This Ophi-whatever!

This morning, my daughter looked shattered. It seemed like the universe had come crashing down on her. So I asked whether it had. “It has”, she said softly, “This Ophi-whatever has changed my life forever!”, she said reading the newspaper.

“Oh nothing ever changes, don’t worry, it is Makar Sankranti, cheer up!” I said. But I couldn’t hide my curiosity about this Ophi-whatever.

Did an alien find its way to earth or was it some creature formed by evolution that would claim us homo sapiens to be the lesser mortal?

“I am no more a Virgo, Dad, I am now a Leo! How can it be? I am just the way Linda Goodman describes a typical Virgo – and wait - You are no more a Libran, which you typically are, but a Virgo, which I deeply believe, you aren’t one bit! We couldn’t change our traits overnight, could we?” she asked excitedly

“Of course, not, my dear! I am not going to change the way I think or behave whether Pluto is a planet or a meteor or a galactic mirage. I am going to write my whatnonsanz every now and then, forget all my house-hold chores, cut my nails only when someone is hurt and all that - you know, don’t you? So nothing is going to change if I am a Virgo instead of a Libran” I assured her.

“It’s not that, it’s the charasteristics!
A Libra is known for being good natured, pleasant, people loving – but hate crowds, extremely intelligent and naïve and gullible at the same time, talkative and good listeners all at the same time, obsessed with being logical and being just to one and all - so as not to tilt the scales - and insisting on being justly treated too.

While a Virgo is known for being none of this but extremely competent, powerful in top positions, and resorting to deceitful ways to protect senior positions – all that you aren’t! You couldn’t be A Virgo and be what they’ve been saying a Virgo is all about, all of a sudden now, can you?”, she stressed.

“Certainly not, dear! I will continue to be all that a Libra has been said to be, like frustatingly inconsistent – no cause to worry. Just because some astronomer gives a pink slip to a planet for some flimsy reason of not showing up on his telescope for one night or finds some new stars and galaxies with his incessant gazing obsession, it should not change our lives, should it? We are just the same as we believe we are supposed to be as, who is it…- Linda Goodman, who told us how we are supposed to be, so just relax!”, I tried.



“So we must not miss reading last line of this news item here which says some believed that the new Zodiac system applies only to those born after 2009!”

Hurray! We immediately resolved to stick to our own Sun Signs – me, a Libran not a Virgo and she, a Virgo and not a Leo!

Ok, so that is how the introduction of the 13th Zodiac Sign, Ophiuchus, which we learnt about today, became the topic of our morning discussion today.

Btw, while I read the newspaper to learn what happened, my daughter picks it up to read what will happen! She usually heads straight to the columns that tell you what the stars foretell for the day, week or year! Let me tell you, even on days when she had to leave home earlier than the newspaper vendor arrived and dropped the newspaper – and ended up as late as 10 at night – she does the same thing! “To find out what will happen today?” I ask her. To which, she replies, “There is always some part of the prediction that works out true – it is just to find out which one turned out to be spot on”.

As for me, I have never believed that the position of the celestial bodies has anything to do with what happens to me! The position of my bosses, well, maybe – on tour? Great time! Many of my friends and colleagues ask me, “did you not have a good time or a particular patch of bad time?”, to which my usual reply is “Of course, i have, but what has it got to do with whether Jupiter is in my 4th House – and by the way I don’t have 4 houses!

Well, I have been reading these columns (at times)- but only for fun!

So also my daughter, I am sure!

Bloggers' Post-Script:
1. Is this guy, Parke Kunkle, who shocked the world with the 13th Zodiac Sign, a Maharastrian by any chance?

2. Whoever named the new zodiac Ophiuchus - was it this Kunkle guy? Did he not have some pity on prospective Ophiuchusians?

My latest Perky Tweets

Q: What does a blogger do when he doesnt blog?

A: He microblogs!

Not always do you have any thing much to say! Often you have some different things to say and there is nothing common in either of what you want to say to sew it up into an article (or ArTicKle, in my case). So how do you say so many different things without writing a blog post? You tweet!

