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 !

Puja Moods

The most popular festival of Bengalis, the Durga Puja concluded a few days back. While the people of Bengal or with roots in the Eastern part of the country scattered all over the world are still in the hangover of the festivities just being over, it is apt to bring forward some images of the festivities captured in Mumbai.

And now , as like in every other year, the wait starts for one more year for Mother to come back with her entourage to share her blessings for one and all..........

Where have all the good men gone ?

With apologies to the one and only Pete Seeger…..

Where have all the good men gone ?

Long time passing

Where have all the honest men gone ?

Long time passing

Where have all the gullible voters gone ?

Coming our way

When will they ever learn ?

When will they ever learn ?

Coalgate- Keep Smiling

The other day my child asked me after watching TV what Colgate was. I was a taken aback for a while as I did not know whether she wanted to know the meaning of Colgate or Coalgate. When she clarified that she had heard it in an advertisement I was albeit relieved that she had chosen the right kind of word at least at her age , for the time being.

With the way we are progressing as a nation, very soon we should have a subject of General Knowledge on Scams in the school syllabi as that seems to be the most happening thing in the country. Not a single day passes without our coming to know of a new kind of scam somewhere in the country, via newspaper or other media.

The country is on the brink of an economic disaster as it is and now with the monsoon playing truant , any hopes of a recovery also seems that much tougher. And then we have our political leaders who do not have any administrative will and the parliament sessions are reduced to bouts of shouting and sometimes freestyle wrestling arenas. Looks like we sent the wrong kind of team to the Olympics, our hopes of winning more medals in boxing and wrestling have been dashed as we did not pick our MPs in the contingent as they are showing quite a prowess these days.

The media unearthed a group of Karnataka MLAs running off on a world tour of eight countries on tax payers’ money, for a so-called educational trip. The trip was sanctioned by the Speaker as per norms. What education they are gaining with an agenda that spans from visit to a fur factory in Scotland to the pyramids of Egypt is anyone’s guess. The party bosses of course are happy to sanction such trips as most times it is a question of you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours. The drought affected people of Karnataka are of course waiting for their MLAs to return from their junket suitably educated enough to help them.

Till then , we have Coalgate- keep smiling !

King Lie- that is BEST !

Trust any governmental agency to turn anything into a scam these days and you will not be disappointed.

After all the hullabaloo about the inferior quality of Chinese King Long buses used by the BEST, now we understand that those buses were not Chinese after all and were manufactured by a company in India only with brand name CERITA. Every time a bus used to break down (which these buses did with regularity) the Chinese origin was blamed as if “Made in India” is synonymous to “Made in Japan” or some such thing. The uncanny similarity of the two logos cannot be coincidental.

Something is fishy definitely as all along (including in BEST website) these buses have been officially referred as King Longs. If these were not of the Chinese origin why in the first place were they ever referred as King Longs, I wonder.

The officials of BEST are as usual suffering from short term memory loss which is quite common these days. An enquiry will be in place and a committee instituted to investigate. It will take donkeys’ years to submit a report by the time the episode will be forgotten as new scams would have taken its place.

BEST has right now spun a yarn- maybe it can be said it is a King Lie on the King Long !

Thoda Khao Thoda Pheko

One of my favourite Hindi films of all time will definitely be “Jaane bhi do yaro”. I have watched it many times over in entirety and also sometimes in parts on telly, but I am not writing this to talk about the film.

I remember a dialog in the film when a piece of cake is thrown out of the window and the actor says “Thoda khao thoda pheko ! Mazaa aya ? “ ( Loosely translated: Eat some throw some- it is fun !)

The recent statement of an UP politician where he advises his bureaucracy that they are allowed to indulge in little corruption as long as they work reminds me of this dialog in the film. What a state of affairs in this country !

While Coalgate dominates media coverage and we see the mystery of the two Sahay-s. Who is in our sahay (as in help )- only the Almighty knows perhaps, or even he has given up on this country.

We have one politician indicted for murder and another for inciting communal violence. The parliament is the only office in the country where you can be present for 7 days out of 88days and still not get kicked out of the job.

The general knowledge section of every bookshop and library must now have a dedicated section for scam news as it dominates most of the news that is made in this country.

Yet they govern this country- God give us a break !!!