On A Loose End

Gandhi had a rule for people to follow to be good; See No evil, speak no evil and hear no evil. The phrase has often been used to describe people who do not want to get involved in a situation. Gandhi even had three monkeys to depict the rule. Monkeys that they already were, the behaviour of the Indian politicians and the government is akin to the phrase except that they seem to have taken the rule one step further. They have stopped seeing and hearing completely and are speaking only mildly without any malice and without any evil. What else does explain their inconsequential mutterings on the Indian war against terror? Pakistan has blatantly switched statements, opinions and stances based on their convenience and more than 40 days after the Mumbai attacks, the Indian government is still crying foul and running here and there to any world leader of significance who is willing to give them a listening ear. The government wants the world community to act, rather than do something themsel...

Yesterday i was moved to tears listening to Javed Akhtar and Sonali Bendre, both judges on the unreal reality show, Indian Idol. Both of them gave some (made up) emotional diatribe on air to the public exhorting them to vote. Javed Akhtar even went to the extent of comparing the voting on Indian Idol to the national elections saying we don't vote and then complain what kind of person has been selected. Then he continued again talking about being an Indian, he said he wondered when we will be non partisan, when we will cross the boundaries of caste, region, language, religion etc. His hidden message please vote, if you like a singer don't vote only once, keep voting till the deadline ends. Sonali Bendre on the other hand picked out the oft-repeated line of conspiracy against the girl-child and even shed a few tears, Please vote for the girls, she begged the TV audience. Coming back to my tears. It was not because I believed in these two stalwarts of our country, it was because I...