Prashant has chastised me for my utter lack of literary contribution to our collective blog. What can I say in my defence? That procrastination is a bitch? That I’ve been preoccupied with a host of other issues in my life? Unfortunately, in this day and age, no excuse will be good enough for the extreme detractors. Take a look at the situation in Iraq (or as the impeccably witty Jon Stewart calls it, “Mess-o-potamia”). No amount of excuses can be made to atone for what has happened. Whenever the dust has settled over the current crisis/atrocity/emergency/, another one will pop right up and take its place.

There will always be fodder for the critics. And as I am a critic myself, I notice things everyday that makes me stop and I and ask: “Why do they even bother?”

One area where I find myself proverbially slapping my forehead in disbelief, is during my daily trips along Toronto’s metro system. The most common occurrence: watching hapless commuters rushing to the closing doors of the subway, knowing too well that they: a) won’t make it; b) even if they did reach the doors, would not fit (what with the mass of bodies already crammed into an individual car); and c) there’s always another train coming in a few minutes.

(On a side note, the public transit system in downtown Toronto is a right mess. My normal route has since March been in disarray, as renovations to the streetcar tracks are scheduled to be completed by October)

On the opposite end of the spectrum of stupidity, I have witnessed the following: In one station, there is one escalator going up, and a flight of stairs next to it. Now, the lazy individual who normally rides the escalator arrives and discovers that, much to his chagrin, this marvel of convenience is not working! Instead of simply walking up the escalator, he steps back (into the crowd of worker drones rushing to work), causing much consternation, and proceeds to climb the flight of stairs.

Instead of wracking our brains for a plausible explanation for this utterly inane behaviour, I leave you with the words of the new Foreign Affairs Minister of India, who made this statement to Outlook, a weekly magazine. I wish our world leaders have half the wit this man has:

“They say Natwar Singh is a hawk. I don’t understand this language of hawks and doves. We’re running a foreign policy, not a bird sanctuary.”