The Drawing Room Revolutionary

“Stop honking will you.” Aditya sneered as the driver of the car behind him was hell bent on deafening others with his high decibel car horn. Aditya was caught in yet another traffic jam. He looked around and tried to figure out the problem. The root of this jam was quite obvious. The road width was just enough to accommodate a fluent traffic but then Munna automobile repair and spare, Pyaasa Juice Corner, Akbar Mutton Roll Hut, Bajrangi Chaat stall, Sunny fast food center and a lot of their brethren too had their claims on the road. Too make the things worse, the no. of cars had increased considerably and the poor road built years before, was bound to crumble under the wheels of the ever increasing number of the i10s, Ikons, Scorpios and the ubiquitous Marutis. “Why don’t they do anything about it?” he spewed out along with a few four letter unmentionables.

After a couple of kilometers he took a left turn to leave the busy road and the huge swarm of vehicles with it. He took a sigh of relief, changed the gear and started accelerating. Just before he was about to thank God, he yelled “Holy shit”, as his car had just jumped over a nasty pothole right in the middle of the street. “When are they going to repair this bleeding road?” was all he could spare in the praise of the lovely dimple present on the face of that smiling street.
Finally, he reached his home where his wife was waiting with some guests in the neatly decorated drawing room of his house.
“Welcome, Adi…we all were waiting for you”, his wife, Divya, chuckled.
“Hey, Amit and Shreya…nice to see you, I didn’t know you were here.” He wanted to exclaim with joy but all he could manage was a faint and fatigued smile.
“Yeah Adi, it’s an off for Amit tomorrow, so we thought to see you guys.” Shreya smiled as she replied.
“Doing a lot of work these days, buddy…is next appraisal round the corner?” Amit asked, pointing at the clock.
“Ohh..no..no that is not the case. It’s that creepy traffic jam which eats my day,” Aditya looked at his wrist watch, “almost two hours today.”
“Ya..dude..the traffic of this city is in deep shit. I don’t know why anyone isn’t paying attention to it. Our leaders are too busy with the ‘issues of national importance’.” Amit added as they both placed themselves comfortably on the sofa.
“I’ll prepare some snacks for you”, Divya sensed that the discussion was heading towards politics so she preferred to head towards the kitchen and signaled Shreya to accompany her.
“Don’t call them leaders. They are just politicians who are too involved in politics. They have no time for governance.” Aditya fired.
“Even the bureaucrats! All they care is to please the party in power. No one is doing anything. I sometimes wonder who is responsible for all this.”
“Actually, it’s the illiterate junta of this country which is responsible. They vote these reckless leaders into power and then we all suffer.”
“Yeah…I agree but you can’t help it. This is India and we have a democracy and in democracy it’s the majority which matters.”
“I just pray to God that this time the company sends me to the States. I vow I’ll never come back to this hell” and as soon as Amit finished his sentence, a power cut plunged them into darkness just to insinuate him that hell can be a little more hellish.
“Divya…why isn’t the invertor working?’ Aditya yelled.
“The power cut has been too frequent throughout the day. The battery is not charged. Wait! I’ll bring the candles.” Divya screamed back from the kitchen.
“Look at it…the future superpower has no power for its own capital.” Amit smirked at his pun.
“And no one cares…. Wish I could also leave this place but I have parents to look after and Dad will never leave his motherland. I wonder why he is so fond of this place. The roads are pathetic, government schools don’t have teachers and government hospitals don’t have doctors, terrorists are transforming this country into a mine field, farmers are committing suicide, share markets are stumbling, people are losing their jobs but no one is willing to do anything.” Aditya grew impatient.
“What can anyone do about this country, Aditya? No one can help it”
“No, actually a lot can be done if people start voting seriously and sensibly. It will force our leaders to mend their ways. The bureaucrats are reckless because the leaders sitting on them are insincere. Once the leaders wake up, a lot can be done…believe me…a lot” Aditya spoke with a newly discovered sense of conviction. He wasn’t looking at Amit. His eyes were fixed on the far corner of the drawing room and his face had the solemn expression of seriousness. He felt that the silent revolutionary within him was speaking. This sense of patriotism elevated him.
Amit was a bit startled but even he got excited and added, “Yes, once the legislative and the executive of this country start working honestly everything will change. We will have a better law and order system, better infrastructure, more industries; more MNCs will chip in thereby creating more jobs for us.”
Suddenly, the power got restored and Aditya sighed, “Finally…the power is here”.
“And the cold drinks are here too.” Divya announced.
“Leave it yaar. There is no point in burning our blood. We cannot change this country. No one can change anything as long as the people of this country do not wake up. Let’s have the snacks.” Aditya said and leapt forward to pick up a glass filled with cold drink.
“You are right. By the way we both are going to Manali on this weekend. Why don’t you guys join us?” Amit’s voice was full of excitement.
“Manali ! I would have loved to go there but what’s the point in going there just for two days. It will be too hectic.”
“Why only two days? Tuesday is a holiday. Take a leave on Monday and we can get a four day off. What say?” Amit explained.
“Tuesday…holiday? What for?” Aditya was surprised.
“Start watching some news channels buddy. We have an election on that day. It’s a holiday for everyone in this city.” Amit replied.
“Oh…yes…how could I forget? That’s great…what an opportunity. I’m in…we’ll start on Friday evening.” Aditya exclaimed.
“Hey! This time I was planning to cast my vote. I mean I haven’t exercised my voting right ever. We didn’t go even for the last time because of that silly cricket match of yours.” Divya complained.
“It wasn’t silly…it was India VS Australia…down under. Huh…you will never understand. By the way why are you so keen about it? It’s not so easy especially in this summer. There is a long queue out there. It’s no where close to a picnic. You won’t enjoy over there. Moreover, elections come after every five years. We’ll go next time. Who knows, we might not get another opportunity to have a holiday with Amit and Shreya. Amit will soon go to the US” Aditya snapped back.
“Actually, Sonal voted last time and she was flaunting that mark on her finger nail so snobbishly that I decided that even I’ll vote. Anyways, you are right. We can go next time. We four will have a great time together.” Divya turned to Shreya, “Shreya we’ll shop tomorrow. I need to buy some warm clothes for Manali.”

