Beyond the lights of Diwali

It is Diwali time- the time of the year when majority of the Indians living in India or abroad are on a festive spirit. The festival of lights, it is said, although the cacophony of crackers piercing the night shows it is not only light, but sound as well.

Whether it is the awareness drive on pollution, or the exorbitantly high price of the crackers or some other unexplained reason, it is a fact that at least in Mumbai, we see a drop in the noise level this year, which is welcome as the city on any given day is not exactly a Silent Night, Holy Night spectre anyway.

This is the time for festivities , of gifting to loved ones. The stores are doing roaring business, online and brick & mortar alike, with people buying in a frenzy as if tomorrow does not exist.

This is the festival of lights- with darkness to be kept behind as the light of happiness and wisdom pierces through the dark dreary night and Goddess Lakshmi showers her blessings. Amidst all these lights, we have the following headlines staring at us. Somewhere in a village in this country , the folks are amused and puzzled at the SC ruling of marital sex before adulthood being a crime as almost all the girls born and living there are married when they are minors. Somewhere else another know-it-all religious edict comes out that posting photos on social media is against religion. In another headline, we have a few self styled historians re-writing history to suit their selfish benefit so that the masses can be fed on some dogma for some more time. Someplace else , a son butchers his parents to death for money. 

All this and much more also happened in this country amid the flash of lights and sparklers as we ushered in another Happy Diwali, as we celebrated the festival of lights. 

What light , I wonder ? Is it only the light of phosphorus and zinc that we hanker about ? Or is it that light that the great bard had dreamed of when he wrote those magical lines : 

"....Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way 

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit 

Where the mind is led forward by thee 

Into ever-widening thought and action 
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake...." 

When will we wake up to see this light , if ever at all ?

But let us count day by day as we say Happy Diwali !

How much more bizarre can it get ?

The Taj Mahal vanished for the second time. The first time it vanished , it was in the hands of the great PC Sorcar, one of the greatest magicians of our times, only to reappear reassuringly after some minutes.

This time it has vanished (or has it been banished ?) from the brochure of UP Govt Tourism booklet, apparently for not being Indian enough !!

A monument, often called poetry in stone, whose photo adorns almost all picture postcards and posters foreigners first have a look at when they start reading about India; a monument which symbolizes love; a monument which has drawn more tourists to the country from the world over than perhaps any other; a monument which becomes the topic of discussion whenever an Indian meets a foreigner outside India and discussion veers toward India and its touristic appeal; a monument which is standing in its place , right in the middle of India, undivided, colonial , sovereign alike, is not Indian enough ??? Just how lame is that as an excuse ?

Within the country , we do not have Indians. We have Punjabis, Biharis, Bengalis, Marathis , North Indians , South Indians, Tamils, Gujaratis etc etc etc. Within that we have Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs , Christians etc etc. Within that we have Bhrahmins, Shudras, Dalits, et al. 

As if that is not enough, now we do not want to own what the history and heritage has given us ? How much more narrow minded can we get ? Why do we want to rewrite history ? Will it change my future or my present ? Will it feed the poor ? Will it educate the masses ?

We get what we deserve, goes a saying. If we have got politicians (and here I am not referring to the party in power only, the opposition parties by no means any better) that we have got, it is solely because we as a country have always agreed to be divided. It feels more secure to be identified with a language or a religion than as a citizen ? Why ??

Essence of a Durga Puja

The Durga Puja, the most important event in a Bong life is just over. Although essentially a festival originating from religious roots, it has long ago surpassed the narrow boundaries set by religion and transcended to a festival of humanity, while maintaining its religious fervour and roots. 

The Sarbojonin Durga Puja , which essentially means a celebration for all,  is a celebration of mankind and I have seen few events that encompass the celebration of human life better than this. In this festival which essentially celebrates the triumph of good over evil, there is no narrow boundary limits of caste, creed, colour even religion. I have come across people practising other faiths also embracing this celebration as their own, part of Puja committees in Kolkata, rising above the narrow dogmas of faith. 

