Fair or lovely

While in a conversation recently, I came up with the expression for something I had always felt for.

Notwithstanding all the advances in civilization and awareness through media, people haven't got "life to be fair" even today. Why do we expect it to be fair 50, 500, 1000 or (even more so) 2000 years ago! Without realizing this, we are trying to (a) ascertain the winners and losers of the past conflicts (b) judge the conflicts' rationale in light of modern day morality and common sense (c) determine the descendants of the affected parties and (d) invariably demand or try to amend the injustice dealt.

What this exercise does is to bitter people towards other social groups, be these cast or religion based. People will become xenophobic fearing a repeat of what has happened some 500 years ago. An action and its retaliation will only affirm their fears, in turn making things worse.

I do not think I am in a position to suggest a solution. More able people have been trying to do this for thousands of years and more effectively so since the dawn of mass media. All I suggest is that when you look at an past event, please put yourself in that context and then only judge the events. An objective appraisal will score even higher.

Our Marriage Anniversary

Digital greeting card generated with Smilebox

The verdict

People complain that the verdict looks more like an out-of-court settlement. But then the issue was a candidate for that in the first place. Only, the parties would never accept the same decision in a discourse, outside. And then they wouldn't look at it an abstract manner. Will they overlook a demolition back in 1992 or another, some 400 years back? Not justice, not fairness, but maybe the best possible solution coming from the apt source. Let's hope our legislators do not undo it by suggestion or provocation.

India's best

1. A car being driven without the driver visible from outside, from some angles, that camera choose (30 hours)
2. Explaining how the driver helped by camera man was hidden from view while driving the car (another 15 hours)
3. Explaining the strategy of some baba who is caught by police for deceiving people (60 hours)
4. Some guy acting like Meera bai (30 hours)
5. Some sas-bahu drama (30 hours)

vs

1. Millions of our people being suppressed with heavy military presence without looking at other options (0 min)
2. Millions voicing their protest on the corrupt and repressing bureaucracy. First expressing dissent and then going violent. (12 hours in last 5 years)
3. A monster governing a prosperous state. And even more scaring, trying to make himself acceptable. (12 hours in last 8 years)
4. Appeasement for a majority of 200 million ppl of a community instead of thinking what is better for them (0 min)
5. An organization that has for last 50 years been making us paranoid on what above 200 million ppl can do to rest (0 min)

This is my estimate on how the broadcast time of a channel claiming to be India's best stacks up. Do we deserve this!!

I Feel vindicated-I might not (or how I liked the UPA win)

I will not tell why I want what I want. This will only be a listing on my expectations and the results. You could read this in any of the news reports as well.


What I wanted the election results to sire

1. A stable government
2. National parties (any and both of them) emerging stronger
3. RJD/JD-S/Varun/Karat/Maya getting humbled
4. Allaying the conversion of the paranoia of RSS and chums into action (means again no Varun types in lead). Ok, let me say it once. Varun might not be the face of BJP, but people like him are its heart. Whatever they say, when they say that every Indian should be Hindu, they mean Hindu-the-religion and not Hindu-the-culture.

What I got

There are umpteen combination for Man/Rahul to get to 272. So, SP going out means someone else coming in, RJD out means JD-U in.. Independents are always there. BSP might feel like it anytime. And unlike nth fronts, ambitious Congress guy knows that, for Rahul's life-span, their acme is at some cabinet portfolio. So no revolts within party. We are happy for five years.

Congress getting stronger means we do not have to deal with likes of Gowda/Amar Singh/Pawar... and Lalu silently works for 'Sangathan'.

RJD gets 4; JD-S might be there, but Gowda will not stall NICE; Varun with a 2L win scares me; Karat/Maya's needed some humiliation.

So, BJP is out, I am happy.

Let us see how I feel about this state of mind of mine of today of matters-that-relate-to-our-country (duh, I love my word-plays) on 17-5-14. I hope I set a calendar alert for that day.

I am back after quite some time now. Not sure if you would say coming back, given I wasn't here in the first place. Seems i had created an account here sometime back and my home page shows that I had one post in my name. I can not dig that out. And even queerer, I didn't remember if I had a blog account on blogger. Thanks to Google cookies, they filled in my credentials before I pressed sign up. I would have lost my pet alias.
And why am I back. Today morning, breakfast was accompanied by, what else, Aaj Tak(the self-claimed most watched Hindi news channel, which one of my friends calls an entertainment channel, and which I can't stand for a continuous span of more than the humblest movement, any of my timekeepers can afford). And never ask what I was doing watching Kab Tak while doing one of the activities I enjoy most (this, dear Watson, is as elementary as breakfast). It is one of those senior moments (or as they say now, Ghajini moments) when you lose link with what have been and all that (a not-so-rare-in-my-writing wodehouse moment this).
So, what started it all? A critic of Kab-Tak. Well, that'll follow in next blogging session I think :-). Running out of time now. Will come back.