urbania and all that jazz

i'm back and so are the rains!

2008-06-05T20:00:00.002+05:30

in the summer of 2006, i watched with increasng uneasiness the images of a drowning bombay on british television. they must be exaggerating, i thought. its always this bad.
the images were relentless.
and the enormity of 26/7 sank in only when i returned home a few months later.
the battle scars were on the walls.
the door to our home, three feet above street level was damaged.
the walls in our living room had water marks hip-high and two of our cars drowned. like drowned, r.i.p.

as i travel home in the first downpour of the season today, i cant help but acknowledge that 26/7 has left this city scared of the rains.

the first thing i will tell the driver once i'm home is to park the car on the ramp. just in case....the ghost of 26/7, like i said.

urban rainforest

2007-06-30T22:52:00.000+05:30

jairaj pathak seemed an impressive man.
handled the media well as the rain began to submerge bombay.
he was on various news channels belting out an informed and controlled view of the whole rain and logging situation.
this was impressive not just because it was informed and controlled but because no municipal commissioner of bombay has had the guts to be so accessible to the media on a rainy day before this.
the BMC's best foot forward in the past has been silence/hapless PR manager.here was the real municipal commissioner being candid on CNBC and telling us that the problem at milan subway was the fact that it was below sea level. telling us to expect it to get worse with high tide. telling us that the showers were moving northward and that the situation in the northern suburbs was being specifically monitored.
here was a man in charge.
this was a promising step forward.

unfortunately it all crumbled under the rain.
the infrastructure gave way as mr.pathak had told us it would if it rained more than 40mm.
and today, like a wet bombay day every year, it rained more than 40 mm.

the news channels reaped a bounty.
the BMC/MMRDA were gleefully crucified, the janta vented its fury, mr.pathak disappeared from media view and bombay's shanghai aspirations were hung from an umbrella.

my city turned into an urban rainforest and my dad whined about having to leave the movie-theatre mid-way through Die Hard 4.0.
the good news is the electricity dint ditch us.
cheers to that.

p.s: the MET department claims to have warned us about the rain in advance. right.

he was a parent and a child.

2007-06-17T12:54:00.000+05:30

nana was the ultimate wish-fulfiller through my childhood. encyclopaedias, bicycles, golden trinkets..it was just an ask away.
it would be jotted down on his pad right away and one could be sure it would turn up the next day.
nothing that made it to his pad remained undone.
he kept it close at all times and scribbled on it in a handwriting that only he and his trusty steno subbu could decipher.
he belted out a legendary 50 letters a day, 6 days a week for more than 30 years. a master of letters if there ever was one. also corporate dynamo, indulgent granfather.

and then one day i became a lawyer.
that singular event convinced this grand man that i was someone who's advise should be sought on important matters-business as well as family. the power structure had an unlikely new entrant. 'have you seen the papers?' replaced 'how're you beta?' as a greeting. he was dead serious in his questions. it was not to be taken lightly. he was depending on the answer.

the parent-child relationship had changed. i was all grown up now. advising, solving problems, drafting multiple wills.

that was phase 2 of our relationship. the final transition happened in the last year.
he was a man who's work had been taken away from him for too long.
i would be summoned at midnight to collect his wallet and chain for safe-keeping when he felt it wouldn't survive his company until the next morning.
sent to him by my tired mom to give him my solemn word that the salt in his meal was sodium-free.
stroke his head and explain why it would be fun to go to india gate for a drive at a time when he could barely walk.
discuss world politics with him with an authority that i had inherited from him at the lunch table over the years.
damn george bush together.
worry about the instability in east europe.
crib about the saturation coverage of west asia.

and this is phase 4-closing his bank accounts and distributing his assets. liquidating his presence. all thats left is the memories, the photo on the wall and his walking stick in the corner.

hail the queen of UP

2007-06-01T20:39:00.000+05:30

i love mayawati.
thats my new t-shirt campaign.
hail the new queen of caste integration.
are the guys at magasaysay listening?

note: the author is an independent opinionist and has no links, overt or covert, to the bahujan samaj party, its leaders, its workers or its PR agency.

who elected the government?

