Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Plastic muddle

This morning my Newsweek copy arrived neatly wrapped in its plastic cover.Big Apple and Reliance ,the retail markets I visit for vegs and groceries, require that I bag every item in a plastic bag, though their sign says we do not supply bags. Every little shop and hawker hands out stuff in black , cheapest plastic, which common people call 'panni'. Most unattractive are the rasagullas or other sweets which are poured into transparent plastic along with the syrup. Haplessly I carry around old pannis to bag stuff i buy, incurring funny glances. At this rate we are not going to defeat the plastic monster.
Long ago going by bus to Mahabalipuram, from faraway I gazed awestruck at a tree faraway by the sea coast, which seemed covered with most colourful flowers. More colours than you can see on a tree normally. As we passed the tree finally, the varicoloured flowers were revealed as many multi coloured plastic pieces blown up on to the tree.An unintended installation art signifying mankinds stamp on nnature!

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Oz demos

One thing intrigued me about the demonstrations by the Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney. I failed to find any participation by Australian young people in the rallies.I believe this would be impossible on streets or campus scenes in UK, USA or even in Europe. Liberal ideology would bring out people to support a protest against injustice or to show sympathy.
There have been postings by Aussies to state they are not racists. Also that the attacks were more robberies than racists .If that is so, why not show your sympathy for people who are guests in your country by joining them on streets.