Visa

I cant seem to avoid the Modi-US Visa saga - newspapers, news channels, magazines all seem to harp on the grave insult to India's sovereignty, democracy and whatever other grand attribute they can think of. There is also invariably one or two highly charged individual on the TV who I fear will surely pop a vein shouting about how Modi is an elected Chief Minister. Apparently it is the lobbying of the Indian Americans that has mostly caused this.

Comparing this to MK Gandhi getting thrown out of the train, that too by Modi himself, was absolutely priceless.

Envy

There is a steady stream of atleast one person a month who says she is envious of me. The latest episode happened yesterday. I was sitting on the park bench, enjoying a nice breeze and a completely useless, except in the junk food sense, mills and boon variety novel. Totally lost in the devilishly handsome rake, I didn't notice the woman who had paused to sit down next to me till her little baby started bawling. I gave her a polite smile and told her the baby was cute - it is mandatory - otherwise you are public enemy number one - and asked how old he was. She told me he was four months old and then without a pause, with a great big sigh, informed me she was completely envious of me. "Oh you are enjoying a novel. It is so long since I have finished a book". This has happened so often now, that I am beginning to realize I must be leading a wonderful life after all. Interestingly, no man has yet told me he is envious of me.

Formula 1

Narain is in the news. Till the early nineties, I used to devour sports column articles, or an occasional news clip on TV, featuring Formula one racing especially Ayrton Senna. The speed, the thrill..

Then it happened.

I distinctly remember the day when I opened the newspaper to read about the accident. It was a shattering moment when formula one lost all its glamour and the harsh, ugly, horrific face of death mocked me. Ofcourse, Schumacher and now Narain are hard to miss. But Senna's death affected me in a personal level in the sense of loss of innocence, and I haven't been able to look at F1 the same way again.