#grateful for all of arjuna nation

[milkteataro-chan]

took me a whole year to discover this pako art exists😭 merry christmas!!

[imagitory]

Readers of Harry Potter and the Lack of Lamb Sauce,

I come to you needing some assistance.

Recently I stumbled upon a post here on Tumblr stating that the user had found one of my chapters, as well as the comments underneath, to be full of “vicious, intense, casual racism.” I am not above constructive criticism (I actually appreciate it), and I was deeply troubled by the thought that I’d hurt somebody with anything I had written. Considering it was a blog post and not a review, I sent the user a message via Tumblr chat. I figured talking the matter over personally and privately would allow me to take in the person’s point of view, hopefully reassure them of my intent, and try to mend what had been hurt. The next day I received a link to the user’s new blog outside of Tumblr with a public response to my private message. Although I was a bit disheartened that we could not have a private discussion rather than a debate, I still tried to address the concerns. You can read the entire exchange if you wish here.

I do not write this blog post, my readers, to ask you to defend my honor, or even to take my side. What I aim for is understanding, for if I’ve truly written something offensive, I need to understand the issue at hand. I’m well aware that I have my own biases – as everyone does – but I have tried very hard to be sensitive about cultures that are not mine, and in this situation I feel like there’s a piece missing from my understanding.

The user, zenolalia / @fangasmagorical, in part, said this:

While I do think that it’s a bit less-than-ideal to present a child trying to act within the dietary restrictions of her heavily, heavily maligned religious and racial minority as “cheating,” my issue was very much not with the fact that the characters within the story (such as Dumbledore) treated her as cheating. In fact, I think that’s a very realistic thing for them to do. Rather, that at that point in the story there was not indication in the narrative itself that this treatment was unfair. There was a strong implication that her disqualification was legitimate and deserved. The excuse given is that she should have simply asked for an exception to be made. But, that’s a completely unrealistic expectation to present on a child of color who has, especially in the UK in the 90s, definitely been subjected to extensive racism surrounding her religion. Indeed, canonical to the books, the exclusive celebration of Christian holidays in a school that pre-dates the wide spread adoption of Christianity in the isles is, itself, strong evidence that she would have experienced a lot of this racism. So, of course, her not asking for an exception is totally within reason and a strong character choice. Just like having the judges treat her as a cheat is also a strong and reasonable character choice.

(…)

The thing that burns me the most is, it would be a very, very easy fix to make. A single line tucked somewhere in the narration that indicates that although the judgement is reasonable (in that there are reasons for it), it is not necessarily just, would be enough. Anything that indicates that the racism of the scene is known.

From what I understand, they wish that I had (to borrow a phrase) called a spade a spade and used narrative description to confirm that Arjuna was the victim of racism. The concern I have is this – as I said in my comments, I deliberately wanted to write a world where people of color are not treated like maligned minorities, and the rules of prejudice are different among witches and wizards than they are among us. Rather than racism, the main source of prejudice – like in the books – is blood purity. There are also touches of prejudice against different species like house elves and LGBT+ prejudice because their life style wouldn’t jive with the Death Eaters’ image of a Pureblood family with seven kids, but there’s practically no racism among witches and wizards. Even in J.K.’s flawed portrayal, we don’t get much evidence of racism – Lee Jordan, Dean Thomas, Cho Chang, and the Patils aren’t treated differently than their classmates for their race…Blaise Zabini is even one of those promoting prejudice against Muggle-borns. Perhaps someone like Bridget (or even Hermione, if you like headcanoning her as black like I do), who grew up among Muggles, would know the prejudices of our world as we do, but Arjuna was raised in an entirely magical household, in a world where the President of the MACUSA in the 30′s and the British Minister of Magic in the 80′s were both black women. And considering I purposefully wanted to write a world without institutional racism (at least in regards to race: I have referred to such a prejudice against Muggle-borns), I’m afraid I don’t see what would be gained from saying that the judges – when they disqualified Arjuna for cheating – were targeting her for her religion. At one point the idea that Arjuna wouldn’t have felt comfortable enough to come forward came up, but I don’t know of anything I’ve written that would’ve signaled that. She had been the best of the chefs and just about everyone had considered her more than capable of winning the competition – her decision process came down more to her pride making it hard for her to ask for help. I can’t help but think of media like Avatar: The Last Airbender and the new Star Wars films, where there are characters of color but there are different rules about how those cultures interact with each other. Finn is a black Stormtrooper, but the only prejudice he experiences in his universe is for being a Stormtrooper, not for his race. Katara, Sokka, and the Southern Water Tribe are treated badly by the Fire Nation, but it’s not because of their race – it’s because they’re a territory the imperialistic Fire Nation is exerting control over. Even when there are parallels to the real world, those fictional worlds still have their own rules.

