Travelogue of A Nomadic Mind

2009, The year that was

2010-01-01T09:14:00.002+05:30

The last year of this decade passes by and gives way to 2010. I tried to put together a small mélange of stirring events that occurred in 2009.

It was the year that a certain Mr. Barack Obama became President Barack Obama, who then became President Barack Obama N.L (Nobel Laureate); the year that one man dared to hope in change and dared to share his hope with millions of other people; the year that he tore down the shabby veil of political bigotry and apartheid that allowed a nation to send men to the moon, but restricted it from raising a man of colored origin to its highest seat. It was the year of change. Change brought about by vision and hard work; change that made Obama a household name and a hero of multitudes internationally.

Speaking of heroes, this past year gave us quite a few to remember. Heroes ranging from former president of the United States Bill Clinton, who single-handedly rescued American journalists from North Korea in an almost James-Bondesque fashion, to the doctors in India, who perform miracles almost every day of their lives. Unsung heroes like your neighborhood fireman and your mother who works 3 shifts so that you can eat better.

This was a year of losses. What greater loss than that of the greatest performer ever – Michael Jackson. People in my generation will remember that he uplifted us every day of our life. He gave us his music and he gave us his moves so that we may forget our sorrows and celebrate our joys. Among the more significant losses to USA, and specifically to the state of Massachusetts, was that of Senator Ted Kennedy, one of the greatest politicians and humanitarians of his time, who left behind a political and social void.

Death hunted in various forms – The Sri Lankan civil war was just one of those forms. Thousands of ethnic Sinhalese and Tamils lost their lives. This war eventually led to the military defeat of the LTTE and the demise of their chief Prabhakaran.

The H1N1 influenza strain, more commonly known as Swine Flu, became a true global pandemic and claimed hundreds of lives worldwide. Hundreds of Indians died because of this disease, and hundreds more are still susceptible to infection.

This was the year of Twitter. Thousands of people around the world chose to express themselves in the stipulated 140 characters or less. The most significant use of the Twitter network was in the organization of the anti-Ahmadinejad protests in Iran. Many celebrities used Twitter to log their lives for their followers. India’s own MoS (External Affairs) Shashi Tharoor got into more than a few spots of bother because of his Twittering ways.

It was the year that terror struck out at Cricket. Sports was hitherto relatively untouched by terrorism, but this time they crossed the line. Gunmen attacked Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, Pakistan and injured several cricketers. Speaking of cricket, it was also the year that the Indian cricket team finished at the top of the Test cricket list.

Horizontally Yours - The saas bahu saga

2008-09-25T21:47:00.008+05:30

The eternal battle between saas and bahu does not have its roots in the teary bunkum that soaps love to wallow in. Its true base lies in something else - a connectere (connection.) We know that when we connect one object with another, there is a fusing of the two, either reversible or irreversible. Human binding is similar, and the strongest connections are those that have a physical base. Needless to say, this is the true reason for the squabbles between saas and bahu - A horizontal connection.

The mother-son relationship starts much before the son exists as a physically independent entity. It starts in the womb of the mother, where the mother and son are connected by the umbilical cord. This is a horizontal connection between the navels of the mother and son. Contrary to our understanding of the cord (mainly because its ugly countenance) , its potential significance in psychology is great. It is the first bond the son makes, and the bond that he learns to survive on. The connection delivers oxygen and nutrients, two things that the fetus desperately needs to survive. There is an exchange of body fluids. This is a unique bond that the mother makes. It is the only time another living being depends solely on her for survival. Everything she eats, drinks, breathes, does, and thinks affects the fetus inside her. She ensures the survival of another life inside her, and the umbilical cord insures it. This builds the foundation for intense bonds that develop between mothers and sons.

Cut to the bond that man and wife share - Some would argue, an equally strong bond, it has its basis in the same horizontal connection. It is the connection that man and woman share during the act of sex - When the phallus forms a connection with the cervix. Let us for once subtract the erotic connotation of sex and see the act for what it is. This, apart from the mother-son bond, is the only true physical bond where two human entities become one. It is a sign of extreme trust - both individuals allow an incursion into their most private zones. There is an all-consuming passion that drives this act. Like with the umbilical cord, there is exchange of body fluids. Survival does not depend on it, in a literal sense. However, I'm given to understand that the passion involved can be so great that it can make you feel on the edge of life itself! The abstracted strength of this bond is the potential in it to create new life. This is an enormous power - one known clearly to both individuals. Another reason for the strength of this bond is the hidden urge to recreate the physical bond felt between mother and son. As adults we do not know what the fetus must have felt. However, I believe that it has something to do with security. It is this that we unknowingly try to recreate during copulation - The overpowering feeling of safety when the man is physically enveloped by his wife.

Thus we have two bonds - One is the natal bond between man and mother, the other is the sexual bond between man and wife. The mother considers this new bond to be a replacement for her original bond; the wife considers the original bond to be a psychological vestige interfering with her bond.

Whichever way you look at it, these are the two most significant and emotional bonds a man is ever going to have. It is essential that he give each its place. It is equally important that both mother and wife look at roles they played before/will play in the future. After all, saas bhi kabhi bahu thi.

There'll be no more pain

2008-05-02T08:36:00.002+05:30

A sprightly dash of yellow and green
Fills the charming meadow
The sun weaves a golden mesh
And life does it endow

The bees fritter from base to base
Working their task at hand
While the birds soar up high above
On a wave from the magical wand

So much laughter so much joy
The children come down to play
Among the flowers and down-like grass
Their tired bodies they lay

But grown-ups don’t like what they see
“Our children will just while away
It is imperative, to shackle them down,
This indulgent meadow must we flay”

Then they come with sickles and hoes
And rip the meadow asunder
The soft grass bleeds till it’s no more
And I stop to wonder

“What is with grown-ups and good things?
How can happiness bring them pain?
Why would they wreck havoc on innocence?
And treat me with disdain?”

I will stop the joy pouring out of the sky
I will stop satisfaction peering from the ground
I will bring in the rank evil thistles
To grow in their gardens and around

To those who punctured me and laughed as I bled,
I always loved you and was in good faith
But you did me wrong…oh so wrong
So now brace up to face my wraith

I can hear screams of my antagonists
But mercy I cannot bestow
I must purge my lap of their abundance
And wipe their sweat off my brow

Then I’ll bring back the smiling flowers
And the bees can work again
The children can play sans inhibition
And there’ll be no more pain

Race of the Races

2008-03-17T18:42:00.002+05:30

Through the hullabaloo made by hordes of antiracism activists, much as we deny, we can discern some facts that open our eyes to a whole new world of racial criticism. All the glib talk about racial equality is good for the tympanic membrane and the psyche because it is what “educated” and “civilized” people like us want to hear. This is what allows us to make statements to the rest of the world and hold an anthropological view of social scenarios. What most of us fail to realize while being lost in the hazy mist of pseudo-social commitments is that thinking of the “white man” as superior to the rest of the “coloured world” may actually be a sensible idea.

For those of you who are going to tear this article from this paragraph on, I have just one thing to say – Wisdom might come with revelation – please read it till the last period mark and then tear it off...or then maybe you won’t.

The white man came, the white man saw, the white man conquered. History is a racist tale of how the lighter skinned people sailed around the world and made it their playground...the Mongols being the only notable exception (but they weren’t exactly dark skinned either!) If they were not superior to the others like us then maybe we would have gone on a world conquest! Okay, at least we would have been able to defend ourselves against their ravages. “We had far more advanced astrology” or “Our science of medicine made theirs look obsolete”, are no arguments against the fact that the white man delivered when he was required to (if I might say so).

For God’s sake, why does it take so long for us to understand that the white men were born to rule and we (shades ranging from mahogany to ebony) were born to slave it out. Freedom, in short, is not our cup of tea. The reason is very simple - Might is right! With might comes power and respect. Even today, most brilliant youngsters from India and her neighbors run to western arms. You may try to justify – “they have more money, more resources…” I ask, “How?” and you say, “after all they looted rich countries like us and th…” My point exactly! We started at the same commencement point and now in the year 2002, we almost resemble human beings, WOW! The baseness is still there…but it will do!

I am of the staunch opinion that we do not deserve to be free. This is because we have not grown up to it. I agree that countries like India and South Africa ~~fought~~ argued hard for their freedom. What did we do when the white man finally condescended and gave us the freedom that we requested for? We just fought amongst ourselves. What have these countries achieved till date except world ridicule for religious and ethnic strifes? India is a nuclear power and a leader of the third world countries…Blah! Blah! Blah...So what? Can she protect her citizens from the ravages of everyday militancy? Can she ensure education for all her children? Can she guarantee food and social security to all who are proud to call themselves her children and if necessary die for her sake? Most importantly, can she give all her children an equal status? Is it a small matter that even to this day, Indians are third class international citizens? Why international? Indians below the poverty line are third class Indian citizens! The tag of ‘developing nation’ looks good on paper but who wants to see the ‘underdeveloped’ invective thrust on our faces every time we face the international community. The only interest common westerners show in us is for the cows that roam the main roads and the Kamasutra – both unheard of in their countries (not a very great achievement, if you ask me).

Some statistically oriented optimists reason out that India’s miniscule progress can be attributed to a very large population and the subsequent illiteracy. “After all how is the poor government going to educate so many people? You must also keep in mind India’s financial status.” I just have one thing to tell them – Take a close look at China.

If the erstwhile record holder for the largest population (thanks to the big family lovers in India) can progress so much, why can’t we? China’s literacy rate is also poor. It also has an agricultural backbone (dependent on rain and other excuses…). How, then, are they managing to strengthen their economy and make the global leaders envious, when we look up to the World Bank for loans? The answer is again the same. It is ingrained in us. “A little begging didn’t kill no one”, said Harry Jones, a beggar of international standing and Afro-Indian parentage. We are very happy living on someone else’s ‘aid’. We gladly eat the oatmeal that the white man’s cattle refuse (small wonder then about the ‘dogs and Indians…’ slur). In other words, industrious is an adjective you cannot use for 95% of us in India.

A simple step taken in the direction of development and self sufficiency is a large one in the direction of humanity. In India the roads that were built during the times of the British are the ones in the best state. The ‘beautiful’ roads built by ‘our own free hands’ now have worse craters than the surface of the moon itself. People had to pay very little bribe then (because there were very few Indian officials near the top). Antisocials were not taken to a legalized government resort and fed on the money of the poor masses. Many people will disagree with me and say, “We may have our flaws, so what - we are free. Freedom means more to us th…”.I rest my case. We are still resting on the laurels of our recently won freedom (read 50 years back) and have not proved ourselves anywhere but in the wrong directions. This is a huge weakness, a sense of nonchalance and irresponsibility towards the community we live in. This weakness makes us lesser human beings – racially inferior.

Slavery is much more than black history. It is in the psyche. If you observe foreign tourists (from the West not from Bangladesh please!) walking down a road in Calcutta or a beach in Mumbai you will find many obliging Indians gawking at them as if they were some celestial bodies. What happened? Are they made of some other element? These questions are answered by more dumb gawks. If a foreigner comes to work in an Indian firm, we think that he is an amalgamation of Einstein and C.F.Andrews. “Oh! Look at this great man…he has vouchsafed to work with us.” This is followed by many synonyms of the word ‘gracious’. Look at the other situation where an Indian goes to work in the ‘white man’s land’. The poor chap is going to receive all kinds of insults and verbal abrasions…and I am not talking about the situation 50 years ago. This is one of those undocumented facts whose revelation is not good for the public image of the country. The mentality of us people change when we see some white skin. The servile nature of us Indians oozes from every pore in our skin.

It is not the 300 odd years of slavery that made us like this… we were created like this – to serve and never to ask why! Some of our more deserving compatriots (born on the wrong side of the world) asked why and we were gifted with something we could not handle- Freedom. “What is wrong with us? “, is probably not such a bad question at this juncture. Is it that we are less intelligent or physically less able…what is it? The only plausible reason amongst the millions of “we are a peace loving people exploited by the west…” statements is that we are second best because we want to remain that way. Who ever told you that every man is equal is certainly a benevolent white or an overconfident, incorrigible, ‘liberated’ coloured man. But in both cases they were lying. Racial equality looks good in social study text books but when it is not a practical trend then why try and believe in it? It will only take us deeper into the chasm of white lies (all puns intended).

Note: This post is not to undermine any race or hurt any sentiments. It is an honest-to-God thought that I had as a teenager. Although it shows a particular race in superior light, it is said in a lighter vein. It, and by corollary, I, are completely against racism and racial bias.

