CRIME FICTION SET IN PAKISTAN

I have come across very few books  set in Pakistan. The  crime fiction set in Pakistan which I read and liked is A case of exploding mangoes by Mohamed Hanif. This book also had a lot of humor!

The warlord's son is an exciting novel which gives a realistic picture of today's Pakistan &Afghanistan. The novel was   thrilling and I loved the descriptions of the places in this book by Dan  Fesperman. I have never visited these places but  his descriptions of the place and people ring so true.
These books are a must read for anyone interested in knowing a little  about the state of  these places today. God knows, it is  difficult  for a curious tourist to visit Pakistan and Afghanistan today.

 Reading these books, in the safety of your bedroom, gives one both  thrills and information about  Pakistan and Afghanistan, without the fear of  whatever befalls visitors to these places.

 I have to next read the books by Dan Fesperman, set in war torn Bosnia.

What was amazing about The Devil's Banker  by Christopher Reich was the accuracy of his description of certain places in Pakistan. I have never been there but I have been to places in India, which are similar and he has got the men's attitudes towards women, exactly as it is. And the description of their unwashed bodies, stinking of sweat is real. I wonder if Reich has been to Pakistan and experienced all this.

 His description of an Indian villain in The rules of betrayal captures the behavior of  chauvinistic men, with feelings of inferiority, who abound in many eastern cultures.(I am from the east and so if I sound racist, so be it..I have first hand experience of Indian men's behavior). The scene where a lady in a burka is surrounded by men and attacked by one, with the rest watching or cheering him on, is scary and unfortunately, all too common.  I hope a lot of people read this book to understand the life of  Pakistani people in general and women in particular.



I am looking forward to reading the book by a Pakistani police officer, which is crime fiction but based on real life incidents. This book has received rave reviews but not yet sold in Canada. The book is "The prisoner" by Omar Shahid Hamid, who worked as a police officer in Pakistan.

I am wondering if it is anything like Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games which is set in Bombay, India.

I had read a story by Kushwant Singh which was published by the illustrated weekly of India in the 70s or 80s which was 'like' crime fiction. It was about the debaucherous life of the Pakistani elite i.e. the politicians and the military. I think the illustrations for this series(or was it a single short story? I don't remember) was by M.F.Hussain. I don't remember the title too.

I would be so grateful if someone could tell me the title of this, if they remember reading this in the illustrated weekly of India.




I discovered that Ibn-E-Safi from Pakistan  is a popular writer of crime fiction in the Urdu language. I have not read his books as I cant find them in Toronto.
Even if I found the books, I cant read Urdu...I need English translations. I am sure the English translation could not have captured the beauty of the poetic Urdu language!

http://urdunvls.blogspot.ca/2013/12/jasoosi-novels-jasoosi-dunya-by-ibn-e.html
The above link is a list of his books.

Pakistan, like India with it's endemic corruption should actually be an excellent resource for crime fiction writers! I hope more crime fiction comes from here to help non Pakistanis learn about Pakistan...in an interesting and entertaining manner!

Other crime fiction by Pakistani writers or stories set in Pakistan are here below. I have not read these books but got their names from the internet.
Akbar Agha: Juggernaut. Pub: 4 hour books, India
Cheryl Benard: Moghul buffet Soho crime publication
James Church:Bamboo and blood
Simon Conway: The agent runner
Jack Coughlin: Running the maze
Omar Shahid Hamid: (Book 1)The prisoner and (book 2) The prisoner Pub: Pam Macmillan, India
Naseem Hijazi :(1)Muhammad Bin Qasin(2) Shaheen (3)Dastaan-e-Mujahid(I don't think these books are in English)
David Ignatius: Blood money A novel of espionage
Humayun Iqbal AKA Sabiho Banu: Challawa written in Urdu and Farsi in the 60s and recently translated to English by Mohammad Hanif (about a Pakistani lesbian detective!) and appears as a short story in the book edited by Faiza S Khan (Pub: Hachette books) i.e. The Life's too short literary review 01:New writing from Pakistan 

Mazhar Kaleem & Ishtiaq Ahmed: (1)Maka Zonga (2) Black Zero (3) Target mission (4)Kaghzi Qayyamat (5) Begaal Mission (6)Seamoon + G.Moff (7) Seamoon ki wapsi (8)Ghar ka samandar(I don't think these 8 books are in English)
Mary Louise Kelly: Anonymous sources
Shea Kinsella: Blood canal
Martin Lessem: A cloud in the desert
Khalid Muhammad: Agency Rules Never an easy day at the office  Pub: Dead Drop Books, Pakistan
Robert A Shaines: Secrets in a time of peace
Yusuf Toropov: Jihadi- a love story


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A wonderful non-crime fiction novel about a Pakistani family in USA I enjoyed was the American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar


Another wonderful book of non-crime short stories set in Pakistan I really admired is 'In other rooms, other wonders' by Daniyal Mueenuddin. Every character is so real, with all their human frailties and I discovered again, how similar the  psyche, behavior, thinking and culture of Indians and Pakistanis is, through the characters in the stories. The stories and characters here could have just as easily been set in India. I loved this book and would be sooo grateful if I had the skill to write like this!

CRIME FICTION SET IN AFGANISTHAN

As I mentioned in my other articles, reading crime fiction set in various countries has seized my fancy for the last few years. There are several countries which do not figure often in crime fiction though these countries  are probably racked by plenty of 'real' crime!