In a community Durga Puja, it is not only the Puja or the worship of the Goddess which is the point. Although the worship is done with all piety and religious rules, there are many events and happenings surrounding it for weeks together which encompass human beings irrespective of caste, creed, religion. When in a community Puja, lots of devotees queue up for the Bhog (lunch served after offering to the God), no one has ever encountered a question as to what the person being served is following as a faith, what is his/her roots etc. It does not matter whether the person is a Hindu, a Christian , a Muslim or a Jew or an agnostic or even an atheist. Or whether he /she has come there on foot or in a Cadillac. It just does not matter ! What matters is that the person is a human being.

Revolving around the celebration is a melting pot of cultural events, not always linked to Bengali language. So while there would be the usual dash of Rabindrasangeet or the Bengali music bands, there would also be Hindi songs of Bollywood or other language depending upon where the festival is being held. 

The fun fair extending around the pandals would be a gastronomic paradise with a melange of offerings to tickle the palate of everyone. It is not unusual to see people gorging on fish fry or jhalmuri at 1:30AM. 

The best part about this festival is that no one really is kept out because of religious dogmas. Without doubt, the Bongs have one of the most accepting nature and have risen above the narrow boundaries of ritualistic practices which divide rather than unite. Lot is being written nowadays contrary to this but I dismiss the same as ramblings of narrow uninformed minds , to whom the well that they live in is the ocean. Alas !

Long live this spirit of Sarbojonin Durga Puja- long live this spirit of humanity !

Please raise your hands to take responsibility

Rains bring Mumbai to a halt. Nothing new in this news. We hear this every year at least once, sometimes twice. There are some spots in the city which are prone to water-logging after every shower and brings unforeseen challenges to all in the city. 

This year we had a few days like that again. I happened to be returning to Mumbai after a business trip earlier this week and courtesy rains and a stuck aircraft on the main runway, a flight of two and a half hours was delayed by three hours. The ordeal did not end there. After landing in Mumbai , we were informed by the hapless pilot to the equally hapless passengers that the airfield was full of aircraft in view of the cascading effect and it may well take some time to find a parking slot. This some time finally became one hour and fifteen minutes and the fact that this was unfolding at the wee hours of the morning added to the trauma.

Heavy rains are nothing new, in a city whose average rainfall is 2metre in a season. Flight and train delays are also nothing new in these times. But the fact is that this airport , which is the busiest airport in the country , is continously operating at 120% of its capacity which no machine, mechanism or system is designed to sustain. And therefore , one incident of a runway closure brings the whole airport to its knees, the secondary runway being far too short to operate all the flights.

A new airport was conceived in 1997. In about 20 years , ie in Feb 2017 the bidder was finalised. The expected completion of this project is anybody's guess. We are sure by the time the work is completed , the infrastructure will be too less for the traffic load.

Successive governments of various political combinations in this country have ignored infrastructure, paying more attention to class, caste, creed, religion to keep people engaged. We aspire to be a modern nation but get stuck in the same loop of self destruction by procastination. Political parties have been talking big before elections and repeatedly under delivering. I would love to see the persons concerned raising their hands and taking responsibility for the lack of accountability that they have been demonstrating for years together.

This day that time !

There are some days which transports you to the past like a memory fly past with such clarity that you wonder whether it is really past or present. There is once such day , ie 17th Sept. 

For some obscure reason not fully understood to me , this day is the fixed day for Vishwakarma Puja in Bengal. Although all the Hindu Gods and Godesses always follow Hindu almanac, this particular God of engineering keeps his appointment day with the mortals fixed on 17th Sept, irrespective of anything else. I have not understood this fixation with the Gregarian calendar, inspite of the dhak and the bhog and the dadhikarma and all else Bong !

Having grown up in an industrial town Durgapur, some 160 odd kilometres from Calcutta, now Kolkata, this day was a special day during my childhood. This was the day we got to see festivities all around, and multiple invitations used to come for my dad and we used to go in tow. This was the day we got to go inside the coke oven/power plant premises and gape in wonder at things which actually were far beyond the childhood brain to comprehend. I recall this day as the day when the evening invite was fixed at one such electrical substation where my father had been attached to for some time , and the folks there never missed to give him an invite till the last year of his employment. We children uses to frolic around in the otherwise sombre substation premises, of course under the watchful eyes of the elders , lest we touch or go near something dangerous. 

