House-hunting

House-hunting is a mixed feeling. Only the desperate feeling of otherwise becoming homeless keeps you going. And shows you a varietyof characters that you otherwise may not meet-both realty brokers and home-owners. Having gone through a recent experience in Bangalore, I would rather build a hut once and for all, and settle down, never to move again. But then, building anything (even a hut) is said to be traumatic. So why not enjoy the (mixed) feeling, hunt till you drop, and settle in for a while, if only to rest until the next one. Being peripatetic (job-hopping) has its downsides, I suppose! Oh, well.....

Power and Greed

That is the title of a book I read last weekend. Very nicely critiques the wars fought by Europeans for colonizing and similar other reasons. Does not spare the other war-mongers (Asian, African, and other types), and likens the global corporations to old war mongers with acquisitive ambitions. Changes your perspective completely, from the currently fashionable Islamic-terrorist perspective of the media moghuls on almost all TV channels. It shows there are no saints in this business. That power and greed are universal. That only the ancient Greeks and a couple of modern countries with democracies modeled on the Greek system have been able to keep the greedy from taking over. Though the chapter on Napolean is a bit sympathetic to (him), the rest of it is fairly in-the-face and deserved criticism of all the powerful and the greedy along the millennia. A balanced history lesson.

Re-viewing movies

I am into watching old Hindi movies. I just saw Inquilab, starring Big B, from the eighties. In an otherwise ordinary formula movie, one thing stands out. The name of a smuggler, played by Shakti Kapoor. His name is Khoya Khoya Attache. I think that is brilliant, whoever thought of it! The end is quite innovative, with a chief minister (the Big B) shooting his entire cabinet to death, because they are all corrupt people. Not a bad idea, but there is no guarantee the next lot will be any better. Politics, thy middle name is corruption. Voter, thy middle name is cynicism.