The two crime fiction books set in Afghanistan which I had the pleasure to read are

The warlord's son by Dan Fesperman (He has written another crime fiction novel which is set in Dubai)

The third book in the trilogy of Tom Rob Smith i.e. Agent 6 is set in Afghanistan. Though the entire book is not in Afghanistan, it gives quite an insight into the Afghanistan during the time of Soviet invasion. One realizes what a bloody mess the two giants USA and USSR have made of Afghanistan over the years as one reads this and other books! 

CRIME FICTION SET IN DUBAI

Layover in Dubai is a crime fiction novel which give a realistic picture of today's Dubai by Dan  Fesperman. I found this book fast paced and enjoyable. I think Indians who  have relatives in Dubai should read it. They will get an idea of how tough life is there and how unfair the system is to the thousands of foreign workers living there  especially those from economically deprived sections of society doing manual work.

CRIME FICTION SET IN SAUDI ARABIA

http://awej.org/images/AllIssues/Specialissues/Translation4/10.pdf
Above link is an article on crime fiction in Arabic literature. This is a scholarly and excellent article.
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 Here is the list of 5 crime fiction books set in Saudi Arabia I enjoyed.

Finding Nouf 2008 is the same as The night of the Miraj 2008
City of veils 2010
Kingdom of strangers 2012
All of the above 3 books are by Zoe Ferraris.
Incidentally, Ferraris is an American lady who was married to a Saudi-Palestinian Bedouin when she wrote her first book "Finding Nouf". By the time she wrote her second book, she had separated from him and moved back  to USA. Her books reveal how claustrophobic life is for Saudi women. The more I read books set in Saudi and other Gulf countries, the more I grateful that I was not born there!

Dan Fesperman's Layover in Dubai is a crime fiction I really enjoyed--it's set in Dubai, a city of UAE, a country which is a neighbour of Saudi Arabia.

A Gentleman's game: a queen and country novel by Greg Rucka. This is a thriller about a female assassin of the British government who kills a terrorist.

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Raja Alem's A dove's necklace, to be released in May 2016 won the Arabic Booker award in 2011. 
The reviews have rated this book very highly and I am looking forward to reading it. Though it is a murder mystery, it is much more than a crime fiction.  And the story is set in Mecca which would have shocked and irritated the religious bigots of the world! Today, I have placed a hold on it in TPLibrary and hope to get it soon and read it!

I read  A dove's necklace for the first hundred pages and gave up...sadly, it's not my cup of tea!

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Other books  I read which are not crime fiction but are set in Saudi Arabia are :

 The Ruins of us by Keija Parssinen, which reflects life of a Saudi family and the emotional difficulties faced by a son born of an American mother and Saudi father.
Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea and translated by Marilyn Booth is another fast, interesting read about life of girls and women of a certain section of Saudi Society. This book gives a peek of life in Saudi Society which is always a bit of a mystery to many as there are  few books from this country.
Princess Sultana's circle by Jean Sasson is another book set in Saudi which I read and felt disgusted by the fate of women in the country.

Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis by John R Bradley. He is  a journalist and tells about today's Saudi Arabia ;this book is highly  readable, though it is not fiction! It was after reading Bradley's book,  that I was inspired to read  crime fiction book set in Saudi Arabia . I liked all of the crime fiction I read but was  appalled by the life of women in Saudi Arabia. I thank God that I was not born in that wretched country.( I apologize sincerely to the moderate Saudies and all women & children of Saudi for calling their country wretched)


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The final bet is, according to a news item I saw on the internet,  supposed to be the 'first Arab crime novel' translated to English. Not read it yet. It is set in Morocco. It is written by Abdelilah Hamdouchi and he's written 8 other crime novels.
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Throwing sparks by Abdo Khal: Not crime fiction but crime, nevertheless! This is banned in Saudi Arabia...possibly as it is about crimes  by big shots who live in palaces! 
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Check these (not crime) novels from Arab world shortlisted for a prize

Rabai al-Madhoun ("The Lady from Tel Aviv"), 
Mansoura Ez Eldin ("Beyond Paradise"), 
Rabee Jaber ("America"), 
Mohamed Mansi Qandil ("A Cloudy Day on the West Side") and 
amal Naji ("When the Wolves Grow Old").

I dye my hair...but admire folks who don't!

Greying set in before I turned 30 and I started dyeing my hair in my mid thirties. I tried to manage without  dyeing but the grey made me look simply awful! I had to dye!
Recently my sister asked me when I would STOP dyeing my hair and even after a lot of thought, I could not answer!  I believe, a lot more consideration is needed to decide when to stop dyeing than when to start ! Should I stop when I am 50 or 60 or ... Should I stop when I retire from work? Or should I continue dyeing but change the dye from  black  to brown and then stop altogether after a few years? Should I stop when my friends and peers stop? Should I stop when my sisters and husband stop? or when my colleagues who are also my age-peers stop? Or should I continue to dye till I die? Should I stop when I have grandkids? Should I stop dyeing just before I become an old joke... my wrinkled face contrasting with thin-yet-jet-black hair ?
When to stop dyeing is a  really difficult question to answer !
But if you insist on an answer, then I would say, 'when the dye starts looking fake on me'.


