Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

pri.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 286 posts

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#21

Post by InclinedPlane »

capex wrote: post #7

Behind the division of the sub-continent lies a great debate, that of Jinnah vs Gandhi. Was it the true aspiration of the people to get divided geographically while getting independence from British rule? It seems the divide happened because of some ideology driven people (Iqbal) who convinced other leaders (Jinnah) to pursue it. Today, this is a raging battle in Pakistan, did Pakistan ever need to be an independent…

Pakistan is a pretty screwed up country in a great many ways, and much of their problems are due to Islam having such a central role in the identify of the country. I think they have the capacity to get past their problems but they have as difficult a problem ahead of them as does Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon.

On a meta-level it's fascinating how the vast majority of countries in the world still tend to be mono-ethnic "nation states". Even in the most westernized parts of Europe there are overarching tendencies for nations to fly apart into their component sub-ethnicities rather than to stick together based on belief in common values. Look at Britain and the ongoing discontent of Wales and Scottland, let alone Northern Ireland. Or Belgium threatening to split into two countries. Or the Basques in Spain. Or the history of Czechoslovakia, the USSR, Yugoslavia, etc.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#22

Post by chimeracoder »

anigbrowl wrote: post #12
capex wrote: post #7

Behind the division of the sub-continent lies a great debate, that of Jinnah vs Gandhi. Was it the true aspiration of the people to get divided geographically while getting independence from British rule? It seems the divide happened because of some ideology driven people (Iqbal) who convinced other leaders (Jinnah) to pursue it. Today, this is a raging battle in Pakistan, did Pakistan ever need to be an independent…

For those interested in history, Freedom at Midnight is a great documentary book on the liberation and subsequent partition of India: http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-at-Midnight-Dominique-Lapierre... It's a sad fact that the departure of the British Empire from various colonial possessions frequently resulted in a power vacuum followed by deep internal conflicts which remain problematic today - Ireland, Israel, and Ind…

> It's a sad fact that the departure of the British Empire from various colonial possessions frequently resulted in a power vacuum followed by deep internal conflicts which remain problematic today - Ireland, Israel, and India being three obvious examples.

Let's not be overly generous.

I won't speak to Ireland or Israel, but in the case of India, the political strife was not a coincidence - it was the all-but-deliberate result of the British. They actively funded terrorist groups on conflicting sides with the express goal of dividing the region not just geographically (Partition), but ideologically and politically.

(This is, of course, not too different from the US funding terrorist groups when it is politically convenient to do so, and then invading foreign countries to overthrow the rulers brought to power by those same terrorist groups, when it becomes politically convenient to do that instead.)

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#23

Post by slurry »

devnetfx wrote: post #3

This is a beautiful ad and will make you emotional. As a person of Indian background I was able to relate to it easily but I wonder what others think of it? Are you able to feel the strong emotions based on reading subtitles or does language hamper the feelings and it loses its impact. Kudos to the team involved in this and thanks for posting this.

Nope, had me weeping like a big white baby.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#24

Post by piyush_soni »

devnetfx wrote: post #3

This is a beautiful ad and will make you emotional. As a person of Indian background I was able to relate to it easily but I wonder what others think of it? Are you able to feel the strong emotions based on reading subtitles or does language hamper the feelings and it loses its impact. Kudos to the team involved in this and thanks for posting this.

At least for me, the background song (from renowned singer and lyricist 'Piyush Mishra') adds a LOT in making me emotional - which they didn't translate. So I decided to add a rough translation for the same in the comments, but thanks to new Google+ integration - only junk is at the top on Youtube now.

Here's it again (translation of only the BG song), timed for those who are interested:

0:59 : Those narrow streets of childhood jump in joy again ... Tying those little sweet thefts along with it ...

1:35: (Same two lines above, then ... ) Where I would fly like a kite, like a bird ... That was the time .. when my heart felt like a free peacock ...

2:21: When I would sit immersed in those paper boats all day long, ... or 'entangle' myself with those windows peeking outside ... Oh, what a time that was, when there were no restrictions in the heart ... ... That was the time .. when it felt like a free peacock ...

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#27

Post by mikeash »

selmnoo wrote: post #20
staunch wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Google is basically just a better X searching tool than X provides, where X is most every web site on earth.

I didn't want to go to far on an off-topic tangent, but basically what I was getting at was that I increasingly seem to be interested in a very limited number of sites -- that is, mostly, sites that I already know of and recognize. I use Reddit search more when I'm doing exploratory searching hoping to land on a site I've never been before, because it serves me already vetted/reviewed sites. In this way, Google is no…

It is an interesting point. Google has become as much a substitute for the address bar as a way to find new things.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#29

Post by coffeemug »

devnetfx wrote: post #3

This is a beautiful ad and will make you emotional. As a person of Indian background I was able to relate to it easily but I wonder what others think of it? Are you able to feel the strong emotions based on reading subtitles or does language hamper the feelings and it loses its impact. Kudos to the team involved in this and thanks for posting this.

I'm a Russian American. I've travelled to India for a few weeks and have some friends from the region, but I don't really understand the ethnic issues beyond a very surface level.

The ad made me very emotional. It's a very human story. The fact that the characters in the story happen to be from India and Pakistan are almost tangential to the point. The same story could have been told about east and west Germany before unification, and it would have been just as powerful.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#30

Post by vowelless »

chimeracoder wrote: post #22
anigbrowl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those interested in history, Freedom at Midnight is a great documentary book on the liberation and subsequent partition of India: http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-at-Midnight-Dominique-Lapierre... It's a sad fact that the departure of the British Empire from various colonial possessions frequently resulted in a power vacuum followed by deep internal conflicts which remain problematic today - Ireland, Israel, and Ind…

> It's a sad fact that the departure of the British Empire from various colonial possessions frequently resulted in a power vacuum followed by deep internal conflicts which remain problematic today - Ireland, Israel, and India being three obvious examples. Let's not be overly generous. I won't speak to Ireland or Israel, but in the case of India, the political strife was not a coincidence - it was the all-but-deliber…

> They actively funded terrorist groups on conflicting sides with the express goal of dividing the region not just geographically (Partition), but ideologically and politically.

Can you give me some specific examples of terrorist groups? From my readings, the British just successfully managed to divide the Hindu and Muslim populations using discriminating policies (like the pig / cow oil on guns in the 1800s), and let the divisions play out. They did support Gandhi and Jinnah, but I never came across them actively funding terrorist organizations.

Post reply on HN