The Times of Gadbad

Last week, our family went out for dinner to a restaurant nearby. Although the temperature in Bangalore is dipping by the day, my mom did not seem deterred in any way from having her favourite dessert. And when her dish arrived, all I could see was a convoluted mixture of several colors. This, the menu card called "GADBAD". No other name could have done full justice to this colorful delicacy. The next morning, I was browsing through the day's newspaper, and somehow, as I turned the sheets, I could not but help remember the dessert my mom had had the previous day. No, the paper did not contain any ads for desserts. Just that the sheets themselves looked so colorful and mixed-up. There was an article on the front page about the current war rhetoric war between India and Pakistan. Suddenly, from nowhere, there was a block of bright pink that cut right across the middle of the article, extending from the top left to the bottom right of the page. Written across this pink block was the name of a famous mobile phone brand. The article continued on the other side of the pink block. The inside pages were more than a revelation. Articles abound in Hinglish and Kanglish. Write-ups that ought to be in page 3 seemed to flow over to pages 4, 5, 6... The more surprising part was the shoulder-rubbing of glitterati stuff (I refuse to call it anything else) with news of a serious nature. One that was more surprising was about a theft in Paris Hilton's house, published next to a column speaking about the oil prices. I confess I could not see any reason as to what Paris was doing near oil. The last page was too much to take. The photograph of the ex of the ex's ex's of X, who is a sportsman, sandbathing on the sands of Florida. I could not wait to put the paper down. Very few news items registered. I had to take back my words. The gadbad ice cream looked less convoluted. I was convinced the newspaper had to be renamed from The Times of India to The Times of Gadbad.

Freedom: The big and small of it

Readers will certainly recall one news item that not just made heads turn, but also cigarette-laden jaws drop. This was the one pertaining to the ban on smoking in public places. Suddenly one could see No-Smoking boards put up overnight in malls, restaurants, pubs, office places, and every other place that could be called public. The 24-hour news channels got another heated topic to debate about endlessly. Some newspapers published debates on the issue with views, counterviews, overviews, underviews, sideviews. One particular interview with a celebrity caught my attention. This person, while upholding the rule, also said he was big on personal freedom, and hence averred that any rule interferring with one's personal freedom shouldn't be enforced. This comment really seemed strange to me. If it is a matter of personal freedom for a person to smoke, then it's personal freedom for a nonsmoker to breathe tobacco-free air. Can it still qualify to be called personal freedom if it interferes with others personal freedom? And what about public freedom (if something like that exists in the first place)? Which is bigger and which is smaller? But one thing's for sure. Like many other rules, this one too is going up in smoke. Not just anywhere, but right behind the Union Health Minister's back. There was a TV clipping showing people smoking away to glory in the corridors of the Parliament. Isn't that exercising personal freedom in a public place? Now, what was I babelling about all this while?

The Word

A few years ago, there was this strange word that seemed to suddenly appear everywhere; newspapers, websites, billboards, ad hoardings, every place that your eye wandered upon. Trying to make out any meaning out of it was of no avail. It was such a strange word that seemed to elude even the Cambridge Dictionary (the online dictionary still doesn't not have an entry for it. Try it yourself). A friend then explained to me that the word was a contraction of "web log". When I said it couldn't be found in my dictionary, she just remarked my dictionary probably belonged to the Iron Age. So, after all these years, I finally decided to publish my own blog. Not because I wanted to write, but because I felt too lonely to be left out of the bandwagon. But one thing I still can't understand is if a blog's supposed to be a personal journal, why make it public? But then again, what ever has been personal for that matter!