It is 1:57 am and Asamoah Gyan has just scored the second goal for Ghana in the extra time against USA's one.
It has been a thrilling match till now with loads of action and excitement. Players from both the countries have left no opportunity to kick the ball and each other as hard as possible.
As a result there have been free kicks, corners and flashing of yellow cards galore. In fact the USA's lone goal was a result of a penalty kick. Severe jabs and kicks have ensured that every few minutes one or the other player sniffs the green grass on the field.
So, in such a high adrenaline match I am forced to think that how come the players are not coming to blows with each other?
When you are playing for your country that too in a World Cup that too in a quarter final qualifying match, the emotions are bound to run high, which is, by the way absolutely justified.
When you have covered half the ground by your self, dodged five or six opponents successfully and are about to score a goal for your country, suddenly out one of the opponents deliberately jabs you in the face and breaks your groove, you fall and bite the dust. A potential goal is missed because of the unnecessary intervention by the opponent.
That is absolutely disappointing and FRUSTRATING. So, what should you do? Abuse him with a string of expletives? or Box his ears and get disqualified?
Simple, there is no need to do anything because there is a gentleman who sees everything- THE REFEREE. He is the pacifier who immediately comes to the rescue of the 'victim'.
He punishes the 'culprit' with a yellow/red card and compensates the 'victim' with a penalty kick. This is called "Instant Justice" which we definitely need in our country. A perfect blend of punishment and compensation indeed.
Now I understand why Football is so popular. Why it is called a beautiful game. Why from a poor worker in a diamond mine in Africa to a CEO in France are equally crazy about the game. Justice, you see is loved by all. We demand justice but seldom get it.
The mine worker wants justice because his whole family is being forced to work as bonded labourers in inhumane conditions. Similarly, the CEO wants justice because his idea of launching a new product has been stolen.
So, the immediate verdict against cheating and wrongdoing pacifies all. But sadly, it is a game and far away from reality. Because the reality is that even after killing more than 15,000 people Warren Anderson would have been watching this 'beautiful game' with a beer can in his hand cheering his country.
Sadly, there is no referee in real life who would flash a red card to such criminals. Especially in a country like India where there is no concept of Football, leave aside a football referee.
Come to think of it, maybe, this is the very reason that we do not play football. We are so used to delayed verdicts that maybe an immediate one would scare us. That is why we have the patience to wait for 10 or 15 or 20 years for a verdict to come which still would not guarantee justice. We are comfortable with the lazy judiciary of the country.
But if India plays football then FIFA will have to make some changes like the referee should flash the yellow/red card after the match, preferably 2-3 months later. Instead of the compensation, penalty kick, free kick etc. our players should be given assurance that they would get a penalty kick. But that is it, no need to provide one as they are not used to the "Instant Justice" remember? Just ask them to go home and wait for a few years. They will oblige happily.
Our judges should take a break and let the referees take care of things. After all the red card should be shown NOT only to those who are corrupt but also to those who are inefficient read our judiciary.
So, here's wishing that the FIFA referees replace our judges so that criminals get a red card and the victims a penalty kick. (PREFERABLY A KICK IN THE CULPRITS FACE)
P.S. Ghana has just won 2-1 and will play Uruguay in the Quarter Finals :)
Lalit Dagar, was the driver as well as the owner of Delhi Taxi Service (DTS) in Mehrauli, South Delhi. He lived in a shack which was adjacent to his taxi-stand. A tall and lean man, the 30 year old always kept to himself. It was a rare sight to see him laugh. He would just smile or at most grin, even on the funniest of jokes.
But there was a reason behind this demeanour of his as according to his friends he used to have regular nightmares of a wailing child.
He would wake up in the middle of the night sweating and panting even in the month of December. "I don't know who the child is. Moreover the face is always covered with a scarf", he told his friends frustratingly.
Lalit had come to the capital from Jhajjar, Haryana five years ago. According to him he got married eight years ago. He became a proud father of a healthy and a beautiful baby, an year after the wedlock. But both his wife and child were killed in a tragic accident five years later, Unable to recover from the incident he came to the capital to begin a new life.
