We will wave to you on your choppers too!!!!

Even if it means a wave of good riddance

The incident of a person dying because of the security arrangements made for PMs visit to a hospital was an event waiting to happen. In fact I am sure that there would be many incidents like these, which happen, either directly or indirectly due to the stoppages made for the travel of our VIPs or VVIPs or whoever with fancy nameplates.

If you have travelled on the roads of Delhi, you would have most certainly got stuck in traffic that is stopped a full half hour before somebody important is to pass down the road. And inevitably this would be done at the peak hours. I have been stuck on the Dhaula Kuan – Gurgaon road at 9 in the morning for a full half hour. Imagine the pile-up on that road due to that stoppage time. And all because someone needs to feel important enough to feel he/she is an assassination target.

But reaching office late and dying because of this are very different. Its time that someone (The PM would be a good idea to start from) wakes up to the alternatives. And seriously, Mr Singh, an apology like the one you have given comes out very lame without change in the status quo.

An alternative.In a country that spends crores on MPs snacks, we can use those funds (let them eat a few less sandwiches) to buy choppers for our ‘important’ guys. Have helipads made at all the important destinations that these guys frequent. And if you are worried about security in the skies (and if you have watched too many far fetched Hollywood action flicks), have a battalion of choppers. We don't travel to office or hospitals in skies. We don't mind.

But in cases like the incident that happened, when roads must be used, security must be tight but focussed. Harassing common people and denying basic rights should be made a criminal offense.

And seriously, its a non-brainer - Hospitals are not a place for functions. Or has the PM forgotten that people die from things other than bullets?

I and you can rant as much as want but the next time you want to reach office on a tight schedule, the president might just feel like a morning drive on the wide and empty roads of Delhi. After all, they have a country to run…

del.icio.us Tags: Delhi roads,current issue,Delhi

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Is Marx laughing?

Came across this highly entertaining news article yesterday in the newspapers…

Marx gets Vatican thumbs up or here

 

So, Marx is under ‘review’ by the Church. As to whether he is an approved human being, I guess!!! approved to be given access by St Peter, no less. Well, well…i guess poor Karl has been waiting outside the pearly gates for too long…

The funny thing about the whole incident is the absurdity of it all. It would have been smashing to hear Marx’s comment on this. I am sure he would have had a sly comment up his sleeve.

So, the centre of manufacture of the ‘opium of the masses’ is getting soft towards its deviant child?

Here’s my take…Dangerous but dead men start to become more acceptable with years passing by, as their snarl and their bite become a blurry memory and lose their context for danger. Che Guevara T-shirts are tolerated on the streets of US forty years after his death, Stalin is being rehabilitated and who remembers Napoleon? Add to the fact that communism is ‘officially’ dead for the last decade and a half and Marx is becoming less of a danger for our minds (read the minds of the faithful). His sayings (like the one of religion being a opium for the masses) have slowly become mere dialogues, repeated as a matter of rote and as a sign of erudition rather than as an existential threat for religion.

Religion faces more of an existential threat from other quarters – quarters that Marx would have disapproved but which have equal efficacy in blunting the power of religion. It is that of unfettered technology and capitalism. People would rather grab for an i-pod or get moved by Xbox games than reach for a crucifix or a taabiz or be moved by chants. The holy see has more of a problem with abortions than with communal land holdings for now.

So, when Marx has ceased to be an ‘anathema’ to civilized world (as seen by the Church) and since paradoxically his popularity (Marx reinvented as Robin Hood) has soared in those very worlds with the disillusionment with the kind of materialistic capitalism let loose in the world, the Church finds wisdom in ‘rehabilitating’ him. Maybe the attempt is at positioning the church on the side of the common man.

But even so, it is a hilarious situation. Its funny how the world operates. Nothing ever remains constant. Not ideas, ideology nor words. Marx reinvented as the messiah. He would have laughed at the irony, I think. History being recycled as farce.

I think right now, Lenin must be squirming in Red Square. He fears he would be next!!!

del.icio.us Tags: Marxist,Vatican,Marx,Communism,opinion

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To Do and Done – the difference…

 

In this case, Nada..nothing…

I am talking about the attempted abduction with intent to rape, an incident which occurred yesterday in Delhi. The attempt was foiled by passerbys…

But what concerns me is the fact that since no actual abduction or rape occurred, even though the two men have confessed, the justice system in India will find a way to set them free. Helping it along would be some odd human rights groups who seem to be more interested in helping convicts than the victims…

But isn't it a no-brainer that when something has been attempted and you have got away with a rap on the knuckle, its human nature to learn from the mistake and make sure that there are no mistakes next time? Next time make sure that there are no passerbys, maybe even keep a weapon to threaten. Oh yeah, the next time they would make sure that they would succeed…

