Saturday, April 18, 2009
I know whats LOVE!!!
If I ask you about love you would probably quote me a sonnet.. But u've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable... known someone that could level you with her eyes.Feeling like god put an angel on earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell.. You wouldn't know what it would be like to be her angel, to have that love for her and be there for ever, through anything...!! But well.. nobody is perfect.. and even if someone does seem perfect it is because u have not yet been let into knowing their little peccadilloes . Eventually, you will be let into all that. It is then that you realize that it doesn't matter if one is perfect but that you are perfect for another. It is only those idiosyncrasies that matter. stuff that only you know about because only you have been let into the life.. her life.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Well, I ran across an article in the paper talking about what a guy had acheived in life because he'd been given a second chance by 'Reservation'.... Oh, for all of you who don't come from India, here's a flash back...
Long ago, before and during the British occupation of India, Indians were divided into various classes called castes, certain castes were said to be higher than others... Based on the caste, people were given or denied most of the, what today are considered, Basic Rights. Well, when India got Independence, the then leaders decided that, to end centuries of suppression, the downtrodden were given a greater chance to get into educational institutes and to get jobs... This was called reservation, i.e., if 20 seats are available for admiassion into a university, then a few of those were reserved for those from the downtrodden sections and others were not allowed to compete for those seats...
60 years have now passed since that system came into existence and I am very proud to tell you that some of our greatest leaders, scientists and thinks are now from across the spectrum of the so-called castes... But has the system been removed...??? NO.... Ironically, today's Indians are fighting to get their communities included under the list of communities that are covered by reservation... The no. of communities under the umbrella of reservation and the percentage of reserved seats has gone up so drastically that all those who are not covered by this reservation are finding it difficult to get seats in educational institutions and to get jobs... The politicians in India go around wooing people that they will give them reservation under the Backward Clss list and etc... How is this legally possible when the Constitution of India has outlawed the caste system and has promulgated equality of all as a fundamental right...??? Well, it isn't legally possible but people are still getting away with it...
Lets take the current reservation based exams for example. A guy with a rank of about 1300 does not make it in.However some guy who stood 16,000 got into the medical college as he was under the reservation category... Now tell me, will a guy who has sound knowledge make a better doctor or a guy who is a doctor as his great-grandparents were oppressed...???
Long ago, before and during the British occupation of India, Indians were divided into various classes called castes, certain castes were said to be higher than others... Based on the caste, people were given or denied most of the, what today are considered, Basic Rights. Well, when India got Independence, the then leaders decided that, to end centuries of suppression, the downtrodden were given a greater chance to get into educational institutes and to get jobs... This was called reservation, i.e., if 20 seats are available for admiassion into a university, then a few of those were reserved for those from the downtrodden sections and others were not allowed to compete for those seats...
60 years have now passed since that system came into existence and I am very proud to tell you that some of our greatest leaders, scientists and thinks are now from across the spectrum of the so-called castes... But has the system been removed...??? NO.... Ironically, today's Indians are fighting to get their communities included under the list of communities that are covered by reservation... The no. of communities under the umbrella of reservation and the percentage of reserved seats has gone up so drastically that all those who are not covered by this reservation are finding it difficult to get seats in educational institutions and to get jobs... The politicians in India go around wooing people that they will give them reservation under the Backward Clss list and etc... How is this legally possible when the Constitution of India has outlawed the caste system and has promulgated equality of all as a fundamental right...??? Well, it isn't legally possible but people are still getting away with it...
Lets take the current reservation based exams for example. A guy with a rank of about 1300 does not make it in.However some guy who stood 16,000 got into the medical college as he was under the reservation category... Now tell me, will a guy who has sound knowledge make a better doctor or a guy who is a doctor as his great-grandparents were oppressed...???
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Crowded Trains and choked streets
Here comes the weekend and wonderful idle time. So, what do I bug myself with this weekend..?? Well.. It is my close friend grafila's birthday and with the added burden of remembering her birthday comes reminiscences of wonderful days back in college. But, if you know me, I am now an eternally depressed soul, and so my thoughts always waver to the darker more subtle nuances of life. So, this takes me back to the train journey to tirupati about two and a half hours from my college, it wasnt my first time but in the general compartment..yes it was..!! Thanks to my dad I never really travelled second class through my life. So, as they say life was cool and comfty with beautiful trees and scenic setting just whooshing by from the sunfilmed glass in the air conditioned compartment. But now, here I am in this train with no space to even breath. My only respite was my girl clinging on to me looking me in the eye with a pleasant smile telling me its all gonna be over soon..!! What was I taking flu shots.?? I had been feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the journey, as it was getting more and more crowded every minute…. it was crowded enough to rival the commuter trains of Mumbai (during the time I lived there – almost a decade ago. It being too crowded, I had to take a car ride part of the way and catch a bus from a place half-way through, a thoroughly discomforting option to a person like me who hates any kind of travel except by train or air….
