Dheeraj Kalgutkar

Yesterday, while I was having dinner with my mum, a sudden sound, loud one that was only a whisper a while ago startled us. It was from our neighbors, the middle-aged couple just next to our home who daily bad mouthed one or the other living being had zeroed on my dad today. They were doing all sort of gaali-galauz to my father over a piece of land that lay between our homes. Every fortnight there will be quarrels over who owns it. In fact it will be fueled when someone places some thing on that piece of land; history will be evoked, dead forefathers will be brought from the grave, the battle will be on. But now they had crossed the line (did they?) by foul mouthing my dad... And thus began a battle at night that will end past midnight with a hoard of spectators around! Pause a bit. Now imagine if something similar happens to you, that your neighbor starts to bad mouth about your home, your people. Won't you be agitated? Won't you go fight them? Or will you keep quite? ...

Forget ‘How often’, when in history have we seen head-of-the-state sitting on  dharna  for change in his own state? When newspapers and electronic media dubbed AamAadmi Party ‘s rise as ‘history in making’, I personally giggled, for it was mere an entrant cracking exams in first attempt! Where was that‘new’ or ‘alternative’ in it? Yes, the idea of Swaraj (self-rule) which our constitution has laid out already but we never felt it, but then, it was just a talk, a manifesto to woo impatient voters. Such innovative, out-of-the-box manifestos were not new to Indian voters; each new election year, with old promises, we are sold for a few new ones and as-fast-as-that they are forgotten once they start travelling under VIP red beacons. Just as simple as that! Okay, AAP ended the VIP culture with no red beacons and put an end to ‘You-know-who-my-father-is’ dialogue- baazis . This was new for the state but then again, not the one to dub history-in-making,for we already ha...