Suddenly there was a power cut again and amidst the darkness someone grumbled, “No one can change this country… No one can help it.”

Re start !!

Hello! Right now I am highly perplexed on how to begin and therefore I‘ll begin with an apology for not posting a single alphabet for the past few weeks. There is no reason or excuse behind my self imposed exile from this blog space. It was pure, hard core, unrelenting (and aahh blissful) laziness, glimpses of which are present in most of my earlier articles. Yes, it was laziness; it was that strong and great feeling of actually doing absolutely nothing which prevented me from writing but now I’m done with it. Thanks to my brother who has sort of forced me out of my ecstasy of inactivity. Actually, with a rare exception of some signatures and few notes on office related matter, I haven’t written a single word after my last article. It was after he forced me to write something for him, I actually discovered or rediscovered the joy of creation. Having finished the text meant for him, I just went through it again and again and with every passing word I just felt excited and probably happier (actually it was a strange tickling mixture of joy, pride, zeal, anxiety and adventurism, single word for which is unavailable in my limited lexicon). So, it was last night that I have decided that I’m going to write once again. I know I’m not the greatest writer, may be I’m not even half as good as many others whose blog I have read (No! I m not playing modest) but still, I feel that I should write. So, I request all of you who have been visiting my blog spot to keep visiting it and encourage and enrich me with your comments. In fact, it would be great if you could help me to improve so that my articles may become more worthy of your valuable time.

Elections are coming, so I have decided that my next series of articles will be based upon the biggest problem of Indian politics- The voters. I will soon post the first article of the series. Wait, ‘soon’ is a very deceiving word and it is actually providing me an ample scope for procrastination. So, let’s decide the exact day. Sunday evening, yupp…I’ll post this article on Sunday evening…just a second…even ‘Sunday evening’ provides the couch within me an escape… which ‘Sunday evening’ must be mentioned. So, Sunday, 9-11-8, by 10 pm I ‘will’ post it. Till then- good bye!

PS- If you are a believer then you can help me a lot by just praying to God and asking Him to provide me with a few kilograms of determination. Thank you!

THE 'RIGHT' VS THE 'CORRECT' (Last part)

Human beings are strange creatures. Unlike, other living things, nature gave them an ability to think. Like other living things even they needed food, water and air for their survival but their thinking brain was not satisfied with survival alone. It demanded a justification for that survival. It demanded an explanation for the surroundings. It forced them to think. It cajoled them into believing and thus beliefs were born. By the term ‘belief’ I don’t mean religious beliefs. A belief can be any reflection, belief in oneself, belief in God or belief in any ideology. This belief is a strange thing. It is our greatest strength…and biggest weakness. It can bring the Mahatma out of a Mohandas and it is this belief which can unleash a Hitler on a planet. Human beings live and fight and die for their beliefs. Are they born with their beliefs? Well, going by my mother, the only belief I was born with, was to cry the hell out of my throat and deafen my mom and the poor nurse attending her.

Imagine a situation, somebody coming to me and saying, “ Akbar was the most selfish ruler whose greed for the expansion of his kingdom was so much that he made alliances with the infidels. Aurangzeb was the best; he fought against the infidels throughout his life to establish the will of God.” What would be my reaction? Simple- “Are you nuts? Akbar was one of the greatest because of his religious tolerance and Aurangzeb was an orthodox.” Now I react like that because I have a particular belief, formed during my schooldays, that secularism and religious tolerance are great virtues. We all have a set of such beliefs because most of us are made to believe in those beliefs during our most impressionable years (i.e. 3-21 yrs) or during a crisis.

Similarly, the extremists (not only those who fight in the name of any religion but all those who have resorted to violence) have been made to believe in certain ideologies. As long as this belief stays, their struggle will stay. Thus, to break the struggle, you have to break or modify the belief which I feel is not possible by any war. Wars, themselves are great stimulators in the formation of those beliefs. Then how to do it?

“Alright, enough of this nonsense,” our Mom would intervene, “Now tell me the problem.” Thus, she would sit and sincerely listen to our stands and then would calmly explain to us why and where ‘the right’ or ‘the correct’ was wrong. That explanation would cool us down because it not only solved the issue but it also helped us to rethink and modify our notions, our beliefs. Now, why did this approach work? There are two reasons-
First- because we both had respect and regard for our mother. We knew that she was impartial, sincere and knowledgeable enough to settle our dispute. Second- because there was an open dialogue in a conducive atmosphere where each of us spoke our mind without any inhibitions.

