Smoke On the Window Sill

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Sand in my Shoes

It was the most perfect morning ever. I opened my eyes and looked outside far beyond the white veil of the curtain adorning our hotel room and all I could see was palm trees – two tall ones at an angle on either side of the huge window and a whole lot of them in the distance far ahead.



I wondered what was it that I loved so passionately about the barrenness of the desert – a love which has increased only fiercely over the years, each time I find myself close to the mountains and the empty vastness of the desert sky. They say there is a perfect landscape for each one of us – something that defines the elemental in us, something that draws us in completely and makes us want to melt away in its nothingness. If there was ever such a thing - then I can say with absolute conviction that for me it was this, right here, right now and for always – my love for the desert, in all its emptiness and all its glory....

I shifted my gaze from the window to behind me –A was still sleeping, peacefully. This trip had turned out to be quite a pleasant surprise after all. It was A’s treat to me – I am usually the trip planner for all our trips but this time around he did everything - right from the choice of the vacation destination, to the sight-seeing planning to the hotel booking, a room with a beautiful view right in the middle of the center tower, all the way to the top floor. And so far, it had been a dreamlike vacation. We checked in last night to this most amazing resort in San Diego with the perfect holiday vibe all around and not to mention the perfect weather!



By the time that we got out of the hotel it was noon and we spent the entire afternoon exploring the old downtown San Diego. As evening began to set in, we drove towards Coronado ‘Island’ which boasts of blue skies and white sands and is a popular holiday destination for many a travel folks. We parked the car and started walking down the main strip of restaurants in downtown Coronado. We went inside a hip, trendy coffee/sandwich place and were pleasantly greeted by live music sung by a pretty woman sitting on one corner of the room holding a guitar. I instantly fell in love with the vibe inside the place and interestingly even liked the food that I ordered! The thing about me is that I’m very fuzzy about food – and on top of that I’m a vegetarian and a non-salad eater! But there, that’s me and I have a hard time, well lets correct that - people who are with me have a hard time listening to the not-this, maybe-that game that I play when deciding about where-to-go. The usual word which goes around is that if I’m asking where to go – no one is supposed to 'really' answer to that question ;-)

So, we ate in absolute silence – A and I, listening to the beautiful songs being played around us one by one. There was a sheet lying on one side besides the bar stool where the pretty woman was singing and I noticed it was the list of the songs you could request her to play. I asked her if she could sing ‘Wind beneath my wings..’ and she said she sure would....

I’m amazed at people who can sing so well and often wonder how do they give their whole heart while singing something each and everytime. It’s a lot of emotional effort I think and it would surely drain me if I were them, singing in their place putting so much of myself, in every single piece. But she sang and she sang beautifully – and I loved it completely. I told her she had an amazing voice, to which she responded with a thanks and a wide open smile. It was a smile that I would never forget – it was a face that I could never forget - even today, almost a year after that day as I’m writing this, I can see her sitting in that coffee shop and playing another beautiful melody, singing another lovely song and making someone else’s life picture perfect....

A and I left the coffeeshop and walked down towards the beach. It was an amazing evening and the sun was setting somewhere in the distance, casting a soft vermilion hue onto the receding waters of the Pacific. There was white sand all along the stretch of the beach. We walked for a long time on the sand and took in all the happiness from the evening – a million sights and a zillion dreams, maybe some our own….We came back from the long walk and A decided to bury my feet deep in the sand. He made me sit on the blue-green beach towel and gathered in the sand all around me, onto my feet, while I was laughing endlessly and asking him to stop. A group of young women walking around us smiled approvingly at him and he told me that they too thought it was the most romantic thing to do. It was indeed, the sweetest thing ever – something I know I would remember for a long long time to come. If I close my eyes today and search for a memory so strong that would be the happiest of all in my entire life – this would be the closest to one…just those few moments - the setting tangerine sun, the endless waters of the ocean and A burying my feet all the way up in the white sand and making an impression on it which said – I love you…

It’s weird how you remember things, all of a sudden one fine day, sometimes after as long as a year. I was listening to this song from Dido called Sand in my shoes and the only thing I could think of was the San Diego beach and the white sand and the perfect vacation with A. And I can't help but sing along what she's sung so beautifully..

I've still got sand in my shoes
And I can't shake the thought of you
I shake it all, forget you
Why, why would I want to
I know we said goodbye
Anything else would've been confused but I wanna see you again
I wanna see you again


Friday, August 03, 2007

Do you believe..in what you see?


