Thursday, January 21, 2010

Nataraja's dance

I see blood, a lot of blood - on my legs, on my hands and on my face. All this blood is mine and there are the usual suspects - mosquitoes. Mosquitoes, why does it have to be mosquitoes.

I arrived in India to blazing sunshine which was a welcome relief from the cold of Chicago. But I had forgotten about Mumbai's problem with mosquitoes. In the past it was usual to expect mosquitoes after the monsoon's but recently they seem to have become a year round phenomenon.

After spending a few days scratching and slapping myself silly, I decided to take a more proactive solution. I cam across these badminton sized plastic electric rackets which can be used for killing those annoying creatures.

So now you see me doing Shiva's dance of death every evening. A frenzied look passes my face every time a mosquito passes my view accompanied by wild swings of the racket. Any of my neighbors peeking in from their balcony will probably see a man not quite in his senses, wielding a badminton racket and a crazed look on his face lighting up every time there is an electric shorting on contact with a mosquito. Shiva crushed the demon of ignorance, my foe is the mosquito.

The price for information

The Right to Information (RTI) act has been one of the better acts implemented by the government in recent times and has been primarily responsible in more open government.

Satish Shetty a social activist who's been responsible for exposing multiple land scams through RTI unfortunately paid the ultimate price. Fearing an attack on his life, Satish asked the police for protection, but apparently the police delayed his request. Like the fate suffered by Satyendra Dubey and S. Manjunath before him, his whistle blowing irked the wrong kind of people and Satish Shetty was killed on his morning walk.

India has successfully transformed itself to a land ruled by the goon. It's nice having the right to information but the right to life apparently is not guaranteed.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Bravo US Airways, Bravo

Talk about an expensive flight on US Airways. Good thing I'm using a no limit credit card