Blog@GraceJunction

On most days, a racist attack, anti-abortion riots and a crucial national health plan would have automatically been the important news of the day. But June 11, 2009 was not one of them. Donald Trump, who owns the rights to Miss USA, the beauty pageant announced that Carrie Prejean, crowned Miss USA runner up was being sacked for breaking her contract with him and the furore that followed has divided the United States of America into two. (more…)

Australia, they say, is a whole new world packed into one continent, packed into one country. Unarguably, it is one of the most picturesque land masses on the planet with a variety unparalleled. If you are in Australia you can bush walk in the deserts, ski in the Alps, stroll on the Gold Coasts, bungee Jump in the gorges, snorkel in the barrier reef, or simple keep gasping at the amazing sights all around. (more…)

It was sad to read the story of Chitra Parmar in the morning today. Depressed over a failed love affair, this 20-year-old student of National Institute of Fashion Design, committed suicide by hanging herself from the ceiling fan on Sunday evening. In the suicide note she said she was taking the step because she could not get over the fact she had been jilted by her lover Hiren Patel. She also named three more people as responsible for their break-up. Finally she apologised to her parents in the suicide note. (more…)

Pressure was the most talked about issue in Anju Musafir’s workshop on parenting that ended last week. The amount of pressure that kids go through to perform in class, deal with fights and prejudices in class, teacher’s negative comments, peer pressure, course and tuition pressure et cetera are only mounting by the year. Parents are also not helping them in lessening this pressure, on the contrary they are only adding up to it by allowing no play or music or movie! (more…)

 
Dear Son,

I want to tell you something that I have been keeping in my heart for quiet some years. This happened thirty years back, when we were a newly married couple and we just wanted to enjoy our married life for the next two to three years before we thought of expanding our family. More than that, in those days I had a not so well paying job of a stenographer in the state government. Your mother had taken up some tuition to help me with the finances and that helped us in making ends meet. (more…)

Finally Vodafone seems to have found the nemesis for the ‘Pug”. Hutch, the ex-name of Vodafone, was known for its pug, a dog that followed its owner everywhere, conveying the ‘where ever you go, our network follows’ punchline. The pug was such a hit that Hutch couldn’t keep the pug out of any of its strategies and ads! I mean literally, whatever Hutch did, the pug followed! The pug tried to enter the Vodafone camp after Hutch was bought by Vodafone. However, Ogilvy & Mather finally seem to have come to the rescue with a new mascot(s), thus paving the way for the last and final departure of the good old pug ‘Chika’. (more…)

Reading as a habit or interest is waning in popularity. However, if you go to a place like Crossword, suddenly you feel that it is not so. That place buzzes with activity and with people and you get inclined to tell yourself, “Well, people still do read”. But the percentage of readers has certainly taken a beating in the last few years. The city libraries are a mute witness to this. They present a gloomy picture of the gradual depletion of voracious readers who used to flock the libraries every evening. Apart from a few elderly people and a handful of students, the libraries wear a deserted look most of the time. (more…)