The morning newspaper along with the cup that cheers cheered me up immensely and held a good promise for a good day. First I found Sir VS Naipaul the Nobel Laureate and best India basher getting it back in his coin by no less than a person as Derek Walcott a Nobel Prize winning poet. I jumped with joy when I read that Walcott a compatriot of Naipaul from the Caribbean Islands mocked and called him a ‘mongoose” in one special poem. The poet reportedly composed a poem titled “The Mongoose” and read it at a Literary Festival in Jamaica. “I have been bitten, I must avoid infection or else I will be as dead as Naipaul’s fiction” he said and added that “the mongoose takes its orders from Raj”.
 
He is reported to have said about the later novels of Naipaul that “the plots are forced, the prose sedate and silly.” He added insult to the injury by adding further that “the anti-hero is a prick named Willie.” (Please note that the four letter word is not from my stable.) The main grouse of Walcott is that Naipaul born in Trinidad thanked only India and Britain in his Nobel acceptance speech but not the country of his birth. The old sparring partners are at it again and Naipaul is reported to have told Patrick French his biographer that he “settles his accounts.” It looks like we are going to be treated with more fire works from the two Nobel Laureates.
 
I couldn’t decide whether to sympathise with Sir Naipaul as he was a PIO or to feel smug to see an India basher getting bashed up. Finally I thought “Mera Bharat Mahan” and cheered Walcott. I even egged him on to throw in a vicious left upper hook. I also wished that some established novelist should come forward and throw some punches at all the India bashers. I did my bit in my new novel reviewed so nicely by my sparring partner poetbittersweet. 

The newspaper had more good tidings. It seems the blog war is spreading fast. The latest to join the fray is Ram Gopal Verma. This is good news for all bloggers at Sulekha especially the members of SUMBA. If Verma starts the other producers and directors like Karan Johar, Mahesh Bhat, Bhansali and his ilk surely wouldn’t like to be left out. The demand for Bloggers is likely to increase manifold. I am particularly happy as the likes of Kamalji and Chanchal Da will not claim their share in my quota of B/L and of course the crores. I am even envisaging a day when a special bank exclusively for Sulekhites operates under the stewardship of kamlaji. (I am sure we all trust him. Don’t we?”) 

Normally troubles come in battalions but yesterday good tidings came in such formation. We all are familiar with one of our senior bloggers who is strictly not a blogger but definitely a regular commentator with lots of wisdom and wit. He regretted his inability to post blogs since he was only a one finger typist. In one of my earlier blogs I praised the best blogger in the world who couldn’t type at all. Now I read about a 41 years old Japanese man paralysed for 36 years who can barely bend his fingers taking a walk in the virtual world. Although he cannot move his legs, he imagined that his character was walking. He was then able to have a conversation with the other character using an attached microphone. A Japanese researcher it seems perfected a technique, which enabled the paralysed man to manipulate a virtual Internet character using only his brain waves. This seems to be the first time a paralysed patient has succeeded in meeting a person and having a conversation in an Internet virtual world. It is also likely that this technique is to be extended to text messages also in the not too distant future. This news should warm the cockles of all bloggers present and future who have some impairment or other. Nothing stands in the way as long as one has the will. (Swarajya garu please note.)
 
As if that was not enough to make my day I got a call from my friend the peripatetic, effervescent and ebullient Subbu who invaded the Sulekha office with many local bloggers of Chennai ( Did they decide on a name corresponding to SUMBA?) and provided the connectivity. I had the good fortune of talking and exchanging pleasantries with the erudite blogger BigMojo who I thought crossed me out of his list of friends, my sparring partner poetbittersweet who in his inimitable style had a wise crack at me, Suvasree, Meera Sen who unfortunately was in a hurry to take her son somewhere, and of course Subbu. I extended them all an open invitation to visit Vizag and give me the pleasure of their company for “something special.” I am happy to report that all of them graciously accepted my invitation and promised to visit me at the earliest opportunity. Suvasree even promised to bring her own red carpet.
 
I also had a pleasant chat with Neha and Sudhir of Sulekha. I want to take this opportunity to assure all the bloggers at Sulekha that with smart people like them we are in good hands and all our interests will be served. 

Finally when I wanted to retire for the day I found on my bedside Amitav Ghosh’s wonderful book “The Hungry Tide” which describes the history, the locale and its beautiful but totally different terrain of Sunderbans in West Bengal. Obviously he had done a lot of research on the subject and produced what promises to be a very good book. With such pleasant thoughts I quietly slipped into the maximum comfort zone of slumber after an eventful day. Close