8 Random Facts

I was tagged by Kokonad for some random fun! I am that utterly jobless to post it immediately and because I take Rule#4 very seriously(all pun intended....not)

THE RULES
1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

Ok for the record, rule #4 should so have been 8 DAYS and not HOURS. 8 hours is just too less. Only people like me who care about two more lifetimes, care about the hours...lol...image self-tarnished.

8 Random Facts about me

1. I can make friends very quickly, and I mean it. My mom has tried to stop me on numerous occasions on various train journeys but all in vain!
   
2. I am not an ardent user of the cell phone, but it is my life. I cannot live without it, sleep without it, drink without it. It is always with me no matter where I go.
   
3. I am a great advisor- relationship issues(even though I have almost quite never had one), life issues (been there done that a lot). People come and confide in me for some reason!
4. I cannot go a day without having talked to Annie. She is my bff (best friend forever). If I haven't chatted with her, which happens very often these days since I am in India, I email her and she emails me. Its insane!
   
5. I am so jealous when my friends back home in India tell me of all their escapades, all I do in the US is study-work and occasional fun! Wait until these people get to the US and then they will face the misery I do! Ok a little sadistic there!
   
6. I am secretly trying to merge America and India together, yes the two countries. That way all the people I care for and who are spread in these two countries can be in the same place, not 24-hour flights away!
   
7. I can't sleep enough. I feel guilty when I sleep in, no kidding, you will hear me whine about it for days! Its sad. Its in the family! We are workaholics. Even though all I do is chat sometimes- its work- my fingers get the exercise. Have you ever seen my hands, damn they are nice :P
8. I pretend to work most of the time, but I am the queen of procrastination, until it is 10 hours left for the approaching horror of a deadline, I am not motivated!

In case, some of you haven't noticed, the ordering of the facts is also random. That's how much thought process I put into this. Now time to tag people :p Rajeev, Kraktik, Varun, Poornaa, Anju, Mohan, Aalta and Sandipan

Such pleasures in life :D
Have fun and please don't curse me, I am my parents' only child. :D

~Shreya

The End is....

Creek...creek...tick..tock...The rocking chair and the clock were in sync. Both had stood the test of time. Both had experienced their versions of life. The inmate of the rocking chair wasn't an exception to this rule either. But what she anticipated, no one had before- death. She couldn't wait for her to die. She recollected the night mare of a life she had led- husband murdered for honesty..son abandoned her for being the mother she was, daughter handling her own set of problems. She reminisced those days when they were a happy family- when things seemed perfect, or as perfect as they could be. They didn't need to be an Anna Karenina family, they were good the way they were.

And as she started explaining the day she had met her husband, she stopped breathing with a tinge of a smile on her face. She was happy she went that way, her friend was glad she died peacefully. The end was farther yet nearer than they had known

Oblivion

You step into it,
Sink or survive? Fighting
Through that vaugeness
Figuring out your existence
Alternative to life- where is it?
Mull over this only to
Realize it is taxing
On those eyes staring into blanknesss
On that hand your face is resting on
On that mind handling such oblivion
Eyes water lest you might forget this
A blink has never seemed so futile,
Until a jolt of lightning
Reality is back
Never will it be the same
Life seems a foggy path
That you have to tread

~Shreya

The Diva Problem

Two women. Two nations. Same post, but different job descriptions. And this is a might- President of the United States of America, the other President of India. Two highly respected women in politics. But here comes the real question- how ready are the people of either nations for a woman president?

