Oh my goodness! What has world come to…lingerie show in flights?

There was time, when going abroad was a novelty and we smiled ‘jabardasti’ at our aunts who visited us, hoping that they would part with their duty-free shopping gifts, if they were lured by our smiles. I wonder if any airlines complained about their empty flights in those days. The flights were few but they were enough. People who traveled were happy with meals of cold cuts and a movie show and while they entertained themselves, their minds were preoccupied with schemes on how to con a customs officer and pass through a green channel. But now, people are no more bothered about watching a movie show in flights because they now, prefer never-ending soap operas. Meals are not served in the planes and people prefer going off to sleep rather than to part with their hard earned cash to buy a packet of wafers. If I say I had lunch in Mumbai, snacks in Delhi and dinner in Chennai, nobody will even smirk. Everybody is traveling and hopping places is a norm. There are too many flights and there is so much competition. Everyday, there is a launch of a new airline, and all are obsessed with attracting of maximum passengers into their flights. But, what is this I am hearing…..?????? To attract the passengers, Ecuadorian airline Ícaro has launched mid-air lingerie parades, with voluptuous models strutting up and down the aisles in underwear and heels? Uff! Passengers from the capital Quito to the port of Guayaquil are being treated to ten-minute shows, which, oddly enough, are proving rather popular with male passengers? We, in India, the champions at aping……and this idea, so easy to copy, soon all this might get introduced in our Indian flight too…. Tobba! Tobba! Now I will have to sit next to an uncle in a flight, who will be drooling over a bare flesh? What will the next stunt for attracting a passenger be? With dance-bars closed, will we have our males hopping into ‘males-only-flights’ with bar dancers as air-hostess? Whew! Hare Ram, Rama, Rama, Hare, Hare….

Should I vote for Taj Mahal or wot?

Everybody is talking about ‘Seven wonders of the world’ and Indians are very much obsessed that Taj Mahal may not be listed in the new list of seven wonders. And there is so much craze on voting for Taj Mahal, on TV, on radio, on Forums, everywhere they are asking for votes. I think the cell phone companies must have already made million from the vote messages. I have never seen Taj Mahal in my life. When I tell my NRI friends that, they cannot believe me ‘Wot? You no see Taj? Why?’ they exclaim. I promise them, that I will see it during this life. My promise is about to be materialized. Yeeeh! I am going tomorrow to see it ….finally…....Yupeee! and then I shall decide should I vote or wot?

Games we played...

Those were the days…there were so many games, when there was no TV. All day long we played. I wonder how our parents tolerated that! Every evening all my friends would come down in the building compound to play games. We loved to play 'kho-kho', hop-scotch, spinning the top, gulli-dhanda, langdi, hide-n-seek, seven tiles, Fire in the mountains, statue, tug-a-war, kabbadi, volley ball. Then we played cricket, basketball, badminton. The best was dhabba ice-spice where all would hide, and we would come out from hiding and kick the dhabba as hard as we could. It used to be fun, my friends and I would hide into our home, eating sandwiches and watching the person searching us, from our balcony while eating. When it was raining, we played indoor games like snakes and ladder, ludo, carom, chess, scrabble, monopoly or other board games, or simply playing with dolls (house-house) or Dumb shera, antakshri., whispering a tale. During college days it was scrabble. There was so much craze on scrabble that we would play non-stop for eight to ten hours. During summer holidays, early hours, we would go for long walks or cycling (double seat) all the way from Bandra to Juhu beach. And we had so much energy! good ole days!

My art world

My favorite pass time is creativity. I love making odd things out of nothing. Take for example this balcony. Everybody loves this balcony that I made from Chinese cane calendar, cut out with blade to make door and windows, stuck plywood slabs to make a balcony and drinking straws for roof. Made intricate designs with thick cord of thread and painted the whole thing in bronze. Voila! A piece of art! This is the painting in oils, where there are three friends playing in the courtyard. It took me six months to complete it. This one is of a model who parades while a Rajasthani native stares at her. It is painting in oils. This is a Rajasthani native waiting in anticipation for her lover. I have used em-seal to make jewelry and frame and painting is on oils. One of the walls, I have just stuck leaves with stems painted with acrylic paints. The painting surrounds the set of five miniature pictures. On one wall, I have set of four picture, the frames are made of em-seal and painted in bronze and it frames my cross-stitch work. This is the flower arrangement of dried flowers. I stuck them on a mirror. The frame is painted in bronze. These are the things decorating my house, presently.

Gurus in India.....

I was watching TV program ‘CNN today’ and they showed some devotees in their trance. They looked happy and contented and they were the followers of Osho. “Sri Sri Ravishankar and Osho are today the glamour boys of Indian spirituality. They are charismatic and offer a new spiritual product: how to take the good life to the fulfilled life’’, said the reporter. “They are the modern-day sects of the successful. They teach you how to meditate and celebrate. The two will never clash. It's a personalized designer religion that allows you to love your material aspirations with no guilt. Sects like those of Osho and Sri Sri Ravishankar are today really popular with the young and successful. It's a young and personalized religion that allows them to enjoy their materialistic needs”. The people looked quite contented doing what they liked best, be it singing hymns or meditating. Their focus was on their own experience. If they took part in dancing sequences, they seemed to enjoy every moment. There is no teaching in Osho, you only have to strive for yourself because there is always danger in imitating others. “With gurus like Osho and Sri Sri Ravishankar, nirvana is hip. The community, therefore, is global and the holy life merges with the comfortable life.” said the reporter on CNN live. In Osho, Capitalism is in, charity is out. It’s not really an arduous pilgrimage. This is the philosophy of "Me". Well, everybody has their own choice to make; it all depends on our attitude towards life! image source: http://www.ibnlive.com/