Kavanaugh & bros

This is easily the most heated topic around all of us these days. Like Ms. Ford said in her testimony, she is simply standing in front of a train that will reach it’s destination anyways, and she is going to lay her life down and receive no justice. The destination being a lawmaker for many decades who sets laws and policies for the entire next generation.

This man, who has been accused of assaulting a then-teenage girl, is going to write laws about women. Most noticeable is his view of the Roe-Wade law. The GOP, meanwhile, reacts in the same usual way, with total refusal and denial, and if the accusations are indeed valid, then by downplaying the charges. This is a massive middle-finger to the women of America. The saddest part being that many conservative women voters are defending Kavanaugh, by suggesting that obviously all high school boys grope and do their cutesy lil assaulty things. Anything to get men to control women’s bodies.

Then we have the leader of the most powerful country, mocking Ms. Ford’s testimony in another pseudo-campaign trail and insinuating things against her. Whatever your political leaning be, you have to find this character assassination beneath the POTUS’s standards. But who cares, right?

I cannot help but draw a parallel between Hillary Clinton’s testimonies and debates where she HAD to keep a stoic stance and compose her emotions for the entire duration, and yet deal with the ‘women are too emotional’ label slapped on her. So have other countless women, vying for top jobs and managerial positions. And we have this man here, who was sniffling and reddening as every minute of his testimony progressed, accuse the opposition of this ‘sham’. Last I heard, a judge is supposed to be bi-partisan, right? While Ms. Ford patiently answered every question, Judge(?!) Kavanaugh spoke over senators, yelled, shut up to avoid answering questions and basically behaved like a giant baby being denied his favorite toy.

We have somehow, as a society, reached this point. The moral compass of this country is skewing as the days go along. There is little doubt that whatever was going to happen, will continue to happen, and he will go where he intended to go. Women may come, accuse, be annihilated, but the GOP will stand strong with their, ahem, men.

We shall see.

Ssup?

Three big updates:

1. I have a brand new job.

2. I have a brand new apartment and am in the process of moving to San Diego.

3. I have a brand new layer of fat on every part of my body.

More to come soon.

Justice for sale

My newest Facebook comment on Arjun Kapoor and Salman Khan got me 99 comments. Out of those 99 comments, there were comments from 2 guys who I think are pretty brain dead, defending Salman Khan, calling me Congressi Sonia Gandhi and an unforgiving sinner. 8 people texted me to ask what is wrong with my FB friend list. 😀

 

All and sundry are definitely aware of the Salman Khan case that has been doing the rounds. He allegedly was driving drunk on a night in 2002 and drove over a footpath injuring a few people and killing one. The case has been languishing in sessions court since then and finally he was awarded a sentence of 5 years for driving under the influence of alcohol, culpable homicide not amounting to murder and for not having a driving license. Within a record time of an hour, he was awarded bail by high court for 2 days, and then after 2 days, the High Court passed a super quick judgement to squash his jail term and set up a new date. Tareekh pe tareekh, tareekh pe tareekh, anyone?

  

It makes me laugh(and shed tears on the side) that the lawyers and courts are tumbling over each other in their over eagerness to please Salman Bhai. Just a day before that, I read the saddest report on rapes, false naxal allegations on women and blatant violation of human rights in the tribal belt of India. I read up everything I could on Soni Sori and have been disturbed ever since. There are thousands of under trials who have been counting months , and some even years, till they get atleast a date in court for bail proceedings. I don’t know what to make from this.

There is this Arjun Kapoor who claims that no matter what anyone, or any court says, he completely believes that Salman Khan cannot do such a deed. There are celebrities claiming that footpaths are not meant to be sleeping on. There are hordes of celebrities visiting his place as if someone has died. Well, someone did die. In 2002. Under his vehicle, which is still being used by the way. He had the guts to send his driver to claim that he was the culprit, and he woke up after 13 years in order to ‘realize his mistake’. Kamal Khan who was a witness and had given a statement that Salman was indeed behind the steering wheel, disappeared one fine day. Another person died, who kept his claim alive that Salman WAS drunk and WAS driving. Having been tortured according to several reports, and being shunned by family and friends, he passed away literally on the streets after contracting TB. What a sad, sad end. I wonder where this generous Human Being was then.