2007-05-31T14:27:00.000+05:30

patriarchal.
thats the relationship most governments in india share with corporate india.

consider:
1.the prime minister wants ceo pay packets to be reined in to control growing social inequities.
2.state governments have no qualms compulsarily acquiring land for large corporations under the guise of "public purpose". (making farmers landless doesn't add to social inequity of course.)

theres a strange dichotomy here.
big daddy government will have the private sector grow, even help it along at the cost of other interest groups, but will tug at the reins any chance it gets. patriarchy. i'm the boss.

social inequity must be contained by curbing conspicuous expenditure by those who prosper. that way those who dont prosper will feel the pinch a little less. sure. but what abt the the government's role in the upliftment the have-nots?
PRIMARY EDUCATION.
EMPLOYMENT.
RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE.
or can these be denied a little bit longer by having the rich be a little more discreet about how rich they really are? by keeping their wealth a neat little tax department secret...

and on the other hand is big daddy's active complicity in bullying farmers. multiple state governments shamelessly force farmers to sell their fertile lands to make way for corporations and economic zones. why cant we have these corporations set up shop on arid wastelands? why are we after the prime-soiled property? would it not be better for everyone? wasteland economies and infrastructure are in desperate need of help anyway. it would cost companies more but would it not be better for the country?

and besides, who elected the government? the corporations? doesn't it matter how local populations feel about acquisition by governments? why is their voice being silenced?
my guess is its just a matter of time before the unsettled populations are many enough to have themselves heard in an election.
its a political process.

until then, listen to the PM and hide the big bucks a little better guys.
try and fool the electorate.

the grief came in waves

2007-04-07T16:30:00.000+05:30

we lost nana last week. and the grief comes in waves.

a shadow walked into the dark room at dawn that morning and said simply 'get dressed.' no more words needed.

the hospital had become a familiar space. we had fought to make the end as peaceful and painless for him as possible. i hope it was.

D and I set off by ourselves later that morning to buy flowers for the funeral.
desi gulab and mogra. (he would have approved.)
it was a beautiful sunday morning-sunny with a cool wind blowing through the flowering trees. delhi never looked quite so pretty before.

the walk to the phoolwala was quiet.
there was agonising grief trying to swim its way to peace.
i had lost that morning both a parent and a child.

and then, as if out of nowhere, came a cycle drawn tanga.
in the age of the noisy motorised bajaj auto, along rolled a lone cycle tanga.
on an empty road with artificial flowers on its steer and a quiet rhythm.
the sort (sans the flowers perhaps) that nana probably sat in often as a young man in purani dilli.

we had never sat in a cycle-tanga before and perhaps we never will again.
but the morning he went away, we went and bought him flowers in a cycle tanga with a cool wind blowing in our tear stained faces; fresh air mingling with fresh grief.

the line of cars and drivers were replaced by this retro ride for one morning. so like him to go on a sunday morning so that its convenient for everyone.
and so like him to wait until everyone had arrived. every last one of us. K on her easter break from england, Y as soon as his exams ended.

a massive old tree has fallen with nana's passing.
and with it a whole family orphaned that grew in its cool shade.

losing my sanity

2007-02-21T20:06:00.000+05:30

so say hello to a new YouTube convert.
this stuff is fantastic.
its comfort food for a bored mind.
a treadmill that you're on and don't know how to get off.
like candy for kids.
you can go crazy with it and then hyperventilate.

but i have other reasons to hyperventilate, so YouTube's off the hook for now.

this may sound abnormal, but i'm clarifying that i make no claims to normalcy personally.(normal is for sissies). i'm reading this book called 'i dont know how she does it' about a losing-sanity working mother of two, and i'm losing my sanity just reading it.

its supposed to be funny but i'm sure this is true for a lot of women out there who are trying to juggle career and kids. i'm sure this is what their lives really are. and its not funny. they're driving themselves insane in a competitive world and a chauvinistic workplace.
i should stop reading it immediately.
this thing is giving me BP.
but i cant.
its like the candy thing.
you know you should stop, but you just cant.
so today i skipped work to give myself some time for myself, and guess what?
i was back with the book.
like i said, can't stop.

does anyone know what i'm talking about?

shutting up the judges

2007-01-04T13:30:00.000+05:30

So the solicitor general thinks it fit to tell the Supreme Court to mind its own business.

