Darab Farooqui
@darab_farooqui • 31,936 subscribers
Storyteller. Screenwriter. Freeborn.
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Let me tell you something very cool about this video. Look at Rahul Gandhi's straight dive in the first few seconds. An effortless, elegant dive. Now let me make a point. First, it shows he knows how to swim well. The kind of swimming where you could actually save someone else's life. Now a point more political in nature. It also shows the man developed other skill sets in life. He has a rounded personality. A politician with other skills, other life skills. The mark of a life that was curious, enterprising, but above all a life that was looking to grow and challenge itself. Now look at the top BJP politicians. We've seen them in Ganga snan. Pudgy, fat, out of shape. If they slip, they'll need someone like Rahul Gandhi to save them. We've seen Modi float like an inflated tube, clumsy, trying to look comfortable in water and failing. These are not men who ever pushed their bodies, minds or souls or much else. Now you may ask what this has to do with governance. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I prefer politicians with additional life skills. Skills that tell me you challenged yourself in life. The whole BJP top brass looks like it has spent its life sitting on benches and khatiyas in RSS shakhas. These people may be good at winning elections, which they are. But governance is a different ball game. It's art more than science. It needs people who are innovative, intuitive, imaginative. But above all, people who challenge themselves.
Darab Farooqui79,911 Aufrufe • vor 4 Tagen
Watch this clip carefully. Three people. Two Hindus, one Muslim. A comedy show called 'Teen Taal'. Khan Chacha, through his self-deprecating humor, describes his dip at Har Ki Pauri. And he makes two observations, almost in passing, that should make you stop. One: He removed his taweez before entering the water. *"What if someone objects... the way things are now."* Two: He paid via UPI. What if his Muslim name showed up. The room laughed. He hid his identity. Twice. At a river. To bathe. The thing that gets me is, he's done this dip before. Many times. He never had to think about any of this before. That's the new thing. Not the river. Not Khan Chacha. Just this quiet new math he does now before stepping in. Amulet off. Name hidden. Don't give anyone a reason. And the way he tells it, light, funny, unbothered on the surface, you can tell, maybe he's made peace with it. Which is somehow worse. Now, I get the room. I get the affection. I get that comedy has its own language and you don't stop every joke to make a point. But here's what I can't get past. He is the powerless one in this story. And he is the one making fun of himself. He is doing the work of making everyone comfortable with his own discomfort. Packaging it so nicely that the room can laugh and move on. And the two Hindu men, who clearly love him, I'm not questioning that, they just... laughed along. Warmly. And moved on. Just one line. That's all. "Yaar, Ganga kab se sirf hinduon ki ho gayi? Ganga-Jamuni mein bhi aadhi Ganga hai." Or anything, really. Any small moment where the joke turns outward instead of inward. Where it pokes at the thing creating the discomfort instead of just cushioning it. One funny, throwaway, irreverent line that tells the Muslim man watching at home: Haan yaar, this is wrong, you shouldn't have to do this. That's it. That's all I'm asking for. Because somewhere a Muslim watched this clip and recognized every single beat. The taweez coming off. The half-second before the UPI payment. The quiet calculation, am I too visible right now? He laughed, because Khan Chacha is funny and warm and the joke lands. And then the clip ended. Maybe it's too much to ask. Maybe in this climate even a throwaway joke feels like a risk. Maybe I'm romanticizing what comedy can do. But I also think, what is the point of humor between friends, on a public platform, if it doesn't do this one small thing? If it can't, just once, say I see what's happening to you, and it's not okay? Khan Chacha made it funny. He did the hard part. All they had to do was to put the hand of humor on his shoulder.
Darab Farooqui289,813 Aufrufe • vor 23 Tagen
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"This Eid, we will play Holi of blood." ~ Lalit Sharma, Member, Hindu Raksha Dal.
Darab Farooqui306,922 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
This video is supposedly from Lucknow and is quite embarrassing to see. A mob of Hindus gathered close to Hazrat ganj cathedral to disrupt the Christmas festivities by singing loudly and creating a disturbance. This insecure display of faith is fraught with inferiority complex. This is too cheap and uncivil to even watch.
Darab Farooqui810,007 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
If Rahul Gandhi had not traveled to Poonch, we would never have witnessed the carnage inflicted by Pakistani shelling. This is India Media's job, but it has turned blind, silent, deaf, and essentially invalid. Imagine living this horrific shelling with your children.
Darab Farooqui558,033 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
Congress in: Rajashthan - 9 seats, Muslim population 9.07% Haryana - 5 seats, Muslim population 7.03% Karnataka - 9 seats, Muslim population 12.92% Maharshtra - 13 seats, Muslim population 11.54%. Punjab - 7 seats, Muslim population 1.93% Tamil Nadu - 9 seats, Muslim population 5.86. The only exception is Kerala. Where Congress got 14 seats and the Muslim population is 26.56%. It is commonly known that Congress performs better in states with fewer Muslims. In states with a large Muslim population, such as Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, Muslims vote for other parties. Prashant Kishore is the genuine Sanghi Snake. A lying piece of filth, and we should ensure that he never gets a job or gets a single vote if he ever contests in an election.
Darab Farooqui856,461 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren
Everyone should be asking these questions: 1. How did BJP workers get their hands on a truck loaded with EVMs? 2. Were these EVMS intended to replace the old EVMs? 3. If these EVMs contain bogus votes, does that imply that EVMS may be hacked? 4. It is stated in Hindi that this is occurring with the assistance of the Administration. Of administration is involved, how can trust the outcome? 5. If one truck has been caught, doesn't this imply that far larger number of trucks have escaped? 6. If BJP members were carrying these EVMs, isn't the electoral commission playing dirty here and helping BJP? 7. How can the Elections Commission be trusted following such a major uncovering of rigging? 8. Is this the reason why all pollsters predict 350-400 seats for the NDA? 9. When was the last time, a truck full of EVMs was caught with India Alliance workers? Which should tell you who is playing dirty and who is not. Think. These are important questions.
