I need to see a psychiatrist urgently! when everybody saw RR Patil and Chagan Bhujbal paying their respects to the martyrs of 26/11 outside the Trident, I saw two green people with horns. They were sticking out their tongues and teasing the people who had forced them to resign last year, they seem to say- see we are back in less than a year with all our powers, incapability and everything expected from a selfish politician.

There must be definitely something wrong with my eyes. When an 83 year old  Maratha politician can see past the tricolour on Sachin Tendulkar’s helmet, and recognize a Marathi manoos not helping the Maratha cause, my eyes only see an Indian proudly representing India.  I need an eye check up because I can’t see the saviours of Marathi asmita anywhere in Mumbai  assuring the Mumbaikars that last year we couldn’t be with you but in future if you need us, we will be there with all our might. We not only attack unarmed media persons and North Indians but if needed, we can pick up our lathis and trishuls against a well trained, well armed enemy who has come to spill the blood of innocent Mumbaikars. My guess is that they are hoping that once the statue of Shivaji is ready, he will majestically step out of it and fight the terrorists like he fought the  Mughal and British forces in the glorious yesteryears. When I heard screams and gunshots emanating from the Taj, Trident and CST last year all I could hear was  the voices of Indians. Perhaps that is why when people say  Mumbai was attacked last year, I say  it was India which was wounded and bled. The list of causalities included names of people from different states and religions, perhaps that confused me. I wonder if  Major Unnikrishnan or for that matter Karkare and his men knew or acknowledged the language, religion, caste, sub-caste or even the nationalities of the people they were trying to rescue.

There is definitely something wrong with me because Atal Behari Vajpayee is one of the few present generation politicians in India whom I respect but when Vajpayee’s name is being dragged in the Liberhan Commission report, I don’t feel bad. I feel that one always has to pay the price of being in the wrong company. See how frustrated  Amar Singh looked while coming to blows with his one time colleague and college mate SS Ahluwalia. Amar Singh is trying to blot out the stain of his association with Kalyan Singh… Desperate  situations, desperate efforts. I am sure Sharad Pawar is going to pay the price of the company of  RR Patil and Chagan Bhujbal.

Even as the country  remembered the martyrs of 26/11 and the innocents who lost their lives to the terrorists, our politicians in the Lok Sabha  fought with each other over compensations paid to victims by the government. They were busy politicizing the issue like they did even while Mumbai was under seige last year. The Lok Sabha had to be adjourned for  a couple of hours. We have lost all expectations from our netas and left it to the civil society to mourn and remember the martyrs. Prasoon Joshi  wrote a beautiful poem in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks, which Amitabh Bachchan recently recited  — Iss Baar Nahi.

Watching different news channels on TV in the last few days made me wonder whether  all news anchors are products of the same factory.  Although some seem to be more opinionated than others. Same panelists hopping from one channel to the other, same representatives from the concerned political parties repeating the same opinion over and over again.  I switched to good old Doordarshan in order to  enjoy the channel with a difference. And different it certainly is. I completely understood what my non- Hindi speaking  friends mean when they complain about highly sanskritised Hindi or highly arabicized Urdu news broadcast by Doordarshan.

I am all for fusion of languages and when a South Indian or anybody from a non-Hindi speaking area adulterates Hindi or Urdu it is sort of endearing and I have no issues if   people don’t understand basic Hindi or Urdu words. Not everybody thinks like me although. I read a very interesting story recently- Josh Malihabadi once asked someone, aaj kaun si tareekh hai? He replied, aaj unnees (19) tareekh hai. Hearing this Josh got angry and  said it should be unneeswin (19th) tareekh rather than unnees tareekh. The fact is that it is our right to speak whatever we want to speak and call that language whatever we want to. In a country where it is said the the dialect changes after every 20 kms it is unfair  to expect the aam admi to speak any language correctly. My Hindi teacher in class 9 was one of those puritan types who would not tolerate mixing of even Hindi and Urdu.  Once I was at the receiving end when I used the word shaadi instead of vivah in my essays. I tried to explain that Munshi Premchand  who was regularly a part of our Hindi curriculum for so many years wrote in Urdu and sprinkling a few words of Urdu in Hindi shouldn’t bother anybody.

