Don't breathe!

Imagine you are out of the house on some work or just. Your aged parents are at home alone. Unbeknownst to you burly policemen and excise duty officers ring your doorbell and pushing aside your mother, who is in her late 70's, barge into the house refusing to say why they're there; refusing to show a search warrant; refusing to show identity cards. They then proceed to upturn the whole house looking for "evidence"! What evidence your mother asks? That your daughter is "manufacturing" alcohol and selling it in chocolates! So your mother protests and she is reminded by a burly mustachioed female cop that they are only keeping quiet because she is old... otherwise she has no idea what the police can do!

This dear friends is not fiction or even the start of a concept for a feature film! This is reality! And this has happened to a very close friend in the past 48 hours!

I am not disputing the written laws at all... I honestly am very ignorant of most of them. I am hurt and angry at the uncouth behaviour and crudity of nature of people so called in "power"! This means today anyone who has jurisdiction or extra judicial authority can barge into your home throwing some archaic law at you and arrest you for something that you honestly thought was an innocent act!

My questions: what would the "overzealous wanting to do their job officers" have done if  either of the two parents had a medical emergency out of sheer shock of the events unfolding? Would they have taken responsibility of their actions or termed it as an unfortunate event and pleaded dedication to job?

The outrage that I feel at the actions of the government in this case is inexplicable. I want to do something... I want to sue someone! I want to start a movement to protect us! I want to .... I want to ... I want to ....

But what? And how? The sword hanging over is do not antagonise the powers that be or they could harm the person concerned to a degree that is irreparable.

Its no more about going out for a meal or partying at night and whose father what goes... its about all of us citizens of Bombay (yes Bombay not Mumbai) being declared Guilty unlit you prove yourself Innocent! So if I want to have a quiet Italian meal by myself with just a good book in a restaurant... I fear being arrested for soliciting. And if some of us women just want to have a girls' night out... oh man... are we asking for it! Because no woman in government's world goes out without a ghunghat and "family" men unless she is a whore! The fact that most times I have to scream at my "family men" to wear full length pants is another topic!

So, there we have it... you my dear fellow Bombayite have been declared criminal irrespective of how you choose to live!

Oh... last word... please don't get a cough and cold this monsoon... the cough syrup the doctor prescribes for you, could get you arrested for drinking alcohol in public...!

Arre oh bhaiyya!!!!

The last few days I have decided old age has caught up with me... I have a problem with the way people drive. I have a problem with the display of bad attitude. I have a problem with the lack of civic sense and I definitely have a problem with the lack of civility.... ok ... I have a problem with a lot things happening around me! Yesterday all I was doing was desperately attempting to drive from Versova to Santacruz in a somewhat straight line as the roads go. But no... the traffic had other plans for me. I was pushed into corners. Dabaoed as is said in Bombay (yeah Bombay not Mumbai) ... shoved... abused... called "bloody woman driver"... now I am one of those women drivers who (sorry) curse inside the car "bloody woman driver" ... I cant stand the pathetic sorry manner that women insist on driving in as if their carefully manicured finger nails will break if they change the right gear or give the correct indicator! But then this post is not about women drivers. Its about the fact that 80 % of "drivers" on the roads today are from the cow belt. 15 % are two wheeler drivers and the rest are just plain crazy!!!!

So... the cow belt drivers .. some of whom wouldn't get a licence to steer a bullock cart in their homeland are now driving V6 and V8 engines. The "saab" doesnt care because either "saab" cant drive or doesn't want to drive and is probably slightly more literate than the driver! As a result ... cow belt rules, manners, civic sense or the lack of it etc etc is free flowing like Tata namak on the streets of suburban Bombay! I say that because willy nilly I have seen much better and restrictive driving south of Mahim Causeway. I have also noticed the policing is better their. Maybe because Balasaheb's and Raj Bhau's offices are situated closer to getting your arse kicked if you are an out of step or line bhaiyya! I dont know what it is... but I know that for someone who has been driving on the streets of Bombay for 30 years I have seen road manners change and how! There are times when I don't recognise this to be the city I have lived all my life in!

Then there are the snotty badly brought up badly behaved teenagers. The other day one of the same breed tossed a Coke paper container out of a moving auto splat on the road! Her father's servant is going to clean the roads???? So I stopped for a few seconds... carefully with some newspaper, which was handy in the car, picked up the offending cup and drove behind the auto, caught up with it... handed the cup to her and said in my sweetest manner "hey sweetie, you dropped this"! She says oh! I say go home and put it in your garbage can... do you pay taxes? NO... I do... and I am not your mother to clean up after you!

But we have drifted... So at the end all one can say the cribbing will go on... until I find a "kaity" and some nice round pebbles and shoot the bloody buggers at any available body part visible from where I can see it!

It's all your fault!

Dear Fellow Indians... Give up. As short and sweet as that. Nothing is going to happen for you. Some may say what a pessimistic attitude. No... realistic! Look around you... do you see anyone from any of the government departments that you voted to power giving a rat's ass about you? No. They don't care. Not only do they not care they want you to know that it is all your fault!

Ruchika Girhotra didn't get molested by a lecherous smiling in his moochies dirty flea bag! She happened to be in the same room while his arms were in movement mode! Stupid girl!

Narendra Singh the young IAS officer in MP who got mowed down by a tractor? Stupid fellow ... who told him to stand in the middle of the road waving his arms around to stop a tractor filled with illegally mined stone? Everyone knows a tractor has no brakes!

The metro rail from Versova to Ghatkopar is going to take another 14 years to be completed and up and running! Have you ever travelled from Versova to Ghatkopar by road? Do you know how crowded the roads are? And you expect the metro to maneuver through all that crowd and get built on time! Too much you're demanding!

The monorail. Why can't a few politicians, corporators, bureaucrats make some money? Do you know the price of bhindi these days? How is the poor politician etc etc going to run their homes?

The point my dearies is this ... (trumpet flourish) ... You are never the victim of a crime!!!! You just came in the way of some poor bastard's tool of crime! Its all your fault!