Well, that is exactly what we need today. We need a dialogue. We need a knowledgeable, sincere and impartial arbitrator. We need an open discussion on our beliefs. Wrong notions, of either side, must change. Wrong beliefs, on either side, must be dumped. Going back into time, as far as my history syllabus allows me to go, I can recall hundreds of wars and battles fought in the name of religion or belief but I cannot trace a single sincere dialogue held to sort out the difference in the belief. May be that is where lies the problem and the solution?

THE RIGHT VS THE CORRECT… (Part 2)..

Disclaimer- This post is not at all humorous by any stretch of my imagination (I’ll be utterly surprised if someone still finds it so.) Please do not go ahead if you are expecting a light hearted permutation of words meant to generate humor...

Next month the global war on terror will grow seven years and some thousand corpses old. In the past seven years some of the strongest nations have invested an unprecedented amount of resources in tackling terrorism but where do they stand today? I reckon the war, instead of weakening the terrorists, has simply strengthened their resolve and number. Disastrous out come? Why and how?

It has happened probably because the war lords fighting the war on terror couldn’t observe that those whom we call as ‘terrorists’ consider themselves as proud ‘mujahideens’. They were unable to recognize that unlike criminals and mafia, these are fiercely motivated people with a strong sense of morality and righteousness. For these ‘mujahideens’, we the members of the modern and civilized society are much more immoral, inhuman and unjust, than they are for us. One may annihilate them physically in a battle but no one can crush their resolve and therefore in spite of winning a few skirmishes here and there, the ‘war on terror’ can never be won.

In my previous article I have mentioned that my brother and I fought relentlessly when both of us believed in the appropriateness of our positions. Similarly, here we have two sides, both of them strongly believing in the virtuousness of their actions. None of them is wrong in its own eyes. One is ‘rationally’ correct and the other is ‘ideologically’ right. On one hand, we have our society i.e. people who follow the law of the land, believe in its constitution and have defined human rights as the basis of justice. On the other side, we have people who follow religion as law, believe in their holy books and have defined ‘the will of the God’ as the basis of justice. Thus, the two sides have different morals and different notions of justice. For eg- for us, killing is a crime but killing a deserving criminal, through a proper channel of law, is justice. For them things are a little different. To begin with, their perception about crime is different and once the crime and criminals have been identified, their idea of justice is once again different. When they bomb a busy market place they are not committing the crime of killing innocent people, they are simply executing the punishment which an ‘unjust’ society comprising of ‘infidels’ deserves.

Questions galore! What makes them think so bizarrely different? Is it their faith or religion? Is it some holy book, as propagandized by some of our warlords? The answer from my side is the strongest ‘no’ I can utter and I have reasons to do so. It can’t be the religion because when I look around I find a plethora of intellectuals, writers, doctors, scientists, engineers, businessmen, artists and friends who belong to the same faith, who believe strongly in their religion and still are great contributors to the development of the society we live in. Well, if the faith is not responsible for the problem then who actually is? Is the question too complicated?

Hmmm…the length of the article has once again exceeded the safe bearing capacity of the reader and therefore I would like to stop it here. I will try to finish this discussion in the next article which I’ll publish tomorrow. There I’ll put up my idea regarding the cause of this problem and a possible solution based upon the methodology which was used to resolve the conflicts between me and my brother.(to be continued…)

THE RIGHT VS THE CORRECT…

My younger brother has always been like a good friend to me. I share with him all my weird ideas. He is a good guy to hang out with but at the end of the day he still remains what he has been destined to be - my brother!! So like many other siblings we do maintain a fierce(and sometimes violent) sibling rivalry. During our teenage years, quite often our humorous discussions got transformed into howling disagreements. There were times when he was wrong and I was right and there were occasions when he was right and I fell on the wrong side of the argument. In the former case, I used to defend my self-righteousness with all the zeal and vigor I could manage but there were occasions when I knew that I was wrong but I still tried to put up a brave fight to shield my self- inflated ego. To my frustration, I always lost in the latter case because somehow somewhere in my heart, I knew I was wrong.

The worst scene occurred when I believed that I was right and he knew that he was correct. These were the most fiercely fought battles in which neither side gave up and sometimes things became so ugly that we utilized all the newly acquired WWE tricks(twisting arms, pulling hairs and peeling off other’s skin) to prove our respective points. Hearing to the cries and clamor, our mom would come running and separate the two entangled bodies but neither of us surrendered because none of us was wrong- I was right and he was correct.

Well, all this crap is being discussed here because I find a strange and striking similarity between our tussles and current global scenario. We’ll talk about it in my next article…(to be continued…)

PS- Slowly I have started believing that I have this disease of discovering and sometimes inventing similarities…what say??

GOD and politics...

Disclaimer—this article is not intended to hurt anyone’s religious or political sentiments. Please, go through it only if you can handle crap without taking it too seriously…



Hello world! Due to some unavoidable (and highly personal) reasons I couldn’t write (or rather think) anything worthy of a blog on the past two Sundays. Though, I reckon that not many people visit this page but even then I believe it’s my responsibility to apologize.