Was watching 'House' today and picked up this amazing song from the soundtrack at the end of the episode. Have been hooked to this song and singer since...it' so soulful...and so haunting....the voice and the lyrics...completely mesmerizing.... the song is called 'in the Waiting Line' , the album is Simple Things from Zero 7 and the singer is Sophie Barker..I had never heard of her before... she somehow reminds me of Emily Deschanel from 'Bones'...but now I'm in love with her voice...

Here is a link from youtube


Wait in line
'Till your time
Ticking clock
Everyone stop
Everyone's saying different things to me
Different things to me

Do you believe
In what you see
There doesn't seem to be anybody else who agrees with me

Do you believe
In what you see
Motionless wheel
Nothing is real
Wasting my time
In the waiting line

Nine to five
Living lies
Everyday
Stealing time
Everyone's taking everything they can
Everything they can
Everyone's taking everything they can
Everything they can

Do you believe
In what you feel
It doesn't seem to be anybody else who agrees with me

Ah and I'll shout and I'll scream
But I'd rather not have seen
And i'll hide away for another day...

Everyone's saying different things to me
Different things to me

Monday, October 09, 2006

Dhoop Kinaray...

raat yun dil mein teri khoyi hui yaad aayi,
jaise veeraane mein chupke se bahaar aa jaye,
jaise sehraaoN mein haulay se chale baad-e-naseem,
jaise beemaar ko be-wajh qaraar aa jaaye

This is a ghazal by Nayyara Noor, which always puts me in a somber mood, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. I heard it long back in a very old Pakistani play called Dhoop Kinaray which I first saw when I was 15 or 16. I’ve grown up a lot on Pakistani influence in my household. Being from Punjab, very close to Amritsar, we used to catch Pakistani channels on our TV every now and then. My dad used to be a big fan of serials like Neelam Ghar, Bakra kishton pe, Budda ghar pe hai. Those are the precious memories from my childhood, when we used to sit together watching one of these absolutely hilarious plays and laugh all the way through. Among the serious ones, I remember watching Tum se kehna tha (ok, this was funny too!!), Tanhayian and Sitara aur Mehr-un-Nissa. I think all of them had Marina Khan in them and I was in love with this Pakistani TV personality at that time....

But my fondest memories are from Dhoop Kinaray – a play I used to watch over and over again during that time, but completely forgot about it for so many years in between. A few days ago, I found several old VHS of that play catching dust in my house and I couldn’t resist watching it again. Strangely enough, even after so many years it had the same effect on me….I was in love with every single bit of it. The play is about the intricacies of relationship between two people separated by a big chunk of age gap – but who fall in love with each other against all odds. I love the way the characters blend so well into their persona, the way they make you laugh and live every single bit of life -as it is, with all the blues and all the greys….

Even today, when I listen to the title song, it makes me want to believe in the idea of that one love, which will walk into my life stealthily one day and sweep me off the floor! Maybe it already has done so, who knows :) as for now, I’m rooted right here in the ground listening to this song on repeat, for the nth time.

Here is where you can listen to it too, and no I can’t translate it for you. I feel there is something so pure, so complete about urdu ghazals, that it defies the very idea of moulding it into any form other than it’s own. But if you must insist, here is a translation by Vikram Seth from Musings and Such

Last night your faded memory came to me
As in the wilderness spring comes quietly,
As, slowly, in the desert, moves the breeze,
As, to a sick man, without cause, comes peace.

hmmmmm...on second thoughts if I had to change that translation to make the essence of the ghazal stay and not do a literal translation, I would have changed it to..

Last night your faded memory came to me
As in the wilderness spring comes quietly,
As, slowly, in the desert, moves the breeze
As, a wound, for no reason, heals....

still doesn't do an iota of justice to the ethereal lyrics :)

Monday, August 07, 2006

Sweet compulsion...

Taken at a bar last night, and no I wasn't drunk! :)

In Sepia..



And in colour..

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

To Closures...

I listened hard to the rain beating outside my window pane last night… trying to make sense of the sudden emptiness that I had engulfed myself in, since a few days. As the rain washed down the window and the roof top, I remembered a similar night long back….a night when it was raining fearlessly too and I had immersed myself completely to the sound of acoustic guitar…all around me. Sprawled on my carpet, listening to the storm outside, I had let it drown all the pain inside of me – and had bid farewell to the memories of R….Remembering that evening today, I realized – that this too was maybe, a grieving process. Tonight, I was to let go of K...

