Short Note on India Elections 09

Election 09 for me was only two people. Varun Gandhi and his mom Maneka Gandhi. In 80's Rekha had shown us Biwi ho to aisi and in 2009, Maneka shows Maa ho to aisi. BJP had almost disowned him, Congress was against him but one person who was always wit him was his mom, she visited him every day when he was wrongly put in the jail. She tried so hard for him that she had almost lost in her own constituency. But all's well that ends well. Both mother and son duo has won. I do not care if they are with BJP or any other party of their choice but the sweetness of their victory can not be ignored. Imagine Varun and Maneka sitting together at one end and Rahul and Sonia on the other. Both the mothers beaming at their son as they speak and as soon as they finish, hurry up to give them a warm glass of milk, that too malai marke.

BTW, I had pulled off the post below but now re-posting it. Originally posted even before Varun was caught under NSA.

My Views on Varun Gandhi

There are 2 ways you can really have strong views about a person. When you have done all your research and when you haven’t done any. For me, the analysis below is mainly because I did not read much about it and I think I just read the facts. I do not want to read what each and every person is saying to form an opinion. But yes, this is not a hard and fast opinion (With more proofs, things may change, and come on, he’s just 29)

I feel Varun Gandhi is just a puppet in a big game that is being played by BJP or even the sinister BJP-Congress alliance which I have a feeling is always cooking under the hood. Ok, not to sound too absurd with my argument made above, but even if it is anybody’s plan, it is certainly not Varun’s own. Hate speeches like these are being made every day by RSS workers and have been made in the past by all the BJP stalwarts except perhaps Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Sikander Bakht. To make this a political issue is a part of a bigger conspiracy which I am really eager to find out. It might even be political ambitions of the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt etc.

Second startling fact is the comparative low tone of condemnation by Priyanka and Rahul. As star people of opposite parties I had expected harsher criticisms but their statements are more like “We are ashamed of our little brother but after all he is still a kid, he will learn”. Whether these things point to the BJP-Congress under the hood pact that I speculated earlier or a case where blood is more important than political rivalry, both are good for the country as a whole. We need sensible next gen leaders who are not like present Advaniji’s BJP which had decided to oppose each and every word that Congress says in the parliament and vice versa. By showing their solidarity, Priyanka and Rahul prove that even if the become political opponents, they won’t be as insensitive as the 80+ lots.

Third reason I would like to defend Varun is his mom. She is an outcast of the great Gandhi family but she still managed to stay in picture. There are numerous people who are now nameless because of their non allegiance to Gandhi Family. But she still survives. Also, for a politician, she looks really cool( much better than Mayawati, Mamata, Jayalalitha and even Jaya Bachchan. She is in the league of Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje who themselves are collectively below the league of Jayaprada, Smriti Irani, Hema Malini). Thirdly she does this really hep and cool green and animal care thing. I do feel with most of her issues like keeping birds in cages and killing stray dogs and all such animal right things. I even try very hard to get out of Non Veg, but I promise Ms Gandhi, that the day the taste ratio of Non veg to veg based on availability even falls below 200%, I will turn a vegetarian (right now, from what I cook and what I get in restaurants, the ratio is far more than even 500%). So, I think the son of such a great mother does deserve a bit more respect and probably forgiveness because I would like to believe that he at least didn’t mean the words that we think he said.

Kuch bhi

It has been a long time. I am not sure what to write, now that I have tried so many different things. I tried to be emotional, I tried to be gossipy, I tried to be personal and I tried writing about current affairs. Today I am bored, but I still feel like writing. I am not sure if it is a good idea to clutter the blog with such posts. But then, I have seen not blogging gets into a habit and I would not want to do that. Let there be no issue based blog, but at least keep the blog alive with some written text rather than random links and pictures.

Readership has been low. Or has it increased? I do not know. But definitely, it is not the current posts that are being looked at. I think the most read ones are the Bollywood awards that I dish out and the one about “Bengali in me”, thanks to the dhono dhanye song I have put in there.

