The friendly neighbourhood

Our neighbour is livid and rightfully so. If the case was reverse, wont we be agitated ? It is their flood, their people are dying while their President is smoking cigar in London, their economy is devastated and to top it all, China has already given some loose change as aid. How on earth could we barge in with our aid package and when they refused, got the Big Daddy to prevail upon and force such a bitter pill down their throat ? The least they could have done is to shield the flood victims from our tepidity and brinkmanship and that is what they did by ordering us to follow the UN route. Hats off to their sense of patriotism and fellow feelings.

The whole nation seems to be out collecting aid from all over the place. Their cricketers have also tried to chip in their bit but the insensitive West is calling them match fixers !  This is really hitting where it hurts most at the time of extreme human tragedy. Irrespective of what they had pocketed during the last 82 matches, this one at Lords was only for charity and the stacks of cash would have gone as aid to fellow countrymen for sure. If only the Brits could understand why that runaway Afridi left test captaincy in a huff and poor Salman Butt had to take over for the sake of the nation, they would not, rather need not, have reacted so strongly.

Moving further west, we enter the hallowed precincts of our neighbour's neighbour who has also been outraged, thankfully not by us, but by the French. If our neighbour is angry because we wanted to help, so is their neighbour, because some imbecile First Lady staying at the Elysee Palace is daring to help reform their system of justice ! If they need to stone a lady with two young children to death that is their business. When the French eat muscles, isn't that crude ? When the Spaniards enjoy a bullfight, isn't that cruder ? When the Bazillions dance Samba, isn't it the crudest of all ? Then why pick on a Holy land governed by the laws of the Ayatollah and create such a ruckus about flogging or stoning or hanging to death a poor Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani ? This is highly unfair and biased indeed ! The Nobel Committee should consider the Ayatollah for a Peace Prize instead and set the records straight once and for all. 

Shall we move westwards further ? All right, this is the farthest we shall travel today. Were you invited to the Libyan cultural centre in Rome to hear Muammar Gaddafi preach Islam instead of politics ? You had to be part of a large group of young women hired by a hostess agency to be able to do that. Press reports say that 3 women were moved enough to convert their religion. I am so delighted that the era of Samrat Asoka has made a quite come back to our date and time. Imagine our very own Manmohan going to Pakistan to preach Sikhism. Or Sarkozy to Iran to preach Christianity ! Imagine a world devoid of nasty politics and filled with the preachings of different kinds of Ministry. Wow man !  I am all for rechristening (rather reislamising) the Libyan leader as Guru Gaddafi. He should also be awarded the prize jointly with the Ayatollah.