The Boy Who Cried Wolf!

"...And in other news, Bangalore has FINALLY recorded its first H1N1 death"

A news channel spoke of this depressing news in the same tone as one declaring the winner of the Miss Universe beauty pageant.

I am perfectly aware that I've taken up a theme that's been thoroughly thrashed before and that all I'm doing here and now would come under the "All talk, no action" category... Still...

"Help! HELP!!! There's a WOLF at large!!!"

Every time I switch on a news channel, any news channel, I never fail to work up this furious indignation at how the media have been going on about the H1N1 epidemic. Since the first few days within the arrival of H1N1 in India, the media have been hyping the matter to the extent that one can not possibly discern if things really are as bad as they're made out to be. Each death, each infection is blown up to appear so daunting as to drive the entire population into a blind panic.

"Oh, not AGAIN!"
"Wolf?! Yeah, right...!!!"

Then again, even if the situation truly were that critical, there will be a considerable percentage of the population, that will brush the whole thing off, saying,"Tchah! These media people! They don't care about how they say what they say! All they care about is how to sensationalize news enough to lure in the unsuspecting masses and raise their TRP..." So there's a chance that these people may fall prey to the apparently wide-spread disease.

So where is the balance to be struck?

I'm glad that the media have got their heads back on (or have them had screwed on tight by the government), and have started asking the general public not to panic, and even in educating them as to how they could deal with the circumstances.

I suppose we ought to take everything the media say with a pinch of salt. We could talk to our doctors. We could take precautions. But most importantly, we must keep ourselves from losing our heads!

My little brother's first poem!!!

Here's a poem my brother wrote in the spirit of the Indian Independence Day (the 15th of August). Not bad, I would say, for his first attempt...

I Am An Indian

I am an Indian
I wonder why I am an Indian
I hear the national anthem
I see the Indian flag
I want to work for my country

I am an Indian
I pretend to be the leader of the country
I feel love for my motherland
I worry that my country will be destroyed by terrorists
I cry when my country is bombed

I am an Indian
I understand the patriotism of people
I say with pride that I am an Indian
I dream to make my country the world's best country
I try to make my country better
I hope to see my country better

I am an Indian

Love Chase

He froze in his tracks as she walked out of the gates of a building. 

She seemed magical. Ethereal. He was enchanted- and he knew, right then, without a doubt: She was The One.

As if in a trance, he followed her. He could no more help admiring her graceful gait and the seductive sway of her hips than a moth could help being drawn to a flame. Oh, those short, sweet legs had reeled him in hook, line and sinker. 

The vision of loveliness paused in front of him to smell the flowers growing by the sides of the street. In profile, he could now appreciate the smooth curve of her nose, her eyelids drooping to half-mast. He yearned- oh, how he yearned- for those honey brown eyes (he was sure they would be honey brown- certainly, God wouldn't be so cruel as to cheat him of THAT!) to look at him.

"Look at me, look at me!" was a chant fervently reverberating in his mind. Yet, he was almost terrified of that moment when she would turn him. Would he be able to glide to her, all suave and glib?- or would he just stand there, petrified, his tongue lolling out? AAARGH!!! This whole falling in love business was too agonizing to bear!

Unfortunately (fortunately?), she proceeded on without a glance behind her. He gazed at the smooth perfection of the curve of her ears. Suddenly, another mortifying thought struck him. She was fair, and soooo very angelic! What if she wasn't into brown haired guys? What if she didn't dig his long, long, LONG nose? What if.... she had a thing for The Very Tall, The Very Dark, and The Very Fierce ? (Shudder!!!)

WHY??!! Why was this happening to him? He couldn't possibly let his sweetheart be snatched by some dark dude with more bulk than sense!!! Especially not when his sweetheart didn't yet know she was his sweetheart! No, no, no, no, no!

While he was thus occupied, she stopped again, this time to humour the playful gamboling of little pups chasing around her. He caught his breath as he glimpsed a tender, sweet something in those meltingly warm honey brown (Thank You, God!) eyes. No creature on Earth had ever seemed to him as beautiful as she did now...

