Bad times, Bureaucratic times or just Bashful up times

This is one day past the bomb blast at Mecca Masjid near Charminar in Hyderabad. As a person who has been in Hyderabad for 2 years now and had been to Charminar just a week back to make a friend see the old and beautiful structure, I feel sad that the very place I was admiring a week back, the beautiful Masjid, the abode of religious beliefs was shook by a blast. What has the world come to.
And of course there was a lot of controversy after that over the way the police handled the situation and few were killed in the stampede. I have been a person who has suffered a lot because of the police. They always throw you out of the places you like to hangout at odd hours. Well what is odd hours, being out past midnight should not be a crime, should it. Just last night, I was sitting chatting with a friend outside her place. Now this is a nice and peaceful residential area, why do they have to come and throw you out beats me. Is it just that they want to use their power, do they really have instructions to make sure no one is chilling out, or something more personal that is affecting the cop.

I realise I do not know what to talk about, but whatever has happened is really disturbing. I pray for the affected families and that the guilty are punished. May peace and calmer heads prevail.

Secularism!

This is a small post. A thought occurred to me two days back and I had to share it here.
Before you think something about me, pls understand that I am a true patriot. I love my country and it is this love which makes me see what is wrong with it and makes me criticize that with an open heart.

I saw the flag of India on the road two days back. Not that it was the first time I saw it, in fact I see it 100 times a day as its the screensaver on my cell phone. Anyways, I wondered about the colours in our flag. Tried to think what saffron stands for, what white and green stand for. I wasn't able to recollect fully. It had something to do with prosperity, truthfulness....

Then I realized Saffron stands for Hindutva. Green stands for Islam. Whatever white and the Ashoka chakra stand for, I did not bother to think further. Call it my cynicism or whatever, but I did believe that YES, the colours in the flag of a secular country India stand for different religions. I refuse to take the crap of prosperity and truthfulness as the reasons for the colours.

Of course, it's a known fact how India was partitioned and how committed all the leaders were to the unity of India and Pakistan. Was the flag just a way to pacify them. Yes, the tricolour has been in existence since the time of the freedom struggle, but even then this must have been the basis of the conception of the Indian tricolour.

Now onwards, whenever I see the flag, I will feel a bit iffy to salute it until my theory is disproved. But that will not stop me from loving or respecting my flag and my country. I was and will always remain secular to the core in the same sense that I am now. Afterall, the flag is just a representation, much like our national anthem is rumoured to be a tribute to the Queen's empire instead of being a tribute to the nation. I still sing the national anthem with the zeal and fervour of a 10 year old.
I love my India!

A Friendly Nemesis

One thing I can do a thesis on or write a book on is how to manage a lot of friends and friend circles. While it’s great to have a lot of friends and close ones at that, it gets very painful if they are scattered into different groups. The situation gets a lot worse if the different groups do not really gel with each other.
I am a firm believer in keeping the groups separate. Always! keep the groups separate. There are different things that we discuss with different people. No matter how close a friend is, there could be something that you would not feel comfortable sharing with him. Rather you have a different person to share different aspects of your life with.

Let me get to the pros and cons of having many friends
Cons first
Juggling between groups becomes the aspect of your life which takes most of your attention.
Satisfying everyone is never possible but becomes especially harder in this case.
Half the time when you are with a group, the conversation is about how you always ditch them. Even if that’s not the case, there is a bit of cold ice in the relations.
You fail to be the core or integral part of any group. This may not always be true. You will be the core part of a smaller or really close group. But then in the other groups you do miss out on a lot.
Money!.. yes it becomes very expensive since you have to satisfy everyone. Many times you end up having multiple meals and running off to movies or something and miss the fun in each of the things but are present everywhere just to please your friends.
Of course personally you may not be happy as very often you will be with a group but would feel like being with others at the same time.
Generally every group will have one person who will not understand and keep cribbing and crying and cribbing and screwing your happiness whenever you try to leave them.

Pros
Wonder after so many cons, are there really any pros?
There are. First there are so many people to care about you. As they say, you will never walk alone. Come on, I don’t think there is any need to discuss. How can having friends be bad?

This post was aimed to help people who have problems managing friends. But there isn’t any secret or formula to it. Just being open with all your friends should suffice. If people still get cranky, let them be. If they are friends, they will understand and adjust. If not, it’s good that you realized it. I guess just the knowledge that I am doing the right thing and being true is enough for me to face any bricks flung at me.

A small hiatus

Ok...I am back to blog...
been more than two weeks since the last post...I have to get more regular :-

Well I dont have much to write about now...

To put thoughts to a few of the current issues..
1. Richard Gere kissing Shilpa "Big Brother" Shetty
It wasnt even a kiss. There is now an arrest warrant for Richard!!
Somewhere else on some talkshow Richard absolutely lambasted India...My take is initially it was Richard's fault, you do not do such things in a conservative society like India. I know that we are progressing and all but still was it really required. Of course a lot of blame also goes to Shiv Sainiks or whoever behind the stupid protests. Cmon, get a life ..there are lots of better issues bothering us. Wonder when we will ever grow up.

2. I was wondering about the Woolmer death. Its been more than a month now and the killer is nowhere in sight.Really makes me doubt whether the search is ON! There are absolutely no clues, things surely are being suppressed somewhere. Even if the party involved maybe highly influential and the job was done without leaving behind any traces, something should have come up by now.

3. For the first time ever, I am hoping for some disaster or terrorist attack somewhere. I hate to say but thats the only way that this year's Champions League may be canceled. Why do I want it canceled. Cant you see the pathetic semi-final lineup. 3 English teams and Milan. As a die hard Inter supporter, I definitely cannot see Milan winning it. Especially in the year that Inter finally! won the Scudetto on the pitch. Credit will again not be given to Inter. And I hate the English teams. which also takes me to the point where people love EPL so much. Those football illiterate people should be given some direction in life...and the way is to stop the exclusive broadcasts of EPL and rather show more of Serie A and La Liga.

Signing off....will be back soon and with a better post :)