Hope of a better day

What drives me currently is sheer petulance, helplessness and frustration at the state of affairs my country is in. There seems to be no start or end to the saga. And the proportion of sham is bizarrely gigantic. IPL, CWG, 2G, the manipulative Radia tapes, Devas-ISRO deal, Adarsh housing, KG Basin,and what next? Every day we wake up to hear one or the other fiascoes of the government. And the unapologetic arrogant responses from people like Kapil Sibal and the irritatingly naive remarks from respectable people like Dr.Singh.

Who do we approach for succor. The very people who were chosen to protect and nourish us are oozing every drop of life out of us. When tons of food grains were found rotting, i thought it was just Sharad pawar. When Airlines started running in loss, i thought it was just Praful Patel. When IPL scam came, I thought it was just Shashi Tharoor. When Adarsh Scam was out, i thought it was just Ashok Chavan. Or at the most Vilasrao Deshmukh or Sushil Kumar Shinde. And then unfurls the huge list of Kalmadi,Raja,Maran,Kanimozhi,Murli Deora, and people who are yet to be known, or people who aren't known to me.

It's not just the UPA or the central govt. Look at Yeddyurappa. The shameless crook who clings to his throne in the most brazen manner possible. Look at Orissa, where the govt is more than eager to kick or wipe out the helpless tribals to appease POSCO or Vedanta. Look at Maharashtra where thousands of farmers suicide every year, yet all that the government does is manipulate the figures to show that the suicide rates are considerably low.

When Ambani brothers took to street their internal feuds, i thought Mukesh was the guileless one. The better in the beasts. "The Buck stops here tonight" made me an ardent fan of Barkha. The display of magnanimity to his employees during 26/11 made me genuflect at the broadness and integrity of Ratan Tata. But it came as a huge blow that they were nothing but creative creations of manipulative media. The omnipotent, which can make the most hated person out of today's most powerful and admired person with a dexterous turn of the pen, or a skillful tap on the keys.

Arundhati roy's statement that maoists were patriots and kashmiri secessionists were freedom fighters aroused uncontrollable fury in me. I felt like spitting on her face. But now i realise how true she is. At least to a great extent. One loses his faith in the system with such turn of events. If i were in the neglected forests of Orissa or Jharkhand or West Bengal, i would have become a maoist too. If i were cut out from the mainland in some north eastern town, deprived of all that should be rightfully mine,I would have joined NNC-F or ULFA. If i were in Kashmir, clouted and trampled by the govt of India over and over again, i would have turned into a stone pelter too. The only reason why I'm here, in an air conditioned office, tapping on the keys furiously is that i was blessed to be born into a safe and secure family in the relatively safe and secure God's own country. As per Hindu mythology, the quid pro quo of some good conduct in my previous birth.

Now Anna threatens the government of an indefinite fast. I don't compare him with Gandhiji. Neither do i call his, a second freedom struggle. I also agree with the government's argument that yielding to the demands of an individual or an undemocratic organization of individuals like Anna's team would undermine the stature of a democratic institution. But how else did the Blacks get to vote in the US but for Martin Luther King Jr? How else did Women's Suffrage come into existence but for the protests and rallies of millions of women demanding for equal rights? They were all show of power by random and loose collection of individuals, crying and clamoring for their rights at the democratically elected government which was happily comfortable to shut the ears and close the eyes.

I personally do not want Anna to be bigger and nobler than the Government of India. But let Government come up with a more accepted and better version of an anti corruption law than what the civil activists suggest. Arresting or gagging anyone who raises voice against the State is not acceptable. What distinguishes India from China or Myanmar or Pakistan is tolerance. And incidents like Binayak sen and Arundhati roy and Ramlila would only be a blot in the history of the nation. Success is transient and evanescent without healthy criticism. By gagging the intellectuals in the country, the government is setting the foundation to build a nation of insensitive people who have no balls to respond and resist..schmucks who wouldn't give a damn if the country goes to hell or heaven.

I'm still not pessimistic. Even when the 2002 pogrom is unforgettable, Narendra Modi is doing a commendable job in not just developing the state, but also curbing corruption of every form. Even when UPA is falling from one abyss to a deeper one, people like Jairam Ramesh and A.K.Antony still possess the respect and admiration of many. Nithish Kumar is doing more than an appreciable job in wiping out poverty and squalor from Bihar, and making it a state worthy of Indian Pride. As long as we have leaders like them, we can have hope.

I'm still not pessimistic. People are vigilant now. The recent polls, the election turn out being at a record high in some states, reveal that people have still not forgotten that the Government is By the people, and not by a few arrogant hollow headed people who believe that they are from from Mars or Venus and hold no accountability to anyone. I have hope. As Obama says,hope of a better day. Of breeze and sunshine.

Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
-Shawshank Redemption 

PS: Baba Ramdev does not deserve a mention here. I personally believe his is just a publicity stunt for some ulterior motive, to be achieved sooner or later.

