With three years to go

Now I normally do not write about controversial things, I like to focus more along the realm of nonsense. Today however, I'm going to make an exception and write about politics and this is going to be a fairly serious post so if that isn't you're cup of tea you can stop reading here. You have been warned.

In the last many months the world has seen various tectonic changes in the political landscape and for a lot of these changes such as Brexit and Trump popular media seems to have gotten it wrong. Both these times I had expected those results. While I'm no saint or sage or seer I just think I was looking at something popular media seemed to have missed. Now I can't put a finger on what that was but since I hadn't officially predicted those results before they happened one can always argue that I was only explaining the events after the fact.

I've got a feeling about a political event that's going to occur in 2.5-3 years from now and I'd like to document it today. The 2019 general elections in India. Here's how I think it will go down.

In the next month or two the cash crunch will visible decline and there will be a fair number of notes in circulation. On the ground people will still have trouble changing Rs.2000 notes but they will get by. The larger economic impact will continue to be felt by small and medium enterprises and some may have to even close down. In the mean time there will be many reports of the Income Tax officials conducting raids and catching people will hordes of cash both in old currency and new. Most of these raids will be worth a few lakhs to a few crores but no really big fish will be caught, but the Govt. will spin these raids as being a net that no one holding black money can escape from. They will also take massive credit for each and every digital transaction done in India after 8 November 2016.

On the other political front, Mamta Banarjee and Arvind Kejriwal will lead a charge against the govt. claiming to be the only protectors of the common people. They might even form a coalition to fight the general election joined by a few other regional leaders like Nitish Kumar and they may even get a decent number of seats. My prediction however, is that the spin story and the marketing done by the BJP quite specifically Modi will continue to prevail and maybe with slightly fewer seats and maybe in a coalition of sorts, but BJP will return to power as the single largest party.

Around about the same time Delhi elections will happen and Kejriwal and his party will be thrashed out of power.

While those of you asking what about Congress and Rahul Gandhi, one of two things might happen to him, either he will go the Kejriwal way and complain about everything or he will continue to do what he's doing and continue to be irrelevant.

What was he* thinking?!?!

Some of the most enjoyable conversations I've had are those which start somewhere, twist, turn, flash, burn and go through winding lanes, across trees, meadows and finally land up in a place that has absolutely nothing to do with how that conversation begun.

At the end of such a conversation I often wonder, "How did we get here?" and then go on to retrace the dialogue back to the original topic of discussion.

Similarly, when I come across a delicacy or a novel idea, I often wonder how this came to be? What was the thought process... chain of thought... spark of imagination. At times it makes sense, for example, Fire. One can imagine the first fire must have been the result of a lightning or a spontaneous forest fire and that gave out heat (a desirable thing for early man). Rubbing hands for warmth is intuitive so someone must have made the connection, did some experimentation an voila FIRE!... but this is an example that makes sense, an origin story one can imagine, but that's not what this post is about. This is about the random things that I am unable to fathom.

Milk - The first person who saw the udder of a cow and went like you know what would be really cool... let me squeeze that and drink whatever comes out ... What was he thinking?!?!?

Sausages - For those who don't know... sausages are basically cheap parts of a pig ground and stuffed into the small intestine of what is usually the same pig. Now while they are really tasty, if you think about it, whoever came up with the idea to push meat down the pigs piping before it goes down yours... What was he thinking?!?!?!?

Cheese (Mature) - I can imagine curdling of milk to get cheese must have been an accidental discovery, but who was the smart Alec who decided that it would be a good idea let this thing spoil to the point where it begins to smell and then eat it... What was he thinking?!?!?!?

Birds nest - I'm not wondering what was a bird thinking when it decided to build itself a nest. I'm talking about using birds nest in deserts and soup. Whoever came up with this idea must have really had something against these birds. He would have thought to himself, "I will show that bird, I'll eat its family, and its eggs and you know what ...for good measure I'll eat up its nest also"...Seriously... What was he thinking?!?!?!?

And then there are the weirder delicacies in the world which I cant even begin to imagine what was going on in the persons head when they came up with the dish. For example century egg or urine brine eggs ... I'm not going to try and explain what these are (feel free to google them (Not Safe For Work)) but seriously... WHAT WAS HE THINKING?!?!?!?!?

If you have had similar thoughts please leave your ideas in the comments.



*For the purpose of this post he= he/she. 

I killed the vegetables

For all those who know me probably know that I enjoy cooking every now and then and most often I cook some form of meat or the other. Primarily because that's what I enjoy the most. Now this is not going to be some post about the ancient never ending veg vs non-veg debate.

Most of my vegetarian friends always complain that I never cook anything they can eat so this time when I tried my hand at making some Paneer tikka I figured it was time to put the complaints to rest and documented the whole process as evidence that I do (as rarely as it might be ) cook some veg food as well.

Oh and wish you all a very happy Diwali (the connection is that this Paneer was for a Diwali BBQ)

The Party I observed...

Have you ever been to a party and observed... I mean everyone goes to parties and dances.. has fun chills... but sometime.. just once maybe you should just observe ... this post is about the one time I did just that ..

Big party loud music most people are half drunk ... some people sitting others blaring into the karaoke mic... still others dancing to the songs others are singing and there I spotted across a long table a girl ... young, fair don't know her name so lets call her Ying and then there was a guy again young, fair don't know his name either so lets call him Yang, it seemed like he din't know Ying very well ... a friend`s friend I`m guessing. The two seemed to be having some sort of conversation ... the general kinds... safe topics .. about the weather, work health... the party went on Yang`s friend, the same that was Ying`s friend started to get quite high and could not help but sing along with every song and kept insisting that Ying and Yang join the fun ... they both seemed happier with the conversation .. I guess it must have moved on to more interesting subjects.
It was a matter of time before Ying and Yang re positioned their seats to face each other more ... well Yang was practically sitting across the table ... one would get the feeling he wanted to be close to her but I could be mistaken, maybe he was just trying to be heard... I gave him the benefit of doubt, but that dint prevent me from noticing when broke the touch barrier and when she responded with a gentle giggle .. but then again maybe he had just said something funny that I couldn't hear while simultaneously finding no other place to place his hand other than on hers.

The night went on and along comes another guy ... young, slightly taller than Yang again din`t know Ying very well but knew Yang well enough to want to sit at the same table...lets call him Yoong conversation ensued now Yoong adding his two bits, Ying reacting similarly to both Yang and Yoong and Yang does not seem very happy about it.. he needs another drink... gets it and gets back in the game... a few more drinks later its time for Ying to leave and it seems like while Yang is some points ahead of Yoong, Yoong is not letting go without a fight so they both go to walk Ying to her car and she drives off into the ... well its already night so she does not drive off into the sunset but she drives off and I guess she never gave Yoong or Yang another thought..

Please Note: This is not a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of what the author saw. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is because it happened or seemed that way.