Sunday Pleasures

I love reading the newspaper on Sunday.

The useful part i.e. sans classifieds (which I suspect is more than half the weight on weekends). Living in in Delhi / NCR, Hindustan Times and Times of India are my subscriptions of choice. The Times of India is very readable, entertaining and light hearted. The Hindustan Times I require for a balanced diet. In any case this is the staple brain candy I grew up on and so am habituated to.

(PS: For the record my all time favorite newspaper is The Guardian which I read infrequently - when traveling abroad).

On Sundays, HT packs a punch with Brunch and Vir Sanghvi. Both are entirely edible (I mean readable). This week's Brunch was about using the Internet to do the sort of thing I'm doing - creative self expression (blogging, posting videos etc). I must say it's still a relatively new concept in India and hardly any of my regular friends have a blog though they all have their Facebook and Orkut scraps.

I didn't read the article - who wants to read old news - but I did read Vir Sanghvi's gourmet musings as usual. By now reading Vir's Sunday ruminations on his favorite food, chefs and restaurants ("XYZ does a mean..."BXR has the finest blah blah in India) peppered with tales from boarding school, son, Gujarati food, meals at fancy European restaurants and my favorite (which happens once in six months) -- two full pages on wines followed by something to the equivalent of 'I suspect one can't tell the difference and it doesn't really matter' is well entrenched in my Sunday routine!!!

Vir is undoubtedly the most readable Indian mainstream journalist around and nobody does edits quite like him. I've been following his writing since his days as the editor of the Sunday magazine and his approach is always the "common sense" view - if you're liberal, centrist, forward thinking, middle/upper middle class you are bound to find everything he says entirely agreeable. Plus he has a sense of humor which makes it fun to pursue.

Today he spoke about Mother Teresa's religious bulimia (my words) which was again very well written though why he woke up weeks after everyone else has done this issue to death is beyond me. Perhaps he was on vacation!

Vacation reminds of Shashi Tharoor, who I thought was on vacation in India post his UN non assignment but is nowadays permanently stationed here and trying to do a one up on Vir I suspect with his TOI Sunday column (TOI's attempt not Shashi's). Now Shashi is one of my favorite writers (I just love the craft of his Great Indian Novel) but he should really stay away from writing columns for he has little talent in this domain. I suspect he's realized this himself that's why after a few non starts he now almost every week brings us his definition series of all things India. I never read more than the blurb. Someone should soon appoint him ambassador of Inberia or SAARC head some other happening Post (outside of India) before he reaches the letter Z and puts us all to sleep.

Talking of columnists I must put in a good word for Poonam Saxena who absolutely entertains and delights with her weekly take on entertainment and non delights of the television world. On weeks when I've been out of the country I just have to read Poonam to put the fun back in TV. Way to go girl!

Well enough talking on people who write about the news (!!!). I'm off to take a nap now.

I must add (for the benefit of Vir and Shashi's fans) that the opinions expressed in this column are entirely mine and not a part of any sting operation.

Independent Leadership

Actually I meant to set this Blog thingie on the 15th of August. I even wrote the post below but as luck would have it my cable connection had a glitch and well the nice person I am I didn't want to bother my friendly neighbourhood service provider on a National Holiday (although the National Holiday never stopped me from hoping my maid would turn up which she thankfully did). Since I wrote the blog on the 15th it's going to be posted for the 15th. So here it is....

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Today is 15th August. Which means the Independence Day spiel is all over the networks. I’ve seen at least 6 publications that are carrying the cover story of India at 60. And this was till yesterday.

Today’s Times of India newspaper, one of the leading Indian English dailies has come up with an interesting campaign. A print version of Indian Idol, only this time the search is for a national leader. Has some historic cool to it I must say. I have no clue what the selection criteria is but the application form does ask for prior leadership experience though bars people who’ve held a govt office. Thinking of giving it a shot. I love giving speeches and getting importance. I can debate about India's nuclear power status intelligently. And I was class monitor for two years in succession at school. Wonder if that would qualify.

Although one has to be careful when making assumptions I suspect they are looking for people with Social Work experience. The committed NGO types.

Personally I would love to see someone like me make it. The kind of person who's really bothered about how things are messed up in the country but wouldn’t actually do anything to set even a minor roadblock right. Till leadership is kind of thrust upon himer (short for him/her for I'm so fed up of this gender correctness stuff).

It's not that I haven't done anything for society. I did pitch in for one of our company's charitable project. Even contributed in a big way to its success which felt good. But it was part of my job I guess.

What I do for our great democracy is vote but even here in my first two elections participation was restricted to destroying the ballot paper and scribbling “The choices aren’t good enough”. My own little personal protest. So charmingly futile.

So why would I like to see someone like me being the chosen? The answer is simple. Mix good intentions and total conviction on a base of absolute inexperience. I think it would make for some excellent entertainment!