Expli-spit

One heavily trafficked evening, while walking to the bus stop, I encountered a funny but a gross scene. One colleague was busy washing her sleeves at the roadside and few people were trying to help her. When I went near, I came to know that she was badly hit by something called “paan spit”.

First of all, few facts from Wikipedia- Spitting or expectoration, is the act of forcibly ejecting saliva or other substances from the mouth. Spitting upon another person, especially onto the face, is a universal sign of anger, hatred or contempt. It can represent a "symbolical regurgitation" or an act of contamination. Various diseases and infections can be spread by spitting, including tuberculosis, influenza, and the common cold.

Oh Boy...You are SANE.

( This post started as a normal video shared over facebook by Pranav on his profile but later turned into a lively group discussion between the three of us over the issue of Media Ethics in India. )

Disclaimer: The video (of a speech given almost one year ago) itself is 13:22 mins long, and the comments (unedited; full of typos) that followed are no shorter.

Watch and read at your own risk. :)

1411 was less, you thought. What about 411?

What’s common between Goddess Durga, Emperor Ashoka, Lord Vishnu and the National Emblem of India? We know you know the answer. But what if you were told that in a country of 1.15 billion human beings, there are only 411 such left now?

Yes. We have only 411 Asiatic Lions left in the the whole of our country, that too in small pockets in the Gir forests of Gujarat. (- Data quoted from Gujarat Govt.’s 2010 report).

It’s strange, thinking about the lions and tigers in the middle of all this busy lives of us; somewhere it does not strike a cord.