10 things that were sorely missing

1. 
   The word ‘white’ from the monkey chants directed to Symonds – ‘White Monkey’ chants would have leant more substance to accusations of racism.
2. 
   AB, baby and bahu from the Om Shanti Om title track.
3. 
   SRK’s normal amiability – first stating he’d be the last to quit smoking after watching a movie with this message; then taking a lit cigarette to a press conference. What man, Shahrukh… John se jalan? Sirif cigarette hi nahi jal rahi, shayad. (Eeks, I am very ashamed of my newfound talent as the stereotypical sneering yellow journalist)
4. 
   Dhoni’s flowing locks.
5. 
   Devotees – from temples other than those dedicated to Devi Ma during the navratras – a Hanuman temple looked so sorry and empty and bedraggled compared to the nearby puja pandals!
6. 
   Style – seems to be an alien word for Sonam Kapoor. Girl, go take a leaf out of daddy’s book.
7. 
   Priyanka Chopra’s memory cells – if gossip rags are to be believed.
8. 
   Manmohan Singh’s iron hand – all we get to see is the velvet glove. (We know Sonia and MMS are hand-in-glove.)
9. 
   Vultures – they are fast disappearing from the Indian skies and Indian cadavers are probably sighing in relief? Naturalists, hurry ere you worry.
10. 
    Style – from my hair. These days its looking like Harry Potter’s broom that got electrocuted. :(

Banishing Singledom

Never under estimate the match-making capacity of the average Indian bua or masi. At any rate, if you do happen to overlook their talent in this direction do so at your own peril.

I hitherto plead guilty of such an oversight.

At ** (my age, what else), which is old enough for girls in our community to stay unmarried, I was sitting pretty. No parading myself in saris, no listing of my various qualities (er, ahem) as a homemaker to the aunts of prospective grooms and no time wasted in listening to the hemming and hawing of their nervous, perspiring nephews. I considered myself lucky for the JRF thingummy which gave me the official label of ‘student’ and saved me from the above-mentioned perils. I even went so far as to boast to my less fortunate pals of having broad-minded parents.

Not so anymore. The ultimatum’s out. The alarm bell’s ringing. The signal’s flashing an urgent red. Black cats have suddenly turned over-zealous and are busy chasing each other across my path, the figure 13 is popping up in the unlikeliest of places, the sneezing rate around me has considerably escalated (so much that I am planning to write to the health minister) and even my mirror chose to crack itself while I was combing my hair. The doom’s upon me, like the Lady of Shalot.

The unreasonability of Alice’s wonderland has descended here what with every elderly female behaving like the Red Queen and every male of advancing years mooching about like the mad hatter.

Lofty reasons like ‘doing my bit against population outburst’, ‘wedded to my career’ and ‘go take a look at what happened to Rani-Abhishek-SRK-Priety in Kabhi Alvida…’ are falling flat on selectively deaf ears. Poor ol’ me is fiercely thinking up petty ones now (‘His nose is flat’ and ‘He looks like Asrani/Johnny Lever’ variety). And I need help! Save My Soul (SOS was far too socialistic, we are the SMS generation after all) from these Bachelorhood Bulldozers. :-(

Ecology - Juxtaposition of Science and Spirituality?

This thought floated into the cerebrum during this evening, while discussing Nature Worship with grandpa. Baba says nature worship was a boon in disguise - people worshipped Ganga Maiyya and desisted from polluting her. There was fear for the sun, moon, wind, sea and river gods and godesses but there was a respect and a regard too - which has not died down even today.

From nature worship our conversation escalated to 'Aham Bramhasmi'. Baba interprets it as 'I am Him-He is me-He is in everything-I am in everything'. In other words, I am linked to water, sun air, earth, to a bird, to a butterfly, to a snake, to a tree just as my limbs are linked to my torso.

Now some Ecology facts. This is what the Wikipedia has to say about it -

"Ecology(also known as Oekologie, Okology, or Oekology, from Greek: οίκος, oikos, "household"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") is the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of living organisms and how the distribution and abundance are affected by interactions between the organisms and their environment. The environment of an organism includes both physical properties, which can be described as the sum of local abiotic factors such as insolation (sunlight), climate, and geology, and biotic factors, which are other organisms that share its habitat."

Seems the Upanishads are the most ancient treatise on Ecology, eh what? Seems nice I am doing my doctorate in Spiritual Science :)

I believe the greatest pity is not that there are too many people being religious or too many people busy in destroying earth through new scientific discoveries. Pity is - we are neither completely religious nor completely scientific. Had we been either, there would have been no Science vs Religion strife.