Ok let this be an update blog. I will update all of you who do read this blog and may be more for me to read later what updates I can comfortably share on this date.

I have got this craving for some good “Rani/Priety” movies now. By Rani priety I mean recent movies with a dominant heroine role. Rani has not been doing much good stuff. I saw Priety in Last Lear and Heaven on earth. I liked Last Lear.

I have also been watching this series called “The big bang theory”. It’s about 4 geeks and a dashing girl in next apartments. It’s extremely funny and I highly recommend it.

On the bad sides, I am not at all excited about the Indian general elections 2009. I do not like NDA/BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and Congress was never glamorous. The rising clout of the regional parties will just add noise to the government and no real breakthrough can ever happen. How I wish Samajwadi party was a national party. It has got glamour, it has got the backing of industrial big shots and it seems that it always means business and no nonsense party. It may be corrupt etc, but then it’s end goal is get into the government and it makes it very direct to a common man like us. On the other hand, BJP’s election issues are so baseless: attacking congress for the global recession, Afzal Guru hanging etc. How can these be election issues. Unrealistic 2 RS rice and free color TV campaigns also make more sense than this. Congress on the other hand can do such a constructive campaign, but it is so busy with it’s Rahul baba that it cannot see anything beyond. Sonia madam was an efficient backdoor puppeteer, but the problem with Rahul is that he is the puppet.

Worse is the recession. Just when we think it cannot get worse, there is more shocks. We cannot predict. But I think we are at a stage where we have already expected the worst. Nowadays lay offs, shut down does not even alarm us any more unless it is us at the receiving end. Is the slowdown also slowing down?

But for me, the biggest concern is “Woh ladki hai kahan”. It is a combined effect of so many factors. Suddenly I realize that the often used line “pehle khud ko establish kar loon” has began to blur. There had been times when I could have really gone ahead but this line pulled me back and now when the line goes blur, the picture gets blurrer. Add to it the fact that almost all my friends are already ahead of me in this race. Not only lonely, I feel angry too.

And hence we should do yoga. I have started Ramdev baba yogas. The thing that I enjoy most in that is my daily choice of accompanying music. I need a clock with second update so that I can rate my kapalbhatis. Hence I play songs on you tube. I had started wit meditation music, bhajan, devotional songs, rabindra sangeet etc. But today I tried Aishwarya Rai songs, and I enjoyed it. Probably tomorrow will be jaadu hai nasha hai. Let’s see. I should probably follow the Shilpa Shetty yogas. It will be glam yoga .

Book Review: Sea of Poppies

After a long time, I am writing a book review. And I have read a few available about the book. One thing I noticed that the reviews are actual reviews, not the typical hindi movie reviews which just go on to praise the film if they like one and find every possible flaw if the do not. The reviews always give an idea off what the writer is trying to achieve and as he successful in doing that. It is difficult for me to write a review of that kind, and hence I will stick to the Indian kinds. So people, here comes the new Kazmi, Sen and Masand.

Bottom line first, I liked the book. So it will be only good things about the book. I am not new to Indie English novels but I am very new to historic novels which give you a balance of history along with a strong storyline. This book pleased me thoroughly but did not come as a surprise as I has already read “Hungry Tide”. While reading it I never realized that I know so much about Sunderban. This book just takes this feel further and this time it is not confined with a small region like Sunderban but instead covers a vast region of the world. It talks about China, Cape Town, England, Kolkata, Bhojpuri belt and of course about the life in sea which can be considered a whole new country of it’s own.

Another of the thing that I liked immensely was the language. It’s just so varied. I never enjoyed the language so much in any other novel before. There is English by the sea men, there is the African American English, there is the English English (English spoken in England), the French English, English that the English people spoke in 1830’s India and then the English that Bengalis spoke in 1830. Each is so different and the way Amitav has blended all of them leaves me mesmerized. To add to it, so many foreign words are borrowed all throughout the book: Bhojpuri, Bengali and especially the language of the seamen who are called Lascars. I know Bangla and can understand bhojpuri, but as I had no idea about the lascar tongue, it was a pleasure decoding that. Towards the end of the book, Amitav is blending cultures. I got so excited and kept thinking of all these people who then went to Mauritius and how is the present culture of Mauritius affected by it.