Twitter is the microblogging platform which has swept the blogging commnunity so much that most bloggers today rarely post a blog! The 140-character limit, at first, seems to be too little, but once you get the hang of it (Read: learn what those wierd acronyms and hashtags mean), you can say several different things as they come to your mind!

If you have been reading my blogposts and feel you'd do with some more whatnonsanz, in smaller doses, do follow me on Twitter!

My Twitter handle is @gopinathmm

Follow me!

Just to give you a flavour of what you have missed on Twitter, here are my latest Perky Tweets.

Ok, Perkytweets, is a term coined by Blogadda, a blogger's platform for Indian bloggers, where ideas are exchanged, bloggers are interviewed, etc etc..

Read what Blogadda is upto here.


Indian Railways turnaround was B-School study, now will its near bankruptcy be C-School study C=Corruption? #perkytweets

If life gives you lemons, trade them for onions #lemontweets

Breaking News: Govt Of India announces new currency units Rs 1000 Cr. = 1 Kalmadi; Rs 10000 Cr = 1 Radia; Rs 100000 Cr = 1 Raja #perkytweets

Is Digvijay Singh competing with Vir Das, the standup comedian or Julian Assange with his Digileaks? #perkytweets
c
Glad to make it to the first list in 2011! Thanks @blogadda Check out the first #perkytweets of 2011 @ http://adda.at/Perky31

Will a compendium of Scams coming soon be called "Scamayana"? #perkytweets

Special drive by banks: Onions accepted as security for loans - Offer valid till Sharad Pawar is Agriculture Minister #perkytweets

Breaking News: Tees Maar Khan team wishes to change its title to Tees "Pyaaz Maar Khan" #fakingnews #perkytweets

As Ajit Dayal writes in his column "The Honest Truth", the New EPS is Earnings per SCAM!
SRT = Still Raining Tons! #justlearnt

We had the Ice Age, the Stone Age in olden days. Today we are in WikiLeakAge #perkytweets

Transcribers and Transcription companies will be busy for a while - 5400 conversations only 23 transcribed - Radia tapes i'm talking abt!

Thanks to the scale of the 2G Scam, we can now say that other scams are of an insignificant scale - Montek Singh Ahluwalia just did!

A person with an impeccable integrity is defined as that person who has not been caught with his hand in the cookie jar #perkytweets

This year it just doesn't stop raining...................... SCAMS! #perkytweets

Rajnikant ought to change his name becoz there is nothing Rajni Kan't...mebbe to Rajni Kan? #perkytweets

TOI has done a good job of exposing corruption in reporting the #Adarsh scam. But can media leap ahead and stop the scams from taking place?

Finally an Ideal Scam for all to emulate - the #Adarsh scam! All those who helped the promoters got a flat - a truly 'inclusive' venture!

From what i hear about Hisss, the latest bollywood flick, it seems it will soon be "Hissstory" #perkytweets

Cant believe every thing the TV Channels report - especially when they themselves call them "stories"! #perkytweets

@solitalks What phobia is it when you're scared to ask?

Raavan goes to Consumer Forum to complain about the "per head" charges in buses, trains, hotels....Jaago grahak jaago! #perkytweets

Will Lalit Modi be invited to declare the CWP - Common Wealth Probe open? #perkytweets

It is amazing to watch a Milkman's son, a poor villager's daughter come into the limelight, bringing India glory by winning medals at CWG!

Cant wait to watch the #CWG Opening Cere! Cere or Ceremoney? Money has been taken away by Kalmadi already #perkytweets

Thanks 2 d HC Verdict, we know what Nirmohi Akhara is - and please tell youngsters Ramlalla Virajman isnt a Page3 personality #perkytweets

Understand India bribed 72 Commonwealth countries to bid for the CWG! And then they call us corrupt! #perkytweets

Octopus Paul now singing "Main Paul do Paul ka Maahir hoon..." #perkytweets

Octopus Paul is loving the media attention, sings, "Paul bhar ke liye koi hame pyaar kar le..jhootha hi sahi" #perkytweets

I wonder why the Sena goons are not observing #bbandh today. Isn't vandalism their prime
economic activity? #perkytweets

Do you know why politicians dont join Facebook? Becoz they are waiting for the launch of FARCEBOOK! #perkytweets

