nazeemonline

Occupation is in the blood of distant colonial cousins, Great Britain and the United States of America. Down the history it is not difficult to see how these two countries were engaged in invasion of other sovereign governments to plunder immense natural wealth and beauty. Now the people of the two countries themselves have taken up the idea of “occupying” what they are deprived of, naturally. And the anti-capitalist movement has spread out to other European nations too. But the fulcrum of the movement is within America; and it centres on Wall Street; and hence the Occupy Wall Street agenda. Let us see what the anti-Wall Street activists have to say: “Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colours, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use ...

Therapeutic value of writing is no longer a myth. But some dare to compare writing to sexual pleasure. It was during a reporting assignment; I met those cheerful, good looking young people in Thiruvananthapuram. I thought they came to attend the function like several who gathered there on that day. A noted writer and an environmentalist were the key speakers. I noticed the youngsters as they were of my age; and they were standing behind the stage all the time. I thought they too were waiting to catch the dignitaries of the function for an interview or a chat. I said hi to them and when I inquired about them, there came a reply, which my ears could not believe that time. "We are sex workers; belonging to ... (they said the name of a group based in the city).” It was during that time, the term sex workers were being used widely to give an acceptance to prostitution. I got shocked, not because they were sex workers, but the pride they showed in being in that dirty job. I w...

Do words fail us? My experience says, yes, sometimes. But my members of family say, it’s not the problem of words, but my own inability to think in a mundane way. And it ends up in total confusion like this incident happened a few days back, which I didn’t share with them fearing to become a butt of ridicule again. One day, reaching home from office, the water bottle I kept outside my flat for refilling went missing. But the money kept under the bottle was untouched. Obviously, somebody who badly needed a five gallon bottle for free took it. I informed the watchman, who does not understand English very well. I told him somebody had stolen my water bottle. And he asked me to explain in Hindi. I tried to get the Hindi word ‘chor’ for ‘thief’. But however hard I tried, ‘chor’ was stuck somewhere down my throat. In my vain attempt to get the apt word, I asked him, “What is the word for someone who takes other people’s things” And he too lost in words. Utter confusion. Somehow I ma...