Many many years later , having graduated in electrical engineering and then taking up a career in that stream, these equipment are part and parcel of my daily life, but these memories stay etched in my brain as the fragrance of a flower long withered but still lingers in freshness. Now out of Bengal for many years , I try to my best to explain to my daughter the sights and the sounds long gone by. The memory stays afresh while the clock ticks and the years go by, the bad taste in the mouth remains when we hear that most of the industries in that town are past their prime, fallen prey to abject trade unionism and misled ideologies which have not withstood the test of time.

Hope is a real word

Something in me was missing as I had not posted a single post for last couple of years. Whether the reason is sheer lethargy or running for the roji-roti which keeps your passion in the back-burner I am not too sure, but what the heck, its better to do what I want than what I do not !

Lot of things happened in between in this hiatus, with de-mon ( demon ?), GST, blasts , cacophony of phony politicos, booze ban , 500 metre highway, heinous crimes, godmen to say a few.... 

Wonder what has changed in this interim period ? We wait for the acche din as a parched earth waits for the rain, but yet to see the economic recovery hit the ground running. At least do see its not in deep slumber...that is the hope. Hope is a big word and we cling to that last straw in these lacklustre times.

Oxymorons for the morons

When I was in school my good teachers taught me a lot of grammar , some of which I could learn and retain. One of things I recall having learnt was the oxymoron. We had various examples of it also.

But never knew that sometime so much later, we would have a new example to contend with. And a real life example at that !

As per the dictionary meaning of Subsidy is “A benefit given by the government to groups or individuals usually in the form of a cash payment or tax reduction. The subsidy is usually given to remove some type of burden and is often considered to be in the interest of the public”

Another term we have is VIP. Although not a word to the true sense of the word, it means “A person of great importance or influence, especially a dignitary who commands special treatment “

Now the question comes – can a person who demands treatment and enjoys privilege as a VIP (the stress here is on the word “demand”) can also qualify for a subsidy ? And is that in the interest of the public ?

Our parliamentarians declare their assets before elections which for most run into such astronomical numbers that you sometimes misinterpret it as turnover of a company or business. Once they become parliamentarians they become VIP, throw their weight around (sometimes both figuratively and literally ) and demand privileges which are not for the common man. And then they have subsidy for their meals ! The subsidy bleeds the exchequer by Rs.60 Crores a year !

In a country where millions do not have enough to feed their families, where babies die out of malnourishment, where families lose their loved ones as they do not have enough to pay for medicine, where death is sometimes welcomed to get rid of this life of penury for some ! In the same country, we have people coming in BMW, Toyota Fortuner and eat meals at this kind of subsidized prices.

VIP Subsidy- the new oxymoron ? The ultimate moron becomes the tax payers !

Definitely maybe !

Who is a VIP ?

There are currently a lot of discussions on the media regarding the rampant misuse of facilities by politicians , their kith and kin and entourage and the VIP culture. I fully support this campaign and wish well for the media in their crusade against this obnoxious practice that people in power of all hues and kind abuse in this country.

In one of the recent debates, there was a politician who was arguing about the status of the position making him VIP. Well I really wonder who actually is a VIP ? When I look at myself in the mirror in the morning after a shave the narcissistic bit in me actually throws back an image of the biggest VIP in the world. So I should also get all the privileges rather than waiting at endless queues and paying endless tolls and other taxes !

While on the way to office I see a mother escorting her small child to school. To her the biggest VIP in the universe is her little child. The street dog waits for the kind soul across the road to throw bits of last night’s dinner and scraps of bread- his provider of food and therefore the biggest VIP in his life.