Actually it is not Hindi but  Hindustani which is the national language of India.  Hindi is as much our  national language as hockey is our national sport. I love both Hindi and Hockey but one has to accept the reality.  We can give some credit of amalgamation of Hindi and Urdu to Bollywood films. Hindustani  is the hybrid spoken language spoken in most parts of Northern India and contains words from Sanskrit and Persian. The sentence structure of Hindi and Urdu are the same and the only difference is vocabulary. My father always used the word khabarain instead of news or samachar as is commonly used in Hindi. These days nobody uses the word khabarain except  for the news reader of the Urdu bulletin on DD news.  Hashiya is another word which seems to have disappeared from people’s vocabulary. If you consider wajah a Hindi word,  bina-wajah is Hindi and bila-wajah is Urdu. There are many such words, a minor tinkering here and there could change them from Hindi to Urdu and vice versa. In fact this is true about  most Indian languages. I guess this is because all of them originated from Sanskrit.

Hindi films have played a major role in promoting Hindustani. The dialogues and the songs are an amalgamation of  Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Marathi and if the characters are Malayali or Tamil even words from these languages are used. Although I am not sure if  the words are always from regional languages, sometimes I think imaginary words are inserted just to rhyme with the song. Recently in a talk show on a famous news channel a Shiv Sainik when asked about his views on ‘Marathi only’ in Mumbai said that Hindi was a step mother while Marathi was his real mother. I felt like advising him, at least address  Hindi as  Masi (sagi masi hoon koi sauteli maa nahin style from Sholay). Somebody needs to ask  people forcing their language on others,  what do they  suggest to the central government employees posted in Mumbai. They can’t learn the language of every state they visit because they are transferred every 3 years. All one can be sure of is this language divide is here to stay at least for a few years. The positive side is  that the religious divide has been put on a back burner for the moment. The divisive forces can focus on one thing at a time.

As a child whenever I complained about somebody from school, neighbourhood or the family, my mother would remind me of a story from Mahabharata.  Duryodhan asks Krishna, why is Yudhishthir called  Dharamaraj (I completely disagree personally, for me he was a bigger villain than Duryodhan)?  Like Bigg Boss, Krishna gave Yudhishthir and Duryodhan a task to perform. Duryodhan had to make a list of all the good people in Hastinapur while Yudhishthir had to list all the bad people. In the evening both of them had nothing written on their papers. When asked, Duryodhan couldn’t find anybody good and Yudhishthir couldn’t  find anything wrong with any one. Those days I would tell mum that the reason behind the empty lists was that both of them were too lazy to find out just to get her out of her preachy mode. After watching all the breaking news and reports in the last week, I was in a Duryodhan mode. Last night Maharaj Yudhishthir visited me in my dreams and that changed me and my outlook both.

I couldn’t see the halo behind Abu Azmi’s head till he was attacked by Raj Thackeray’s angels in the Vidhan Sabha(Police commissioner Ronald Mendonca in an affidavit submitted to Mumbai high court in 1997 had said that Abu Asim Azmi is “in close association with Dawood Ibrahim, as per police records). As Azmi continued reading his oath in Hindi despite being  pushed and slapped by the Marathi saviours,  I could picture Bhagat Singh shouting slogans against the Britishers in my head (Rang de basanti style). What a sacrifice for our national language and the North Indians! All Indians will be eternally debted to Amar Singh for gifting  a jewel like Abu Azmi to India. After appreciating the goodness of Azmi, my  problem was – how would  Yudhisthir see goodness in Raj Thackeray and his supporters (goons is unparliamentary). A bright light filled the room and my eyes opened. In a typical mythological serial style, Maharaj Yudhisthir’s soul came to my rescue. Raj Thackeray was forcing Azmi to speak in Marathi  for the farmers committing suicide in Vidharbha and the power scarcity and traffic problems of amchi Mumbai.  Raj is basically a non violent person like his illustrious uncle. Remember 26/11/08, he, his MNS or people from his clan didn’t raise a voice, what to say of a lathi or a fist against even the dreaded terrorists.  I am sure some Sadhu maharaj freshly descended from the hills of Himalayas has given him this solution- If all the North Indians in Maharashtra converse in Hindi, Maharashtra would be free of all natural and man made calamities (I am not sure which category Raj Thackeray falls in). It is the duty of everybody living in Maharashtra to speak in Marathi so that Mumbai becomes Shanghai after overcoming all it’s problems. Please forgive me if I have used the word Bombay instead of the sacred Mumbai anywhere in the post.

It is only the point of view that makes a person, a villain or a hero. We criticize Manu Sharma for killing Jessica Lal but we close our eyes to the son who is out on parole to serve his ailing mother. There must be a reason for his visit to the pub. It is possible that he went there because his mother’s doctor was a regular visitor to that particular pub and Manu went there to see him as a dutiful son. Think positive and you will see the goodness in him.  While I am trying to find out the goodness in the villainous  Ravan like laughter of the Reddy brothers of Karnataka, please share with us  any such story where people and the media are maligning our fellow brothers and sisters and ignoring their positives. It would be a great service to the great Indian gambler, Dharamaraj alias Yudhishthir.

