All chors rise as one to defend their house and rights!

The unthinkable happened yesterday when the ‘parliament rose as one’ to condemn attack on Pawar. Janata Dal chief Sharad Yadav criticised the electronic media for showing one slap as 50 slaps by repeatedly broadcasting that one tight slap.

Good I say! Time and again our democratic leaders have been given this wake up call and I must say that any form of physical pain is any day to be feared than let’s say a weekend getaway @ The Tihar. Mr Pawar said that the people had the right to raise their voice in a democracy but not at the cost of its institutions.” Thank you Mr Pawar for this short and succint lesson in democracy.

As you say this system of country management is for the people, by the people and of the people and when the people think that their voices are not heard (never heard by the way) they will resort to one tight slap which will resonate across the House of Chors and deliver a little warning. Little because you will go back to consorting with criminals and looting the country. Case in point being his declaration of income and assets as being worth only 12 crores. I think even 12 crores will make him liable to be sued in the court for earning through illicit means as a man of only modest employment (read government of India). We spend our entire lives honestly paying tax through deduction at source and still struggle to earn even a quarter of what Sharad Pawar has declared on the Prime Minister’s website.

When things go south laughter is the best policy, so please do check out these comments the readers posted on Times of India website at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-06/people/30115719_1_sharad-pawar-assets-move-privilege-motion
You will laugh till the tears in your eyes wash away the 12 crore silliness!

Sharad Pawar slapped by ‘serial slapper’ Harvinder Singh

I loved Anna Hazare’s comment “what only one slap?” when Sharad Pawar was giving one tight one by the aam aadmi.
Alas slaps are wasted on politicians because by the time you want to slap them they are already being inhuman, I mean incapable of feeling normal human emotions like shame, scruples, embarrassment. So a slap would be like a mere fly sitting on their cheek. The fly could derive some satisfaction when the person ends up slapping himself while attempting to drive the fly away.
We need more such serial offenders. I say we need to go beyond slapping and indulge in some good old-fashioned activity of the donkey and chappal-garland variety.
Kidnap the politicians, make them sit on a donkey, paint their faces black and hang a garland made of chappals around their neck. Of course stoning is mandatory. Let us drive fear in the hearts of these useless and very expensive (witness scams) leaders so that they think twice before indulging. It’s about time we make them realise that the price of ‘leading’ a country might occasionally lead to such occupational hazards

The excitement of watching the ATP tour tennis tournament at O2, London

The one sport that I watch with total involvement is Tennis. I actually sit in front of the TV set with an intent to watch, complete with involuntary jerks and hand motions imitating all the shots that the players should have gone in for. My agony at a netted forehand or a drop shot that falls a hair’s breadth outside the side lines rivals that of the player who at the moment is digging a hole in the court with his racket using it like a pickaxe. I must have been a failed tennis player in my last life or at the very least a failed singles player who turned to the doubles game (mind it! The doubles version is quite entertaining and players earn a decent livelihood. Point in case- Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes).
I am completely transfixed. Never mind Wimbledon and those high falutin Grand Slam championships, it is the ATP 1000 World Tour at the O2 that I wait for every year. Held in the dying weeks of the tennis season, this is a tournament only for the Top Ten of the World. Meaning, only the Top Ten are invited and they play each other in a round robin till the champion is distilled through the finest and the best ten layers to emerge as the only person on the podium. There are no easy opening draws as with other championships where a good player has it easy by playing wild cards or players outside the top 50. Here it is grunt, shovel, grunt, sweat, pant from round one.
This year’s ATM 1000 was no different. Federer playing Tsonga in round 1 and then Federer and Nadal battling in O2 gladiatorial arena with blue light washing over spectators and white light flooding the center court. It’s like going straight to the dessert part of dinner without having to eat your broccoli and fish soup. And the tickets! That’s the best part of this championship. You don’t need to bankrupt yourself or dip into your retirement fund to see a spot of action between top players. Even at this moment, you will find tickets available in boxes closest to the court going for the cheapest ticket of 179 pounds to the most expensive of £ 950. There are other tickets available also immediately around the court perimeter for as cheap as £ 119. The tickets for the finals again the box close to the court goes for as high as £1950 and as cheap as £ 227. Well there are also tickets available for as little as £ 96.99 and £ 179 for a night and afternoon play session respectively. These tickets are for seats at the top tier which if you consider the court as a fish bowl then the top tier would be the rim of the bowl. Oh there also the prize money of $5million to consider. A neat pile to earn at the end of the season so that you must stop at a bank on your way to the Caribbean or Bali for a well-earned r&r.
Compare these with any other Grand Slam tickets and you will notice the difference. For all Wimbledon’s claims to be a Middle Class, genteel sport where heads wear lovely hats and hands hold the customary bowl do strawberries and cream, it is anything but. The ATP World Tour Finals is a more egalitarian venue where tickets are available for as low as 20 pounds for initial matches and you don’t feel cheated because even that early in the tournament you get witness world class action from players who play a far different level of sport than say Qatar Open or Dubai Open.
So folks I suggest unless you are given free tickets in the corporate box, do check the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 in London. The tickets are cheap, the atmosphere very sci-fi and the location awesome. Am I promoting this event? Absolutely, especially after my initial outrage at the astronomical prices of the premier tennis events.