So the story goes like this--- Once upon a time, during the twenty first century, God decided to incarnate himself one more time. This time he decided to adopt a more contemporary way to demonstrate the ‘right path’ to the erring humans. He consulted his secretary and deduced that democracy is the order of the day-latest and the most popular form of governance. He therefore decided to contest an election and set an example by becoming an ideal leader. Since, India was the largest (rather the most populated) democracy, he chose India as the region of his operation. He came to India just a year before the general elections and went to the office of one of the upcoming popular political parties of the country. There a man, in his early seventies, was interviewing the possible candidates for the party ticket.

“Your name please?” the man asked.

“Awww….Bhagwan Awatar”, God thought for a while and replied.

“Good name…will appeal to the rural and some of the orthodox voters.” The man smirked and continued, “So why do you want to join politics?”

“I want to do something for the humanity.”

“Nice answer…it will impress people… but you don’t have to pretend anything here…you can speak the truth. Anyways, let’s check your credentials…have you ever committed any crime in your life say killing anyone?”

“Yes…I do take lives…but I don’t think it’s a crime if I do it.”

“Good! You have some attitude”, the man exclaimed, “How many?”

“Well…I don’t remember exactly. It is my secretary who keeps the record.”

“Great…you have a secretary for this purpose...but why did you kill so many people?”

“I reckon their time was up; I had to bring an end to their lives…That is how the things work.”

“No remorse! Superb! We want such type of people…In politics you cannot waste time on repentance and all.” The man spoke nonchalantly. He started again, “So, let’s move on. Have you ever faced any punishment?”

“Yeah…once upon a time, some men tried to crucify me…”

“What...and you survived?” the man was a bit surprised.

“Yes…It’s no big deal…” God said with a smile.

“Great…We want tough people…” the man looked impressed, “I hope you can divide people on the name of their castes if it serves your interest?”

“No…I have never done such a thing”, God was surprised.

“Hmmm…no problem…I hope you can certainly divide them on the name of religion?”

“Blasphemous….why would I do that?” God was shocked.

“What? ...Ok…have you ever done a scandal…manipulated public money?”

“Sorry, but it’s against my dignity…”

“Oh! I hope that at least you are good at forgetting your promises?” the man snapped in. He looked a bit irritated now.

“No…I have always fulfilled every promise I have made to my followers.”

“You have followers…a public base…good…how many?”

“Well…not many these days but in good old days I had a pretty decent following.” God said with a sigh.

“Look dear…being in politics is not easy…People will come to you with lots of expectations and complains…”

“Yeah…some of them do come even nowadays…” God interrupted.

“Let me finish…you have to listen to the people but never take them seriously. Console them, be polite to them but never take any petitioner too seriously. In this country people come to you only when they are in trouble; once the trouble is over they forget their leaders. Keep on fooling them with your kindness and try to extract maximum advantage out of them. Most of us are successful because of this trick.” The man explained sternly.

“That is not possible for me…I always listen to each and every prayer with uttermost sincerity and do take necessary actions. It’s a law for me, I cannot violate it.” God was exasperated. He went outside and checked the board hanging on the parapet. It read—XXXXX political party. He returned to the man.

“What happened? Where did you go?” the man looked annoyed.

“Huh…for a moment I felt that I was at the wrong place but the board says that it’s not the devil’s workshop. Are you really a politician of this country?” God used his power and forced the man to speak the truth, “Fess up…I think you are devil’s agent…come on…tell me the truth…”

The man was terrified, “I’m no devil’s agent…please…believe me…I belong to the XXXXX party.”

God read his eyes. This time he was speaking the truth. God decided to go to some other party. He had heard of one more party which was very popular in India. “This one must be following the ethics…I’ll join it.” he said to himself.

He entered the office with a positive frame of mind. The first question was asked to him, “How many successful scandals are to your name?” ….

Faces of Femininity- stories of success !!

Kiran Bedi, Sonia Gandhi, Aishwarya Rai Bacchan, Mayawati, Sania Mirza, Arundhati Roy… well the list can go on endlessly but what is common in the above names? Yupp…they are all women. They all are from India and they all are very successful in different walks of life. Now, let’s have another set of names— P. Archana, Devi Kumari Singh, Suman Sinha, Isha Sharma, Lalita Agarwal…and the list can go on and on and on and on… What is common here? Once again, they are all women. They all are from India and even they are very successful in their life. But who are they? Alright, you can stop scratching your head. I’ll unfold the mystery.

P. Archana is a bus conductor in Visakhapatnam. Every day she sells and checks tickets for scores of commuters traveling on the route 400 N in that coastal city and she is the one who actually fined me for not buying a ticket( though I can still swear that I bought the ticket but misplaced it –courtesy- my absent mindedness) . The sheer confidence and sincerity which emerges from her can be felt by the ease and dedication with which she does her job. Being a woman, by no means, intimidates her but makes her more responsible. She said once, “Men forget because they are absent minded, women forget because they are women. This attitude of the society makes me more determined to maintain perfection”. No doubt, that she is a successful woman.

Devi Kumari Singh is in Delhi police and she usually monitors the traffic near Chanakyapuri, South Delhi and she is the one who caught me roving without a helmet (Yaar…helmet hi kharidne ja raha tha ). Once again, she is a woman who has to interact with dozens of law flouting idiots (like me) and once again, the candidness and poise won’t let you go unimpressed. Wearing the Delhi police uniform with pride, carrying the baton with authority and walking with a head held high, she is indeed a successful woman.

