Once upon a time when I left India for the first time, people created all this hype about some thing called Mad cow that arises out of beef, then came SARS and then came Avian flu and now the world battles with the H1N1 virus or in common terms (not denying the fact that every knows what I am talking about when I say H1N1) the latest kid on the block - SWINE FLU!!! Well, yeah lets look at the serious part, its a pandemic (now whatever that is). Ok, so here we go Wikipedia says "A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan "all" + δῆμος demos "people") is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic." The most innovative response that our dear Government of India's Health wing has come up with and pleads time and again for implementation is exit-point screening. Now what the hell is this exit point screening and how is it going to help. Now lets see, the United States of America has used India as its biggest dumping ground for ages now and the swine flu is no different. India is 35* in this race, no no not the T20 World Cup, we were first knocked out by England and then humiliated by South Africa in the World Cup. THe 35* I was talking about was the swine flu count in India. Yeah 35 and around 99% of these were people who flew in from USA. Now what is Ghulam Nabi Azad's team actually trying to do here? They are simply saying Hey Obama! Now enough of cracking jokes on Dick Cheney and writing impromptu exemption letters for ten year old school girls, as President of the so-called largest power in the unipolar world and the most crippled nation as a result of recession get to work and stop the pig from running amok. Now introduce this exit point screening. I guess its been around 3-4 times i've mentioned exit point screening. If u dont already know what exit point screening is in other words if u havent inferred its simple screen the passenger at the exit point in this case any airport in the United States of America and if the person is infected quarantine them there, dont let them pollute the already polluted Indian air with H1N1 virus now. Anyway how does this exit point screening help or does it actually help. Well I have a few off the cuff references which might actually help because I certainly believe exit point screening can help. So here we go:

Situation 1 - For those of you who dont know Ananth, he is this mad Dravid fan who can go to any lengths to defend the Wall ... talk about defending defense itself :P ... Well Ananth if he had screened some of his arguments before telling me or Sid about them could have saved a lot of blushes for himself, like even now after two years of school Sid n I take his case over some ridiculous arguments and laugh at him. He could have avoided all this with Ghulam Nabi Azad's exit point screening. Now one ridiculous argument stands out - Virender Sehwag inspite of being in a malnutritioned state with regards to runs was picked for the 2007 World Cup, now this was attributed by Ananth to Dravid's foresight that Sehwag will come to form in the World Cup and the form was a lone century against Bermuda (not the shorts, the country) but sadly for Ananth, Dravid and Sehwag, he couldnt do much as India didnt play much just like in the T20 World Cup.

Situation 2 - Atithi Devo Bhavah is a venerated statement in India which means, Guest should be treated Gods but even if you the guest have the privilege of being treated like Gods you must know certain limits and stay within them. Now I had gone with dad to the house of one of his Pakistani friends to meet them and the T20 World Cup, yes again an impregnable part of this post was on and it was Pakistan v Sri Lanka, the first game of the Super Eights where the World Champions were humbled by the real cricketing nations and Pakistan lost their only game in what was to be their march to the semi-finals and I was so happy and wanted to shout out my joy but then shouting out would have resulted in i) embarrasment for both the hosts and dad and me and ii) stick form dad. Here exit point screening saved me.

Now I have given you two references, one where exit point screening didnt happen and one where it did. We can clearly see how the exit point screening actually helps. Let's listen to these poor folks in the health department and do it for once. The result could be way better instead of sitting and facing the television where Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt use their inept brains to pull India out of this situation wherein India might have overhauled the World Record here and stand a step above the rest from our humble current 35* which each batsman found very difficult to achieve except maybe for a certain Sardar Mr. Harbhajan Singh had he been given more balls to play and a calmer situation to bat in

Cheers

Srini