What compels our courts to deliver sentences 25 yrs on, when verdicts dont contain an iota of justice, one wonders? #justasking #perkytweets

Did RK Pachauri make a blunder by retracting his glacier melting forecast? Now mumbaikars are melting this summer #perkytweets #justasking

Hon. High Court, Supreme Court and The Hon President of India stand between Ajmal Kasab and the 72 promised virgins in jannat #perkytweets

Lalit Modi wanted to tell us all and expose every1. All of a sudden he's quiet! Did some1 buy his silence at a private auction? #justasking

Is the English word "suffer" from the Hindi "safar" as Mumbaiites experience regularly? Or the other way around? #justasking #perkytweets

Is the English word "goon" from the Hindi "goonda"? or the other way around? #justasking #perkytweets

More of my earlier #PerkyTweets in my earlier blogpost here

And if you want to read my earliest Perkytweets read it in this blogpost here.

WOTY 2010 and IWOTY 2010

Ever since 1991, when the American Dialect Society (ADS) introduced the practice of announcing the Word of the Year (WOTY) at the end of each year, several other dictionaries and language societies like the Global Language Monitor (GLM) have been inviting suggestions, holding polls to designate their WOTY.

The selected words could be a single word or a couple of words (e.g. information superhighway) or even a phrase (e.g. weapons of mass destruction). We even witnessed a date in history represented in the figures 9-11 in the Year 2001, following a disastrous terrorist attack in the US.

The ADS choices of word of the year are the following:
• 1990: bushlips (similar to "bullshit" – stemming from President George H. W. Bush's 1988 "Read my lips: no new taxes" broken promise)
• 1991: The mother of all (as in Saddam Hussein's foretold "Mother of all battles")
• 1992: Not! (meaning "just kidding")
• 1993: information superhighway
• 1994: cyber morph (to change form)
• 1995: Web and (to) newt (to act aggressively as a newcomer).
• 1996: mom (as in "soccer mom").
• 1997: millennium bug.
• 1998: e- (as in "e-mail").
• 1999: Y2K.
• 2000: chad (from the 2000 Presidential Election controversy in Florida).
• 2001: 9-11
• 2002: weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
• 2003: metrosexual.
• 2004: red state, blue state, purple state (from the 2004 presidential election).
• 2005: truthiness, popularized on The Colbert Report.
• 2006: plutoed (demoted or devalued, as happened to the former planet Pluto).
• 2007: subprime (an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment).
• 2008: bailout (a rescue by government of a failing corporation)
• 2009: tweet (a short message sent via the Twitter service)

While some of the WOTYs like information superhighway, millenium bug, Web did become a popular word in the Indian texts, albeit with a time lag due, chiefly, to the delay in ushering in the era of technological advancements in our country, the WOTY 1999, Y2K not only significantly related to Indians, but was also a source of major economic development as Indian software companies grew largely on the back of huge orders at the turn of the last century. But most of the other WOTYs have not been truly representative of the times for Indian readers, writers or bloggers, such as those in 1990, 1992, ‘96,2000, 2004, 2005 in particular.
The ADS is yet to announce the WOTY which is scheduled for the 7th Jan 2011 at Pittsburgh. Read details about its voting process here.

The Global Language Monitor (GLM)

Read the Top 10 words of 2010 by GLM here.
On Top Spot is:
1. Spillcam — The BP Spillcam instantly beamed the immensity of the Gulf Spill around the world to the dismay of environmentalists, BP’s PR staff and the President.

It is amusing to find Sarah Palin’s mix-up being accepted as a neologism and more importantly a candidate for WOTY. The unintentional coinage of “Refudiate” (Refute + Repudiate) is listed at Rank 4. And although not many of the listed words I could relate, perhaps due to lack of regional context (my euphemism for being an ignoramus), I persisted to read upto the bottom of the list and found a gem - the last listed one at Rank 10 caught my attention and won my admiration –
10 -“Simplexity” – The paradox of simplifying complex ideas in order to make them easier to understand, the process of which only adds to their complexity.
My personal vote goes to Rank 10!

The Top Phrases of 2010
1. Anger and Rage – Characterizations of the US electorate by the pundits, though closer analyses has revealed more frustration and disappointment. Also witnessed in France, Spain and Greece.

