3 sides to a story- A short story

Today’s story:

3 Sides to a story

Karan was unwell for quite some time and it was a matter of extreme worry for both his wife Rani and his daughter, Radhika.  He had renal failure compounded by diabetes, and the only way out was a transplant,except there was one issue; Karan’s blood group was AB negative and getting a donor was next to impossible. That is when the Dr Khanna suggested that Radhika be a donor.

For Radhika, the decision was instant. Her father was her hero and being a donor for him was the least she could do. It was Rani, who was having issues with this. For Rani, her life was Radhika;though she was crazy about Karan, her love for Radhika surpassed it all. She was just not ok with Radhika donating her kidney. It was just too dangerous; everything could end, if things went wrong. Her life that she built over the last 24 years could just fall apart,and she was petrified. She needed to stop this, but had no clue how.

Dr Khanna decided the operation would be in USA. Seeing Rani’s tensed status, the doctor felt it was best to do it there, where the facilities were much better. After all Karan could afford it. He was a rich man. But honestly Rani was getting more tensed than required and he wished she would just relax a bit. He knew it was risky and Rani was afraid she could lose both of them, if something went wrong, but medical science had advanced a lot. She really need not have worried so much. But then guess the thought of losing all, was scary. Understanding the situation, he also agreed to accompany them to USA and be with them till the operation happened. After all he was Karan’s childhood friend too.

On arriving in USA, both Karan and Radhika got admitted; there was some routine tests to be done to check the compatibility which was a mere formality as father and daughter match was a certainty. However it was Rani’s condition which was worrying all, including Karan to the extent he thought he would stop the operation; however the doctors and Radhika was adamant. As Karan and Radhika were wheeled in, Rani kept pacing up and down outside the operation area. “What if something went wrong? Not doing the operation would mean losing Karan but doing it might mean losing both? This operation was too risky and  I am unable to make people realise that.”

When Dr Khanna found Rani, she was lying on the floor. She had fainted. The stress was too much for her. Dr Khanna, immediately got her admitted in the same hospital. Honestly speaking she had never seen Rani so anxious. He was worried too. But he knew she would be relaxed after he spoke to her. He waited till she regained senses, so he could talk to her.

When Rani regained consciousness, she saw Dr Khanna sitting next to her bed. He held her hand and said “Relax. Its all ok. Radhika and Karan are fine and their tests have come as a perfect match, which means Radhika can be a donor. Let me assure you, they in best of hands and the operation will be a success and very soon you will have them home soon.” Dr Khanna felt Rani would be fine post this but her puzzled look addled him, but he decided to ignore it.

Rani felt she was dreaming. What the hell was Dr Khanna saying? Radhika was a perfect match for Karan? But that was impossible. After all Radhika was not Karan’s daughter !!!

Rani’s Story

Rani had an arranged marriage with Karan 26 years back. His parents had seen her in a wedding reception, and decided she was the perfect bride to be, for their only son. The marriage was a hurried affair and Karan and Rani hardly got a chance to know each other, forget romancing each other. As a matter of fact, romance entered their life after the birth of Radhika.

The first few months of marriage was fun, but then Rani started getting bored; she was fun loving girl and Karan was just the opposite. It was during this time that Rani met Ashwathama at a party and they immediately clicked; he was witty, charming and she found herself being swept off her feet by him.

With a frequently travelling husband and in-laws in a different city, the romance with Ashwathama blossomed perfectly, till the day she fell sick. Rani was feeling uneasy for many days and finally decided to go for a check up. It was then she learnt that she was pregnant; only issue was the father was not Karan for sure. She was always on pills with him and it was only with Ashwathama that she skipped a few times and this happened. Rani did not know what to do and felt it was best to let Ashwathama decide; after all it was his baby too.

With a frequently travelling husband and in-laws in a different city, the romance with Ashwathama blossomed perfectly, till the day she fell sick. Rani was feeling uneasy for many days and finally decided to go for a check up. It was then she learnt that she was pregnant; only issue was the father was not Karan for sure. She was always on pills with him and it was only with Ashwathama that she skipped a few times and this happened. Rani did not know what to do and felt it was best to let Ashwathama decide; after all it was his baby too.

Ashwathama was stunned hearing Rani’s news; this would be a scandal of epic proportions and Karan would never give Rani a divorce. Indian laws are such nonsensical that by the time Rani got a divorce, and was ready to marry him, it would be time for their child to be married. While Ashwathama loved kids and wanted to be a father, he knew it would never work out with Rani. It was just too complicated. During that time, Ashwathama came across a guy with a similar problem and that was when it struck him that there was only one way out of this. Next day he met Rani..

He knew convincing Rani of what he had in mind, would be a mammoth task but that was the only way out. He explained to her that knowing Karan, a divorce would be an impossibility; plus the kid would have to live with the scandal of his/her birth. The only way out of this was that she tells Karan that the child was his and Ashwathama moves out of her life for good; he would move back to USA and would cut all ties with her. He would leave moment the child was born and Karan would know the child was his. After much convincing Rani accepted; after all it was the future of her kid and she knew that sacrificing her love was the only way out.

Finally the day came when Radhika was born. When Karan placed her in her hands, Rani was weeping. It was the joy of seeing her daughter and also knowing that today was the day, that she would lose Ashwathama for ever. But a sacrifice was must and now her life would be Radhika.

That was 24 years back; things have changed since then. She fell in love with Karan who was a doting father and husband; everything was perfect between them minus the fact that Rani could never forgive herself for lying to Karan about Radhika. But now doctor’s were saying that Radhika was Karan’s daughter. She knew it was impossible. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Karan’s operation was scheduled for 2 weeks from now and she decided to get the DNA tests done so she could get the results in time; so she gathered her clothes along with Radhika’s and Karan’s and submitted it for tests.

Rani was preparing herself to tell Karan the truth as she was opening the first enevelope of the test results, except she could not believe what she read……DNA results confirmed paternity of Karan. Ashwathama was not Radhika’s father; for 24 years Rani had lived in this trauma. But it was finally over. She had nothing more to worry about and anycase Dr Khanna had said the transplant was safe. All’s well that end’s well. Then she remembered there was one more envelope which though was a mere formality, she wanted to read it. She opened the envelope and fell down on the chair ……….”Based on the testing results, obtained from analysis of 15 different DNA probes, the probability of maternity is 0.0% ”

Karan’s Story

​Karan had seen Rani at a wedding and found her pretty, but that was where it ended; he had no clue that his parents had liked her too and decided to get them married. When his parents informed him of their decision it was too late;anycase his parents would never listen to him and he was totally under their control.
Protesting would mean losing his business, which still belonged to his father though it was Karan who was running it.Besides the emotional blackmail his mother would subject him to would be too much; ​he decided to give in.

The marriage was a quick affair. Right after the marriage, Karan shifted to Mumbai, while his parents decided to stay back in Delhi. Soon they settled into their marital life. Though Karan was not much into Rani, he liked the fact that she took care of him and was non-intrusive, which with passing time only grew. Coming from an intrusive family who interfered in everything, the fact that Rani was least interested in his whereabouts, made the marriage just about perfect for him.

Karan met Sunanda about 6 months after his marriage. She was a model and before he realised what was happening, he fell in love with her, hook, line and sinker.​ Life was blissful. A loving girlfriend and a non-intrusive wife was like a man’s idea of paradise and Karan was living it. And then it happened…….He found out he was to be a father.

Karan had no idea what to do; the only way out was to come clean with Rani under the circumstances. That day when Karan reached home to tell Rani the truth, he found the house all decorated. Rani had not told him about any occasion or guests coming home and he was a little surprised. There was a table set for two and what looked like a romantic dinner setting; the last time he had such a romantic dinner was on his honeymoon and he was trying to understand what brought this about. The last thing he needed today was a romantic setting to tell his wife, that he had been cheating on her.

​He looked around and saw Rani waiting for him seductively in a red saree, and the moment he saw her, she came rushing to him and gave him a hug. Karan had no idea what was going on, when Rani gave him an envelope. Karan took it and kept staring at what was written in it with a look of incredulity on his face……..”Pregnancy result: Positive”. After all what are the chances, that in the same week you find out you are becoming a dad, twice?​

He knew then that he could not tell Rani the truth anymore, at least not for the time being. For now he had to figure out how to handle this double pregnancy issue. It was during this period that he met this incredible gynaecologist who became a friend and confidante during those days. God knows what he would have done without him.

Finally the day came, when Radhika was born. She was the prettiest thing he ever saw and fell in love with her in an instant. On the day Rani got discharged, he put both of them in the car and went back to meet the gynaecologist, to thank him for all he did for him during this phase. As he entered he saw him staring at a baby in the nursery; he knocked and when he turned around said “Thanks Ashwath. You have no idea what you have done for me”. With those words he left.

The truth

Ashwathama was born and brought up in USA and had studied medicine there. In 1991, when the Indian economy opened, his dad expressed an interest to return to India, and Ashwathama and his wife agreed. So they all came back.

On returning, Ashwathama readily got a job in one of the leading hospitals in Mumbai. All was going good and then one day he met Rani in a party. There was something about her. She wasn’t the prettiest of the girls around but there was something very attractive about her. Aswhathama loved his wife, but somehow found himself being drawn to Rani and then one thing led to another.

Ashwathama wasn’t the cheating kind, and knew that this affair could not last for long; it’s just that he did not know how to get out. He loved his wife, and knew that his growing fondness for Rani would end up hurting all. He knew he had to break if off one day, but just did not know how. And then Rani fell sick. When Rani told him, that she was unwell, he decided to immediately take her for a check up and there the results came…… Rani was pregnant. Ashwathama had no idea what to do. This had the potential of ruining his married life and his reputation forever. Damn Rani for not taking precautions !!!

It was during this period that Ashwatham met Karan. He had seen Karan’s pictures a number of times in Rani’s purse and when he saw her for the first time he was surprised; Karan was with another woman in his chamber whom he introduced as his wife. If this is his wife, then who is Rani? Anyway he did not probe, and did a check up, and confirmed to Karan that his wife was pregnant.

About 10 days later, Karan took an appointment at his chamber again, but this time he was alone. Aswathama was surprised; after all men don’t come to visit gynaecologists. But Karan was visibily shaken and for a moment he thought that he had found about Rani; however Rani had promised not to tell Karan the truth and he knew Rani was not the kind to break promises. Finally Karan spoke. “Doctor, help me. The girl you saw that day was my Girlfriend and not my wife, and right now both are pregnant. I can’t have two kids from two different women. My dad will disown me and I will be ruined. You need to help me get my girlfriend’s baby aborted. I will convince her. Please doctor, help me”

It was then that Ashwathama realised that this was his way out. He told Karan that abortion would be risky and a better way would be if the child was adopted by someone, and that someone could be him. He wanted a baby and his wife could not conceive; besides he had decided to return to USA next year and this would be perfect. Karan agreed and he knew so would his girlfriend.

It was after this, that Ashwathama starting to put his plan in action. Everything had to perfect to the last T. He first convinced his wife for the adoption and the return back to USA, which was relatively easy. His dad was a little more tough cookie but even he came around. Then came the tough part of convincing Rani that he would be her gynaecologist. Rani was skeptical owing to their past but he told her that this was his only chance of being around the baby as once the child was born he would be gone forever; that emotional blackmail worked and Rani agreed. His next step was to convince Karan that it would be perfectly safe to have his girlfriend and his wife deliver under him. That was tough but after a few drinks and convincing Karan that his secret was safe with him, Karan agreed

And now came the actual work. First he had to ensure both the ladies had their check ups on different days to ensure they never ran into each other. Next was to ensure that both agreed to a C-Section instead of natural child birth; after all that was the only way he could control the time of birth. Both were extremely reluctant, but he told them that they had complications and this was the safest way out.He scheduled Sunanda’s date, a day before Rani’s. Luckily for him their pregnancy wasn’t too many days apart and he could schedule the births close by without running any risk to the kids.  Then he set the legal wheel in action to formally adopt Karan’s baby once the child was born and waited for the D-day.

On 17th November 1994, Karan admitted Sunanda for her delivery, who gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Now came another hitch with Karan and Sunanda insisting that they wanted to see the baby. Aswathama knew that would upset his plans and so told them that owing to the fact that they were giving up the baby for adoption a clean break was best and not seeing the baby, was in best interest of all parties involved. Karan and Sunanda reluctantly agreed.

And then came the final D-day when Rani was wheeled into the hospital for her delivery. Ashwathama wanted a few moments alone with her and told Karan it was part of the routine procedure before an operation so she felt same going under the knife. When alone, he kissed Rani “Sweeatheart don’t worry. Karan will be a good dad and this is best for our child. Post the operation, you will be treated by Dr Gupta and I will move back to USA. We will never talk and our child will be testimony of our love”. Rani was in tears but knew that was the best thing for her baby.

And then came in another beautiful girl. Moment Aswathama took her in his hand, he knew that she was his, his own baby, his flesh and blood. But he had no time to waste. He had to wash and prepare her and also check into the nursery for another baby whom he had delivered just the day before. He took this child there and carefully placed his girl next to Karan’s other child and picked Sunanda’s child up and brought her out. There was Karan, his parents and Rani’s parents waiting outside. He placed the baby in their hands and said “Congratulations. Rani had a beautiful baby girl”. The switch was complete.

Few days later, Rani got discharged and Ashwath left for the US soon after.  Everything had fallen in place.

Epilogue

Karan did not have to convince his girlfriend much about giving up the baby. Sunanda was a model and a baby was a hindrance and she was more than happy to give up and move on. Karan ended up giving all his love to Radhika, maybe as a way to make up for giving up one child. He also felt bad for Rani and tried making up for all he did. In the process he never knew when he fell in love with her too.

All was going well. The operation was a success and everyone was doing well. Then one day he got a letter from Ahswathama. Ashwathama was getting old and he wanted to come clean. Karan read the letter and decided to respond.

“Dear Ashwathama,

Thanks for your letter. I know the burden of carrying a lie for ages can be painful. I have myself carried many for years. But here is the truth- that day when you took Rani in for a private conversation, I had seen you kiss her and talk. You had forgotten to shut the door. I could have broken the silence then but there was too much at stake, but I decided to check on you. So after the operation when you went into the nursery, I paid the ward boy and followed you and saw you switch the babies. When you handed over Radhika to me, I knew she was mine. The only person we have both wronged is Rani, but I think it’s best left that way. I have just come back from an operation and at this stage, I don’t want to upset her world any more. After all I was no saint myself. Stay well and give my love to your daughter. Regards Karan”

Parenting…#7

Catch my latest blog post at http://worldasisee.com/parenting7/

My parents

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Our parliament

Our parliament

Some of my paintings….

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Funny talks….1

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Funny conversations

Do I support AAP? …. Answer is yes and no..

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Delhi Elections 2015

The Bhakt Brigade…. be kind to them. They need it

The Bigots

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‪#‎AIBRoast‬ – How you were forced to watch something you did not want…

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Much ado about sex….

Virginity is a sign of quality

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My shortest love story ever…

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My phone had gone dead…..

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or 

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Idiots I meet # 1

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My new blog URL

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Parenting…#6

My parents

This is my 6th article on things I learnt from my parents. Things, which today, as an adult I realise, is so much responsible, for me being, what I am.

Once I remember coming home from school, being very upset. I had a fight with a friend of mine in school and felt I had no friends in this world (you know as a teenager you feel such crap). My dad saw me and asked me what happened. Now I rarely used to open up about such issues, but that day I did. After venting out my emotions, my dad asked me a simple question “Are you friends with yourself ? Do you love yourself ?” Now of course, in those days when there was no “Secret by Rhonda Byrne”, and such concepts were alien to all of us. I, of course, assumed, that my dad had lost it, and said No. So my dad said “So if you cannot be friends with yourself, if you cannot love yourself, why do you expect someone else to? Do you want your friends to love, what you cannot love?” Now honestly, at that age it made no sense and I was quite upset with him for not understanding my predicament. He then gave me an exercise to do, which at that moment seemed like such a burden. He said “Why not from today, try being your own friend first? Why not write down daily, one reason, why you should love yourself?” By now, I was quite sure my dad was the most insensitive man on earth, who had no idea, how to deal with life and the many problems it had to offer. Anyway, for that moment, the story ended there and my life moved on, and of course I did nothing of that sort.

But then, as I grew up, I was one day in college and was very down about something. Both my parents were in Singapore then and I did not know what to do, and I suddenly remembered his advice. So that day, I took out my diary and wrote down for the first time, one thing I loved about myself and the feeling was exhilarating. I never felt happier in my life. Somehow, I had no idea that I was so great, till I started telling myself . From, that day, started a love affair with myself, which continues till date, and must say the strongest affair, I ever had .

Today, when I come across many friends, who seem to break down and all lost, cause they do not have a man/woman in their life, I realise the value of his words. I have been alone many a times, but never been lonely. I have had my heart broken, but I never felt unloved. Till date, I remain my biggest fan.

So today, when you feel alone, when you feel no one loves you, when you feel time is running out, and you need to settle down with the next “available” person you meet – why not do what my dad taught me? Start a love affair with yourself, and I assure you, never again will you feel the need to be sad again.

My earlier posts on Parenting http://worldasisee.com/parenting-5/

I am sad .. :P

My sad eyes apparently

I am sad – Yes. I have deep hidden emotions, scars, – which I hide with my smile. My smile carries a deep pain ,which I hide with my laughter. My eyes don’t sparkle cause they happy, but apparently cause they hiding the tears.

Now before you get carried away, please stop. These are not my words. That is what someone announced to me last evening. And as you must have guessed by now, as always it was a man (Wonder why I keep meeting such men?). So let’s rewind, shall we to what happened?

So I meet this man online through a debate. He seemed quite nice at that moment. Anyway as my luck would have it, few days after talking (exactly 3 days), he decided to tell me that he could see the pain in my eyes. So here is how the conversation went (am trying to write it verbatim) :

He : Hi, how are you?

Me : Fine, thank you, you?

He : Good. I was going through your pictures. You are pretty

Me : Thank you (added a big grin. Now no matter how shallow it is, I love it when people compliment my looks)

He : But I could see your sadness in it

Me : Ha? Sadness? Where? Why? How?

He : Yes.Though you smile a lot, I could feel that you hiding tears behind your smile.

Me : I was? But am not sad. Am quite happy. I am not “born happy“. Am as what one could called “Learnt happy“. In other words I learnt to be happy. So chill !! you got it wrong.

He : No I do not think so (mind it, he just knows me for 2 days or half hour to be exact as we chatted for 15 minutes on 2 days). Tell me what are you hiding?

Me : (Honestly, was hiding my urge to kick you where your mother never kissed. (Read : Bum), but I lied). Nothing. Unless you think that George Clooney dating another girl is making me sad. In which case, yes I am hiding (sic)

He : Do not lie. I read your blog too. I know you are using humour to block off your pain.Do not hide from me. I am there for you. You can share your pain with me.

Me : Ok. Since you insisted, I am telling you. I met this man a few days back. He  is right now bugging me a lot. I hardly know him, but he claims to know me more than myself. He wants me to manufacture pain, just so he can wipe my tears. Currently am very sad, cause technology has not evolved so much that I can wring his neck, through my laptop 😀

He : (Took a few minutes to understand, I guess cause he responded after a good 7 minutes gap) Hey I was just trying to help. Stop being rude. You know you are not exactly as great as you think yourself to be ^&@#$%

Me : You want to help? Why not wring your own neck? I swear it will make me happy 🙂

Am not sure what happened post this, cause he went offline and since then he blocked me (I know I should have blocked him before he did, but then my motor actions have always been slow).

But since he is gone, I have a happy smile on my face, maybe cause am imagining, he has done something to make me happy – You know wrung his own neck? 

So finally, I have found my happiness. On that note, time you go find yours. You have one life to live, no use being sad. Shit will happen. What you do with the shit is upto you 🙂

The mango theft – A short story

The mango theft - A short story

This is part of the game we playing in this group in FB called ladies club (https://www.facebook.com/groups/goupy/)- we do a lot of fun things there and currently we playing this game called write a short story using 10 words.

This was the second set of 10 words given to write the short story today- home ooh lala intense, detective, mango, jasmine nor’wester, old, , animal, sleepy
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was a warm Sunday afternoon. I was at home lazing around listening to the “ooh la la” song from Dirty Picture when suddenly, I hear a knock on the door. I go open it and there stood a short bald man with the most intense blue eyes I have ever seen. He looked at me and said “ Ms Guha I presume?”. I replied in the affirmative.
“May I come in? I am Detective Rastapopoulos. I have come to investigate the theft of a mango from your neighbour’s garden.”

“A what?”

“A mango madam. A very expensive mango, I must say. Your neighbour had got the seeds from Timbuktoo and planted it here. The mango has the ability to turn old people young again, by twenty years. And last evening a thief stole his mango. And I am here to investigate the same. And I want to ask you some questions. May I?”

A mango which turned old people young? And I never knew my neighbour had such a tree?

I was about to tell him no, but somehow my mouth opened and the word which came out was “Yes” and before I knew it, he had pushed me away and had come in and started his questioning.

“So madam, at precisely 5 PM last evening, where were you?”

“I was at home. There was a nor’wester predicted and I did not go out. But why that precise time?”

“Cause our investigation proves the mango was stolen at exactly 5 PM”

“And how do you know that?”

“Cause the tree had a clock madam, which records the time, moment someone climbs it, to pluck a mango”

A tree which has a clock, and a mango which turns people young? I wondered what I would hear next.

“So madam do you have an alibi?”

“No I do not”.

“So what were you doing at that time, madam?”

“I was sleeping Detective Rastapopoulos. I was tired and fell asleep. Sadly I was alone then”

“Did you dream in your sleep, Madam?”

I was seriously getting irritated by then but still answered “Yes”

“No issues madam. Then we can get your alibi” and saying that he pulled out a strange looking animal from the pocket of his coat. The animal had a blue coat, yellow eyes, ears which were in the shape of a hand and smelt of jasmine flowers. He waved the animal in front of me clockwise, and suddenly I felt sleepy and before I knew I fell on the chair, and started dreaming. Suddenly I get a shake and it is Detective Rastapopoulos waking me up. I asked him what happened and he said “Nothing madam. We just went into your sleep last evening and checked what time you dreamt and realized you were telling the truth. You were dreaming last evening at 5 PM. I have no further questions to ask you madam. You are not the thief”. With those words, he suddenly turned and left, before I could ask him anything further.

I was sitting on the chair still reeling under the effects of what I heard – a mango which turns you younger by twenty years, a tree which records the time you pluck a fruit off it, and a strange animal which can tell you what time you had your dream. I was still dizzy when the bell rang again.

Irritated as I was thinking the detective was back again, I went to open the door again. And there stood a young girl and she was like “Sorry, I forgot to take the keys and so had to ring the bell. But what took you so long?”. I had no idea what she was saying cause I had never seen her before, but yet she looked strangely familiar. She looked at me strangely and said “Now why you standing at the door blocking my way? Do you expect your mother to stand all day at the door?”. And that is when it hit me, the woman in front of me was my mom – EXCEPT SHE WAS 20 YEARS YOUNGER.

Premonition- A short story

A short story

This is part of the game we playing in this group in FB called ladies club (https://www.facebook.com/groups/goupy/)- we do a lot of fun things there and currently we playing this game called write a short story using 10 words
.
The first lot given was weird, astrology, moisturizer, green, friend, dog, sky, grass, school, sincere. This is what I wrote. My first attempt at a short story.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Today started like every other day – wake up, dress and go to school. Yet today was not like any other day. For starters, today morning, I forgot to wear my magical moisturizer , and then everything went wrong.

When I entered school, it looked weird. There were only animals all around- dogs, cats, bear, and animals who talked. I entered my class, hoping to meet my best friend but she was not there – rather a dog was sitting next to me and moment the dog saw me, she jumped on me and started licking my face and playing with me. I looked at the dog intently and saw the dog had the same sea green eyes my friend had. I did not know what was happening.

I ran out of the class screaming into the playground and fell on the grass. As I looked up to the sky, the scorching sun’s heat made me break into a sweat. I could hear the distant scream of my mother and I tried to tell her to take me out, but she could not hear me. I saw towards the school building and I saw all the animals coming towards me. I tried with all my efforts to scream my lungs out, so ma could hear me and I did. And then it happened…….I WOKE UP……and saw ma screaming at me to wake up, as I was late for school.

As I sat in the breakfast table before I left for school, to read my favourite part of the newspaper– astrology section, I saw the following prediction for me for the day. “Today you will have a strange experience. Your friends will show their true characteristics. Stay calm. Be sincere in your approach to all, today. Sincerity will get you out of trouble”……….AND I WONDERED WAS MY DREAM A PREMONITION OF THE DAY AHEAD?

Heads I win, tails you loose…

Jan Lokpal

Team Anna is back again. Just when I thought that there they realised the follies of their ways, back they come again screaming murder. But before I move ahead, let me first state a few things.

