Puneet's Page

"Do you celebrate Holi?" a colleague asked me yesterday. "Yes - of course !" I told him. 'Maybe not celbrating Holi is the ''in'' thing -hence this question' I thought to myself. And today, when Holi celebrations are over, I pause to reflect on how we celebrated the festival yet again - this year - today. We celebrate Holi, by first connecting with the elders in the family. In our case, our Mother. Reaching out to her, mentally as well as physically. And on this auspicious occasion more than anytime else, seeking her blessings. We congregate at Ma's place. All of us, brother, cousins, their families. And suddenly fill up her lonely world and life with a lot of liveliness. The entire space within the four walls of her house is filled with the sound of fun, frolic laughter and joy. The same house which was once ours. Where we lived and which once used to reverberate with people, voices, life...The house which for all times stands quiet, sud

Mr. Mallya, We did not expect that help would come from you, of all the people. At a time, when the last memorabilia, things belonging to 'Gandhi' the 'Father of our Nation' were being auctioned by someone in some other part of the World. Not one Indian amongst the one billion of us paused to think that these items shouldn't have left India in the first place. Not one of the thousands of the staunch followers of Gandhi or the practitioners of Gandhism raised their voice in protest at the most blatant form of insult meted out to Gandhi. And when the issue came to light, the Indian Government, led by insensitive 'Netas' devoted full time, not to the principles that Gandhi preached and exemplified, but only to furthering their own ends, and caught in bureaucracy and red tape, just sat and watched. The World also watched - some surprised at the attitude of our Country. And some were even amused. For they knew that 'this happens only in India' And then yo

The killing of five policemen and two others at Liberty round about in Lahore blows the lid off the security arrangements in the city, especially at a time when the Sri Lankan team was visiting the city. Yes, Policemen fought valiantly and somehow succeeded in keeping the Sri Lankan team largely out of the harm’s way. Nevertheless it is a security lapse and a huge intelligence failure. As soon as the incident happened, critics in Pakistan and elsewhere sprung into action blaming it on their usual suspects. While some said categorically that it is the RAW paying us in the same coin others blamed it on the jihadis from our Western borders. Probably a more intelligent interpretation, is that of Governor Salman Taseer who believes it is the very people who carried out attacks in Mumbai last year. Are we facing a common enemy? People in Pakistan are shocked and scared. Like many incidents of terrorism in the past we don’t know if the perpetrators of this incident will ever be identified and

Today, cricket lovers, particularly Indian cricket fans sat and watched with a sense of renewed confidence, the Indian team redeem quickly their prestige glory temporarily lost when they lost the '20-20' series against hosts New Zealand. Redemption coming through a good batting innings in the first ODI at Napier, leaving the hosts to chase a very ambitous, if not an impossible target to achieve to secure victory. But early in the morning, this feeling of euphoria was soon replaced by a sense of deep shock, when news came in of the cruel terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team currently touring Pakistan, in Lahore. Six players were injured but are thankfully safe. The unthinkable and the unprecedented has happened. Never before were sportsmen targeted in such a henious manner as this. Questions and concerns that were raised about safety of players who toured Pakistan, have now probably been comprehensively answered. And no Country will be keen on sending their teams to p