Although there is enough of this in India over the volley of scams under which citizens find themselves being buried in, the phrase doesn’t seem to be as popular. Thanks to the several cartoonists, standup comedians and humorists, we seem to be enjoying every bit of the jokes going around rather than the rage, anger, frustration or disappointment that one finds in the chosen POTY 2010. (P=Phrase).

The New Oxford American Dictionary goes for “Refudiate” as its WOTY 2010
Read the other contenders here.

The Indian Word of the Year 2010

It is in this context and with this background that one feels that an Indian Word of the Year (IWOTY) is the need of the times!

So I began with asking my friends on FB and Twitter to suggest the Word of the Year 2010. Suggestions so far recorded for consideration:
1. SCAMINDIA 2010 – This is how the year will be remembered – Nandakumar Hattangadi.
2. Tainted – This is how most of the politicians were described in 2010 – Nagesh Aroor.
3. Scam – The most used word in the year on all forms of media – Manju Joglekar and BK Chowla.
4. Spectrum Raja – Just a way to remember the Raja of all Scams and the wide spectrum of scams on offer in 2010 – Akshay Bangera
5. ScamaRaja - A new coinage for the same Raja we are talking about this year.
6. Corruption - The widely spread word and phenomenon to reckon with in 2010 -T Rajkumar
7. Munni – the winner of the Munni-Sheela debate on Twitter suggested by Vinod Sharma.

Do post your choice of the IWOTY 2010 in the comment space if you have not yet done so on my Facebook Note or Twitter appeal.
Thank you for being part of the New Wave – IWOTY!

Watch this blog for more on the IWOTY 2010!

Wishing all a Very Happy, Prosperous, Safe, Peaceful and Fulfilling New Year and a great DECADE ahead!

Ceasar's Wives, All!

The year 2010 is coming to its very end. It is that time of the year when one begins to wonder how this year has been with us. But how have these times been for us as a whole? How have our citizens fared - netizens, tweeple and the man on the street deprived of bandwidth - in our country and the world in which we live today? Have things changed? Or has nothing changed at all?

Amongst success stories for India, the successful hosting of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, which finally ended as a spectacular show and the winning streak of our cricket team this year; and the much talked about aspirations for a permanent seat at the UNSC. [Much talked by ourselves, we are told by a certain Wikileaked cable]. The continued run in the economic growth measured by our GDP is another reason to be pleased with ourselves as a nation on the move. At a time when much of the world has been struggling with their economy, this feat means in effect that India is the most happening place (next only to China), where the action really is!

From the highs of the moon-landing last year when India planted its flag on the moon and the high-pitched crescendo of the cheering for our athletes’ record-breaking performance at the CWG, we also landed low on the revelations of financial irregularities, besides nepotism in postings reportedly committed by all those associated with the Organizing Committee of the CWG. If that was not enough, what followed were reports of the Adarsh Society scam, Land allotment scams in Karnataka and the mother of all scams, the 2-G scam, followed by revelation of lobbying for the ministerial position by corporate lobbyist Niira Radia through the tapes leaked to the Indian Press. [Pardon me if i have missed any scam]

The inclusion of Army officials and judges in scam tainted has achieved in some sense our wish to have “inclusive growth” in our country – we don’t leave out any one out of the party! Finally the Radia tapes also pointed to the possible involvement of journalists in engineering ministerial berths and currying corporate favoritism. These findings were followed through by various retired editors posting blogs about their experiences about how industrialists wooed media even in their times and bribes offered and paid news is not, after all, a new phenomenon. It has been proved beyond doubt that the very media - that character assassinates suspects without so much as a fair sound-byte in defence - indulges in wrongful practices themselves!

So what is new is that we have begun talking about it – and acknowledging that it exists. The rot can’t be hidden anymore - the stench tells us about it’s existence. Gandhiji’s Teen Bunder [Bunder - Hindi, for monkey] could well be Chaar Bunder with another holding his nose to avoid the stench emanating from all around!

hey,we employed another bunder!)

