We are like that only

3:30 am is an unearthly time to get up but not if you plan to travel long distance by road in India, wish to avoid the traffic and prefer to take freshly made parathas with you. While my chachi makes way to the kitchen, my bleary eyes focus on the television, which had been on all night, as it usually is at my chacha's house, may be he is just afraid of missing out the wholesome entertainment cable tv dishes out or some earth shattering breaking news the nth time.

I watched NDTV desperately trying to damage Arun Kejriwal's credibility in a no holds barred manner for the nth time, and govt. and opposition parties, who have not united to bring a single meaningful legislation for the country in many years, were unanimous in condemning him for mentioning the statistics about how many Indian parliamentarians were convicted felons or has criminal records or fighting criminal cases against them ranging from extortion to murder. Mentally sick, unbecoming of a gentleman, spoiling the decorum of this great country's great institutions and many such things they all said unanimously, not to their fellow parliamentarian criminals, but to Mr. Kejriwal, who had dared to mention this statistic at a public forum.

We are like that only. We can tolerate sending hardened criminals to parliament and watch them hollowing out the country from inside, we even stand and applause their ill gotten wealth, and we hope against hope that their bad karmas will catch up with them sooner or later, but we don't like somebody mentioning inconvenient facts to spoil the reputation of out great parliamentarians. You see, if the facts can't be mentioned, then they dont exist. We can take abject poverty of millions of people in our stride, karma it is after all. 'Why do they have so many children if they can't afford to raise them properly' we murmur to fellow companion before rolling up the car's window against street children. But we take strong objection to any body who makes 'slum dog millionnaire' and shows the reality to rest of the world. It's commercializing somebodys misfortune for personal gains, sullying the reputation of our great country, and in very bad taste.

I change the channel to some other news, But it only gets worse. The chief witnesses of some multi billion dollar scams are getting bumped off systenpmatically, which media prefers to call dying in mysterious circumstance, a girl jumped to her death in a mock fire drill because the police and firemen didnt take even the basic precautions, a girl gets raped in broad daylight in a moving car and the police is blaming her for drinking with the boys while revealing her identity to the media - may be they are hoping she will now commit suicide and the case will be closed. I can feel my blood pressure rising. I switch channel again and this time it's the trio of Govinda, Kader Khan, and Shakti Kapoor doing some silly slapstick comedy. At least, they are sullying their own reputation, and a couple of wasted hours is the most harm they can inflict on me. In fact, I might even laugh in a few of those scenes. That's why I prefer to watch the movies than the news. Now I better hurry up and pack, it's time to hit the road.