Hopefully never again.

Having not listened to the news or switched on the TV, I had only found out about the massacre that happened in Peshawar, Pakistan late evening on the 16^th. The images and news cast stay with me and it has taken me a day to put my thoughts in order over my emotional response.

To my compatriots across the border, I speak for every Indian I know when I say that our condolences are with you. I hope you recover from this heart breaking event to be a stronger people.

Of the incident itself, for any man, it is a natural instinct to protect the young. Be it yours or someone else’s. When a youngster crashes into us at a mall our first instinct is to make sure that he or she is not harmed. When we see young people laugh and joke or fret the silly stuff, our instinct is to empathize with them even if they are unknown to us. We naturally are kind to adolescents and children. We take the extra effort that we may not take with an adult stranger. How then when our natural compulsion is to protect, do we destroy that same life. What would drive anyone to such a travesty?

I am able to think only about the most horrendous of them all – Vengeance. 

Retribution, we have always been told belongs to God. Be it Leviticus to Romans in the Bible (Vengeance is mine sayeth the lord); Forgiveness over vengeance and the wrath of God in the Quran; and The effects of Karma in Buddhism & Hinduism; every religion releases man (or teaches release for man) from the burden of retribution. I agree that religions like Hinduism or Islam do say that retaliation within the purview of justice is agreeable. But every one of them forbids you from ever harming the innocent.

So now I ponder what it must have taken for these extremists at the Pakistani school to kill or injure innocents. Obviously it was not justice. Definitely the loss of humanity.

And once we lose humanity what else is left?

Whatever be the cause, our need right now is to not react as we did at the WTC incident or the Godhra incident.  For violence breeds violence and the last thing we need is the loss of even more innocent lives. My heart goes out to the families who were victims to this atrocity. 

I am also concerned on what course retaliation will take. I hope that this incident motivates justice and not more vengeance. I hope it deters the creation of more extremists. I hope the anguish of these families motivates positive action and not revenge because our first priority now is to protect everyone we can. 

And most of all, I hope we never have to face something like this again.

A kick in the butt of my constitutional rights.

I can’t believe the amount of crap that we can dole out in the name of Secularism. The one thing that came out of the Vishwaroopam controversy is that none of us understand the meaning of Secularism.

The only thing that I could unearth was that almost every school of thought agrees upon the fact that secularism is the exclusion of religious considerations as secularism exists independent of religion.

Having understood that, finally, I have arrived at the conclusion that my country is nowhere as secular as it boasts of itself.

Why? Because, my government prevented the release of a movie as it offended a religious subset of the population.

Ok. I could be unfair. May be there was a law and order situation as Amma JJ announced to all and sundry.

If so, it was funny how, the law and order was to keep people out of the cinemas than to actually stop any activism.

And, instead of being protected by his constitutional right, Kamal was forced to compromise and cut the so called ‘offensive’ parts of the movie.

Lastly…the cherry on the pie being that the poor movie goers were told it was for their own good while their right to choose was stripped away from them.

What was finally achieved? The constitutional rape of many to appease the religious radicals.

What am I moaning about? The fact that I (finally as an adult) has to follow Amma JJ’s and the religious radical’s dictates on what I should and should not watch on the big screen. 

What a boat load of Bull.....

Time

So I have not been on for a while, which may have given pause for people to forget my bad habit of spewing out words. I usually do so when I have something interesting to talk about. As that has not happed for a few months, I can blame all of the reasons for it on time.

Things just don’t come to me on time. It is not me that is to blame. It is just bloody time.

Well that time I spent on piled up work is not due to the fact that I always end up taking up much more than I can do and then let the work guilt me into working double time.  All the personal mails that I have pending are not because I have not got around to it. It is just because said above work is still intruding on my time. All the friends that I have not called or kept in touch with over the last month are not because I am a bad “keep-in-toucher”.  It is just because the said mails that they have sent me are unanswered and hence calling would give raise to questions on my non-reply. And finally, it is not that I have not had anything interesting to share. It is just that, I wanted to share with those friends that I have not kept in touch with.

So you see what I mean, it is all about time.

My love affair with Rajini movies

One of my friends made an interesting post on his FB page “Thank God 'kolavari di' song is sung by Dhanush, if it was sung by his father in law Rajini it could have been our national anthem now”.  I laughed at that, however, he may definitely be on to a point. Cause, Rajinikanth in my state Tamil Nadu is an Icon sometimes equated to God. Even I, in my infinite practicality love him.

Most people do not understand my obsession with him. How can I watch Enthiran(Robot) or Sivaji or Basha or Billa so many times over and over again? Actually if someone asked me “eppadi” (how) I would say “suuuper” like Rajini does. And usually when hassling my friends, my normal dialogue is “Nan oru tharava sonna nooru tharava sonna mathiri” (if I’ve said it once, it’s like having said it a hundred times) – accompanied by a turn of my hand with only my index finger pointed outwards.

How can I say that I prefer him over Kamal Hassan? Well, to me, Rajini is the Big B of the south in movies and equal or more than Manmohan Singh on his moral worth.  So the question is how can I compare Rajini to Big B or Kamal. 