And I am sure that if they are caught them, they would be convicted because well, they have committed the crime at last and thank god we can hang them now…

The attempts like these are the non-minority reports and a precursor of what is to come. These attempts must be taken at the same level as the actual crime. An attempted rape is the same as rape; there are no mitigating factors like say in a murder…

And one more thing, when we do get the National ID cards, lets have our criminal records on it – so that criminals are branded…I have had enough of human rights for criminals like these, whose crimes have nothing to do with stealing a loaf of bread…

 

del.icio.us Tags: dehi,rape,justice

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The best anti-wrinkle solution is…

 

DEATH!!!

haha…something that just occurred to me!!!

Die young and they will remember you wrinkle free :)

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King of Delhi roads – Lambo and Alto. The battle…

 

The grim reaper, as has been told to us repeatedly, is the great equalizer. Poems have been written about this final eraser of differences, philosophers have sustained themselves with writing dense tracts about the how in front of him, the king and the pauper alike look the same.

All this is fine. I realized something a couple of days back with the result that I would like to nominate the addition of Delhi roads to the list of the great equalizers.

Ill tell you how I came about to this realization. I was turning to drive down Lodhi road, in my workhorse – my Alto, when I see coming on to my side a sleek black Lamborghini, probably modelled on Batmobile for all that I know. You could hear and feel the power of its engine, which like a sleeping giant, was just waiting to wake up to flex itself. And all that I had on my side was the 800CC of pure layman engine.

Who in their right mind would even think of racing that monster? Well, considering that my sympathy always lies with the underdog and in this case, I was the underdog, I was game.

I am no fool however – I was game because I know that the modern city of Delhi with its modern roads was with me. And this is how the race went…

When Batmobile drew level with Alto, there were two vehicles in front of both of us and both of the drivers were of the thoughtful variety who seem to be driving on the roads looking for some unfathomable solution in life. Anyway, Batmobile and Alto were both of the minds that they had better things to do and needed to get ahead. Now Batman would be mortified to learn that drivers in Delhi driving parallel to each other give only that much space to allow a bug to get through, even after incessant honking. And the best insect to travel across Delhi roads is of course the Alto. So a horn blast and nudge and a swerve later, I was through the gap. Looking back, I see Batmobile still trying in vain to get its whole big ass bulk between the philosophizing cars. In the meantime, I was on my way. About ten seconds later, I look back and I see that the black bulk had finally broken through. Then it pressed its only advantage – its awe-inspiring engine. Within a second, Batmobile had grown from a dot in the rear-view mirror to a detailed study in engineering. Another second, it would have overtaken Alto and would have said an insouciant farewell to the red dot (my car is brick-red, you see).

Just at that moment, Delhi roads again came to the rescue of the underdog. Just in front of us was the ubiquitous tin-sheets-put-together-carrier-on-three-wheels. A little on the side was an Esteem parked on the side of the road. And there was only so much space on the side. I touched my finger slightly on the steering wheel and the whole small mass of Alto neatly fit into that space and out through the gap. Batmobile on the other hand had to hastily apply brakes and put to test its 200 to 0 Km/hr in one second claim. While it was trying to rally back, the red light in front had turned yellow, with a car in the right lane, waiting. Alto pushed through in the last moment (isn’t it a nice game all of us in Delhi play – beating the yellow light, what pleasure we get!!!) and was over the line just as the light turned red…

Now, navigating through another traffic mess ahead, I looked back. Batmobile, chastened in defeat, had settled into second place behind another car, as they all waited for the green light. Batmobile, the sleek black monster, in all its gleam, stood defeated by a better master – the roads of the capital.

I felt a little sorry for it. I mean Batmobile will attract the attention of all the starlets in the world and the drool of those who worship metallic lustre. But my good man, I am still reaching someplace faster than you!!!!

 

del.icio.us Tags: delhi,delhi roads,funny,humour,alto,lamborghini

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Some men are like that only…

 

Like almost a ghost, Kobad Ghandy has risen out of the past. As a reminder. A reminder of a time and an ethos that prompted men of all backgrounds (in his case an exceedingly advantageous one) to give up everything for the sake of something that they believed in. It is true that the revolutionary bug bit many of Ghandy’s contemporaries but only a handful remained faithful to what they believed in as a hot blooded teenager. Mark Twain had once remarked that “If you are not a revolutionary by the time you are twenty, you don’t have a heart; if you remain one when you are thirty, you don’t have a mind”. In cases of men like Ghandy, Twain would have accepted the exception.

