Random notes

When Chief Minister of Delhi called the Prime Minister of India, a psychopath, I was tempted to look for symptoms of psychopath using the good old internet, mainly to see whether his description fits  or not. Surprisingly, even before I had read half of the symptoms, I found that the symptoms were not pointing in the direction Arvind Kejriwal had intended. However, I am unwilling to cloud reader’s mind with my own observations and invite all to read on, make your own judgements, reach your own conclusions. Here are the ten symptoms of a psychopath.     GRANDIOSE SELF-WORTH — a grossly inflated view of one’s abilities and self-worth, self-assured, opinionated, cocky, a braggart. Psychopaths are arrogant people who believe they are superior human beings. CONNING AND MANIPULATIVENESS: the use of deceit and deception to cheat, con, or defraud others for personal gain; distinguished from Item #5 in the degree to which exploitation and callous ruthlessness is present, as r

Delhi has had a second successive Car Free Day, this time in Dwarka. Thousands attended it, hundreds participated in a cycle rally, thousands more walked to demonstrate their solidarity to the cause of reducing pollution in Delhi in particular and a healthier environment, in general. Chief Minister of Delhi came personally, participated in the cycle rally and addressed the enthusiastic crowd. He also announced that next car free day would be on 22 nd January, in Patparganj, East Delhi. Going for a Car Free Day Excellent! It reminds me of another such initiative, called Earth Hour. On a specific day, once a year, we switch off lights at 8 PM, for one hour. Off course, air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, fans, microwaves etc keep running during the appointed hour. For the rest of 364 days and 23 hours, we can feel smug in the thought that we have contributed to the environment. Around 0.1% of population, switch off around 15% of the electric app

Dear Award Returnee, May I submit, humbly, that you are just wasting your time; you are not achieving your objectives that you set out to. Let me explain. Why are awards being returned? As stated by many of award returnees, this action is to protest, to highlight the growing intolerance in the society and the threat to freedom of expression; to artists, writers and film makers and also to sensitize people against such a social environment. Therein lies the problem. That problem being that the man on the street does not know who you are, what did you do to get an award, what you claim to fame is and what is your real reason for doing what you are doing now. No. Do not take me wrong. I have no intention of running down your achievements in literature, art or cinema or trivializing the awards, my limited point being that the common man is not able to relate himself to you, your achievements, awards as well as the reason for returning them. The common man is going

On the fateful day of 5 th August 2015, entering that dingy, winding lane in the town of Udhampur, Naved had no idea that he was entering an alley of treachery, deceit and backstabbing. Poor Naved, tired of six days of walking through the countryside, stressed due to continuous hiding and running from security forces, famished as he had not seen a kebab for last six days, his tired mind and fudgy instincts making him more trusting than a cautious, watchful terrorist should be when he Naved in custody of merciless security forces walked into that ill fated house.  And the violent, rowdy residents of that house murdered, butchered & killed every strain of decency, trust and even humanity. They faked themselves as victims and then backstabbed him. As his trusting eyes wandered away for a few moments, treacherous and deceitful residents of the house overpowered Naved, thrashed him physically (unbelievable but true!) and handed him over to army! Unfortunate Naved had no

Public health is an emotional subject. Even if our politicians do not give a damn to the state of the public health centers & hospitals, quality of doctors, quacks and fake medicines, they are expected to be sensitive to these issues in their grand utterances and policy statements, at least. So, when Rajasthan government reduces VAT on tobacco products and claims it is in public interest and Times Now takes up this issue for discussion with taglines that state government is playing with public health, helping the spread of cancer by promoting sale of tobacco products, they project an image of vigilant media, ready to defend public causes and exposing the big, bad government which works for corporates. When they add a bit of Lalit Modi with undeclared interests in trade of tobacco products with a quid pro quo stretched from some other holding it becomes a full blown scam embellished with public interest, an issue of the size which can cause governments to fall. The whole

