Expect the Unexpected

Foreseeing tomorrow's headlines is now a task which involves no effort at all.
A speedy bouncer by Modi that has left the entire population of the largest democracy of the world in a state of shock.
Modi has brought in the idea of banning notes of 500 and 1000 denominations at such an unexpected hour that now notes of 500 and 1000 would make greater bed sheets now for some.

Mr. Man of the hour has accomplished such a task that saying
Americans counting votes
And Indians counting notes
Would suffice it all.
Imagine you have received a token money for your property today. Seeing the booming property prices the token money would also be hefty. What would a man do with at such an hour with an amount as high as 10-15 lac or even more.
Going to the loo would also seem heavy for that man.

Seeing that India had just witnessed Diwali just a week before and jewellers had minted money but it would be a tough time for them too as all they would have got as income would be in notes of 500 and 1000.

Setting a limit on exchange of notes was also a master stroke as he wants to curb corruption and doing so would present a clearer image of what one holds in the treasure chest.
And seeing the large outflow of money that Indian households would witness tomorrow clearly would turn the situation entirely chaotic.

The Popular Tyohar 

It’s Diwali and as the entire country and people around the the world are ready to brace themselves for a sweet-a-licious mania, savoring on all kinds of food, basking on millions of photons, exchanging gifts (that are a measure of one's standard in the Indian society), and doing one more job that all of us are good at i.e. judging people.

However weird it may sound but judging people not only on the basis of the religion they follow, from something as materialistic as clothes and cell phones but also from the things one does, which attracts awkward faces from the so called educated citizens of modern India.

 I would like to narrate two incidents today and recognizing that we Indians are touchy and sensitive about issues such as religion, I would like to request (easy to become sensitive casualities) to please read the below incidents without patriarch spectacles.

Incident 1

Diwali had come and the young and vibrant Ms Malik was excited as she had just shifted to a new town. A well paying job, a great circle of colleagues cum friends, a great looking house. She had it all. It was as if the whole world had opened its arms and embraced her.

She was too excited as it was her first Diwali away from Ammi and Abbu and drenched in nostalgia with memories from her childhood, she embarked on a shopping spree that morning.

Returning home late in the evening she baked a chocolate fudge, nice and velvety, decorated her own world with lights and candles and diyas. She was too excited to be mowed down by anybody. The living room clock showed 8 and she went out to decorate her door with lights and keep diyas at the entrance of her door.

It was when she was decorating that she heard her neighbor murmur, “Yeh bhi Manaate hai?”

And the always cheerful Ms. Malik had a spike of both anger and sadness at the same time. Leaving the unlit diya she went inside. She wanted to punch her neighbor who though a professor of sociology at a very prestigious college was an owner of cheap thinking. And she had become a victim that night.

Incident 2

The festival mood was in full swing for Aadhya. She was very excited for the lavish Diwali party her father was throwing that night. She had her dress sorted, hair done and make up minimum. In short her life was sorted. When she walked down the staircase, she looked like a princess in her warm baby pink gown that attracted several praises from her kins. But as she walked, she heard somebody whisper.

“Had she been thin the dress would have looked a lot better”

Unaware her father was intrigued as he saw his daughter’s wide smile turn into frown with tears just around the corner of her pearl shaped eyes.

Knowing she couldn’t do her job of controlling her emotions better, she left the party and ran to her room, sobbing to sleep.

The above two incidents are clear examples to show that whatever dosage of modern thinking we may feed the Indian mindset. We may never stop judging people.

This festival is a festival of happiness and prosperity, let it not be spoiled by cheap mindsets.

A New Low

8^th October will always be remembered as the day of shame in the history of the Indian Judicial System. The Supreme Court proudly put forward its verdict and I quote

 “In a Hindu society, it is a "pious obligation" of the son to maintain parents and the persistent effort of the wife to constrain the husband to be separated from his family constitutes an act of 'cruelty' enabling him to get divorce”

I really don’t get it why does the Supreme Court (the highest body of our respectable judicial system) feel the need to enter and solve the small tiffs that happen normally between a daughter-in-law and her very own mother-in-law.

This law clearly indicates the influence, today’s daily soaps play on the minds of reputed and respectable people who form a very important part of the chain that binds the very fragment of the entire system as a whole.

Let me mention, the Karnataka based man who went forward and filed for such a divorce (according to the court) was under tremendous stress because his wife was continuously pestering him to leave his parents who were dependent on his income. After due investigation it was found that the wife literally wanted the man to leave his parents and had even tried to commit suicide so that her husband might be pushed of the edge for meeting her demands.

