I think what knowledge we have of the US is very limited; we can see only one twentieth of the entire picture। Everything that we can see is from tv, or the movies. But if we open our eyes, we can observe a lot of things- learn a lot about the history of their society, too. Monalisa smile. The most spectacular bomb on the image of US today, I think. In an episode of friends, Phoebe says- "In my time(speaking of the 1930s), divorce was not even an option." In another instance, she says out of frustration- "What is this?? 1922, when men used to tell women what to and what not to do??". Ross’s parents pay for half of Ross’s second wedding saying "Never mind the traditions. We have no problems!". Also, good old Britney spears wanting to remain a virgin till her wedding day. That’s where we are now- we will be where they are in a generation’s time. I wonder if the youngest American generation knows its own history।


What amazes me most about India, more than 2 billion other things, is that we are SO diverse! We have 28 states, each with their regional language! How in the universe did we come under ONE banner? We must be ever thankful to Pt। Jawaharlal Nehru- our first Prime Minister। He unified us- spoke of secularity, and gave us dreams, put up our hope of a great nation. His economic plans, though, have been criticised- our status of ‘developing’ still is blamed on him. Nonetheless, his faith in democracy and vision of a unified nation cannot be underestimated- I think we are together still because of him.


My parents, brother and I went to watch a movie at PVR today. We were a little early, so we were waiting outside the lounge. I was generally looking around; it wasn’t very crowded yet- 9 45 on a sunday morning. Leaning against the railing with a free standing poster on the ground to my left, I was checking out the queue at the ticket counters ahead in the distance. Suddenly, I see that some guy has tripped over the free standing board, and narrowly misses bumping into the guy in front of him. He straitens up; walks carefully along the side of the fallen board, and is gone. Everybody behind him is doing the same. With no thought, I walk up to the fallen board, ask the guy walking towards me to stop, pick up the board, and put it back into it’s original state. People are staring at me- as if I just did something weird. I felt like telling them- ‘Apna desh hai, hum nahi saaf karenge to aur kaun karega??’