Pain

May 2008


Have u ever felt like hurting urself outside so that u dont feel the pain within. Broken arms and legs can be mended but there is nothing like the sight of an amputated spirit. There is no prosthetic for that.

Zindagi dhoop, tum ghana saaya.

February 2008

I dont seek the treasures of the world.
I dont seek the pleasures of the flesh.
If your black deep shadows cover me against the scorching sun of life,
I dont seek to bathe in the bright colors of the rainbow.

The CNN debate.

February 2008.

Today was one of those rarest of rare days when I wasn’t working on a weekend. Hence I got up at 12.30 and straightaway went for the remote to watch the India Australia T20 match. But I somehow settled upon the Democratic debate on CNN. What started as just an intention to take a peek into the two contenders for the American president ended up in two and a half hours of my undivided attention (I forgot the match totally !!!).

And boy what a debate it was !! Two people who may hold the destiny of a nation in their hands being thoroughly grilled by their countrymen before they decide to pass on the baton to either of them. And then what struck me was the stark contrast of the state of affairs in our country when it came to electing the president or the prime minister where the peoples’ will is totally overlooked and often subverted (Kalam vis-à-vis “some” Pratibha Patil). And it made me admire the great country and democracy that America is. That is how a nation should be, I thought. Here was a country where the future president had to walk on fire and prove himself worthy before his countrymen before being elected and in comparison ours was a nation where an unknown lady became the head of the largest democracy in the world on the mere whim of some Italian who din bother to give an ear to the voice of its people. A lady who had absolutely no stature or locus standi whatsoever was elected (appointed rather) over a rocket scientist.

One of my favorite movies happens to be ‘Swades’. It had a scene in it where Shah Rukh Khan is asked whether he believed that our country was the greatest by virtue of its ‘Sanskriti and Sabhyata’. What he replied was further confirmed today when I saw that debate. Only our culture and all that bullshit won’t take us anywhere unless other things that matter in the present are put in place. One of them is our electoral process which is fundamentally flawed and needs to be overhauled. I wish we had a debate on Star or Times where Sonia or Manmohan or Rahul pitted their wits against Advani or some other hopeful which the people got to see and only then vote (I wun hv voted since thay all appear the same to me) but at least the citizens can put things in perspective before making a choice (The ‘Lead India initiative is a good step in this regard). No wonder why America is called the greatest democracy and why is it called ‘the American dream’. All the same I felt helpless and thought the minimum I cud do was write about this so that I can spread this thought to at least a few people who read this. Maybe greater things are to come.

As for the debate, I must admit I had really underestimated Obama until I saw this. He was awesome. There really must be something in this man that is making it so tough for Hillary despite the rich legacy of her husband.

The American president Woodraw Wilson had said ‘We are the citizens of the world’. If only we stopped looking at that great nation with eyes of envy and suspicion and imbibe the good things that happen there. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I wish someday I see this again on CNN except that it hosts the debate for the Indian elections. Amen !!

From the arabian sands

January 2008

First things first. I got the feedback that my previous posts don’t carry a date and hence this blog suffers from the lack of a timeline. Well the only reason I dint include them earlier was coz I usually wrote them over a period of time – around 2-3 days and hence thought that tying a post to a particular date may distort things. But all the same I do see a point in the feedback and hence have decided to write the month before every post (as u can see above this). As for my previous posts I have done the same with them.

Its been quite a while since my last post and a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then. Firstly I write this from a foreign soil, and every gasp of my breath craves to go back to my motherland and smell the air of its soil. I really find it tough to believe sometimes that we human beings become so intricately attached to the stuff we grow with until at some point they become as good as soulmates to us.

Dubai is by all counts a mind blowing city . I would say it’s a case study in the human history of development. A perfect example of how to build a metropolis from virtually scratch out of sand. It competes with Singapore and to some extent Hong Kong and Tokyo (I still wouldn’t include Shanghai ) to be Asia’s global cities . But while Singapore has built itself inspite of the absence of any natural resources whatsoever Dubai has had the benefit of having tons of oil to itself and thereby enabling the administration to run the city on oxygen (without any tax payers money that is). But this doesn’t take away anything from this place. Afterall there are north African nations and even asian (ever heard of Brunei!!) floating in oil with the higher powers being among the richest on the planet but people go hungy there. But not Dubai. King Rashid is almost worshipped by the people here and he has lived up to it. He made sure that the money from oil was ploughed back into the system. You just have it all here. From the world’s costliest hotel to the world’s tallest tower to the world’s largest mall. Its all in the superlative. And all in the space of 35-40 years.

As for the people u find them all here. Hindi is everywhere and so are Indians (7 in 10). And somehow Filipinos go everywhere. Keralites with their usual ‘Yaai cyame tyu the middle yeast to yearn meney’. Enterprising people indeed. They are the single largest community here.

But I don’t know why inspite of all this the mind wants to go back to India. There is nothing like India in the whole world. Indeed home is where the heart is !!!

Thoughts of a troubled soul.

November 2007.

Why do good things in life come with strings attached? Why can’t they be just unadulterated? Can the lunch be actually free sometimes? Why do we almost always have to read the fine print in between the lines (and the clichéd 'conditions apply' with the asterix before it). Why does life throw installments at us in carefully calibrated measurements with the unfailing precision of a great mathematician? Why doesn’t the earth stand still for sometime so that we can complete that rain dance with our beloved in our dream before the alarm rings? Or for that matter, why doesn’t it miss a spin so that the long awaited warm embrace of two people in love happens sooner? Why do we see the water in the desert and yet it vanishes into thin air as we approach? Why can't we choose the color of the rainbow we want to slide down from? Why can't the Almighty for once forget his laws and just roll the dice !!!.