All Out of Love

2008-01-25T18:21:00.000+05:30

It is a lovely winter morning. The fog is quite dense and she looks through her window at the white expanse in love. She loves the icy touch of harsh winter. Did I say harsh? Oh yes, I forget to mention that the winter is harsh in this part of the country. She walks over to the refrigerator and pulls out a frozen quarter pizza and leaves it on the table. After a shower, she gorges on the pizza slice and some cold milk.
Her mind starts to wander at the table. All these years had passed by and she was living alone - Happily.
The wind is blowing into the room and the temperature is dipping furiously.
Where did her thoughts get off…ah! People always thought that she was far from normal. I guess she knew that herself. She was in love…with love. Her love story is a saga in itself. She muses for what seems like an hour. Then the thought of going to work strikes her and she slowly gets her bag.
The bus stop is a short walk from where she lives…her ‘home’.
A cold tune blows into her ears from all around and she absorbs it with love. She can smell love even in the cold air. After a largely uneventful walk, she reaches the bus stop and takes a seat to wait for the bus.
That’s where I come in. I, contrary to my social traditions, usually go out on cold mornings like this. In fact, I love cold mornings as much as she does. I see her from a distance and move towards her in what seems to be a trance. I move fast and close the distance between us. I love the feel of the ground below my feet and the snippy dusty air around me. I am full of love for everything around me.
She sees me when I am about one foot from her. Her expressionless face looks through me in a cold kind of way. I love that look. The look that makes my inspiration run high…the look that makes me make others love me.
She fixes her gaze on me and twitches her eyebrow as if she pities my condition. I laugh to myself, and then, as if she knows my feeling, she too laughs uncontrollably. I look around to see if other early birds are watching the two of us or not. We are alone.
Her laughter has a nice rhythm…like some code. I am entranced by her loving sight and sound. I begin to dance once again…all out of love. She looks at me in a peculiar fashion and grins. There is a strange tension in the air. It is a tension that spells love.
She moves towards me with a strange light in her eyes. I also move in her direction. Soon she touches me with her palm.
She has a soft palm and it smells of her wonderful perfume…I love the sweet smell of perfume.
There is so much love in that touch of hers. I am overflowing with love and long to share it with her. I kiss her on the back of her hand and she embraces me tightly.
The cold feeling comes back again. Its taking my breath away. She is still looking at me with that strange light.
Someday I have to ask my father about that look.
She gently falls to her knees and lies down next to me. The look is still there. I feel that there is something missing from my side and shower her with kisses. She still holds me tight in her arms…all out of love.

Dec 27. Nainital.
The dead body of Dr. Anjali Mohan, a research scholar at IPWA was found near the Horticulture Garden Bus Stop. The cause of her death has been determined to be snake bite. In what seems to be a strange tale, a dead Krait was found entangled in the grip of Dr. Mohan. This enormously poisonous snake had bitten Dr. Mohan eleven times…ten times after she died. The funeral will be conducted at 5:30 P.M. today.

Up Above to Down Under

2008-01-09T06:24:00.000+05:30

The evening of 6th January will be remembered for more than one reason; one particularly distasteful - The transmutation of Cricket from a gentleman's game to a gentleman's game (read: hunting with a pack of wild dogs). Never, in any international match, has the umpiring been so woeful, nay, foolish. Any idiot with half a brain and one eye could see the flaws in the decisions handed out by the two 'honourable' umpires.
Australia established a few enviable records in this match. They played 13 batsmen (one particularly jumpy species batted across three lives) in their first innings and the opposition played with just 8 (two of the best batsmen went back to the pavilion on the whim of the umpires). Finally the Australian team formed a huddle and jumped around like a bunch of cross-dressers who had been given free wonder-bras. Can you see the achievement, pride, joy and ecstasy in such a victory? Wow! So, this is Aussie pride eh? Niiice!
Let’s face it, the Aussies do not have the gonadal gumption to lose. Sure, if you are winning, you need not care about anything else. You can shove aside anyone (including the President of the BCCI, in India). There'd be no media asking you uncomfortable questions, no former players calling for your head, and no bad taste in your mouth. But true champions know that losses are part of the game - bound to happen - and that when they do, they must lose gracefully. Ponting and his boys just proved how brittle their existence is. They exist only because they win. Since their crushing loss to India (underdogs) in the T20 World Cup, they have been thirsty, almost rabid for revenge. They thought they could come to India and bully the Indians in their own backyard. That did not work, and the captain of the Australian team had to accept that India was better than them at the shortest form of the game. The expression on his face, during the awards ceremony, was almost as if he were forced to drink goat piss through a fresh umbilical cord.
The Australians have always been the worst losers in cricket. They think that it is their birthright to win and that everyone else plays to kill time. If they win, it is because they played flawless cricket. If they lose, it is because the pitches were doctored, the opposition captain was late for the toss, and their bus driver’s mother-in-law had a monkey in her apron (sorry, did I just say the ‘M’ word?) They can sledge and abuse the family tree of their oppositions, but if anyone from the opposition mentions any member of the animal kingdom, their pansy derrieres get sensitive. Their aggression is always 'hard and fair' and within boundaries, but if a young Indian boy decides to mirror it, they call for the head honchos to rein in him. If you’ve still not realized what this means, my dear chaps, this is racial behaviour –

The belief that one 'racial group' is inferior to another and the practices of the dominant group to maintain the inferior position of the dominated group; often defined as a combination of power, prejudice and discrimination.

Mr. Ponting, you may think that you and your team can do anything on or off the field, and get away with it on the merit of being the best cricketing team in the world? Listen carefully, because there’s news for you - India is not pushover material and, believe me, better men than you have tried and failed. We will not take your incessant boorish and uncouth behaviour lying down. You want to be aggressive, you silly little schoolgirl, you’ve got it. Two can play this game, and judging by the goings on, that game has already begun.
Australia was the country we were proud to play, beat and get beaten by. Aggression was a good word, a word we borrowed from the Aussie dictionary. We saluted your best teams - There was honour in it. Somewhere along the line your 'aggression' turned to ‘arrogance'. Now, after you have ripped the shitty facade from your face, Mr. Ponting, the world realizes why your country is called ‘Down Under’.

Dial 'M' for Monkey

2008-01-08T09:09:00.000+05:30

Mr. Andrew Symonds,

I belong to a country whose citizens fought and defeated the purveyors of racism. I wear anti-racism proudly on my sleeve and it pains me to hear you allege the same against my countryman. Now, I am not in a position to know exactly what transpired on the field (given that even the umpires don’t know exactly what was said there). However, I refuse to believe that Harbhajan Singh ever said anything racist against you.
Do you know the meaning of the word racism? Prejudice or discrimination based on an individual’s race – that is racism! I must tell you that ‘monkey’ is not even remotely racist (except when you are from a primate race). If, and that is a very big if (because, frankly, I don’t believe a word you say), Harbhajan called you a monkey, I don’t understand why you are so upset. It definitely is not as bad as the words you use to describe our players; not as bad as being called a ‘ba***rd’ or a 'm*********er'. Or do you think otherwise? Maybe, you don’t mind being called the latter (I cannot imagine why). Maybe you are upset about being called a monkey because you don't wish to insult the monkeys. All my life different people have called me a monkey without getting told on by me, and I don’t even look half alike - You should have no reason to complain. However, if you are so determined to be hypersensitive to being called a monkey, Mr. Symonds, tell me this:

Did your mother go to the forest or did the chimpanzee come home?

General-ly Speaking

2008-01-02T09:21:00.000+05:30

The dynamics of the Pakistani power struggle are rather transparent, and with Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, it can be safely said that Pakistan’s internal security is on its last leg.
Our main man Mushy does not sit too pretty amongst the ruins. He is steering a country ravaged by internal strife. He is bloody incompetent as a ruler but a good part of it can be attributed to the many demons he has to face:

The Fundamentalists: Taliban, LeT and its million minions - The reprise of this section in Pakistani society has a lot to do with America’s presence in the Middle East. Resentment against the West and its allies is on an all-time high among Pakistanis. This, coupled with drifters from Afghanistan, has made up the core of the terror bomb. Mushy, in his great wisdom, consolidated the relation that Pakistan had with America and became her strategic ally in the fight against terror. This provided the fuse to the terror bomb. It’s been ticking ever since.
December 27th 2007 saw its first gigantic explosion – Benazir’s assassination.
The United States of America – Bush and Mush always looked like a couple bound in unholy matrimony. They were living dangerously, and each had a private agenda. Yes, definitely in love! However, like every give and take relationship, this one too had its moments. Bush pushed Mushy for the entirety of their relationship, and Mushy’s constant diplomatic slavery created a huge hate club for him in his own backyard. Finally, when Mushy decided to impose the emergency, Bush came hard at him, cut down his allowance and made his remove his uniform.
The Judiciary – Chief Justice Chowdhury and his affairs hung like the sword of Damocles over Mushy’s head. The manner in which the Justice was kept under house arrest and dismissed from service was, at best, appalling. However, the matter could not be swept under the carpet and Pakistan’s legal community cried foul in the foulest language. The Justice was reinstated and Mushy was forced to eat his own shoe! Matters reached such an extent that he stated, “That the Chief Justice was reinstated is an example of my impartial rule.” Can things get more ludicrous?
The Politicians – Benazir and Sharif were watching their turf closely while Mushy was being sieged by the judiciary. They took this opportunity to emphasize their vision of Pakistan and hit out at him and his ‘dictatorship’. Mushy sensed that the momentum was with them. Admitted that they were corrupt and vengeful; but for the people, they ‘looked’ like the lesser evil. The extent of his loathing of Sharif can be seen from the airport incident when Sharif attempted to arrive in Pakistan amidst a lot of fanfare.
The Military – Strange is the relationship that a military ruler shares with the army. Every army is corrupt, and an army in power, more so. The Pakistan army has probably never had it so good - Their chief in power, millions of greenbacks to fund their perverted schemes, unlimited power in the border areas and their very own nuclear playground. Now, it is obvious that any kid who knows how to make his parents buy him what he wants will not stop at the little red car. One day, he’ll get his Ferrari. The Pakistan army is similar. They have tasted power for long and will not want to give it up at any cost – Not to the fundamentalists or to the politicians. They have expectations from Mushy and expect that he live up to it. Mushy knows from his history lessons that the Pakistan army does not mind cannibalizing, and that it could be his head if he made a false move.
The ISI – Probably the most vilified intelligence agency in the world (except the CIA!), it is a cousin to both the army and the fundamentalists. These chaps have their own agenda and are committed to derail any kind of peace between Pakistan and India. Therefore, it is in their best interests that Pakistan continues in a state of anarchy. Mushy knows that these guys are perfectly capable of trussing him up like a turkey if he does not take a hard-line stance against India. The ISI went ahead and rigged elections to see Mushy sit pretty in the highest seat of power so that they can do what they want. They’ll damn well want their pound of flesh in time.

Brother- Sin- Arms

2007-08-26T00:05:00.000+05:30

Our eyes met and the rhetoric hurt the most
All the memories of an innocence lost
Like the doe under the huntsman's gaze.
Pain is a passionate remainder of life.

He took all I had, grace, peace, honour,
Gave me misery and made me a mourner.
The good son has all he wants,
And repulsion is all I reap.

I crept up and hit him to astound
Blood coloured the sky and bathed the ground.
A body quivering with self-pity and pride,
I have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

An offering showed me whom the love was for,
Whom the grace of heaven showered down upon,
Who laughed when all around me turned to smoke,
Who sneered when my heart, in all its heaviness, broke.

Projections of the days before ensnared my senses,
My hand started trembling; my will was defenceless;
A surge of courage or was it fear astride;
A look of disgust and my conscience denied.

I crept up again and hit him to astound,
Blood coloured the sky and bathed the ground.
A body quivering with trepidation and pride,
I have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

I need to run so that no one can find,
I need a place to escape from my mind.
I see them coming to haunt me fast,
With a curse on their lips and hatred in their hearts.

I killed my brother for what you may never know.
The route my blood will take and flow.
I'm condemned for the rest of my life.
It's my destiny, my choice, my strife....

I crept up and hit him to astound,
Blood coloured the sky and bathed the ground.
A body shaking with humiliation and pride,
I have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

1, 2, 3 Go!

2007-08-22T18:45:00.000+05:30

Ronenda just got into trouble for saying “tactless” and “uncouth” things about our ‘honourable’ members of parliament. Evidently, they did not like being called ‘headless chickens’ and they were within their right to protest. That, however, does not give them the right to stall any action taken in public interest just because they feel like it. No member of parliament has successfully explained why he/she is against the 123 agreement. Now why is that? Maybe if they took time off to actually read the agreement, they would attempt to see reason. Let’s put aside political malintent and assume that our netas do really care about the fate of the nation. Are their fears of infringement on India’s sovereignty well placed?

Let’s be Civil
The 123 agreement is a civilian deal. The Government of India saw fit, in its own wisdom, to ask the United States for help in the direction of nuclear fuel for civilian needs. India has a power requirement that far outweighs its current production capacity through conventional means. Nuclear power, for all of us who studied physics in school, is far more potent and will enable most of India’s basic power needs to be met. In case you did not know this, urban India is not the only India that matters. Most of rural India has, at best, erratic power supply that borders on meagre. This deal will empower (the pun is intended) the people of India. Streetlights will actually shed light on the roads, water can be pumped according to our needs, farmers will be able to use machinery that is more advanced and the whole nine yards.

Defend Yourselves
Now, since this is a civilian deal, it has no collateral impact on India’s defence programme. India can make a bomb and test it. Discussion on India’s strategic and defence facet is entirely out of the scope of the agreement. There is a clause in the agreement that categorically mentions that the agreement will not be a hurdle to India’s strategic programme. Therefore, India can continue to make a bomb with its own fuel.

There is nothing in this agreement stopping India from conducting tests and deploying the results into warheads. If India does conduct a nuclear test, it will not be any different from the time that she did under Mr. Vajpayee’s leadership. The opposition should remember this.

Right to Return
The United States has reserved its right to take back its nuclear fuel if India goes ahead and tests nuclear weapons. They will, although evaluate the circumstances it was done under. This is the bird over whose flight our political honchos are disturbed. They see a national conspiracy in this. Put very simply, the United States gives us fuel for lighting homes. We use their fuel for civilian purposes and continue making warheads with ours. The United States feels threatened and takes back its fuel. And, this is unacceptable, how? Why is India’s sovereignty threatened by this?

