No Gnu Taxes, Please!!!

10

It's february- it's spring, what joy, what fun.... oh hell. It's tax time. Time to start looking at all your papers for the year. First you decide how much you have to pay in taxes, depending on what your expenses were. Then you decide what's left over to put into tax saving schemes. Or, first you figure out how much you will put into tax saving schemes and then find out how much you pay in taxes after the rebates. Ok bit of a chicken-and-egg thing that one. Particularly since, forget end of the financial year, I never have anything in my bank account at the end of the financial day even..... And it doesnt matter how many years you've been paying taxes- just when you think you may have got the hang of it- they spring a new tax on you. I don't....

On the Dilemma of Horns

10

On Makar Sankranti this year, I saw something beautiful.I was walking around the newsroom, where producers were busy preparing for our coverage of all the celebrations for the day. I looked at our own channel- and it seemed to me that our screen had gone to black. It took some time for me (helped by a very patient colleague) to understand the significance of the Sankranti at the Gavi- Gangadhareshwar temple in Bangalore. It is believed that on just one day every year (January 14, the summer solstice), the sun's rays pass through the horns of the Nandi bull idol, worshipped at the temple. And as I watched- eyes widening- I saw indeed that our dark screen was lighting up - a beautiful ray from the setting sun- pierced right through Nandi's horns. In the background, a rousing crescendo of chanting from the thousands of believers gathered....

Say Nothing if it's a Girl

10

"Don't ask me whether you are having a boy or a girl, because I am not going to tell you," said the ultrasound specialist- a genial old friend of the family. But I said to him cheerfully, "Don't worry- I know its a girl." This was my second pregnancy and after visits to several different ultrasound clinics- I was clued into parenting protocol- if its a boy- they will tell you, presumably expecting you to jump for joy. If it's a girl- well their silence says it all. It seems amazing but true- but estimates of a medical journal 'Lancet', and of the Indian Medical Association seem to suggest 500,000 female foetuses are aborted every year- that's 10 million in the past ten years (approximately the number of people put to death by the Nazis, also the population of the National Capital Region). There's a law against....

Guilt-Edged Metro

10

I know I am lucky to live in Delhi- when I was a child, my mother, a bombay-ite to the core (I still don't know whether that has changed to Mumbai-ite or Mumbai-kar). Anyway to get back to my mother of western Indian origin (no that sounds wrong too)- Anyway my mother always told us that the streets of Delhi were paved by money from the Bombay taxpayer. She had a point. After all, New Delhi has always been this oasis of wide avenues, lush green roundabouts, well painted street signs, and of course the lovely gracious homes built by Lutyens, et al. Add to this her theory that people in Delhi don't work half as hard as their cousins in India's business capital- and my guilt was complete. My guilt has grown over the years- not the least because as I....