Leaving the discomfort part aside, I think any other guy in love would see this journey as a two hour cuddle. It was, in the beginning until a monstrous looking hag decided to camp right by my side and scream the living daylights out of me. They say people in love forget their surrounding and lose themselves in the eyes of their love. I am fairly romantic guy but in a scenario like this, I am inundated by thoughts of regret and remorse over my precarious situation. Now, lets get back to my girl, who noticing my distinct lack of interest in her, starts to lecture me on how I have to learn to live a normal life and get away from luxuries, to see life in a common man's shoes. She has a philanthropic fibre which I am very proud about, but a lecture in this scenario?? please spare me. But then she smiles and I see the faint glimmer of hope, a chance to lose my self in her eyes(told you i was a romantic), sweet talking all through the journey, of course utter drivel and gibberish to the people around us. Time just flies and after the wonderfully long cuddle, I just look forward to my sweet kiss goodbye and a long hot shower. All said and done I see bliss in my unmade hostel bed, and the rest is history.
Well, yesteryear’s incident left me pondering over the phenomenal growth of population that India – let alone the whole world – is witnessing. Ten years ago when my family shifted to my present hometown, the main roads were so empty that we – children – could run around and play on the roads… To visit a friend of my mom’s we passed through what appeared to be acres upon acres of fields and countryside. Today, the traffic snarls at railway crossings remind me more and more of badly planned metropolitan cities.
Our population exploded into staggering numbers in the 1970s and has been growing steadily since. The enormous mass of people who are always on the move, eking out their livelihood in jobs high and low is growing by the second… how long will this last…??? How long can the land feed us or support us…??? Today, we Indians, who pride ourselves to be one of earth’s oldest civilizations are struggling to live a comfortable life… Oh sure, there are people who live extravagantly and those who are decently well off… But what I ask is, in a population of 1 billion (in 2001) is around 40% a majority…??? What is going to be the fate of all those who make up the 60%...? The high and mighty say that they have long forseen this doom, but what is the use of foresight if no action is born of it…???
Rural India is losing out on its major food winning job – that of agriculture… Lands have been used to grow crops for so long that most of the nutrients have been leached away. The use of fertilizers led to the green revolution which caused the population boom, but the food supplies are now not adequate to feed the ever growing number of mouths, it is becoming a jungle where the strong prey on the weak… Ironically, real jungles are more civilized than anything that we have created for ourselves. There atleast a weak beast has a chance of putting up a token resistance. Here it is not so, the case is such that a person’s survival depends not on himself, as it would in a jungle, but upon others who do no care whether he/she stands or falls…
What then is the solution to this, you may ask.... Well, I’d say that the only step that has to be taken immediately is to see to it that people are enlightened to what is going on around them… People like you and me, who have a chance to contemplate on things like this should enlighten the others – others who have no time to spare (sigh..!!! I wonder what keeps them so busy… Well, you guessed it right, they’re trying to keep themselves and their family alive in all this cut-throat competition… Ironical isn’t it…???)
What should we enlighten them about? , you might ask… Tell them to think back to their younger days… Tell them to think of those days of peace when there was less smoke and more fun… Ask them to remember their childhoods and do something, anything to try to take the quality of life back to what it was then… Or, if they are a product of this population explosion, people who have grown up in this grime and dust, ask them to think of how beautiful a life without all the annoyances would be… Ask them to come up with solutions that will change the way things work in their families and t pass on the message to their friends and relatives… This way, resources can be streamlined… This is the first stage… After this, everyone has to come to realize that having kids is not the only goal in life… And remember this, all ye Indians, my fellow-countrymen, a girl child is no less than a boy, please do not go on begetting children to get that one boy… You are degrading the quality of all your children by doing that….
What we in India need right now is the streamlined use of resources coupled with proper enlightenment of people everywhere… And, NO… Its NOT upto the government… you and me can do it… You and me can start off this small revolution right here… We can be the spark that kindles the blaze, speak out on this topic to your friends and relatives… Speak out against unnecessary wastage… And most importantly speak out about reducing the population by the only means possible – Family planning. Remember vasectomy doesn’t make a lesser man of you, neither does hysterectomy make a lesser woman… Plan for kids in advance, have kids only when you are sure you are stable enough to bring them up well, and one child is more than enough, atleast at present… Give all your love to that one child… By doing so, you will have a wonderful daughter or son and you will also be doing a great good to the country – if not to the entire world.