1. No MP’s or MLA’s irrespective of which party they belonged to, wants the LokPal bill
2. The LokPal bill will not curb corruption. Good governance will. Lokpal might at maximum (subject to finding an entire team of honest Lokpal officers) be able to catch corruption, but then as we all know punishment is hardly a deterrent for ill-doings. Besides prevention is always better than cure.
3. We need to first decide do we want the Lokpal to curb high-ticket or low-ticket corruption, cause expecting it to do all, will only mean they can do neither. If you expect the baby to run, when the baby is just born you obviously are in for some heartburns
4. To think that CBI is corrupt only cause it has Government interference is simplifying the issue. Every institution in India today has corruption and CBI is no exception. Tomorrow if they free of Government interference, they might still be used by the power of money or any other form of coercion.
5. If the Lokpal Bill does not come, BJP will be winner as it will be a poll issue for them
6. The sense of the house contained 3 items – inclusion of lower bureaucracy, a citizen’s charter and a uniform lokayukta in all states along with having a strong lokpal bill
7. The Government has already passed the citizen’s charter bill (albeit separate but that is different), included the lower bureaucracy and a uniform lokpal clause for all states in the lokpal bill. BJP and TMC opposed the last clause.
8. The last Anna movement was a dismal failure to say the least
9.The Government never ever had the numbers to pass the bill and if the bill did not pass to blame the Government alone is being blind
10. The Government handled the entire show like a fresher instead of a seasoned political party and what even if the Bill did not pass, could have been a brownie point situation for them, turned into the opposite. It was like they scored a goal but sadly in their own goal post

Keeping the idea in mind, let us hear what is Team Anna saying :

Statement 1a. Government failed us. They lied cause they did not keep its promise of sense of the house.
Statement 1b : BJP did not fail us.

Fact : Now if facts are to be placed the sense of the house resolution was actually adopted by the Government, wheras BJP and TMC went against it. But hold a gun to their head, Team Anna will refuse to accept it.

Statement 2a. Government bill was bad – let it not pass.
Statement 2b : At least had the bill passed, we would have had a starting point for discussion.

Fact : If team Anna felt that the bill was so bad, and specially with no Lokayukta clause in it, how would passing of the bill become any good?

Statement 3. The onus of passing the bill lies on the Government

Fact: The Government never had the majority in the Rajya Sabha was well known, so to say that Government could have passed the bill was a blatant misrepresentation of facts. The Government could not have passed any bill which is controversial. Hence it was the onus on the entire parliament to pass the bill.

Statement 4 : Government ensure the Mumbai campaign failed by jamming mobile networks and not allowing autos to come here.

Fact : The only network in Mumbai which did not work on one day was the Airtel one and that too cause the Airtel office had caught fire. Now to imagine the Government would resort to arson to stop the campaign was hilarious. The campaign details were running on the net, on tv channels and every other mobile network. And autos in Mumbai? – Well unless one has never been to Mumbai, one would know that even if God came down and asked, autos in Mumbai will refuse to go to certain destinations, and the venue of the movement was one such destination

Combined with the above and the bizarre reaction by Anna when he got up and left cause he was asked a question against BJP, does go to show one thing – that no matter what the Government would do, Anna team would find fault with them while giving a clean chit to the others. It’s like the game we used to play when we were kids and try and fool the other by saying “Heads I win, tails you loose“…but then now it’s not a game

Again, I have no issues even if the Anna campaign is a BJP campaign. My issue lies with the fact that I am being lied to. If Anna team comes up in the open and says that yes we doing it against the Congress, and they have a right to, I would respect them. But they would not.

In the end, one must always remember corruption is not just about money. Lying and being despotic about power is equal corruption.. Team Anna did a great job bringing the topic of corruption to the forefront but it is time they realised, that people in India are fed up of all forms of corruption – Be it by the Government or Team Anna.

An open letter to Anna Hazare

The Anna Hazare Campaign

Dear Anna,

Tomorrow, when you are about to start another fast, I write to you today as a common Indian citizen who is maybe more disgusted with the corruption plaguing the country than many others. Having personally seen corruption in police, legal system, et al in the last 1 year, my delusion with the country had reached its peak and I had considered what I never thought I would consider – to migrate out of this country. But then you came along and with you brought a hope of change. I was super excited and the first time that you campaigned I did all I could to support you – from the missed calls, to the sms and the email forwards. And after years I had hope for my country – A hope for a better India. But then it ended there, and today I write this letter to tell you why.

I will first start by telling you how I find you and the politicians are so similar:

1. All politicians irrespective of how minor they are change, once they taste power. Your team is no different

The first time you campaigned, the idea was a strong Lokpal Bill and was not just JanLokPal Bill. But the next time around your campaign changed. From the underdog, common man telling the politicians that they should start give us a strong Lokpal Bill and take steps to curb corruption, your stand changed completely to saying give us only Jan Lokpal Bill. Leave alone the fact that the Jan LokPal Bill was equally flawed as the Government version, the entire campaign was a complete U-turn from the earlier one, when you wanted the Government to bring a strong LokPal Bill. Suddenly it seemed that your team was talking with the same tone, we were used to hearing politicians talk – a tone which said we have the power and we will do what we want to, come what may. It seemed only you knew what was good for the country and even the likes of Aruna Roy and all knew nothing. It was as if only your team knew what was good for the country while the rest of the equally diligent civil society members knew nothing. That was the first time I realised that when one tastes power, everyone changes.

2. All politicians love to be the judge, jury and executioner of judgement of their own misdemeanors. Your team behaves identically like them.
A few days back there was a huge hue and cry of most of your members. There was a hue and cry about Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan and there was talks that you will change your team. So you guys decided to meet and judge the situation and take a decision. It was quite funny watching your team of so-called guilty individuals gather together (minus you) and proclaim themselves innocent and take the decision that they would continue as your core committee members. Actually the only members who were present for that meeting were the actual offenders. Somehow reminded me of politicians (read ministers), when charged with crimes who come up and say they will not leave their posts and would form a team who will report to them and tell them that they are innocent or guilty.

3. The third thing is your paranoia like the ruling party.
The ruling party is of the opinion that anyone who stands with Anna is a part of RSS/ BJP, while you are of the opinion that anyone who dares call your team corrupt is a part of Congress sponsored campaign. While both are right according to me in their limited view, the fact is it is a complete wrong assumption to assume that your so called huge support is only cause of BJP/ RSS support and every dissenting voice against you is Congress sponsored. It seems both parties seems to have an extreme myopic view of any criticism leveled against them and seem to think they can make no mistakes.

So tell me if the teacher behaves the same way as the so called errant students, how are you having the moral high ground to tell the politicians anything?

My second problem is the hypocrisy your team displays at all levels and the dual standards you expect you should display and our politicians should display

1. Let’s start with the fact that you were ready to sue Manish Tiwari cause he called you names, but you at every stage jump the gun, and call everyone the ruling party names. You keep calling them thieves, weak, etc. I have no love lost for any politician of this country, including the Congress, but I am of the firm opinion that you cannot preach, what you cannot follow at least in your public life. Tell me Anna, how are different from them? Have you shown me that your standards of conduct are better than theirs?

2. The second hypocrisy I find is when you have dual standards for the way you judge your team and the way you judge the politicians. A judge recently ordered an inquiry against your core team member Kiran Bedi. You and your team have immediately called it a Congress ploy casting aspersion of course on the judge. But when a judge just agreed to allow someone to present a case against Chidambaram, you and your team immediately declared him guilty and wanted him behind bars ? Why Anna? Why this double standard? What is good for the gander should be the goose? Then why this dual standards for two teams?

3. The third hypocrisy is when you refuse to see the corruption in your team. Kiran Bedi has herself admitted to stealing. Even if I assume or even believe 100% that it was the Government which leaked the news, the fact is she herself admitted to the theft and hence irrespective of how the whistle blew, the story remains is that a wrong act happened. And please do not tell me that a Robin Hood act makes the theft any less of a crime. Robin Hood was a hero of the 13th century but in 21st century sensibilities have changed and such acts are considered a crime today. During our freedom movement, killing Britishers was a heroic act of independence, but today such an act would lead someone to call that person a terrorist, and by the same standards Kiran Bedi is wrong. So then how does your team hold the moral high ground to call politicians thieves? Not that they are not (or most are not) but what gives you the authority to call them one?

Anna, when you show that you do not enact a single thing you tell the politicians to follow, why should I trust you?

Thirdly Anna, and the biggest reason why I have no faith in you, is you like politicians are leading us on to believe you want to cure corruption, and which is far from the truth, and I will tell you why I believe you do not care.

1. Anna, in Hisar campaign you proudly gloated that cause of you Congress lost (It’s a different matter that Congress would have lost there and you used it as a political opportunism but nevertheless). So Anna, why do you want the Jan Lokpal Bill? Is it not to curb corruption? Or am I mistaken and there is a different agenda to your movement? Cause when you gloated that your team was the reason why Congress lost, you forgot to tell the world that you are the reason why the most corrupt candidate won. In other words, you have no interest in curbing corruption, just like every politician.

2. Anna, though I do believe that even if you are a BJP/ RSS sponsored campaign it does not taint your campaign, but the fact you led me on to believe that your campaign is apolitical, whereas its clearly only a anti-Congress campaign, makes me realise you and your team are no better than the bunch of politicians we have. Anna, I know you will tell that it is all a lie. But then let me ask you a simple question. You want a strong Lokpal Bill, and of course that includes a Lokpal in every state. Tell me Anna, why did you not come to Karnataka by-election and campaign against the BJP? The BJP here wants to remove the Lokpal, has made every effort to put in tainted officials in Lokpal after Justice Hedge retired, have even had the gaul to call Justice Hegde’s report trash (He is the only team member in your team whom I sincerely respect), and yet not a word from you. Neither a word from you when Gujarat does not have Lokayukta head for over 7 years? So Anna, am I to believe that this anti corruption movement and Jan Lokpal is just a farce for you? And you only care to malign the Congress. I have no issues with you doing that, but to lead me on to believe otherwise is a criminal offence.

Anna, the politicians robbed us of our money, of justice and basic belief that we matter. But none of the politicians, including our Raja and Kalmadi could rob me of my faith and optimism that tomorrow there would be a better India. That someday, someone will come along who will really be honest and think of us citizens first. But you Anna, have robbed me of that last faith too. So I beg of you Anna, do not continue your agitation. Am ready to live with the fact that we have corruption, but not ready to live with the fact that there is no hope

Anna I do know that if you ever read this letter you will say that I am being paid by Congress cause like them, you cannot bear criticisms. You seem to live in this euphoria of the media generated circus that you are invincible and like the politicians, you too believe you own the country. Sadly you do not. And next time you tell in your interviews that 1.2 billion Indians are behind you, would appreciate you say, 1.2 billion – 1 Indian is behind you, cause I am not.

With best wishes

Priyashmita

PS : And if you can believe then do believe I am no Congress fan or for that matter fan of any politician.

তুমি যদি সে নও হে সখা (my 3rd poem…incomplete)

তুমি যদি সে নও হে সখা

তুমি যদি সে নও হে সখা, তোমায়ে দেখে কেন আসে হে লাজ
তুমি যদি সে নও হে সখা, তোমাযে দেখে হাসে কেন মোর চিত্ত আজ
তুমি যদি নও হে আমার, তবে কেন মোর হৃদয় বাজে
তুমি যদি নও হে আমার, কেন মন আজ স্বপ্ন সাজে I

I am (not) Anna….

Anna hazare campaign

All of you have shown shocked indignation at my sudden turnaround this time around for the Anna Hazare Campaign. Many of you have even wondered have I finally lost it (many feel it’s coming for a long time), and many have wondered have I suddenly started supporting corruption? The answer to all is a NO. Yes, the last time around I vehemently supported the movement and did my bit for it, but this time around something has changed.

So what has changed? Let me first start with the fact that yes, today corruption is one of the biggest problems plaguing the nation and its a problem which needs to be solved immediately. But I have issues with the solution suggested.

So let me first start with solution suggested. The proposed Jan Lokpal Bill has the following suggestions

1. An all powerful body will be created who is non-political and is a power unto itself. The Lokpal can investigate anyone, can tap phones, can issue rogue letters to anyone. But it cannot prosecute or can (confused as two interviews of Kejriwal said two diametric opposite things)

2. If the LokPal turns rogue anyone can go to Supreme court and complain and try and get them removed. Complaints against Lokpal staff will be handled by independent boards set-up in each state, composed of retired bureaucrats, judges, and civil society members

The premise behind this Jan Lokpal Bill is that all our politicians are corrupt, all our bureaucrats are corrupt, all our judiciary is corrupt. Hence the need for such a public outcry, and such drastic measures.

So if the first premise is true (and it is mostly true), let me ask who is this so non-corruptible and non-corrupt person available with us who can shoulder such a massive responsibility, as to head the same? And what makes us so sure that having such absolute powers will not corrupt them? There is no answer.

Now the argument put forward is that for the first time, we as an ordinary citizen can go to the supreme court and complain and get a corrupt Lokayukta person removed. Now from what I recall our 60 year old democracy has given us a similar right to remove people at least in the political circus and that is far easier than going to a court.. And they in turn can remove the corrupt officials too. Now, if we have so far not shown any kind of inclination to remove the key corrupt politicians in a far easier format, what makes us think that suddenly we will care to go to a Supreme Court to exercise our right? And even if we want to, has anyone ever entered a court? Entering a court is one of the most horrendous experience one can go through, so to expect a citizen to exercise that right is foolhardy.

Now let us go the the practicality of the situation. Today we are complaining that our work does not get done till we pay a bribe and this should stop. And it is most honest statement ever. Let us imagine a situation where you need an address proof. Sadly none of the current mechanisms are good enough to get you the same without any fuss. What do you do? Find someone and pay him a bribe and get the work done, cause end of the day that proof is needed. So who will go and complain in this case? You, cause your work got done. or the person who took the bribe? Answer is neither. So how does Lokpal curb this corruption?

So what will happen once this LokPal bill comes? It says we will arrest, prosecute and put the corrupt behind bars. So what does our corrupt do behind bars? Simple, it colludes with the police, bribes them and enjoys a life of luxury behind the prison gates. And who will complain then against that corruption? The police? Or the man behind the bars? Neither. So how do you handle corruption here? If the response is the Lokayukta can take suo moto action, well then so can the courts. And if courts can go corrupt so can Lokayukta.

Now, let us go to the biggest part of this Lokpal. Apparently it cannot prosecute anyone but can only investigate. Now if the assumption is all our bodies from Judiciary to Parliament are are all corrupt, just how will this LokPal at all help us cause all it has it is investigative powers and prosecuting bodies can always set them free. Is this entire fight just to create a body of impeccable detectives? (Now this point I am confused about as just heard another interview of Kejriwal in Loksabha TV where he said lokpal can prosecute whereas in NDTV he claimed the opposite). Now if it is that the Lokpal can prosecute the solution is even better. The Lokpal can prosecute the judiciary and the judiciary can prosecute the Lokpal – A CLASSIC CASE OF YOU SCRATCH MY BACK AND I WILL SCRATCH YOURS OR YOU MESS WITH ME AND I WILL THEN MESS WITH YOU

When the Anna Hazare campaign started last time around, the campaign was against corruption – a cause many of us support (different case in point that most who support it are themselves corrupt to the core) but this time around the campaign has moved to bringing only Jan LokPal bill. It’s like asking people to unite against terrorism (a cause I assure you, will draw much larger crowds than what we see now), and then say the only solution is to pass the draconian Pota Law, and this is what people have gathered for. Sadly this is how the entire concept is being hijacked and the reason why this time I have refused to support the movement.

There are other reasons also why I am against the movement this time. The earlier time the movement was to debate the Jan LokPal bill. Sadly this time around, maybe cause they have tasted blood (seeing the crowd support), they have changed their tune and it is now only his bill which is the right bill. As much as I agree that the Government bill is a complete useless one, the fact is there are other views also coming into the picture which can be debated and discussed. But the Anna team refuses. This clearly shows an attitude of arrogance and dictatorship, something which is against our basic constitution. Besides it can set a dangerous precedent as many have pointed out and tomorrow someone can come out on the street and ask for anything citing this movement as an example. I know many will argue that we the citizen’s are smart and won’t support a wrong cause, but the fact that we are not is amply proved by the fact that we still could not vote out one corrupt politician.

So is this entire movement unjustified? Answer is NO.. We are thankful to Anna Hazare for bringing this debate to our coffee table and ensuring the Government does pay heed to the woes of the common citizen. Without this movement it would take another 50 years before such a bill was even discussed (though the RTI bill is a case in point that civil society can push such bills without a mass movement, but nevertheless). But now it’s time to get off the high horse and actually try and solve the problem. Let the movement be such that we have more accountability and better systems in place so that taking bribe becomes an impossibility. Punishment is certainly no deterrent to corruption and will not save us. Prevention will. So let us all unite this time to come up with a solution which prevents corruption, and not just punishes once the act is done.

Online shopping with money back…am loving it :) (http://www.cazbak.in/)

Now you must be wondering why am I suddenly writing about a shopping portal.

Well so let me first tell you a little about myself. Unlike most women in this world, retail therapy has the opposite impact on me. I somehow cannot stand shopping. Invariably after every shopping experience, am found to be in a ugly mood. My leg pains cause of standing, I cannot stand crowds and I hate with all my being the idea of being in a line to make payments (or for that matter anything). The thought just makes me cringe. I still remember as a kid, going shopping during Durga Puja was like a major fight at home and I had to be bribed to be taken out, to buy things FOR ME :). The trend still continues and whenever ma feels I need to go shopping, for a change of wardrobe or for that matter anything, its a world war three at home. Every shopping experience, ends up in a fight, by the time I am home cause instead of a 1 hour shopping spree, we spend 5 hours. (Thank god I had extremely fashionable parents and hence they could always buy the latest trends for me without me tagging along with them, for the shopping expeditions)…Anyway I digress…So where was I? Yes the idea of shopping online has always held a special place in my heart for this very reason and Cazbak seems to fit into my scheme of “shopping without shopping” as I call it, very well 🙂

The other awesome part of this site is it actually returns quite a bit of my funds, which it earns from the transactions, I make. Now who would not want to earn money back? I mean I love the idea that I spend 1000 rupees and in the end I get back 200 Rupees. Its like whooopppeee !!! Now let me tell you why the idea of cash back appeals to me. Its mental therapy. When I was in sales, a client had once told me, “If you give me 2 apples at one one rupee, the idea does not appeal to me. But if you give me 1 apple at one rupee and 1 free the idea does”. So if someone gave me 200 rupees discount, it would not appeal to me as much, as the idea that someone is actually refunding me the money back :). And unlike other portals, it actually does refund the money back to me as hard cash which makes this site super duper to be honest.

Oh and if you think, that it will only have some small number of items in its store, think again. It is linked to every known shopping brand of India. So if you want to go to Shoppers Stop or go diamond shopping, you will find your merchandise here. If you want to pay your bills or renew your insurance, you will find it here. So no stepping out to do such yuk work anymore.

For the first time someone has accepted, that it pays to be lazy :)…and I am loving it…

So all of you go experience this fun thing at Cazbak (AND PLEASE REMEMBER TO PAY ME SOME PARTS OF YOUR EARNING, CAUSE AFTER ALL ITS ME WHO INTRODUCED YOU TO THIS WORLD OF Cazbak 🙂

PS: INTERNATIONAL BUYERS CAN USE CAZBAK.COM

স্বপ্ন আমার সবি মিছে (My 2nd bengali poem)

স্বপ্ন আমার সবি মিছে

হঠাথ ঝর এসে বলে, স্বপ্ন আমার সবি মিছে
তাসের ঘর ভাঙ্গলো আমার, গল্প আমার ছুটল পিছে
ঢেউ গুলো সব উড়িয়ে দিলো, রইলো না মোর চিন্হ কথাও,
গড়ে ছিলাম আমার যে বাসা, সব-ই আজ যেন কোথায়ে উধাও I

তাই আজ গল্প আবার লিখতে হবে, নতুন করে নতুন ভাষায়ে
তোমার-আমার স্বপ্ন গুলো, ভরাতে হবে নতুন আশায়ে
নতুন করে গরবো আবার, নতুন বেশে নতুন দেশে
জিতব বলে বাড়িয়েছি পা, জানি আছো তুমি আমার পাশে I

Drawing : Courtesy Me

ঢেউয়ের আগে দেখতে যদি (MY FIRST BENGALI POEM)

ঢেউয়ের আগে দেখতে যদি

ঢেউয়ের আগে দেখতে যদি, জানতে আমার স্বপ্ন সবি
কান-টি পেতে শুনতে যদি, জানতে আমার কথা সবি
জেদ টুকু যদি ছাড়তে তুমি, জানলা খুলে আসতো হাওয়া
স্বভাব যদি ছাড়তে তুমি জানতে আমার সকল আশা I

ভরসা যদি থাকত তোমার, দু পা চলতে সাথে আমার
আমার রঙে খেলতে যদি, মাততে সব রঙে আমার
জেতার নেশা থাকত যদি, নতুন স্বপ্ন দেখতে আবার
আবার করে জন্ম নিয়ে, চলতে তুমি সাথে আমার I

Drawing : Courtesy Me (copied from someone though)

The storming of the “Red Bastion” – The Bengal Green Revolution

The Green Revolution of Bengal

As of yesterday the Bengal I knew is gone. Having been born in a “Left” Bengal and having heard horror stories of ’71 and all it is scary. Besides if Mamata handles Bengal the way she handles the railways and with the left openly threatening a “tit for tat” by doing a nandigram and singur type agitation, if TMC takes land for industries, guess doomsday is not far away. But then Left winning would have also spelt equal doom for West Bengal.

So what went wrong with Bengal’s Left? Firstly if anyone feels it was just Singur or Nandigram they are sadly wrong. Singur and Nandigram was just the final nails in the coffin or the fire that the opposition needed to get the Left out. The seething anger against Left had been brewing and these two incidents just lit the fire in a state which was already fueled up. Just in itself it would not have had the impact it did.

Secondly, why did Left fail? I think one of the first things where left went wrong is to making every a party member. In a state where everyone is a party member how can the state ever progress? Every institution was politicised. I remember during University when a Professor was brought in, who all knew had no credentials but was there cause he was a political appointee. Since everyone had a political patronage being mediocre or worse, was ok with all, cause end of the day the party was behind them to take care of them. This was the first mistake that Bengal did, which slowly ensured it moved to being a “dead” city as many call it today.

The politicising of the state had another fallout. Everyone became a party cadre and with the numbers rising, the party lost all control over them. The party cadres ruled supreme and by the time the party realised that most of them went rogue, it had become too big a system for them to clean up.

Another problem that I have seen with Left in its current avataar is its inability to listen to criticism or any voice of dissidence. The left used to pride itself in being party above individuals. No matter what the differences were, when they came out of the politburo, all spoke the same language. Sadly that slowly transpired into a situation where any voice of dissidence was either met with a banishment from the party if it was a party member, and if it was the general public it was met with a complete disdain for such voices and at times even attacks. I happen to have witnessed this of late quite a bit at least in the virtual world. The so-called Left supporters/members/empathisers would on hearing any word of dissent against them would either criticize, attack or block them off. I can just imagine the same happening in offline world too.What it culminated into was firstly alienation of the common people who felt Left was a bunch egoists who cared two hoots about people and secondly the party commanders being unaware to a certain extent of the level of frustration that people had. (I refuse to believe that they had no clue as am sure like all they too saw the news channels)

Left in Bengal had the undisputed run for over 34 years. Now firstly 34 years is enough time to let corruption seethe in any system and left was no exception. What made matters worse for Left, was that unlike other parties it had no one to blame its faults to. It could not even say that we did not get enough time to rectify our mistakes like many political outfits say. Left sadly had only itself to blame for non-deliveries which included industrialisation among others. Sadly when Buddhadeb Bhattarcharya took over and emerged as the “Brand Buddha” for West Bengal, he tried correcting all these follies but unfottunately by then the corruption was so deep rooted that it was too late to correct, at least while in power.

Of course, one can also blame Yechury and Karat for their complete lack of acumen when it came to understanding national politics and its various tugs, but that was an internal matter for the Left.

So then you may ask, why am I dreading a Green Bengal when the Red Bengal had so many faults? Well for the primary reason, is TMC so far has not given me a reason to trust them. Railways has become a personal property to distribute wealth in the name of jobs to Mamata’s many followers and I dread to imagine what would happen if the State too is reduced to that. Secondly Mamata’s move to power is based on the same Left flawed Ideologies which has left the State in this condition. Thirdly TMC shows the same trend of making everyone TMC with everyone joining the “Poriborton” bandwagon. Fourthly with the Left openly threatening to do a “Singur” and “Nandigram” to Mamata, can only make me wonder what will happen, even if TMC ever plans to improve the State.