He was driving since the day he got a valid driver's license. So, in his 12 years he had heard horror stories galore. And all of them were ‘real’ according to their narrators. But Lalit always rubbished them because he didn’t believe in ghosts.
He argued that those who supported the argument that ghosts do exist are cowards and that they can never be fully devoted to god. As for him there was only one supreme power in the whole world and that was Lord Krishnaa.
He used to fast on Tuesdays as he believed that such rituals help in cleansing the soul and all sins are pardoned. And the way he talked about these things had to be seen to be believed. He would get very aggressive and exasperated if anyone argued with him on this matter. Interestingly, it appeared as if he was trying to convince himself rather than others.
It was a Saturday morning. Being a weekend taxi stand's parking lot was almost vacant as all the cabs were booked except for Lalit’s Indica. He took the day off to catch up with some sleep as he had returned from Himachal Pradesh that very morning.
He got up at 3 in the afternoon and seemed a bit lost. His best friend and fellow driver Bhoop Singh was having aloo paranthas with white butter by his bedside.
Lalit looked at the food and went straight into the nearby jungle to answer nature’s call. Bhoop Singh knew that something was wrong because Lalit just loved aloo paranthas with white butter.
On returning Lalit joined his partner and they both were having tea. He was sitting very quietly and seemed a bit lost. Bhoop inquired the reason behind his silence but got no response.
After repeated requests finally, Lalit agreed to talk and narrated an incident that had happened last night.
He was driving down the hills at a steady speed. The green backlit of the digital clock on the dashboard showed 03:01 A.M. All the passengers were fast asleep and he was feeling a bit drowsy too. He put some paan masala in his mouthand lit a beedi to help him concentrate on the road better.
Just as he reached a sharp hairpin bend, out of nowhere he saw a small child sitting in the middle of the road. It was the same child. In a split second before he could react, the kid got up, removed her scarf and gazed at Lalit. He braked hard and swirled around her. His car came to a screeching halt; he got out, rubbed his eyes and tried to figure out what had happened.
Meanwhile, the child started walking towards the edge of the cliff. Still confused he took a few steps forward. Suddenly, the girl jumped off the cliff. His heart skipped a beat and a chill went down his spine. Lalit just froze with fear. He was clutching his fists so tight that his finger nails dug deep into his palm. He was so horrified that he did not even realize that he had wetted his pants. Regaining his senses, the scared soul jumped into his car and sped from the spot. Surprisingly, none of the passengers were awaken by the sound of the tyres screeching. It was as if the whole incident was played out only for Lalit.
Bhoop Singh noticed that while speaking, Lalit’s whole body was shivering. So, to help him overcome his trauma he asked him to read the Hanumana Chalisa 10 times daily and gradually he’ll forget about it. Lalit obliged and arranged a havan at his shack and visited the nearby temple daily. Days passed by and he slowly forgot about the incident.
Five years later, the shiny calendar hanging on the wall read 12th December in bold red. After finishing his chores he washed his car and in the evening played cards with his friends. At 11, he left for Inderpuri to pick up one Vijay Bansal who had booked his cab.
He reached there at around 11:45 p.m. and Vijay came out of the house with a huge bouquet of white lilies. "My daughter is arriving from America", he said ecstatically.
As soon as got seated, Lalit fired the Indica’s ignition and left for Indira Gandhi International Airport. The road leading to the airport was quite dark because the street lights were not working. He found the whole atmosphere a bit eerie. But as the roads were deserted they reached the airport in no time. The sights and sounds of the airport diverted his mind.
The flight was on time and arrived at 1 a.m. After completing all the formalities, his daughter came out an hour later, Vijay hugged her and both of them sat in the car. They started off for Inderpuri and as they were exiting the main gate Lalit felt an urge to answer nature’s call. As there was a lady in the car and it was very late in the night he did not think it would be appropriate to stop the car. So he kept on driving and returned to Inderpuri by 3 a.m.