So the status of the VIP is such that every one of us is a VIP at a given circumstance. But we neither get any privileges nor need any favours. But then why do the elected representatives , by virtue of their position , choose to behave as if they are from some crazy monarchy and behave like King Canute ? Any slightest hint of taking away these privileges sends them into a tizzy as if they cannot live life without crutches. Obnoxious to say the least and given that ultimately the law makers are these who actually abuse the law the most, this lal-batti menace is not easy to wish away. Many such crusades will be required to bring some semblance of responsibility in these Very Inadequately-educated Persons- a new type of VIP indeed. This society would well deserve a few lesser of them.

 

Time Machine

School days – the very thought of this today ignites a blast of memories from the past in me. And the good thing about old memories- we generally forget the imperfect , the unfortunate and gloat over the good. Good. The older I become , which we all do with certainty every passing day, the fonder the school becomes.

 

Those were really the halcyon days: days of gay abandon, days when we could do anything and everything with carefree spirit. But the funny part is , when I think about it now, at that point of time we all wanted to quickly grow up and become adults ! To come out of school and become adults in this serious grim world !

 

Talking now about those days today brings back glimpses from the labyrinth of my memory, some hilarious, some shocking, some pure adulterated fun. These parts of my memory was numbed in these decades and are brought back to the fore as I bump into school-mates whom I have not met for decades ! Hours pass by as we dive together in the past, out comes black and white photos , now yellowish with age, photos where sometimes I cannot even recognize myself.

 

In such deep dives, one of the commonest subject of our discussion is our school headmaster, Late Rev Fr. Wautier. From those days in kindergarten till almost we were out of school we had this magnificent administrator, a man whom we have always respected, feared at times, fond as we grew up and idolized in our own way. We saw him from close and feared his strict discipline but admired his vivacious energy. We can almost see his Vespa parked in the corner, the cigar in the corner of his mouth and the key-bunch dangling on a chain from his pocket as he walks past.

 

And such millions of other memories flash by, big small and sundry.

 

The past has come back to us now, with technology uniting a handful of old (young?) balding school-mates pushing fifty, who are now dispersed in various sections of the world and the first thing that they do after brushing the teeth is wishing Good Morning on WhatsApp. We share memories , present problems and sometimes fight as if life has transported us in time back three and a half decades. And gloat over splinter reunion pictures and dream of a grand reunion some day !

Digital Trail

The other day I had an experience which began all and sundry. I am a member of a professional network on internet and like all other networks, this gives continuous recommendations of adding someone else to your network.

They pop out of nowhere every time I Iog in.  Mugshots of people whom I know or once knew and also of some I have never seen come on the screen much like the Wanted column of newspapers ! Honestly it is a little irritating but at times but it does lead to getting connected to someone whom we really need.

I had logged on to this portal and these so-called recommendations for joining the network started popping out. Suddenly one such recommendation made me freeze. A face, familiar came out with the name and last held position etc. All this was fine. The only thing out of place was that this particular ex-colleague of mine had passed away some months back (God rest his soul in peace !).

It was such an eerie moment or two when I looked at the screen and wondered. What happens to us with all our digital trail when we move to the next world ? How does this digital trail get cleaned up ?

And do these departed souls get networked to each other in the next world ?

Definitely, maybe…………

Icons

What is common between Dettol , Cadbury, Lux, Surf, Colgate, Burnol ? Well a concoction of all these will be pretty funny to say the least.

These are all brands with which I grew up in seventies and eighties and these brands are still as relevant as they were. In fact they have assumed a generic state. In villages and small towns Colgate is the synonym of toothpaste and the actual toothpaste being used may be of some other make but it is still referred to as Colgate. Same goes for Lux and Surf when it comes to cleaning self or cleaning clothes.

Dettol is the first first-aid that we all come to terms with. And for a small burn, I never knew in those days any other substitute of Burnol.

And when it comes to chocolate, in my childhood did not know of any other chocolate which was not a Cadbury. A Cadbury was for small joys, for small celebrations like scoring good marks in exams, for birthdays et al. I recall one Geography teacher made us memorize the capitals of various countries and in the impromptu test at class the best three crackers got a Cadbury each. I was also one of the recipients once and I still remember the capitals of the countries fairly well even today.

