Monthly Archive for April, 2005

Old Age And the Politician

Published on April 26, 2005 in India and Politics. 8 Comments

“You are old, father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head –
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”
“In my youth,” father William replied to his son,
“I feared it would injure the brain;
But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.”

- Lewis Carroll.

Should politicians retire? The controversy started when Sudarshan, the head honcho at RSS, (India’s premier ultra-right-wing party) suggested that ex-PM Vajpayee and his man-Friday Advani should retire. Politicans cut across party lines to give a resounding thumbs down to the idea. Not that Vajpayee and Advani should not retire but that there should be a retirement age for politicians.

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A very short post

Published on April 24, 2005 in Religion. 2 Comments

On CNN Larry King, last Friday there was a very lively discussion between spiritual leaders as to what is evil. One of the panelists was Deepak Chopra. I always thought of him as a wishy-washy Hindu new age guru who markets Eastern philosophy to the California crowd. That he still maybe, but in this discussion, he was just MARVELLOUS. Maybe the reason I am so ecstatic is because he and I were in 100% total agreement on the issue. No. Actually I am ecstatic because of one line he spoke. (I don’t know if it is original—-but nonetheless it was a ripper)

” God gave man the Truth. The Devil said “Let’s organize it.” Religion was born.”

More Mr Chopra please.

Black the review

Published on April 20, 2005 in Bollywood and Reviews. 10 Comments

Everybody’s alphabet begins with “A B C D .” For the protagonists of Black it begins with ” B L A C K “. And for Sanjay Leela Bhansali it begins with ” E X C E S S”. Yes I know his alphabet has repeating letters.

“Black” also repeats itself endlessly. Bhansali lacks the touch of brevity and subtlety—-each of his scenes is overwrought and hyper-dramatic —-initially whatever impact they have is worn out as he keeps on using the same heavy-handed directorial style to squeeze tears from the audience.

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Bangladeshi Tigers

Published on April 19, 2005 in India and Politics. 11 Comments

A Border Security Force (BSF) man killed by the Bangladeshi beggars over a bottle of syrup ! Not just killed———tortured and killed. Why was he killed? Because he was trying to bust the smuggling of cheap cough syrup Bangladeshis use to get high.

So the brave Bangladeshi Rifles hatched a master military plan that would put Rommel to shame. They catch a poor Indian villager on the Indian side of the border and take him to Bangladesh. Two BSF men, Jeevan Kumar Sinha and Venu Kumar go to bring the man back when the Bangladeshi Rifles ,aided by the warrior clan of Bangladeshi citizens, vastly outnumber the two BSF men, drag them deep into Bangla territory, torture them and then hand over the dead body of Jeevan Kumar Sinha and the dying Venu Kumar to India. And while they were slow torturing two Indian soldiers, the BR men were firing at India

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It Hurts

Published on April 17, 2005 in Creative Writing. 5 Comments

I cannot pretend it did not hurt. No I am not talking about the 4-2 drubbing from Pakistan in the recently concluded ODI series. That hurt too. But what I am referring here is to not being shortlisted among the top 60 (yes 60 !) in the India Smiles contest organized by Sulekha.

I did not think my entry was that bad. But oh well…..

In any case, here is my entry—-since now it has been kicked out from the competition.

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