The moving finger writes.............

( Old post from Archives, dated  Thu, Jan 1, 2012 from Viewpoints;  http://chronicler-abhi.blogspot.in/2012_01_01_archive.html) India completes 62 years of being a republic. I saw the spectacular Republic Day parade today in its entirety, probably after ages. What struck me was the enthusiasm, the spirit, the constant endeavour to excel in the face of all odds. That is what defines the Indian nation. The ability to move ahead despite all odds. It was almost as if for a moment, one could forget about poverty, corruption, Maoist violence, terrorism, infant deaths, and the formidable challenges that we face or confront as Indian citizens, more than six decades after we became free and declared ourselves as a republic that is sovereign, democratic, socialist (the last a bit counterfeit, thanks to some pretty mixed ideas in the heads of our powers-that-be). But, undoubtedly, tomorrow as the sun rises, it will be life as usual in Mera Bharat Mahan. ...

( Old post from Archives,dated  Dec 11,2011 from Viewpoints;  http://chronicler-abhi.blogspot.in/2011_12_01_archive.html ) The recent fire episode at AMRI (Advanced Medicare Research Institute), Kolkata, has sent the nation, immune though it may be to regular assaults on its sense and sensibility, into a sense of shock. Picture the following: - A patient in the ICU ( Intensive Care Unit), unconscious and on life-saving equipment which restricts movement, meets his death in an overheated gas-filled chamber where he had come, paying a lot of money, for good treatment - A staff nurse , who has come all the way from Kerala to earn her living, perishes in the blaze - Patient relatives stand outside the blazing building, which has closed its doors on them, helplessly watching their relatives die behind glass walls To die prematurely is bad enough; to die this horribly is atrocious. I feel shocked, and a...

( Old post.. dated  Sun , May 22,2011 from Viewpoints; http://chronicler-abhi.blogspot.in/2011_11_01_archive.html) In response to the blog " An open letter to a Delhi Boy" : http://raagshahana.blogspot.com/2011/09/open-letter-to-delhi-boy.html Stumbled across this blog via Facebook, and though it’s been quite some time since this was posted, let me hazard a few opinions. Having stayed in Delhi for 3.5+ years, I have seen the best and worst among Delhiites.Kindly let me point out that Delhi is not a Punjabi bastion today anymore. It is much more cosmopolitan than any other city I have stayed in, and, missy, I have stayed in all the 4 corners of this country. I agree to an extent about Punjabi loudness (they are a boisterous people), but it depends on which section of the society you are dealing with. You can’t expect a Munda from Lajpat Nagar to play the Mridangam , can you? But if you by chance happen to accidentally stumble across a place ...

( Old post from Archives, dated  Sun , May 22,2011 from Viewpoints;  http://chronicler-abhi.blogspot.in/2011_05_01_archive.html ) The world’s longest - running democratically elected, communist, government is out of power. And that is a revelation , a tsunami, and an indicator of the times that we live in, which reminds us that nothing is constant, everything changes. Especially power, as Mr.Buddhabeb Bhattacharya would be understanding now. It is hard to believe that the hammer and sickle has been vanquished. Even after the debacles of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and the subsequent Panchayat and Municipality polls, it is hard to believe the red flag will not flutter over the state proudly, as has happened since 1977, causing an entire generation to believe that there was no viable alternative to the “Baam front”( Left Front). What happened to this aura of invincibility of 34 years ? And why? Will things change for the better, for the beleaguered stat...