Phew*

The problem is not with the case, what amazes a normal 21^st century being is that the Supreme Court said

  “To live away from parents is a westernized thought which is completely alien to us. Therefore, a son can file for divorce if his wife forces him to separate his parents.”

The court also said “the wife cannot separate her husband from his parents just because she wants to enjoy the whole income of her husband.”

Dear Honorable Jury I wanted to ask, Can the wife separate the husband from his parents in other scenarios which might be even more severe than enjoying her husband’s income.

Readers, the problem actually isn’t with the case but with the blatant statements given by the jury that day. Going by the above statements,  the day is not far when one day a man would be sentenced for a time period in prison because he stepped on an ant and this is an act of cruelty in Jainism and several other religions.

Passing such laws targeted to a particular religion, in a country that boasts about secularism and the idea of Unity in Diversity doesn’t seem fair.\

And talking about women equality, doesn’t such a law weaken a woman. 

Imagine a scenario where a woman is tensed and perturbed by the never ending problems in her marriage and wants to seek divorce. She goes to knock at the doors of our judicial system but her husband alleges infront of the court that ‘she herself was trying to drift my parents apart from me’. This seems shocking.

 Isn’t this hilarious that at one point we are weakening the stature of women and on the other hand we talk volumes about emancipation of women.

 *slow claps*   

Such a judgement targets both secularism and equality straight in the face.

Such a law also brings to notice that our judicial system despite having thousands of cases pending is busy in making laws and giving such judgements that are both tarnishing equality on one hand and giving special provisions to the males of a particular religion on the other hand.

And we are even forgetting that this judgement passed could even be used as a reference in future.  

Certainly something needs to be mended and in that too in time.

Media Men OR Middle Men

Nations and States develop by deliberate human actions. Be it social or cultural or the newly emphasized climatic or ecological reforms that are slowly coming into place but there is one thing that hits harder in today’s world and that hidden rodent is called the MEDIA.

From glorifying at one point to blindly shaming at the other end, media does a great job as it keeps up with the quote “History is written by those, who killed people”.

Based on the idea of keeping up with time and staying true to ethics, our media to the contrary has become nothing but a giant channel that showcases daily soaps of a different kind. Antics similar to that of a monkey performing just beside a road are common where the both the monkey and his master is the media itself.

Since the invention of the TV, it took fairly less time for the TV to engulf our lives and achieve the pedestal of a family member. Being a common man’s eyes and ears to the outer world the media does a fairly good job of narrowing one’s focus, such that the person hears the same thing no matter how many times he/ she fiddles with the buttons of the remote trying numerous combinations of numbers.

The media has made the entire world ‘A Global Village’. Competition among various channels has increased at lightning speeds because today anybody owning a smart-phone could thrash a well reputed journalist or critic or anybody. It would be fair to say that nobody’s safe when it comes to reputation in the so called Global Village.

Talking about news these days, it would be right to call news as a ‘Selective and Socially Manufactured product with the ability to determine future turn of events.’

News today is all about pointing fingers and an exaggeration of who could keep promises better.

A reputed journalist who hosts the prime time debate was given Y category security after threats from a terror group i.e. he would be accompanied by 20 guards day in and day out.

(Another one performing antics but this time the antics being too much to handle)

Media has followed the approach of a reality show where more drama evokes more viewership leading to a larger share of the particular channel in TRP which sends cash balances ringing.

With too much at disposal finding correct info out of any ongoing show has become like a reading comprehension of a competitive exam where 90% is useless and only 10% is important so much so that one line on national television is repeated almost 25 times by the presenter or the news orator.

A journalist now-a-days is just a middle man sandwiched between politicians and people.

Something needs to be uplifted and it is surely the standard of the media. 