Now of course, some real world parallels are relevant enough that they could still be offensive even if the rules are different from our world. J.K. got a lot of blow-back for saying every witch and wizard, including Native Americans, would attend Ilvermorny, which is a bit insensitive when Native Americans have a history of being forced to attend American schools far from home. Gay characters are so often martyred without proper development or as soon as they find romantic happiness that people understandably get upset when one is written that way. Jewish and gay coding on villains is still something people talk about. If this is an issue of that – as in many Hindu people or even Indian people experience discrimination specifically for what they eat – then I want to learn more about it and address that. My best experience with something like this are Jewish people eating things that are kosher or, in a looser example, Morman Elders, when they’re on missions, being unable to be inside a home without another male being present – because not everyone that follows a religion will necessarily follow every code to the letter and not everyone will be thoroughly enlightened about every religion’s code, sometimes one must bridge the gap. (Particularly when in this situation, the judges would’ve had no reason to know about Arjuna’s dietary restrictions – the only one who’d known her for any length of time was Dumbledore, and I can’t see him memorizing every student’s eating patterns when the Hogwarts house elves are responsible for every meal.) And as much as some cultures may feel pressured not to speak up on certain things, it doesn’t make cheating the right or moral choice, and in this situation that wasn’t even an issue at play.

I wrote this to explain my position so that hopefully I can get the feedback needed to approach this issue. If any of you were likewise troubled by what I wrote or have any other insight, please reply or whatever to this post, if you’d like. And if anything I’ve written has upset you, then you can always message me here on Tumblr, start up a Tumblr chat, or even just leave a review on my story. I will always read what you’ve said and I will not get angry. Even when I end up disagreeing, I always try to take in every bit of feedback I receive and try to use it to become a better writer, and I‘ve been so grateful for the constructive criticism I have received over the last year amongst the praise. At one point early on, I cited Ayer’s Rock as the site of the Australian Ministry of Magic in a montage scene talking about world travel. Not long later I received a review from an Australian fan explaining to me the history of Uhuru and why my artistic choice, made in the heat of the moment while I was writing three chapters in a week, was insensitive and gave me a suggestion on a location I could use instead, the Nullarbor Plain. I immediately changed it, not only because I realized how much I should have taken my time and done my homework, but because her idea ended up being so much better than my original concept. I later applied the lesson I’d learned when I had to do research for a character with autism, and I took almost an entire month researching American and Native American history before writing about the MACUSA and introducing a new character who was a half-Native American wizard. I’m not above improvement or reproach, and everything I learn I try to integrate into who I am. But I cannot learn if I don’t understand.

This is undoubtedly an emotionally charged issue and I truly don’t want to create controversy or hurt anyone. If this were a story set in our Muggle world, I would do everything I possibly could to address the racism, sexism, and homophobia that infects our world, and even in this fictional universe I try to slip in plenty of commentary wherever I can. I know we’ll all have our own opinions on the matter, but if any of you have been kind enough to read all of this and have anything to add, I would appreciate it. I only aim for improvement, both for myself and for my writing, and I hope that even if I have disappointed any of you with my sentiment, you at least feel my sincerity in that.

Thank you.

