Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious means, well, basically nothing.
Immortalized by the musical theatrical Marry Poppins in 1964, this tongue twisting, mind rattling word is often used to pretend to say something wise even though all that is uttered is gibberish potpourri.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

In Aftermath

Oh well here we go again!


It has been a rather short interval since the previous post, but this one just popped out, out of the blue, and luckily for it, found me with my laptop on my lap and a sufficiently charged battery.

I’d rather not have written this, but frankly, something has to be done about the funny buzzing sound that keeps on going on inside me head, at this moment. Moreover, I don’t think I would have written this had I not been in Pune. It’s basically an aftermath of the incident that happened earlier this day.

Gravity has a funny way of working. While it brought the apple down from the tree onto Newton’s head in no time (and changed the way we have been made to understand physics around us), it took a good 5 minutes of reading to know the ‘gravity’ of what has just happened (and has changed the general social atmosphere for 5 hours running, now).

Consequentially, repercussions were expected. Realistically, we still have to wait and rely on tomorrow’s newspaper and online feed for the exact nature and extent of repercussions. Precautionary, we still have to be on the watch for a few more days. Idealistically, I resent. In motive, I agree. In namesake, I rejoice. In brotherhood, I am disgusted. Personally, I admit, I’m scared.

The hand (and the shoe) of the commoner has long extended its range from the voting ballot, voting machine, temple steps and chest and groin of other commoners. And how! With this afternoon’s slap-gate doing the rounds of all social and anti-social media, it’s obvious that the domain of this range is far from visible.

The latest one was, admirably, fast and flashy. Maybe the television news channel crew should take a leaf out of SlowMo pictures. Whatever; the initial excitement about Mr. Agrinister’s whacko couldn’t last longer than the reading time of three news bulletins, a blog post and cricinfo’s live match feed. And that quickly drained the momentary living sense out of me. Come on HS Paaji, not cool.

You slap Agrinister. Okay. You chose to represent the vent in the general public. Okay (as long we know who and how we are generalizing). You do it fearlessly. Okay. Wow. But for the love of God, you don’t speak out of turn in that moment of venting anger and you don’t, with a big D, brandish your kirpan and threaten people. Not cool paaji, not cool.

Firstly, the thumbs rule – you don’t take your kirpan out of its miaan, just to threaten someone. Either you use it for what is was meant for or leave it packed snugly by your waist. So, basically, you have just undone my 3 months of explaining people around me what this 6 inch ‘knife’ is doing hanging on my belt. (And NO, it’s not a knife) Sigh!

And yes, you have done that one thing that makes us typically Punjabi. Speak out of turn. In that fit of rage and run of adrenalin the words you blurted and that ibn captured somehow puts us Sikhs in a tight spot. Not because they were fundamentally wrong, but because a threat like that doesn’t normally go down well with elements. And it would take some time for the elements to get over the hype and listen to their wives complaining about the increasing vegetable prices.

The last time a Sardar raised an arm (and a gun) on a Congressman, modern India’s history was left scarred. I don’t see such an after effect now, though I do pray for the wellbeing of your family and yourself paaji. I don’t know how tomorrow and the upcoming weekend would turn out to be but it would be an interesting pot-pourrie of emotions, expressions, words and exchanges. One of them, I saw before calling it an early day in office today; the expression that said, “I am glad it was one of you who did it, rather one of myself.” Gosh, some trying times ahead!

And for the record, Maggie hasn’t gone a bit cheaper, eggs are still at their same price and milk powder has gotten dearer by 8 Rupees. Just to be on the safe side with the proposed bandh tomorrow. If it needed a Harvinder Singh to ‘thanks-give slap’ a Sharad Pawar to shake the system and lead to a more organized outburst on the price rise issue, so be it. Whether it’s the way we want to go about fighting corruption? Well for starters, it’s an expression. But, no its not! Either you do it the Bhagat Singh way or you do it the Gandhi way.

With winter session of parliament in progress, following how other Agrinisters’ fight out the price rise and the black money issue would be the prima facie for the weekend. And yes, also to be followed would be next-to-God’s hundredth hundred. I have gut feeling he’ll nail it this time.

And Anna dude, you too, not cool! For a crusader of your stature, seriously uncool.

Almost as an afterthought, while proof reading the entry, another thought was plucked. One should, more often than always, align his actions and outlook in a way that would not put others of the same ethnical background, same region, same religion, similar looking face, or same name in a fix. It further reiterates the fact that we don’t represent just ourselves wherever we go and whatever we do; we represent a whole lineage of people with something similar to us in them.

Period.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Please Hold On

I have always wanted to tell you. No, I mean it. I may not be best equipped to express myself in a way that I want to, in a way that I know you want me to be doing so. But I mean it, please hold on!


I have realised that things are not always bad. Not always as bad as they used to be. In fact, look at it as how we have managed to come out of those days of darkness, fear and uncertainty and are now more settled than what we have been in the past decade. That does speak volumes of your resilience and faith you had in what you knew you were doing, and also about luck. I know there was nothing much I could have done back then, without being a superhero in the books I was reading at that time. But now that the time has come, or as I see it, is ever so near than ever, I beg you to please hold on!

The picture you painted in my head that autumn evening, of your dream, has somehow been etched in my memory. It has merged into my goal and is the one thing I want to get, I want to achieve, I want more than anything ever to let you know how much I admire and am proud of you.

How whatever I am going to do is going to effect my future and of those around me is a thought that would always put me at the crossroads, with a series of difficult decisions to make. I don't know how prepared I am to make the right choice out of these difficult crossroads, but its one thing that I want to push forward and let the results be as they are deemed to be right.

Please hold on. I am almost there. And once together we can kick some fine arss. I know it and so do you. So, please hold on. I want to live the life I saw in the books I read. But more than anything I want to live and love my life in a way that I want to, in the way I projected in my own book. You've taught me to be firm in what I have always wanted to do. To be a good human being and leaving the rest to The Power we call the Almighty. I will do that. But, you please hold on.

From the second storey balcony I saw what happened down on the street. I remember the lights and the look on her face. I don't think I realized it back then, but this weekend the jigsaw puzzle showed itself. I don't know how to feel or react, laugh or cry, be hysterical or be myself, react on impulse or work on the planned path.

It wont be long I realise, but it will be long enough to have our own little world accelerated in our own little spaceship that will ever remain in the ascendancy.

Yours'