threatened to jail me. As for hoodlums, they just lech on a good day. On a bad day, they rape women.
Aman Chanda, Faridabad
Those who cite Punjab as the reason why Delhi sucks should visit wikipedia.com. The portal refers to Punjab as the cradle of one of the earliest stone age cultures of South Asia. The Harappa civilisation flourished there. It had a glorious Vedic and epic period which saw the composition of the Rig Veda and the Upanishads. Legend has it that Valmiki penned the Ramayana near the present Amritsar city. Even Kurukshetra, where Lord Krishna rendered the divine Gita, formed part of ancient Punjab. The authors of Vishnu Purana and Shiva Purana belonged to central Punjab.
Purva Juneja, Delhi
Had I not been a resident of Delhi for more than two decades, I’d have believed every word you said. Truth is, Delhi is not a state like Bengal, Tamil Nadu or Maharashtra, it’s basically a union territory. It therefore doesn’t have their kind of identity. What it has is massive migration (population increasing by more than 50 per cent every decade). These migrants are socially the most varied in the world and quite poor. They come from neighbouring states because their leaders have made their states hell. They may be accused of embezzling thousand of crores of public money but still occupy powerful positions at the Centre with full mainstream support and hailed as political messiahs decade after decade. The wretched migrants, from various castes, classes and provinces, live in appalling conditions. Some of them surely will take to crime and give the city a bad name.
Surajit Som, on e-mail
Aggressive, callous, lawless, unsafe, status-obsessed, self-important—that’s what we Delhiites are. Reason: we’re a pampered lot, getting much more per capita government support than an average resident of Calcutta, Chennai or even Mumbai. Result: cheaper petrol, electricity and booze (so-called imfl). But we need more. After all, we decide the fate of this country.
Richa Jayal, New Delhi
A possible acronym for Delhi: Dirty Egocentric Land of Heartless Inhabitants.
Rajneesh Batra, New Delhi
The two words that do not figure in the Delhiite’s dictionary: "sorry" and "please".
Pradip Madhavji, Mumbai
A Delhiite currently working in Bangalore, I feel such potent descriptions like rude city triggers an extremely uncongenial impression in the minds of the people who have never been there. As a result, migrants from Delhi are met with utmost hostility. I agree with most of the points you raised, but the degree to which they have been blown up has risked the reputation of peace-loving people like me.
Neha Bajaj, Bangalore
Mumbai, oh my God! Every time I’ve gone to that city, I’ve come back appalled and frustrated—without having one decent conversation with anybody. The average Mumbaikar is a dunce with the academic appetite of an impoverished ant. With shamefully limited social awareness, in fact the only thing they can do is to bore you with unsolicited titbits on stupid Bollywood stars.
Sumant Bhattacharya,Ghaziabad, UP
Why try create this unrequited Mumbai vs Delhi divide? Put ink on things that really matter. And think global, or Indian at least. Outlook sucks, not Delhi.
Vinay Rao, Delh
The lament of the chinkara by P.P. Ramachandran (Letters, May 1) was very touching, as touching as when frenzied mobs first in Mumbai and then in Gujarat, killed, maimed and burned human beings
A.Y. Sayed, Dharwad
I’ve always found surrealism a difficult genre to read. I tried Marquez but gave up soon enough. And though I enjoyed Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (His Own Mount Sinai, May 8) and later Shame, I just couldn’t plough through the book that actually made him famous—Satanic Verses. In fact, I recall reading a statistic that only 2 per cent of those who bought the book actually read it. The same article claimed that it was used more as a coffeetabler for display or as a conversation piece among the literati. Rushdie himself became rich, famous and iconic thanks to Khomeini. Else he would have remained yet another subcontinental author living in Britain writing about the subcontinent—read by a very small section in Britain and a somewhat larger population in the subcontinent.
A. Maheshwari, Bangalore
Prem Shankar Jha is deluding himself (Return to Babel Tower, May 8) with his not-so-hidden desire of a bjp-Congress alignment to usher in the discredited India Shining deception. Does he think the Left would so easily latch on to the Third Front bandwagon without these parties recognising the importance of a programmatic blueprint encompassing foreign and economic policies which they are unable to implement with their outside support to the UPA?
Kasim Sait, Chennai
First it was the Narmada dam, now it’s a stay on illegal constructions in Gujarat. Why is the Centre hellbent on stalling any progressive effort the state makes? If temples can be razed, why can’t dargahs?
R. Singh, Vadodara
Aamir Khan’s not only a celebrity but also a citizen of India. As such, he has every right to express his views. He has in fact taken up a stand for the Narmada oustees without actually opposing the dam. The campaign against him in Gujarat is just the handiwork of politicians cultivating their vote-bank.
Rohin R. D’Souza, Goa
You rightly rue the fate of the kurinji flower (Once Upon a Blue Hill, May 8). The last resplendent flowering in 1994 was in itself a final call of the wilderness drawing attention to the slow but sure extinction of grassland. Today, Kodaikanal and its environs have become a sad reminder of what can happen with uncontrolled development and the mindless tinkering of delicate ecosystems. The once serene lake has become a cesspool for sewage for tourism-driven enterprises guided by profit but lacking basic conservation ethics. Grasslands, the lifeline of water conservation for the thirsty plains, are rapidly being replaced by wattle and eucalyptus. Once planted for draining swamp land, they were used for augmenting economic returns to the forest department through commercial production of pulp and tannin. Today, the exotics flourish in the higher ranges, self seeding themselves and dominating the landscape. In the Nilgiri and Munnar ranges, tea estates plant exotics as fuel to toast the tea crop, and use herbicides to save tea. These kind of random takeover of grasslands by classifying them as "wastelands" require another set of options and a mindset different from the erstwhile forest departments and the government. Else even constant conservation efforts won’t save the kurinji or the other several species including rare orchids, several hundred species of grasses and dependent fauna.
