So an eventful year comes to an end.
The world came torn apart by mad bankers who played poker with the world economy, the mother of all presidential elections came to an end, making an African American the most powerful man on earth, a handful of youngsters tore apart Aamchi Mumbai (making it stand up stronger and more determined than ever).... and on a personal front, we both celebrated our first 12 months of the institution thats called marriage.
Christmas time is an empty kinda thing here in Germany. Streets are void, the snow is chilling and people are all inside their homes. So unless you have family here with whom you can spend your 4 days of vacationing, stuffing yourself to the ends of obesity in the process, you (read: all desis) MUST plan a trip out somewhere. Europe gives you quite many options to do that, though they are fairly limited during the cold winters.
So what was it be this time? Salzburg - the land of Mozart and the Von Trapps (remember the Sound of Music?)
After a good 3 days and a hugely overjoyed wife, we both are back to home, although not without a considerable hangover which (obviously) wants the vacations to never end.
The highlights of the trip surely being the Untersberg trip - up in the snowy peaks, and the trip to the Beer Museum - StieglBrau that was followed by a number of complimentary glasses of freshly brewed Austrian speciality washed down the throat.
Its that time of the year.
The aftereffects of too much beer
Makes you feel funny in the head,
And you say instead...
Meppy Christmas and Hairy You Near!
Have a great 2009 everyone!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Enough is enough
(A new post appears on this webpage after almost 5 months. But when would one speak out, if not at this time?)
Few months ago, we Indians were talking our heads off about a group called NSG - The Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Politicians threatened to resign, the media speculated and sensationalized, the intellectuals debated, discussed and the indifferent ridiculed the whole circus about the Nuclear Deal.
Come November 2008, India was talking about another NSG this time. NSG, the elite group of commandos that was supposed to protect our...... err... great leaders against misbehaving crowds and the occasional assasin!
Did someone say they were also supposed to protect us? We the people? Are you kidding? They way they were stationed back there in Delhi, the way they were brought in to Mumbai in a plane borrowed from Chandigarh, the way they waited at the Mumbai airport for an hour, waiting for a 'best' bus (notice the irony) to take them to the scene of action, it certainly didn't seem so...
Looking at the way the NSG men worked non stop for 60 hours, I felt a sense of pride.
And I have never felt so proud and sorry for my country at the same time!
On one side there were the unselfish staff at the two hotels, the dutiful firemen, the unitiring police constables, the common people who quenched the thirst of the ones at the site, and of course the NSG themselves.
And on the other side there was the ever sensationalist media, and the juggernaut called Maar-khaa Dutt who ran amok pushing aside survivers, commandos and the onlookers, the spineless politicians profiting on the situation, all the bickering to get to the CM's seat, the Intelligence failure or the government's failure to heed to intelligence, and the complete bureaucracy which ensured that the NSG arrived at the scene not earlier than 9 hours after the attacks started.
Can somebody pls explain to the procurement department in the Government, police or whatsoever, that rifles and pistols from the world war 2 do not work in this new century! And yeah, Bullet proof vests are supposed to stop... you got it.... bullets!!
Guess any fundamentalist anywhere in the world might be thinking now... "Hell, I could just borrow my friend's fisherman raft, 'pak' my rucksack with the latest ammo, reach the shores of Mumbai and just bomb the hell out of the city! Wait, I need not do that myself. I'll just get a downtrodden guy in the 20s, brainwash him against the Western ideology and he will be ready to kill left-right-center even before you can say, 'Jihad'!"
This is simply not done!
And yeah, bombing the neighbouring country isn't going to help. Even though if it might, then the first thing is to get our internal security system in place. Someone needs to get tough and tax the junta a few percentage points more, just so that our police and the NSG get the minimum required equipment, the Naval guards get the right gear to monitor our porous shorelines and the people in the public security services get paid well !
Till the time we have malnourished-looking and underpaid policemen, who have to sadly cling to old time rifles and 'laathis', and till the time we all started respecting their profession just a little bit more, things wouldn't change.
I wish they would.
Few months ago, we Indians were talking our heads off about a group called NSG - The Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Politicians threatened to resign, the media speculated and sensationalized, the intellectuals debated, discussed and the indifferent ridiculed the whole circus about the Nuclear Deal.
Come November 2008, India was talking about another NSG this time. NSG, the elite group of commandos that was supposed to protect our...... err... great leaders against misbehaving crowds and the occasional assasin!
Did someone say they were also supposed to protect us? We the people? Are you kidding? They way they were stationed back there in Delhi, the way they were brought in to Mumbai in a plane borrowed from Chandigarh, the way they waited at the Mumbai airport for an hour, waiting for a 'best' bus (notice the irony) to take them to the scene of action, it certainly didn't seem so...
Looking at the way the NSG men worked non stop for 60 hours, I felt a sense of pride.
And I have never felt so proud and sorry for my country at the same time!
On one side there were the unselfish staff at the two hotels, the dutiful firemen, the unitiring police constables, the common people who quenched the thirst of the ones at the site, and of course the NSG themselves.
And on the other side there was the ever sensationalist media, and the juggernaut called Maar-khaa Dutt who ran amok pushing aside survivers, commandos and the onlookers, the spineless politicians profiting on the situation, all the bickering to get to the CM's seat, the Intelligence failure or the government's failure to heed to intelligence, and the complete bureaucracy which ensured that the NSG arrived at the scene not earlier than 9 hours after the attacks started.
Can somebody pls explain to the procurement department in the Government, police or whatsoever, that rifles and pistols from the world war 2 do not work in this new century! And yeah, Bullet proof vests are supposed to stop... you got it.... bullets!!
Guess any fundamentalist anywhere in the world might be thinking now... "Hell, I could just borrow my friend's fisherman raft, 'pak' my rucksack with the latest ammo, reach the shores of Mumbai and just bomb the hell out of the city! Wait, I need not do that myself. I'll just get a downtrodden guy in the 20s, brainwash him against the Western ideology and he will be ready to kill left-right-center even before you can say, 'Jihad'!"
This is simply not done!
And yeah, bombing the neighbouring country isn't going to help. Even though if it might, then the first thing is to get our internal security system in place. Someone needs to get tough and tax the junta a few percentage points more, just so that our police and the NSG get the minimum required equipment, the Naval guards get the right gear to monitor our porous shorelines and the people in the public security services get paid well !
Till the time we have malnourished-looking and underpaid policemen, who have to sadly cling to old time rifles and 'laathis', and till the time we all started respecting their profession just a little bit more, things wouldn't change.
I wish they would.
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