The Antidote (what I haven't learnt...)

I haven't learnt to twitter - or rather, to tweet
I haven't learnt to blush and study my feet
I haven't learnt to eat with chopsticks yet
Or that I argue like a complete idiot
I know patience is the mother of all virtues
But I haven't put that lesson to good use
I haven't learnt not to shoot off my mouth
To prevent a bad situation from going further south
I haven't learnt the art of grace under pressure
Or that I take for granted things I should treasure
I haven't learnt it's a little too late
To sulk and whine at thirty-eight.
Though I've got my fingers pretty badly burnt
I've learnt that I still haven't learnt.

Keep Walking - one for the road

A lot of people I know have an amazing road sense. Me, I was born without an internal GPS. If you stand me in a spot, blindfold me, and spin me around a couple of times, I won't know which way to turn (I'll probably stagger around drukenly for a few seconds, puke all over myself, and faint). People like me depend heavily on signage, landmarks, and auto drivers to get us to where we're going without crossing into the next state. But, it's not just my road sense, I'm hopeless at finding anything at all (which is why I'm not married); I couldn't spot a dancing moose in a discotheque because I wouldn't find the discotheque to begin with - even if one of those colored disco balls fell on my head.

One-way streets is a good concept but it can be terrifying for someone who has a great propensity to get lost because if you take the wrong road, there's literally no turning back and instead of going where you need to go, you'll end up going where the road takes you. (I'm better than my mom though - she once drove around a circle thrice before she realized she was going round and round.)

So if I have to go to a place which I haven't been to before, I usually do a recce the previous day. Problem is, it seems like I've never been to any place before - even the ones I've been to before. Which is how I set out to establish where the Government Arts and Science College is. I found the college but I didn't know I'd found it because it didn't have a board that said it was the Government Arts and Science College and it had been found; of course, all you had to do was to look at it to know it was a college but I need more proof - I need a board that proclaims what it is before you'll convince me and to my bad luck there was no board. And worse, now I had to find my way back home through the maze of one-ways. I simply kept following the road for 15 minutes without knowing where I was going.

I finally gave up and pulled up next to an auto driver and asked him "which way to Domlur?"

He looked at me like I'd asked him "Which way to Africa?" Then he giggled and pointed down the road and said, "Follow that road till you come to a U-turn, take the U-turn and go back to where you came from."

Very helpful.

"But where did I come from?" I asked him.

I think he wanted to say "I hope you don't want me to answer that," but he changed his mind and shrugged as if to say "anywhere you want it to be."

I peered at boards (the signage has really improved in the city) from which all kinds of names flew at me, some familiar ("so THAT's the railway station!") but mostly not. To cut a long story short, I followed the familiar sounding names and landed up in front of my aunt's house which is a good 10 kms from home but it was still home - it was lunchtime by now, I was hungry and tired and happy.

Life's like that - you suddenly realize you're on the wrong road but whaddya know, it's a one-way stret, so you keep going, and you stumble around following familiar sign boards guided by an inner intuition only to rediscover your faith in serendipity.

My "I've learnt that..." List

• Every opinion has an equal and opposite counter-opinion.
• Truth and fact are not the same thing because truth is almost always relative.
• People DO get away with crime.
• Sometimes it's easier to trust someone else than to trust yourself.
• No matter how eloquent you are, words will fail you when you need them the most.
• We talk the most when we have nothing to say.
• You're never too old for Archie comics.
• No matter how indifferent you are, a child's hunger will break your heart.
• If you drive in this city, it's hard not to swear.
• Only animals and children can love unconditionally.
• Hope is more often born out of desperation than optimism.
• It's more important to share silence comfortably than share conversation comfortably.
• Sharing grief creates more grief.
• Good spelling is fast becoming an oxymoron.
• Books on positive thinking can sometimes be very depressing.
• When a child asks you "Shall I show you how strong I am?" NEVER say "yes"
• The "moral compass" is really a compass and points in different directions for different people.
• Sometimes, "you say it best when you say nothing at all."
• You'll never find yourself unless you first lose yourself.
• Good music can move you in a way that can only be felt and never defined.

ABHOSTTBBLO continues....

Kyrgyzstan - one of the 15 countries that declared independence when the USSR fragmented into so many pieces that if you walk this territory, your two feet may actually be in two different countries, one of which might (or might not) be Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgystan’s (pronounced “wow!”) claim to fame is that it’s the only country in the world with just a single vowel in its name.

Goodbye Sweet Prince

We were absolutely crazy about Michael Jackson, my twin and I – 2 of the millions of his fans across the globe. Our first introduction to MJ was through “Off the Wall” in our teens - we went wild. It was the 80s – a time when there was very limited access to music videos or even visuals of celebrities, days of the audio cassette and SUN lyrics, and a decade before cable TV and Google. MJ almost constantly crooned from our bedroom and from our car stereo. He gazed down at us in his leather figure huggers from our bedroom walls and our wardrobe doors – we just couldn’t get enough of him. We rewound his tapes over and over trying to catch his lyrics – of course we hardly got a line here and there and then kept serenading ourselves with those precious few lines we caught. We never tired of watching videos of “Beat It” “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” a thousand times…..to this day, Thriller’s haunting background score remains one of the best pieces of music I’ve ever loved. Then came SUN (probably India’s first music magazine) and we religiously bought every issue and cut out every MJ photo, poster, news item, and song lyric that ever appeared on its pages. MJ had many great contemporaries in the 80s – Stevie Wonder, Kenny Loggins, Kenny Rogers, The Police, Prince, Madonna, Lionel Richie, Bruce Springsteen, Cindy Lauper – an endless galaxy of extremely talented musicians but he towered head and shoulders above them all with his outlandish and extravagant costumes, his mind-boggling videos, his impossible squeals which our dad said was the sound a pig would make falling off a building, (our dad also said of “Air Supply” that “they only supply air”) and boy did he have the moves!

As we grew older, our tastes matured – we realized there was life beyond MJ - but MJ was always the most comforting of our music collections; he was like the oldest thing in your wardrobe that you still wear because it’s the most comfortable piece of clothing. It became amusing to watch MJ refusing to grow up even as we grew up but no matter what he did and what people said about him, when he sang and he danced, he was our God. We fought for him, we defended him, we stopped talking to people who said “bad things” about him, we cried, we laughed, we ranted – all for MJ. Over the years, he faded gradually from our lives; we followed him on the news and every mention of MJ was nostalgic because it took us back to a time in our lives that would never be again. In him, the best years of our lives were preserved; he was the music world’s Peter Pan. He gave us unbelievable joy, his music touched our lives in a way that is impossible to describe. He taught us to love music passionately. He stayed a child forever.

The Tragedy of the Commons

In what is being dubbed as an unprecedented comic crisis, UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon departed from his textbook address to the UN to express his anguish at Archie’s decision to marry Veronica. “Betty Cooper is all set to become a suicide bomber,” he croaked in a strangulated whisper as heads of state looked on in horror. “No matter what we do, there’s one born every minute,” the distraught UN chief went on, looking and sounding dangerously close to a meltdown.
“It ain’t over till it’s over pal,” an unidentified voice called from the back to nervous laughter.
President Obama gamely tried to bring sanity to the situation by declaring, “It’s recession time, folks. A loser like Archie is better off with the Lodges than out on the streets looking for work.”
His comment was met with loud boos and desk thumping from one section and “hear, hear” from another.
“Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” was Britian’s typically understated response.
“Excuse me! In my country, people are killing each other to eat mud!” exclaimed an enraged representative from the continent of Africa, “maybe you should fly your Archie and Veronica to my country for their honeymoon,” he fumed in disgust.
The House descended into chaos with Russia, China, and Pakistan aggressively outbidding each other for discounted airline fares to the newlyweds.
When asked to comment, Cuba’s leadership was blunt, “Archie can marry Veronica’s mother for all we care.”
“Or her father,” was North Korea’s laconic quip.
India has called for a 3-day closed-door meeting of the SAARC nations to decide what to decide. “We’re monitoring the situation,” was the only cryptic comment from the big brother of the subcontinent.
The Secretary General pounded the desk with his gavel for order causing the Israeli leader to jump up with a blood-curdling shriek as he looked at his shattered fingers in horror. The leader had to be straitjacketed and carried out to prevent him from firing a gun that he pulled on the shocked Secretary General.
“How did he get that in?” protested the Middle Eastern bloc. “This is a conspiracy. The infidel planned to assassinate us! All deals are off. We’re blowing up Israel right now,” they yelled and stormed out.
The Secretary General asked for a show of hands for Veronica and Betty assuring the House that he would force Archie to abide by the majority’s wish. The USA, France, Italy, Australia, and China raised their hand for Veronica – and for Betty. Indian diplomats studied their feet and sat on their hands. An Iraqi diplomat hurled his shoe at the Secretary General but missed him and caught Gordon Brown square in the face. “Bull’s eye” muttered Nicholas Sarkozy unaware that he was caught on tape. England immediately severed all diplomatic ties with France. “Wait till I go home and tell Carla about this,” grinned Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian premier.
“Carla is MY wife you senile creep,” a shocked and livid Sarkozy screamed.
“Oh,” was the Italian premier’s muted defence.
“Please let us all calm down,” pleaded the Secretary General. “At this hour of grave global crisis, it’s important that we all stand together putting our petty differences aside.”
“Yeah right,” said a Bangladeshi diplomat, “after all, in my country only a few tens of thousands have been displaced by floods but clearly this is a far greater humanitarian crisis we have on our hands.”
When asked to comment, the German Chancellor said, “I think I need a drink,” and headed off to find one.

(To be concluded…)

The Bandits of Bengaluru - will we let them get away?

This article is written by Saugata Chatterjee. As the article clearly shows, our city is being taken over by thugs and sadists who will brazenly resort to violence against your person simply because you're not like them! Do we want to live in a society like this? Our police force is the joke of the world. This article provokes you to think what you would've done in Saugata's place. Read on. If you're a blogger, please post this article on your blog.

A few of my friends and I were just paying our bills and coming outof our regular Friday night watering hole and dinner place in Rest House Road, just off Brigade Road, and most of the women in the company were already standing outside. Some of us outside were smoking, people were happy, there was laughter and jokes, as there were many other people in the street, all coming out, satiated, in the closing hour of the various pubs and restaurants around. Suddenly from up the street a massive SUV comes revving and speeding,hurtling down, and stops in a scream of brakes and swirling dust, millimeters away from this group of 4 women, barely missing one oftheir legs. A white Audi, imported, still under transfer, with theregistration plate of KA-51 TR-2767. Some millionaire's toy thing, that in the wrong hands can kill. Naturally the women are in shock. And quickly following the shock comes indignation. These are self made women running their own businesses, managing state responsibilities for global NGO firms, successful doctors. They are not used to being bullied. So they turn around, instead of shrinking back in fear. They protest. And as soon as they turn around in protest, the car doors are flung open, and a stream of 4-5 rabid men run out towards these women, screaming obscenities in Hindi and Kannada against women in general, fists flailing. Some of us who came in running at the sound of the screaming brakes now stand in the middle in defense of our women, and then blows start raining down. One of the goons make a couple of calls over the cellphone, and in seconds a stream of other equally rabid goondas land up. They gun straight for the women, and everyone –a few well-meaning bystanders, acquaintances who know us from the restaurant, basically everyone who tries to help the women – starts getting thoroughly beaten up. Women are kicked in the groin, punched in the stomach, slapped across the face, grabbed everywhere, abused constantly. Men are smashed up professionally, blows aimed at livers, groins, kidneys and nose. A friend is hit repeatedly on the head by a stone until he passes out in a flood of blood. A plain-clothes policeman (Vittal Kumar) who saunters in late stands by watching and urging people to stop, but doing absolutely nothing else. A 'cheetah' biker cop comes in, with our women pleading him to stop this madness, but he refuses action, saying a police van will come in soon and he cannot do anything. Everyone keeps getting hammered. Relentlessly. The carnage continues for over 20 minutes. Finally when the police van does come in it is this vandals who are raging and ranting, claiming to be true "sons of the Kannadiga soil", and we are positioned to be the villainous outsiders, bleeding, outraged. How do the cops believe them, especially seeing the bloody faces of our men and the violated rage of our women, while they carry nary a scratch on their bodies? Don't ask me! Yet, it is us who these goondas urge the newly arrived law-keepers to arrest, and the police promptly comply, and we are bundled into the van, some still being beaten as we are pushed in. Some blessed relief from pain inside the police van at least, even if we are inside and the real goons outside, driving alongside in their spanking white Audi. The guy who was hit by the stone is taken separately by the women to Mallya hospital. Inside the police station at Cubbon Park it becomes clear that these goons and the police know each other by their first names. Thepoliceman in charge (Thimmappa) initially refuses to even register any complaint from me, on the purported grounds that I am not fluent in Kannada and I have taken a few drinks (3 Kingfisher pints, to beprecise) over the evening. No, it doesn't matter that I didn't have my car and was not driving, and no, it doesn't mater that the complaint will be written in English. We watch them and the goons exchange smiles and nods with our bloodied and swelling eyes and realize in our pain-clouded still-in-shock brains the extent of truth in the claim of one of the main goons when he claimed earlier in the evening in virulent aggression: we own this town, this car belongs to an MLA, we will see how you return to this street!! This was the turning point of the saga, I guess. For we refused to lie down quietly and be victims. One of our girls, a vintage and proud Bangalorean who is running one of the town's most successful organic farming initiatives, took upon herself to write the complaint, when I was not allowed to write the same. Another Bangalore girl, a state director of a global NGO firm, wrote the other molestation complaint separately on behalf of all the girls. Some of us called our friends in the media and corporate world. Everyone stepped up. And even when the odds were down and we were out, we did not give up, and as a singular body of violated citizens we spoke in one voice of courage and indomitable spirit.
That voice had no limitation of language, not Kannada, nor English, or Hindi. It was the voice of human spirit that cannot be broken. And in the face of that spirit, for the first time, we saw the ugly visage of vandalism, hiding behind the thin and inadequate veil of political corrupt power, narrow-vision regionalism and self-serving morality, start to wilt. We spent 6 hours next day in the police station. The sub-inspector ofpolice who filed our FIR, Ajay R M, seemed a breath of fresh air inasmuch that he did not appear a-priori biased like others, even though the hand of corruption and politico-criminal power backing these goons was still manifest in many ways: a starched, white-linen power-broker walked in handing over his card to the sub-inspector in support of the goons; the goons got an audience with the Inspector because of this intervention, while we had to interact one level lower down in the hierarchy; the plains cloth policeman of last night, even though he had arrived far too late in the crime scene, gave a warped statement, passing it off as a "neutral" point of view, repeatedly stressing that we came out of a pub and hence were drinking, positioning this as a 'drunken brawl', while completely forgetting to mention the unprovoked attack against the women and the one-sided vandalism and violence that ensued. I guess one cannot blame the low ranked police officer – the criminal connections of these goons must be pervasive enough for him to be careful. Thanks however to the impartial handling of the situation by Ajay, soon the goons were all identified. The lead actor was one RaviMallaya (38), a real estate honcho and owner of a small property offBrigade Road which he has converted into a "gaming" (you know whatthat means, don't you?) adda. The others identified are Mohan Basava(22) of Chamarajapet 12th Cross, R. Vijay Kumar Ramalingaraju (25) and Shivu Rajashekar (20). All are residents of 12th & 13th Cross inVyalikaval. Their bravado and machismo were by that time evaporated. It was good to see their faces then. Of course nothing much happened to them, nor did we expect it. They were supposed to be in lockup for at least the weekend till they were produced in court, but we understand that they were quickly released on (anticipatory?) bail. The car, purportedly belonging toan MLA, also does not figure in the FIR, apparently for reasons of "irrelevance to the case". The media also have given us fantastic coverage and support so far, strengthening the cause. The goons meanwhile, as an afterthought, also filed the customary reverse complaint on the morning after we filed our own complaint:the women have apparently scratched the car! (Why did they not file the complaint the same night, considering they came to the Police Station in the same car? Why was the car allowed to be taken off police custody? Why is the car still irrelevant to the case and notin the FIR? Questions.. questions..).Is this the end of this saga? Probably not. Are these women, more precious to us as friends and wives than most things in our lives, safe to walk or drive down Brigade Road from now on or are the goonda elements, slighted by this arrest and disgrace, lying in ambush, waiting, biding their time to cause some of us more grievous harm? We don't know. Is there reason for us to remain apprehensive of future attacks and victimization? Perhaps. But here is the point. We stood up. We believed in the power of individual citizens even in the face of hooliganism, intolerance, corruption and power mongering. Even though many of us have the option of leveraging political or government connections, we deliberately chose to fight this battle as individuals. Sure, these connections have been activated and they have been kept informed, should the worst case scenario unfold tomorrow. But we have chosen to not leverage them. And in every small win we register as a group of individual outraged citizens of Bangalore and India, however insignificant these milestones may be inthe larger scheme of things, there is one small notch adding up in favor of what is right, one small notch against what is wrong. And we believe that every such small notch counts, each such mark is absolutely invaluable. It is the people who make this city, this country, this world. It is you and I, as much as the terrorists inside and outside. And in our small insignificant little ways, it is my responsibility and yours to not shirk from investing effort – not just lip service or any token attempt, but real effort – in backing up what we ourselves believe in. It is so easy to logically argue that everything is corrupt,nothing is worth it, there are so many risks involved. We must not fall trap to this escapist trend. We must not fail to try. Next time you feel outraged, violated, abused, don't let it go by and add up to your list of litanies and complaints. Stand up and take it to the limit - at least your own limit. Not in the same way as they wrong you, but in the way that every citizen, at least in theory, is entitled to complain and protest. Do not let the hooligans power rant scare you or prompt you into submission. Do not allow the corrupt cop make you give up trying. Carry the flame forward. Try harder. If are up to it, start right now. Forward this note to everyone you want to be made aware of this. Post it in your own blogs. Talk about it amongst your circles. And if anyone of you should like to step forward with a word of empathy or advise, talk to me. Comment. It is not Bangalore that is going to the dogs. It is us. We have far too long become accustomed to let everything go. And the more we let things go without any protest or fight, the dormant criminal and dark elements of the society get that much more encouraged. Every time weturn the other way, the hooligan next street gets incentivized to push the boundary a little further, provoke a little more, try something a little more atrocious. It is time for us to refuse to let this go on. We are responsible for making ourselves proud. Lets believe in ourselves. We can do this.

My name is Saugata Chatterjee. And I am standing up. I refuse to letBangalore go to the hooligan slumdogs, even if some of them are pets of corrupt power millionaires.

THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

I met Jasmine Shah 1 year ago to the month. A young engineering graduate from IIT, Chennai, Jasmine had just walked away from a promising career in the corporate sector to lend his hand and voice to nation building. Looking at him, I remember thinking: “How can someone so mad look so normal?” But if Jasmine is mad, what India needs right now is one billion lunatics.

Jasmine is the brain behind Jaago Re! One Billion Votes, a web-based voter registration campaign launched by Janaagraha (www.janaagraha.org) in partnership with Tata Tea to enlist every eligible Indian citizen as a registered voter before the 2009 General Elections.

“Before I joined Janaagraha in November 2007, I was a model example of the typical Indian youth,” says Jasmine. “I was cynical, I was insulated from the political system, I had never voted, and had absolutely no knowledge about or interest in the voting process.” A year later, Jasmine is the Coordinator of the phenomenally successful Jaago Re! One Billion Votes campaign that has, at the time of writing, “awakened” 1,63,860 people, handed them a steaming cup of tea, and put them on the voters’ list.

“I didn’t do it alone,” says Jasmine emphatically. “Janaagraha not only gave me the opportunity of a lifetime, it enabled, equipped, and backed me 150%. The One Billion Votes team is beyond amazing! Many young people have given up successful careers to devote themselves full time to the OBV cause and new volunteers are joining us every day.”

Firmly united behind a single, clearly defined goal, every member of the OBV team brought something to the table as they worked with feverish urgency to transform an idea into a national movement in less than 12 months.

So, what turned the cynic into an evangelizing believer? “That can be a book by itself,” laughs Jasmine, (read it in his own words here http://jasmineshah.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html) “but seriously, how long are we going to talk about the things that are wrong? What is preventing us from doing something about it? If broken systems need fixing, only the people in the system can fix it. I worked with ITC for 3 years managing their engineering and infrastructure projects. My work exposed me to the best and the worst side of urban governance. I had visited Europe and I was blown away by the quality of life citizens enjoyed there. The contrast was so stark. I knew my calling had come”

With that knowledge, Jasmine decided to walk the talk. He became his own reference point as he tried to understand why India’s youth had such distaste for political engagement. Why did they shrink away from the polling booth? “I stayed in Chennai for 5 years and I didn’t vote even once simply because I didn’t know that I only need to live in a place for 6 months to vote there. Even had I known this, the challenge of navigating through the system was so daunting, it intimidated me.

Thankfully, Jasmine didn’t stay intimidated for too long. He had identified 2 clear challenges: lack of access to quality information about the electoral process and a system that severely tested the patience of youngsters who don’t have much patience to begin with. “It was clear to me we urgently needed to develop a hand-holding customer service model for citizens that would make voter registration a pleasant and easy experience requiring minimum time and fuss – and it had to be through a medium interesting and familiar to the youth.” All of which the Jaago Re! One Billion Votes campaign is. But doesn’t a web-based campaign cater only to urban India? “Urban India is a lot more apathetic than its rural counterpart when it comes to civic participation in governance,” says Jasmine. “On a personal note, I’m a product of urban India. Like most urban citizens, I don’t like the state of our cities. To transform the quality of life that cities offer their citizens, we need better quality governance for which we need quality candidates for which we need urban India, especially the youth, to vote. One-third of the Indian population comprise citizens who are between 18 and 30 years. Hardly 20% votes. We cannot stay outside the political system and expect it to transform on its own”

But there are no “quality candidates,” I argue. Our choice is really that of voting for the lesser evil. “This is a classic chicken and egg argument,” Jasmine counters. “Urban India doesn’t vote because there are no good candidates; good candidates don’t enter the fray because urban India doesn’t vote. We have to start somewhere!” Granted. Somebody has to blink first. But does he really believe we can bring about lasting change by simply exercising our franchise? “Yes, I do believe that. Like I said, we have to make a start. If urban India starts voting and then holding their elected representatives accountable to their election manifestos, we will see qualified people with merit getting into politics.”

Jasmine’s idealism is infectious. His message is clear: “We have to demand more from ourselves. We have to take our roles as citizens more seriously. We cannot simply keep talking about it. Each of us has to find an issue to become passionate about and then work with that issue to effect the change we want to see.”

‘Change’ is such a powerful word but where do you start? I ask somewhat overwhelmed.
“There is only one logical place to start,” says Jasmine quietly, “you start with the person in the mirror.”

To be the change you want to see, log on to www.janaagraha.org
To learn more about Jaago Re! One Billion votes, log on to www.jaagore.com

"We have met the enemy and they is us" - Walt Kelly

I'm not responsible for what happened in Mumbai - I know right from wrong; I'm right - you're wrong. I live in the largest democracy. I enjoy the liberties that democracy affords me - my democracy actually allows me to enjoy my rights placing no burden of responsibilities on me. My elected representatives (oh, by the way, I don't even vote, so I don't elect them either) are accountable to me but I'm not accountable to anyone - not to them, not to the democracy that I enjoy, not to the state of my society, not even to myself; so I throw garbage on the streets, for example, and hyperventilate because the damn government machinery doesn't function effectively enough to pick up my garbage. I have the right to throw garbage wherever I please and it's the government's duty to pick up after me. I pay taxes, don't I?
I didn't vote but look at the monkeyface you elected! He's not qualified (though he's well quantified), he has no sense, no experience, he doesn't care about my nation (I care a whole lot which is why I don't commit the crime of taking myself to the polling booth), he's corrupt, he's insensitive, he's a fanatic - and don't blame me - I didn't put him in his chair.
But I have all the answers. I know what "intelligence failure" is and I know how intelligence could've avoided failure; I know how my law enforcement agents should be trained; I know what the police should do, what the army should do, what the prime minister should do, what my neighbours should do, what you should do -hey! I know what everyone else should do! Why can't people simply listen to me? I'm very eloquent, I have space and air time, and boy! can I make a speech! So everyone, get up and do as I say - I'm so patriotic unlike you who are out there in the line of fire (whether you're a cop or a politician) rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty while I watch you on TV and it's so clear to me that you're a goddamn fool!
You! Keep my country safe! Keep me safe! I'm paying you taxes - you can't ask me to grow up!

Big Mac - The McMeltdown

I lived in a great white house
With rolling lawns and awesome views
I shopped often with the spouse
Never thought I had to pay my dues

Without actually paying, I spent a lot of money
To buy me the best life money could buy
The point when it stopped being funny
Was when I woke up one morning to the lie

I had no job nor a bank balance
In fact I couldn’t find my bank at all
Friends and foes kept pace with my pretense
So now I’m taking everyone down when I fall

The climb is steep, the road is long
So sit tight in your saddle
Quite simply – though the metaphor is all wrong –
We’re up the creek without a paddle

Ads in the time of cholera

Wanted: A country with a stock market that's not psychotic. Contact the White House - (Name withheld on request)

For Sale: Silicone babies for instant parenthood; can ingest melamine without the side effect of dying - Democratic Republic of China

Coin a tagline and be re-hired by the King Kong of Good Times! Complete the following slogan in not more than 1 word: Men who wear earrings are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - Indian Aviation Industry

Attain Nirvana! File for bankruptcy and leap off a cliff! - Spiderman

Enter my beauty contest! Win a round-trip to Pakistan! - Pervez Musharraf

Discover why the monk had to sell his Ferrari - read Thomas Friedman

50,000 dollars will be yours if you can find Dick Cheney!- Os(b)ama

What is more frightening? Global warming or Global meltdown? Al Gore says he doesn't know because he's out of a job -watch Al Gore's interview tonight in Sarah Palin's living room: Russia!