YET, in my heart, there is a nook, where I have a lot of admiration for those  men and women who don't  dye their hair! I am not talking of those who can't afford the hair dye or those who are not aware of hair dye. I am talking of those who choose not to dye and are so full of confidence and self-esteem that their grey does not bother them one bit! They are unyielding, yet, calm and smiling when their well-wishers earnestly advise...nay, beg them to dye their hair!
They are aware they would look younger by decades if they dye; they know they will fulfil the conventional parameters of beauty if they dye, but they don't.
I admire their confidence; the fact that their self-esteem does not depend on looking younger or better. I admire that they take their stand unyieldingly against the majority viewpoint. I admire that they truly believe that beauty is skin-deep and there are more important things than  appearance and they are focusing their energy on those things. One set of people I would like to add to those who don't care about appearance is the Indian men and women I have seen in USA (in California especially) who dress in traditional Indian clothes like saris and dhotis without caring a damn about dressing to fit in with the majority. One of them is a guy who has a juttu(long hair tied) and is a software marketing guy in San Jose ! I admire the women with kumkum and jeans and jacket in California for their courage but I also dislike the unaesthetic combination of  the kumkum with western outfits!. ( I have such  conflicting emotions about this beauty versus don't-care-a-damn-about-how-I-look!)






In the 70s, 80s and even 90s Bangalore and my village in Tumkur, most people with grey did not dye. The middle aged women of those days idea of "dressing" would be wearing silk saris, gold jewels, kumkum, talcum powder on face.  Some of the richer or more 'modern' young folks of the 90s would also put lipstick and eye liner and maybe some perfume.
But since 2000, many middleclass people in Bangalore have started dyeing their hair. My mom and two of her four sisters have been dyeing their hair since the last one or two decades.


Now it is almost impossible to find greying women among middleclass Bangaloreans. Even greying men are becoming harder to find. What amazed me the most was finding absence of grey in village folks too!




Other pleasant but shocking discoveries in my village and taluk were finding that nearly all girls have shaped their eyebrows and the salwar kameez has replaced the langa and blouse! When I was a young girl visiting my village in the 70s and 80s, I was forced to wear saris and kumkum (I hate putting kumkum as it does not suit me)to avoid questions and odd looks from the villagers. If I wore pants I was asked if I was a boy; and if I wore salwar kameez or did not have kumkum on my forehead,  I was asked if I was a Muslim. But today, the girls of my village wear salwar kameez and some pre-puberty girls even wear pants...and no questions asked! Changes have been sweeping over rural India!


The increase in attention to fashion, even among villagers and the poor in India  is a reflection of many changes. It may indicate an increase in wealth or a decrease in poverty... if one did not have food to eat, would one be able to spend on things like hair dye, talcum powder and shaping eyebrows at the beauty parlour?
It may also indicate that people are having access to movies & TV and influenced by what is shown.
It may indicate a desire for a better appearance, indicate that the village folks are appreciative and happy to copy the urban/modern look.
It also indicates that the village folks no longer feel shy or embarrassed to try to look good or copy the urban fashions. They have become bold and open to experimenting and copying. They no longer fear the old taboos. (There are such a lot of proverbs and sayings and misogynistic viewpoints in India which say that women should not pay attention to beauty, etc.)




In the 50s era, I guess that only people on stage like movie stars and stage actors used makeup and hair dye. Later the makeup was used by women in major cities like Bombay and Delhi. Subsequently women in other towns started using makeup....this is my guess and not based on my observations or research. I still recall the middleclass morality prevalent when I was in school in the 70s and early 80s. The prevalent belief is that girls or women who used makeup especially lipstick were immoral or promiscuous or character-less or flirty or indecent or 'not-good-wife-material.! Especially lip-stick which was considered by old-fashioned folks or should I say bigoted folks as something only immoral women used ! The prevalent idea in the 80s and earlier times in India that I know was that 'decent' women dressed in saris or Indian clothes , did not 'do style or fashion' , did not use make up; 'decent women i.e. decent Hindu women had to use the kumkum on their forehead, flowers in their hair, earrings, and bangles. The lipstick and   rouge especially were a definite no-no! I remember my dad's fury when he saw  my 3 year old sister with red nail polish, which my neighbour who ran a beauty parlour had kindly put it on to entertain my sister !
The change in attitude toward fashion, dressing, western influences is visible if one sees movies of the different decades. The movies of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, etc. mirror the changes going on in India.  The change is  180 degrees! In the old movies only the 'vamp' wore makeup and skimpy clothes while the heroine was demurely dressed in clothes which covered her fully and 'she was 'supposedly ' not wearing any makeup...as per the story. But now, the heroine dresses like the vamp and it's accepted(until she gets married ...after marriage she has to wear the sindhoor and saris...I think but I have stopped seeing Indian movies and so I may be wrong). Does anyone remember the 'pious' song sung by the 'pious' Kalpana in a Kannada movie..."e-dhenu-sabhyate. e-dhenu samskrute". That song was so annoying even in those days to me! Anyway, what I am trying to say is that, there are several scenes in hundreds of  'old' movies which depicted  that it was immoral to use make-up,be stylish, wear western clothes like pants or wear sleeveless tops and short skirts.