A Raja is not yet questioned inspite of losing 20+ days of business in the Parliament! Even our own Prime Minister is facing charges of inaction in the telecom scam, although the PM, like Ceasar’s wife, wishes to be above the law.

So much like all of us, no? Everyone seems to want to be, or already think they are, above the law.

Everyone bears the “holier-than-thou” approach, while erroneously believing in it. The media wouldn’t have to explain their role, but for the tweeple who incessantly demanded an explanation. We don’t like being frisked, being asked questions, asked to show our identity cards or PAN cards or any such document. Anywhere anytime! “You suspect me?”, we ask scornfully. In that sense, we are all aspiring to be Ceasar’s wife!


The year is drawing to a close with food prices rising unabated - onions bringing tears without even peeling them. Petrol prices, which were de-regulated only this year, have also risen quickly. Traders seem to be enjoying the freedom offered by pricing decontrol to their full advantage. Leaving us ordinary folks struggling to beat the inflation (which could be another scam, I guess) all our lives, without indulging in scams or swindling others in our society - unless of course, you are tempted to beat the inflation by acquiring the necessary skills by joining this institute – A C-School here.

We can certainly hope that the New Year 2011 will clear the prevailing stench and bring new aspirations of belonging to a cleaner society in the world around us.

After all, hope is all that remains!

Bloggers’ Post-Script – What according to you is the Indian Word of the Year 2010? Do write in the comments space with your suggestions and why you chose that word!

The Info-Leak-Age

One could be on cloud nine after being served with dollops of praise from just about anyone, but when the offering comes from none other than the President of the United States of America, it is certain to stir the common man from his dreary stance to spring up in joyful celebration! He said we are not an emerging nation but an already emerged nation! We are not “developing” but “developed” – in substance we had already arrived, just in case we happened to miss noticing the decorated, flashy gates of the elite club of nations who lead the world of the 21st Century for having gate-crashed into the lavish dinner table.

Suddenly we felt as though we had not only arrived, but also taken our rightful place at the G-20 or UNSC or any such elite gathering. Our upbeat mood was only natural – when was the last time that our country was praised so much for having done so much for shaping the world, for giving the world such gems like the Mahatma and so many heroes, for being the largest democracy in the world or for that matter for our diverse cultures and yet for being one voice the world was dying to listen to? Can’t remember, can we?

Come to think of it, let us do an exercise – try remembering a time in your own personal life and career that one would have been praised so much for all that one is or has done for your organization or for being a great person to have known or been associated with. Chances are, that you’ve heard these words of high praise at a send-off party while leaving your organization after a long-stint for better pastures or even at retirement. That is when you hear all the words you always wanted to hear when you’ve been working hard all the time – just for that appreciation and recognition –(although nobody seems to know)!

The only other instance when one may have experienced unconstrained showering of mighty praise has been when one is contemplating a large value purchase, either for oneself or for the organization one represents. Suddenly, marketing professionals will wax eloquent about your attributes and praise you to the heavens for all that you are – and even for all that you’d hoped to be; all the skills that you have and several that you hope you had possessed! Although it is really an occasion to introspect and work on these missing attributes, human nature being what it is, leads us to believe that there is nothing for me to do, but to accept the praise in all its glory and celebrate the moment.

President Obama had his wares to sell to boost his countrymen’s job prospects - and India would have been working on its shopping list for its nuclear energy program, other clean energy initiatives and several such developmental budgets to keep the pace of GDP growth going for the coming decades. Get the drift?
High praise, like the good old spirits, is indeed intoxicating. It gets to one’s head faster than truth, which takes a longer time to sink in. We had been in a celebratory mood, albeit only until the same news channels suddenly started doling out scam after scam, making one wonder where are we heading and whether we are really getting there at all? Will the Wikileaks comment citing Hillary Clinton to have dubbed India as being “a self- appointed front-runner for the UN Security Council seat” bring our feet firmly back on terra firma? Or will we just brush the Wikileaks information aside as an apocryphal account and continue to celebrate?

