The writer in me...

I've been asked to write an article for the school magazine. I tried pulling my head out of it...but to no avail. No, no, no, not because I'm the best writer amongst all the ex-students and the present students...but because I'm the only person who's sitting idle at home...that too at close proximity to the school. After a brief discussion with the Principal, we narrowed down on the topics that I could write on. He said that I'm allowed to write about something that I'm passionate about or maybe something that I wish to work upon or maybe take up a cause and research and write on it or maybe write about my experiences as a student of the school or maybe my experiences as the teacher of the same school or maybe about my interests and my means of developing the same or maybe....there wasn't a dearth of topics. I came back home and started my process of filtering for the right topic. I arrived at the conclusion that I can write on various topics...Academics, literature, reading, travelling, sex, love, lust, friends, theatre, celebrities....just about anything. Without saying its understood that being a school magazine, my favorite topics (sex, love and lust) were automatically ruled out. I lost out on a golden opportunity to deal with regressive protesters...who would gather a mob around my house, pelt stones and smear the watchman's face with black ink...but why black ink? Why not some other colours - something like green, the fluorescent kind, or pink or ochre - why black? I would like to know where and how did this latest trend begin? Off late trendsetters have a lot of novelty to offer but its not striking. Lets take a simple thing as a water purifier. Aquaguard, Kent, Moniba....so many names, all very expensive water purifiers, beyond the budget of the lower class, the section of people who need it the most. They get contaminated water and due to the ever increasing price of LPG cylinders cannot afford to boil water. It's an established fact that boiling water for several minutes kills the germs in the water making it hygienic for consumption. Water also reminds me of the Deepa Mehta movie 'Water' that ran into trouble in India for portrayingthe pathetic conditions of widows in North India. Anything to do with reality is outrightly rejected in this country. But there are some marvellous people like P. Sainath who still continue with their mission. Excuse me, but his mission is different from the mission undertaken by the Christian missionaries claiming to be modern day evangelists. Its funny! These evangelists can cure anything from hemorrhoids to malignant tumour without the surgeon's knife. I love the way they preach...In fact I'm thinking of distributing them free tickets to go to Somalia and perform some miracles. I need to help them with some performers also who would act out the miracles. How's magic different from miracles? Magic reminds me of David Blaine. Not for his magic act but the tattoo on his arm. How do people get tattoos done? It must be so painful . I remember a beautiful tattoo of Dalai Lama that I had seen on the biceps of a guy. Boy! That was some art. But the pain. Its just this pain factor that stops me from piercing my nose. I would love to get my nose pierced, but am also petrified of the pain. I know...no pain, no gain...Pain, gain, nose....what am I talking about. Ok! So the topic for the feature is .Books! Books! Books!'