SAFFRON VALENTINES

Fot the past two years the colour that seems to be dominating the popular indian festival of "valentine's day" has not been red (the tradition mascot of love) but the less glamorous cousin of the red family- saffron.
Yes tradition is being trampled upon, be it in the changing modes of diwali celebration or changing the colour of the valentine's day. This time ofcourse the colour change has been effected by tireless efforts of various activists (if they can be called so) of hindutva.Well iam not a fan of this v-day celebrations myself but for the first time i felt sorry for the romantic couples who had been waiting so patiently for this day, only to be molested by the self appointed guardians of morality. After all this is a free country and people are free to do anything, even make ridiculous fools out of themselves. And then v-day is no ordinary day. Couples do need one uch day to express their feelings! it is another matter that barring the flowers (especially the red roses ) and the goody goody cards the activities of this day are not much different from other days.Flirting is carried out blatantly,flouting too. As far as the moral policing is concerned, all it has done in all theses years is that every year the no. of followers of love has doubled , while the activists were busy proselytising stone headed peple.to add atouch of humour ,even some of the ranks of the saffron org. have switched sides( and they say that defection is restricted to political parties.)
I any case it was always doubtful whether these activists were ever trying to indianise the youth . The v-day has thus become a symbl of the resurgent young india which will not bow down to any pressure no matter what the consequence. so my fellow indians sleep tight as all another successful day has passed as girlfriends and boyfriends exchanged greetings and made promises(vow!)'
though one could not ignopre the fact that saffron was the colour of the day and not red, a fitting transition for alues are also getting diluted like colours.

A BIG BOTHER

It is a shame , when the usualyy sane people fall for the theatricks of the insolent buisnessmen. And normally such a fall is accompanied by blissfull and pitiable ignorance of the fact that they are being taken for a ride. To be fair it is not at all a matter of dispute whether modern day actors are or are not businessmen. The answer is YES they are!
Watching reality tv can be a painful exercise ,but it also becomes an idiotic errand when the viewers start believing what they see. Just like no one would hope to find credible scientific information in the "STAR WARS" saga, one cannot fnd anything remotely real in the so called reality tv shows.I f that was the case we would not have witnessed the plethora of conspiracies anddumb brawls that make up the entire "real" content of these shows. After all which man of reasonable prudence will believe in the childish "acts" of captivating the audiences.
let us admit that television is in essence a profit making industry. so everything, from what is telecast on it to whatever makes you switch it on is an essential part of that business, which is prospering in these times of easy money and loose moraltiy.
Currently there are two kinds of shows which are being aired on the tv. there are shows which showcase celebrities as audience catchers, the there are shows which try to play on the common-man-stuggle card by casting ordinary common men and makie heroes out of them.
Well there is nothing wrong in being emotionallymoved by movies and soaps; but it isquite ridiculous to start beleiving that the actors of these soaps are the genuine victims of the malencholy sagas.
Reality tv is nothing more than an ingenous way of capturing attention , by focusing on candid and unsensored moments of a shrewdly doctored script. Just like peolewoludn't sympathize with Rani mukherrji after moistening tissue papers in the cinema hall, or throw hrithik off a cliff to watch him fly like krishh it will be stupid to say that shilpa shetty should be consoled for facing racicsm in a reality tv show. whether she was or was not abused is immaterial,what matters is that she was allegedly abused in a television show. Well i don't know about others but this tv show abuse thing is fantastically far fetched for me. This incident was as frce as a James bond adventure and as libellous as a comment from a drunkard to another.
To negate all other apprehensions about the authenticity of these shows one only has to go through the newspapers(specially the times of india) to find that these struggling stars with sagging fortunes have suddenly been flooded with money , not to mention the publicity they have recieved which is of gigantic proportions.
to seriously talk about these shows anymore would be like trying to study biology from the cript of "star trek".
All said and done ,even if one removes all other fantastic factors, it is hardly credible to believe that a struggling