Our Greatest Achievement

After 61 years of independence, we have made the Indian farmer the fodder of the nation.
Jai Hind

Vote for Tony Blair

My life is insured by a government run insurance company, so I made my annual piligrimage recently to one of their anachronistic offices to pay my premium. Like government offices all over India, this one too was populated by groaning ceiling fans, irascible people with cobwebs, East India Company files, a forlorn-looking Gandhiji on the wall, and an unbalanced security guard in army fatigues and a whistle whom everyone called "major". The walls, floor, and ceiling were all broken, stained, and leaking; each chair had a different missing part and I don't think there were any tables at all - files were piled so high in front of each person, no one would've noticed if major had stolen all the tables and auctioned them to pay for his fatigues and his evening drink. Huge old steel cupboards were backed into far-flug corners and omniously locked with ponderous looking 18th century heavy metal. I was sure if someone unlocked them, decomposed bodies would tumble out ("Ok, we can now tell Mrs. Sharma to withdraw the 'missing persons' complaint she filed about her husband during the Quit India movement"). Glass panels separated the public from the mildly demented staff who sat behind the glass panel glowering, barking, and baring their fangs at the likes of me who had gone there to make them happy by paying them money for our lives - they were very bitter; perpetually watched over by Gandhi made their experiments with truth very uncomfortable.

I went to the section titled "PREMIUMS" and immediately noticed I was the only one there; there were serpentine queues at every other desk except this one; that was because the chair behind the glass panel was empty.
"AWOL," major offered helpfully.
All of AWOL's colleagues turned and glared at major and me and I quickly found an interesting pattern to study on the floor.
"Where should I pay?" I asked major softly under my breath (for I didn't want to disturb grateful dead Gandhiji).
He waved his arm in a general north-east/north-west direction and yawned and I thanked God I was not lost in Kosovo with major as my guide - then, I realized that actually, I was.
I joined the queue closest to me. Have you noticed inside a government office, people are scared to talk to each other? No one will help you (which on second thoughts might be a good thing because the blind leading the blind isn't such a good idea - look what happened to Tony Blair).
"Excuse me," I said softly to the person in front of me; he looked at me out of the corner of his eye but didn't turn around.
"Are you standing here to pay your premium?" I whispered.
He shook his head in a way that could mean, 'yes', 'no' or 'maybe.'
I looked around helplessly and decided to join a different queue.
"Excuse me," I whispered to the back of a new head.
"Shhhhh," he hissed without turning around.
Not knowing what to do, I approached the glass panel; the entire queue became restive and started to growl. I heard "queue," "line," "go back," and even "monkey".
"I just want some information," I said desperately to no one in particular.
"YES! WHAT DO YOU WANT?" someone barked from behind the glass.
"I want you to burst into flames," I almost said but of course didn't.
"Where do I pay my premium?" I asked timidly.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK EVERYONE IS DOING HERE STANDING IN THE QUEUE?" the voice spat back.
"I thought they're celebrating Kosovo's independence," I muttered and joined the queue. Someone giggled."SILENCE PLEASE!" the voice thundered and everyone, amazingly, fell silent!
"Why shouldn't we talk? Has someone died?" I asked recklessly.
"MADAM, THIS IS AN OFFICE!!"
"Yes, I noticed it's not a funeral parlour," I said.
He muttered abuses under his breath (which I cannot repeat here due to lack of space).
When my turn came to pay, I paid up and asked for an ECS form.
"He's on leave," the non-combustible character snapped without looking up.
"Who? The form?" I asked.
"THE PERSON AT THE COUNTER WHO DISTRIBUTES THE FORMS IS ON LEAVE," he said slowly and loudly like talking to someone very vacant.
"Can someone else give me the form?" I asked.
"NO! COME TOMORROW!" he commanded.
"Yes, I'd love to see your pretty face again," I almost said but of course didn't.
The next day, they were out of forms; the day after was a public holiday; the day after that was a second Saturday; the day after the day after the day after the employees were on strike, and the day after all these days someone should've torched the place but didn't.
MORAL OF STORY: When you find him, vote for Tony Blair.

Insomniacs, Killjoys, and other friendly people

Even in my dream, I knew it was a dream. No cellphones. No sales people. No Sonia Gandhi. I snuggled into my dream.
The telephone exploded. I fell out of bed and grabbed it.
"Hello," I croaked groggily.
"Good afternoon ma'am. I'm Raju from _____. As you're our valued customer, we're offering you a free SIM card..."
"Dear Raju from wherever you are..." I whispered half asleep and then fell into bed and right back into Dreamland. Karnataka had a government. Everyone understood Mamata Banerjee when she spoke. Britney Spears had finally grown up. Newspapers ignored Paris Hilton, Tom-Kat, and the Beckingham Palace. People admitted all they did in Davos was have fun. George Bush was hiding...the phone screamed again.
"Good afternoon ma'am. Are you Aparna Muralidhar?"
"Who wants to know?" I yawned.
"Ma'am, Aparna Muralidhar has won a trip for 2 to Malaysia in a raffle."
"What raffle?"
"Are you Aparna Muralidhar?"
"I am now."
"Congratulations Ma'am! You've won a trip to Malaysia!" he squealed.
"Okay okay, no need to get excited," I said irritably. "How did I win?"
"Are you married?"
"Not that I'm aware of..."
"You visited the exhibition at ______ with your husband where you filled in..."
"Shoot! I missed my own wedding," I muttered.
"...a form for a lucky dip on the 6th of this month at 10 a.m..." he prattled.
"I did not. I was at work."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm not sure. I suffer from Alzheimer's. I'm never sure of anything. When can I go to Malaysia?"
"Err..uh...ma'am are you Aparna Muralidhar?"
"I'm not sure," I said distractedly, "look what you've done... you've confused me," I said and hung up.
I curled up under the covers once more. Reader's Digest was a great magazine again. Music was not recycled. Paper was. I was 18. Deccan Air stayed in the air. State buses crunched only gravel. Everyone had a last name. The BJP was young and was now called Batty Jatty Patty. The phone was ringing....THE PHONE WAS RINGING.
I groaned and snatched it from its cradle.
"Hello?"
"Good afternoon, ma'am. I'm Amit from ______ bank. We're offering you a personal loan..."
"Great!" I yelled into the phone. "I need a loan right now . I have Alzheimer's and I'm going to Malaysia with a husband I didn't know I had," I tried to sound as hysterical as possible.
"Hello!?!" he said perplexed.
"You can call Raju and check..." I yelled. Amit hung up.
I went back to bed.
I'd barely tucked myself in when the phone shrieked.
"Hello?"
"I'm calling from ____ insurance. We have a wonderful package..."
"Great! I'm going to Malaysia so I need travel insurance. Can you give me your number? I'll call you back."
He gave me his office number, his mobile number, and his home landline. Bingo and big mistake.
I took the phone off the hook and slept till 12 a.m. I woke up at 12 a.m., dug out Mr. Insurance's home landline and dialled.
"Who is it?" demanded an alarmed voice.
"I just wanted to say I'm not going to Malyasia and I don't want insurance," I said sweetly and hung up.

What about the children?

Along with Iraq, Pakistan is now officially in a free fall. Everything that can possibly go wrong with Iraq and Pakistan, has. In Iraq, tragedy is now bordering on the ludicrous. On Jan 1, 2008, a funeral procession for a bombing victim, was bombed. A year after Saddam Hussein was hanged by a kangaroo court and many years after the world woke up to the fact that Iraq never posed any sort of threat to anyone, Osama Bin Laden, the object of George Bush's desire, continues to cock a snook at him. Whatever his faults, Osama has proved a far better human being than Bush: at least, he's hiding.

Pakistan has been running with the hares and hunting with the hounds a long time now. Her embattled President, framed within many a rifle's cross-hairs, is not a man you can loft on to a horse and hope for a ride-into-the-sunset goodbye. After years of feeding him cookies under the table and patting him on the head, Bush now finds himself staring not at the loyal Poster Child he'd hoped to find purring gratefully. With Benazir Bhutto's death - which has been greeted with a convincing show of outrage around the globe - the beleaguered General has marched his nation to the edge of the abyss; in fact, where he is now, the abyss must look pretty inviting to Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan doesn't know who the enemy is anymore; worse, they
don't know who's whose enemy which is more than a little alarming for a nuclear power. Typically, America has stopped the cookie-under-table arrangement overnight and has now queued up behind the Lal Masjid clerics, the Pakistani public, the Pakistani Army, the ISI, Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan, the Taliban, and a handful of assorted tribes and warlords across Pakistan and Afghanistan who make up Musharraf's distinguished list of enemies.

Then, there is Afghanistan (though barely) where the Taliban continue to have a free run despite (or 'because of' depending on your political leaning) Hamid Karzai. Karzai, Musharraf, and Nouri al-Maliki (the Iraqi PM) all have a common nemesis: George Bush. Only Bush could've accomplished such unmitigated disaster with such cheerfulness. His foreign policy (like him) is ultra simple: Get oil. But make it look like you're getting Osama. And get out of my way (toss grenade over shoulder). Famed as much for his brain and his tongue being in different time zones as for his juvenile rhetoric, Bush has demonstrated how much a sleepy conscience and a me-cowboy smugness can accomplish. Tripping on countless bodies and body parts while supposedly chasing Osama around the globe, the trail of destruction he has left in his wake now spans 3 countries that have plunged into a desperate humanitarian crisis. It is now officially accepted that every Iraqi family has lost or knows someone who has lost at least one person to the war.

Think about the trauma of a long-running war on the children. Their childhood snatched from them. No education. No play. No employment. No future to look forward to. No hope. And the cycle of violence and death playing itself out incessantly in front of their young eyes - all the essential ingredients to incubate assembly-line suicide bombers.

We should stop pretending this is "their" problem - it's now "our" problem. Children know no barriers of geography, race, religion, or colour. They are children of the world.

Will 2008 be the year that we give our children a reason to live and not a reason to die?

Radio ga-ga

It was 5:30 a.m. The RJ had floored the gas pedal on his motorized mouth. Listening to him talk made me gasp for air. He bantered with his colleague in 5 languages as his breathless listeners tried to keep pace. I wanted to throttle him. How can you be happy at 5:30 in the morning? Between them, he and his colleague gave their listeners some pretty useful information. Like if you sprayed perfume on a grizzly, his fur would turn purple. Of course if you did that, everything would turn purple for you, so please don’t try it. I wondered why RJs didn’t come with a statutory warning. Their inescapable verbal violence was turning me into a palpitating schizophrenic with racing thoughts. For example: I was now imagining a perfumed purple-fur grizzly waltzing into the radio station and tickling the bejeezus out of the chattering RJ. Suddenly, Elton Jane began serenading us with “Circle of Life.” Just when he hit his highest note (suhhhhhh-kle), they cut him off and went into ad break. “Tonight, Shekar Gupta walks the talk with Karunanidhi” the announcer boomed enthusiastically. It was hard to get excited. DMK’s answer to Lord Rama could neither walk nor talk. The RJ bounced in. “And –duh-welcome back!” he yelled needlessly. Hello! You welcome back. I didn’t go anywhere. The RJ now had a caller on line who wanted to share his ‘most embarrassing moment’ with the world (isn’t anything sacred anymore?) for which he hoped to win a prize – can you think of anything more embarrassing than that? Dressed to the nines on his way to an off-limits celebrity event, the man had slipped in wet slush. “Nothing is slimier than wet slush,” he concluded soberly having learnt his lesson well. ‘You haven’t met Deve Gowda, have you?’ I thought. The RJ then brought on a spiritual guru, a life coach who began by saying, “Attachment to material things is the root of all misery. Practice detachment.” For a moment, I considered taking his advice and smashing the radio to smithereens. “Be calm in the face of provocation,” he continued. Okay, so I could play Beethoven while I gently pounded the radio with a hammer and a smile. There was only one problem: It was not my radio, I was in a moving vehicle on my way to work. I suddenly understood why Tarzan was such a happy man – he had his own transport and he sang his own songs. “Did you know mosquitoes have teeth?” the RJ asked brightly interrupting my thoughts. My mind raced away: Did mosquitoes get dental checks? If they bit diabetics long enough, would they have dental caries? Did they brush?.....
By the time I got to work, I was wide-eyed and dizzy and desperately need a nap...and that’s when you saw me. So, that’s the story. Now, please, I want my job back.

For Mozart, press 5

"For customer service, press 1.
For your bank statement, press 2.
For your account balance, press 3.
For money transfer, press 4.
Or wait for operator's assistance"
I waited.
"Sasha, Customer Service Executive. May I help you?"
"Hello?" I said cautiously.
"Hello."
"Hello?" I said again.
"Hello!"
"Hello?" I said a third time.
"Yes! Hello! What can I do for you?"
I exhaled. Satisfied I was talking to a live human being, I said, "My name is Aparna Muralidhar..."
"Yes Sir?"
I winced. "I want "stop payment" issued..."
"One moment, Sir" she said and put me on Mozart.
I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes. A cheery image flashed across my mind's eye. I was skipping happily and singing "Joy to the World" in a brightly lit hall while I twisted Sasha's arm behind her back and held her head under water. I shook my head and the image passed. Mozart was interrupted.
"Raja, Customer Care Executive. May I help you?"
"Yes. My name is Aparna Muralidhar. I want stop payment..."
"Your account number Sir?"
"MISS!! M-I-S-S, MISS!!" I hissed.
"Sorry, there's no such number. Thank you for calling customer care. Have a good day Sir," he hung up.
I hung up calmly and dunked my head in the bucket of cold water that I always keep beside me when I call the bank. I wrapped a towel around my head, counted to 10, and dialled again.
"For customer service, press 1.
For your bank statement, press 2.
For your account balance, press 3.
For money transfer, press 4.
Or wait for operator's assistance"
I waited.
"Sasha, Customer Service Executive. May I help you?"
"Yes, I had called just now regarding stop payment..."
"One moment, Sir. I'll transfer your call..." Mozart.
"Raja, Customer Care Executive. May I help you?"
"Yes. My name is Aparna Muralidhar. My account number is..." I recited the 10-digit number. "I've issued a cheque that I want..."
"One moment Sir...yes, I have your account."
'Congratulations you twerp,' I thought. "As I was saying..."
"What is your birth date Sir?"
"8/5/1972 Madam" I sneered.
"And how old are you Sir?" He was apparently happy to belong to either gender.
"872 years Madam."
"One moment Mrs. Muralidhar...."
"MISS, MISS, MISS!!!! What are you? DEAF!?!?" I shrieked.
"Sorry Ms. Muralidhar. What can I do for you Sir?"
"I want to issue stop payment on a cheque," I said wearily.
"You'll have to speak to my colleague. I'll transfer the call, Sir..." Mozart.
"Keerti, Customer Relations Officer. Can I help you?"
"I hope so. Look, I've narrated this story thrice already. I just want a cheque to be stopped from being encashed..."
"Your account number Ma'am?"
I gave her the number.
"Cheque number, Ma'am?" At last we were getting somewhere.
"Sorry Ma'am, it's just been debited from your account a minute ago. Thank you for calling Customer Service Ma'am. Have a nice day."
You bet.
I counted to 10 and called the bank again. I was determined to have a nice day. When Sasha came on line, I said, "There's a bomb strapped to your chair, you twit. If you so much as breathe, they'll have to scrape you off the walls."
"One moment Sir," she said and put me on Mozart.

Coming Home to Roost (or Somebody Please Pinch America)

In 1973, America was brought to her knees by an incensed Saudi Arabia which imposed a total oil embargo on the US, punishing the superpower for siding with Israel in the Yom Kippur war. The short-lived embargo caused America to have a full-blown panic attack. Her concern over Middle-East oil dependence now turned into an obsession. Almost as soon as the embargo was lifted in March 1974, America struck a deal with Saudi Arabia. The House of Saud was wooed with political, economic, and technological support (and if required military protection) for its continued rule and the "modernization" of the Saudi Kingdom. The ancient desert land would be converted into an oasis of unrivalled wealth and opulence. The House of Saud would rule forever. In exchange for uninterrupted oil supply. It was an irresistible deal for the Saudis with their volatile neighbours, lack of military might, and plenty of oil. America's corporates went ballistic in giving the desert kingdom an image makeover. World class goods, services, and facilities soon turned Saudi into a mecca of every luxury that money could buy. It also gave the new generation of Saudis access to the best education system in the West. Their lifestyles changed. They moved away from the traditional Wahabi culture of puritanism, modesty, humility, and submission to their faith and became brazenly materialistic which was an affront to the conservative Wahabis and angered them greatly. One man was witness to the "deal of the century" between Saudi Arabia and America: John Perkins.

For over a decade, Perkins worked as an economic hit man for the American government. His job was to assist in what he terms America's "empire building" - not by military conquest but by economic conquest. America's empire builders are differently attired warriors whose battles are fought in corporate boardrooms and financial institutions around the world. In his book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," Perkins describes in shocking and sometimes morbidly fascinating detail America's modus operandi that catapulted her to Sole Superpower status.

Economic hit men are academically brilliant economists who cook the books of Third World economies to produce over-inflated and mostly falsified data to justify granting of huge loans by American controlled international financial institutions to desperately poor countries in a supposed bid to modernize them and bring them into the mainstream. Mammoth infrastructure, electrification, and engineering projects are undertaken by American corporates. In reality, the returns from these projects will never be enough to repay the loans. Once the countries are mired in debts that they cannot repay, America calls in her "pound of flesh" in the form of access to natural resources, crucial votes in international political bodies, trade concessions, and land for military bases. What follows is large scale land and resource grabbing, destruction of ecosystems and indigenous cultures. As an economic hit man, Perkins has seen plenty of economies spill their guts; he's helped rip apart some of them. In Indonesia, Columbia, Panama, Venezuela, Guatemala, Ecuador, Iran, and Iraq, Perkins describes the rise and fall of regimes at America's whims.

When the economic hit men run into opposition, the jackals step in to try and bring their opponents around with threats and bribes. If they fail, the CIA arranges for the opponent's permanent disposal. Latin and South American history books are littered with dead heroes who took on American "corporatocracy." Omar Torrijos of Panama, Salvador Allende of Chile, Jaime Roldos of Ecuador, Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala...Perkins tells their stories - their struggles, their heroism, their martyrdom all of which proved too little to halt the roll of the juggernaut. If the jackals fail, the American military steps in to forcefully take what doesn't rightfully belong to America - in unprovoked acts of aggression against civilian populations that pose no threat to the United States...like they did in Iraq. America's ill-advised misadventures in Middle Eastern politics is now legendary. She's saddled with Israel who she can't offload because of domestic compulsions, and she's never going to be trusted by the Arabs because of the Israeli albatross around her neck. Decades of tight-rope walking have taken their toll on America, and her growing impatience has made her impulsive and foolish in the Middle East.

Perkins' cathartic outpouring reads like a story searching the landscape for a place to wash off the blood on his own hands. Perkins sketches Roldos and Torrijos with boyish admiration and a yearning envy of their courage of conviction - something he readily admits he lacked for a good part of his career. His story forces the reader to face his/her own culpability in driving our world to the brink of disaster. Every page in Perkins' book underlines the power of the individual and is a subtle call to the reader to be the change that we seek in our world; it forces us to acknowledge that each of us can make a difference for better or for worse, and Perkins comes away with a heightened awareness of this truth from his encounters with the characters in his book.

Having interacted with the people in Third World countries he was assigned to, Perkins knows that they are not anti-democracy, anti-progress, or anti-America. They are anti-greed. They resent a foreign economy's intrusive barge-in. It doesn't help that America is usually clueless about the cultural complexities she barges into. They resent the dollar's purchasing power that corrupts natives and pushes those on the fringes, off the cliff entirely. It angers them that when they oppose America in their own land, her characteristic response is "Go jump." Perkins describes the corporatocracy as a marauding giant that devours 25% of the Earth's resources while comprising only 5% of its population. America teaches and rewards reckless wantoness and has become a society that judges its people not by what they are but by what they have. "The lives of those who "make it" and their accoutrements - their mansions, yachts, and private jets - are presented as models to inspire us all to consume, consume, consume. Every opportunity is taken to convince us that purchasing things is our civic duty, that pillaging the earth is good for the economy and therefore serves our higher interests," says Perkins of a society where more is less. He describes this blood-thirsty quest for global dominance as "a monstrous machine that requires exponentially increasing amounts of fuel and maintenance so much so that in the end, it will have consumed everything in sight and will be left with no choice but to devour itself."

In the same world, 24,000 people die of hunger every single day; 12 million American families are unsure of their next meal; 30% of the world's pollution is caused by America's rogue corporates who have contributed significantly to punching the ozone hole. When nature hits back, the whole world pays for America's myopic self-indulgence.

In Indonesia, Perkins meets a University student who tells him: "Stop being so greedy and selfish. Realize there is more to the world than your big houses and fancy stores. People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars. Babies are dying of thirst and you search the fashion magazines for the latest styles...You shut your ears to the voices of those who try to tell you these things. You label them radicals or communists. You must open your hearts to the poor and downtrodden instead of driving them further into poverty and servitude. There's not much time left. If you don't change, you're doomed."

A proud ignoramus, America knows little and cares even less about the world she inhabits. A genuine lack of knowledge and interest in other cultures allows Americans to believe that in all matters of governance and economics, America knows best. Her hyperbolic rhetoric and her "it's either my way or the highway" approach to all negotiations fails to factor in aspects of culture, religion, tradition, and other complex regional forces that influence the politics and the economics of a society; that democracy and capitalism as she knows and practices it is not the "one size fits all" solution to all the grey-shaded ills of the world. Leading a blinkered, self-centered existence, with a stubborn petulance that demands the world's indulgence, she invites the wrath of extremism against her citizens and to her shores. Labelling this wrath fundamentalism-terrorism-communism, America is happy to bracket the phenomenon and play aggrieved victim to the hilt while never acknowledging her own role in its growth.

In 1977, on one of his visits to Iran, Perkins meets Yamin a proud Persian trying to save the sanctity of his land from the Shah's sellout. Iran's beautiful mountainous desert land is as old and complex as its civilization. "The desert is a symbol," Yamin tells Perkins. The Shah who has been installed after America has overthrown Iran's democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh, is lording over Iran. Openly pro-American, the Shah has sold the beautiful desert land (and his soul) to the corporatocracy. A Flowering Desert project is underway to green the desert. The corporates will make a killing, but to Yamin and his countrymen, the desert is not an opportunity for exploitation. It is a sacred relationship between the Beduouins and their beloved land. "The desert is our environment. The Flowering Desert project threatens nothing less than the destruction of our entire fabric. How can we allow this to happen?...We are the desert," says Yamin passionately. His words fall on deaf ears till Ayatollah Khomeni and his clerics instigate a riotous and violent street uprising to snatch Iran from the hands of the Shah. The Shah is forced flee to Egypt and then to America to escape the murderous rage of the Ayatollah.

It would be unfair to attribute all of America's success to corporate greed. Victims of humanitarian crises around the world have been beneficiaries of American altruism for decades. Her unconditional respect and recognition of merit and hard work has made America home to millions of non-Americans. America's impressive roll-call of innovators in every field is a tribute to her legacy of nuturing and rewarding individual creativity. She has it made and she's willing to share her wealth and success with all those who keep her banner flying high. Usually fair and impartial in her judgements in her own land, America's vibrant democracy affords her citizens a genuinely optimistic chance to constantly better their lives. She celebrates not just individual successes but glorious comebacks as well. She loves to pull people out of the dumps, dust them over, give them a second shot at the "American Dream" and cheer them from the sidelines as they come in for their home run. All this keeps her forever young, bold, and creative - a reputation that she guards jealously. It also makes her terribly restless and willing to do whatever it takes to stay Numero Uno - including crossing her shores to find the resources that will keep her keeping on. America is benevolent and beautiful but only as long as she stays home.

America has never had a distinct culture of her own in her 2-century-old existency. Dubbed the melting pot of the world, she makes up her culture as she goes along. Now is Nirvana. Her insensitive meddling with cultures that are as old as civilization itself is regarded as an unconscionable transgression by the more conservative keepers of their cultures. When the clash threatens a value system, reactionary rage is bound to throw up die-hard defenders of their faiths and lands. Rampaging the earth on the lookout for the next big buy, America has managed to make the "American Dream" a global nightmare with entire societies trying desperately to keep up with the Joneses. Technological leaps in communication (and the CIA's own declassifed documents) have now made it possible for everyone to see what's happening everywhere. And there are plenty of people who don't like what they see and have access to the same technology to demonstrate how offended they are. In the much cliched "global village" there are no more well-kept secrets. So now, the chickens are coming home to roost.