Anybody in the younger generation who questions  Rajini’s acting prowess probably did not check out Chitti in Enthiran. The older generation has had the benefit here because they have seen Rajini prior to him developing his signature style(Bairavi, Moonram mudichu, Mullum Malarum…). But the one quality probably even the Big B does not have is the ability to keep the mass engaged from the first scene to the last. You will laugh at his antics; you will cry at his dialogues; you will say “What is he doing? That’s just pure BS”. But, you will sit through the few hours of the movie - completely engaged with him.

The other reason that I love him is because of his total upfront dealings, his willingness to try and use his appeal for good causes and his courage in saying and standing by what he believes, whatever the cost.

But most of all, the reason I love him is because for that 3 hours that I am watching him, he makes me feel like laughing with him, crying with him or bashing up the bad guys with him.

EPPADI?

Weirdo travelers

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to travel. And, I am not talking about vacations. I am talking about regular travel for work. I usually on an average do 2 trips a week.  A lot lesser than many of my senior colleagues. In fact, I know someone who makes 5 trips a week (and he does not work for any ground or airline crew). You can easily recognize the regular travelers from the non regulars. It is seen in the way they are organized at every check point, their attire and even their luggage.

But once in a way you meet that traveler who does not fit the norm. The guy who carries his pillow with him; the lady who steps out of her Jimmy Choos and wraps them into her hand bag; the guy who has is hand shackled to his hand luggage; the dude who pushes past you while getting out of the aircraft (as though the staff would imprison him if he did not leave) and the woman who will persist in asking for alcohol at 7 in the morning in a 45 minute flight.

The last trip that I made, I had the most horrific experience. First, I was in the middle seat. Second, the guy to my right must have been Hulk Hogan’s brother(but in a suit). He basically occupied his seat and mine. The guy to my left looked like he was scared of everything and seemed to shrink into his seat. This was good for me of course, because otherwise, I would have been climbing on to his lap due to the hulk on my right. Then during the flight, Hulk goes off to sleep and starts snoring – quiet loudly I may add. So loud, that I could hear it through my earphones which were at max volume. So I turn to Mousy on my left looking for some sympathy, and he looked like I was ready to pounce on him or something.

The breakfast came, and I started thanking the Gods, because how can one snore when one is eating. Well, as is my luck, Hulk gulps down his food and then proceeds to lay back his head and snore louder. By the end of it, I decide he needs to be woken up, so me, in my infinite wisdom, fiddle with something and end up poking him quiet hard on his hand. He then proceeds to give me a glare and dust off his shirt (like I am a pesky fly) and then turn his head to the other side and snore and snore again.

When we landed, I was so incensed that I dropped my baggage on his leg, pushed past him and literally ran to the waiting bus (which I never ever take the effort to do as I think it is rude), only to find him way ahead of me in the immigration line. 

That was it, seems the big man up there was to his usual tricks to humble me.

How facebook became my coffee shop

If anyone asked me what my favourite drink was, I would nodoubt say “coffee”. This has been the all important drink in my life. The drink that drowns my joys, celebrates my sorrows and kills my boredom. All the most important decisions in my life have always been mulled over a mug of coffee. If ever there was a drink to which I invited friends for, it has always been coffee. So that’s how coffee houses and café’s have always topped my list of favourite places to hang out at.

Be it alone or with company, I’d rather spend half a day in a coffee shop than any other hang out joint. My first few friendship hangouts are always coffee shops. My first few dates are usually in coffee shops. It is not just the comfort of a cup of coffee, but that you could drag the experience of having a cup of coffee to hours if required or take a short break at it when needed.

But now with the amount of travel I do, I don’t really get to meet people face to face. That’s how, though reluctantly, I got myself into facebook. So over a period of a year, I am surprised how facebook seems to now play an integral part in my life. This is the place that I stay in touch with my friends, meet up and chat with them, hang out in a group and discuss nonsense topics. And sometimes, when I meet new people online, the safe place that I go to.  

The only significant thing about facebook is that, this is a coffee shop where I have to make my own coffee.

On being commitment phobic

Ok, so I am a commitment phobic. Get too close to me and I will find a way to screw it up. I swear, I don’t mean to hurt anyone but I just am not into hearts and flowers and forever. Ok, when I say no commitment – I mean I don’t expect or want marriage and that I don’t like being pushed into committing to long term. What I don’t mean is that I believe in open relationships or that I am happy being a yo-yo girl. And it definitely does not mean that I do a hot and cold routine or I accept it. It just means that I am not interested in being trapped to the sentimental circus of a marriage.  

Oh don’t get me wrong, I believe in marriage ….just not for me. I hope to never ever subject myself to that heart ache again.  And I have never assured anyone long term not even by mistake (at least not in the last few years).  When someone says marriage, plans, etc., I want to just disappear. And probably, before I realized about my phobia, I hurt a few people who were close to my heart badly. But you live and learn, and I did. And I hope they will learn to forgive me sometime.

Funnily, when I am in a relationship, I am complete committed to that moment and can behave as crazy as the next person. But start pushing on things that are close to my heart like my travelling, and I am quick to cut that down. It does get tiring and I can definitely be a pain. It is not that I don’t believe in love, I do, and probably still have retained some of my idealistic views on it.

On the other hand, neither do I enjoy being pegged down into square hole of casual relationships, as though anti-commitment means pro –casual. Imagine that! It’s like I have to be committed to being commitment phobic.  So for those morons who still did not get it….(A) I do believe in relationships. Just don’t try to hold it like a Damocles sword over my head. (B) When you can treat me like a convenience, be sure you will be seeing the door close behind me.