Mental Excursions

Is it my eureka moment? In a mega news event organized by a TV channel earlier this week, there were nearly a dozen union ministers among the speakers. They each spoke for at least 15 minutes about what they had achieved or were going to, and of course, how the government was transforming our dear Bharat . I watched and heard some of them. And then it struck me. God, I had found my purpose in life. Why didn’t I think of it earlier? I will not say about you, but I can jolly well be a cabinet minister. I still have some good years left in me. Right now, I am not a politician, so I speak the truth. I have all the pre-requisites for the post. Photo: Bored Panda  General elections are to be held next year. Being non-violent, I cannot fight elections; being largely contended with what I have, I would not contest. I do not owe allegiance to any political party nor do I have that kind of money to jump into the election battlefield. So, I cannot be a member of the lower house. Ho...

  Writing or blogging? It was the kind of dinner where the host(ess) invites a motley group of people because she cannot decide who to fit with whom does not want to be trapped in some particular person/s’ company alone has to return the (dinner) favour but cannot spare time and effort or has no inclination to host them separately. So, there we were, nearly 24 people, some of whom I had seen on some occasions elsewhere, a couple of them I could even nod or smile at. But I did not know any of them well and of course, they were unaware of my existence. It was a rather smallish room for this big a crowd and the focus could only be on the person sitting to your left or right at a time. I listened to the conversation floating around me, there was some very good poetry recitation, much how-is-so-and-so, and with nearly all of them being older than I am, a lot of exchange of health news and serious medical advice from everyone, all non-doctors, present there. And then the mome...

Stuff that makes headlines! Before I start my weekly monologue, let me clarify. I have worked on the newsdesk of newspapers and a news agency for more than two decades and have first-hand experience of how taxing it can be physically and mentally, not to mention emotionally. People know reporters because they read their names, see them, hear them. However, those on the news desk who edit the copy, make pages, and bring out the edition, stay unseen. But once in a rare blue moon, it is the sub-editors, senior sub-editors, chief sub-editors even the deputy news editors or news editors, on the desk who slip up and as a result, bring upon the wrath of their superiors on themselves. Yet for the readers that can be a ‘What the …’ or ‘Really’ moment?   And believe me, even though the newspaper lives only for those 24 hours, the error lives forever. Here are some bloopers for you to enjoy, smile at and maybe remember too. I have stuck to the mistakes found in Indian newspapers and sen...

Mom, I came first! We are a proud nation. We take pride in our habits, customs and rituals. No wonder then, that after trying out some western way, dissatisfied we return to the comfort of our old tried, tested system, e.g., after bingeing on Netflix for several hours, we come back to quoting our own films while dealing with various situations in everyday life. One such dialogue mentioned very often is, ‘ Hum jahan khade hote hain, line wahin se shuru hoti hai  (The queue starts from where I stand)’ spoken in the famous baritone of Mr. Amitabh Bachchan . Although we have been following this long before his pronouncement, it began to be quoted more after he gave his stamp of approval. Crowding or cutting queues comes naturally to a considerably large fraction of our population. No, it is not our intention to break any rule. Our centuries-old culture teaches us community-living, to stick, celebrate and mourn together, live in a family, share with friends, walk in a group, p...

As I see it! Do you think I should go and get my eyesight checked? The thing is, in the last few months whenever I have entered the departure terminal of the domestic airport at Lucknow, I have been assailed by this fear that I have Lucknow airport colour blindness . General gyan (knowledge) says the colour blind see everything in only selective colours, though not necessarily, black and white and the greys in between. I see only pink and purple there. Sometimes the monotony of the colour duo is broken and I see touches of blue and red too. There is so much pink and purple that I am not sure if the decorator was being creative or expressing support for the female gender. Not a great fan of getting everything boy in blue and girl in pink, I stand clouded in uncertainty.   Besides, the profusion of   decorative elements forces me to scrunch my eyes so the dazzle does not confuse my optic nerve. We Indians love colour and excessive decorations, but I nurse this dumb idea t...