Here are a few choice ones for you:

“The Guru says he has more units of energy than Jesus” (this is secret so don’t tell anybody).

I have personally witnessed the Guru telling an audience at his Ashram during satsang that “he has no ego” and then dancing and flirting outrageously on stage to the cymbals in front of his adoring fans.

The man is a classy con man. I should know: I watch thousand of dollars of my hard earned cash flooding out of my business every year. He is clever because he does actually make sure he does do some good things. I have no doubt that the Kriya helps people. It helps my Partner cope with stress. But then so does a good walk or a swim.

I visited the Bangalore Ashram curious to discover what sort of man could fool so many intelligent and educated women with university educations who supposedly are able to employ rational analysis. Whilst I was there I saw the little shanty village at the bottom of the hill and no sign, apart from the waiting taxis, that they had benefited from his bounty. One myth that you heard there was that the great man slept on a floor in his little cottage. I later discovered a rather less publicised fact: that he owns a delightful villa not too far away with a waterfall. Naturally, that is a place only those closer to him come to.

As he sucks in my Partner and I watch on helplessly as the business accounts start to be plundered, I wonder if anyone can help me. It’s all getting a bit desperate.

Thanks for reading this.

Polly.

The Mikka-Rakhi kiss brawl finally had a happy ending. Rakhi threw some tantrums but finally the defining moment did come. Rakhi’s mom kissed Mikka and Rakhi on the forehead as mikka sang for someone whom he had forcefully kissed at his birthday bash. It was all so well staged on a TV Show Jeena isis kaa naam hai in which Mikka makes a surprise entry. I just couldn’t help applauding the two for their brilliant performance for almost one year.

One just could not forget those endless fights broadcast live by almost all Hindi News Channels. Only NDTV India was the exception. Perhaps credibility comes way behind instant eye balls for most of the 24 hours news channels. One just couldn’t help remembering that ‘honest’ attempt by India TV in which the anchor tried to broker peace live on the channel.

The question as to should the media be covering the kiss brawl, the way it was done was hotly debated after the incident. And this was precisely what the editors took to defend themselves. “We are talking about it, it means it has caught the public imagination” was the argument thrown. Also there were many saying it was a question of a women’s dignity, how could Mikka force himself on poor Rakhi?
So what was this all about?

Mikka needed publicity, Rakhi needed something to boost her career, the media needed the TRPs and all three combined together to fool the person who stopped to listen to them. You can’t blame Mikka and Rakhi, they are entertainers. Rakhi playing stunts like this one is ok but what about the media?

The media plays a very important role in shaping the nation’s destiny. It’s not that good work in not being done but a collective madness towards TRPs is something very scary. The discerning viewer will see through such attempts. The Shilpa-Gere lock has also shown that protest organized to get your face on television will not be sustained for more than 10 minutes. The protests organized in Bhopal started exactly when the TV cameras came and within five minutes it was all over.

Media should act as a public vigilance; it cannot be reckless or offensive. Hostile reporting, Invasion and judgments should be avoided, media has to inform and educate, and sometimes we see them overstepping the boundaries.

Some mechanism should be decided as it sustains democracy.

By playing into the hands of publicity hunters like Mikka, Rakhi, Shilpa and Jhanvi the media will do no good for itself and the society. Don’t treat the viewer as a fool. He will stop believing in you. Finally Jhanvi would not have gone to Pratiksha the day after Abhishek married Aishvarya had the TV cameras desisted from accompanying her.
letzchangedrulz-miracles.blogspot.com

You cannot blame an entire nation for that.
After all India did manage to produce you – an evolved and progressive [whiny] person.

I moved to America because I got married.

I am not saying that Americans do not practice double standards or racism which here works a little differently from casteism. But the level to which issues filter down here are far different from those in India. It is so easy to rub the culture and the moral police in India and disrupt everything. This is how progress gets derailed and Indians are economically impoverished because they don’t spend time on activism for real causes such as education, but waste their time on silly stuff like this. There is no critical mass in India to sustain reform.As someone who would like to see India to be as economically progressed as America, a lot of things disturb me. Corruption,lack of education, poverty, bad unelightened leadership, the low status of women (despite models such as Saraswati and Durga) filters down to the very common man (and woman)and makes life an unnecessary struggle. That is my issue with Indian double standards. They impede progress. Indians do not rule with their heads; they are ruffled too easily.

As far as double standards in America go, I am critical of it too, except that I am more sheltered from much of its effects. So yes, the dollar balm does help a little bit.

By alluding to the Iraq imbroglio I was highlighting the issues Americans have to be embarrassed about. Nothing more.

I think Indians have bigger problems and they will continue to have these problems forever because they have no real perspective. It’s a mobocracy – sheer bullying by numbers.

I’m glad I left. And I know I don’t miss any of those double standards.

As far as Racism against blacks i dont deny its a problem but a good deal of it is self inflicted by blacks themselves.
Even with affirmative action US blacks dont graduate from college and immigrants blacks take advantage of that.
one good eg of that is Barack Obama

Any one who is embarrassed by action of some one else is a dumbass.

And dont even try the pusillanimous attempt to link Geres puckering to iraqi invasion here dear.

p.s. i wouldn’t be too worried about “what the west thinks of us” because of kiss gate.
they have much, much , much worse things to be ashamned of in their own backyards.

We need to be careful in not getting carried away with other priorities. Sure, there are other priorities for courts but unless there are clear rules on public kissing, obscene kissing etc., there will be more of the same, including kissing in the movies etc. There is already a controversy over Aishwarya Hrithik kiss in a movie. This issue cannot be brushed inside the carpet. Otherwise, morality and norms will be dictated by thugs, corrupt administrators and self appointed moral brigade.