The deal states very clearly that return of the fuel is not an automatic fallout of any strategic nuclear test. Even if the United States exercises the right to return, it will be after much deliberation and discussion. India can conduct tests in special regional environments - say, if one of her neighbours has done the same. This is purely to restore the arms balance in the region. Right to return is one of the many options for the United States administration. For all you know, it might freeze all its ties with India. How would India like that then? This, as we leant after Pokhran, can happen even without the 123 agreement. Do we honestly think that The United States, which is always intimidated by nuclear strike capabilities (refer Iran, Iraq, N Korea, Syria, Lybia…) will sit comfortably when we conduct nuclear tests, agreement or not? My point is that the possible bilateral fallout with the United States over nuclear weapon testing can happen irrespective of the civilian agreement. Why not make use of the civilian agreement while we can?

Sovereignty
Freedom from external control - This is what we attained in 1956. Can 123 take this away from us? No chance! India has and will continue to have complete control over all its decisions, both internal and external. In fact, negotiating the terms of the agreement was a proof of that. The United States cannot interfere in any of our affairs as long as it does not affect them. They can request us not to test our weapons – they cannot ensure it. That is sovereignty. However, our sovereignty ends where theirs begins. If India is sovereign, so is the United States. If they feel threatened by us, they are in their right to exercise discretion over bilateral ties. How are we going to deny them that? We need to learn to respect each other’s sovereignty.

I am the first person to say that nuclear power can be used as a deterrent and the last person to advocate its use. It is a diabolical instrument of war – One that everyone can do without. However, its civilian uses are replete with possibilities. We should make use of this to improve the state of our internal development.

The 123 agreement does not restrain us from conducting nuclear tests. However, whether we choose an ostentatious show of military strength over unbridled civilian development is a question our ‘honourable’ members of parliament must answer. After all, the only place headless chickens go is in the soup!

A Father Remembered, A Son Forgotten

2007-08-08T22:01:00.000+05:30

A dear friend and I had an argument a few days ago. The issue was Anil Kapoor’s new film – Gandhi, My Father. While I had the ‘I-told-you-so’ look, he stood defiantly in support of the Mahatma.Now, Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, was an exceptional national leader. I’d be a damn fool to contest that. My grouse with him was always to do with his ideology. I was, and am still, of the opinion that freedom cannot be attained by allowing the oppressors to bitch-slap you until they need you no more. However, that would be a topic for a later discussion. What I am going to write about today is about one of Gandhi’s greatest flaws – his personal life.

If my father ever treated me as Gandhi treated his son Harilal, I would think I was not his son at all. That was the extent of hopelessness that Gandhi injected into Harilal. He denied him education (that he himself got) and forced him to withstand the worst of his nomadic lifestyle. As a result, the young man became a wasted entity. Some people might say that it was the price one man’s family paid for a country’s freedom. I will agree. Gandhi’s excuse to leave his son as a country bumpkin was that he did not want Harilal to be portrayed as getting unfair advantage. He did not want Harilal to get a foreign education if other Indian children could not have it (never mind the fact that Gandhi himself completed his bar in Britain). Harilal paid the price for the maintenance of his father’s public image. Now, this was not Gandhi’s greatest failing.

His utter failure as a father came to the fore when he could not/would not explain his seemingly irrational decisions to his growing son. Growing up is hard. I grew up in a home of academics and disciplinarians. That was tough. Poor Harilal grew up in the house of MK Gandhi! I cannot even imagine the extent of his loneliness and difficulty in his formative years. Gandhi being the man he was, toured the country and fought battles with the British. I will not say that he should have been at home with his children. However, he should not have totally discarded his filial responsibility.

The animosity between Harilal and his father grew to such an extent that he converted to Islam to spite his father. What does that say about Gandhi? It is easy to preach “Ishwar Allah tero naam…” but what happens when your own son wants a shift in faith? Harilal converted to Islam because he knew that it would piss his father off like very little else. Gandhi vindicated this by disowning him in public. Which ‘great’ person will disown his son for a change in faith? Was this the true mindset of the Mahatma? Although Harilal’s was an immature act, born more out of hatred for his father than love for Islam, it, nevertheless, exposed Gandhi’s double speak.

While celebrating this, the sixtieth year of our independence, we may remember many martyrs. These men willingly chose to embrace their doom in the cause of attaining freedom. One martyr who will not be mentioned anywhere is Harilal Gandhi – The son who was forcefully sacrificed for the country.

The Cheap Lean Meeting Thing - Reprise

2007-06-18T17:47:00.000+05:30

In a silent room
Sit seven philosophers
With muted thoughts
Eyes gazing at bloated vessels

Hairs standing on ends, but why?
Imaginations fleeting like a doe for her life -
Participatory yet non-indulgent
It helps they are mentally far, not nigh

Suddenly the air crackles with the sound
Of a dilapidated telecom set
Then it suddenly goes silent again
Excitement suddenly abound

Talks of mouldy moulds fill their ears
Something about dissecting success stories
And making them a replicable commodity
Confirms their worst fears

The day goes by
Like truant shadows on a much scarred wall
None the wiser they are
‘cause into a fantasy world their minds fly

Hopes rise as the sun dies
Maybe the voice will stop marauding now
Maybe we’ll be free of this insane affliction
But insanity keeps at it – the reprise

Once upon a time...

2007-05-15T20:15:00.000+05:30

Once upon a time there was a book called, well, Book. I owned Book and, during my childhood, shared everything with him – from interesting lessons at my school to my insipid lunch packets. We spent many lazy afternoons lying on the green carpet-like grass talking to each other about the world at large. I generally did most of the talking.

During my teenage nobody cared to listen to me, let alone understand me. In all this tumult, Book was my only solace. I regularly opened my heart out to Book but he never complained of boredom. Sometimes when I was angry, I would say hurtful things to Book and he would still never leave me.

Then I left Book.

Teenage angst gave way to youthful callousness. I was not interested anymore in Book or in any of his ilk. I derived pleasure from other, seemingly harmless means. For ten long years I did not even think of Book. It was not until I was diagnosed with a terminal illness, begotten of my means of pleasure that I thought of Book again.

I went home and searched through a sizeable pile of clothes and toys that I had outgrown and there Book was as cheerful as ever. The spiders had used his spine for support and the dust gave him an archaic look. Despite that he smiled back at me the way he used to during my childhood days. This time Book spoke to me and I listened. Wisdom sealed within him poured out and I realized the worth of what I had ignored. The memories took me away to a beautiful time and I wept for joy.
They said that the end was painful. They also said that Book lay on my bosom long after my shadow had left me.

And It Rained

2006-08-02T17:35:00.000+05:30

I look out of the window of my jerky bus and see torrential rain. I also see beautiful trees… green and beautiful. The fruits are bountiful. I also smell a stench…powerful and guttural. A little looking around and I zero in on garbage dumped in a quiet corner - Invisible to the careless eye but prominently conspicuous to the sensitive nose. The scenario was beautiful and appalling at the same time.
Is emergent India being epitomized through this visage of nature? It’s a pertinent question and one with many justifications. Yes it rained…is still raining elephants and horses if you please. The bull was, at one point in time, running through the bear’s china shop and the people were cheering it on. Flyovers and highways are still coming up left, right and centre. Multiples and malls are becoming the order of the day. People are earning more; people are spending more and people are saving more. The bankers are not complaining nor are the customers. The rich are getting richer…yeah damn right they are. But what of the poor? They are definitely nose-diving into the throes of poverty.
What of the ordinary farmer in Maharashtra? A certain Mr. Minister would ask, “Yes, what of him?” -Well, its not been raining in his backyard for sure. The poor blokes realized that they had been shortchanged by their weather god and the self-assumed god (politician). With no help from any quarter and a speedy descent into the quagmire called debt, they decided to cut through the very fabric of their lives. Can you feel the stench? Is it the rotting corpse of a very dead farmer?
The air is suddenly dense with a suffocating stench. The scents are many and different. But its characteristic foulness is common. The rain suddenly does not seem so enchanting anymore; the greenery starts moving to the background and the offal comes into full view. Can it be that when its rains it also pains? Can it be that we have become so monomaniacal and unidirectional in our pursuit of economic excellence that we have forgotten to use all our senses in conjunction with each other? Are we eschewing our responsibilities towards each other by looking through blinkers?
I look outside again – And it rains again.

A Growl A Day Keeps The Delays Away

2006-05-19T21:06:00.000+05:30

Have you ever felt that most of the people around you respond to force only? Have you felt that probably a frown, on more occasions than one, came handier than a smile? Well, if you do, you are either me or it more like a pandemic happening around here.

I’ve noticed, from under a raised eyebrow, if you please, that I am most effective when my normally polite voice turn into a low growl. No, I can see what you are doing…please don’t try that at home. The moment I am nice to someone, he/she (mostly she) tries to take advantage of me. Imagine, being nice to ten people a day! It’s like a circus. The moment they (the whole wide conniving world, I say) realize that you are a softie at heart, they queue up to use your ‘soft’ heart as a dart board. It’s an exciting game they say, after all maximum points are scored by the closest hit to the centre.

Sir Rajesh – The Backbreaker
Let me take, for example, Mr. Rajesh. Mr. Rajesh, or ‘Sir Rajesh of the Nighthood’, as I like to call him, does visualization for me and a few others. While he is crude and disrespectful with the others, he is extremely prompt with my work. Why? No I don’t bribe him…I just give him a ‘hot’ time. Every breach of deadline is rewarded with a “long pause…Why?...long pause” in a low growling voice. That is succeeded by the eye-brow samba punctuated with rhythmic grunts. By the time he is at the climax of his explanation, I am already sounding like a boar that has smelt sweet potatoes! He considers himself lucky if he escapes with an extension of deadline. If you are going to continue with that accusing gaze, I’ll indulge you with the other side of this story. The story of Jake, the smiley. That’s right – me. Mr. Rajesh was the same chap I used to go to, with a smiling face and a low, encouraging voice, so that my work got done in the given time frame. He gave a shit for all that. All of six months I tried to be this whole other person – gentle, friendly, smiling, protective…blah, blah, blah. Then I decided to play turncoat. Three days. Three days is all it took to get him back on track. For the first two days he could not believe that I was the same person. You know the funny thing? He does not even report to me!

Ms. Chattopadhyay – The Godmother
Cut to Ms. Chattopadhyay. Now she is something. You would consider yourself lucky if you completed a whole day’s work without seeing her drag her lipids around the block. Now, her attitude is a real bummer. She thinks that god created her in all her enormity so that she could get the lion’s share from everyone else’s success. It just does not matter what she does, she’s got to get benefits that others deserve more than her…all in the name of a few months of chronological precedence. Now, every time I spoke to her nicely she made every attempt to make my life a living hell. I am from a family where women are treated with a lot of respect. Big mistake. I just could not bring myself to tell her off. As a result, she kept at filling my chief’s ears with fiction about me. This went on till finally my patience gave way. Big mistake [Never piss off/on Uncle Jake – Old jungle saying]. I just shifted gears into overdrive. I am ready to wager that even when she mulled on the Cold War and its fallout in Std. VII she never expected to be in the middle of one! I created a hostile environment without being rude and whenever the two of us were part of the same discussion, the air conditioner would also have to be turned off. Subsequently, I metamorphosized this cold hostility into erratic bursts of sarcasm in public. All of one week and she broke. Now we share a very fierce, healthy and respectful relationship. I am fierce while she is healthy and respectful LOL!

Ms. Diana – Reverse Sweep
Now, this is a class act. Seriously a class act. This is probably one case where the lesson was learnt in reverse. I used to really keep Ms. Diana on her toes…yes, the growls too. She was good, fast and efficient. I always praised her in front of the bosses and recommended her for bigger activities in the corporate circus. But, true to my nature, I never let her know that I was her promoter in ‘The cabin’. Over time, I eased out a little on her and resorted to smiling and joking and other disdainfully ridiculous activities just to make myself more affable. Within mere days her efficiency came down, excuses were born, deadlines were being stretched and blunders were being committed. I realized that my ‘charming smile’ LOL was my undoing. Well, what can I say, I wielded the stick and all was well again.

You might be thinking that I am a crazy demonic taskmaster who has screwed up ideas about work and pathetic people skills. I am not in a position to comment about that. However, one thing I can say, with enough conviction is that if you prefer to be the country-club type, people are, more often than not, going to sell you tickets to your own circus.

Fast, Faster, Fastest?

2006-05-05T18:24:00.000+05:30

Mr. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi realized a pugnacious truth long ago - In a nation of a billion hungry people, fasting was the easiest and most natural action to comprehend and identify with. There were no complications that you would normally associate with michils (ask the Bengali dada lok), picketing or any other form of protests; also, everyone understood the implications of a fast. Then again, for a well fed British empire, fasting was an incomprehensible idea. History bears witness to the tremendous success that he enjoyed in selling the idea to the populace. It was an act of defiance - non-violent but self inflicting. The person fasting was granted heroic status for the rare virtue of self sacrifice while the incumbent authority had the hero’s blood on its hands. It was the perfect recipe for an emotional national unification.

Well, dieting days are here again. I speak not of the womenfolk fasting (on milk and fruits) during Navratra but of the singularly abhorred breed - politicians.

The battle over the Narmada dam, a symbol of 'progress' and beacon of hope for the waterless, has been raging for the past twenty years. However, it always went down as a distant fifth or sixth among hot issues, getting piped by acts of communal indiscretion, cricketing debacles, ailing national leaders, malfunctioning wardrobes, publicly smooching film stars and other ‘important’ issues. Finally a fast unto death forced the whole nation to sit up and take notice. Even those who thought that Narmada was just the pretty girl next-door, let alone the fact that it also flowed through 2 other states, voiced their 'opinions' on national television. The Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Narendra Modi, in retaliation, also fasted for 51 hours. While that be as it may, this opens up some ‘fast’ questions. Why are people fasting away competitively? What is the significance of a fast-unto-death in the post independence days? After all, isn’t that why we achieved independence, so that people with a cause to defend would not have to fast to be heard? If after half a century of self-rule, the people still have to fast unto death to get justice, it is not anything short of insulting the memory of our independence and the way we achieved it.