Suman Sinha …sorry…Dr. Suman Sinha is a dentist in Lucknow. She owns a clinic in a busy marketplace and she is the one who admonished me for having stains in my teeth ( Yuppp…I was addicted to tea once upon a time). Teeth have no gender, but the brain, a few inches above them, is gender biased. On being asked “Don’t you feel that men would prefer a male dentist for getting their tooth extracted”, she smiled and said, “Some people with a tinge of chauvinism do tend to think like that but most of my patients want a neat job, obviously with less pain- to the gums and the wallet.” Today she is among the most sought after dentists in Lucknow and earns more than most of the men in the city (including me (sigh)). I think she is successful too.

Isha Sharma, age 22, works in a software firm in Noida. She was my classmate in school and she is the one from whom I copied a few answers during a maths paper in school.(That was the first and the last time I copied…I swear!!). From the very beginning of her academic career she showed an exceptionally good aptitude for the so called male-dominated-subject. Rejecting the sincere advise of many to take up arts, commerce or biology (the so called girlish subjects), she preferred mathematics. Her father wanted her to take commerce in graduation and stay at home but she went on to become a software engineer and now she lives on her own. The same father got an expensive wrist watch on father’s day and proudly proclaimed, “My daughter earns more than my colleague’s son.” (fortunately or unfortunately, my father is the colleague he was talking about). I think I have full rights and reasons to believe that she is successful as well.

Lalita Agarwal is a house wife. Her elder son is an engineer and the younger son is a tremendously successful businessman. She was always a bright student throughout her academic career but after her marriage she found that her husband could hardly spare time for the family owing to the immensely huge business he had to look after. She chose to sacrifice her own aspirations and became a home maker. She diligently looked after her children, often playing the role of a father when her husband was not present. Today she is extremely satisfied with her life and says, “I could have become a successful professional but I m not sure then what would have been the fate of my family. I’m satisfied that I was always there with my kids whenever they needed family support. I’m glad that my husband could give his hundred percent in work, without worrying about the family. He knew I was there to care. Today my family is happy, I’m an achiever”. She surely is an achiever by judging the status of his husband, the success of her children and by the immense satisfaction, illuminating her face.

Famous or not famous but women in India are achieving new heights. They are doing things which were unimaginable a decade ago. They are everywhere. Besides taking care of their children, net savvy home makers are buying stocks online. Women are in the army, in the police, in hospitals, in call centers, in research institutes and obviously in our houses, converting them into homes…Shayad yahi hai- ‘Buland Bharat ki Buland Naari ki Buland Tasweer …!!’

24,168,720 and 8760...!!

I woke up late on Sunday .After coming out of the bathroom, I looked around; my bed was in a perfect state of mess with pillow cover lying on the bed and pillow on the ground. The table had everything other than the books and my alarm clock hiding in a distant corner of the room. The wall clock read 11 30 am, I had certainly missed my breakfast and it meant that everything was normal. My Sunday had begun perfectly.

I stepped out of my hostel lazily. The search for some food had begun. I went straight to Singhji ka dhaaba. “Two cups of tea chotu”, I placed the order and placed my self on a wooden stool. Chotu stayed there for a moment but then went away quickly. “Customer ek. Chai do-bahut nainsaafi hai re”, he giggled and turned away. “Too may movies…huh”, I mumbled to myself. The shop was pretty empty. It usually is at this hour of the day. I was the only customer in the entire dhaaba. It’s a great feeling to be alone in a restaurant or a dhaaba. You can choose the best seat of the place. You can switch on all the lights or for that matter switch off all of them. You can the turn the table fan completely towards your table or turn it entirely away. You can have all the newspapers or you can have none. You can have the TV remote, provided that there is a TV, the TV has a remote and the remote is still working. I chose to pick up the newspaper and changed the channel.

Huge roaring laughter from the TV attracted my attention. A bald man in his forties, with a heavy moustache covering his lips, was standing on a stage and he was narrating some stupid and partially obscene jokes. Every time he finished a joke (sometimes even before he finished it), two men produced the most thunderous laughter I had ever heard in my life. I was bemused but as soon as I saw the channel logo at the corner of the screen, I got a jolt. It was a news channel and not any entertainment channel as I had expected. I changed the channel and this time there were few pretty girls dancing on Rakhi Sawant’s item numbers on a stage. ‘Nach baliye’ was written at the bottom most corner of the screen and the top most corner had once again the logo of another news channel. The next channel was again a news channel and this time it was the worst of the three. The host of that show was explaining – “Veerane bangle ke prêt ka kahar aur gaaonwalon ki dahshat”. This was really disgusting, a twenty first century news channel talking about ghosts and superstitions. I mustered some courage and went ahead. Now I decided to find out what other news channels had to offer. I was disappointed to see that there were only four news channels that were airing some sensible news based program while all others were busy with some or the other crap. Out of the twenty odd news channels, the only few I could appreciate were- NDTV India, CNN-IBN , NDTV 24X7 and DD News. I have no intention of promoting any news channel but these channels do deserve a mention for maintaining the dignity of their profession.

