ice-cream with irani chai

Insulated from all news of the happenings around here, I was obviously in for sort of a shock when I came back from a month-long trip abroad a couple of days ago. (Obviously, I put behind me all the memories of Hyderabad burning over T-issue - who would wanna take such issues on mind on a much neeed holiday to a sand-surf-n-sea paradise!)

On the flight back here a co-passenger (from the country I'd just visited) asked if there was a "cease-fire" and whether it would be a problem even getting back to the hotel in the "curfew". A frowny-blank expression on my face and he added - there's a war in 'Hydrabaaad', right? I heard there are people burning on the streets and government beating up students? 

While wondering who put it in his point-haired brain such "burning" thoughts, I rewinded my memory a bit and then tried to calm him into thinking all izzz certainly well in my beloved city and he need not panic about something that happened so long of a month ago...

However, when we did land, the city did certainly meet his feary expectations. The media rather. A few odd incidents, and the tv channels and newspapers made it look like the entire town burned, stoned and was curfewed and what not. At the airport (the city's greatness of being host to a world-class one, about which I boasted on my blog {backed by a survey} just a couple of days prior to my return) I almost asked dad if I should fly to Delhi for a few days (no I didnt)... I asked if I needed to avoid the flyover at Osmania on my way back home, or is there some sort of road I could take so I could avoid being near JNTU... he (annoyed) brushed away my fears and asked me to relax and come to his place...

The point is the media is so shameless. Ya, it is old news that media has been sensational for some time now. I am almost ashamed I was part of this profession once upon a time. Ya, there are good and bad apples in every profession, but it seems the media is mostly bad apples in their bid to outdo others for TRPs and revenues. Everything bad is blown out of proportion.

I wouldn't like to compare the media here with the media in the country I visited. But, there wasn't a day I didn't look forward to reading the paper. The front page almost always had a positive story for the main headline. Not that horrible incidents or crap didn't happen in that city or the country - but then, politics wasn't really the staple diet for the headlines there. There were stories about people - the common people, their lives, their festivals, their community work, the development around them, the civic issues and the resolving of those issues, the good work of NGOs, the booming innovative businesses even in the recession, the efforts and special initiatives of local governments to attract investments, the new and upcoming infrastructure etc... 

How come, we don't feature such news except for in some tiny space like in hidden 17th page or so between all the Obit ads? How come for the media, anything good is so bad to cover? Why is only the bad good enough for the front page, the news @ 9 and daylong headlines?

Media, the matter is it's time to mind your manners please!

Hyderabad Shining! It's on the world map once again! And for once, it's not IT that's being talked about!

The city's truly flying high. It's International Airport's has been ranked among the top 5 in the world - Click Here 

(PS: A while ago, I'd blogged about a survey that said we were ranked among the world's worst. So, thought should definitely post this that, on the contrary, shows things have since changed for the best!) 

She looked out from the big window at her hotel room. Dark mirthless clouds, raining and pouring their soul out. Hitting swift and mercilessly at the big glass pane she was looking out of. So much so, the tall sleak and upright buildings on the horizon that usually shone smartly beaming in all their glory in the Sun everyday, now seemed to melt away insignificantly and unnoticed into the dull dreary silvery steel grayness that enveloped the sky and the dampened Earth that it had become one with.

The roads lined with the malls below were desolate, bare of all the shoppers, college students and tourists that usually thronged the sidewalks. And, what was also always swarmed and teeming with children, men and women, the swimming pool and the lounge below were isolated too. Almost rejected.

"The rain has no boundaries. It is the same everywhere. It doesn't decide where to fall or not based on these boundaries. These borders are what we have created ourselves. We are the ones limiting ourselves. These fetters are all our own imposed. It is all our doing," she thought. Almost aloud.

She was visiting the island nation as a tourist. A few weeks into the holiday, and she was enjoying it all. But, the incessant rain today brought back memories. Of back home. It was not just the country boundaries she was thinking about. But, of all the people she had left behind. The people she had tried to build borders against. The people she had tried to get away from.

"So, why do we build fences? Why fetter my heart, mind and spirit?" she asked. The rushed rain had no answers. It simply looked blank and vacantly into her eyes and then with a loud roaring laughter of a thunder, just disappeared!

so long, my friend,
here then i rest my pen,
a journey now needs to end,
moments sad, some golden,
away, afar i got to be,
there's none need for me,
let me take leave of you,
i should go, i should really go...

so,
for you, i never really was the one,
strange are the ways of your love,
all's in just days totally changed,
your joy now's in a newer bond,
flung afar, outcast of your life,
beguiled and fooled was i,
disthroned, disengaged of your heart,
yet wishing you well, in silence i depart.