Tag Archives: Current Affairs

Such a tame New Year celebration : Groan

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We are not what can be called a normal family …. no that did not come out right!

Let me put it in a better way : – what is normal for us is not normal for a whole lot of people.  What is normal for a whole lot of people is either hypocrisy to us … or downright boring to us.

For new years, like everyone else I got a whole lot of calls from 31st morning onwards – not to mention – an deluge of messages on my cellphone.  Since all I normally get as sms are reminders to feed the bank so that my EMI’s reach the financial Gods in time – I ignore them …

Guess what – people actually did message me to wish me a Happy New Year.  I am so chuffed up heh!

Kid#1 rang me up at 10 a.m. and wished me and then said he was fed up of Christmas and New Year festivities and was gonna go underground while this madness was afoot!  My current mental state being actually hostile to human civilization, I could quite empathize with him.  Wanted to tell him to point me to an underground bunker near by where I could crawl into.

Ex rang up to wish me Happy New Year.  He was going to a Reverse James Bond Party, where he was supposed to be dressed up like a femme fatale and his wife as 007.  God is very merciful – I did not have to witness this one!  :mrgreen:
:D

Kid#2 was footloose.  He has a 21st century relationship – on and off.  At present having been dumped by his on sometimes off sometimes girl friend was single so he decided to go to a party at 2 a.m. after bringing in the New Year with us.

DIL is actively against going out to celebrate New Year.  She would like to be with family (I pause here so that all of you can say Awww so sweet!).  In my bitchy avataar let me point out that if her husband was here, they would have been out partying.

So we started our New Year binge at 10 p.m.  No fancy cooking.  Just got food from some Italian joint and sweets from Open Oven, lots of alcohol to wet the food pipe and settled around the heater.

What can I say ….

Being rather occaisional drinkers (pshaw!) both DIL and I were out for the count by 11.30.  Kid#2 woke us up at 12 and wished us while we went into our rooms and crashed.

Really tame.  I am quite ashamed of myself.  By 2010 end, I need to elope with someone of half my age with four times as much money ….

That would start 2011 with a bang!

My tribute to the gay march

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DISCLAIMER: On a personal level male homosexuality makes me a tad more  uncomfortable while  lesbianism does not.  Possibly because I studied in all girls hostels and that was something I saw and dismissed with a shrug!  However I defend their right to live and love.

Gays do have a right to live free and with pride.  Its not new and definitely not unnatural.  Check out these quotes from the ancient world which seemed to be more tolerant than ours towards .

“Homosexuality,” Plato wrote, “is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love-all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce.” This attitude of Plato’s was characteristic of the ancient world.

“Zeus came as an eagle to god like Ganymede and as a swan to the fair haired mother of Helen. One person prefers one gender, another the other, I like both.” Author unknown

Plutarch wrote , “No sensible person can imagine that the sexes differ in matters of love as they do in matters of clothing. The intelligent lover of beauty will be attracted to beauty in whichever gender he finds it.”

In ancient Rome gay men were not thought to be less masculine than straight men and lesbian women were not thought of as less feminine than straight women. Gay people were not thought to be any better or worse than straight people-an attitude which differed both from that of the society that preceded it, since many Greeks thought gay people were inherently better than straight people, and from that of the society which followed it, in which gay people were often thought to be inferior to others.

This tolerance in the times which we consider as barbaric?

I am glad that stupid law that persecuted gay people is under fire!  The cops have one less set of people to bully.

 

I become Mr. Bean

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I despise Mr. Bean. Somehow the idea of an adult man having no control over himself, his life and his environment does not appeal to me. So when this happened to me yesterday, it made me almost froth in the mouth.

1. Got my voters ID out of the almairah and into my purse

2. Rounded up the kids, for their first time voting (Kid#1 was out of country for the previous one)

3. Got into car and boldly ventured to exercise our demo(effin)cratic right to elect our government

4. Found that we were not listed in the voters list at our new address where we have lived for almost two years

5. Drove to our previous address and found that we were not listed there either – we lived there for more than 20 years dammit!

6. Had a WTF moment (when three people have the same WTF moment, I must tell you its fairly profound and creates blissful one-ness which in our case translated into a “since we are out, might as well as have lunch somewhere outside”)

7. DIL had gone to parental abode to vote, and came back proudly showing us the finger : The Bacchhan family has a lot to answer for! Humph!

8. I was overstuffed on restaurant food, angry and irritated : How does a person who has lived for 25 effin years in the same town be missing from the town’s list? I did what any one in my place would do … I went to sleep.

9. I searched the net for the person whom I should bash for omitting the names of my whole damn family (we are 3 people, guys, not so much of an effort to include?). I did not find the person I should send hate mail to

10. I am using a CD Marker to make a black spot on my finger to show to Mr. Bacchhan and family and various sundry celebrities.

Gaah! I am such a wannabe!!!!

