The pimps of pain...

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...OR Misery means a million bucks... Or a million hit counts, or maybe even four. 'Bad news is good news', and it hasn't been truer than it is today.

We read bad news, we comment on it, we charge by the minute on it, our political ideologies center around it, we ask for votes based on it, we sell it to nations; and if there is no bad news, we create it. Lawyers, doctors and most definitely the media would go out of business if it were not for bad news and someone else's misery. Heck, we revel in misery.

People dying is a news flash, kidney trade translates into TRPs and litigation, someone raped is a prime time reconstruction, a marriage breaking down is national gossip...

As long as someone suffers, world economies will move, leaders will be impeached and elected, gossip magazines will sell, TRPs will soar and even Chicken Soup for the Soul series will sell only because there is bad news and we need feel-good, heart-warming stories to feel 'better'. No bad news, no bloody chicken soup. Even technological advances come fraught with injurious-to-happiness warnings: Everything from coffee to cellphones and laptops can cause some form of cancer. It's a wonder the human race has survived this long. With bad news being dished out from all quarters, it becomes tough at times... Keeping the jaunt in your walk, that zing in your smile and that hope in your heart that even if global warming, nuclear warfare, organ trade, drugs and mafia, rash drivers and stress-induced heart-attacks don't kill you, HEY! It's a bloody beautiful world out there.

Over the last three weeks, have seen a number of movies, a couple in the theatre, others on DVD. I saw Taare Zameen Par (stars on earth) on dyslexia and worried that I wouldn't understand my child and will be a bad mother. Saw The Castle and was relieved when a simple man took on the government and won back his house that was being forcefully taken away. I wondered if terra nullius would apply to the Commonwealth Games village scam and if it could indeed be stopped. Then it frustrated me because of course the movie was fiction and nothing will happen to the case. Then it was Shawshank Redemption and it was heartbreaking when the "sisters" in jail bugger Andy - reminded me of Chandni Bar. Felt worse when Brooks hangs himself and when Andy is not guilty; so much for rehabilitation. I saw Syriana and nearly lost my head... What if tomorrow my son becomes a suicide bomber?

Food shortage, resource shortage, haves and have nots... Which end of the spectrum will I be? And do you know which end of the spectrum will you be? When everything around us is blowing up, HOW do you all keep your spirits high? Suggestions and thoughts are more than welcome...

From the blog: Emancipation of Eve