Forget for a moment their powers if and when they get the job- they will essentially represent the highest authority in either of the countries; irrespective of a parliamentary or presidential form of government. But like I said earlier- how ready is the general public? In India, I am quite certain that the citizens are ready for a woman to be the head of the state. After all, we have had Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister. Pratibha Patil's nomination was welcomed, but not by all. But in general, it was viewed with pride for she was a woman, who had stood the test of time in politics and worked her way up in a testosterone packed scenario. She is widely respected and deserves to be President, or at least for the moment nominated. Why are Indians ready, you might ask? We are a developing nation that still needs to taste success of a healthy economy, in spite of what some of our highly optimistic politicians and citizens say. Women in this nation need to get out and prove their worth. It is predominantly a male dominated society and sporadic incidents of a woman emerging in any field is definitely worth one's while. Now how competent she is a whole different issue but Indians in general are willing to trust a woman president/ prime minister

Take a 24-hour long, nerve wrenching, tiring flight towards the West, and you hit the United States of America. Currently in the midst of numerous internal turmoils, one of them being a highly extravagant Presidential campaign, more than a year before elections. One of them contesting is Hillary Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton. But this whole gaining a day thing, will tell you almost the same story but with a different outcome! Never had a female president, is a predominantly male dominated political arena, is a super-power; ready for a female president- absolutely not. Youngsters like us are skeptical of her too. She does not have the experience she needs to be the president. She is playing the Bill-Clinton-card way too soon. She is easily threatened by Barak Obama and she is clearly doing the girly thing- trying her hand at the sympathy votes. I remember Annie saying she would move somewhere else if Clinton became president, and I actually echoed her feelings, even though I am a democrat(at least I say so). Some of her plans seem like they were pulled right off the box and put on a teleprompter.

So how do citizens cast their vote in a situation like this, where you sort of have the same problem, but in different scenarios. I know a lot of people who would vote for a female candidate just because there has never been a female head of the state! Naive you might say, and without question it is, but they voted and did their duty! How informed one is, will definitely matter.

Divas will come and go, diva presidents... are here to stay

~Shreya

COPY PASTE JOURNALISM

Of the very few cable channels that my TV has been gifted with (the TV in India), I usually swap between NDTV, Star World, MTV and AXN (aah the typical America returned you might call me!). I woke up on Tuesday morning and was watching the news; they were talking about the upcoming G8 Summit in Germany and one of the most to-be discussed topic-none other than Global Warming. Ever since George W. decided to pay some commemoration to this problem, all the other countries have added their concerns. It would be wrong to say that they weren’t before this, but now that the so-called great America has voiced its concern, it’s as if the issue has gotten more important. But that is not what I am talking about (this is a whole different issue).

Prajna Datta Varma was anchoring that news cast and I was rather listening intently to her. When the special reporter started the news, I was shocked that her’s and Prajna’s words were the exact same thing. I know you must be wondering why I was shocked- wouldn’t you be too! It’s as if they had no other words for the report. How is this possible? Why use the exact same sentences while you are presenting? No wonder Microsoft Word is so useful even in journalism- COPY PASTE. I guess they thought that viewers wouldn’t realize their mistake (for lack of a better word). This is what I call Copy Paste Journalism.

Lack of originality is a major problem in broadcast journalism today. Everyone tries to copy the other journalist because they are not confident in their own capabilities and they try to better the other. In the mean time, they forget that their stupidity is actually portrayed lucidly. Journalism as far as I remember, used to be an art of presenting what is the way it is, not presenting what is by adding in some sort of a masala. Like I had written in The Virtue of Idiocy, irritating details of the humane world are thrown light upon, while important ones are given a nod and shown the door. I don’t think anyone in India is aware of how grave the situation in Venezuela is, ever since the shutting down of a news channel because of its so-called anti-socialist ideas that did not go well with President Hugo Chavez. Breach of freedom of speech? Most Certainly! But what do we (Indians) care about now a days? Whether Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama will become President? Might I remind everyone that they haven’t even won the Democratic primaries yet and that the elections are in 2008- so can we really stop obsessing what is happening in the West? Who can come with the most amount of gossip first is the race, not who is giving the real news. I used to want a journalist a long time back, still do somewhere in the corner of my heart, but such sort of ridiculous propaganda of the unimportant details of life make me want to question my desire to present reality to the world. It’s as if we have brainwashed people to forget to differentiate between good and bad, right and wrong, important and unimportant.

It really is shameful! I am at a loss of words. I guess blogging is the closest I can go towards presenting what is and what we forget these days! That’s all I can say!

~Shreya