We,  the people of India seem to have forgotten the gospel truth that  if you owe $100 to a bank, they will sue you, but if you owe $100 million, they will make you a director of the bank. Former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda’s residence in Ranchi was sealed amid allegations that he amassed illegal assets worth crores. The IT department (most honest govt department according to some), which was probing a disproportionate assets charge against Madhu Koda, conducted raids in eight Indian cities at 70 places of the former chief minister and his associates. Documents relating to illegal transaction of Rs.2,000 crore were recovered from his house.The electronic and print media is demonizing him day and night.

When I heard that Income tax  officials allegedly seized four rupee counting machines in his house I was touched. Imagine all the hard work he had put in to earn these crores. How can we  expect politicians to work for the people after forcing them to spend so much time collecting, counting, converting and investing cash. He could have been saved all the effort of counting notes if all the cash would have been deposited in his mines, hotels and other assets directly. Koda had to make trips to foreign countries while he was the mines and geology department minister. He had visited Liberia, Bangkok and Dubai. Munda, the then CM instead of feeling sorry that he didn’t provide opportunities to invest black money in India complained that he went without informing him as per the protocol.  If it wasn’t a state visit Koda must have spend his own money. Where in India will you find such honest politicians where not only the ministers but their families also travel on govt expense. How many people is he suppose to inform, his father , mother, wife and  Munda also expected to be a part of the list as a bos! Madhu koda  is an adult and should be treated like one. On top of that he suffered  jet lags, ate hotel food, missed mum and dad during that period and his opponents accuse him of money laundering. I am sure the gall bladder stones for which he was operated upon were the result of all that bahar ka khana. Poor man, he is still in the hospital due to that. I trust  Rasika Koda (Madhu Koda’s father)  when he says that “Madhu is a simple human being like me. His character is clean, My son is paying the price for being one of the most popular chief ministers and tribal leaders the state has ever produced.” A son who had invited  his father to stay with him in his plush official bungalow after becoming the Chief Minister cannot do anything wrong. As  the politician who wears khadi  cannot waste public money, same way  a person who loves his parents cannot do anything  wrong (Kabir Das would certainly have written a doha on the topic if someone like Koda existed in his time).

There is a specific qualification required for different professions. In most countries people with excellent extortion and corruption skills are fit to join the underworld,  in India they are drawn to politics. It is not that an engineer is being asked to perform a brain surgery! Madhu Koda’s  assets grew from Rs 35 lakh in 2004 to over Rs 30 crore in 2009 as per his own declaration to the Election Commission. What better example do you need of India Shining ? The costliest advertisements by the govt couldn’t have proved the progress made by India and Indians in a more convincing way. We are proud to say that we are the largest democracy of the world but forget that democracy  is  expensive.  It takes huge sums of money to get elected to public office. How do we expect the poor Kodas of India to get elected if they don’t earn? A politician  is  “honest” if he takes money and delivers the promised goods. A “dishonest” one is he who takes the money but does not come through! This should be the basis of judging Madhu Koda, any other way would be unfair.

Kindly open your heart, I just saw Mr Koda’s picture with his wife in the Hindustan times, with a white and red cap adorning his head, he seems to be such a family man. The picture is able to make the women of India emotional. It is not that the poor man has taken his oath in Maharashtra assembly in Hindi or refused to sing Vande Matram, all he did was made some money which is his right as a politician. Imagine the number of people who will motivated to become politicians after hearing his rags to riches story. There are role models required, the Mayawatis, Jayalalithas and Lalus of the country are not enough to inspire the poor of the country. Let us all pray that conditions outside the hospital are soon conducive enough for him to recover from his illness and his counting machines are again put to use.

Both my daughters ran the Great Delhi Run today. I was quite surprised when they had registered for it, and the day came quicker than I had anticipated. It was a 7 km route in the Chanakya Puri area, and they both finished well within the 2 hour time limit. It was special for me as a mother because I love it when my daughters go out and do things together. Coincidentally, they were both running with injuries – so they actually walked most of the way. I am happy that they completed it.

