LAPTOP IS OUR LIFE!

SUNNY THOMAS

Seventy per cent of the successful people spent 60 per cent of their conscience time on laptops! Success today is measured not by the Rolls-Royce, or Volkswagen, or Ferrari you are chaffer-driven in, which any rich fool can afford. Or the number of private islands like Singer Castle (Canada), or Cabbage Bay (Bahamas) or Necker Islands (British Virgin Islands) you own which any tax swindler can buy. But your success is measured by the number of quality hours you spent on the laptop.

In the mad-mad globalised world, husbands love their wives and wives, their husbands through laptops. Smart children love their parents and smart parents, their own children through laptops. We order our food, clothes and travel tickets through laptops.

Why, we even think through laptops. But some think-tanks let their laptops think for them. Our families are united through laptops, as we have papa laptops, mama laptops, baby laptops!  

Today Charles Babbage would not recognize his own brain-child. He designed a computing machine in the mid-1800 to make tedious calculations simple and speedy, and the original computers were so huge that they would occupy a whole spacious room.

It took over a century for the first portable computer, Osborne 1, to arrive. Produced by Adam Osborne, an ex-book publisher in 1981, it was not a commercial hit. Two other portable computers entered the market in 1983 making a reasonable profit. The Compaq Portable and Epson HX-20 had revolutionary features. 

In 1982, Microsoft the late-comer, was only at the discussion table – planning a design using  a new liquid crystal display (ICD screen). 

In Orwell’s 1984, IBM inaugurated the age of (portable) Personal Computers (PCs) which revolutionized communication. In 1989, Compaq Computer released the first Notebook. In 1991, Microsoft introduced the ballpoint mouse, and Apple Computers, the PowerBook. In 1992, IBM released the Think Pad, and Intel and Microsoft, speed and power through APM (Advanced Power Management specification).

In 1993 arrived The Pen, computers that you can hold in hand. Since this demon’s gadget, Investigative Journalism – the bet noir of all corrupt politicians – was never the same.

As technology advanced, they became slimmer and slimmer so much so that a provocative ad displays an adorable damsel declaring, ’Mouse and men, I can handle in my palm.’ Indeed, a blasphemy against the species of male!  

 

Now the spy bird whispers that America and Japan are vying with each other to design the first Porn-lap, which is a satellite-linked laptop which embraces all porn sites (and spy bed sites) on any part of the globe. It is so sleek that you can take it to the bathroom or to the Karnataka Assembly.  

WHOSE TERRORISM IS IT 

ANYWAY?

SUNNY THOMAS

Every time there is a terror attack in any part of the country, the Opposition guns for Union Home Minister P Chidambaram. But when the home ministry brought a bill to deal with the threat squarely, there is a revolt of chief ministers, some of whose states are the most vulnerable to Maoist insurgency.

It was intriguing that Orissa chief minister Navin Patnaik released Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s protest letter to the prime minister. And it was even more intriguing that Mamata absented herself from the inaugural of the National Security Guard hub in her own capital, perhaps taking the cue from Nitish Kumar who absented himself from the meeting to discuss Maoist menace in the wake of 75 BSF jawans butchered in Chhattisgarh. The problem with these chief ministers is that they want stern action against Kashmir (read, Islamic) terrorism but prefer to go soft on home-grown terrorism bordering on patronizing it.

    

The revolt of chief ministers was a coup of sorts, a full-dressed rehearsal for General Elections 2014, with battle lines clearly drawn. The heroine of the drama was of course Mamata, the minister for mishaps. As Railway minister, her tenure recorded the maximum number of rail mishaps; and as Health minister of her state, the maximum number of hospital deaths occurred during her able stewardship.

After routing the Marxists in Bengal, Mamata expected her due share of glory in the national arena, but got little. Fretting and fuming in Kolkata, she played every trick in the book to get noticed. But UPA has its own problems to worry about. For one, UPA II is a pale shadow of UPA I, with no one at the helm of affairs, except when there is a threat perception. Sonia Gandhi battling with her health problems, her involvement is minimal. And all UPA’s terminal illness is referred to (Dr) Pranab Mukherjee, who would one day, running out of patience, yell, ‘Enough is enough. UPA or no UPA, I am calling it a day!’