The “Storming of the Red Bastion” has happened but like the “Storming of Bastille” was followed by a period of mayhem and murder, will this too have the same outcome, only time will tell. For the moment, we can only hope and pray that Bengal does see the “poriborton” or change it so eagerly voted for. And Left can now hopefully stop blocking off people’s voices and listen to them when they say “we want you to change”

My artwork

Two months back – 13th February 2011 to be exact I started a new hobby which was to draw. I had never touched a brush in my life and was always pathetic at anything artistic. I keep picking up such hobbies from time to time but usually leave it after a few days. This time might continue AS I ACTUALLY ENDED UP SELLING ONE!!!!!!!!!! I know sounds incredible but such is life 🙂

Oh and even my awesome masterpiece paintings have copyright…so be careful before stealing them. Someday they will be worth billions 😛

The floral collection

The Mask

The hidden woman

The hibiscus

The tribal couple

World war 3….

World Cup Semi Final 2011

So today is world war 3 – at least for India and Pakistan. It’s like everyone’s life depended on this game. Companies have given off. Year ending filings have all been postponed to tomorrow. Basically life has come to a standstill till the results are declared. The team which wins today will be considered God, and the team which loses will be called traitors – Forget the logic that one team has to loose today, no matter what, but for the losing country they will be traitors. Had it been the olden days, we would have made the losers sit on a donkey with their faces smeared with black soot and thrown them out of the county……..THANKFULLY SUCH THINGS CANNOT BE DONE TODAY. Anyway such is the illogical madness of a India-Pakistan World Cup Semi-FInal Match.

But my topic is not about that madness. It’s about the pressure on me, to ensure India wins.. It so happens that I come from a crazy family. Apparently during the ’83 World Cup I slept through most of the match or at least the first innings. Not surprising as I was hardly a few years old and I could not make out head or tail of what the madness at home was all about. I did realise something major had happened when I was taken out in the middle of the night and we were all dancing and singing on the road and bursting crackers like it was Diwali. Anyway I digress. So it so happened that I slept and India won the first ever World Cup. From then on my dad made it mandatory for me to sleep during an important match. It seemed India was not winning cause it had any ability, but any victory was credited to my sleeping during the first innings of the match. I did ask my dad, can’t the India team pay me money to sleep cause after all its all cause of me, but then he said it would then amount to match-fixing. Hence the answer was no :).

This madness was not just limited to cricket. I come from Calcutta where Football is another craze and world war 3 erupts everytime, there is an East Bengal and Mohun Bagan match. I remember as a kid, we used to stay in a locality where we were the only East Bengal supporters. Of course it so happened that during those days, most times East Bengal won. Anyway my duty was before the match I had to go knocking at every house and tell them they will loose, and after we won, I had to again go knocking at every door and call them losers. Oh and then I had to go hang a huge “Hilsa” Fish and the East Bengal flag from our window, just to rub salt in their wounds. Of course if the reverse happened all those families would call me moment I am out, and tell me the same thing. It did not matter that I was maybe a 2 year old and they were all 30 year olds and above, but yet the rivalry was on. Such was the juvenile madness. To make matters worse I had to wear the same red and yellow dress for 3 years, even though I had outgrown it ages back, cause that was the dress I wore when once East Bengal won by 6 goals. It did not matter that I was stifling in it, I had to wear it. I had to sit on the same spot and not move, even to go the restroom, cause Mohan Bagan had once given a goal when I had got up from my fixed place for 2 mins. Like I said, madness ruled supreme. Now Hilsa fish is a sign of East Bengal and Prawns were for Mohan Bagan. On the day of the match prawns were not allowed even in the vicinity of home. Once I went somewhere and by mistake had just one tiny piece of prawn and sadly Mohan Bagan won that day. My dad called me a traitor and all, till ma got up and literally threatened to divorce him if he tortured a 3 year old with such nonsense. But such was the madness at home.

Now forward to 2011. My dad is no longer there, but am sure wherever in heaven he is, he is torturing people up there with similar madness to ensure India wins. And back here on earth, the tradition of my torture continues, even though Baba is not there. My partner has already warned me if I do not sleep during the match and God forbid something bad happens, we can forget our partnership and all. He will not even talk to me again. Friendship and business be damned. And of course so is India’s ability.

So here I go to sleep in a short while from now. Just remember if India wins, its cause I slept. Of course if they loose, its cause of their inability.

On that note, cheers to India. For God’s sake win the match.

Am back :)

I am finally back. I know been off for quite some time now, but just that been unwell and too many things going on.

Anyway back today. Guess lot’s of things to write about.

Oh and I thank Sulekha for giving me the versatile blogger award. It means a lot to me 🙂

……..now back to writing

In the meantime during this illness and madness I picked up a new hobby…painting. Its trash but was fun. Here is preview of them 🙂

My mom….and Facebook…. :)

Ma and her first time experience using Facebook

A few days back I opened a Facebook account for ma. She was wanting to know what is that is so special about it. Now, following is what happened post that (Names of person have been changed to X and Y and the likes to maintain secrecy):

Day 1

Me : So how was your first day on Facebook?

Ma : Good but I had a question?

Me : What?

Ma: Isn’t X and her husband staying with each other anymore?

Me : Of course she is. Why would you get such a stupid idea?

Ma : Oh then why was she telling her husband what she should tell him in the realms of her bedroom, in the public space for all of us to see?

Me : Cause that is the new age love ma.

Ma : So the new age love means discussing your bedroom secrets in public?

Me : Yes ma…

Ma : Oh !!!

Day 2

Me : So how was your second day with Facebook?

Ma : I want to delete Y from my profile. He is a sadist and not my friend.

Me : Ha !! What did he do?

Ma : I wrote today on my wall “I am not feeling well” and he went and liked that comment. I thought he was a friend, but he is a sadist and no friend of mine.

Me : No ma. He is. Liking, is the Facebook language which interpreted in your language, means he does not like you having fever.

Ma : Ha ??

Me : Leave it. It does not make sense to me either.

Ma : Oh !!!

Day 3

Ma : What kind of a friend of yours is Z?

Me : Why?

Ma : He sent me a heart which had some romantic message on it, today. I did not know how to react, so I deleted it, but he needs to know he cannot send me such things. He is old enough to be my son?

Me : LOL. Ma he was not sending you his love. He was playing a game

Ma: A game?

Me : Ya. If you had accepted the heart you would have moved one step closer to solving a jigsaw puzzle. Currently I own 115 hearts and on level 16.

Ma : Oh !!!!

Day 4

Ma : Who is this A? Does he have no manners?

Me : He is a friend of Cousin B. What did he do?

Ma : He has no manners. He does not know me and even if he did, does he not know he should not go poking ladies? Today when I logged in, I saw an alert that A has poked me. Had he been in front of me, I would have whacked him. Rude, insolent urchin.

Me : Ma !!! He was just saying Hi to you…

Ma : Hi to me? By poking me?

Me : Yes ma, that’s the Facebook language of Hi.

Ma : Oh !!!!!

Day 5

Ma : I have new follower today for my blog, a Mr J who uses “Networked Blogs”

Me : Congratulations !!

Ma : He said he liked my blog and is following it and has asked me to follow him back in his blog

Me : So do so.

Ma : But isn’t it the norm to follow blogs when you like them and plan to keep reading them?

Me : Yes, so?

Ma : No, just that his blog is in Spanish, and mine is in Bengali? So……

Me : Oh !!!!!

Day 6

Me : Ma, why have you written in your FaceBook wall that you are going to the loo?

Ma : Well I was seeing everyone updating their every move every minute. And after you told me everything is today’s Facebook way of life, I thought I had to update every minute of my life there. And today I did nothing which I could update about, so when I went to the loo, I thought let me update that? Why? What happened?

Me : Ma !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 7

Me : So how has been your experience so far in Facebook?

Ma : Well I learnt that whatever I have learnt so far in my little over of 50 years of life is all trash.

Me : Meaning?

Ma : Well for starters I learnt that it’s ok to go poking ladies you have never ever met and its considered fine. I learnt it’s ok to talk about your bedroom details in public or wash your dirty linen in full view of others, and its not considered crass. You can be a sadist and enjoy your friend’s misery and you are still considered a friend. We were taught as kids never to talk to strangers but here we can merrily add strangers as friends and never knowing who they really are. The phrase “You scratch my back and I scratch yours” has now changed to “You follow my blog and I will follow yours”. Must say in 7 days I never learnt so much as I learnt via Facebook.

Me : So you continuing?

Ma : Hell No. I am 50+. I don’t think I can handle so much of unlearning at this age. I will go delete my profile tomorrow.

Needless to say, contrary to all her misgivings, its been nearly a month and ma is merrily continuing on Facebook. having learnt all the Facebook language and nuances, and I suspect quite enjoying the ride. Guess end of the day, that is the pull of Facebook….

PS : This is part fiction and part reality

Parenting….#5

My Parents

In my series of things I learnt from my parents this is another incident.

I was brought up in a family which was not really very religious. We never had any room for God or any idol of God anywhere in the home. I rarely saw my parents pray and even if they did it was in the privacy of their rooms and not something which others were privy to. However I studied in a convent school like both my parents. Now in a convent school prayers and God play a very essential role. So as a kid, I was not sure what I was supposed to do. Pray or not pray. My parents of course never told me not to do anything, and the firm rule till I was in school was “Your school and teachers are above all, including them, and always right. So do what they say“. So obviously prayers and all were something I did get used to. But this was an incident which happened way before, I actually became influenced into prayers by school (Ideally that happened to all of us when we turned 8 when we started going to the school assembly)

One day, I remember coming home from school, when I was about 7 years old, and I asked my parents “Does God give you things if You pray to Him and does not if you don’t? So that is when my parents introduced me for the first time the concept of God prayers and said this “We do not know if God always answers your prayers if you pray to Him. But we do know one thing, if you are good and always do the right thing, God will grant you what you want, and if you don’t no matter how much you pray, God will never listen. So the best prayer to God is always be a good human being first and then God will always listen to you”

That day I learnt the true meaning of praying to God and loving God – something, which when I see the world today fighting over religion, wish they had learnt too

I wish I could write….

A tribute to some other bloggers

I wish I could write…then I would make you all laugh and roll on the floor like Sulekha did when she wrote about Chastity Garters and Miracle Bras……….but I cannot

I wish I could write…then I would show the world how priceless my every gift is like Sukanya did when she wrote Gifted…..but I cannot

If wish I could write…then I would give a beautiful homage to my fellow bloggers like Kriti did when she wrote Blog Trotting…but I cannot

I wish I could write…then I would move everyone to tears with this ode to a friend, the way Joslyne moves me to tears with this piece The Healing Blanket…but I cannot

I wish I could write….then I would make my everyday look like a laugh riot like Ron who brings a smile to my face even when I am sad, with his writings, like when he wrote this piece How was your week?…but I cannot

I wish I could write…then I would leave a haunting memory with my every piece like Rimly did when she wrote Chance Encounter….but I cannot

I wish I could write…then I would write about love as easily as Alpana wrote when she spoke about Love…but I cannot

I wish I could write…then I would make lyrics with my words like Vani did when she wrote Choo Gaya….but I cannot

I wish I could write…..then I would write poetry so fluid like Ma did when she wrote Ekhono meye chotto aachish.….but I cannot

Hence I ramble on with my words and write what I can…..hoping some day THAT EVEN I CAN WRITE

(PS : Am unable to include two pieces here as they do not have a blog – An awesome piece by my friend Rumpa on Delhi which had me in splits, and a very inspiring professional piece by Swati. Hope someday I can get them to have a blog of their own too)

The story of the cheating spouse….

Nemesis and the broken heart

A few days back I was having a chat with a very close friend of mine about love and betrayal. She was telling me about a close friend of hers who was recently going through a messy break-up with her husband cheating on her with her best friend. She was telling me about how her friend is going through a major crisis and low self-esteem cause of this, and how was she repeatedly asking herself, “where did i go wrong?”. What made matters worse was the in-laws going around and telling everyone that the fault lay with the girl, as she could not hold her husband back (I always wonder about these statements made, but that is a story for another day).

Hearing the entire story, I somehow was left complete confused. Here is the way I saw the problem :

The girl had a husband who turned out to be a cheater and a piece of work and who never loved her
The girl had in-laws who turned out to be the worst kind of in-laws any girl can ask for.

She lost them

The guy had a wife who loved him, dearly enough to cry even now, knowing what a piece of work he is

He lost her

So, can someone explain how the girl was the loser? As far as I see, she came out of the clutches of some of the worst people, she could ever be with and a life with a husband who did not love her, and the husband came out losing the woman who loved him to death. As far as I see isn’t it the man who is the loser and should be asking himself “why me?”, and not the other way round.

And, as far as the friend was concerned, I see it this way, she loves her friend a lot and so took away all her pain for herself, since now she has to live with this piece of shit….and trust me, if a man cheats once, he will cheat again, and imagine living with such a person for the rest of your life.

Correct me, if am wrong, but can there be any greater nemesis than this?

(PS: My theory would have been the same had it been a wife cheating on the husband)

Conversations with my Ma…# 3

Ma and me

This is my third post on my ongoing series of conversations with my mom…

Now I have this firm belief that parents should always praise their kids, in front of outsiders, even if its blatant lies. Now Ma has no such intentions as for her honesty comes above all. Fine enough but she takes this love of telling people about me to another level altogether. Tell her anything under the sun and Ma can relate it back to me and how useless I am at home. Its like an “Association game”. Say anything and Ma can start her complaints about me :). You don’t believe. Sample these….

Conversation 1 :

Guest : You have a lovely home

Ma : Thank You

Guest : It must be quite a effort you put in to keep it so lovely

Ma : Of course, wish my daughter also appreciated the effort and helped me in keeping the home clean. But she takes exactly 10 minutes to dirty everything, after she is back from office.

Me : Ma??????????????

Ma : What? Am I lying????

END OF CONVERSATION

Conversation 2 :

Guest : How do you spend your days here in Bangalore, now that you have shifted from Calcutta?

Ma : Oh I read,I write, I have friends whom I meet from time to time, I go out and then managing this home also takes a lot of my time

Guest : I can see that. Your house is so clean. It must be a major task keeping it so spic and span and must keep you quite busy.

Ma : Thank you so much. And yes it is. And my daughter ensures that I have no free time all day, lest I get bored. You see I will clean everything and she will take exactly 10 minutes to dirty everything ensuring I have to repeat the entire task again. Thanks to her I can never ever feel bored

Me : Ma??????????????

Ma : What? I am praising you and saying how you are always so thoughtful

END OF CONVERSATION

Conversation 3 :

Guest : Hey tell me something, I just saw all the lovely brass items and the crystals. How long does it take to clean them?

Ma : Oh I spend at least an hour and a half cleaning them daily and then I polish them weekly too. Takes quite a bit of time. Of Course it takes my lovely daughter less than 10 minutes to dirty them again

Me : Ma??????????????

Ma : What? Nowadays it takes you lesser time is it?

END OF CONVERSATION

My home

PS : This is a picture of a part of my home. Between You and me, I do know the efforts taken to keep it this lovely

Conversations with my Ma…# 2

Ma and me

This is the second posting on the ongoing series of conversations with my Mom.

Now usually if am travelling out of my city, I prefer staying in hotels. Being a house-guest is something I preferably avoid as its too much work – you know I have to be on my best behaviour and all? Anyway, there are times when either cause I have been invited or cause if I do not stay with someone it becomes a sticky issue (This is India, and such things play a huge role). Anyway if I ever have to stay as a house-guest, ma goes through those anxiety pangs where she feels if her daughter stays somewhere, the truth of how useless her daughter is will come out (somehow I am unable to convince her that no one expects me to be useful around the house at all, and if they still invite me its at their own risk :P). Anyway, so before any trip Ma usually runs the following do’s and don’ts with me, just before I am leaving. Following is the sample of such a conversation…

Ma : You will be staying with people, so please do not let them realise that you are a slob.

Me : Yes ma, but you know that they do know it, right?

Ma : (ignoring my statement as always) So do you promise to make your own bed every morning before you get out of the rooom?

Me : Yes ma – Check !!

Ma : Will you ensure that after food, you clean your own dishes and try and help them cleaning their’s too?

Me : Yes ma – Check !!

Ma : And please keep your clothes neat and clean and not lying around the room.

Me : Yes ma – Check !!

Me : And do you promise to help people in the kitchen when you are at home and not order people around?

Me : Yes Ma – Check !!

Ma : SO THAT MEANS YOU CAN DO EVERYTHING AROUND THE HOUSE BUT YOU WON’T IN YOUR OWN HOME. WHY? CAUSE YOU HAVE AN UNPAID SERVANT AT HOME CALLED YOUR MOTHER?

Me : D-u-h..d-u-h…ahhh….Ma I am going to miss the flight!!! Bye Ma. See you soon Ma..

AND SCOOT !!!!

END OF CONVERSATION

Conversations with my Ma…# 1

Ma and Me

Along with my ongoing series about “Parenting” and things I learnt from my parents, starting today I am going ahead with a series on things I do not like about my parents… :).

Now I am perfect is an accepted fact. But then there are certain things I do not like to do. Please note the catchphrase here is “do not like to do” and not “that I cannot do” (hello am perfect and I can do everything). So one of those things which I do not like to do is cleaning my room. Ma on the other hand (and so was Baba), loves everything perfect. It’s like even at 4 am she wants the home to look like some guest will enter any minute. Nevertheless its a regular fight between us. So one day, I come home and Ma is livid at me. Here is a sample of the conversation we had :

Me : Are you upset? (I know she is cause her face is stern and she is not talking to me)

Ma: Yes

Me: Why?

Ma: Am I your maidservant? And that too an unpaid one?

Me: Is that a question which demands an answer from me? (somehow I know whatever I say, it will land me in trouble)

Ma: (Completely ignoring my question) Do you know, I work the entire day to keep this home spic and span and how long does it take for you to dirty everything? Go to your room and see. Everyday I clean this house and you come back and in 10 minutes you manage to make the entire home look like a shit-hole (Read: entire room is just my bedroom where no one ever enters and God knows how it would matter if it is in a mess)

Me : OK…so you cleaned it up. So why you angry?

Ma: Well I thought I potty-trained you when you were two. I was not aware that even at this age I had to go clean the shit my daughter makes. Hence I am angry…

END OF CONVERSATION…

Starting a new Series called “Conversations with Ma/Baba”

My Parents

Now some of you guys have reading my posts got this weird idea that my parents are like awesome and you know how lucky I am that they are my parents. Now let’s first set the record straight. Their biggest achievement till date has been that they had me as their daughter – a perfect embodiment of everything sugar and spice and everything nice 🙂
(This is of course withstanding the fact that my dad was awfully talented whose artwork is still admired, whose english was so good that even lawyers would come to him to make him draft their letters, he could paint, he could draw, was an awesome cook, etc and my ma is a fantastic cook to the extent that she can make her own recipes and anyone who eats her food tells her to open restaurants, she can write poems which has got even published, she is a super duper interior decorator and has been called by people to decorate their homes, etc)

So starting today I will start a new series, which will go alongside my “Parenting” series as to how mean and horrible my parents are called “Conversations with Ma” and “Conversations with Baba” and how they basically its me who makes them great…. 😛

Karva Chauth for George Clooney

George Clooney

This entire Valentine’s day everyone asked me what was I doing for George Clooney. Now I was tired of telling all that for 4 years after what I did for Mr Clooney its time he did something for me.

So all will ask me what have I done for him? Well do you know I have done Karva Chauth for him for 4 years now? (For all people who do not know what Karva Chauth is, its a fast Indian women do for their husbands or would be husbands for their well being. They go without food and water an entire day and break their fast after seeing the moon)

Now of course since its ME doing Karva Chauth, there has to be a slight twist to it, right? So this is the way I do it. SINCE HE IN THE USA I DO IT DURING US TIME ZONES …so post dinner i eat nothing and drink nothing..till next day breakfast..YOU GUYS HAVE NO CLUE HOW TOUGH IT IS…oooooofffffff…IT IS SUPER DUPER ARDUOUS JOB…helloooo did I hear someone say this is no Karva Chauth? Dear if our BPO firms can call up people in USA and say “Good morning” in the middle of our night, or call their dinner as lunch in keeping in tandem with US time zones, then why can I not do Karva Chauth in US time zones? Pray tell me why? You cannot cause what I am doing is completely right 😛

Of Course I know there are still some of you complete disbelievers who will want to run me down and say where is the moon for me to break my fast? Well dear, for that I have Google to thank for. You want to see the moon in Hollywood and boom you get the moon. So before I break my night-long tough fast, all I do is go to Google and view the moon in Hollywood, and then his picture and take my first sip of water after a night long of no food and water….AND I AM DOING THIS RELIGIOUSLY FOR THE LAST 4 YEARS WITHOUT A BREAK 😛

NOW TELL ME IS THERE ANYONE WHO CAN CLAIM TO LOVE GEORGE CLOONEY MORE THAN ME OR WHO DESERVES HIM MORE THAN ME?

How to make him love you….

How to make a man fall in love with you

Now that Valentine’s day is round the corner, the entire world is busy trying to figure out how to get that special person to say yes to them. Of course the magazines and television channels are full of ideas of how to hook that perfect man for yourself. Now I had gone online to search for some valentine’s day ideas for gifts but type out valentine’s day and the only results which popped out are “10 way to make a man fall in love”, “90 minutes to fall in love”, “5 ways to attract him”, etc etc. Now honestly what hooked me was the 90 minute theory…I mean really 90 minutes? Intrigued I opened the post and thereon got hooked to all the posts. So here is a synopsis on what I read and of course my take on it (you expected a synopsis without that?)….

Rule 1 : Cross his path Unexpectedly – Now according to theory, a man loves seeing a woman when he is not expecting it. So try and meet him at unexpected places, when he is least expecting you. Drop in at the cafe he visits every Tuesday, or the bar he goes every Friday, or the bowling alley he goes to every Sunday. Now of course, you will want to know how do I know when he does all this? Simple – Just stalk him. Now even if this does not land you the man, it sure can land you a restraining order and a prison sentence, but what the hell – what is love without such simple sacrifices of going to jail. Right?

Rule 2 : Repeat his name often while talking to him – So basically the more number of times you mention his name, in a sentence, more the chances of him flipping for you. For example if I meet George Clooney, this is what I will say to make him fall in love with me. “Hey George, would you George, like to have a cup of coffee with me George, or maybe George we could have dinner instead, or George is there something else you would want to do George?… What George? ..You don’t want to George?… But why George? …Oh cause I am calling your name George so many times George? But George in that magazine, George. they said more times I mention your name George, more the chances of you falling in love with me…Oh George but all I did was follow the rules George…Oh George don’t leave me George..I am not mad George…..“………….And by then sadly George is gone and chances are will never see you again

Rule 3: Whisper things in his ears– Now according to the magazine, a man gets turned on and attracted to you if you whisper things which will turn him on. The magazines go on to give examples of things you can say and one of them is “Let’s go somewhere right now, cause after 12 I turn into a vixen”. Now according to the English Dictionary, a vixen means either a fox or a woman who is quarrelsome, shrewish and generally malicious. So basically you are trying to tell the man that if he takes you somewhere he might just end up with a lady who will start fighting with him in the middle of the night, tear his hair out and generally scare the living daylights out of him. So chances are once you use this line on a man and the man has any knowledge of English he would run for his life. But then so what? You can keep trying till you find a man who does not know the language…

Rule 4: Be like him – This rule was one of the funniest I read more so for the example it gave. This was one of the exact sentences given there “Mirror neurons respond to sounds as well, so experiment with matching your cadence and tone to his. For example, if he speaks faster than you do, accelerate your tempo a bit”. Basically what its trying to tell you is say your man has a south Indian accent you imitate him and start speaking with that accent, or if he has a loud voice you start screaming with him when you out, or if he has an itch which he is scratching well you start scratching yourself too right in front of him. Now the little I understand of men I assume they will feel highly turned off and insulted if you copy them so, but then who am I to compete with such high level scientists who have expounded this theory (Yes, all these theories have bee arrives at after paying a fortune to some scientists who spend their lifetime experimenting with such things to help you land that perfect man). So go ahead and try this. What is the worst that might happen? He might leave you and never see you again? Well so what? Try till you meet a dumb-ass who will actually like this?