And I know psychiatrists in the late 80s and early 90s who would consider the diagnosis of mania if the lady was 'had makeup on especially red lipstick'! I know it does not seem to make sense today but it did make sense in the context of those times. The idea was that you go to the hospital when you are sick (you go to psychiatry department or hospital when you are mentally ill or you are dragged to  psychiatry against your wish) and sick people don't care about appearance; so if you have makeup on, and if you were not a regular user of make-up, it was considered as a sign of mania. I don't know if this view still prevails in India among psychiatrists but it did at that point in time. I observed as a student, during the 80s, that if a young mentally ill female patient went to the hospital wearing make-up and if she happened to be from an economically poorer background she was definitely considered to be 'manic'! 










In Canada and probably  in  the western world, it's difficult to find people who don't give a damn about appearance. Here looks (looking young) really influence one's chances of getting a job, getting promoted, etc. Even if one does not want to dye, one is forced to dye one's hair in order to avoid the discrimination against old age when hiring for (many) jobs. People in the west strongly believe they could not get hired or not get promoted or lose their jobs  if they are not 'beautiful' or 'slim' or 'dressed well'! Most employers will never admit these as reasons for rejecting a candidate but these factors are certainly influential in the hiring, firing or promoting.


All over the world, people trying to find life-partners are forced to care for their own appearance. When one is searching for a life-partner, it's rare to find a partner who does not care for  looks  but is looking for something deeper.
My sister was lucky to find one such guy who is now her husband! I have seen but a mere handful of men and women who don't care for appearance and their tribe seem to be getting rarer by the day! The younger the generation, the greater the value placed on appearance. The trend all over the world seems to be going for good looks and not for other more 'substantial' things like character, skills & ethics.


I would love to see the day when the concept of beauty is much wider than it is today...when grey is beautiful; when it's not a beautiful appearance which counts as beauty  but  beautiful is when the person is  kind, ethical and a decent human being.




In this 21st century, only people of religion such as priests, nuns & monks, Sanyasis and those in the pursuit of God or Moksha  do not put effort on their appearance. They are supposed to focus on 'spiritual' things and not care about their looks. I would be definitely wary of those people, 'apparently' in the pursuit of God who pay heed to their appearance!
For example, I have seen young priests in some temples, whose vibhuti is not smudged but perfect and I suspect these guys of having an eye on the good looking female devotees who visit their temple rather than on Vishnu, Shiva or Moksha!


I wonder if influential people of religion such as the Pope and heads of Mutts, give in to the pleas of  directors and 'make-up' artists in studios or stick to their guns and go on camera to give their discourses without any make-up? I honestly don't mind if the Pope has hair sticking out of his ears so long as he is a decent human being, who preaches well enough to hold my attention, and more importantly, he practices what he preaches. I would have no respect for a religious person who leads a sinful life in private but is a photogenic and interesting speaker!

Causes of poor judgement among urban, middleclass Bangaloreans

CAUSES OF POOR JUDGEMENT AMONG URBAN, MIDDLE CLASS BANGALOREANS.

Poor judgment refers to the inability to make appropriate decisions. Everyone makes judgements…both good and bad; however  some make mostly good judgements while some make mostly bad judgements. I believe three factors are essential to make good judgements: intelligence, relevant information and a well balanced mind i.e. when making a decision, one should be free of stress, depression, anger, jealousy, mental illness, addiction, obsessions, etc.  Even the experience of positive emotions such as love, joy and hope can impair ability to make good decisions!

Many people among my friends and family in middle class urban India made heaps of poor judgements. These are people with at least average intelligence, more than high school education, with no apparent mental health issues and with access to information.

There are factors unique to the Indian society causing poor judgements. I have not seen these factors in the Canadian society to the same extent as in India. Here are the factors, I believe which impair judgement and decision making among my Indian friends and family.

• Many people I know don’t think. Or don’t think deeply enough. This leads to poor judgement. Among the folks I have observed, the reasons for not thinking are probably due to the obedience ingrained in them since childhood by teachers and parents and the Indian culture’s refusal to allow children to question adults…it has changed now but not much. With this upbringing, people don’t develop the practice of independent thinking before doing something. Not thinking is a major factor in poor judgement and choices. Many people with  superficial knowledge of a project take major decisions and face massive failures. For example, a student I know chose to study science in grade eleven,even though she had no aptitude for it. When asked why, she simply said, my friends are taking it and so I am too. She failed in grade twelve and then her academic career got stuck and she could not move on. She continued to make poor choices and one of the reasons was she would not think deeply but simply chose to study what 'others' were doing. 

• Lack of common sense is a major cause of judgement errors. (A search on Google indicated that the average IQ in India is 82 which means the average Indian and majority of Indians are having lesser intelligence than people from developed countries; Low level of intelligence could be a major factor in poor judgement in India.) One sad example of this is the three students who lost their life while trying to take a 'selfi' by a running train in January 2015 in India.

• Impulsivity &Impatience …the two symptoms of ADD lead many to make   poor decisions ; I strongly believe that ADHD exists undiagnosed in a huge number of Indians; or it exists at subclinical levels in the Indian population, sub-clinical yet enough to impair judgements and cause significant damage. An example of this is getting married to a  guy who came on three weeks leave to India and married a girl selected by his  parents without taking the time to get to know the fiancée and regretting it for the rest of his life.

• I have observed in many people an inability to think things through …This is one of the biggest reasons for poor decisions and this inability to think deeply is also a symptom of Attention deficit disorder. A sad example of this is a person who bought a tractor costing lakhs of rupees...though he could not afford it, could not maintain it, could not afford the cost of gas to run it and really did not really need it.

• Poor planning even for major, expensive projects is something I have observed often. For example, I know of people who travel long distances spending a lot of time and yet refuse to call before going and return empty handed!
• There are many causes for poor planning which I will not go into at present. Procrastination coupled with wishful thinking and 'unrealistic optimism is one major cause of poor planning I have seen often.

• Poor knowledge of the relevant matter before making a decision … i.e. the absence of informed decision making. Often people do not do due diligence before embarking on projects. For example, students enroll in terrible colleges and realize it too late simply because they or their parents neglected to do due diligence.

• Absence of information or poor access to relevant information also prevents people from being fully informed before they make a decision. Many people, often do not bother to google for information though they do have access to Google. They know they could google for information but for some inexplicable reason, do not.

• Pride or ego prevents people from discussing with knowledgeable people before making an important decision: Some people refuse to seek advice or discuss with people, who are experts simply because of pride or they don’t want to appear ignorant or don’t want to be ‘obligated’ to this expert. Many people reject good advice from ‘wives’ simply due to the culture of male superiority in India. Unquestioning acceptance of bad advice simply because it comes from a ‘respected’ source  such as ‘elders’, also leads to poor judgements.

• People don’t approach professionals or professionals with a good reputation for their projects. Instead, they seek the advice of relatives and friends who are NOT professionals or go ahead with major projects on their own or by hiring amateurs.

• Carelessness because of disinterest, indifference or a callous attitude are  also factors  leading to poor judgements and major mistakes. A sad truth I have often witnessed in India is that often, third parties  become  victims of someone else’s carelessness in the decision making process!

• Poor assessment of one's own abilities...usually overestimation of one's capacities coupled with unrealistic optimism  are two other causes of judgement errors I have seen in many people.

• Inability to learn from past failures is a frequently observed cause of poor judgement. There is often no learning from mistakes; they make the same mistakes again. Many people cannot or will not change.

• Some people with poor judgement   do not take responsibility for their failure but often attribute failure to bad luck such as Shani Kaala or suspect their enemies have put a curse on them or done black magic on them and so they failed.  Many people would rather consult an astrologer, a priest or a palmist rather than science and professionals in the field to make major decisions. Belief in the supernatural than science to make major decisions is a major factor influencing judgements and decisions in India.  Success is attributed to Gods and failure of the project is attributed bad luck; in case of failure, the remedy is appeasing the Gods and not trying to find out what went wrong with the planning.

 

• People often embark on projects with limited resources; they don’t have extra resources to buffer them if plans go awry. Ergo, there’s no leeway if things go wrong; Instead of buffers, people seem to rely on Gods & wishful thinking...that God will protect them; they are adamant in their  refusal to consider things may go wrong.
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• People tend to deny unpalatable realities when in the thrall of positive emotions during decision making. Undue Optimism helps people avoid facing reality and is a factor in poor judgement. Hope, Love or passion about a project are positive emotions which interfere with rational thinking and good judgement.

• Two other factors of poor judgement are Rigid thinking and refusal to change ..a few people are proud of their rigidity and boast , how they will never change, come-what-may!

• Failure to correctly analyze the cause of failure and fixing it is another cause of repeated poor judgements. As I said before people do not analyze cause of failure due to their impatience, refusal to learn or refusal to change,  due to attribution of the failure to  illogical things such as bad luck. There are many ways analysis of cause of failure of project can go …the wrong way.

 

• People who make poor judgements are often those who do not experience appropriate emotions such as sadness when they fail. For example, a man who attributes the failure of his project to ‘things din’t go well’ and not to ‘his own poor planning’ will not feel bad or try to change. These people continue making poor decisions, causing loss, yet feeling no remorse. They simply move on and expect that the mess will be taken care of. They don’t want to fix what they messed up but want to simply move on to their next project.

• Greed and the intense desire to get rich and sometimes the desire to out-do relatives and friends can lead people to lose their judgement and make illogical plans which fail.

I cannot fully understand or explain, why I see poor judgement among so called 'educated, intelligent, Indians in India ;  I don't see similar poor judgement among Indians living in in the west; I don't see such poor judgement among Americans or Canadians  with similar levels of intelligence and education. Why is this poor judgement seen only in 'educated, urban, intelligent' Indians of India?
The factors contributing to poor judgement to Indians is :
a.Belief in God and attributing many things to God and not taking personal responsibility;
b.The belief in superstitions and attributing causes and effects to superstitions and not to the proper source of cause/effect;
 c.Low quality of education which contributes to lack of common sense and inability to think, analyze, deduct, etc.
d. Knowing what is the right thing to do, yet for inexplicable reasons, making the wrong choice.  For example, the person knows he better go to a doctor, yet, he will go to a temple or a relative who had similar symptoms. In the given example, Do Indians make wrong choices to please others, or do they lack trust in professionals as they have been let down by unscrupulous or poorly qualified professionals in the past? I know that many professionals such as doctors and engineers are worthless and so it is understandable, if people would rather trust a layperson, than a professional!
e. Low self-esteem and self-confidence is a national malaise of not just India but maybe all Asian countries(in my humble opinion!) This low sense of self may also contribute to poor judgement.
f.Many Indians don't have access to information freely like in the developed countries and so they make poor judgements.