And of course the part that had me dumbstruck was the sex. The very fact that I am shamelessly writing about it shows its impact on me. I have always read sex with either curiosity or disgust and I think that was its purpose when it is written about or shown. But here it was a part of the story and blended so well. And it was in all forms. There is the straightforward straight and then both forms of non straight, there is sexual harassment of children, there are different types of punishments and there is even with animal. But it comes so naturally in the book in a way that I am not used to. You are never excited or disgusted about it. In most of the other reads, you either read a rape with contempt and hatred for the rapist or in normal descriptions it is something which bonds love more strongly. But in this book, it does neither. It comes in and goes wit the same flow as say a day goes and the night comes.

Unlike Rajiv, I will not go and tell you about the best moment in the story. I also won’t criticize the book like Raja Sen who thinks that a critic has to criticize. Unlike Nikhat, I would still rate the book with five star though it does not have shahrukh or amitabh or directed by K Jo.

My best Friends’ Wedding

Haha, an oxymoron in the title itself: ‘Best Friends’, but that’s right. This time my biggest realization during my trip to India has been married people. And I met several stages of them. Married for a couple of years, married for couple of months, just returned from HM, got married while I was there and even will marry in near future.

What happens when friends marry? You make the third person, the concerned person and even you believe that this is the best thing that can ever happen to them and which might be true, but it does feel so animated most of the time.

When your friends insist, you talk to theirs’. “Hi, how are you?”, “How is new life”. “ How do you find my friend ….?”, “ Is he/she bothering you”, “Ae, mere friend ko kuch at bolna”, ‘Pata hai, once what happened ………”. And at this point it’s like the person is saying “Why do I have to bear this guy” and you are saying “Why did my friend make me talk to this person”.

Even worse are your conversations with your friend. You have to ask about the spouse. Oh how is…. And, if they start off even once, you are again into the animation mode. If they do not, it’s even worse. The person thinks, “Isko bhi abhi phone karna tha”.

Things does not stay you and me, they become ‘both of you’ and me. The individuality is lost. May be at work life, they still have the individuality, but in the limited hours when they are not working, they rather stay as “we”. What plans for weekends?” Oh, we plan to but curtains, or we will go to buy a lamp” or some of those trivial stuff which you never thought can bother your friend. All you can say, Thank god, atleast you are not shopping for ‘Pink Chaddis’.

Worst is when you meet them in person. Ofcourse you have to meet theirs’. And then sometime in the middle of the conversation you are totally not part of it and you start feeling kabab mein haddi.

All in all, you just understand that it is time to change and focus on yourself. Do not expect them to “daak shune aasha” but instead “aekla cholo re”

Disclaimer: It’s not a generic behavior. Everybody as one or 2 of the above qualities.

Police Excesses in India

I cannot stop myself from writing about this. Here are 3 incidents:

1) 3 guys throw acid on 2 girls who died but police shot the three people down. Here is a link of the story in ToI.

2) A guy wrongly speed races on his bike at 1 am n Bangalore, police stops him. He runs away towards a house which turns out to be a brigadiers, makes a call from the roof top, in Urdu, and police shoots him down. Link.

3) The fracas began at 2.30pm in Kolkata, when 37-year-old Yadav was about to park his vehicle on the wrong side of Kiron Shankar Roy Road. Policeman Banerjee, who was on duty in front of the high court, spotted the taxi and signalled to the driver to stop. When he didn’t, the constable sprinted towards the taxi, witnesses said. “He was holding an iron clamp, which he tried to attach to one of the wheels to prevent the driver from fleeing. The driver alighted and asked Banerjee why he was using the clamp instead of filing a case of parking violation,” a bystander said. Banerjee allegedly replied with a slap. Link.

