Got it. Finally.

Today is an important milestone for us. The date has always been special. But now its also the date we cleared a milestone. Slowly , very slowly, things we put in action almost a year back are falling in place. It could have been earlier, we could have achieve it sooner. But, you know..life.. There will always be hindrances. And better late than never, right ?

We are moving. We are leaving this company. This country. And moving for good. Abroad. Today we were granted our 189 independent visa for Australia.

After dreaming about and planning about this day for months, we have climbed one more hurdle. And something tells me there will be more hurdles  down the path for us.

We’ll take it one at a time.

Puttakke putaakkee karimeen puttakkeyy, we are going there ! All our dreams will come true. We will make them come true.

Hat trick for Indian judiciary !

Moments after a CBI court convicted Dera Sacha Sauda chief Ram Rahim of rape, the Indian judiciary finds itself the unlikely hero of events of the past week.

 

In the span of a week, the judiciary has delivered three historic verdicts in three cases that had the nation glued to their television case.

 

On August 22, the Supreme Court struck down instant triple talaq practiced among Muslims. On August 24, the apex court once again emerged as the star, upholding the right to privacy as a fundamental right. To cap off the week, a CBI court in Panchkula convicted Ram Rahim in the rape case, despite the fact that 200,000 of his followers had laid siege to the city.

 

 

 

What is the verdict ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hate hospitals

I hate hospitals.

 

I hate the smells of those disinfectants, I hate the sight of white labcoats. And the sound of those ambulances. But mostly I hate the inefficient design of hospitals. Yes, in India, the hospitals are literally designed to hurt you.

 

For the past one week, I have been stuck at not one, but two different hospitals. There was nothing wrong with me , by the way. I was caring for a patient. But the way I struggled to run from ward to pharmacy to scanning to reports to ward reminded me why I hated hospitals in the first place.

 

These places are never designed movement, but to maximize it. Facilities which logically should have been next to each other are placed levels apart. And there are a limited number of lifts for the ailing patients. And I haven’t understood why the pharmacy never has all the medicines in stock, one has to frequently get some of the medicines from outside the hospital.

 

I think the main problem is the same one with every other public space in India, they are never designed for the actual load. The number of users/visitors/patients in the hospital vastly outrun the number of people who can comfortably use the system. Everywhere I went, I was waiting in queue. Things are built to suit the management’s convenience rather than that of the patients.

 

Besides, they are also for-profit institutions.

 

 

 

Media wars

One can’t turn on the television nowadays. Its full of crap. Nonsense. News, but with the heat turned up full, it hurts. I don’t watch own or watch the TV anymore, but they do have TVs running in public areas. And everytime I watch it, I am reminded why I decided to dump the idiot box.

 

Turns out , there are some new players in the ever growing media wars. New news channels. And one only need to watch 5 seconds of their coverage to understand that they are no worse than the drug peddler on the street. The screen is full of bold texts, shouting out the same thing over and over again.  The same footage is replayed until it gets cemented in your head.  They quote a lot of people, he said, she said..but very little fact. In fact, they have reported incorrect or outdated news many times in the past.

 

 

 

And now I see the same thing happening down south, in the coverage of a trending news topic. The case is not yet in court, but the media have already announced their verdict.

 

 

If this is the fact, then the fiction part is even worse.  TV serials and reality programming have flooded channels, with multiple repeats throughout the day. I hear the focus has now shifted from saas-bahu serials to ghosts and black magic !

 

And while things are a little better on youtube, lots of new programming and original content there, things are going darker there too. The same media companies have taken to online video channels and spread there.

 

 

I long for the day when a calm news reader simply read the day’s news with minimal expression. I think they still do that on doordarshan, have to check. I long for those simple television programming from the 90s, where really talented artistes came together to tell a story. Sigh !