Twenty Ten

Finally 2009 is over. I am not late or just woken up. Didn’t get time to publish it. It is always an exciting time of the year around Christmas. Everybody is looking at the year gone-by, the parties, the fun, the colours and the frolic. Though I miss the wintry chill of North, where I have spent 24 years of my life, wrapping yourself under layers of clothes, moving around with a blanket, holding hot cup of chai in hands to warm your body, the real taste of whiskey is felt in cold weather and the bon-fires.

I really don’t know or understood why people celebrate New Year. For the year goneby, the events, the moments, a flashback is so different from the normal routine. 2009 ending was special as we were waving goodbye to a decade. To a tumultuous decade. The decade evoked to the fall of WTC in New York. The ultimate terrorist attack ever accomplished on a superpower. Suddenly the West realized how big the problem is and what poor nations and ill-equipped nation like our’s is undergoing. 9/11. 26/11, 7/11, 11 was symbolized for terror. Bali blasts, Madrid bombings, Tube blasts, Taj coup, so many dead and yet the fight for jihad is on. Osama Bin Laden seems like a case which will always be in progress. Al-Jazeera was one of the most sought after channels in the world. Afghanistan and Iraq fell, Pakistan will fall in the coming decade. Just pray India does not follow them. Coz when your neighbours are shouting, even you find it difficult to sleep. The talk of bombs and bombers was the supreme activity of this decade before Mr. Fuld took over.

The ending of 2009 was definitely an event to be celebrated. 2009 was one of the most painful years in past few decades. The pain inflicted by events of 2008 gave its conclusive results in 2009. 11’s were forgotten. Suddenly the World opened to a new phenomenon which nobody would have imagined in their wildest dreams. All the money that the Central Govt’s had printed was eaten away by rats. Americans would have been happy and restored peace by firing missiles on rats. But unfortunately those rats were American, so out of sympathy, they fed those rats with some more green paper and the diseased population spread to the world. It was only for few people like Indians and Chinese, who didn’t entertain those rats or fried those rats on their hotplates, respectively.

The World order changed in this decade. The people from BRICs, BASIC, Chindia, Emerging markets/nations were rubbing shoulders with the first world and would try and look straight in the eye, if not scare them. Hope something better comes out of it in the coming deacde. Otherwise, the process and the idea has changed globally. Orator Obama, sexy Sarkozy, dumb Brown, Madam Chancellor, everybody has changed and with them their outlook towards the world. India found water in space, for which NASA had spent billions of dollars.

This decade was extremely special for India. India was able to display to the World that we are capable and hopefully may come up with bigger surprises in the coming decade. We got one of the most intelligent and honest person in the country as our PM. Every politician falls short on his/her promises, but the good thing to notice is how many promises they were able to keep and what efforts they put in for those promises.

In technology space, laptops became cheaper than a typewriter, kids learn to operate mobile phone before they start speaking. So in the coming decade, you can expect some credit card sized gadget to be better equipped than your laptop, you blink about a message to be sent to your loved one, it will be their on his screen. Don’t look me as I’m fool, such things are happening and will happen, when companies are spending billions on cloud computing, Google is bidding for telecom spectrum to offer free internet services and guys like Pranav Mistry have built a cell phone sized super computer (that’s how I’d say it).

In entertainment world, Playboy is up for sale. I don’t understand why Mr. Mallya didn’t bid for it. Everything came out of closet, when we have reality TV and people like Rakhi Sawant, who can make money and career out of bull shit. In the coming decade, expect the few sheets remaining on the bedside to be dumped. The whole flavor of naturalness will get more evolved. Already international celebs are posing in the name of vegans and greens. India is also in the race with them for everything so leave the glamour potion.

Cheers to 2010…………..!!!!!

Twenty Ten

Finally 2009 is over. I am not late or just woken up. Didn’t get time to publish it. It is always an exciting time of the year around Christmas. Everybody is looking at the year gone-by, the parties, the fun, the colours and the frolic. Though I miss the wintry chill of North, where I have spent 24 years of my life, wrapping yourself under layers of clothes, moving around with a blanket, holding hot cup of chai in hands to warm your body, the real taste of whiskey is felt in cold weather and the bon-fires.

I really don’t know or understood why people celebrate New Year. For the year goneby, the events, the moments, a flashback is so different from the normal routine. 2009 ending was special as we were waving goodbye to a decade. To a tumultuous decade. The decade evoAked to the fall of WTC in New York. The ultimate terrorist attack ever accomplished on a superpower. Suddenly the West realized how big the problem is and what poor nations and ill-equipped nation like our’s is undergoing. 9/11. 26/11, 7/11, 11 was symbolized for terror. Bali blasts, Madrid bombings, Tube blasts, Taj coup, so many dead and yet the fight for jihad is on. Osama Bin Laden seems like a case which will always be in progress. Al-Jazeera was one of the most sought after channels in the world. Afghanistan and Iraq fell, Pakistan will fall in the coming decade. Just pray India does not follow them. Coz when your neighbours are shouting, even you find it difficult to sleep. The talk of bombs and bombers was the supreme activity of this decade before Mr. Fuld took over.

The ending of 2009 was definitely an event to be celebrated. 2009 was one of the most painful years in past few decades. The pain inflicted by events of 2008 gave its conclusive results in 2009. 11’s were forgotten. Suddenly the World opened to a new phenomenon which nobody would have imagined in their wildest dreams. All the money that the Central Govt’s had printed was eaten away by rats. Americans would have been happy and restored peace by firing missiles on rats. But unfortunately those rats were American, so out of sympathy, they fed those rats with some more green paper and the diseased population spread to the world. It was only for few people like Indians and Chinese, who didn’t entertain those rats or fried those rats on their hotplates, respectively.