Post-Kalmadi Games, Dr Singh’s Cabinet works on a Fire Fighting model! With ageless Generals, court strictures, return of 2G Spectrum, Adarsh shame, Kalmadi himself wanting to run for Olympics, and the ghost of Anna Hazare haunting North Bloc, governance is conspicuous by its absence! Each Bigwig in Singh’s Cabinet is a law unto himself, leaving little scope for consensus. How can there be a consensus within Congress when there is no consensus within the Cabinet? How can there be a consensus within UPA when Congress itself cannot afford one? The paradox is the left hand doesn’t know what the left hand itself is doing!  

But Mamata has a point. Any sensible ruling party at the Centre should for its own longevity keep the allies happy. Remember how well Atal Bihari Vajpayee managed the show! Tehelkha before which Watergate is peanuts, and coffin scam (‘Where corpses themselves were fighting for coffins!’, as reported in The Times of India) did no damage to his government. The media was well subdued and nowhere did we read Vajpayee complaining about coalition dharma! Politics, Dr Singh, is a different ball game where you let the tigers prowl so that paper tigers (or digital tigers) don’t have their kill.         

In an ego-driven Super Cabinet, political expediency has no place. So Mamata’s misplaced expectations have driven her to the Alternative Front, where she will find more leg space and ego space. The Alternative Front is speciously similar to the Third Front, except that BJP is a partner and the invisible moving force. Certain business houses want to make Narendra Modi the next prime minister. So Patnaik is the proxy who will ensure that the Alternative Front is crystallized by giving space to all political parties, as a grand alliance against Congress. 

Home for Mamata, External Affairs for Jayalalithaa, and statues and culture for Maya should keep Madame Vanities happy. So Mulayam and Karuna and our comrades are left out. So the battle lines are drawn.

Congress will be facing its most formidable challenge since Narasimha Rao decimated the party. But still in power, it can shower goodies on the poor, adopt bold and pro-poor policies, and keep the price line under check. Done imaginatively and shrewdly, Congress still can thwart the grand alliance.     

But the happiest man of 2014 will be Dr Manmohan Singh. No more Kalmadis, Rajas, and Chavans to worry about, and Anna Hazare’s health to be anxious about. But for these men, the two-term prime minister would have ended his career in a trail of glory!

TO PORN OR NOT TO PORN!

By SUNNY THOMAS

A Hamletian comedy has descended the Karnataka Assembly. Bored to death, three ministers decided to go on a high doing their past time. At home in the assembly, they did what they are very good at, a proficiency they gained after clocking 10,000 hours of flight, perhaps equivalent to a commercial pilot’s licence for flying a commercial aircraft.

The attendance record of the three ministers even in the school days when caning and corporal punishments were in vogue was abysmally poor; and college where freedom begins saw a further dip in their attendance. The Karnataka Assembly is no school or college to keep a tab of attendance.

And human endurance has its limits. How long can a minister keep on listening to the boring speeches of his colleagues? Five minutes or ten, more than which is an insult to their intelligence. So they did what they were very good at. 

If the three men had their way, they would insist that since virtues must be taught beginning with the school, the Indian Constitution should be amended, and watching pornography made compulsory for all school children to be upgraded at college. Those who fail should not be allowed the privilege of higher education.

Not just that. Instead of Techno Parks, Porno Parks should be opened in all metros, and weekend attendance for residents made compulsory, failing which they must be disfranchised. Gyms and yoga classes could be combined with Porno Parks for greater respectability.     

Now let’s peel the onion live and come to the crux of the matter. What makes men turn to pornography? A psychiatrist who wants to remain anonymous gives me eight reasons:

·         Porn offers instant excitement

·         It has an infinite variety and an endless selection

·         The war of style and rhythm between partners does not arise  

·         If stress and uncertainty are the stuff of real life, virtual life is predictable and controllable

·          When the male is hot to trot, the female is fatigued

·         Our motherly wives cannot arouse us but we go wild for the wanton woman, say some 

·         For some loyalists, it’s a horse ride for the mind  

·          It is an oasis of comfort for the lonely and socially cut-off

Admitted, it is fast, safe and instant. But not in the Karnataka Assembly where hawk-eyed media hounds are prowling for scoops!