Go AWAY!

You know, the thing about technology is that it makes it devilishly hard for me to get rid of people. It was so much easier in the good old days (ain't I ancient?) when all you had to do was stop speaking to someone you wanted out of your life, and stop taking his/her calls. The person would eventually give up, and there would be no awkward scenes or anything. Pheobe did it so effectively that Monica never even caught onto her game for crying out loud.

Now, however, it just doesn't work that way. So you get a call on your cell phone, and since the number flashing belongs to that annoying person who only ever calls when (s)he needs something, you ignore the call and carry on with what you were doing, humming gleefully. But then the landline rings, and you just know it's that person. Luckily, your mother picks up, and catches on to what your wild gesticulations mean and makes up some excuse.

But you see, it doesn't end there. No sirree. The next time you come online, you see him/her waiting on MSN Messenger like an eagle waits for his prey to come out of hiding. Luckily, you have your settings set such that you sign in on Appear Offline mode, so you manage to block the accursed person. But what you've forgotten is that (s)he still has your other email address, and can email you whenever (s)he chooses to do so. And if you thought just ignoring the email and not replying was an option, think again. (S)he has not only visited your Orkut profile, but also the profiles of people who scrap you, and therefore knows that you have come online and have replied to others, so why not me huh? Huh? Tell me, tell me, why?

Aaaaargh!!!!

I'm sorry... I didn't plan to!

It's a good thing I neither went into journalism, nor have any plans of doing so. I think journalism, or at least the kind of journalism I'm talking about, involves a certain amount of objectivity or detachment from the facts of whatever you might be reporting. I don't have that.

There is no doubt the possibility that I might develop such an attitude in the future, but as of now, I don't see that happening. These days, I tend to get a little too worked up about most things that I read about in the papers.

I read this article earlier this week, and all I could think was, "momentary lapse"?!? Bull. Even if it was, the girl was eight years old people!!! How can you forget the utter brutality of what she underwent simply because it wasn't planned?!? Oh, and the fact that the so-and-so didn't kill her, but simply left her to bleed to death really does let him off the hook, doesn't it? And of course it doesn't fall under the category of "rarest of rare" cases, because child sexual abuse is so bloody common in this country.

Someone I know is of the opinion that Santosh Singh was given the death penalty solely because of the public opinion surrounding the case. I'm beginning to believe he's right. Do we really need to create public outrage every single time we want to see justice? Is creating a brouhaha the only way we can get justice?

I was a much happier person before I started reading the newspapers.

Dire straits

About a year ago, during a rather innocuous conversation, a friend of mine happened to mention ot me that according to Vaastu Shastra or Feng Shui or one of those things, how organized your home is supposedly signifies how clear you are in your thoughts. That day, on returning home, I went to my room and took a good look around. Sure enough, a horrible mess met my eyes.

Now, I might not believe in any of those schools of thought, but this particular line of thought made sense to me. My thoughts have been in a complete clutter for the past two years or so now, and my room, well, when has that not been a mess?!? That, my dear and not-so-dear readers, is why the train of thought in most of my entries rarely seems to follow any logical path.

The bottomline is, while my room occasionally does undergo a thorough spring-cleaning session, the clutter my thoughts have been in for the last two years has reached a point where I don't seem to be able to sort them out even if I tried. Moreover, this feeling has intensified in the recent past. I feel pulled in different directions all the time in pretty much every aspect of my life these days. There are innumerable options, demands, suggestions, commands, and roads that seem to magically appear before me without me evincing the slightest bit of desire for any of it. I sometimes feel like a captured octopus who has eight different idiots pulling at each of its legs - not a very pleasnt image to bring to mind, I agree. The desparation for answers seems to be just increasing at times.

I think I would be in a better state - at least mentally, if nothing else - if I had some degree of faith in yoga, or art of living, or reiki, or something. Unfortunately, I don't. And that means that I am quite likely to finally give in to my long-cherished desire of throwing a crystal vase at the wall and smashing it to smithereens very soon.

People are scum

One of the few newspapers I actally still have some degree of respect for is the weekly Tehelka. Yet, reading it week after week fills me with a sense of despair about our country. What is wrong with us? There appears to be corruption, injustice, poverty, abuse, and whatnot is practically every aspect of our society. Someone do something!!!

Read these articles:

DALITS, LIKE FLIES TO FEUDAL LORDS
JUSTICE FOR ALL, FOLKS
Dalits go on rampage in Nagpur over caste killings
Dalit killings: Curfew in Maha town
For more articles...

I defy any of you to claim you didn't shudder in revulsion while reading the first article.

Yes, I'm a feminist. So people reading this will probably start again about how I always get riled about these issues. But come on, being horrified about this incident can't be just for that reason. What kind of inhuman savages carry out such atrocities?

The last time I wrote about women being abused by men, I was rather startled by some of the comments I received wherein some men felt that you can't blame men for reacting if women dress in a certain way (not that I've seen all those many women dress in mini-skirts on the roads of Delhi - known as the rape capital - but I'm sure that's due to my selective blindeness). What's their excuse now? Why were these two women tortured, raped, and killed in such a brutal manner? What's the justification for the two sons of Surekha Bhotmange being beaten up, killed, and mutilated?

It's been more than a month since this incident, yet no action has been taken till this past week. It's only now that after Dalit youths turned violent while protesting against the murders that some degree of action has been taken. The Maharashtra givernment has finally ordered a CID enquiry, and the case will apparently be tried in a fast-track court. Whether that actually happens remains to be seen, but I do wish some protest marches could happen about cases that don't just affect people in the Metros.