1. Air condtioning (Yeah, even in Sikkim – would you believe it, global warming! Live Earth… ANSWER THE CALL!)
2. Star World, for all my fave shows without which life will be pointless
3. My upcoming summer vacation, one month of sheer laziness.
4. Tashi & Sameer, without whom I would go to bed hungry these days
5. All my fave authors, directors & actors whose work are due this month. God bless them.
Sikkim is a peaceful state, where all races & religions co-exist in harmony and solidarity that I have found to be intrinsic to this place till date. Globalization has inevitably ensured that a once-upon-a-time sleepy town of Gangtok is now more of a concrete jungle, replete not only with modern luxuries and facilities but also with global warming, pollution & other known vices. Yet, we move on, accepting as well as adapting to circumstances owing it all to the changing focus on man’s development for the good.
But what is not acceptable by any norm of humanity is the apathy shown to the Sikkimese people who have braved the 19th day of hunger strike today as a protest against the highly destructive hydel power projects on the Teesta River in Sikkim, especially in the North and in the Lepcha Reserve of Dzongu. The indefinite hunger strike was launched on 20th June 2007 and till date has not had much of a media attention, I am sorry to add.
To stand by and see your people die of hunger is nothing but apathy of the worst kind. Who is responsible for this condition? Who is answerable to people dying of hunger? Does nobody care for these people? Are we not human to even care for the protest or what it represents?
A show of solidarity is signing the online petition that supports the hunger strike; the immediate authorities need to at least listen in to the protest and try to show some reason that will call off the hunger strike.
For whatever is at stake, for whomever that bears the brunt, this kind of apathy is uncalled for and needs to be condemned. For humanity’s sake, if not for the one race who’s protesting against the mighty giants; for our peaceful state that has prospered till now; for the love of god, end this apathy and bring the Lepchas home.
… is one of the lines I cant get out of my head from favourite author Michael Crichton’s newest book, NEXT. One simple sentence to explain everything, brilliant! Its also funny because one can actually sum up one’s life on this sentence…. but I digress. Back to Crichton, the author continues to amaze me with his intense research on topics that people havent even heard of in all probability. I for one hadnt heard of Gene Therapy, I can tell you that.
NEXT is about an ongoing dispute between a major genetics research firm and a cancer-survivor patient who’s lost ownership of his unique cells which fight cancer. When the firm loses their precious ‘owned’ cells and all backups as a sabotage and the patient also disappears, it pulls out all stops on recovering cells from the patient’s daughter and grandson stating that it owns the cells legally wherever they are to be found! Beat that.
Imagine the cure for all kinds of addictions in the world – a spray containing Maturity Gene. And voi·là, people become mature enough to de-toxify themselves. Although the therapy isnt tested so you can be sure there’s a major catch, just you wait. There’s a humanzee concieved in the book, who’s half human & half chimpanzee and can actually talk although he looks hairy enough to look like an ape. There’s also a genetically modified parrot by the name of Gerrad who not only talks but also helps his owner’s kid to do maths homework. The funny part is, Gerrad also mimics past conversations which is how his owner gets to know her husband’s getting it on with the maid!
Horror and humour rolled in one – I couldnt say no to it. NEXT hasnt managed to dislodge The Lost World as my favourite Crichton book but its a good read. I liked it.
Author’s note: Michael Crichton states the following as a footnote in Next:
1. Stop patenting genes.
2. Establish clear guidelines for the use of human tissues.
3. Avoid bans on research.
And I thought it was only a novel…
Goodbye, my dear friend, you were more than just a student for me. These three short, sweet years that we have spent together, creating beautiful memories will surely last my lifetime. You have left behind a void in my life, a lingering emptiness and my heart is heavy, knowing that maybe we may never meet again for a long time to come. I bid you goodbye, dear friend as our paths separate this very day and you follow your destiny while I stay back fulfilling mine.
Farewell, my beloved. May you grow as a person and reach soaring heights in whichever path you choose to take. I wish joy and happiness to embrace you and never leave you even for one moment. I hope you will remember me whenever you go through tough times and know that I will always be thinking of you, wishing you courage to handle things.
I dont want this goodbye to be forever. I hope we will meet again soon and laugh about times gone by. I wish you all the love in the world so that you will never be unhappy. I will always think of you, my dearest Anusha.
And I will miss you.
I know, that is exactly what I read the sentence as yesterday in this weird book, Why men lie and women cry. For an instance, I was like, what the….
