Earlier this week, I had to this unheard city (at least for me), in the Liaoning province in the North eastern China. I had prepared myself for the worst, only to find it to be the most beautiful city I have ever visited in China. And I have been to Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other major cities umpteen times in China.

 

With a population of just 3 million, the city is simply beautiful. 5 star hotels like Shangri La and Nikko to standalone luxury stores like Louis Vuitton and Gucci didn’t surprise me as much as the Ferrari and Maybach showrooms did. The airport is bigger than the new Bangalore airport, complete with 16 gates of all-glass aerobridges. Roads are wide, and they have huge sidewalks for people to walk on.

 

Reminds me on the ONIDA advert; Neighbours envy – Owner’s pride. However, we are a shameless neighbour sharing 2000 kms of border, not wanting to take a single lesson.

 

I first visited China in 1995. After 15 years and probably the 50^th trip, I continue to look at a country that is continuously transforming itself for the positive. You can call me a nation-basher, but in India we just don’t have anything called ‘national pride’, the most important pre-requisite for meaningful development.

Pubmo is a new word which I urge the Indian media to adopt. Soon it will find its way to the oxford dictionary, given the sheer number of them in our country alone.

 

Pubmos – or publicity mongers, are people who go to any length to seek media attention. Unfortunately, our media has chosen to call them “intellectuals”. Every time somebody does nonsense, these pubmos get out on the streets calling themselves intellectuals; in support of the nonsense. Intellectuals, a-la Aparna Sen and the likes. Politicians too are pubmos; but at least they do that for a living. But these pubmos gain nothing except for the sadist satisfaction of finding a place in the media; which otherwise would totally ignore them for the failures they are now.

 

Aparna Sen – an intellectual? Could there be a more outrageous description? When Mamata carried on her nonsense unabated, she took to the streets; now the Maoists carry on nonsense and she is out on the streets with her brigade; and to support the nonsense. Does she know that Mao’s name in his own country of birth, doesn’t evoke respect anymore? It was only after 1976, when Mao left the world, did China become what it is today.

 

We are a democracy. There is nothing we can do about it. But lets stop calling them ‘intellectuals’. Media decency requires that expletives are not put in print. Till then, let’s call them Pubmos.

Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced. I am going to carry on my personal attempts towards the different challenges faced in life as well work. I spoke to group of young budding entrepreneurs yesterday that the lines of fortune (or whatever they call it in palmistry), are drawn in your hands, not on the chest, not on the head or anywhere else on the body. This thus transpires that the destiny is literally in your hands. God keeps on modifying those lines according to the activity done by those hands.