Ramblings...

I haven't blogged here for a bit, been watching a lot of movies so I've been blogging over at the other blog. Anyway, might as well let the cat of the bag and admit that I am moving back to Delhi fairly soon. Now that the papers have been signed and sealed, it is more or less a done deal and I now move to endgame in Bombay. Not without getting drenched though!
Only around late last night did the constant barrage that pounded Bombay (and other parts of Gujarat and Maharashtra)for over 72 hours come to an end. In the list of things you have to do in life (Mine reads something like this - Sleep with a supermodel, eat eyeballs for breakfast, travel to North Korea, yada yada) I can now safely tick off 'Exeperience a Bombay Monsoon'. Not the most pleasant experience of my life, and one I would rather avoid. Y'see the city has most of its funds siphoned off by a bunch of idiotic politicians who use it to buy votes in their constituencies, Bombay's riches fund Maharashtra (and not Delhi's flyovers or Metro as people would like to believe - those are funded by Delhi's alcoholics) and whenever it floods this city collapses. Everyday when I travel down Hill Road to get to Bandra station it looks like a bloody war zone. I'm pretty sure the roads in Baghdad are in a better way and Doc assures me that the roads in Kabul are actually better, and the last I heard we weren't exactly in throes of a civil war. Last yaer, there is nothing any city could have done, but this year the situation could have been better.
Anyway, whenever the sky even piddles in Delhi the roads get jammed. Somehow, Cal seems to handle heavy rain the best. I've experience enough Calcutta Monsoons because of the fact that my mother used to pack me and my brother off to Cal for the summer holidays every year to my grandparents. Ingenious way of passing responsibility and getting us fat.
Anyway, I've been reading a lot about this Coke/Pepsi pesticide business (original report). And how the courts have demanded that the two companies reveal their ingredients - well, I'll tell you its lots and lots of Sugar and some fizzy water, so there. Anyway, much of the cola companies defence has been sending out their lap-dog (a guy with a grey mop in Delhi who claims to be a 'feted' adman) who goes around calling Sunita Narain of CSE names. Now, the Centre for Science and Environment and Sunita Narain are guilty of a lot of things like most enviromentalists by raising a hue and cry about the smallest of things. But, I do not for one second doubt her intentions and motives. I know Sunita, I have interviewed her twice and like many environmentalists, I might say some of her motives are misguided, though not dubious, until now. I respect her for what she has done, without the CSE, Delhi's transport system would not be CNG run today, and despite teething trouble in the beginning, today almost everyone realises the benefits of CNG over carcinogen spreading diesel fumes.
Why I think the current crisis is a bit dubious is because we are missing the real point here - a point I guess even the CSE is too scared to make for fear of upsetting the farmer lobby. I do not belive that Coke and Pepsi actively pour pesticide into their products. Which means that the groundwater in India is extremely polluted - and this problem is being garbed by an attack on those icons of Americana - Coke and Pepsi. Very few people have pointed this out - I'm glad Gautam Adhikari did mention this on Sunday as did this particular blog post. Wait a second, I drink water that has been through all sorts of treatment to remove microbes but has it removed chemicals, are we turning into freaks by drinking large amounts of chemicals over our lifetime and why on earth are we allowing farmers to indiscrimately use pesticides and weedicides. OK, in some parts of the country the farmers use it to kill themselves, but by not controlling the use of such products, the government is heading for biological disaster in a couple of decades.See, this is as crazy as activists from PETA attacking KFC (with semi-naked pictures of Pam Anderson or Pam Rock now) calling them cruel while not addressing the real problem of unhygenic chicken rasing.
And that is my only problem with activism, missing the point. I'm not a big fan of either drink, but Coke does go very well with Jack Daniels and Teachers and Old Monk and..... OK, Coca-Cola is a bloody good mixer. But that isn't the point. Anyways, till later.