The cost our leaders extract from us for the job of leading us

My very ordinary mind tries to grapple with the figures that our Esteemed Leaders take away from us and then give some back to the society. Mind you my subtraction skills are adequate enough to realise that the difference is a huge one obviously in favour of what they charge us in return for leading us as a country (is that right?)

The numbers game was triggered by a news article yesterday (a small one on Page 12 of the Sunday Times of India). It read that the entre has declared Rs 6000cr sop for weavers in UP. Is that UP alone or for the entire handloom sector in India? It has the stamp of ‘authorship’ of Rahul Gandhi ahead of UP elections and has left little doubt that the package is his ‘personal gift’. Personal you say? Then I have no problem because I am not middle class and ordinary to not the know the difference between public money and personal. So it means that Rahul Baba overcome with sadness for the plight of weavers has pledged money out of his personal fortune for the betterment of the weavers. Still 6000k crore must be a pretty big sum……

It is not big as the sum quoted by the CAG caused due to the 2G scam and that stands at 1,76,645 crores. Or the commonwealth games scam that hurt us to the tune of 8000 crores.
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousand, lakh, ten lakhs, crore, ten crores…..my counting abilities stop here and I cannot even for the fear of a hundred lashings imagine a thousand crore. Can you?
Liquor scam cost us 3600 crores where IT officials raided distilleries and discovered that excise duty evasion amounted to 3600 crores and It is believed that 5% of the total excise duty thus saved is paid to political patrons. India lost a stagerring 452 billion dollars due to illicit financial flows due to tax evasion, crime and corruption post-Independence, according to a report released by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity.

Now compare that to what our mai baap gave us- Two things come to my mind as of now because I live in Chennai and these figures are pretty recent and appeared in The Hindu-

Amount spent on Anna Centenary Library- 172 crores
Cost of improving Aanganwadis in Tamil Nadu state- 98 crores
You think my mind is like a headless chicken? Well I will dwell on one more fact before putting my head back on and then trying to walk on the straight line of logic and reason.

Try this-The financials of the Nehru- Gandhi family. Theirs it the bluest of the blue blood. Rahul Gandhi is in his 40s. He has never worked. Rajiv Gandhi worked as a pilot in the Indian Airlines but that was a long long time ago. His Mother, Indira Gandhi also never worked except the 14 years that she was the prime minister of India. His grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was in and out of prisons during India’s freedom struggle and then became PM from ’47 to ’64. His father Motilal Nehru was the only person who actually used his law degree to run a practise. So I am wondering how such a family like the Gandhi survives in these very hard times- costs of vegetables, petrol, housing, interest rates, gold, milk and bus fares have all gone north.

These questions have always plague me. And the same goes to all politicians like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Advani, Sharad Pawar (to name a few but most of our political leaders fit the bill in my line of questioning) who have come so far on very very meagre earning. And mind you they are all octogenarians (Sharad Pawar is approaching that zone soon). My grandmother-in-law too outlived her husband by a good thirty five to forty years but then she lived frugally as well and he was a doctor with a flourishing practise, not a political leader!
Folks, this is something to think about- Our Leaders give with a closed fist but take with shovel and a dump truck!

Have you ever chucked things you didn’t need?

I have and if not for experiencing the spiritual lightness it lends, then do it for the fun of just junking stuff that you absolutely do NOT need.
I clear my cupboards with an amazing regularity and not it has become addictive. So sadly you will not find wrapping paper, chart paper, sundry tissue papers, springs, footwear, clothes, kitchen items (like dishes, bowls, glasses, katoris, kadhais, vessels) electronic items (though I will admit that I can start a small enterprise on the footpath selling USB ports), plastic bottles and containers, empty pots that held dead and withering plants, extra plastic buckets blah blah and blah in my home. I clear things whether spring or not.

Its spring time in my house all the time. Once my zeal got the better of me and I ended up with having to shop for clothes. No regrets though. A healthy home is one that doesn’t have to lend its corners for stowing all sorts of garbage. Literally and figuratively….for that’s what this post is about.

Just as you junk what you don’t need, have you tried to trim the excess baggage that your mind carries inside it every day for the rest of your life? Sit back and evaluate- bitterness, sadness, reluctance to let go, grudges, memories that you regularly dredge up and let your mind well in unpleasantness all over again. You are a walking talking house with junk falling off the balcony. I came across this thought is a magazine by the Bihar School of Yoga. I couldn’t agree with more.

Just let go of thoughts that increase your heartbeats (that is my test for unwelcome thoughts. These days I feel my pulse do a head banger’s ball when an unpleasant memory swims to the surface) I play a quick twenty questions with that memory as if it were a personified object. Let’s say I replay an incident where I feel that the person in question has wronged me. I feel outraged at the unfairness. The wrong hasn’t yet been righted and never will be so I will forever feel ‘wronged’. Is it right to let the memory pummel me till I feel sick? The person has been bad to me only once but I take over from that person and like a sadist let the memory dictate me into feeling anger and helplessness each time I think about that incident. Enough! Is Enough!

