nazeemonline

Michael Schumacher is the most celebrated name in the Formula One championship. But for employees of a Dubai-based company, it became an alternative for traffic offence as well as nickname for people who were fined for traffic offense. One of the drivers of the company was notorious for his rash driving. One day his delivery van collided with a four wheeler driven by a lady. The lady who was rushing to the office in the morning got angry and got out of the car abusing the offender. Trembling with anger and shock, the lady shouted at him,“Who do you think, you smarty, a Schumacher?” Poor guy, shocked by the unexpected remark in an accent he is not familiar with, told her innocently, “No madam, I am not a shoemaker, but working in a oilcompany.” It took a few minutes to spread the fun among all the employees in the company. And the birth of a new word in their official dictionary.

To the police and media it is just a suicide case. For me it will be sleepless nights, at least for a couple of days. Yet another family suicide happened in Dubai while wife of the man who had initiated the suicide is undergoing treatment in a hospital only to be grilled later by the police. In the coming days, if she co-operates with the authorities and come back to senses, the reason behind this family suicide-murder will come out. I don’t know how the media in Kerala has reported this unfortunate incident. Rijesh and his wife Sreesha, both in their late 30′s, killed their six-year old daughter before their suicide bid. Rijesh hanged to death. But Sreesha’s attempt to kill self by slashing wrist veins failed. If the authorities take the case on humanitarian grounds, Sreesha will be spared from punishment. But the chances are slim as suicide is an offense according to the law in the UAE. If to believe unofficial reports from sources, Rijesh had found some financial fraud in ...

‘Bare all’ is considered as a daring attempt in show business. Of course it is a daring act. To shed ones clothes before a whole lot of people or sometimes a few, indeed needs immense courage. If to believe those who has done it, it is just a technical performance. How many times have we heard actresses describing how their co-stars and directors made them comfortable in performing intimate scenes? But is it necessary to make a movie with very intimate scenes just to give the impression of real life? The latest among such movies is The Dirty Picture, which is based on life of South Indian actor Silk Smitha, who is equally gifted with talent and beauty, but often degraded as a mere sex bomb by the film industry itself. Please, don’t pass the blame on her fans or movie lovers. Responsibility of viewers in giving her such an image is negligible compared to film industry who made box-office hits out of her lewd and lascivious acts and song sequences. Everyone knows Smitha did such r...

No social activist is at hind sight when politicians cutting across ideological lines are very much active in the Mullaperiyar Dam controversy. Where are those Silent Valley protesters or other green groups? Why they remain mute at a time when time demands their involvement? Or are they not active like renowned writer MT Vasudevan Nair has pointed out. In an interview he said, social activism in Kerala is not upto mark. To a question, I enquired about social evils coming back and gripping Malayalees, he said, it shows the degradation of social activism.If a new generation does not understand the importance of rivers, it is because of their lack of awareness and lack of love for their mother tongue. And if sexual abuse against women are increasing in a state known for female literacy, it is because the real culprits are not brought out to justice. He chided noted writer Sara Joseph, and activist K.Ajitha avoiding the ‘middle women’ in sex rackets. He challenged them to bring them out....

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...