The Sunday Chronicles - The Beginning

Prologue

Welcome to a new series starting this Sunday. A series which will not rave and rant, not pontificate, not try and make a telling or pithy comment on anything that is grave and needs mention. Just a simple series that will be as unassuming as this blog is and write about observations that have touched the mind, heart and maybe soul. Any comment adverse or otherwise will be most welcome. Because this blog, like the author, is a continued effort, a WIP, to improve, improve, improve. When it reaches the pinnacle of perfection both will cease to exist. Hope you enjoy dear invisible reader (I don't have any at this point in time, and don't harbour any illusions of having any in the very forseeable future), what is on offer.

The Chronicle Begins!

Sundays are usually lazy days. Like most days, I awaken to perhaps, the chirp of the birds, the faint glow of dawn peeping through my 'banana fibre' chiks. My body clock somehow knows it's 6.30 am and I gaze at my watch, peer groggily at the hands that don't come into focus and groan, 'Only 6.30 am - another half hour' and do some mental calisthenics and figure out that waking at 7.00 am would also hold me in good stead. Then I slowly raise the bar and 7.00 am goes on to become 8.00 am and finally I decide to leave the comfort of my comforter and warm bed at around 9.00 am. Mind you, this is not a rule, but the exceptions are few and far between.

Without going into details of the morning rituals of ablutions, milk and cornflakes, cleaning, and more, let me just be succinct and say, that today like most Sundays, I had an agenda. I knew I had to do some serious thinking, work and go for an appointment at 12.00 pm not necessarily in that order.

While I spooned soft honey crunch cornflakes and milk and skimmed the papers, I actually started poring over sections that are my favorites. After TOI, it's time to move over to the Magazine section of The Hindu. I love the Sunday edition of The Hindu (I don't subscribe to a daily dose of the same, TOI rules, and however much of a rag it's become, it's a habit, a sinful one perhaps and hard to let go).

What did I read and like about the News today?

I agree with Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar - the corporate corrupt can run free and amok in India. In fact if you ask moi, anyone morally, socially, economically and politically corrupt actually has a greater run of the land than those with unimpeachable consciences and who are 'free'.

Bachi Karkaria and Jug Suraiya I find, sometimes, too typically cynical and sarcastic and can't handle too much of their double entendres.

I did not read what Kiran Mazumdar Shaw had to say about healthcare in the rural sector. What I skimmed over didn't seem to pose an enlightening point of view - nothing new to what one already knew. The poor suffer, the loans they take to cure their ills are far more than what they take to plow the land. So? Not enough hospitals, not enough medicines, not enough doctors. Not enough. Period. But when will it ever be enough?

Erstwhile PM D Gowda has come unhinged. A raging bull in a china shop. A typical case of vendetta politics, where governance seems to have taken a back seat to the mad rantings of an old ire-spewing has-been and the media getting enough grist for their printing mills.

Vikram Seth's 'Two Lives' is a book that I'd like to read. I have his Golden Gate, waiting for me patiently, atop the pile of 'must-reads'. I like prose. I like the sheer poetry of words and the rich tapestry that language weaves and leaves such an indelible impression. I like the memory of words.

Must read Harold Pinter's plays. Have heard so much about them. And now he's won the Nobel too.

I love Shahsi Tharoor's columns and the ease with which his pen flows, constructing thoughts that are simple, riveting and real. I like to read him, yes. And I'd have liked to be Jody Williams, the co-ordinator of the International Committee to Ban Landmines, the orgnaization that won the Nobel Peace in '97.

Then there is Rania al-Baz. From Saudi Arabia. I cried when I read this account of a woman from the Middle East, determined to create an identity and lead a life she wanted to. What Bunty texted, of women being a stronger sex is so true. Men are... well men. The resilience, the power, the grit, the capability, the intelligence, the sensitivity, the strength and the sheer will power to overcome odds and survive in a world full of pooh poohing men makes women the 'shakti' she is. Salute! It feels good to know I belong to the stronger sex and in such wonderful company. (Little wonder then that the Hurricanes and Tornados are named after women - Katrina, Wilma...? Hell hath no fury is a true adage. Beware men!)

That's about the papers and the messages that I have digested today.

Post a siesta apres midi, I worked like a demon. Non-stop for 4 hrs. I felt satisfied.

Then settled to some TV. Oprah is yet another woman I admire. I'd give anything, anything at all to be able to spend a day with her. I find her inspirational. She was on location in Mississippi post Katrina and had celebrities spending time and contributing to the disaster. Julia Roberts, John Travolta with wife Kelly Preston, Mathew McConaughey were there, comforting, distributing, listening. Very much like our film stars here post tsunami. I cried (again). Human distress and callousness shatters my insides. Why? How? resound in my head and heart echoed by silence. I hate calamities.

Well, after a bit of that Goliath of all TV shows, KBC, one sits down to listen to the 'retro' show on radio and thereby ends the tale of a Sunday in October, circa 2005.

(As a reminder to self, must write about some of the corniest commercials aired on the Tamil channels. Phew!)

On that note, I shall bid adieu till we meet again in the next edition of The Sunday Chronicles. Stay locked.

Au revoir!