Facts n Fiction

Shikha called me up today, at 12.30 post midnight. She was sounding tensed. I knew that she was not happy with her marriage getting fixed with some guy. She pretended to sound normal but I could sense her worries. I asked her about the marriage preparations. She answered most of my questions with ‘hmmm’, ‘ya’, ‘ok’, ‘lets see’, and ‘don’t know’. Shikha was to get married to Arun on 20th of this month. She was obviously sad, not for the reason that she was to leave her parents but because she was going to someone with whom she was not at all comfortable, her would-be husband. He can hardly talk, she cribbed always, she meant to be able to communicate, which was among the biggest turn offs for her. She had completely surrendered to her parents will, and couldnt dare to fight back. She made fun of her would-be whenever she spoke to me, may be that was just one of the ways to rejoice and relax. I dint mind it either, I laughed with her. Every single day she had something or the other to co...

“The maximum salary a government employee would get is Rs. 80000 per month” says the new 6th pay commission. It is a party time for all our government employees with salary increments announced being around 50% and more. The new 6th pay commission drafted out new salary figures for government servants and all this is going to cost our government a whopping Rs. 12500 crore – a small amount if we were to total the number of scams, frauds, and ill practices that the politicians proudly execute. However, certainly a huge amount if we were to consider the extent of development we can do to our country. Add to this the new packages will be applicable from June 2006 thus paying these fat politicians fat arrears. Well I am not against anyone deserving, getting rewarded proportionately. For e.g. considering the corporate structure, the IIM and IIT grads can very well command such salaries as their outputs are commendable and certainly contributing for some betterment. For government employees ...

Why not? Certainly shower colors that you want to, sprinkle water, and enjoy the festive season of Holi, the spring festival that we recently celebrated a day ago. However, something that I have never been able to comprehend is what pleasure do people derive out of hitting some stranger with a balloon or coloring him/her. I still remember the days when walking in my colony on a Holi day (also includes 2 previous days) was no less than walking through a battlefield where you don’t know from where a bomb (balloon) might strike you. It wasn’t scary but irritating and the tradition continues. Though I must confess that as a child, even I had practiced such things when throwing balloons at anyone was seen as mere fun without applying any logic to it. However, that was when I was very young and as I grew up those things started rather appearing foolish to me. And that is when I stop celebrating the festival of colors and water (being unnecessarily wasted). My disgust kept increasing with pas...

“10 lakh girls missing from Indian population” , I came across this curiosity-filled headline on a news channel’s website. The news piece spoke about the female foeticide, sex determination, selective abortion etc and that’s how there was a deficit of 10 lakh girls. You may wish to go through the complete article - http://www.ibnlive.com/news/10-lakh-girls-missing-from-indian-population/60570-3.html . It is really surprising that such acts are still being practiced despite many of us boasting about women’s liberlisation and their equality. Though many things around have changed, somehow the overall mentality of our society of looking at the opposite sex is still the same. The male ego gets hurt easily when he sees woman power rising, however, he loves woman on top in some cases. The gender bias that the rural illiterate stick to is somewhat understood considering that their mindsets are still ruled by the long inherited opinions of their seniors. However, the article stated above menti...

Last few days have been quite relaxing and peaceful. I spent as much time as I could time at home all by myself. Days lazing around, watching movies, talking to friends, lunches, dinners, and other leisurely activities were like long awaited bliss that I needed. I wish I could go rewind a little and back to those days in last week. Oh yes, I also took up cleaning and dusting of my house (after a looooong time) – the wall unit, my book shelf, ceiling, sofas, floor and I was blowing off every speck of dirt that my eyes could see. My inspiration and vigour kept rising with every particle of dust that I cleaned. During little short breaks, a hot fuming drink made from freshly grinded coffee powder given to me by a dear friend kept getting my valour back to cleaning again. My “pick-dust-clean to shine-coffee break” act continued from one object to other and from one room to other. I kept rising an inch higher after giving a shiny touch to things below. Finally I found myself standing on th...

Raj Thackeray, Mumbaikar, Marathi Manoos, have recently been in news for quite sometime now for the controversies, violence, their emotions, and so on (I am not naming Mumbai here, as it is always in news for some reason or the other). I have been writing about political melodrama that was going on between Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Samajwadi Party or between Raj Thackeray and “rest of the non-Mumbaikar” community. What I was particularly disturbed about was the way in which things were being handled and the violent chaos that spread rapidly across the state. Well, my point was to talk about how politics can exploit anything and everything using the recent “insider/outsider” news story as the medium. It is not that I don’t care or think about the Marathi Manoos , I am one amongst them and take equal pride in calling myself a “Mumbaikar” , as much as Raj Thackeray would take. I was possibly carried with the errant happenings across various cities of the state and my angst flow...

Nearly 40 people beaten up with rods in several parts of the state About 15 state owned transport buses burnt Many shops closed down across the state Numerous vehicles, buses pelted with stones, thrashed down and destroyed Around 10000 north Indians flee from Nasik to their home town Amazing score card for the MNS activists to show off their Marathi asmita (pride). Oh and yes a 55 yr old Marathi Manoos killed as a result of the stone pelting by the ‘dim-witted’ and ‘ill-advised’ activists must have been like a winning shot, kind of receiving ‘Param Veer Chakra’ for the victorious act. What’s the use and what pleasure did MNS chief and his rebellions derive from creating casualties, causing damage to government, public, and private properties. And who takes the onus of the death of the innocent man, who probably had nothing to do with the north Indians and neither with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Do we really need violence to portray our protests? And is all this hatred really require...