India Coffee House

[Joe Shearer]

Thx bro..... you didn't sugar coat and cut right to the chase....prompting shocked expression from Joe

Half the reason, @Vaggos, why I was shocked at your post.

 

[Joe Shearer]

This explains so many parallels in psyche I see in our case in India too....

....and, @Vaggos, the other half of the reason why I was shocked. The shock of recognition.

 

[Nilgiri]

Half the reason, @Vaggos, why I was shocked at your post.

Greeks have always fascinated me deeply.... right from my boyhood....

My dad's favourite movie was "Guns of Navarone"....and he was veritable Hellenophile in so many ways....he would pause the movie at certain spots and tell me about Greece a whole bunch in deeper way (the ancient warriors, wars, philosophers, Alexander and so on)....

....and how that really underlies (though I would not really get this till lot later in life) the events of the movie itself....

The narrator at start simply did not do enough at intro cutting things short with "....and of the demi gods and heroes that inspired those legends.....of this sea and these islands....."

The nostalgia hits me so thick whenever I watch it....

"These are fine people!" - Mallory

I know so much more about Greece and its history than my dad (he gets astonished at some depth I go into when the subject comes up).....but it really my dad that introduced so much for me at early age haha.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Nationstates are not dipped in mystical river at birth or come born with attached armour....that make them invulnerable (with a precise flaw that defeats them all together at the end).

And here, @Vaggos, is a VERY subtle cross-cultural one - @Nilgiri is doing us from a height of 35,000 feet.
Obviously, it was the son of Thetis dipped into a mystic river at birth.
His other reference was to the hero Karna, born out of wedlock, abandoned by his mother, brought up by a charioteer, not by a noble, even a royal house, as he deserved; Karna was the son of the Sun God, and was born with breast-plate on his body. So with one short sentence, he links with Greece with India.

 

[Nilgiri]

And here, @Vaggos, is a VERY subtle cross-cultural one - @Nilgiri is doing us from a height of 35,000 feet.
Obviously, it was the son of Thetis dipped into a mystic river at birth.
His other reference was to the hero Karna, born out of wedlock, abandoned by his mother, brought up by a charioteer, not by a noble, even a royal house, as he deserved; Karna was the son of the Sun God, and was born with breast-plate on his body. So with one short sentence, he links with Greece with India.

Vaggos knows the Illiad quite well, this was his reply to larger post I made (in the turkish tea thread) regarding honest principle and greater virtue and such (members can click the arrow for context):

Homer in Rhapsody I of the Iliad, describes the gathering of the Greeks after the unfortunate outcome in the beginning of the war against the Trojans and the attempt to persuade Achilles to enter the battle in which he did not participate in the beginning, because he was so angry with Agamemnon that he wanted to kill him. Agamemnon dishonored a priest and he captured his daughter Chrysiida.

Some Greeks wanted to go back, others to attack, others to ask Achilles to help. To many of them, the fear of a horrible escape brought them unbearable sorrow and some spoke of a foolish decision. Others shouted to stay and fight until they conquered Troy. The issue was important and everyone was concerned. In these moments the "personal beef" comes second and the most prudent comes forward to lead in dialogues and decisions for all. It seemed that they had to talk to Achilles and then all together had to make a decision. In order to appease Achilles, they chose special men, like the worthy Odysseus, to go and do the talking.

When they went to Achilles he welcomed them calling them friends. Odysseus picks up a glass of wine to greet Achilles and then urges him to get up and save the Achaeans from the enemy in battle. He also told him that Agamemnon regretted everything and that he would offer him a lot of treasures and he would be honored as a god. Achilles, calling Odysseus a craftsman, cut him off by saying that he doesn't accept gifts and he insisted on abstaining from war, then he said: "Hateful to me as the gates of Hell is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another" ("ἐχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς Ἀΐδαο πύλῃσιν ὅς χ᾽ ἕτερον μὲν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ").

The lessons from this rhapsody are that unity and teamwork are required to deal with adversaries and that many times it matters a lot who represents someone and what knowledge or prestige he has in front of the opponent and competitor, in national affairs but also in unions, political parties, etc...

Achilles eventually entered the war.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Vaggos knows the Illiad quite well, this was his reply to larger post I made (in the turkish tea thread) regarding honest principle and greater virtue and such (members can click the arrow for context):

Oh, if we allow ourselves to be seduced by the story, it winds further and further back, back to Thetis being a powerful goddess in her own right and not just a sea-nymph, all the way into the identity of the Myrmidons and their loyalty - it's difficult to stop.

Both my father and I, 30 years apart, were the strongest in our respective classes in Greek History (only the Persian War and the Peloponnesian War were covered), and got the lowest marks in it out of the eight papers - thanks to the same examiner!