Meenakshi Baehner, Kodaikanal
The introduction of CPI(M)’s Yechury into the equation, reportedly at the behest of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is absolutely fatal to Nepal as well as India (Pawn Strike, May 8). Yechury is an ideological soulmate of the Maoists in both countries; his party an extension of the Chinese Communist Party. He will naturally promote Chinese interests, not Indian ones. Whatever happens to Nepal, India is in for a huge swell in the violence and success of Maoists within its borders. Manmohan Singh will certainly regret this short-sighted move of injecting Yechury into this explosive situation.
Kumudini Tamirasa, Chennai
People who quote examples of affirmative action in the US forget that it is not at the cost of quality (Corporate Snub, May 8). GM might be buying billions of dollars worth of materials from companies owned by minorities, but that doesn’t mean these companies can sell low-quality stuff. I liked what Pantaloons ceo Kishore Biyani had to say: "We don’t ask people their caste, and the government should not force us to." It’s important to work towards making caste irrelevant and invisible from our society, and from people’s minds. By making such overt caste-based policies such as reservation, the government is compounding the evil.
Kunal Mangal, Denver, US
With close to 20 per cent or more of our population being from the untouchable or backward classes, there’s no doubt that we have a crisis on our hands. Whether we overhaul our cultural sensitivities towards Dalits/Adivasis/obcs, or set aside quotas, something has to be done to end probably some of the worst treatment meted to our fellow human beings! Often the best solution is job creation and investing a lot of money on education, but until we do so, or are able to do so, or implement a ‘better’ solution, quotas seem like our only (temporary) solution, no matter how bad, unequal and discriminatory they seem. Over a thousand years of mistreatment toward them, I’m sure, is justification enough.
Nikhiel Silva, New York
Perhaps, instead of reservations in the private sector, a more "affirmative action" from the industry would be to spend a certain portion of their profits in setting up free schools for the economically backward sections (whatever their caste). This will not only give them the opportunity to broaden their merit base, but also provide scope for economic improvement later on. On the other hand, if this is about elections, which I believe it is, a legislation that ensures that the country’s backward classes—economically, not caste-wise—get a fair opportunity to improve their lot would surely win votes.
Aninda Sardar, Calcutta
It does not behove someone like Raja Menon to make disparaging remarks about a particular community as he does in his Ghata Diary (May 8). ‘Ghata’, we know, means ‘total loss’, as he so gleefully points out, but the local reference is to a valley, which fact Raja Menon conveniently omits. And who is he to brand Gujjars and Haryanvis as thieves? One Khazan Singh might have made the remark in jest, but it is mischievous of Mr Menon to use it for the whole community. To add insult to injury, he discerns a Cossack connection in the Gujjars, putting to question their very origin! Raja Menon better apologise before the entire ‘village of thieves’ turns on him.
Varun Verma, New Delhi
The news of Pramod Mahajan being remorselessly shot by his own brother, for whom he had done so much in the past, has shocked us all (Ask Nothing, May 1). I cannot but recall the words of renowned American novelist Mark Twain: "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
Phiroze B. Javeri, Mumbai
There may be several reasons behind Pravin Mahajan killing his famous brother, but one thing is clear: the most senior second-rung bjp leader failed in emotional management when it came to dealing with his own sibling. Pramod’s IQ was very high, but his death sadly proves that he had a very low EQ.
Kaunain Shahidi, Buraydah, Saudi Arabia
Bitter rivalry between siblings is normal, but becomes shocking when it claims the life of one of them—worse, when the victim is a high-profile politician. Pravin’s abnormal obsession for material gains overtook his prudence to the extent of tilting his balance of mind. It’s high time we addressed such grave psychotic issues.
Salil Gewali, Shillong
Pramod’s demise will be sorely lamented by all the posh hotels that he taught the Sangh parivar to frequent. And by all high livers in the rss and outside. Of all things, he will be sorely missed by all who appreciate the art of corruption.
Ramdas Bajjanbhai, Jinja, Uganda
I just can’t understand the reason being floated for Mahajan’s murder. If Pravin had an eye for a slice of Pramod’s alleged Rs 2,000-crore wealth, then he should have rather been keeping his elder brother in humour. As for Pramod, he’s said to have had a soft corner for Pravin. So why exactly did their relation take such a turn?
Raj Bharadwaj, Mumbai
It is simply amazing that such a shrewd leader like Pramod Mahajan forgot that Machiavellian politics can apply to one’s own family as well!
Ramesh Raghuvanshi, Pune
Agreed that one naturally gets curious over the factors that drove Pravin to kill his brother, but how does that justify this delay in the trial of such a clear open-and-shut case? Pravin has himself accepted that he committed the murder, Pramod’s wife is herself an eyewitness. Then what is the system waiting for? Try Pravin, pass the judgement and finish it off. The reasons for Pravin shooting his brother can be analysed simultaneously or even later. Whether it was humiliation, inferiority complex or passion—does it make the offence any less significant?
Anusha Singh, New Delhi
Maybe, inspired by recent acquittals of murder—like in the case of Jessica Lall—Pravin picked up the gun and aimed it at his elder brother. Hopefully, the law would take a swift course this time considering that the victim was a vip. Or, will it be the other way round?
Rakesh Agrawal, New Delhi
Whatever be the factors that ended his life this way, Pramod Mahajan was surely the only acceptable face of the bjp. Even while sinking in the hospital bed, it was his engineering of the twin rath yatras that gave the party a means to recoup.
B. Lakshminarayan, Chennai
