Mirror mirror..am I the most beautiful of all..

Oatmeal and a fruit for breakfast, salad at lunch, yoghurt for dessert and an ultra lean cuisine for dinner (its ultra lean coz the ‘phoreners’:-) say dinner after 7 p.m is poison for those who want to acquire a slim body)..if people are thinking what is this for, then give me the honour to enlighten you (even if you don’t, I would take the privilege :-))—This is the ‘perfect’ menu for looking good..want a trimmer waist and that ‘extra’ glow to complement your face, then u all will have to follow it diligently (now don’t frown, am not telling u guys to starve). After all we have to give competition to the mannequins. Remember..the Bennet daughters..ya am talking of Austen’s pride and prejudice-no beauty, no groom-again Grim’s fairy tales..not even a single story was dedicated to a princess who was not beautiful..it seems children only liked a beautiful princess :-).

Irrespective of our gender, class, caste, community, we all want to look beautiful. Ask the self-conscious teenagers, they say..they want to look ‘beautiful’ to receive recognition and acknowledgement. Similarly, they also want to hang out with ‘beautiful’ people for the same.

Thanks to the ‘touch-ups’ of digital images, this has further encouraged people’s love for beauty/perfection. Eliminating the red-eye effect is history..no more blemishes, freckles, undereye bags and yah! The damn thing pores..u don’t see those anymore in the images. Great! Like words we can edit our looks too.

Now an age old question..do we judge people by their looks/beauty?(the love at first sight people are disqualified from answering this question). So to this an age old answer- a book should not be judged by its cover..did I hear that..did I..someone’s whispering—real beauty is found in the person as a whole..the character, beliefs, behaviour (oh! The clichéd dialogue…). No matter how careful one is…until and unless one has some prior knowledge about the story or the stuff of the book, it’s the outside of the book that decides its fate.


(with malice to one and all… ‘me’ included :-))

Thoughts..incomplete..

Kadambari's slim fingers stroked the aching back, it's been aching since Tuesday..and its getting worse.. her fingers..slowly measured the vast expanse of the empty bed...how many years or is it just the other day..Kadambari thought..she was loved, desired..


'mamma mamma...' little Kabhi came running..and hugged her tight..it was hard for her to breathe..


and there we witness..the birth of another incomplete thought..


(a thought..which Kadambari might never get a chance to complete..and I guess we all know 'why'?)

a non-achiever..

I think maybe I am a non-achiever whose biggest achievement in life is..err..nothing (maybe when I procreate, that would be one).
Of late, this feeling of being a non-achiever is haunting me. Why would it not haunt me as in this last 50-60 days, am forced to consider by my circumstances..that am a total non-achiever.
First, I was bed-riddened for a month(getting sick is not a crime, but when its said that its due to your carelessness then....)
Second, I left my job (not a lucrative one..but still it gave me some satisfaction)
Third, My dissertation (I have to submit it in two months)..and this would be the longest one..my present plight..the other day, my guide told me "..your data analysis chapter is very uninteresting..no one would read that.." I stood puzzled for a while..never in my wildest dream have I thought that something as dry as data, and further, analysis of that data had any chance of being interesting--after all facts are to be presented as facts. Morever, I never thought am writing a novel, which would be written by keeping in mind the intellectual demands of the readers. Anyway, its been a year now-and in this phase all I was doin was thinking about the aspects of crafting, implementing and defending my dissertation..and the further thinking included..field work, sample size, informants, cloze tests...After many sleepless nights, I Prepared a tabulated form of my data. Now, my guide says I don't need to make it a part of my my dissertation(its not needed even in the appendix)..ok..now I was not at all prepared for this..I looked at him with my pleading eyes..but he was too lost in my literature review chapter to notice me..and lo! there goes my twenty pages of data tabulation in the dustbin.
I guess this isn't enough to make me a non-achiever..so here's some more..why I think am a non-achiever..
I never laughed at Tom & Jerry, never cried for anything substantial (other than those routine fights with N), never completed a cricket match, never read Pride and Prejudice (have of course seen the poor adaptation by Gurinder Chadda), never had gin, vodka or whatever (don't even remember the names)and whenever had few sips of coca-cola, pepsi..ended up with non-stop burps (don't hate it..its human), never tried a cigarette, never praised anything for its 'energy'(energy to live..recently I found another moron..she too never did this), never enjoyed a train journey...ok..ok..I should better stop it here..otherwise I would go into depression..:-)

Mindless banter..