Rule 5 : Be yourself – Now this is the best rule of all. After you go through all the points where they have taught you that the only a way a man can love is by becoming dumb, putting on loads of make up which make you believe beauty lies in the outside, by pretending to be someone else, they finally come up with the bummer punchline – BE YOURSELF. And remember this is always the last rule they write. Its like the “terms and conditions” you read in a contest which is written in the fine print, which is always exactly the opposite of what the contest advertises. So basically after you have read all the rules and finally decided that yes you will against all your better senses become a conniving, pretentious witch , they tell you that DO NOT FOLLOW OUR RULES. At this stage you have just one thing left to do…GET UP AND SCREAM AND CHANCES ARE THAT YOU WILL DO

So here is what I say – If you need rules to make a man fall in love with you, you are actually fooling yourself if you believe, that the man will actually fall in love with you, or remain in love with you. I mean if you actually need a book, to tell you how to make a man love you, lady,you have taken the fun of falling in love and made it into a business transaction. SO REMEMBER THIS MOST IMPORTANT RULE, THIS VALENTINE’S DAY. DON’T FOLLOW ANY RULE. If the man is dumb enough NOT to fall in love with you, as you are, minus these strategies, you don’t need that man. So cut the rules, and enjoy falling in love just the way is was meant to be – PURE AND UNADULTERATED AND ABSOLUTE FUN…

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY TO ALL…

Parenting….#4

My parents

In my series of things I learnt from my parents this is another incident.

The one thing about parents is that its not something they teach you when you were a kid, they often teach you things even when you are an adult, maybe not so much as telling you things, but through their actions. One such incident happened with me some time back with my mother.

Very rarely in my adult life has it happened that my parents have not approved a decision of mine, but some years back I took a decision which my mother felt was a very tough road I chose for myself. She was of the opinion, that being so arduous, it was best avoided as being a concerned mother she did not want me to adopt a life which was hard. Of course in my home, we always voice opinions but not necessarily impose ourselves on someone. However in this case her opinion was so strong that it was quite a surprise. Anyway I still decided to adopt the path I took, as I felt that was the right thing to do. But I did not try and change her mind, as I felt she was right in her views as a concerned parent.

Life carried on, and we both avoided discussing this topic knowing how strongly we both felt about it. As predicted the journey I took was tough, but never did I tell anything to anyone. But over a period of time, I suddenly found her warming upto my decision and opening upto it. There was no reason which had prompted that, as the road I was trudging on was still quite the difficult one. So seeing this change I spoke to a very close friend of mine, who was the only one privy to the difficulties I faced in the path I took, and ma’s reservations. He was also very close to my mom, and so I asked him one day as to why ma suddenly changed her stance and was he an influencing factor. He said he had no role to play, but he would definitely speak to ma and try and gauge why she changed her stance.

After speaking to my mom, my friend came and told me what ma said and this is what she told him. “I know the path my daughter has chosen is tough. I know she will never complain, and I feel its a wrong choice cause its a path which would have a lot of tough obstacles on the way. But I also know, that that is what she wants and what will make her happy, and she will not change her mind cause its against her principles. The least I can do for her as her mother is support her, and try and make the journey a little less difficult. When she comes home, I don’t want her to think she has another battle to fight, in trying to convince her mother. If I am proven right, and my fears of the path being unbearable is true, its going to be the cost of my daughter’s happiness and I would rather I be proven wrong. That’s why I thought let me support her and pray she is right. And if God-forbid she is wrong, at least she won’t have a mother who will tell her ‘I told you so’ but would rather be with her and say its ok, we can surpass this. I want her to know that I am there, even if she is wrong not to judge her but to support her”.

Since I have moved to Bangalore, I have seen parents of my friends for whom their ego surpasses all barriers. They would force their decisions on their kids in the name of ego, past sacrifices done for their kids, how they know best or even society. And if by some miracle the kid, still manages to take a decision against his /her parents, and god forbid he/she fails, the instant reaction of parents is “I told you so” not once realising that their victory was at the cost of the kid’s happiness. That day I realised how lucky I was to have my parents, for whom my happiness was much more important than them coming right

That day I again realised how lucky I am to have my parents. They are not God but they are just what God meant them to be – Parents

My earlier posts on Parenting https://worldasisee.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/parenting-3/

……….and they lived happily everafter

...And they lived happily ever after

(This was a piece I was asked to submit for another blog where am a guest writer http://wehaveastory.blogspot.com)

I have been struggling for over 24 hours to write this post on love and romance. I have written and re-written this piece a thousand times and yet nothing somehow seemed to pull that tug at the heart which all love stories do. What is it about love that has not already been written about? What is it about love that has not already been discussed a thousand times? I read a thousand articles to try and get some inspiration about this but somehow nothing clicked. I was just not feeling the way, a person who writes about love, feels. Dejected and lost, I felt maybe I had the lost the ability to feel love, and gave up the idea of submitting this article and went to bed.

And in bed, I suddenly smiled cause I saw the calendar and the date which signaled that Valentine’s day was coming and I smiled. I smiled cause I suddenly remembered about the love I have experienced and that is when I realised why I was not feeling inspired. When I was going through the myriad of articles on love and romance, somewhere every article had a bit of pain in it and I could not feel that pain. Even the ones, where one spoke of finding a soulmate, somehow there was this subtle hint of pain of loving someone so much that it hurt them. It was somehow like love was incomplete without pain. But then my love always made my smile. And that is when I got up and decided to pen down my thoughts.

I have been in love and I am in love. I have been broken-hearted too. Yet love to me has been the most beautiful feeling of all times. When I fell in love, did I not know that there would be thorns along with the roses? The answer was no, I did not. I felt love would be like a fairy tale romance but sadly life is not a fairy tale – its checkered with problems, fights, misunderstandings. But love is when you fairy tale romance in spite of this and I have.. And I have found my fairy tales in spite of being broken hearted more than once.

Now that I look back, I wonder, would my life have been this wonderful, had I not been changed by a man to become this epitome of positivity? Would I have conquered every battle, had I not had the strength of my love with me? Would the feeling of success had been same had I not had my love as wind beneath my wings? Would that dark period when I thought life was over, been surpassed had there been not been my love, standing there between me and my pain, to be the punching bag at all times? Would any valentine’s day be as much as fun, as I had when I ended up in a roadside dhaba to celebrate it, had it not been for the company of a wonderful man? Would life have been different had I not known that there is one man, for whom no matter what the world starts and ends with me? The answer is YES.

I have fallen in love twice. Both times with wonderful men. If my first love taught me to be strong and independent, the second man taught me that even if I cry, he is there to wipe it for me. If my first love taught me how to fall in love for the first time, my second love taught me how to stay in love forever. If my first love taught me how to make end every fight with a laugh, my second love taught me how to love even when angry. But most importantly what both men taught me is to love with all my heart and to be happy in love – happy that it happened, happy that I experienced a wonderful feeling called love.

So has my love life been all fun and laughter? The answer is No. I have had my dark clouds and broken hearts. But there is one thing life has taught me. It’s very easy to fall in love, much more easier to fall out of it, what is tough is to love someone happily in spite of everything. And when you can find that love, you will find your fairy tale in your imperfect love story, exactly like I did. A love story which might not give a tug to your heart, but will definitely make you smile, everytime you think about it.

So next time you think about love – think about happy times and not the sad, think about the laughter and not the tears, think about feeling of falling in love and not the feeling of hurt and you never know maybe someday you too will find your fairytale and your happily everafter story. I know I have.

And always remember it isn’t love if it did not make you smile.

I will end this with lyrics from my favourite Tagore song which epitomises how I have always felt about love :

Sakhi, bhabona kahare bole?
Sakhi, jatona kahare bole?
Tomra je bolo diboso-rajoni,
Bhalobasha, bhalobasha.
sakhi, bhalobasha kare koye?
Seki keboli jatona-moye?
Seki keboli chokher jal?
Seki keboli dukher saas?
Loke tobe kore ki sukheri tore,
Aemon dukhero aas?
Aamar chokhe to shokoli sobhon,
Shokoli nobeen, shokoli bimol.
Suneel akash, shyamolo kanon
Bishodo jochona, kusumo komol.
Shokol amari moton.
Tara keboli hanshe, keboli gaye,
Hanshiya, kheliya morite chaye.
Najane bedon, najane radon.
Najane shader jatona joton.
Phool se hanshite hanshite jhore,
Jochona hanshiya milaye jaye,
Hanshite hanshite alok sagore,
Akashero taara teyage kaaye.
Aamar moton sukhi ke aache?
Aaye sakhi aaye, aamar kaache
Sukhi hridoyer sukher gaan
Suniya toder judaabe pran
Protidin jodi kandibi keno,
Ek din noye hanshibi tora,
Ek din noye bishado bhuliya,
Shokole miliya gahibo gaan.

(translated it means why is all love stories so sad, and if they are why do people want to fall in love? I am happy and for me love is happiness. So why don’t you give up being unhappy and come with me and experience happiness in love)

…………….Wish everyone a very happy valentine’s day !!!

Parenting…#3

My parents

This is my third article on parenting. This was an incident which happened with me when I was in College. At that point I felt it was funny and my dad was cool. But today when I see many of my friends and associates having a strange relationship with their parents where the parents do not know what the kids do, who they meet, or the fact that kids drink and smoke to glory but at home pretend to be all saintly, I realise what I had got from my parents. A trust which is so rare today among parents and kids. Both my parents had a rule for me that there should be nothing they hear about me from someone else, and today I realise the worth of that trust. This incident was one of the few examples of the trust my parents always had in me, and touch-wood always will.

Well you know how it is in India..a boy and a girl are seen out together and immediately tongues start wagging….now i had a lot of male friends in college…there was no other choice as there were 45 boys and 5 girls in each specialisation..anyway nevertheless fact is i had loads of male friends…and of course when i bunked classes i used to go out with them…

Now one day a neighbour saw me with a male friend in a crowded mall area…and promptly in the evening when he saw my dad he went and told him..”today i saw your daugher in this area…SHE WAS WITH A BOY” (with a lot of emphasis on the boy part). So my dad looked at him and shook his hands and said and this is quote unquote my dad “Thank you so much for telling me this. I was always worried my daughter has become invisible and people cannot see her. Thanks for telling me she can be seen. Next time when you see her go and say Hi. That way you will clear one more myth I have that my daughter can even talk when she is outside?”….

LOL…you should have seen the look on the neighbour’s face…never again did he try and tell my dad anything about me again 🙂

That day this incident seemed funny to me but today when I look back I realise what amount of trust and faith and liberty was given to me, something now nearly a decade after college I still find lacking in parents of many of my friends.

Parenting….# 2

My parents

In my ongoing series of things I learnt from my parents, this is another story….

When you want to be equal, don’t expect privileges…this was something i learnt from my dad.

Once when I was in my plus 2 days, I came home huffing and puffing angry with some nerd who was in the bus who did not get up seeing me though he was sitting in the ladies’ seat

So Baba saw me and asked what happened and of course I vented out my anger as to how that man lacked chivalry, etc etc. It was then Baba said something I will never forget….He asked me “Were you in any problem that you could not stand?” I of course said no. So he said “What would you have done if a woman was sitting there” and I said I would stand like I did. Thats when he asked me “Do you consider yourself any less than the boys you know or men in general”. Now me the ever feminist of course refuted and said how dare you think that way. So he said “then why did you today consider yourself any lesser, that a man had to get up for you to sit down? When you want to be equal you need to FIRST TREAT YOURSELF AS AN EQUAL. You cannot want special privileges and equality at the same time”. Though I did understand what he meant I still egged him on and said “But you always behave so chivalrously. You always open the door, pour the wine, pull out the chair. Why do you do it?” That is when he said “Being chivalrous is my duty and I will remain chivalrous all my life, cause I was taught to be so. But expecting chivalry is your privilege. My duty is not your birthright”

SINCE THAT DAY I HAVE NEVER EVER SAT ON A LADIES SEAT IN A BUS, AND NEVER EVER HAVE I IN MY CORPORATE LIFE OR OTHERWISE EVER TOLD ANYONE TO DO ANYTHING SPECIAL FOR ME CAUSE I A WOMAN. That day I learnt that to be equal I first need to treat myself equally.

Also see my other posts on parenting :
https://worldasisee.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/parenting-1/

Parenting….# 1

My parents

Since I have moved to Bangalore, the one thing which amazes me here is the amount of control parents have on kids and this cuts across all ages and its amazing. I have been touch-wood very lucky to have extremely understanding and liberal parents, who have not only given me the freedom to choose my life and make my own mistakes, but have stood by me through thick and thin. Its not like I have not reprimanded when I make mistakes (which of course me being perfect is rare :P) but then I have been allowed to lead my own life, find my own destiny and become my own person cause of them.

Before I start I would like to make one thing clear – my parents were not God. They never wanted me to believe they were. They always believed they were humans and I should treat them that way. They made their share of mistakes and their share of right things too, but in every way the one thing they never failed to do was to tell me that they were there always and for them my happiness was above all.

Anyway, so today I will start this series which will talk of the various things they taught me or told me or did for me, which made the person I am…some are funny incidents, some are their teachings, some are things they did for me which taught me something…..and someday when am married and have kids of my own, I hope I can teach them these very things too. This is in my own way, my tribute to my parents….

When i turned 18 baba and ma wished me and this is exactly what they told me…They said “today you are 18 and officially an adult. From today onwards you are free to take your own decisions and lead your life your own way. We feel as parents we have brought you up with the right value system and we feel you can take your own decisions correctly. As parents we will always reserve the right to tell you how we feel about your actions and comment on them and also try and guide you but the END DECISION HAS TO BE YOURS. But remember one thing that with every decision comes responsibility. You cannot take decisions and then come running to us when things go wrong. You have to solve them yourself and bear the responsibility yourself. You cannot blame others for things if they go wrong. If you take a wrong decision remember you have to feel the pain. Similarly if you take a right one you will feel the joy. Both are yours. As parents we assure you we will always be with you, in the good and the bad. So lead your life your way and we both believe that you will never ever misuse the freedom we give you or else we will know that we are unsuccessful in bringing you up properly”

Till date I have never forgotten this education and something I plan to impart to my kids, when I have them. Today when I see parents who control every breath of their kid, I realise the value of the freedom and responsibility my parents gave me and the value of what they told me when I turned 18……

Also see my other posts on parenting :
https://worldasisee.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/parenting-2/

My take on life in one sentence..

Since I know one of these days I will become very famous and that’s when you would like to post famous comments made by me in your various profiles…here is a few from me to help you get started 🙂

# Why is such a big deal made about a man and a woman spending a night together…is there anything they can do in the night which they cannot during the day?

# I never ever forget to appreciate God….after all how can I not appreciate Him for the commendable job he did in creating a pure perfection like me?

# Love me for a reason and let the reason be love..I on the other hand will love you for your fame and fortune always 🙂

# Don’t put off your work until tomorrow believing tomorrow never comes..CAUSE SADLY THE DAY AFTER TODAY ALWAYS COMES..and you have to work

………………… more coming up soon

Watch will survive…I Won’t

rolex

Was just viewing this rolex watch (picture alongside) and among its many features one of them was will survive under 330 feet of water.

Point to Ponder : Will I survive under 330 feet of water and if I don’t how will I know if the watch did or not?

Marriage – Does it spell doom?

Ma says I should never knowingly and willingly harm someone or ruin someone’s life. Does that mean I should never ever marry?

Point to ponder

Our strange legal system

I keep reading news about men who got arrested and convicted cause they slept with a girl promising marriage and then did not which tantamount to rape.
Now according to dictionary and in the broader sense soliciting anything in lieu of sex is prostitution. So isn’t asking for marriage in lieu of sex, also prostitution? Is the court of law then today legalising it?
And on a different thought if we legalising prostitution using marriage as a barter why not legalise it when money, is the point of barter?

Are we saying prostitution is ok as long as we solicit marriage and not money? Point to ponder…

“Mogoj Dholai” of people of West Bengal

The state of WB reminds me of the movie “Hirak Rajar Deshe”..for 35 yrs left govt did “mogoj dholai” (Brainwash) of citizens & said industry is bad, throw out industry, etc..& suddenly when they decided to change their stand they found no takers as people were already brainwashed..and didi took advantage of the same brainwashed people…GOES TO SHOW JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIE IT NEVER PAYS TO DO “MOGOJ DHOLAI”

What have you procrastinated today?

A few days back in one of my FB forums on ladies we were asked to write a piece on procrastination. Now of course the topic was so close to me, that I decided to procrastinate the entire job till the date of submission was over. After all I wanted to live by the ethos of the subject to its core and hence gave the entry the late. But then I got to think, why not use the same one (with some changes) here too and ask my readers what have you procrastinated today?

So let me start on what all have I procrastinated till date. Firstly starts with waking up. I mean who in God’s name wants to wake up early morning?I am yet to figure out why God did not make night and straight evenings, sparing me the trouble of waking up in the mornings. Hence every morning its at least half hour of procrastination that I do and been quite successful at it.

The second thing I have very successfully procrastinated is aging. I have decided for the last few years that I will remain 25 till I die and have successfully been celebrating my 25th birthday for the last few years thus procrastinating the ritual of aging.

I have even procrastinated death. When I was 13 I fell very sick. I had fever for over 4 months which was 105 and was not reducing. Most doctors had felt there it is – I will be dying. But then I decided it was not the right time and told the doctors that chill I will delay death by a few years – Say when am 80? (now that I will never be 80 I think i can say I have procrastinated death for life) And I did. I got well and well I am 25 (sic) and still alive

Oh and the one am most proud of procrastinating is breaking down. Whenever things go downhill, which has been quite often of late and many spheres of my life have being nothing but shit, I have with great panache managed to procrastinate the need to break down and loose it. Whenever am just about to feel I should have a nervous breakdown now, I tell myself how about tomorrow we feel this way? Let’s enjoy today. And sure as hell so far managed to elude that quite successfully and trust me have had enough shit to be in that state. Its just too much of work to break down and loose it. Much easier to be happy and feel hey “this too shall pass”

And on that note, let me end by saying procrastination is an art and trust me is not always bad. Sometimes its better to procrastinate things and be happy rather than bring them head on and suffer…don’t you think so?

New Year Resolutions

Its that time of the year again – the time everyone is busy coming up with new year resolutions which in 48 hours we manage to break and most often, even forget. Now I have always hated this concept, for many reasons and hence from this year decided not to make any more new year resolutions.

Now first and most importantly the reason I hate this concept of “new year resolutions” is cause resolutions essentially say that how will you improve yourself. Now how do I improve someone as perfect as me is beyond me. I mean seriously can anyone find fault with me (people who can are hereby banned from viewing this piece any further), then how do I improve perfection? So if I cannot improve perfection how do I make a resolution which speaks to that effect?

Secondly resolutions are rarely dependent on me working it out and many a times cause of others I fail in keeping my resolutions and I hate failing. For example for the last 3-4 years I am making a resolution to get married. Now I am ready but what am I to do if no man is dumb enough to marry me? Is it my fault that God did not make a man so dumb that he would say yes to me? And I am blamed for not keeping my resolution? What crap !!!!

Another reason why I just hate this idea of new year resolution is cause I can never understand why I have to wait for 365 days to decide to improve my life. I mean if I knew in April I am fat, why do I need to wait till December 31 to make a resolution to get slimmer? Is it cause, God forbid I become slim before that time, what will I resolve to do next year and just to have a new year resolution I refuse to get slimmer earlier? The other option of course is I can resolve to become fatter cause sadly I have already become slim and then for the next year I can again have a resolution to become slim. If this idea does not sound preposterous and confusing, I am not sure what will.

So this year am making a change. I making new year resolutions but its for God. This year I resolve that God has to make me super duper rich, make all my problems disappear and also get me George Clooney so I can marry him. And I hope keeping in tradition, God does not break these new year resolutions 🙂

On that note wish everyone a happy new year !!!

An interview with Suresh Kalmadi

CommonWealth Games 2010 - The fiasco and the men behind it

The last few days have been really hard on poor Mr Kalmadi with the entire world, including his partners in crime from the CWG headquarters coming down heavily on him. Hence like all good scamsters he decided to play the disappearance game and ducked all media hoping that the wind will blow over. But as luck would have it, he ran into our reporter and had no choice but to give this interview. Excerpts of the same :

Reporter : Dear Mr Kalmadi, firstly we thank you for giving us this interview. Please tell us how do you feel about all this backlash which is happening about the games?

Suresh Kalmadi : I am very sad. I worked so hard but instead of appreciating the hard work we put in you guys are all busy making accusations against me. India has let me down completely (Gives a long dejected look)

Reporter : I am sorry did I hear you correct? India has let you down and not the other way round?

Suresh Kalmadi :: Yes.

Reporter : (The reporter is a little stunned, but having heard so many absurd statements in the last few days, that he decided to hold back his amazement) Anyway, Mr Kalmadi to get back to our questions, you had told us a few days back, that the CommonWealth Games would be better than Beijing Olympics. Now seeing the state of affairs what do you have to say for yourself?

Suresh Kalmadi : Well I still say it is better.

Reporter : Better?

Suresh Kalmadi : Yes. You see better is a relative term. For me, what is better, need not be what is better for you. Some people might feel Satyajit Ray’s movies are better than Ramsay films, (the legendary C Grade horror film maker), but I find the opposite. So if I say better, it need not be better as per your standards, but that does not mean it is not better. How can you blame me for having different tastes than you? I strongly protest.

Reporter : (The reporter starts feeling a little dizzy hearing the statement, but then work is work and he continues with the interview). So tell me Mr Kalmadi, what do you have to say for the games Village, which is not in a habitable condition.

Suresh Kalmadi : (Gets Livid) Says Who???????????? When I was given the brief I was told that we need to build a games Village. Do you know I sent my team to every village in India, to understand how a village is like in India, and that is exactly what I rebuilt. Have you not seen villages in India, where stray dogs come inside the home or water leaks from the terrace or there is stagnant water full of mosquitoes? Or that villagers pee anywhere, cause there is no proper latrine system there? So I rebuilt that. Now they come and say they want something else. Tell me where in the brief was it mentioned, that the village has to be UK village. It just village and we thought it was an Indian village and that is what we built. And yet you blame me for it. I just do not understand why we still want this colonial effect? Why can we not have Indian Villages when the games are happening in India?

Reporter : (By now the reporter is really feeling unwell) So you feel that the village is perfect? OK can you tell us what is your explanation for the immense amount of wealth which is said to be wasted for this games.

Suresh Kalmadi : I am sorry but what wealth has been wasted? Do you know we have fixed the bids for all Delhi Government Project for the next 3 years for all products we purchased. Do you realise what that means?

Reporter : Yes it means these vendors can loot the public money for 3 more years?

Suresh Kalmadi : NONSENSE !!!! It means for 3 years the Government does not need to spend any money taking out ads in newspapers, for tenders, for any new purchase. It means the Government does not need to waste its officials to go through tender applications and waste their time and tax payer’s money. It means the Government does not need to to pay anything more when costs of these products increase. Do you realise how much that saves our money? Yes for that we had to pay a little more to buy these products but am sure you will accept in the long run, it is money saving. And you say we squandered money?

Reporter : (By now the reporter is completely dazed and unable to talk) Ah……..mmmmm…so what happens if prices fall and no such need comes up? And what about the allegations that money is being routed through multiple agencies to reach the CWG officials and they are taking the money.

Suresh Kalmadi : Firstly this is a speculation that we will not need such products in future or that the prices might fall and I cannot purchase based on such speculations. Secondly what is this games called? Do you know? Its called common wealth games. What does that mean? It means the wealth is common for all. So what if we took some of the common money? Is it wrong? After all it is common wealth and what is wrong with taking the common wealth which is meant for all? Did we refuse money to anyone? Everyone, cutting across countries and colour of their skin took money. After all we were just living up to the name? And yet we get blamed.

AT THIS STAGE UNFORTUNATELY OUR REPORTER COULD NOT TAKE IT ANYMORE AND FAINTED…and hence we could not bring you balance of the interview. But we will continue to try and track him down to get him to answer other allegations if any, and report the same back to you soon

In the meantime you can follow Suresh Kalamdi on twitter : http://twitter.com/kalmadispeaks

Bandhs (Strikes) is your birthright and you shall have it !!

Bandhs and strikes in West Bengal

Do you enjoy being lazy?
Do you like long extended weekends every other day?
Do you like holidays for no reason every month?
Do you want your work life balance to be tilted less towards work?
Would you rather spend at home doing no work and earning salary?
Would you rather spend your weekday playing gully cricket than working?
Would you like at least 12 extra holidays a year and to be extended upto 36 or more?

IF THE ANSWER TO THE ABOVE IS YES….WE HAVE MADE THE PERFECT STATE FOR YOU…come to West Bengal and settle here.

Our offer

# At least one bandh a month
# When bandhs are not possible we will have a “rasta roko”(road blockade) preventing you from going to work
# Sometimes when above options have been over-utilised in a month and you still want one more holiday, we give you the option of transport strike (This option works great as most Calcuttans use public transport)
# You need not worry about a change in government will change anything. Both the ruling party and the opposition have unanimously agreed to continue this trend for a long time, irrespective of who is in power and who is in opposition
# If you want a special problem to be highlighted you can contact either the ruling party or the opposition and we promise any one party will call a bandh for you highlighting the same (And please do not think any problem is small. All we need is a cause. We can even call a bandh even cause your dog bit you)
# We always call bandhs on Friday or Monday, thus ensuring you can have a long weekend and go somewhere for a holiday
# AND OUR LAST PROMISE WHEN THERE IS NO CAUSE FOR A BANDH IN A MONTH, WE PROMISE TO CALL A BANDH TO PROTEST NO BANDHS

So what you waiting for? Pack your bags and move now and enjoy a life full of laziness !!!

