Wake up Mr. India

Kasam laptop ki ! I will speak truth and only truth that I have stopped eating chow mein , Kung pao  and every kind of Chinese food ever since my patriotic feelings are stirred  up by the Chinese government. Not only food , I openly avow to never make any attempt to learn Chinese language in my life time. I am even willing to apologize on national TV for having played Chinese checkers in my childhood.


 Right after the magnificent opening ceremony of Beijing Olympics , I got  this doubt that , its an  out and out  case of systematic and premeditated attempt to humiliate the Indians , it’s a strategy to demean us by our eastern neighbors that they organized and managed an immaculate ,and world’s most spectacular show .

It’s simple and clear for any true nation loving , self respecting Indian to see that China is trying to deprive us from our very old and almost legitimate sounding excuse that “ huge population is our problem”.

The Chinese are enthusiastically proving to the world that population is their strength. They offered 3 times more than required volunteers to assist the sport’s people in Beijing games   (actually its our very own desi idea which they nicked from Bollywood dances , where along with the hero and heroin we use about 100 more dancers in the background who  witness the wooing the gal by hero or professing of his love , as the case may be ) . Bollywood does it purely to generate employment for people who are hugely skilled in pelvic thrusts and poker expressions. But, look at the audacity of our neighbours ! they used the borrowed idea( of using more than required people , not the pelvic dancing ) to manage a world class event .These thousand of volunteers had enrolled themselves two years before the D date ie 08/08/08 and were practicising their role in the whole show without any remuneration promised to them . They produced a huge army of volunteers to assist the visitors and run the show smoothly . We are a nation of only 1.18 billion people whereas China's population is 1.3 billion .Isn't it unfair to be judged  on a standard set by a country whose population is so very high as compared to ours? Kalmadiji , relax ! nobody is going to ask you to outperform China , afterall we are such a small country before China.
Not only this , they are using their huge population in every  production industry conceivable ,making labour cheap, making their products cheap on a huge scale , flooding them across the Global markets . So what ‘s so great about it ? I challenge them to show even half of this production rate with having one Mamta Banerjee around .

I know , I know that Chinese meteorological division and scientists together dispelled the clouds around Beijing so that the rain God will not shower its unsolicited blessings on the “Bird’s nest” stadium during the opening ceremony on 08.08.08 ,but so what ? Are we also not trying to dispel Dengue and encephalitis causing mozzies from around Delhi , in the wake of Common wealth Games.

We are a democracy and they are not .It gives them a freedom to crack down on people who produced melamine contaminated milk and have them hanged within 6 months of trial. Theirs is authoritarian Government , the decisions of suing people fast and prompt never haunts them in future, they have the luxury to move on ; but just imagine if we did the same thing with people who are very innovatively making synthetic milk with skimmed milk powder, urea, refined oil, detergents, caustic soda and vanaspati ghee .We would be having a national debate on parliaments, courts, TV channels, roadsides, drawing rooms and café coffee days whether it is humanitarian to hang people to death , so what if they are playing with the health of children of our nation . Forget hanging these guys , do we even have the freedom to hang Ajmal Kasab without bothering about the consequences ? So isn't this  plainly unfair  that  a democratic nation  be compared to an authoritarian regime?

When 8 chinese tourists are hijacked and killed in Philippines by an irate and insane (suspended ) phillipino police officer , the Chinese Government puts so much of pressure on Phillipino Government that a delegation  from there goes to meet the Chinese Government and accepts openly that commando operation to rescue the tourists  was botched up . China  could do it because they have been very consistent in their policy to show to the world and importantly to their own people that Government cares for them . What did we do when terrorists entered our very own Country and killed more than two hundred people on july 26th 2008 ? Our Government is still sending dossiers across the border to convince the perpetrators of violence, and people of  Mumbai  don’t even turned out to vote .

The chinese dragon has woken up from its sleep and is there on the track running a marathon  race but Indian tiger is still sitting in the audience seat and watching it run . we are doing “shahamrugasan” also known as ostrich pose , putting the neck in the ground and saying “all eez well” .

India and me

  Its summer vacation here in Gulf.July- August are the peak summer months here. We visited India last month after about one year and, very much like how an indulgent mom would observe her son  seeing him after a  long time ,I observed my own country. I travelled , I visited people  , I frequented "sarkari offices" ,took son for  a root  canal treatment (  Its an official  middle class idea of fun activity  when on  a vacation to home) .
Everytime I had an exclusively Indian experience , all I thought was of blogging about it ,again much like as if your best friend has a strand of spinach stuck between  her two  front teeth  and whenever she smiles at you , all you notice is the green thing stuck between her teeth.
To begin with , I travelled from Bhopal to Indore in an intercity train in second class( I have  already confessed to  the middle class mentality) , its a 4 hour journey , we 3 (My two sons and I) were packed on a bench and opposite to us was a family of 4 travelling with a Jain monk who was  clad in white . The Jain Sadhu was really very friendly and inquisitive , much to my surprise. He strangely reminded me of  a character in Gita Mehta's story in  her book "River Sutra" in which a rich man's only son , finding life too frivolous ,decides to be a monk and thus leaves his family .Many years down the lane he  is recounting  his story to the narrater and all of a  sudden he  gets up and says " I must be get going ,my fellow monks must be waiting for me to join them in the journey  ahead , I have lost my family once and don't want to lose it again." These are the last words of the story which I  just can't forget .
I visited my grandmom who is extremely ill and  completely invalid but mentally equally alert . This makes life difficult for her and for others too, who are serving her . My Mom is constantly worried about her and I am worried about my mom  .I don't know if my granny  is dodging the death or vice versa ? Life can  sometimes be so painful to bear.

We went for  a picnic to "Bheem baithka" , a site 45 kms from Bhopal , its a world heritage site declared by UNESCO ,which  covers around 700 caves .these rock shelters (caves) housed early men of differnt civilisations  for nearly 100,000 years and paintings found here are as old as 9000 years .

It was drizzling only kittens and pups  the whole day as if rain God was sprinkiling rose water on us gently . walking on wet road , listening to the ruffling of leaves and water droplets falling on the huge leaves  on both the sides of the road made the whole excursion  a great experience .Its strange that no information  is written anywhere around ,given the importance of the place , nor any serious tourists or visitors were  to be found .All I could spot were some college boys and girls on motorcycles having a good time on  reasonably secluded roads .

Oh ! don't you  think that I am an old auntyji objecting to young people enjoying their freedom but you see ji  times are so bad , you can't trust anyone  thesedays ...........  moreover we never used to roam about like this  in our times.  Here are two paintings .

My father in law reloacted to Indore recently and started staying in a rented house . The landlady  staying upstairs thought  that she had rented the huge house to a single old man but was suitably bugged to see the 4 of us + my brother in law  as the unforseen residents moving in there  the same month . She was too upset by the amount of water we consumed and was so completely outraged that stopped the water supply for complete 24 hours. I was sent as a goodwill ambassador to pacify her , I  talked to her gently( and meekly ) and told her that  we were to leave the place soon but she was not to be  pacified and summonned us to vacate the house at once. The agenda of our vacation suddenly shifted from helping FIL to settle down in Indore to resettle him somewhere  else in Indore. Indian landlord's attitude , possesiveness about their house, water scarcity  makes a formidable combination .

 There is much more to it , shall write about it some time again.

Till then , take care  and save water .