Notes from Here and There

The following comments/opinions have been posted on various popular websites such as The Times of India and Facebook. I am just sharing them...

So here are some of the comments I made, all in good jest.

1. For once George W. Bush spoke eloquently about world affairs. I mean, when he was the President of the USA he had a tough time dealing with Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and to large extent China. Pakistan was no worries for him as it was already showing a dog-like devotion towards its master. It did everything it was asked to do. These countries have always been the modern world's headache! In the course of his tight-ass diplomacy, he blindly followed what his advisers had always given to him. Never in this lifetime as an American President, I suspect, has he used his brains to think positively and do things amicably. While it is true that Saddam's Iraq began posing a grave danger to the world (read the US), Mr. Bush made it even harder for the world to live with the consequences thereafter.

His "weapons of mass destruction" rhetoric to wage a full-blown war against a poor nation like Iraq has changed the world for the worse! Mr. Bush looked silly as a person of authority or as President of the United States of America, a world power for God's sake! he was downright inhuman to all nations, even to the holy United Nations. All for Oil, I suppose, and of course, finishing off what his father (George Bush Sr.) started years ago. How pathetic!

- appeared on 9 Nov. 2011 on the Times of India website
Website link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Chinas-No-1-target-is-the-US-next-is-India-Bush/articleshow/10664570.cms

2. "Oh! what a good piece of writing this is. I've seen Hyderabad of the time past - through numerous books, pictures, and from a little personal experience of myself. It was a city with a soul. I say 'was' because Hyderabad has changed completely and it is no longer the city I used to like once or lived in with a fine sense of chivalry intact. I confess I don't like 'change' at all. 'Change' brings in prosperity and opportunities and new things, but I have resolved that 'change' is happening because of the population explosion in the human species, globalization, and rampant business trading! I loved reading your article, Ma'am. Thank you for writing it. Please accept my respectful adaab!"

- appeared on 28 Sept. 2011 on the Times of India website
Website link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/usrmailcomment2.cms?msid=10146997&mailon_commented=1&usercommentid=4980953#toreply4980953

3. What a useless comment you've made, Mr. Krishna! Can't you just keep your mouth shut for god sakes?! What are you talking about anyway? The conflict will hit India if US-Pak continues to be at loggerheads! Shut up!

- appeared on 21 Oct. 2011 on the Times of India website
Website link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/usrmailcomment2.cms?msid=10434831&mailon_commented=1&usercommentid=5183436#toreply5183436

4. Change is a constant entity...nothing new about it. Only some people are not aware of it scientifically enough. And that's ok to a certain extent. One should not get obsessed with change as Mr. Steve Jobs has been during his lifetime. All in all, R.I.P. Steve Jobs.

- appeared on 5 Dec. 2011 on a friend's Facebook wall

5. This is a good piece of work... appropriately philosophical in its appeal... I can fully relate to your feelings and I too would like to think of myself to be one of those ones who are perpetually concerned about the question of life and death - and our collective role and attitude toward giving or charity. This is one true good reason that I think will fetch mankind its true identity... (with everyone on the same little boat, not one left behind). I am a pessimist in nature and I see the darker side of things first than the positive side; in fact, I see no reason to be fashionable like people who think they are Optimists. They are not really. Trust me they are no optimists in real life. If I am a beggar on the street sharing food with dogs, not well provided for, no one care cares for me, all alone and no family, (no Facebook, no laptop, no fucking Internet connection!!!) then perhaps I would know the meaning of being a true-to-heart Optimist, just like the one on the road scraping for food is no Optimist but a defying Pessimist.

I think it is a virulent class of hypocritical elements that runs through the length and breadth of the human spine that kills the joy of being a human being (with pessimism well intact) in a fucking civilized world like ours. Ever since we began keeping records, people have only thought of themselves as important devils and not about the deprived ones! We must always have the deepest gratitude for God-like people like Mother Theresa who brought hope to the thousands of dispossessed and the destitute and reveled in the power of being a supreme Optimist. (Yes, only SHE can be an Optimist, not people like us). We Facebook addicts have only fashion and digital junk on our side, and nothing else, brother; no, nothing else!

- appeared on 5 Dec. 2011 on a friend's Facebook wall

By Arindam Moulick