#186

Well, she will be completing 70 on Sunday.  It is nobody's case that she has got the writing skills of Arundhati Roy.  But there is no doubt something compelling about her catty, not to mention a

chatty style that is quite impressive.  I have always considered her to be our very own Jackie Collins.  I still remember years ago, I and my sisters somehow managed to get our hands on a couple of her paperback titles.  Much before there was such a thing known as Amazon in India.  So what if the plot was convoluted, and sex was uniformly bad, at the time it seemed nothing short of an accomplishment.  Since then, we are all older and wiser, but in those days, trying to procure those slim books of her was our way of pushing the envelope on societal mores.  Thank you Shobhaa.

No matter how much President Trump derides and mocks The New York Times, calling it ''fake news'', at some deeper level he also understands that the paper enjoys a sterling reputation and credibility.  Even though you dislike certain media organization, because you know that The New York Times does matter, you are more than willing to be interviewed by them, like Mr. Trump did a couple of days ago.  Now, does PM Modi have enough realization and understanding to give interviews to the likes of NDTV network and Caravan magazine in India?  More importantly, does he have enough humility?

Mr. Vajpayee has turned 93 today.  In my humble opinion, he's been one of the finest Prime Ministers

this country has had since Nehru.  He has been a poet and a philosopher, and if someone like me supported the BJP once upon a time, it was largely because of him.  What was most remarkable about him was that despite being associated with the RSS, he always remained impervious to its toxic agenda, and cultivated a liberal worldview.  How I wish that advancing age and illness had not forced him to retire and fade away from public domain.  India most definitely needs his steady hands and healing touch.  Happy Birthday sir.

A scandalous financial skullduggery takes place more than two decades ago. It takes 10 years to frame charges. A further 10 years of meandering trial to bring about the conviction. 11 of the 38 accused die midway through the whole torturous process and a few eventually acquitted. If this is not a revealing state of affairs of the Indian judicial system, then I don't know what is. Now I think, the most proper and honorable thing for Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav to do would be to accept the court verdict in all humility and retire once and for all from active politics. Just go for god's sake!

What a damning indictment of the prosecution in the 2G spectrum case!  I still distinctly remember how night after night, the news media would keep excoriating the then UPA government and calling the then Prime Minister names.  As it turns out, there was no criminality involved, and the trial judge literally threw the case into a virtual garbage bin after six years.  But what about the lives destroyed?  The reputations ruined?  Anyways, I am happy for the former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.  A few years ago, he said that history will judge him kindly, and he stands vindicated.

I am no fan of Vladimir Putin.  But he does something interesting every year around this time.  He gives a marathon press conference where members of the national and international media are allowed to ask him any question.  It's a free-wheeling session and Mr. Putin generally speaks extempore without consulting any notes.  So, two days ago was one of those days, and it lasted for more than 4 hours!  And here I was thinking that our Prime Minister has not fielded a single question from the Indian media since he became PM in May 2014.  I think Modi doesn't have the confidence to take on any uncomfortable questions.  He's only interested in hearing nice things about himself.

The other night, I was watching Oliver Stone's 1986 Oscar-winning movie 'Platoon'.  And I am quite convinced that Vietnam was a much more ghastly mess for the US military that either Iraq or Afghanistan could ever be.  And then, a couple of days later, I got the opportunity to see Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psyco' (1960).  And I thought, can there be any b/w movie this good?  I mean, every frame is a piece of art.  A poetry in motion.