While walking back I did some calculations. 24, 168, 720 and 8760 are the no. of hours in a day, week, month and year respectively during which some two dozen news channels telecast news across the country. Assuming that a man watches 1 hr news daily and he watches television for just 25 years in his life, then he has actually devoted 9125 hours i.e. more than an year of his life to the news channels. I personally believe that an year of my life is a substantial figure and I do deserve quality news. Unfortunately, our news channels are not providing us that. Instead of genuine valuable information we are told about ‘saas’ ,’bahu’ ki saajish. Instead of intellectually motivating talk shows, we get silly ghost and monster stories and instead of knowledge providing documentaries, we get dance clippings. Huh…

Recently, a poor girl and her house servant were brutally murdered in Noida. The news channels were quick to telecast the tragedy. My reactions to their coverage can be summed as-

First day- Oh...What a tragedy?
Second day –Yes... I’m curious.
Third day-Acceptable.
Fourth day-Oh…same stuff!
Fourth day- Enough!
Fifth day- Please stop it.
Sixth day- Some body change the bloody channel!

That is how I felt after a dangerous overdose of the same story day after day. Unfortunately, they are still showing it and I don’t watch it anymore. In a hysterical attempt to increase their viewer ship, these channels not only exploited the trauma of a family but also tried to solve the murder mystery, a task which investigating agencies should have done. For a few days these channels, though not openly, but conspicuously insinuated that a close family member was the murderer. A few days later the police accused the father for the deaths. “Wow! What a story?”- The channels would have exclaimed. They were quick to change sides and now proclaimed that the police story has loop holes. Poor police got the shock of their lives. I’m not competent enough to declare whether the father is guilty or innocent but I’m sensitive enough to pray to God that the man, his family and the victims must get justice.

I still hope that a day will come when Aishwarya Rai’s wedding won’t become a subject of national importance. A day will come when Rakhi Sawant’s tantrums won’t overshadow the feat of our hockey teams and there will be a day when I will prefer to watch news channels instead of writing a blog, bashing them.

NEWS FROM THE FUTURE

I had just returned from a week long, tiring tour of Uttarakhand. It was an official trip meant to impart some training to us, as a result of which the erstwhile panoramic, green and exciting Uttarakhand appeared so tedious and vapid this time. When I came back to my room, I was extremely exhausted. My kneecaps were numbly aching and my forehead was screaming with agony. Due to the omnipresent turning roads of the hilly terrain, my intestines had to experience a lot of centrifugal force resultantly my whole abdominal region was internally warped and twisted. Even my sleep had fatigued out and I was finding it extremely difficult to find my sweet slumber. Somehow, I placed my self on the disorderly bed and switched on the television. After wandering through a few dozen channels finally I settled for a news channel which was showing some report on a drastically decreasing female-male ratio in the country. According to the report and the gorgeous looking reporter, female foeticide was one of the principal causes for this skewed ratio. I don’t know whether it was the gravity of the report or looks of the reporter which glued me to that channel. It was a pretty serious issue and even my worn out brain was quick to perceive the severity of the problem. I didn’t realize when I dozed away but it was not a sound sleep. The whole night I felt as if I was traveling or listening to the news. I think we all experience these type of weird nights marked by a disturbed sleep especially after a long journey.

At 6 am my alarm clock started shrieking. With my eyes still closed, I reached for it and gagged it by tapping the button. I kept lying on my bed in a half conscious state for another five minutes and then lazily walked outside the door. The newspaper was lying innocuously at the doorstep. I picked it up and went for the headline- ANOTHER GIRL CHILD TAKES BIRTH IN BIHAR, THIRD SINCE JANUARY. I was slightly bemused by this strange headline. My eyelids were up in a flash opening my curious eyes wide open. I started reading the whole news- “19 feb, 2025. Government efforts to boost up the abysmally low female-male ratio have slowly started….” My eyes quickly went back to the date—19 feb, 2025. I was shocked, I was bamboozled and I was everything other than being patient. I looked for the date at the top of the page, thinking may be it’s a misprint in the article but to the biggest shock of my life till date, the date printed on that newspaper was jarringly same-19 feb, 2025. I looked around and pinched myself to ensure it wasn’t a dream. I went back into my room and started reading the article---

ANOTHER GIRL CHILD TAKES BIRTH IN BIHAR, THIRD SINCE JANUARY- 19 feb, 2025, New Delhi. Government efforts to boost up the abysmally low female-male ratio have slowly started to show some results as another girl child takes birth in Nalanda district of Bihar. This is the 3rd female child born in the country since January and after including her, f/m ratio becomes 32/1000. The president of the country has congratulated the teacher couple, who have parented the child and the prime minister is scheduled to visit the house of the baby on 21st February. The baby is healthy and weighs around 7 lb and has not shown any abnormal symptoms. A team of obstetricians and pediatricians from AIIMS has been already stationed near the home of the child and will look after the child and the mother for the next one year. Meanwhile, in Patna, the chief minister of the state has announced full financial and medical assistance to the family for the upbringing of the child. People all across the country are jubiliant and in a celebratory mood...(contd. on page 2)

Well, I was still scratching my head after reading this article when my eyes fell suddenly fell on another headline---

DOCTOR AND A MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR FOETICIDE- 19 feb, 2025. New Delhi. The Delhi High Court has awarded death sentence for a Delhi based doctor after he was convicted for female foeticide. The father of the deceased foetus has also been convicted and has been awarded capital punishment. The mother of the foetus, though proven guilty has been exempted from the death punishment because it would have hampered the f/m ratio. She has been sent to prison for 5 years. This is the 28th death punishment offered for the similar crime and the government has insinuated that it will show no mercy in female infanticide/foeticide cases. Human rights group have also decided not to appeal for any such criminal, though they have appealed to the government to ensure transparency in the investigation proceedings of such cases(contd. on page 2)

