Trolls banished!

I didn’t know (or maybe I did, but I was pushing forbearance to the limit!) it was so easy to cut out the crude and the ignorant, the cowardly and the feckless on the internet. All I did recently, after years of tolerating trolls and assorted monsters masquerading as commentators on my blogs, was to block anonymous posts and put up a warning to say that all strangers must submit their email i.d.s for verification before their comments are published – and the most vulgar, irrelevant and stupid comments (from the sort of barely humans that can’t or won’t read what I have written, couldn’t conduct a reasoned argument to save their lives, and wouldn’t know the difference between good manners and barbarism if they were hit on their heads with it, yet have all the time in the world to tell me again and again how much they hate – read envy – me) stopped coming at once!

I am a happy man now, in the sense that a man can be happy if he loves his pretty little garden and has at last learnt to shut the gate against intruders who would come in only to pee or trample on his flower beds, because that’s all they can do to ‘express themselves’…in this context, the literate and cultured few among my readers might want to look up this little essay. Apes, I’m sorry, but I’ve got no lollies for you…

Our kind of patriotism

Aren't most Indians exactly like that? Sometimes a picture is still worth a thousand words!

Thanks to Saikat Chakraborty for sending it to me.

Biking around at 77!

My dear old boy Arnab Chakraborty sent me this link, surmising - quite rightly - that I'd be interested.

I take my hat off to this sprightly old/young man, going strong at 77 still. Brought back to mind the Canadian surgeon I heard about once, just about the same age, who earned millions over eleven months a year, and went off holidaying in January without fail to work/enjoy himself as a ski-instructor (and skiing is one of the most physically challenging sports, too...)

Do the white (and maybe also black-) men just have something in them that we don't? I already feel so old sometimes, though I still exercise, and many people assure me I don't look my age. Suppose I survive up to 77, would I have the strength, pluck and enthusiasm to carry on like Simon Gandolfi? I sincerely hope so. No point living too long otherwise.

Service with a smile

I had an interesting experience last night. Ever since I quit journalism, I have steered clear of politicians, but of course every now and then you have to rub shoulders with them... and so I turned up at my (newly-elected) local councillor's office with a request for a certain piece of paper that only some elected public official can issue. Nothing very important, and certainly not a 'special favour' of the sort that requires bending rules and things like that, but as everyone knows, in this country ordinary people without 'connections' are apt to be harassed and fleeced by the netas and babus for no fault of their own. So it was a very pleasant surprise to have my work done in a jiffy, and that too in a very courteous manner - for once, it didn't sound like a hollow joke when the man behind the desk said 'We're here to serve you'. If this is the way they are ensuring that I will vote for them next time round, why, I wish them godspeed. They didn't even charge a penny (it would have been perfectly okay to ask for fifty rupees, or at least ten, if only to cover establishment, stationery and such other costs). I came home reflecting on how little our vast, creaky, unwieldy and free public services are appreciated, while we rave starry-eyed about private hospitals and schools and hotels and malls which charge us the earth for every little thing right and left.  There is much that is wrong with our country, not least in areas that most of us never care to think about...

Fun in the dark

We went through what the media is touting as the 'world's worst power outage' ever over the last two days (mercifully in the locality where I live, there was one power cut that lasted six hours in the daytime and another hour and a half in the evening; bearable enough by Indian standards, since the taps didn't run dry). The event has already spawned a number of good jokes; the one I liked best being that it happened because Rajnikanth was charging his mobile phone...