Tehelka

I picked up the new and improved Tehelka on my way to office...I'm a compulsive buyer and on a diet so as I saw myself heading for a sinful packet of cheesies screaming Must Bites, I decided to make an intelligent purchase instead. Writing features on fashion and trends and profiling rags-to-riches stories keeps me away from the political and economic issues of the country as I gaily prance in my dream world with Harry Potters, Guy de Maupassant, One Hundred Years of Solitude and conversations over cranberry Mojitos....but never before today have I felt so shallow and ditsy.

While the first story of the magazine talks about the Eklavya-Dharm feud I am in home territory but as a continue turning pages I came across topics that left me just short of tears...usually my only worry is my constant weight fluctuation, I normally shed tears when I find it difficult to get into my favourite pair of jeans.

This is the list of events that left me disturbed and for once it has nothing to do with fashion or arts:

• The Fodder Scam: I heard its mentions in jokes on the very-caricaturish Laloo and also caught glimpses of it on news channels but that is stale news right? No!! Because we, the public have such short-lived memories, politicians like Laloo get away with crime, our money, your money, my money! The entire scam worth 950 crores has been forgotten in a jiffy. Laloo resigned and Rabri reigned, he still has five cases charged against him and all I have ever done is laughed at the hair growing out of his ears..the joke's on me I now realise.
• Capital Punishment: I have seen it in movies and know it can happen in reality. Pakistani national Mohammad Arif has been sentenced to die in the Red Fort attack case, he maintains he is a RAW operative, the evidence is patchily put together and the entire case was solved within a week (I dont think they can find a lost dog that soon) - the very thought that an innocent man might be hanging while his tongue sticks out and the bladder gives way as is ineveitable with a dying man, I retch.
• Raju Narayanswamy: A man who topped his class in IIT Chennai and was offered a scholarship from MIT refused it only for a career in IAS. His path has been glorious but not glamourous. As the district collector of Idukki he spoke against ministers encroaching on tribal and farmland to build hotel properties. He refused bribes to support projects that could lead to the deluge of many tribal homes and families - the fact that nobody would find out, ever, is only incidental. But guess what, he has recently been transferred to another area.

I think this is an age where such exposes elicit rage for the moment followed by complete non-chalance. I am educated but not curious enough or bothered to know how my country is being led. I have access to newspapers, channels and multiple sources of news...I wonder if the other not literate millions are as unperturbed.

I won't stop wearing my Aldo shoes or my Gucci perfume, I won't even stop worrying about my weight but maybe this sudden surge of emotion in me will make me a more aware citizen or maybe in another week when the images die out and the flaming words I read stop haunting me - I will once again settle into the cocoon of my secure world, as the country I was born in and love with all my heart keeps weeping silently. She protests and fights back when she can bear no more but finding herself alone she just looks on silently as she is stripped and raped...maybe she will watch as her sinners hack her limbs and parade her half-dead in front of the world while I (and maybe a few million others), lie at her bosom sleeping in peace.