The Bucket List!

One of these days, while surfing on the internet, I came across a bucket list on www.richardcastle.net. And his bucket list is really, really cool! Richard Castle, by the way, is a fictional character, played by Nathan Fillon on the hit series Castle.

For those who've been caught unawares, bucket list is a sort of to-do list you want to complete before you kick the bucket (die, in the morose sense, if that's what you prefer.)!

My bucket list, or rather what I could compile as of now is :

• Sky diving! Bungee jumping too!
• Lighting a sky lantern!
• Painting the Indian flag on my cheeks and cheering for India! Go India!
• Get my dad to join me on the giant wheel! Should this be on his bucket list or mine?
• Reading all the Archie comics! I still don't know whether Archie married Betty or Veronica! He did get married, right? 
• Ok. Find out if Archie got married!

I'll be back with more!

Till then put up your list, fellas!

The Monsoon Drama!

Did you know carrying an umbrella is an art? It’s worthy of being practiced to attain perfection! You don’t believe me, do you?

This monsoon rains have been so infrequent and imbalanced with a vast array of diseases striking the city, that every little drizzle makes you whip out the umbrella! Gone are the days when we used to prance about in the rains and deliberately forget our umbrellas at home!

• For starters, like me, carrying an umbrella atop your head and handling a side bag along with making sure that you don’t land in the puddles or poke someone with you umbrella, is a difficult task! And what if your cell phone starts ringing?!
• If the rains bring along the winds, then you have make sure the umbrella doesn’t fly away, thus removing your attention from the fact that you might be getting wet face-down!
• When I’m walking on the footpath, alongside ether people I have to make sure that my umbrella isn’t too low, or else I might end up poking those without one. And now when I’m holding the umbrella high to avoid causing inconvenience to others, I kind of end up getting wet.
• And Calcutta footpaths, where available, tend to have such constricted spaces, that a lot of times you have to close the umbrella, pass the spot, and the open it again. Defeats the purpose of not getting wet, don’t you think?
• Oh and please do tell me how am I supposed to react when all those people sitting in the bus crib that my umbrella’s dripping water! People, for God’s sake, it’s raining outside. I’m carrying an umbrella. I just got on to the bus somehow. Of course my umbrella’s going to drip water! Unless someone out there has invented a water-absorbent umbrella!

So that’s my story of the recent trysts I had with the umbrella!

Someone bring out those raincoats, please! They also save you from the muddy water flicked across by passing cars!

Independent India? Sure?

Independence Day = Holiday.

That's what it's come down to for most of us!

My plan for the day was similar — to sleep, chill out and catch up with friends. But I didn't know what was in store for me.

While flicking channels, I came across a tele-film on the Mumbai 26/11 attacks titled 'Un Hazaaron Ke Naam'.

Curiosity and lack of anything else at hand, drove me to watch the film. I, for one, had read all the reports on the attacks in 2008. The CST shooting, barging in to the Nariman House, sieges in Taj and Oberoi, everything. Yet, when I saw the film, I had tears pouring down with every scene. I could recall the stories read in the papers, the way people had lost their lives, officers had been gunned down, the media had reported.

And then?

Then what?

Then we forgot about it. We moved on. Months later, 26/11/2008 is just a date.

Ajmal Kasab, one among those, who mercilessly gunned down people, to prove a point unbeknownst to all was arrested. The only terrorist to have been arrested.

And what did India do?

Provide him with security, food, shelter and a chance to defend himself! Defend against what? A crime that the entire nation had seen him commit?!

Is this the direction in which we’ll be moving? On one hand, citizens are put behind bars for circulating cartoons, for asking questions (read: asking Maoist-related questions to CM Mamata Banerjee tends to land you in jail!), for demanding an anti-corruption bill and on the other hand we are yet to mete out justice to a man who crashed across the Indian borders, killed hundreds of citizens, brought the entire nation to a standstill for nearly three days!

Can you imagine the pain their families must be going through? Going to sleep every night knowing that the person who killed their loved one will definitely live to see the sun rise for yet another day!

Spine-less, corruption – fed, hit by scams and heists, crime – infested, filled with political dramas — the mention of India and the Indian government brings these words to my mind!

Sure, I love my India.

But what do I love about it?

Its culture, its history, its diversity.

But that is the heritage which has been handed over to us.

What about today? Tomorrow?

65 years of Independence. Have we made our freedom fighters proud?

I wish finding the answers were easier.

P.S. : I’d strongly recommend you to watch the film ‘Un Hazaaron Ke Naam’. Not because I want you to shed tears. Because I’m sure most of you will feel what I felt after watching it!

Back to winning ways after long!

It’s been a long time since I last wrote, and it’s the viral attack doing the rounds in Calcutta that’s to blame!

One boon during this period of bane was that I got to watch a lot of Olympics events which, with my normal schedule wouldn’t have been possible.

4 medals at the Olympics — our biggest haul till date and also the biggest Indian contingent! More than the number of medals what pleases me more, is the strength of the Indian contingent this year. There have been so many events to look forward to which had Indian participation. Maybe we weren’t good enough to storm the finals and get medals but we were good enough to have qualified at the Olympic level!

If we have a Mary Kom fighting it out in the boxing ring, we also have a Tintu Luka in the 800 m semi-finals of athletics, Sahana Kumari for high jump, Renjith Maheshwary for triple jump, and add in a few more for shot put, discus throw, rowing, tennis, badminton, shooting, archery, hockey to name  a few!

It’s good to see a cricket-crazy nation go crazy for other games too! Today, we see players like Parupalli Kashyap, Vijay Kumar, Devendro Singh, MC Mary Kom, Krishna Poonia make the headlines. Normally, we have to scrounge through the sports pages to even find their mention!

Along with the spectacular and stellar performances on one hand, we’ve had to see major upsets too. The tennis contingent, hockey team, Deepika Kumari - led archery team, Vijender Singh, Sushil Kumar, and Abhinav Bindra. The names itself recall those dreams of victories that have been shattered!

But we’ll take it all in true sportsman spirit and applaud the efforts of the Indian Olympic contingent for having managed to qualify at the world level and keep India’s flag flying high! Let’s hope we end 2012 Olympics on an even higher note and prepare for a bigger and better show at the Rio Olympics!

Till then, back to London!