[bloggvalley]

Ishant Sharma "Grateful And Honoured" To Receive Arjuna Award

Ishant Sharma “Grateful And Honoured” To Receive Arjuna Award

After getting the Arjuna Award on the occasion of National Sports Day, Indian pacer Ishant Sharma on Saturday said he will continue to bring laurels to the country “till the time his body allows”. Taking to Twitter he wrote, “Extremely grateful and honoured to receive the #ArjunaAward! Congratulations to fellow awardees for the same! Thanks for constant support and love from all of you!”…

[sportzprime]

PV Sindhu Net Worth and Endorsements 2019

PV Sindhu Net Worth: Pusarla Venkata Sindhu is a star badminton player of India. In 2016, she turned into the main Indian lady to win an Olympic silver award, and the main second Indian badminton player to ever win an Olympic decoration. Sindhu has likewise packed away silver awards in the Commonwealth Games 2018 and the BWF World Championships 2017 just as 2018. The 24-year old is as of now a worldwide star and among India's top picks for another Olympic award in 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Her on-court splendor is properly compensated with money related accomplishment just as marvelousness that accompanies it. She has had the option to benefit from her expanding image worth and make a fortune out of the equivalent. She is the main Indian lady to include in the Forbes rundown of most generously compensated female competitors. Here is a point by point take a gander at PV Sindhu Net Worth, support, vocation rewards, and so forth.

 PV Sindhu Net Worth

Destined to two national volleyball players, Sindhu had the games quality in her from the earliest starting point. As a child, she used to travel more than 55kms every day to prepare at the Pullela Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad. She started her ascent to predominance from Servo All India positioning title and never thought back from that point forward. 

 The 17-year old Sindhu offered strong expressions breaking into the main 20 of BWF worldwide rankings. Before long, she packed away two or three bronze in the Commonwealth 2014 and BWF World Championship 2014. Be that as it may, the best was at this point to come, as she set out on the worldwide stage, guaranteeing the silver decoration inferable from a hard-battled rout in the Finals against world no. 1 Carolina Marin. Sindhu's ubiquity and brand esteem soar after this accomplishment. As indicated by Forbes PV Sindhu earned a monstrous measure of Rs. 57.25 crores in 2017, significantly through brand support bargains, denoting an increase of multiple times to the earlier year.

 Read More: PV Sindhu Biography

 Sindhu kept on playing huge numbers off-court as she turned into the main Indian Women to include in the best 10 Forbes rundown of most generously compensated female competitors. She guaranteed the seventh spot with an acquiring of more than Rs. 62 crores in the time spreading over from June 2017 to June 2018. The 23-year old additionally highlighted the rundown of Tycoons of Tomorrow for the year.

 PV Sindhu Endorsements

 PV Sindhu Net Worth: Disregarding being a youthful competitor in her mid 20s, Sindhu has had the option to maintain her attention on her game while as yet raising her stature in front of any semblance of MS Dhoni and numerous different renowned cricketers as far as attractive Sports symbols. Prominently, Sindhu wins about ₹ 1 to 1.5 crores for each day from brand supports, standing second just to the Indian Cricket Team skipper who charges about Rs. 2 crores for every day for the equivalent. This doesn't appear to trouble the moving toward brands however. As of late, Sindhu marked a 4-year manage the Chinese games products mammoth, Li Ning for an incredible ₹ 50 crores in sponsorship and the gear. Other than Li Ning, she additionally speaks to brands like Nokia, Panasonic, Gatorade, Bridgestone and Reckitt Benckiser. Indeed, she was the first brand minister of Bridgestone in Quite a while.

 All things considered, the 24-year old has kept been moral in wording, declining all the soda brands' underwriting bargains as a result of her own unacceptance of the equivalent. Aside from these, Sindhu additionally embraces budgetary establishments and brands like Myntra, nourishments creator Apis and state-run loan specialist Bank of Baroda. She likewise helped Govt. of India advance GST in the nation in its previous stage in 2017.

 PV Sindhu Career Rewards and Rewards

 While most of her total assets is amassed by the support arrangements and sponsorships, a reasonable bit is contributed by the profession rewards and prizes from various foundations. As a token of gratefulness after the silver decoration accomplishment in 2016, she got ₹ 5 crores from Telangana government, ₹ 3 crores from Andhra Pradesh and ₹ 2 crores from the Delhi government. Other than these, she likewise got ₹ 50 lakhs each from the legislatures of Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Ministry of Sports and Badminton Association of India. Sindhu is additionally the most youthful beneficiary of the Padma Shri Award which she got in 2015, adding to her count of Arjuna Award and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna grant (2013). Indeed, the Indian Olympic Association and Bharat Petroleum Corporation gave her ₹ 30 lakh and ₹ 75 lakh individually.

