Love, Life and Happiness

The newspapers, supposed to carry the matter of significance in the world around us, are slowly and slowly resembling mischievous look, shedding all the pretense they had of serious, intellectual conversation. A model who has out of her numerous assignments, did a topless shoot becomes a matter of news. The Sunday Brunch which I regularly follow, primarily on account of stimulating article by Seema Goswami ( I did love reading Vir Singhvi writing on luxury travel and eating out, but that was before Radiagate hit him hard), now keep on coming out with odd things like a guide for women to drink out.  What is so amazing is the way drinking has found its way into social mores. It is the new kind of Bra-burning that feminists of the day have quickly caught on. I am not one for the world without wine, but I am also not the one for the life as a chain of irrational festivities. Was just reading Schopenhauer ' The World as Will and Idea' where the pessimist philosopher notes that, it

The morning, glorious and cruel with summer heat lurking down from the façade of deceiving cool of the dawn, with Sunday laziness and expectation of the third birthday of my daughter, saw me going out for our monthly outing, for a haircut. It has now become almost a custom for her to accompany me to the salon for the haircut, as she keeps herself amused for an hour or so with the hairdresser’s gears. As we walked to the ATM on the back of our home to withdraw some money, on the way we came across a ruckus on the street. A lady had hit a milkman by her car, a Hyundai Santro (I remember, a friend once remarked, women in car are dangerous, women in Santro are even more dangerous). The argument ensued and the poor man asked for a compensation of the milk which went down on the street, around four liter of it, approximately two hundred rupees in monetary terms, equal to two happy meals from McDonalds. The lady immediately, shunned all the pretense of being a lady, and was at the crudest

Last few weeks have been kind of like on a roller-coster, as travel has been spread across the country from Kolkata to Bangalore. Add to that a stupid delay in the Kingfisher flight from Bangalore, and it was a tiring fortnight, which lands me feeling like a zombie last night. The little pink angel, with slight traces of her new set of hairs was already asleep, lost in her dreams of pink elephants and red giraffe ( this is what she tells me every morning, I do not know if she makes it up but between believing and not believing her, I would chose the former, lying or not lying is her choice, believing her is my choice). Looking at her lost in her dreams, I thought not to disturb her. Then wife told me how she was all the time asking about when Baba and Nonu are friends, why did not take her with him? why baba is not available on phone, why baba was not talking to Maa on phone when they are supposed to be friends? There was no way she could understand why phone would be switched off on

Will Pakistan ever be able to ask for a treatment as equals with India after surrendering its sovereignty in wide public galore, in the aftermath of Osama shoot-outs in Pakistan? True, US had entered Afghanistan  in a similar fashion, but it was essentially not a nation, rather a piece of land under the control of some rogue group of people from different origins, not sharing any cultural and historical bonds (except religious, of course).  But Pakistan, notwithstanding, curios acrobats in International diplomacy by their senior leadership, still carried a semblance of a nation. India and Pakistan share a common history and for some reason, primarily the keen interest of a large population in maintaining stability has ensured that the idea of nation survived even in the face of most cruel leaders and most insensitive governance (While we all praise the palaces and architecture of old kingdoms, is it not surprising that the distribution of wealth was so anomalous that the villages surr