Horn NOT OK Please

Stuck in a traffic jam? Getting bored of repetitive music on the FM? Frustrated with the vehicle in front for taking a few extra seconds to stir in motion? The solution is right at your fingertips, a button press away - HONK! Honk away your miseries. Honk for a better future…

A future full of physiological and psychological health issues like hypertension, high stress levels, sleep disturbances, hearing losses, stress and what not.  But thank goodness that the worst affected of all these effects are the children. Add to the ill-effects-list learning impairment and cognitive development delays and it’s a perfect recipe for a perfect future generation.

A little unfair that us adults who actually contribute the most to the noise pollution levels are digging graves for their own kids by cultivating such mannerism and lifestyle.

But why think of all of this? Honking is totally worth the hell we create for them.

Appeared in HT Edge on July 11, 2011

Scarred v/s Inspired

Osama Bin Laden, the poster boy of al-Qaeda, was the deemed face of terrorism for a major part of the world. His death came in just in time to restore Obama Administration’s popularity index but too late for being a significant turning point in the history of the world.

I believe while Laden’s death stirs things up a bit, it achieves nothing definitive. It is certainly not the end of the social ideology sparking terrorism, neither is it revolutionary enough to restore what was lost in all these pressing years.

The intrusive, precautionary measures of security are already set in stone at this point. The presumably disconnected terror efforts of al-Qaeda can be thwarted given how the world has geared up since 9/11. Al-Qaeda might be spurred up after Osama’s martyrdom but there is little it can do with the zero margin of error rest of the world has learned to live with.

The Democratic Vail

Dear People of Egypt,

Freedom doesn’t come cheap. If ever it does it loses the respect it deserves. It is needed to be fought for again and again. We know this because we are a vestige of ‘free’ generation of the great Indian democracy. A generation which is deemed free but is slave to the czars of corruption and political bureaucracy.

We applaud the civil disobedience movement that you started. Your struggle didn’t stir the government in your country only but also helped other dormant minds wake up to the larger meaning of liberty. It made people comprehend things beyond the democratic fallacies and it made regimes around the world realize the power of people.

Time demands that we take a cue from your rebellion and fight for what rightfully is ours. The true meaning of freedom and democracy can only be realized when elements like corruption, constitutional inequality and economic disparity can be disarmed.

It’s tough but freedom is worth every bit of the fight we put.

Long live the revolution,
The People of India

[Appeared in HT Edge on February 14, 2011]
(Unfortunately under wrong credits which was later rectified)