Sometimes life seems a bit like taking a walk down the wild side 8212; on one8217;s head. As accepted values are unceremoniously thrown out of the window and received wisdom raucously hooted out, the times assume positively Edward Learian hues: I thought I saw an elephant standing on a pike I looked again and found it was a letter from my wife8230; and that sort of thing. So here are a few stray thought-balloons for a period that seemed to get curiouser and curiouser, as Alice may have put it in one of her grammatically weaker moments.
Like, isn8217;t it curious how many disguises death can assume. Sometimes it visits us through landslides high up on the Himalaya, at other times it awaits us in a bottle of mango pickled in mustard oil.
Like, isn8217;t it curious that it needed a mustard oil scam of the kind now raging in the north to make us realise that we may have been ingesting large quantities of motor oil all this while, believing that it was the best looking medium that the market had to offer?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that while environmentalists keep urging us to recycle, they should fail to congratulate our manufacturers and traders of cooking oil for discovering that the perfect way to recycle used motor oil was to send it down the human digestive system?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that while there is so much extra water on view in the Indo-Gangetic plains of Bihar and eastern UP, neighbouring Orissa should be crying for a drop of rain?
Like, isn8217;t it curious how some were quite happy to bask in the reflected glory of Arundhati Roy8217;s international success as a novelist, but come down on her like a ton of bricks the moment she took a stand against a Nuclear India?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that the moment anyone speaks out for peace and against the nuclear bomb, there8217;s an immediate war declared 8212; with the various pillars of the establishment going ballistic?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that the moment one speaks out for peace and against the nuclear bomb, one is immediately branded a 8220;rootless8221; Indian?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that the ones who do the branding seem pretty 8220;rootless8221; themselves.
Like, isn8217;t it curious how the US bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan was hailed by some as a patriotic act 8212; until, that is, the US told us that we were not old enough to do what Daddy did?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that the more sordid Clinton private life seems to be, the more his popularity ratings shoot up 8212; helped no doubt by some skillful Tomahawk diplomacy?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that while US Tomahawks have landed here, there and everywhere, they still have not landed on his discredited and compromised presidency?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that the Resurgent Indian by today8217;s definition is not the freedom fighter or those working to create a better India right here at home, but some non-resident India who hopes to make a killing on his dollars, or some resident non-Indian who wishes to launder his ill-gotten money?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that the more the government fails its people in terms of creating a safe, healthy and enabling environment, the more it waves the flag of national honour?
Like, isn8217;t it curious how the Maharashtra chief minister can so blithely term the Srikrishna Report as 8220;communal8221;? By this token, what the Shiv Sena perpetrated in Bombay during those terror-laden days and nights of rioting must embody the highest form of 8220;secularism8221;.
Like, isn8217;t it curious how Jayalalitha uses suspense as a political instrument in a manner that Hitchcock would have applauded?
Like, isn8217;t it curious how effectively she insults people by not naming them or by referring to them as 8220;Tom, Dick or Harry8221;?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that Pramod Mahajan should get so incensed by her statement about not replying to any Tom, Dick or Harry, since he doesn8217;t go by any of these names anyway?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that while people once paid good money to see Amitabh Bachchan play the avenging son, complete with car chases and bullets, today they pay good money to see a digital monster with a name like Godzilla play the avenging mother/father, complete with helicopter-borne missiles and wrecked skyscrapers?
Like, isn8217;t it curious that there couldn8217;t be a more perfect metaphor for these strange times than a Godzilla on the rampage?
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