The weather was perfect, in fact if the event had taken place even a week ago it wouldn’t have been so much fun for the participants. I followed the event on TV and at least on the TV it seemed well organized and the participants and the on lookers seemed pretty well behaved. The aerial view of the marathon made me really proud of Delhi, the city looked lush green. Chidambaram should be a happy man now, his request to the citizens of Delhi to behave during the Common Wealth Games seems to have worked. I didn’t see much of pushing and shoving that Delhi is so famous for.  Delhi ’s chances of  putting up a good show during Commonwealth Games next October seem to be improving now. Only a month ago the pessimists had declared that Delhi is not capable of hosting an event like that.

I was greatly motivated to be a part of it myself. Unfortunately my fitness would not have allowed it at all this year but I have resolved to train and be ready for it next year. I think it is a wonderful thing for our city to have an event such as this, and a great opportunity for NGOs, charities and individuals to run for a cause. I hope all the incoming resources are channelized well and that this event proves to have been a success in every way.

After a long time I re-read Leo Tolstoy’s short story — How Much Land Does a Man Need? I was touched when I read it as a young girl,  I still found it relevant. It is a very simple story about a greedy Russian peasant called Pakhom who wishes to amass land. He receives a very tempting offer from the landowners, the Bashkirs. For 1000 rubles, Pakhom could walk around as large an area as was possible, starting at daybreak. The deal was that if he reaches the starting point by sunset the entire land covered by him would be his. Pakhom overdid it.  By the evening Pakhom  realised that he has come very far and  frantically ran as fast as he could to get back to his starting point in time. When he got there he was so exhausted that he dropped dead. The Bashkirs buried him in a 6ft x 3ft plot — an ironic answer to the title question.

I don’t know if I would even bother about answering questions like-  what are we here for, does life really signify anything and is there any purpose to our existence? I don’t know if anyone  knows the  answer. Philosophers and thinkers have described ‘life’ in different ways, some call it  a journey, some call it  a mystery, for some life is totally meaningless. For me life is a gift and we should live it fully and enjoy the journey.

500 posts, 5723 comments, 153,371 hits, 24,381 spam comments, 615 categories, 445 tags over 2+ years  and I am still enjoying it. This is unbelievable, I’ve never stuck with any interest or hobby for so long. Through this post I want to express my gratitude to all my friends who visit and read my blog. I never expected my writing to be  recognized by a panel of credentialed experts or  to be published in some prestigious journal but the fact that so many people over the years came to my blog and read what I had to say means a lot to me.  A couple of my posts have been mentioned in reputed national daily newspapers but the credit for that definitely goes to search engines and not my creativity.

I was forced into blogging by my daughter who thought I needed a better vent than her helpless ears for the opinions I have about everything on earth. She started a wordpress account for me and informed me that she has told all her friends that her mother has started a blog and now I have to write something. I started getting comments on my “Hello World!” post while she flew off to the middle east, and I knew there was no way out. But I am thankful to her for introducing me to this new world. For someone like me for whom the only use of internet was to read online newspapers and occasionally email, it was something very new. Interacting with people from all over the world and knowing their reactions and listening to their side of the story was an eye opener for me. I’m especially grateful to my young friends from Pakistan who have helped me understand their point of view in all the controversies regarding Indo-Pak relations or sometimes even religious affairs. Young Pakistani boys and girls are very much like their Indian counterparts and their comments have always confirmed that for me.

Initially I wrote my opinions on everyday affairs like terrorism (oh the tragedy of calling terrorism an everyday affair) and recipes from my kitchen. Slowly and hesitatingly, I stepped into things closer to my heart, like sports, family, my dogs, politics, etc. I used to depend on my daughters to help me figure out basic things (like, how to use firefox because I’d only ever used explorer before…) but thankfully I grew with my blog. I could never have imagined that people other than my daughter’s friends would be interested in what I wrote (and I also didn’t anticipate the reverse, that I would start writing about things my daughter wouldn’t care to read!). But it’s been a wonderful journey.

This morning my daughters and I sat down to make rangolis for diwali, as is our annual tradition. We did not make elaborate designs this year as in past years, because both my daughters are unwell. But when we had finished making the rangolis and taking pictures, my younger daughter decided to celebrate my 500th blog post by starting her own blog again, and she uploaded some of our photos as her first post. The highlight of that was when she – who had introduced me to wordpress but had lost touch with it herself – asked me, “Mum, how do I upload a photo to my post?”. It was great fun updating her on all the changes wordpress has seen since she quit blogging.

Thanks again everyone who’s visited, encouraged me and helped me grow as a blogger. A very happy and prosperous Diwali to all.