I met him a little more than a year ago, through a friend of friend and in the first 2 months of meeting him, we quarrelled almost four times, seriously to say the least. He had told me upfront that he was interested in me and I had told him that I wasn’t and would never be. He could not understand why I wanted to go out with him, still. I had struggled hard to tell him that I like meeting people, knowing them and making friends. Choosing a life partner was not for me the only reason for getting to know a guy...

I thought we understood each other slowly over time and that he got to accept me and our friendship for what it was and not for what it could ever be. But on hindsight, I think that was not completely true. I could see him letting go of what was there between us -slowly, gradually over time and then suddenly one day..

He had asked once, if he would be for me, just another memory that will fade with time, and I had replied - ‘that would never be.’ But today, here I was - trying to let go of all the memories which belonged to him – of nostalgia, threaded to his being, of drives that we took together, of lonely evenings spent in cafeterias and of the talks which made me feel so comfortable and so light..

I do look back and regret the end, as I had always thought we’d be more open about our feelings towards each other, if ever there was a need to let go. But I think that I had undermined the hurt that I may have caused him over time, his dreams and his desires. So, I have no remorse or bitterness against him today or what he did. I wish him well and hope that he would look back and remember with fondness some of the time that we spent together – and instead of pebbles in the sand of broken dreams, he would chose to pick up the gems - the beautiful memories which strung us together for a short time...

So, here’s to closures and to breaking up of yet another lovely friendship. Long after the tears have dried, the wounds have healed and the green summer is traded for the vibrant autumn, what would stay with me is this faint memory of a beautiful evening spent together – when I took him with me to one of the sunset drives and swore never to take him again, jokingly- not knowing that it would become true, so true - one day...



The dying day..




The other side..




The tower lining...




The sprawled tree..




The closure..

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Two lives and a dream

It’s weird that I read all these stories today. This, this and this. Atra’s, ano’s and Shruthi’s blog. Weird because while I was coming home from work, I remembered something from my India trip a year back – something that I had long forgotten, but which made its way back into my memory this evening. When I reached home, somehow I found other things to keep me busy - chit-chat with friends, make dinner for the night and even bake a cake! Not until I read Atra’s blog and wandered off to others, did I realize that all I was doing till now was what I’ve become so good in doing these past few years - feign ignorance to some little things that have made a difference in my life, some things that I have really wanted to say for a while...

Last summer I happened to be in India when my younger brother M, was taking his engineering entrance exams. His last exam was the Delhi College of Engineering which took place in mid May sometime. It was a hot and sweltering day in Delhi and his centre was in the Shahadra area, quite far from where we were staying. I volunteered with dad to go with him to the test centre and since none of us were aware of the way to the centre, we decided to take a cab. It didn’t take us long to find the examination centre, as although the school where he had to go to, was in some narrow, busy street to the inside of some colony in Shahadra, but people around the area were aware of its whereabouts. The exam was at 10, I think and was to get over in 2 and a half hours or so. We decided to drop M and wait there only, for him to get back.

It was one of my first few days back in India. The days when I’m the most nostalgic about it all – the crowded streets, the raw mix of a hundred different smells, a zillion somber/colourful sights and finally the loud and blaring sounds of car honks. The few days when I’m the most unguarded with respect to my emotions and let myself soak up whatever I can find in the air around me.

So, dad and I took a seat in the back seat of our cab, in shade beneath a huge banyan tree and waited for my bro to finish his exam. I think I had got a book with me to read (although I’m having a hard time right now remembering which one) and dad had got two or three different Sunday newspapers with him (his idea of complete nirvana on a Sunday morning). I sat back in the cab and looked around. We were surrounded by auto-wallahs and cab wallahs almost exclusively, with a few personal cars parked here and there. Somewhere in some cab, someone switched on Radio Mirchi – and the song that started playing was 'Chura liya..', followed by some more nice old hindi songs and then some latest pop. There was something so light in the air about me, which gave an almost rosy picture to my surroundings. If someone had asked me that very moment how I was feeling, I would have happily said – content with my life. Except that within a few minutes, I was really hungry.

