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Did You Ever Love Me? Book Review: Can Rithvik singh turn heartbreak into a homecoming?

Did You Ever Love Me? by Rithvik Singh is a tender contemporary poetry collection about love, heartbreak, longing, self worth and learning to let go. Its greatest strength is emotional accessibility: Singh writes directly to readers who feel intensely and care deeply. The collection offers comfort without pretending heartbreak is simple, though its simplicity may occasionally feel familiar to seasoned poetry readers. Did you Ever Love Me? Have you ever loved someone so completely that, after they left, you were left wondering whether they had ever understood what they had been given? Not merely whether they loved you, but whether they ever noticed how much you loved them, how much patience you offered, how many small things you remembered, or how often you chose to stay when leaving might have been easier. There is a particular loneliness in that question because it rarely arrives at a dramatic moment. More often, it finds you while you are doing something completely ordinary. Yo...

Inner party democracy, anyone?

Hi all,

We always pride ourselves with the fact that we are the world's largest democracy. Every five years when we go out to vote, we leave the rest of the world in awe. We make them wonder how such a staggering exercise is being conducted without major hiccups. The statistics alone is sufficient to rattle any planner and put him/her out of sleep for days.

For all the chest beating that we indulge in, there is a darker side to our democracy that we usually don't visit that often and would certainly like to keep it under the wraps from prying outsiders' eyes. Probably you would have guessed what I am talking about right now.

Inner party democracy has not been on the agenda of many political parties for a long time. They, conveniently, forget the fact that charity starts at home and that being propagators of democracy also means that they themselves have to practice it both in letter and in spirit first. Most of the political parties today somehow give inner democracy a miss. Dynastic politics seems to be the order of the day. If not that then it is a single strong man whose whims and fancies decide who and how the party is run.

Is this what democracy is all about? We all know it wasn't meant to be this way. Why are our political parties behaving in a manner that can be best described as being devoid of democracy? And whose responsibility is it to put the house under order? Where do we draw the line between democracy and indiscipline? Should academic exercises like writing a book come under the purview of a party's ideology?

p.s. I didn't want to get into the gory details of dynastic politics and strong men who control their parties with an iron grip...we all know it too well don't we...:)

Comments

Karthik said…
Indian democracy has almost become synonymous to Feudalism..
Unknown said…
@karthik...hmmm...thats a little harsh though..
BK Chowla, said…
Sure,what you have said is true.If this topic comes up for public debate in a TV studio,the explainationis that in democracy,it is the people who decide and they have decided on a particular party/family.
More than 60% of people do not vote for whatever reasons(this subject can discussed seperatly)Except for CPI,there is no other party which is not indulging in dynastic politics.This situation,including inner party democracy,can change only if well meaning younger generation come in the front line to bring about a change...or else we will face the worst situation in the world.
Varada said…
nothing is perfect we are here to make it better.
Unknown said…
@chowla...the younger would not mind considering politics provided they have enough family support...

@varada...hmmm...we cant be critical like this all the time...there has to be some time when we say ...'hey it looks like we have optimised the system..'

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