It’s a stellar suggestion, no?

Persecution by the powers-that-be is an alien concept in our healthy republic. If only the judiciary would be a little more agreeable.

Most governments are doing such a wonderful job of the administration; the common man is well-fed, well looked after and generally satisfied with things.
So that’s another area the Courts can stay out of.

Corruption is the subject matter of an international index that shouldn’t bother us unduly.
And what can the Judiciary do about it anyway? Bribery is something the babus know best about.

A few farmer suicides and contaminated ground water occasionally bother us all, but that’s not reason enough to precipitate a constitutional crisis, now, is it?

Why are we getting our knickers in a twist?

I think I agree with the bloke.
The Judiciary should take a few more holidays every year.
Let the grand old men go home early, snooze in the afternoon, that sort of thing.
Why get into a bad mood over nothing?
Let the common man fend for himself on issues.
He has his vote, doesn’t he?

The show of strength between the political establishment and the Courts is as serious as issues get. It threatens the foundation of the nation. Irresponsible missives from individuals are dangerous. The law minister did well to promptly disown the comment.

anti-study tirade

2006-09-20T00:13:00.000+05:30

ever met a really smart AND happy hairdresser?
i haven’t.
but i’m scared I will one day..and it’ll make me sorry for the last seven years of unnecessary education when I could have been perfectly complete, happy and successful without it. as a hairdresser. or a cook. or a rally driver.

doesn’t it ever seem like we’re complicating our lives with too much education?

in fact, forget post-grad education, haven’t we taken it too far as a race when our young need to spend about 20% of their lifespan just catching up with what the specie is upto?
why is an average person required to go through 16 years of schooling? 16 years is 20% of the average lifespan. and we’re talking basic education. (can you imagine a tiger cub spending four of its sixteen years in hunting school?)

isn’t 5 or 6 enough to imbibe necessary lifeskills?
say reading, writing, grammar and a basic introduction to maths?
that sounds about enough to me.
the rest can be discovered outside the formal education system..shakespeare can be discovered in a theatre and geometry need never be discovered ;)
why the stress? why give up a childhood to read about it?

and somewhere, we get so caught in the rat race of information/knowledge that we begin to believe that we need it to be successful and feel smart.

and it’s at this point that the system displays its fatal flaw. it set out to make you ‘smarter’ and self-sufficient but ended up blinding you instead.
made you dependent on it. made you believe you were inadequate without it…

redemption i think, lies in the fact that theres mass blindness out there; we've all become dependent. so if you meet a happy and smart hairdresser, smile - you’re not the only one who got conned :)

dear sachin

2006-09-16T22:38:00.000+05:30

dear sachin,

the 141 was great and all, but it would be really nice if you could pull the antics on days when we actually need it.

why is 'sachin to the rescue' an act that never takes off?

i cant remember the last time sachin tendulkar saved the match with a solid knock at the right time...why are the histrionics confined to first innings and comfortable chases?

if cricket is religion, you're the reining deity, dude.

su kare chhe?
kay karte?
kya kar rela hai mamu?

still hopeful,

cricket enthusiast
(member, endagered species)

india v. china at lunch

2006-08-27T19:31:00.000+05:30

and this is how the Lunchtime Political Commentator/Sociologist can win the day in one deft stroke over Right-Wing Investment Banker(RWIB)-types when it comes to those annoying india vs china debates:

RWIB: india going nowhere - investment too little - decisions too slow - democracy sucks - china rocks.

LPC/S: what about political freedom/civil rights?

RWIB: freedom overrated - investment too little - decisions too slow - democracy sucks.

LPC/S: would you prefer a chinese-style dictatorship for quicker economic growth?

RWIB: india going nowhere - freedom overrated - rights overrated - corruption corruption corruption - Left gone bonkers - decisions too slow - democracy sucks.

LPC/S: do you have a dog?

RWIB: investment too little - decisions too slow - democracy sucks.

LPC/S: do you have a dog??

RWIB: what does that have to do with it?