My personal view on the NBA and its strategy
The question is not whether the dam should be built or not. That is entirely rhetorical. The dam is essential to the progress of people from 3 states – lets first accept that as a truth. However, progress that is writ with the blood of the very people it is meant to alleviate is regressive. It defeats the purpose of sophistication and civilization. The answer to this is not to stop progress but to provide for the displaced people. It seems unfortunate that even after having heavy weight intellectuals like Medha and Arundhati on their side, the displaced people could not manage to put their finger on the fulcrum point of the issue. The bottom line is this: Stopping the construction of the dam is improbable. If the displaced do not get their demands in order, they could well be steamrolled and have no one to blame for it but themselves.

On a lighter note, more politicians should take up fasting as a means of protest instead of ‘rathing’ around in Toyotas or screaming nasty slogans in the pouring rain. The positive effect would manifest in different ways. Some people would get more food for consumption, some leaders might reduce their cholesterol problems and, if we are lucky, we might just get rid of a few extremely rotten netas!

Rang de Public Protests

2006-04-15T22:35:00.000+05:30

I have, in the past too, been impressed by the all-consuming social influence of some of our cine superstars. Although each of them has left their characteristic mark on the social behaviour and outlook of the people of India, none has been as significant as that of actor Amir Khan. Amir Khan has almost always picked roles that define the way lives should be lead; idealistic and difficult lives. Through the role of the tough cop in Sarfarosh to that of sepoy Mangal Pandey, he has always conveyed strong messages to the people.

All ‘standard’ movies showed corruption, defilement, rape and a billion other vices. Then the hero came and single handedly took out the motley bad crowd. Amir Khan’s Rang de Basanti changed all that. True, it had its own share of controversies – prime being the use of violence to weed out social evil – but it impacted the youth like never before. For the first time a matinee idol was able to convince the nation that when evil threatens to take over your country, your hands should not be in your pocket. The candle light march held for the fallen pilot in the movie then became the avant-garde of the neo-enlightened public protests.

“Sarfaroshi ki tamana ab hamare dil main hai
Dekhna hai zor kitna bazu-e-qatil main hai
Karta nahi kyon dusara kuch bat-chit
Dekhata hun main jise vo chup teri mahfil main hai
Ai shahid-e-mulk-o-millat main tere upar nisar
Ab teri himat ka charcha gair ki mahfil main hai
Vaqt ane de bata denge tujhe ai asman
Ham abhi se kya batayen kya hamare dil main hai
Khinch kar lai hain sab ko qatl hone ki ummid
Ashiqon ka aj jamghat kucha-e-qatil main hai
Sarfaroshi ki tamana ab hamare dil main hai
Dekhna hai zor kitna bazu-e-qatil main hai”

Jessica Lall, Meher Bhargava, Priyadarshini Matoo, Meerut fire…the modus operandi of lodging protests remains the same. As soon as the facts are tabled before the people, they decide and their verdict is then out on the streets. In fact the intensity of such popular public protests is such that for the first time since India got independence, the incumbent authorities are being forced to sit up and take good notice. The highly inflammable but mute public has finally found its voice. The authorities will do well to understand that protesting by way of expressing public solidarity with the victimized is not sporadic, platonic or toothless. It has now become the oppressed common man’s way of saying “My country, my people – I care!”

My Reservations

2006-04-11T17:20:00.000+05:30

Fifty nine years ago a few good men decided that the great caste divide deserved to be erased. While at it, they thought that the great communal divide also should go. All held in good faith, it should have yielded fabulous results. The problem is just that today, so many years later, the wise men seem to have lost the plot.
Fifty nine years is not a small amount of time by any means. Why is it that after all these years reservations for various castes and communities (minorities) are still holding this country’s future hostage? Which civilized country can afford to say that their best brains are in some other country because they could not give them enough attention or encouragement? Why should it be that the mediocre go to the best schools at the expense of the rest? Fifty years should be more than enough for a surgical removal of the “downtrodden caste” bug. Any more than that and you are bound to believe that some people just don’t want to come out the crap-hole they are in. An objective view of the whole situation convinces us that no backward community was actually encouraged to do well for themselves. The people from minority classes/creeds who did well for themselves were self motivated people. What reservation did Dr. B.R. Ambedkar get? The entire focus in the past fifty nine years had been to completely cripple minority communities (caste/creed …actually I am ashamed of using the caste word so many times) in a fashion that they would never be independent of the politicians - Hence the security of the vote bank.
The worst insult you can heap on a people is labeling them “Backward” as part of OBC. It is the biggest failure of the quota/reservation scheme that 59 years post independence the concept of backward classes still exists. The very existence of a political party based on class lines belies any progress in the direction of an uplifted tomorrow. What has any government done to ensure that “backward” classes get better basic schooling? Why is it, then, suddenly their business to ensure that people from a certain community went to the best colleges in the country? What is this if not political melodrama?
And what the hell do they mean by the word “General”? Who is general? Generally speaking would that be a Malayalee Christian or a Gujrati Brahmin? Would that be a Bengali Muslim or a Ladhaki Buddhist? Is it our fault that some of our forefathers broke the chains of the caste system and made education the foundation stone of our lives? Do we have to suffer because our forefathers foresaw progress fifty years ago? For most of these questions our esteemed leaders won’t have answers or they will supply us with some punitive underdeveloped argument. Either way, in the wake of passionate arguments for and against reservations I hope our national leaders see sense and build the nation with the best available human resources and not shallow dreams and empty promises.

And They Call Us Names!

2006-03-27T23:12:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I met Dr. Moolamkuzhi Lambodaran Shunmugam Nair. Aah, I can see the smirks…Some chaps must already be holding on to their split sides. I admit, it does sound funny to someone who does not know what it means. Blunders borne off ignorance can be forgiven. That, however, cannot be the case with English (often confused with Christian) names. Ask me which is funnier and behold I give you these to sample.

Mankind has always been fascinated by colours. Green leaves, Black night, Brown bark, White milk etc. All great except for say, “How do you want your coffee Mr. Black”…umm…“Damn right I want it Black!” or “Are you feeling jealous Mr. Green?” or “The defendant Mr. White has been charged with racial discrimination.” Dude, his very name is racial!

Somehow, people love to name themselves after their private parts. I mean, imagine being called Dick! How funny is that? “Dick, get back into the house”. “Is our Dick home as yet?”, “My Dick is at the baseball game!” Its humiliating man. If you thought that was bad, imagine the whole world comment, “There goes Bush and his wife Laura!” (Indian brothers…please read it with the tonal effect). I was just going through some research papers written by a certain Prof. Kunt. Seriously, I would pay to sit in his class and listen to his students call him “Excuse me Prof. Kunt, does this oscillation equation hold for a body suspended in vacuum?”

India may have its fair share of Seths, Chowdhurys and Munshis as titles but that is only a handful compared to what the evolved Americans have. Obviously, Mr. Sebastian Smith loves to fashion tools, Messrs Abe Miller and John Baker run a confectionery, Mr. Thomas Taylor stitches and Mr. Edward Walker…um…walks the dogs? No prizes for guessing what Mr. King does! The list is long and the occupations are endless.

What kind of names are Pitt and Cruise? Imagine being the butt of mailing jokes because your Dad was called Letterman or the total agony of a 75 year old senior citizen when the young attendant repeatedly calls him Mr. Young. Then there’s the violent variety also. Mr. Gore would take the first prize in that category.

Prosecution of The Condom

2006-03-27T20:49:00.000+05:30

* Caution...Satirical Adult content ahead. Please read at your own risk!

Okay firstly...what are condoms? Like an educated friend of mine once put it, it’s a helmet you put on to touch third base safely. Fantastic. So it’s like a helmet eh? Which is the safest helmet? The one that has a strap that buckles it up…right? Does your favourite condom have a strap? Further, the best helmet would have about a 5.5 mm polycarbonate retractable visor. This is to protect both eyes. Imagine, your condom does not have a visor and it has to protect the ONE eye!

Next, what is your regular condom made of? The material does matter dudes. In case we are still discussing about latex condoms (rubber), it’s the same material that tyres are made of. JK puts their tyres through the following tests: 75 degrees Centigrade temperature, 2.5 bar of pressure and the worst roads of the country. What test do you think your average condom is put under? Let’s face it; anything that can be blown into a balloon for a birthday party cannot be used to stop an eight pound baby. Can it? Also, the pressure, heat and rugged contours of your condom’s intended destination are far worse than those on Elgin road in Calcutta. By the way, if you are trying khadi condoms, you’d better start thinking of a name for your yet unborn child.

Did someone mention ribbed or dotted or banded? Boy…the makers really lack imagination. Any of you guys have taken biology lessons in school? You guys heard of a certain...ahem... arrest? Self explanatory and VERY, VERY embarrassing. Imagine a pipe with bands or ribs being put into a socket whose width is just as unpredictable as the depth increases. Yup…you get a pretty fair chance of getting arrested…

Flavoured maal eh? Is it like Bertie Bott’s Every Flavoured Beans (Harry Potter)? The flavours…banana flavoured protection (mosquitoes are highly attracted to bananas)…apple flavoured, cherry flavoured…the list goes on. How many of you have passed up a fruit salad? If you are not prepared to pass up your fruit salad, what makes you so confident that your girlfriend will? Imagine the scene- you’ve put the damn implement on crunch… Safe?

Condoms cannot help a certain percentage of people at all. The condom needs to put into its place at first. Many chaps are so overwhelmed that it’s all over even before the packet is opened…I mean…high tide! What in hell can a condom be used for in such a situation except as a balloon for the first child’s birthday party?

The above argument was entirely satirical and is not meant for meaningful consumption. All you guys should use whatever you get…I mean, whatever rubber you get. Play safe…

A condom a day keeps little engineers at bay!

The Wrong Side of 25

2006-01-06T17:14:00.000+05:30

What does it feel like to be on the wrong side of 25? It’s a bloody good question…at least one that I was left pondering on the night of Jan the 4th. I’ll be true to you…it really scared the living daylights out of me. I’m normally not worried about aging per say. I mean…appearance-wise it does not concern me at all. However, I suddenly realized that I was closer to 30 than ever before and still far from what I would define as “successful”. 30 has always looked to be the halfway mark – the kind of age by when people are at the helm of their enterprises. The worst part about being 25 is not that you are not 20 anymore but that your countdown to 30 has just begun. It’s a dicey age…an age where you are expected to have the aggressive energy of a 20 year old and the mature perspective of a 30 year old. In fact, this is the only facet that I found endearing about being 25 – the challenge of being two people in one!

Nature's Conundrum

2006-01-04T16:35:00.000+05:30

Once upon a time very, very long ago, there lived a young naval captain. This captain had the favour of the king and was selected by him and his advisors to embark on an expedition to discover an ambiguous land form. Nothing was known about the land… just that it was an island and that there was a direction to follow. Evidently, the king wanted to establish a settlement on that land as it was rich in iron ore – something that his kingdom could do with. The young captain made the journey braving the various hazards of the rough sea. His being an amateur did not make the job any easier. After months at sea he reached the landform and after a day of exploration found that the land already had inhabitants.

He clearly recognized that the land could not be claimed forcefully as that would be only taking the soil and not the soul. Although he had the King’s men aboard the ship, he refrained from using their protection and went ahead to understand the ways of the land on his own. His boldness won the trust of the chieftain. However, the younger men of the tribe were less than enthusiastic about the captain’s visit. Out of the blue, an enormous spear almost claimed the life of the captain. The king’s men, on seeing this swung into action and, even against the pleas of the explorer, ran in to clash against the aborigines. Legend has it that the blood-red sunset saw 2,000 fallen aborigines before the king’s men finally left the island.

The land mass soon regained from its bloody state and went on to prosper and become a greatly industrious nation.

What happened to the explorer? Some say that he went on to discover the greatest land mass ever. Others argue that he left the King’s service to become a much feared pirate. Yet others say that he renounced the sea and took to a monastery.

Although it did seem so to the naked eye that all was finally well, there was a critical question left unanswered - Who was responsible for the events that took place?

Was it the captain who unwittingly stepped on property that was not meant to be? Was it the regalia that forced him into the mission? Was it the men who meant to protect their captain? Was it the aborigines who wanted to defend what was their own? Was it the island that stood back and watched as disaster struck…unable to indicate either an inclination or an affiliation? Or was it nature…in all its trueness – a two faced conundrum.