 

[Jackdaws]

Yea @Nilgiri - Warney was a once in a generation player. Shocking indeed.

 

[Nilgiri]

Yea @Nilgiri - Warney was a once in a generation player. Shocking indeed.

Wow bro, this hits me in the feels:

‘He loved you Jaddu’ – Harsha Bhogle reminisces the conversation he had with Shane Warne about Ravindra Jadeja, all-rounder responds

Shane Warne reportedly died of a heart attack.

www.crictracker.com

and jaddu gave great tribute to him on field performance:

RR remembers Warne's 'Rockstar' tag given to Jadeja after all-rounder's century

It was a name Warne had given to Jadeja back in 2008 when the two were part of the Rajasthan Royals in the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

www.hindustantimes.com

 

[Jackdaws]

Feelgood video

Indian players playing baby of Pakistan captain after World Cup match

@Nilgiri @crixus @T-123456

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1500428171144941572

 

[Paro]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1500696075937914881

 

[Vaggos]

@Nilgiri @Joe Shearer

Speaking of the Iliad and Achilles particularly, did you know that according to Greek mythology, his grave is on Snake island in Ukraine? The place where a week ago 13 Ukrainian soldiers sacrificed themselves (or not - it remains to be seen), defending the island.

 

[Joe Shearer]

@Nilgiri @Joe Shearer

Speaking of the Iliad and Achilles particularly, did you know that according to Greek mythology, his grave is on Snake island in Ukraine? The place where a week ago 13 Ukrainian soldiers sacrificed themselves (or not - it remains to be seen), defending the island.

I knew it as the Island of Leuke, the White Island, in the Black Sea, where Thetis set up a parallel Endymion for her son. I didn't know that it was Snake Island. Interesting!

 

[Nilgiri]

Looking forward to hearing it, especially since you can get a more intimate picture of domestic chinese opinion on the matter and know more about it anyways!

BTW, don't know if you saw but the paralymics head was censored by China (CCTV coverage) when he started his opening speech by calling for peace in UKR-RUS conflict.

To give an idea of the continued major brazen backing to russian narrative (domestically)...given the inertia built up in CCP for this.

There are some pretty disturbing things starting up in weibo again (all done by CCP in end).... I'll try to summarise those later.

 

[OverTheHorizon]

What you fail to understand and adress is that Russia has been aggressive and refused to talk or mend ties with Ukraine ever since his pet dog dictator from Ukraine was ousted during a revolution. Instrad he opted to support seperatists and invaded Crimea and annexxed it, then he decided to invade the country under lies.

imagine if it was kashmir and you were told to appease and show concern for the muslims there.

India does appease and show concern for the Muslims in Kashmir. Else they would have done what Turks do to Kurds or Pakistanis do to their Baloch and Pashtun population - that is bomb the shit out of them. Minimal collateral damage operations that Indian armed forces conduct in Kashmir valley has resulted in mass casualties of Indian armed forces. If India did what Russia did to Grozny, then yeah we could indict India. But india is one of the very few countries in the world whose armed forces don’t indiscriminately put down terrorism. This situation does not apply - neither to Ukraine nor to Russia. If Zelenski had conducted a referendum with a super majority opting for NATO/EU, Russia would have nowhere to turn to and thousands of deaths and a crippling war could have been avoided. Even India would have found it hard to stay neutral. But no, Zelenski miscalculated (Will be granted NATO, EU membership)everything and became the west’s puppet way too quickly without building a strong local Ukrainian narrative. Eastern Ukraine and Crimea independent but becoming Russian protectorate buffers, and the rest of Ukraine taking their own call on membership wherever they want to be and Russia leaving them alone is the only solution possible. Like East Germany was under Soviet control, independent East Ukraine and Crimea would be under Russian control. No other way to stop this war now unfortunately due to screwups by several parties.

 

[TheInsider]

India does appease and show concern for the Muslims in Kashmir. Else they would have done what Turks do to Kurds

This is the biggest bullshit in this forum that came from an Indian.
Turkiye had Kurdish president, prime ministers, ministers, generals, police chiefs etc. Come again when India had a Kashmiri Muslim president.

And no we are not bombing and leveling mostly Kurdish populated cities. This is what western propaganda says.

 

[Nilgiri]

The above 3 replies and this one (and any more that do quote them after this) should be moved to the indian coffee thread @MisterLike et al.

They are off topic to begin with (and will snowball to more off topic stuff) and also contain an immense amount of falsehood + bias to unpack further there....without disturbing the subject of this thread.

Thanks.

Move em here I say: https://defencehub.live/threads/indian-coffee-house-news-politics-chit-chat.8382/

 

[Saithan]

The above 3 replies and this one (and any more that do quote them after this) should be moved to the indian coffee thread @MisterLike et al.

