Chicken little

3

This bird flu panic is beginning to get me down. Yes, we know the H5N1 bird flu virus has the potential (POTENTIAL) to perhaps mutate and combine with the human flu virus and then the result would be CATASTROPHE...a fate worse than DEATH for the human race. Really? Well, we're so busy collectively freaking out about that possible future menace we're conveniently ignoring the last time that happened, and (as was pointed out to me by a vaccine specialist), it was a biggie. Remember that old HIV/AIDS virus? Which we don't even remotely have a cure for, despite working on it for more than 20 years? Which is killing millions in this country though the government would like to hush up the figures...and please don't confuse a misplaced sense of morality (oh no we shouldn't talk about AIDS because Indians aren't promiscuous what will the world think?! shock horror)...BS....

Jet, Set, GO!!!

6

So the Book Fair is on, it's all madness, fun and excitement, but after you're done trudging from hall 1 to hall 18 (ALL the way across Pragati Maidan) for the third time in a day (that too with a bag that is just a dead weight at some 800 kilos) it's time to open your eyes and smell the roses. Ok, not so much smell the roses as sniff out the arms deals happening next door in some seven stalls at the DefExpo. I didn't do a very good job sniffing out the arms deals, but had a BRILLIANT time, nevertheless, after sneaking into the not-so-high-security Not Open to the Public hall (number seven was it?) First-off, for the record, I'm not into war. At all. But boy, does the US know how to make its war toys!!! I checked out the Patriot missile, some other cool-looking stuff, then....