Rumi Nations

So, India is probably begging China to please, please, please let it become a member of the UNSC please, please, please ... What a sad state of affairs! There was a time when Nehru maganimously refused an invite for India to become a member of the UNSC and instead offered the seat to China ... or, something along those lines. I am not really familiar with the detailed history of all of that ... What is the UNSC by the way? And who are the members? And, perhaps more importantly, who are not? UK and France ARE members ... ok, nations with about 60 million folks each ... India is not a member ... population: 1.2 billion and counting ... Japan is not a member ... still the second largest economy in the world, I think ... about the same size as UK and France combined ... I mean, in terms of the economy. Germany is not a member ... with an economy that's DEFINITELY (right Rain Man ?) bigger than UK's or France's. Oh, I forgot ... luck of the 'losers' ... oops ...

So, it's one year now since Obama won a historic election. We — not to mention the media — tend to overuse the 'historic' word all too often and thereby have devalued it quite a bit. I think Obama's win was one of those occasions that truly deserves this epithet. We humans are at a stage in our evolution when our ethnic, national, racial, etc. identities mean a lot to us. We have not yet learnt to transcend these narrow definitions of who we are. In India, of course, we still continue to cling — like our lives depended on this — to our religions, our caste, and sub-castes and what not. And so the media will predictably spend hours discussing Obama's successes and failures in these past 365 days. Perhaps in a set-up as complex as that prevailing in the United States, it's not much that a President can do. Crises of course present opportunities. FDR was a "war President" who rose to the multiple challenges that he was presented with. Lincoln of course sh...

The recent case of in-flight fighting between the pilots and cabin crew of an Air India must have been a heart-stopping experience for the passengers. I would love to hear from one of the 'lucky' ones who witnessed it. I'm sure they would board their next flight with more than a slight sense of trepidation. But, all is well that ends well - since nobody really got 'hurt' in this incident, it will merely be an amusing anecdote for the 'guinea pigs' to tell their grandkids. I wish something similarly entertaining - of course, harmless - takes place the next time I fly. Frankly, I'm not all that attached to life that I would have paroxisms thinking that I'm going to die. The only thing I'd worry about is getting wounded seriously but not dying - leading to a life as a handicapped person.