Maya Jaal

As the air of uncertainty looms large, the winds of change are bound to throw up a few surprises. All this talk about Mayawati emerging as a Prime Ministerial candidate is evoking varied reaction from people around me.

The chain of reactions is shockingly similar to the one that follows a disastrous relationship. First you don't believe that such a thing could be a possibility let all asking how did it happen! Welcome to the state of denial. Once the initial shock settles down you tend to think that maybe it's not really happening and that your over-imaginative mind is just up to some trickery. This is a situation where you question what transpired. A few days into questioning when you see things changing you start believing that it's has really happened. This is stage where in acceptance sets in and the matter of moving on is just the thing that is around the corner. Once you start to move on then you start looking at other options and actually start thinking that this could be a good thing that happened. A few days into it and trust me it'll the best darn thing anyone could think of!

So what’s the problem with Mayawati being an option for PM? Of course, the resident geniuses of CNN-IBN might think this is fashion harakiri but the power of Bhenji will even strike out blogs that remotely suggest so! If we could reason with our brains and accept Mr. Gowda as a PM then what the hell is wrong with Madam Mayawati? Agreed that Gowda went berserk once he became the PM and Mayawati is already past berserk, what is the real problem with her as our next Prime Minister? Accept the fact that the assets she has amassed, of which the CBI is clueless, would further grow, she would continue to spend millions on her birthday parties, it might rain Ambedkar statues and officials of the central government irrespective of the portfolios might be transferred overnight, what could really go wrong?

Look at it this way. She has presumably done everything wrong that anyone can think of…once she becomes a resident of 7 Race Course Road perhaps she might just turn a new leaf. Or better still she would continue whatever-the-hell-she-is-doing-now and allow the people a free hand to work a la Lalu Prasad Yadav and the Great Indian Railway. And if the Great Indian Left (Behind) continues to support her, they better not mess around with this Madam for she ain't Mama Roma. I know it’s too much to leave to chance but the way things are going this could be the only chance we have.

As it is we, the poor hapless people of India, rarely have a choice in the ministers or the government we get. I mean we have a PM who has never fought an election in his life; the most vocal Sitaram Yechury threatens to go to the people for mandate whereas in reality the only contest the idiot ever stood for was a college election! People like Chandrababu Naidu might have wooed the Clintons and the F1 head honchos when it came to Andhra Pradesh but has no qualms of buttering his toast with brand Maya. The bloke of the TRS will sleep with the Devil if he promises to crave out the state of Telengana from Andhra Pradesh.

Let’s be happy that things aren’t really as bad as they could have been. Imagine choosing between a Mayawati and Narendra Modi!!! As of now we all are just like the father of the 20 something gal who says Charles ‘Bikini Killer’ Shobraj is just her kind of man…let’s pray that she never slips into a bikini.

Image courtesy: www.tribueindia.com

Your Pet Could Be Smarter Than You!

I don’t read health magazines as a principle. Flipping through the 100 odd pages something or other you do turns out to be bad for your health. I believe there ought to be a limit to the inventions, discoveries and creations. I don’t need a faster chip or a slower camera, a longer printer or a shorter credit card. I think if all sit and yak, I’m sure that we can reach a consensus and stop with the race to the finish line that keeps shifting by a few inches when you approach it.

I was flipping through the pages of a magazine called Prevention. It’s a nice looking magazine. It’s neither too wide nor too heavy and fits into your palms as if it were made for them. It features about 150 pages of information and some advertisements that add to your knowledge’s fuel tank. Imagine my utter surprise when I learnt that your pet is supposed to be smarter than an average 5th grader.

Wow.

As it is parents are a bit too harsh on children and force a million things upon them and now this non-sense. The article informed me that for years, maybe centuries, the simple rule of the land was that animals weren’t capable of reasoning. OK. I could have lived with that. Then I learn that the bloody four legged beasts are in fact capable of not only reasoning but also possess intelligence, can be emotional and can plan. In addition they can also remember past events and possess the capacity to think about the consequences of their actions. Turns out that they had been pulling one over on us for years by faking otherwise!

OK so animals are capable of understanding a lot of things. Isn’t that obvious? Haven't these people seen Planet of the Apes or Free Willy! A recent study also found out that parrots can comprehend the mathematical complexity of zero, that some animals are proficient enough of metacognition- the capacity to think about one’s own thoughts- and as a result monkeys and rats skip ‘tests’ that they think they’ll fail! People actually get paid for such things?

There is an imminent threat of global warming, Narendra Modi may become the CM of Gujarat for a third term, India might become a superpower (how?) and that people could do with a cure for AIDS. In spite of all these I can’t fathom that there are places where precious time and money and resource is spent trying to decipher if your monkey prefers red to blue.

The magazine also had a series of tests to check weather your pet was ‘gifted’ or not!!! Get a life people. I believe in equality and advocate it as if there were no tomorrow but this is a little too much for me to handle. The only good thing that came out of reading the article was that I finally understood why many seemingly intelligent people behave like chipmunks in front of people while indulging their pets.

Image Courtesy: www.dogproblems.com