Now, my mom and I are fans of his style and his movies. My mom had a huge crush on him when Maine Pyar Kiya came out. I fell in love with Salman Khan and Madhuri tai after Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. I whistled loudly during Ek Tha Tiger when he swaggered around. I don’t want to count his remakes, because I hate them to be honest. I feel they are made for people who have a really, really low IQ, even though I love masala films. I am extremely intrigued about his affairs and lap up all stories and old pictures of him and Aishwarya Rai and Katrina Kaif. But that is where my love ends. 

My father cannot stand Salman Khan. He gets mad when mom or me drool over him. He always says how can we like a person who is such a ‘gunda’, kills people, hits women, claims to have conquered all his actresses. He cannot stand the movie Hum Saath Saath Hain because they show Prem to be the most generous hearted person ever, whereas during the same movie he set out to hunt a protected species of rare deer with other imbeciles like Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre and Tabu. He chased a deer round and round till it was tired, then shot and injured him, and then cut its neck off with a knife. Real macho, Mr. Khan, real macho.

There are countless people who insist that his ‘mistake’ should be forgiven because he has done a huge amount of charitable work. According to that logic, Bill and Melinda Gates should be handed a couple of grenades and a free rein with a license to kill. His nonprofit Being Human began in 2008 or 2009. Only if our judiciary wouldn’t have been asleep for so long and had passed the judgement within a couple of years, would there have been less furor over this judgement? I wonder. I am not even harping on the fact that he claimed of drinking water in a bar when he was a known alcoholic, short tempered, egoistic enough to think he is always right(he still is if you watch Bigg Boss *rolling my eyes*), he hid inside his home till the cops came to get him after running away from the site.

 I am sure, after 10-15 years when the judgement finally passes, he will be fined Rs. 500 for driving without a license in the end and will be let go. 

But the charity will continue.

Whatever helps him sleep at night.

The Times or The Trash

I am petrified of opening news websites at work. I was very used to reading TOI in India, everyday, for almost an hour and half. Even during engg, I would go home over the weekend and take out the week’s newspapers and read all of them for almost 3-4 hours till dinner.

After coming to the States, I had to depend on the e-paper which was convenient, since I could read Pune Times too. Although, it is embarrassing to admit it, but the best place to read Pune Times/Pune Mirror(paper copy) is the Loo. 😀 But then they started charging for the e-papers and so only medium that remains is the website.

Now, I feel the entire website belongs to the sh*t pot! If you are at work and you open the news websites, anyone who peeps is going to think you are on some gross adult website. Right next to the leading news of the day, you have videos and pictures titled ‘hot celebrity flashes her whatever’ or ‘watch the steamiest scene in so-and-so movie’. Next to the scroll bar will be some ridiculous article about what the current Miss India suggests as a latest bikini trend. Like, really?!? If you scroll down to see the sports section, you risk displaying pictures on the screen that are titled ‘vote for the bunny of the day’ or something even worse. Seriously, what is wrong with these website owners! It is impossible to catch up on serious news when the major headline jumping at you is Ranbir-Katrina-Deepika-Ranveer did/said something, for the 84786th time.

I miss the days when you could catch up on good articles that screamed of excellent journalism. I used to love reading the editorial page with the editor’s view and the for/against debates on some topic. A Jug Suraiya or Swaminathan article was a treat while having the Sunday morning patties from Hindustan Bakery. Several times, I have opened an article or an interview after reading the headline, and it turns out to be something totally different! I am not even mentioning the sorry excuse of journalism where one tiny sentence becomes the title of the interview which turns out to be absolutely nothing about it. . Now the good articles have all reduced to a small little section that you have to look for between ‘hot tollywood nav*ls’ or ‘wardrobe malfunction’ articles. Poor dear Manmohan Singh’s very Yeti-like rare speech gets lost in the mass of the naughty videos vying for attention, right when the website is loaded. I was discussing about some new iphone tech development with a friend once and I opened the website to show him the news about it. Much to my embarrassment, he glanced at the Lifestyle section underneath the Tech news that was full of articles that I definitely wouldn’t want him to see in front of me.

Sigghh… I really hope they do something about their website. It was once a leading news establishment in India and several people loved the newspaper. They need not resort to mass entertainment to satisfy the creeps to grab more eyeballs. There are plenty of people who want to just read the news, in peace, at work, in public without getting embarrassed. I do not want a situation where my kid will be asked about the latest Indian foreign policy and it will say that ‘hot moments of the year 20xx’ was way too distracting to even open the policy article.

Can we please have our regular plain, old, simple, vanilla news back??