Note : Offer valid for the next 100 years
If you like working and you are ambitious, please do not come here. We have no place for you

Not that I loved Cricket and IPL Less, but that I loved myself more

On 26th of April the Governing council for IPL met to discuss the fate of the game and Mr Lalit Modi and they suspended him. The suspension was followed by a chargesheet giving Lalit Modi 15 days to answer. Following is an imaginary representation of that defence.

(Players – Shashank Manohar,Arun Jaitley, Inderjit Singh Bindra, BCCI treasurer M.P. Pandove, vice presidents Chirayu Amin, Rajeev Shukla, Board secretary N. Srinivasan, joint secretary Sanjay Jagdale, Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association chief Farooq Abdullah, IPL vice-chairman Niranjan Shah and former India captains Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi
Hero cum villian – Lalit Modi
Absolutely absent gullible idiots – The general public)

Scene I : Lalit Modi meets the governing council (Scene opens with Mr Modi making an opening speech)

Lalit Modi : Friends, IPL governing council men, and my fellow scamsters ! hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge.
If there be any in this meeting, any dear fan of Cricket and IPL, to him I say, that Modi’s love for Cricket and IPL was no less than his. If then that friend demand why I scammed and cheated the IPL, this is my answer:–
Not that I loved Cricket and IPL Less, but that I loved myself more. Had you rather IPL and cricket was kept clean and we die all poor, than that IPL was full of scams, to live all rich men?
As IPL made me rich, I weep for losing it;
as it combined my love for money and women, I rejoice at it;
as it it made me famous, I honour it:
but, as it was the biggest chance for me to steal without being caught, I robbed it.
There is tears for the fame we got;
joy for the fortune we made;
honour for our ingenuity of pulling it off;
and theft for the money it offerred.
Who is here so base that would be a honest man? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so rude that would not be a ready scam, to get rich? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so vile that will not love being wealthy? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
I pause for a reply.
.(Pauses for 2 minutes)

Shashank Manohar : Thank you Mr Modi. We completely agree with you that NONE HERE IS SO BASE OR RUDE OR VILE that they will not stoop to any levels to get rich. However we cannot take the blame for it, as you were the chairman and made maximum profits from it. Besides we need to show the world that we indicted you even if it was a sham. So please can you answer the showcause notice so we can get over with this sham?

Lalit Modi : Fair enough Mr Manohar. Let me start with your first accusation. Your one accusation reads “Breaching confidentiality clause by tweeting Kochis share-holding pattern”. Now let me refer to you my tweet ““I was told not to get into who owns Rendezvous, specially Sunanda Pushkar. Why””. So tell me where was I wrong in that? I know who owns all the other teams (cause 9 of the 10 teams are owned by me, 1 is owned by my fellow scamster Mr Srinivasan) Herein came a franchise and for the first time, I knew nothing about. I genuinely wanted to ask who owns the franchise and hence tweeted about the shareholders’ details that I did have, so someone could tell me about the rest?. Tell me what was wrong with it? It was after all an innocent query to know who dared owned a team, without us?

Ravi Shastri : I think he has a point. After all the rest are all know to us. And he only divulged the information so we all could know, who was so conniving as to steal our scamster’s wealth and make it their own?

Lalit Modi : Thank you Ravi. Your next accusation was “Arm-twisting successful bidder- Kochi, to withdraw” Now you guys have already agreed with me that none here is so vile as not to love being wealthy. You also know that 9 of the 10 franchises are owned by my family and friends. One is owned by Mr Srinvisan. In other words in every franchise we make money. So tell me, would you allow the advent of a franchise whose prosperity would not prosper us? Besides how can one Ms Sundanda Puskar get sweat equity when it is our sweat which is made the IPL such a huge money swindling machine? Was it her sweat which got this grand scheme in place? Then how could she get sweat equity when we 12 members have shed our sweat? So then was I wrong in trying to arm twist them to withdraw, so we could get a franchise where we could have stakes and earn money? If anyone here is so base to feel so, speak up now, or forever hold your silence

Inderjit Singh Bindra : I think he has a point. We shed our sweat and someone else took the sweat equity. We took the trouble of changing the BCCI rules so we could own IPL teams. Some of us unfortunately are not rich enough to own it with our own money, but then we could have been given sweat equity, couldn’t we? I think Lalit was right in arm twisting them to move out and sad that he failed. Lalit I support you in this

Lalit Modi: Thank you Mr Bindra. Now to your third allegation – “the unexplained 80 million USD facilitation fee about which BCCI was kept in the dark”. So let me explain the meaning of facilitation fee. Let me tell you, dictionary defines facilitation as “act of assisting or making easier the progress or improvement of something”. So as chairman of IPL it was my job to assist and make things easier for the people who wanted telecast rights? Now if I am going to work, should I not be paid for it? So I got paid 80 million USD. For God’s sake if Sunanda Pushkar can get sweat equity without even starting to shed sweat, can I not get fees for facilitating and genuinely helping someone?

Rajiv Shukla: I agree with you, but why did you keep BCCI in the dark?

Lalit Modi: In the dark? Now you guys have admitted that most of your accusations against me are based on media reports. So was this report not flashed last year? Then is it not baseless to say you were kept in the dark? After all the media did throw light on this?

Rajiv Shukla: Hmmmm…..you have a point there.

Lalit Modi: Your next accusation reads “Non-disclosure of interest and stake in RR, Kings XI & KKR”. Now you amended the BCCI rules to ensure we could have a direct stake in IPL. Hence Mr Srinivasan could divulge his interest. Did you give me any such consideration? Did you once think of me, and change the rules so it was legal to have an indirect stake in IPL too? You did not. Yet you expect me to inform you of my family’s and friend’s stakes? How could I?

Srinivasan: I tend to agree with him. We never gave him a platform so he could divulge the information. It’s not his fault that he could not under the circumstances.

Lalit Modi: You accused me of Misappropriation of funds in the 3 editions of IPL . Now I guess all of you will admit, that each one of us have become richer by a few million, in the last 3 years. Please can all of you tell me how were your pockets being filled for the last 3 years if there was no misappropriation of funds? Were you thinking that the funds filling your pockets, which was the reason why all of you kept quiet, was falling from heaven?

M.P. Pandove : Hmmmm. Well you should have made it more clearer.

Lalit Modi: Why Mr Pandove, would the governing council not have taken the money if it was more clearer?

M.P. Pandove: No, No !!! When did we say that? We would have not included the same in the accusation, that’s all

Lalit Modi: Fine Mr Pandove, then maybe we could strike this point and move to the next which is “Irregularities in awarding broadcast & internet rights” . Now can someone please tell me why did we create the IPL? Was it not to ensure we all make profits, while the government and innocent public are made fool of? And was it that not what we did? I awarded the same to people who gave the governing council profits and made each and everyone of us richer than we were before. I am lost. Was there any irregularity in ensuring that? I am shocked at this baseless allegation which says I committed irregularity in ensure we became rich. Did I by any chance award any rights to anyone who rightly deserved it, thus preventing us from getting wealthier?

Sanjay Jagdale: I think he is right. There were no irregularities. After all it was done to make us wealthy and we all have to accept he ensured that without any irregularity. He did nothing honest for us to claim he was irregular. We should drop this charge.

Lalit Modi: Thank you Mr Jagdale. Your next allegation reads Encouraging, attempting collusive bidding. I strongly refute this. Attempting?????????? Lalit Modi is not a failure that he will attempt collusive bidding. He will ensure it. I am not even going to demean myself by responding to this allegation and telling me am incapable of scams.

Niranjan Shah: Please Mr Modi forgive us for we know not what we said. We understand how hurt you must be that we assumed for a second that maybe you failed in your attempt to cheat. We are sorry. Please forgive us.

Lalit Modi: Its ok Mr Shah. But am heartbroken by this allegation. I don’t think I can continue any further. I would like to hand over the answers now in a 15000 page document.

Arun Jaitley: 15000 pages? What have you written there?

Lalit Modi: Well let me tell you it is not so much as my defence, but as facts gathered against each one of you, which I will duly reveal to all, if you decide to prosecute me. So its either me or neither of you.

Chirayu Amin : Hmmmm. This is serious Mr Modi. Do you mind giving us 5 mins to ponder?

Scene II :Governing council discusses how to handle Lalit Modi’s situation under the circumstances

Chirayu Amin : I suggest the following. We all know we cannot prosecute Mr Modi as we were all hand in glove with him. At the same time we need to continue a sham that we are. So I suggest that we take a long time to pretend to understand this document, and then refer it to the disciplinary committee and then that would take a few more months to decide. By then the gullible public will forget everything and we can reinstate him back. In the meantime he can enjoy a well earned holiday roaming the world. After all he worked very hard. Besides it will give him ample time to plan our next scam. If all in favour say “Aye”

Shashank Manohar,Arun Jaitley, Inderjit Singh Bindra,M.P. Pandove, Chirayu Amin, Rajeev Shukla, Board secretary N. Srinivasan, joint secretary Sanjay Jagdale, Niranjan Shah, Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi : : AYE !!!!

Scene III : Gullible India Public

Gullible India Public : Wow !! BCCI actually did something. They referred him to a disciplinary committee. Now we can expect justice

…………………………….. AND THE STORY NEVER ENDS  AS MANY HINDI MOVIES SAY “THE BEGINNING”

Angry Mother India writes to her children…

Mother India and its state of affairs

Dear Children (Since you call me motherland I guess I can call you children),

Firstly let me tell you that I am nowadays a little irritable, which is understandable at my age. I am thousands of years old. It’s been quite some time since I stopped counting and hence cannot tell you my exact age but it’s been a long time since I was born. Hence my patience level is obviously quite low. On top some of you guys have managed to really make me upset and hence this letter to a lot of you. Also excuse me if I cannot address each one of you by name. I know you my children and mothers should no know each of their kid by name, but having a 1.15 billion kids is no mean task. I am sure you guys will excuse me for that. If not try having 200 kids and remember each one by name. On second thought, leave it (You might just attempt it). So let me start with my letter and the reason for me writing to you guys.

Since we on the topic of billion kids, let me start with that. Tell me something, why do I have a billion kids? I understand children are great and I personally love them a lot. But can you imagine going to labour a billion times? Let me ask you women, can you do it? And you men, how does it matter to you? Just cause you men don’t have to bear the kids and just can enjoy fruits of your labour after birth, you guys don’t care do you? I assure you had this been your fatherland and not motherland you guys would have thought twice. No wonder Germany has not such a huge population cause the men realize the pains of giving birth. So if you guy don’t mind, and if you ladies can explain the pains of labour, can we please first control that. Am tired of giving birth to a baby every second, and honestly its making me more irritable, forget that the labour pain has made me go insane. So please can you control the same?

Now to another topic, which I am intrigued about, more than worried. Did we by any chance really invent the time machine? And for some reason it only goes backwards and not forwards? Else how can you explain that Mahabharata was more modern in terms of women’s lib than Ramayana? Or we abolished the caste system in 1960 but in 2010 you guys’ practice caste based politics. Or the fact that we became secular in 1950 but in 2010 we have politics based on religion. So tell me did we invent it? If so, great news, but can we please correct it so it moves forward to? It’s quite painful reliving history, especially the painful ones, which I thought we migrated from. Please can you check the same and correct it for God’s sake? And if you cannot, at least then stop using it and stay in the Present century and year. Will do you and me a world of good.

There is one more thing which bothers me a lot. Why are you so hell bent in cutting me into pieces? What if I get off and cut off your hand and say hand is more important? Or the leg is more important. Fact is every part of you is important from the hair to the toes. And if am not chopping them off, what makes you think you can chop me off? Next time you think of that, first ampute a part of your body and then let me know how you feel. If you like it, then let us discuss cutting me into pieces

I would like to address my next point to some specific kids of mine – Pramod Muthalik and his Ram Sena, and the moral brigades of India. Firstly sons, how much do you know me that you go defending the “bharatiya sanskriti” or the culture of India? Do you know the Kamasutra was a product of this country? Or have you ever seen the Khajuraho temple? Or did you know the kind of clothes women wore during the olden days, way way before you were born and when I too was much younger? Then what is this that you defending when you tell women what to wear, what not to do, etc? Besides did I ever tell you to defend my culture? If I did not, then why are you harassing them? Honestly speaking I would love to dress the way they do. But alas am old, and I have wrinkles, and hence cannot. But that does not mean my children cannot. So stop telling them what to do or I will have to instruct my children to tell you what to do and trust me you will not like it.

Also back to my other favourite kids – The Thakerays. Tell me something, Bal Thakeray, do you even know that your father was a migrant to Bombay from North India? So technically speaking, you are not a Maharashtrian. Then what gives you the right to beat up my kids from North and tell them they need to go. If I had my Maharashtrian kids throw your father out then, can you imagine what would have happened to you? Actually between you and me, I think I would have been a happier person. And Raj at least if you have branched out, think on your own? You are like the perfect parasite a family should always avoid.

Now back to the children of mine who hurt me the most – The Politicians. I am really not sure why some of you and your ancestors freed me from the British. Honestly speaking at least they hurt me less. They were after all my adopted children who never really accepted me as their motherland. So when they robbed me, it hurt. But you people are my flesh and blood. And to think you guys rob me everyday, and stash away my wealth in Swiss Banks. You do scams after scams, rob my people, divide people and all in the name of doing good. At least my foreign children, admitted they don’t love me. You do and still behave same, if not worse. Honestly all I see is the colour of my rulers have changed. Rest is still the same. Change before the people throw you out too, and throw out they will.

And finally a note to my beloved children – the ordinary citizens of my country. Just what will it take for you to love me, to care for me and to stop ill-treating me? Else how do you justify electing the morons you elect time after time? Or better still avoiding voting, expecting God to do a miracle and change the status of affairs? How do you justify that today we are considered one of the most corrupt nations and you guys complain that things are bad, but are instrumental in making it so? You guys give bribes and then wonder why people ask for them? Is this what makes you proud to be an Indian? Is this the country you or your forefathers freed from the British? I come to you today, to tell you my life and my reputation lies with you. I am angry and as my children can I expect you to do something to change my mood?

On that note, I wish each one of you the very best and hope you guys do something soon

A very angry and old Mother India

How many scams must the IPL have before they call for a ban…The answer my friend is blowing in the wind

The scam they called IPL

On 26th of April the Governing council for IPL met to discuss the fate of the game and Mr Lalit Modi. Following is an imaginary representation of that meeting.

(Players – Shashank Manohar,Arun Jaitley, Inderjit Singh Bindra, BCCI treasurer M.P. Pandove, vice presidents Chirayu Amin, Rajeev Shukla, Board secretary N. Srinivasan, joint secretary Sanjay Jagdale, Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association chief Farooq Abdullah, IPL vice-chairman Niranjan Shah and former India captains Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi
Absent Player but hero cum villian – Lalit Modi
Absolutely absent gullible idiots – The general public)

Scene I : 10 AM Governing Council Meeting (Scene opens with Mr Jaitley reading out the allegations against Mr Modi)

Arun Jaitley : Friends, IPL governing members and fellow scamsters, Lend me your ears. We have come here to bury Modi, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their sacking,
So let it be with Modi …
The noble Mr Shashank Manohar Hath told you Modi was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Modi answered it …
Here, under leave of Mr Manohar and the rest, (For Mr Manohar is an honourable man;
So are we all; all honourable men) Come I to speak in Mr Modi’s ouster…
He was our friend, faithful and just to all of us:
But we all say he was ambitious;
And we all are honourable men….
He hath brought many shady deals to IPL,
Whose ransoms did all our pockets fill:
Did this in Modi seem ambitious?
When that the bids could not be rigged, Modi hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet all of you say he was ambitious;
And we all are honourable men.
You all did see that on the negotiation meetings
Sony presented him with a TV Channel
Which he did refuse(he just took a plane): was this ambition?
Yet we all say he was ambitious;
And, sure, we all are honourable men.
I speak not to disprove what we all spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause (he made us rich):
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And we have lost our biggest scamster…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Modi and all our money we will lose now,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
(Mourns for 2 minutes)

Shashank Manohar : Thank you Mr Jaitley for your impassioned speech. Indeed we must all mourn Mr Modi. Today is a very sad day for us. Without Mr Modi we have no clue how to pull such grand scams and cheat every regulating authority with such panache. It is a very sad day for us.

Inderjit Singh Bindra : But without Modi, how will we survive? Who will rig the bidding and get us kickbacks? Who? Who? Who? We have to get him back !!

Srinivasan : But we had to sack him. First we needed a fall guy, besides his family’s stake in two IPL’s were sheer conflict of interest. How could we allow that?

Ravi Shastri : DUH !!!! You Mr Srinivasan own the Chennai Super Kings, and that too directly?

Srinivasan : But that is exactly the point. I own it directly. For that I changed the rules of BCCI, which was completely illegal, so I can own the team directly. His mistake was he did NOT change any rules, and made his family own it, but WORSE IS THAT HIS COMBINED FAMILY STAKE IS MORE THAN MY PERSONAL STAKE IN IPL. Tell me. how can I let that happen? So he had to go !!

Ravi Shastri : Makes sense.

MAK Pataudi : But will not the question arise what was the governing council doing here for 3 years? Why did we not raise a stink even when last year the kickback scandal broke?

Rajeev Shukla : What kickback? Mr Pataudi they called it the Facilitation Fee last year. How will we know it was kickback? We thought it was a facilitation fee to facilitate the move. How would we know it was a kickback !!! I just don’t understand this. Last year they call it facilitation fee and this year they call it kickback and expect us to know? I refute this charges vehemently.

Sanjay Jagdale : Absolutely !!! We have no resonsibility. After all we are just the governing council. And what is the governing council supposed to do? Govern the IPL so all things go right? But nothing went right from day one, so technically speaking we cannot be blamed as they gave us everything wrong.

Niranjan Shah : I completely agree with Mr Jagdale. We were cheated. Whenever we asked they said everything was going right. Modi should have told us things were going wrong !! He lied to us, so how can anyone blame us? What do you say Mr Gavaskar. You have been awfully quiet?

Gavaskar : Blame him, sack him, keep him. How do I care? I will sulk and not talk. What was the use of being a governing council member when I could not get my only son Rohan Gavaskar purchased by any team? I hate IPL. I hate Lalit Modi. I want my son :((((((. After all its all about loving one’s son 🙂

M.P. Pandove : Cool down Mr Gavaskar. We all understand. Mr Modi got his step-son-in -law to benefit, and you could not auction your only son? Its unfair. Please Mr Gavaskar, please don’t cry. Am sure God above will understand and help you pull this scam next time.

Niranjan Shah : So basically we all agree. Modi must go. He brought us disrepute. We all agree that in spite of being in the governing council we could not steal nearly as much as Mr Modi. Mr Pataudi could not get his son to win a bid, Mr Gavaskar could not get his son auctioned, Mr Srinivasan could only own one team, and most of us hardly made any money from all the scams as compared to Modi. Besides if he does not go, he will tweet about us knowing everything and basically confirming what everyone knows and understands – The governing council is equally hand in glove with him and / or we are bunch of idiots sitting here who have no clue what work they should do. So he has to go. All in favour say aye.

Shashank Manohar,Arun Jaitley, Inderjit Singh Bindra,M.P. Pandove, Chirayu Amin, Rajeev Shukla, Board secretary N. Srinivasan, joint secretary Sanjay Jagdale, Niranjan Shah, Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi : AYE !!!!

SCENE II : Twitter Account of Modi

Modi on Twitter : Don’t worry guys. I will be back soon with a brand new scam. Till then wait for me. Adios !!

SCENE III: Rest of the country

Gullible Indian Public : So we spent money, stood in the sun to watch all rigged matches? Wow !!! And we will do it again next year. How many scams must the IPL have before they call for a ban…The answer my friend is blowing in the wind…AND HOPEFULLY WE WILL NOT BE BLOWN BY IT 🙂

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PS : If the article made you smile, leave your comments and votes behind to make me smile too 🙂

Unravelling the mysteries behind the online networking sites

Networking sites - Linkedin, Facebook, orkut

Today no matter who you are, chances are you part of some online networking sites in some form or other. I am too, and maybe a little more than I should be. But there are still many things of the online networking site, which I cannot understand. Hence this is my attempt to figure out how they work and maybe find some answers.

One of the sites that I participate a lot in (maybe a little more than I should), is Facebook. But there are still many a things about it which I just cannot fathom in it. Firstly its this “Like” button on Facebook. You can write any status message on Facebook and lo and behold you have 20 people clicking on the “like” button. Now the last I knew, the word like meant to find something attractive or enjoyable. Now tell me if I have written “I am sad” and you click Like button, or I say “I feel like crying” and you click on the same button, then what are you trying to tell me? Are you telling me you like me sad? That my crying is attractive to you? If not, then why just go blindly clicking on my status messages? Honestly do you even think before you click? Honestly speaks volumes of your intelligence and/ or your friendship with me and yet me supposed to remain their friend. Of course what is worse than this, is people sending you friend requests which you accept and then they dont bother ever saying hi to you at all. I mean do you really think it makes you popular to have 2247 friends and hence you add people irrespective of the fact that you will never talk to them?

The second thing about Facebook which makes me wonder is this “Fan” Page. I understand when you telling me to be a fan of some star, a company, that is you being a third party? But don’t you think its a sign of desperation when you send someone “Fan” link to become a fan of you? I mean who in God’s name goes out and says become a fan of me? I mean I do admit I love it if someone tells me they like my work or my writing, and secretly I do desire they become my fan, but to send a “fan” page of yourself is the heights of desperation. At least if you want so, ask a friend to send so for you. At least will be less desperate and chances are you will get them. I can assure you, most of the people who click on the “Fan” Page that you have are doing so out of sheer pity for you. I mean imagine Shah Rukh Khan going out there and begging people, please be my fan? Sounds stupid right? Then why do you?

Now there is another site, Orkut where I had joined sometime back. Now when I was new to the new medium my brother taught me how to use it, and he told me that how many scraps and friends you have is the latest form of showing how popular you are. Now unlike my brother I was never the popular one, and I was not ready to let an online medium prove the same, was I? Hence I wrote in my profile, please scrap me if you want to be my friend cause its supposed to be the latest measure of popularity and if you make me popular enough I will add you. So in all kindness, most who saw my profile, started scrapping me and adding me as their friend. Now me responded back by accepting their friendship request (I was told and convinced by my well-wisher that saying no to a friendship request was a sin so grave that I would rot in hell). So after I accept, we scrap each other for a few days and then like all things end when the novelty disappears, the scrapping ends after a few days. Now I will tell you where the problem arose. These people who have added me, whom I know nothing beyond some name they had told me, not even a picture to assist me (some people here add filmstar’s pictures against their name…am yet to figure out why though. Are they trying to tell them look like them or are they telling me they their fans? Well whatever the are trying to tell, its quite bizzarre) go change their profile and write some exotic name against their profile(I have seen names like “some moments n some ppl cant b forgotten”, “the forgotten for sure”, “poo flower”, “scent of revolution”, etc. Between you and me am sure it is a revenge game on parents. I mean more often than not parents name the kid, so I feel by putting such esoteric nonsensical names up its their way of saying “I reject”. Honestly can there be any other reason for writing such names? If yes, please enlighten me.). And lo and behold after some days they scrap me back. And am supposed to figure out who they are. Tell me something, can you do it? So I have to search all my old scraps (and I have crossed the holy 5500 mark) and figure out who is this new found friend who is scrapping me again. And I assure you its no easy task and answer back, cause if you don’t the person calls you rude, etc etc. Can you tell me a plight worse than this? But such is the online world.

Orkut has one more problem and the reason why I have taken a raincheck on my usage of that site. People can just simply copy your profile. Now it is a slightly accepted fact that I have a slight amount of wit, and can write reasonably well. Now there are other people, who I guess wants to be so but cannot be so. Hence they simply go copy your profile. I had one with Mr Anil D’Souza from Udupi who did it before, and I had to rewrite the whole thing again and now one Ms Swapna P now. I do agree copy is the best form of flattery but this????? What is worse is not only do they copy it, and give me no credit, but then on top they actually thank people when they are complimented on their profile. The former actually had 3 testimonials written as to how funny he is and the profile was given as proof for the testimony. Can someone go tell people that stapling of clothes when they tear and making microwave made tea is patented by me?

