Tiflis has gone through numerous vicissitudes of life, myriad smaller or bigger changes and lots of ups and downs in the duration of more than one and a half millennium it has been around. Look at the recent alterations done to the intracity roads, enjoy the intricately built flyovers all over the place, behold its newly tailored skyline, have a glimpse of brand new squares and the modern architectural glasswork, filling the eyesight so abundantly, Intake the long-awaited-for city lights that make the fine print readable at night,

Remember the adage ‘Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are’? I have a habit of quizzically changing proverbs, maxims and dictums. This particular one would probably be smart-mouthed by me as ‘Tell me what kind of a traffic pattern you’ve got in your country and I will tell you what sort of a people you are’. How about that! Let me take the bull by the horns and make my key statement at once: the traffic in Georgia is offensive and violent.

In the weird and mean empire of malicious management and brutal control, known as USSR, some of the things worked fine for Georgia, as strange as it might sound. It would be pathetic of me to feel nostalgic about those wicked times. I don’t! I swear upon anything that could be called honest inside me. I simply want to try to be fair in appreciation of our bygone days. 

This is the title of a political pamphlet written by Lenin in 1901 which translates like ‘What is to be done?’ It was inspired by the novel of the same name by the nineteenth-century Russian revolutionary Nikolai Chernyshevsky. We cannot say that Russia did not have thinkers, can we? I mean, at that time... Incidentally, I also tend to be a thinker; hence the question that recurs to me always when I am thinking of the current situation in Georgia. Lenin argued that Russian Marxists had to form a political party of dedicated revolutionaries to spread their ideas.

I returned to Georgia in 2001 after a very long absence. Before, I had done a couple of stints on the American Television, the impression remaining indelible for the rest of my life. I found myself in Georgia on the television either – straight into the fire from the frying pan. Being on the air in America and having a TV presence in Georgia are two different kinds of sensation, as I came to believe right after my come-back.

In the recent parliamentary elections in Georgia, somebody lost and somebody gained. I am saying this as if this is a big deal. What else could have happened as a result of free democratic elections! Well, this is the simplest and the driest look at it of course.

Frankly, I thought I was the only grassroots level gullible scribbler for our beloved Georgian Journal but I am so elated that I am not alone. Looks like my honorable colleague and our columnist Mark Mullen is sailing in the same boat in my funny company.

If Georgia’s symbolic image of a beacon of democracy and its being an epitome of contemporary social and economic reforms was up until now considered on the level of shrugged shoulders and raised eye-brows, especially among the members of the former Soviet family, it today is being taken very seriously in the selfsame geo-political circle and around the world too, thanks to the way Georgia has managed to handle its 2012 parliamentary elections. 

Let’s for a change talk about human beings instead of politics! Aren’t we all tired of those abusive political shenanigans? Enough folks, enough! A genius died last year on October the 5th, and the year of 2011 was blackened for the planet. Literally! Amazing, but the world is still shedding tears for Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs – an American entrepreneur who is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc.