Hurricane Katrina (such a sweet name for such a bad storm). The grim pictures on CNN probably tell us very little of the real effect it's had on people living in the states of Mississippi and Louisiana .... this time next year New Orleans will really be new.

And I bet our man Osama has currently shelved all his plans to wreck havoc on the infidels and their cities ... because nature has gone and done such a brilliant job for him.

***

Newspapers. I won't be surprised if very soon the only real use our newspapers will have is to replace the now banned plastic bag. I read two papers today - the first this morning was The Times of India. I know there will be always be days when they don't have any headline material, but I think it's crazy to have headlines that shout: "India beats China in arms race". It seems the lumbering elephant has overtaken the fleet-footed dragon in arms purchases - we shelled out 5.7 billion dollars on defence contracts in 2004 as compared to the 2.2 billion the Chinks spent, which, the article seems to suggest, is something we should all be proud of (consolation because we lag behind in every other department). Surely the guy who wrote this article must know that the only reason we spent so much is because we're having to replace all that worthless aging junk we've collected over the last couple of decades ... a problem the Chinese obviously do not have and hence are spending less. What I find really absurd is that somebody can actually proclaim we've won the arms race only because our expenditure in the previous year was higher! ... makes me wonder if the people who write these articles ever bother to read their own bludy newspapers.

I say if you don't have a headline story, splash a picture of Bipasha Basu in a string bikini ... that way your readers would at least get their moneys worth.

Then this afternoon the girl at the traffic intersection got me to buy a copy of today's Mid-Day. Now what can I say about Mid-Day ... once again, good substitute for the plastic bag. If you're the kind who needs to know how many times Shahrukh Khan farted yesterday, then Mid-Day is the paper for you.

Front page story talks about how the residents of the century old, dilapidated (and declared unsafe years back) buildings of Botawala Chawl in Mazagaon (Mumbai) refuse to go to makeshift government transit camps. They provide all sorts of reasons, but the real reason everybody knows: most of them are tenants paying ridiculously low rents and are scared that if they move they will lose whatever rights they have to those flats. Hence I say the authorities should just let them stay put ... let those buildings come crashing down and bury the buggers alive.

The Botawala's must be dancing with joy at the prospect of getting their property back ... because only in India will a court decide in favour of a tenant who refuses to vacate. That's how we lost our ancestral house in Goa.

But is this front-page news? Again, give us Bipasha.

***

That's it. I gotta watch Sania ... her tennis I mean. Hope I haven't missed it.

Y'know, it surprises me to see how many people land up at this here blog by doing a Google search for "Sania Mirza naked" and "Sania's boobs" ... she's just a child, for cryin' out loud!

Peace, love and weapons of mass distraction.

The scissor blades of time
keep snipping away
at my life.

I have to hurry.
I must find peace, love
and a hundred other things.

... and somewhere in there
I must find myself.

The art of living
is not to succumb
before your time here is over.

Relax, said the nightman:
we are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
but you can never leave.

"I had just leased this house out on the beach at Malibu, I guess it was around '74 or '75. I remember sitting in the living room, with all the doors wide open on a spectacular July day. I had this acoustic 12-string and I started tinkling around with it, and those Hotel California chords just kind of oozed out.

Every once in a while it seems like the cosmos parts and something great just plops in your lap." -- Don Felder (The Eagles)

Y'know, I didn't see as many blaring loudspeakers by the roadsides this Independence Day as I did last year and the years before. Wonder why? One reason could be the fact that many of the hitherto lukha youth (who would go around collecting money for things like this) are putting their energies to better use in the call centers - many of which couldn't let their employees stay home to observe the anniversary of our nations independence. But I am told they get a holiday on the Fourth of July.

***

I'm having some trouble getting out of my head those graphic images shown on the news the other day of that Manipuri girl lying dead in a pool of blood in front of the Gateway of India after some lunatic slashed her throat. These are things we're expected to forget as quickly as they happen, and we would if it had happened in some village in Uttar Pradesh, but happening as it were, closer home, you can't help thinking that it could have been you, or one of yours, instead of that girl. And that's the scary part.

And I'm going to send an email to the news channels telling them that showing such scenes on prime-time news (where you have children watching) is highly irresponsible and serves no purpose whatsoever. Our newswalla's certainly appear to have forgotten where to draw the line.

I think it's important for people, women especially, living in a jungle like Mumbai where you have all sorts of unknown dangers lurking around, to take adequate measures to protect themselves. I've carry my keys on a Swiss Army Knife keychain and I can tell you, the damn thing is extremely handy (the knife especially). It has got me out of some very inconvenient situations, and I have no doubt it could even save my life if the need arose.

***

I will be going over to Dee's in just a bit (we've all been invited to dinner - I stayed back to do this blog post). Initial reports indicate she likes the guy. Allah, Jesus, Ram, Sita, Laxman be praised!

But she's liked guys before ... until they revealed themselves to be bludy madmen!. So we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed .... any more surprises and you might just see this in the headlines soon: "Sane woman butchers madman"

BFN. Hey Bun!

she is
the brightest flower
in the garden
of my life

but the brightest
is not always
the most fragrant

... and the fragrant ones
often have thorns

I'm thinking perhaps I didn't frame that question correctly. Or maybe the question is ok ... its just very difficult to answer.

In management school (I haven't been to one) they teach you that the first step towards finding a solution to any perceived problem is to correctly identify the problem. So when you don't quite know why a man behaves the way he does, how do you get him to change that behaviour?

If you ask me, I'd say its a man's general upbringing and the attitude towards women that exists within his own family/community (education would be a secondary influencing factor) that play a decisive role in shaping his behaviour and future relationships with the opposite sex.

It was when I tried to sing along with the national anthem that was played before the movie Parineeta that I realised I'd forgotten the words.

I beg to differ, however, with those of you who think that this is something I should be ashamed of. Because most (I reckon 8 out of 10) of the other people in the cinema hall didn't seem too interested either. In fact the girl next to me continued sipping her cola.

And quite frankly, I don't see what the issue is. If singing the anthem will help rid this country of even 0.1% of all its problems - hell, I'll sing it till my face (and everything else) turned blue!

I've said it before: I am proud to be Indian, but I am not the least bit proud of India.

And if others (like Meghna Naidu) are that eager to exhibit their patriotism, I'm sure there are better, more productive (and less convenient) ways than singing the national anthem before the next movie they watch.

***

PM Manmohan Singh's recent comments on how the British Raj benefitted our country were frowned upon by many. But after reading the editorial column in last Sunday's Times of India, I think he is absolutely right. Sure, they took their pound of flesh, but if it wasn't for what they left behind, we'd have been nothing but a bunch of savages (can you imagine the plight of women and the so-called lower castes?), and this nation would have been divided into God knows how many little lawless states .... countries like Rwanda and Angola would have had a higher GDP than ours.

And in spite of everything the British left us, we've still done a very fine job of pushing this country into a no-win situation.

How many of you are aware of the levels of corruption in our nation's Armed Forces? I've seen it first-hand and it filled me with revulsion. I tell you, those urchin kids who sell paper flags at traffic junctions on our national holidays are probably a hundred times more patriotic than many of our men in uniform.

Truth is, the country means nothing - to most people. If it did, you wouldn't find our brightest brains working at Redmond and Silicon Valley.

There's been so much talk about brain-drain, and I don't understand why. We have just one life to live (reincarnation, to me, is all humbug) and nobody has the right to prevent another from living it good.

Do I love this country? Not really. (though I'd like to)

... and if you say you do, then PROVE IT, GODDAMIT!

Peace, love, and a little less hypocrisy.