• In my next article, I will be talking about people who are victims of the poor judgement of others under whose control they have to live. I would be talking about the limited choices people have and how, it seems to them that no matter what they do, they are screwed and so what's the point in wasting time to think deeply before making a decision? I would also be talking about the people who seem to be making poor judgements but who are in fact doing what is right and not what will lead to success. I would be talking about people who fail even after  doing 'all that is right' ...due to factors unique to India...such as absence of  qualified professionals with integrity, the wide spread prevalence of corruption  and the interference run by criminal elements which render all efforts to make good judgements useless.
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WHY DEVELOPED COUNTRIES IN THE WEST SHOULD STOP THE CARTOONS

...by drawing these cartoons, you are no doubt exercising your rights and freedom of expression which is a good thing. But today, people of all religions, societies and cultures are, unfortunately,  not on the same page in  their understanding of the motive behind  the drawings or the spirit in which it’s done.

The cartoons are leading to a lot of violence across the world and affecting the law and order situation. Innocent Christians and other non-muslims who had nothing to do with the cartoon publications are being killed in places which are no way connected to cartoons published in Paris.

One has to understand the differences between the mentality of people of developed countries and people of the countries where the people are reacting with violence to the cartoons. I expect the people in the developed countries like France to understand the people in the countries where the violence is prevailing; I have little or no expectations from the people of say Niger and Pakistan(and India and several other countries which are underdeveloped) about understanding the harmlessness of the cartoons.

To understand why I expect people in France to stop the publications, read the table below(I got the stuff from internet such as Wikipedia and other pages)

FRANCE	DENMARK	NIGER	PAKISTAN
Average literacy 99%	99%	28.7%	55%
Average IQ          98	98	69	84
Average income per month  is        3241.00$	3826.00$ per month	Less than 300.00US$ per year	255.00$ per month

Niger is a developing country, and is consistently one of the lowest-ranked in the United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI); it was ranked last at 187th for 2013.

With this sort of a low average IQ, majority of the people in the under developed countries would have concrete thinking and not abstract thinking like the people with higher IQs, higher levels of literacy & greater exposure to a range of learning experiences.

For people to enjoy the cartoons and not take offence, to get the humor without suspecting that the Prophet is being ridiculed, it is vital that they have the following:

1.Abstract thinking and ability to see humour

2.To have grown up from childhood in a liberal culture  

3.To believe that God will not take offense if you draw cartoons of him(Not worry about Blasphemy)

4.To have all basic needs met i.e. one is not hungry, has a roof over one's head,  job, clothes, sense of safety, security about the future, good health, affordable & accessible health care, etc.

However the people in underdeveloped countries have none of the above.
The people who are reacting violently to the cartoons are from severely deprived backgrounds: they have very concrete thinking due to poor IQ, deprivation where learning is concerned,  punitive parents and teachers who governed them with violence since childhood and they grew believing that violence is the right way to express(instead of debates and discussions). They live in poverty and such miserable conditions that they literally have “nothing to lose”.  They have little or no food, clothes, little or no security in terms of jobs, food, shelter, safety, respect, etc. The people cannot bank on their governments to protect or provide for them adequately as the governments are either corrupt or inept .

The one single thing which keeps them going is their faith in God and when cartoons are made of their God, they are unable to see the benign humor behind the cartoons. They probably think the people in the west i.e. developed countries are mocking them and looking down on them and their Gods. They are used to the disrespect meted out to them by people in their day to day life. But when they see or hear of cartoons about their God, it is like, the west is disrespecting the one positive thing in their poverty stricken lives, God. And they react with fury by lashing out at the innocent people they can get their hands on, their poor Christina neighbors.

 

By defying the killing of the journalists by drawing more cartoons, the French are making a point about their refusal to be cowed down. But they also ought to think about the fact that you cannot change people’s thinking by doing the same thing over and over again. It is necessary to change the factors in the lives of these people who are reacting violently …..if these people (in Niger and Pakistan and all the countries) reacting violently to the cartoons had food, clothing, shelter, jobs, security, self-esteem, self-respect, education, a safe and fruitful future for their kids,  they would NOT  be reacting to the cartoons.

They would not indulge in violence as they would have so much to lose, if the violence damaged them. With the poverty they are living in now, they have really nothing to lose. They vent their pent up anger about their miserable lives by blindly burning the churches around them and attacking anyone they can.

Cartoons of Gods make sense  in the context of a literate, intelligent, well fed, secure society ; cartoons in the context of poor struggling societies is nothing but the mean act of rubbing salt into wounds.

I am Charlie... My two cents.

News from most western countries talk of the anger against the killing of the cartoonists in Paris; the news from some eastern countries talk of the anger of the people, mostly Muslims, against the cartoons. The world is once again divided in it’s views of the events and this reflects the disparate value systems in different parts of the world.

Until the people from all religions & cultures i.e. the  ‘entire’ world are on the same page, i.e. share a uniform value system, these types of attacks will continue.

I am against the killings in Paris and the attacks on civilians by terrorists. But I also want the people in the west to understand the reasons why some religious people are so provoked by ‘Blasphemy’. Here is my take based on my experiences of how religion affects people’s behaviour and thinking. As mentioned elsewhere, I grew up in India and I have spent about 35 years in India after which I moved to Canada. I have been in Canada for the last 11 years and have been exposed to the western thinking and lifestyle.