In those days the Cadbury came more or less in one packaging- the standard violet one with Dairy Milk Chocolate written on it. A few years down the line came the other variants in other colours and tastes.

Today we know that Cadbury has been sold off and the company renamed to Mondelez. Currently the brand names will remain is what we are told.

However some years down the line will the small town grocer be asked by a child for a Cadbury or a Mondelez chocolate ? Only time will tell.….! But they have been icons in their own right !

Pollution Tax for Politicos

Today morning the newspaper headlines scream that one of the top office bearers of one of the top national parties have stated that English is the main reason of the doom of this country. Almost every other day some politician or the other will make such inane , stupid , imbecile statement and now with the elections round the corner the frequency of these will increasingly increase. Of course after each statement there will be some debate and there will be another statement stating that he/she has been quoted out of context.

The fallout ? We waste newsprint (ie cut more trees) , spend more electricity while showing the news and the debate that follows on TV (ie burn more coal, gas whatever) to bring these inane, stupid, imbecile, useless, non-sensical statements to the masses and then retract creating useless and needless tension and stress. Only to then wait for the next one.

Due to this, actual issues that the country is plagued with is swept under the carpet. Why then should our great politicos not pay a pollution tax (sound pollution is the very least of the problems that they are creating by this...) for this farce ? They should pay this every time they open their mouth in front of the gaping media and since they open their mouth much more often that they deserve to do , they should pay an annual tax like poor salaried guys like us pay income tax. 

Ok, Mr.PC, when can we hear about this tax scheme then ?

Still there is hope

I had taken a virtual hiatus from writing on this blog.

Partly because of pressures of earning the daily bread and partly because after reading the newspaper in the morning and watching the news in the evening, the mind used to be almost toxic with the unending series of scams- of yet another useless politician swindling people’s money and being unabashed about it or yet another sordid case of rape of a hapless young girl, of some crocodile tears by our powerful ministers ( that would make even a crocodile squirm with jealousy).

Today morning seems to be bright. Two news items caught my attention.

Newspaper vendor from Bangalore walks into IIM-Calcutta

Sruthy Susan Ullas, TNN | May 15, 2013, 01.05 AM IST

BANGALORE: As the alarm goes off at 4am, N Shiva Kumar is up on his feet, stacking his bicycle with newspapers. He has to deliver them before the sun appears on the horizon. A habit since Class 6, Shiva's life is set to change now. Come June 16, this newspaper-boy-turned-vendor will walk down the corridors of the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta as a PGP student……..

Rickshaw driver returns Rs 1.90 crore cheque

Bharat Yagnik, TNN | May 15, 2013, 02.52 AM IST

AHMEDABAD: An Ahmedabad auto rickshaw driver has returned Rs 1.90 crore cheque issued in his name in lieu of three bigha land acquired for Tata's Nano plant in Sanand.

Raju Bharwad could have pocketed the sum, but gave an undertaking that he was no longer the land owner. He ensured that the names of the new owners are entered in the official records……

After reading these two articles, I feel that still there is hope for this country, our utterly worthless political class and the widespread corruption notwithstanding.

Maybe I am yet another glazy eyed optimist, but unless we are optimists, can we make things change in this garbage dump that this country has been led to ? 

Apps - What ??

I use a mobile , a smart one at that- smarter than me by leaps and bounds. However my usage is limited to some photos, email access and occasional navigation. Of course this is apart from calling people, other people reaching me and messaging, which are what phones are meant for. Or what a dumb guy like me thinks that they are for ! Definitely I could use a dumber phone but like it or not, today’s phones come with a lot of smartness and each of these smart moves cost a bomb.

I do not use most of the apps. The other day when I mentioned this to a member of the younger generation (who is quite a geek) that I do not use these apps ( or for that matter have little idea what to use them for), his jaw dropped as if I have mentioned spotting a penguin in the Rajasthan desert. He was zapped : how can this zombie even lead a life without using apps ?

