i wonder why people blog. i have started because my friends persisted that i should start one, thinking it'd be a one-der-ful one, or atleast a thunderful one. but it is a rather disappointing beginning, for i write right now because i am stranded at the lucknow station waiting for my parents to arrive. we are meeting midway between bokaro and delhi, on an important mission! i hung around at the station trying to click pictures - of the woman clad in burkha asking for money, of the cold-drink-wala who was too happy reading the news about the ban of Coke and Pepsi in Kerala, of the tangas, the men filling their chillum etc etc, but when i saw the pictures i was taken aback. The same pictures that i rave and rant against - exotic, stereotypical India. This week's India Today has a boy clad in a white 'topi' with a woman in black burkha in the background - with the headline shouting that Muslims lag behind in all speheres of life, or something like that. Pretty immaterial. But when i saw the cover page sitting in an India Today office, it freaked me out for a couple of moments. You just need a 'topi' to identify and mark a community! And the material they have used is 2001 census. 5 years is pretty short to wake up, right? the Rightward turn of the world is more than amusing to me. What we see on this cover will have a sinister reflection across the border, and more beyond that. Time to catch up with my mission...