1) The much awaited and eagerly hyped marriage has indeed come to an end. No, I am not talking of the Indo-China bhai-bhai pact or the India-Pak Aman ki Asha initiative coming to fruition. The talk of the town has indeed been the Shoaib Malik-Sania Mirza nikah. The media as usual went ga-ga over a nikah which had controversy written all over it with glee. Some commentators, of course, astutely questioned whether Sania Mirza should play for India or Pakistan? (considering the way she’s playing currently, do you really care?). And then came the news of Ayesha Siddiqui and the Pati, Patni aur Woh angle which made Ekta Kapoor’s mega-serials look childish. The media lapped it up with relish and played it more times than the Mahabharat repeat on Doordarshan. Subsequently, news emerged that Shoaib-Sania marriage ‘may be’ postponed. By now, everyone and their great grandfather had stopped caring about an event that hardly concerned them. Everything was going fine and no one was really bothered until the keeper of our national conscience, Arnab Goswami and Times Now, told us to GET ANGRY at the baseless allegations of Ayesha Siddiqui and rumors of the nikah being postponed. Various anchors at CNN-IBN were so damn loud that one could hear them even after muting the volume. The Mirzas and the Maliks could take it no more and pre-poned their nikah with Shoaib divorcing Ayesha Siddiqui first and marrying Sania almost immediately (In one of those moments off work when I was thinking about Shoaib, Sania, Ayesha and their future, I was struck with an epiphany. Shoaib divorced Ayesha, whom he denied marrying earlier. Then he marries Sania. That dude is brilliant!  His net marriage count is still zero. And according to Quran, he can technically marry 4 more!). Of course, you would not believe that there is a recession going on in the world today, if you looked at the food menu and the Mehr amount involved in their marriage. Anyhoo, let’s get to the Lahore part of the wedding quickly, shall we? Last but not the least, Times of India, in its infinite wisdom gave a peek into their elegant, yet insightful news ticker -  ‘Aman ki asha: Are Indo-Pak marriages the first step?’ Why didn’t we ever think of this before? (V had warned me against squeezing this topic further because of my extensive comments on it on Facebook. I think it was more like STFU. So yeah, this rant will be the end of this topic unless of course something incredible comes up in Lahore).

2) The other big news of the week was CRPF jawans getting slaughtered in a Maoist attack. Of course, keeping in line with existing media standards, I will not, WILL NOT devote much space and analysis on some event like this compared to the exiquisite and eye-ball grabbing news of Shoaib-Sania. However, being a responsible blogger, I have to reluctantly point you to some news which will obviously lead to incredible happiness among us, the taxpayer junta in India.

Sample this very well written report for instance.

In summary, once the remaining few jawans who were alive at the scene were rushed to the hospital,

“No chief minister, no state home minister, no other minister, no member of Parliament, no MLA, no director-general of police (Vishwa Ranjan, a man popular with journalists in all seasons), no chief secretary, no home secretary, no inspector-general (TJ Longkumer, who Chidambaram later told journalists had planned the dead men’s fatal foray into the forests), no district magistrate (frenzied a few hours later as reporters surged at Chidambaram’s press conference because he didn’t want anyone to throw a shoe at the Union home minister), no superintendent of police, not one high-ranking officer of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), to which 75 of the dead belonged, were here; just the very angry CRPF sub-inspector.”

“Typically, the survivors mattered less than the dead. Head Constable Raj Bahadur and Constables Pramod Kumar Singh and Baljeet Singh are lucky to survive the carnage, having taken bullets everywhere but in the guts. A hundred paces from the mortuary, they lie writhing in pain on dirty hospital linen stained from previous occupants’ dried blood. Only one has a mosquito net. There are no doctors or nurses. Two constables who’ve come on their own watch over their wounded mates. The ward is a hovel; the toilet is a stinking blocked drain.”

There is much more. The article is a must-read for such issues which cause immense delight and mirth.

So, in summary,

We had a surprise attack by Maoists.

The Policemen didn’t have proper equipment to fight them.

The Policemen didn’t have proper training to fight them.

The Policemen who fought valiantly and got injured were neither treated nor cared for.

Now, why have I heard this before? Anyone remembers 26/11? (and in this case, no prominent guy arrived at the scene till much later!)

Of course. We are Indians. We don’t learn from our mistakes. We are like that only.

Surprisingly, no relief packages have yet been announced. It’s a real shame that some politicians can’t get richer with this relief money. What has our country come to? Time for another useless bill? Certainly.

3) Not that this news is worth linking to, but then again again, how else do we document and understand our Indian PM’s calmness and calculated moves to assert global and moral superiority in the world?

First, our Un-Man-mohan Singh requests (and maybe grovel) Obama to put pressure on Pak.

In line with keeping relations harmonious, President Obama urges Pakistan to bring the 26/11 perpetrators to justice. (Of course, you might ask, what exactly does ‘bringing to justice’ mean? Silly you. Justice means different things to different people. For you and me, justice is behind bars and rigorous punishment. For people like Hafeez Sayed, it is a palace-lifestyle with Muttom biryani everyday!)

If that is not embarrassing, news is leaked that Obama pressed Pak on terror at India’s insistence. What I do not understand is why should someone leak this? Even Arjun Rampal would have seen through it like a transparent polythene paper.

And the brilliant Gilani wants more evidence against Lashkar. I have no comment. Just Respect.

I am just seething with happiness at us being called a global economic superpower, but with softer principles, nay, Gandhian principles. I think the time has come for us to slap on our own cheek and apologize to the perpetrator. The circle would be complete. As Miley Cyrus told me one day during our yoga class with Deepak Chopra, Karma it seems, is a bitch.