Consumer Redressed

2005-12-14T18:46:00.000+05:30

Last Sunday I left my flat with the aim of buying an immersion heater and a 100 Watt bulb because early morning bathing was getting increasingly painful and it was worse with teh light out :) . I walked into the first electrical shop and asked for an immersion rod. Like an empowered citizen of modern India, I checked for the ISI mark and approved of the product. The shopkeeper, a sardarji, promptly wrote out a bill for the same (without me asking for it) while telling me that I would have to get the light bulb from another store.
I put the bill in my pocket and trudged along the lane to another electrical shop. Here I asked for a 100 W light bulb. While the store-help was getting the same, I checked with the storekeeper about the price of an immersion rod. He saw the packed device in my hand and asked me why I needed another one. Before I could answer, he 'commanded' me to show him the bill of the last purchase. I don't know what overcame me...I just gave him the bill. He looked at the bill for a few seconds then took off his glasses while shaking his head.
Storekeeper: Are you literate sir?
Me: Eh?
Storekeeper: Do you know how to read sir?
Me: Eh?
Then he handed me the bill and said, “If you do know how to read, could you please read what is written in the item column?". That was the first time that I took a look at the bill. The item column had an entry – an undecipherable squiggle. I looked up sheepishly and found the storekeeper staring at my face.
Storekeeper: What?
Me: Naught!
Storekeeper: What?
Me: Naught!
Storekeeper: What?
Me: Naught! ...Nothing…Nothing is written on it.
Storekeeper: Do you watch television?
Me: yeah.
Storekeeper: Do you watch anything other than Fashion TV?
Me: Eh?
Storekeeper: If you do, don’t you know that the bill must be a clear document of purchase? Don’t you know that tax indications and clear product information must be mentioned on the bill?
By this time, I was already red (yes, if you look closely, you can make out the colour even on my face!). I hurriedly paid for the bulb and while mumbling something incomprehensible about the terrible weather, quickly moved out of the store.

Last Sunday a class 5 pass storekeeper taught me something valuable. He taught me the value of consumer rights and also of the duties that protect the rights…it is a lesson that I sure won’t forget in a jiffy.

Its just 'cricket' - What can I say?

2005-09-27T21:00:00.000+05:30

I tried very hard to ignore the issue (one of the billion others) currently plaguing Indian cricket. In fact, I would not have been writing this piece had it not been for my elder brother. He sent me his views on the entire issue and that’s when my self-imposed boycott of the subject was called off.

Before I begin, please let me make it very clear that assuming cricket to be a religion (I’m an Indian…aren’t I?), Sourav Ganguly is my patron saint. He actions on and off the field always appeared to be rebellious. He never took the dominance of the white man lightly and never hesitated calling a spade by whatever name he felt like. He induced aggression, the likes of which were never seen before in Indian cricket. He also had an uncanny knack of getting out of sticky situations (Yes, Mr. Dalmiya?). If you noticed, I used the past tense…methinks that the might of the maharaja might have finally run into its match.

Gregory Stephen Chappell would, at this moment, contest every single point I mentioned above. Cricketing history would give him the right to do so. He was one of the finest cricketers that Australia had produced (and she’s had quite a performance at that !). He was an adamant leader and a leader who wanted to win at any cost…any cost! He has a brilliant track record of having played 87 tests and 74 ODIs at averages of 53.86 and 40.18 respectively. What really speaks for him is his success rate as a captain in test cricket– 51%.

The coach alleges that the captain is a systematic saboteur, and I quote famously,

I can assure you sir that all my actions in this matter, and all others since my appointment, have been with the aim of improving the team performance toward developing a team that will represent India with distinctions in Test match and one-day cricket.
As I said to you during our meeting in Colombo, I have serious reservations about the attitude of some players and about Sourav and his ability to take this team to a new high, and none of the things he has done since his reappointment has caused me to change my view. In fact, it has only served to confirm that it is time for him to move on and let someone else build their team toward the 2007 World Cup.
This team has been made to be fearful and distrusting by the rumour mongering and deceit that is Sourav's modus operandi of divide and rule. Certain players have been treated with favour, all of them bowlers, while others have been shunted up and down the order or left out of the team to suit Sourav's whims. John Wright obviously allowed this to go on to the detriment of the team. I am not prepared to sit back and allow this to continue or we will get the same results we have been seeing for some time now. It is time that all players were treated with fairness and equity and that good behaviours and attitudes are rewarded at the selection table rather than punished.
I can assure you of my very best intentions.

In a single stroke the coach has augured that Sourav, John Wright and the bowlers had a nexus. Sourav was the ringmaster, John Wright was the clown, Pathan, Zaheer, Bhajji et al were acrobats and the chaps in the middle order were extras waiting for a casualty to happen.
Reprimanding a player for consistent non-performance is one thing but questioning the integrity of the Indian captain is very certainly another. The earlier pages of his ‘report’ paint a picture of a paranoid Ganguly causing schism in a 'unified team' and Mr. Chappell had better furnish proofs for those charges.

That being said, there is no excuse for Sourav’s inconsistent performance. He has no right to be eating into 9% of a full strength team ONLY because he was the prime architect of an almost successful ‘Team India’. In all probability he is beyond his prime. If that is true, he needs to exit gracefully without causing himself and the rest of the team any discomfort. A player of his legendary status should not be asked to ‘jump the wall’.

About the ‘review committee’, the lesser said the better. The committee, in its existence itself, is a farce. Come to think of it, the former captains sitting on the committee now look like idiots (no disrespect to their playing days). This is a committee that cannot implement anything. They can only ‘suggest’ remedies. Somebody please tell me, are we talking about a tummy ache here? There is no doubt left in my mind that all this deliberation would only lead to 'compromise'. There are further queries:

How can an ad hoc committee do anything of consequence in a situation like this?
Aren’t the selectors supposed to have their say in this?
Who the hell is Mr. Dalmiya to be on the board?

Whatever the outcome of this feud be, Indian cricket stands to lose. The captain’s integrity along with his physical and mental state has been questioned. The coach, in turn, has also been branded a liar by some of the bigwigs of Indian cricket. The board has, for the past year, looked absolutely despondent. With board, coach and captain losing credibility, whom do we believe?

Financial growth - The but(t) of it all

2005-09-19T19:04:00.000+05:30

Is unbridled financial growth any indication of a company’s employee satisfaction? Many of you might think this to be a stupid question. To be honest, I always believed that higher financial growth meant higher employee satisfaction. Recently, though, Microsoft opened my eyes to the financial growth versus employee satisfaction balance.

Microsoft is easily the most profitable player in the tech industry. And it's raking in more moolah than ever, with a net income of $12.3 billion on revenues of $39.8 billion for the past fiscal year. Its twin monopolies, the Windows PC operating system and the Office suite of desktop applications, give it crucial advantages when it plunges into adjacent markets, such as server software for corporations and instant messaging for both businesses and consumers.

All that said and done, are its employees happy and satisfied? Methinks the answer is "maybe not".

In 1998 Microsoft Corp. hired computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee away from hardware maker Silicon Graphics Inc. The move showcased the software giant’s thorough dominance of the computer industry. Lee's expertise was in speech recognition, considered one of the next big leaps in computing. With people like him flocking to Microsoft's labs, it seemed but obvious that the digital world's reigning champion had a secure lock on the future. Things, however, did not turn out that way. In July 2005, Lee bolted from Microsoft for Web search king Google Inc. When asked about his shift into Google, Lee smiled broadly and threw both arms in the air. "I feel great, I can't wait to start work tomorrow morning."

Contrast that with how Lee felt about Microsoft. He painted a distinctly unflattering picture of the company's inner fabric. Lee, who opened Microsoft's research lab in China in 1998 and moved to headquarters in Redmond, Washington, two years later, fretted over what he saw as repeated blunders. He detailed how the more than 20 product-development centers in China tripped over one another, duplicating efforts and even fighting over the same job candidate. Lee called the company "incompetent." He praised Google, noting, "the culture is very supportive, collaborative, innovative, and Internet-like -- and that's bottoms-up innovation rather than top-down direction."

Lee is not the only one giving Microsoft a caustic treatment. Much of the sharpest criticism comes not from the outside world but from within. Scores of current and former employees are criticizing the way the company operates internally. Recently two researchers sent Chairman Bill Gates a memo in which they wrote: "Everyone sees a crisis is imminent" and suggested "Ten Crazy Ideas to Shake Up Microsoft." Many workers, like Lee, are in effect saying: "I quit." More than 100 former Microsoft employees now work for Google, and dozens of others have scattered elsewhere. Employees' complaints are rooted in a number of factors. They resent cuts in compensation and benefits as profits soar. They're disappointed with the stock price, which has barely budged for three years, rendering many of their stock options out of the money. They're frustrated with what they see as swelling bureaucracy, including the many procedures and meetings Chief Executive Steven A. Ballmer has put in place to motivate them. And they're feeling trapped in an organization whose past successes seem to stifle current creativity. "There's a distinct lack of passion," says one engineer, who would talk only on condition of anonymity. "We're missing some spunk."

Ironically, these were the very same characteristics that made Microsoft a popular workplace years ago. The company rode high and its employees rode high with it. Everyone slogged so that the company, and they themselves in turn, could do well. The stock prices soared and growth was the flavour of their work. Creativity was encouraged and passion was a common characteristic of Microsoft employees.

So what happened along the years? Was it poor leadership? Probably not…that is an unlikely theory. The most probable reason for employee dissatisfaction might have stemmed from the sheer size, financial stake and non-maneuverability of the organization. Microsoft, in short, had grown beyond the dreams of a creative thinker that was once William H. Gates III.

I don’t intend to claim that high profit making organizations will absolutely have employee-work dissatisfaction...that would be silly. All I’m saying is that monetary growth is often not the correct gauge to measure an organization’s success. A successful organization will definitely need to make excellent money (heaven help them otherwise!) but it will also need to necessarily ensure the constancy of the passion that ensured its progress. As they say, "The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions. "

Financial data and the case study for this piece were taken from The Business Week

The Lion City

2005-09-08T07:14:00.000+05:30

Mixed moments of anticipation followed closely by gushing speed…SQ 407 took off to deliver us to the Lion City - Singapore.

The Flight
After Thai Air, Singapore Airlines was like paradise. The seats were spacious enough and the entire ambience was conducive to comfort flying. Once we were airborne, the stream of food and drinks started flowing. The food and wine were excellent by any standards. Although they did not serve Dom Perignon, their La Vieille Ferme Rouge was just as good. The in-flight entertainment also was a class apart. Latest movies and music albums filled the system and we were soon absolutely comfortable in our seats. An hour into the flight, air disturbances took over. From then on, till we touched down at Changi, the plane rattled like a, …well, rattle. I did not catch a wink of sleep on the flight primarily because I was loaded with too much entertainment and secondarily because the weather was unruly.

Changi – The Airport
The name ‘Changi’ is derived from the Changi tree that finds pride of place in Singapore. The Changi tree is protected by law and the airport is an outstanding tribute to it. Okay, I admit that I have not been to many international airports but it is difficult for me to imagine an airport better managed and facilitated than Changi. The airport was absolutely spic and span with travellators and escalators in almost all places. The most amazing characteristic of the airport was its deathly silence. In fact, this was exactly the case with all of Singapore. The people were absolutely quiet as if under some oath of silence. The immigration officials in Singapore were lightening fast and very friendly. It took all of 10 minutes for us to leave aircraft and get onto the streets of Singapore. This too after several lingering moments watching the different airport sights.
While returning to New Delhi we spent three hours at the Changi airport and still managed to be just in time for the boarding. Why? We were just taken in by the amount of shopping that was possible at the airport. Enormous duty free shops held center stage and they were offering everything from imported chocolates to imported wine at reduced prices. The airport had centers in the lounges that offered free Internet access and no one was seen hogging the terminals. Hello Indira Gandhi International Airport! Anybody listening?

Singapore City
The entrance to the arrival gate of Changi airport was decorated with stunted palm trees and the drive to the city only demonstrated why Singapore was probably the cleanest city in the world. There are probably more dustbins than there are people in Singapore! Jokes apart, I doff my imaginary hat to all the citizens of Singapore for keeping their country so beautifully clean.
The transport system in Singapore was really admirable. Although the teksis (taxis) were very expensive, buses and the MRT (Mass Rail Transport) were very affordable means of travelling. The frequency of the MRT and the bus service was definitely above par. We practically never had to wait more than a minute or so for transport.
Singapore gave me an impression of a flourishing Asian city albeit with a strong European flavour. Expensive tastes, fast cars, quiet people, business and more business. The people are very dignified and helpful. In fact, there was never a moment during my trip when I felt like an outsider amongst them.

Jurong Bird Park
You need to see this to believe it. If you love birds, don’t pass up this experience for anything. Although the price of the ticket was cutthroat, Jurong Bird Park was ceaselessly amazing every second of the time spent there. Every kind of bird that we ever studied or dreamt about was present there. The true beauty of the park was the proximity with the birds sans cages. The pelicans, swans, flamingos were all beautiful. My favourite experience was feeding the lories. As the picture would probably tell you, I was delirious with joy! The Bird Amphitheater was also great with the macaws, toucans, hornbills and parrots doing their histrionics with extreme dignity.
The birds of prey looked out of sorts in their enclosures. These birds belonged to the free skies and even their large cages looked small compared to the skies. The enclosure of the hornbills was excellent. We ‘met’ many different types of hornbills and 'spoke' with some of them. We also saw the world’s largest species of pigeon. This pigeon would easily weigh about 8-10 pounds each and stretched to at least 2 feet from beak to tail. JBP also boasts of the world’s highest man-made waterfall. This waterfall, at the waterfall aviary stands at 30 meters and is a majestic sight to behold surrounded by the mist of the rainforest.
The ostrich, emu, cassowary, penguins…I could just go on. If I start to completely describe the JBP, it would take me all of 2 hours and loads of writing space. So I’ll just say this much, whatever you do in Singapore, for your own sake, please do go to the JBP.

Night Safari
Those of you who are from India, please don’t waste your precious dough on this. It is simply not worth it. Somehow all the animals looked drugged to me. They were unbelievably stationary for wild animals. The leopard trail, however, was the only notable exception. We walked through an enclosure with king size bats in its. You could touch the bats for all anyone cared. The leopard was only a 6-inch fiberglass wall away from us. That was all that was between the king of the night and us. The tram that took us through the safari showed us more cattle and deer than we had ever dreamt possible. One animal that was a genuine surprise package was the tapir. Well, that’s about it!