Far somewhere, beyond a corner I spotted a 'rehri' selling kulche-chole. Although I could see the stall, I could not catch a glimpse of the man behind it, as he was hidden from my sight by the colony entrance gate. I told my dad that I wanted to eat chole-kulche and he immediately shooted off warning signs to me saying that I had just come, I shouldn’t eat all that, mom would get angry if she knows, etc, etc. But I was not to be deterred. Within minutes I was suffering hunger pangs to really really go eat some junk and I managed to coax dad into coming along. So, both of us started off towards the rehri-waala. What I saw when I approached the stall, was a small rehri holding a big kadai which was placed diagonally upright, supported on some canisters, a 'tava' to warm the bread up and a couple of newspaper pieces placed somewhere in the centre. From the side, stood a pole which supported a big umbrella shaped stall - beneath which I caught the glimpse of a tiny, old man briskly working away.

He had small eyes, white hair and a white moustache. I was taken aback when he quietly looked up, his eyes wore a sort of resilient look – of a person who had seen all that was perhaps in the world to see, and had survived it against all odds. He was attending some other customers, so we waited by his stand. His movements were way too agile for his age, which must have been in 70’s. He was wearing a kurta with collars around his neck, with sleeves folded a little at his arms, showing thick dark veins running from his hands onto his wrist.




He mixed some spices and sauces into his pre-prepared chick peas which lay in his big vessel, took some out on a piece of newspaper, sprayed some lemon and onion onto them and started warming up kulchas for us. He handed over 2 plates (newspapers) to me and dad. I don’t think I had even said a word till that time. But the moment I took the first bite, I was overwhelmed just by the taste of what I had put into my mouth. I hadn't eaten such yummy kulche-chole in ages, and the first bite just melted away in my mouth. I broke my silence and told him that the food was awesome. He smiled gracefully at my gesture, a totally unguarded smile - and welcomed me into his world. I started chatting with him and asked him how much one plate costed, to which he said Rs5. I think I told him it was too less for such a delicacy. He smiled again and said that he couldn’t increase the price more, as then less people wud come. I asked him how many people came on an average every day. On good days, he said even 15-20, mostly the school kids from the school right next by, and on bad days very few. I asked him if he had been coming there for quite a while, and he said – many many years. There was no remorse in his voice, only a sense of contentment with his life, with whatever he was able to earn to make his ends meet. I was amazed with his sense of pride in his work, and his ability to work so deftly even at his age. By this time, more people had come to his stand, and I was long done with my plate of feast, so we decided to go. We were leaving when I told dad I wanted to drink something, and pa being an ardent fan of tea, asked the old man if there was a nice place for tea somewhere. He pointed out across to where he was standing and said that the lady over there makes excellent tea.

She had our back towards us when we approached her. An almost empty bed made of long wooden strips, held her belongings – a small stove, a few steel utensils and some cardboard boxes. She was trying to ignite the stove I think, when we reached. She looked toward us and welcomed us by her eyes. We told her - two teas, and she kept the water on the stove to boil. She must have been 55, and had a wide burn scar on her left cheek extending upto her chin. She was wearing a yellow suit, with an orange dupatta, her bare face adorned by a small nose stud and she was wearing a couple of bangles on her wrist.




When she started boiling water, dad asked her why she used a stove and not a gas cylinder. She said she had tried to do that earlier, but taking the cylinder back everyday to home was a big pain and when she had tried to leave it there once, it had got stolen. She showed us how she kept her bed too chained when she went home at night, for fear of someone just taking that away too. She put some spices in the boiling water, maybe just cardamom- and within minutes got us some nice hot tea. The moment I took the first sip, my eyes met dad’s and we smiled – both of us knew that, it too was the most delicious tea we had ever had till date or probably ever will! She was pleasantly surprised, almost blushed when I told her that, while sitting by her on the side of the wooden bed. We wandered off to some conversation about her husband and kids, I think. There was a man smoking right besides her bedside, and I thought it was her husband. Somehow I did not get a very good vibe about him, although I have to admit that with my present facts, I was no one to judge. Maybe he was a loving husband afterall.

In those few moments sitting besides her, hearing her stories and staring at the old man serving chole-kulche to a little boy right opposite, I wondered how simple there lives were, tailored just for day-to-day survival – nothing more, nothing less. And surprisingly they seemed happy with it - their routine and did not ask for more and more – so different from what we had become, I had become more importantly in the last few years. For just those few minutes, I was so overwhelmed with all these emotions, that I felt totally empty within - with respect to my own (long forsaken) beliefs and ideals. The content that I had felt with my life, just moments ago vanished into thin air, leaving behind a desire to really do something – not for someone else, but for my own self...