After collecting his payment, he drove back home towards Mehrauli. There was a boulevard that connected Inderpuri to Dhaula Kuan which was said to be haunted. People had claimed that they had seen a small girl climbing down a tree and disappearing in the middle of the road. But Lalit did not know. Controlling his urge desperately, he was driving through the long and dark stretch of the road.
Just as he reached the middle of the road, he could not hold back and parked the car on the roadside. The silent and deserted road could deceive one into believing that he was in a hamlet instead of a city. There was not even a stray dog in sight; it looked like a ghost town!
Gathering courage, he got down and gazed around. It was a chilly December night and he could feel the nip in the air. As his breath formed clouds of fog in the air he stood under a tree and unzipped his pants.
Just in the middle of it he heard someone crying in the bushes in front of him. He was dead scared as the thought of the ‘nightmare child’ came rushing back. But he couldn’t ignore the voice as the second time it was much louder and came from the bushes of the tree he was peeing against.
As he looked up, the sight appalled him. He saw the same child from his nightmares crawling down the tree. She had a pale face and her eyeballs were white. Her neck was red with strangulation marks. Staring in Lalit’s eyes with her hand held out towards him, she uttered “Papa”.
His whole past flashed in front of his eyes. The 'nightmare child' was his own daughter. His claim that she had died in an accident was a white lie.
He always despised the idea of a girl child and only wanted a boy. But now that god had other plans for him, he was 'stuck' in the situation. To make matters worse his family members always taunted him. They would keep bothering him with questions like; "How would you arrange her dowry?" or "What if she eloped with someone?"
Lalit became desperate. So, one night he came and was dead drunk. All day long he had been troubled by those questions. To put an end to his worrying, he decided to get rid of his daughter once and for all. In a fit of rage he choked the five year old to death with his bare hands and buried the body in his fields.
The mother could not bear the trauma, she lost her senses and had to be admitted in a mental asylum.
So, to forget his past, he left his village and came to Delhi. But now the skeletons were out of the closet, his past had come back to haunt him.
Lalit was motionless, as if a mannequin, he couldn’t believe his eyes and dropped on the ground.
Next morning the car was found parked at the same spot but Lalit was missing. Nobody knows where he disappeared. That road still exists and sports the same deserted look. Even today there have been sightings of that little girl on that road near that tree, but now, she is in the arms of a man and both are wailing!
Let’s admit it, when it comes to faking/pretending/posing no one can beat us. We have mastered this art over the years and take pride in it. Majority of us love to over react to simple situations in life. We have a habit of making a mountain out of a molehill.
It starts off at an early age, develops in the teens (when not curbed) and becomes a habit for the rest of the person’s life. It is done to attract other’s attention and gain importance. It is specially seen in those, who as kids did not receive there share of due attention and also in those who have serious inferiority complex.
They start living in a world of their own and fantacise about things. They are easily influenced by others and tend to copy others. They have stereotyped reactions to different situations in life and they behave accordingly. For example if a distant 95 year old great grand uncle dies, these people will wail like crazy, just because one is supposed to cry at a funeral. The very next minute these people will be absolutely fine and would be narrating how their bus seats were so uncomfortable to another distant relative of the same breed.
We overreact the most in times of pain, especially if it is the other person who is suffering. We just have to show that “we care” and are much affected, so, we shed crocodile tears.
We console a friend who has just suffered a tragic loss with emotional and stereotyped/filmy dialogues with a flow of tears which would put the friend to shame. And when an aunty utters the golden lines “bechaari ko bohot dukh hua hain, ro ro ke sookh gayi hain” it is a job well done. Such lines add fuel to the burning fire of drama, it encourages them to wail even more. So, consoling the aggrieved takes backseat and the already grief stricken environment is elevated to a higher level.
There is a very fine line between mourning and hogging everybody’s attention. But sadly, the tear filled eyes are unable to see that line. In reality most of such fakers are not even there, mentally that is, they do an excellent job of pretending whereas their mind is planning an excuse to get out of there because there is a 'date' in the evening.
