Hysterical Mehbooba

Lush green fields, monsoons, wonderful weather, all this and Mehbooba. That makes for a perfect setup. It's everything one ever wanted - An ideal situation. Add a Mufti to the tale and it gets twisted. Today, an angry Mehbooba Mufti, the PDP leader, darted towards the Speaker in the J an K assembly and hurled the microphone at him. Some onlookers sneered, while others sat through the episode in sullen silence, until the lady was thrown out of the assembly quite unceremoniously.


When asked why she took the step in full public glare, she whirled a volley of words at the interviewer and said that it was because she wasn't given a fair chance during the questionaire. "The speaker used derogatory words aginst me", she claimed. Does that give a leader the right to behave like a child?? So much for Indian Democracy.


This kind of show of angst isn't uncommon to the Indian audience. We may be made to understand that there was public welfareat stake in the J an K assembly, but the better side of my brain knows better. It was a show of helplessness at the loss in the assembly elections, and the knowledge that the recent spate of events that had hit the state weren't all a matter of state disfunctionalism. Hence, the need to seek attention in a manner that is averse to anything democratic.


We have witnessed such scenes in other state assemblies earlier too and those scenes had been 'hard hitting' in all aspects of the term. The Uttar Pradesh assembly had seen chairs and mics being used as weapons of 'class destruction'. Class here is my way of addressing the symbols of democracy, who have been chosen by the people. Just last year, the Andhra Pradesh asembly witnessed a similar crisis and before that we also had the Orissa asembly frantically in search of weapons to attack the enemy within the house.



We are not alone in the world to have our leaders at each others throats. Some days back, we had scenes from the South Korean Parliament, where Parliamentarians struggled to strangle every other opponent. Women Parliamentarians ensured that they fought against their women counterparts only!! It was a sight straight out of a comic flick from Cartoon network. Needless to say, it was sheer entertainment. The feeling of sharing the same kind of hysteria can bring countries closer, after all.



As for me, I prefer to chill out with the song 'Mehbooba, mehbooba.. gulshan mein gul khilte hain.....' Mufti is set aside to rest because I know she will rise again tomorrow morning, and this time she'll be in black and white, all over the pages of newspapers across the country..

It's all in a name..

Who is Shakespeare to tell me 'what's in a name'!! He said so maybe because he had anticipated that he would some day be known to each child that spoke the english language. No one would mis spell his name.

But, I, who still has to create the aura of my name cannot afford to say so. To make matters worse I have to bear the ordeal of getting my name mis spelt most of the time. When someone gets the name correct, they ensure that the surname is surely wrong and vice versa.

Each Indian state has a different version for the simple words that my grandmother decided would be my identity for all times.. (marriage changed that too!) Now, I spend my time correcting people for the blunders that they do with my name.

Could Hitler be called by any other name, or M K Gandhi, or George Bush? Could you, a reader of my blog would approve of your name being shaped into words that you do not recognise? I am sure you wouldn't approve.

The 'name' is the all important facet of our personality. a person may be called 'sundar' (beautiful) and could be the ugliest person on earth, he would nevertheless be sundar to all who know him! In regions of Punjab and Haryana, people use names like Karnail(colonel), Jarnail(general) etc and dream that the kid they brought into the world would some day become what his name depicts. It doesn't happen..( I have never come across a Colonel Karnail Singh or a general Jarnail Singh!)

One alphabet can make a difference of one generation - A certain George Bush and a George W Bush are a good example.. Add the W and you get a whole lot of games on the internet, Can You do the same thing with George Bush? No, you can't.. That's what