LPC/S: china culls them en masse to keep rabies under control.
heads clubbed until smashed. every single one of them.
owners paid to do the deed themselves or the government will gladly walk in and do it for them.
quick decision path to rabies control.
but you're right...the roads here must improve and rights sound overrated.

RWIB: .....
could you pass the rice pls?

do try out and share results.

phenomenal woman

2006-08-15T13:03:00.000+05:30

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a womanPhenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand orFall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a womanPhenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a womanPhenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a womanPhenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

- Maya Angelou

this blog is a security threat.

2006-07-28T21:31:00.000+05:30

so now that the government of india has satisfied itself that my blog is not a threat to national security, I'M BACK!!
i feel safer already knowing that they've decided to make it tougher for terrorists to blog.

what i want to know is this-how would blocking blogs help while the email services were up and running? shouldn't they have blocked those too?
is blogging in vogue with terrorists these days?

(salaam jehadi brothers.
justa quick line to let y'all know that the RDX this week is top quality.
for enquiries about bulk buys, leave me a comment below with your Orkut ID.
and will somebody pls explain to salimbhai that nobody checks email no more?)

i mean really, what could they be saying to each other on a blog that they can't be saying on email? am i missing something here?

intriguing.

the azadi of colour

2006-07-03T18:53:00.000+05:30

the last few weeks have felt strangely subdued.
almost as if an unknown dimension was making itself felt by its absence.
and the gloom was oozing into the other dimensions.
this morning as i cringed and donned black and white for work, i knew what it was.
colour.
my spirit is caged in the confines black and white!
i have no junoon, no wit and no madness. my mind has gone bland.
my soul has been chained by the propah-ness of black and white.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
i want to wear colour again!
i want to feel the wholeness of green, the energy of orange and the chutzpah of purple...

i want to wear all of them together! blue and lime (o lime!) and red and ochre!
i want all of them to wear me again!

value it all you people in the free world outside courts! (liiiime...)
the freedom of colour!
the freedom of waking up in the morning, looking at your clothes and being able to ask yourself which colour you fancy being today. and then being it.
its a precious thing..

but coming back to my problem-roh suggests accessorising with colour. ("orange socks")
good suggestion.
and perhaps it would have helped if i had realised this earlier.
but at this stage of the problem, where the longing has turned acute, it just seems like too little too late....i want to be wrapped in orange! be swathed in it, nothing less..! everyday! in fact, no..i want to wear a new colour every few hours!
get my fill of them all in one day..feel the glory of magenta and red together! and blue and green! and ochre and orange and shocking pink..

..and thats just what i did this rainy monday afternoon.
got home early and changed into red and orange.
the effect is almost life giving.
i'm back in my element.
and until this rain subsides, i don't even want to think about going black.

(..the other fallout of this is that my days as a black and white clicker are numbered.
but thats another blog now..)

large-arted bill

2006-06-25T11:18:00.000+05:30

and for someone who enjoys "art and culture", i'm not big on museums.
i don't mind them once i'm in there, but theres a definite resistance to stepping into one.

but consider- museums are really the last bastion of classical art in our times.
mass media and pop art have left such little space for the classical in our consciousness.
its really the only place classical art survives as art.

the end of museums would practically mean the end of classical art outside private collections.
and come on-we don't want to go in, but we dont want to lose the privilege of CHOOSING not to go in, do we?

the louvre was the first collection to open to the public.
the people nationalized it when they overthrew the monarchy at the end of the revolution.
up until then, marie antoinette and her merry bandwagon of cake-eating nobles were pretty much the only guys who got to see great art. (tch..the masses could hardly be invited in to gape at the palace walls now...)

so with the revolution came not just democracy and a national identity for the french, but also their tryst with arty-ness (and boy! has it come a long way since..)