 Other than these cash rewards, Chamundeshwarnath, Hyderabad District Badminton Association president, skilled BMW to the silver medalist after the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. In actuality, he likewise skilled other 3 achievers of the Olympics, including Sindhu's mentor, Pullela Gopichand.

 PV Sindhu BMW

 PV Sindhu Net Worth: Aside from these prizes, she additionally has vocation income of $457,583 (₹3,35,61,425) as indicated by BWF's legitimate site. With a compensation of $500,000 (Rs. 3,57,00,000) and complete profit of $5.5 million (Rs. 40,00,00,000), PV Sindhu stands thirteenth and remains the main Indian in the Forbes rundown of most generously compensated female competitors in 2019. The 24-year old has additionally highlighted in the Forbes rundown of Asia's 30 under 30, denoting her essence among probably the most persuasive youthful famous people, not only competitors of Asia.

[karpedayam]

Day 27: Cultural Programme & BBQ! - June 16

Today was a long but really incredible day! Woke up and went to yoga, our instructor’s instructor led us in some meditative breathing exercises for about a half hour. It was really cool but I was also really restless for some reason, the warm sun was nice though. 

I went back to sleep for a bit after yoga and then got ready for our group lunch at BBQ Nation. This place is an all you can eat buffet but it’s on another level. The tables have their own grills and they just keep bringing you food to keep warm on it. There was paneer, pineapple, mushrooms, prawns, fish, and chicken. They also came around with this spicy fried potato dish, mutton sausage, and fried little potato pancake things. Honestly I thought that was the whole experience but that was JUST STARTERS. We were already full when I realized there was still an ENTIRE buffet to eat from. I went for it anyway, didn’t finish anything I took but it was all so tasty. Then they had a huge dessert bar too and I had lots of ice cream, Jamun (kinda like tastier timbits in a caramel sauce), and brownies too. 

Left feeling so stuffed and didn’t have much time to relax after since we needed to start putting on our sarees for the cultural event in the evening. Arjuna and Ranjita (in the green saree in the group pic) helped us put them on which was really nice, they’re lovely girls. Ranjita is interning with Darmesha, our program director, and Arjuna is an Master’s student at the institute. We felt so incredible being all dolled up, I forgot what it was like to have my hair down and wear makeup! We took so many photos together as you can see. In that picture with Ranjita is Vaibhavi (in purple) who was an intern at our institute. She’s in grade 10 and she was taking classes with us. Tonight was our last night seeing her as she has to go back to her school and we’re really going to miss her - she’s so mature and sweet and contributed a lot to our classes. 

We went up to the institute for tea and sweets but I was still super full. The cultural event was “Music forms of Karnataka” led by students of the Raghuleela School of Music. They were so talented. There were 6 singers, a mandolin player and a drummer and again it reminded me so much of home. I loved the mandolin riffs he would go on and that mixed with the group harmonizing together really reminded me of the Barra MacNeils. They sang a range of songs from devotional music, to love songs, to songs for Chamundeshwari (the goddess most popular in Mysore - remember Chamundi Hill temple in Mysore from a few weeks ago?). Their last song was a song of gratitude for the motherland and being together which is derived from a verse in the Ramayana Hindu text about how the motherland is more beautiful than the heavens. I’ll post a few videos of my favourite pieces they did. 

Paul, our faculty advisor, informed me that I’d be getting a roommate in the morning and I wasn’t exactly thrilled about that. However, I knew Anger didn’t have a roommate either so I asked if we could be roommates. Luckily that worked out and I’m so grateful for that. She moved in after the cultural programme and it’s actually great, we talked a lot and I’ve never had a roommate before, I’m used to being very independent but honestly it’s really nice just to have someone around, especially when it’s someone I get along with so well.