Democracy-a romantic story

I was watching a hindi movie and as it happens usually, the movie broke into a romantic song, the hero describing how beautiful his love is and nobody else is as pretty which instantaneously provoked a contradiction in me. Ofcourse I have seen people lovelier than the heroine. Am I right or is the hero saying the truth? Who would be the judge for this? I believe it is not the beauty of the lady which is making the hero sing but the romanticism in his heart which makes him see his love interest the prettiest.
Democracy in India is also viewed in the same context. It is a pretty idea and has even prettier intentions but is it right for the people of India.Just because it has reaped such good results in Europe and America; does it warrant to be good enough for India.
Democracy, which is held by the scruff of its neck by the invisible monarchy and ruling dynasty, suddenly does not seem so pretty.
The Supreme court asks the PM of India to clarify his stand on 2G spectrum issue but certain Mr Rahul Gandhi gives a clean chit to the PM. I am wondering if this is a contempt of court or sheer mockery of democratic setup.And democracy what
democracy; where we all know that Rahul Gandhi will be fourth in the generation who will, one day, rule India.And why should PM be even bothered about what Rahul thinks or says about this matter.
Xiabao was recently awarded the Nobel peace prize because he stood against the state of China and took part in cultural revolution. He is asking for freedom. I ask him
freedom for what? Freedom from corruption or freedom from social injustice or feedom from poverty or freedom from hunger or freedom from casteism or freedom from terrorism or freedom from bureaucracy or freedom from female infanticide. He should take a look at his right side and see the festering face of democracy in India where a person who is alleged to have been involved in 17000 crore Rs of scam is not even ready to abdicate his portfolio. There was a milk scam in China which led to the death of 5 or 6 children there.The perpetrators of this heinous crime were executed, whereas in our democratic India we are still grappling to punish a terrorist who was seen wielding his gun in public, pumping bullets into innocent bystanders.

The couple, at the end of the movie, are holding each other's hand, singing another sweet song ,the movie ends saying "They lived happily ever after".

It's different

How many of us would have had a small amount of saunf after finishing a good meal. As I put a little quantity of that spice in my mouth, putting the salivation process in motion and experiencing a sweet aftertaste, enjoying the bitter taste too , I started wondering why do I like this thing a lot. It does not taste like chicken nor does it titillate my taste buds as a hot gulabjamun would but still there is something so savoury about it which is quite hard to describe, at least I do not have enough words to describe the joy of chewing saunf after my lunch or dinner. The most I could say about this predilection of liking saunf is that it is different or maybe it tastes different from what I just had in my dinner. Perhaps, I may be getting carried away by this little habit of taking saunf but to me it just indicates the fact that we as human beings have a liking of experiencing something different in whatever form we may prefer. As an artist(which I am definitely not), who would have painted using a style for so many years, how exciting it would have been to take the brush and give it some strokes, which were completely different and unknown to him yet, never bothering to stand back and mulling over the acceptance of his/her creation because to a true artist these different strokes would certainly feel more beautiful than numerous other popular creations of his/hers. This feeling of joy and achievement would certainly be very private and subject to heavy citicism by the so called critics who spend their whole life searching for conforming patterns and reviling anybody who dares to draw another shape.But why would an artist ever try to explain the meaning of his/her creation, why would he/she try to evaluate his/her achievement against a finite number of parameters set by others because by creating something new he/she has just added one more parameter of judgement. Let Kevin Pietersen play a reverse pull, Murali bowl a doosra, Nadal play from the baseline on a grass court,rock bands play hard metal, Van Gogh paint his face in red because after all it is to them as if tasting a pinch of saunf and relishing its non traditional taste and saying softly- ahaaa.

Living vicariously

I have the control in my hand firmly gripped and my nimble fingers are dancing over the buttons and left, right triggers, the pupils of my eyes fully dilated , blood rushing to my face, heart beating faster to pump more blood to my brain and a sudden rush of adrenalin happens as soon as the creature from the dark forces suddenly appears from nowhere, wielding its deadly weapon and in its chilling voice utters the most horrifying of all the words-“Die”; but I am equal to the occasion, the gun is fully loaded , it takes me less than a second to aim it at its head and empty almost 20 rounds of bullets, the creature stands no chance at all and the taste of victory is sweet – first stage complete. As you would have guessed I am playing a video game I bought today, I am thrilled and excited by the mayhem and bloodshed I am going to cause from today onwards on my television screen.
But I ask myself a question -Do I have the same courage in me to banish my enemy in the face of such danger or am I brave enough to face this situation at all? Had there been a dearth of such predicaments around me I would have answered an emphatic YES but the bottom of my heart knows that mere imagining myself in such a situation gives me cold sweat but the joy I get by killing my foes on screen is simply incomparable. We were not so vicarious before but the hunger for entertainment has fuelled this mad rush to feel the excitement. Why do we watch action movies, horror movies? It is the unfulfilled desire of experiencing these emotions which drives us to feel them second hand. The Romans first got the taste of this kind of entertainment when they watched the gladiators thrown mercilessly to the hungry lions. What would they have experienced witnessing the gory sight of the hungry beasts shredding the humans to pieces? It would have been fear, excitement and joy. That was the start of humans falling prey to their vicarious side. Technology has made progress by leaps and bounds and has given us lot of ways to get entertained. 3 D movies today indicate the crest of our vicarious needs where we just do not want to sit in our seats but also desire to enter the world of Pandora(Avatar). I do not criticize these things but just want to caution ourselves that we should not indulge so much to this virtual entertainment that it drives us away from each other. Whenever there is a natural disaster or any tragedy around us, we nowadays donate money and feel good about that. Let’s not just do that but get involved more actively to the things around us and leave the virtual world to our tv sets.
Let’s stop living vicariously but start living.