There are apps for everything he explained and these are mostly freebies so they have to be used ! He explained with patience that there are apps for everything from the minutest things to the most complicated. I am sure there are millions of web pages devoted to same and how to download, use , share etc.  Just browsing through the plethora of information makes you crazy….. There are apps for reminding  the disorganized to stay organized the non-networked to stay networked, the overweight to stay hungry, the forgetful to brush their teeth etc etc etc......

Oh…what’s that beep ?

Oh well, it’s an app reminding me that I must stop writing this nonsense and get back to some serious work....

Cheerio !!!

Das Capital

Lot of gigabytes and sound-bytes and reams of paper are getting spent on the recent capital punishments given to two people charged and proven in the law courts for organizing terror in this country. The mercy petitions were rejected by the President , thus triggering the executions.

As if by trigger, immediately parallel debates have opened up on the media on the need to have capital punishment in this country and counter-arguments of the need to abolish it and convert same to life imprisonment.

Let me make it very clear that my knowledge of law is similar to an Eskimos knowledge on habitats of camels on the Sahara desert. However my memory is sharp. And I would not like to have two things to happen. One, I would not like my income tax to be spent on feeding terrorists in jail. Instead I would like that to go feeding the poor and unfortunate. (It is perhaps another matter that the same too does not happen due to the lackadaisical nature of our government). Secondly I would not like innocent Rupin Katyals to lay down their lives in hands of some more terrorists so that a few more can be freed from our jails.

Strange that it may sound , taking another human life may not be exactly civilized even if it is for the execution of a hardened criminal. But we have to also remember that even if it means being crippled for life, a surgeon amputates a limb infected with gangrene and does not apply antiseptic on it instead.

Will you please shut up ??????

The last few weeks of 2012 had been a nightmare. The new year is no better, at least as yet. While we continue to have discussions on the Delhi rape case, every day more and more sordid cases of rape and molestation crop up in the news. It is really a nightmare, to say the least. Nowhere and at no other time did we feel less secure, more helpless and more agitated. The governmental machinery seem to be in a state of constant paralysis.

As if this was not enough, we have our great netas shooting off the mouth with surprising regularity. Sometimes it is some fellow asking for overcoats to school to another character talking about Bharat and India and some such gibberish and then someone talks about Park Street case – it is endless. And very next day it is the foot in the mouth disease that afflicts them. And as if this was not enough, now we have half witted godmen also giving opinions about calling rapists brothers. What next tie them a Rakhi ? And then we have Khaps....Oh my God give us a break !

Time these people realized that before making a statement they need some grey matter in their upper storey. As there was a joke, it is better to keep the mouth shut and risk people calling you a fool rather than opening the mouth and removing all doubt.

Our great netas and godmen and semi-literate Khap spokesmen and such characters better understand that.

I feel like carrying a placard and start shouting from every rooftop “Will you please shut up !!!!”

Shame is too small a word

The last few weeks of 2012 have been a nightmare. Almost on a daily basis , we wake up to sordid news of rape and mindless violence against innocent women and get too numbed to react. The protests at Delhi and in other parts of the country have made the government jittery, not knowing what to do next. And as if to fill up the time in a circus, we have half-brained mentally unstable people rambling off sentences without understanding the meaning of what they say only to mumble apologies later when it is too late. The fact that they are part of the political system and are still so hare-brained and our claim to be a civilized society make us wonder whether the end of the world is really near.

Today morning the worst which was being expected has happened. Far away in Singapore, the hapless victim, Nirbhaya, after fighting a losing battle with grit, finally decided to take leave of this sordid shameless callous world. The drama to follow can be written down to the last syllable. Our political class will rave and rant about changing the system but will actually do nothing, our Prime Minister (of whose eruditeness I have the greatest respect) will read out a prepared statement without any display of emotion or elocution, media will try to get apologies from political leaders without being successful in doing so, etc etc.

And then there will be a trial and some Human Rights Associations will start fighting against death penalty. (I do not know where are they now….).

Is this the system that we want ?

I was trying to find synonyms of the word Shame in the dictionary. Unfortunately there cannot be apt words to describe the shame we are passing through.