Now one more strange behaviour of people whom you meet in this online space is when they are trying to get to know each other. I don’t know about others, but it has often happened to me, especially if I add someone from the opposite sex, where right after adding, they start a chat online, and it somehow feels like i am in an interrogation room, where they have this list of questions which they ask and I need to answer. . I actually once told someone, send me the quetionnaire and I will fill it up and send it back. Of course my humour and sarcasm, like many times fell flat. 🙂

The latest craze in the online world is Twitter. Today people ask for your twitter name before they ask your name, such is its craze. Now for the illiterate it’s a site where you can micro-blog and update your status and people follow you. Again like the other sites your popularity is measured by your followers. The trick here is you should be following less number of people than people following you. Else you would have performed a cardinal sin and completely discarded as a very unpopular person. Now I understand when people update that they going for a movie. I mean your followers might respond back asking you how the movie is, etc leading to some conversation. But to update messages like “I am going for bath”, “I am having tea” is simply beyond my limited understanding. Just what are you trying to achieved? Do you want to tell me you are clean and take bath daily? Am I supposed to ask you how fresh you feel? Or what? Then why update me on your bathing ritual? Or you having tea? Are you inviting me over? If not, how do I care? Can someone please tell me why people update such useless trivia as status messages?

Now the last but not the least – Linkedin. That site was created for networking of professionals. It was a fantastic medium where you could create your reputation by being recommended by your peer group, bosses, juniors, etc and a very good way to build your professional reputation among a group of people who might not have otherwise known you. This was really good, and here your reputation depended a lot on the recommendations you received for your professional achievements. But lo and behold, did you feel we will sit at that and now make ourselves popular like we did in orkut, twitter and facebook? So you would very soon find yourself being bombarded by requests to recommend people, who forget ever working with, you don’t even know beyond their name. And best is when you tell them you don’t know what they do and have never worked with them, they coolly answer back, please see my profile and you will know what I do. In other words here too, I really don’t care if you have never worked with me or I could be the laziest, most unscrupulous, inefficient employee but you need to use your creative writing skills and make some story about me as to how I am a model employee and God’s gift to the corporate world . I don’t even want to dare ask why I should resort to such means, but then such is life.

I know all the above should be reason enough for me to give up my tryst with the online medium, what makes it worse is when you read how people have met their soulmates online and got married, etc and all I encounter are the above situations. 😦 But then I guess me the eternal optimist live in hope – Hope that someday this bizarre world will make some sense to me too 😀

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The state of state of West Bengal….

The anarchism which exists in West Bengal

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Why my grand uncle got a zero in maths…

Why my grand uncle got a zero in maths

As a kid my grand uncle (shancha) used to keep telling me a story as to why he a got a zero in maths. Its a story I grew up hearing and a story, even today when I hear makes me laugh. So here is my attempt to tell that to all and to make all smile 🙂

My grand uncle scored a zero in maths. Of course because of that everyone scolded him, his principal beat him, his friends laughed at him but he was quite undeterred. The reason was that had he attempted the problems and then got a zero he would have had a reason to be ashamed. But the fact is he did not even attempt a single sum. Why did he not, is what this story is all about.

The first problem stated “Simplify the following”. Now why in God’s name should one simplify a complex thing and why? The logic was beyond him and hence he refused to attempt that sum.

The second problem was the following. An alcohol shop owner was mixing 1 gallon water with every 5 gallons of alcohol. Now if every gallon alcohol cost Rs 50 (I am talking 50 years back) and he sold it at Rs 70, how much profit would he make by selling 30 gallons of alcohol?
Now my grand uncle could not believe it. Firstly we discussing alcohol which is so tabboo and on a corrupt alcohol dealer? And to think that someone thought he was going to solve this problem and help that corrupt man? No way !! Thus he did not solve this problem

The third maths problem was this. Divide Rs 100 among 3 men and 2 women in such a way that every man gets 10 Rs more than every woman. Now this was too much for my grand uncle. Our constitution gives equal right to men and women and here his maths teacher wanted him to solve a problem which snatched that right and was so unconstitutional? How could he solve it and disregard what the constitution stood for? Hence he had to let go of solving this problem too.

The fourth problem was about a trader. The problem given to him was that a trader bought 500 metres of cloth at 20 Rs a metre. He was selling it at 25 Rs a metre. But cause his scale had an error, for every metre he was selling actually 20 cms less. So how much profit would he make for that 500 metre of cloth he sold? Now instead of reporting the matter to the police how could his maths teacher expect him to solve this problem and help such a corrupt man? And so, he refused to be party to such corrupt practices and did not even attempt to solve this problem either.

The final problem given in the exam was that a 10 feet long bamboo which was covered in oil, had bananas attached at the top. Now a monkey was trying to reach it to eat and every 10 minutes he was climbing one feet but dropping 20 metres owing to the oily bamboo. How long would the monkey take to finally reach and eat the bananas? Now even in those day and age my grand uncle was quite aware of the animal activist groups. Now he wondered should he actually solve this problem and help his maths teacher and monkey around with a monkey or should he go and inform the animal rights group that such inhumanity was being practiced against them. Of course he chose the latter and hence decided not to attempt this sum as well.

End result, he got a zero. Of course cause of that everyone scolded him, beat him up, ridiculed him but till date he is quite proud of his achievement. Of course cause of this he never really made it as big as his so called classmates who ignored all ethics and sided with criminals, cheats, animal torturers but till this date no one can make us smile the way shancha can.

Enjoy !!!

Another open letter to Mr Bal Thakeray…Extending my support(sic) again

The divisive politics Mr Bal Thakeray Plays

Dear Mr Thakeray,

I hope my last letter has reached you and you have realised what an ardent fan and follower you have in me. Sir, this letter is being sent to you as I am seriously worried about you and your party’s health and want to once again extend my humble support to you.

Sir, I have been following the news following the Pune attack. Sir, you should immediately break ties with the BJP and even some of your party men should refrain from talking to the media. Sir, you guys have blamed the ruling Maharashtra for the the Pune attacks blaming them that had they not used the entire police force to ensure the smooth release of “My Name is Khan” this would not have happened. Sir, for the first time you have got the support of the entire country cause most feel this way, except they all have attached a rider to your statement. Sir, everyone saying had you not created a ruckus and ensured that the police had not been occupied to protect the state from your hooliganism, which unfortunately they had to do, they would have been able to stop this Pune attack. Oh sir, you do not understand, they will now implicate you, and sir this time they will hang you sir, as you are guilty of ensuring a terrorist attack in this country. Oh sir, I fear for you.

Sir, there is one more problem I heard which is cropping up for you. I heard sir, most industries including the film industry have got tired of your mafia politics and have decided to shift base from Maharashtra to other states. Sir then sir what will happen? Sir, I fear many Maharashtrians will then be forced to leave the city affecting your vote percentage, but sir, I think that will not affect you much as the sane people who will leave would anycase have never voted for you. But sir, what will affect you is the fact is the people who will stay back. Sir, they will mostly have no jobs left except to drive a taxi, which thanks to all your hooliganism will be reserved only for them. But problem, sir will be that by then no one in Maharashtra will have any money left to ride a taxi as no jobs will be there. And sir, all these Maharashtrians you fighting for to become cab drivers will finally get cabs but without any passengers. Sir, then even this miniscule percentage of people, who still, for some weird concocted reason vote for you, will stop voting for you and rather abuse you. Sir, what will you do then? You will move into oblivion and die a slow death either in jail (where you will have lots of company with the likes of you) or in your huge home alone. Oh sir, I feel so sad.

Sir, fearing this I came up with an idea which sir, I got it from you and your supporters. Sir, like your supporters bought tickets for Mr ShahRukh Khan to leave for Lahore, I bought tickets for you sir. I raised money which every citizen in the country was so willingly read to give (God bless each one of them. They are so nice sir, to do this good deed to help you out). Sir, I bought tickets for you for every country in the world, so that you can go anywhere in the world sir. But sir, I again ran into problems. No other country sir, was ready to have you, even for a day, as a guest, forget having you as a permanent citizen. Oh sir, now what will you do sir? India does not want you and the countries will not take you. Sir, you have no future sir. Oh sir, I guess your only future will be in jail (which I think will be a safe haven for you sir) or sir it will be by being beaten up in public sir, by citizens of India, and since they have learned it very well from who else but you, they know the art of beating up people quite well.

Sir, I feel so sorry for you. I was such an ardent admirer, fan and follower of you. Oh sir, if only you had mend your ways and did what is good for the country, you would have had such a different life. Oh sir, what will happen to me now that you gone sir. Oh sir, you are doomed.

Sir, I have to end my letter now. I cannot control my tears any more as am so heartbroken, visualising your complete dark future. I wish these Indians understood what a great man you were. After all, you could do what no man has ever done. Unite every Indian. Unite them in their belief that you sir, are nothing but a menace to society and every Indian. I wish they sir, realised how you became bad so they could be united (Sir, that .01% who still vote for you, will stop voting soon too, so I can say it will be a 100% vote against you). But such is life, sir.

Your ardent admirer till her dying breath

Priyashmita

Read my first letter to Mr Bal Thakeray

An open letter to Mr Bal Thakeray…And to Support(sic) him

A letter to Mr Bal Thakeray for the hate politics he represents and we hate

Dear Mr Thakeray,

I really will say I have become quite an admirer of you. Who else has the guts to tell people like Mr Sachin Tendulkar, Mr Shah Rukh Khan, Mr Mukesh Ambani that they are traitors, etc with such elan and panache I wonder. But you do, and for that I salute you.

And since I am such admirer of you, I hope you will let me ask you a few questions which will clarify some doubts I have. Sir, I am only asking these as I want to defend you, when people speak against you which today constitutes 99.99% of the countrymen and women.

You have been saying that we should not let Australian players play in India. I completely support you on this. How dare they beat us up and how can we let them play in our country post that? But just a small question, when you beat up North Indians and Maharashtrians go to North India to play for various sports, I hope it is ok for them to stop them from playing or for that matter working there or living there? Naah? Oh wrong question I guess. I am sorry sir. I completely forgot different rules apply for you and for others. I will remember this next time someone tells me this sir. Oh sorry, I should not have said that in public? Am so sorry sir. Forgive me.

There is one more thing I support you for sir. Your total vandalism during Valentine day celebrations. How can we allow something so western in our country. Its completely unacceptable to tell someone you love them. I too deplore it. Hence you spread hatred which I agree India stands for. But sir, somebody that day told me there was a singer called Mr Michael Jackson who was a great pop star in USA. (I am against western culture and hence do not know much, but I hear he represented the western culture quite well). Sir, did you bring him to our country for a music concert? But sir, that would have spoilt our generations for years to come cause it was completely western and people would be dancing and singing sir? Oh sorry, did you say that was business and money for you and your family and hence acceptable? And on that ground, you are ok to let western civilisation take over us? Well sir, I apologise then. Next time anyone speaks against you, on this ground I will tell them this. Oh oh, I am sooooo sorry. That was not for public knowledge, right sir? Forgive me, will you sir for letting out the secret?

Sir, there was another subject which has been brought to my notice. Your son and you too always say that you don’t support vandalism and when people belonging to your party vandalise they do it as a spontaneous reaction. Sir, I completely agree. How can you control people sir? But sir, people are giving some weird definitions of being a leader. Some people have the gaul to say that a leader means he has followers whom he can control, who listen to him. One even told me dictionary defines leadership as a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective. So if you cannot control them it means you not a leader. Sir I of course told them, it is completely untrue and you can control and these followers are doing so cause you are telling them to, else would not. I did the right thing sir, right? They were saying you not a leader. Oh sorry, did I goof up? Does that implicate you in criminal proceedings for supporting and initiating vandalism? I am so sorry Sir. Please forgive me.

By the way Sir, I want to congratulate you sir for taking on the mights of Sachin Tendulkar, Mr Mukesh Ambani, Mr Shah rukh Khan. I completely agree sir they are traitors. After all what have they done for us? Got us awards and made country proud? Made the Indian economy go soaring high? Made us an international force in the world in each of their respective domains? And not supporting you in something, becuase it is unconstitutional? Of course sir they are traitors. You sir, is the true champion of Indians. You are advocating dividing the country and talking something that the constitution says gives the country to arrest you and put you behind bars. But so what sir. Even freedom fighters went behind bars and that time what they said was unconstitutional as far as the British were concerned. You sir, are managing single handedly to do what Pakistan, whom you call as our enemy can never ever achieve . Dividing the country and making us hate our own countrymen, thus weakening the country. Oh sorry, wrong analogy sir? Am I getting you into trouble? I apologise sir. Please Please forgive me sir.

And finally sir, please please do something about these people who say bad bad things about you. Sir, they say you a hypocrite sir. Sir, they saying you actually had Mr Javed Miandad in your home who happens to be related to Mr Dawood Ibrahim, our most wanted criminal? Sir apparently post that you did a press conference praising him. And sir, these bad bad majority Indians, are also saying if you so against relationships with Pakistan, why are you not screaming at Mr Amitabh Bachhan who is reciting poetry with them for some very wrong program that Times of India is conducting in India called “Aman ki Asha”? Sir they are calling you publicity hungry and thats why you opposing “My Name Is Khan”. But sir, I fiercely fought for you. I told them you against “My Name is Khan” cause Mr ShahRukh Khan made some innocuous statement that we Indians should have shown more grace when we handle Pakistan players especially when there is a problem. I told them sir how dare Mr ShahRukh say something which show Indians in a positive light. We will never accept such blasphemy. But sir, one problem I could not tell them why you allowed Mr Javed Miandad to come and then praised him or why you not saying anything against TOI and Mr Bachhan, who is your friend, cause it supports the same thing you opposing. Sir, I keep saying its cause its been slipping your mind. You will oppose it too. Right, Sir? No, sir? Oh sorry sir, you cannot as they are your friends and you actually have no such cause that you believe in? Oh sir, you mean in your heart of hearts you actually a hypocrite who does not follow what you preach? Oh sorry sir, I again told something in public which I should not sir. Sorry sir, I fall at your feet. Please forgive me for confirming what all know sir. Please sir, I know you love apologies and I am apologising from the bottom of my heart sir.

Sir, I guess I am really making things bad for you by letting the cat out of the bag. I don’t want to sir, cause I really admire you. Hence I will not write anymore sir. Hope sir, I have not harmed you in any way.

But sir, before I end I want to tell you a few things, which might actually help you.

1. Promote Australians to kill us more. So far mostly they have killed north indians. It will take the burden off you from killing them
2. Promote V day. Makes more economic sense like it did when you brought it Mr Jackson
3. Slyly help Pakistani terrorists, etc divide us. Will help your agenda in removing all North Indians away from Maharashtra and you can be happy with only Maharashtrians in your land.

And Sir, to all who call us a banana republic, I say we not. We a republic who have the most thick skinned buffoons as their citizens and hence we vote for you Mr Thakeray and we do not ban parties like you.

I salute you sir and I salute us Indian citizens even more for voting you and your party year after year, even though they know what you represent. For that sir, and that alone, we deserve you and deserve the way you sending the country to the dogs !! Keep up the good work sir.

With deepest regards

Priyashmita

PS : And I hope I will not be asked to tender any further apology, sir, as have apologised all through the letter. I am aware how much you love apologies

You can read my second letter to Mr Thakeray here

An open letter to the prime minister (shareholder to CEO of country)

A letter to Dr Manmohan Singh

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

I am writing this letter to you out as I believe that you are the CEO of my country and since I pay my taxes (quite unhappily though), which runs the country I guess that makes me a shareholder and  I feel it gives me a right to bring up certain issues to you. Hence the letter.

I will first start with the functioning of your parliament which I guess is the headquarters of the office you run. I run an organisation here and though am a very relaxed person about rules of attending office on time, etc I cannot in the world imagine how you can have a parliament where your parliamentarians play truant many times and some even 100% of the the time and yet they are allowed to have their job. Better still they get paid for the same. May I know as to how you can spend my money to pay those guys who do not turn up at work? And the ones who do turn up, many of them do not work. I hope you understand that we as citizens pay your salary so you work and not come to the parliament and do nothing? You have a huge percentage of members who have not once whatsoever raised a question in the question hour or done any meaningful work. Yet we seem to keep paying their salaries every month. Honestly its not amazing that the country is in this mess, with such employees. Or should I say its amazing the country is not in worse mess even though it has such employees running the show????????? I do understand that as CEO you have a limited role in some of these cases but at least the employees whom you have brought in, can you not regulate them? And on the same note I would like to add, that I would want you to hire and promote people based only on their expertise and qualifications. I really do not want the first woman President, or the first dalit speaker, or the first sikh prime minister. I just want honest and able people to lead the positions. So if you could kindly refrain from using people’s birth as their qualifications I guess it would do us a world of good.

I would like to bring to your notice another working of your organisation which amazes me. I see many a times that your employees raise the issue of media regulation especially the television. Many times I have heard your information and broadcast minister send notices to television channels about the programs they telecast and the impact they have on children, our society, etc. I mean honestly speaking have your team members ever seen their delinquent behaviour which gets telecast on television daily? Have they ever felt the need to regulate that in regards to the fact that it would spoil the kids or the society. Seeing you guys fight, abuse each other in a place of work, one needs to regulate that channel more than any other channel ever. Why has your minister never brought up that topic? Have they not once thought the kind of impact it would have? Please as CEO can you ask your information and broadcasting minister to first check this telecast before they cast aspersions on others??

The other thing which worries me immensely as a shareholder is the blatant way you guys even in this economy increase your salaries and perks. I do understand that they are the needs and we need to pay you well to function, etc but have you ever calculated the amount of money we spend behind each of your employee? its Rs 2.66 lakhs a month? And time and again you guys increase the same, not once asking the shareholders if they feel like appraising you at all? As CEO of the country, I appreciate you telling the private sector to stop paying the eye popping salaries they pay their employees, but after seeing the salaries you pay your employees, I wonder why the same yard stick is not used to measure your employees?

Mr Prime Minister, I would also like to understand that every year in spite of the dismal performance of the Government I as shareholder have not taken away my faith from this country and moved to another (though honestly that is something which I am very much wondering now) but what have you given me in return? Have we in the last 50 years even made an attempt to improve the selection procedure of the employees we hire? I run an organisation and I ensure I do their background check, check their resume, etc before I even call them for an interview. Yes I too sometimes still choose wrong employees, but you Mr CEO seem to go wrong in the selection process itself. I see no criteria being given to choose your set of probable employees except the fact that they are interested. Also nepotism seems to be the ideal way of choosing the hopeful candidate? Can you please advise me as to why after so many years I still see no improvement in the same and how do you plan to address the issue?

Mr Prime Minister I would also like to talk to you about the various committees successive CEO’s of the country have set up to investigate various and countless crimes done by previous management. When I run my firm, I cannot in the world imagine how I can give a work out without first fixing a budget and a timeframe for the same along with of course the execution plan. But in your company, no matter who is in the helm of affairs the story remains the same. Tell me honestly, do you expect your shareholders to believe it takes 20 years to investigate a crime spending billions of rupees and to give the information which was anycase privy to all? Why may I know are we not changing the system?

The other matter which plagues me a lot is the prizes you decide to confer on sports personalities, namely cricket. Though I do understand that its a very entertaining sport and one which I personally enjoy but I see no reason to give special status to them using my funds in the company while you deprive the others. If you want to spend my money please make it equitable and based on certain criteria, else please do not. I have not invested my money for this.

The other point I would like to understand from you is what is your criterian for breaking the states and making it smaller ones? Is it cause of governance or just cause someone protests? And if it is the latter why not separate out the states which want to leave us? Or is it size matters? States can be separated but not the country? If not, I would like to understand what is the due diligence being done before you or your board take such decisions?

Before I end, Mr Prime Minister I would like to tell you that basically I find you a very able CEO and definitely much much better than any previous management we have had in a long long long time. Hence I felt, that maybe you would try and solve the functioning of this company before its too late and shareholders plan to leave you for other companies. Thus the letter. I do hope that the letter will be received in the right spirit and I hope very soon it will be a pleasure to invest here.

Warm Regards

A small shareholder

The 3 idiots…3 IDIOTS INDEED

An Award for the 3 idiots from the movie 3 idiots - Amir Khan, RajKumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Dear Mr Chopra/ Mr Hirani/ Mr Khan,

I saw your press conference last evening and I felt that the 3 of you deserved awards for being the real 3 idiots.

I am sure you would like to know why I feel so and hence the explanation below:

1. Mr Chopra you asked a poor journalist to shut up cause he had not read the book, and had no right to comment. I completely agree. But then why did Mr Aamir Khan comment when by his own admissions, he has not read the book.  So do enlighten me Mr Chopra why did you not tell Mr Khan to shut up or even use him as your star witness?  Or are you the first idiot among the 3 idiots…cause by your own admission your witness has no clue about the case and yet came to testify. Pretty idiotic, won’t you say? So I hereby nominate you as Idiot 1 of the 3 idiots.
2.  Mr Khan, according to you, Mr Bhagat had told you that the book and script was not similar. Strangely Mr Bhagat claims he had not read the script and even if he had, how do you know that it was not changed in between?  Can you deny that it does not happen? Or did you ask Mr Bhagat as to wherein lies the difference? And since you are such a thinking man or intelligent man as you give us to believe, should you not have read the book before you jumped into the defence? And imagining that Mr Bhagat is lying comletely should you not have first read the book to verify the claim you made as you know verbal talks have no basis in such arguments. Don’t you think you behaved like the lawyer who went to fight a case without knowing what the evidences were? And since you had no clue about the evidences should we not as judges (the entire audience is a judge in this case) not throw you off the case, for wasting valuable time of the court? You seem to me to be the 2nd Idiot in the story of the 3 idiots who came to testify and fight a case without knowing what the evidences were or for that matter. So without any doubt the award for the 2nd idiot goes to you Mr Khan. I know how much you hate awards but am sure you would accept this graciously.

3. Mr Hirani – I am planning to make a movie on Munnabhai. The story will be mine, the plot will be mine, etc etc. There will be a 5% similarity to your original story that the character will be Munnabhai and Circuit and the 2 actors who acted will be same.  I plan to give you no credit for the same except write your name and say loosely inspired by you guys. Actually you guys gave me an idea. I will have Munnabhai fighting people like you who refuse to give credit to others when due. So let me change the inspiration to 10% but that’s it. Please do not ask for more, please, please, please. Ok 11.3% but that’s it. Not a percentage more. Why that number? Cause I felt so. Or do you have a maths to calculate the percentage of inspiration? Am sure you do, after all you guys quite convincingly spoke of the percentage of inspiration. So if you could kindly send me the maths behind the calculation, it would help me come up with an exact value? I mean how did you come up with 3 to 5%? I just want to be sure I have the maths correct, so that tomorrow when you say the same thing I will have my facts correct. Sounds pretty idiotic, right? And if you cry hoarse after it becomes famous, I will accuse the same things you accused Mr Bhagat for. Hope thats ok with you. No? Weird Mr Hirani, it seemed ok when it was Mr Bhagat at the receiving end? Or do you now feel in the hindsight, it was an idiotic thing to do and say? Well whether you feel so or not, I feel so and hereby award you the 3rd idiot in this entire 3 idiot fiasco. . After all the decision of awards depends on the jury / judge and not on the recipient.
In the end of this controversy I have just one thing to say to all the 3 of you. All 3 of you are the 3 IDIOTS INDEED. Am sorry for my language and please do not drag me to court (if you do I will say you doing all this for publicity 🙂 ) But seriously do you think if people are finding it similar, audiences are going to find your crying yourself hoarse claiming otherwise more idiotic?  And commercially speaking, I say you guys and specially you Mr Hirani and Mr Khan dipped your brandequity a lot cause what you did went against what you guys have always stood for. And I think commercially that would make a lot more difference, specially to you Mr Khan than had you convinced Mr Hirani and Mr Chopra to give credit where its due. And God forbid you go to a court, and it turns out by the same mathematical tools you used that Mr Bhagat was right, it would be even more idiotic, right? Anyway that’s your call.

Before I end, I want you to accept the awards I just gave out. Also I would be awaiting your humble acceptance speech on getting the awards and congratulations to the 3 of you once again. You guys have beat millions of Idiots to win this coveted title. Be Proud of it

Warm Regards

Priyashmita

PS : I would like to point out that I do not exactly feel that Mr Bhagat was not taking advantage of it being a hit film. Maybe he did sell the movie rights and was not smart enough to say, this is the credit I need. And now that the film is a hit he regrets it and that is what his blog says, without mentioning what rights he had in his contract. Fair enough. My reason for nominating the above 3 are only cause they were full of crap. Had they made one logical point like I am sorry I bought the rights and this is what the contract said, I would have admired them. But instead they were full of gas and the idiotic moral high ground which made me nominate and award them.

My horoscope matches yours – I am God

Satire on horoscope matching

This horoscope matching phenomenon which has the fancy of at least 50% of my countrymen is certainly an interesting concept and one which can have many uses if used properly.  Thanks to serials and all those movies doing the rounds horoscope matching is now more fashionable than it was maybe 30 years ago. So much so for progress. Anyway like I said, if used properly this can really be a successful phenomenon.

