Lasting Rose

At least half of India in fact is sleepless over three stories involving beautiful and successful women and powerful ministers. So if you are of a romantic kind and death is not something you like to think very much about, please don't read further, unless you want to lose some sleep.
Though the Olympics and the Wisconsin Gurudwara shooting dominated the world media, the Indian Media is abuzz with three intriguing and unsettling stories of tragedy involving, money, power and love which tragically took the lives of three beautiful, young ladies.
It is indeed very unsettling that all three have been found dead in apparent situations of suicide, yet leaving enough room for being cases of suspicious death which makes you sad but annoyingly inquisitive too. What is really unsettling is the fact that all three were highly educated with very promising careers making one on wonder what exactly in their private lives lead them to such horrible plight.
Interestingly, the social web, with its army of active participants who discuss everything and anything threadbare that appear in the media with immense imagination, make the stories much more intriguing. Very often, as in the case of these stories with very little factual information in the media and in public domain, such discussions end up in character assassination of the diseased, without any chance for the poor souls to defend themselves.

Looking at the number of comments posted on this article, I come to realise that India has a huge pool of talented writers who can create so many different reasons and scenarios for a case which neither our forensic experts nor our police department can envision or solve!!!!

Neelima, a twenty-seven year old software engineer and lead, employed by the IT major INFOSYS at a site in Tampa, USA, was on holidays in India for three weeks. For mysterious reasons, she walked one night in to the high security campus of her employer in Hyderabad, where she used to work before, and jumped off from the tenth storey car park to her tragic death.
This is how some one among her tribe of Indian techies which dominate the comment threads on Indian News sites with all sorts of bizarre explanations, opinions and comments summarise the story.

The news is already all over Telugu channels: 1.Reason to come to Infosys campus was to email and call boyfriend from quiet place. 2. Reason to come so late in the night is because of time difference between India and USA. 3. Boyfriend is P.B. from Cognizant in Tampa, Florida. 4. She was more eager than boyfriend. Boyfriend did not want to marry as he was getting free milk, so why buy the cow? 5. After boyfriend said clear no, she wrote to him saying hope we will be together in next Janma and killed herself.

In another tragic story, Fiza, a beautiful 39 year old lawyer and wife of an ex state minister, whose love affair and marriage became headline story in the Indian media a few years back, was found dead in a decomposed state in her own bed, apparently after several days after she died.
The love component of this story is so unbelievably strong. Fiza, and her husband Chandra Mohan the son of a powerful chief minister of the state of Haryana who was already married, both born Hindus, converted to Islam so that he could legally live with a second wife.
That was before the minister, who couldn't stand the separation from his first wife, went back to her leaving Fiza a Muslim and now dead. There is no clarity, in an ongoing investigation if Fiza was murdered.
In yet another ongoing story involving another Haryana minister Kanda and another beautiful young lady who recently committed suicide, Geetika, an airhostess has accused her lover of harassment in her suicide note.
What is really intriguing and makes you lose your sleep, just in case you are stoic for some reason and not emotionally disturbed by the tragedy of it all, is the question how well educated career women could end their lives like this.
In all three cases, it is mind boggling as to why the women couldn't stand up to the situations and seek appropriate help which is surely available in modern India.
The incidents are covered in mystery and ambiguity as there were no suicide notes found and made public at least in two cases. In the case of air hostess Geetika, it is the suicide note itself which is the bone of contention, as she has allegedly received material help from her lover in her education and career when she was alive, making her allegations of harassment questionable.
In any case it is the shoddy and unprofessional police work in India, with poor knowledge of the importance of collecting, preserving and using forensic evidence, which make these cases more mysterious than they actually are.

The Kiss Cam has become the romantic idea of the 21st century much like the Valentine's Day and the Mistletoe which have come to signify special moments of expression of love and romance in human life. These wonderful social concepts, adapted from centuries old traditions not only let people express their feelings freely and in public but also render such genuine human behaviour socially acceptable.
If no one outside the U S had ever heard of the Kiss Cam before, now the media is abuzz with the news and debate about the presidential Kiss projected on the giant jumbotron at the Verizon Center during a friendly Basketball match.
In an election year everything about the U S president and the presidential candidates can be under intense scrutiny. So the debate about the Presidential Kiss Cam Kiss has attracted intense media interest in the US and abroad. The event has also brought the American Kiss Cam form of entertainment to the world's attention. It is only a matter of time before the Kiss Cam gets the same enthusiastic attention around the world.
In fact the Presidential Kiss has even demonstrated the power of this new social phenomenon by expressing disapproval of the behaviour of even a U S president intuitively and openly by booing and persuading him to comply with common expectations of social and finer human values expected of a leader.
Since its introduction in the US way back in 1982, the Kiss Cam has evolved much with different stadiums and operators establishing their own norms and best operating practices to avoid hurting people. But in a country known for its dry sense of humour and sportsmanship, no one has seriously objected to the simple entertainment and joy of Kiss Cam which millions of people now take for granted.
As per a report in The Bladder in fact Kiss Cam is already going to the 'next level' in the U S.

"But Frederico de Mayo, head of the advertising agency that developed the concept, said this was just the start for 'Kiss Cam'.
"Everyone who has seen it knows how it works," he said. "Before the game we have 'Smile Cam', where we get people in the crowd to smile at each other for the cameras.
"At quarter time we look for people to hug ¬ that's 'Hug Cam'. At half time we look for people to kiss. Smile-Hug-Kiss. Pretty obviously there is a natural progression there.
"Three quarter time is a natural window there waiting to be filled. And we hope to fill it soon with 'Shag Cam'. That will really get the crowd going."
Mr de Mayo said their exhaustive research had shown that fans got easily bored before, during and after footy games, so they needed to be entertained, preferably as noisily as possible."

What about the right to privacy and violation of human rights by projecting unsuspecting spectators on the screen which implies them to engage in a kiss? According to experts:

"You have to be careful when you do the Kiss Cam,", "it's kind of a dangerous feature."

Apparently even President Obama and his wife were unaware of the Kiss Cam etiquette until they were appraised by their daughter who accompanied them to the game.
Will it be a feature of the Olympics 2012 games in London? Though well prepared with an array of high tech equipment and features to capture every moment of the games and project on giant screens, The BBC has not yet declared that the thousands of spectators will be offered the wonderful new fun of Kiss Cam. There is of course still time for them to take note and catch up with the new century.