Tuesday, June 1, 2010

bRIEF

His degree years at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, a premier institution of learning and then his graduate years at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh gave him his initial foray in writing, writing of technical reports creatively, His creative abilities in architecture design gave him a knack of creating a scenario involving all kinds of people and weaving a web of stories around them. It is quite fulfilling for him to create an interesting way of narration. He has spent years of such creative design experience in the United States of America and now, it was time to share his thoughts and storytelling prowess to the world.

His father, Shrichandra Agnihotri, was an established fiction writer and had several published Hindi novels to his credit. Few of them are Haveli Ki EEntein, Dhuan aur Lapten, Naee Bisaat, Dharti Ki Karvat, etc.and he inculcated in the author the love for reading, writing and storytelling. So with such a gift from the father Uday Agnihotri carried the torch forward and developed his style to write in American English.

For Uday Agnihotri it is so satisfying thing to work – at a story, at characters, to create a place and tone – and pull a novel into life. Putting the pieces together, little by little, working at it, cutting, pasting, rewriting, this is part of the sense of achievement he feels when he types that last full stop! As for inspiration, almost always it’s location that comes first, a very specific backdrop – say, California, Pittsburgh, Iran, India and numerous countries where he traveled, like Greece, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Nepal and London, England. Once the places are secure in his mind and a plot to go with them, then it’s simply a question of putting the actors, the characters rather, on the stage set!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

China's Contention: Split India

Uday Agnihotri
I could never like China for what they stand for and for the global ambitions. They are slimy nation. Their game plan is to weaken India, so they have their croni, a terrorist state, Pakistan like a monkey on our back needling us endlessly. Of course our political bosses are great shit scared guys who will never stand up against any such threats. We don't even have to deal with it overtly. But the least it demands is covert action with our RAW. We have Nepal and Bangla Desh as unfriendly countries. The real cop out situation I see with Bangla Desh which was our own creation and we couldn't keep it in our basket. Oh, what a shame! Wake up PM, wake up! Take the bull by the horn and get going with tough decisions.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Ashoka: A Misconception for India to be Global Power

Ashoka has been coined as the ‘Great’. Was he really Great? He wasn’t so great after all for what he did to the then India, and of course current India, and the Indian psyche as far as the safety, security, military and people’s view on ‘peace’ and ‘forgiveness’ to the enemy is concerned. What we lost in Ashoka’s quest for antiwar mindset after his Kalinga war, was a total disbanding of military and propagating peace and anti war culture. His furious Buddhist forays within India and around India made him a Great leader but created a citizenry of coward ‘peaceniks’ who believed in less and less of military thereby losing marshal and military skills and strategies. Consequently after Ashoka, India was broken up into small principalities and eventually we had Prithviraj Chowhan and Mohammad Gauri fiasco. We lost India’s might and independence for ever.Now, we must learn a lesson from our past and get rid of this ‘peace’ cloak. Our scripture Gita says that peace can only be for those who can defend it with their might. This might as we call it has to be built over time with a lot of people investment and financial investment. We must prepare our intelligence skills for covert operations and military, i.e., army, navy and air force, for overt operation and we must not shy awat from taking proper action at the right time. We must not waste time in waiting for results by offering ‘peace’ carrot instead of teaching a lesson with mighty ‘stick’ to bend the trouble makers and terrorism sponsoring nations to co-opt for peace themselves. This mighty stick should have a built-in big covert operation that could destabilize the enemy in their plans to use terror as the state policy. For that we need a real gung-ho set of intelligence operatives and funds. Also, we need to use cooperation of like minded highly skilled intelligence forces like Savak or Mosad or CIA.We have to take on twenty first century problems head on and fight fire with fire. Let’s not get our down and keep losing our pride, men, peace and, of course, the land in our attempt to be termed as ‘good peaceful guys’ in the comity of nations. Every one of these nations laughs at us for our cowardice. The only time we got our heads high when Indira Gandhi had the first nuclear test and then when covertly we repeated again with umpteen tests that were even more powerful and mightier that the previous one. Our first Prime Minister Mr. Nehru died as a result of shock of defeat from our Panchsheel Friend and Brother China! So much for peace!Wake up and pull up your socks. Tell your government to prepare India to become a Global Power. Use your voting power to impress upon this theme. Also, influence your media, both print and electronic, to start the theme of mighty and powerful India devoid of poverty and controlled population growth and to be economically and militarily strong Global Power. We can align with other nations to tackle both China and its menacing partner Pakistan!!So, friends and Indians! Let’s get rid of this folly of useless syndrome of peace and cowardice of Ashoka. We got to come out of ‘Ashoka the Great’ mindset!

