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And the Padma Shri goes to…

The recent list of the Padma Shri awards raised eyebrows in the political and entertainment circles and most importantly in the story-hungry media. While I wondered why (Nawab) Saif received it - whether it was for marrying a woman elder to him by 12 years, or to divorce the woman after 13 years of marriage, or was it for the alleged poaching of two bucks or was it for romancing an actress younger to him by 10 years – the statement in the media by Saif did confirm me that he surely did not deserve it. (Read the complete article here)

According to Saif, "If you look at the awardees over the last couple of years, all of them have not exactly invented a nuclear bomb."

And the closest Saif (probably) got to it was only to the word ‘bomb’shell, as seen below.

I also started thinking who the possible contenders for the next year’s award would be. Here’s the list.

1. On top is Rakhi Sawant for strengthening cross-border relationships and for social service like donating her clothing and looking after children.
2. Next is Shilpa Shetty for her nature of athithi devo bhava (sanskrit: guest is equal to God) and allowing her guests to do whatever they wanted with her, in front of the media. And for her attempt to revive the ancient Indian art of Yoga.
3. To the wife-friendly, Rahul Mahajan for showing compassion towards his fellow beings in the ‘house’ and to bring back the extinct Indian custom of swayamvar, actually reverse-swayamvar.
4. Ekta Kapoor for creating the image of the liberating Indian naari.
5. Chetan Bhagat. Period.
6. KCR for his modern (a)satyagraha
7. Kareena Kapoor (though size zero) won’t get it as ‘behind every successful man, there is a woman’ or is it?

Man…lot of people trying to restore the Indian culture, don’t you think they deserve it more than any restaurateur.

“1st February 2010 - An interesting day at The Hindu” by Mir Mohammed Ali

“You're brother and sister. No we're not. You're BROTHER and SISTER. No, we're not. YES YOU ARE AND THAT'S THE BOTTOMLINE CAUSE STONE COLD SAID SO!”

A panchayat in Chandigarh decided that a 3-year marriage which now had a 10-month-old baby needs to annulled because the absent-minded couple (Satish and Kavita) in question were actually ‘brother and sister’ (though not from the same 'gotra' - lineage or clan. More on that in a while). That their parents had consented to the wedding carried no weight against conclusions of the Panchayat.

 

Not long ago, the friendly panchayats had issued punishments when couples from the same ‘gotra’ got married. But the problem with these ‘same gotra’ couples was that they were a hard catch as they would quickly elope and the poor panchayat's lack of enforcement capability made it rather difficult to bring the freshly-eloped pair to injustice. To the panchayat's credit, they still managed to get their job done by using the tried and tested techniques of blackmail and ostracism, among other things.

 

Not to be tied down by the specifics of intra-gotra marriage, the panchayat now decided to punish people even from different ‘gotras’. In the above case, village-specific dimensions came into play when an official profoundly said, “In our village, a couple from these two ‘gotras’ cannot marry as they are considered brother and sister”.

 

The ‘firm’ (air)head of the panchayat, Hawa Singh was, well, firm. he gave the couple a 28-day deadline to comply, pending which firm action would be taken. I do not know if the number 28 was given keeping in mind the approaching month of February. If it was, then I'm sure poor Satish would've wished for March to have begun.

 

In all fairness, I must add that the Panchayat did not take a knee-jerk decision. It took "a six hour discussion" to decide.

 

Read the original article here

Roger that, Chief. Chief. Chief... Chief?

Meanwhile, in the legion of doom... Actually in Meghalaya, the Meghalayans (I know they are Indians first, but here I’m talking in the ‘second person’) had the rare privilege of having 4 ‘Chief Ministers’. They already had three and now, four. In the latest instance, the Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Lyngdoh became the proud 4th CM. There is some serious enjoyment happening at the top, thought I. And to second me thrice was the Chief Minister himself (CM No 1, 2 or 3? I found out later).

 

His un-minced words bear quotation in extensio: “This is not the first instance of Meghalaya having more than one person enjoying the rank of Chief Minister. We had done [it] in the past. I myself was enjoying the rank of Chief Minister when Mr. Rymbai became Chief Minister. Similarly Mr. Rymbai and Mr. Donkupar Roy are enjoying the rank of Chief Minister. There is absolutely nothing wrong in our upgrading the rank of Mr. Lyngdoh to Chief Minister.”

 

Read the original article here

The Divider becomes the Compass...I mean... the Divided

India's favourite uniting-dividers, who unite as they divide (or vice-versa depending which side you're on) found themselves divided. When RSS ideologue Ram Madhav tried to test the waters by calling on the “[Parivar's] volunteers in Maharashtra” and indirectly told our Marathi-supremacist brothers (and sisters. Happy?) to “try and prevent the spread of anti-north Indian and anti-Hindi feelings”, he probably didn’t realize that the word ‘prevent’ was superfluous. Because if they tried, the ‘spread of anti-many things’ would surely be prevented. Mr. Manohar Joshi, former Lok Sabha Speaker (who never spoke as he was without a Mic) took more than a hint and “...Mumbai belongs to the Marathi people...” he roared.

 

When Mr. Madhav and Mr. Joshi met at the sidelines of the - where else? - midlines, here is how the conversation continued (according to a ‘highly placed source’ of course) -
Ram Madhav (RSS) - 'Why did you get offended? I was only addressing the "volunteers of the Parivar"' to stop the spread of you-know-what. If you consider yourself a volunteer of the Parivar, you ought not to have been offended as you are part of the Parivar and ought to know to take orders. If you don’t consider yourself a volunteer, then the message wasn’t addressed to you in the first place. Now tell me, "Is it the former or the latter?”
Manohar Joshi (The ‘SS’) - [now feebly] 'Mumbai belongs to the Marathi people...’
Ram Madhav (RSS) - ‘Did you comprehend my question?’
Manohar Joshi (The ‘SS’) - ‘Well. What can I say... I got serious Language issues!’

 

Read the original article here

 

Reach the author at seekingoblivion(at)gmail.com.

Let’s hope for the best..

Aman ki Asha – an initiative by Times of India and Jung Group. I am sure many people would have been shocked (like I was) after seeing the headlines on January 1st. And most of them would have ignored it saying that something like that wouldn’t be possible. For them, I would like to repeat what they said - It is easier to say Hi than to say Sorry. It's shorter too. Besides, there is no rule that says a book has to be closed before a new one is opened. Not even if it's a history book. (See the newspaper advertisement below)

They also made a good television promo(may be one of the many) for the project…I like it…

Below is the advertisement which appeared in Times of India, on January 1st, 2010.

Read more here.