I wanted to keep this memory alive, somewhere with me throughout my life, so I asked her if I could take her picture. She smiled shyly, albeit a cautious smile unlike that old man's, and told me that yes I could. The old man across the road smiled too. I went upto him, told him that the chai was indeed the best and sought his permission to take his pic too. He smiled again, the same open smile, with which he had welcomed me earlier - which fought its way back again, straight into my heart. I savored what was left of the day, and bade them both a goodbye. I knew right then, that long after I have forgotten my encounter with these two lives, long after on a day when I would be so wrapped up in my own world - even to think about anyone else, I would need their looks and their smiles to remind me of what they meant to me that one hot summer day.

As our cab swirled its way back to South Delhi, in a bid to forgo the traffic the cab driver tried his luck of getting beneath a highway to find a way out of the that place. There, when we took the sweeping turn to the right, I saw a young boy on my left, around 10 or 11 lying down on the tiniest of the cots I’ve ever seen, holding a book onto his eyes and reading soulfully into the page. I remembered wondering then, what it was that he might be reading and how would he have gotten it? Did he go to school or did he just pick up the book from somewhere else? I saw dreams in his eyes, or maybe I was mistaking them with my own…dreams to make my life meaningful, to myself - dreams perhaps, to do something to meet the gaze of my own eyes...As soon as we took the turn, I saw three slums lined up one against another – small, bigger, biggest - overlooking a huge pile of dirt and dust and covered by a 'tarpail' strung together by ropes. I remember thinking how someone could live even in the biggest one of those slums. I don’t know if someone actually did.




What I do know is that I closed my eyes after that - because I realized that so many years in my comfortable lifestyle had made me so cold and so numb towards any form of emotion towards people like them, so much so that my own eyes sifted through the world around me and chose to see just the pretty sights and savour just the beautiful memories, forgetting really how I got there and where I really wanted to be. I don’t know the answer to that still, but I believe that I will find it one day and can then, maybe, dare to think about all this - with a little less hurt and a little more zeal...

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Who's democracy is it anyways?

It’s been a week almost, since I arrived - sleepy eyed but overly enthusiastic at the Indira Gandhi International airport at New Delhi, after more than 24 hours of tiring journey from the US. The sheer joy of being in India was strong enough to surpass all the weariness that I had from my lonesome journey back home. It’s been four years since I came to the States and like many others, I too had started nurturing dreams of coming back to India - closer to family, friends and most importantly to the place that I first learnt to call home.

Strangely enough, the India that I saw from the Day 2 of my stay was nowhere close to the ‘India Shining’ that I thought I was coming back to – thanks to the rosy pictures portrayed in recent times, by one and all, in the leading Indian newspapers and magazines. The hot issue was of course the anti-reservation stir which has caught the entire country in flames. The very first day that I checked on the news I was shocked to learn that the students protesting silently for their rights out there in the scorching sun were lathi-charged by the so-called law keepers. It has been a week since then and not much has changed. With the government mostly maintaining its silence on the issue and urging the protesters to give up, the only people concerned seem to be the ones which have really given India the ‘India Shining’ image – yes, I’m talking about the medicos, the engineers and the entire young generation of India that is out there in the streets fighting each and every single minute for a right to justice, which was theirs to keep in the first place, but which had been snatched from their hands by none other than the sick politicians who rule this country, the ones which have turned a deaf ear to all these protesting voices.

Let me just stop here and state clearly my views on the issue. Do I really need to, I ask you? Because, not one sane minded person in my opinion would really support the pro-reservation policy for more than 50% reservation in higher education institutes that the Parliament has put forward – a policy that is politically motivated, innately flawed and totally unfair. A policy that is wrong in principle, in implementation and which smells of nothing but the vested interests of the vote banks of the slimy politicians, of those men and women who are scarring the future of our nation in the name of social equality. There, I said it and I’m not going to harp on it anymore. But what I would like to harp on is the interview of our HRD minister Arjun Singh with Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN that I read yesterday and I have to admit that disappointment is too mild a word to use for what I read – I think the word that I would like to use is disgust, at where leaders like him are taking this nation, that so many others argued was on the path of unprecedented success.