The gentleman who is conducting this course I'm attending is a graduate from IIM Ahmedabad. He has kind of taken to me and vice-versa. I guess that's because all the others (all future Chartered Accountants) are a bunch of bludy duffers. And it's not that I'm a big genius or anything; but anybody interacting with them will tell you they're absolutely atrocious ... how they pass the exams is something which could be featured on Ripleys - Believe it or Not!

Anyway, today he got talking about Management & Superstitions (it is a 2 week course on management and communication skills ... because the Institute of CA's very recently realized that many of its members cannot draft their own résumé's). And during his talk he said something that quite shocked his audience, and woke me from my sleep.

"We Hindu's," he says, "have for thousands of years, been mistaking mythology for religion"

In his opinion, a lot of what is considered part of the Hindu religion is nothing but a bunch of tales thought up by some very enthusiastic writers in times gone by. He believes that people like Ram and Sita and Rawan never existed; it's all just make-believe. And the confusion arose because the chaps who wrote these stories used the names of real places... like Ayodha, for example.

And he says most Hindu's don't even know the reason why they do certain things. "For example," he says, "did you know that the breaking of a coconut is taken to symbolize the splitting of a human skull? ... and the water that spills from the core symbolizes blood?"

Others in the audience (mostly Hindu) just sat there with an expression of disbelief. I, on the other hand, was most intrigued by these revelations. So I said to him, "are you really telling us that millions of Hindu's the world over believe in things some storyteller just made up??"

"Yes, he says. That's precisely what I'm telling you."

The first thing that came to my mind was: What a monstrous bludy scam!

".... and other religions are no better," he went on to add. "There are lots of things in the Bible too, that don't quite add-up."

***

I think Suzannah said it very beautifully in her post the other day. It seems Karl Marx once referred to religion as the opium of the masses. And interestingly enough, in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, every single person is hooked on to an intoxicant called Soma (the daily ration of which is supplied by the State). It is what helps them discard those negative, undesirable thoughts/feelings and lets them be happy all the time.

You know, I've always wondered why we Catholics are taught that if you don't do everything by the book, you will surely burn in hell; and if you do happen to do everything right and something terrible still befalls you, then it is simply God's way of testing your faith!

In other words: you just do what is required, and be willing to accept any outcome that the Almighty might deem fit to serve on you. (Talk about a raw deal!)

I was thinking about these things in Church today. And then it struck me: If I am getting such a raw, shitty deal, why the hell am I here ... sitting in this pew? Nobody's holding a gun to my head and making me - so why am I here?

And the answer came as quick. I am here because I have nowhere else to go.

It's like Suzannah says "To reach for an invisible higher power, call him what you will, does make life easier. And maybe, in some ways, it is tearing the world apart, maybe it is the cause for a lot of the external turmoil in the world, but it may very well be the solution to the turmoil within us… or something like that!"

Religion, myth, half-truths - who cares what it really is? As long as it serves the purpose. Our purpose.

And wouldn't you agree that many of us treat love in much the same way?

Hug me till you drug me, honey;
Kiss me till I'm in a coma;
Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny;
Love's as good as Soma.

Peace, love, and the Emperor's new clothes.

I've begun to hate the fact that I think so much. Manu was right -- while most people enjoy the ride, I prefer to sit and count the potholes.

I was standing outside church yesterday evening (while mass was going on inside). Next to me was this man and his two little daughters who were running around merrily. And I thought to myself: I wouldn't want to be the father of those beautiful little girls. What a horrible world I would be introducing them to ... it would be like taking a rose and throwing it into a gutter.

A question I ask myself very often -- is it too late to change things in this country? We Indians put up with so much; such a tolerant race we've become ... and we continue to carry our cross as though it was something we were predestined to do.

The shopping malls, the multiplexes, the pubs - that's not where our country is. I see our country in the face of the beggar-girl standing outside the entrance to Shoppers Stop looking through the glass at a world that must make no sense to her. Just as her world seems so distant from ours.