The grass looks greener but Isnt't

To The Government of India
 The safety of our country is our top most priority, even if a finger is raised against us, all of us in our state of utmost power, say in a frenzy 'KAAT DENGE' (we would even chop you to pieces)
And this is quite serious because we Indians are very sentimental when it comes to our Bharat Mata.
 And all this action, power, vigor, Josh was easily visible when within 256 hours of The Uri Attack, Our pride, the Defense Personnel carried out a surgical strike, which was enough to boost Morales and seek revenge of all incursions that have been taking place.
Oops I missed someone, our honorable PM must also be given due credit.
A salute to you sir, you made us proud....
*THANKYOU*
 Sir your speech today in Lucknow was amazing...
It is good to see that amidst all the hype created by the media somebody stepped up the ante and talked sense.
Sir
You talked about terrorism and protecting women (slow claps).
But the sad part is no news channel to be precise talked about the safety of women.
Call it Media Manipulation (a heavy word to digest for some) or Media Bias.
There is a reason behind it,
Imagine a High End Hostel and two candidates stand for a presidential election. One picks up the Topic of making RPG Video Games necessary while the other picks up the Topic of treating the staff of the hostel with care. Obviously the guy with the RPG idea wins.
The same is the case with our so called *upright media*, our media governed by the greed of TRP, money flow and in the rat race to appeal ministers and parties just keeps on glorifying one topic. It’s like the whole channel sleeps in oblivion of what is happening all around the globe. And seems as if crucial indicators like Women Safety are of less importance than the crap each and every news channel keeps beating the bush about.  
When one of the congress member had a word about the topic of women safety, Mr. (someone i wouldnt mention) from a well reputed channel the name of which ends with a numeral, tried his best to manipulate what the member of congress said and finally changed the topic.
We blame the Government for corruption, we blame the media for not being true to ethics. But we ourselves are wrong we just care about the females inside our house, the idea of giving respect to another woman is far-fetched because objectifying is only what concerns us.
I think it is foolish to expect that any step would be taken for the emancipation of the women of our country. The Women of our country hesitate to step out of their house after 9. The girls of our country don’t feel safe even in the presence of police. Why are the people branding Delhi as the rape capital of our country?
There is no point of having words like
*EQUALITY*, *LIBERTY*, * FRATERNITY*, *JUSTICE* in the preamble of our constitution when still women of our country aren’t  paid equal salaries as compared to men, women are still not free to do what they want to maybe because constant fear of some mishap bounds them and their dreams.
Fraternity, the number of acid attacks and rape cases are enough to tell us about the amount of respect we have in our country for women.
 And as far as justice is concerned the number of above cases solved are enough to eliminate the word justice from the preamble.
 Dear PM there is no point of bringing in the concept of smart cities and modernization culture to India if a women found drinking, smoking or hanging out with male friends, living life at her own terms and conditions, marrying the person she loves, wearing a pair of jeans turns her into a women of questionable character...
At the end I would just like to say ki Rehnedo Tumse Na Ho Paayega…

The Kings and Queens of your mind

All of us suffer from one simple problem we think too much but speak too little. Sit idle for an hour.
If too short a period, sit idle for a day. Stare at the ceiling or the blank wall in front of you and see how the same wall changes color, shows you various hues. Even if the wall or the ceiling are as dull as a grey or any useless color u hate, after about 15 min your thought process would make you imagine things from bright colors like purple, red. You would be delighted to see that even minor cracks in a wall would seem to form shapes and indicate things.
This is very very evident when you just come back after seeing a horror movie. Suddenly cracks and unusual rock cuttings on the floor start to look like an eye or a disfigured face. Agree or not this shit happens with everybody, it's just that it is too embarrassing to share and make people believe it.

I have no intention to make you look  for that pattern or that bright color. All I wanted to say that it all lies in the mind. Planning to say something, Planning to do something just do it but encircle one condition, start thinking about your success before doing it because believe it or not its your thoughts that shape your world around u.


P.S: that pattern thing actually happens (ssshhhhh......)

Does Art Have Boundaries

Just a week ago Mr. Fawad khan flew back to Pakistan under mysterious circumstances.  Several people were left sad and were busy seeing him on wallpapers but this sparked of a debate and Grade A questions like 'does art have boundaries' and are even entertainers terrorists. Then a thought tributary flourished Why can't these artists condemn the Uri attack? *Thoughtful indeed*

But dear people what if I told you the man, Fawad khan becomes on the silver screen and in award shows isn't what he actually is.

He was a disciplined Teenager back here. But as soon as he landed back there, displaying actual signs of a teenager on a threshold He said, " My first priority is Pakistan, Pakistan comes first. The hearts of Indians are too small, they are just concerned for the money and no love is visible amongst them for their country and their soldiers."

Dear Mr. Fawad Khan it was our love that we had to (unfortunately) appreciate Khoobsurat. 

And if you think that we don't love what the defence personnel do for us. Kindly see any Indian news channel where just one surgical strike was enough to bring smiles on each and every Indian's face. 

Sir if each Indian contributes a rupee for each day of the year the amount we collect in just one year we collect enough amount greater than your entire Defence Budget.

And talking about Pakistan being your first priority and we Indians being concerned about money, really sorry sir it was you who came for monetary benefits and sorry sir when you first came you were just a pretty face. It was after your film released you were throned with that aura you behold.

Mr. Fawad don't be a cry baby, you got no right to speak ill of a country who endeared a handful but shut you up with the same fist.

Yours Sincerely

Your ............... (Fill in yourself *u&%er)