Confused Commies in India

The commies are back into circulation.....and how! by hogging all the limelight with a presence in all the TV channels. after all, they've the best performance so far in the history of independent democratic india to boast of. their 70 seats makes them feel as if they've received a mandate of 3/4ths majority in the parliament.so you've the sight of A.B.Bardhan sermonising as to how everyone should spek and what everyone should speak. probably he feels he is the representative of the erstwhile soviet empire with all its stately power.

the unfortunate part is the commies in india never had their moorings in the local milieu of india. at best they adapted the policies of russian communist rgime to the indian conditions....and they did through democracy. a democratic communist seems like oxymoron.

unfortunately, the russian empire collasped and hence the great indian commie had to develop his onw theories. therefore all the confusion. so, the indian commie fights what every other sane person seems to think about.

i'm not an advocate for capitalism but do subscribe to the theory that social & economic development shouldn't be held hostage to supposedly idealogical dogma.

Reality bites

We are told there used to be a time when people used to be honest about themselves-to themselves & to the world at large.

Today this seems to be a bit old fashioned. Today's mantra is to promote oneself and paint it as the absolute truth-this is called as being "SMART"-being honest is "DOWDY".That's why we have stopped believing our fellow human beings and see everybody with suspicion and/or cynicism.

People have also invented the word-giving a spin and we have spin doctors specialising in it. sounds a lot like witch doctors, doesn't it?

This is the time of instant gratification-and when somebody is down-people don't even cast a sideways glance-leave alone getting down to help someone in distress.

to deviate has become the equivalent of walking the straight line-this is reflected in all walks of our life. The newspapers report killings as if its no big deal. television promotes a decadent culture where less is more....

imagine children gawking at the music videos-they'll grow up with a feeling that wearing these clothes is the right thing to do and everybody in their neighbourhood is from a different planet.

And all of you may think i'm bit too old fashioned to talk in this fashion.

olympic torch fiasco

At a time when winning medals at olympics seems a distant dream, our country is obsessed with film stars. As in every sphere of life, crass commercialisation seems to have prevalied upon common sense. The day will not be far off when sponsorship takes over all forms of life-imagine, our prime minister wearing the colours of a particular brand or the treasury benches dressed in blue & the opposition in red. We may even have auctions for the right to sponsor departments/ministries and even political parties. We may have commercial breaks announcing that the zero hour is sponsored by so and so company.... and maybe mani shankar iyer singing " yeh bhook hai badi" in the company of undernourished children of orissa.

It is time people understood that a line needs to be drawn somewhere since no other nation needs to be undermined so much brand power. the sponsors themselves need to understand that brand recall and bottomline do not always converge.