Apologies for that anonymous reader

When did you last feel lousy after returning home from work?
Lousy about doing a lousy job?
Lousy, when you know the lousiness that slouched into the paper will in all likelihood escape notice of the bosses?
Lousy about the very lousiness of that lousy idea (aren't bosses made bosses so that they can catch the lousiness creeping into the paper and warn you?)
Lousy because one smartass in the paper will notice it and remind you every lousy moment of the day that s/he spotted it?
Lousy because the whole idea is so nerve-wracking?
Lousy because that's now how you were supposed to work?

I feel that. Every day.
And I feel it today; no exception. I am sorry, dear reader who happens to read the section i put to bed tonight.

ai la, keep you chappal on. he's gone

finally, he's gone. Seems the whole country suddenly stopped bleeding/ bleating and started breathing. Again. Is that what happens when a country is renamed by ad-wallahs? When India suddenly becomes 'Team India' and nothing more, thank you? When being Indian means going to war in front of television sets? When even rum-and-coke-wallahs are suddenly clubbed into being part of the Blue Billion, seen glut-glutting that awful soft drink that gels with nothing but television advertisements?

It's time he did. Thanks Greg. And it's time the country grew up. Thanks Mandira.

There's life beyond the 22 yards, 11 men and one television set. Go get it (the life, moron, not the TV).

Prez be the lord

* Samajwadi Party demands president’s rule in Assam (Congress rule).
* Congress wants president’s rule in Uttar Pradesh (Samajwadi Party govt).
* BJP wants president’s rule in West Bengal (CPM-led Left).
* Left wants president’s rule in Gujaat, or any other BJP-ruled government anywhere in India, or abroad.
* Each non-Congress party wants president’s rule in Maharashtra every time a debt-ridden farmer in Vidharbha kicks the bucket (though everyone, including the media, seems to have forgotten the area’s location on the map now that elections approach elsewhere in the country).
* Half of India wants president’s rule over the other half.

And the poor president? Forget imposing his rule, he cannot even decide whether he needs/wants/wishes/looks forward to/refuses… to have a haircut.

This, if the irony is to be carried a notch beyond the point of tolerance, is INDIA POISED. Or INDIA EMPOWERED. Or, for that matter, INDIA SHINING. Or… whatever.
In effect, INDIA IMPOVERISHED.
(Any media house that wants to use the campaign can contact the Subject for trademark details)