Another one goes by

Here's wishing that in #2015 ...

Barack Obama finally discovers on 26th January that India indeed is a sovereign republic . 

India defends its World Cup title at the MCG on 29th March - Dhoni or no Dhoni! (Don't worry Ravi Shastri is there!)

The rebooting of particle smasher at Cern allows the media to talk of discoveries different than say Miley Cyrus! 

Folks will stop showing off their Apple iPhone 6 Plus as their maids would be showing off their Apple Watch.

The rich nations will look within rather than blaming their poor brethren on climate change and Paris is not as lame as Lima.

There are no regrouping of groups and we rather leave the lunatics on the grass and avoid Endless Rivers!

That the 200th Anniversary of Waterloo stays a non-even in India for neither do we have enough water nor enough loos!

And loos brings us on to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan - We hope the movement reaches the legislature buildings across India to remove all the crap that blooms in those chambers there.

And finally, that the conversion drives converts everyone residing in India into Indians - religion not withstanding!

Hope you had a smile reading this. And we pray that the smile stays all the year around our bad humour notwithstanding!

SVC Guild

www.smartvocab.co.in

#sovereign #dhoni #cern #applewatch #waterloo #swachh 

It didn't have to be so

The bouncer and an eulogy

In cricketing parlance a fateful delivery meant the ball that gets the bowler a wicket or the one which is dispatched for winning runs. Now any more. The ball bowled by Sean Abbott to Phil Hughes last week that plunged the sporting world in sorrow was fateful and like how. 
And ever since he passed away as an impact of that ball hitting him beneath his ear - cricket fiends have been writing eulogies for Hughes on the social media. There are a few that stand out and the one that brought the most tears was the by the Australian Captain, Micheal Clarke. His emotional eulogy - a small speech he gave to the media persons present at the hospital was truly moving. 
Eulogy is our word of the week. It refers to a formal note written or a short talk given  in praise of a person recently deceased.

#PhilHughes #Eulogy

Cryptic and obscure

The politicians of all hues are apt at it. Most anchors of news channels go hoarse while trying to extract something of merit from these spokespersons of political parties but rarely do they succeed. The politicians simply equivocate. And they do it looking sombre and deadpan serious. 
Equivocate - that's our word of this week. It is an expression for the act of avoiding to commit oneself or to deliberately being cryptic or obscure. 

The edifice of Nehruvian-thought

Nehru's 125th birthday has been marred with controversies. Typical of modern-day politics - they argued on the ownership of Nehru as an icon while Nehruism and its contribution to the growth of India through its nascent years and beyond gathered dust in the long-forgotten annals of history. The edifice of Nehruvian-thought has been long demolished though. It seems as if only symbolism and tokenism is all that matters to the political class. 
Edifice is our word of the week. It is used here as a metaphor. Edifice is a large, imposing structure or a huge, complex organisation or system.

It's a nadir...they screamed!

Morality in the political sphere hits a new nadir screamed the headlines. They caught a political bigwig along with another prominent citizen cleaning up a patch on the sidewalk in New Delhi  that was littered purposefully just before the event to stage-manage the coverage for TV crews and shutterbugs. While the step was in any case meant to be symbolic and was apparently to popularize the Clean-India campaign - some news channels and newspapers would have none of it. They called it a new low - a new nadir. 
That's our word of the week - nadir. It means the lowest point or opposite of zenith. It is a term borrowed from astronomy where it symbolizes a position that's beneath the observer or a marked position.

The Fiat is out!

Last fortnight saw the Government of India entangled in legal procedures and debates with the judiciary. Some of the ruling party's spokespersons tried putting up a brave front on TV debates and even whispered about the judicial out-reach to create a public opinion. They pleaded that the Government is bound by international treaties and protocols. The bench, however, would have none of it and issued a fiat for submission of names of people with foreign accounts enlisted for scrutiny. 
Fiat - that's our word of the week. Fiat is an authoritative decree or order that's binding. It is a command or a pronouncement that has official sanction or authorization.