Need brooks no delay, it is said, yet delay we have had… Better be late than never… Do your little bit, contribute in your own way… By our actions today, we will experience a better tomorrow…
Leaving the discomfort part aside, I think any other guy in love would see this journey as a two hour cuddle. It was, in the beginning until a monstrous looking hag decided to camp right by my side and scream the living daylights out of me. They say people in love forget their surrounding and lose themselves in the eyes of their love. I am fairly romantic guy but in a scenario like this, I am inundated by thoughts of regret and remorse over my precarious situation. Now, lets get back to my girl, who noticing my distinct lack of interest in her, starts to lecture me on how I have to learn to live a normal life and get away from luxuries, to see life in a common man's shoes. She has a philanthropic fibre which I am very proud about, but a lecture in this scenario?? please spare me. But then she smiles and I see the faint glimmer of hope, a chance to lose my self in her eyes(told you i was a romantic), sweet talking all through the journey, of course utter drivel and gibberish to the people around us. Time just flies and after the wonderfully long cuddle, I just look forward to my sweet kiss goodbye and a long hot shower. All said and done I see bliss in my unmade hostel bed, and the rest is history.
Well, yesteryear’s incident left me pondering over the phenomenal growth of population that India – let alone the whole world – is witnessing. Ten years ago when my family shifted to my present hometown, the main roads were so empty that we – children – could run around and play on the roads… To visit a friend of my mom’s we passed through what appeared to be acres upon acres of fields and countryside. Today, the traffic snarls at railway crossings remind me more and more of badly planned metropolitan cities.
Our population exploded into staggering numbers in the 1970s and has been growing steadily since. The enormous mass of people who are always on the move, eking out their livelihood in jobs high and low is growing by the second… how long will this last…??? How long can the land feed us or support us…??? Today, we Indians, who pride ourselves to be one of earth’s oldest civilizations are struggling to live a comfortable life… Oh sure, there are people who live extravagantly and those who are decently well off… But what I ask is, in a population of 1 billion (in 2001) is around 40% a majority…??? What is going to be the fate of all those who make up the 60%...? The high and mighty say that they have long forseen this doom, but what is the use of foresight if no action is born of it…???
Rural India is losing out on its major food winning job – that of agriculture… Lands have been used to grow crops for so long that most of the nutrients have been leached away. The use of fertilizers led to the green revolution which caused the population boom, but the food supplies are now not adequate to feed the ever growing number of mouths, it is becoming a jungle where the strong prey on the weak… Ironically, real jungles are more civilized than anything that we have created for ourselves. There atleast a weak beast has a chance of putting up a token resistance. Here it is not so, the case is such that a person’s survival depends not on himself, as it would in a jungle, but upon others who do no care whether he/she stands or falls…
What then is the solution to this, you may ask.... Well, I’d say that the only step that has to be taken immediately is to see to it that people are enlightened to what is going on around them… People like you and me, who have a chance to contemplate on things like this should enlighten the others – others who have no time to spare (sigh..!!! I wonder what keeps them so busy… Well, you guessed it right, they’re trying to keep themselves and their family alive in all this cut-throat competition… Ironical isn’t it…???)
What should we enlighten them about? , you might ask… Tell them to think back to their younger days… Tell them to think of those days of peace when there was less smoke and more fun… Ask them to remember their childhoods and do something, anything to try to take the quality of life back to what it was then… Or, if they are a product of this population explosion, people who have grown up in this grime and dust, ask them to think of how beautiful a life without all the annoyances would be… Ask them to come up with solutions that will change the way things work in their families and t pass on the message to their friends and relatives… This way, resources can be streamlined… This is the first stage… After this, everyone has to come to realize that having kids is not the only goal in life… And remember this, all ye Indians, my fellow-countrymen, a girl child is no less than a boy, please do not go on begetting children to get that one boy… You are degrading the quality of all your children by doing that….
What we in India need right now is the streamlined use of resources coupled with proper enlightenment of people everywhere… And, NO… Its NOT upto the government… you and me can do it… You and me can start off this small revolution right here… We can be the spark that kindles the blaze, speak out on this topic to your friends and relatives… Speak out against unnecessary wastage… And most importantly speak out about reducing the population by the only means possible – Family planning. Remember vasectomy doesn’t make a lesser man of you, neither does hysterectomy make a lesser woman… Plan for kids in advance, have kids only when you are sure you are stable enough to bring them up well, and one child is more than enough, atleast at present… Give all your love to that one child… By doing so, you will have a wonderful daughter or son and you will also be doing a great good to the country – if not to the entire world.