"On May 7, 2003, a group of American lawyers representing more than thirty thousand indigenous Ecuadorian people filed a $1 billion lawsuit...against ChevronTexaco Crop. The suit asserts that between 1971 and 1992, the oil giant dumped into open holes and rivers over four million gallons per day of toxic waste water contaminated with oil, heavy metals, and carcinogens, and the company left behind nearly 350 uncovered waste pits that continue to kill both people and animals."

With her history of engineered assassinations and political coups in foreign lands to serve her own interests, her unprovoked aggression against weaker societies to enslave their resources, her brazen mining of the Earth's resources beyond her own shores, her bull in a china shop stomping on delicate toes, aggressive trading tactics, and gluttonous greed, America wonders (seemingly innocently) why the world loves to hate her. Perhaps it's time the world gave America a wake-up pinch.

"Is There A God?"

Manmohan Singh: Yes, and I am her most faithful servant.

Nicolas Sarkozy: Only in France.

Sanjay Dutt: I hope so.

China: No, but if you place an order we can make Him.

George Bush: I am He. Duh.

Salman Khan: There'd better be.

CPM: We're not saying there is no God. We're just saying show us the proof there is.

Arun Jaitley: I cannot comment as the matter is sub judice.

Hillary Clinton: Ask me next year.

Mamata Banerjee: I am the proof.

Hugo Chavez: I don't know about God. But there is a devil who thinks he's God.

Woody Allen: I don't know yet. I'm trying find out in my next film titled 'Who allowed the Devil to wear Prada?'


Kapil Sibal: If there is, how do you explain Arun Jaitley?

Dick Cheney: Maybe...at an undisclosed location.

Pervez Mussharaf: You tell me.


Fidel Castro: Where?

There's still hope...

Secularism comes naturally when geography and economics don't allow it to be any other way - like India where each state is practically a country of its own, foreign to its neighbour in language, culture, customs, food, clothes - there's no unifying factor, no common denominator for "being Indian." Yet, we've lived for centuries in mostly peaceful coexistence. Because of this diversity within our own land, we have learnt tolerance better than any other race in the world. Instances of bigotry have been fewer than you would expect in such a diverse nation with abysmal literacy and employment rates. Being "Third World" has helped to a large extent to make us more tolerant. Economic and societal compulsions force us to share limited space with different kinds of people. There is no money (or MasterCard) to buy ourselves a better life without our neighbours whom we might hate but cannot choose, so we learn to love our neighbours. We're still dependent on one another in more ways than people in more developed countries where money can get you into a better neighbourhood if you don't like your present one. This luxury decreases everybody's tolerance levels. Urban India hosts multitudes of rural immigrants who've flocked to cities in search of better lives. Away from their homes in an alien land, with no money or work, they turn to each other for support. When you don't have money, you don't care if you're a Bengali, a Kannadiga, a Malayali, or a Gujarati; what you are first is Poor, then you're Indian/secular poor Indian who is keeping our democracy alive. While the likes of me will blog about it from within the warm confines of my room, it's the secular poor Indian who is trudging to caste his vote to throw out non-performing elected reprsentatives and bring in new ones; they do it because they have more at stake than we do. To the middle-class Indian, it makes no difference who's ruling. To the poor secular Indian, it does, so while I blog about it, my fellow countrymen quietly walk the talk. That's why there's still hope...

The Journal of the One-legged Hopper

I've just about had it with this city's traffic. I've found a new mode of transport. It's called the One-legged Hippity Hippity Hop. All you need is a pair of good legs.
No driving license, no parking hassles, no traffic lights - it's your ticket to anywhere anytime.

Monday August 16, 2007, 9:30 a.m.: I've just hopped into an air-conditioned office where the receptionist (a cross between Jennifer Aniston and Shilpa Shetty) gives me a head-to-foot once over. "I want to see your manager," I rasp breathlessly. She gets up, she's chewing gum, she's been poured into her clothes, and she never takes her eyes off me till she ducks around the corner and trills "There's a kangaroo in to see you."

Monday August 16, 2007, 5 p.m.: I'm hippitying to the grocery about half a kilometer away when a car zips past next to me, a window rolls down, and I'm showered with coins. "HEYYYYY!" I scream "Come back, come back. Look, look," I jump up and down with both legs and I thank God I can't see myself. I pick up the coins, count the change, and pocket it.

Tuesday August 17, 2007, 11 a.m.: I've hippited in to a gift shop. Everyone stares at my left leg which I've folded backwards 90 degrees at the knee and forgotten to lower. I decide to brazen it. I point at my legs and shrug and twitter. Everyone shrugs. No one twitters though.

Wednesday August 18, 2007, 9:45 a.m.: I'm in a mall. I've come to the parking lot and I put my legs down and sit down to rest. The security guy blows his whistle angrily at me. I get mad. I mime a steering wheel and back out in reverse humming "Here comes the bride" on the top of my lungs. Then, I shift gears, zoom in again, park, and jump out of my air car. "Happy?" I snarl. His whistle and jaw drop. I go back and lock my car.

Thursday August 19, 2007, 10:30 a.m.: I'm still hopping around in the cool mall, shifting legs every now and then. I get plenty of eyeballs and cat calls. I feel like a Babhi doll.

August 22, 2007, 9:30 a.m.: Oh, I think I missed 2 lunches and 2 dinners. This doesn't seem like such a good idea after all.

August 22, 2007, 5:30 p.m.: I'm in a shop looking for stilts...

Whodunit (yawn)

What's so surprising about CIA's alleged edits to Wikipedia entries? If you start a free-for-all online encyclopedia that people anywhere can contribute to and edit, it's hardly news that they do. Virgil Griffith, the CalTech graduate who developed the tracker is a self-confessed hacker. I wonder if the spotlight is turned in the wrong direction. If there's any surprise in all this, it's that the CIA has the time to edit an entry which someone else can edit again before you can say 'Wikipedia.'

Other red-faced boys caught with their hands in the cookie jar include Fox News, The Vatican, Wal-Mart, BBC, US Congress members' offices, and Diebold (interesting name for a voting machine vendor). Yeah right. We never heard of spin doctors before now.

BLOGPRINT - a contest for bloggers!

ATTENTION BLOGGERS WHO VISIT THIS BLOG

Sulekha.com in partnership with Penguin India introduces BLOGPRINT, a 6-month long contest starting August 1, 2007, and ending January 31, 2008. There are prizes to be won every week for 6 months. 52 of the best entries will be shortlisted to 25 by a jury. The 25 shortlists will get published in a Penguin book slated for a July 2008 release. Please log in to sulekha.com for details. Good luck! See you on sulekha!

Caveat emptor (or Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Other People's Happiness)

The India-US nuclear deal is a business deal, not a political one. Business deals are made with profits in mind. No one cares how you make the profit. Morals are for morons and rules are for fools. Even patriotism has no place in a business deal and if we're dealing with America Inc., we should be prepared to roll up our sleeves and dig in for a long night.

We cut a deal when we opened up the economy in 1991 because we had our backs to the wall - we couldn't get down any lower than we'd sunk and the only way up was if Indian and foreign private investors pulled us out of the frog well we had dug ourselves into which they thankfully did with aplomb. In 1991, that was the right thing to do, and it's done wonders for our economy (of course, it obliterated an entire class of people in the bargain, but who cares? We can't see them and we can't hear them anyway). More importantly, it's done wonders for 'being Indian.' It's not easy to command respect for intellect and we've won that from the world community. Most of all, it has made the double-faced "socialists" (at least the Nehruvian variety) completely irrelevant - they have now become a stupid joke that we're desperately trying to hide and forget. I still remember our shock when we first learned that foreign investment would be allowed in banks and the insurance sector. Today, foreign banks are in direct competition with our nationalized banks - an unthinkable thought even as recently as in the 80s. Banking has no doubt been transformed from what it used to be traditionally, but the customer is happy with the choice. This is true of every sector and all products. Competition is the only thing that will improve quality in products and in services. All fine till now.

What we perhaps should not have done is put all our eggs in one basket: that of America's. Not only did we put our eggs in, we've given away the basket for America to hold, and now God help us if she drops the basket. America is a brilliant economic success story, and she got that way by driving a hard bargain. Everything in America is driven by their business - includng their politics. America is a good economic partner to trade with as long as she's one of many trade partners. As a trade partner, America has simply thrown a whole lot of goods and services into economies around the world and then barged in right behind with her promise of a dream. For countries like India, used to decades of monopoly, lack of competitiveness or competition, and Mother Russia's "socialist" crap that was bandied about as God's word, a little thing like this sudden flood of quality goods into the market was enough to turn on the lights. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of other people's happiness won America instant friends and foes (of course, all of America's foes were her one time friends and vice-versa).

America will hawk her dreams to the highest bidder and you can't expect her to do business any other way. Remember Godfather? "It's nothing personal." But what happened to our caveat emptor? We are a young country, and there is plenty of opportunity for us to learn from the history of the world. We should've looked at other business partners too; we should've looked at other econmies that took this path before us and learnt our lessons well - we should've spread our risk.

I was watching a YouTube video of John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" speaking at the Veterans for Peace National Conference in Seattle last year. Perkins says America comprises 5% of the world's population, but they use 25% of the world's resources (twenty-five percent) and cause 30% of its pollution. To me, it's not shocking that America does this but that she gets away - that the rest of the world, the other 95% cannot tame a brat. We can't because we're too tied in with her.

Now for the nuke deal: So we let America in. Today, America's business stakes in India are very high, so she's stepping in to look after herself. All this talk of "strategic partnership" and a new world order is a lot of hogwash. Let's just suppose America was not in the Indian economy as much as she is today. Would she have signed a deal with us to ensure continuous energy supply to India? Of course not! Why would she? Why should she? America doesn't owe us a living but because we forgot our caveat emptor clause, now we owe her a living. Unfortnately, America lives life king size. And of course, there's a throw-in sideshow: Is there a better way of keeping India-China-Pakistan at each other's throats than to sign a civilian nuclear energy cooperation deal with India, supply arms to Pakistan, and create an exaggerated China label scare? ("Duck! The Chinese are coming! They have lead in their toys!")

We let America in. That's what we needed to do nearly 2 decades ago. We have to believe that what we did when we did it was the right thing to do. Now, we have to live with the consequences. There is no doubt that the deal benefits India in many ways. In fact, staying out of the non-proliferation treaty and getting a 30-year nuclear technology embargo revoked are in themselves no mean achievements. We've also retained our right to reprocess fuel for civilian use. It's not the bail-out that it's being made out to be by the Left (yes, the same jokers we're desperately trying to hide and forget). We have to face the fact that our energy demands will in the very near future outstrip supply and if that is allowed to happen, there is a real danger that the economy will tank, so this is a good deal for us too, but if we're looking for an even-handed deal, we're dealing with the wrong market...and the wrong goods. For those who are worried about hidden landmines, we know they will be there. All business deals have fine print. The question is whether we're worried about the author or the story. If it's the author that we're worried about, it's a little late in the day (only 20 years late). If it's the story, we shouldn't worry - afterall, pussyfooting around hidden landmines is an Indian art form.

Living in a well-wired world

Unless a big fat Bollywood wedding happens sometime soon, we're unlikely to be rid of Sanjay Dutt's sorry plight being shoved down our resistant throats by TV channels, newspapers, and magazines. Haneef is a smart guy. He couldn't have picked a better time to land in India. Had he landed after Dutt's wave-and-swagger jail entry, the media would've by now thrust a microphone into his days-old daughter's face and had experts in their studios interpreting her gurgles. In their race to upstage one another, the visual media especially has managed to equate the sublime with the ridiculous: At 9 p.m. IST, all are equal. And every news item whether newsworthy or not, deserves a panel discussion with pro and anti issue panelists along with the hysterical anchor creating a screeching din which can set off a lively debate in your own drawing room where the family is eating in front of the TV and happens to be divided on the issue. Virtually everyone can now express themselves, be heard and read; you can record your antics on a camera and put yourself up for show; you can blog and be boqueted and/or brick-batted; you can read on any issue happening in any corner of the world, form an opinion, and mouth it. This is a freedom most of us are determined to enjoy (including yours truly) which has got people everywhere talking more than ever before but it really hasn't dulled our prejudices - the opportunity to know more hasn't necessarily made us more broad-minded or accepting of one another; we're just more aware now that there are more people than we suspected around us who we dislike and who dislike us and, horror of horrors, we can't do much about it. We've heard it said forever that communication promotes better understanding - there's very little evidence that this hypothesis is true; if there has ever been better understanding between peoples due to communication it's usually been to serve a specific purpose. If you and I can be mutually beneficial to each other in some way, we're more likely to cooperate and put up a pretence of understanding and accepting each other. The benefits of living in a well-wired world are plenty but the wires do short circuit frequently.

Dr. Wayne Dyer - 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace

I just finished reading Dr. Wayne Dyer's 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace. It's a good book to read - like most books on elusive concepts that human beings hanker after. If Dr. Dyer's success in his chosen field is any indication, it's evident that these secrets work. Here are his 10 secrets:

1. Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing.
2. Don't die with your music still in you.
3. You can't give away what you don't have.
4. Embrace silence.
5. Give up your personal history.
6. You can't solve a problem with the same mind that created it.
7. There are no justified resentments.
8. Treat yourself as if you already are what you'd like to be.
9. Treasure your divinity.
10. Wisdom is avoiding all thoughts that weaken you.

I enjoyed reading the book - Dr. Dyer has devouted a chapter to each of his secrets, but I'm not sure I came away feeling peaceful. If anything, I felt more restless than before I picked up this book because I can't really follow most of these; either I'm a real McCoy rotten apple of the human race or these formulas are hopelessly simplistic. I'm sure I don't want to die with my music still in me but that's hardly a secret; Thoreau said in the 19th century that most of us "lead lives of quiet desperation" which translates to the same thing. "There are no justified resentments"? Really? That's a hard one to swallow. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but this book threw up more questions for me than it answered. I think I should take the safe way out and "embrace silence."

When Cultures Collide

In the Zulu language, there are 39 words for the colour green. A green leaf in the sun has a different word from a green leaf in the shade; a moist green leaf is different from a wet green which is different from a bone dry green which is different from green at a distance of 10 feet which is different from green at 10 feet with one eye closed...in English, there's just "green" with a few adjectives to describe its different shades. An Englishman therefore can never understand or experience "green" in the same way that a Zulu can. Our language defines our understanding of the world in more ways than we can consciously acknowledge because human beings think in their language. If people from different cultures cannot experience "green" in the same way, is it any wonder that so many nations of the world are at loggerheads? Wars - on battlefields, on sports fields, and in boardrooms - happen when cultures collide.

"When Cultures Collide" written by Richard D Lewis is a fascinating and absorbing read about the peoples of our world. In dynamically crafted language that is clever, fast-paced, and witty, Lewis documents how people dress, think, talk, act, and react to one another in different parts of the world. Spanning Latin America, the Arab countries, East and West Europe, the Balkans, the Nordic countries, America, Africa, Asia, and Australia, "When Cultures Collide" details in breathtaking richness and brevity, the customs, manners, morals, taboos, food habits, body language, values, thinking, listening, and communication patterns of this multi-cultural world. Its gripping pace makes "When Cultures Collide," the best non-fiction page-turner that I've ever read. Lewis subtitles his book 'Managing Successfully Across Cultures,' and his book is written mainly from a business perspective but it couldn't be more relevant in today's strife-ridden world where the closer we're thrown together, the further we seem to pull away from one another.

Throughout the book, cultures collide in delightfully comic ways with hyperbolic Americans, diplomatic Japanese, self-effacing Englishmen, no-nonense Germans, proud Arabs, and the self-absorbed French trying to get along inside and outside the boardroom.

How do the Germans and the Japanese, the Finns and the British, or the Chinese and the Italians strike a business deal when "for a German and a Finn, the truth is the truth. In Japan and Britain, it's alright if it doesn't rock the boat. In China, there is no absolute truth. In Italy, it is negotiable"? For the Japanese, honour is supreme - they should not lose face (and they shouldn't be seen to make you lose yours) - and that's more important than "truth" as a German sees it; a German will call a spade a spade but if an American uses that expression on him, he'll take it quite literally and probably look around the room for a gardening tool. An Italian thinks truth depends on the situation - if a lie serves your purpose, then that is the truth: it's better to be practical and get what you want than be "truthful" and stupid.

Different cultures respect different values. A punctual Swiss or a German will not be amused by the laid back, impulsive, improvising-by-the-minute Brazilian or Spaniard who will arrive at a cocktail party 2 hours after the appointed hour (with a friend, trying to conclude a deal they began last week). This wrecks the carefully planned Swiss or German timetable. The opportunistic, fast-talking American likes to cut a deal at the first meeting; Arabs, Russians, Japanese, and Chinese like to build personal trust before they build a business and will find Americans "who will forget your name the day after the deal is made" extremely rude and insulting.

The fatalistic Indian's karmic concept of time (if things don't happen at the appointed time, they eventually will...some time...maybe in another reincarnation), the "no-manual-for-correct-behaviour" Aussies, the Mexican's loquacious rhetoric, Danish congeniality, and the low-key Canadians - all jostle for space when cultures collide.

Richard Lewis' riveting study of human behaviour across the globe is recommended reading for anyone interested in being a global citizen; if you're not interested, you will be once you pick up this book.

ABHOSTTBBLO continues....

Autorickshaw - a 3-wheeler public transport buggy; 'autos' are the only motorized vehicles that can simulate a horse ride without a saddle in the Andes on a horse that's trying to get away from gun fire. Alien to human emotions, 90-degree angles, and the rule book, auto drivers perch at angles ranging from 45 to 65 degrees to give their carefully folded passengers a lively and unforgettable ride through urban India's it's-all-happening-here streets.

Peace of mind - a concept made scarce by George Bush, peace of mind is now the hottest selling topic for wannabe writers. Peace of mind is something you have until the moment you pick up a book on it. There's no absolute peace of mind - it just depends on who's trying to define it where. In Iraq, Afghanistan, parts of Africa, Pakistan, and the "West Bank," peace of mind means not getting killed; in the rest of the world, it means not knowing who's getting killed where; in America, peace of mind means killing everyone everywhere while skipping around the world with a goofy smile, a twinkle in your eye, and bombastic rhetoric. In Italy, it's watching someone at the lunch table being garrotted with a piano wire while licking pasta off your fingers and crying with the opera soprano. In the Arctic, no one knows or cares what peace or mind is which of course is true peace of mind.

Stock market - one of modern day's greatest mysteries, the stock market can take entire economies to the cleaners simply because it rained in Timbuktu while semi-paralyzed men in drenched shirts, loosened ties, and glazed eyes have fingernails for lunch and heart attacks for dinner trying to understand why the Dow Jones cannot behave as ordinary as it sounds.

Global warming - this new-age terrorist dumps ice and snow in deserts, dunks England's head in the swimming pool, unleashes winds that can transport Japan to China, and excites stock markets all over the world; has redefined "weapons of mass destruction" but has been unable to rearrange the molecules that make up George Bush.

Maverick

When Ricardo Semler inheritted his father's company, Semco, the employees expected a dyed-in-the-wool Semler Senior clone who navigated his ship with absolute authority and control. Ricardo Semler turned every rule in the book on its head and finally threw out the rule book tself to make Brazil's Semco the world's most "unusual workplace" which has a 2000-long recruitment waiting list.

Semler's overhaul hinged on workplace democracy, a concept that is ad-libbed by most big organizations but is little more than hot air. In most immature companies, workplace democracy functions pretty much like Indian democracy: I'm the boss so regardless of how stupid I am in my head, you will do what I say. You're free to disagree but that's where your freedom ends. I give you the right to disagree and reserve the right to ignore you.

Semler started by talking to his employees and listening to them - really listening to them, forgetting for a moment that he is the boss - and then taking every single critical decision that he had to make, to a democratic vote by his employees. He trusted that his workers knew more than him because they actually worked. He also knew that for employees to trust him, HE had to trust THEM first. Building trust slowly, distributing decision making democratically, practising absolute transparency in every single department, and finally literally throwing away the verbose company manuals that dictate an employee's every breathing moment within company premises, Semler built an organization from which he could ultimately fire himself: He had so completely delegated decision making that most of his employees were jacks and masters of all trades having worked in many different Semco departments.

He never pretends the journey was easy. People mocked his vision, many were scared to empower their subordinates, some of his managers told him that the employees were not mature enough for such an experiment. Needeless to say, there were plenty of nay-sayers. Some ideas weren't as successful as he'd hoped but Semler tried them all; he jettisoned unsuitable baggage and hauled aboard those that could withstand the long haul. Ricardo Semler converted those he could; those he couldn't, he let them go and they ultimately found organizations that were more suited to their style of functioning in which they thrived.

Semler believes that true capitalism is true democracy. He is aware that workers are a company's biggest and almost only asset and every bit of profit the company makes belongs completely to the people who toil for it. Semco's profit sharing plan is devised by the employees - they decide who gets how much; employees set their own targets, their own bonuses, their own salaries and even have a say in choosing their bosses! Semco's books are completely open (and they don't have too many of them) and to show how serious Semler is about transparency, he has ensured that every single Semco employee down to the janitor knows how to read a balance sheet. Shunning cabins, hangers-on, ego massages, and other frills, Semler has ensured that he and his managers never lose touch with the people who make Semco what it is.

Semler realized early into his transformation exercise that managers typically dislike sharing information with the employees. This is true of most organizations. Supervisors feel their powers will somehow diminish if their subordinates know as much as they do. Semler's greatest challenge was to address this sense of insecurity among his managers. He did whatever was necessary to address the issue - talking to stubborn managers, convincing them to experiment with his ideas before rejecting them outright, converting some, hiring new thinkers, and throwing out those who didn't fit in.

The result is Semco, Brazil's most sought-after company by job seekers. Can there be a better tribute to an organization? Organizations must have the will and the vision to decide what their culture is going to be regardless of their size. Whether it has 10 employees or 10,000, the organization's culture cannot and should not change. For this to happen, employees must be involved and the only way to involve them is to simply involve them.

Semler says throughout his book how easy it is for big organizations to make a killing at the cost of their employees' health and happiness. These organizations typically follow a top-down heirarchy that always runs parallel to each other and never seems to meet at any point. They are inhabitted by people with different goals, different ideas, different interests. While this is desirable, Semler says it is absolutely imperative for everyone to be aligned at some point for the organization to grow in a healthy way. Unlike companies that obssess with all the trappings of democracy but never follow any real democracy though they constantly preach it, Semco walks the talk. Their idea of democracy is not limited to allowing employees to call their bosses by their first names and keeping their cabin doors open but discouraging anyone from walking through the doors by isolating themselves in their beloved cabins.

Organizations may argue that it is impossible to sustain Ricardo Semler's concept of worker empowerment as the organization grows. Semler has demonstrated that when it comes to using common sense and being a good employer, size doesn't really matter.

Ricardo Semler's "Maverick" is a must-read for all company bosses who are serious about workplace democracy.

When God Winks

In "When God Winks," SQuire Rushnell talks about the "power of coincidence" that "guides your life." Having "interviewed scores of people and researched hundreds of coincidence stories in hopes that a new perspective on such synchronistic events would help others enrich their own lives," Rushnell is convinced beyond doubt that through the course of all our lives, God winks at us a million times - a God wink is what we call a "coincidence."

Rushnell's introductory chapter in "When God Winks" ends with a section titled "My promise to you"
"First, you are under the influence of a cosmic guidance system, and every day you receive little nudges to keep you on your chosen path.
Second, tracking the coincidences in your past will create an astonishingly lucid account of your life, while providing clarity to the grand possibilities on the road ahead.
Third, you can learn to harness the power of coincidences to enrich your future and to strengthen your inner convictions that the life path you've chosen is indeed the right path for you.
Lastly, you'll see that coincidences happen for a reason, and that's to let you know one thing: You are not alone."

Over the course of the book, Rushnell relates numerous career coincidences, relationship coincidences, spiritual winks, Holocaust survivors' tales, lost and re-united stories that happened because of an amazing series of God winks, "the winks of dates," "the winks of numbers," nick-of-time winks, even "cosmic humour"! Rushnell has recorded a treasure of serendepities that God generously sprinkles on our paths in our life journey, most of which we even fail to notice. Rushnell tells his readers: "As you embark on this marvelous process of discovering the winks in your life, I ask you to keep your mind open to possibilities you have never imagined and to be prepared to take action steps toward goals and dreams that may now seem distant."

Do that and read "When God Winks" by SQuire Rushnell. If nothing else, it's comforting to know God has a sense of humour!

"What we think we become."