In India, which is a mostly Hindu populated country, religion impacts all aspects of life. Most people have a space for God’s idols and photos at home where they pray or worship, daily. The length of worship and intensity would vary with the individual’s beliefs but you will find at least one image of God even in the houses of non-believers! Many Hindus pray to the cow and do not eat beef; pray to the peepul tree, the banyan tree and would not cut down these trees even if they are interfering with their houses as they don’t want the wrath of Gods on their heads. You will never see a Hindu step on a book or sit on a book or stand on books to reach something high up. Books represent Saraswati, the goddess of learning and your studies are doomed if you show disrespect to Saraswati by standing on books!

People check with astrologers before buying a house or lot of land; they would find an ‘auspicious’ day to get married or have a house warming ceremony and if possible even to start the first day of work! People literally ‘worship’ the Gods and fear the Gods. People are in such a dilemma when they want to get rid of a broken image of God, when they want to get rid of last year’s calendar which had a photo of God on it! They don’t want to keep it as a broken idol is inauspicious and they don’t want to throw it as the Gods may be furious! I know people who go and quietly dump their Gods (broken idols and prints of Gods) in temples. They would never ever dispose it in the regular garbage.

This sounds off topic but it will connect …..There are hardly any public toilets in many Indian towns and cities. So men (not women…the poor women hold it until they reach home) pee into gutters or against compound walls whenever they get the urge to pee. The piss leaves a stink which the person inside the house or the building has to suffer. So many people(at least in Bangalore) have started painting images of Gods on their compound walls as the men will not dare pee on a God! Some have even put up ceramic tiles with images of various Gods on them on their walls to avoid this nuisance!

You will never hear anyone cursing Gods. It is extremely rare or it never happens that a Hindu would curse Gods. A few atheists/teens may do it to ‘show off’ but they are few and rare. (I have cursed but sent up an apology prayer, later, ‘just in case’, HE heard me cursing!)

The Hindus I am talking of are not religious zealots, They are the ordinary people you see all over India. They are of all levels of literacy. You will see this strong belief in Gods, acceptance of some superstitions & belief in astrology in 90% of  Hindus including highly educated Hindus such as doctors, scientists, professors, engineers, computer professionals, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, philosophers, artists, writers, journalists, etc; These people are living enigmas.

Because they have unique brains in which belief in science, reason & logic happily co-exist with belief in Gods, religious beliefs, astrology, Vastu, superstitions, etc! To give an example, I know a medical doctor who had a c section on an auspicious day so her child is born under a ‘good star’!

I am not going to write about Muslims in India and their beliefs as I know only a handful of them and I don’t want to make comments based on a tiny sample. I can say that they are as religious as the Hindus and hold on to their religious beliefs as strongly as the Hindus in India do.

Currently in the west, religion seems to be losing it’s hold.  In the west (USA, Canada, many parts of Europe & Australia) the people are not invested in religion to the extent that people in the east are. (This may be the major difference which explains why the west can casually make jokes about God and it’s ‘no big deal’ but the east becomes so highly offended by jokes about God/religion)

  I have observed that one or two churches in Toronto are going to close and be converted into condos; However in India, I have not seen any temple shutting down. In fact, more temples are being built today in India and in any countries where Hindus are. Another indication that people seem to be less religious now in the west is that many people have stopped going to churches; attendance at churches is very low and most people without children that I know of, say they don’t go to church and people with young children try to attend church at Christmas time at least.  However, in India, there seems to be an increase in religious fervour…at least it appears so by the increase in donations to temples, number of people visiting temples and the number of people participating in religious festivals.

Lots of Hindus/Indians have protested when they see ‘disrespect’ to their Gods in public places or media. I have not heard of killings but we Hindus are pretty vocal in our protest and do not stop until the “disrespect” to the Gods has stopped and an apology has been made. I remember reading about Hindus protesting when some fashion designer put an image of a Hindu God on a dress. There was rioting when a famous Indian (M.F.Hussain) painter displayed his paintings of Hindu Gods and Goddesses in the nude. He had to flee India and seek asylum in a Gulf country. He loved India but he had to flee for his life.  You will never ever see a panty, shoes or slippers with a Hindu God’s image on it as it’s considered insulting to the Gods.

Why are we Hindus so sensitive about disrespect shown to our Gods? Based on my experience and knowledge, I have given below, the reasons why Hindus are sensitive about disrespect to their Gods.

(1)From childhood, we have been so deeply inculcated with respect, fear, devotion to Gods that it becomes a part of us and will never get erased. Very few atheists emerge from Hindu households. (even now if I stand on the telephone directory to reach an out-of-reach box, I silently apologize to Saraswati, so that I don’t flunk in any upcoming exam!)

(2)There is lot anger against the foreign invaders who invaded India and both destroyed & looted temples. Both  Christian invaders from Europe and Muslim invaders from Asia are against idol worship according to their religions. Both of them destroyed the idols which are very sacred to Hindus. Even I felt sad and a bit angry when I saw the wanton damage done to the intricately carved temples built several hundred years ago. The carvings are beautiful and labours of love and devotion. I was thinking, “Okay. You don’t believe in idol-worship, fine. But how could you destroy something so beautiful and something which many workers took years and years to carve? Does your heart not feel bad to break with an axe, what someone has taken so much pains to do? Does your religion ask you to hate beauty?”