They are off topic to begin with (and will snowball to more off topic stuff) and also contain an immense amount of falsehood + bias to unpack further there....without disturbing the subject of this thread.

Thanks.

Move em here I say: https://defencehub.live/threads/indian-coffee-house-news-politics-chit-chat.8382/

I was like Nilgiri is going to chew me for bringing Kashmir into it, but I wanted your fellow countryman to reflect on something a bit closer to him than spew out onesided narrative on Ukraine.

 

[Nilgiri]

I was like Nilgiri is going to chew me for bringing Kashmir into it, but I wanted your fellow countryman to reflect on something a bit closer to him than spew out onesided narrative on Ukraine.

We all have a rush of blood to the head from time to time in heated conversations (especially ones such as war)....it happens.

But bringing the (foreign to the context) person's country's domestic human rights issue...because he has a different perspective on the original topic (however disagreeable or wrong you may find it)....is fraught with cascading issues that lead to nowhere good.

It will just be case of mirror shown back to yours then (no countrys human rights are anywhere near perfect)....and a heap of off topic emotionalist "what we say is truth" and "anything else is propaganda" will inevitably ensue.

The whole thing just will snowball into off topic assertions....and mob popularity contests.

I know you know there are ways to handle the RUS-UKR war argument fallacies that others put much better and precisely.

 

[Nilgiri]

India does appease and show concern for the Muslims in Kashmir. Else they would have done what Turks do to Kurds or Pakistanis do to their Baloch and Pashtun population - that is bomb the shit out of them. Minimal collateral damage operations that Indian armed forces conduct in Kashmir valley has resulted in mass casualties of Indian armed forces. If India did what Russia did to Grozny, then yeah we could indict India. But india is one of the very few countries in the world whose armed forces don’t indiscriminately put down terrorism. This situation does not apply - neither to Ukraine nor to Russia. If Zelenski had conducted a referendum with a super majority opting for NATO/EU, Russia would have nowhere to turn to and thousands of deaths and a crippling war could have been avoided. Even India would have found it hard to stay neutral. But no, Zelenski miscalculated (Will be granted NATO, EU membership)everything and became the west’s puppet way too quickly without building a strong local Ukrainian narrative. Eastern Ukraine and Crimea independent but becoming Russian protectorate buffers, and the rest of Ukraine taking their own call on membership wherever they want to be and Russia leaving them alone is the only solution possible. Like East Germany was under Soviet control, independent East Ukraine and Crimea would be under Russian control. No other way to stop this war now unfortunately due to screwups by several parties.

Should have just challenged the different contexts rather than throwing in another asserted equivalency to the mix...

Your argument is also quite flawed here....maybe Joe or another will get into more detail for it.

It is an extremely grey complex area to get into for every country (and foreigners to each one generally have nowhere close to the picture needed for it...even many compatriots do not).

Doing so generally serves no purpose when its an open audience with finger pointing and for the purpose of some asserted relative hierarchy on these grievous troubling (and thus very emotional) issues.....rather than get to a better mode of rational argument.

 

[Nilgiri]

This is the biggest bullshit in this forum that came from an Indian.
Turkiye had Kurdish president, prime ministers, ministers, generals, police chiefs etc. Come again when India had a Kashmiri Muslim president.

And no we are not bombing and leveling mostly Kurdish populated cities. This is what western propaganda says.

First of all Kurds represent some 16 - 24% of the population of Turkey.
Kashmiri muslims represent some 0.65% of the population of India.

To make this comparison fairly (on your logic) ...we would either need a ~20% population chunk of India by some identity/ethnicity/group (say South Indian).

It is rare to find a 20% representation of India that has not made it to highest political echelons you mention for Turkey.
Kashmiri muslims have made it to some that you mention anyway regardless.

Or we would need to compare to a 0.65% group of Turkey.

Would it be fair to take some town of Turkey that makes up 0.65% of Turkey population, and say look how under-represented they have been in highest turkish political echelons?

Not to mention, just because members of some identity/community have achieved status or success in a country, does not mean that group do not suffer from some lack of human rights.

Or you are telling me the human rights problems for blacks in the US was answered by having a Black president (and many other blacks in positions of power, authority and success) for 8 years?

Also the whole if someone says different to what I say = western propaganda is overused cop out.
That is best left for people to read the different perspectives from each side and find out for themselves.

What if I used "sorry its western propaganda" as an easy-out?

It is best to rationalise what our perspectives are (on issues we have spent most time on and recognise when it is not so for other issues) so others may find biases or other problems for themselves by observing and research on their own time.

Ungainly one-line assertion (of the believe me just because...dont believe them just because) just implies the occlusion of something.