The more pertinent question -- whose world will prevail in the end? Will we get rid of them or will it be the other way around?

We are clearly out-numbered. So how much longer before they get us?

***

I've been hearing a lot about the rehabilitation of Mumbai's slum-dwellers. Nowhere is the overwhelming disparity between the haves and the have-not's more evident than in the city of Mumbai. (I haven't been to Calcutta, but they say its quite bad there too).

Poverty coupled with illiteracy is like a cancer that eats away at society - for which there is no cure; and treatment usually proves futile. The only solution is to take out those unwanted elements.

Adolf Hitler - he will always be remembered as a madman who perpetrated horrendous acts of evil in pursuit of an end, that to him was his idea of the perfect world.

Y'know, I've always wondered why Hitler never considered deporting the Jew's to some inhospitable region of the planet like Greenland or Antarctica? Why did he insist they be exterminated like vermin? Deportation would have been so much more convenient.

Was he really a madman ... or was he a genius who somehow did nothing right?

So, what then is my idea of the perfect world? Just like Huxley's Brave New World, I'd like it to be one where everybody is happy. But, as Huxley tells us, there is a cost attached to everything; a price to pay. And history has shown that the price of a perfect world is just too high.

***

I've always loved being close to nature ... high up on some mountain, or alone on a deserted beach. I remember how I felt sitting on a rock near the cliffs edge at Fort Aguada. Free - that's how I felt. Nothing else mattered.

But come back down to reality, and everything else matters.

They say if you don't like what you see, shut your eyes - shut your eyes and enjoy the ride as best you can. And that is exactly what so many of us today are doing.

Only problem with that, though, is: You have no idea where you're headed.

***

Said the Eye one day, "I see beyond these valleys a mountain veiled with blue mist. Is it not beautiful?"
The Ear listened, and after listening intently a while, said, "But where is any mountain? I do not hear it."
Then the Hand spoke and said, "I am trying in vain to feel it or touch it, and I can find no mountain."
And the Nose said, "There is no mountain, I cannot smell it."
Then the Eye turned the other way, and they all began to talk together about the Eye's strange delusion. And they said, "Something must be the matter with the Eye."

from: The Madman by Kahlil Gibran

It seems the Union Cabinet has okayed 26% FII/FDI investment in the print media and TV news channels. It has also okayed fascimile editions of foreign newspapers. However, Indian editions of foreign newspapers will not be permitted. (why the hell not?)

So does this mean we'll get to read such fine, respected publications as The Sun? I remember sneaking off to the foreign newspaper section in the supermarkets in Bahrain just to have a quick peek ... on Page 3 would be some blonde bombshell called Mandy baring it all. Now that's the real page 3, not the kind you have in the papers here - where you get to see bludy Shahrukh Khan's mug.

Wot to do yaar ... shex shells, no?

Imagine - just imagine how many newspapers you'd sell if someone like, say, Mallika Sherawat posed in her birthday suit on page 3? Christ Almighty! All hell would break loose. US spy satellites may even pick up major disturbances coming from the Indian subcontinent.

"Goddamit Condy! Are those dayyumm'ed Indians testing another missile?"

"We're not quite sure what it is, Mr. President - we're receiving confusing information ... all we know is that in the past one hour there've been over 300 million minor explosions of some sort all across the country"

Y'know, I watched her movie Murder on cable the other day, and I have to say Mallika Sherawat ain't that awful an actress ... too bad the story was crap. Given a better script, I'm sure audiences will get to see her in top gear.

***

And talking of shex, it seems two Mumbai BPO employees were caught on hidden camera making out in their office cubicle (full on, man!). Now that's what happens when you have very costly ergonomically designed super-comfy office chairs ... beats the pants off any Curl-On mattress anyday!

But BPO employees should object to hidden cameras being placed in their offices. They work so damn hard, putting in odd hours and all that ... what's wrong in having a quick romp once in a while?