When Pigs Flew

It seems that the Chennaiites are gripped with the fear of H1N1 virus spreading all over the city. Today when I went to Velachery MRTS railway station to drop my father, I saw a large group of people wearing masks following the precautions set down by the government. School children were seen wearing masks when they were taken to the school by the parents. Most school children are expecting an extended summer vacations. Middle aged office goers seem to take no chances with the global pandemic. They were seen sporting a handkerchief tied around their mouth. Elderly people were not so much threatened by the virus. The death of a 4 year boy at Velachery has really made the residents of that area panic. This H1N1 virus seems to spare not even doctors trying to cure the patients. I wish India doesn’t have as many casualties as in other parts of the world. I wish our state governments work in tandem with the central government and tackle the consequences of the virus. I wish our politicians do not rake up this issue for political gains. I wish you to read the directions given by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If you are a procrastinator, click here.

Chennai Rocked

Every night I set my alarm to 4.00am, wishing to get up without disturbing anyone. But what actually happens is everyone wakes up to the alarm, except me. During my school days I made it a habit of getting up at 4 o clock even on Sundays. But now I could hardly get up at six. Getting up early is one of the best habits that was not only preached but also practiced by my parents. When I wake up early I feel so proud as if I’ve achieved something overnight. In the last four years I just could not wake up as I wished. I keep snoozing on the alarm till morning, and then turn it off and continue to sleep till I get kick from my father. I became so lethargic during my college days. May be I lost interest in waking up early. But yesterday night I made up my mind to get up as planned. I even gave up the habit of hearing songs yesterday night. Still I had a very disturbed sleep. I was not sure whether I’ll wake up to the alarm or make others lose their sleep. To mark the disturbed sleep I had lots of dreams which kept me busy in the night, trying to figure out the characters. I like dreaming because in a dream everything you wish happens. Sometimes beautiful dreams where I would be walking along Swiss Alps, sometimes very awkward, disturbing the sleep. Yesterday was one such night. There were some blurred images very difficult to figure out what it was. I another dream I saw Super Star moonwalking in his upcoming movie Enthiran. Suddenly the scene changed into a climax of a tamil movie where enemies express their regret for their wrong-doings and become good men. The background music was so very soothing. The images were gone and everything became blank. But the music was still going on. I woke up only to know that it was the music I had set for the alarm. I turned it off. I saw some late night junk messages. Stuck in between them was a message that made me wide awake. It was a message from Godse saying that there was an earthquake in Chennai last night. The message was sent at two o clock. I switched on the news channels and there was a news flash saying that there was 8^th death in India because of swine flu and some discussions about size zero and lip-locks. Then I switched to Sun News. There I saw the expected headline. One of the headline even said that our area also experienced the tremors. If it was not for Godse’s message it would have been just another day. After that I could not sleep, so started writing this post. In the morning when I stepped out of the house to see the reaction of the people after the late night aftershocks there was not even a single soul talking about it. May be this time the quake had bad timing. Even most of the the newspapers did not carry the news as it was in the early morning hours. Very bad timing indeed. In DeepSun’s words, "next time better'a try pannu"!!

India, A Country of Countries

One of my college friends is leaving to Sweden for his Masters. He made all his arrangements to spend his next two years of life in Sweden. Only thing he has to do on landing there is to get a part-time job and to get a job he has to learn Swedish. The university provides all its international students Swedish language courses for free. Now imagine what if a student from Sweden comes to India (in worst cases) to pursue his higher education? How many languages he has to learn? There are 22 official languages apart from a lot of unofficial languages. For god’s sake let the count remain 22, because carrying an A4 sized 10 rupee note becomes even more difficult than earning it.