Talking about leaks, we are living in times, which future generations may call as the “Info-Leakage”. Classified documents leaking into public domain is being witnessed in India too. The Nira Radia tapes found their way into blogs and media websites and shocked the scale and spread of the malaise in our political and social fabric. The flip side of the Radia Tapes leak is a host of websites got busy transcribing the conversations. The involvement of media bigwigs in the corridors of powers is being hotly debated. Although those involved are defending themselves of the allegations - of going beyond their call of duty and engaging in power-broking activities alongwith lobbyists - by explaining that they were only stringing a potential news source or humoring them for future utility, it is to many a sighting of a tip of the iceberg that one cannot afford to simply brush aside.

The media has of late assumed a larger role, sitting in judgment and trying citizens for their misdeeds in extra-judicial court-rooms having high national visibility unlike the real judiciary. In that sense it was a rare treat to find political news editors, being big names in the industry on the other side of the table defending their actions and inactions and discussing the ethics of journalism. Satish Acharya, the well-known cartoonist has been kind enough to work on this creation, working on the idea provided by me, indicating the dangers of the newsrooms in our TV channels. Collaborative blogging, we may say. Thanks, Satish Acharya!


We are witnessing a High Level of RADIA-ACTIVITY in Newsrooms!

Festival Times in Mumbai

Times were when crackers were burst only during Diwali – not so today. Crackers are being burst at cricket match wins, political rallies, Ganapati visarjans and the neighbourhood plumber’s (and his uncle’s) wedding and the consequent naming ceremony of their offspring! The same goes with the consumption of sweets, which would be consumed only during festive times in the good old days – puranpolis during Holi, modaks during Ganesh Chaturthi and so on and so forth, whereas modern times have meant that these sweets are available all year long diluting the real joys of a festival!

So a Mumbaikar today looks forward to a Diwali for only the holidays one gets and not so much for the noisy and polluting celebrations or the sweetmeats. Or so it seems. The 2010 Diwali however was rather unusual for us Mumbaikars- we had the high-profile head of the most powerful nation in the world, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle visit us bang in the middle of the celebrations to add to the sparkle of our festivities! So we watched them dance with our schooling kids and talk to our young student in college, while the TV channels featured experts, politicians and editors, who debated ad-nauseum about what the US President would or would not say, should have or should not have said between those delightful glimpses of the charming couple’s graceful appearances beamed live into our living rooms.

All that 'expert talk' turned out to be phuskas (the crackers that fail to explode) compared to the real phatakas (the crackers that explode with a bang) that came from our young college students like Afsheen Irani and the likes who breathed fresh life into the debate by bringing to the table the real questions and even correctly judged the geo-political situation, unlike the misreadings by “experts” all day long! All one can say at the end of the visit was, we can hope for a brighter future with these kind of youngsters amongst us!

Just as Diwali, the Festival of Lights drew to a close, another Festival, the first of its kind in Mumbai was being announced in the Times of India – the Literature Live Festival! Having tasted success in Jaipur, the think tank headed by renowned Anil Dharker, the Festival Director got their plans moving by roping in the much-needed sponsors to initiate what will hopefully be a small beginning of a bigger event in times to come. Our country has seen many new writers in recent times. Indian writing has been making its mark on the globe – with more authors bagging the Booker Prize and such other international forms of recognition besides a global readership. It is about time to cash in on this emerging trend.

Having been able to attend some of these sessions at the NCPA at Mumbai, one found a unique possibility open up, when readers and aspiring writers could interact with Indian authors and some of the new publishers, who are also being drawn to the party of Indian writings like never before! Besides being treated to the thoughts and novel ideas (pun intended) behind the successful authors about their approach to writing, increasing trend of relating to mythological themes, travails and tribulations with publishing houses, one also found that writers still fighting shy to come out and talk openly about compensation issues.

When will writers be able to proudly tell the world that they are just writers, without being asked the inevitable next question, ‘but what do you do for a living’, I asked. A publisher promptly replied that there had been more successful writers amongst us than ever before and we could be getting there sometime soon! Until that happens, writers may have to look for day jobs to fend for themselves and their families, I guess.

The festival is certainly a good beginning! But what seems to be the need of the hour is a great amount of effort on the part of schools, colleges, NGOs, teachers- just about everyone to encourage people to put of their idiot box………

………………………………AND JUST READ A BOOK!