Humanity's greatest thinkers have saluted the power of the mind. The Buddha said "“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” All through mankind's history, philosphers, statesmen, even scientists have told us that the most powerful instrument available to human beings is their minds. It's scope is quite literally limitless. We don't need to look far to know this truth. We're surrounded by greatness and excellence - the man who first landed on the moon, the billionaire's empire built from scratch, demi-God sportpersons, inventors, those who achieved excellence in art - they're all people like you and me. They just stretched a little longer. ""What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds," says Wayne Dyer a "life coach" and motivational speaker. What keeps us from achieving our own greatness is our zombie-like everyday motions of existence which we have to come to believe and accept as our life. We exist in suspended animation, and one day--too soon--it's time to go home. We're scared of our dreams because we don't believe we can achieve them, so we clutter our mind with frivolous trivialities, argue for our limitations, nuture them carefully, and go from one failure to the next with a stoic stupidity that would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. We draw negativity to ourselves because we refuse to believe that good things can happen to us. If you constantly tell the Universe that you are its greatest liability, the Universe will agree; but if you free your mind completely of your self-perceived limitations, if you refuse to accept your own negativity and the negativity of others around you, if you constantly believe in your dream and work towards achieving it, if you just never ever give up, the Universe will respond to you in astonishing ways. Think about it! Nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible to you! There's no obstacle that doesn't hide a piece of the sun behind it, there's no failure without a lesson that you need to learn, and there really is no human weakness--not one--that you cannot quash if it stands in the path to your dreams. "Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observe your mind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy," says Eckhart Tolle, best-selling author of "The Power of Now." Believe it! NOTHING IS BEYOND YOU. Believe it completely. Drench your subconscious with this thought. Dare to dream your wildest dream and watch the Universe open its doors for you. But even for the Universe to do that, you have to be ready and you have to know when to walk through the door when it opens for you.

That 70's Show

When she was yanked out of obscurity and nominated as the UPA's presidential candidate, no one was more surprised than Pratibha Patil herself. Take a look:

Millions of Indians wrote in to newspapers, journals, magazines, blogs demanding a second term for Dr. Kalam, India's most popular President. Some went on air with their appeal. We were simply ignored. Democracy in India means giving us our right to express our opinions while reserving the right to ignore them completely; decision-making lies in the hands of the IMFH (Indian-made foreign husky).

A jellyfish will have more spine than our "Honourable" Prime Minister. With his watery face and bleating vocals, Manmohan Sing (does he need the 'h'?) has ensured that we will never be taken seriously in any international political forum even if we're now recognized as an emerging Asian economic power.

What we needed to complete the picture, of course, was a controversy-ridden, half dead, one-foot-in-the-grave, the-other-in-mouth fossil whom our unfortunate defence heads have to salute. Look at her again, ladies and gentlemen. Doesn't it make you swell with patriotic pride at our Commander-in-Chief! Then again, our defence minister is a dhothi-clad 5-foot nothing. There must be some karmic justice in all this somewhere. You just have to find it.

ABHOSTTBBLO continues...

Multi-tasking - A euphemism that means an inborn or acquired talent to ruin as many tasks as possible simultaneously. A multi-tasker is someone who can talk on the phone while cooking, watching the baby, and working on the computer. Obviously this someone is a woman who has the ability to watch milk boil over very calmly as she--again very calmly--tries to prevent her baby from eating a knife while her PC quietly self-destructs in a corner and her significant other watches WWF in a semi-conscious state. A man’s idea of multi-tasking is watching TV AND eating potato chips.

Indian National Congress - The Grand Old Party of Indian politics, INC Inc., is now a privately owned enterprise run by an IMFH (Indian made foreign husky). An organization of living debilitated fossils with virtually all of its young leaders 6 feet under, the defining character of INC Inc., is dementia.

Bollywood - A 5000-old Sanskrit term from India’s rich cultural heritage that means ‘dance,’ Bollywood is the name of the biggest movie-making industry in the world – the Hindi movie industry. It is also the only movie industry in the world where 5782 directors have used the same script to make 10,865 films with 50,847 songs, 50,847 dances in 3498 locations with 85,432 costumes. This script was written in 362 B.C. by a man who wore bearskin, had long straggly hair, and regularly clubbed women to death.

"Falls alarms, do not picnic"

The shrieking fire alarm made me jump out of my skin. RRRRUUUNNNN, RRRRUUUNNNNN, RRRRRUUUUUNNNN, it screeched urgently. Around me, people stared intently at their computers, chewed gum, chatted, laughed – they were oblivious to the fire alarm. I’ve always been intrigued by this: if they were caught in an unexpected downpour, the same people who now sat through the fire alarm chewing gum, would run out of the rain like they were heading for a bomb shelter. We treat a silly shower like an air raid siren and a fire alarm like a coffee break bell! We’d rather be burnt toast than be wet!! Had anyone ever heard of "priorities"!?! Did they expect the fire to walk up to their workstations, tap them on their shoulders and say "Hello! Shall we sizzle on the dance floor?"!?!?!? Had everybody gone MAD!?!?!?! (Did anyone notice the gradual upward rise in punctuations??????!!!!!?????)
As I worked myself up into a righteous fury, a message flashed across our screens: “Falls alarms, do not picnic.”
Then, a few seconds later: “FALSE ALARM, do not picnic.”
Well, well….and then: “Sorry, PANIC.”
“Panic, people, panic!” I yelled and bolted like a bat out of hell screaming “Fire!! Fire!! Run!! Run!!”
It was only after I had clattered down a full flight of stairs at supersonic speed that I realized
a) No one else had picnicked…or panicked…or whatever.
b) There was no fire alarm blaring.
c) My left hand was attached to someone’s right.
I turned and met a pair of icy eyes. “Whoa!” I yelped and staggered backwards, “Who are you?”
“My sentiments exactly,” the owner of the hand replied frostily. “Thank you for saving my life. Now, if you don’t mind….” she yanked her hand out of mine and turned on her heel and stomped out.
“You’re welcome,” I croaked.
I tried to slither back in unnoticed--I crouched and duck-walked but someone spotted me and called, “Welcome back!!” and I got a standing ovation. Where is that damn earthquake when I need it...!

MORAL OF STORY: 30 minutes a day 4 times a week, practise duck-walking.

Champagne anyone?

A workaholic, unabashedly right-wing and dubbed "nakedly ambitious" by the media, with an intriguing mix of Hungarian-Greek-Jewish blood. Five years ago, Nicolas Sarkozy would've got nothing more than a sniff and a raised French eyebrow. Even 2 years ago, when France voted an emphatic 'non' to the EU constitution, it's unlikely France would've been kind to Nicolas Sarkozy. Not today. In the frenzied debates over the now-on-holiday President elect's next move, what has perhaps excited the EU most about Sarkozy's election is the French electorate itself. It's a remarkable transformation - for a people who are used to demanding cake from the government when they can't earn their own bread. Almost alarmingly leftist with their comically funny 35-hour-week, France's stagnant economy has dulled EU's promising challenge to a growing U.S. and Indo-China economies.

In a world of muted tones, chic tastes, self-deprecating modesty, and fierce national sentiment, Nicolas Sarkozy's amazing run to top slot in a referendum that saw historic voter turnout has raised more than just France's eyebrows. Sarkozy typically doesn't possess any of these above qualities except of course French pride. Clearly France is ready for change and the French think Sarkozy is the man to turn it around for them. In his campaign, Sarkozy has unhesitatingly admitted that he intends to crack the whip where it needs cracking. He wants to send France to work. He wants the French to shape up or ship out. That couldn't have gone down too well with France's notorious labour unions. For a country that proudly wears its "socialist" tag on its sleeve while struggling with double-digit unemployment rates, is in a perpetual love-hate battle with its immigrants and frowns on raw ambition, Sarkozy's win reflects perhaps not just the yearning for a change but also France's turmoil as it tries to find its place in a world that's not so familiar anymore. Sarkozy's challenges will be very difficult to navigate and very closely watched by the EU.

Listening to Sarkozy's acceptance speech, you would think the whole world voted for his presidency. In an inspiring speech where he promised to be the President of "all the French" Sarkozy urged his countrymen to help him build an economy with greater free trade and cooperation with France's friends and neighbours that would help cement France's importance in the EU. Along with Germany and Britain, France is the most powerful member of the EU both economically and politically. Sarkozy has been largely inward-looking throughout his campaign. He has enough problems at home to worry too much about foreign policy but in his acceptance speech, he reached out tentatively to the outside world. Even then, his message was typically French: You can be my friend, but don't tell me what to do. Knowing what we do about Sarkozy, it's unlikely that his Jewish ancestry will in any way affect France's foreign policy toward the Middle-East - traditionally, France has treated all conflict everywhere with the same hands-off, bored diplomacy: We want peace and we want everyone to be happy. But that's not enough or even possible anymore even if most European countries now feel cushioned inside the Union and reluctant to follow any sort of aggressive foreign policy. Increasingly, every nation has been drawn into events like the Iraq war and climate change that have forced countries to have more than just an opinion about an issue.

Sarkozy, largely believed within France to be America's friend, was quick to emphasize in his speech that friends can and should have the right to differ in thought. Never a supporter of the Iraq war, Sarkozy called on America to take the lead in reversing global warming trends. His message was unmistakable - that the U.S. can no longer act exclusively in matters that concern itself and the rest of the world. Sarkozy was a lot more graceful in vitory to Segolene Royal than she was to him in defeat, but that's always been easier - the victor's grace.

Many leadership changes across the globe over the years have been termed 'exciting' but never has it been more true than with Nicolas Sarkozy's victory, making him France's first President born after World War II. For France, the EU, and indeed for the rest of the world, the Sarkozy presidency will be an exciting show to watch.

ABHOSTTBBLO continues...

Cell phones - mobile devices with which you can take pictures, listen to music, record events, send messages, play games, check your email, calculate sums, and watch a cricket match (if you're still interested). You can also make calls.

China - an Asian country that's so big, it's everybody's neighbour and nobody's friend. Having gotten a foot in the door of the world's economy, the Chinese are now in the active process of breaking down the door. From closet capitalists to closet socialists to plain in your closet, 'Made in China' is now a somebody-stop-me label on a 'the world is not enough' tour.

Cuba - a Caribbean Jerry that is a perpetual thorn in Uncle Tom's flesh. America's 4-decade embargo on Cuba makes U.S. trade with the island illegal. It's illegal for U.S. citizens to vist the island and for U.S. individuals or companies to do business there. In short, it's illegal for America or Americans to do anything with or in Cuba except run Guantanomo Bay. America's stated objective for the embargo is to bring (surprise, surprise) democracy to Cuba which (surprise, surprise, surprise) it has failed to do. Recently, large oil reserves have been found in North Cuba, now Tom suddenly wants to be Jerry's friend.

Venezuela - Cuba's new-found oil-rich friend that supplies around 80,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba which has helped make the embargo look like a long-running boring Hollywood flick that no one is watching. Venezuela has given the world many beauty queens and is a country where people keep chasing one another around the office block to become head of state. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has grabbed countless hours of air time calling President Bush colourful names including "the devil" in a speech at the UN General Assembly which was met with "wild applause" in the Assembly and severe condemnation in the U.S.

Rediffmail - an email service whose users belong to a large, happy, close-knit spamily where everyone is on first (and only) name basis. Rediffmail users can live their entire life within its inbox where they can shop, get a degree, go abroad, buy tickets, buy books, sell auto parts and body parts, buy movies, music, houses, insurance, hire, get hired, make friends, become a star, get married - all at bargain rates in limited offers.

A Brief History of Some Things that Bill Bryson left out

Volume 1 in an unknown-number series of a dictionary cum atlas cum encyclopedia

Summer - Long ago, summer was one of 4 seasons - the other 3 being winter, monsoon, and spring. Over the years, they all merged and became one season called Famine. But people the world over, didn't want a season called Famine - which is a combination of 'fashion' and 'feminine.' A few wars later, Afghansistan which was the only country that wanted the season to be called 'Famine,' gave up its demand after incessant bombings caused the country's first floods that had a free run in the territory simply because there was nothing and no one left standing to stop it and it was agreed unanimously to call this season Summer. There are varying degrees of Summer:
Mild Summer
Please-wring-my-blouse-again Summer
Have-you-caught-fire-yet? Summer and
Do-not-disturb, I'm-in-coma Summer

Bangalore - Not too long ago, Bangalore was India's prettiest city with an abundance of lakes, fountains, gardens, and a lovely climate. It changed all too quickly. Now, despite signboards at entry points being repainted "NOT Welcome to Bangalore" people continue to pour into this little city making it the world's largest open public toilet where everyone is driving around trying to park their cars, where there are more globs of spit than there are people, and where walking its streets is recommended only for contact sports fans.

Singapore - a squeaky clean city-state where long jump is banned in schools - the kids might fall into the sea or into Malaysia which just might be the third World War trigger. Singapore is apparently the most "business-friendly economy" in the world - it should be - Singapore's national passtime/national sport is shopping.

Japan - a work in progress quite literally with a population of extremely hard working people who never leave their assembly lines even when the earth shakes them up which it does every 5 minutes; they just smile, bow, and slow down. Tokyo, the capital of Japan, is the world's costliest city and built to survive any sort of earthquake - there's no place for people or buildings to fall.

Iran - a spunky little country where the star-spangled banner is the chief combustible material. It also produces oil and can toss a bomb quite far. When Iran recently released 15 British Navy personnel from custody for reasons unknown (of custody, not release), oil prices nose-dived indicating its power and clout in the world economy.

Iraq - Iran's neighbour and friend turned foe turned friend turned foe turned...also mighty spunky. The only country in the world where there are more human bombs than human beings which has left everyone (except America) wondering what OTHER weapons of mass destruction George Bush is looking for. Some people believe he's searching for Dick Cheney.

United States of America - the friendly neighbourhood rogue elephant that won't get out of your backyard, the USA's chief hobby is to create, protect, and destroy its own creations. A largely bored, ADHD-suffering population with a collective attention span of 2 seconds, America loves democracy but can't spell it, wants all the world's oil but won't pay for it, and is burning up the ozone faster than it's burning up Iraq but--like with Iraq--refuses to fix it. America also makes people rich and forgives them for some time for being rich because of it. The original master of hype, America is the only country in the world with its own tagline: "Coming soon to a theater near you!"

I Have a Dream

It was one of those days that hurtle from one Oh-my-God-disaster to the next and makes you want to crawl back into bed and sit out the sunset. On my 287th oh-my-God, a voice boomed: "Yes? You called?"
I spun around. "I'm God. What's your problem?" the voice asked.
"You," I said unhesitatingly as I crouched and looked under my cot, "you're the problem."
"Get up...what did I do?" the voice asked.
"What did You do!?! The world is upside down in case You haven't noticed. Don't You see the mess? What DIDN'T You do!" I checked under the chair, behind the doors, under the bed cover...
"That's MY problem. What's YOUR problem?"
"Everything. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I don't know what I want but it's definitely not this. I don't like this day. Nothing ever seems to go right. I feel homicidal."
"Okay. If I let you kill one person and get away with it, who would you want to kill that will help your days get better?"
I was shocked! "Only one!?!?" I said disbelieving.
"You're quite ambitious aren't you for someone who doesn't know what's going on?"
"If you're really God, I have some questions for you."
"Shoot."
"Do You answer everyone who says "Oh God!"? Why didn't You show up all these days? Did You really create George Bush? Why don't You stop people killing each other in Your name? Why do floods happen? And earthquakes, and tornadoes, and epidemics? Why do children die? Why was I born? What is the...."
"Whoa..whoa...will you stop already!" the voice boomed, "so this is all MY fault now?"
"Well, You should at least own moral responsibility and resign!"
"And then what? You'll take my place?"
"Hmmm...now, there's an original thought! I'm sure I'll do much better than Your current rep on earth, George Bush."
"Just for the record...someone--I don't know who--created George Bush when I logged out for a bathroom break."
"Just what I needed--a God who's a joker."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing really, but I hope you don't think this is funny?"
"Well, isn't it? By "this," I'm assuming you either mean the state of the world or George Bush...both are living proof that I have a sense of humour."
"We don't like your jokes, and by "we" I mean the rest of the world."
"Go to hell."
"My God! You're GOD!! How can You talk like that? Besides, I'm already there."
"You're very ungrateful..."
"Oh, c'mon," I waved my hand dimissively, "don't tell me you're going to lecture me about all the beauty you've created that we're destroying...about your rainbows, your forests, the Artic, and the butterfly...it's hard enough to read it in my mailbox every day...there's even a mail where you talk to your "son" (like you're talking to me now)," I giggled, "you tell your son 'always remember I love you, and I'm always there for you,' or words to that effect." I giggled some more.
"And you find THAT funny?"
"Who's that guy who said 'If you talk to God, you're praying. If God talks to you, you're schizophrenic'?"
"A schizophrenic."
"I can't believe I'm having this conversation! How do I know You're God at all? You're probably some nutcase who's hiding very well somewhere and being a smart ass."
"Same thing."
"Ok, I'm not going to engage in this witless banter with a voice. Just give me a readymade solution that I can implement right here, right now."
"Chuck your job and get a life. Travel, meet people, write poetry, learn to sing, play the piano, paint...in short, take that mail seriously."
"Somebody, help!" I screamed, "Dunk me in cold water! This can't be real!"
Immediately, an avalanche of ice cold water hit me and knocked the wind out of me. I shot up in bed, drenched and speechless.
My 5- and 3-year-old nephews stood there holding an empty dipper and their sides, laughing like only kids can.

Seriously....!

Have you ever been attacked by hysteria at the most inopportune moment and dissolved into helpless peals of hideous laughter that made everyone who crossed your path stumble backwards with raised eyebrows, dropped jaws, and soundless screams? It happened to me just the other day.

I was in an auto on my way to work at 2 p.m. - a situation in which sane people would be at their waspish best which is how I am most of the time. I must confess I'm not given to easy laughter for many reasons: 1. My teeth don't exaclty qualify for a toothpaste ad. 2. My nephew told me the first time that he heard and saw me laugh, that I sounded and looked like a "hyena" - it's not very original but if you hear it from a 2-year-old close to tears, you have to believe it. 3. Life IS funny anyway. Why laugh and compound your misery? 4. Imagine a startled cat wheezing laboriously while being spun around in a washing machine and you'll know what I sound like when I laugh. 5. Imagine 220 volts of electricity and gallons of water supplied to your face and you'll know what I look like when I laugh.

NOW, imagine an otherwise dull and lifeless dish rag suddenly infused with lively pulsating energy that is largely uncontrolled, with no immediate discernible provocation. Some long-forgotten memory popped into my sun-touched head and what started as a quiet chuckle, proceeded to a prolonged giggle, then grew into a throaty laugh (see point #4 above for definition of "throaty"), and then seemingly got away from my hands..or is it my mouth?...or is it my belly? Where DO laughs originate anyway? (Don't answer)

As the rickety auto bounced along, I sat in the back seat struggling to get a hold of my contorted facial features. The auto driver at first was just annoyed, then distracted, then seriously worried, and finally downright terrified. "Should I stop?" he asked turning back, sending me into fresh bouts of hysteria. He turned around and continued to drive. For as long as I live, I will never forget the look on his face.

He picked up speed so that the unsuspecting passerby who just happened to glance into the speeding auto saw a rigidly upright terrified driver with a hysterically gasping passenger flailing wildly in the back seat. Every time I saw a face like that on the road with the deer-caught-in-headlights look, I got hysterical afresh. Finally, I forgot the original source of my hysteria and began pointing, slapping my thigh, and throwing back my head and roaring at anyone who dared to look into the auto.

The auto continued to hurtle along and in my state, I failed to notice that the driver had sped past my office, till he'd gotten away a good distance. When that realization dawned, my hysteria disappeared instantly and I barked at the auto driver to stop. He turned around and saw my bared fangs and heard my rumbling growl and promptly fainted. I left the money on his head, got out, and cussed loudly as I trekked to my office in the baking sun.

I'm sure it was just some sort of allergy because as I entered the office, I saw someone talking and laughing on the phone. I marched up to him and wordlessly socked his jaw. Then, I turned around and went home and slept. When I woke up at 10 p.m., mercifully, I was completely cured.

What so thrilling?

We’ve existed as a Republic for almost 6 decades now and still our farmers who feed us are taking their own lives because they can’t eat. We celebrate Republic Day without a trace of irony. We show our might, we march, we salute our flag, we sing our national anthem loudly, we swell with pride about being Indian and heap scorn on those unwilling to participate in this hypocrisy – who are we trying to impress? Why can’t we take a long hard look at ourselves and admit that we’ve completely lost our way? That our priorities are so mixed up that we put celebrity weddings on front radars and our dying farmers on the backburner? That our elected representatives have made fools of us for 6 decades now? That “India shines” only for a miniscule percentage of her children while a vast majority eat out of her rubbish bins to satisfy their hunger? That our shameful judiciary lets people like Lalu Yadav, Sanjay Dutt, and Navjot Singh Siddhu walk and makes heroes of them? Should we be proud? That our children are not safe anywhere anymore? That we have accomplished record levels of intolerance in this once model pluralistic society? That our freedom fighters and ex-sportsmen beg on our streets to eat? That we’ve mortgaged our oldest political party to a foreigner whose only qualification is that she has none? What’s so thrilling about the rape of our cities in the name of progress? About our moral decadence in the name of global citizenship? About our creative bankruptcy and our recycled greatness in shiny new packages? About our nonexistent voice in influential international trade and political bodies? How responsibly have we behaved with our neighbours? How many can we count as our friends? Isn’t it a shame that we haven’t mended fences with a single one of our immediate neighbours in our 6 decades of existence? That we cannot educate or employ millions of our children? That we deny them their very basic right to dignity? That we simply let our old, our poor, and our sick die while we worship our cattle, hold up torches for our stray dogs, and violently defend our Gods?

What’s so thrilling about being an almost 60-year old Republic?

The Salesman

Goodafternoonmadam, myselfxxfromyyproducts thisisapromotion justoneminuteopenthedoormadam" - the apparition rapped outside my door.

"Huh?" I blinked as the afternoon sun blinded me and I tried to find my bearings. The doorbell had shattered my siesta and I'd sprung out of bed and landed at the front door, unaware that I'd moved. I tried to focus.

"Justoneminuteopenthedoormadam" he danced to an imaginary beat. I looked at him incredulously. He had a grinning mask on, which he had now pushed up on his forehead to give me the real all 32 whites. There were two macabre grins on his face. On his head, he wore something that looked like rabbit ears and flapped violently when he spoke. He was dressed in colours to help you spot him from outer space, and he had a yo-yo in one hand that squealed, a puppet that quacked in the other, and a huge bag on his shoulder that undoubtedly contained other such noisy nightmares that pass for toys today.

"What do you want?" I asked unable to keep the edge out of my voice. Try keeping your cool when you discover you've been woken up by a dancing monster rabbit from hell at 3 in the afternoon.

"Justoneminuteopenthedoormadaaam," he said again.
"What language are you talking?" I asked genuinely surprised. For a ludicrous moment, I wondered if he'd really landed from Mars.
"Harharharhar" it laughed and I reeled backwards. Surely, this was just a bad dream.

"Just one minute open the door madam," he said slowly with an ear-to-ear grin like he was addressing a 2-year-old retard. "I have wonderful imported toys, cheap madam, great fun for whole family, not just for childrens, nicetimepassopenthedoormadam."
"I don't want any toys!" I said unable to believe I was having a conversation with a Martian. "Don't buy madam, just see," he said, grin in place, and began to set his bag down.
"No!" I screamed in a panic. "I don't want to see any toys! Why would I want to see toys?"
"Buy for your children madam, see madam this talking parrot here; you put the battery here, wind it here and see madam, see, see....it's imported madam" he danced and grinned.

I twisted my neck from a range of 20 to 360-degree angles to see from which direction it would look like a parrot and finally gave up. The contraption was talking in an unknown tongue at an ear-splitting decibel. I covered my ears instinctively and nodded my head violently to indicate to him that he should leave and take his foreign monster with him. He put away the parrot and took out a kangaroo.
"How about this madam? Jumps very nicely, just do like this, like this, like this, like this, like this, like this...er...uh...it's not working, Iwillshowyouothertoys oneminuteifyouopenthedoormadam" the grin never faded.
"There are no children in this house and I don't really play with toys, so please leave, and close the gate behind you," I said and turned to walk in.
"Just you open the door and see what other things I have madam. I have books also, just see, you don't have to buy" Didn't his face tire grinning like that?
"I really don't have the time and I must ask you to leave," I said trying hard not to abuse him.

"What about mobile phones madam? Do you want a mobile?" Grin, grin.
"NO!" I said, exasperated.
"Life insurance?" Grin, dance.
"LIFE insur..uh?" I couldn't make the switch.
"What about flats?" Grin, grin, dance dance.
"Do you have that in your bag as well?" my eyes were wide with astonishment.
"Or an electric oven? Or do you want car covers? Do you have a garden? (he was standing in my 2-foot space) Do you want an apple tree sapling? Money-back guarantee is there...mattresses? Sofa backs? Nightdress? Grin, grin, grin, dance, dance, dance.

I honestly couldn't understand what I was feeling at that point. I was being verbally assaulted by a wiry schizophrenic with two grins who was carrying the world and a zoo in his bag and wouldn't get out of my compound. I'd never felt more alone in my life.

I looked around wildly.

"Okay give me a glass of water then" he said suddenly and stepped closer to the door. I was sure I could detect a manic glint in his eye and I shuddered.
"If you don't give me a glass of water, you'll be born a lizard in your next birth. Do you want me to read your palm? I can predict the future. Just tell me the time you were born and I will tell you everything that is going to happen in your life. I can show you the lizard that you will look like in your next birth. It's right here in my bag," he began to dig into his humongous sack, never losing the grin.
"Can you really predict the future?" I croaked.
"Yes," he said in a steely voice and with the manic glint and of course the grin.
"Tell me how long you see yourself standing on my property then," I squeaked.
"I have Eric Clapton's and B.B. King's Riding with the King - you want? you can listen on iPod and decide if you want to buy - here, openthedoormadam and take this iPod -you can load 320 songs, listen while driving, eating, sleeping, reading, bathing, dressing, anywhere and everywhere," the energetic schizophrenic continued to rap and grin.