After Rakhi Sawant and the endless  will she- won’t she controversies, Rahul Mahajan is ready for a Swayamvar. There is another programme currently being broadcast on Star Plus called Perfect Bride in which apart from prospective bride and groom, the prospective mother-in- law is also involved. It seems that reality shows based on marriages are the current favourites.

While surfing different entertainment television channels, I heard a Sanskrit Shlok on NDTV Imagine which went something like this – Karyeshu Dasi, Karaneshu Manthri; Bhojeshu Mata, Shayaneshu Rambha.. I can hear only this much, after that something else begins. This Sanskrit shlok seems to be the theme of a popular programme . As far as I can understand this shlok means- that an ideal wife works like a servant, advises like a minister, feeds like a mother, makes love like Rambha (a beautiful courtesan in Indra’s darbar) and the expectations go on.. I am sure the expectations are much more from the wife as the shlok continues. This shlok depicts the expectation of an Indian male thousands of years ago, I tried to imagine what a typical Indian male today expects from his wife! I don’t know of any Sanskrit shlok depicting the expectations of a wife so I can’t imagine what a woman in those days expected from her husband. I can try to imagine a young woman’s expectation today from her spouse.

In a culture like ours  marriages are considered to be the make or break moment for the person, his parents and upto a certain extent his or her extended family. What makes two different people risk their whole life, peace of mind and happiness is a mystery to me. I took the plunge more than a couple of decades ago and am quite happy about it. Now when I look back I consider it youthful recklessness. Mine was a an arranged marriage and there was very little in common between the two of us, I guess it was a typical case of opposites attract. We are still very different and I am sure if given a chance we will choose each other as life partners (only life partners, in any other situation we don’t think alike at all )  The post is not about me, it is about young boys and girls of marriageable age.

After going through different matrimonial sites I realised that physical appearance is fairly high on most people’s  lists when they go looking for a suitable wife. The mothers I am sure are looking for adeptness with housework. Family background is important for both the parents. For girls in general, compatibility in mental, physical, and material spheres seems to be more important than anything else. Usually in arranged marriages physical and material considerations  i.e. ethnicity, family background, education, looks, etc. seem to be more important than other factors. Practically speaking, other than these there is hardly any thing one can judge before meeting the prospective groom or bride many times.

Relevant questions  which could matter could be-  Do you squeeze the toothpaste tube from the bottom or from the middle or do you replace the lid of the toothpaste after use? How fussy are you about food or are you willing to help your wife in the household chores? Civic sense and etiquettes should be high on the list.

A couple of days ago I  was visiting a friend in the hospital. I had opened the door to enter the gallery leading to her room when a young man just walked through the door as though it had been opened for him without even smiling, nodding or saying thank you. I don’t expect chivalry from young men anymore but this looked rude. A young man I know used to say that the person he was looking for should be young, not very well educated and completely malleable. He  said, he would prefer a small town girl to somebody  from a metro because they are ready to adapt to the new family better. I haven’t met him after he got married but I am curious to know how is he faring in his role as a husband. Another young boy I met wants to marry a well educated girl, MBA or any other professional qualification but wants her to stay at home and manage the house. When I asked him why does he want a professionally qualified girl if he is looking for a home maker, his answer was that he has a reputation to protect. A typical MCP I thought! There is no dearth of boys and girls living in the world of their dreams and waiting for their made to order spouses.

It is said that  matches are made in heaven and solemnised on earth, If it was true there should have been no breakups and no divorces. There are no guarantees!

Thanks everybody for your good wishes. The exhibition was a great experience and an eye opener in many ways. I sold my creations, lots of them, but realised that commerce is not my thing. It was nice to know that unknown people appreciated my effort. The fact is,  that when ever somebody was buying a hand painted box or tray that a friend or a member of my family had appreciated I thought, I  would have been happier to  gift it to her or him.

There were some very interesting incidents. I had exhibited small Ganpati paintings which I had displayed keeping the coming Diwali season in my mind. A young man was interested in buying one of these. He asked the price and I quoted it. After consulting his wife he started bargaining, which made me uncomfortable. This guy told me that the painting wouldn’t have cost me much because it was handmade and I will still be making  money if I sold it at a lower price. But it wasn’t about money. Not knowing how to react, I thought of my friends and relatives who appreciate my humble gifts on Diwali and display them in their houses. I don’t regret not giving it at a lower price, it is more rewarding to give things for free than to give them for cheap.

The whole experience was like a picnic. My husband, kids, their friends, my friends all visited me there and tried their marketing skills. We all had a blast. Shared different types of cuisines, food and drinks  available in the mall. It was great entertainment and was worth all the effort.