I flipped on to other pages but my curiousity got the better of me and I decided to go back for a second read on that weird sentence.
I was so relieved to find the line to be correctly read as:
Be tough on yourself, not on your children
I must go get my eyes checked….
Sometime back while I was taking a class, a student’s mobile phone rang in the middle of my precious lecture. Amidst hushed laughter and some snickering, the guilty phone accompanied me back to my desk after the class. Looking at the gadget later on and thinking about the whole incident, I realized how technologically advanced today’s students are. Did I have a mobile phone back when I was in college myself? NOPE.
What we had in the hostel was something called a phone room where the mess chechis (workers) manned one STD phone and one local call phone and we students had to line up and wait to make the call. Another option was the PCO/STD booth far, far away in the campus, which naturally couldnt be accessed at night, given the Ladies’ Hostel – LH’s 7 o’clock deadline.
Incidentally during those dark ages, the government norms included a full rate during daytime and half rate at night. Naturally everyone preferred to make the STD call at night. Sundays were also half rate but that was one special day where we were either busy sleeping most of the day or heading off to the city for dates/movies/sight seeing trips. So we had to make do with queuing up outside the phone room.
Of course now I do have a mobile phone and naturally I cant live without it. Although maybe I can… we all did before 2000, didnt we? 
This incident happens to me each and every morning of my life ever since I bought that silly puppy of mine that I wonder how I didnt blog about it before…
I am a finicky-morning person i.e., I like to wake up on my own and not cause someone rang the bell or honked the horn or worse, the fool of a puppy you own greets you awake by:
a. Grabbing your hand, thinking its a bone and giving it a good chew
b. Wagging her tail (which is not so small, now she’s 9 months) and whipping it up against your legs. Owiee!
c. Actually cat-walking up and down the length of the bed till you have to wake up and render an ovation
Winkie did all three today morning; she wouldnt stop walking up and down the side of my bed, wagging her tail and trying to dig in her fangs to any body part not under the bed cover. She just wouldnt stop; she kept all this up for at least 15 minutes by which time I was ready to leave the bed just so that she’d stop the cat-walk.
That was what happened today morning. Tomorrow, I’m going to dig deep and stay put in my bed no matter what circus Winkie Poo does. Please to wake me up when its all over.
Also, another thing I did yesterday was sing this amazing song with my brother in the parking lot. All the while I had to kinda rap off instructions like turn off the engine, sing the next paragraph and thats it?? Sing some more! to the reluctant singer of a brother. I just loved the lyrics, even though its as distorted from the original as possible.
We first heard My little buttercup in the movie, The Three Amigos starring Martin Short, Steve Martin and cant remember the third guy’s name.
My little butter has the sweetest smile
My little buttercup, wont you stay a while
We were meant to live in a place built for two
Dear little buttercup, sweet little buttercup
I love you.
Now the dear and the sweet words in the fourth line are emphasized to a vehement level in the song so we went crazy singing this funny song so much so the traffic police looked at us queerly while we exited the lane. I laughed till I got back home. Real heart-warming stuff.
Yesterday I met an old friend of mine, a classmate since kindergarten actually. We were together right upto high school and met after a period of perhaps a decade or more later. Seeing him was bittersweet in every sense of the word. He looked ruggedly handsome with all the right lines on his face, a nice unshaved look and just a hint of long hair. After I was done appreciating his good looks, I started wondering about how his life had gone till date and whether or not he also went through that rough, transitory period of drudging through all stupid things in life and growing up to be a wiser, if not more sane person, like me.
Its not just about this one friend… I wonder how my old friends have been doing since I last saw them 7 years, 10 years, 15 years back. I count myself fortunate that I did reunite with some very dear old friends, thanks to Orkut and I am more or less in constant touch with them at least. Meanwhile back to the train of thought chugging around in my head, I wonder how my old friend from college is, the one who gave up her love and married the guy chosen by her parents. Last I heard, she was the proud mom of two kids. Or another pal from college who was as gutsy as hell, although we, read: AnDePRin, didnt understand it back then and thought she was loud instead.
Its strange how we all are briefly together for a short period of time, enjoy each other’s company, thinking there’s no tomorrow and suddenly, we say goodbye to each other thinking oh well, we’ll meet one day or the other. What we dont count on is the fact that some goodbyes are forever indeed.
You said, I said