10 things I felt sorry for

1. 
   Audience of Ram Gopal Verma’s latest bilges…er, flicks
2. 
   Tom, of Tom and Jerry fame
3. 
   Jimmy Shergill – need I specify why?
4. 
   NDA – No Dame Allowed to win in our sms-polled TV musical competitions (point to be noted - those competitions that included adult competititors only :D)
5. 
   The crime cases and criminals that the media tries in studios, before the same get to courts of law – thank goodness we don’t have juries anymore
6. 
   Dravid, Ganguly, Tendulkar – ‘Colonel’ Vengsarkar made them look like the proverbial dormice with his warning of ‘Perform or Perish’ to them
7. 
   Wonder if you have heard this one – no flood reports are sent from Bihar to the Central Government in the month of October, because the British made this rule deeming it impossible for floods to occur in October, and we are sticking to this rule even after 60 years of Independence…talk of loyalty…this one takes the cake
8. 
   (Yel)low journalism – here I am divided equally between pity and rage
9. 
   My teeth, after I have finished a diet of candy floss, chocolates and coke…on second thoughts it’s my teeth and my on-the-rise weight after I have finished a diet of…..
10. 
    Delhites sharing the same street with the Blue Line Buses

10 things that impressed me

1. The Australians attacked, in the press conference and on the cricket ground - I hate them, nonetheless for routing Dhoni's men
2. 
   A lower court in Patna sentenced 7 killers of an IAS officer - of the 36 accuseds, 29 commoners were acquited, while 6 high-profile politicians were found guilty
3. 
   Shahrukh got 6-pack abs at 40-plus - never mind that he was paid to do so
4. 
   Science – it is the gold standard by which to judge a phenomenon, an action, a religion or a philosophy
5. 
   An express train running between Patna and Darbhanga lowered itself to the status of a slow passenger train in the flood-ravaged stretch between Samastipur and Darbhanga, for the benefit of the flood victims forced into living on the trackside - men, women and children got onto the train top with their burden of feed for their cattle and got down wherever they wanted. The passengers sitting inside the train gave up their natural propensity to fuss and understood and sympathized, notwithstanding their own discomfort and delay
6. 
   Konkona Sen Sharma played the role of a young mother in 'Mr. & Mrs. Iyer' and that of a young small town girl in 'Laga Chunari...' - in one she looked 5 years elder to her age, in the other, 5 years younger
7. 
   We are world champs in Chess, under-14 Rugby, Billiards and T20 cricket, Asian champs in Hockey and Nehru Cup winners in Football
8. 
   Salman refused to have his wax statue put up in Madame Tussaud’s – impressive ego indeed
9. 
   Bacteria – One bacterial population can teach as much to a Life sciences student as to a wannabe Sociologist (more on this later)
10. 
    My 5-year-old cousin – he knows if he ‘downloads’ ‘chess’ from the ‘internet’ he may chance to cause a ‘virus’ to enter his ‘laptop’.
    

10 things I laughed about

1. 
   As we were flooded in by rainwater, the dirty water polluted our ground floor water tank – for 1 day we had no water to drink but had internet and telephone
2. 
   Mumbai bhais danced to the tune of the police siren in the song ‘Aey Ganpat’ from the movie ‘Shootout in Lokhandwala’
3. 
   The Pakistani captain apologized to all Muslims over the world for losing the T20 cricket world cup finals
4. 
   ‘Eklavya’ was sent to the Oscars from India – this was as good a one as Saif getting the National Award for Best Male Actor in ‘Hum Tum’ or ‘Jeans’ being sent to the Oscars in 1995(?)
5. 
   A Star News Channel newsreader, while wondering about the identity of M. S. Dhoni’s unknown friend, mused thus while on air – “Kaun hain ye ladki? Kya ye unki behen hain, maaf kijiyega, unki dost hain?”
6. 
   It was announced most solemnly by a TV news reporter on 1st October, 2007 that the police suspect black magic to be behind a murder
7. 
   Star News (again?!) aired an item on the men is Sushmita Sen’s life on 1st October, 2007; excerpts of a conversation (not the exact words, mind you) between Sen’s father and the presiding magistrate way back when the lady adopted Renee –
   Judge – How can a good man now approach your daughter?
   Mr. Sen – I am assured now that only a good man shall approach her.
   
   Going by this, and the Star News report that Sush has had 7 boy friends, humanity has 7 good reasons to be proud
8. 
   ‘Rang De Basanti’ was aired on 2nd October, 2007 on Star Gold
9. 
   Bheja Fry – watched it finally. (Others are welcome to laugh about my out-datedness… :-D)
10. 
    Heart is one organ that does not suffer from tumour – Devdas would join me in laughing at this one