Age of Scams

What times to live in! People held on high pedestals have now got their faces rubbed well and truly in dirt and muck. Politicians, Administrators, the Defence forces, Entrepreuners, all blackened. So where does the common Indian go?
Every day I am now curious about hearing of a new scam and learn how crores and crores of rupees have been laundered. At least we aren't a poor country!!!
So Kalmadi, Raja and Yeddyurappa are on the loose yet. The ex-chiefs of Army are yet to be brought to book. A lot of anti India proclaimers have a free rein to express themselves. Incidentally, today another such anti-India mongering was put to an end in Chandigarh. So, the moot question once again - does Democracy allow such freedom? Is there a line that can be drawn somewhere? And yes, Lalu has met his fate, which I suppose, one saw coming.

Wonder How It Feels

Wonder how it feels
to die every moment you live
while you watch
your loved one die slowly.

Wonder how it feels
to do the best you can
to see that smile
one more time

Wonder how it feels
to watch helplessly
the loved one spewing blood
in agony

Wonder how it feels
to see the empty bed
to collect all those memories
and stuff them in bags

Wonder how it feels
to watch the army salute
the uniform and the flag
paying the last respects

My friend faced all this
as did her sons
while I watched teary eyed
Wondering how it felt.

Delhi Diary 8

CWG

Things get more and more interesting. Rs 70,000 crore, unfinished work in the games village, muck in the toilets, dogs roaming freely in the rooms and the campus, water logged, mosquito larva breeding merrily, bridge and roads collapsing, tiles falling, snakes crawling.... Need we add anymore??

The world's best ever games, so said the Chairman of the OC of CWG, Suresh Kalmadi.
Today it was rather heartening to see on the news that the games village after a massive cleanliness drive is filling up with athletes and delegates who are going on record saying they are not disappointed with the arrangements. Then Kalmadi in an interview to CNN-IBN says if he is found corrupt he is willing to be hanged!!
This gets more and more interesting...

The latest is the tussle between the President of India and Prince Charles to open the games. So who is the rightful opener??

As a true and patriotic Indian, I hope and pray that the CWG happen smoothly and well. And then May Heads Roll.

Udaan

A movie close to the heart. The story centres around a creative 17 year old abandoned in a boarding school by his tyrannical father, Bairam Singh. The boy, Rohan has a 6 year old half brother, Arjun, who is regularly beaten into subnission by the dad. Rohan, along with three other friends, is expelled from school and lands up at home. Dad puts his son to work in his factory and gets him admitted to an engineering college. Rohan continues to write , fails his engineering exams and works at the factory half heartedly. He has in the meantime gotten frindly with three young local goondas and spends time drinking, smoking and fighting at pubs. This he does at night when he takes his father's car out. His uncle (younger brother of dad) and his wife are very fond of the two boys. Finally, Bairam decides to get married once again, this time to a woman who has a daughter. He decides that Rohan will work in the factory full time and Arjun will go to a boarding school. The uncle pleads with Bairam to think again but there is a fall out between the brothers. Rohan gets a call from his friends from school who are in Mumbai and are now working in one of the friend's dad's cafe. Rohan comes to a decision. He writes a letter to his dad telling him of his decision to leave home and also about taking care of Arjun who he says will grow into another Bairam Singh if left in the care of his father. The movie ends with Rohan and Arjun walking down the road happy with their new found freedom.:)

Delhi Diary 7

CWG 2010

Is there any common man who has not yet passed a sarcastic remark about the coming Commonwealth Games?? No, there can be none. Crores have been pumped into it and what do we have to show for it? Zilch! Today, speaking on the readiness of venues for the CWG, Badminton World no 3, Saina Nehwal at a press conference said that we are really not ready to host games of such prestige. She said she had seen international venues and found Delhi sadly lacking. An hour later, Saina goes ahead to retract her statement saying she apologises for making such statements which could hurt her and the country!!! Had she been threatened? Are we living in a democracy or what?? Can't we speak our minds any more? Who are these bigwigs who have pocketed all the moolah and are trying to make a show of running a defunct CWG 2010?

P.S. Why was Rahman paid Rs 5 crore for composing a song for these games? The song, it turns out, is a damp squib. (I haven't listened to it yet). So what now? Does he return 50% of the fee?

Of Friendships...

How do you feel when you meet a friend 21 years later -- from your undergraduate days to today when you are a professional and running a family? I think the feeling is indescribable. I was in Chennai for a day and I decided to meet Sumathi, my friend from college. We hadn't quite been in touch for over two decades!(though both of us are on facebook!) But when we met, all the years in between melted and we were back on the college stairs sitting and marvelling and wondering at the world and its ways... I think with close friends time is a non-issue as are the years of maturity and life's experinces in between. We understand what the other is trying to say instinctively taking the conversation to another level.
Thanks Sumathi, the tiny table for two at Radisson and your treat has now been awarded a special place in my life till another table at Delhi comes up next to it.

Inception

Christopher Nolan’s Inception is a film about dreams, but nowhere close to giving you a nice sleep. This one shakes you awake with the possibility of what one can do with dreams. Sometime back I watched Leonardo in Shutter Island and was shaken by the story. I am shaken now too but differently. I loved the concept of Inception, dreamcatchers , who could enter your mind and plant an idea there so as to make it seem like your own and this could have repercussions of any kind. And as we move from the first level of dreams on to the next and the next, we actually start getting confused and the excess action does not help much. But in the end, it is exhilarating. The totem which is the key to reality keeps spinning and we wait with bated breath for it to fall so we know Cobb is in the real world, but the screen black out leaving us to wonder…