Ajith Nair

Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid was bombed this afternoon. Sad. Except the blast, almost everything that happens around it seems so predictable. I’ll try and recreate some almost done to death sequences that happen post. 1. Local correspondent of local channel and national channel have ear piece dangling and mouth piece blabbering. “This city is under siege” is a commonly seen scroller on most un-creative news channels. The more creative ones make a story around it like “Is this the beginning of the end” (ha ha ha…).Incidentally that reporter will be stationed there for the next fortnight everyday pointing out to the spot where the blast occurred. 2. Expert Anti Terror Squad will be at the spot with terror trained Labradors sniffing and snorting. 3. PM will condemn attack. 4. CM will condemn attack 5. CM will announce compensation of 5 lakh for families of those dead, 3 lakh for those half dead (shouldn’t that be 2.5?), 1 lakh for those that lost limbs etc 6. Home minister will decide to ‘rus...

My mom has a grouse that am not creative with picking gifts. All I can do is pick up Ganesha idols. What she can’t understand is... what do you do when ¾ th of most novelty stores nowadays have Ganesha in various forms and substance. Among all our Gods, Ganpati seems to be the one who has managed to find a relevant role in every generation. In the first quarter of this century, the tusker was used by Lokmanya Tilak to aggregate the masses around Mandals, which would also serve to foster unity and patriotic values. It seemed to work. Later on the mill workers of Mumbai used Ganesha as a show of strength and solidarity in the wake of capitalist pressures. Pandals spawned in every mill compound and the event became annualized. There also was much pomp and revelry around it. About 13 years ago, Ganesha shocked the hell out of everyone by drinking milk. Amul and Aarey did good business as the pot bellied God had his fill. This relaunched the age of miracles and was quite a paradox to the ag...

I avoid Saturday evening outings like the scourge. More on reasons why later. This last weekend, I happened to be on the way to a good friend’s wedding. Saturday evening and Andheri West are a bit like mixing karela juice and soured milk, you always knew it was going to be bad and you were stupid in trying it in the first place. After 15 futile minutes of hailing rickshaws politely, a friend and I decided to do it the way it actually should have been always done. An uncivil forced entry into an empty Rick which refused to ply suddenly put us in the position of unprepared Priests subject to a confession. The man behind the wheel confessed that he wasn’t taking passengers cos he was rushing to an emergency. In Mumbai, emergency happens only when the bowels are over active or if there are bloody riots. Since the Sena was in power at the BMC and riots happened only when they were in opposition, I assumed it to be the former. A compromise was reached though. The man in distress would drop u...