A man coming from a rich family, studying in Doon school, higher studies in London, coming back to India to fight for the upliftment of the oppressed masses, marrying a like minded woman and deciding not to have children so as not to get distracted from the cause – his life story reads like that of a revolutionary romance and would find echoes in many places and many times, most however in the past.

His life story also reads as a reminder of how some lives are (and can be) led and how some men (and women) strive to live for something higher than themselves. Compared to most of our ambitions today (including mine), their life-force and motives for life seem impossibly inaccessible and almost an object of awe. We stand in awe mainly because we can never even begin to think of replicating their way of life – firmly ensconced as we are in our single minded devotion to climbing the ladder of corporate life, in search of the best paycheck to buy our peace of mind.

That is why men like Ghandy, men like Che seem like men out of a past – a past where rebellion was not only in rock ballads but on the streets, not only in books but in the mind directing the arm. A past that retains its romance today, when we look back with rose tinted glasses; a past, however, that has lost its relevance for most of us today – mainly I feel because we, (starting with our fathers) compromised, choosing safety and conventionality over fighting in the name of some nebulous ideal. We compromised when we told ourselves that watching TV in an AC cooled room was more rewarding than living in the jungles in the danger of sudden death.

But let us blame nobody. We choose our destinies and the way we would like to lead our lives. But man is essentially an animal and finds solace in herds. It’s the renegade then, who, commands our respect and awe even though we know that they are an enemy to the way we lead our lives.

I am no ideologue of the Naxalite variety. I find their basic demands appealing but not the way they look at implementing it. In answer to the negatives of today, they proclaim a state that would tilt the scale in the exact opposite direction without taking into account the positives gained under the present system. I do not believe that should they ever gain supreme power, the government would get any better. It would be corruption and oppression by another name. It’s the Marxists worldwide who have killed Marx.

But that should not detract ourselves from the man himself. He stands for the best ideals of the Naxalite movement and has stayed true to it. It is of course a given that except a handful of us, we would wilt away in face of so much demands made on us when there is no clear ‘advantage’ accruing to us for all the hardships.

Maybe that’s where our tragedy lies. Our sense of cost benefit analysis has been honed to such an extent in the world we inhabit today, we cannot see beyond a few years without counting the costs and the benefits we hope to get. Everything we interact with simply reinforces that this is the only way to live and the best option to survive in todays increasingly smaller, yet lonelier world.

That is why men like Ghandy rise like a dinosaur. We can only pick at his surface and wonder at him. The ability to truly understand how he lived or thought is lost to us.

 

del.icio.us Tags: revolutionary,indian,marxist,naxalite,ideology

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Public Enemies – an instant review

A movie that had so much potential, so much scope for not only exploring an era and the wildly interesting characters that inhabited it but also for making a fast paced action movie. And it had the people to do it – Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, America’s most wanted, Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, the man who pursued Dillinger. Their pairing could and should have been explosive. Sadly, nothing worked – on occasions, there were only the hint of what could have been…

Dillinger was a fascinating character. The movie failed to bring it out though there were faint echoes at times. He was a charmer, a guy who did his work with style and was one of the last romantic gangsters…the movie failed to bring it out. Even his almost fairy tale romance with Billie fails to bring any energy to the screen. His growing desperation and death also seemed devoid of sentiments that the audience could have felt. His relationship with his comrades never really came off the screen. So much so, I had difficulty in recognizing at times who his men were!!! but inspite of all that, Depp rises above the loose storyline at times by the sheer power of his acting depth. Not enough to salvage the movie, however

Christian Bale is wasted. Now there are two movies in a row that I watched where this hugely talented actor as been under-utilized (the other being terminator). Here, his combat with Dillinger could have been more intense. Here you have two highly intelligent, resourceful men on opposite side of the law – perfect recipe for a mammoth showdown. It ended in a whimper, however. We don't get to know anything about the agent as a man. Remember, this was the time that FBI got formed and it was mainly due to this conflict between Dillinger and Purvis. We don't see much evidence of birth out of conflict, neither in the story, nor in the character of Purvis

All, in all, it was a movie that held so much promise and of which it gave slight glimmers at times but it ended with being just a linear cat-mouse chase story without any flesh being put on the characters. We don't get to know them. This was a movie about characters who were in  grey. The ‘bad’ guys were simply a product of their times. So were the ‘good’ guys. That borderline treatment never really came out. The characters on the screen remained strangers to us.

Watching it made me compare this movie to the ‘The Untouchables’. And that made this movie come out even poorly…

So much promise, so little delivered

del.icio.us Tags: Gangster,America,depression,movie review,johnny depp,christian Bale

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