Now that Boloji has restarted the interactive platform for reasons unknown to me and we have a feedback about who and how many persons read a given article and comment on it, I like any average human being have succumbed to the curiosity of how many read the output of my mental incontinence and what if anything they say about it. I confess to periodically checking these details but even more importantly checking on the frequency of those articles I wrote, which I love and comparing their readership number to others which are just OK. After all even parents have a tendency to be more attached to one child without neglecting or being unfair to others. Thus to my amazement I found that my article titled “My Analysis of Hindu Myths” seems to have a continued and increasing readership even though it is not featured on the homepage while the far more important articles of the last four weeks regarding the debt crisis, American politics and the Mumbai terror attacks barely garner 200 readers.

The easy supercilious conclusion would be to either denigrate the intellectual capabilities and discernment of readers. After all the absence of traffic on Indian roads, when the serial Mahabharata, Ramayana, cricket matches and Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi is beyond all doubt a fair and reliable estimate of the preferences of an Indian audience in India and the sort of movies which are popular in India as compared to the output in Iran and Turkey which are not that advanced, clearly is a damning indictment of the intelligence, sophistication and gullibility of the general population of India.

This is not to imply that western or American audiences are more intellectual or sophisticated, for they equally gullibly watch Terminator series, Star Trek series and Star War series without being bothered by its implausibility or even impossibility. The other possibility is the excessive religiosity of the target audience or the fact that the Hindu myths constitute part of their heritage just like American history which is broadcast on History and C-span channels and is equally removed from reality, fact and truth in most episodes. Other explanations are just wanting to escape from sordid reality into a land of fantasy while suspending thinking, analysis or reason.

One, not unnaturally, hopes that a significant number if not a majority of those who frequent the website Boloji would be at least American residents of Indian origin and possibly a few of American, European or other national origin. Judging by my limited observations and responses at the site or in my e-mail, it seems that most readers are just too shy, disinterested or not bothered enough to post a response, argument or critique. There are a few who are quick on the draw and shoot from the hip, but they are just reflex reactors without understanding, syntax, coherent thought, cogent argument or purpose other than what I have scathingly labeled as defecating on websites to mark their scent. It is this which worries me because it is reflexive of a typical Indian mentality of not wanting to be involved unless something is a source of imminent present and clear danger to one’s individual well being. It is this mentality which leads to people throwing garbage and trash on the walls of their neighbors even in affluent communities in India, uncaring whether it will facilitate rat infestation, mosquito breeding or other public health hazards to themselves and all.

There is a possibility that some people are just so shy or insecure and unwilling to post a comment even under a pseudonym, but the fact that they don’t even voice their objections, criticism or opinion even directly to the author and not in public view at the website, merely shows a unquantifiable proportion of diffidence, disinterest, or unconcern is responsible. Even worse, they are just bored and have nothing to do and thus surf websites to kill time. One will never know whether this ever leads to being informed, evaluating the data, analyzing it, forming or altering their opinion. Even if it does, it will not lead to any effort to change, improve or correct current problems. It is this curse of Hindu religious thinking which led to a millennium of foreign rule and exploitation by invaders of India, because there probably never was a feeling of nationhood which led the Dutch to overthrow the rule of Spain, the Spanish to overthrow the rule of the Moors, the Persians to overthrow the rule of Arabs, the Egyptians to overthrow the Hyksos. Benjamin Franklin said, “Let us all hang together, otherwise we will surely hang separately”. The Indian motto is, “Let me hang separately unpolluted by some fellow untouchable”.

The other national character flaw is gullibility and unwillingness to question authority based on insecurity, ignorance and unwillingness to think and analyze. To give some examples, you will read pundits unable to explain why Brevik massacred Norwegian youth as a protest against the tolerant and asylum granting policies of the ruling liberal Norwegian party and prime minister. Instead of throwing up one’s arms in frustration and despair and writing an article, why not read the deranged man’s manifesto. He was upset at the tolerant liberal asylum policies of the current Norwegian government which has allowed nearly 4% of the national population becoming Muslims, many from Pakistan. Brevik suffered some harassment from young Muslim youths and was frequently reading biased garbage on the internet without thinking, analysis or other points of view, and his warped mind then concluded that his best contribution to stopping and preventing such liberal policies of the ruling party in Norway was to kill off the youth wing of the party destined to become future political leaders.

Similarly, the misunderstood brouhaha about Air Chief Marshal Naik against the new 60 km. Range theater tactical nuclear missile. Readers need to understand that Pakistan developed nuclear missiles to make sure that India would not be able to do a repeat of Bangladesh by attacking from Rajasthan and isolating Sind and eventually Baluchistan from Punjab, NWFP and occupied Kashmir. The threat of nuclear war would prevent India from attacking Pakistan. Benazir, Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif to a lesser extent and Musharraf predominantly, then pursued a salami tactic (slicing of thin parts of and from India) with Bangladesh extremist and Nepali messy situation co-operation. They promoted insurgencies in Kashmir, Punjab and the Northeast. Musharaf even started the Kargil war, thinking India would not retaliate for fear of a nuclear war. The bangle wearing Bajpai and Manmohan Singh in Purdah behaved as expected after the attack on the Indian parliament, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. Idiot Singh and his other incompetent and impotent colleagues, then touted “Cold Start” as a limited offensive maneuver, as a response to repeated Pakistani terrorist attacks with a plausible deniability by attributing them to unknown or out of control extremist groups. Pakistani army last week announced that they had developed a 60 km. Range tactical theater nuclear weapon of low yield which they would use to blunt and stop any conventional non-nuclear cold start attack by the Indian offensive corps. They implied that the use of a tactical theater nuclear weapon should not be considered a nuclear attack but a defensive strategy.

ACM Naik rightfully and sensibly warned that the use of even a mini nuclear weapon as theater tactical defense would elicit a massive nuclear response from India. Manmohan Singh and his bangle wearing defense minister chastised Naik and immediately pulled down the ghungta of their pallu and clapped their bangled hands in protest against Naik, while hugging Pakistani terrorists and using their sarees to protect them from the Indian evil eye, as they performed a folk dance with the pretty Pakistani foreign minister and voiced admiration for her designer clothes and sunglasses, while ignoring security and terrorism concerns. They were just following in the footsteps of their idiot predecessors, Indira Gandhi in releasing 90,000 Pakistani prisoners without settling the borders at the Simla conference and idiot Sushma Swaraj had done kurnish to terrorist Musharaf at the Delhi summit and Advani paid homage to Jinnah, while visiting Pakistan. Maybe the best deal for India would be to trade all the worthless Congress and most BJP members by giving them to their homeland Pakistan in return for manure, which is abundant in Pakistan.