Just landed back in my town. Last minute flight changes. I was supposed to be on a 4:40 flight to Frankfurt. But a meeting ran till 3:00. So made a last minute change to fly to a different city with a different airline. Whole mess. The flight was at 6:55 and I got to the airport at 6:10 (kids, don't try this at home.)They had just about turned the lights off at the ticket counter. Of course then they couldn't find my ticket on their system (last minute change from another airline, remember?)... I normally don't carry a paper copy of anything. I am a "have passport, will travel" sort of guy. So after much pain and the involvement of a different agent, we found the numbers, they issued me a funny ticket (with "look for telex" hand-written on it) and the agent took me to the gate.
The one I flew is not that great an airline, except for the wine selection. And this time, even that was not that great. The Argentinean Malbec tasted more like port (or port with syrup) than anything I have tasted before (I think the polite way to describe it is "interesting").. I didn't get much sleep.
At the lounge, I found a copy of the Times of India. Picked it up to read. Big mistake. I never should read it, it makes me feel sad for India. It could be a totally different post. But what the hell? Do you remember when TOI used to be a real newspaper?
I don't get India's judicial and political value system. Never have and never will. There seems to be no real logic behind any of this. So I have trouble comprehending how problems are solved (or how attempts are made to solve them) or how crimes are prosecuted.
Reservation system is a prime example of this lunacy. I can't think of another country in the world where active discrimination of one group is "corrected" by active discrimination of another. There was an article about how the SC/ST high court employees wanted to be promoted in the "SC/ST" category. Call me crazy, but this idea of rewarding people is completely unproductive in any system.
Another article was even more funny. A 17 year old boy and a 16 year old girl fell in love in Calcutta and they had consensual sex. He has been arrested for refusing to marry her four months after the event. In other words, a crimeless contact has been criminalized because there is no social follow-through. All sexual contact has to come with an implicit assumption of marriage. Almost "you broke it, you buy it" rationale. Isn't this a terrible example of treating women as property? Yet, all of women's groups support it. What is worse, both are minors and below the legal age of marriage, so what is the point?
I am so fed up. Legislate personal morality to death, condone public, civic and political immorality at all levels. Go after the weak, protect the strong. Indian system legal is so fucked up, it cannot get laid in a whorehouse even with a fistful of money.
Anyway, time to go to work.