The most striking part of the conversation was the fact that Mr. Singh was himself not aware of what percentage of the Indian population forms the OBCs, or the percentage of college seats that they already occupy in institutes of higher education or even what percentage of the present SC/ST quota remains unoccupied each year in these institutes. When asked by Karan if that was not an important number to know in the first place, before implementing any such reservation policy which affects the lives of thousands of students out there, he pleaded ignorance, saying that he does not know and probably does not even care about the figures. I wonder if he has any idea, as to how many innocent students sweat countless hours of their lives, to compete for every single seat in these institutes of higher education? I wonder if he has any idea as to how many parents go through a financial and an emotional roller-coaster throughout their lives, just to make sure that their children get through even one of those ‘coveted’ seats. Maybe he does but does not care about that too. When pointed out by Karan that although the government seems to have no case or rationale behind implementing these increased reservations in terms of the current need or efficacy of the system, why then was the government hell bent on implementing them nevertheless, his only argument seems to be the fact that it is the ‘will and desire’ of the Parliament which happens to be supreme. Really, and I ask you Mr. Singh, unquestionable too? How could he and along with him the entire body of parliament tell us, the world's largest democracy, to shut up and get on with our lives regardless of whether the laws put forward by the elite and perhaps a selfish, coward group of the politicians are fair or in the public interests or not. Who gave them such a right to scuttle the democracy of our nation and to squash the spirits of people, who for a change have started believing in hard work rather than quick fix solutions to their careers and lives? Equally interesting is how he single handedly ruled out the fact that the parameters of the so-called ‘modern society’ were not really applicable to India, a country which many others believe today is at the cutting edge of technology. Another interesting bit of conversation was when Mr. Singh agrees with Karan on the fact that the existing reservation policies are not working, but counters that if they are not working, it does not mean we do not need them. Isn’t that what common sense dictates? Fix the existing wrongs before introducing fresh mistakes. But then again, maybe the whole gamut of politicians, do lack the sense which is no longer common. Perhaps the most shocking part of the entire reservation stir is that the government has proposed to conveniently increase the seats in all these institutes and colleges of higher education, including the IITs and the IIMs without any consultation at all with the faculty, the students or the alumni who have given these institutes such a fame or the people who have brought these colleges to a stature where they are today. Without brooding on the efficacy of such an increase and the effect the 50% reservation would have on the quality of education provided in these institutions or the quality of students produced by them, the leaders of our nation have proved yet again that they do not care about the struggles of our nation anymore. Leave alone respecting the doctors who serve this nation day in and day out, the government does not even care for the brightest lot of our country that graduates from institutes as IITs, IIMs or AIIMS.

Sadly what I see today, is India burning and not an India shining. Who are those people, those nations who are insecure of the rising intellect and confidence of our nation – tell them, they need not worry anymore – because we have a poison so strong, in the name of corruption breathing in the very veins of our country, that it would eat us from the inside long before we become an enviable nation. The live example of this are the politicians who swear to set our country back by at least 50 years by broadening the base of discrimination on caste, in the veil of reservations. And what is the result of it all? Quiet people mourning this very moment in various corners of our nation - the death of a long borne faith in the political system, of trust in the present state of affairs in our country and perhaps, the death of an already failing democracy.

Am I still hopeful, you ask? A part of me is, for sure, because I strongly believe that what has come up in the last few weeks would go a long way down in India’s history for a struggle to a fairer democracy. I am because I know that many people have realized that to be aware and to speak out against the system is the key to bringing about a much needed change in the Indian politics. And I am because yes, I belong to the Rang De Basanti generation, which is tired of the complacency and wrong doings of our politicians, a generation that is learning to fight for its rights, but also a generation that is smart enough not to believe in the much hyped comparisons of the endings - of movies, of courtroom rulings and of lost causes of system failings**

So, do not mistake it all to be the closing of yet another chapter Mr. Singh, because this really might just be a mere beginning.......

**P.S: I have to honestly thank news channels like NDTV for providing me the motivation to write some of this, based on their useless coverage during the whole reservation stir, coverage which was concerned not only on analysing how exactly the current situation was borne as a result of RDB, but also on if the end to the whole thing would be inspired by RDB too. So, instead of focussing on the real problems and how they should be circumvented, count on them to always come up with futile 2-3 hours discussions on irrelevant topics. God save our country from such pretentious media and journalism!