Bangalore to London

You only get scared of the giant wheel till you are on it, after that it’s a fun ride you will never forget

Well, well…this is evidently a long pending post that is almost four months late. But I should say it’s in time to greet the Chinese Year of the Dragon. Anyway, after much procrastination and some tough decisions (like deciding not to make my blog a travel diary) I have moved my lazy ass to sit down and write a post for ‘2012’.

First things first, I am not writing from Bangalore, the city which was my home for the last three years and which drove me so damn nuts that I created a blog diary The Color Purple (which thou art reading at the moment) to share my inner most depressed thoughts with the unsuspecting public. :p I am also not writing from my family home in the little beach town Udupi on the west coast of Karnataka where I spent the first 21 years of my life and took refuge from the madness of the world now and then. I am writing from Kingston upon Thames, a borough of London in the far away island of United Kingdom.

I am no longer a workaholic Public Relations professional or a financially independent ‘Fire-brand’. I am a student dependent on parents for pocket money. I no longer live in a cramped rented 1BHK house in Bangalore with a half crazy roommate, filling my lungs with nicotine while pounding out blogs and stories to de-stress. I am writing sitting in my own cubby hole of a study-bedroom with no way of filling my lungs with nico while I write for fear of setting off the fire alarm. I no longer write to de-stress, instead I write full time as apart of my Creative Writing course.  How life changes doesn’t it?

Flashback to January 2011. Overworked. Stressed out. Neurotic. Grumpy. Depressed. You get the drift. That’s when this great idea finally crossed my mind. I thought, “why not go back to University and complete my education? How about doing my Post-grad? I could do with a break right? I had to get that all-day-smile my friends oh so missed back on my face”. It sounded like a great plan and the research began over Kingfisher-Strong powered late night online sessions. A plan emerged, only to be cut short by the family astrologer (to whom my well meaning mother relays every event in our lives) who said I should drop any such plans. After much motherly emotional drama- which every Indian mother worth her salt would approve of- I decided to drop the plan. Well family comes first right?

February and March zipped by and I continued with the banal existence. Then the heavens opened up and sent me a divine message. It was April and I was in the middle of a lead-up meeting to the annual review session at work, sitting across my Boss and was fielding some googlies meant to see how ready I was to take on more responsibility when I was asked this oh-so-irritating question, “Where do you see yourself 10 years from now”? And guess what happened? First time in the three years in that company I was tongue-tied. I did not know what the heck I should answer. No I did not want more responsibility, not even a promotion or a raise. I wanted to be as far away from the profession as possible, I wanted to do something I had lately realised I was born to do. I wanted to write. God It was such a revelation! And that is when I changed my mind. Astrologer or no astrologer, I was going to write full time and I was going to fine tune my writing with a Post-Grad writing degree. The rest was not so easy but eventually it did fall in place. TG!

Strange are the ways of the world. The two people who propped me up through the next few months of mad applying to Universities, arranging finances, battling chicken pox and emotional meltdowns were my mum and my Dad. My Amma’s motherly love overtook beliefs in astrology and she decided to trust in God and help me through the last-minute-applying madness. So here I am, a Science group student who did an Undergrad degree in Journalism (thinking it was her true calling till she actually got into a newsroom and hated it), who stumbled upon Public Relations by chance and put in three years of her life trying to like it and finally was enlightened belatedly that all the while what she thought was a hobby was indeed her passion. WRITING, the ever-so-slippery eel of a calling that dawns on so many people so late in life. (I have a few 50+ year olds in my class and many in their post 30’s.)

So now that I know what I want to do in life am I happy? Well…let me put it this way: – I can’t complain. LOL 😀 I don’t work long hours (though I am hunting for a part-time job), I get to write whatever I want to, whenever I want to, I am writing a novel which is much loved in class, I get to meet some great people and explore a whole new culture that is Britain, I intend to travel through Europe and am getting to learn and do things that I never thought I would. (Aww my…my…that’s an awfully long sentence.) So you see I can’t complain. 😀

All said and done there is something to following your passion. (Amir Khan might have tried hard to convey this message in 3 Idiots but I don’t see any change in the ‘IT world aspiring robots’ of our country.) Following your passion can put a smile back on your face,  bring lightness to your steps, gives you a sunshine attitude that rubs off on people around you and a purpose in life. And money, you ask? Well I don’t know, but if we are happy with what we are doing we will figure out the money part somehow isn’t it? At least, that’s what I think and I want to give my belief a chance. Right or wrong, time alone can tell. After all like a wise guy once said “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

When CROOKS rule us!