Sentosa Island
The meeting schedule was too tight…still we accommodated the Sentosa trip and we would have been silly to miss it. After our entry, we took the free bus to the underwater world. This cost us a fortune compared to the fares it had to offer us. We saw some fantastic sharks, dugongs, sea-dragons etc but nothing worth the money spent in gaining admission. Also, the souvenir shop in its premises was incredibly expensive. In short – no fire, only smoke. After having spent 40 minutes underwater (we had to recompense for the dollars spent there!) we took another bus and headed out for the musical fountains. These fountains were some of the most amazing that I had ever seen. It came packaged with a complete hologram show. The entire musical extravaganza was held under the auspices of the 23-meter tall merlion that stood towering over everything else.
The show went on for all of 15 minutes. Thereafter, we went to the Siloso beach and ate at the Seven Eleven store there. By the time we had completed our rambles on the beach, we were close to 10:30 p.m. A helpful bar owner arranged taxis for us. The taxi that arrived to pick me up was a Mercedes Benz - C class. Admitted, that was a first and special too!

Malls
Singapore has malls that are really worth visiting…unfortunately I am not too much of a shopping person. However, I still managed to go to Suntec City Mall. There was an ongoing electronics exhibition that allowed us to get away with great prices. We even bought a Sony digital camera and saved at least INR 7000 on the bargain. The Suntec City mall had 5 ‘towers’, each for a different commercial purpose. It was wonderfully organized.
I also visited the Raffles City Mall. This was actually more amazing than the Suntec mall. It had a fountain that danced (not to our tunes though) and had almost all the major international fashion and food chains possible in it. The entrance to the mall had tall artificial palm trees that looked like sentries.

Clarke Quay
All I can say is that this could easily be called the Venice of Singapore. A beautiful riverside with eateries and shops on both sides, this is the source of eventful walks and beautiful sights. The riverbank was lined with barges that were excellent places for eating. The opposite side of the road had numerous pubs, ice-cream parlours and small shops selling dandy items. There was also a spot where you could do partake of reverse bungee jumping and get your horrified face taped for S$45. Worthwhile?

Little India
You’ll know when you get there. As soon as I got out of the MRT, the first wall to my right had the words "Fu** Co**" sprayed in large black letters. Absolutely aghast, I turned away only to see walls stained with betel juice. This had better be India…little or not. The first time I went to Little India, it was after the Night Safari and almost 11:00 p.m. The restaurants were shutting down and I just about managed to get some food from an Andhra food joint. The biryani was as sumptuous as that made in a Shiraz or a Karims. After dinner, I had to nearly wait for 10 minutes to get a taxi. The taxi drivers wanted to hurry away from Little India as fast as their wheels could take them (which was about 80 km/hr).
The second time that I went to Little India (Actually the MRT stop before it) was to visit the Mustafa shopping center (Serangoon Road). Be forewarned, if you are from a developing nation, (where a S$ would mean 28 bucks) don’t try to buy clothing from Singapore (Mustafa or not). Only the toiletries are a little cheaper than India. You get a lot of original Gillette, Nike and Adidas products for much cheaper than you can imagine - Bigger the brand, more the margin.

Food
Good food… that is the key to a satisfying trip anywhere – at least that is what I believe…and good food we did have. Lets start with Indonesian. Kintamani, the Indonesian restaurant in Hotel Furama Riverfront was an excellent choice. The food was almost Indian except that it was much sweeter. Even the meat items were far sweeter than admissible to the Indian palate. We had different preparations of fowl, and red meat, each matching up to the other. Finally the dessert arrived – a dish called Tjendol (Bride’s tears). It is a sweet drink with milk & some jelly things in it.
Chinese food was unimaginably different from our usual Chinatown fare. We had steamed rice, beef steak, fish and chicken in soya sauce. Dessert was a sweet drink made of dates, something that looked like seaweed and some other ingredients (I’m sorry I could not catch anything the bearer said about the dishes). Water was ably substituted by green tea. Although it looked very simple, it was delicious and very satisfying.
For our timely dose of Indian masala we went to Muthu’s Curry. My, my…what amazing curries. Apart from home, I have never ever tasted such classic recipes. The ambience was very calming and conducive to good eating. The bearers were very friendly and eagerly showed us what we were going to eat. My eyes sought out and zeroed in on a large flower crab. Ten minutes later I began to deflower the crab that was done rare in an explosive curry. Niju had the famous meen thala (fish head) curry. It was definitely the best food that we had in Singapore.
Seafood was at its best at Shangrila, one of the most posh hotels in Singapore. Here I had some fabulous stuff. The chef in charge of cold seafood helped me in my selection of the choicest items. I had live oysters with Tabasco sauce and lime (mind blowing). This really pepped me up and I went ahead and had octopus tentacles with some weird sauce (I had lost count of new sauces by then). This was also marvelous. Apart from this I had plenty of squid, lobsters and crabs. The crowning dish was a bowl of shark fin soup. Although I partook of the dish, the story behind procurement of the shark fins was very painful and I silently vowed to never consume that dish again. Dessert also had unbelievable variety. I had tepanyaki ice cream and strawberries dipped in molten chocolate. The height of bourgeoisie was the existence of a chocolate fountain. People could simply collect some of this molten chocolate and dip their candies or fruits in it to enjoy a delicious bite.
My tight business schedule disabled me from going out to try ethnic Singaporean dishes but I did try the various satay (Although all the Southeast Asian countries will lay claim to it). Other joints that I visited were KFC, McDonalds and Burger King. Most of these international food chains are available only in select cities in India. The food was simply amazing and it is a pity that most people in India do not get to taste the crispy fried chicken of KFC or the celebrated beef burger of McDonalds or the turkey bacon burger of Burger King.

Tears of a Nation

2005-08-11T20:52:00.000+05:30

"The agony of shattered dreams
or that of a condemned station
augmented by haunting screams
and the renascent tears of a Nation"

It was early evening of November 1st, 1984 and Block 32 of Trilokpuri, a resettlement colony in east Delhi, was gently bearing witness to the end of yet another day. The women were beginning to prepare dinner while their men-folk were returning from work. Suddenly the streets were filled with a fierce uproar. Men, turned blind by hatred, stormed into every house. Women were raped in the presence of their families while their terrified families pleaded for mercy. In one of the many incidents, a woman was gang-raped in front of her 17-year-old son; before leaving, the marauders torched the boy. Scores of families were killed over the three days and nights of non-stop violence: most of them were butchered by putting burning tyres around theirs necks. Trilokpuri, like the rest of the Sikh settlements in and around Delhi was turned to ashes. Street dogs gorged on rotting human entrails; drains overflowed with charred and mutilated corpses; women, wailing and clutching children fled the wild mobs armed with every conceivable weapon. The very last shred of human dignity was torn away and trampled under foot.
21 years later, a packed upper house witnessed a particularly somber scene. The Prime Minister of the nation, ironically a Sikh himself, apologized for the tragedy that took place in 1984. "I have no hesitation in apologizing to the Sikh community. I apologize not only to the Sikh community, but to the whole Indian nation because what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood enshrined in our Constitution," he said. An emotional Dr. Singh said that while one cannot rewrite the past, "…as human beings we have the will power and we have the ability to write better future for all of us".
1984 Delhi to 1993 Bombay to 2002 Gujarat – The situation remains the same. As a country we fail to protect the secular fabric that binds us. Humiliating history also fails to prevent us from committing such heinous crimes against humanity and against the very concept of nationhood. As soon as such communal crimes are committed, various leaders of the society start the blame game to ensure maximum mileage for the next election. No one thinks, even for a second, about the corpses that once had the breath of life but now have only a family to weep for them.
The date or the community is irrelevant. True relevance is only of the fact that the nation must be responsible for its people. That means we must accept responsibility for each other. This can happen only if we learn to accept our diversity as our greatest boon and learn to love and live with each other.

Software Testing, Trials and Tribulations V 1.01

2005-08-03T07:30:00.000+05:30

The entire education wing of our mother-company was implementing software to automate the publishing processes. Our Delhi office was abuzz with activity because our foreign colleagues were going to arrive at (Read: Take over) our office.

They say that the Gods must be crazy…yeah, looking at what I had to undergo in the initial session, I’m sure that that’s pretty much the same for the rest of us!

The schedule-overview session saw a remarkable happening – over 50 well dressed ladies and gentlemen getting stuffed (now don’t get the wrong idea!) into a 12 ft X 30 ft conference room. For the first time the poor room, once the pride of the office, looked like it had met its match. On top of that we had a (our own) high ranking official declare that it was the largest room we had (so not true) – Embarrassment 1 & 2 (the official was the first embarrassment!).

The next session brought out the humiliation factor. There I was sitting in a group of editorial and marketing ‘experts’ with an Aussie ‘sheila’ telling us how to use a mouse! My ‘geek’ pride got kicked in the you-know-where. I felt like I was being dragged through 3rd grade. The level of tutoring might have been painfully stupid but the product was, by all means, useful. It made our current system look like the caveman’s tally. Suddenly sheila’s laptop cable got disconnected and the room suddenly became a hive of activity with every single guy giving her a view on how to put the damn thing back together…truly amazing considering that these would be the last people to normally help you around the office. They were vying for the bonus of getting a front row view of what her skimpy top was trying (in vain) to hide. Aside: You should have just seen the faces of the other women go…this shiela literally pulled the ground from under them! Interestingly, the office boys had a competition about who would serve her the most cups of tea in a day.

Throughout these sessions, apart from getting an overview of the system, I also got a fairly good view of our attitude towards whites and also towards change. We are still shit-scared of both. With the whites the issue is more than skin-deep. I have often mentioned it in my discussions. With change, it’s the who-moved-my-cheese syndrome…if you can call it a syndrome. The whites are considerably staunch in their belief that we Indians are scared of them. We augment that by not speaking up when we are supposed to and also by speaking out when we should have held our peace. Discretion is the better part of valour. Indiscretion leads to disgrace. I was observing the look in the eyes of some of my colleagues. Man! There was a slinky desire to please…the only missing formality, as I see it was raising an arm, standing up, lowering the gaze, and addressing the dude as ‘Sir’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating disrespect. I am the first to give respect…as long as drooling is not part of it.

The general sessions came and went…as and when the top officials felt like having an audience. Finally, lots of cancelled sessions and successful lunches later I was ‘invited’ for a ‘discussion’ with the ‘elite’ group. The group consisted of an expert from our Aussie office (not the showstopper please…although even this lady had her personal fan following), a programmer, my boss and several other people. They discussed, they decided and I clapped…case closed.

Okay jokes apart, the system turned out to be excellent for our work. It had several modules for the successful functioning of a publishing company. Everything was covered from the publishing process itself to finance and inventory. However, there were still modules that they had to activate without which the remaining modules only increased our workload. All in all, I was pretty happy with the implementation (as if anyone cared). My boss worked very hard for it (as the editorial expert) and she deserved kudos for it.

Such work on an international scale deserved dinner and dinner it was. It was probably the single-most boring dinner I had ever been to. It was a steamy evening made worse by itsy-bitsy showers. I was the only guy from the Indian editorial team. As if this were not enough, the Englishmen sat together, the Aussies sat together, the Chinese sat together while the Indians sat scattered. Among the Indians, the bigwigs sat together leaving us small fry to linger around like unwanted kids. Some of our senior and most respected officials were playing the role of the court jesters to entertain a group of foreign women. I was just wondering where all this would lead to. Anyway, I chose a hitherto unoccupied table and was immediately joined by another Indian colleague who was in the same predicament as I – To leave or not to leave.

Soon an Aussie, who was an exception to the rule of groupism, joined us. He did not mind having his dinner with a ‘brownie’. However, ‘elite’ company did not come cheap…I had to ‘actively’ listen to his graphic description of kangaroo meat processing in Sydney. By the time he got to saying, “On Delhi roads I would normally have to drive my car up another’s arse” I was at the end of my patience. I was just hoping that the dinner in itself would be sumptuous. I could not have been more off the mark though. The food was almost entirely made for the effeminate taste buds of the goras. The word ‘spice’ needed to be thoroughly redefined to the cook. I finally settled for some dinner-rolls with Hawaiian Chicken salad and some ice cream. It was positively the worst corporate dinner that I had ever attended.

Finally, the good-byes were said and the visitors returned to their countries after having ‘gifted’ us with an automated system. Although the automated system promised to make our work easier and more standardized, it also signaled change. It demanded that space be made for paradigm shifts in our work policy and this, it seemed to me, was not acceptable to several of us. However, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to resist change the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant changes also begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of changing.

