17 August 2010

Dhokha !!

I am currently reading Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. An intelligent story with brilliant narration.(till now)
Total: 25 chapters. After reading chapter 16, just when the story was taking an important turn, I noticed that chapters 17 & 18 were missing!!
The story directly jumps to chapter 19 which is printed twice. Fuming with anger and disgust, I felt like tearing the book apart into a million pieces and throwing it out of the train.
However, as I gained control over my emotion (after listening to a Euphoria's song), I began reading further.

Chapter 19 onwards. Got to know that one of the main characters, Hassan died. Its itching to know HOW??
Currently, I am in the mid of chapter 22.
It was a paperback edition by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc :(

~Added later~
Completed!
Just a few doubts left uncleared-
How did Hassan and his wife die?
Who were the Caldwells?

15 August 2010

Happy Aazadi to one and all :)
Freedom...the word, in itself is so soothing to the ears. The newspapers, radio stations, news channels all are shouting this and that about independence, since a few days.
So, I also started feeling patriotic today :D
I felt like listening to A.R.Rehman's Vande Mataram and watching Rang De Basanti.
But there lies some hypocrisy in all of us whether we admit it or not. This patriotism should be real, it shouldn't be such that it stays for days like 15 August and 26 January and then is washed away the next day.

People who claim to be patriotic are looked down upon as emotional, outdated or posers! No doubt, most of them are! And those who are true in their feeling, are kids, who haven't seen the real India and still cling to the 'sweet-sugary 'notions taught at school...u know..all the cheeni-cheeni stuff..
But on the other hand, how can patriotism be true when we have lost faith in the country itself. All due to the people at the top.
 Some days back, I was watching a show on ndtv on the anniversary of Kargil War. And a senior Army officer (now retd.) admitted that "If there was less restriction and orders from the political bosses, India would have won Kargil a long time back, with much...much less loss of lives.
Actually, India lost the war because the number of our dead and wounded soldiers was nearly twice that of Pakistan's soldiers."

This Independence Day, we witness another wonderful incident-
The Prime Minister's APPEAL in today's newspaper: Donate generously to the National Relief Fund for victims in Leh"
What a perfect time it is ! The solution lies outright before us !
Many ministers' names have been coming up in Commonwealth Games Scam. Instead of sqeezing money out from us, go extract it out from those who have accumulated wealth enough-for-their-generations in the CWG Scam. Impose heavy penalties on them and you can easily collect funds for Leh victims.

We have seen uncountable incidents where India itself has been insulted by political leaders in one way or the other. The entire scene needs enormous changes and we have been repeating this line since years but now its time we acted.
If we want change at the top, we need to start change from the bottom.
Here I remember the dialogue from Rang De Basanti: Police mein bharti honge, Military join karenge, IAS banenge, politics ka hissa banke is desh ki sakaar chalayenge.Ye desh badlega, Hum badlenge ise !!

God knows, how many lives will be laid down in this process. But if the outcome is as desired, I am for it.


Image courtesy:http://www.sumitgoyal.com/2008/08/15/happy-independence-day/