(the script is similar all over the world-museums in general are tied closely to the nationalistic movements of the last 300 years. no nations, no museums.)

the relationship with the masses is set to consolidate though.
enter the capitalistic goon, out to sell art to the upwardly-bound middle-class.
bill gates is all set to take art digital.
his company corbis is busy buying up reproduction rights to thousands of famous and not-so-famous-yet artworks and scanning them into a database.
ultimately, the aim is to provide art for people's homes in the form of high-resolution images beamed onto super-flat large screens.
(kinda like the ad sony that ran a few years ago where an aquarium had screens instead of fishtanks...)

so.. you and i could soon have ol' mona lisa staring at us from high-rez screens on our walls.
just one question for mr. gates though: why would i install an exorbitantly-priced piece of electronica to display the picture when paper is doing just fine!??

what this is going to ultimately mean is the corporatization of art.
it may also mean more money for poor artists-which is a good thing.

that the impending invasion should be american is ironical...
washington's national gallery was started as late as the 1960s by an embaressed white house who had nowhere to take foreign diplomats when they asked to be taken to the american national gallery! so it was not art that inspired it, it was national pride..

so all in all, its familiar isn't it?
the french democratized (louvre) it and the americans are all set to capitalize it(gates).
its the theme of our times.

ex-men

2006-06-18T21:02:00.000+05:30

i feel so bad for the ppl who can't stay friends when the relationship ends.
nobody knows you like an ex.
and once the early storm of the breakup has passed, the friendship tht survives is like molten gold. sublimely brilliant.

its just the nicest feeling in the world to have an ex who drives you out to the highway at one in the morning because you're feeling claustrophobic...a boy who sends you back home with his ipod because he knows you're going to have trouble sleeping tonite...a boy who gives you a protective hug just when you need it but don't know it.

ex-es are to be treasured girls.

satinic verses

2006-06-10T12:38:00.000+05:30

you can't have missed the posters all over the city shouting 'sati-satya ki shakti'

SATI???
NOT SITA, NOT SAVITRI..SATI.

in a country where the horror of burning wives alive with the dead husband is still a horrific reality, can't producers find a more appropriate name?
its just a name i hear you say, but consider this..

we develop positive associations in our minds towards certain words and names because of the baggage they carry for us.
so if the latest squeeze is called avinash, avinash-the name begins to wear a positive halo in your head.
you begin to like the name because you like the person.

and if you're sceptical, run a name in your head-any random name-and ask yourself if you like it. then ask yourself why you like/dislike it...

see?

sati = no like.
no confusion pls.
sati = no like fullstop.
lets be very clear.

and..here we have a television serial thats going to make millions subconsciously like the word sati.*
this is not good.
TV and films are very powerful medium.
shouldn't producers be extra-careful with how they use it?
i'm sure the producers of sati-satya ki shakti were not out to glorify the practice of sati in any way, but they end up obliquely doing just that; ironic for a program thats about a woman's fight for justice.

would somebody pls inform the channel and the producers that the glorification of sati in any manner whatsoever is punishable with imprisonment under the sati (prevention) act, 1986.

*for more on the mass media's startling subconscious effects google "marshal mcluhan"

lost

2006-06-08T22:07:00.000+05:30

i dint lose a friend in S, i lost a part of me.
its been a year this month and it still feels like the arm was just severed.

i know we'll get back someday, but i can't help mourning the todays that we're missing.
these are the happy todays.

he's taken my faith with him and i miss that a little too.

i miss you S.
i miss us.

legal fables

2006-05-14T23:47:00.000+05:30

i love caselaw.

like rahimtoola v/s nizam of hyderabad.
its one of those quaint cases tht has history trapped in it.
it was a case slapped by the nizam of hyderabad against the pakistani high commissioner in london (rahimtoola) in 1948 (just after partition, to be noting).
the nizam was claiming back his funds-illegally transferred by rahim boy from a brit bank to himself (and thus the pakistani state.).

until i read this, i had no idea the pakis cheated the nizam out of his money.
i always thought the nizam was pro-pak and wanted a little piece of pakistan where hyderabad stands today.

at least that was the rumour in my history class...