In earlier times there used to be a group of women called “Rudaalis”, they wore black clothes and were hired to mourn a death in the family. Well as they say, something’s never change, they just transform with time. Similarly, these people are the new “Rudaalis” (They refrain from the black clothes though and attention/importance has replaced remuneration).
Case in point was of a 20 something whose uncle was on his deathbed, doctors had given up hope and the coming 72 hours were very critical. Saddened by this terrible and sudden development, he allegedly refused to have his dinner. But two days later, he bought a new car, decorated it and went to Chandigarh to attend a friends’ marriage. (The 72 hours had not passed yet!)
I have seen people who like to sensationalize certain news and derive pleasure out of it. Few years back a friend of mine was very ill; according to the doctors there was a slim chance that the person had dengue. Another common friend however declared that it was indeed dengue. Believe it or not, he himself predicted that the friend would not survive. Even after a lot of convincing he was adamant. It was like he wanted that person to die. Surprisingly, in spite of showing so much “concern” he visited the friend once a week and his girlfriend daily!
I have seen many grown up girls around me who still behave like a child and talk like them. Getting pampered by your partner in your house is a different thing but requesting your friends to feed you with their hands because you do not feel like, that too in a child’s voice is HIGHLY IRRITATING and CHEESY. If you are not a child but still want to be treated like one, there is something seriously wrong with you.
The biggest problem with such people is that if you try to talk sense into them, it will always backfire. They have a habit of covering themselves in a blanket of self-pity. They love to gain sympathy by revealing the sad story of their life, even to strangers. How they were neglected at home and how their parents do not care.
Now, I am sure after going through this blog many of you would try to categorise yourself, whether you belong to the group on whom this blog is written or not.
The answer is simple, if the blog annoys you then you belong to the first group and if the people in the blog annoy you then you are in the second.
So, what are you? :)
P.S. As I have examples galore of such people around me, this blog is dedicated to all of them :) Cheers!!!
What if I said that directly or indirectly YOU were responsible for the picture on your left? How would you feel? If you were involved directly, would the guilt allow you to live? If indirectly, would you take stern and immediate action to pacify her soul?
Well, if you are an Indian politician you are exempted from the above questions because your conscience is DEAD.
More than 15,000 people die overnight and 5.7 lakh are maimed for life in Bhopal in 1984. 26 years later the culprits are roaming free and the victims families are still awaiting justice. Hats off to the common man of India who has once again defined 'PATIENCE.' Sadly, news today has become a Pizza, it has to be 'Hot n Fresh.' Who remembers or cares about what happened 26 years ago. Talk about 26/11 that will help in increasing TRP's. Channels are filled with debates and discussions on David Headley and Amir Ajmal Kasab leave aside Afzal Guru? Our "blood boils" when we see that Kasab is still alive.
The media has talked to death about him, everybody from a rickshaw puller to a Diamond jeweler knows him. Everybody wants to see this man hanged because media has created such a buzz around him. Why? Because he was one of those who killed 166 people in Mumbai. But nobody knew/remembered Warren Anderson prior to 7th June who killed more than 15,000 Indians?
The people involved in this case and the government should be ashamed of themselves. How can these people lead a normal life? These people are cold blooded murderers. Had gas killed some MP's and Ministers, Warren Anderson and all his associates would have met their creators by now.
Unlike the victims, the disaster died a natural death. As it was the poor common man of India who was dead it was not a big deal. Honestly, the common man of this country was born to suffer. And belonging to the same category, it definitely angers as well as scares me.
To make matters worse, governments irresponsible behaviour is startling and exasperating. Don't these people have a family? Aren't they effected by others pain and sufferings? Are they even human?
My request to all the "leaders" of our nation is that you please continue with you scams worth thousands of crores and keep on filling your coffers. Continue with your corruption and bribery and save it because when death comes calling just bribe god and save yourself.
We do not expect you to stop. We have given up and are now used to it. You continue fooling the nation and its people with false promises. Use the the tax payers hard earned money to build your mansions, homes, malls, brothels whatever. BUT PLEASE STOP MURDERING US.