The three incidents are of varying intensity and if decided to judge individually, probably you may differ on the sides to choose on each. However, one thing is clear, on all the three incidents; the people who suffered from police violence were not clean. They all had committed some offense. But is this the way a responsible police should react?

However, I am surprised at people’s reaction. Yes there are people who think these are bad acts by the police but I thought that would be a unanimous decision. However, surprisingly people differed. One of the people I asked felt that Police did the right thing. That is why terrorism is on the rise. Nobody is afraid of the police anymore.

Here is what I beg to differ. The job of the police is to maintain law and order. It is not their job to convict people and make people afraid of them. If you see a police on the road, you should feel positive that aah, here is a man maintaining law and order. But the truth is different. We see police with either disgust or fear.

However slow the process of law may be, somebody else cannot take over it. Ideally in all these cases, police should have caught the convict and produced him in the court, but instead they chose to be the judges. When discussing with someone about the first case, I said, police should have shot him on the leg or put tear gas. The other person said may be the police wanted to do that but the shot got misplaced. Come on, why do you pay the police for if they do not even know how to shoot.

And this is precisely why I hate when people talk highly of the so called “encounters”. Yes, those people may be convicts, or may be we can even kill the dreaded terrorists in encounters, but that’s not the way things should happen. It should be for the law to decide these things. If the law process needs to be revived, let’s do it. But police taking over law is definitely not the way to go.

And this is what I think is the difference between first world and third world country. Till now, whenever people used to tell me that India is a third world country, I used to feel sad. But now I know why it is so. Police takes law in its hand because lawmakers take infinite amount of time. Digging deeper, somewhere it boils down to the fact that we do not have the money and resources to have a police which should have the decency to talk like a gentleman even to the most dreaded terrorist in the world. Wasn’t even Saddam tried in the court before being hanged?

Sandipan Bollywood Awards 2008

After the very successful blogs of Sandipan Bollywood Awards from 2006, and 2007, here we go for 2008. I say popular, because if you search Sandipan Mitra on google, the first result is the 07 awards.

This year has been tough. Not lot of good films rather mostly dismal. A few decent ones though. But I have to continue with the tradition. Here we go:

Best Story: Neeraj Pandey for ‘A Wednesday’ and Shyam Benegal for ‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’.

Best Song: ‘Jashn-e-bahara’. Melodious as well as fresh

Best Music Director: A.R. Rahman , “Jodha- Akbar”. (and borrowing from previous year’s blog ---- who else?

Best Singer(Male) : Javed Ali for ‘Jashn-e-bahara’

Best Singer (Female): I guess this award goes empty this year. Not a single memorable solo. What’s wrong with Shreya, Sunidhi or even alka and kavita madam?

Best television interview: Of course Arundhati Roy in ‘Devil’s Advocate’. I know that may be she is not at all right and her logic fails at time but she is so convincing with her words. By the way, this time I found one person so irritating that she better not give any interviews and that’s Deepika Padukone. Why does she have to speak in English when her accent is like a Gaon Khede wali of Maharashtra?
Best Item Song: Krazzy4 Hrithik Roshan

And now the main awards:

Best Comedian: Abhishek Bachchan in Dostana
Best Supporting Actor: John Abraham in Dostana. He was so hilarious and did what he can do the best. Reminds me that once during the wedding of my friend I asked him that when is his wife going to do the chawal fenko rasam like John?

Best Supporting Actress: Hands down Kangana Ranaut. She was the core of Fashion. The way she changed expressions for drug addict to supermodel in no time was top of the world.

Best Villain: Bipasha Basu in Race. In Race, everybody is a villain and not many villainy movies in 08 except Ghajini. And Bipasha has to get some prize.

Best Newcomer (male): Farhan Akhtar for Rock On. He was really impressive and a fresh and unconventional face.

Best Newcomer (Female) : Asin. Though I did not like her ‘Jab We Met’ish acting much bt she is definitely the best looking amongst the new faces.

