Super Power

I received a clever SMS. It read, “Kalam’s dream of our country becoming a superpower in 2020 has come true. We are the superpower in Twenty20”.

Clever, very clever.

I watched and enjoyed the tense end too. It was fun. When the last Pak wicket fell I whooped too. I drove out at 10:30 towards MG road to watch the celebrations. Got stuck (struck or ‘stuck up’ as most of us say!) in a traffic jam. The euphoria on display was and is unbelievable.

It is the fashion of the (political) day to demand the resignation of a minister, if not the whole ministry, in case of a misdemeanour – real or imaginary. So, I decided to join the bandwagon too when I saw the reports on the ‘victory’ parade of our ‘conquering heroes’ in which tens of thousands of people in Mumbai participated .

I hereby demand (ahem!) the resignation of the minister in charge of human resources. The fact that there are tens of thousands of people, in our most business-like city, have no better business is proof enough of his and his ministries failure?

BBC vs CNN

You might as well take note. This is one of the rare occasions when I admit something in favour of CNN vis a vis BBC.

Protests in our neighbouring country against the cruel, cynical military junta are in the news. CNN refers to the country as Myanmar and BBC insists on calling it Burma!!

(Post?) Colonial hangover?

‘Life’ Is What We Do Between Mobile Conversations?

One of my favourite (and perhaps a dangerous one at that) pastimes while on the road is to observe drivers and riders use their mobile phones. It invariably reminds me of the cartoon showing a tourist guide pointing to a statue of a ten handed god or goddess to a ‘phoren’ tourist and saying, “multitasking - it was invented in India”.

My favourite memory in this genre is that of a scooterist, with a young boy standing between his legs, a slightly older (taller) daughter between him and his corpulent wife on the pillion, she herself carrying a 3 year old child in her arms, driving through the busy St. Mark’s Road (Bangalore) at ‘peak hour’. A daunting exercise in itself, until you add carrying on a conversation on his mobile phone stuck between his tilted head and an awkwardly raised shoulder. Wow! Some courage!!

The line between courage and foolhardiness is a thin one indeed.

But the inspiration for this mini-post is what I saw today. A man toying with middle age, playing street cricket on one of the side streets near my house – with a mobile stuck between his head and left shoulder, waiting for a circa ten year old to deliver the ball. Alas I did not have a camera and my sketching is not good enough to present you a visual.

Good god!

I got the following pictures through e-mail. I was requested by the sender to forward the mail to everyone in my address book. Amazingly, it did not threaten me with dire consequences if I did not. That was a pleasant change from the norm - for such mails.

When I had read through the mail and seen the distressing pictures, I decided to do something better. I decided to post them on my blog, with this introduction. I am sure the original photographer would not mind. I thank him!

‘Better’ if only many more people see it than would read my mails. More importantly, none on my mailing list is likely to be one of the organisers of a Ganesha pandal. Hopefully, one of the visitors to my blog will actually read (“see the pictures”) the blog and influence the organisers into installing a smaller Ganesha and an unpainted one!

Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of the identical consequences of the Bangali Pooja. I am sure the Bangalis will draw the right parallels.