The Power of Saying 'No'

2005-07-27T20:17:00.000+05:30

The world today moves at a truly mind boggling pace. Gone are the days when 8 hours of work earned us a peaceful rest with our families. Our lives, as we know it, are governed by our irrepressible urge to please and please further. It is in this quest that we have given up the freedom of doubting, the willingness to forgive a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting and most of all the choice of saying NO to any authority --literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political.
This apparently mighty word is getting rarer by the day. NO, the word in its true essence is now an embarrassment to most of us. It does not matter how much we are pushed around, we never say NO. The reason for that is very simple – our education and tutorials.
We are taught to say NO to strangers, NO to objects that don’t belong to you, NO to drugs and NO to premarital sex among other things. Excellent…but nobody taught us to say NO to being pushed around, NO to doing work that is not ours. No…when it comes to work, never say NO. Work is Worship…Other’s work is also worshipped. Come to think of it, even we would not like anyone to say NO to sharing our work! There is but a thin line between enthused work and coercive labour. That line, I suspect is often been crossed all around the world.
Picture this for a start – Zach is a dude in the toilet paper industry. Neck deep in scheduled work, Zach goes all out to do a job that was not his own but was expected from him. He, along with 5 teammates had to bail out their unit and their proprietor from public shame and dire consequences. 7 days on the job that was menial to say the least, (large amounts of lousy data entries) they are finally asked to take it upon themselves to provide the finishing touches to the assignment. Behold their agony when they have to work very late into the night to complete it to save their unit’s behind. They do the work, albeit screaming like madmen (nobody else was around to listen to madmen…except toilet paper)…even miss their dinner for the sake of the job and deliver it on time. You know what they get for all this team spirit, effort, passion and pain – That’s a five letter word that I would not say in public.
Yeah you heard me right…nobody cared once the objective was achieved. The time, the effort…everything was forgotten in a second. What remained behind was a backlog of toilet paper suppliers, tired sinews and an implosive anger. They were rubbed the wrong way…with zero degree sandpaper.
Whom would you blame for what happened and the after effects?
After a lot of thought, my take would be that it was the fault of the guys who agreed to doing work that was not theirs. This dude Zach, he just never learned to say NO. I’m not talking about an aggressive NO…nothing like our Bollywood stars vigourously shaking their heads, snapping their fingers and saying, “na thakur na!” I am talking about an assertive NO. Something like, “No, I’m afraid I can’t sit late tonight and complete this task. I need to catch up on some important mails.” Instead Zach’s reply to the coercion was, “Definitely, it will be ready by tomorrow morning.”
Learn from a 2-year-old. Ask him to do things that he ‘thinks’ is not worth his while and you will get a sharp NO. You can do all you want but he would not take the hint. If the kid can do it, why then are there billions of adults who can’t? The reason is very simple – We, the educated adults have learnt the pinch of a long word ‘consequence’. It teaches us that we have the duty to be right and also snatches away the freedom of being wrong. This realization puts us in chains and liquidates everything our forefathers shed their blood for.
Apparently Zach is the product of the system and a hopeless case…nothing different can be expected from him. However, you, who are reading this can change and right the wrongs. You can stand up and use the 2 lettered word that was once the power of an enslaved nation. Remember that no one can make you accept anything without your consent. As the great Galileo once said, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”

Of Franchise & Follies - The Salad Issue

2005-06-21T20:27:00.000+05:30

I was led into a very thought-provoking issue by one of the few men who inspire me and for whom I have genuine respect - My elder brother Shayne John. He told me, "If you don't think much of a person's integrity or ability, criticize that - propaganda that attacks a person is absolutely scurrilous and shows how low public debate in India has fallen." He was referring to a forward that supposedly discussed the private life of some very famous people.
I do not normally investigate the private lives of people. However, just for the sake of a good debate, I wrote about why normal rules of decency don’t apply in India…Imagine a public debate between 2 Prime Ministerial candidates in India.

[Jacob]
Blinded by the glare of the propriety of Democracy we fail to notice that 'exercise of franchise' devoid of a specific social-structure background means nothing...at least in India. In a country like India, an educated person would be part of a minority. A 'reasonable' and educated person would be part of an exceedingly small minority. Frankly, in our scheme of things, criticism of integrity would not be worth much...it sounds good...better on television as a discussion between a couple of JNU professors...In truth, nobody buys it...and even if they do, it does not change ground realities.
Like the East India Company of the late 1700s (after 1757) and the great West Indian sides of the 1980s, fear is the key for the continuing breed of power vendors - they distribute it like cheap lager, through the brooding gunslinging certainty that their 'bhais' and 'sadhus' bring to every tight display of 'franchise'. Even today, as I am writing this, the only terror in our minds is that of an encounter with these menaces. More than 50 years after our 'assumption' of 'self-rule', we have not been able to successfully exorcise the ghost of feudal submission, albeit in the backdrop of the 21st century. 60% of the country may have cell phones but it has not changed the basic equations that govern their political psyche. Swaraj started out in 1947. It failed much before that. 'Swaraj' was demonstrated by a headstrong Mr. M.K. Gandhi as 'my rule'. His shameful treatment of popular politicians and open bias for Nehru makes for good reading material.
The situation is made dicier by the knowledge that an election involves choice of the lesser evil. We are not making much progress in the light of the 'politics-is-the-last-refuge-of-the-scoundrel' proverb. Honest people do not wish to get embroiled in politics... the few who do get annihilated (take Mr. A. K. Antony for instance). In the face of such a situation, people - educated or not - tend to flock together on the basis of community...religious affiliation is the name of the game. The point is not whether Dr. Manmohan Singh's grandfather was a Marthomite or not. The point is that his being Sikh wittingly or unwittingly fits perfectly into the dynamics of the political strategy of the ruling party. If his grandfather were a Marthomite, it would suit his party just as well - The more the merrier (And I very much respect Dr. Singh). In India there is an incongruity in the communal allowances made to Indians - For the common man the option is an 'OR' gate while for the public figure an 'AND' gate is critical. Multiple affiliations signal the ability to prise open multiple vote banks. Is it just co-incidence that the President as well the Prime Minister of the country, appointed by different parties, are part of minority communities? Is it entirely an assumption that Dr. P.C. Alexander was not appointed president because:
a.) He was part of a smaller (vote-bank) minority.
b.) It would be an anomaly if both the President and Prime Minister (Ms. Sonia Gandhi was touted to be P.M. at that time) were of Christian origin?
You are absolutely right about the level of political rhetoric existing in India. However there is nothing anybody can do about it. The truth is that India was Gandhi's gift to Nehru (wittingly or not...I won't debate). The point is that we, as a people, are governed highly by the social stys we are born in. Our 'loyalty' is unerring and as stated by Abraham Maslow's theory we strive for acceptance within our community. That is the reason why we stick by our 'favourite' politician or dynasty or pastor or sitcom. In any other country the religious affiliation of the ruling dynasty is strictly their business but not in India. Unfortunately, for those who look at the world through ‘developed’ eyes, the situation is the same even in the US of A. Conservative Christians grouped together and voted Dubya back into power...and he is probably the least popular leader in the whole wide world! This is a perfect example for my earlier points - criticizing lack of certain traits in your local politician might not do the trick anymore. Criticism does not ever inhibit scoundrels. They act in spite of it and it gradually yields to them.

The State of Reason

2005-06-20T21:04:00.000+05:30

Chirping birds in the warm sunshine
A comfortable seat…without the incline
Testy waters flowing at breakneck speed
This is where I do my deed

The work involves constructing away
From a platform with a continuous sway
Ridiculous plans without foundation
Like a decree with a regional ration

As if the deed were not stress already
Others can hardly remain steady
What do we do if one of us does fall?
What do I know? It’s not my call

Feel it stab…feel it sting
Just one of ‘us’ doing his thing
Deep inside you start to wonder
Will my ‘own’ rip me asunder?

This is my state of reason
Catalyzed by the act of treason
Aided by bovine apathy
Guided by age-old pithy

Asks the alchemist at that moment
How long will you bear this torment?
Will you not their inequality decline?
How else will you build your spine?

Then does my wounded self speak
"Do not think me pale and weak
For even in the unsoundest moment of my darkest day
I’m the predator and they are the prey."

Operation Hope

2005-06-16T22:07:00.000+05:30

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not
sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”

- Anne Bradstreet (1612 - 1672), 'Meditations Divine and Moral,' 1655

The moment we rolled down the windows of our Qualis, the stench struck at us like a slap on our face. It seemed that this was a treatment meted out to uninvited prying visitors from a different socio-economic culture. Our welcome was not grand, in a matter of speaking. However, it was a reception that mere mortals like us would remember for a lifetime. The dilapidated building looked at us in deep sorrow…beckoning us to lend it some honour in its hour of nakedness. The grounds loyally embracing the old building lay bare silently accepting the human faeces being piled on it. The ‘caged’ hence protected saplings, provided by the New Delhi Municipal Corporation, growing in the midst of the wilderness were keenly telling their story. It was a story in likeness to the lives led by the people in the area. Posh housing colonies set amidst uncivilized impoverished and rejected destitute. If these silent witnesses could speak out they would have narrated a very tragic tale…a tale of a destitute destitute-home.

“There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to
expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns
to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find
comfort somewhere.”

- Jane Austen (1775 - 1817), Mansfield Park

Enter Esther. Make no mistake, this pint sized woman is in no way related to Xeres the king of ancient Persia. However like the Esther of old her love for ‘her’ people was more than ‘evident’ from her eyes. Our mutual introduction done, we walked through the front door of the institution. While walking through the door we felt a caressing on our heads. Imagine our horror when we realized that the source of affection was actually a network of naked wires coming out of their meter board! We were then taken around the single storeyed building and shown the different rooms. There was a room for sewing machines where the local womenfolk would stitch bed-sheets. There was a cramped classroom where almost 40 children of varied ages sat and stared at their instructor. There was a room where the teachers assembled. Finally there was a broken down room with a board ‘Centre for Performing Arts’ - This was their toilet. Just taking in the sights any ordinary person could estimate the pathetic environment that the children and women spent their days in.

Our team, after absorbing the initial shock, immediately sprung into action. While Sharda, Ruby and Sandhya held a meeting with the women Avantika, Kavita, Niju, Manoj and I spent our time with the children.

“

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or
more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new
order of things.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527)

The children as expected were extremely shy at first. It seemed that the presence of their instructor inhibited their interaction with us. On our request their instructor left them completely in our hands. A couple of songs and several handfuls of toffees later the children opened up to us. We then got down to knowing their names - Ruby, Isha, Poonam, Mahesh, Rumina, Sarita among others – Children whom fate had dealt a crippling blow, children who with their apparently nameless faces would automatically disappear in the labyrinth of social inequalities. The singing reached its crescendo with ‘I am a soldier’ – their favourite song. A round of story telling followed the singing. I tried to tell them the parable of the ‘Ten Talents’ in the context of rural India. We then distributed pencil boxes and notebooks to the children. The distribution complete, we encouraged the children to break their inhibitions by dancing to the tunes of the latest film tunes. The children danced whole-heartedly along with Niju, Kavita and Avantika. Their enthusiasm was infectious enough to keep us going longer than we had planned.

After a fabulous round of dance, we distributed food packets to the children. Just after this Niju and me spoke to the children about personal hygiene. The children, although they looked like urchins, were aware of the various forms of personal hygiene. This came as a very pleasant surprise to us.

“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried
before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth,
and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to
the appellation.”

- George Washington (1732 - 1799)

Our most enterprising contribution was the provision of seeds of seasonal fruits and vegetables for the purpose of gardening. I had a wonderful time, through an interactive session, giving them a few specific tips on planting these. These seeds were selected on the basis of economic and time-bound viability. They could grow vegetables year-round to feed their families, and any surplus would be a source of income. As an extra measure of enthusiasm, we expressed our desire to revisit them in August – to partake in the fruits of their labour. The success of our maiden venture could be gauged by the fact that the children could identify each of us by our names…or nicknames shall we say.

"Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity."

- Sean O'Casey (1880 - 1964)

Our trip was based around the premise that it would not be a one-time affair. On grounds of plain old humanity it is imperative that these people receive our continuous support…much beyond the requirements of a ‘Global Volunteer Day’ programme. From a corporate perspective, it is a social obligation that we must live upto. The difference is in empathizing with these destitute and not sympathizing with them. We must realize that what these women and children are in is a situation. If not solved soon enough, it will become a problem.

Never let the (Wo)Man get you down.

2005-03-16T14:23:00.000+05:30

This is probably one the most debatable pieces on my blog. It’s also going to be a very short piece at that. This basically puts the blame of the exploitation of women squarely on the shoulders of the woman.
Most ‘liberated’ women try and speak like Jack Black in School of Rock – “Don’t let the Man get you down”. Standing in the midst of the cackle that surrounds them, they have difficulties deciding on the real perpetrator. Little do they realize that the largest obstacle that stands in the way of their potential being fully realized is feminine. There is a stark difference in the culture, nay, the psyche of the women in the ‘free’ zone and those outside of it.
Last night, while travelling in a cab with a few women of varied ages I noticed an aberration in a ‘free yourself’ movement. One woman was trying to put the brakes on the other girls. She was trying her best to thwart the expression of their thoughts. Now, that is a difficult thought to live with. She was also noticeably behaving like she was stricken by some male chauvinistic disease. What I realized after a few moments of thought was that though the women of the rest of the world (outside the Indian subcontinent and the other arid places) have managed to create an identity outside of their association with men, we Indians are, at best, struggling to get to the half way mark.
The woman finally draws her own lines…That should always be the attitude…achievement in any field is no substitute for mental servitude. Yes, have a heart and your manners around you…even drape the cultural nine-yards around yourself but never…Never let the (Wo)Man get you down!

Between Battlefields

2005-03-09T15:24:00.001+05:30

News: I had to travel to Haryana to meet the chaps who make us loads of dough – not art-of-living-babas dudes…the Profs. Give me time to mention a few facts and I would be done. The glorious past of Kurukshetra, I would not even touch. I may briefly remark that the present Kurukshetra is a pilgrimage center: it’s the place where the war between the righteous brothers and the hundred other brothers took place. Brother versus brother…bloodshed aplenty…bring on Martin Luther King…save our souls!

