MTV AIDS Summit

MTV has an AIDS summit in Mumbai every year. The aim- to spread awareness about AIDS.

What I fail to see is how this summit will help achieve the goal. Singers come up on stage, lipsync their songs, say something like "Please don't get AIDS" and go away. The sweaty crowd goes mad with frenzy at seeing those singers on stage.

MTV's target audience is a bunch of young people, who are hep, well-educated, and have full pockets. Most of them already know about AIDS, and those who don't, don't care. They don't care about the fact that they are probably going to die someday of lung cancer because of their chain smoking, so my guess is that they won't care about this either.

Furthermore, I don't see celebs coming on stage, and repeating every few minutes, "Don't do this and this and this."

The crowd is there just for fun. AIDS is just an excuse for them.

PS-- Does anyone know whether the AIDS summit is free, and if not, how much is the ticket for?

'I have an Idea!'

A professor at a Japanese university has an idea- to record all ideas ever thought of.

Now that's something!

Beauty with a Purpose

The Miss World contest has been shifted to London, due to the riots in Nigeria in which more than 200 people were killed. And that was just the fuel added to the fire. The fire began when many contestants refused to participate because of the fatwa against a couple of Nigerian women, charged with adultery. According to sharia (Islamic) law, those found guilty of adultery, must be stoned to death.

Of course, the young girls protested. After all, that's what Miss World is about, isn't it? But this protest sparked off a riot. And the consequences are clear.

As if a bunch of reed-thin girls could sway the rulers of the land.

And, according to me, what the girls were doing by telling the rulers what to do was: interfering in the internal affairs of the state. It may seem to be done in good faith, but why just protest when in that country? After all, the contest is about beauty with a purpose, isn't it? Why not protest against thousands of injustices done to women, day after day, year after year?

Where were these beauties when Bawandari was raped? Where were these beauties when hundreds of thousands of women were beaten up by their husbands for reading the Bible of feminism, The Female Eunuch? Where were these beauties when hundreds of women were lulled into prostution in the pretext of transforming them into beautiful models and actresses? Where was ex-Miss World, Aishwariya Rai's protest, when her boyfriend beat her up?

Next year: The anorexic young ladies will summon a press conference to protest against war. Will George Bush lend them a ear?

Who Moved by Cheese?

It's time to move on...to a new blog...I'm now on Blurty. Visit me now at http://www.blurty.com/users/scholar.

Colour me!

Anita’s is a darkish-yellowish-orange—warm and smooth.

Nidhi’s is a bright yellow- bubbly and cheerful.

Shahrukh Khan’s is a deep red- very passionate (at least in his movies).

My favourite RJ’s is a mixture of sky blue, black, and bright green- sometimes light, sometimes serious, and sometimes funny.

That’s the colour of their voices. Every voice has a colour, depending on the personality and image of the individual. I can almost instantly identify a person’s voice with a colour. Call it weird, but it’s true. So when I see a colour, I remember the person I associate with it.

I wonder what’s the colour of my voice.

Very Funny

I can never be funny. No matter how much I try, I can never make people laugh. I don’t think I have the funny bone.

On the other hand, I laugh easily. I love laughing. It usually begins with a slight giggle, and then graduates to a laugh. Even remotely funny things can make me smile.

You can imagine my condition during my history lesson in school, where the teacher was always unintentionally funny.

She was known for getting angry fast, and being hilarious when in that state. Her usual remarks on being angry with a particular student were:

“You junglee child! I’ll throw you like a football into the Chowpatty waters!”

OR

“Bogus behaviour!”

These statements were accompanied by elaborate hand-gestures towards the window, door, the student, or no one in particular.
Once, in a fit of rage, she threw her spectacles on the floor. Luckily, they didn’t break. But we got a ten-minute lecture on how expensive spectacle frames were and how she’d have to pay for them from her salary.

I could never control myself in her class. But to camouflage my laughter, I’d cover my mouth with a handkerchief and pretend to cough. If that didn’t work, I’d pinch my arm really hard.

Another unintentionally-funny teacher was the Biology teacher. She never knew what she was talking about, and her, “Come on now! I’ll throw you out now!”, spoken very gruffly, made me burst into giggles.

Unfortunately, when I moved onto college, funny didn’t exist in the teachers’ dictionary. Their attempts to be funny are met with smirks and artificial laughter.

Ah! Those were the days of true laughter. And trust me, it was therapeutic, because I hardly fell ill in my schooldays. And now, I fall sick almost every week.

On the basis of the above observation, I have a suggestion for the education board:

Make humour a part of our teachers’ training. That’s the only way they can keep the class alive while talking about long-dead kings and glacial formations.