Betty Lou got a new pair of shoes..

..early morning : Sunday, i made a dash to organic aisles of the near by grocery store, Giant Eagle. Half awake, my mind still sleeping and eyes openly closed or closely opened. I still managed to pick up the products i wanted, mostly because they were placed on familiar aisles, on familiar location and i went around picking milk and egg and OJ, bananas and bread and then a short a detour to a non-organic aisle to pick cereals ( I am yet to find an oraganic cereal which i consider eatable or food, and the primary aspects of food for me being the looks, the way it smells and most importantly how it tastes and hence the detour. For what ever it is worth, It had been my food affairs policy to never compromise on these aspects of food), all while sleep walking, mind still sleeping and eyes openly closed or closely opened. Finishing up the dash in 42 seconds, i was at the self service checkin counter scanning the organics and the non-organic, first there was scan and then there was the scanner beep and then the low revving up sound of the short conveyer belt, upon which the organics and the non-organic took the short ride to the bagging area. I am not sure if i really fell asleep scanning. But what woke me up was the scanning machine's scornful chick voice, which commanded " MOVE YOUR BANANAS TO.. THE BELT". Now awake, unpleasantly, my reaction to the song, in nasal tenor voice, streaming out of the Giant Eagle music system was disdainful at best and i was willing to run out of the store to avoid the "Giant Eagle music torture", it made me wonder if the song was specifically composed to make the slow or sleeping scanners, like yours truly, scan quicker and run out as fast as they could, increasing the scanning efficiency. The song went like "Betty Lou got a new pair of shoes..". My scanning efficiency theory met with a premature death when i found my self by the bagging area packing the organics and the non-organic, while frantically jamming to the same song, which a few seconds earlier i thought was a torture.

Back home, i decided to take a drive down information highway in my favourite vehicle of choice, Google! "Betty Lou got a new pair of shoes.." is a song by hall of famer Neil Young. one thing led to other, ..to the song called ohio, written by Young, about Kent State Massacre , ..to one of the lead up events to it, My Lai Massacre. ..to John paul Filo, a photo journalism student at that time in Kent state, and his pulitzer winning picture. Pretty heavy stuff for a lazy sunday morning!

Was Kent State Massacre amoung the defining/strengthening moment for American democracy, triggering debates, refining ideas and moulding thoughts. Ideas abouts freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of press, ideas about rights, ideas about wrongs, ideas about do's and ideas about don'ts and the very value of human life itself? What did "Tiananmen square shooting" do to chinese system? If it did something, Is there a pattern in emerging economic powers? If yes, India, as they say being 40 years behind US and 15-20 years behind China, going to witness something similar? Without sounding too dilusional i would like to mention Rang De Basanti, a movie on similar lines.


..Betty Lou ah-whoo, ah-whoo, ah-whoo..