The World order changed in this decade. The people from BRICs, BASIC, Chindia, Emerging markets/nations were rubbing shoulders with the first world and would try and look straight in the eye, if not scare them. Hope something better comes out of it in the coming deacde. Otherwise, the process and the idea has changed globally. Orator Obama, sexy Sarkozy, dumb Brown, Madam Chancellor, everybody has changed and with them their outlook towards the world. India found water in space, for which NASA had spent billions of dollars.

This decade was extremely special for India. India was able to display to the World that we are capable and hopefully may come up with bigger surprises in the coming decade. We got one of the most intelligent and honest person in the country as our PM. Every politician falls short on his/her promises, but the good thing to notice is how many promises they were able to keep and what efforts they put in for those promises.

In technology space, laptops became cheaper than a typewriter, kids learn to operate mobile phone before they start speaking. So in the coming decade, you can expect some credit card sized gadget to be better equipped than your laptop, you blink about a message to be sent to your loved one, it will be their on his screen. Don’t look me as I’m fool, such things are happening and will happen, when companies are spending billions on cloud computing, Google is bidding for telecom spectrum to offer free internet services and guys like Pranav Mistry have built a cell phone sized super computer (that’s how I’d say it).

In entertainmwnt world, Playboy is up for sale. I don’t understand why Mr. Mallya didn’t bid for it. Everything came out of closet, when we have reality TV and people like Rakhi Sawant, who can make money and career out of bull shit. In the coming decade, expect the few sheets remaining on the bedside to be dumped. The whole flavor of naturalness will get more evolved. Already international celebs are posing in the name of vegans and greens. India is also in the race with them for everything so leave the glamour potion.

Cheers to 2010…………..!!!!!

26/11

Today is the 26/11 and the year is 2009, exactly one year since one of the deadliest terror attacks on India, where the coup lasted for 60 hours. 11 has become one of the most significant digits in the number system of this universe and a synonym for terror. There are very few numbers which represent a term. Ever since 9/11, which took place in America on September 11th, 2001, all the terror attacks are named after their date and every possible and impossible attempt is made to bring the number 11 in the date. In 9/11, the MM-DD pattern is followed, in 26/11, DD-MM pattern is followed, same was the case with blasts in Indonesia or Spain. Americans define the standards in terms of terrorists even.

I was lucky to reach my office at Nariman Point uninterruptedly today. There was huge mela of the mediapersons all through the Marine Drive. They were talking to people, telling people where the attacks took place, how, what, when and how do feel type questions. In the background, they are playing all the patriotic songs. It’s really a nice thing to commemorate the victims and remember the martyrs.

Media has made a hullaballoo of the whole issue. You give them only raw rice and they’ll serve you “biryani”. No terror attack has been handled by media in such detailed and provocative manner. Bomb blasts in 1993, the train blasts in 2006, Parliament attack, no terror incident has been reported like 26/11. Does India need to have its own 9/11 to boast about? Now we have one. The World fancies all the things American. Our media must have missed a commemoration monument like Ground Zero. So the army marched with the launch of new special task force named “FORCE ONE” from Hotel Oberoi to Chaupati, popularly known as Marine Drive. Mallya may claim his ownership rights and title on the name, FORCE ONE. I really don’t understand, why you need to build a memorial for a terror attack. Cover that space up, build bigger and better towers than Trade Centre. Allow people to leave and live past their wounds. It’s not a healthy sign to live with our wounds. Only person who will remember 26/11 forever is Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh. He lost his CM status because of his stupidity after attacks.

Coming back on the importance of 26/11 over other terror attacks. All others were bomb blasts, but this was a hostage situation and ill-equipped security forces took a day to gather and develop a strategy, that’s why it was stretched to 60 hours. Sorry to say, it was not 60 hours of terror. My office is situated on the back of Hotel Oberoi and some of my colleagues were working in office when terrorists struck and were working the next day even which was Saturday. The tension existed at the spots, but the whole country was not held hostage to terrorists but to media panic.

Every other person who came on TV, newspaper, last year and this year, got their two minutes of fame because of 26/11. Media people, they keep on pondering on the same boring questions, how do you feel, what do you have to say, right now and after one year and so on and so forth. The only problem or situation arrived due to 26/11 is they have created fortresses of Business Hotels. People in Mumbai do not have so much time to lament for weeks, months or a year. They move on, that’s why this city has been still building inspite of all the horrific attacks for the last two decades. But the big man who took all the limelight was Ajmal Kasab. Kasab has become a living legend, for those who may dream or are forced to take up terrorism as the profession. I just hope the cost of keeping a terrorist alive, pays. At times, I believe, he was too small a mole in this whole piece to divulge any details and should have been drugged and killed and his body handed over to his parents in Pakistan. On the other hand, we are just waiting to hear and know that he gives some strong points and atrocious version of the Pakistani approach against India. Our PM lately made very applauding points during his visit to USA.

A terror attack will not be one, if it is not able to spread terror. LeT, Lashkar and all their brotherhood should be rest assured that their one act will be played thousand times over several years by Indian media to keep the feelings and fear alive in the minds of Indian public. I empathize with our media, in our job, we are looking for thrill and out of box/context ideas to scale the ladder and enliven our lives. It’s not everyday, they get to cover a live attack. It was THE MOMENT of the media industry. But still they need to show a little amount of responsibility and the same reason why they are not welcomed at most of the places.

On the first completion of a no-terror attack on India from fundamentalists across the country, we should come together and pray for the lost souls of 26/11.