I felt lightheaded, nauseous, and close to hysteria.
"Givemeaglassofwatermadam, and I'll go," he danced, grinning.
"I'd rather be a lizard!" I growled, suddenly livid. "Get off my property or I'll set the dogs on you!" I screamed.
"Have a good day madam," he said, his ears flapping violently, both grins intact on his face, and turned to leave.

That's when I saw the huge tiger tail behind him.

Despicable!

No one is fooled by the “Iraqi court’s” trial, conviction, and hanging of Saddam Hussein. History will show America as probably the first nation in the civilized world to successfully carry out an unprovoked aggression against another country flouting all norms of international law and basic human decency, dethroning its head of state, and sending him to the gallows like a common criminal for so-called crimes that America not only condoned but actively encouraged a few decades ago. America’s puppets hanged Saddam Hussein at America’s behest under the cover of darkness on December 30th; they behaved like the band of thieves that they are in one of 2006’s most shameful moments; of course, "shame" is now synonymous with "Bush."

In the ‘80s, Saddam was America’s darling. They armed him to the teeth with impunity because they wanted him to contain Iran – why get your hands dirty when you can pay for a hit job? – they encouraged his aggression against the Kurds and the Shias and provided him with ammunition to carry out his so-called crimes. The Iran-Iraq war was to last 8 long years with 100s of 1000s of lives lost - sponsored by Uncle Sam. These are the “crimes” that he has now been hanged for! So much for upholding democracy and human rights! So much for the “Champions of the Free World.” In a frenzy of fast-forward action, Puppet Maliki got the necessary approvals (including his ayatollah's), fulfilled all of America's demands that the "law" be followed to the letter one of which was that the Iraqi President sign Saddam's death warrant which he reluctantly did after making it plain that he was against capital punishment (ironically, the lone dissenter against Saddam's hanging in the American coterie was a Kurd!), roused a sleeping Saddam, bundled him into a waiting Black Hawk, and flew him to his death. Hollywood couldn't have done it better.

"Stuff happens," I guess, like Donald Rumsfeld (remember him? Of Guantanamo Bay fame?) so famously said. Rumsfeld who has been photographed with Saddam during their cosy bum-chum days; yes, the same Rumsfeld who was in a God Almighty hurry to get into Iraq after Osama reduced the Towers to smouldering mounds of dust. When did this invasion become about trying Saddam for his crimes against his people? Which is entirely that country’s business. Are there no other dictator regimes in the world? What about Musharraf? Why not dethrone him and hang him as well? What about poor forgotten Burma? Where in the nation’s last election Suu Ki’s party won 82% of the popular vote – EIGHTY TWO PERCENT! And instead of heading the nation, she’s under house arrest and the country is being run by the “military junta” – where are the Champions of Democracy? Why aren’t they marching into Burma with their Saviours of the World armed forces if it’s their self-appointed God given duty to give democracy a nudge wherever it’s floundering? Because Burma is not oil-rich Iraq. What about Ethiopia and Somalia? All Children of a Lesser God.

And what about us? The Rest of the World? Are we so depraved that we will only whine and whimper when the time has come for us to stand up and say “Enough! We will not tolerate any more!” Are we so blind that we can’t see it could’ve been any of us? How can we stand by and watch one head of a nation being hanged by another? How low are we prepared to stoop? To be conquered? The world should isolate America for this heinous crime, this macabre blemish on humanity that they choose to call “justice” – this is not justice by any measure – it is a MURDER; an open, in-your-face, cold-blooded, undemocratic, outrageous murder. Should we not bring America to justice? Should we not make America accountable for this crime?

“No backbone” India’s reaction has been characteristic: We expressed our “disappointment” –how disgusting! That we have to couch our words in diplomacy so we don’t offend America no matter what the crime and what the cost to our national pride! How disgusting that we don’t have a courageous leader who can look George "draft-ducking" Bush in the eye and tell him he is a just a spoilt brat and throw the book at him for first-degree murder. How disgusting that this so cleverly timed hanging that is neither in Kofi Annan’s time nor in Ban Ki-Moon’s, has proved yet again that the UN is a completely useless body with no control or authority over its biggest rogue member.

So Mission Accomplished? Is this what America went to Iraq for? Was it ever about Osama or WMDs? Both of which have not been accounted for till date. Is George Bush a happier man today? Does he sleep easier at night? Is Iraq a safer place because Saddam is dead? Is America a safer place? What has been achieved? Close to 700,000 Iraqis have been murdered by America since 2003. These are people like you and me – with homes, families, a life. They were mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers with jobs, homes, and a future. Who will pay for their deaths? Have they not died in vain? All because one stubborn madman will not admit that he was wrong. That he did something unlawful. He continues to run amok because none of us are willing to stop him.

"We have met the enemy, and they is us."

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

As the world waits in vain for George Bush to get real (and get a life), Iraq continues in a downward spiral. The Allied Forces which is an impressive term for a motley crew of Americans and their faithful sidekicks, the British, have all but thrown up their hands. Even the Iranians are backing the Iraqis now - that's what Bush has accomplished - getting the 2 nations that at one time were at each other's throats for 8 years, on the same side. It's just about the only thing he can be proud of right now. Saddam Hussein has been "smoked out", hauled to court, tried, and convicted but no WMDs have been found; commission after commission (and finally the CIA itself) has concluded that there is no evidence to suggest that Osama and Saddam are or ever were in cahoots and the purpose of the now almost 4-year-old invasion still remains murky as ever. Did they go over all the way just to dethrone Saddam? What business is it of theirs? If that's "bringing democracy" let's all get together, read Georgie his Miranda, haul him into a criminal court, and get him convicted - God knows there are enough charges to put him away for 2 lifetimes.

Osama is alive and well and I'm sure very amused by Bush's antics. He held the Superpower by it's scruff and shook it like a rag doll almost 6 years ago and it's still reeling like it just got off a high-speed rollercoaster. No one sympathized with Osama then; in fact, the Americans had the world's sympathy but they lost it pretty quickly when they turned around and simply started shooting in the dark. Now, just about anyone can say "boo" and America will jump. Which is exactly what North Korea and Iran are doing - only this "boo" is more deadly, and America has neither the strength nor the support to do anything about it - because of Iraq. Remember the boy who cried wolf? Well...

It's a terribly sad decline that need not have been. Not too long ago, America did represent the things that she laid claim to - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. She was a proud nation - rich but generous with her money, selling dreams to the rest of the world, mighty but welcoming, unopposed but democratic, and well respected. People flocked to America for the good life and she closed her eyes and opened her arms wide. Because America respected your intellect regardless of which part of the world you came from, she led the world at all negotiating tables - trade, politics, science, sport - it was the Star Spangled banner all the way. (Of course, Hollywood helped immensely with the hype and hooplah.) With the demise of the USSR, the world indulged America to the hilt. America indulged her children and became a spoilt brat.

Then, cable TV came home. Everyone could see America, warts and all, everyday in our living rooms and the sheen wore off. When trade barriers began to break down in Thomas Friedman's increasingly "Flat World" and as more nations began embracing some form of capitalism, we saw the other side of America - the selfish big bully, the rogue elephant in our backyard. But because she gave generously, we grudgingly forgave whatever she took in return.

And then George Bush ascended the throne. Bush is a marvel. It would be interesting to open his skull and peer inside - just to check, you never know. Somebody once called him "the longest serving President to have never won an election." From the start, he was a disaster. Now, he's toxic. His backdoor entry (quite literally - he abandonned the traditional walk to the podium for the presidential swearing in and sped past a barrage of eggs and a gusto rendition of "Hail to the Thief" and sheepishly took his oath) - had already assured him a place in the history books, but he wasn't about to settle for such an unimpressive footnote. Bush was determined for the world to sit up and take note and boy, oh boy, did we! His confidence is mind boggling - surely, he must inspire millions around the globe to dream big. Most of his counterparts who visit or host him, wear a bemused, perplexed look - you never know what the guy is going to do or say next. He's ill informed and quite proud of his ignorance, very often wearing it like a badge of honour. He has a history of ruining everything he touched much before his entry into politics (read Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911"). Almost every business venture he embarked on became a misdaventure and all of them tanked.

Riding in on papa's coatails, little Bush has indeed come far - it's a piece of good luck that he can still hardly believe. For a man who ducked the draft, his readiness to engage the enemy is amazing. Long after his "bring 'em on" rhetoric rebounded and started resounding in his ears, Bush continues to doggedly insist that he's "winning the war on terror" - What war is he talking about? Where is the enemy? Does he even know WHO the enemy is anymore? What has he accomplished in his 6 years of presidency except a vertical division of the world where everyone hates everyone else and everyone else hates America and America hates everyone else? Is that a great legacy to leave behind as the leader of a Superpower? Even that epithet now evokes giggles.

As the world looks on in "shock and awe," the President blunders on gamely. He trots from region to region in right earnest, signing deals, shaking hands, posing for photos, tripping on stairs, smiling, waving, making speeches, and generally making a huge nuisance of himself (as his hosts dead pan bravely barely holding it in) and providing gainful employment to millions of caricature artists the world over.

Never has America commanded such little respect and invited such universal wrath like it does today. In what should surely go down as America's most embarassing moment, Kofi Annan reprimanded the nation's arrogance and blatant disregard for the UN's voice in his farewell speech. Increasingly, America has taken upon itself the role of the UN. At the six-party talks to disuade North Korea from going nuclear (has anyone noticed it's a little too late?) that dissolved into disarray recently at Beijing, the US led an unlikely group: Russia, China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and of course Uncle Sam. It was of course a complete waste of time but you can't help marvel at America - look at that group again. Japan and China hate each other; North and South Korea hate each other; the Russians hate everybody, and everybody hates America and there they are sitting and talking! South Korea and Japan are shivering at the prospect of a nuclear weapon in the hands of Kim Jong-Il and rightfully so - Jong-Il is a mad hatter and wears his madness merrily on his sleeve, but today America has reduced both itself and the UN to a bleating sheep that no one pays attention to.

Bush, of course, is looking for one last war to go out guns blazing. His choices are Iran and North Korea. Ahmadinejad has made it very plain what he thinks of Bush. The UN approved nuclear technology sanctions against Iran 2 days ago; the sanction forbids any country from trading in civil nuclear material or technology with Iran and isolates Iran completely, but it remains to be seen if that will break Iran's backbone; highly unlikely. The Security Council also tried to bring in a travel ban against Iran which (surprise surprise) Russia didn't allow. (Russia's foreign policy has always been pretty simple: "My enemy's enemy is my friend"). Ahmadinejad's reply was characteristic: Go to hell. The next day, one of his ministers was in the media, telling everyone who cared to listen that Iran will redouble its efforts at uranium enrichment.

If America wants to be taken seriously, the Americans should first disarm themselves. Then, they should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Next, they should get out of the Israel-Palestine conflict; America will never be able to understand or solve West Asia's problems, at least, most certainly not with George Bush as the President; and lastly, America should gag and tie her President and keep him at home. The rest of us can take care of ourselves very well, thank you very much.

It's the economy, stupid

Fending off bullets from every quarter, the beleaguered US President looks set to push the India-US nuke deal through both Houses. The nuclear deal hasn’t gone down well with either the Indian public or the US. For starters, most of us really don’t know what the fine print reads. In our own media, we have different news channels and different newspapers telling us different things – what we think depends on who we watch and what we read – and no two sources of information agree on a single point.

India is not a signatory to the NPT and traditionally, the US has refused to do nuclear commerce with non-signatories. India becomes the first exception to the rule and will receive civilian nuclear fuel and technology despite staying out of the NPT. Amid vociferous opposition from some factions about setting a bad precedent, President Bush managed to push the nuclear bill through treating India as a special case because of its responsible nuclear record (what this means is anyone’s guess since the US imposed sanctions on civilian nuclear cooperation on India because we tested in 1974). But the US has the tough task of convincing the Nuclear Suppliers Group – a group of 45 nations – to ride along. Right now, no one is really going along with anything that America says or does. So why is America going out on a limb for the deal?

It’s stupid for us to think they love us very much. India will need a lot more energy in the coming years than we are capable of producing. America’s stake in India is high, especially since 1990 when we embraced “liberalization” – it’s another matter that we were by then pushed to the wall – we hardly opened up out of choice; we had nowhere to turn. It had been proven beyond reasonable doubt that Russia’s brand of socialism was not going to sustain us anymore.

India has gained America’s respect as an emerging economic power that can’t be ignored. To America’s credit, if they can’t beat you, they’ll join you which is exactly what they’ve done with India. Today, America’s investments in India need uninterrupted energy supply – we can’t guarantee that, so Uncle Sam is stepping in to take care of itself; we shouldn’t pretend that it’s not beneficial to us either and we shouldn’t expect the US not to look out for itself. They’re doing business and they will drive a hard bargain. This deal is not so much about politics as it is about business. In America, business drives politics and not the other way around like it used to be in India in the good old Nehruvian socialism days. This is a deal that the American business community wants and what they want, they usually get – despite everything, the dollar still shines brighter than every other currency. How much can we come away with? Can we match America’s selfishness and secure our own future? That should be the starting point of our negotiations on the 123 Agreement that the US and India are expected to sign, the clauses of which will become binding on India. It’s time to show the world - not just the US - how hard we can play.

"...When we talk of tomorrow, the Gods laugh"

When you lose someone you love, your world crumbles. Your days and nights become living hell. Every night becomes a nightmare of tears, memories, and insomnia. Every morning, you wish you didn't have to get out of bed. Then, the tears dry up. You can't cry anymore, but the grief doesn't go away. It envelopes you and nibbles at your insides. It’s almost a physical pain that won’t heal because you’re gnawing at it constantly - because you can't get the person off your mind; no matter where you go or what you do, memories relentlessly flood you - everything you see and everything you do reminds you of the person you've lost. It makes the grief unbearable. Everything becomes an effort – to talk, to eat, to dress, living itself seems like an effort that’s not worth the trouble. Then, you become desperate. What you wouldn't do to bring him/her back! What you wouldn't give to hear that voice one more time, to see that smile one more time, for one last conversation, one last hug, one last goodbye...but nothing will change. You can cry till you’re blue, you can "if only" endlessly...nothing will change. It's the final bow and the curtain won't come up. Ever.

Then, you quieten down. You resign yourself to the fact and you learn to live with your grief. Time will not heal a loss - it will only make it worse - but what Time does is, it teaches you to smile through your pain. It teaches you to function inspite of it. It also does something else: It makes you completely fearless. You forget what it is like to be afraid. What can you possibly be afraid of after you've faced this? Suddenly, you can look Life in the eye and say "Is that all there is to it?" It's strangely liberating - that you've gone to hell and come back and you’ve survived. It also realigns your priorities like nothing else can. Nothing seems so important anymore - we're all going to the same place...alone, carrying nothing with us.

This is one of my dad's favourite quotes: "Time is Nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once. When we talk of tomorrow, the Gods laugh." I never tried to understand what this meant when I had my father. I understand now, Daddy.

It's Dark Inside

Death is the most life-changing experience. It's universal yet its enormity, its horror, and its finality can never be understood till it comes home. When you lose someone, you die with that person - the life you had with that person dies, a part of you dies, and you carry on living with that dead part inside you. It's a grief that will never go away and it's a grief that no tears or words can comfort or heal. You go on living simply because you have no other choice. It's not because you're brave or because you've gotten over your loss. You NEVER get over your loss simply because your life has changed forever. Things will never be the same again. The thought that you will never see the person again, hear his voice, or touch his hand is a grief that can never be put into words. You discover in how many ways you can miss a person, you discover how much more that person meant to you than you realized when he was alive. You rediscover your Faith which is the realization that Faith doesn't give you what you want from life - it only gives you a little strength to cope when life happens to you. You are completely alone in your grief and you will feel the loneliness most acutely when people surround you after your loss - when they comfort you, when they wipe away your tears, when you have to answer their questions, when you have to function, when the business of living cannot be suspended, when you must push back your grief, act "normal" and carry on living. That's when you realize how tough it is to pick up the million, fragmented, confused, hopeless pieces that your life has become within a fraction of a second and hold them together; you cannot possibly join them back into a whole, so you hold the pieces and you put one step in front of the other and you go on. But for you, it's over - through your smiles, your tears, your memories, your days, and your nights, forever, it will always be dark inside.

THE LAST LAUGH

Once upon a time, there were two kids, A and B.

A suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder which made C very excited - C constantly lectured him, punished him, pleaded with him and generally gave him too much attention which A loved and his syndrome thrived. He truly was an empty vessel that makes a lot of noise.

B was a psychopath but he was a quiet one (still waters run deep). He was the real danger but no one bothered about him because they were so busy with A. This allowed B to indulge in some serious crimes, but C was so spent trying to pacify and control and change A that he ended up a helpless onlooker to B's grave crimes.

Now, here's a little puzzle for you - identify Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il, and George Bush from A, B, and C.

Mohammed Afzal Guru vs Manu Sharma

Manu Sharma is the son of a heavy-weight Congress "leader" in Haryana. One of his aunts is ex-President Shankar Dayal Sharma's daughter. He's also Jessica Lall's murderer. Who admitted to killing the lady in a deadpan confession. He's also a free citizen of India. He's in fact, thriving.

If all goes well, Mohammed Afzal Guru will be hanged on October 20, 2006, for masterminding the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. If at all Guru should be hanged, it should be for the security men who gave up their lives so that the rats inside Parliament can continue to live and prosper. Mohammed Afzal Guru did not actually kill anyone - painful as it may be for the security personnel's families to hear people protest his death penalty, the fact remains that Guru didn't pull the trigger on anyone.

Afzal Guru in fact did us a great service. He tried to cleanse the rot in our Parliament. For that, he needs to go into our history books as the greatest patriot that ever lived. He's a hero. He had the guts to do what any of us would've loved to do if we had his guts. We don't, so we vote - and in some cases, like mine, we don't do even that. (Of course, we blog which helps our great democracy a great deal).

As things stand today, India's only hope is to bomb Parliament when it's in full session (which it never will be unless MPs are hiking their pay). What can you say of elected representatives who will harbour and protect murders within their own families? There are numerous cases of high profile brats literally getting away with murder, but Manu Sharma's case beats them all hands down. Here we have a scumbag who goes on tape to admit that he pulled the trigger on a woman simply because she refused to serve him a drink after the bar was closed - she got killed for doing her job and this despicable apology for a human being roams free today - he's doing much more than that - he's thriving. Because his father happens to be in the right place at the right time. Life has finally caught up with him - hopefully (the confession tape was on air today and if he's not sent to the gallows even after this, the rest of us should hang).

If Guru can be hanged even though he did not actually pull the trigger on anyone, why can't Manu Sharma be hanged when he not only pulled the trigger without provocation but also admitted to doing it with a cockiness that comes from knowing he's above the law?

"Elected representatives" in our state legislatures all over the country are thugs. Many of them are illiterate. Some of them have been charged with murder and they make laws, pass bills, and "rule" us. Why shouldn't they be hanged? Everyone is incensed about the attack on the symbol of our democracy - what about letting murderers sit in Parliament? Isn't that an attack on the symbol of our democracy? Politicians of all hues are frothing at the mouth because Parliament was attacked - none of them died, remember? But millions of innocent people have lost their lives in this country to senseless violence in every single state, most of them "masterminded" by politicians. Why is justice never done in those cases? Why doesn't anyone ever hang? Why not hang Dawood? Narendra Modi? Manu Sharma? Santosh Singh? (Priyadarshini Matto's murderer) Vikas Yadav? (Nitish Katara's murderer who confessed to the crime and also makes a guest appearance in the Jessica Lall murder) The killers of the young IAS officer (I've forgotten his name - public memory, you see) who paid with his life because he stood up to the UP/Bihiar mafia - because he did his job? Why not hang VP Singh whose Mandal politics killed so many young students? Why not hang HKL Bhagat (I think he's already dead, does anyone remember?) and Buta Singh and all those who watched the massacare of Sikhs when Indira Gandhi was assassinated?

Arun Jaitley calls this "the most gruesome attack on India." In what sense? He doesn't breathe a word about the security men who gave up their lives to protect him - he's talking about the attempt on his life (which unfortunately for all of us, remains just an attempt). What kind of a democracy are we? If I sit in Parliament, my life is more precious than yours if you're standing behind a bar counter. Even if you're doing your job behind the bar counter while I'm bleeding the nation dry sitting in Parliament.

Oh, forget it. Let's celebrate "Gandhi Jayanti." Sanjay Dutt is preaching about Gandhian values to us - it can't get more ridiculous than this even in the theatre of the absurd. Thank God Gandhi is dead.

FAHRENHEIT 9/11

I'm reading The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 reader - yes, it's a little dated (only 2 years!) but I don't think books should be read and movies watched when they're basking in their hype; it takes away the attention from the content and the hype becomes a thing with a life of it's own - also, the spin doctors are out when hype is in the air, so you're never able to put the book or the movie in any sort of perspective. Anyway, bottom line - I'm reading it now and I'm going to recommend this to EVERYONE I know (of course, there's a real possibility I'm the last one to get my hands on it).

What doesn't add up for me though is HOW Bush could've won a second term despite this. I thought the American electorate was a lot more intelligent. This book contains pages and pages of documented truth about the Iraq war, the lies and the manipulation that made it possible. With lots of accolades for Michael Moore with letters by the dozen from born-again Democrats, first-time voters, vindicated Democrats saluting and thanking Michael Moore for telling them the truth - it's just amazing despite ALL of this, Bush got back in the driver's seat for a second term. I'm not sure whether it was Jay Leno or Moore himself who called Bush "the longest serving President to never have won an election" - that's on the dot. A couple of pages are devoted to how Bush stole the election from Al Gore - by getting his (Bush's) first cousin John Ellis who ran the FOX News Channel's election desk, to call the election in his favour in Florida AFTER all the networks and AP had declared Al Gore the winner. Once FOX called in Bush's favour, everyone followed suit. The book describes how the President had to cancel his traditional walk to the White House for the swearing in as 1000s of Americans poured into the streets of Washington DC to pelt his limo with eggs as it sped to what has now become symbolic of this presidency - a backdoor entry.

Also, the thing that doesn't add up is why Osama was let off when he could've been caught.
This book depicts in great detail the extremely up close and personal relationship that the Bushies shared with the bin Ladens, how when all flights were grounded post 9/11, "at least 6 private jets and nearly 2 dozen commercial planes" flew the Saudis and bin Ladens out of America - apparently, (this is chilling!) the bin Ladens and the Bushes and their friends have common investment interests in "the Carlyle Group, a multinational conglomerate that invests in heavily government-regulated industries like telecommunications, health care, and particularly defense." Osama's half-brother and a crowd of Americans were in the same room meeting about their investment interests at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington DC as they watched the planes go into the Towers - but the book also gives the impression (without stating so explicitly) that Osama had no sanction from his family to do this - but of course we forget THE most important pieces of the puzzle - greenbacks and oil.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is a documentary and it won in The Best Picture category, that too at Cannes. It must be Wow! I have to get my hands on this movie - I know, I'm only 2 years behind!

Jack-in-office (or it's not just the Peter Principle, stupid)

Lao Tzu, a 6th century Chinese philosopher, said "To lead the people, walk behind them." When you walk behind your people, you pick up things that you can never pick up if you're constantly sitting in a glass cabin into which you expect people to remove their footwear before they enter. It does something to otherwise ordinary mortals when they get into their cabins and sit on their thrones - wise exceptions continue to stay mortals, but most of them morph into insensitive jacks-in-office; these jacks-in-office live in an incredibly happy atmosphere and for the life of them, can never understand why others can't be as happy as they are!

Hello! I'm jack-in-office; I make all important decisions that I don't have to communicate - read that again - THAT I DON'T HAVE TO COMMUNICATE - those 6 words are the root cause of everyone's misery; they allow me to be completely insensitive to you because I don't even know you exist; I'm not the messenger, and people only shoot messengers. I will make a decision - Yes, No, Maybe - but you communicate it - and you get shot in the process, thank you very much.

But you ask, "Since I'm anyway getting shot, will I be allowed to make my own decisions and then get shot for my decisions instead of getting shot for yours?"
"No way! I'm jack-in-office, stupid. You're just jack's jack."

And how did I make these decisions? Not by talking to the people who will be affected by them or at least listening to assistant jack, but by talking to other jacks like me who also reside in similar glass houses and flick away their assistant jacks and other ordinary mortals from their cabins like flies. Assistant jack goes out to communicate jack-in-office's decisions to the ordinary mortals who revolt and flog assistant jack because they don't have access to jack-in-office to flog him. Assistant jack can't mollify his people, so he resorts to the next best thing - like third-degree torture.

Meanwhile, good ole' jack-in-office is protected from the mayhem, seated as he is in his sterile glass cabin, so he's happy and for the life of him, can never understand why others can't be as happy as he is!(Oh, sorry, am I repeating myself?)

Instead picture this: I'm jack-in-office; I want a decision I made implemented, so I go out and announce my decision and face the consequences, good or bad; I communicate and I (not you) am accountable to my subordinates; I listen to the concerns, I think about them, and a few egg and tomato omelettes later, I become sensitive; not because I've grown a brain at last but because I know now what it is to have my goose cooked, so it forces me to think about other people for a change, especially if I have to go out and meet them and talk to them and be accountable for my actions.

