We have seen two, virtually spontaneous, bandhs in the Northeast in the days just gone by. One was a relatively-short 12-hour Assam bandh called in protest against the letting off of the accused in the botched-up Parag Das murder case. The other was a much more gruelling 48-hour bandh called in Manipur over the cold-blooded, fake encounter of a former militant. Bandhs have been so rampant in the Northeast in the last 20 or so years that people have become inured to them. And bandhs, more often than not, are a success without the advocates of the bandhs having to drum up much support for them.

The boy grimaced as the boorish bus screeched to another halt. Two unkempt ruffians leaped out from the two door-less gateways and started begging for passengers. For the boy, nothing else registered. He was trapped in a world years severed from the present. Could not have been too many years, for he now was barely into his teens. He was not dreaming. He was disturbed. If it showed on his face, he was not conscious of it. No co-passenger gave a damn about it either, if it did, of course. He was disturbed. Upset. He had been so since he had rushed to the breakfast table not so long ago. His father, a grim-faced arguably unfeeling man, had as usual beaten him to the first meal of the day and was absorbed in a newspaper. Other editions lay beside his plate, bowl and glass. No matter how late he returned or worked through the night, the father would always join his son for breakfast. It was not a mundane ritual; it was a solemn promise that the stoic man had never failed to keep.

If you were to look at the world from the point of view of how people reacted to the conviction of Sanjeev Nanda in the BMW hit-and-run case, you will find there are just two kinds of people. Those who cannot contain their glee at the contention that the law indeed has a long arm, and those who are shedding copious tears over the poor young fella having to pay for being rich and famous. Yes, the law has taken its own course. Nanda, few would disagree, was guilty as charged, and would certainly have to spend some of his youth behind bars. But the conviction is nothing to exult about. Someone was found guilty by a court of law and has been punished accordingly. That’s it. It’s time to move on. A man guilty of recklessness under the influence of alcohol deserves no media mileage. There are scores of others who need to be nailed as well.

This swanky joint in plush South Delhi keeps setting standards that only it can alone emulate. After all, it is rather difficult to maintain yourself as a lowlife. In June, the Urban Pind joint denied entry to a young female photographer from Nagaland. The decision to do that was purely on racist grounds. When the incident degenerated into a news item, the joint's co-owner Kashif Farooq mumbled some feeble and incoherent excuses, and asserted that there would be no question of apologising. Some arrogant racism that. As public opinion became mobilised, including a Boycott Urban Pind group on Facebook, and a case was filed over the incident, the owners probably thought its image was taking a beating somewhere. Late last month came an apology from Urban Pind.