Khuda Hafiz
~Gayathri~

Another of my Blah Blahs

Life is moving on without much of a change. Same old routine. The word 'old' is relative. When i said old, i didn't mean it to date back to 1993 when i started going to school, or even 2005 when i started going to college. Or for that matter, not even 2009, when i joined somewhere to get a payslip every month. It just dates back to 2010 Mar 18, when i placed my feet on Bangalore. The garden city. Well, garden city might be what it is known as, but frankly, I've never been to any gardens in Bangalore in the last one year of toiling. Perhaps, if you could count on a visit to Lal Bhagh 11 years back, then yeah, i will endorse the complement.

So, Mar 18 is the day. The day when we celebrate the first anniversary of our live-in. Bangalore and Me. I love that city pretty much. Not for the normal reasons, of partying, of pubs, of shoppers' shops, of restaurants.. I just love it. Unqualified love. Is that a right usage? I'm unsure. Unqualified love transcends tangible reasoning. Or so is what romantic poets have long succeeded in propagating.

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close."

- Pablo Neruda

They left open one of the most profitable of all the markets. The anytime reliable theme for movies. Songs. Poems. Stories. Novels. For greeting cards. For Archies. Love is in the air. Like a hydrogen balloon. Sometimes in different flavors too ;)

The higher the balloon rose, the better were the chances of bursting. And by the time the girl is 23 or 24, the Break Up would be in the airs.

Well, I'm about to be 23(of course, the girlish fetish of not admitting that i'm growing old exists in my repertoire too :-D ). But I'm definitely not the protagonist. These are all general observations. Break ups. Deceptions. Heart Breaks. They are all fighting for a little space in the air, to rise higher than 'love balloon' ever was. Girls are all getting married back to back. Guys are all abandoning saloons, to uphold the age-old concept of an unshaven face on heart breaks.

Well, life is so funny. Had Shakespeare been alive, he could have written a Romeo and Juliet part II, by altering the climax of Part I slightly, with both the protagonists marrying someone of their family's choice, there by writing off the frail chance of uniting the feuding families. And in part II, they both take up the familial feud themselves.

Anyway, it was just a random post. Just to keep myself going.
"Every writer has to find a way of going on, of not drying up, of overcoming limitations. "
-A writer's people, Naipaul.

Jobless people may try Maher Zain. Amazing Arab music.

PS: Honorable readers of my shitty post are reprimanded from asking me the intention of this post. Instead, people are requested to look at my magnanimity, which forced me to write a bad post so that we are in a better position to appreciate the better works of others ;). If not for the night, how will we appreciate the day?

PPS : Can someone come up with a replacement for 'Blah Blah' ?
Khuda Hafiz

~Gayathri~

Filler!

I was desperately thinking of what to post. A week after 'The Comeback' post, i was still stuck in the red ribbons of a real come back, for, i found the grey cells sucked dry to deliver anything readable at all. I typed a long political post, wherein i was bitching about the shitty condition we were in. With Andimuthu Raja and Ashok Chavan and Yeddyurappa and Kalmadi and the many other s.o.bs taking us on a ride.With so much fodder to chew,it shouldnt have been difficult to spit at least a paragraph. But i found it disgusting. Later I started a long diatribe on how i ended up being anti-congress with its agenda of dynastic succession from Nehru to Indira to Rajiv to Sonia to Rahul. Of how once again,the agenda seemed flawed with the king-in-making hand-picking the most efficient of all of his ministers,Ashok Chavan,Shashi Tharoor and Omar Abdullah.That post appeared trash too. Exhausted with all my failed attempts, i was like a couple who had to drop off without reaching orgasm. I was desperate to spot a write-able topic.I even thought of putting up a lot of thoughts.The passing clouds.

And then,one day, my dear dad wakes me up to say-"Your language is bad. You play with words. You concentrate on conveying message. But not on the structure of the sentences. Not on the basic grammar. Hence you end up having literature and not language. Work on it." .
And I wonder-Do i have to write anything more at all ;)!!
The best critic and critique ever!!

Khuda Hafiz
~Gayathri~

And Here I Come!!

01/17/2011, 23:30

I was thinking.. My blogosphere has been empty for a long time. I open my page one day to see that i've shitted 87 times till date. And wonder what has become of my digestive system. I decide to try shitting again. To dump all that was rotting inside my tummy.. As a first step,i opened the loo. And kept staring at the closet for some time. The poor one which had complacently received all my droppings without a word back and still pampered me with silence whenever i wanted to shit more. Sometimes even twice or thrice a day. It did stink. Still it made me clean by holding whatever i had to shed.
My happiness.
My sorrow.
The frustration.
The bitching.
The flaunt of GK.
The empathy.
And of course, the cliche and trivia.

Had it not been for the untimely sleep on June 9,2008, I wouldn't have discovered a solace for all the digestive issues. Yet I ignored it for a long time. I blamed it on my work. I blamed it on my inaccessibility to net. I blamed it on my mundane life. I blamed it on anything but me. As much as i blame the mirror for it's crack at my reflection, i blamed my circumstances for the negligence i showed to my shit pit. I realize that i was rotting myself as much as it cried for one more bit of crap from me. And i try shitting desperately, only to realize that i've forgotten the art of excretion. The harder i try, the more constipated i felt. And finally it all comes out as a dysentry.. Shoooooo!! :P Hence lies this post. As dirty as it could be. To symbolically announce a comeback!! :)

01/18/2011, 00:36.


Khuda Hafiz
~Gayathri~