Now according to astrologers horoscope plays a very important role in our lives. So if I want to do business with you, if I want to marry you, for it to be successful, the only thing which will work is our horoscopes to match. Else doomsday.

Now here is some of the things I have heard astrologers say…if a person (read :girl )  is manglik (meaning if Mars is prevalent in your horoscope), your husband is sure to die unless he too has the same problem. Hence the solution is marry a tree, dog, etc first so that that object dies and then you free of the curse. AWESOME IDEA.  So why not make use of this idea.  Here we are running pillar to post wondering will we give capital punishment to Kasab, Dawood, etc and all the villains of the world.  One has to fight those human rights activists who seem to think all human rights belong to people who kill humans. So now this is what the law should do. Make a horoscope of the villain they want to do away with and pray he not manglik. Advertise for all the manglik girls who want to serve the nation and get them married off to these guys. And Poof !!!!! They are dead !!!!!!!!! So you are saved of the villains, the girls do a great deed, the girls lose their curse and can marry a man of their choice and human rights people are thrilled cause we got them married off. GREAT IDEA RIGHT???  Besides this will spare us of all the environment rights and animal rights people who will one of these days wake up to realise we are killing the dogs and plants through such means 🙂 . We can of course use this method to even pick up supari (collecting money to kill people). So instead of going by those boring old methods of killing someone using the gun, knives and all, we get them married and BANG (no pun intended) we have them dead !!!!!!!!!!!!

Now lets look at what else a horoscope can do for you. It can get you wealth, health, kids, etc, etc. In other words if an infertile man marries a girl whose horoscope matches his, he can produce kids. Medical Science be damned. In other words if a doctor finds a man who comes to him for being infertile, he has a brand new prescription to offer. A girl whose horoscope matches yours !!!!! 🙂 And this is one treatment which is fool proof.

Now lets take the case of some man who is a failure or whose business is failing. Ideally you would go to a consultant, etc and try and try and reorganise and reengineer your business. And pay a fortune for it. But now we have a much better way to handle it. We get you a wife whose horoscope matches yours. Consider it as a bonus offer – Have your business up and running and get a wife too FREE FREE FREE !!!!!!!!!

In other words we are God !!!! We can make or break you and even kill you by just the power of when we were born !!!!  Lucky us !!! And thank God for horoscopes which give us so much power in the world that previously we knew only God had !!!!!!  HENCE SALUTE US :). And salute all those who made horoscopes so important.

PS : And for readers who would want to know why me saying the power of horoscopes lies only with women, its cause in India we are still regressive enough to think women bring in the luck for a man. Science and logic and progress be damned 🙂

Am also hoping that one of these days the Govt of the worlds will accept all my theories and pay me money for these awesome ideas

We don’t need to outsource terrorists…we manufacture them in-house and elect them to power

Modern Day Indian Terrorists - Our Politicians

Terrorism today is and rightly so, one of the educated modern world’s biggest threat. Its no longer a distant reality which happens only in Kashmir in our country, or Iran or Iraq but something which can happen to any one of us. Its no longer confined to the lower strata of society but something which can affect even the elite of today. Today it is our duty to fight it and irradicate it or tomorrow we too will fall victims of the same. Today an Osama Bin Laden is no longer a problem that affect Afghanistan but even our very own India. Terrorism is a reality.

But before we start on fighting terrorism, it is important to know what defines terrorism. Now wikipedia has a big article on the same topic. Terrorism apparently comes from the latin word  which means to frighten. The word “terrorism” was first recorded in English-language dictionaries in 1798 as meaning “systematic use of terror as a policy”. Terrorism is nothing but the act or threat of violence by any individual, group, organization aimed at to secure predetermined ends through illegal channels.

Now on reading this article on wikipedia the thoughts which should naturally come to our mind would be of Osama Bin Laden or Hafiz Sayed or a Kasab. But strange that after reading the article the names which came to my mind were of Raj Thakeray, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, Pramod Muthalik, Narendra Modi, Mayavati, etc….our political class and their so called outfits.

Today a Raj Thakeray can get up and openly say he will break every movie theatre which shows a “Wake up Sid” cause they called Mumbai, Bombay. Now is that not an act of terrorism? They threatened violence, its illegal to stop screening and it was for a predertermined end. Now terrorism, could not have been defined better than by this act. But we cannot call them terrorists cause we elected them.

A Shiv Sena has for years on raged terror on Valentine’s Day claiming it is against Indian culture, etc or whatever crap they have. They have systematically used terror as a way to get what they want or at least try. They have terrorised the Muslims, the North Indians, etc in the name of Marathi Manoos and got away with it. There was an interview of Uddhav Thakeray a few days back in NDTV where he said he knew how to use his hand in other ways too if people did not listen to him. In other words, agree to what i say or face the music. Terrorism is defined in OED as the systematic use of terror and for Shiv Sena it seems to be part of their political agenda. Then pray tell me how is that not terrorism?

We have a Mayavati who openly gets up and conducts meetings and says if the courts of India tries and stops her from getting those parks up, India will see bloodbath, that they have never seen in their life. Now according to League of Nations Convention (1937) “All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public”.  So tell me how is this act of Mayavati not an act of terrorism.

Of course we also along with that have instances of Narendra Modi heaping terror on Muslims in the Gujarat riots, we have heard of HKL Bhagat terrorising and killing Sikhs in the 1984 riots, we have had the likes of Pramod Muthalik who can openly say they will beat us women up if we are seen in a pub, etc. We live in a democracy where politicians openly say that if you not with me, it means you against me and I will kill you. West Bengal proves is proving it everyday for the last one year where the opposition and the ruling party have killed humans like they are chickens

Yes today terrorism is India’s biggest threat and not cause of the Taliban or Al Qaeda or Hizb-ul-Mujahideen or the likes of the world…its the biggest threat cause we elect them to power every year and let them terrorise us and we succumb to it. Everyday when you go out, you don’t know if someone belonging to some outfit will terrorise you cause they don’t like your style of living or who you are. Yes terrorism is a threat but its in our hand to stop it by maybe not electing them or facing a change in the democratic system where hooligans who threat are not allowed to stand for elections Will we is a different question?

So till then I would like to really appeal to all known terrorists who belong to the various outfits like Al Qaeda, taliban, etc, etc…Please do not waste your energy and resources sending us terrorists. We grow them in-house and we democratically elect them too. We call our terrorists Politicians :). And unlike you guys they also get the safe haven that no law can ever even repirimand them, leave alone prosecute them. So leave us alone. We are not outsourcing terror anymore. We have enough in-house.

Let debate remain a debate…all in favour vote aye

A few days back I had posted an article on marxism and how corporates can make use of the same. Well as always a lot of people commented on the same. Some I agreed and some I disagreed which is always the case. Anyway it so happened that someone made a disaparaging comment about my city and I obviously wanted to comment. So here I got onto chat, and before I knew it, it became a personal attack, to the extent that I was not even allowed to say a word. If I said anything,it was misconstrued in the most amazing way and the point was hammered so many times, that one lost the entire reason for the conversation and it went into a different direction. Well after a couple of minutes I obviously did the next sensible thing to do and just ignored the conversation and actually had a good laugh with another friend who was online who was following the chat with me. But the entire conversation got me thinking, why is it today that debates are no longer reigned within the limits of a debate. Why are people so scared of their point of view being unaccepted that they are ready to rave, rant and go to any low heights as possible? Is winning so important? Or have we reached a stage where intolerance rules.

One of my friends in FB is a staunch communist and she often makes various postings on FB regarding how anti communist forces in West Bengal and India are destroying the country and how communism is the best philosophy to follow. Now I disagree with some of her views and agree with some. Of course when I disagree I give my reasons for the same and vice versa. But what amazes me is the way the comments from the readers flow in any of her discussions. I can accept that one is passionate about what one says and believes in, but I am amazed why people are not ready to listen to another point of view? And when one sees ones point being diluted in the barrage of comments, the comments invariably more often than not become personal. Or otherwise they start screaming and hammering away to glory so much so, that one forgets that one is in a civil society. Internet being an unmoderated medium this becomes even more easier.

If one follows debates on various television channels where one political party is pitted agains the other, the same rule follows. Firstly most debates on TV which involves the politcal class are always so divided and polarized that one rarely gets to hear the true story. Secondly with most speakers who come on TV (there are some good political orators but they generally choose to stay away) its always an extremist point of view that they carry and for them the one point agenda is not to defend their theory but to belittle one’s opponent. In that effort most of the politcal class usually catch hold of the most inane points in the opposition’s topic of conversation and misinterprets it in such a wonderful fashion, and then repeats it so many times that one forgets the real reason for the debate. And if one finds onself in the receiving end of the debate, or losing as one would say, the voices of the loser becomes shriller and louder to the extent that he / she feels that the best way to win a debate is to stop the other one from being heard – decency be damned. Logic and any form of evidence more often than not takes a back seat and all one gets in the end is a shrilly discourse where one hears nothing except some pathetic personal attacks and a loud cacophony of noises. What is worse is that the so called moderator or the anchor of the show actually encourages that cacophony, so much so that at the end of the debate the viewer not only remains uneducated about everyone’s point of view but also needs to clean his ears lest he turned deaf.

One of the most debated topics in India of late have been the Nuclear Deal. I am sure the most of us did follow the same specially on the day the parliament moved the motion of confidence against the Government. The parliament debated over the topic for over 6 hours (a record of sorts since they never work so long but thats a different topic) but tell me honestly how many of you even remember a single debate except the one Rahul Gandhi and Omar Abdullah made. I don’t. And I will tell you why I remember Rahul Gandhi’s speech. After ages I heard a politican who did not feel the need to belittle another party and rather paid respect to all saying all is equally concerned about India. He did not need to scream cause he knew his content made sense. But still no one learns.

In the last two parliamentary elections the BJP lost. Among the many reasons attributed to their loss, I feel one of the reasons they lost is that they forgot that a democracy is a fight for different schools of thought and not of different individuals. At least in urban india one would like to hear a debate on how they different. Their fight in the 2004 elections was anti Sonia and 2009 concentrated on being anti Manmohan. None of their debates had any concrete topics and solutions to the many problems India faces today but just personal attacks. Most of their debates especially if the panelists included people from the RSS was always about a personal attack. They lost the first time and yet refused to learn and fell again. Hopefully this time they wil  learn. Of course I don’t mean congress is any better. They usually have a little more smarter people who come for the debate and hence their tactic more often than not, when they have nothing to say is to catch the most insignificant statement that the opposition makes and keep repeating it so many times, that one ends up discussing a topic completely different from what one started with and before you know it, the time is up. But the best of the lot I find is from TMC and certain marxist leaders. They usually start the debate with screaming and shouting and throw up insignificants points in the air, which have no relevance with the topic and hope that the chaos created by them confuses the audience enough to forget the topic of discussion. Logic and proofs be damned.

I am deliberately avoiding putting up any examples for the above as there are so many that even my debate will lose its relevance. But there is one which I have to point out and I feel its enough to drive home my point. Sometime back in NDTV there was a discussion on Mayavati’s statue building efforts. Now among the panelists was a gentleman who was speaking for Mayavati and her spend. Failing to justify it under any circumstance he came up with this bizarre explanation which flumoxxed everyone. He said that statue building of elephants was to bring in the plight of elephants being killed in India, and since India was racist they were more bothered about the diminishing number of tigers in the country than elephants, who he felt was a sign of dalits. Now in that one swift move he managed to turn the topic of discussion to something completely different and confused the entire panelists to think the discussion was on racism and saving the elephants. Much as I laughed during the debate I feel more often than not today debates are reduced to the same. Create a confusion, rave, rant and in the end ensure people don’t get to hear any opposing thoughts.

When I was a kid and I used to get angry with my people for not agreeing to something I said, I used to scream. Ma always said something, which then I did not understand but today I do. She used to say when you are right your content will do the convincing. Raising your voice only shows how hollow your viewpoints are cause you feel only by shouting you can win. More often than not, your opponent just gives in cause he/ she feels intimidated by you. I guess today we have become so intolerant across all spectrums of life, that we cannot tolerate any other school of thought which contradicts ours. Hence instead of talking sense, we end up just mud slinging each other and screamig.

I am someone who really enjoys a healthy debate, if for nothing else but to make my grey cells ticking. Hence like old times, when debates used to end with the moderator asking all in favour vote aye…i say all in favour of the old form of debate coming back please vote aye…I FOR ONE CERTAINLY VOTE AYE…

The News Media needs a dictionary ..Please contribute

Why does news media today exaggerate?

When I was a kid I used to hear my dad say that he had learnt English listening to English News on the Radio and reading the Statesman. He was quite sure English Media could teach any kid English. Now I too had the same idea that if I ever have kids they too will read the English newspaper and watch the news (radio being a defunct medium now at least for news broadcast) to learn the Queen’s language till I started following their reporting of late. And I felt if anything they need the dictionary first.

Let me elaborate my point with examples. If all of you recall sometime back there was a major controversy with Varun Gandhi making comments regarding the Muslim community. Now of course the media instead of ignoring that jerk, decided to give him all the media space he could have asked for in his entire lifetime, of course in the name of holding up the truth. Now here comes the fun of it. Priyanka Gandhi had gone for some election rally when she was constantly asked by journalists about what she felt about her estranged cousin’s remarks. First she avoided and then like any normal decent human being she commented saying it was not something she was taught as and of course the blah blah comments on how the Gandhi family was taught otherwise, etc. She did not criticise, shout, or do anything but simply commented that it was not her philosophy and that too on being asked. Now I watched the news that day all day. So here she was giving a live interview, that too on being questioned incessantly but what is the coverage we get half hour later in all news channels. “PRIYANKA GANDHI SLAMS HER COUSIN”. Now the OED defines Slam as censuring someone harshly or forcefully. Now under no circumstances did she even censure the man cause she was quite clear it was not her job. So how did the word “slam” get attached to it? Did someone here mention the word TRP? Please we are talking of the honest media here. The 4th estate. And how can you demean it by saying TRP? They are not here for business but for telling us the truth. Please understand that in their busy schedule they forgot to buy an OED for themselves and hence the honest mistake.

Now let’s go to another example. How many of us have see the word “breaking news” flashing across your screen all day in all news channel. Now the OED dfines “breaking news” as a news which is just flashed. Now you must admit that rarely does news happen 24 hour which can be broken into the media. And a news cannot be called breaking news if its 2 hours old. Now again did someone say eyeballs, viewership, etc? Tsk tsk. No. Those poor people do not have the dictionary with them. So the mistake. If only someone told them that it should be flashed as news update, they would have, but poor guys do not know the same.

Now if you think am only saying people in the audio visual media need the OED you are wrong. Even the poor print guys need a dictionary. Let me give you another instance of the poor language being misused. Am sure all of you guys are quite used to controversy relating to MOS Mr Shashi Tharoor. Now poor man being part of the UN, etc uses too much of the queen’s language not understanding that the Indian media has no clue about the same. Poor chaps tweets about cattle class. Now cattle class is a word coined by the Americans to define economy class travel and has nothing to do with the word cattle, same as barking up a tree does not call one a dog. But our ignorant media of course had headlines the next day “Shashi Tharoor calls Indian masses cattle”. Poor chap had he said Indian people leads a dog’s life I can just imagine the report. “MOS Tharoor calls Indian middle class dog” Anyway now as tragedy happened some smart alec brought it to their notice that what cattle class really meant. So then they went running to the Congress for some comments and those people not knowing what hit them, had to say they do not accept such comments. Now next came the report “Congress rebukes Tharoor”. Now firstly your lack of the knowledhe of the language creates a controversy and then you create a further controversy by asking people for comments and then saying they are rebuked and then taking the high moral ground stating why don’t politcians have a sense of humour or know the language?
Now Please don’t say our 4th estate is corrupt and they did this just to sensationalise the news and create news when they had none. How many times do I need to remind you its all cause they do not have the knowledge.

Now I know a lot of you cynics will say all this is done for TRP, money, eyeballs, etc, etc but I honestly still feel its cause they do not have a dictionary with them. Hence I would like to contribute to them. I will admit I am doing so for my own selfish reasons as tomorrow when I have kids, I want one headache less. At least the media can do the job of teaching them English like my dad learnt, and anyone who knew him will admit that his hold on the language was par excellence. For all those who agree with me, PLEASE PLEASE DO CONTRIBUTE. All contributions towards this noble cause will grant you a place in the history for saving the English language.

PS : Same applies for all vernacular language and hence please contribute generosuly for them too.

Marxism and the Corporate World

Marxism and the Corporate World

Being born in a communist family I was always educated about the marxism and what Karl Marx taught about socialism. Somehow as an youngster i sort of equated socialism with being poor, the right to strike, the right not to work and still demand wages, etc. As I grew up I of course realised that I was wrong but I used to be still intrigued as to why most communist leaders used to oppose anything which would mean profits. Was Profit such a bad word? Did Karl Marx really say being rich was being bad? Why was making profits such a bad thing? Why was communism in my state equated with anti business? Why was it said that communism killed the work culture? And that is when I got to actually doing some fact finding myself about what Karl Marx actually said. What Marx actually said was that wealth of a company belonged to its workers and compensation depended on his value brought into the company. But tell me how can a company be wealthy if its workers are on strike. How can a company be wealthy if people do not work and consider a right to still be employed a birthright? Now Marx never said be lazy, did he? I once remember ages ago hearing an interview of a marxist labour union leader from West Bengal who said he had met a labour union leader in China. Apparently during his meeting it came out that his Chinese counterpart was agitating against the management cause of some treatment meted out to an employee. Of course the gentleman in question asked his Chinese friend why were they not going on a strike and I still remember what his Chinese counterpart had said “I am a labour union leader. If there is no labour being done then what am I a leader of? I will protest but stopping work is not the way of doing it.” Those words struck me even then and yet I saw my state lumbering its way through countless strikes and corporates moving away. Not one labour union leader realised that wealth cannot be distributed unless wealth is created. Some say Karl Marx’s theory is redundant in today’s world. But I feel its the most relevant in the world of today. If an employee’s pay is directly related to the welfare of the firm then both will be profitable. If every employee is a stake holder, then before going on strikes . If every employee is a stake holder then every employee will think twice before being lazy at work. If every employee’s benefit’s depended on the company’s welfare they would think a million times before they force a firm to accept an errant employee back as that errant employee would result in the company’s profit margin coming down. After all the end intention is to distribute wealth and unless its created it can never be distributed. And Karl Marx never said don’t be rich. Infosys is one of the greatest example of the above theory being a success. They created wealth and they distributed it among its employees. But you see nothing in this world came free. Hence each employee was made a stakeholder of that company. So if you want the wealth you have to work for it. The fruits of labour cannot come unless you have a stake in that business. I know many people will say this is simplifying the entire problem. Maybe it is. But its still better than the world where I came from where communism became synonym with strikes and laziness. And its certainly a start to ending the never ending enmity that capitalism and communism cannot co-exist. In today’s world the only way ahead is a synergy of both the thoughts. One needs to reinvent the wheel today if one has to survive and if communism has to survive in India, it has to befriend the corporate world and accept that making money is not all that bad.

WHEN INTO THAT HEAVEN OF FREEDOM, WILL MY FATHER, MY COUNTRY AWAKE?

Today when YSR’s death loomed large over India, the one common comment I heard from a lot of people  is He was a good CM. He did make his money but he did a lot for people and it got me thinking, have we become so immune to corruption that we feel if politcians work for us we can forgive their corruption. Before I proceed further, I would like to make it clear that am not making any aspersion on Mr Reddy and do hope his soul rests in peace. But the fact remains that as common people we are immune to corruption?

There is a common saying in India, that you cannot be in politics if you are not corrupt. And yet every Indian blindly agrees that our PM who is the highest post holder of our democratic system (Presidency is not part of the elected system) is incorruptable. Dr Manmohan even after so many years in office holds the same esteem he held when he started his journey. So doesn’t that mean that if we want we can remain clean even in the most corrupt systems? Then why are so ready to accept corruption in our lives? Why can we not say no matter what good you have done, corruption will not be tolerated?

Corruption isn’t only about money. Corruption can be about power. Our erstwhile US President Mr George Bush was so corrupted that he felt his favourite pastime was to wage wars so that all can say how invincible America is. And so convinced were people that he could save them that many americans voted him back for a second time, forgiving his sins, even though most americans felt he was completely wrong in fighting war specially in Iraq. Thankfully they decided they will say no to his corruption of power and voted the democrats back to power this time and the basic underlying theory behind this presidential election was they said no to corruption – Corruption of power.

Corruption can also be a form of bigotry – something we see so prevalent in India. Yes Mr Modi, our chief minsiter from Gujerat has done a lot for his state and in spite of my sheer disrespect for him I will still accept that and admire it. But does that mean we forgive him for the sheer disrespect he shows to all muslims including justifying the riots? Is development enough to justify that corruption? And if not, then why are we not getting up and saying no matter what good you have done, you are corrupt and I will not vote for you.

And then of course there is corruption of money. Most politcians and bureaucrats in India has money beyond their reasonable means of income and yet we don’t question them. We don’t ask how a LK Advani has such wealth or how a Rahul Gandhi became richer in last 5 years with new shops? We don’t ask how come the police officers have bungalows which are way way beyond their any known source of income. We tolerate it and if they by chance do some good work, we say hey that’s ok. He at least did some good work, as if doing that good work was so unexpected of him. Actually doing any work for which he was getting salary was so unexpected of him.

And of course there is corruption of authority. Our every politician feels they are our Lord and Master. I saw a news the other day where the Rajasthan Govt actually passed an order saying one needs to pay our respect to every MP and MLA who they meet and their were definite guidelines as to what constituted respect. That too is corruption. In a country which is reeling under drought and all politicans find every reason to fight with each other for every reason under the sun, in Karnataka the one bill which got passed without even the slightest of fights was the Bill which increased every politcian’s income by 200% minimum. That too is corruption. For every time that the MPs and MLAs stage a walk out of the parliament and not work, they waste our (the tax payer’s money). That too is corruption. And yet we silently accept it as that is what we are used to.

When will a day come when we say no to corruption? When we get up and say NO MATTER WHAT GOOD YOU DO, I WILL NOT TOLERATE CORRUPTION? When will a day come when we say we wont give bribes, and let me see what you can do? When will a day come when we say we won’t tolerate corruption and will exercise our democratic powers to say no to such corrupt people who stand for elections? When will we realise that politicans and bureacrats doing their work well is nothing great but that is their job and the reason why we elected them and pay their salaries and does not justify corruption. When will the day come “WHEN INTO THAT HEAVEN OF FREEDOM, MY FATHER, WILL MY COUNTRY AWAKE?”

My response to 90% of the marriage ads

My ad in a marriage portal - Got me zero takers

Has anyone ever gone through marriage ads? Most men have standard requirements which are the following :

1. Fair bride (they can be dark as coal but wife dear has to be fair)

2. Sharp Features (its a different thing that their features have never known the word sharp)

3. Love my family (and dont expect them to love yours or for that matter even their own)

 4. Long Hair (They can be bald but you lady need to have long hair. Balancing act you see)

5. You need to cook very well (now you see if he is marrying he will do away with the maid, right?)

6. Educated (Degrees mean a lot specially to bong guys)

7. Young (They could be in their 50s but the girl needs to be in her early 20s)

And of coure they need to know the girl’s caste and many want my horoscope (and this even applies to all so called modern people who will otherwise write how caste system is wrong but when it comes to marriage wants to match all that). One would of course imagine that with such perfect matching none of those marriages ever can fail and most are match made in heaven but that is not always the case. Anyway thats a topic for another day.

Now lets look at the other party in the marriage viz : the women. Now women are simple and straight in all ads. They don’t have any such criteria. They are simple. THEY ARE JUST PERFECT. Every woman is beautiful (ignore the attached pic in case of marriage portal, as they were clicked on a very bad day), they can cook so well that chefs will feel ashamed, they are brilliant in studies and great at outdoor as wel as indoor work. And they will love your parents, will live on love and fresh air. Basically they are what God calls Angels.

Now seeing all these perfect women and the demands of the men I realised if I put up an ad, I will get nothing.  I mean God made me perfect but more like perfectly imperfect. How could I ever compete with such perfection I ever wondered. But nevertheless once ma (in one of her crazy ideas) said I need to marry either one of the men I knew or find someone for myself. Else she will get me married off. Now I did not want to ruin the lives of men I knew (they were friends after all and no matter how great I think I am and how much I love myself I will always feel sorry for the man who marries me), and neither did I want my mom looking for someone for me and then being blamed by my in laws that she got me married to them. So I said I will do the needful and this is the ad I put up.

AD :

Hi Prospective Grooms, Please stop here and look at me. I am desperate for marriage as ma says she cannot tolerate me anymore at home (Its a different thing that few days later you too will say the same thing). So please go through my profile and at least tell me you want to marry me even if you don’t. Anyway here is some details about me.