I decided to watch the Gere-Shetty “kissing” video on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt23lqF-nM8

I notice Gere’s appearance – unkempt and shirt sleeves hanging out, flapping a bit. By contrast, Shilpa is more suitably attired and it was she who practically pulls him on the stage in an attempt to get the job done.

In terms of the kissing sequence of actions, Gere starts by grabbing and kissing the back of her hand. Even this lingers for a while and clearly interrupts Shilpa’s speech at the mike. Gere follows this manouevre by turning his back squarely on the audience, grabbing her upper arms and kissing both cheeks. At this point, Shilpa appears to me a bit taken aback; I thought she rolls her eyes a bit, steels herself but allows him to continue, hoping perhaps it will be over soon.

Little did she know that Gere was determined to do a practical demo of safe sex knowing his responsibility as an AIDS awareness campaigner. How better to demonstrate the risks of contracting HIV than to allow someone to deposit significant quantities of strange saliva on your neck and cheek? that too at an AIDS awareness event? Perhaps realizing that he had not yet made enough of a deposit, Gere essentially gets Shilpa in a bearhug and plants several more kisses in any exposed area his puckered lips could reach. Shilpa tries to escape without making a big deal out of it. At one point she is even bent 90 degrees at the waist but to no avail.

The video catches a couple of guests, one of whom was probably Emraan Hashmi, the noted serial kisser of Bollywood – who appear to be watching indulgently initially but that soon starts to fade into sick smiles. The mad moment finally passes.

More than the actual kissing, this appears to be a case of sexual assault.

So even if you agree with the Judge in the case of Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty, you have to wonder why this law is selectively enforced.

P.S. To Soniya Gadgil-Sharma who posted a comment earlier–Get over yourself. Indian women love to kiss white guys too.

The Bush administration’s ever increasing number of fcuk ups has made the US public sick of the real news and I guess they want something stupid to lighten them up. The media will make every use of this episode

>Gere didn’t kiss an ordinary person from the audience.

How does that matter? We’re talking about the act and it’s appropriateness for the concerned audience (given their lack of exposure to such things – not from some moral standpoint).

2) I do find the issue of cultural sensitivity important. When many of us visit other countries, we take time finding about local sensitivities and act accordingly. If anything else, for a celebrity acting in front of a mass audience (and this was really mass) that responsibility is greater.

3) In case you’ve misunderstood my earlier comment, i repeat my assertion: i’d love to see some public permissiveness in current Indian society. But cultural change takes time.

Actually, let me put that in a slightly different way – getting back to a time when sex was freely discussed (Sanskrit literature offers many examples) and out of the Victorian mode of thinking will take time.

>There are entire magazines and TV channels in India devoted to the business of showing celebrities kissing.

Exactly. And they have their *targeted* audiences. But the same guy who reads a daily covering some celebrity kissing feels uncomfortable with a public display of affection. And it gets worse at lower pop. strata levels (personal experience). That’s Indian society for you. Changing it will take time.

And Gere-Shetty-type episodes are not helping. They’re just leading to a hardening of moral stance and varied signs of lunacy.

> made the country a laughing stock at best.

Like i said earlier – it’s high time we stop looking for external behavioral approvals. If this was an idiotic thing, it is so because Indians recognize, feel and say so – not because ‘the world’ feels so.

At the end of it all, it feels crazy that one guy pecking a woman should occupy so much of our time. But then, that’s India again

Sure Gere did it “spontaneously” but that’s exactly what some cultural awareness – local dos and donts – should prevent.

What are you talking about? Gere didn’t kiss an ordinary person from the audience. He kissed a celebrity. There are entire magazines and TV channels in India devoted to the business of showing celebrities kissing.

The merits of this “respecting sensitivities” apart, it was not at all an issue in this case. One silly idiot and one silly idiot have made the country a laughingstock at best.

The first is exactly what you write about – misplaced priorities.

The second is the other side of the episode – how many(most?) westerners totally lack a sense of cultural sensitiveness (Israeli tourists also come to mind). Sure Gere did it “spontaneously” but that’s exactly what some cultural awareness – local dos and donts – should prevent. The ignorance is displayed in their media reports as well.

The third is Indians constantly wanting to look good in the eyes of the West. So Gere is beyond even mild reproach (“hmmm…you know, Richard, this isn’t done here”) and Laine can do junk research and get away with it.

Personally, i’d love to see a day when couples can hold hands/kiss in India (without getting arrested!) but right now am just hoping one of those truck drivers, who Gere performed before, doesn’t take inspiration to hoist himself on some poor lady. The question is whether, as a country ,we are ready for permissiveness.

An arrest warrant was issued against Richard Gere for a peck on Shilpa Shetty’s cheek that the judge found “highly sexually erotic” after watching the video footage.
Shetty’s attitude was “co-operative” and she did not restrain herself but kept inviting Gere for the “kissing episode”, which stretched for a good while, judge Dinesh Gupta said.
Their actions had “transgressed all limits of vulgarity and have the tendency to corrupt the society”, the Jaipur additional chief judicial magistrate said.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070427/asp/nation/story_7704722.asp

But how s kissing in public a chargable offense ?
You guessed it the wonderful constitution of india? No demarcation of personal liberties is there.

There was a Fat Kutiya cop in meruth who slapped some couples in park

And i find it amusing that indians always link it to morality.

The number of indians who in US claim that us is debauched is surprisingly high, and these are the same folks who often claim
that indian schools are better at educating kids in “Maths”.
Seriously their Mati- is mari gayi.
How many fields medalists come from india?

Any culture which represses individuals cant produce any thing