(3)Lots of Hindus/Indians share the belief that they have been exploited by foreign invaders. Reading the history of India, maybe some negative emotions are  rekindled in the new generations against invaders. Wealth form India was looted; temples destroyed, people forced to convert to alien religions; those who resisted were killed; several atrocities happened by invaders and now Hindus/Indians continue to hold the anger and this leads to irrational behaviours today…long after these things happened. So anyone making fun of Hindu Gods, etc is going to get an ‘over-reaction’, because of these painful memories or vengeful attitude or a hyper vigilant attitude, based on previous experience where the Hindus got burnt.

(4) The people who react the most or most violently to real or imagined slights to their Gods or religion are:  

(a)the most religious and most easily offended 

(b) not really religious but unemployed  youth who are looking to cause mischief and loot during the riot. 

(c)rowdies in the hire of politicians and local goons who want any excuse to create mayhem and exploit the situation (most riots in India are instigated and maintained by crooked politicians, would be politicians who are hand in glove with the criminal elements). These people have no great belief in religion but create this riot to loot shots, or cause problems to the ruling government 

(d) there is a low-level but nevertheless, ongoing, never ending anger/hate/distrust between different communities and religions in India. So there are periodic flareups between the different communities due to real or imagined insults to the respective religions/gods. 

(e) I think one of the biggest reasons for riots about insults to religion or Gods happens in India because of the egos of the people involved.  Assuming that God/Gods/Goddesses(G) exist, I am sure G would not feel insulted if people said or did something to G’s image or cursed G. I cannot believe G would get so angry with someone he created if that person said or did something insulting G. It would as unreasonable as a mother punishing her baby for peeing on her! Several stories in Hindu mythology depict the forgiving nature of the Gods and their soft corners for sinners. There is Krishna who forgave 100 mistakes of Sishupala; Shiva calming down and forgiving various demons and sinners, the rishis forgiving, etc (there are stories of God’s wrath too but that is a different story)


Though the Hindu Gods are forgiving, the Hindus themselves, can become pretty shirty when they think their religion has been insulted! I think this is because the offended Hindus probably have very fragile egos, which are easily hurt. Why are their egos so easily hurt? Why are they not tolerant? Is it due to low self-esteem issues? Do they compensate for the sense of inferiority they have by reacting aggressively and being intolerant to real or imagined slights? Do they feel superior when they accuse someone of insulting them and then getting an apology from the person? Do we lack maturity and don’t have the capacity to tolerate when someone pokes fun at our religion? Are we afraid of being perceived as weak if we tolerate others making fun of our religion? Do we want to take revenge on what happened to Hindus hundreds of years ago..now?

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The Paris tragedy makes me realize that Perception (of things, attitudes towards various things like God, religion, human life, what is sacred and what is not) varies from culture to culture.  

Freedom of speech is considered as very important in the west; Human Life is sacred and important in the west. But in many cultures, God and respect to God is considered as more valuable than human life. In India, who knows, there may be people who consider a cow’s life more valuable than a human being’s! As I said before, Perception varies.

This bloodshed will stop when people across the world share the same values and ethics system. Until then, each faction will fight for what the faction thinks is valuable; the factions will continue to disregard what is ‘unimportant’; And God forbid, if they disregard what some other (short-tempered) faction considers as important!

Living in India, I came across some people for whom God was the most important thing in their life. My grandmother for example was deeply religious. She was either paranoid or had lost trust in most/all human beings due to a series of bitter experiences in her life. The one unshakable trust she had was in God. She spoke to him daily, she prayed twice a day for an hour at a time and her belief gave her tremendous mental and physical strength. She is one of the most strong-willed persons I know. I believe her strength came from her belief in God.

Similarly, I have met or read or heard about many people who are either ordinary people with immense faith in God or are monks, saints, sanyasis, heads of mutts, gurus, etc. These people’s lives are dedicated to the pursuit of spirituality. They are not involved in the pursuits of most other people such as career, marriage, kids, property, vacations, etc. They are dedicated in the pursuit of Moksha. None of these people would kill if people insulted their Gods but they would definitely be hurt. Most or all would be mature enough to tolerate or forgive your insulting God or try to talk to you to convince you to change your ways (i.e. make you stop insulting God). They may have a philosophical debate with you to prove to you the existence of God.

First of all, I don’t think, I would make fun of religion or Gods, ‘to their faces’ as it would make me look like an immature fool trying to provoke them. Secondly, if I did have the nerve to do it, I would, probably stop very soon, feeling embarrassed. I might continue, only if I could develop a thick-skin like the Borat guy!

What I am trying to say here is that, for an atheist, for someone not too invested in religion, the cartoons about God will not have any impact at all. It is something they are not provoked about as they are not invested in it. However, for a deeply religious person, the cartoons are  hurtful because you perceive them as ‘mocking’.

In the west, making fun of subjects such as handicapped people, jokes about rape and say, pedophilia are considered hurtful and in poor taste. When someone is stupid enough to make a joke, people are disgusted and don’t laugh. Jokes about religion and Gods, though not hurtful to ‘God’, definitely hurt people who are deeply invested in religion.  

The religious and the not religious have to work out a system so that they are on the same page or at least learn to co-exist on the same planet...until we could find separate planets for each religion!