Seeing Things

I came across this article thanks to Meraj and couldn't help nodding my head in agreement. You can take a look at the write-up that appeared in the NewYorkTimes' after the recent bomb blasts that shook India here . ____________

A root canal treatment. My worst fear. It came true last week. I never forgot my first visit to the dentist at the age of 6. They assured me that it would just hurt as little as an ant bite. a) I didn't consider an ant bite as painless and b) I didn't want to imagine an ant biting me inside my mouth! I was shocked. When I was 15 I read a poem written by Ogden Nash on the same, garbed in humour of course. You can read it below. I thought if a great poet could feel this way, my fears were perfectly justified. Another time I had read somewhere that the worst pains of all was endured during childbirth. The second was on a dentist’s chair. None of these accidental readings really helped me in my future visits to the dentist. My terror of it only grew. I did not mind the idea of getting rid of all my teeth once and for all and replacing them with dentures. Until someone told me that a tooth extraction hurts worstest! Now I shall live the rest of my days in fear of the requirement of...

I don't understand why anyone should ever get bored. There are so many things one can do. You can read a book, write a book, draw, paint, stitch, learn to sing, learn to dance, learn pottery, paint a picture, paint a wall, watch TV, watch a movie, make a movie, take pictures, take a walk, watch children play, write a blog, watch a movie, make a movie, take pictures, make those phone calls you have been putting off for so long, write a letter to someone who would like to hear from you, send emails to friends, plant a tree, call on a friend, cook, bake a cake, iron clothes, learn origamy, dust the house, learn pottery, water the plants, get a plant if you don't have one, buy a present for someone you'd like to see smile, take a long bath, put on a face mask, play brainvita, sudoku, solve crosswords, if you can gather friends play chess or scrabbles or pictionary or monoply or knots and crosses or dumb charades, browse through toys in a toyshop, learn the lyrics of a song, rea...

In a few hours I take a giant step right off my country into the emerald isle situated to the south of India. A few days ago I took another giant step. I got married. It was beautiful. Marriage is beautiful, if you do it with the right person. I have learnt that there is no fixed method to assess whether someone is right for you or not. Each of us is unique and we need to judge based on ourselves. It’s no use following romantic books and movies. But one rather simple way is the ‘happiness test’. Are you happy with each other? I am happy and wish for every couple to be the same. You will hear more from me next from Colombo where I shall be tentatively stationed for the next two years… PS: i thought i woudn't have any time left to do this before we leave for the airport, but then his shoe strap broke and he had to step out to go get it repaired. Shoe to the rescue :)

Last evening, I stepped into the neigbourhood beauty parlour for what they term as a ‘powder trim’. What they do is to snip off your hair just at the tip. This helps get rid of split-ends without having to sacrifice on the length of your hair. This parlor always has the TV on, usually playing some Hindi movie channel. Initially, I remember worrying if the ladies would pay justified attention to the waxing and preening they are supposed to be doing. But over time I gained confidence in them. I saw that they used the TV more like a radio. We customers got a glimpse of TV if possible. We have to crane our eyeballs, since we can’t usually move our heads when we are undergoing a session in threading. That was the background. So yesterday, I heard a familiar voice on this TV. It felt like I had gone back 10 years. It was MTV select. The show where you got to speak to Nikhil Chinnapa on the phone and then select one song from the list of songs that scrolls along one edge of the screen. I fou...

These returned into fashion a few months ago. Ever since I first saw them adorning the feet of some early adopters of trends in my office, I felt instantly in love with them. My eyes hungrily searched for them at shop windows just to catch a glimpse of the beauties. They used to be only available at a few stores on linking road, Bandra. Today, they are more commonly available Whoever looked at a ballerina’s (dancer's) feet and thought of designing mainstream shoes along the same lines must have been in love with womankind. Ballerina shoes to me, celebrates womanly beauty. A woman has to just slip into these shoes to instantly feel like a princess. They simply fill me with glee. The best part is that these shoes are so comfortable; it’s like walking on a bed of cotton. Usually anything that makes a woman look or feel beautiful is also uncomfortable or clumsy or inconvenient. But ballerina shoes are simply a class apart. An applaudable creation! So impressed I am with them that it dr...

This is not an anti-Hindu post. This is not a pro-Muslim post. This is not a BJP vs Congress post. This is about Narendra Modi and Hindutva Please keep that in mind when leaving comments. Now that I have cleared that, I want to ask all you people who are proud to be Hindu’s, are you also proud of the so called ‘protectors’ of Hinduism via 'hindutva'? The Tehelka Exposure has left us in no doubt of the Gujrat Goverment's hand in orchestrating the cold blooded massacre in 2002. There is no room for debate on that front anymore. Members of the VHP, Bajrand Dal and Shiv sena confess with pride their hand in the cold murder of Muslim men, women and children. They raped them, cut their limbs and burnt them. Just an instance: Babu Bajrangi, then VHP leader, current Shiv Sena Leader, brags that he ripped open the stomach of a pregnant woman. I have grown up with an adequate exposure to the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Geeta. The amount any regular Hindu is exposed to in this c...