The Afgan girl

The above photo taken by Steve McCurry of an Afghan girl has been voted as the 100 best pictures of national geographic. She appeared on the cover of national geographic in the year 1985. Her face became world famous yet nobody knew who she was. According to the photographer her face "had seized the imagination of so many people around the world because her face, particularly her eyes, expressed pain and resilience as well as strength and beauty."
The hunt for the afghan girl was launched nearly two decades later and she was found living in a remote village of afganistan in primitive conditions. Her name was Sharbat Gul and she was the mother of three daughters and the wife of a baker. She lives in obscurity according to the customs of her land and the woman who's face became world famous is unknown among her own countrymen. She depicts the trouble faced by her people during the years.

Friends from a different dimension

Today I was playing hide and seek with my six year old cousin and his imaginary friend "yaya". Needless to say I never managed to catch "yaya" and ended up playing "it" all through.It was quite amusing to see my little cousin chatting with his friend. In my family our tryst with fairyland and imaginary things were always encouraged, having a mother and aunt who thrived on anne books and other classics we were all encouraged to imagine and our fancies were never laughed at, nor were we admonished for telling lies as some people were.
Growing up as an only child in a neighbourhood filled with old people and no youngsters, most of my time was spent playing in the garden with all my imaginary friends. There was a green elf by the name of elvin who used to tell me stories about caterpillares and butterflies, my friendly sparrow Chirp from whom I learnt to find the best worms and who also taught me the early bird poem, and the milk lady who used to drink up all my unwanted milk. My mother never bought that story when she caught me spilling the milk out of the window. Many a spanking did I get for that.
Ours was not the only family who had such friends, my friend had an imaginary friend of her own who she christened 2-Papa, which was a miniature version of herself with supernatural powers. She had the ability to fly, disappear and had as ready a tongue as my friend. As I grew older I forgot about my imaginary friends and now they are just a pleasant memory. But they were my very first experience of friendship and showed me how important friends are and how necessary it is to make friends with different people so that you become more broad minded

gimme a break!

When is the last time a product was bought on the basis of its advertisement? I can only remember not buying something cause it came coupled with an inane slogan which made me reach the conclusion that I never want to buy anything from a person who is so hare brained as to approve of such a ridiculous strategy to promote his product.
One of the most regressive ads on air today has to be the fair and lovely ad, which is propagating the notion that fair is beautiful and that people with dusky skins are not entitled to that adjective. Not only are they instilling the nonsensical idea in people that they have to do their best to become fair they are also insulting all those people who are beautiful and have dark skin tones, these people too are also a major part of the modeling fraternity, in fact they out number the ones with fair skin. And not content with targeting women this ridiculous brand has also launched a product for men!!!!!! Talk about cheek!!!!
Another one which makes me grind my teeth in anger are those soft drink ads, they choose the most gorgeous stars, shot them in various different oh soo "cool" situations sipping their vile product. A drink which is capable of removing all the rust from a nail is being propogated as the key to being popular and "happening", and no doubt all the stars who endorse it have never taken even a sip from it, otherwise its hard to imagine how they manage to preserve their svelte figures and glowing complexions.
Its really annoying to know that these people are conning the masses into buying their products, I wonder if a thing like an ad police could ever happen.