Priorities People, priorities!

One of my close acquaintance, during one of the most tense periods of work, asked me, 'Did we plan the coffee'?

It riled me up! Coffee! Man, you thought I'm bloody making coffee now. I was fuming inside. I could even sense angry smoke coming from my ears.

Priorities man, priorities.

That day, that dreadful day when India killed more than 100 children for want of oxygen cylinders, and rampant encephalitis, the shameless (That is what they do best, being shameless) Indian media was debating the importance of singing Vande Maataram in schools. And one anchor has the audacity to tell a man in a prime time debate, who brings in the topic of deaths of children, to not stray away from the important topic of singing.

On a day when a God-Man was convicted of rape, and people are in the streets supporting the God-Man, you know the country and its priorities.

We have a screwed up sense of priorities. We politicise what should not be and keep quiet on things we must speak about. If my country cares more about a movie trailer and a reality show than dead kids and terror attacks, then there is something seriously wrong with us.

Watching Big Boss and trending Oviya is fine! But when an entertainment industry is the major supplier of leaders to a country then there is a problem. Singing Vande Maatram is fine. In fact debating the necessity of making it mandatory is good. But on a day which should have been mourned nationally, to bury them under the carpet and debating petty nationalism is wrong. Plain wrong!

Discussing and debating cricket and music and films and everything entertaining is good. They actually keep us going. But in that process, if we sweep the important issues under the carpet, we are treading on dangerous waters.

Screwed up priorities are a curse!

In case you don't know what is happening in Modi's India!

I'm anti Modi! I hate to see that man lie through his teeth, nose and every other thing. And so, If you are a Modi Bakth please don't read on. For the reality that India is starkly opposite to what your leader promised.

So 60 young children were killed in the state of UP, in the constituency of Mr. Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of UP, the 5 time MP from the same constituency due to the sudden stoppage of oxygen. The hospital has not paid the oxygen supplier for a long time, it seems.

Do you know that the RBI's dividend to the government of India, has decreased from 65,000 crores to 30,000 crores! Oh, did Modiji tell you that the NPA(Non performing assets) of banks have increased by more than 50% in the last six months?

The production in the consumer durables sector recorded negative growth of (-2.1%) while that in the capital goods sector contracted by 6.8%.

Oh yes, the annual GDP growth rate has come down to 6.1% in the previous quarter. Apparently it is the slowest growth rate since 2014.

Don't even get me started on the price of the petrol and the diesel. In Modi's dictionary there is only hike. No reduction of prices. This after the global fuel price has tumbled down three times.

According to Modiji's claim they are laying 30km of national highway every day. That approximates to completing more than 50% of the total existing national highways present in the entire country put together, in one year. You want to check the truth of it, do a vellore - Chennai trip on the Bangalore - Chennai highway.

Apparently Modiji has built so many toilets that Mumbai is declared open defecation free! But BMC has said, they don't include people defecating in lands owned by other govt agencies such as the railways, Mumbai port trust , defence land and Aarey colony in Goregaon.

I'm paying extra taxes for every possible product and service I use. And yet nothing has improved. My government school and my government hospital are still not hospitable enough for a simple middle class like me.

Oh yes, I forgot that there were dead people carried for over 20 kms for want of an ambulance and yet we have invented a new concept called Ambulance for the cows.

We have lost more soldiers in the border in the last one year than any other year in the last two decades. The Chinese have not threatened so much since 1965 that more soldiers are guarding the country than ever before and that is never a good sign.

There are reported 12000 farmer suicides in this country since 2013.

The minorities have never been threatened so much, and that includes myself. The abuse in the name of the prime minister himself and the ruling party has never been this high. I have been abused left right and centre since I refused to believe that cows urine will cure cancer.

We have discovered a new word called lynch! Suddenly lynch mobs and cow mobs have started killing any other human being who has opposite views. And I have never heard of these happening in times before.

And in the last few years for the common man, not one iota of corruption has come down.

Yes our nationalism has increased. We sing national anthem in movie theaters. Now vande maataram in schools and madarasas just to improve our nationalism.

Vande maataram! In case they consider me anti national.

Friends, do they come and go?

I have often wrestled with this idea. The idea, that friends are special beings sent from God for a particular period in our life. And then we move on. Move on to another part of our life! And so another group of friends.

Did I move on? Have I moved on? We all have, haven't we?

There were these two friends whom I hugged and promised that we will stay in touch all through life when we changed new schools in class 5. Have seen them once after. There are those beautiful friends who made my life better in my senior school days, whom I had thought I cannot live without, yet have no contact with.

Then, the best friend from college. I had long lost touch with him since we parted ways.The cognizant life. The wonderful friends there. What happened to them? We were so close. Yet nobody stay in touch. Not one! The best thing about living in the remote village of makunda was the community of friends. Yet, even they have moved on. We say a hi, here and there and that is all. The friends from church and choir and then from the life in Delhi days. Not everyone has stayed on.

Why does that happen? Weren't we close enough then, to sustain the relationships? Have our new relationships become more important than the precious promises we made when life took us apart? Do we mature and so changeth friends? Is it inevitable that we change friends? That life takes too many turns to hold on to few people through out? Oh the questions my mind asks on friendship day!

I wish life allows us the leverage to carry all of them along, through it all. But then they make memories. Precious memories. And may be that is why we move on.

Yet if you remember, not everyone has lost touch. The first friend ever from childhood, is still the best friend. That church friend from Sunday school days, still says a hi often. The few who have stuck on from the school days, are still very close. Indeed one called today. I visit that one college friend often enough. The friends from the Delhi days, through their busy big shot life schedule, have stayed in touch. The church friends meet very often.

To those friends who had moved on in life, I cherish the memories. And those who had stuck on through the ruff, tuff and tan of life, you are my bedrock!