Shoes – Citizen Weaponry

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WHAT AN IDEA SIRJI

Sales Meeting at a Footwear Manufacturing Plant in North India

Wholesaler 1 : Joota aisa ho ki upper alag na ho

G.M. Sales : But our shoes are durable, the upper is cemented to the sole with the most durable adhesive

Wholesaler 2 : Sir, Jootas now-a-days need to be very strong

Sales Executive : But of course our brand is strong, you have been selling our brand for many years.  We take care of quality

GM Sales : The adhesive is rightly sourced, A one quality, the sole is tested for water proof, sole can last on rough terrain

Both wholesalers look at each other resignedly

Wholesaler 1 : Sir you dont understand, we do not need strong soles.  We need you to make a new shoe line

GM Sales : Samjaho

Wholesaler 2 : Sir we can have a new shoe line, the shoe should be built to be aerodynamic, light, with a nice lift to it

Wholesaler 1 : Can you put in a computer chip with latest technology? Kitna cost karega?

GM Sales (Gulping down his cold drink, perplexed) : What is on your mind?

Wholesaler 1 : Sahib, novel idea hai, ekdum latest.  Bahut sale hoga

Gm Sales ( encouragingly) : We always want to listen to you.  You are our front liners, in tune with customer demands.  Company policy hai

Wholesaler 2 : Sir, shoes are no longer footwear to be walked upon.  Shoes have been upgraded to become a political statement.  We want a shoe that is light to throw

Wholesaler 1 : Aerodynamic

Wholesaler 2 : With computer chip like a homing missile – target nahin miss hona chahiye

Wholesaler 1 : The sole and upper should be tightly glued, if they break open target will be missed

Both together : Bahut bikri hoga Boss!  Costing kitna hoga? Humara commission kitna hoga? 

Wholesaler 1 : We want it fast – abhi election season hai na …  Sirr Obama said “We Can Do It!”: Humara Slogan hoga “We Can Throw It”

Ek Dum Hit Idea Hai Boss!

Vote please, its important

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I have voted every single time I could … and I guess got cheated because there is no decent leadership in the country.

I voted for Mrs. G, and that was when I was young and a big fan of her personality.  She had charisma!  I did not know or care about the condition of this country …… so I got what I deserved!

I revolted and then voted for Janata Dal …. does any one even remember it?

Well!!

Guess I got what I deserved!

Then since I was a huge fan of Mr. Vajpayee’s poetry, I voted for him.  Dammit poets dont make good politicians!  Some one kick me in the a%$# please!  A minority government and outside support cooked his verse (worse?)

Now what?

We badly need a messaiah!  No one wants to be one, though.  Humanity has a bad track record with messiahs.  We stone them, we hang them, we crucify them.

But to find a messiah and give him the keys to the office, we need to vote.

Here is a link to a person who wants to vote but cant

He never has

We can and should.  We have a working democracy and we should keep it ticking even if we vote for stupid reasons like Mrs. G’s ada and Mr. V’s poems.

Death of a blogger

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This news article made me so sad

Omid Reza Misayafi, one of the many Iranian bloggers arrested for insulting the government and religious authorities is dead.

The more we get media savvy and exercise freedom of expression, the more severe and reactionary people in power get.

Why the hell cant people take criticism well?  Why do they want to kill, or, as it is more than likely here, drive people to death?

Of bangles, underwear, turbans and honor

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Will the pink chaddi campaign work?  Or will the moral police take it as another sign that eductation and empowerment for women is bad.  It makes them besharm (shameless) hoydens?

Roop wants us to hold dialogue

Mystic Margarita wants the same

Piper would like us to petition

All these are peaceful and democratic steps to counter anti-democratic actions being taken by these people.  They started the assault and battery, they tried to take away our right to equality.    I would like them banned along with Thackeray and others of their ilk to put it mildly.  The better option would be criminal, radical and undemocratic.  Mindful of the recent bully-boy tactics of Barkha Dutt, I will not spell it out here.  Suffice to say that their strength is that they are men, we can take that away.

Remember this is India, where a man’s pride and honor is linked with his turban hence songs like “Pagri sambhal Jatta” in our freedom struggle, and sadly, also with the bangles and bodies of the women in his family.  Bangles are given to cowardly men to shame them.  The inference is “They’re weak and sissy”.

That is it, people.  Our bodies are not our own.  They are honor and pride to our fathers, brothers and husbands.  This is why murders happen like that unfortunate boy Nitish Katara who was involved with the daughter of a high profile political family. I refuse to call it honor killing.  Honor would be respecting the choices made by women, because women are people too.

Already Taliban in our neighboring countries is violently campaigning against women’s education and demolishing schools. They do not want people to think.  Knowledge has always been dangerous for fundamentalism.  The nightmare of any fundamentalist is people who think, and a woman who is independant, educated and empowered is a sign of emasculation.  If we allow this kind of thinking to continue, soon Muthalik and his tribe will beat up girls for going to school and college, and raise an outcry against working women.

I am so glad that the urban woman has found her voice.  But all is not well.  Renuka Choudhary has been served with a legal notice because she supports women.

I wonder where all this will take us and how it will end.