Best Director: Shyam Benegal and Neeraj Pandey for Welcome to Sajjanpur and A Wednesday resp.

Best Film: Combining the fact that it should have story (Jodhaa Akbar, Ghajini, Singh is Kiing and Rab ne ruled out), Good looking and famous star cast ( A Wednesday, Welcome to Sajjanpur, Rock On, Jaane tu are gone), decent songs (A Wednesday, Ghajini, Rab ne, Fashion all out) and ofcourse a decent budget, the award points to only one movie which may not be best amongst any of the above factors individually but has a good combo of above all, and the movie is RACE…

Best Actress: Like last year, I again want to give it to Soha Ali Khan or Mumbai Meri Jaan but I guess that would be too much bias. A Kareenaish Asin does not impress me, Genelia is too kiddish and Fashion is all about Kangana, mugdha and Kitu and not about Priyanka. Aishwarya as Jodhaa looks more south Indian and can never look rajputani. However, I think the best actress award should still go to her but for Sarkar Raj. She really stole the show and she DID some acting apart form looking good and/or crying.

Best Actor: Shahrukh Khan for Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. The lesser the mentioned of Ghajini is better, and Singh is Kiing is really not worth that much. Hrithik as Akbar was good but with nonsense scenes like Sword fights and dismissing court listening to Man Mohana, he has lost it. The reason it is Shahrukh Khan is not only because people really liked Surinder Sahni but because Shahrukh made people hate Raj. It is probably easy for a Superstar to make you love him but it is really difficult to hate ur favorite star and he was successfully able to achieve it.

Last blog for 2008

I am sorry folks, for all who were waiting for the famous “Sandipan Bollywood Awards 2008” (if any) but it has to wait because of Ghajini which I am going to watch only in the New Year.

Here, I will just try to recap the year for me. The year has been a year of Travel. On first Jan 2008, I was in San Diego. During Labor Day, I went to Miami. 4th of July, I was in NC and Atlanta and 22nd of July I was in New Hampshire. Thanksgiving time I was again in California, but the Bay Area this time. Apart from this, I have been thrice to Rhode Island and twice to the wonderful Cape Cod which is hours away but truly they are amazing. And finally and hopefully, I am flying to Kolkata tomorrow.

I was really new to Boston last year but now I know a lot about in and around places and I love it more and more. Yes, mid December to mid February is bad, but after that it is really wonderful spring summer and fall.

Blogically, I have maintained my stats, 26 blogs are more like a one a fortnight which is cool. I have stayed away from Bollywood but I cannot control myself in saying this now: “If reports are true that Bipasha is acting pricey and does not want Juhi Chawla on the sow, then to hell with Bipasha”

Apart form movies and the musings and ‘News that I follow’, my past few blogs have been a bit to sensitive. But I think I am going to continue that and keep nurturing the impossible dream of boundary less world with no war or crimes or criminal punishments.

As for social networking goes, I managed approximately 500 scarps on orkut which is on the lower side. I keep calling chacha chachi, mama, mami, nani, bua, bhabhi, bhatija, bhanja and all possible relations and do keep in touch with my friends too. What’s new this year is the emergence of their fiancés/fiancées. Being the good guy that I am, I have got these new friends now. It was kind of embarrassing early on, but now it looks fine.

2009 looks to be a promising year already which economy booming towards the middle of the year and my fist month beginning with a holiday and a cruise from Miami in the second month. As for movies, ofcourse waiting for Harry Potter the most. Apart from that looking forward to “My Name is Khan” and the ‘Sushmita-Shahrukh’ movie. The annual Disney-Pixar also has been something that I am looking forward to every year now.

Merry Christmas and a Happy new year

Impact of Mumbai blasts on me

In my vain attempts to be a neutral citizen and not form and opinion about the incidents have failed. But what surprises me the most is that I have mixed emotions for both for or against.

