I'M BACK!!

Here I am, a half-engineer now, to restart my blabbering.. :)
Looking back into the past month, I find there have been several bloggable(well the spell-check feels that this word coined by me is important enough to highlight it in red! :) ) events going on..
Let me devote this post to the election-fever as it won't last for long from now.. :)
With shoe-hurlers, hit-backers, gudiyas, budiyas, iron men, weak ones and several great HISTORIANS (coz they know nothing other than raking up the past atrocities of their opponents in charge) in the fray, the campaign for the election to the Lok Sabha has been a rare combination of a drama that is simultaneously funny and sad.
Funny because I recognise the semblance between the political-ally changes and a game we used to play in our school days- it was called sea/shore wherein we jumped on to a towel when the moderator called out "sea" and onto the ground when she called out "shore" - here too the moderators aka the party heads call out "sea" or "shore" and the party leaders and workers jump accordingly- probably the only difference between that harmless game and this political game is that the moderator there was not paid crores to call out sea/shore.
Sad because, these days, the meaning of democracy can be found only in the civics textbooks and the dictionaries. I was given to understand that democracy means "a govt. of the people, by the people and for the people". I guess I must get back to my civics textbook and add the adjective "rich and powerful" to all those three "people"s in the definition.I hate comparing my India with any other country but I just cannot avoid looking at USA where the two candidates for the top post had a debate on the progressive measures they would take up in their country if voted to power. Here, we see two of our many hopeful PMs having a war of words over past issues dating back to more than 20 yrs ago. I do sympathise with all victims of riots however long ago they may have occurred but why bring up the issues during each election?? The people are sick of the prolonged trials and blame-games.
One classic example to prove that the so-called leaders don't actually care for the people as much as they seem to-- last week a friend and I were waiting to board a bus after the forenoon session's exam. The bus stop has neither a tree nor any man-made shelter for us to take shelter beneath. Three political parties' convoys passed us by, campaigning for their candidates. Not even one stopped to think that instead of just giving us pamphlets promising LPG pipelines or water services or sanitation or flyover construction, we, with our almost melting heads, at that point would have very much appreciated an on-the-spot promise of shelters in all such important bus stops frequented by students at almost every hour of the day. They were just mechanically speaking what they had rehearsed. There was no ability to sense what the people were actually feeling. Of course, they were frequently provided with cooling and rejuvenating drinks and snacks. So the problem of the commoner would not occur to them.

Ah! Now coming to the entertainment part of the elections'09.. This year the shining stars of this hot season are not the celebrities (who contest just for the sake of a party win and never turn towards the Lok Sabha again) .. The stars or rather the people who seem to be enjoying a lion's share of the media's attention are, of course, the great shoe-hurlers of India!
It all started on December 14th 2008- an Iraqi journalist hurled both his shoes ( which is very sensible, as it is difficult to walk with just one shoe, that too while being dragged away by the police :-p)... Then at Cambridge University the Chinese president faced a shoe from a student. While we Indians were distant viewers of these "exciting incidents", our own Jarnail Singh entertained us with his hurling of a shoe at the current HM Mr.Chiambaram. He was let out in a few hours after a simple apology. This encouraged our hot-blooded countrymen to vent out their feelings through footwear. A school principal threw his slipper at Mr. Advani. Then an attention-seeking youth aimed his shoes at Dr.Manmohan Singh. Then Mr. Advani faced another footwear(I don't remember if it was a shoe or a slipper :) there have been too much for my tiny brain to store).
The string of shoe-hurling events denote nothing other than the people's impatience with the leaders. They know that whoever comes to power, the evils that surround us are not going to be gotten rid of. This is their way of expressing their frustration. And blogging such mokkais is my way of expressing my frustration, for, I do value my shoes :)