To the incompetent idiots who run my country.....

I am not a marathi manoos. Nor am I a mumbaikar. I have never stood outside the magnificent Taj hotel admiring its beauty, I have never boarded a train at CST nor have I ever had a cup of coffee at the Leopold cafe.
But as I sit in front of the TV watching images of the Taj engulfed in flames, of the inconsolable relatives of the innocent victims of this mindless senseless tragedy I grieve. I grieve for my country and my fellow countrymen. I grieve for the lives lost and the dreams shattered.
Yet at the same time I feel sense of fury and helplessness that I have never felt before.
When will this all end? How many deaths, how many blasts will it take to wake you up?
Its so nice to sit in your bullet proof cars and zoom about the city with your z security isn’t it. I guess it doesn’t bother you how porous our coastal borders are, how insufficiently manned our public places are and what a dismal failure our Intelligence System is. As you pontificate on the national security policy have you ever wondered about the brave policemen who face the terrorists armed to the teeth with ammunition and AK 47s with their ancient pistols.Have you ever pondered over the fact that the citizens of your country now wonder if they will come back when they leave their homes in the morning.
You will bicker amongst yourselves and divide us by our religion and by the state we belong to. You will make political mileage out of every blast and every attack. Then you will make solidarity speeches and urge us to remain calm in the face of terror.
No,we will not remain calm now. We are fed up of being calm and showing the world how resilient we are. We are fed up of constantly living in fear in our own country. We are fed up of your false promises and your empty words. This country has now had enough.
For the love of god, get off your asses and do something for the people that trusted you enough to put you into Power.

26/11

for the last one hour I have sat at my desk, staring at the blank screen in front of me.
Wanting to write but not knowing how to put the gut wrenching sorrow and rage I feel into words.
How does your conscious allow you to do all this?
which ideaology,which religion tells you that it is all right to kill so many innocent people in the name of your so called cause?
And how will you ever face that god of yours in whose name you commit so many dastardly acts ?

Hello there .. looks who's back !

Hey guys
I am back .. for the meager few who read my blog and for the one sweet soul who orkutted me asking why I had stopped blogging ..thanks for the concern .. No I am not dead, No I didn’t break a leg or my arm .. I simply didnt feel like blogging ... not that anything worth blogging didn’t happen in the past 3 months but lets say I was in one of my “I hate everything and I don’t want to blog even if it will make me feel good” phases.
I am back in India … Shifted base somewhere in the end of September .. not a unwelcome change I must say .. Not that I am averse to staying in Japan but this particular visit was not very pleasant one work wise ..... Any how as to what I have been up to for the past 2 months.. the following should give you a good idea....
1) Hogging on paranthas every day (I have an extra 2.5 kilos to show for it)
2) Worrying about my job and cursing the ongoing recession every single minute
3) Took a break, went to Chandigarh to see the new house and fell in love with the bright sunny spacious bedrooms and and the four balconies overlooking the forest area – fell even more in love with the steam bath and sauna installed in one of the bathrooms :-)
4) Came back to Delhi and now I curse the daily commute and the traffic and the stupid deaf neighbors who listen to the TV so loud that the whole bloody mohalla knows their love for the 'K' serials.

Any ways .. now that I am back I faithfully promise to ramble about something or the other every few days.

Random Thoughts at work

• I want to chuck my job and travel through Japan with a backpack
• I want to go back to Chandigarh and see the new house
• I want to have paranthas with home made butter
• I want to go to my favourite cafe;sit cross legged on their comfy sofas and eat cheesecake with coffee while I read a good book
• I am fed up of working with unprofessional people and want to tell them so
• I am tired of motivating others when I don’t feel too motivated myself
• I want to ask some people if they have ever heard of the terms "Schedule management" and "Contingency Planning" ?
  

Its not such a good day at work people !

Friends, Shopping and Rajma Chawal

I’ve been meeting a lot of old friends lately. Met A last weekend in Yokohama and yesterday met S. She was in shizuoka for a week which is quite a distance from Tokyo and I had almost despaired of meeting her, but the great pal that she is she delayed her flight to Sunday so she cld spend Saturday with me.We had the most glorious time. We shopped till we dropped and talked about how life had treated us since we met last. The weather gods were kind - for a change the day was cloudy so we spent most of it walking ard Tokyo and by 6 in the evening we were just about ready to collapse.S is a pure veg and not the kind who drink - so I couldn't take her to a Japanese restaurant or a pub without getting disapproving looks and a lecture about the sins of drinking and eating non veg.
Actually S is so shockingly different from the other people I know. She doesn't drink, eat non veg and likes to stay at home with her yr old son and spend time with only good frnds or family. She loves to shop but will shop for bangles and traditional salwar kamizees where as I wld go for silver jewelery and ethnic kurtis and jeans and short tops. As personalities we are poles apart - she is a bit conservative and doesnt adjust to modern ideas fast. - I am the one with the modern outlook who can do anything live anywhere and off course eat anything !
But what is similar is our values and beliefs in life and that goes beyond being modern or conservative- Under all my veneer of modernity I am a person to whom spirituality means a lot - In fact that is the one common factor that brought us together.She understands that part of me so well.Like her I stick to my few friends and will only spent time with like minded people and wld rather spent my time alone than in company of people I dont agree with or enjoy much.
And so we had coffee al fresco and gorged on the snacks she brought from home. Her mom makes all sorts of fabulous namkeens imaginable and I guess she knew that for all my talk about “I love Japanese food and I cant understand why people have to eat Indian even in Japan” I wld be dying for some Indian food so she brought it along all for me.
Then in the evening we had to go to a old colleagues place .. apparently his wife had cooked dinner for us and we are sort of fond of his wife so off we went The wife made us good adarak chai Indian style and then we had rajma chawal for dinner.Rajma Chawal is something I can die for so I really hogged and hogged.
On Sunday - I went shopping to Tokyo hands and lazona in Kawasaki and bought everything from books to hair clips to perfumes to foot creams. I also wanted to buy a very lovely peasant blouse but then off course they didn't have my size - no one in japan has my size - it really doesn't help to be 5 feet 9 inches in a land of tiny people with no busts or behinds to speaks of !
So that's how I spent my weekend ...

P.S
Have I been giving an impression of “poor me I am so lonely in Tokyo”?? coz There was a comment on my last post .Some smart fella wrote about how he pitied me coz I was supposedly friendless in Tokyo and how he was having so much fun coz he had a lot of friends there – dude – first of all this is someone who has been coming to Japan almost every year for the past I don’t know how many yrs now and something I can never get in this city is lonely. And then that post was just a nostalgic bit about how nice it feels to catch up with good frnds you haven’t met in ages. OK !