Birth !

What is the recipe for this blog ? First, take one large generally empty brain. Next, expose it to some wonderful cinema and stuff it with star performances . Then immerse it in the sights and sounds of the lives of ordinary folk, no Movenpick and caffe latte please. Finally, add a generous dollop of advise from a tech-savvy lissome Lass . And voila - you have Wimpistan !

This burst of thought had its seed in an electrifying experience over 2 years back, aptly in a cinema complex. As a tall, dark, handsome (cinematic license this) member of a super aggressive MNC (who else )bank, my team got free tickets, popcorn and skirts to ogle for a must watch movie -Dev from our grovelling distributors. I must confess to have emerged from the hall, a changed man. As one who has grown in the splendid security of the South, and being a sales guy spouting the merits of an " India Shining" beyond compare, I saw a contrarian India . One that plundered and killed its own, for ends that were childish from the start. Logical thought held, one of these India could not exist. Rather, I saw two Indias, one all IT & cappuccino and the other with 10 hour load shedding and women abusers. Must I add, that seeing grown up men cry ( Big B breaks down in this Govind Nihlani movie ) is a powerful catalyst ?

Thoughts that reared their head again when I went on a vacation to interior India, last month and saw some of the gentlest people living in conditions that I thought were the stuff of history books. Girls reading in candlelight at night destined for a life of burden , entire villages with no electricity , the works. Thus was born Wimpistan, the brute India .

Hope came in the form of the Lass who initiated me to the power of the written word. After some initial hiccups, here I am. While I might struggle to find my feet ,and be truthful in word and soul ( I'm in sales, after all ! ) rest assured, this pen will not run dry !

To those who gawk and jeer, I have but this to say :

Blind may be I,
lame I was born with .
Deaf i am destined for,
Dumb I shall never become .