Language is only one of the many attributes of our country’s diversity. Living in the bottom of our country in a place called Chennai, it requires even me to dust off my Hindi speaking skills, at least to manage, when I go to northern part of the country. India is a country of countries. A person from one state is a foreigner in another state. Everything is different; language, clothes, customs, beliefs, gods, politicians, soap operas, newspapers, superstars and recently, their IPL team. If you think racism is only between two different countries you are completely wrong. It exists even between two states of this country. A person from Andhra Pradesh is called a ‘Golti’ (for both genders), but if a person from Kerala is a man he is called a ‘Nair’ and in case of a lady the name by which they are being called is worth not mentioning, if he is from Tamil Nadu he’s called a ‘Madrasi’ no matter what part of Tamil Nadu he is from. At the national level Indians cannot accept a foreigner as their Prime Minister. At the state level people are so intolerant that they don’t even allow inauguration of the statue of a poet from a different state in their soil. They are dead set against people from other state being employed in their state governments. Of course it’s a natural behaviour to expect from people who don’t even allow the river flow to its neighbouring state. During the times of unrest between two states, vehicles with registration number of a different state are smashed, movies made in the enemy state are not allowed to screen, and film fraternities from the respective cinema industries flock together to stage protests only to rehearse their punch dialogues in the upcoming movie. Anybody making a loose talk during such protests becomes the next national issue forcing the actor to apologise to the people in the regional languages of both the states.

After all of this have you started thinking that there is nothing common in all these states? In this country of so much diversities and adversities there are also certain things common – bad roads, jam-packed trains and buses, traffic jams, long queues, price rise, power cuts, terrorist attacks, quotas, statues, piracy, summer heat, floods, Gandhi Jayanthi, and recently Swine Flu!

WADA Podaa! The Curious Case of Indian Cricketers

This paragraph in the World Anti-Doping Code has made Indian cricketers to keep away from signing the Anti-Doping Agreement. This has divided the Indian sporting community into two; lone cricketers on one side and all the remaining athletes on the other side trying to mollify the cricketers’ stand on WADA. I wonder why (only Indian) cricketers alone feel this ‘whereabouts’ clause is going to infringe upon their privacy when all the tennis stars and players of the world’s most followed game, Football is completely WADA compliant. Earlier FIFA and UEFA tried to dilute the whereabouts clause but in vain. Indian Cricketers are surely a different league of sportsmen. They are demi-gods (at least when we win). Top cricket players have a Z plus security cover, equivalent to top politicians of our country. They are one among the groups of people in India who’ll be mobbed when they walk on the streets. When compared to that of footballers, they are nowhere near. When Yuvraj represented India in Euro 2008 and awarded the man of the match to Swiss player Hakan Yakin, people called it only an honour for him to be spotted at Euro 2008 and not for the awardee. No wonder why he was seen sporting a headphone while receiving the award.

India is a country where Olympic culture is ignorant. It has a very poor Olympic record of just 17 medals in last 88 years. Countries like Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and England and even Caribbean islands have a strong culture of Olympic sports and find it natural to adhere to international sporting norms. This national ignorance has made the Indian cricketers feel odd about these anti-doping rules. I think it’s better for Indian players to abide by the global rules to avoid isolation by the sporting community.

Happy Friendship Day

I wish all my blog friends and followers, a happy friendship day. If you want some nice quotes on friendship, you can get them by searching in Google (solution for everything), but to understand the meaning of it... friendship is a feeling that gives us confidence, joy almost everything that makes life beautiful. A friend is one of the best bonds between people. There’s nothing you cannot share with them. There is never a wall between us and our friends unless we ourselves try to build one. There are some persons in life whose worth is not known until it’s missed. A good friend is one such person. Having a true friend beside you will make you ready to face anything in this world. Friends are persons who do things least expected by you. I feel very difficult to explain through words about friendship. Friendship is like a wind, you don’t see it only feel it.

These are some of the quotes on friendship I liked.

"In loneliness, in sickness, in confusion-the mere knowledge of friendship makes it possible to endure, even if the friend is powerless to help. It is enough that they exist. Friendship is not diminished by distance or time, by imprisonment or war, by suffering or silence. It is in these things that it roots most deeply. It is from these things that it flowers."
- Pam Brown

"Life without a friend is like death without a witness."
- Spanish Proverb

"The best mirror is an old friend."

"One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives."

- Euripides, Greek playwrite

"We've shared many smiles and many tears, but nothing beats the laughter."

"The best of friendships are the ones where two friends can sit on a swing, not saying a word, but walk away feeling like u just had the best conversation ever."