Its been a while...

Its been ages actually since I posted. Everytime I would come across something that looked appropriately blog-worthy I would start writing it in my mind this last week. By the time I got to work, such thoughts had been replaced by complete and utter nonsense about a delayed project. During my most critical project, I found the time to find (get that.. "found" the time to "find".. good stuff that) a hilarious man - Mil Millington He is so funny I had to display incredible self-restraint in order to maintain my disguise as a busy consultant. No wonder then I had to work till midnight everyday to finish this last project. No Good Friday holiday for me and definitely no Easter celebrations either for I was working (and reading Mil Millington's Things I Argue with my Girlfriend about occasionally interspersed with the writings of Rohinton Mistry - Family Matters and Freud - go figure!).

I want to write about this new show called Chai Stop on NDTV and the book I read over the weekend and some theories I devised while I was working 16 hour days last week. Can you tell it does not take too much concentration to do the work here?

So let me begin with NDTV- the people at that channel are simply brilliant (either that or they are copy cats). I have not seen any shows of the kind they show on international news channels like BBC and CNN (maybe they copy them from channels that I dont watch... thwack!). They have a zillion different people voicing opinions- now that its election time, lets hear what each of the billion people in our country have to say about things like road, education, Vajpayee, foreign origin, dynasties blah blah... it was coming out my ears till they interviewed truck drivers. You know, those guys we think dont really do much and listen to the most ridiculous music. Well these were truck drivers and dhaba-walas who had studied till class 8 or 9 at best and had better knowledge of India's political scenario than many people I know personally. The educateed elite says "I am not interested in politics". Well are you interested in governance?? I dont know why I ramble about this when I myself will be unable to exercise my right to franchise. Sigh... ramble.. rant

On to the most interesting book I read by Rohinton Mistry called Family Matters. The man describes how orthodox parsis can be well... as orthodox as anyone else. For all their "western outlook", the orthodox ones go to the fire temple everyday and observe all the rites and rituals and refuse to let their children marry outside of the zoroastrian community for fear of "polluting the race". Of course, I speak of the orthodox ones for my boyfriend comes from the least orthodox zoroastrian family ever (at least compared to the book). It was good reading a book written by an Indian for an Indian audience where things dont have to be explained. Like Jhumpa Lahiri explains how "jalebis" are yellow squiggly dough fried and dipped in sugar syrup (I am sure those werent her exact words.. but somewhat on those lines) in Interpreter of Maladies. Yawn... thats where I lost interest. Now I know it was for a wider audience that may not know what a jalebi is and I can skip the bit about the jalebi explanation for the book is full of depth and profundity- yet I like fast moving, captivating stories without descriptions of food items. Its a personal opinion. Deal with it.

This has been a long post indeed. About time I wrapped up... maybe I will post again later today from the comfortable confines (thats aliteration for those of you who missed it) of my home.