LOW BROW!!
Christopher made a very sensible point, as a response to a charge of misappropriation
Don't embarass yourself any further! Christopher's point was that he wishes he was big enough to prevent people from disagreeing with his opinions; that only those supporting his beliefs have the right to free discussion.
Your point is merely what is known about you already: that you are insincere, and you have no rules.
btw, the contention of you and Chris that I, or anyone, needs to prove to EITHER OF YOU whether or not any of our contributions filtered down to MT and the SOC--before YOU will grant us the right to discuss these books, magazines, articles, etc.--is pitiful, ignorant, and pompous. Take your little peashooter down the street, fella!
This post is continued over a couple more...
I am not surprised to find such a low brow response from you. I am not surprised to find that you oppose discussing matters that have appeared in books, magazines, articles, documentaries and discussion boards, and otherwise on the public record--when the opinions being shared do not conform to your particular prejudices and conceits--while yet apparently reserving to yourself the right to praise that which is offensive to many. FREE SPEECH if you say what we tell you to say. You CAN'T be for real!!
Regardless of what you think or thought about the Vietnam war, the affair of Watergate, or the morality of star wars--your pointed suggestion that the rest of us must shut up, and submit to the arrogant authority of the likes of you and Christopher--well, that is simply asinine; and let me assure you, it makes you contemptible. When you challenge free speech and fair comment on the published record, you are putting your fist in the face of everyone who comes on these discussion boards to DISCUSS. You are another one who digs himself a hole, and finding himself over his head...resumes digging!!
http://website.lineone.net/~bajuu/
I am Calcuttan born and bred. Indeed, our family has lived in the city for as long as can be traced. I know Calcutta well, and many people who matter there, and many more who do not. I do not have Calcutta "in my blood", but the place has definitely made me what I am, warts and all. My mother tongue is Bengali, the language of Calcutta, but I speak Hindi well, which is spoken by the majority of the destitutes of Calcutta. My school and college days were spent in Calcutta, during a period when the city was passing through its darkest hours. My education was modelled on the 19th century British public school, with all its fresh air and horizons. Above all, we were told that to "write English like an Englishman" was the acme of perfection as a human being. I have, sadly, failed to achieve that state. I came to England in 1985 to do my post-graduate training in Medicine, having graduated from the Calcutta Medical College the previous year. I stayed on in England, had children and got married, in that order. My wife is Irish and a Catholic, the latter of which has some bearing on why I am writing my book, "The Mother of all Myths". I am, myself, devoutly non-religious, and have been so since the age of 15, although culturally I could be called a Hindu.
I had no interest whatsoever in Mother Teresa before I came to England. Difficult as it may be for a Westerner to comprehend, but she is not a significant entity in Calcutta; although, in the 1990s, it has become apparent to the city's middle classes that she is a mega star in the West. I had had some interest in the destitutes of Calcutta during my college days, when I dabbled in leftist politics for a while. I, however, took a keen interest in human rights issues and, especially, in the torture and molestation of women in police custody, which happens a lot in India. Never in the course of my activities did I cross paths with Mother Teresa's organisation -- indeed, I cannot ever recall her name being uttered. After I came to the West, I (slowly) realised what Mother Teresa and Calcutta meant to the world. It shocked and saddened me.
In India itself, to say you come from Calcutta is considered trendy, as Calcuttans are considered, wrongly, "brainy and dangerous". The Bombayite Gokhale is still widely quoted, "What Calcutta thinks today, that India thinks tomorrow". In India, Calcutta is - not entirely wrongly - stereotyped as a seat of effete culture and anarchic politics. There is an Indian saying that goes thus:
"If you have one Calcuttan you have a poet; with two you have a political party, and with three you have two political parties."
The Calcutta stereotype in the West did not irk me as much as did the conviction that Mother Teresa had chosen to live there as its saviour. I was astonished that Mother Teresa has become a figure of speech, and that her name is invoked to qualify the extreme superlative of a positive kind; you can criticise God, but you cannot criticise Mother Teresa -- in common parlance, doing the unthinkable is qualified as "like criticising Mother Teresa". The number of times I have heard expressions such as "So and so would try the patience of Mother Teresa", I have lost count. Such expressions would cause amazement and curiosity in Calcutta, even amongst Mother Teresa's most ardent admirers. Why I decided to do "something about it" I cannot easily tell. As a person I am flawed enough to understand lies and deceit. Why certain people, themselves no pillars of rectitude, decide to make a stand against untruth and injustice is a very complex issue. Also, my wife, brought up in Ireland on Teresa mythology, felt angry and cheated when she went to Calcutta and saw how the reality compared with the fairy tale; she has encouraged me in my endeavours.
In February 1994, I rang, without any introduction, Vanya Del Borgo at the television production company Bandung Productions. She listened to my anguished outpourings and, to cut a long story short, eventually Channel 4 decided to undertake Hell's Angel (shown on Channel 4 television in November 1994), the very first attempt to challenge the Teresa myth. It was Ms Del Borgo who chose Christopher Hitchens as the presenter, knowing him as she did from their days together at The Nation in the United States. I am not happy with how Hell's Angel turned out, especially its slanderous and sensationalist approach. I have dissociated myself from the film, although it does acknowledge me with a "special thanks". Ever since the film, Mr Hitchens has extracted from the saga the last drop of publicity that he could manage. I thoroughly disapprove of his pathetic broadsides, such as calling Mother Teresa a "presumed virgin". He has done the greatest damage to attempts to let the truth about Teresa be known. Perhaps the main reason why I want to tell this story is because, I believe, each of us has a duty to stand up and protest when history is in danger of being distorted. In a few years' time Mother Teresa will be up there, glittering in the same galaxy as Mozart and Leonardo. Maybe in the distant future the truth will be examined, but then she would not be there to reply to her detractors. On a superficial level, I need to tell the truth about Teresa because I feel humiliated to be associated with a place that is wrongly imagined to exist on Western charity. I would disapprove of my book or the letter published on this site as being called "controversial", as I wish to present the facts as they are, and it is for the reader to form his or her own opinion. I know I cannot change "history" as pre-ordained by the powerful world media, but I can attempt to put a footnote therein.
(this post continued) |