Let’s go to the bad part first. Not blaming the terrorists. There can be many shades of positive arguments about this. First which I think is more important is not to give them a death sentence. I am strictly against death sentence. What if they land up in heaven by accident? Then the whole purpose of death sentence will be lost. We can rather give life long imprisonment making their life like hell. I think that’s what should be done to all the criminals who are sentenced to death.

Second is, these are just brainwashed youngsters made to do all this because they have nothing better to do in life. Let us create fair job opportunities on both sides of the border rather the sub-continent as a whole. Killing these people either by encounter or by conviction is not a solution. I specially hate the media hyped and liked by many – the so called encounter specialists. I always get the feeling that by accident, they are may be not killing absolute offenders but also some people just at the wrong place. I always get reminded of some incidents which happened to me and I bet every one of us at some point. Here are 2 examples:

1) Did it ever happen to you that you are with a bunch of “friends” who suddenly get into eve teasing? So they are passing comments at a certain girl on the road. The girl looks back. Is there any reason that she will believe you are not amongst them? Same may happen to a guy killed in an encounter. I agree that you should avoid such company, but you know, it’s not always avoidable.

2) You typecast just because of your geographic origin. For me, though jokingly, people call me Commi, Bangladeshi infiltrator and in one case was a part of a convicted group for just being from “Maharashtra”. I do not say that I should be separated from the rest. After all, yes, I am from the Commi state, my great grand parents did live in Bangladesh way back in 1905 and I am a proud Maharashtrian born. I would not like to be separated from these groups and revered in isolation.

3) You are doing the right thing in the wrong time. Once I took my very dear school friend for a walk. He is physically challenged so we took some time for the walk. And I was beaten by the teacher for being late and my nice deed was entirely unappreciated.

So, might be many of the terrorists fall in one of the above 3 categories and put friendship/loyalty first? Do they deserve to be killed?

Another ting I liked about this entire last few days of event was failure of BJP’s terror campaign. Deep down, I think I still prefer this party over others. But it is high time they learn that national issues do not and should not concern common people who do not have even access to basic amenities like drinking water. How is getting killed by a bullet worse than dying of thirst. It should get into the root cause campaigning mode and not this “India shining” or “Anti terror” campaigns. Terrorists most likely will never target small villages.

Having said so many things against the common people, I don’t know why, deep inside me, a small hatred has started against Pakistan. I would not justify these acts as enough has already been said and done by politicians, media and intelligentsia. But as a consequence of that, I could not make myself buy the 1000 times better Pakistani biryani masala and the Basmati rice and instead chose the inferior Priya and Swad brands. Still not able to fathom why and how to get rid of this emotion.

Happily grazing cow in New Zealand

A very strange thing happened today. Like the last few days, I was awake since 4:30 am. Today at 5:30, I get a call from my School friend Shubhajit. He always calls in odd hours but though I will never talk in those odd hours even from my parents, I can never hang up on Shubhajit or Bhaji. The reason is that he calls from the borders of Jammu and Kashmir, where one rarely gets signals. I always feel a strange guilt attending his calls. He did something which I never had the courage to do and instead, to public and to myself I always spoke of joining army as joining a band of fools. But deep inside, I do know that it is more because I am not capable of so much sacrifice.

I asked him abut what’s happening as it was Election Day and he said that it was very hectic but he was happy that I remember. Yes, and I had just read it in rediff some 10 minutes back. There is a lot going on in that part of the country. We can just speculate, the locals can just suffer, the army people might just be the pawns but whatever is happening in the power corridors on either side of the border, we do not know, rather we may not wish to know.

Is it justified? Fighting for the country? After all, if we do believe in some sort of superpower, it might have just been a split second decision of the god to pass the next life on earth as a human being of a particular country. Next second, we could have been a cow happily grazing grass in New Zealand. Well, with my present, I am happy. I am paying back to the world in whatever form I came in. I am paying tax so that we walk on better streets, I have sent money to Indian charitable organizations also and if that is not enough, I did buy the Unicef greeting cards to have the proceedings sent to Africa. I will also buy ‘Tales of Beedle The Bard’ and the proceedings will go for betterment of the world. And so is the cow from New Zealand paying back to the society. It is making more cows, it is giving lot of milk and it is also maintaining the balance of nature.