Exactly one year back I was looking for a coaching academy for my son who is a budding cricketer. Our first stop was the oldest academy in town. This academy, as we were told, is over 100 year old and was established by some English gentlemen. The adviser at the academy told us, “Batting, bowling and fielding skills provide no guarantee of making it to a Ranji team, leave alone getting a national cap. The key to making it large lies in being visible to the selectors. If one is visible at the right time and right place it would not matter that your son believes that leg glance is a page three term and extra cover is an insurance phrase. What is needed is an image building plan; a campaign to showcase the qualities & traits, which would appeal to the selectors. We would create an audio visual of your son playing all the exquisite cricketing shots, straight drives that remind people of Tendulkar, leg glances that evoke Rahul Dravid, off drives that evoke memories of Gang

Dear Sagarika Ghose, As an ordinary, unwashed, illiterate, unrefined, non suit wearing Indian, I am thankful to you for taking up the issue of PM Modi’s suits & boots and implications of this sartorial attack on my fundamental freedom via your article here .  I explain in next few paragraphs.                                                 .                                                                                                                                                A Suit  or even a sherwani for that matter, is a symbol of prosperity as it indicates the wearer’s ability to afford one. PM Modi, by wearing a suit despite being a tea seller’s son is provoking us to get out of the comfort zone of glorious poverty & mounting a direct attack on our freedom of staying poor. We may be small farmers or land less labourers, small shopkeepers or unknown artisans; all of us, and our forefathers had the pride of having lived our lives in splendid penury. We

This is an attempt to answer the questions asked by @bwoyblunder in the piece 7 Questions AAP must answer, irrespective of Ashutosh’s tears. Any question once asked should not be allowed to remain unanswered. The unanswered questions don’t die or fade away or wither with the passage of time, they hang in the atmosphere, like collective, unfelt shame of the society, forever or till they are answered. Since AAP leaders would not answer these questions, I am taking the responsibility. I may not have the benefit of knowledge that witness or a perpetrator or a conspirator has but this is an attempt to use the information available in public domain, some deductive reasoning and use of a bit of plausibility. Q1: From where did AAP get Gajendra’s “suicide note ’ ? A:  The short answer is, “It was with the AAP volunteer who was supposed to hand over the note to Gajendra when he came down the tree.” but it would be incomplete answer. Gajendra was supposed to come down the tre

A father, who had limited income and many kids to feed, declared one fine day, “The kid who foregoes his or her lunch today would get Rs. 50 before dinner.” The kids were shocked. They had not seen even a ten rupee note being given by their father. They knew their father as a miser and were not accustomed to such benevolence. They were more used to their basic needs being flatly denied because of paucity of funds. All of them happily accepted the offer, too readily. Poor kids stayed hungry and were feeling famished by evening but the lure of Rs. 50, in cash, kept them going. They were still excited about the booty, they were to be gifted at dinner time. Dinner time came and to their surprise, the money was actually distributed.  Happy kids pocketed the money quickly before their father would change his mind and sat down for dinner. Then the father made a dramatic announcement.  “Today, dinner would cost Rs. 50. Only those who pay Rs. 50 would get dinner.” He said.

The school is in turmoil, the management is at wits end to even begin to understand how to deal with the situation. The problem has never been faced by any school, ever. It began when the children wanted some basic, democratic, inclusive rules to be applied to the concept of the homework. Their demands were simple and straight forward.   Homework can be given but before doing so, the concerned teacher must prove that the homework is being given on the issue of high academic importance. The teacher would need to make a presentation to the class who would take a final call on this issue. Homework should be suitably compensated by providing play time during school hours. This would be equal to four times the home work time in Metros and two times in other towns & villages. The homework should be given with the consent of students. Not less than 80% of the students need to be agreeable to the homework. This agreement will be teacher specific. There needs to be a Soc

When I shifted to Mumbai in 2007 and was looking for a house to rent, the broker gave me an unsolicited advice, “Never say you are from Delhi or it would be difficult to get a house on rent!” Hurt, I asked him why and he responded, a bit diplomatically, “Don’t feel bad but the ordinary Mumbaikar carries a not so benign perception about the ordinary Delhite.” I asked him to explain himself further. “Average Mumbaikar feels that Delhi people don’t follow rules or understand their civic responsibilities. They are prone to get violent at slightest challenge or provocation; it is better to avoid them.” He said, diplomatically avoiding usage of offending adjectives. Not exactly good words to hear about people of the city you belong to, but then, a perception is a perception. It cannot be fought or contested; it can only be modified or changed by personal interactions, over a long period of time.  Though I did not need to pay head to his advice as I found a house belonging t