You have no right to play with our lives and ridicule our emotions. Thousands of affected people gathered outside the court to hear the verdict were denied entry. On top of it, the sentence was a farce. Two years imprisonment? That to only seven Indians were convicted and the kingpin was free to roam the streets of New York.
The government was and is hand in glove with these culprits, all of whom are high profile people. Laying hands on them will open a Pandora's box which may bring down the government. The CBI (oh! I am scared) time and again proves that it is a mere puppet in the hands of the government. Everybody is corrupt and working for his/her selfish motive.
Instead of insulting the affected, just spray some more methyl isocyanate on them and every citizen of the country so that you can rule in peace, loot it, rob it, rape it, assault it and then just to show the world that you are a responsible government- order a CBI inquiry into it. Do whatever you want to. Just spare us.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh on a TV channel “very casually” said that there is 325 tonnes of toxic waste is still lying at the site awaiting disposal. Why? Is it a priced possession for the government. Do they plan to display it in a museum? 26 years have gone and they could not clean up the mess?
The minister further says, “We will be building a National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Bhopal because we want to show that we 'care'” Mr. Minister are you in your senses? Or has the rebuking by the PM on the China fiasco got the better of you?
After 26 long years you please provide the affected families with justice and compensation. Build your NBT in your backyard and invite the Chinese to set up shops there and strengthen your business ties with them to your heart's content . No need to be “paranoid” you see.
Further he added that everybody wanted the NBT in Delhi but HE decided that it will be built in Bhopal . “We want to give a small but powerful signal to everybody.” Thank you so much sir, you are GODSEND. After 26 years you are giving a signal maybe 100 years down the line we will get justice, after all its the gesture that counts. At least you are giving a signal.
And now for our beloved, humble, decent, intelligent, efficient PM. Have the guts to extradite Anderson and hang the murderer along with all the other people who were party to the disaster.
On the night of 2nd December 1984, Warren Anderson and his posse not only murdered thousands of Indians, he exposed the dead conscience of our politicians and 'leaders'.
And while I am writing this blog, an inner voice tells me that nothing is going to happen. There will be inquiries and investigations galore but nothing will come out of it. But I hope I am proved wrong, ABSOLUTELY WRONG!
P.S. Here are some facts which reveal the accidents that occured over a time span of eight years. Were these warnings not enough for the officials to take stern action? But they did not as huge amounts of money was involved. In short, FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) was and is more important for our 'leaders' than the lives of their own people. LET THE PEOPLE DIE, WE WANT FDI.
A series of prior warnings and MIC-related accidents:
•In 1976, the two trade unions reacted because of pollution within the plant.
•In 1981, a worker was splashed with phosgene. In panic he ripped off his mask, thus inhaling a large amount of phosgene gas; he died 72 hours later.
•In January 1982, there was a phosgene leak, when 24 workers were exposed and had to be admitted to hospital. None of the workers had been ordered to wear protective masks.
•In February 1982, an MIC leak affected 18 workers.
•In August 1982, a chemical engineer came into contact with liquid MIC, resulting in burns over 30 percent of his body.
•In October 1982, there was a leak of MIC, methylcarbaryl chloride, chloroform and hydrochloric acid. In attempting to stop the leak, the MIC supervisor suffered intensive chemical burns and two other workers were severely exposed to the gases.
•During 1983 and 1984, leaks of the following substances regularly took place in the MIC plant: MIC, chlorine, monomethylamine, phosgene, and carbon tetrachloride, sometimes in combination.
•Reports issued months before the incident by scientists within the Union Carbide corporation warned of the possibility of an accident almost identical to that which occurred in Bhopal. The reports were ignored and never reached senior staff.
•Union Carbide was warned by American experts who visited the plant after 1981 of the potential of a "runaway reaction" in the MIC storage tank; local Indian authorities warned the company of problems on several occasions from 1979 onwards. Again, these warnings were not heeded.
