Mr. Green

Dear Mr. Green
I loved you right from the start
With your tiny wrinkles
You parked yourself in my heart

I bonded with you
Though we met only for a day
In my mind's eye
You will always stay

I craddled your tiny body
When in pain you'd cry
Rest in peace dear angel
My darling sweetie pie

In our Lives and Times

This post is not intended to make an interesting read, but is instead a record of a point in time.

I read almost every article in today's newspaper after a long time. Amidst all the spelling, grammatical and common sense mistakes there was so much to digest!

The headlines are horrible today. Shahbaz Bhatti (Pakistan's minorities minister) was brutally murdered as he left his Mom's home. 20 bullets riddled his body. There is a gory picture of all the blood in his car. This is only two months after Taseer was murdered by his bodyguard on the same blasphemy issue. Sometimes I wonder what can be done with countries that support terrorism though they claim not to. It is a scary thought. Is there not sufficient evidence to take some stringent action against them? But then how do you protect the innocent in the region? This makes for a good debate unfortunately....

There was another article about America helping to have found rebel groups in Pakistan to aid the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan at one point in time. Now some of these rebel groups are part of the terrorist parties. How ironic that the very country that has declared war on terrorism should have helped it, even if only indirectly.

Another form of terrorism these days is the Somali pirates. Now the Indian foreign ministry says that they are trying to free the six Indian sailors held captive for the last six months just a week before the deadline issued by the pirates. We have seen how the pirates have turned nasty and have resorted to killing captives. And yes, the foreign ministry says that though they are helping out, it is not they, but the shipping ministry who is the nodal authority for this. Just somebody bring our boys back safe. Some of my friends are sailors and so this drives home a bit.

India always seems to be a little late in all its efforts to help out its citizens. Only now have we started trying to help the remaining 12,000 Indians still in Libya as the country heads into civil war. China has reportedly already evacuated 32,000 of its people. And still a lot of our efforts are all talk….

Gaddafi's son seems to be following in his father’s footsteps having plagiarized his PhD. The cycle doesn't stop. People still love absolute power. It is human though, right?

Power will always be with the ruling parties in most cases. Bangladesh's Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina seeming to have won her battle with Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen bank and who is the nation's only Nobel peace prize winner. He has been sacked from his role as managing director of the very institute he founded because he may have shaken her a little when he announced his plan to set up a political party.

Another leading man is Rajat Gupta who is now being charged with insider trading. He seems like a man most of us would aim to be like in the business world, rising so high internationally. Now he fights to clear his name. Let’s see what comes of that.

There are the more typical articles on people dying in accidents, custodial torture, prostitution, urban poor living in shantis and money for betterment being blocked. The lack of importance for life in India is no longer surprising. It is just something we live with and something I hope to get out of.

The Budget was out a couple of days back and still has some space in the paper. Health cover prices to go up, subsidies on oil reduced in absolutes and the likes.

And closer to home there seems to be other issues causing heartache amongst the local public with Medical fees being hiked up. From what it looks like though the fees were way too low to start with. I paid more for my engineering degree than what they are now proposing in the new medical fee structure. But then, this is for the government colleges.

One minor article vainly bears significance to me, mangoes and grapes have been discovered to be prebiotic (word editor doesn't know this word yet). So I guess these are the fruits I am going to be buying soon.

My scientifically drawn brain is also interested in the article as to why the sunspots have not been seen since 2007 and how this is advantageous to India's maiden mission to the sun, Aditya, scheduled for 2014.

And yes, the paper has a funny note to end with - the sports section. With the Cricket World Cup on, Indians are glued to their television sets. The surprising victory of Ireland against England has caused quite a stir! The paper says that an Irish fan wore a flower on her head. It was a Clover for crying out loud!! Any person with some knowledge of the world would know the significance of that.

Something that attracted my attention in one tiny corner of the paper was the fact that Cognizant's Frank is the highest paid CEO in India with an annual gross of Rs 6.14 Cr in 2010!!