Who the hell is...

Who the hell is prathibaha patil?
No offence meant to the lady...but like may be 99 crores of Indians I have never heard of her. When I returned from office and turned on the TV a pug faced politician was kind of throwing out his god damned opinion....that she is the only one fit enough for the post of President of my country. In a sense of sincere self doubt, I sat there infront of the TV trying to find out who she was. May be I had missed out about her.

But to hell with those media channels as well...while some seemed to be celebrating the fact that a lady had finally been thought of as the president by our utterly inept and spineless politcians, others were taking inteviews of oldies who needed to be granted euthansia or something like that simply becoz they are too old to be carefull about what they are saying. Whatever it was but one thing was very clear...even the India media had been caught by surprise. They did not really have much of stuff to say about Pratibha Patil except that she was a seasoned politician and currently the governor of Rajastan.

And in turn they had turned it into a useless debate creating a lot of furore over a woman becoming the president. While one channel was showing a old man who should let his grandson do the talking, a man who was being literally carried by three people make a statement that "this hopefully is a great step towards ensuring 33% reservation for women and will be an decision that would be celebrated by the world". This politician was still not ready to take the credit of having proposed the name of Pratibha patil.

On another was Barkha dutt making a silly comment about how the race had started with 7 men and while one fell after another it was woman who was leading the race. Never had I felt so bad about her. The streak a hidden chauvinism that as always has no reason and of a foolish hope of celebration of the final coming of a womens era was really disgusting.To add to my disgust, my roommate added just at the right time that she is the smartest woman he has seen.

That was the end of Pratibha Patil debate and we went on full steam to debate out who would have been more suitable. while I am very clear that it is not a question of a lady becoming the president, I am asking for a logical explanation from people who claim to lead my country. While the election of MR Kalam seemed to herald to the begining of a new age where the post of the President of India is not a vaccation and retirement destination for retired and already useless politicians, the present decision seems to be a move by the country in exactly the reverse direction. Even if the great grand old congress and its puny allies with not so illustrious histories decided to go in for a Lady as the president, am I irrational if I expected them to chose a lady who is known by more than at least 1/5th of the country?

In the midst of discussions where we tried to cut each other's choices, I came out with the names that would have been much more acceptable to me as well as a large part of India I believe.
The names I defend are Kiran Bedi and Medha Patekar. But the spineless creatures that our polticians are, would like someone from their creed. They just cant stand a lady with a clear identity of her own.

That was abt the president debate, while I dropped Barkha Dutt to the category of Shobha de, I had to accept that though disgusting I am more amenable to accept Mayawati as a greater acheiver than Indira (who had a dynasty behind her to support). After all succes is a measure of the path travelled not a mark of the absolute position of wher u are today.