…you like my mind..that is not my best feature, you can’t love me for that…

Well..well..well..what comes to your mind when you listen to these lines..that ‘the her’(lets guess she is a lady) is not convinced by the words of ‘the he’ (lets guess that this ‘the he’ is ‘the her’s’ lover…no..no..a person who wants to be her lover…silly me..where have I ever heard or seen a person in a relationship saying..he loves her for her mind..I bet..it has to be the courtship period).

Anyway, A beautiful mind (ya..exactly..the movie n the book with the same name where the wife loved her husband irrespective of his paranoid schizophrenia), an invincible mind (came across it only in literature…if people have used it in their day to day life, pardon my ignorance)…have not heard of a pretty mind or for that matter, a sexy mind yet…mind is not supposed to be attached to such adjectives..especially..the latter two..


Ok! The question is still hanging..like a pendulum (awful comparison, could have thought of something better)..

Can ‘the he’ love (scary word..right..n especially when it connotes responsibilities, commitment and last but not the least..marriage, by now “the hes’” must have drank some pink syrup from the witch with the broomstick’s cupboard n gone invisible) ‘the her’ just because ‘the he’ likes ‘the her’s’ mind…(and mind it..unlike what is said above, this is the only best feature possessed by ‘the her’s’)…

Doubtful..Isn’t it…

silence plz....

Silence soothes. I guess we all believe in this..and especially when we are bed-riddened.

I remember, someone once said...a pressure cooker hissing is less cacophonous than knots of colleagues talking and laughing aloud. ok..am loosing the track..It happened like this that..some weeks back, I was bed-riddened for almost a month..and at that point in time, I became the most frustrated, irritated person on earth..and with that I became a blind lover of silence. Every moment I felt..people around me were conspiring against me by using their vocal cords just to generate noise..noise to hit my eardrums. Today as I was flipping through the pages of my diary, I found this lost love of mine for silence..which I had happily forgotten once I was ok. (silly me..)
I guess we all go through these silly phases some time or other...(excuses..:-))

...story..love..etc.

...what can you say about a twenty five year old girl who died
....that she was brilliant and beautiful, that she loved Mozart, Bach, the Beatles and me...

Oh! minor mistake in the quote...its 'she was beautiful and brilliant'(how can I imagine that brilliance would come before beauty).....Some nine years back, I wrote these very lines...well, I was in grads first year then, and in our alternative English paper, we were asked to write an essay on our favourite book. And lo! I started with these very lines..probably scored some average marks. And day before yesterday, as I was watching this movie, ya.. Love Story 1970, based on Eric Segal's 'Love Story...' I couldn't stop my tears..(oh! I never thought am such a closet romantic)..Anyway, the thing which is bothering me is what was lacking at that point in time..that though I loved the book..I was not that sentimental about it (..its not that am very senti about it now)...I tried finding an answer..but nothing concrete came to my mind...maybe..as adults we often tend to lock our emotions in a closet..so somehow if something ..some words.. accidently meet each other as strangers..we get a tug-at-the-hearstring..

But ya..I know..these lines about Jenny..has something..which would always make it much more than a mere love story for me....

Whats goin on??

