सात रंग सतरंगा मेला

The whole world and their third cousin knows that I recently switched streams to communication. Which causes me to finally give up my long break from that thing called the newspaper. Most of the news I caught was on TV, word of mouth, social networking, and online news. I was about to write an ode to the comic strip, the only thing that I even picked up the newspaper for. Notice the past tense? Now there is no escape from the figurative rants of a million trees crying over newspapers that don't deserve circulation even in double digits, and the sheer mediocrity of journalism in India. They are not all bad, I must say that. But a lot of them are. I love Mint though. I guess I have always been an opinion person, not a fact person (which defines everything I am going to say in this post, don't kill me for it.)

I fail to understand how those that get their bread and butter from the art and science of communication, and I am not talking only about journalists here, make the lamest, most cliched grammatical mistakes ever. It is like building Taj Mahal on a very unstable foundation. And don't give me that cliched "you were just privileged to go to that school you went to, we were not all so lucky" (believe it or not, I have heard that), 1, because it sounds stupid, and 2, I am talking about people who were "more privileged" than me. They went to the brat schools, scream at the top of their lungs about their engagement rings being the size of their *PG adviced* asses, and only seem to write incorrect English. And Hindi. And nearly every other language they claim to know.

Which also brings me to the fact that I cannot escape the sham called the Commonwealth Games and the *political incorrectness alert* futility of the Ayodhya issue. Every time I read an article, see some "breaking news" comprising of a picture of a rat in the CWG village, or as much as see a Tweet, I feel like I am back in the 90's. Political scams marked all of my growing up years, especially because I grew up in Bihar. Don't get me wrong here, I love every little Bihari eccentricity, I love every Indian cliche. But that does not stop me from seeing what is wrong with the places I call my own. Especially this kind of blatant, irrational, ruthless, reckless corruption that shows. I hope the CWG does not happen here. There. I said it. There are people who have worked very hard, spoken really well, and have made an impact to make sure that India becomes synonymous with "emerging economy". I just think that all their hard work does not go to waste because a bunch of paan spitting, crass politicians decided to make a legacy for their progeny out of the budget of an International sporting event, one that could have, and would have, added to the "India story". We are a bunch of good people, we work hard, we love life, and we are not all dishonest. I read this somewhere, and I am quoting, "Also, it’s better if the rest of the world didn’t see us, than see us like this." and I couldn't agree more. I don't care about the CWG, I don't even care about the cricket world cup or any other sport for that matter. But I am amused to death at the sheer stupidity and unbelievable greed that has led the rest of the country look like such corrupt fools to the rest of the world. Unfair? I would say so.

Which now brings me to the Ayodhya issue. At the risk of sounding foolishly politically incorrect, I will say this once and for all. I don't care whether they build a temple there or a mosque, or a church, or better still, a shopping complex on the land all this ruckus is about. And I am pretty sure nobody, and I mean nobody except a few rudraksh toting/ not-rudraksh toting politicians. And as a generation, I am guessing our opinion is a tad more important than the said ancient politicians. I understand that religion was and will remain a sensitive issue for a lot of us, but I don't see any reason in this raging madness in the country over this. This may sound anti Hindu, but I am a believer. And yet, I don't know if Lord Ram was really born there or is just the protagonist of a fairy tale that got taken seriously. And the not-rudraksh toting groups already have their Mecca. Let that land be free. Maybe make a shelter for the homeless there, because heaven knows our country has enough and more places of worship, all equally crowded and totally not in keeping with the standard of purity that is associated with the idea of religion. Another thing that is irking me is the fact the judgement getting deferred. If we couldn't take a call in over a decade, what difference is another 5 days going to make? The media is flooded, no releases going through. Half a day got wasted wondering whether or not we should plan any work on Friday. And then suddenly we were wondering about next Tuesday. And that is not my only reason for being supremely irritated about the whole thing. This kind of delay is unavoidable among our people. Starting from the Honda showroom to the powers that be.

Anyway. So my thoughts are all muddled up now. I am ranting about too many things, some trivial, some not so much, in completely garbled, terribly formed sentences. So on to the trivial things. I think I will soon start posting pictures of speaker systems in all my posts, even when I write about the bird in the sky. I guess that is the only way to get some traffic from the husband's laptop. The man seems to be incapable of reading anything except work and speaker reviews on the net. I have been reading Devbagh though. Because good things come in small packages, and our December vacation has been cut short from 10 to 2 days now. But 10 days all over vs 2 days on an island, by the beach. I will have to say the beach wins.

And it is raining.

And it's Friday night. In every sense of the word.

And R finally has an unadulterated 2 day weekend.

And Jimi's Cafe calling.

Life is good :-)

Edited to add: I realised last week that if you say 5000 disconnected words to me, I will give you 5000 linked opinions about all of them. And I really need to unlearn that. When you look out of the auto on your 10 minute commute to work and judge every single person you see, you should know that it is OCD. No questions asked. Although you should know I have a thing for exaggeration.

The ogling diaries - 1

As luck would have it, after quitting the company that we worked for, R and I now have offices right opposite to each other's. So often when I go down for a quick break, I see him on the other side of the road. Talking and laughing and more often than not, dispensing gyaan. I have to say this, he really is the cutest! :P (That I am saying this one whole year after the big fat Bihari wedding doesn't make you want to pull my leg, does it? If I were you, I would have. Mercilessly. But I don't want a taste of my own medicine, thank you very much.)

This reminds me of many late afternoons in college, hanging around at random places in the campus after class, to ogle at the miniscule number of cute boys around. (Judge me if you have to - I was only normal. And I studied in an engineering college with too few normal men - most of them were either too dumb or too geeky.) So I go down for a break, my head about to burst because of the migraine, and I see my newfound (?) cute boy in his dark blue shirt, surrounded by a bunch of other people, my cute boy talking passionately about what I think is advertising and market research and statistics (which is a good thing because I am not particularly enthralled by his gyaan sessions - I don't even understand half the things he says.) and I think to myself, "Not bad! Not bad at all!"

Who says you grow old/ boring/ unromantic/ stop doing stupid things after you get married? I, for one, don't.

P.S. - Last night I saw the new Uninor ad and had a complete analysis ready for R while he munched on his bhindi masala. And boy was he impressed. With himself. For managing to get me interested in what has always been his domain in our household. I generally stick with whining and cribbing and talking about more important existential questions like "what the hell is wrong with the world". (Exaggeration comes naturally to me, you must have figured that out by now.)

P.S. 2. I HAD to tell you this. I have already made it obvious that I find wedding invitation websites extremely cheesy. As if that is not all, I just saw one such website that said "We still didn’t knew it was fate trying to bring us together each time." among other things. Needless to add, my red marker is at work.