Mystery: Innocence

Mystery: Innocence

You lose innocencae when u do something against your conscience, not listening to your inner voice.

Pursuit of Happiness

India has done it again! It managed to secure the 46th position out of 50 countries surveyed for the "Happiness Index" The first three were Norway Sweden and USA.

Out of sheer curiosity , I interviewed a few people in Oslo, Stockholm and Washington DC. The Norwagians are happy because their Vikings had conquered the world long before the British French or Spanish learnt how to build boats. Their population is stagnant and their natural wealth is enormous, oil, gas, timber, fishing. Their GDP is second in the world after the US. And their only world famous painting, Edvard Munch's SCREAM expressing existential angst, has been stolen. So, they are free from angst now. Lastly,pornography is legal here. So, it is" sone pe suhaga" for them ( why dont we try it in India? )

The Swedes are not only happy but proud too. They gave to the world Dynamite without keeping a single gram with them. While the world is blown to smithereens with Alfred Nobel's invention, Swedes look back with pride. And haven't they given to Hollywood the numero uno actress of all time the one and only Greta Garbo? Not to talk about Anita Ekberg who started the genre of dumb blondes! Swedes dont want to adopt the common european currency the Euro, because they are happy with their kroners.Lastly, pornography is legal in Sweden too. No wonder they are on top of the world.

In USA the land of the almighty dollar, the reasons for happiness are varied. The people there are happy that the American constitution does not provide for a third term for George Bush. They are happy that trade with China is booming and the dollars are all coming back to them in the form of Chinese investment in US Treasury bonds. They are eating their cake and having it too. Dick Cheyney is happpy because he got for his cronies all those reconstruction contracts in Iraq. Rumsfeld is happy he got out of the mess in time. Condoleezza Rice is happy because after Hillary Clinton, she can try for the Presidency. The people in US are happy because all their work is being Bangalored and they have plenty of time on hand for leisure activities.

Back to India. I went to interview the doodhwala bhaiyya in Goregaon, carrying the happiness meter with me. He cycled furiously trying to run away thinking that i was carrying the lactometer to check if his milk was adulterated. On my assuring him that all i wanted to test was for his milk of human happiness,he consented for the interview. " Sab theak chal raha hai saab" he said " Gaon ma bal bachchey khush bibi khush har mahine panch hazar rupaiye bhejraha hoon saheb ji" he continued. My next interview was with the pan wallah. HIs business was roaring. " Boliye saab, sada, meetha banarasi ya pallang tod?" he asked with a wink. " Panch rupaye se panch sau tak ka paan banata hoon saab" Magar jabse bar dancing band hua hai thoda sa down hai business saab" " Phir bhi vaaanda nahin achchee kamai hai baal bachche khush" he concluded. I covered a few call centres and all the youngsters there were extremely happy with their careers and their newfound girl/boyfriends. No complaints. In Delhi, everyone I interviewed was happy, politicians, bureaucrats, traders, builders,students. The rich were happy, so were the poor, who thought that it was their bad karma in previous birth which landed them in this situation and were happily looking forwrd to their next birth. I am now convinced that the blokes from the happiness index measuring joint went straight to the farmers in Vidarbha and Andhra and the angry inhabitants of Nandigram in West Bengal and the only politicians they interviewed were Mamata Banerji, Uma Bharati and George Fernandes, whose happiness depends on the downfall of Buddhadev Bhattacharya, L K Advani and Sonia Gandhi respectively.

Our constitution guarantees us the "pursuit" of happiness. Who is bothered about happiness? Anyway, happiness is a state of the mind; we are as happy as we think we are ! Long live Sukhi Bharat !

Panned Out

A newsreport in the Times of India dated 2nd July says that a three month old child in Orissa has received a PAN card from the Income Tax office. The child is a model for an NGO and the proud Papa would not club its income with his under his return. He wanted a separate PAN for his child and though reluctant at first, the authorities yielded.

Another Guinness Book of World Records entry after the aborted attempt by a Tamilnadu doctor couple who got their 15 year old son to perform a ceaserian section on an unsuspecting patient?

The IT authorities are not sure if this toddler is their youngest assessee. To declare so with certainty, they have to go through voluminous records all over India. When last heard, they were calling for tenders from software consultants for developing a software for finding out at the push of a button the youngest assessee.