Pakistan is the only country of the world which the American CIA has made target of its devastating covert and brutal overt activities. All the activities of the CIA are based on flawed intelligence. Keeping this in view, a national strategic plan has been prepared in the US and given the name of AFPAK strategy. The US security reservations have exposed Pakistan's stability to threats. One point five billion dollar annual aid is one of the apparent facets of this strategy. Besides, the powerful US officials like Richard Holbrooke and Admiral Mike Mullen will continue to pay visits to Pakistan to reassure about the US aid. There is another aspect that is under the administration of the intelligence chief. In this regard, we, as a nation, are paying heavy price for it by putting our sovereignty at stake.

It makes no difference what is the mandate of the people or what grand democratic institutions we want to establish. No one can put the country on the path of progress, be it Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz [PML-N] or Pakistan Peoples Party [PPP], until the CIA continues to fly its drones into our airspace, until the US troops continue to be increased in Afghanistan, and until its secret activities continue. The Indian intelligence agency, RAW is fully supporting the CIA in Balochistan while Britain's MI-6 and Israel's Mossad are also fully supporting the secret activities. KGB also has to settle scores with the Inter Services Intelligence [ISI] and CIA and it wants the US and Pakistan to continue to squander their man power and material resources so that the shameful defeat suffered by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan could be avenged. KGB, and the Indian RAW had been close associates during the cold war. They still enjoy close relationship and are eyeing on the downfall of Pakistan.

The region is full of different types of Taliban. For instance, "CIA Taliban", "Mullah Omar's Taliban", "KGB's Taliban", "Punjabi Taliban", and the "ISI's Taliban". Besides, militant chieftains of mujahidin, drug barons, terrorist groups of Al-Qa'ida, religious extremists, mercenaries, and foreign troops are also present in the region. All of them are indulging in killing and plundering the people under the guise of Islam and dreaming gain of power. With the full backing of the US and NATO forces, CIA is making the ruling classes of Pakistan implement its demands at every level. The CIA accuses that the ISI is in contact with Taliban and this is the reason that there is deficit of trust between the two agencies. The CIA wants the ISI to become weak and helpless enough so that it [CIA] may find no hurdle in the way of its access to our nuclear assets. There is complex situation in intelligence affairs and no one appears to be succeeding or failing in it.

The track record of CIA's acts and activities has been very poor. Inefficient administration and manpower, wrong propaganda, and misuse of facilities are clearly visible in the graph of its performance. The death and devastation caused by it and killing of thousands of innocent people has led to creation of hatred amongst the people, particularly among the Muslim countries, against the US. The unrest and turmoil we are facing today was caused by the withdrawal of the US [as published] forces from Afghanistan in 1990, at a time when their presence was direly needed there.

The creation of Taliban militants and getting of influence by Al-Qa'ida is part of the US strategy that was prepared months before 9/11. The region went out of control on the day when CIA provided wrong and exaggerated information to the US President regarding the 9/11 incident and held both Taliban and Al-Qa'ida responsible. As a result of this CIA step, both the groups united and Al-Qa'ida took overall leadership. By unleashing excessive propaganda against this terror group, the US gave this the importance that was much more than its capabilities. Usama Bin Laden became a hero of the Islamic world. Its organization [leadership] is still in hiding with billions of dollars while thousands of people have been killed in hunt for Bin Laden.

Though it is too late, we still have time to control the situation. The present political leadership should realize that there is need to take the nation into confidence by putting an end to in-camera session because it represents them as well. I believe that Pakistan Army is the best combat force and if political stability is achieved in the country, the morale of our army will further be boosted. We'll have to sink political difference, and have to unite to foil the enemies and to win the overt and covert intelligence war. If Asif Ali Zardari, Yousuf Raza Gilani, Nawaz Sharif, and other leaders stand shoulder to shoulder, no CIA, RAW, Mossad, and KGB can harm us. There is need for the political parties, government, and media to make the ISI active with full support. End

(Pakistani Article Says CIA, RAW, Mossad, KGB Cannot Harm us If we Forge Unity)

-a local newspaper in pakistan 'khabrein' on 30th April,09 published this article. Found it interesting.

(we judge everythin from our n our country's point of view, it's interestin to listen to "their" point of view for a change...as Voltaire once said-'I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.')