Heights of vettiness!

Some time back, I had been on a trip to Chennai. A trip for a whole 35 days. I was absolutely excited. Punch Drunk to be honest! After a relatively uneventful flight journey, the moment my sight landed on my Dad and my Bro when they were waiting for me outside the airport, was one of the best ever moments of my life. I felt as if I was on whole new lease of life! Next was when my mom hugged me and I entered the new house that my family had moved into. And now starts the most frustrating part for any guy returning from the land of dreams to his native! Immediately the next morning, I was forced to make a series of calls to relatives, answer calls from relatives, and family friends. Call it courtesy, call it respect or whatever. The cliche here is everyone asks the same question!

"Padichi mudichitu angaye settle aaga poriyaa??"

"Padichitu inge vandhu velai pannu!"

"Ange edhaavadhu ponae paathu marry panityaa?"

Initially it kinda felt good being the center of attraction and all that! After a point, it became irritating. And towards the end it became unbearable, to the point that, as a reply to a similar question popped by my grand mother, I said, "Paati kavale padaadhingo. Ange oru ponnu paathu vechirkaen. Neengo thaan vandhu enga kalyaanatha nadathi vaekanam!" My mom who was over hearing this entire conversation, though did not find it all that amusing, that I was playing with a 93 year old lady! :P This is the crux of the problem. In spite of all this, I found the holiday to be exhilarating. So many people being concerned about my well being. So many people questioning my decisions. Each day just hog the most amazing food, watch tv, sleep umpteen number of hours and leave the decision making to my parents. But here, though I am not pestered by silly questions, at times I regret that there is no one to question the whats and the whys of my activities. And the worst part of it is, even if I need to talk my parents, I need to pay a bill of 60 dollars a month just for some 5 minutes conversation each day! Call it the musings of a grad student!

Political or Hogenakkal?

The TamilNadu government is constructing a drinking water project at Hogenakkal, with an aid from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, near the border with its neighbouring state, Karnataka. The Hogenakkal Water Supply and Fluorosis Mitigation Project is expected to benefit about 3 million people. Tensions arose when the politicians from Karnataka, claimed that a 400-acre island at the point where the river Cauvery enters Tamil Nadu to form the picturesque Hogenakkal waterfall is part of their state. It is a pity that even after 60 years after independence, people dispute over state borders. It is also hilarious to note that the state units of the same political party on either states, claim the land to be part of the respective states and blame one another. This clearly shows that the politicians are trying to create and politicize an issue which never existed, in the first place. Then the film industry on either side organized protests and counter protests...Now all of a sudden Chief Minister K, says that the solution should be found in a peaceful manner and wants to hold talks with the new Chief Minister of Karnataka after the elections in May. Pardon me for the satire, what if there is a hung assembly in Karnataka? Who will the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister go and talk to? Caught in the middle of this insanity is the common man. The parties play politics based on issues like water. I say it is trivial. That is because, getting his/her share of water is a right for every human being. We cannot keep on fighting for issues like these. The government always finds prompt solutions for the filmy problems where one state refuses to screen the movies of the other state's language. Yet they have not tried to solve this cauvery issue for the past umpteen number of years. Is it a deliberate ploy on the part of the politicians that when an election is looming, they play vote bank politics and when they form the government, the same ppl forget about the various promises made to the common man? No wonder, even as the literacy rate increases the voter turn out is reducing each and every election. Who said that this was because of the elections being held in Summer or any other reason? I am beginning to believe that the common man is tired of reading much into these fake promises made by the so called protectors of the people. When the politicians are not able to solve the problems of Kashmir, I do kind of agree that these are international issues, involving international bureaucrats and might take time. But when there is so much wrangling going on, between people(politicians) of our own country forget solving Kashmir, the politicians should be ashamed of themselves, should be ashamed that they are a black mark to humanity in itself.