Darab Farooqui794,619 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren
Muslims of UP, you don't have one leader in UP, Hindu or Muslim, who can talk to this DSP of Sambhal Kuldeep Kumar? In the video at 31 second he says: "Even if one man seen praying outside the Masjid... We will not tolerate it, we will send him to Jail". I am attaching the pictures of Sambhal Holi (pic 2 and 3) where the Jama Masjid and the other Masjids had to be covered on Holi because of the hooligans. That's how the rowdies play Holi that Masjids have to be covered. It's simply embarrassing that Akhilesh Yadav can't go himself or send someone to talk to him. And ask him, when Hindus can celebrate all their festivals on the road, why can't Muslims read their Eid Namaz there? And is the Indian constitution even applicable in UP anymore or some version Manu Smriti is running UP now? However the question comes back to Muslim leadership. What kind of coward Muslim leadership is being produced in UP right now. This looks like Hitler's Germany. Sambhal looks like a place run by Gundas dressed in Khaki. This is pure injustice and absolute inequality.
Darab Farooqui109,563 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
In Lucknow, a Dalit youth named Gautam was killed for saying "Happy Holi." Mohit Tiwari and his sister Shivani are accused of carrying out the crime. Let me reiterate: a Brahmin brother and sister killed a Dalit for simply wishing him a happy Holi. "But what about Tarun?"
Darab Farooqui108,574 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
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"Tere Allah ki Maa ki … Bula Tere Allah ko." These are the words, which I can’t even write. Said on a street in Bhopal, in full public view, while a man was being stripped, beaten, and smeared with cow dung. In Pahalgam, the killers separated Hindu men from the rest, made them recite the Kalma, and shot those who couldn't. Twenty-six people died. The automatic weapons of Pahalgam were missing. The structure is identical. Identify by religion. Isolate. Perform the violence as a religious act. Not against one man, but against the community he stands in for. The difference is scale. The grammar is the same. But there is one massive difference. In Pahalgam, the state was absent. In Bhopal, the state was watching, dressed in Khaki Vardi. Police stood there as the Bajrang Dal terrorist told him directly: we won't leave him. He stepped aside. The assault continued for over an hour. When it was done, the police thanked the attackers for their role and took the victim into custody. That is not dereliction. That is indirect participation. And that is what makes this different. That is where hate stops being social and starts being systemic. That is where Bajrang Dal stops being a mob and becomes something the state has deputized. Not in writing. In practice. On that street. In front of that officer. State-sponsored. Not by decree. By conduct. The details are not in dispute. They are on video. An interfaith couple checked into a hotel in Bhopal's Govindpura area on a Sunday evening. The woman had been in a relationship with the man for nearly five years. She came voluntarily. She said so herself, later, at the police station. Someone leaked their check-in details to a right-wing group. The mob arrived quickly. They entered the hotel room. The woman panicked and locked herself in the bathroom. She refused to come out. The mob threatened to assault her partner and make him disabled. She came out. Inside that room, her face was covered. To protect her modesty, they said. She is a Hindu girl. The man was beaten black and blue. They paraded him on the street outside. His modesty did not require protection. His body did not. He was the one being stripped, smeared, and paraded. But the performance of chivalry was reserved for her because she was the property being reclaimed. He was the transgression being punished. Then came the law to watch. No FIR was filed against the attackers that night. The couple was counselled. Both sides were warned against disturbing social harmony. The station in-charge said if they returned and wanted to file a case, police would consider it. They did not return. The case was filed anyway. Against unknown persons. For hurting religious sentiments. The officers who had thanked the attackers by name on Sunday could not recall those names on Monday. The video existed. The names existed. The faces existed. The gratitude had been expressed in public. None of it made it into the FIR. What made it into the FIR was the victim's religion. The man was then arrested. Not for anything that happened on Sunday, but for mobile theft cases filed before this incident. The attackers went home. The investigation into unknown persons for hurting religious sentiments continues. This is not a failure of the secular constitution. This is the secular constitution's institutions being used as a tool against it. The FIR is not absent. It exists. It just points in the opposite direction. That is the shell. Procedure intact. Justice inverted. In Ambedkar's constitution, every citizen stands equal before the law. In Govindpura, Bhopal, MP, that Sunday, the law stood beside the mob and took notes. So here is what we have just established. You can humiliate Islam on a public street. You can strip a Muslim man, smear his face with cow dung, parade him in front of a crowd, and tell him to call his Allah and the officer present will step aside. You can dehumanize a Muslim and call it social service. You can treat a Hindu woman as community property, cover her face for modesty while the man beside her is beaten bloody, and call it protection. You can do all of this for hours, on camera, with police watching, and go home that night without a case against you. And the state will not just look away. It will thank you. It will arrest your victim. It will file a case against unknown persons. It will bury your names in paperwork. This is not a law-and-order failure. This is law and order functioning exactly as designed, for exactly the people it was redesigned to serve. Pahalgam horrified this country. It should have. Twenty-six people were killed for their religion. But in Bhopal, a man was beaten, stripped, and paraded for his religion. In front of the state, with the state's blessing. And the state called it harmony restored. The terrorists in Pahalgam had no uniform. The ones in Bhopal were thanked by someone wearing one. That is the difference. That is the danger. Not just a mob that hates. A state that has decided which terror is nationalistic and worth celebrating. And which it will punish.
Darab Farooqui26,077 Aufrufe • vor 27 Tagen
