Simon Says.....

Baba re Baba!!

What a week! First Baba Ramdev decided to go on a 'Me Too' Anna Hazare fast, and despite leading all that healthy yoga lifestyle promptly buckled under starvation within day six, and had to consume honey and lime (And in my opinion, technically broke his fast) Looks like yoga and a satvik diet do not a strong system make.

It is a little difficult to believe that a fitness guru can collapse after fasting of mere five / six days.

On the other side a much older 73 plus Anna Hazare who follows no such diet or exercise regimen hung on resolutely surviving quietly on plain water till the government gave in... (technically, that is.)

The support that Anna enjoyed though was tremendous and spontaneous. People, especially, young educated professionals got shaken out of their insulated lives and sat up and took notice. Comparisons to Gandhi were made. Over and over again. There were frenzied texts, face book messages, tweets, singing and marches by the youth. Everyone who was young and optimistic was there for Anna and his cause.

In Baba's case the youth were not so charged. In fact not at all. I wonder why? Maybe because many saw /accused him as the mask for the RSS. Plus shots of him trying to flee in a white ladies outfit broke the saffron spell.

Baba Ramdev should have let the cops take him. That would have have gotten him more sympathy. And his call for arms, was shocking, desperate and unfitting for a Yogi Baba. Personally for me Baba has lost his magic. I kinda feel bad for the guy. He used to be almost worshiped and look what this has done for his image. He should have stayed out of politics and stuck to what he was best at, teaching yoga.

Then came the sad news of the passing away of Mr M. F Husain.

Almost every paper I picked up had devoted pages after pages of eulogies, praises and quotes of grieving celebrities. Where were all these people when he was alive? If only these newspapers had devoted the same amount of space to convince the govt to provide him enough security and confidence to get him back, the poor man wouldn't have died in a country that wasn't his own. Let’s own up, we just didn't do enough to fight for his safe return.

Barely had this sunk in, I heard horror struck, as a news reporter gave the news about a Senior crime reporter from Mid-Day being riddled with bullets in broad daylight.

I had to pinch my self, didn't these atrocities happen in countries like Pakistan or Afghanistan? Was this the beginning of a crime wave against reporters? Were we Journalists going to be used for target practice? Should we start applying for gun licenses? (More important since I cover crime, was it time for me to hire some one else to do my crime reporting?)

The government and the police should get cracking as they would, if this had happened to one of them. Forget killing a reporter,even hitting a journalist should be made a non bailable offense.

There has been talk about a legislation like this in the making for quite some time but it seems, that it has been put in the deep freezer. In fact some media reports say that certain parliamentarians are against passing such a law against attacking journalists. Someof them even want the term 'Journalist' defined. No prizes for guessing why, eh?

It is imperative that the bill against attacking journos is passed ASAP. If not, then it can only be interpreted as a tacit consent to freely attack or kill members of the media. Take away the freedom of the press and our country will be on the verge of collapse.

The killing of Senior Reporter, J Day is shocking, abominable and has no place in a civilized democracy like ours. The authorities should not drag their feet about this. The real killers should be nabbed and tried in a super fast track court. This is not Pakistan, for Pete’s sake folks. THIS IS INDIA! You just don't kill a Journalist and get away with it.

(Pssst....Heard that Baba is a millionaire. Maybe he could donate those millions to his country whilst the struggle to get back all that black money from abroad goes on.)