I was about to run out of the room to show this to my neighbor but just then the most shocking headline met my eyes—


UN PUTS INDIAN WOMAN IN THE ‘ENDANGERED SPECIES’ FAMILY- 19 feb, 2025, Geneva. A UN report has placed women of India among the ‘endangered species’. As per the UN report, the present rate of elimination of female fetuses is enough to bring about a complete extinction of female sex in India. The hurting reality is that it is the educated and well-to-do families who are more enthusiastically involved in the process of female foeticide as a result of which the sex ratio in India have fallen to a miserably low 32/1000. The UN holds social stigma attached to the girl child, responsible for this problem. The report reads-“…most Indian families still believe that the girl child is a financial burden and therefore prefer a son. This daughterphobia of Indian families has caused the present situation and inspite of government claims, the situation has now become irreversible and now it is certain that after few years India will have to look at other countries for matrimonial alliances of its ubiquitous male population”

I was flabbergasted by this news and ran to show the newspaper to others when suddenly my foot got entangled in the chair leg and I fell on the ground. The impact of the ground on my head jolted me out of my sleep and I looked around in complete disbelief. I was still lying on my bed and there was no newspaper around. My table clock was lying on the ground with its batteries dislocated and everything else in the room was in a perfect state of mess and therefore normal. I tried to recall the strange dream and then decided to pen down my nightmare before I forget it. Finally, I hope that my nightmare will never become a reality and much before 2025, good sense will prevail among all the people who consider a girl child as an unwanted child.




Just before you move away from my crap please have a look at the following data to understand the gravity of the situation—
Decline in FMRs (Females per 1,000 males)
in the 0-6 Year Population, 1991-2001 in INDIA

FMR- FMR- FMR- FMR- Decline Decline
Urban01 urban91 rural01 rural91 urban rural

903 ------ 934 ------ 935 ----- 948 ----- 32 ----- 14

GLOBAL WARMING, TERRORISM AND MY INHERITANCE OF ‘HAIR’ LOSS!!

Hello world!! Off late, scientists, world leaders and intellectuals have realized and accepted the potential threat which humanity faces from global warming and terrorism. Much is being said and written about these two problems and gradually even I have started to believe that these two are the biggest threat to life on earth. Though, not a very active one but fortunately or unfortunately, as per the scientific definition even I qualify as a living being. Henceforth, the greatest threat to life on earth is also a cause of concern for me. So, today I’m going to write on the issues due to which my days are becoming restless and my nights sleepless. Based upon the disaster potential I’ll discuss the most lethal issue first. So let’s start the discussion with my inheritance of hair loss…

My lineage gave me many qualities. While, I inherited an ability to speak something on everything from my maternal ancestors, I got this ability of mingling amiably with anyone and everyone from my paternal forefathers. I owe my DNA to my parents and I’m really thankful to them for such colorful chromosomes. But apart from all these things there is one more thing which I inherited-an insatiable affinity for dandruff. My grandfather lost a major chunk of his hair before I was born. My dad and my uncles, they all walked the same path. Similarly, my maternal grandpa and my maternal uncles have almost lost their mane and are hardly a market for the shampoo industry. All my cousins who are elder to me proved that this love for dandruff (or apathy for hair) has crept in our generation as well. Then one fateful morning, my pillow showed to me that my turn to shed the curls has arrived. I was mentally prepared for it so it was not that big a shock. I knew my destiny has no plans to accommodate a hairy head in the future. But I decided not to kneel down. I made up my mind to wage a war against this cruel intention of fate and vowed to fight against it till the last strand of hair remains on my head. So, I went to a doctor, a step which no one in my family had taken till now. After, getting acquainted to my family history, he told me that it was as inevitable as death. All we could do was delay this process. Besides a prescription, he advised me on a lot of things- from my food habits to my sleeping hours. But the most precious thing he said to me was- “Mental stress also contributes to hair loss.”

While, walking back home, his last words were still resonating between my ears. I started to think, “More stress means more hair loss and more hair loss will surely increase to mental agony i.e. stress. This stress will cause some more hair loss, which will cause still more stress, which in turn will result in still more hair loss, which will add more stress, more stress will again cause more hair loss which is bound to cause some more stress and this newly added stress will result in a little more reduction of hairs. This vicious circle will go on and on and on and on till the last hair goes off and then there will be no hair, no loss and thus no stress!” I was not delighted but I surely felt enlightened. It strangely occurred to me that this circle was equally applicable to the other two threats-global warming and terrorism. Let me elaborate.

The ‘good’ forces of the world are fighting a ‘war on terror’. To kill the terrorists they bomb their locations, their hideouts and sometimes their villages. This kills the terrorist, and with him die many others. Some lose their brothers; some lose their father while others lose their entire family. These dudes decide to take revenge. They become terrorists. They strike back and then the ‘good’ forces have to again bomb their locations, their hideouts and their villages. Once again, old terrorists are killed and new terrorists are born who will definitely hit back to avenge their losses. Poor ‘good’ forces have to kill them so bombing will take place again. The explosion will kill few terrorists and give birth to many more. This circle will go and on and on and on till the last bomb kills the last man alive. Then there will be no humans, no war, no revenge and no terrorists.

