Yet Another Point of View

Cook triumphs over Archuleta in American Idol. I can't believe this! Its so obvious that the younger David has far more talent, tone and timbre than his older rival. All three of his performances in the show finale were perfect. For once even Simon got it right when he praised the kid for a 'knockout' performance. The media agreed (for a day). But then the audience goes and votes him out by a huge margin. All I feel like saying is that there seem to about 50 million tone deaf Americans out there who didnt have the guts to admit a 17-year old shy teen was worthy of being an 'idol'. Instead, they stuck to the safe option of an average-looking, guitar-toting, grungy 25-year-old with an emo rock style. Its not that he's bad, but I cant take that grainy voice. And Archuleta is just so much better. Come to think of it, these shows are so predictable in their unpredicatbility. They thrive on the suspense and the upsets. When the American Idol judges gave a thumbs up to...

I have not read Chetan Bhagat's novels except for a few pages of his first one Five Point Someone . I do not intend to spend a few precious hours reading it or the two subsequent ones - One night @ the call center and The 3 mistakes of my life . I don’t think I'll come away satisfied with the reading experience, so it’s better to refrain. Though, contrary to what I think, he is being touted as the 'voice of a generation’, the man responsible for a 'seismic shift in Indian writing in English' and ‘a rock star of Indian publishing’. Hmm...makes me think...am I missing something? Sunday evening, however, I happened to drop in on his book promo event while shopping at Big Bazaar and have decided to give the guy a chance. He is remarkably unpretentious, unaffected in the limelight and downright candid. He writes for the masses and makes no bones of the fact. I asked him if he wrote books for the love of writing or for the love of telling a story, he unhesitatingly answer...

On Mother's Day (May 11 Sunday) the media was brimming with everyone's two-bit on motherhood and mothering and parenting and all that. An article by Jug Suraiya in the Times of India Sunday supplement caught my eye. He argued for a parenting certification – some kind of basic education or degree course before people became parents. Come to think of it, we go only to certified doctors and lawyers and even mechanics. So, why should a highly sensitive vocation like parenting be deprived training? Why indeed, I think. A primer course, covering the basics; not necessarily super-specialization - for try as you might, you can’t know it all in parenting. There are no experts in human relationships. Normally, I wouldn’t be entertaining this idea of parenting certification leave alone give it serious thought, unconventional and outrageous as it sounds. But an incident less than a week ago was still fresh in my memory and tied in perfectly with the author’s idea. On a flight back from my ...