Sad, depressed, angry, frustrated, hopeless, scared, sceptical...I feel all this and more...maybe you share my feelings if you are a citizen of a country which has had to face quite many trials all these years after gaining its 'independence' 60 years ago. When it severed its allegiance to one, it had unconsciously inherited a package that had more shocks than surprises and has proved to be a burden that none would have anticipated nor desired.
You would share similar sentiments of defeat if you had felt (and still do feel) proud of this nation, loved the people (no matter from which state of the union they are from), the land, the 'chaos' (to the world outside, but for us, our identity), the strong smells and sentiments, the colours, the noise and everything that marks us as unique in the eyes of our neighbours far and near.
Maybe you might have that feeling of despair, the thought that has been echoing the last two days in many of our minds that "enough is enough"...
We are a resilient lot, yeah, and we are proud to be so; but can anybody be stretched forever? For that, we need to be either oblivious to the things around us, as most of us are (the numb variety, who are short sighted with minds short circuited) or who never belonged to this place anyway (the desi phirangis for whom the dude culture is more gripping than the bhai ones).
If you still have some leftover love, pride, feeling of belonging to this nation that is being ripped apart, wake up, be alert, be aware of your rights. It is time that the people showed the politicians, who grapple with each other even in such times for cheap political mileage, the real India.
A nation no longer deserves democracy if the people in it cease to be patriotic.

And finally the people of America have shown the world that they have left behind their racist past,and are ready to step into a new era of justice and liberty for all. History will be created as Obama walks into the white house as the first black president of US of A, the very place which once witnessed the first black person, Booker T Washington, take part in a dinner, invited by the then president Roosevelt.
So fairness (not literally) does hold and for once George Orwell is proved wrong, I quote again, "All are equal but some are more equal than others" (George Orwell, Animal Farm).
Enough said :)

Two more days to go before its D day for the Americans. It is not just for them but for all those people around the world who have been closely watching, following, discussing the new developments in American politics. For those ardent fans of the rising phenomenon called Barack Obama.
We (Manoj and I) have been discussing this stuff for a while and wondered what was it that really pulled us into this trail?
There are many reasons, looking at Obama's background, humble beginnings, almost like an outsider with a Kenyan father, half-black, his struggles to rise up to be a senator, the odds he faced and ofcourse to see a makeover done on the American face which is lately quite discolored and wrinkled with Bushism.
We, in India are way too far away to even be directly affected by the whitehouse politics but it does rouse our interest whenever this black American opens his mouth to speak. He is so unlike his counterparts, be it Republican or Democrat, his responses, reactions all are so different, not to speak of his temparament. And above all he is positively confident of himself. And look at his family, they look so ordinary and hence believable.
I feel that as the days went by and as the parties got tougher on each other, it must have been Obama's coolness or coldness to those fiery darts that must have increased his fan following not just in America but else where too.
Maybe these clicked something in us to follow all those programs, write-ups on the elections (ofcourse Manoj is keener than me...no wonder Abhishek has stuck Obama pictures on his bedroom wall).
We too hope like many of you that Barack Obama wins the elections. It might not change even an iota of America's foreign policy or would never usher in a greater IT boom in India or boost a higher outsourcing but it would just help everyone around the globe to feel comforted that fair play still holds, that nastiness not always gets an upperhand and that all are equal and not that some are more equal than others.