This past week has been a historic one both in India and abroad. We started off by waking up the morning after Diwali only to find – or rather, not being able to find – Delhi, smothered under a blanket of smog. The hue and cry raised was a tremendously deafening one with many a status update bearing the brunt of keys being punched to make a statement. I landed up in Delhi 24 hours laters and found two things – Delhi was nowhere to be seen; zero visibility ensured that even at 10 am I was busy tapping my cab driver on the shoulder (multiple times) to ask, “do you know where we are?” Second, a day later, the crackers were out in full glory again – weddings, festivals and much more. So obviously, those status updates had not made enough noise. Now here is my question. Why are these status updates being posted by people who were busy bursting crackers in the evening and waking up with a massive hangover and calling in sick, the next morning? I’ll let you answer that one, on your own. Don’t say it out aloud, but at least admit it – we are an irresponsible nation.
As if that cracker of a Diwali was not enough to choke the hell out of us, PM Modi made a statement of his own in one stellar move – the flushing out of 1000 and 500 INR notes. Overnight, these notes were declared illegal and people were found rushing to the banks and ATMs to deposit what little they had of it at home. Granted, it will take a few days to adjust to the new change. But what a move! A move like that, had to be conducted like a surgical strike. Kudos! News reports of sacks of money being burnt behind farmhouses and bundles found in cars rushing towards Delhi have already started to filter in. In one clean move, the PM has managed to take a giant step to block myriad evils starting from black money hoarding to corruption and even terror funding. The new chip infused currency sounds like just what we needed to rub shoulders with our fellow super powers.
Speaking of which – America, really? So America pretty much took the whole “anyone can grow up to be anything” thing, a little too far. The new President elect gave the rest of the world a speech that was meant to sound humble, but only sounded smug. His youngest born, meanwhile, couldn’t seem to stop dozing while he stood next to his go getter father. The wardrobe of the new First Lady is already under scrutiny (with top marks, of course – who spends $4000 on a Ralph Lauren jumpsuit and gets it wrong – right?). The question remains, with a POTUS and FLOTUS like that, what’s going to happen to us?
Let us hope the next few weeks until Christmas are a little less exciting.