During the past few days I have frequently wondered on the doomsday Karnataka is fast heading to. No this is not in any way connected to the movie 2012 which seems to have the people believing that the end of the world is near! Sigh! (And I used to think the majority of the general public was sensible! Double Sigh!)

Anyways resuming my soliloquerie; the abyss the state is descending to seems to be more dangerous than the journey itself. Karnataka sold….! That too to crooks-money mongers who do not give a damn about the state, its people or its welfare! Did I just say welfare? Ha ha ha ha do these people even care about a word such as welfare! These so called mining lords who are concerned about nothing but making their already thick pockets thicker!

Why I have a problem with the entire scenario: (No am not a supporter of the BJP but a firm believer in democracy and societal law & order)

1.The brothers in question and a close associate have shaken the basic premise of democracy. By challenging a governmental head constitutionally voted by the people of the state, the trio with their band of equally shameless and money hungry MLAs have tried to stand taller than the people’s will-the foundation of a democracy. Being a part of the government in question and leading a coup against it is the greatest breach of trust to be committed especially when such a coup is fuelled by a thirst for power and arrogance in one’s wealth.

2.The coup is strongly related to the restrictions being contemplated on the illegal mining activities in the ore rich district of Bellary. In the process the crooks in question whisked away the elected MLAs from their constituency for days, that too in a time when many of the constituencies needed their MLAs the most for flood relief work to be implemented. While people suffered, these MLAs enjoyed and relaxed in a resort in Hyderabad! Hyderabad! That’s my 3rd point.

3.The ultimate insult-the coup decamped after setting the Karnataka government on fire to Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh! The Reddys who even after living in Karnataka, eating the ‘salt of the land’ as old timers may call it and after raping the ore rich lands and forest cover in Bellary (a lot of it illegally) and making money out of it, still hold strong ties with their mother state. It is even believed they wield considerable political power in A.P. Rule Karnataka and benefit A.P seems to be their maxim.

Now for the PJ, the front page of a newspaper carried a ripping revelation from one of the MLAs involved in the coup. The MLA allegedly said “We (the MLAs involved in the coup) are here in Hyderabad to plan for the development of Andhra Pradesh”!!!!!! Ha ha ha har har har this coming from an elected representative from KARNATAKA! The F@#%ing B@$#!%d probably does not even know where his line of duty lies! Sad! Maybe that explains why Karnataka lies where it is!!! The capital of which has Kannadigas at a crying minority and the state government writhing at the hands of the ‘Reddys’! Of course my blood boils!

4.Social stigma ousted a woman out of power. This is how I would describe the ire directed at Shobha Karandlaje in the midst of all this drama. Fine, the CM who is another crook trying to retain his footing among a hoard of bigger and greedier crooks had a soft corner for her! Agreed, she usurped the power of other male (chauvinist) ministers to become the CMs right hand. But the way the only woman in the cabinet was thrown out to satisfy the male ego left me feeling disgusted! That too when the peace maker in this case from the BJP high command was a woman!

5.Last but not the least, the irresolution of the BJP leaders in the centre to overthrow dissidence and give the CM the much needed support, not because he deserves it but to stop Karnataka being sold to ‘corrupt to the core’ worms who call themselves politicians! The irresolution of the central leaders of the BJP has left the government crippled for the rest of its life-god knows how long it is! Not only has it rendered the govt a mere puppet at the hand of the @#%$#! but given encouragement to corruption, sin and havoc!

The hype created by the media in this case has done more harm than good. The media seems to be giving un-necessary visibility to the dissidents and their unashamed quest for power. (Not to mention the support in some of the Telugu media.

Atleast if the government had ordered a mass probe against the illegal mining in the ore rich districts instead of taking monetary support from the perpetrators themselves, we would not have had to face this situation today!!!! What can we do…only hope and pray for a better tomorrow and meanwhile bray out in our blogs and drawing rooms! And of course I forgot- think twice before selecting one crook over the other in the next elections.