Blogger's Post-script:
1. The icing on the cake for me had been a chance meeting with my favourite humour columnist, the adorable and humble, Bachi Karkaria and have my pic taken with her!

A pic with Bachi Karkaria, the most humorous columnist with the Times of India.

2. Read more reports about the festival here:

Is Banning Books Justified?

Thank you Blogadda for picking this post for the Tangy Tuesday posts!

The Mumbai University recently got removed Rohinton Mistry’s book, "Such A Long Journey", from the syllabus upon facing pressure from the young cub, Aditya Thackeray of the Shiv Sena, who, sort of, made his debut with this roaring success in the political landscape in the city of Mumbai. Read about it here.

While all authors, bloggers, free-spirited readers of the modern world are up in arms against the banning of books and censorship in any form, I have some "hatke" views on this subject.

Before we get to the subject of banning books, let us examine why an author undertakes to write a book in the first place. An author would’ve been just another creature walking this planet had he no urge to tell all that is in his mind, waiting to be told, wanting to be said and itching to be devoured by hungry minds. It could be an amazing story of a person or the tale of a spirited struggle of the people of a certain era, that one encounters in life.

An author of a book may not have taken all the efforts to write, re-write, edit the matter to be narrated, if there hadn’t been such lovely creatures called ‘readers’. Lastly, the author wouldn’t have been able to get his created work to the voracious devourers of the printed word without the existence of the publishers, who don’t necessarily read the book, but certainly have all that it takes to judge whether people would shell out money to buy the book. So it is that from being just an idea in someone’s mind to the writing of a book that gets published and is available for sale at a swanky book store in the city is itself, such a long journey!

Hey, but the journey is not yet over, my dear friend! The book’s got to be launched, sold, reviewed by critics, marketed, publicised, talked about, debated, loved or hated - and does all this really mean your book sales will soar? Not really until finally, if you’re lucky enough, the book is BANNED! Yes, you read that right – banned! Or better still, burnt in public glare! How many authors can boast of writing books that have been banned? All they can really hope for is to be chosen to be awarded the coveted Booker Prize. Being banned or burnt is the ultimate success of a book!

If you don’t believe me, watch the sales figures of any book before and after a ban. The counter behaves like it’s been administered a generous dose of steroids. I just happened to ask for a copy of the latest Booker Prize winner, “The Finkler Question”, but was disappointed to find that they hadn’t even heard about it! Just a small mention somewhere in the innards of a newspaper doesn’t attract as much attention as a political rally where a book is burnt or torn with a host of TV Channels vying to get the best shot for their “breaking news” edition, does it?

You’ve certainly got it right, Dr Rajan Welukar – giving in to the demands of the goons was surely the best way you could have dealt with the situation you were facing. On one hand the agitated and offended cub has his say, and on the other the author finds more readers and laughs all the way on such a long journey to his bank! Don’t you worry about all these writers - who think they are great thinkers too – they will vent their anger, rant about losing their freedom of speech, appear on television debates, and tell the world about how the book bans are depriving the reader of a marvellous opportunity to enrich the mind. But let me tell you a secret – in their hearts they all pray and hope that some day their great works are banned and they would be the most sought after celebrities on every national TV channel and their book is flashed across as they hide their immense joy and feign to be the victim of some political vendetta. Why dont they respect your freedom - the freedom to ban books - or, more precisely, remove them from the syllabus, that is?

Dr. Welukar, you’ve done a good job – but, I would urge you to go that extra mile and change the way educational institutes function. Stop this age old practice of prescribing books for the syllabus. Students don’t like to read any book that is forced upon them, you see. Have you not seen how these youngsters doze off as soon as a prescribed text-book is opened? Don’t we see how they take immediately to books that are ‘forbidden’ instead? Let the Mumbai University bring about the much-needed change – go ahead and publish a list of banned and forbidden books instead! Make sure to include all those books that urge you to think, to change the wicked ways of this world, to make things happen in your lifetime. They challenge the way we are, they way we think and work – they ask us to change our ways! Well, some of us are sure to be offended by something or the other – they ought to be banned – each one of them. Go that extra mile, Dr. Welukar! There’s nothing better one can do to make people shut off the idiot box and settle down to read a book!