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Showing posts from November, 2016

Unfair and unlovely

If time is money, the demonetization drive has ensured that many Indians are already very rich because they have suddenly been taught the virtue of patience. A crossing near my house got to be very busy and a new signal was installed to help regulate the flow. Every single day, I see people break the signal from all sides without paying heed to their safety or anyone else’s. The people who break the signals glare at you for following the rules. You feel guilty for being patient. The signal is red and people behind you are honking as if there was a reward for it. People shout the choicest of epithets at you for not moving and standing your ground. Either that or I need to go for an eye check up and see if I am colour blind. In another part of the world, orange maybe the new black but as far as I know, red is not the new green. Stand in a queue at the railway station, in the petrol bunk, airport check-in counter ,or to pay a bill, and there will always be that one asshole...

Lies, damn lies and social media

The American Presidential Election has thrown up a truth many of us weren't willing to acknowledge - our real lives are vastly different from the one we live on social media.  For a non-American following the American elections on social media, the result was as assured as a Salman Khan acquittal. The ever jovial John Oliver and the ever sarcastic Bill Maher spewed venom for what it was worth on Donald Trump, his false mane, his inexperience, his violations against women and his claims that he would make America great again but turning back time and pretending globalization  and global warming were conditions that were easily curable. Expecting him to win was like expecting Raj Thackeray to sing a duet with Abida Parveen on Coke Studio Pakistan.  Or that's what we were given to believe. Or that was what we wanted to believe.  At some point in his campaign, Trump made a telling statement about how people who claimed they didn't like him would eventua...