So, it may seem a little out of colour (pun intended) for me but I had to quit my condo at 6:00 a.m. to reach the railway station in time. The wind almost froze my ‘you-know-what’…in fact I was just happy not to be superman (man of steel with ‘you-know-what’ of steel). The train left the station at half past 7 and virtually whizzed past desolate trees, urinating dogs and half-naked children. On entry, I saw that the train had its own charms (really good-looking I tell you!). I sat in my seating hoping that some beautiful miracle might happen to keep me company for the next 2 hours. Exactly like clockwork along came a gang of – hold your breath – retired military chaps. Apart from the pain of having a beautiful wish crushed under marching orders, I had to deal with the chap sitting adjacent to me. This chap was made of an exceptionally sonorous material. God knows what He used for construction…was it necessary to bring in bronze to add variety to human species?

A minute into the journey, my attention was caught by a little kid (with a Brit. accent) sitting behind me. Junior was having trouble managing his mother who was behaving in a manner most unbecoming of civilized people. Just imagine her cheek – asking him to don a sweater through the journey. Which self-respecting male would wear a sweater? When he saw that she was becoming difficult he said, “But you said that I would have to wear it if I felt cold…you promised and now you want to break it…and that is a very bad thing.” I could see that the kid had a bright future…after all, how many of us can successfully fend off mothers? All this while junior’s little sister was playing hide and seek with me. She would quietly peep from behind my seat and if I turned around, she would slowly fade behind the seat. I played hide-and seek with her till the moment she thought that I was too daft to play with and dumped the idea. (Guys, this is getting serious – even small kids dump me!). Suddenly the broadcast system came alive with the voice of an absent lady declaring that we had reached Panipat. Junior looked out of the window at the platform and said, “I want to go and fill some water!” - How funny is that? Although the kid did not realize it, he had a good sense of humour (Pani is water in Hindi). Panipat was the great battlefield that finally stamped Mughal supremacy over India. It can be considered our very own waterloo (pardon the pun!). It was ironic that one battlefield lead to another that lead to a third – my first battle with the throes of the academic community.

Breakfast was being served – finally. I was just beginning to lose my patience with waiting and (not) playing hide and seek. Now when my tray comes what do I see? - 3 spoons. No fork, no knife and of all people, it happened to me. By this time I was hoping that nothing else goes wrong, this being my first trip. Soon the voice of the absent lady crackled again and it was time to get my rump off the Shatabdi and onto a rickshaw plying on the dusty streets of Kurukshetra.

Kurukshetra was like any typical North Indian village-town hybrid. I was expecting a Basanti to show up with her tanga except that I was on a cycle-rickshaw with a Jay-paji in charge. Even with my sweater and jacket on (I could not fend off my mom…not then, not now!), my you-know-what were in danger of becoming dessert. The short ride to the University campus cleared a lingering doubt – Yes, mule-shit and horse-shit are different. It also gave birth to another doubt – what was the horse thinking?

While these thoughts were lingering in my mind, my trusty Jay-paji had already reached the University campus and was steadily progressing toward the NIT (National Institute of Technology) guesthouse. Upon reaching the guesthouse I entered with a swagger (after all I was an executive with a Multinational and my booking was done by a senior member of the faculty) and called for the manager. On my asking him for a room to put up in, he simply said, “Booking is cancelled sir. Pakistanis have come to stay. Conference no?” I stood there too stunned to say anything reliving the times when guesthouses such as these had boards saying: ‘Dogs and Indians not allowed’. Was I going back to such a time? What would a self-respecting, ration-card (and driving license and voting card and passport) holding Indian like me do in such a circumstance? Would there be bloodshed and hell to pay for igniting the fervour of patriotism in an Indian?

A minute later, after having paid my rickshaw-puller, I was lugging my bag and taking a walk to the Computer and Electronics department in search of shelter. So you think that I ran away from the battlefield? No. I decided to exercise the quality of mercy that is so strained...

The Computer Science department had a dingy looking office with a fat aunty sitting at a terminal and playing solitaire. On my asking the whereabouts of the Profs. (All their rooms were locked) she said, “pata nahin” (means don’t know in Hindi). This coupled with the fact that I was visiting one of the premier seats of Engineering in the country must not give you wrong ideas about the country dudes. Wanting to loosen up a little, after my stiffening journey, I decided to saunter a little and discover a few things by myself. First stop – HOD’s office. The deliberations began after this meeting and continued with other teachers all through the day (I’m leaving out all the sad and boring parts).

It was 5 PM when I took off from the university campus. It was a day spent entirely in the engineering college amidst some really good teachers. The cycle rickshaw was taking its own sweet time and I was not complaining. It was courtesy the rickshaw that I saw the largest tank in Asia – The Brahmsarovar – An amazing piece of work. Evenings in Kurukshetra are a time to behold. The beauty of the rustic township is worth the praises in the Puranas. The hotel I was putting up in, (oh, I forgot to tell you sooner…I managed to find a place to stay!) was probably the only ‘decent’ place to stay in Kurukshetra. After a long and tiring day, I just switched on the television and went to sleep – The pursuit of academic nirvana takes its toll. Hunger woke me up. It was 9 PM already and I quickly freshened up to go for dinner. After reaching the in-house restaurant, I ordered some oriental food that looked promising on the menu card. Two hours had passed and I was still eating…God bless the cook’s khadi socks!

7 AM: I was left at the edge of sudden realization that the entire world was up and I was not. Forty minutes and I was well on my way to the University block. I was chock-full of the good energy that drives mules to work. The unbridled love for all nature’s creations was on the verge of gushing out. Then I met Dr. K.S. Ghouri.

It is amazing to notice how the turnaround time for emotions and their build up is considerably lesser than that for reviewers. There is no questionnaire, no pages of silly paper work and most definitely no protocol on honorarium received. There is but one single outburst and it comes through like a deluge. This dude Ghouri could be the standard test for faculty of juvenile detention homes. If the faculty could handle him…they could handle anything!

Of course, appearances are deceptive. Any editor, for instance, who had been standing outside the front entrance of the Bio-Tech Department at twelve o’clock on a fair Saturday afternoon might easily have made a mistake.

Such an editor would probably have jumped to the conclusion that this was a department with very serious students and teachers. He would have mentally praised the efficiency of the department and put his best foot forward to meet the inmates.

Sherlock Holmes himself might have been misled. One can almost hear him explaining the situation to Watson in one of those lightning flashes of inductive reasoning. “Elementary, my dear Watson! If the students were of a normal ‘university’ temperament, you would have heard the ruckus that heralds their presence. Also, it is a fact that a fair Saturday afternoon is the best time to study bottled up invisible creatures that are a threat to our existence.”

As a matter of fact, only the inmates of the University campus recognized it as a sign of desertion. The entire building was emptied out because a Pakistani delegation was present in their auditorium (are you listening …architects of peace).

As I left the premises of the University (not having anyone else to meet!), I turned around to take a last glimpse of that enormous tribute to learning. Then I resumed my journey toward the railway station.

With four hours to spend at the station, I had my priorities mapped out – Find the First Class Waiting Room, settle down with John Mortimer, tuck into the plantain bought at the station and wait for the Shatabdi to turn up (on time). After a long walk along the only inhabited platform of the station, I decided that the open platform would be preferable to the urinal that they call ‘Waiting Room’. Four chapters, half a dozen plantain and a couple of 40 minute naps later, the train arrived.

The journey back to base was very uneventful. This was predominantly because my eyelids insisted on going on a strike. My vision was slowly getting blurred and gravity was taking its toll on my head (damn Newton!). Dinner aboard the Shatabdi was an equally sleepy affair and for the first time New Delhi station was a heart felt prayer.

It did arrive eventually and I gently stepped away from what was my first professional trip. It definitely gave me enough input to put on my tour report (the remains of which are spilled here) and also enabled me to get the right perspective between two battlefields – where the mind bleeds for want of knowledge and victory is much more than a rarely used word.

Materialism

2005-01-25T13:17:00.000+05:30

They say, “Most people seek after what they do not possess and are thus enslaved by the very things they want to acquire”. It’s true. The years spent in college were truly idealistic with no thought lent to the murky path to be taken in future. The muck on this path is too much to describe in a single write up but the aspect that I am about to discuss is one that slowly catches up and refuses to let go - Materialism.
Materialism goes beyond definitions because it, in most cases, defines various parameters of lifestyle. Very few people can resist the radiating charms of materialism. It has the characteristic property of ruining a life while making the person in question squeal in delight at the thought of his/her latest acquisition. The birth of materialism in a person takes place when ‘wants’ become ‘needs’. For example, cell phones were a want in the era when the land phones were going strong. Today, probably a cell phone with PDA features has turned into an acquired ‘need’. People cite a lot of reasons for this metamorphosis. Some say that economic stability triggers it. Some others indict malefic social rat races. Agreed. However, these are environmental reasons and are easy to pinpoint (but not change). What I am after is the thought process that goes behind such a phenomenon and the potential solutions for it.
I always believed that eternal material comfort was a fallacy and that I would not fall prey to it even through my corporate lifestyle. I am yet to find out the shape my job is going to give me but the materialism factor can already be sensed as a side effect. Everything that exists is material-centric. Even a baby cries because he needs something material. Any fool understands the pinch of material lust but the mind presents the problem in at least two ways. The first is conscious thought, as felt in the aftermath of any enlightening experience. The second is the purpose of any thought and that is about something being beyond itself.
As I see it, there are three ways of tackling this raging quicksand of a problem. We can follow 'ease' as a dictating parameter in their gradation. The hardest method is eliminating feelings, emotions and every other mental state - in short be a machine. Everything that has to do with human feelings and wants need to be eliminated and be treated as redundant junk. A certain number of ‘acceptable’ finite states should govern our actions. In my case that would be declaring to myself that I was created to work and any other event would lead to a malfunction of my intended purpose. There has to belief that the purpose of existence is much bigger than the modus vivendi.
The next method is a little less harsh - We need to reduce these thought processes leading to materialism and boil them down to certain thoughts that start a train of other materialistic demands. We must however consider that these are not ‘demands’ per se but needs to avoid professional failure. Taking my case again, I could bring it down to the basics of feeding, clothing and housing myself. This method, though more humane, is far more difficult to put into practice than the previous method. The difficulty here lies in identifying the base needs and the derived wants/needs.
For the least resolute, the only way out is to accept science and the anabolic nature of the mind nevertheless claiming that it depends on the material in such an intimate way...way more intimate than a mere incidental connection and having a great natural dependence. This part means that you can fag your force away, soak your soul in ale, redefine the intensity of an orgy and generally have a blast 'cause whadda ya know - you're the new material man.

National Pride or What You Will

2005-01-24T18:53:00.000+05:30

Recently there has been a lot of talk over NRIs, national pride and Swades…not necessarily in that order. In the same context I came across an NRI lad. He was cribbing over the shame he has to undergo because of his nationality. Although he wrote about how ashamed we (not he) must be and also how smart English education has made him, there was one point that the lad got right - We must be ashamed of ourselves. We have enough reason to sit in our homes, turn off the lights and never speak a word about prestige in front of other people. In fact, we go all the way in actually propagating racism by behaving like racially inferior people.
Don't believe me? How else can you describe a person who constantly banters about his neighbour's religion? How else can you describe a person who is scared of becoming unclean by touching a 'harijan'? How else can you describe a person who runs a scam in cattle fodder? If we take toll of the tendency to 'crawl' as against that to stand up, Indians will definitely feature on top.
I say, look at Germany and Japan...you may say - look at our population. My question is - Whose fault is it? If we don't realize that we cannot feed and educate 4 children, how can we produce them? The truth is that as a society, we are laid back and not proactive in the direction of progress. This however does not have anything to do with our cultural quotient - There are still places in rural India where the guest is fed first even if the rest of the family is starving!
Coming back to being an immigrant, that in itself is a slur - something to be ashamed of. It just means that our country was not 'big' enough to hold our dreams or that our dreams excluded our country. Both situations are nothing to be proud of. No Indian-American can say that he is being treated the same way as a 'white' American. As always, media and Hollywood movies propagate that load of bull. Chaitanya a.k.a. Chet (the NRI) probably never noticed that even in their movies, the black dude dies first - is 'wasted'. Equality in death I presume!
There is nothing to be proud as long as we have naked children die of the cold on the streets and as long as people die of hunger. Pride of our forefathers, albeit in poverty can be restored by character. Only when one Indian treats another as an Indian instead of as a Muslim, Hindu, Bengali, Malayalee or transvestite can India truly be restored to global greatness. Currently we are not helping by our bickering. However, no Indian living outside India has the moral right to crib about the pride of being an Indian. For him/her the greatest shame was that of deserting his/her motherland. No amount of slime balling can correct that.
To my mind there come two pertinent points that should be understood (in terms of Indians and their pride). These primarily pertain to the role of these people in the awakening of a New India.

1. Indians who left India and are living outside - everyone has heard about it criticized - we trained our citizens with public money, invested in them, and they left us to benefit foreign lands. All true. However, these are the very same people who, on receipt of the right signals from us, are the biggest promoters of Indian industries abroad. Result - the growth in FDIs and forex reserve activity. Just like the Chinese diaspora was the biggest investor in China when the Chinese govt. became proactive and open about Foreign Investment. These people are the ones who affect the perception of your country abroad.

2. People who choose to stay in India - these people have and will always have a far larger role to play in the cleaning act and nation building. You and me belong to this category. Stand up and be counted when it matters.

Neither of us can deny the problems that came back like the Hydra, driving away our best minds in search of ‘opportunity’. We need to accept the facts as they stand and try and build a fabulous future for our country. We can never change history, let us at least not turn our backs to creating it.