This news has sent a flutter through the Aayakar Bhavan in Mumbai which has the maximum number of child models. Inspectors fanned out, braving the heavy rains were doing the rounds of Filmcity, Versova and Lokhandawala complexes to catch 'em young before the evasion becomes a scandal that the IT authorities were caught napping. The Johnson baby oil kid just giggled without disclosing how much he received for allowing to be massaged. The kid in the vest add just said " Yeh andar ki baat hai" . The huggies ad kid got so scared on seeing the Inspector that he su su ed in his napkin. The next one threatened the Inspector by shouting "My daddy is the strongest"

As show cause notices were being issued to the kids, several NGOs fighting for childrens' rights assembled at the Azad Maidan and started shouting slogans against Chidambaram. By issuing PAN cards and demand notices the Finance Ministry, ipso facto, was lending legality to child labour, they said. The Ministry of Women and Child Welfare complained to the Prime Minister against the Finance Ministry and the FM promptly summoned the mandarins of the Central Board of Direct Taxes who professed ignorance about the developments at the periphery. An inter-ministerial Committee was appointed to look into the matter and submit its report within six months. The members of the Committee are on an extensive tour of the country to visit each and every ad agency and movie production house and enjoy a few shootings on the sideline.

Meanwhile, the kid in Orissa when asked to put its thumb impression on the IT Saral form, lost its cool and started hollering sounds to the effect "What the hell is all this about? I am hungry I cant eat this stuff. Gimme milk" The man from the Ad Agency for an infant food company who was lurking, just waitng for this moment, caught the whole scene on his video camera and is now making a true to life ad on infant foods,which have several advantages over PAN cards.

And simpletons like me who have applied for a PAN card six months back are still waiting for it.

Was it Mark Twain who said that only two things are certain in this life - Death and Taxes.

Bloggers under attack

A columnist in a national daily recently wrote that blogging is nothing but giving a free hand to mindless drivel. The bloggers receive such dippy responses that it is a wonder how they find the strength to go on writing. Blogosphere is like an overcrowded city where bloggers streak and complete strangers thrust pamphlets in your face. It is the reverse of voyeurism (exhibitionism?) hoping that some peeping tom will see u taking a shower. It is no triumph of free speech but a validation of incoherence and mediocrity. People tap strangers on their shoulder to ask if they can be friends. People add their ten cents worth to encyclopedias without anyone to supervise and edit. U can call Polonium a micromineral health snack and nobody can stop u. The only hope is that like all things, blogging will also pass away with the coming of Web 3.0 shortly. If web 1.0 was enterpreneurial, web 2.0 is a universal spittoon and web 3.0 will bring artificial intelligence and make achievers of us all.

Now who will pick up the gauntlet and reply to this columnist? Blogging is the ultimate in freedom of expression. Have PC will blog! A thousand Hyde parks on the net! It is a community sans boundaries! No one can stifle us,censor us, gag us. Maybe it is often a cry in the wilderness. But then John the Baptist also used to cry in the wilderness. I would say it is not a cry in the wilderness but shouting from the housetops, whistle blowing, trumpeting, beating of drums, or whatever u choose to call it. But it is there to stay. The media is scared of the blog revolution. It is already making inroads into their version of doctored news and views. It is even taking ad revenue away from them though in an insignificant minuscule.

Let us not get aaffected by the rantings and ravings of jealous journalists. Carry on brothers and sisters in arms, pound away at your keyboards. the future is ours!

Requiem for Nithari Victims

Thirty little flowers
Nipped in the bud;
With stigmas slit
stamens crushed and
Petals strewn in the gutter;
Thirty pairs of hands
Turned to ghastly stubs
And bones, cry out for justice
from the mounds in the drain.
Goldie had his golden harvest
Surender surrendered to his lust
and to the hocus pocus his
Witch doctor asked him to perform.
Can anyone have doubted
Where danger lurked?
Who can identify Satans
who come with a halo instead of horns?

The long arm of law was frozen
Took two years for it to defreeze,
Justice, blindfolded, is balancing her scale.
And God above, has turned his face away.
HE is busy creating more serpents
To let loose in the Garden of Eden.

Yet these flowers would not have perished in vain,
If but they light up our ire
Bring righteous tears to our eyes
And make us resolve
That we shall not allow it to happen again.
We shall have to first cleanse our minds
Spread awareness of the evil of child abuse
sensitise parents and the neighboruhood
The whole society needs to be roused.
It is a relentless battle
But in the end victory will be ours.

R I P Little Angels.

SAPPED

Yesternight I dreamt

Teeth piercing my jugular

Tears squirted, not blood.

Who Stole the bell?

There's been a theft

Someone stole the wedding bell

I cried "What the hell?"