Nostalgia!!

I typically do not watch reality shows. However I heard that the top ten contestants on Indian Idol are singing fantastically and so I watched the episode on Saturday night. I must say it was simply awesome. The contestants were singing songs from the 1990’s. It took me back to the days when I used to watch the top ten songs on TV with Satish Shah every Friday.

My mom, brother and I used to watch Antakshari with Anu Kapoor and Renuka Shahane and then Top Ten with Satish Shah, both on Zee TV every Friday night. These shows would be the highlight of our week and the start of the weekend. Badi Mushkila Hai, Jaadu Teeri Nazzar, Tu Cheeza Badi Hai Mast Mast , Didi Tera Deewana , Tanha Tanha, these were some of our favorites. We even had an audi cassette recorded with just these songs and we would listen to it just before going to sleep. Those were days. Wish I could go back to those times...

Back Again after Another Really Long Break

It has been over two months since I updated my blog. I changed jobs and have been extremely busy. I also seem to have settled comfortably into Gurgaon though I still crave to be back in Mumbai. I did visit Mumbai a few weekends back. It was a fairly short trip but it really made me realize how vibrant and full of life Mumbai is when compared to any other city. All I can do is hope that I can go back there at some point.

The Anna Hazare Movement: Maybe I should have given it more thought

The Anna Hazare Movement: Maybe I should have given it more thought.

The whole of last month the media was only talking about Anna Hazare. His campaign against corruption was on full swing with the whole country talking about it. Unfortunately, I did not seem to care too much and just wanted to go on with my life. Corruption is so ingrained in our daily life that I was disillusioned about one man fasting and trying to eradicate this.

Nevertheless, a recent article in the Hindu “The Union Cabinet gets healthier” has got me thinking.  The article talks about how sitting MPs have multiplied their wealth over the last two years.  Based on the article by P. Sainath, the average worth of a union minister has risen from Rs 7.3 crore to Rs 10.6 crore over the last twenty eight months. I was reading this article and was really stunned. On one hand we, the salaried class, are slogging for ten hours a day to earn a decent living and for a measly 10% rise in salary each year, while on the other hand our elected representatives are doubling their wealth, even as they make no substantial contribution towards making our society a better place to live. Cost of food items, house rents, fuel and just about everything else have sky rocketed over the last year. But obviously this does not seem to be affecting our elected representatives. And why would it? Their wealth seems to have grown at a rate faster than most of these basic necessities that we are worrying about.

I think this article has been a wakeup call for me. Maybe we do need more campaigns from the likes of Anna Hazare and maybe it is time that we the educated middle class start questioning our elected representatives.

P.S: I have quoted from Mr Sainath’s article which was published in the Hindu on September 21, 2011. The link to this article is http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/article2470835.ece