Chanakya Neeti

We have had spate of PMs and political leaders who have been naïve to the extent they couldn’t see our own national interests. Some of them especially the ones belonging to erstwhile Punjab part of Pakistan now, are bleeding hearts when the name Pakistan Punjab is evoked. They will go for dialogues, friendships, Samjhauta Express and becoming gullible to whatever trash Pakistan dishes out. Do these politicians take the citizens for granted, I think they do. It shows from the voting patterns? Even BJP that claims to be super nationalist had good old Atal Bihari Vaajpai eating out of hands of Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf and selling our friendship for free. What do they think they are up to? Don’t they learn from past experience with Pakistan and China? These two countries are untrustworthy snakes and have to be handled with utmost care and caution.
China is buttressing its military might to become world super power and and conducting war games that equal USA. They have a menacing partner Pakistan. They both in duplicity have set up a game to annihilate India’s ambition of becoming any Global Power or economic power. They want to have us under their paw as a pawn. Chanakya wisdom says to get help from such people who have vested interest to take on these two countries as a result of their own self interest. Of course, I am referring to USA and Israel.
Now we have a juicy item on our platter in that we have the Baloch desire to get rid of Pak subjugation. We should get into the frey covertly and help the beleaguered Baloch to attain their goals ilke we did to make Bangla Desh. Afganistan could help us in this direction and we might be able to muster help from Iran as well. Awake ye Indian leadership and MEA, we need you to deliver goods and take some proactive measures to make India strong!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

It was the summer of 1987, as hot as it could get. It was only May and the temperatures were soaring in Sacramento. I had taken a decision to move to India and set up an IT university in Dehradun. I also had convinced one of my IT friends from San Jose, rather the Silicon Valley to move back and help me set up this venture. In spite of the heat, I made it to the airport along with my family and a friend, Mark.

There were some anxious moments for me waiting at the Sacramento airport. Waiting always made me a little on the edge. Not that the airport lacked in any of its conveniences or I had some thing against this airport or any thing of that sort. But a wait was like killing time that was a total waste of time in one’s life in my opinion. The airport had a nice small coffee bar, a drink bar and a snack bar. It even had a small restaurant. No one had to climb up and down a bus in order to board a plane. It had the boarding gates with leading tunnel sort of flexible and moveable corridors up to the entry door of the plane. One could carry the wheeled carryon without having to undo the wheel gismo. So it was nice and small family oriented airport. I kind of liked it, my hometown airport!

My baggage was already checked in. Only my carry-on pieces were at the chair next to my son. He was playing with his electronic toys and muttering exclamations of attack, run, ka-pow and bang-bang. That was my future – a dark horse – in the race of life. Will he come out ahead in this race, a winner? I had certain confidence in this notion. If I could do it, he could do it. Life was full of paradoxes and of sublime joys and surprises. When you expected some thing the least it popped, it came through, it was all there to your surprise. So I knew against all odds, whatever those odds might be, he would be able to shine, he would be able to spring that surprise, I had hope or at least I desired that way.

My friend Mark had come to the airport to bid us farewell. He was sad. I could see his eyes wet. The picture of his wet eyes told me thousand words in one go. He didn’t want me to leave the US and go. But I was as stubborn as a mule. Once I made up my mind no one could detract me from my decision, it could be good or bad. I always stood by my words and did what I felt I got to do. I got burnt as a result. But I faced the consequences with brave resolve. I had grit and perseverance.

I looked out of the huge glass expanse at the side of the concourse and saw the planes taxiing, taking off and landing. It brought back the memories of yesteryears of my life, way back when I, the dark horse, had won the race beyond all expectations and flown off to Tehran on my maiden voyage from my native hometown of New Delhi. I was younger and full of zeal. The memories were vivid, they flashed before my eyes as if they happened just yesterday and their charm lingered on.

I couldn’t yet think of whether my next move was to be delightfully pleasant or would it have the murkiness of my native ethos as usual. My little son had no inkling of what was in store for him, my friend was opposed to my leaving the US and my wife, well that was another wild tale. These were the moments of great reflections that probably I couldn’t do at this point in time. I had discussed the pros and cons at length with my friend, wife and pondered over it incessantly and I still couldn’t think of any problems against my decision.