This was IT, he decided. It was now or never. He just HAD to go upto her, or he might lose her to Another forver! He thought he might go mad just THINKING of those built, phony dudes with the thickly laid-on phony gruffness in heir voices grabbing HIS girl.

After the first couple of tentative steps, he rushed after her. Nothing would hold him back now, NOTHING! 

He was just a few steps away from her now... The sunlight glistened in her fair hair. 

Almost there... He caught a waft of her alluring scent. 

Just. A. Step. More. 

He thought he might scare her off with his intensity- but then again, he might just swoon.

He was there! Gently, but with all the leashed fire of his passion, he sniffed her sweet behind.

"Oye! Get away, you filthy mongrel!"

It was her human. The nasty two-legged creature was dragging his precious love away from him, not giving her one chance to set eyes on him. 

His own master came toward him from the oposite side of the street, biscuit and leash in hand. My eyes returned of their own accord to Her.

Sometimes, Life can brutally tear your heart out and stomp all over it, like it was so much road-kill. It was doing just that now. To me. My heart was being wrenched out of my chest like-

"Pheeew! That's it, Roger! No more papaya for you, you disgusting mutt," said Jack, my human. 

Heaving a sigh from the very bottom of my soul ("Ugh!" said Jack, again), I went with him to drown my sorrow in some Pedigree- and hopefully, some stolen, no, borrowed papaya. 

Sweet Revenge

Summon him who invented the Exam!
Let's see how he likes to mug up and cram
Science, Logic, Mathematics,
(Throw in some metaphysics);
Bet the prospect alone should make him scram!

To lead, or NOT to lead? That is the question.

I wonder what it is about power and authority that scares and excites me so much... It makes me a glutton and a coward at one and the same time! When the opportunity comes along, for me to take charge, I vacillate between taking the bull by its horns and running the other way .
But I have discovered that I am the sort of person to revel in the limelight, and also the sort to blissfully hold up other powers' pennants. That should solve my problem for me, shouldn't it? But no, I still don't know when the time is right for me to take charge and when I should sit back and let the others take the wheel...
(I seem to have messed up my metaphors throughout this load of gobbledygook that I've typed out of sheer ennui, but you get the gist of what I wanted to say, didn't you?)

Growing up.

She sat by the window sill,
Brooding- her sad eyes settled
Unseeing on the fireplace grill-
Her mind with memories filled.

How the years had taken their toll
On this once bright-eyed, happy sprite.
Though worries had swallowed her whole,
Never did she give up the fight.

Of a sudden, sounds the faint cry
Of an infant: and how her eyes
Brightened- like lilies in July!
Oh, how the sorrow fled her eyes!

He was the anchor of her life
When of harmony there was none.
He was born of a bitter strife
That a lapse of reason had begun.

Silly blunder, though it had been,
Its outcome was a precious life.
For him had she resolved to win:
'Round her son, now revolved her life.

True, it had made her quite a drudge;
Nonetheless, so full was her cup,
Indeed never would she begrudge
Those fine days she spent growing up.

Pessimism and Posterity

We all know the stereotype of youngsters- that they're innocent and easily led. We think they're either naively optimistic or are blank of opinions. But what happens when we meet a young person, who's just barely done with his teens, who hates the country he lives in? This person expressed in no uncertain terms, nor in mild ones, that he thought that our country is 'going to the dogs' and that Kalam's 'dreams' are just that- irreality. He insisted that India's plans of becoming a developed nation are at least a 100 years away, and that the process cannot be sped in any way. Not even if the youngsters of our nation 'awake and take lead', because our country just isn't ready for it. The calls and cries for the young of our nation to take charge of our corrupt country are premature and are contradicted by the hypocritic politicians.
Now having listened to this bitter and cynical tirade, what can one do but to say, "Our time will come"? If one man so young loses all hope, then doesn't it make you think how many more out there are thinking "US is US, Japan is Japan, but India will always be only India"?
Well, listen up, young India- a little bit of realistic optimism goes a long way. A little bit of patriotism will take India all the way.