...and then theres hyde v/s hyde..
the brits at their tight-upper-lipped best.

they declare, in the best traditions of pluralism, that their courts will recognise only "christian marriages".
what are "christian marriages"?
nothing to do with the pretty white gown or the solemn priest.

a christian marriage is any marriage thats:

- a voluntary union (out go the arranged fixes)
- for life (out go celeb unions)
- of one man and one woman (gay rts be damned)
- to the exclusion of all others (dharam and hema, listen up y'all)

so i have a simple question. whats so exclusively 'christian' abt it?
the natives have 'christian' weddings too.
why religious-ize it?
you guys just out to confuse the common public with jargon, aren't you'll?

but the case i like best of all is this:

when war broke out btw the israelites and the arabs in 1948, the arab bank had some cash stashed in the british barclays bank's jerusalem branch.
(not in their dreams did they imagine tht which side of jerusalem would become such a crucial question.
as it turns out, the branch was in, what came to be, the israeli side of jerusalem.)

now smart jews started requisitioning 'unclaimed' funds from banks in their side of the territory.
succeed.
arab money gone.
they're furious. how to recover?

so arab bank sues barclays in an english court for parting with their funds.
(they're able to do this because barclays is a brit bank.)

now tricky situation for the court.
on one hand, it knows that barclays had no choice but to comply with the israeli executive order. on the other, the money was clearly the arabs' and they have a rt to claim it back from the bank.
what to do??

so smart judge pops a mentos and gets to work...
arabs' right to money is recognised...but they can claim it only from the jerusalem branch in which it was deposited and not from any other branch of the same bank...

:)

bugger knows full well tht the branch is in the israeli side of jerusalem and the arabs never going to get their hands there.

this is called brilliance. *clapping tape plays for ten seconds and then fades out*

in one sweep, acknowledges tht arabs deserve to recover money, but saves poor barclays from paying it...

khopdi, na?

this is why i love caselaw.

fab stories, randomly scattered in the garb of legal jargon..

dragon feast

2006-05-14T17:21:00.000+05:30

chinese food and i go back a long way.

golden dragon is my official 'first restaurant'-my baby book says so.

i know i was looking at the ceiling and dropping noodles into an open mouth at an age when i could still only prononce it as noo-dus.

wanton soup at sampan - a weekly family ritual thru the 80s.

and corn soup with noodles is the ultimate comfort food even today.

i can write my life around chinese restaurants.

shiv sagar's schezwan rice -popular with the girls. (B K and S-u'll will forever be THE girls)

flora chinese in worli - H and my meeting ground mid-city.

china garden - a must-go everytime my cousins came to bombay.

london's royal china- a unanimous family favorite.

singapore's buddhist chinese-the best i've had so far.

food is such an important social ritual of our times.
its an international diplomacy weapon waiting to be tapped.

..would anyone care to add to this freshly minted theory?

a few good men

2006-05-11T22:45:00.000+05:30

simple question.
how, in godette's name, does one meet the nice single men out in this city?

not in bars like they would in manhattan.
this is aamchi mumbai and i'm a bhartiya naari.
not at work... they don't seem to work where i do.
the neighbourhood is empty - i've looked with binocs.

where are they, i'd like to know..
the smart, articulate and funny ones.
where?
and how do i find them?

the ones iv met so far have all had one screw dheela, as i keep telling shya masi.
one couldn't find a comfortable chair no matter where we went, another surfaced ritually once a week, a third was hell bent on getting me to meditate with his grandfather, a fourth haggled at shops like middle-aged women haggle for patta-bhaaji..
you get the drift...

the ones i haven't met are hiding.
how to meet them? where to find?
i've looked behind the trees and under the cushions.
they're not there either :(

suggestions anyone?

all respect for the dear departed

2006-05-10T00:17:00.000+05:30

if the obits are anything to go by, pramod mahajan was a saint, no less.
future PM.
visionary leader.
mourned by the masses.

quick dispassionate Q for my journo friends:
whats wrong with you guys?
i mean, really...
angel of lucre, yes.
a goodwill groucho, yes.
but "the nation mourns a future PM"????

lets get a grip here ppl.
the tragedy is undoubtedly tragic.
but can tragedy turn an amar singh into a rahul gandhi?

stop ranting

2006-05-06T13:48:00.000+05:30

note to self: this so cannot turn into a dear diary blog.

have you seen the personal rants out there in the name of blogging?
people! cyberspace is not a dumping ground for your emotional baggage and daily angst.
cut the crap.
stop wasting people's time.
we all have our own problems without knowing abt yours.