None of the above is practical in large organizations and that is why decision making should be decentralized at every level, organizations, city administrations, state, and even central administration. Instead, both these conditions don't exist. Decision making remains very centralized in most large organizations and definitely even in so called democracies despite lofty mouthings to the contrary and people who make the decsions are least accountable, least accessible, least connected, least knowledgeable, and the very least sensitive.

Blasphemy! If decision making were to be decentralized, what about me?!? I would be unnecessary and I'm not skilled to do what I'm asking you to do! So, what about me? Hush, hush now....

Peter Principle (with dollops of Dilbert)

"I get mail; therefore I am." - Dilbert

Laurence J Peter authored Peter Principle (published 1968) in which he contends that "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." At the time it was published, the Peter Principle might've seemed novel but now we have Scott Adams' Dilbert who encounters the Peter Principle every day at work.

Increasingly, the world is being run - workplaces, factories, institutions, and entire nations - on the Peter Principle. Simply put, with a few exceptions, most people "running the show" are collectively mad, insensitive, and clueless about the implications of their madness on their immediate subordinates.

The Peter Principle's hypothesis (now a fact) is pretty simple: Promotions are made like this: I excel at my desk job, so I'm made manager of my department. There is absolutely no logic or coherence to this decision. I've only proved my prowess at the desk job and nothing else; I know peanuts about people, let alone managing them. But this unexpected windfall makes me seriously believe in my nonexistent capabilities and I go ballistic. I wreck the system with well-thoughtout, carefully debated mismanagement. To achieve this feat, I spend hours in my cabin summoning other incompetents (who have been similarly promoted) to my desk to tell me what I wish to hear based on which I make decisions that are either completely irrelevant or unnecessary (or both) to my immediate subordinates and are guranteed to obliterate any ounce of happiness they might have previously possessed as workers. They can't shake me up, they can't take me out, so they quit.

But I'm a manager, so I can't be demoted, therefore I'll get promoted again - in a bid to disable my capacity to do direct damage to the grassroots. But in my new role, I'm an unstoppable megalomaniac. My motto is "It's either my way or the highway." Here, I'm not doing direct damage to the grassroots, but I'm causing enough grief to my fellow incompetents in middle management for them to do serious damage to their immediate subordinates, the grassroots, which they do with impish glee.

But now, I'm unshakeable. People under me just have to pray for divine intervention. Morale has plunged, everyone is cynical about everything, workers are desperate, my contribution is there for everyone to see, but I sit royally ensconced in my cabin surrounded by my yes-men telling me things never looked better though there is not an iota of data to prove this hypothesis; customers are baying for my blood, workers are quitting like rats deserting a sinking ship, those who stay are simply biding time, but I sit firmly with my rose-tinted blinkers on because now I'm so far promoted, the world I inhabit has no connection to reality.
But the unhappy people who're actually slaving for me to earn my monthly bomb keep slaving miserably at their unproductive best. Their nonperformance makes me belligerent towards them but it never troubles my nonexistent conscience that I'm the cause of their misery because my incompetence is earning me a paycheck that is 10 times fatter than theirs. Instead of keeping these people happy and trying to address the cause of their unhappiness, I do everything I can to alienate my workforce even further. I can't be demoted for my incompetence, so I demote them if they don't give me what I demand - regardless of how unreasonable my demands are. That's secondary. I'm the BOSS - that's primary.

At an organizational level, the story might end with either the organization running itself to the ground or with hiring and firing the right people. With larger playgrounds, like cities, states, or nations, the story never ends. It's easier for me to perpetuate the damage across larger areas by simply getting lost in the system and installing other incompetents like me to both cover my own back and to avoid having to deal with the mess that that has now snowballed into unmanageable proportions. I should've been at my desk job - where I was doing good work and out of everyone's way. Or I should've been shot after my first promotion. If I'd been shot at the right time, I would've become a martyr (eg. Mahatma Gandhi). Now, I'm just a royal pain in the wrong place (eg. Sonia Gandhi).

That's how Popes are made. That's how High Priests are made. That's how Mullahs are made. That's how Presidents and Prime Ministers are made. That's how the WORLD runs. And you, you miserable nincompoop, you crib about your workplace! HA!

Go read Dilbert and be happy. You're not alone.

Another mountain-molehill situation

Somebody with a lot of time on their hands decided that the Muslims of India should not sing Vande Mataram, the national song, so naturally the BJP (which has more time than anyone else) decided this is unpatriotic and now, we have a raging controversy on our hands, in our newspapers, and on TV.

The media, especially in India, has become increasingly inflammatory in its coverage of sensitive topics. There's no reason to run this story day and night and stick a mike in every Tom, Dick, and Harry's face and ask for his opinion on the issue - which is basically a non-issue. In these volatile times, the media forces everyone to form an opinion and to mouth it. This is completely unnecessary and to a large extent, very irresponsible. Gone are the days when TV anchors were mere moderators in any debate. Now, they get into the debates themselves and hardly bother to conceal which side they're on. This is a very unhealthy trend. Agreed as individuals, they are entitled to their opinions, but as professionals they are required to remain neutral moderators. Instead, most of our anchors get into arguments with their panelists, guests, or audience further inflaming passions.

To come back to Vande Mataram - since when did singing a song define your patriotism or lack of it? Do we need these pseudo patriots who don't think twice before hiking their salaries "cutting across party lines" (and religious lines) when people are literally dropping dead with no food and shelter in a country where the divide between the haves and have-nots is so gaping? Why should a man who doesn't know where his next meal is coming from, sing on an empty stomach saluting his motherland? Regardless of what religion he belongs to?

Finally, why should it matter to me whether you sing the national song or not? Whether you're patriotic or not? Who is a patriot? Sonia Gandhi? Because she sings Vande Mataram?

Thanks - I'll go with the Muslims.

The Day We All Died

On August 27, 2006, a professor in an Ujjain college was beaten to death by his students because he and his colleagues cancelled student elections. That's the worth of a life - it can be traded for a student election. Five or six decades of a life spent learning, loving, teaching, being a father, a son, a sibling, a professor, a friend - all snuffed out for what? A student election. What does it say for us that we can kill - KILL - a man who teaches us? This is the land where "gurus" are worshipped.

The police stood in plain public and TV camera view and WATCHED as one "student" threatened his professors, then abused them, and manhandled them. The professor who collapsed and later died had undergone a bypass surgery a few days before this incident. Life is that cheap. TV makes it even cheaper. The professor died in front of TV cameras. Millions of people saw him take his last gasping death.

What, I wonder, went through that poor man's mind as he watched his wards morph into beasts; his heart obviously couldn't take it.

Incidents like these that revolt people like me also happen because of people like me - we the silent self-righteous "dignified" majority who blog but will leave it to others "less dignified" to take to the streets and protest and bay for the beasts' blood and keep baying till we see it. Unless we stop accepting these atrocities collectively, ordinary men will continue to kill other ordinary men.

That's scary for all of us - the thought that not a bomb, not a terrorist, not a murder, but your next door neighbour can snuff your life out if you simply disagree with him. It can happen to me...and to you.

The Joke's on You

The 1 p.m. News Comedy Show

Kofi Annan on air announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah effective - get this! - tomorrow August 14, 2006, at GMT something. Not a ceasefire effective immediately, but tomorrow. Today, Israel and Lebanon can reduce each other to rubble and tomorrow - they even have a GMT - they can shake hands and go back to the crumbling remains of their lives.


George Bush warns his nation that they still face a threat from "Islamic fascists" - the one-foot-in-grave-the-other-in-mouth syndrome continues to rage with the President who just signed another death warrant for his people with that typically insensitive Bush remark.


The anchor tells us how India is celebrating her freedom on Independence Day, August 15th - with massive security, scared out of our wits, red alerts of impending terrorist strikes, not stirring out of our homes, avoiding all public places, no theatres, no malls, no public gatherings but a HUGE parade in the capital with more police than people - Jai Hind! We're free!

Soul Healer - Dr. Brian Weiss

Sometime last year, I picked up a book called Only Love is Real by Dr. Brian Weiss and was blown away by its contents. I finished it almost in a single sitting and picked up Dr. Weiss's next book Many Lives, Many Masters - I was spellbound; I picked up another Same Soul, Many Bodies - each one of them as absorbing and unputdownable as the first.

Dr. Brian Weiss is a practicing Miami psychiatrist. Over 24 years ago, during one of his routine hypnosis episodes, one of his patients, Catherine regressed into a previous life, then another life, and another and stunned Dr. Weiss with her vivid descriptions and narratives which were verifiably true throwing Dr. Weiss into a turmoil of excited confusion, doubt, and disbelief. The scientist in Dr. Weiss rebelled. He was not a believer in reincarnation. During her sessions, Catherine began to give Dr. Weiss messages from what she called the "Masters" - it was obvious to Dr. Weiss that it wasn't his patient talking at all. Forced to accept a concept that he had disbelieved in for so many years, Dr. Weiss watched his patient progress through her therapy and heal herself through her regressions into her past lives.

Catherine's accidental regression led Dr. Weiss to explore the theory of past lives and reincarnation with his later patients which is the theme of all his books. Over the years, Dr. Weiss has learnt (as have many of his patients) that most of our self-inflicted limitations, fears, and conflicts have their roots in another lifetime. Dr. Weiss has successfully regressed and healed and many of his patients through this discovery. All of his books are based on real-life psychotherapy sessions with his patients.

According to Dr. Weiss, the common thread he has found in all his sessions with his patients is that a soul is reincarnated over and over till it learns all the lessons it needs to in the human form. Not only does it learn its lessons, it also chooses its future incarnations through the actions and thoughts of its present life on earth. It has a free will and chooses when it will be born, how, where, and which lessons to learn in each of its births.

In all his sessions with his patients, Dr. Weiss heard the same thing over and over - not only individual souls are reborn, but they're reborn as groups! So a daughter-monther in this life could've been brother-sister in the previous or grandaughter-grandmother or friend-friend; in Only Love is Real, Dr. Weiss unites two lovers who have been lovers over many lifetimes but never been united in any of them - they finally unite in Dr. Weiss's office when fate brings them to the same therapist in the same city at the same time but scheduled apart from each other, each unaware of the other's existence but both in their separate sessions with Dr. Weiss travelling to the same past lifetimes.

In Same Soul, Many Bodies, Dr. Weiss not only regresses his patients but also progresses them into future lives and continues to heal his patients through his regression and progression sessions.

For anyone interested in knowing how much we don't know - about ourselves and our universe and its mysterious laws and workings - whether you believe in what Dr. Weiss has to say or not, his books are a must-read.

Preach some more

Here's an update on the Sabarimala farce: The priest of the temple was caught literally with his pants down in the company of prostitutes. What was that again about the idol needing cleansing? Maybe Jaiamala should be allowed to do the honours.

(If you've been forunate enough to miss this farce and don't know what I'm talking about, see "Yes, I'm fooled" below on this page)

Will the real terrorist please stand up?

What Israel is doing to Lebanon is nothing short of state-sponsored terrorism. Look at how blatantly it's being done! Where is the crusading leader of world peace now? If Israel kills innocent civilians, it's acceptable as long as the killers are Jewish and the victims are Muslims. Nobody would dare call that Jewish terrorism even though it's being done with the sanction of the state of Israel and the sanction of the rest of the "world community" - read hypocrites. But if one Muslim maniac blows himself up somewhere, then it's "Islamic fundamentalism" - the whole community is held accountable, crucified, and made to feel defensive for one mad man's actions. How much more hypocritical can we get? Even within this, there's hypocrisy. Pakistan's rep in India can sit here on Indian soil and tell us that wanted terrorists in Pakistan will not be handed over to India for investigation and get away with it without so much as a wrap on his knuckles - no peace process speech, no regional cooperation, nothing here. Iraq needs US interference to "bring democracy" to its people, but Pakistan can continue to be a dictatorship, it can continue to sponsor terrorism in India, its "leader" can continue to rule in his military fatigues - I salute Musharraf for one thing though - his spunk - he's a dictator, he knows it, he doesn't care, and he doesn't pretend to be anything else which is a lot more than I can say for Dr. No Backbone.

Bush is speeding up the process to sell bombs to Israel. That's his reaction to what's going on over there. So, if you're Israel, then the US will not make speeches about democracy, human rights, and the stability of the West Asian region but if you're Iran and even if you're Iran minding your own business and not threatening anyone's existence, you're a threat to world peace. The rest of the "world community" including "Dr." Manmohan Spineless Singh are fellow cartoons of Bush and Rice. Condoleeza Rice is visiting the region apparently - who is this good-for-nothing woman who goes around poking her nose in everyone's affairs? Who cares what she thinks? Does the world have to run according to her two-faced definitions of justice, democracy, and peace? How can people who are completely ignorant of other cultures, their way of life, their compulsions, their tragedies, and their triumphs still interfere to "bring democracy"? God has personally whipsered in Bush's ears that he leaves the world in his care. The man doesn't even realize what he's doing to his own people. Today, Americans everywhere are at threat, in their own land and outside; the world either hates them or treats them as dumb clowns - they have rightfully earned this reputation. By and large, they're arrogant, ignorant, and pathetically self-absorbed. They don't have an iota of respect or standing in the world community except with their no-good cronies, the Brits - even there, it's only the watery Prime Minister who wags his tail for every Bush trick - the people of Britain have made it well known what they think of Blair and Bush.

Will Bush include Israel in his "axis of evil" category? Does he have the guts to call Israel a Jewish terrorist state and suffer the domestic economic consequences? If he doesn't, this apology for a President should zip his delinquent lips and stay out of other people's business. Every country has the capability to deal with its problems - we don't need a man who cannot speak his own language efficiently trying to communicate with other parts of the world about right and wrong. Mercifully, this apology will be out soon - he can sit back smugly and look at the legacy he's left behind and feel happy - a vertically divided world where violence has touched almost every single nation today for which he and he alone and directly is responsible.

Every single evil act that takes place in today's world, Bush is directly responsible for. He has to live with the curses of every human being who has lost a daughter, a son, a mother, a father, or a sibling to acts of terror anywhere in this world - Bush, and not the terrorists, is responsible for this. He has made the world a lot more dangerous than it ever was and hopefully when the "President" leaves, his nation will come to its senses under a better leadership and there will be some semblance of sanity in the world again.

It's SO good to be back!

I can write so much about this whole episode of the Ministry of Communication blocking our blogs, but I'd just like to say how happy I am that the blogging community came together on this and forced a rollback. Also, it feels great to know that our democracy with all its ails is still alive and kicking!

We still love you, Zizou

Like millions of watching fans around the globe, what I'd hoped to see was a legend walk off the field to tears, cheers, and thunderous applause for giving us some of our best sporting moments in soccer history. Instead, what we got was an errant school boy being marched off the field to an ignominous exit - it's not how Zizou's fans want to remember him, yet that one silly, uncalled for gesture is being played and replayed across TV screens a day after Italy shot their way into football history as World Champions 2006.

A usually unflappable Zidane turned on Materazzi charging him like a mad bull, knocking the stunned Italian down (I'm sure the shock kept the guy down on the pitch more than anything else) and earning himself the refree's rightful ire. And that's how Zinedine Zidane bade farewell to millions of his agahst fans. By descending from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Oh well...it was a human moment, an ugly one, but nevertheless human.

Zizou, we still love you...

The Final Countdown!

We're 6-1/2 hours away from the World Cup final.

Italy is my favourite team but Zizou is my favourite player and I'm torn between them! Who should I root for?

Whatever happens, Cheers Zizou, you're a winner!

Yes, I'm fooled

Twenty years ago, a 27-year-old actress entered the sanctum sanctorium of the Sabarimala temple and touched the feet of Lord Aiyappa, one of the many bachelor Gods in the Hindu pantheon. Women under 50 are not allowed to visit Sabarimala - Lord Aiyappa has personally given strict orders to the fossilized temple priests at Sabarimala that his bachelorhood is in grave danger if a woman under 50 enters his premises - who knows, she might marry Him. Anyway, this woman entered - how dare she - she just materialized out of thin air, got into the sanctum sanctorium, and she touched the idol. That's the only way she could've got past the oh-so-holy fossil who is oh-so-faithfully guarding his Lord. She touched the idol's feet! Blasphemy! At least blasphemy if you did all this without greasing the palms of the fossil who's guarding his Lord. Not blasphemy if fossil sells tradition for money.

The fossils in Sabarimala and some fellow who calls him the "Devaswom" minister in the Kerala cabinet are baying for this actress's blood now - 20 years later. Like the Queen in "Alice in Wonderland" who keeps screaming "Off with her head." How did all this come to light? Because another fossil (in the guise of an astrologer) claimed publicly that Lord Aiyappa is hopping mad that someone has contaminated His aura and He needs to be cleansed (by the fossils who guard and protect Him from things like His devotees). This someone is either a non-Brahmin or a woman - again, this was personally whispered by Lord Aiyappa in the fossil astrologer's ears - all these guys are so holy (and so fossilized) that they have a direct hotline to the Lord...and when they don't they can read His mind.

When the actress heard about this, she confessed her "sin" to the Sabarimala fossils and also faxed an apology (Lord Aiyappa rocks, man. He'd rather have a faxed apology than someone rolling around His premises beating their chest and making asses of themselves begging for His forgiveness. A fax is neat and simple). The fossils assured her that her apology will be accepted by the rocking Lord Aiyappa and her "confession" will be kept confidential.

But you know how irresistible the media can be. Especially if you have one foot in the grave and the other in your mouth. So now we have a raging controversy. Of course, every other problem in Sabarimala has been solved. They just have to get this actress's blood for the "sin" she committed 2 decades ago, and lo and behold! Sabarimala will become...well, God's Own Country.

Lord Aiyappa definitely needs a holy bath to cleanse Him. Cleanse Him from who's touch? That's debatable.

Scream loudly about other people's sins and no one will notice your own. Nice try. Works sometimes.

The myth of fact

In the June 28, 2006, edition of the Deccan Herald, the story titled "US House Panel okays N-Bill", there is a sentence that reads: "The 50-member House International Relations Committee approved by vote of 37 to 5 the legislation designed to make exemptions in the 1954 Atomic Energy Act to enable the US to sell nuclear fuel and technology in return for non-proliferation..."

In the June 28, 2006, edition of The New Indian Express, in the story titled "For nuke deal, India need not sign NPT", there is a sentence that reads: "The amendment to the Bill which seeks exemptions to Atomic Energy Act 1954 to enable US to sell nuclear fuel and technology in return for non-proliferation...(was) defeated in the 50-member House International Relations Committee..."

These are 2 leading newspapers in India. I'm a lay person, but I've been following this India-US nuke deal closely in an effort to understand if Manmohan Singh has grown a backbone of late and I can't decide if he has or he hasn't because these 2 newspapers give me 2 different versions of news. What am I to believe? I have no first-hand information about any of this. I depend entirely on the media to give me "facts" - I didn't watch the news on TV on June 28 to know what THEY were saying - but what's the difference? This already confusing story that I'm trying so hard to keep pace with just got incomprehensible. Have the amendments been approved or defeated? Depends on which newspaper you read, apparently.

What is fact? Fact is what the newspaper you subscribe to tells you.

Moral of Story: Read only one newspaper.

Jerold

There was once a man named Jerold
The pessimistic bachelor he was called
For though he had not a care
When asked to let down his hair
He groaned, "If only I wasn't so totally bald..."

10 things you must know if you're a road user in Bangalore

#1. Zebra crossings are for zebras. People will cross 1 cm in front of whatever you're driving.

#2. Autorickshaws are 3 wheelers whose sole purpose of existence is to get in your way.

#3. All cyclists suffer from bipolar disorder. In their manic phase, they will chase buses. In their depressive phase, they will suddenly get off the cycle, carry it, and walk.

#4. When you see a bus in your rearview mirror, pray.

#5. When you see a pothole in front of you, honk - it might move.

#6. Do not swear. Share. You have as much right to the road as the holy cow.

#7. The light will always turn red when you're approaching it at 80 km/h.

#8. A truck's brake will only work after it has hit the object in front of it.

#9. Always tank up. The road you took to work in the morning will turn one-way by the time you return in the evening.

#10. Do not mess with traffic cops. They are from Mars.

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, I salute you

There are 2 reasons bullies get away with bullying: 1. Others let themselves be bullied. 2. Few people can stoop to and stay at the level of an imbecile bully. Both of these are reasons why a psychopath like George Bush can get into a country by deceit, falsehood, and delusions of grandeur, have his bluff called by the whole world, get licked beyond
being able to lick his wounds, and still keep insisting "we're winning" - of course, he's winning - the question is - what exactly is he winning? If he's counting bodies, he's the undisputed king; there's no competition anywhere in the vicinity.

That's why I salute Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the spunky Iranian President. To me, his defiance of the US President asks the one question that has remained unanswered in the raging debate over Iran's uranium-enrichment policy: Who the hell is Bush to tell Iran what to do? Or for that matter, to tell anyone what to do? Where are the WMDs in Iraq? Where is Osama bin Laden? The answer to these questions is painfully simple: the Iraq war is neither about Saddam Hussein nor about WMDs and the Iranian confrontation is not about uranium enrichment for nuclear purposes which Iran has denied; Iran continues to contend that they're enriching uranium only for civilian energy but if pushed to the wall, they can and will hit back. Seymour Hersh writes in the April 17th (2006) New Yorker: “This is much more than a nuclear issue,” one high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna. “That’s just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.” Now, we're talking.

Bush's foreign policy is an artwork in double standards. His armed forces' human right records are the talk of the globe and these champions of democracy go around setting other people's houses in order. America has befriended some of the world's most repressive regimes when it suits her economic interests. The Americans have created every single Frankenstein from Latin America to the Middle East and then hunted them down with mission accomplished. And they preach to the world about democracy.

America is not answerable to the world that questions its right to run a Guantanamo Bay and an Abu Ghraib from where hundreds of stories continue to pour out every day of people being detained with no charges against them for years on end, of abuse, and of the most degrading treatment man has ever meted out to fellowmen. In the latest revelation, American troops have slaughtered innocent women and children in Haditha in cold blood knowing very well they were civilians, but America's holier-than-thou men and women in uniform, half of who are returning in coffins from their "baby's day out" adventure, will take it as their God-given right to bomb a country, dethrone it's elected President (in the name of Democracy!), and drag him into a trial on charges of human rights violations, among other things! Bush is of course God. And America still claims the right to pre-emptive action in Iran - even after the whole world has seen that his lies and deceit have caused more damage than Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden put together could've hoped to manage in 20 lifetimes.

The problem with America in general and Bush in particular is that they're incredibly ignorant and self-absorbed. America is the world's spoilt brat that demands instant gratification of all its needs regardless of how much it inconveniences its neighbours. As a race, they're brought up on the "I want it and I want it now" principle - even if what they want doesn't rightfully belong to them. America is not the world's policeman -it's the world's pettiest thief. Even the acknowledged saner voices in their population like Thomas Friedman talks about the "sacrifice" of America's young soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Friedman (Asian Age, June 1, 2006) is outraged with GM because they're offering fuel sops to their clients who will buy a select range of their products. He feels (rightly) that GM is encouraging its customers selfish splurging of fuel when the need of the hour is to conserve it or be prepared to pay higher prices for it. He thinks paying higher prices for fuel is one way of showing his solidarity with his American boys an girls who're bravely "sacrificing" their lives to keep the American flag fluttering on Saddam Hussein's palace. Their sense of self-righteousness and their "with us or against us" rhetoric have pushed the world to the brink of war, but they refuse to see themselves as the problem. In their eyes, America is always the solution even if they're currently the world's greatest jokers with a laughingstock for a President.

The Americans have no knowledge or understanding of other cultures, languages, and what goes on outside America. In fact, they don't even KNOW there's a world outside their own. 60% of American high school graduates can't find Iraq on the world map; forget Iraq, 50% can't even find New York State. That's how myopic and self-absorbed they are. To them, what is good for America should be - had better be - good for the rest of the world. If you don't like it, they'll ram it down your throat. Thank God, the world has people like Ahmedinejad who's throat is a lot more sturdy than, say Manhmohan Singh's.

Day after day, the Iranian President is on people's TV screens around the world exposing and defying the dangerous combination of arrogance and ignorance that Bush is. When the Iranian President offered to come to the table for talks, the ignoramus naturally backed off. Bush doesn't want to talk. Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker (April 17, 2006) "Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, (a) former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars."

The other reality is of course, Bush can't talk. Today, the US President cannot match wits with any leader in the world - except of course maybe Blair, the second-in-line dimwit.

Hersh in The New Yorker: "In a recent essay on the Foreign Policy Web site, entitled “Fool Me Twice,” Joseph Cirincione, the director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote, "The unfolding administration strategy appears to be an effort to repeat its successful campaign for the Iraq war.” He noted several parallels: 'The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The U.S. Secretary of State tells Congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The Secretary of Defense calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism.'

Cirincione called some of the Administration’s claims about Iran “questionable” or lacking in evidence. When I spoke to him, he asked, “What do we know? What is the threat? The question is: How urgent is all this?” The answer, he said, “is in the intelligence community and the I.A.E.A.”"

