My attention span lasts a millisecond.

Attention please, this is a pretty outdated post that was written at time when some people who now are dead, were alive, and when things which I have missed in this post, had not happened. It was the time when this mutating hormone of ‘Paper Patriotism’ had sprung up after a long time, so strongly that I had to absolutely give it an honest hearing and make notes while it ranted. I had made efforts to keep this hormone in seclusion and to achieve this I had unsubscribed to newspaper and all the News Channels, employed strict filtering in my browser to block any news site and got ear plugs. But when the house maid just carried in the newspaper of the out of town neighbor and left it in my house, the sick little hormone was unleashed, yet again. Luckily, I had the notes from the last time which I halfheartedly tried to update to make this post look a little more contemporary to the time it is being revised to. I hope it is not outdated before you finish reading it. Time is strange, I don’t blame you, it flies faster than light and we’re still snail paced. Strange times, there goes nothing.

It was six men of Hindostan,

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the elephant

(Though all of them were blind);

That each by observation

Might satisfy his mind.

Reading the newspaper gives my patriotism a great boost. I go through the newspaper, see India shining, and feel my blood curdling (Though excessive curdling may cause it to precipitate into a gelatinous type of substance and cause health hazards, hence I don’t do that often, reading the newspaper that is). I see India making it into the fourth position on the world’s list of most dangerous countries for women, way to go people. We are already in a bid to topple China in the population race, and the armament race between the two neighbours has already taken the two to become the world’s fastest evolving war material stockpile. No wonder smoking should be strictly prohibited lest a little spark results into a disastrous inferno. I don’t quite remember how many Diwali rockets just go kaput but I’ll have to trust the claims the war pundits make because, the only way to be sure, is to put the product to use, but only one out of the whole lot is tested, which obviously now sleeps with the fishes in the depths of the Bay of Bengal, (The only working one, I pray? Perhaps not, just for cautions sake). Talking of quality, I read that a ‘Tested OK’ Water Melon blew up like a bomb and that too, on a dining table? That Water Melon was seriously sick and was given an injection. But we believe in, “the bigger the better”, don’t we? Bigger houses, wider roads, bigger cars, bigger pockets, bigger lives, bigger melons, bigger problems, right? Did I say bigger problems? Oh, sorry, bigger problems are for the smaller people, we need bigger bail outs. And we don’t like Fat fat.

Reading about safety and all these incidents of rape and brutal killings and day light murders, where do we think we are living? Now I have three theories about these unabated and shameless happenings. One, we have started taking the “World Ending in 2012” blasphemy seriously, and are letting the animal instincts take control (Actually, animal instinct tends to drive animals out of danger, so that term needs some serious brainstorming and subsequent revision). I saw quite a few facebook statuses stating that the Armageddon is inevitable, owing to the recent turn of weather events, like heavy snowfall in places which received it last more than half century ago, and I wonder what is wrong if God is overwhelmed with nostalgia over past and just trying to relive them? It isn’t abnormal to have things which used to be pretty normal a few years back, show up again. Maybe all the conservation efforts are bearing fruits this winter? (Though I’d merrily side with the Armageddon theory given the kind of nature we have, the frail human nature.) 

Back to safety issue, Theory number two, it all has been happening ever throughout the timeline but was never reported, but this does not explain what makes today different from any other day. Why report today, if you didn’t report yesterday? Making amends? That is nice. There are quite a lot of other things too that require amendments and probably a complete overhaul. It’s all about ratings I guess, more the rage in the event and more sensitive the issue, the better are the ratings, better the ratings, more is the readership and viewership, more audience means more advertisers, more advertisers mean more revenue, more revenues mean more avenues, avenues to grow more revenue and repeat. I don’t like seeing death scene repeated again and again and its autopsy being narrated with ample spice and sadistic mirth like enthusiasm on a news channel, while there are many other good and important events that get sidelined. Journalism of courage (Pointing at the whole bunch, not just the one who uses it)? Hah! What do I want, go back to Stone Age? I am afraid not, but there can always be a better way, unless you have the best, which definitely is not this one.

Third, people are turning into followers of Gaddafi and his likes and carrying out his orders of free pillaging, rape and murder. Gandhi’s out, Gaddafi’s in. Otherwise how do you account for a 15 year old and a 17 year old attempt rape and murder? They cannot be politically motivated, it is different. Curiosity cannot throw us overboard to such extreme steps in the first attempt itself, we are used to the easy ways. He’s dead anyway, want to follow suit?

 I read reports how incomplete and dysfunctional hospitals are being inaugurated overlooking a pile of construction material behind the tent house, of how funds are being embezzled into private accounts and I get into thinking of all the reforms that could be made. I read how newly born life is just waning away because there isn’t enough infrastructure in hospitals? That too in a country where the political power reins is in the hands of women who are mothers too? Have you been into a line to get a medical slip, or a test done, or anything like that. Won’t you want to get past all of them, by some means and get your work done faster? Well everyone there wants to do that. How many times we’ve used references to get a work done faster or used influence to get gains. 

Although Berlin wall might have fallen some time earlier than it was really supposed to due to a little miscommunication on the part of a senior congressman, but mistakes are not deliberate. But these days, I feel that Political parties are not interested in Good Governance, they are just interested in ‘Governance’, and being in power. Some are sending money orders to people to buy votes, circumventing the Electoral Procedures and shamelessly violating them, while others are simply giving away beer and wine (They know how to woo people now, don’t they). A politician whose credentials are often mocked at on facebook when compared with the desi RTI guy like the numerous annoying SMSes that we receive as ‘Forward this or else’ and ‘Think about it’ compliments people of a state that they are doing a pretty good job even in foreign nations whose farming would be so dull had it not been for these people. And the opposition, very crudely twists the compliment into a comment, that what does he want, that Indians should get back to doing labour? A really commendable job Sire! 

There are people who've witnessed what online forums and blogs and sites can potentially do, topple an anarchist, start a revolution. I wonder why is this itch then, to censor the internet. Are the lawmakers feeling left out that internet did not create wonders in their country? Or probably, Armageddon is for real, when we tear ourselves apart, and it starts like this only, in a disguise to prevent it from happening. Ah! The possibilities, it makes me giddy.

We apparently are showing a dismal performance in ‘Cricket’, which is a synonym of ‘sports’ to many, overlooking the good performances in other, minor sporting events.  Someone asked me yesterday if I was sane. I don’t know for sure, but there is a possibility that I am. This makes me wonder about something. Our brain is capable of handling many things, like sports, cars, arts, literature, sports, adventure, politics, business, science, maths, and etcetera. And there is a study that claims that an average human uses not more than 5% of the total brain in the entire lifetime. Looking at what I have written above, what would anyone infer of it? Too much facebook, perhaps? Anyways, I am digressing. But it is such an irony that even I have highlighted nothing more than what everyone’s talking about, the negative. But I have reached the end perhaps.

Like many others, my patriotism bubbles through me and when I am done reading it, burp! (and trust me, I gave up drinking cola just because of the afterburner burp it delivered). Gone, just like that. 

And so these men of Hindostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each of his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong!

~ John Godfrey Saxe