Believe me trashing things you don’t need is fun. So is trashing things in spirit a lot more fun. Imagine you have lit up a bonfire (just like on Holi) and are tossing things into it, one by one. You will be surprised how light you feel, how easy you will breathe when you toss that excess baggage (of people, emotions, feelings) . You feel free. You think it is easy? Ha! Try it. It is like flying. Once you have learnt how to fly, can anyone stop you?

I am fed up of fitness advice that people dish out for free

Hmm so I have been deliberating a lot on food and exercise of late. I have come to the conclusion that what was good for us as kids then is good for us as adults now. Waran, Bhat, poli Bhaji, can’t think of anyway that this food is gonna make you go to fat unless of course you eat a mountain full of it a la Bakasura or Chhota Bheem who keeps popping in Laddus like Churan.

If I am eating curds someone who is watching me eat says quickly “try buttermilk, buttermilk is good for health”. If I am eating Phulka then I am told to try whole grain Phulka (I thought what I ate since time immemorial was bloody whole grain aata, except aata didn’t have such a fancy name as whole grain. My mother went to the local kiranaa maal shop, bought about 5 kgs of wheat and then made a trip to the flour mill to grind it. Voila! Whole wheat aata is ready for you) If I am eating a piece of toast, I am told I should eat oats. I am eating ‘whole grain’ (mind you) aata phulka I am told to mix it with one part soya and one part oats to make it more wholesome and more healthy. If I am eating grapes, I am told to eat peaches and strawberries. If I am eating Upama, I am told to eat couscous. If I jog on the treadmill I am told to do pranayama, If I talking, I am told sleeping is better and when I am peeing, I am told shitting is way better. If I am scratching my nose, I am told scratching my bum will burn more calories. I mean this is ridiculous.

Too many people are thinking way too much about way too many things. I have no problem except that these people want to share their new-found knowledge with me and help make the world a better place. Oh I forgot about rice- If I eating my usual type of rice they say I should be eating brown rice.

Ok now that more or less completes the list of things I do and what I should be doing instead. The other day I was peeling a banana and my friend shrieked at me pointing at the banana. What? Banana makes you fat, didn’t you know? To make matters worse, I didn’t seem to appear too perturbed or emotionally shaken at the F word. I relished every bite. She told me that well what was done was done and I could do an hour of extra walking on the treadmill the next day.
Folks, listen to me. Go back to the diet of yore. Ok I don’t want to make you sound that old. Go back to the food that your mother cooked for you and go back to those portions as well. Go back to healthy living and eating, Go back to the times when you washed your hands and feet after you came home, go back to the times when you lit a naranjan (lamp) and said a shlok before you sat down to eat. Go back to the times when you said vadani Kavala before you put that first morsel in your mouth. Go back to the times when you scrounged around for Pohe, gul and milk (rice flakes, jiggery or palm sugar and milk) since there was nothing else to snack on.

Mother promise, you won’t put on a gram of fat. Of course did I mention stop going to the gym as well because you didn’t do that in those days? Liar, I didn’t say that at all. One of the best things of this age is that there is such a variety of fitness regimes to choose from- gym, tennis, yoga, kickboxing, dancing, Tai chi, Pilates, this tes and that tes but to offset the advantage you also have a gamut of food to choose and from at that too at any time of the day. Times were when tea and coffee were meant for morning and evening (or when you came back from work, to drink to perk you up a bit) and there was no such thing as ‘grabbing a bit’. You had a civilised lunch and dinner.
Times are a changing and while we are thinking too much about weight loss we are doing zero about it.

Nothing in life prepares you for death

My mother in law’s sister’s husband passed away on Monday and though it was no one close, strangely I felt as close to death as I have ever in my life. This despite the fact that I lost my father when I was 18 and have seen how it disrupts life (though briefly). We were back in college (me) school (my brother) and at work (my mother) on the third day after my dad passed away. Too much was happening too fast for us to be away for all those 13 days for indulgences in all rituals and customs and besides I have never been the one for observing them. A person has died, let him be and let me grieve in my own way (which is away from people and privately).

Looking back at our lives we did an amazingly good job. It is truly a
miracle that we survived on 1200 rupees that my mother earned in 1989. The absence of my dad did intrude once in a while but really, we were just busy getting on. My point is, you might have overcome the harshest challenges that life throws at you, you might have come out the darkest tunnels a survivor and yet nothing prepares you for death, that final separation, never to meet again the person you have spent your life with- spouse, parent, sibling, children and friend (have I missed anybody here?)
It is grief mixed with a complete dead-end kind of a feeling. What do I do now had I suffred a similar loss? Should I wake up? Have my tea, go to the gym, do my chores, work, surf the net, travel a bit? I have no idea. I am trying to be in the shoes of the person who lost her husband at the age of 83 and I am lost. I just cannot imagine.

All the books that I have read, films that I have watched or the conversations that I have had with my walking buddies and friends do not give me the slightest idea on how I would deal with this blow. Today’s post has no conclusion. It has no answers or suggestions. I guess it is for each one to find it for himself or herself. AND I am in no hurry either!