Economically too, America has managed to thrive as a world leader because the Americans have done a splendid job of spreading capitalism and bringing wealth to economies around the world by simply obliterating traditional professions and bulldozing their way into economies while firmly clamping down protectionism policies on their own domestic markets. In their defence, the Americans are generally respectful towards merit. And they're prepared to woo and pamper you to the hilt if they think you have what they want. Once they've pumped billions of dollars into a foreign economy, they'll start re-writing your nuclear policy like they've done with us. It of course helps a lot to have a PM who doesn't know what a backbone is. To him, some white skin will do to bow and scrape - Soniaji or Bushji - they're all the same. Thank God, we're not an oil-rich nation with Manhoman Singh as our PM. Thank God for China and Thank God for Japan.

And Thank God most of all for Ahmedinejad. Till now, Castro was the lone-ranger rebel, but Cuba is treated more as an irritant than a real threat by America. What about Iran? Iran is a great friend to have and a deadly enemy to deal with. Iran to me epitomizes self-respect. The difference between America and Iran is that Iranians are "prepared to die" for what they believe in; Americans are not; they're only prepared to kill others so they can live exactly like they want in an enviroment that is conducive only to America's growth. The US President must now decide whether he can afford an enemy like Iran or would he rather have Ahmedinejad as a friend, but really, that's overestimating his decision-making capabilities.

You're Invited

Lucky you! I flunked the Account Lead Psychometry...again! Your accounts are now safe. Anyway, that's enough about me. If YOU want to take it up sometime in the future, I've designed this forerunner.....so, you're invited to take the Mock Psychometry to prepare you for the real thing.

It's in 3 parts: Analytical skills, Numerical skills, and English.

Part I - Analytical Skills

1. Peter is Jane's husband's brother's nephew's grandfather.
Jill is Peter's wife's aunt's sister's step-mother (who is Jane, a.k.a. Cinderella's step-mom)
Question: a) Who is Peter to Jill?
b)More importantly, who are you to any of them?

2. Some mice are cats. All cats are donkeys. Therefore:
a) Cats are donkeys with Down's syndrome.
b) We have a strange menagerie here.
c) Mice are people too.

Think, you dunce. If you don't answer these, you'll never know when, for example, NEBMED is slipping out of TAT and you need to add more people on it.

Part II - Numerical Skills

1. A frog is in a 300-foot deep, 40-foot wide well and he's trying to get out. He jumps up 5 inches in an hour and slips back 1 foot. He started doing this in the 19th century. Question: How old will you be when the frog (or his fossil) gets out?

2. X bought a bike for Rs. 800 inclusive of 20% sales tax. He rode it for 45 days at 40 km per hour, 100 km a day. Calculate:
a) How much gas will he need to get himself to the moon on his bike?
b) How many days will he take? Convert to hours.
c) What percentage of his life will he spend doing this? Draw a graph.
d) How much money will he need? In paise and cents only.
Solve this to fine-tune your time zone calculations which will enable you to time your escape when the stats start popping.

Part III - English
1. Grammar:
a) I is fine.
b) What is the singular of mouses?
Question: Are this correct? (brownie points for "singular of mouses")

2. Punctuate correctly: How many legs do a cow have!!!

3. Subject-Verb Agreement:
Why is it wrong to say "I am dead tomorrow"?
a) Because I are still alive tomorrow.
b) Because I is dead yesterday itself.
c) Nothing's wrong - rest in peace.
d) Because I'm going to kill you NOW.

This section will help you communicate better with the Yanks.

About the Test
The psychometry is designed to help determine whether you're good at managing people, your time, and yourself. It's not an IQ test (though the last time I flunked, the testing personnel came all the way to the office to tell me I have the creative intelligence of a retard ant). Go for it, you have nothing to lose except your ego, but that's nothing a good night's sleep (and a shot of cocaine) can't fix.

Rajkumar and Ramanna

Fourteen years ago, when we moved into the house we're currently staying in, Ramanna was a pushcart vendor from whom we bought vegetables like everyone else on the street. Through the decade, as things that I never dreamed of became accessible to us, Ramanna became a choice we could eliminate. In 14 years, a lot has changed for us. Our lifestyle has definitely improved, we have choice - with everything. Nothing has changed for Ramanna. He's still a pushcart vendor (with fewer customers) and he's not very hopeful of giving a better life to his children - something that every parent yearns to do. The years sit heavily on Ramanna.

A mob vandalized a Sweet Chariot outlet near my house when Rajkumar died. I wonder if Ramanna's son was part of that mob. He was a Rajkumar fan.

I'm trying very hard to convince myself that if he did it, it was out of senseless grief for his hero - how senseless is this violence, I tell myself very loudly; just like the lakhs of unemployed youth in this city's underbelly who see no hope in their future, came out on the streets and for 2days held that face of the city hostage, which usually keeps this face of the city firmly tucked behind its glamour.

But Guilt is a tough customer - it refuses to be convinced.

At what cost?

One thing that the technology revolution in communication has done is to give everyone access to everyone else's mind. To me, that's one of the greatest achievements in mankind's history. We hear so much about the "global village" (which is now somewhat of a dated cliche -it's given way to Thomas Friedman's "the world is flat"), but most of that talk addresses the tangible - there are more things to buy, there are more things to do in your leisure, there are more places you can afford to see, but I think the real revolution is this intangible - there are more minds to know and only a mind can spark an idea.

We know now, especially here in India that with the right education and opportunity, our talent can compete with the best in the world. It's become possible to know this because every new industry or trade that has been brought into India from the West has sourced local employment to run their profitable outfits. Now, we're being respected - for our minds, for our merit. That's a very hard-won respect - it's easy to respect wealth, it's easy to respect fame, it's very very easy to respect good looks - but to have none of all this and to earn respect through sheer merit is very tough and it's something that we can take great pride in.

For a country that has spent a large amount of time watching from the sidelines and cheering only timidly and rarely, a ringside view can be a heady experience, and if you're actually getting into the ring itself...well, you can't be woozy on your feet for one thing. You cannot also ever afford to take your eyes off, for to do that is to regress which is not only stupid but also dangerous.

That's exactly what we're doing by even entertaining the thought of reservation based on caste. When you begin to even think that quality just maybe tweaked a bit, that's when you're staring danger in the face. The IIMs and IITs are India's face in the world's economy. These institutions' products have got a foot in the door of the global economy. Admission into these institutes on any grounds other than merit will ensure that the door is slammed on India's face....and foot.

The caste system is India's shame. It's also India's reality. Historically, the upper castes had access to a world that was denied to their counterparts in the lower rungs of the caste heirarchy which led to class hatred and kept some sections perpetually in the fringes. It's noble to try and correct that injustice. Reservation, however, is definitely not the solution. The caste system is a social issue - it cannot and must never be allowed into the country's econonmic chapter; by dragging our social dirty linen into a flat world, all we can hope to accomplish is to turn the spotlight on our shame.

The administration's business is to provide cheap or free education and scholarships to all these sections of society - good quality education, but nothing more. Everything else should be achieved solely on merit. Everyone should be allowed to compete and must be made capable of competing - it's the only way a nation can progress, by never ever letting merit take the back seat to anything. When we accommodate people based not on merit but on caste, are we not giving federal sanction to the caste system? What happens to such people? They will not only earn the wrath and hatred of thier fellowmen, they will also never be able to respect themselves - it's demeaning to a human being to tell him that he's unfit to compete with the best, so he's being patronized. It's not helping the individual, the institution, or the nation. What happens to merit itself? Nothing can kill a man's spirit faster than knowing that his mind, no matter how brilliant it is, is not respected.

A brilliant mind without takers is a dangerous mind. If it is allowed to roam free in a society that doesn't respect it, it will gravitate towards other like-minded rejected brilliance; if its fire is greater than its despair, it will find a way to work within the system or if it can so afford, will leave the system and go wherever its spirit can be restored; if its despair is greater than its fire, it will wreak havoc in the society that has caged and denied it - and a genius's havoc cannot be undone by the mediocre to which it has been forced to bow.

Our Comforts and our Passions

Don't you love stories that tell you to chuck it and follow your passion - success stories of all those who dared to risk everything for a momentary lapse of senses and toiled with a laser focus to follow their dream, who met with failure, rejection, hopelessness, and heartbreak but with a sudden divine wink-nudge, began to live exactly the life they wanted. I love to read those stories - because I know I will NEVER have the courage to give up my comforts for my passion.

At work, people tell me almost every day that I should be somewhere else - I should be writing they say. How romantic! How romantic to be able to live your passion - but premature cynicism makes me head first for the "fine print" in all dreams.

There really IS a lot of romanticism built around this "struggle" to pursue your passion - honestly, it doesn't appeal to me. Why, I keep asking myself, should I struggle for my passion? That in itself seems ridiculously masochistic! And what of writing itself - for its own sake and for pleasure? If I had to write to earn my livelihood, if I did this for a living, I'm certain I wouldn't enjoy it as much. When you're paid, it becomes a job, not a passion. And then, there's "passion" itself. I think you're either passionate or you're not - passion is a state of being that you acquire and you strive - very hard - to keep....every day....in everything you do. And then there's the minor detail of bombing - really royally bombing at your "passion" - THAT I think is the real fear that keeps a lot of us from pursuing our passions - it's so much easier to amuse myself with my self-injected boosts of that much maligned phrase "feel good factor" - I love what I write, I write for no one's pleasure but my own...but if I got paid, I'd BETTER write for your pleasure as well and if what I write doesn't exactly send you into raptures of ecstacy - or worse, dunks you into some serious depression - well, that might lead one to develop a brand new passion - like gambling....or alcoholism...or, horror of horrors, that last resort of every also-ran writer..memoirs.

Check this!

Go Back Global Terrorist!

9549

Twenty-one years ago, Daddy drove him in to our squeals of delight. My twin and I took to him immediately. The last of the original Fiat model, when we brought him home, he was already 15 years old - add 21 to 15 - ever heard of a 36-YEAR-OLD CAR!?! 9549 was 36 years old, 21 of those birthdays happened with us.

I know cars these days come with loads of 'extras' and a cassette player is passe - but it wasn't 21 years ago. My twin and I loved music with a passion (still do!) and a player in the car was a novel luxury. It became a ritual to spend a couple of hours in the car each week with the windows rolled up or down depending on the season running our favourite tapes over and over till we busted them. We pestered mummy and daddy to takes us on drives and we drove around without a destination simply humming or singing along.

We ate in the car, we drank countless cups of steaming coffee in it, we had tons of icecream parked outside Lakeview, we studied in the car, we fought and we made up in the car. We also earned pocket money from Daddy washing it! The weeks we needed extra money, we gave it an extra wash - 9549 taught us the value of cash.

The years (and our infamous roads) began to wear him down. I guess we all knew at the back of our minds we would have to say goodbye soon. Sometimes I resented 9549 for not being what he used to be - he represented a lost time that we sometimes desperately want to go back to.

Two weeks ago, Daddy drove him out for the last time from our garage. It was hard to hold back the tears. I don't know who'll touch him next, but he carries a lot of precious memories...

* *B R E A K I N G N E W S* *

This is to inform you that a revised and improved Overtime and Conveyance Policy has been posted on our Intranet. As you all know, we're in a perpetual crisis. Everyone knows this - you know, your parents know, your spouses know (or is it spice?!?...anyway...), your children know (if you have kids at home who're just learning to talk, the first word they'll utter will probably be 'crisis' - do not be alarmed) - practically the whole city knows because our vans are zipping around in a tizzy. So, in order to encourage you to clock in extra hours, we revisited our OT and Con (short for conveyance - please don't get any ideas) Policy.

How you access this is: You log into Bee Mine, wait for 2 hours; click on HR Manual, wait for 2 hours; click on Policies, wait for 2 hours (please don't forget to work while you're doing all this waiting), click on Overtime and Conveyance Policy....and come back tomorrow and read it. Because you can only read it tomorrow, the policy has been summed up here briefly.

Overtime Policy
Remains unchanged. You'll be paid the same rate per hour that you've always been paid. This is in keeping with our motto: "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got."

Conveyance Policy
For overtime upto 4 hours: Use your own conveyance and we'll reimburse you - at actuals or lesser (whichever is lesser.)

For OT upto 8 hours: OT vans will be provided (please bring your own driver).

For OT upto 16 hours: OT ambulances will be provided (please carry your medical insurance papers on your person.)

For OT greater than 16 hours: In-house IV drips and soft pleasant music will be provided.

Other Floor Luxuries
For overtime upto 4 hours: A good OT system will be provided. At the end of 4 hours, security will call a rick for you if you're without wheels. If you have wheels, valet services will be provided (please ensure that your vehicle is insured.)

For OT upto 8 hours: A good OT system and fresh orange juice will be provided. Security will escort you into your van and strap you into your seat (new seat belts have been added in all vans.)

For OT upto 16 hours: A good OT system, fresh orange juice, and four 50-50 biscuits will be provided. Stretcher will be brought to your workstation and you'll be peeled from your chair and carried down on the stretcher into your OT ambulance. If you're embarrassed riding downstairs lying in the stretcher, you may sit up and crack jokes.

For OT greater than 16 hours: See under Conveyance Policy 'For OT greater than 16 hours.' In addition, one member of your family will be allowed on the floor to hold your hand and cry.

If any part of this is not clear, please write to us or come up and meet us and we'll fire you on the spot because, c'mon, if you can't understand something this simple, it's no wonder we're perpetually in a crisis....let's roll, folks!

Employer Satisfaction Survey

You've all participated/will participate/are participating in the Employee Satisfaction Survey. This one's its counterpart - The Employer Satisfaction Survey. Afterall, unless we're satisfied, you can't be.

Dollops has agreed to join hands with us to conduct this exercise. Dollops, as you all know, is a 150-year-old icecream manufacturing company located in Alaska (that's the state Russia sold to America a century before any of you were born. Trust the wily Russians to get rid of a lot of ice and make a profit in the bargain....anyway, that's a different story). Dollops is located in Alaska because they don't need to buy freezers there - and they get Eskimo labour. The Eskimos still believe that the world runs on barter system.

Please take the time to complete this. Please be honest. Be critical. Everything is confidential (everybody will read everything, but no one will say anything, okay?) We're not vindictive (but we reserve the right to raise your projection to 1650 and if you don't hit that number, we reserve the right to give you a golden handshake and tell you to 'ged the hell outtta here' because, hey, c'mon, deep down we're still a Yankee joint and remember Texas is running the show now.

Every question has at least four options. No right or wrong answers. Pick the one that reflects your sentiments best.

1. Do you like HS?
A. Of course ! It's the only place to be.
B. Of course ! HS rocks.
C. Yes. Very much. Thank you.
D. So all together, let's hear it once more, "I LOVE HS"

2. Do you like the food?
A. Sure! It's top class.
B. Sure! It's 5-star.
C. Sure! It's top class and 5-star.
D. Yes. Very much. Thank you.

3. Do you like the chairs?
A. Yes ! It makes me feel like a King sitting on his throne.
B. Yes. When I'm bored, I can spin around and go "owheeeee..."
C. I like blue chairs the best.
D. Yes. Very much. Thank you.

4. Do you like your payslip?
A. Yes. I became a millionaire after coming here.
B. Yes. I love to be in the BPL category - it's not everyday that you get to be associated with a famous abbreviation.
C. NO. I'd like a 25 paisa raise.
D. Yes. Very much. Thank you.

5. How often do you think you need a payhike?
A. Never.
B. Everytime Haley's comet whizzes past us.
C. This is a joke - HA HA- you may laugh.
D. Yes. Very much. Thank you.

6. What about quality? Do you think we're doing enough to ensure no one is getting sued 10,000 miles away?
A. Of course ! We're afterall an ISI Agent...sorry, ISO Company.
B. 98% of us believe that 80% of the time 95% of our reports are 100% accurate.
C. You may juggle the above numbers as you please.
D. Yes. Very much. Thank you.

7. What about quantity?
A. Yeah! What about it?
B. We sweep the board - gold, silver, and bronze.
C. Yes.
D. Very much.
E. Thank you.

You're done. Thank you for your time. We've covered everything we can think of here. If there's something we didn't think of, it's not worth thinking about, so you don't think about it either. But we're really an open-door, big-happy-family, all-are-welcome company, so in keeping with our democratic tradition, you may send us hate mail at out-of-office@goodbye.com
The last time Dollops was here, everyone cribbed about the selection process for everything - projects, promotions, rewards, punishments, who gets to be outriders for the Terry Fox run - EVERYTHING. We're happy to announce Dollops has found a solution, one that's startling in its simplicity. We're hanging this sign from an Irish pub on our front door: "This is our back door. Our front door is at the back." With this, all back door entries are now official. Yes. Very much. Thank you.

Who Are You?

I'm not what you would call gadget-savvy (give me a Remington typewriter any day). Here's why: I've logged in with my password, terminator (really, that's my password) for as long as I can remember (and here's my user ID: Harry. Go on, make my day). My computer usually welcomes me with this message: "Good Morning Harry Terminator. Have you told your neighbour about our referral scheme ? If your neighbour joins us, we'll give you 30 paise extra for every line you post within the next 3-1/2 minutes !!!! Tell your neighbour now, Harry !!! TELL !!!" to which I would smile coyly and reply, "no, really, I can't take advantage of your generosity." And thus, life went on. Imagine my shock then, when one day I logged in as usual and my computer asked me "Who are you?" What a question ! How am I supposed to know !?! Those of you who know the answer to the question "Who Are You?", raise your legs.......There ! Not a single leg ! Some questions are best left unanswered.....or even unasked.

Anyway, after much cajoling and coaxing and threatening, I discovered that my computer wanted me to change my password......Oh ! Did I tell you my password is 'terminator' ? Sorry ! I changed it. It's now 'exterminator' (and you can still make my day because my user ID is still 'Arnold' - I haven't changed that). I also discovered that, like everything else, my computer too was made in China, and that terrified the living daylights out of me. The Chinese (in competition with the Japs) make phones that can take your picture, double up as a computer, sing songs for you, send messages to your neighbour who's sitting less than half a foot away, play games, and in some cases, even shoot you if you press the wrong buttons long enough. You can also make calls (if you have the time). I have one such phone....at home.....somewhere.....I'm saving money to buy a microscope to look for it. Anyway, that's why I'm not gadget-savvy. In fact, I'm petrified of anything that vaguely resembles buttons.

Addendum: The Japs will wait for the Chinese to come up with the inventions and then simply buy the company and patent the products and run around claiming it's theirs. (Unrelated to any of the above, an addendum literally means 'add' to the 'end'.....'ummm' - as in 'this is an after-thought').

Moral of Story: Learn Chinese. Your next TL will be Made in China.

"There's a Bomb on the Bus....."

I was bored. I looked at the clock - "1 more hour to go!!!" it screamed. I twiddled my thumbs idly, and for some inexplicable reason thought of Keanu Reeves. His immortal line from Speed jumped at me out of the blue and suddenly I had - what my 4-year-old nephew calls - "a great idea!"

I sent a message on the chat to our front desk - "There's a bomb on the bus" - I sat on my hands and waited - 5 minutes passed, nothing happened; 10 minutes, still nothing; 15 ...nada; I crept down the stairs slowly and peeked at the front desk. The receptionist was on the phone. I hid from view and watched. She hung up and turned to her monitor. She frowned, she rubbed her eyes, she looked around, she frowned harder...then, she shrugged and went back to her work.

I charged - "Didn't you get my message!?!?" I asked incredulously.
"Oh...you sent that..?" she asked unruffled.
"Yes!" I almost screamed and waited expectantly...she continued working. "There's a bomb on the bus!!!!" I gesticulated wildly.
"What bus?" she asked looking up and leaning back in her chair.
"How should I know!?!?!?" my eyes were huge and incredulous with disbelief.
She shrugged again and gave me a 'where-did-you-escape-from?' look and went back to work.
"Aren't you going to do something !?!?!" my voice rose to a shrill pitch.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked without looking up.
"Well...how about looking up at me for a start!!!! Aren't you worried? People are going to die!!!"
"People die all the time..." she said. I couldn't dispute THAT.
"Do something!!!" I commanded.
"Well....I can sing pretty well..." she offered sarcastically.
"Send everyone to the lunchroom!!!" I suggested ignoring her last remark.
"Why? Because there's a bomb on a bus somewhere in the city?" she asked
"What bus?!?!?" I yelled.
"How should I know?" she shot back..."You're the one that sent the message."
"Is that what I said!?!? No, no, I meant there's a bomb in this building!!!!" I was hysterical.
"Oh..?" she said.
'Oh' what!?!?! ...evacuate everyone then...send a message and ask everyone to go to the lunchroom. NOW!!!" I barked.
"Go to the lunchroom" she said yawning
"Just me!?! What will I do there all by myself!?!? Tell EVERYONE!!"
"I can assure you no one will want to go to the lunchroom now" she said.
"Tell them what I told you!!" I was talking very loudly.
"That there's a bomb on the bus?" she asked.
"No, no, that there's a bomb in the lunchroom! Then, everybody WILL go!!!" I screamed.
She looked at her watch and got up. "Look, you'll miss your van, and I'll miss mine...why don't you go home and take your tablets and get some sleep?" she was already on her way out.
"Oh...ah...yes, my van..." I mumbled and followed her tamely.
As I passed the security officer's cabin, I saw him glued to the TV. I peered in - Maria Sharapova was on center court in her night clothes under the blazing Aussie sun.
"It's hot there, isn't it!" I remarked.
"You bet" the security officer grinned.
"Psst..." I said, gesturing for him to come closer. He leaned out.
"There's a bomb on center court" I whispered.
"I know" he said....and winked.

Excuse Me, Come Again...?

Look, I'm actually here to confess: My hearing's not so good anymore, and I sometimes hear and type pretty weird things in the my reports. I'm not getting any younger and with all my preoccupations, my thoughts sometimes influence what I hear. Is that a sin ? Like this other day, the day they took my snap for the ID (you know, those passport photos where they manage to make you look nothing like yourself ? I can actually use mine to scare off potential muggers) - I was wondering if I should've smiled into the camera to improve my face value and so when the doctor dictated "the patient has mild CVA tenderness," I heard and typed "the patient smiled CVA tenderness." Ok, I admit that's a bad one, but the proofer marked me a weighted comprehension for it! I was SO hurt and humiliated.

But that's nothing compared to the trauma my friend went through. Now, you judge this one for yourself: The doctor apparently said "The patient is a resident of Texas. Mental Illnesses: None ." which my friend heard and typed as "The patient is a resident of Texas Mental Illness Home ." Big deal ! I mean, doesn't that amount to almost the same thing ? (If you answered No to that, how do you account for George Dubya Bush who was born with his own punchline "I'm living proof God has a sense of humor"? Where did you think Dubya was from?) The proofer charged the MT a weighted comprehension for this one ! My friend was enraged. I was outraged. You only charge a weighted comprehension when what is typed changes the intended meaning of what the doctor said..... which this clearly doesn't do .

Do you agree with me that living in Bangalore is expensive? (for that matter, dying in Bangalore is even more expensive, but let's not get morbid here, ok?) and that if you have to tank up four times a month, you have to rob a bank on your way to the bunk? (don't worry, this is leading somewhere). Now can you, with a clear conscience, blame me if I get reealllly excited when I hear the phrase "free of cost" ANYWHERE? Even if it's in a medical report where it has no business to be? This is what I heard: "Use the nebulizer and albuterol with lidocaine free of cost ." I was mighty thrilled ! I felt like jumping up and down and screaming "I want that disease, I want that disease !" Imagine, getting free medicines ! I suppressed my juvenile delinquent tendencies and simply typed exactly what I'd heard: "Use the nebulizer and albuterol with lidocaine free of cost ." The proofer wasn't impressed. And what did I get? Surprise, surprise - a weighted comprehension! Turns out the doctor was saying "Use the nebulizer and albuterol with lidocaine for your cough ." How boring. And you can keep your cough, thank you very much. Who wants a stupid cough, anyway?

Tell me one thing. If doctors want quality reports, shouldn't they be giving us quality dictations? From experience, I can tell you dictating doctors generally fall into three categories: The ones that have marbles in their mouths, the ones that have frogs in their throats, and the ones that have ants in their pants. Dr. Marbles-in-Mouth was flying at supersonic speed through his lab values: "chloride103 comebackside23 BUN12..." I was asleep at the wheel, so to speak, and this one really woke me up. I took my foot off the gas pedal and reversed: "chloride 103, come backside 23 , BUN 12..." carbon dioxide! you lovable gas! you almost got me into serious trouble (but I caught this one, I didn't type it. Obviously it's easy to catch a vapour that you can't see, taste, touch, or smell).

In all fairness though, some doctors are crystal clear in both thought and speech. Like this one who said, "Would you please send a copy to Dr. Hemmingway? That's JENNIFER Hemmingway, not Ernest...Ernest is dead." And he even spelt dead: " D-E-D , dead" he said. How sweet of him. Don't you wish his tribe increases ? It would make life so much easier for us.

Anyway, there's a lesson in all this for you. Three lessons actually: One, if you're suffering from Alzheimer's dementia, just do yourself and everybody else a favor and go lie down quietly somewhere in a straitjacket, ok ? Don't come here and type medical reports. Two, proofers don't, and I repeat, proofers do not have a sense of humour. So quit making jokes. Three, please go watch Cartoon Network; it's a lot closer to our lives than you think.

Now, I'm going to sign off a la Bugs Bunny. Open quotes that's all folks exclamation mark close quotes. And oh, just one thing more before I go...you know, how everybody says 'Watch this Space'? Well, don't watch this one because I'm not coming back. I'm going to lie down in that straitjacket....quietly.