But what is a man in military doing? Isn’t he being brainwashed to fight for SOME country on the whims of certain people? For example, India and Pakistan are fighting for ages now on may be some stupid decision of the then Viceroy and queen Victoria’s ‘Let’s have some fun, let’s split the Hindus and Muslims’.

Same with the World Wars, the present Iraq war or any other wars. It is a few people who decide the fate of so many others, who simply decide to die for the country, when if one instant late they would have been happily grazing cows in New Zealand.

I am so happy that I was born a few seconds late, so now I am a happily sitting on a couch and frantically pressing keys on the laptop keyboard, not much different from the grazing cows of New Zealand!!!

It is probably inevitable to have wars, or it might be really important to go to space when children are dying of hunger on the streets, or it is really important to spend millions of dollars to go deep down into the sea and find some stop watch in the titanic, it is just that I do not know why.

Titbits

It has been long since I wrote something. I had consciously tried to write a blog every other week. So ideally the total would have been 26. I think I will manage it, now that this is the 24^th one, and the usual annual 2008 bollywood awards will come towards the year end.

However, after being quoted in Mumbai Mirror in an abridged way which gives a wrong picture of me but on the whole carries the point, I did not know whether I should be happy or sad. When I saw that I did not receive any comments (forget angry ones) I realized that even if people would have read it, they would have done it on the newspaper, and nobody was crazy enough to type out the link on a computer and read it for themselves.

Hence, I will be talking about myself a bit, though I know not for whom. I have moved to a new apartment and the net connection hasn’t come yet. This brought 2 nice things with it. One, I started reading agan and secondly, I stopped watching bigg boss season 2. The show was very addictive. Watching a bunch of brain dead people over and over again fight over lost tomatoes and less sugar in the tea left me brain dead too. Not that I was following a lot of quality news before bigg boss started, but I was not even watching the hindi movies which I always made sure I watch. I was out of touch with the blogs I read, the google news searches that I do. Atleast now the little time I spend surfing in the office, I spend it on reading some news keeping me up-to-date with the current affairs.

However, watching any news or reading any news website had become so boring in the past few days. It was just Obama everywhere. Beaten to death. It was so difficult to get any other news other than which country head congratulated hi and how he out smarted McCain or how the fall was all due to Sarah Palin. I had had enough. However in my desperate attempt to find more news on the day after the elections, I found 4 events that I found non Obama.

• Pt. Bhimsen Joshi being awarded the Bharat Ratna. He The last Bharat Ratna was awarded was in 2002. It has been a long time. On thinking who would be the right choice for the next one, three people came to my mind. The first one surely deserving and the other two should be atleast considered. They are: Sachin Tendulkar, Narayan Murthy and Al Gore.

• Uma Bharti slapped her party worker, kissed him again, he was still angry after the kiss and then she was on a strike till he forgives. Really crazy.

• B. R. Chopra died. This news though supposedly important, it just to be read as a headline and moved on to the next.

• Abhishek Bachchan suffering from high fever in Kerala. This news did not come from any news site but from Amitabh Bachchan’s own site. And sure enough, next day it appears in the news websites. I don’t know whether I should like or hate these easy journalisms: getting news from celebrity bloggers. But then it’s absolutely legal to do so.

Anyway, the second good thing that happned with no internet is that I started reading books again. I read ‘White Tiger’ by Arvind Adiga. It is a fast and good read. Does give you a picture of how India is shining in fools gold. And then ofcourse, I am re-reading Harry Potter 7. I have re-read selective chapters but for the first time re-reading the entire book. Some parts are just amazing. The two shifting minds when Harry runs out of Bathilda’s house. The tussle between Hermione and Ron after he returns and how he keeps agreeing to everything she says for truce. And many more things here and there.

Anyways, turned out to be a long post. Will be back soon.