Well I am a wonderful girl. I am beautiful, attractive, nice, smart, intelligent, pretty – you can say adjectives fail me. I weigh around 100 kgs (but do not consider me fat – i am what you could say less thin), i am 4 ft 5 inches (but do not consider me short – i am less tall), i am black (you cannot find me in the night they say). My hair is wonderful. Basically i am bald and hence I use wonderful wigs – so you want long and silky, short & croppy, whatever. I can have that hair. (Now isn’t that a bonus. How many men can boast of wives who has hair of every type to suit every mood). My eyes put aishwarya’s to shame – only problem is you need a microscope to find it. My nose is the best part of my body – its like a road which suddenly took an u turn (You getting the picture right?) I wanted to go to the Ms Universe Contest but my family felt that others would have a inferiority complex and hence did not allow me to. Your good luck cause now me here and you can marry me !!

My other qualities – well i can cook. I mean I tried to make tea once but it tasted like ditch water. After that i never cooked. But I am sure if you want I can cook some burnt food for you. I am educated. I did pass some class some time – was it class V or was it class VI? I do not remember. Oh sorry I did appear for matriculation. Now class X exams come after class V right? Ok its a separate point that I did not pass. But so what? Lets say I am matric appeared (MA). Now that sounds like a degree, right?

My age – I am sure you are not that indecent to ask a girl her age. No one seems to have taught you any manners. Well lets say i am not very young.

My family says i am god’s gift to mankind. Any man who marries me would start praying to god that very day that I disappear from their life. So any man who does not pray much – God would gift me to them so they start praying.

Anyway here is my bio-data :

Name : Whats in a name ? Kalidas said that – so why bother telling you..or was it shakespeare??? ..well what the hell..what’s in their name too..

Age : I just said its indecent to ask a girl her age.Ok let me say I am 18+ ..that’s the legal age to marry right? Now don’t ask me how many plusses after 18…that me not telling

Caste : Don’t you know caste system has been abolished, you regressive men !!!!! How dare you ask someone this. I would put you behind bars for this.

Income : I am marrying so that my husband can earn for me, not the other way round.

Bank Balance : If I had any, why would I think of marrying you? And remember always your money is my money and my money is ALSO MY MONEY..Don’t you dare think of it as yours

Horoscope : Send me yours and I will send you back one which matches yours completely. Now what do they say in hindi “Chattis gun milenge”. Happy aren’t you?

My family : We are about a 100 member stong household. My husband would have to support them too. And please I cannot love your family like my own. Its tough enough loving them. And any case didn’t Karan Johar say “Its all about loving your parents”. He never said “its all about loving your husband’s parents”

Education : I can read & write

Habits : I drink like a fish, smoke like a chimney

Secret desire : To beat my husband black and blue every night.

Favourite Movie : She devil..I love it

My wish: To marry a man who can give me the 3 Ms – Money, Mercedes and Mansion.

My dream man : A guy who is dumb and a billionaire. And who can give me the 3Ms.

IF YOU FEEL YOU FIT INTO MY CATEGORY OF A PERFECT MAN PLEASE DO CONTACT ME AND WE CAN THEN DISCUSS THE FINANCIALS (hello you thought you will marry me without spending any penny on me is it? Now now it isn’t dowry, its lets say what they call proof of your love for me. Now I cannot marry unless you love me right? And You need to prove your love. Hence)

Needless to say all thought my honesty to be madness but such was life. I mean tell me something women do marry for social security and what is social security if you dont give me money and look after me and my needs? But no, if I say it am bad. Anyway sad thing is no one really agreed to marry me seeing this but so what? But then like I always says…Your loss dear….  🙂

For the one’s whose heart got broken…Life has just begun :)

Since I have been a kid the general myth I have heard about relationships (in case there is a mishap in it that is) that the one who breaks your heart always has the upper hand..You see its an ego booster that I dumped you…now here is my small little attempt to demistify the myth of being dumped..and also hoping that if anyone of you have been dumped feel happy reading this and the ones who have dumped realise how dumb they were :)…

Now tell me whoever has fallen in love..what is the most interesting part of falling in love…Go ahead think a little…cmon…is it the flowers? the i love you’s?, the gifts, the dates? The ANSWER IS A NO..the best part of falling in love is the chase…when you not sure whether you will get him or her….Isn’t it?…I mean the thrill of the chase or being chased is something the best of romances cannot compete with….Am I not correct?

 So the first theory for the people whose heart got broken…Rejoice…cause now you can find a new love…cause without an ending there can be no new beginning ..Hell with the old…new love here I come

Now for the next…if you are a man I assure you women don’t like men who dump their women..makes them jittery..what if he dumps me?…and if you are a woman..a man likes to be in control..so if he hears you have dumped..its a general (mis)conception that you were in control…So tough for both sexes to find the next one…and if you cannot find the next one then why dump at all? It contradicts my first theory 🙂

So the second theory is never ever ever ever dump someone…..It always fails

So then what does one do if one wants to be out…simple get dumped…now by the time you are in a relationship am sure you would know the person’s likes and dislikes and I am sure you would know that one thing he / she dislikes which if they find out you have done will sure end up in them dumping you….So do that !!! Now this also has an added advantage…when you are the dumped party you always get the sympathies…have you ever heard sympathies go to the person who has dumped or have they always got the brickbats?…and nothing gets you your next love faster than finding out that you an aggrieved party…men love taking care of such women and women love the idea that he stuck on with such a bad girl (makes them feel hey I can be normal with him and still not get dumped )…so you see you win…

So the theory number three is..when you want to be out..do something which will make the opposite party dump you…and boom you are in the reckoning again

So apply the above three rules and see how your broken heart mends….remember every cloud has a silver lining..and yours has just begun :)..and remember always…dumb people dump…smart people get dumped..so which one are you?
Terms of Reading this Posting : 1.The writer (that is me of course) takes no responsibility of the consequences that will follow if you follow this theory..Please do it at your own risk
2. The writer (that is volia me again) does not give you the authority to sue me cause of any accident that happens cause of this. But just in case you still want to, I can only allow you to do so if you hire my firm to fight your case (you see I run a LPO as well and its good money if my lawyers can fight and I get commission)
3. The comments above does not in any way reflect the writer’s (that is once again me) life and its outcomes. Hell who said one has to practice what one preaches 🙂

I am dark…and am loving it :)

I have often heard the comment…”even though you are dark you have a pretty face” being told to me…and i always end up wondering…is it an oxymoron dark and beautiful?…if not why do people naturally assume that dark people cannot be pretty or attractive?

I was told that when I was born a lot of people told my parents that it would be tough to get me married cause I was dark and once when I had an accident at the age of 4..and people thought it might leave a scar on my face..the discussion went to greater depths….its a separate thing that my dad and my mom were never really bothered about my marriage and they only cared if their daughter studied and made it in life (and my dad did not want me married at all..no one in this world was good enough for his daughter)….but the fact was people still consider that if you dark skinned you cannot be pretty…

I have an aunt of mine..mishtu….actually she is more my friend as we more or less same age group…she is dark..and I would like to compare her with all the fair damsels I have ever met…and ask anyone who knows her if they can find even 1 girl who even remotely looks as hot and  as pretty and sweet as her…then why this belief?

I have often gone to the beauty parlour to get dressed for a occassion …only to make it very clear…DONT YOU DARE MAKE ME FAIR…and to see some of the shocked expression on their face which said “why would a girl not want to look fair? is she insane?????”…And seeing their reaction I would generally just wonder..is it me? am i really so different??

Maybe I am..I remember quite some time back there was an infamous fight between bipasha basu and kareena kapoor and the latter called her kaali billi..in other words referring to the fact that bipasha is dark….and insinuating she is better looking cause she is fair…and the media obviously splashed it all over…and the only thing that struck me in the entire fight was why no one asked kareena does dark mean you cannot be pretty?….and the bigger thing which struck me was why did no one question her that?

Of course the othe common factor added to dark skin is marriage ads…am yet to see a marriage ad which says looking for a dark skinned wife…why does everyone want a fair wife?? (I will put up a separate post where I will give my response to one such marriage ad shortly)..But truly can someone tell me why does everyone want a fair wife? And this desire cuts across every generation and every social class

And of course then there is the case of the fairness creams….i have no issues with them had they said i will just look fairer with it..but they go to madenning heights to say I will be successful only if am fair???? Helloooo…am successful in every sense of the word…and am dark…so is so many of my friends….so please can those ad film makers stop making such ludicrous ads? When we stop parliament cause of some tv program I wonder why no law maker makes an issue of this? I know there is a small hue and cry and hence they have changed it a bit..but nothing of consequence so far..and I refuse to believe that ad makers in India cannot come up with a more sensible marketing campaign for them….

Anyway the question that still remains…and a question I want to ask all..does dark mean not beautiful?? Does being dark mean I cannot be successful? Does dark mean I wont find a man??? Cause I am dark…and I feel beautiful..i am successful..i do meet men (and the reason for less success in this department has nothing to do with my skin colour i assure you 🙂 )….. I AM DARK…AND LIKE I SAID…I AM LOVING IT

The men I meet…

Is something wrong with me? Else why would I attract so many dimwits around the world? Its like its written on my face – “Hey are you dumb or shallow? Then can we become friends or at least can we talk?”. I will of course give you various examples to tell you why I feel so (If I hurt anyone in the process I am sorry, but my brains are hurting too much and hence I had to do this)

I will start with an incident quite a few years back..I met this guy in some get together. I had just come to Bangalore and he was introduced to me through someone. So one day we bump into each other and he is like “can we have coffee?” (this was the second time I met him). I was like ya..and then he went to an atm to withdraw the money..and you won’t believe what was the next thing he did….he actually showed me the atm slip and said..”Did you see my bank balance? Am rich” (quote unquote)…I WAS LIKE WHAT??????????????????????????????????….. Poor chap had a huge grin on his face and I guess was thrilled that he impressed me with his bank balance…I guess he felt the term “size matters” meant the size of his bank balance. Anyway I had to leave immediately as i could not control my laughter anymore..But since then i refuse to have coffee with anyone who needs to withdraw money before treating me for coffee 🙂

Well if you think this was a lot hear the next one…I meet this guy through a business forum and we got to talking. He seemed quite nice and friendly and I was like now here seems to be a nice and ok guy. But of course my thoughts were short-lived. One day we had some work to discuss and we decided to meet for a working lunch as it was quite late. Somehow the work talk finished early and so we got to general chit-chat and he went on to talk about himself and somehow the conversation steered to the fact that he was interested in me…I was about to say I hardly know you when he went on to tell me about himself so that I get to know him..and this was his story…He believes in astrology..he had a live in gf for 3 years and when they decided to marry he went to an astrologer and the astrologer told him how bad this girl was for him…and that is when he realised that since she came into his life how many bad things had happened….and they broke up…and now that astrologer told him if he marries a girl from bengal his life would be awesome..hence his interest in me…I literally choked on the food and was about to die of laughter there..but stopped myself seeing how serious he was…luckily I used to carry two mobiles then and i urgently made a call from one to another and pretended there was an urgent call from office and ran out….and i must say i laughed so much on the way back that people on the road surely thought i was insane….anyway as it happened the relationship..both professional and personal did not move any more from there…though i regret it..cause i really wanted to ask this guy some questions..1. why after 3 years of a live in relationship did he feel the need to consult an astrologer to marry the same girl? 2. was that girl so powerful that she could affect his fate and if so wasn’t she eqivalent to God? But then I could not. Am still hoping to run into the guy someday and ask him these questions though..

Hello…are you guys laughing reading this?…Please am talking about my life’s tragedies..so can you guys stop laughing and read my sob story? Anyway life went on. One day a friend of mine wanted to send me something from Delhi and told me to meet this guy who was carrying the stuff for me. So I called up this chap and we planned to meet somewhere, where I could collect my stuff. Now of course after collecting my thing I could not say bye immediately and hence to be decent I decided to have coffee with him (condition was I pay as after the last incident i did not want to risk again)..now during the conversation the talks steered to about me and my past…so me being a general honest person did say that i had a relationship before and it ended and I gave the reason why I felt it had ended..he after hearing the story went on to refute me and gave me his reasons as to why he felt the same had ended..I tried telling him that my ex was a different kind of guy but to no avail. He went on and on and on and on and on…on his theories…I finally asked him ” Did you know him?” But of course my humour fell flat on him…As it happened I never met him post that day…

Now if the above makes you wonder do I attract shallow people, you need to hear this story. I had just joined this firm and suddenly someone in HR sent me a sms that there was some colleague in some department whose wife had met with some accident and needed o+ve blood. I did not know who the colleague was and of course much less his wife. I called up HR and took the details and forwarded the sms to all I knew in Bangalore stating the criticality of the patient as well (My blood group wasnt o+ve so I of course could not donate). Of course some people responded saying sorry it wasnt their group, some saying hey we are not but we have other friends who can donate, some sent a url where I can check for other donors and some sent saying they have the same blood group and are of course willing to donate….But the one sms which surpassed every sms I have ever got was this one..This guy sent me this sms and here I am putting it quote unquote “Hi. My blood group is o +ve. But I would have to attend a birthday party today, so I can donate tomorrow”. I swear I did not know whether I was supposed to laugh or cry reading that message. I mean how shallow are you? Well that was the first day I started doubting myself. I felt it must be me cause I really had felt this guy was different. NOW NOW STOP LAUGHING..am bloody serious about this…here I keep attracting all the nerds of the worlds and you guys are laughing? NOT FAIR…Of course in his defence I must say he told me the very first day that people say he is very shallow….it was my fault I did not believe it 🙂

So you guys are already feeling sorry for me or not? Well wait there is more..now this is something my women friends would understand more….am sure many of you have had men call you up and telling you how they have fallen for you…now I ASSURE YOU I HAVE NEVER HAD SUCH LUCK….but what is worse is what happened to me…This man calls me up one day when am at work and announces that I am in love with him…YES YOU HEARD ME RIGHT…He did not say he was in love with me but I was in love with him..and the reason he called me was to break my heart cause he realised we were not meant to be..it took me a few minutes of course to grasp what he said…(i know i know you will think by now I should be used to such things, but I wasn’t)….anyway finally after a few minutes when I realised that my heart was broken I just asked why do you think so? He said he just knew as he was very smart (here i would like to state that though i had met the guy just three of four times but in his defence will admit was quite friendly with him)…I of course did not want to refute the guy as any further conversation would have made me burst out in laughter and i sadly realised the guy’s egoist head would have construed something else of that…hence i said ok and hung up…OF COURSE WHAT FOLLOWED NEXT WAS I LAUGHED SO MUCH THAT ALL MY COLLEAGUES IN OFFICE HAD TO TELL ME THEY WILL TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL TO STOP MY LAUGHTER…well after that i of course did call many of my friends to tell them that I was informed I am in love and the guy has rejected me…luckily I managed to nurse the broken heart back to health quite fast…i guess laughter and some fevicol did the trick…but till date this was my best love affair :)…of course its sad that since then I never met him and I sincerely hope he has met his love…someone he loved and hopefully he is married off..but I hope he knows how true was my love and how much he missed out 🙂

Anyway since that day I turned my life only to work and old friends..I realised that fate has decided that I have too many friends and hence its fate’s way of saying stop making new friends…This was my way of consoling myself after all the tragic meetings I had…..and I had stopped myself completely…till a few days back when I felt maybe things have changed and just maybe its not me…but I WAS WRONG…..cause in a few days i met this guy online who had no clue how to act….well it so happened that this fellow sent me an online request….Now i generally dont add people I dont know but of late I have accepted a few of them if they have a common friend….so here i acceped this guy in all faith that if he knew this friend he would definitely not be crass… so promptly this guy comes on to FB chat and starts talking to me…actually to be correct he bombarded me with questions (got a feeling he was carrying a questionnaire) which ranged from asking my age, my occupation, marital status, love life, education, etc…after answering a few I was forced to tell him that I dont enjoy really discussing my personal life, so if he could stop his questions. When he was refusing to relent I had to tell him that I wont answer as I felt it wasnt really important at this stage (I will be honest am now very skeptical of talking about myself owing to some above mentioned incidents)….I also made it very clear I don’t like it when people I dont know intrude on my personal space or cross the boundaries of familiarity with me….Anyway he stopped only to start off in 3 minutes and this time he asked me about whether i go to the disc…(i have written about this already)..i was surprised that my sarcastic comment about the uniform was understood and I felt maybe I was wrong…But once again my hope was short lived…in the next few minutes he asked me if he could tell me a story and before I could respond he went on to tell me a story on some king and his sexual escapades…I was like excuse me? Do you have any clue what are the boundaries of decency when you meet a girl or cause I go to a disc, the next assumption is you can the talk about sex?

ANYWAY I OF COURSE DELETED AND BLOCKED HIM IMMEDIATELY BUT SINCE THEN I HAVE REALISED THAT IT IS ME…I attract all nitwits, dimwits, shallow idiots of the world….else how does one justify all this?????..So please please please…if you don’t know me, don’t send me a friend request..and if you meet me offline dont initiate a conversation….it will just prove you are the above..CAUSE TRAGIC AS IT MAY SOUND I SEEM TO ATTRACT THEM BY THE DOZEN :)…And please no one should laugh reading this note…I am writing a tragedy and not a comedy

PS : This does not include some of the people who are on my friend list whom I added online. Its not a sweeping statement on all people I meet but some nerds I do 🙂

I SAY NO TO RACISM…..

This entire shahrukh khan being detained episode has suddenly taken a new turn – racism. Its suddenly cause we asians that they treat us this way. And of course we Indians cannot tolerate that….How dare you be racist..but look inside us..are we Indians not the most racist community? And unlike them we are proud to be so and flaunt it…

Every other day I meet parents who object to their children marrying someone who does not follow their religion, or is not of their caste, creed, etc. For them their lineage is above all and everyone else who tries to sabotage it is wrong…So isnt that racism? When I get up and say my religion is better than yours, my caste, my creeed, etc, etc…Then why complain about the Whites being racist. Hell we make a much better case of racism than they ever could. I remember the movie “Guess Who’s coming to Dinner” where Joanna (the heroine) does not want to believe her parents are racist . I still remember the last dialogue of Spencer Tracy (the father) where he tells his daughter “Anybody couId make a hell of a good case against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them. But you’re two wonderfuI peopIe…who happened to fall in love…and happen to have a pigmentation probIem.And l think that now…no matter what kind of a case some bastard couId make..against your getting married…there wouId be only one thing worse.And that wouId be if knowing what you two are, knowing what you two have, and knowing what you two feel you didn’t get married”. I wonder even today how many parents can tell their kids this. That is a 1967 movie and in 1967 america made a movie which said hey we are racist but we hide it. Its 2009 today and India still says we are racist and we flaunt it. AND WE DO NOTHING…

Riots are also a sign of racism when one group gets up and tells another group, hey I will kill you cause I am better than you in terms of religion, etc. I remember a very close friend of mine once told me why riots happen (This was during the Godhra epsiode). He said its mob fury and gave me an example. What happened if a muslim guy killed him ? Now he being a dear friend of mine, Wouldnt i be so angry that I would feel all muslims are wrong and go kill another muslims. That is what causes riots. Now that got me thinking that he was absolutely right. Except what would happen if some Hindu in some riot God forbid had even remotely harmed Shireen (a very close friend of mine) or her family or Immy chacha and his family(immy chacha is dad’s schoolmate and more than family for me), would I blame all Hindus and go kill them? Going by that logic, then the first person who needs to be killed would be me as technically speaking I am a Hindu. Or is then the basic premise is that I being a Hindu cannot have a very very very good friend who is a muslim? So we again come down to the basic fact that we so racist that we don’t even want to make friends who are not of our religious beliefs and we say whites are racist????? Wow !!
(I want to make a point that my friend was just putting forth an argument and he did not anyway justify it and isnt racist at all). And again we Indians are so proud to be racist.

And what about when people get killed cause they dont follow your political or social ideology. Isnt that racism? Every other day people get killed for not following an ideology and we let out political leaders flaunt them. And yet we blame whites as being racist.

Now I know a lot of you will say well we cannot change others. Hence what can we do. But is there really nothing we can do? Like Gandhiji said, “We need to be the change we wish to see in the world”. I dont want to be a part of the world where people discrimate each other cause every discrimanation is racism. I know there is not much we can do, but that does not mean there is nothing we can do. I remember I took a stand 4 years back that I don’t interview or hire anyone who writes their religion or caste in their resume. For me it was simple if that was your identity, I don’t want to hire you cause I want people to rise above that. Cause such beliefs give rise to racism. This is something we have been following for a long time irrespective of how good the candidate is. In my company we truly believe in being equality. We celebrate every festival and we only let people’s religion come out to enjoy food. Part of our induction states that in the 9 hours people are in the office they will not discrimate against anyone cause of their colour, race, religion, sexual preference, etc. Our ethos says “While at least in the company premises treat everyone AS JUST ANOTHER HUMAN BEING AND THAT IS MORE THAN ENOUGH”. Maybe this is nothing and will bring in no change to the world but at least in those 9 hours I am saying “Hey stop being racist while you with me” with the hope that the rest of the 13 hours too would make everyone feel the same way.

I say no to racism in any form…Do you?

Am I modern?

Yesterday I had a very weird experience – There is this person who sent me a friend request on facebook. Now generally I avoid adding people I dont know unless there is a common link. Now this gentleman had a common link and I felt why not. Of course half hour later i regretted my decision when I realised he did not know the boundaries of an online acquaintaince and deleted and blocked him off (but then thats another story), but there was a comment he made, which got me thinking. After a couple of minutes of converstation he asked me do I go to a disco. My answer was yes of course and he replied – “Strange cause from the clothes you wear in your pictures one cannot make out you are so modern”. I replied that I wasnt aware that discos had an uniform, but it got me wondering,  what makes someone modern?

I don’t smoke as I believe its bad for health- so does that mean I am not modern? I rarely drink and there is no reason for it except its my choice – So am I conservative? When I wear a sari or any indian dress does that make me regressive? Or when am out in a disco wearing a short skirt dancing with my friends – Is that the only time I am modern? I wonder. So to be modern, irresepective of my figure I need to flaunt what i have and don’t have or else I am “not in”. One of my favourite relations in the world always used to introduce me to his friends saying oh she is very dated – why cause I dont drink and smoke? Even then I wondered had I smoked would I have been more today? (Please note this comment was made more in jest as my relative is very modern)

I always believed I was modern. Cause being modern for me is in the head. Like my good friend Prashant Khurana says being sexy is in your brain and not in your body, for me same went for being modern. I am modern cause I dont believe that rules are different for me and different for others. When I lost my dad 10 years ago I did my best to try and get Ma married off again cause I felt she was too young to be alone. When I failed to convince her, I was the one who got her out to have a life of her own. I was the one who got her inducted in my friend circle so she could be friends with my group as well. I am modern cause I treat my mother like a woman and not the way many of my friends / relatives/ acquaintances treat their mothers. Moms for them are meant to be at home a la nirupa roy. I am modern cause for me she is a human being and I treat her that way.

I am today’s woman cause I get bugged when someone tells me I am so great in looking after my mom after my dad, something traditionally a son is expected to do. I am modern cause I dont think its great. If I can ask for equality I shouldn’t expect people to praise me for something I am supposed to do.

 I am modern cause I am liberal. I don’t believe my truth is the only truth in the world. I believe another viewpoint can exist, of course disagreeing with them is my prerogative. I dont believe cause I am straight I cannot have gay friends. I am so proud of each and every of my gay friend and am proud to tell people yes they are gay and they are my friends and I love them for who they are. (please if i hurt any friend am sorry but I have had such shocking expressions from some people who heard I have friends who are gay that I had to say it here). And I am modern enough to say that I can accept anyone as gay (except the man I marry and that’s for obvious reasons). If tomorrow I have kids and they are gay, so be it. I will openly accept it. I am modern cause i preach and practice that I treat every human as equals – i dont care what colour, caste, gender, sexual preference, religious order they follow (when i say equal i mean equal to your capability 🙂

I am modern cause I know that clothes doesn’t make a person but the person makes the clothes. I am modern cause I am equally comfortable in a sari as I am in modern clothes. I am modern cause I choose what I wear according to the occassion and do not depend on what the world wants me to wear.

I am today’s woman cause I don’t need to smoke and kill my body to show how smart I am. I am today’s woman cause I don’t need to get drunk to prove I am “in”. I am today’s woman cause I don’t get up and say treat me special cause I am a girl. I am today’s woman cause I believe that I can , have and will make it in the corporate world, not cause I am woman but cause i am able. I am modern cause I dont believe I need to prove I am modern for every person who questions my being so. I am modern cause I can blend equally with the past and the future.

I am modern cause I dont believe society is more important than the individual and his wishes. Hence on the death anniversary of my dad I don’t mourn his death but celebrate the life he led and throw a party just like he would have wanted us to remember him always – Full of life and having his rum and throwing parties 🙂

I am who I am. Modern for some and regressive for othes….which sliver you see of me will depend on you 🙂