My Favourite Quotes

Trust in God but tie your camel to a tree --Arab proverb

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint--Mark Twain

Death is life's way of telling you you're fired - Unknown

We live in an age where the pizza gets to your home before the police -- Jeff Marder

Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the work done --Al Bernstein

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read -- Groucho Marx

This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force -- Dorothy Parker

That was a good career move -- Gore Vidal on learning that his friend and rival Truman Capote had died

We have met the enemy...and he is us -- Pogo (Walt Kelly)

Assume a virtue if you have it not -- William Shakespeare

Anything too stupid to be said, is sung -- Voltaire

Your greatest enemy is your greatest friend -- Native American saying

Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it -- Harry Truman

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education -- Mark Twain

I really didn't say everything I said -- Yogi Berra

George W Bush beetle!

I just read in today's newspaper that George W Bush recently had a slime-mould beetle named after him. Boy! What a popular guy! He's now rampaging the insect world.

The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi apparently sent Goran Persson, his Swedish counterpart 24 bottles of wine because the latter was so aghast at the thought of drinking British wine which Tony Blair offered when he hosted the European Union Summit in Brussels - this must surely rank as diplomacy at its best. The last thing the world needs right now is to go to war over wines.

THE DANCE OF THE MUSES

They gallop away like a frenzied mare
That can't be tamed or saddled
Emotional tornadoes in no one's care
Why should a deceitful mind be cradled?
I once saw a fairy with her magic wand
Which she waved and the world wore a smile
Even the ducks were laughing in the pond
And they could be heard for a mile
'Oh, Fairy!' I cried, 'take me with you to the land of peace
Take my heart in your beautiful hands
Make me as happy as those laughing geese
Whose tornadoes are banished from their heartlands.'
She turned on me and horror crossed her face
With a wave of her wand, she was a witch
In a frenzy, she tore at her beautiful lace
She ripped it stitch by beautiful stitch
'You cursed beast,' she shrieked, 'your decaying soul has cast a rotten spell
That has turned my beauty into ugliness
The tornado that has seized your soul and broken its shell
Should be killed or you'll never know happiness.'
Gales swept the world and the geese were sad
And the Fairy's wand lay broken
The birds were dying, the animals went mad
Mournful cries were heard, no words were spoken
I ran away and sat by the stream feeling very wicked and powerful
Suddenly the nightmare became a dream
The howls were music even if they were mournful
'Satan's on his throne,' I chirped, 'and all's well with the world
The birds and beasts are just like me.'
My eyes gleamed and in a smirk my lips were curled
The cause of their misery I was happy to be
I heard the tinkle of laughter that sounded like silver bells
I saw the Dance of the Muses in a silver glow
I wondered if they could break cursed spells
Or if more misery would follow
I stood mesmerized by the dance and the birds began to sing
The animals were silenced as silver stars rained
And little silver bells began to ring
The wind became quiet as if suddenly chained.
Whiteness washed over me and such peace I had never known
That I fell on my knees and wept my tears
As the beautiful silver light shone
The tornado was crushed and so were my fears...
The Fairies now laughed and danced and the animals joined them too
The sun smiled broadly, the birds continued their song, and the sky turned a deeper blue
Now, I felt less powerful but more strong.

WELCOME TO BANGALORE!

This was written in 1989 - I'm putting it up here because it's more relevant than ever today!

Traffic jam on the pavement
Ditches center, left, and right
Your eyes bulge in amazement
To me, it's a common sight

A whistle in the air
It's the invisible cop
He's made himself a chair
On a car top

The cow glared
The yuppie swore
You no longer cared
There couldn't be much more

Don't lose heart
In this city many adore
Survival is an art
Welcome to Bangalore!

ZAPPED!

Daniel: "I found this one, she's really good
She's kind, she's caring, she's never rude
You must meet her, she's the new girl in my life
She's really different and better looking than my ex-wife!"

Emmanuel: "Oh! C'mon Daniel, not again
I've heard all this many times, all in vain
Relax a while, you try too hard
And that's why you never play the right card."

Daniel: "She's got long copper hair, huge black eyes
She's so gentle, she wouldn't even scare the mice."

Daniel was so smitten, Emmanuel just had to see
Who his friend's new girl could be
Off they went to Daniel's place
Emmanuel, eager to get a peek at her face.

When they reached, said Emmanuel
"Where's she? Don't see her Daniel."
Pointing to the garden, said Daniel,
"There she is, my new female Cocker Spaniel!"

Medical Transcription - the 'empty' world

YOU ARE KING!

To be good at medical transcription, you must have a clear understanding about the roles of all involved players.

First of all, there's you. Forget the customer, YOU are King. Do not underestimate your powers. You have the power, for instance, to determine whether 52-year-old John Smith, the Caucasian male who came in for a hernia repair, leaves the hospital with name, age, gender, and race intact.....or if he even leaves, alive. He could be dead in YOUR hands before the doctor even gets to him. So, you, dear MT, are not just King - you're GOD.

Then, there's the doctor; more specifically, the BAD dictator. Bad doctors are an occupational hazard. Take them in your stride. Like everybody else who ever comes into your life, bad dictators too teach you something about yourself you didn't know....like, you're perfectly capable of having multiple homicidal ideations in a single 8-hour shift, but you don't act on them: You're great at resisting temptation ! You know a lot more adjectives than you think. You believe in prayer power. You can be really nasty and reject this report right now....ok, not that...so, moral of story: DO NOT Find Job.....job will find you (do not worry).

And THEN, there's the insurance company. If you want to worry, worry about these guys because if you miss the 'r' in John Smith's hernia, these wicked guys won't pay his "henia" bill which will ensure that you get ANOTHER dictation (by the SAME bad doctor) tomorrow (on the SAME patient) for a myocardial infarction - which is what John Smith will have when he takes a look at his "henia" bill - and please, you don't go and miss the 'r' again in his infarction.

Then, there's AAMT, the Boss - or BOS for short. Be mildly concerned about the AAMT. They will wake up every once in a while and tell you what hyphens to drop and what Romans to convert to Arabic (I'm talking about numerals, silly).

Contrary to what everyone will tell you, the patient should be the least of your concerns. I mean, c'mon, John Smith is not my rich uncle. Why should I care? Does he care that we get up at 4:30 a.m. to rush here and sit in front of our system and go to sleep while pop-ups fly around saying, "Link please", "where's the link?" "Link??", "LINK!!!!" and other such urgent messages? Not only does not NOT care, he lies there 10,000 miles away and offloads HIS problems on YOU. He's the most selfish player here, so please, just ignore him.

So now for Moral of Story: To be a good MT, the only thinkg that you need to be really concerned about is, when's your next weekly off.

~~~~~~~******~~~~~~~******~~~~~~~

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST - with apologies of Oscar Wilde

First of all, if you haven't read "The Improtance of Being Ernest", do so immediately. It answers Shakespeare's eternal question "What's in a name?" and poses one of its own "What's not?"

Now, on to more pressing matters. Every single letter in a medical transcript is important. Sometimes, a wrong letter can can mean the difference between life and death. Here's an example: How many times do you type the word 'diet' in your report? And in how many combinations? Healthy diet, advanced diet, regular diet, clear liquid diet, pureed diet. Suppose you dropped the 't'?...or you substituted 'd' for it...wouldn't that make a huge difference? It may be one small 't' for you, but it's one giant leap (into the next world) for the patient. See what I mean about a life and death difference?

Healthy died - a technical impossibility.

Advanced died - second stage of death?

Regular died - I suppose we can live with this one (no pun).

Clear liquid died - death by drowning?

Pureed died - don't even go there.

If you're still not convinced, try this one for size. This example is not strictly medical though it might qualify under psychiatry: After months of American occupation of Iraq, President Bush recently said that they now that it was IRAN all along that had ties wtih Al-Qaeeda and not IRAQ. Wow! So now, there's a real possibility, like Jay Leno said, that "Bush bombed the wrong country because of a typo." So, take car when your tping.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

YOUR FAVOURITE DOCTORS

The Good Doctor: Starts with Hello or Good Morning. Says Please and Thank you a lot (“can you please change this? Thank you”, “can you please strike that out? Thank you”, “can you please cancel this dictation after typing 6 pages for half an hour? Sorry, thank you very much”). If he ever has to say ‘sternocleidomastoid muscle,’ he makes sure he spells it out. Ends with “Have a nice day.”

The Bad Doctor: Starts with a yawning Good Morning and ends with a yawning something-you-don’t-understand. In between, he sleeps. If he ever has to say ‘sternocleidomastoid muscle,’ he manages to make it sound like ‘Spiderman.’ Tries to help by spelling ‘muscle’…and spells it wrong.

The Ugly Doctor: Starts with a growl and warns you his reports are verbatim. There’s a slight problem with that: he doesn’t know grammar, and he misspells everything but keeps warning you not to meddle with his report. Dictates hair-raising drug dosages and lab values that could only fit an ape. “Just you try and change that,” he warns you.

The On-call Doctor: He’s covering for someone else and like all people who cover for someone else, he’d much rather be somewhere else. His favourite phrases are “I’m not sure,” and “I think, maybe”. Starts with “I’m Dr…uh…err…Dr…Dr…Dr…” he struggles to get his name out and you wonder if he could possibly have forgotten his own name.

The Confused Doctor: Starts with a cheerful “Good Morning” and then turns to someone and asks, “it IS morning, isn’t it?” Dates the visit in the 20th century and tells you midway that it’s the date of birth (giggles). Switches merrily between “he” and “she”, “left” and “right”, and “hand” and “foot” throughout. Turns to someone and asks (at the end), “Am I in the right place?”

The Whispering Doctor: He sits on a highway with 18-wheeler trucks roaring past and whispers. In addition, he sounds like someone is holding his head under water, and by the time you finish transcribing the report, you desperately wish you could have that honour. Says “Thank you” very loudly at the end.

Dr. Wren and Martin: Uses only one preposition, “in”; one verb, “are” and 3 genders, “he”, “she”, and “it.” Remarkably grammar-free and very very happy with himself.

So, have a nice day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU...

It did to me! What you're about to read is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Doctor: "Good Morning. I want to make a change to a report that I dictated in 1995. I don't have the report number and I can't remember the patient's name, obviously, (and I hope to God I'm in the right hospital), but I want to change Chief Complaint from "cat bite" to "monkey bite" and the part where I said "The patient tells me he sometimes feels very catty and has to resist the urge to lap up milk from a bowl", I want that changed to "The patient tells me he sometimes feels like a monkey and has to resist the urge to swing from trees." I want these corrections made on the original job. Find it. It must be SOMEWHERE. I repeat, DON'T SEND THIS AS AN ADDENDUM."

He practically yelled into my ears....and he sounded just like Al Capone. I was shaking like a leaf in a snowstorm. I don't know about you, but I scare very easily. This was a doctor. An American one. Probably Republican...and you know how dangerous THEY are. They're all unarmed and dangerous....except President Bush, of course, who's armed and dangerous. I sit at my workstation with a chief complaint of my own: Diaphoresis and atrial flutter. If I defy this doctor's orders, who knows, they could bomb Bangalore (they've certainly bombed other places for far sillier reasons.....like, being unable to find a reason) and I didn't want to be famous like that. And can you imagine what would happen to my US QA if they bombed us ? So I run up and down between floor one and floor four trying to find someone who knows what to do with this report. None of us are really sure, but I get plenty of opinions.

Opinion 1: Type everything verbatim and post it (and buy yourself a gun for protection).
Opinion 2: No!!! Are you nuts?? Put it in tech with a note "Veterinary Report".
Opinion 3: Do that only if you want to get sued; if you don't, delete the job.
Opinion 4: Delete it?!?! But isn't that a HIPPY violation?
Opinion 5: What is HIPPY violation?
Opinion 6 (my opinion): Open window. Jump.

Okay people, back to work...What? Oh, you want to know what I did with the report ? I rejected it. Now, turn off your autoselect and enjoy the remains of your day.

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Miraculous Messages from Water

http://www.life-enthusiast.com/twilight/research_emoto.htm

Absolutely fascinating article on water!

Excerpt from the article on this page: "The photographs and information in this article reflect the work of Masaru Emoto, a creative and visionary Japanese researcher .......These photographs show the incredible reflections of water, as alive and highly responsive to every one of our emotions and thoughts. It is quite clear that water easily takes on the vibrations and energy of it's environment, whether toxic and polluted or naturally pristine.

Masaru Emoto's extraordinary work is an awesome display, and powerful tool, that can change our perceptions of ourselves and the world we live in, forever. We now have profound evidence that we can positively heal and transform ourselves and our planet by the thoughts we choose to think and the ways in which we put those thoughts into action."

Quote

To see a World in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a wild flower
Hold Infinity in the plam of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
- William Blake

Cyprus Diary - April 2002

The plane angles sharply in descent. The blue sea seems to leap at your porthole. The beauty of the gleaming Mediterranean takes your breath away. You couldn't hope for a better welcome.

Cyprus is a Mediterranean Island. It's called the Island of Venus, Island of the Sun, Island of Aphrodite, hundreds of names really but nothing does justice to this charming place. Locally, it's called Kypru. The population is about 700,000 (less than Bangalore!) It's history is complicated and interesting but it's most recent influences have been Turkish, British, and of course Greek. It's been colonised just like us, and everyone speaks English. The people are warm and friendly and very interested in India. Cyprus is located in a commercial hotspot - a Mediterranean port close to 3 continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe but they don't export much....mainly oranges. They import everything from everywhere.

Where we stayed was Nicosia, the capital city, locally known as Lefkosia. It's perfect to a fault, very picturesque, very neat and tidy, very laid back, and very very safe. The best way to see the city is by foot (I suppose that's the best way to see any place). Nicosia is the last divided capital city in the world. My bedroom had a view of this mountain with a huge crescent moon painted on the backdrop of a flag...that's where Turkish Cyprus begins. The Turks and Greeks hate each other with a passion that makes the Indo-Pak rivalry look like a romance. Though they're just across the border, they couldn't be more different.

Greek Cyprus (where we stayed) is more influenced by Europe. It's currency is the pound, and it's value in terms of Indian rupees would be around 77, but these people don't trade in the international market so if you crossed the border with a pound, it's as good as used tissue - absolutely worthless. This side of the fence, unemployment is almost nil, crime rate is 0, and the standard of living very high. They speak Greek. it's a very safe place. You can leave your house unlocked and go on a vacation and come back and nothing will be missing. You can safely walk around at 2 in the morning without worrying about being mugged. You don't have to worry about the taxis taking you for a ride (no pun), your pocket being picked, or your property being trespassed. The Turks I heard are everything the Greeks are not. There's rampant poverty and unemployment, and naturally, crime.

Nicosia is a beautiful city. When we landed, it was spring, a perfect season. The Mediterranean climate is very well suited for fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The flowers have to be seen to be believed! Every inch of available space has plants and you can see maybe a square foot of land with about 50 varieties of flowers of different colours. Lime and orange trees grow by the roadside and in spring, they're full of fruit. When the sea breeze sets in the evening, the aroma is intoxicating.

Where we stayed was the heart of Nicosia, just off the main road called Makarios Avenue, in a street called Dramas. Our apartment was on the 7th floor, and every window in every room overlooked the mountains in the distance. The sunsets were breathtaking (the sunrises also, I suppose, but I never rose with the sun to look). About 2 to 3 km from where we stayed is the Town Square, a local hangout - much like MG Road but a lot cleaner and not as crowded. No traffic is allowed in the Square, so there's only foot traffic. It's a block of area covered with hundreds of shops and yummy eateries. At the end of the Town Square is a memorial for the soldiers who died during the Turkish invasion of 1974. Just behind the Memorial is a wall with steps leading up. If you climb up and peep across, you can see where Turkish Cyprus begins. It's heavily patrolled by soldiers who're such hunks!

Nicosia doesn't have an airport. It did have an international airport until recently when the UN took it over, so it's not open to civil air traffic. The airport is at Larnaka, a city about 50 km from Nicosia. It's a good thing because the ride from Larnaka to Nicosia is absolutely stunning! The airport is right next to the Mediterranean, so when you descend, the view is awesome. On the other side are the mountains (if you have a good imagination, it'll help because no words can do justice to this sight).

The Mediterranean is a lovely colour. Ink blue in the middle, copper sulfate as it shallows off, and peacock green where the shores start. It's a very friendly sea, calm, blue, and very safe. You'll never see here the huge rolling crashing waves that you see in the other oceans. It's an ideal place to learn deep see diving and snorkelling and the beach towns have lessons for tourists - if you camp at a beach twon, it's irresistible, but we only visited the beaches, never stayed overnight anywhere.

The most beautiful was the Agia Napa (pronounced ayya-napa) beach town. It's the hottest tourist destination of all the beaches in Cyprus. It's spic and span, has lovely beachfront hotels and cottages, beautiful flowers and trees, great eateries, and deadly shops. The beach road is heavenly. You can spend hours just sitting on the benches on the beach road and watching life buzz around. We visited two other beaches - Pafos which is on the west and Kurion (also called Curium) which is on the way to Pafos. We visited Curium first. The road to Curium is cut through a hill and the terrain is very unpredictable on the other side. Sometimes, it flattens off into plains and sometimes it's just a sheer drop. We were travelling with friends who live in Limassol and have travelled the road many times. They stopped the car abruptly and told us to get out and take a look....we gasped! There was the Mediterranean!! It's beauty when you see it from the hill is indescribable. From where we were standing on the hill, we could see cars parked right almost to where the waves can lap on the tyres. It's not much of a beach when you actually get to Pafos. It's a very small strip and it's not as glamourous as Agia Napa. Hardly anyone goes to Curium I heard and I had to wonder why! It's not marketed as a tourist spot like Agia Napa, so it's probably the best place to go. We had a great time on Curium beach. Hardly anyone was around and the water was fantastic. Because we got there around 4, the sun was directly overhead, the water was lukewarm and the loveliest blue I've ever seen. It was then I noticed how the water looks a different colour at each beach. By the time we reached Pafos, it had started to get very cloudy and misty, so we missed the sunset which is apparently an unforgettable sight if you see it. Pafos is not much of a beach at all. It has rocks going out into the Mediterranean and you can go quite a bit into the sea. On our way back from Pafos, we stopped at a Pakistani restaurant (if you're in Europe, a Pakistani restaurant is home!!) called Pine Tree. It's right next to one of the two British bases in Cyprus. The minute you get out of the car, a very strong aroma of pine hits you - it's very sharp and refreshing. It's a small place and Asians are very welcome. No one cares where you're from. The food is lovely.

The Cypriot food is superlative if you're a non-veggy. If you're a grasseater like yours sincerely, you don't have too much choice. The traditional Cypriot meal is something called a Mezze which is (get ready!) a 30-course meal...yes! 30-COURSE! We weren't adventurous enough to try it. It's got lots of meats, vegetables, fish, bread, and fruit. They eat a lot of wheat products but rice is also available. You have food products from all over the world on that tiny island.

The Cypriots are great drinkers (my kind of folks!) The Cyprus White Wine is quite a hot favourite in the Mediterranean. They have 4 major breweries and KEO and SODAP are 2 of the most famous. KEO beer is as delicious as they come but their wines are even better- they have a real kick, especially their red wines. They drink a lot of coffee too! Every kind of tea in the world is available, but they're great coffee drinkers (my kind of folks again!). The Greek coffee is a must on all menus. It's very strong, made without milk, and is simply yummy! Traditional Cypriot sweets are apparenly very very sugary - I tasted just one kind, very masrshmallowy in texture.

Kakopetria is a lovely little mountain village tucked away in the Troodos mountain range. It's bang in the mountains and a tourist bomb. It's actualy just a 3-road job - you walk up and down twice and you've seen the entire village. People who're trekking up to Troodos stop here on their way up. Troodos is a very rare mountain in that it's heavily snow capped and brightly sunlit at the same time giving it an almost surreal look. There are cozy little pubs and eateries in Kakopetria and dozens of souvenir and traditional handicraft shops. Cypriot handicrafts are not so great if you're going from India. It's difficult to get very excited with plain-looking pottery and metal and leather work after you've seen the intricacies of Indian handicraft, but I suppose they'll do for the Western traveller.

Cyprus is an unforgettable experience - and one you'd like to experience over again.

You Can't Get Out of Here, You Know

Scrape...scrape...scratch..tap...tap. A bandicoot. No, maybe a cat...or is it? Glllubb...gluubb...clink...clink...metal on wood, or was it glass on metal? No, this was not a four-legged animal. Footsteps...

She got up slowly from her bed and tiptoed quietly to the stairway. She saw him. His back was to her. He had lit a candle and was looking for a place to put it down. She stood there studying him. He was getting impatient; he would surely drop something now. CRASH! The vase. He spun around instinctively and saw her. They stood looking at each other, her eyes calm, his jumping wildly around the room. He grabbed the telephone and snapped the line in a single motion. "It's been dead for a while now," her voice was soft and musical. He looked up startled. That was the last thing he had expected to hear. "Just give me what you have and I'll leave," he tried to make his voice sound menacing. 'After I slit your throat,' he thought to himself. "There's nothing here," she said calmly. He looked at her closely. She was very beautiful and trying to be very brave.

He started up the stairs. "Where's the safe?" She moved to make way. "I've just been burgled," she said as he passed her on the stairs. He laughed. He'd heard everything else. There were two rooms on this floor, both closed. He opened the first door and went into the room. Except for a cot, there was nothing there. She stood at the entrance watching him. Why was she not screaming for help or something? "I told you...I've just been burgled 3 days ago," she said quietly. "Look, if you don't give me what you have, I'll kill you," he advanced threateningly. Terror crossed her face and she withdrew slightly. "I don't have a safe. All my valuables were in the living room, and he took everything - it's all gone, 3 days ago," she began to descend.

For the first time, he noticed the house was a mess. "Why haven't you straightened it out?" he asked before he could stop himself. 'This is crazy!' he thought. 'I came to clean up this place and I'm having a conversation with the resident!' He hadn't even expected anyone to be in. He'd been casing the joint for 3 days now and it had seemed unoccupied. He suddenly remembered he had seen 2 rooms upstairs but had only gone into one of them. He turned to go back up.

"Where are you going?" she followed him. He ignored her and continued climbing. She followed him. They reached the closed door. "There's nothing in there you know," she said and he thought he detected a trace of sadness in her voice. He tried the door. It was locked. Ah-ha! So this is where the action was. "Give me the key," he demanded in a quietly menacing voice. To his surprise, she reached into her robe for the key and unlocked the door. She was neither as clever nor as brave as he had thought. "You can't get out of here, you know," she said sadly as he entered. He stood still. There was someone sleeping on a cot here. Now, he would have to kill both of them.

He looked down at the sleeping figure and his heart slammed against his rib cage. He jumped back from the cot as if he'd been punched. His eyes widened in terror and his mouth opened in a silent scream. It was her! He spun around. He was alone. They found his body the next day - only his body.

Oh, Blast!

One night, as we relaxed after dinner, we heard a huge explosion that rattled window panes and sent people pouring into the streets within seconds to locate the disaster area. To appreciate what I'm about to tell you, you'll need to know a little bit about my locality. It's just off a busy main road that boasts of half a dozen eateries always packed to the brim, video libraries, net cafes, a few small businesses and many other pretenders. Ours is a typical middle-class neighbourhood - small families (big quarrels), working single men and women, bored housewives, happy drunks - in short, a very ordinary neighbourhood with lots of action every day but all of us still convinced that we lead a quiet bored existence.

Into such a quiet and bored night was injected this aforementioned blast and the resulting outpour of human curiosity. Now, if such a thing were to ever happen in your neighbourhood, take my advice and do this - do nothing. Just stand by and watch a fascinating drama of humanity that will unravel itself; find a vantage point for your observation - from where you can watch two or three streets simultaneously. If you can move, unnoticed with the crowd, nothing like it. Here's what I saw:

From the convenience store at the corner of our street, emerged one of its owners, an affable bald man (now obviously distressed) walking rapidly and chanting in a low monotone to no one in particular: "What happened? What happened?" as he rushed into the first unlocked gates within sight - a block of the sprawling apartments nearby, and disappeared.

Next, a group of young men came charging down the street screaming, "Bomb! Bomb!" and turing the corner, raced out of sight excitedly. Following them were a band of young girls with their older female wards chattering animatedly. I stopped the group and asked "What happened?" "Sounds like a cylinder burst," one of the ladies ventured. A passerby picked it up and began running around screaming "cylinder burst, cylinder burst." This caused everyone to barge into the eateries on the main road which were all empty - because the crowd from the eateries were in front of an electronic gadgets shop guessing that to be the disaster site. The electronic gadgets shop was empty - they had set off to investigate the source of the blast too.

The entire crowd now charged into the next street loking for fire, smoke, blood, limbs, anything that would confirm a massive mysterious blast. They were met there by an equally huge crowd headed into our lane in hopes of finding similar carnage. Two drunks stumbling home met the excited crowd from both lanes and blabbered unsteadily, "Shumbudy shot the priminishter." Someone screamed, "Assassination!!" and everyone ran back into their homes to turn on their TV sets.

During all this time, there was one bewildered man following the crowd everywhere trying to get someone's attention. He kept saying "but please, listen to me.....listen to what I have to say...." but they rushed on min