Ok.. Its been 2 months of hell for me which should explain my absence (I hope so!). And since the devil doesn’t serve newspapers (Btw he does serve tea and coffee… Only its too hot out there to drink it
), I am here with my 55 fiction..
Still don’t know what is 55 Fiction?? God help you.. For others read on..
It was him.
She found it hard to believe that it’s already been 2 years ever since they met.
Time flew by like a gust of wind.
“I miss you”, was all she could say to him before he hung up.
She lay awake for a while and cuddled into the arms of the “V”arlet.
What is 55 Fiction? It is a fiction story, with all the basic elements of a narrative (plot, characters, setting, conflict), in 55 words or less (A non-negotiable rule).

Alright, Lois Lane! I humbly apologize for doing an Anu Malik on the title of your article in Superman Returns. I know it won’t fetch me a Pulitzer Prize but surely I can try for a Padmashri, eh??
So lets see, is Superman really going to be helpful in India??
First and foremost, he would be busy protecting his Lois Lane from crooks, thugs, eve-teasers, rapists, drunk colleagues, likes of Pramod Muthalik and Shiv Sena. With all the hectic work, where will he find the time to protect the common citizen?
Secondly, he would have to change his costume a bit to suit the Indian conditions. I mean have you seen that underwear over pants? He would be slapped with charges of obscenity! And what about a mask?? Yes, a mask!! Assuming that he can fly all over the place and a crime can be committed anywhere, what if he has to fly over Dharavi or for that matter, a Municipal waste dumping ground. Surely he can breathe out cold air but can he breathe in those toxic gases?? And with the amount of pollution in our cities, surely he can’t do without it. Another change would be letting go of his garb. What if it gets entangled in so many electric wires all over the city and Superman gets electrocuted!! Hmm, would make quite a lot of headline.. (I can already imagine BREAKING NEWS flashing all over the news channels)
Next, how will he fly?? I mean as it is with the amount of air traffic congestion we have in this country due to lack of ATC controllers, who will supervise his flying and landing??
And most importantly, which caste will be support? I mean he surely can’t be without a caste. It must be acceptable in his planet Krypton or for that matter in US. But no sir, not in India!
What do we need right now? Some rain!!


What is 55 Fiction? It is a fiction story, with all the basic elements of a narrative (plot, characters, setting, conflict), in 55 words or less (A non-negotiable rule).

Pledge is the word that gives me jitters. Way back in school, I remember a pledge we used to take : “All Indians are my Brothers
and Sisters
“. Yeah, we were stupid enough to take the pledge. And more importantly, our Principal was stupid enough to make us take that pledge (Yes, he was married).
Now I think, maybe the reason wasn’t some population control measure. I guess, back then, there weren’t any fancy pledges around to really attract any attention. Hence, we were stuck with the only pledge that our Government gave us – even if that meant making every girl our sister!!
Come home now, and pledges seem to have become a phenomenon. Atleast thats what everyone seems to be doing.
Thrown out of job? Take a pledge to fight against unemployment.
Saw a dog being chased away? Take a pledge to fight for animal rights.
Saw a criminal being killed? Take a pledge to fight for human rights.
Been cheated by a hooker? Take a pledge to fight against prostitution.
Ahh.. Now you are done and you can go off to sleep peacefully.
(Recently, after the Mumbai terror attacks, a publishing house started their pledge ceremony against terrorism with much fanfare garnering more than 100,000 pledges. The result?? Last checked, it seems to have disappeared from the main page and only came across it after searching for it specifically. And don’t ask me what happened of the people. Some are taking a new pledge to vote
)

March 6th 2009 – A date when Indians successfully lost a bid for everything that Gandhi represented.
No, I’m not misinformed. Rather, most of the people are who were in support for acquisition of those Gandhi memorabilia. We Indians (or rather Vijay Mallya) won those items for everything which they did not represent.
They were GANDHI’s items. A man bigger than his glasses and watch and blah blah.. A person whose ideologies were infinitely more precious than those items worth. And yet none of us see it. Instead, we prefer being patriotic and showing the world our financial muscle indicative of how well we are doing. It does not matter whether we deserve them or not. It does not matter what purpose would the money obtained from the auction would have served.
We should ask ourselves the hard question. Do we really deserve anything remotely associated with Gandhi?
More than 50 years after independence, we are far from achieving harmony. Non-violence seems to have been sent for a stroll in the park. Rather than demonstrating peacefully, unless some buses, houses are burnt, some people shot or burnt, no agitation is successful.
Also Gandhi would have been the first person in this world to part with his items if it would have fetched adequate money for the poor. But with 1/3rd of poor in India, we can happily pay for such items rather than help eradicating the poverty. And why should we? We love to flaunt our poverty. It brings recognition in terms of Bookers and Oscars.
Plus, we are for some reason clouded with the mindset that anything having to do with anything remotely Indian should rightly belong to us and our museums. Only one more thing would be added along with those items – GANDHISM.
What can I say? The pictures speak for themselves!!
PS: Check out Mayawati’s poster(Vote for BSP).. Creativity??
(Source: Economic Times Of India – 17th Feb, 2009)










