NEWS:”Some Achaar” to “All Masala”

“Kya aliens bhi doodh peete hain”

“Dekhiye kaise Gayoon ko kidnap kiya aliens ne”

You must have seen this type of unimaginable crap on a score of Hindi news channels.

I always swore by all the English news channels, thinking that at least they showed stuff that was genuine and what made a difference to the common man.

Yesterday all my beliefs went shattering down the drain. Why?

Consider this: “Shocking Similarity between 26/11 and attacks on Sri Lankan Team”

Tonight at 9pm only on Times Now.

‘Times Now’ was one news channel which I really appreciated, especially because of Aarnav Goswami.

Yesterday while catching up on the latest developments on the Sri Lankan team attack I came across this really amusing piece that they had created for the 9pm news.

According to Times Now, the method of attacks on 26/11 Mumbai CST and the attack on Sri Lankan Team was “shockingly similar”. ( Aaj tak would term it as “Bhayanak Sach” or something equally disgusting)

Point No 1: Both the attackers had backpacks full of explosives and bullet rounds. (Photographs with bright red circles highlighting the backpacks)

I have a backpack of the same style and colour…. Does that make me similar to the terrorists?

Point No 2: The attackers had the same type of arms (AK 47’s or 56’s.. I dunno) which Ajmal Kasab had. (More photographs with red circles)

The whole world knows that terrorist groups have more modern arms and guns than even the Indian police force. And besides if they didn’t have that they stood no chance of battling the security of the Sri Lankan team.

Point No 3: “Look at the shocking similarity in the way they approached, Surprise Attack, audacious approach….blah blah blah…..”

Didn’t it occur to anybody that to attack somebody u have to have an element of surprise. Even a small child for that matter knows that if he wants to scare his friend from behind a wall he has to do it quickly without being discovered. It is also shown on all the news channels how the terrorists are given military level of training. I’m sure the military curriculum has a chapter or two on “Surprise Attack”

Also the fact that the 26/11 attacks were so extensively shown on all the news channels even after weeks of it getting over. Pictures of Ajaml Kasab zoomed in and out a zillion times and details of each and every place that he might have shot, walked or even peed for that matter, that any person remotely trained would be able to learn how to attack a particular place and create maximum damage. I bet even Mr Sharukh Khan must not have got that much of publicity in such a short amount of time.

But the most disappointing thing was that “Good ” news stations are also resorting to such cheap ways to boost their TRP’s.

Is it time that the so called “24 hr Media” should introspect on their ways of broadcasting news, and stop publicizing the terrorists (which is exactly what they want)?

Gift for a Gift

When starting to write this, I had thought of writing an article about mothers, the most important woman in our lives. But I later realized that this topic was too vast for the greatest of literary geniuses in the world, so how could an unimportant blogger like me summarize it in the form of one post.

To give myself a head start to writing this I even looked up the meaning of the word mother in an online dictionary. I know it sounds weird given the fact that we always seem assume that we know the meaning of this word right from the time we were born. I found close to 15 definitions of the word, all in technical sense of course, but even that didn’t satisfy my personal definition of Mothers. I believe that the dictionary or the Web is too small a place to actually wholly describe what a wonderful creation of God, Women and Mothers are.

A few days ago I was trying to think of a suitable gift for my Mami (maternal aunt) as her Birthday was approaching. She has been more than a mother to me at times, and I wanted to make sure I can make her Birthday as special, as she makes each of my days, when I am with her.

I zeroed in on the idea of giving her a personalized Coffee Mug with her picture on it. So I was scrambling around the whole house trying to find all family albums. I had to do it in a very short amount of time so she could not come to know what I had in mind for her. I was very proud of myself for finding out all the albums I could, in record time. What I didn’t know was after an hour of browsing through them I did not find a single picture of her alone, but only pictures with Mama and her son or the whole of the family. It was after a long time of scanning and rescanning the pictures that I realized it was a vain effort to try and look for her picture.

That is when it hit me; a woman is not defined by what she is. The real definition of a woman is to be found only by looking at her family. A mother is only born after her child; till then she remains a woman. No matter how successful a woman is in her career, the most important stages of her life are when she becomes a Wife, a Daughter-in Law, a Mother, a Grandmother. She might be the CEO of a multinational company, with thousands of employees working under her, but she only feels safe with the warm cozy atmosphere of her family around her. She might be a political leader, a Lawyer fighting for giving punishment to a murderer, but when it comes to her own child she forgives him for all the mistakes he might have done. She even tends to ignore all her problems, when she is in her territory, and that is her home.

At the end of a day a woman is only satisfied if her family has eaten well, and her children are safely tucked into bed, even if she has to remain hungry, or be awake the whole night if someone is sick. That is when it dawned upon me that my Mami would be the happiest person if I gave her a gift which portrays her real image; her image as a wife and a mother. So I picked up the best family photo that I could find and decided to give her a glimpse of her own self in the Coffee Mug.