Let’s pray for the departed soul and the well-being and justice of thousand such hapless women who have been victims of rape and harassment due to the ineffective political and administrative will of the government and its police.

Let’s pray for a better tomorrow……..

Shame is too small a word…………

Tryst with History

I have just returned from a magical tour of the mystery of history that dates back to more than five centuries. Here are some glimpses caught on my lens:

The majestic Humayun’s tomb:

The iconic Red Fort:

The majestic Buland Darwaja- it doesn’t get bigger than this:

Mesmerizing Sikri:

The magnificent Agra Fort:

And the ultimate poetry in marble:

What is in a Name ?

The Western world has been naming hurricanes and tornadoes and typhoons for several years now. Perhaps , typical of their confident disposition, they wanted to make sure everything in their land, animate and inanimate alike, had an identity. I do not know by what basis the name is selected and whether the degree of impending disaster waiting to strike has any link with the name.

The Indian government, like a copycat , have also started to do this of late. So for a Sandy or a Billy or a Katrina, we have our share of Neelams etc. While I am sure that there is a process as laborious as any other officialese behind choosing these names and there is a huge practical justification for doing this , I have wondered what makes us name them after so commonplace names like Sandy, Billy or Neelam for that matter.

At least in India , courtesy our epics and other tales of epic proportion, we should not be short on imagination in selection of these names, which symbolize devastation. We have so many Rakshas (demons) in our mythology and since almost all of these cyclones , hurricane etc cause widespread damage and suffering to the people, we should choose from this interesting repository.

It would like comparing the havoc caused by Hidimba cyclone to the devastation created by Ghatokacha tornado. Remembering would be easy as well as interesting too.

Maybe it would be more apt then instead of trying to attach a sense of demonification to every unfortunate human named Mala or Nargis or Neelam who happened to be in the vicinity of the landfall and get caught in bind of a different kind.

Analog Blues

Sometime back Pritish Nandy had written an article “The Pleasure of being a Bore”. I do not know whether I will qualify for that title holistically, but at least on one count I do – that is being impervious to a large extent to the inroads of the idiot box in daily life. There have been days on end when the television in our house has not been switched on or maybe just for ten minutes of news and thirty minutes of cartoon for the kid, and none of us have felt any bit lesser or heavier at the end of the day. And I do not watch cricket anymore !

Now that the four cities are agog with the digitization of TV transmission and the impending ban of the almost banal analog waves that were floating in the air like smog on a winter morning in Mumbai, and every square inch of print space available for advertising being devoted to the benefits of digitization of the air waves, even a potential bore like me could not resist to sit up and take notice.

A few months back also there was such a deadline but it was extended , maybe to accommodate guys like me. But this time looks like the noose is going to be tightened real hard.

So like a zombie rising from the dust with the sudden revelation that life is worth living again, I decided to get into the game of SD, HD, 1080i, 720p and other such mumbo-jumbo which will make your brain give up due to overwork in a short time. With a little help from semi-informed salesmen at the shop and some help from the omnipresent Google, I decided to finally say good bye to my old idiot box which was sitting at the corner of my living room like an over-aged toad, too tired to croak but too lethargic to move.

Now having brought the horse home , we need to worry about the food , so to speak. With the cablewallah promising darkness from November irrespective of the thousand diyas of Diwali, decision needs to be taken of the kind of airwaves that I need to welcome into my home.

It takes one click of the mouse or one phone call today to get the information at your finger tips , both solicited and unsolicited variety. So in a day we hope to have a plethora of channels which if I just flick one every second after waking up, the sun would start setting by the time I finish. And all in total clarity….

It is another matter that my anathema of the idiot box is not because of the hazy analog signals which were making me wonder if cataract has visited earlier than usual, but because I find very few programs which are worth watching.

So now it will be ten minutes of news where I can see every wart and mole on the guy's face when he vehemently denies his involvement in the scam and thirty minutes of Tom and Jerry in HD.

Maybe it is time there is a scheme where unviewed TV viewing hours can be traded like timeshare holidays ? Some enterprising guy in our country should think of this !