Now, let’s talk about global warming. We all will agree that the summers have become hotter than what they were a decade ago. The world temperatures have risen, thereby creating a demand for more cooling devices like refrigerators and ACs. Refrigerators provide us cold water and cold drinks; therefore help us to fight the heat. The refrigerants used for this purpose have a global warming potential. Thus, they contribute in further increasing the temperature. Use of ACs and other such energy consuming devices helps to maintain the temperature but their increased use (because of an increase in temperature extremes) calls for more power production. More power production means more burning of coal which means adding more and more ‘green house’ gases which will lead to further increase in temperature. Thus, to combat the heat, more ACs and more refrigerators will be required which will cause more global warming and thus more heat, to fight this extra heat more ACs and refrigerators will chip in, increasing the temperatures a little further which in turn will force us to use more ACs and more refrigerators and thus this process will go and on and on and on till the temperatures will rise so high that no AC or no refrigerator will be able to protect human life and then there will be no ACs, no refrigerators and no global warming.

I think while writing this I have wasted enough of electricity and now I should stop this twaddle before I become a serious contributor towards global warming. Thank you for reading this post. Bye!

MY FIRST BLOG--- Why girlfriends are similar to electricity and what are boyfriends like?

Hello world !! for the past many years I have been observing people writing blogs, reading blogs, discussing blogs, appreciating blogs and often cursing blogs. All this while I felt that one day even I’m going to have a blog of my own. Literally speaking, what lies behind this blog is not years of hard work or contemplation but years of procrastination. Now, all those who know me(my frenzz) might be thinking why I chose such a frivolous subject but all those who know me well enough(my gud frenzz ) will digest this without any pain or murmur. The only reason why I chose this topic is because I don’t want to discuss anything serious today. I’m in no mood to comment on cricket (even though Sehwagji has scored a masterful triple century today…), under no circumstances, I’m gonna discuss the sixth pay commission ( sorry Chidambaramji !! though it’s a commendable job!) and no, never…not even for dozens of Maggi packets, quintals of ice creams or a free ticket to Hawaii, I’m gonna talk about myself…(which most people do in their first blog…. PS--I’m not against it…)

Before, I start writing on the actual topic I have an important appeal to make.

“This piece of twaddle has been fabricated in an attempt to dodge an infinite array of boredom and fight against a force which is ubiquitously present when not needed but is never available when desperately required. It is popularly known as ‘time’. By no means should this effort of mine be seen as a gender biased bashing but it should be taken just as an arrow of humor shot into the darkness of leisure to kill time. Enjoy if you can!”

When I was in my college then like all other normal male homo sapiens even I had a craving for a girlfriend but call it lack of courage, care or chance, till now I’m single and happy! After joining an organization which produces electricity I have slowly developed a habit of thinking in terms of MW, KV and KWh i.e. electricity and its jargons. One day while talking to a good friend of mine (dangerously committed to a gal) on our favorite subject (probably the favorite of all men) I could sense that having a girl friend has some complexities of its own. After some brainstorming, to find out the reason behind the troubled pleasure this relationship offers I could find that there are so many striking similarities between electricity and girlfriend(s).
So here we go, according to me, some of the similarities between a girl friend and electricity are as follows-


1.) In India, DEMAND is Much Greater Than SUPPLY for both- a gal friend and electricity.
2.) Even a slight carelessness while handling any of them can give you a SHOCK.
3.) BILLS are a concern for both, honest customers and sincere boyfriends.
4.) With one you have BREAK DOWN and with other you have a BREAK UP, but both the situations can cause substantial darkness in life.
5.) Frequent fluctuations in VOLTAGE/MOOD have serious implications for users and household appliances.
6.) Often it has been found that those who don’t have them resort to illegal practices, to have one.
7.) Even today, in many Indian villages, having an electricity connection is as strange a concept as having a gal friend.
8.) Last and the MOST IMPORTANT of all-----
If handled with care, then both can potentially LIGHT UP the life of the possessor.

Well, these were a few similarities which I could think of. There may be many others. Most of you might be wondering now that if a girl friend is similar to electricity then what are boyfriends like. The answer to this stupid question is simple and even more stupid. I don’t think it is possible to draw an analogy between a boyfriend and any other object in this world. Nothing changes in temperament and behavior as frequently and fervently as a boyfriend. A boyfriend belongs to that class of species which never remains constant in its nature and attitude. He behaves like a fan giving soothing air to his beloved and always rotating on her head but within a few seconds he can become a heater of jealousy as soon as some other guy (call it a table fan) turns its head towards his gal friend. He tries to act cool like a refrigerator of emotions with noisy claims of maintaining calm in case of any emotional turmoil but as soon as a relationship crisis crosses his path he turns into a television telecasting all colors of an Ekta Kapoor melodrama. Finally, much to the dismay of his friends, he behaves like an ATM booth whenever dating his girl friend but becomes a “daan patra” (donation box) as soon as he meets his friends after that wonderfully ‘precious’ date.

I reckon I should stop now before readers turn sanguinary. Moreover, now my yawns are gradually increasing in amplitude probably signaling the arrival of yet another dreamy slumber. Thank you for bearing this post !!