Ajith Nair

Many of us grew up hearing the story of Rama, the righteous king who lived his life through dignity, sacrifice and high sense of ideals, protecting what was right, till the end. His kingdom was perfect. We also heard stories in moral science classes about honesty, humility, sacrifice etc. These stories were meant to be imbibed, inculcated, understood and practised.  And then we met the real world, which was anything but. The conflict confused us and our parents too who seemed to have answers for everything, shrugged and asked us to be practical. Ideals are fine, but there was a life to live. The two seemed incompatible. Something died within us as we quickly adapted to the ways of the world which meant ego, greed, false pride, short cuts, jugaad…. And then a diminutive young man entered our lives in the early 90s.  It was almost like a Yuga had begun, and it truly was, as we’d realise later. An era which would tell us, Mumbai, India and the world that the pursuit of excell...

Independence means 1. Having cutting chai thela right outside a five star 2. Randomly chatting up neighbour on bus and getting an equally heartfelt response 3. Laughing at the same jokes, cringing at the same irritants 4. Creating' Indian Chinese cuisine and then mixing it with Punjabi in the same meal 5. Having an opinion on any mundane thing and sending SMSs to a random TV poll on the same (and getting a mention on air too... rarely!) 6. Kasab getting a fair trial 7. Marrying a woman from another language, region, caste, religion, social status, upbringing and yet having a child who's inherently Indian 8. Everyone being as suspectible to swine flu ;) 9. Watching pirated DVDs and shedding genuine tears 10.Having ur finger inked every five years so what if the candidate list isn't spectacular Jai Hind