Begging in Beverly Hills...

A woman shows a sign saying “Please Help, Pregnant, Hungry and Homeless” as she begs for money near Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke predicted that America’s worst recession in decades likely will end this year, and that the economic recovery would gather steam next year.

Who said Beverly Hills was all about life on the High Street??? Its also about life on the streets!!!

Gandhi going... going... gone...

Well Gandhi was on auction this week…oops sorry Gandhi’s ‘legacy’ was on auction this week, His spectacles, his footwear and his bowl and plate. It was really unfortunate to see the Indian media make a spectacle of Gandhi’s spectacles.

The Father of the nation whom we remember two days in a year of which one of those dates is remembered solely for the reason that the wine shops are closed on that day. All of a sudden Gandhi mania has gripped the nation with TV channels playing good old patriotic songs and showing black and white images of Gandhi.

It took a clown like James Otis to rekindle our paternal patriotism. It was not the 2nd of October nor was it the 30th of January it was just the 5th of March when the so called legacy of Gandhi was about to come under the hammer. What an irony for a man of non violence to come under the hammer. Well it was not exactly the man but his belongings, his frail looking spectacles, his modest cutlery and his not so designer footwear were owned by an American who was holding the country of a billion sentimental fools and hundreds of sycophant politicians to ransom. The timing chosen by Otis was so perfect. The election dates were announced and no politician from left, right or centre would dare not support the Gandhian legacy.

So Mr. James Otis held a government to ransom, he dictated how our budget should look like and what our defence spending should be and the very fact that we were sending our representatives to discuss the draft of his proposal was making a mockery of the sovereignty of a nation.

He wanted India to value healthcare over defence expenses. If only I got a chance to auction off a presidential semen stained skirt of an intern this would be my statement to Mr Otis. ‘I wish America valued family values over wars on terror.’

But as I write this blog there has been a twist to the tale. Vijay Mallya the liquor and the aviation baron from India has bided successfully the Gandhi ‘valuables’ for 1.8 Mio USD. It was executed in true Gandhian spirit of non confrontation but had an American capitalistic overtone to it by simply buying it out for a price. It was an irony that a man who has seen zero revenue for a day every year on Gandhi’s birth anniversary had to rescue the Gandhi legacy.

As I always say… strange are the ways of the world. Cheers Mallya …

Terror in Cricket

The last time I heard this phrase was a couple of decades back when the erstwhile West Indian fearsome foursome of Roberts, Holding, Garner and Marshal were bowling with the new ball to any team in the world.

I heard this phrase again this week in a different context. It was real terror armed with grenades, AK 47’s and even rocket launchers encountering cricketers who were like ‘sitting ducks’ in a bus in the heart of Lahore. I’m not sure if Murali would have collected one of those grenades and bowled it back as a doosra to one of the terrorists. But jokes apart what happened was possibly the first attack on sportsmen after the Munich Olympics.

The only gainers were the media because the two biggest TRP earners, terror and cricket had finally merged and they did not have to look for separate time slots for the two. It was kind of a double whammy for the media.

I’m happy for the Sri Lankan team and sad for the six policemen who lost their lives protecting the cricketers.

The changing face (Phase) of life in the Gulf

Well this is the most common image of the life in Gulf that has been floating around for years now. In fact I got a copy of this when I first landed in the gulf, I laughed at it then and said that I would leave this place much before I was 'stupid'. But here Iam having out lived all of these images.

Whats next I wonder????

Right to die or is it Rights to death…

India would not have heard of one Jade Goody hadn’t it been for a Shilpa Shetty who shot to fame literally crying foul on Goody. In fact she attained greater fame than all her bollywood flicks put together after crying her way to fame in the reality show Big Brother.

This small (big) time reality star is going through a personal tragedy and she continues to look at it through the reality eye. The concept of reality entertainment reached the abyss for all reasons when Jade Goody suffering from a terminal illness announced that she would sell the rights to her wedding, the last days of her life and even the rights to her death, Death for sale!!! Unfathomable!!! She has since retracted on the same. But there’s never supply without demand, it might be true that Goody wanted to sell but the fact that people were around to buy the rights to her death or even negotiate it for a sum… is rather appalling. Has the human race become a bunch of predators? Predators that would go any length to nourish on sleaze, privacy and gossip.

She has defended her actions by saying that she was securing the future of her sons with the revenue out of some real time show of suffering. She has in fact dehumanised herself and made a mockery of Life, Death and even the Creator.

O death where is thy sting!!!