Need brooks no delay, it is said, yet delay we have had… Better be late than never… Do your little bit, contribute in your own way… By our actions today, we will experience a better tomorrow…
Introduction..!! (yeah lots of criticism included)
Today's India is growing at a phenomenal rate, if the business or IT guys are to be believed... Well, what exactly is this phenomenal...???? Is it seen in the millions of people to whom buying a whole biscuit packet is an extravagance...??? Is it seen in the people who go to flashy malls in swanky cars to order a burger for Rs. 100/- (a labourer's average daily pay)...???
Life calls for strange bedfellows it is said, but does it really call for such an imbalance...??? Today's India is a mix of ancient reverenced tradition, outdated unneeded beliefs, a caste system that breaks up social life and a perverted kind of magnetism toward western culture, wherein everyone loves western food and clothing and lifestyles and at the same time curse that it has ruined 'The Indian Culture' . Most importantly, we Indians take to technology like fish to water and still, at the end of the day go around saying that the cell phones have destroyed all peace of mind.
Let me quote an example... My family cannot imagine a life without the refrigerator, they need depend on their cell phones to keep in touch all the time... A member who has gone out has to call home at regular intervals otherwise, he/she is met with worry when the next call gets through... and all the time muttering goes on at home that these cell phones are unnecessary and need to go... They mutter that technology is unnecessary and a pain... They talk of the 'Good Old Days' when there was no technology...
They say the internet causes an overload of information, that electronic money is not secure and that computers are infact a waste of spce and money...
What is not realized is that the world moves on... It does not stop for anyone... Change breezes through tecnology and technology changes to make life easier... It is of course right that without anything we would be really happy... It is a truth that ignorance is bliss, but what is the use of questing for ignorance in a world of knowledge when we have been introduced to the world of knowledge...??? What is the point in denying the very technology that we are helping to develop...??? What is the point is learning a little bit about technology, believing that it is enough and leaving the other parts unlearnt...??? It is indeed this half baked knowledge that is the bane of our society...
People no longer study or learn anything for the joy of learning, they end up studying a particular subject and
moving into a totally different field for faster money making and at the end criticizing all that has made them what they are...??? (Yeah yeah yeah, I know, its the situ all the world over, not only in India...!!!)
Too many questions to ponder huh...??? I ask you guys, suggest some solution... Give me answers to this enigma, tell me some way by which all this can be resolved; or tell me if you think all my words are not wasting energy about...
Life calls for strange bedfellows it is said, but does it really call for such an imbalance...??? Today's India is a mix of ancient reverenced tradition, outdated unneeded beliefs, a caste system that breaks up social life and a perverted kind of magnetism toward western culture, wherein everyone loves western food and clothing and lifestyles and at the same time curse that it has ruined 'The Indian Culture' . Most importantly, we Indians take to technology like fish to water and still, at the end of the day go around saying that the cell phones have destroyed all peace of mind.
Let me quote an example... My family cannot imagine a life without the refrigerator, they need depend on their cell phones to keep in touch all the time... A member who has gone out has to call home at regular intervals otherwise, he/she is met with worry when the next call gets through... and all the time muttering goes on at home that these cell phones are unnecessary and need to go... They mutter that technology is unnecessary and a pain... They talk of the 'Good Old Days' when there was no technology...
They say the internet causes an overload of information, that electronic money is not secure and that computers are infact a waste of spce and money...
What is not realized is that the world moves on... It does not stop for anyone... Change breezes through tecnology and technology changes to make life easier... It is of course right that without anything we would be really happy... It is a truth that ignorance is bliss, but what is the use of questing for ignorance in a world of knowledge when we have been introduced to the world of knowledge...??? What is the point in denying the very technology that we are helping to develop...??? What is the point is learning a little bit about technology, believing that it is enough and leaving the other parts unlearnt...??? It is indeed this half baked knowledge that is the bane of our society...
People no longer study or learn anything for the joy of learning, they end up studying a particular subject and
moving into a totally different field for faster money making and at the end criticizing all that has made them what they are...??? (Yeah yeah yeah, I know, its the situ all the world over, not only in India...!!!)
Too many questions to ponder huh...??? I ask you guys, suggest some solution... Give me answers to this enigma, tell me some way by which all this can be resolved; or tell me if you think all my words are not wasting energy about...
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