Mist and Hope !!!

Last two months i have sensed how things change up.Even before I knew what had happened time made a shift.Flashback to two months back i would probably be sitting in my cubicle cracking my head over some problem.Trying to make sense of what is happening to my life with each day spending 16 hours in office.And then you get hit by a bolt of lightning and you see a phase shift in your world.The picture is still vivid in me when i was happy jumping up and down celebrating,enjoying and singing.But once the excitement and anxiety dies down we again end up at the same place.My place never changed in this world i was the same what i was before.
Before my eyes people try to veil a different picture , a picture where there is a systematic change in my existence.The view is so grandeur i try to see the same in eyes of every other man.A picture which i cannot see the harder i try to see the more lost i feel in it.I question does it exist or is it like one of those experiences that one gets after being intoxicated ,the more i try to move the slower i feel of the world.And in this picture where i donot see anything except the mist i try to figure out where I am either i can sit here and let the mist settle down or start taking steps move forward.
Stopping here yes but will this mist clear?Time will make it much denser hence the vision more bleaker.I deciede to move , but where do i go?Nothing makes sense except the mist.....I donot know what it is but the more i think the denser it grows.I feel a multitude of emotions fear of the unknown , loneliness , confused of the change still trying to be courageous to wade off these feelings and fight what may come!!!
I look at the sky for possible direction but find none!!!Feel betrayed by the manly and heavenly....Can i reach somewhere or is it my rigidness will decay me and my spirit in this place??Am i going to be lost in the mist or get out and see the valley which i dream is tranquil , serene where i see the green pines standing tall, the grass dancing with the wind and the wind beaconing me to come and lie here.With these thought i fall not knowing of tomorrow but falling today with the hope that i will see the light tomorrow............

Sahib,Sindh,Sultan!!

Selling food is such a big industry.A very lucrative business full of competition.Competition has changed the dimensions of the business completely.From the road side dhabas we have come a long distance where food is not the only thing people are looking at but the ambiance.
This Sunday I got an opportunity to eat at Sahib,Sindh ,Sultan,the one in Forum(Bangalore) so with high expectations I went to this place.The concept which the place has been based on is quite good, something from the pages of history.It says these three were the names of the engines which pulled the first train from Mumbai to Thane but then the history is dropped here.Inside i could hardly see anything based on railway concept.In place of three engines we have boggies in side with all the glitter.The platform doesnot look like a platform.The menu card is also not a representation of concept.If I go by the name we have three different people Sahib(English Man),Sindh(A local person) and Sultan(A ruler).The menu card could have been a representation of this concept representing the tastes of three different people but an anitclimax to my expectation the menu card is a dud.
As far as the food is considered if you are one of those like me who likes spicy food this is certainly not a place for us.The food was not one of those which will make you say "aah it was gr8!!".The drinks (non-alcoholic) ones were good especailly the Thandaii and Sherbet.
The cost of food per person comes out in range of 400-500Rs which is a bit high though the place will get 10/10 in accessibility.

Fear or Doubt

Fear the word itself brings back memories of moments that sent shivers across our spines.We all have fear of different things.Fear of water,ghosts,darkness,closed rooms etc.I too had my own fears , infact we all have.But what is that which we fear the most.Is it the fear of failure or fear of unknown or fear of abstractness as darkness? And i thought what is it which gives us this feeling?During my childhood days there was a incidence which i would relate here.I feared darkness i never knew why but i feared it.I would not venture out in darkness just for the fear.I was the fatoo in family of daredevils which certainly caused butterflies in his stomach.I was like the swami of R.K.Narayan who feared loneliness and darkness and like his father my father too took me to a expedition a very different one.Every night he would take me out in our lawn which was quite big and a section of it was pitch black.He would accompany me to some distance and then would ask me to continue while he would relax.The most difficult assignment for me by any standards.But i would try to evade it someway or the other.This thing continued till he totally dropped the idea that i could change.
Though i changed but gradually.As we say time teaches us many things so did i learn.The fear was gone so one day i just thought what did i fear from.Trying to recollect as much feelings of that time as i could.And i found i feared the abstractness of the darkness.The unknown feeling of what may come out of this darkness.But why did i fear the unknown ?Since i doubted my self to handle this unknown.
This propensity to doubt myself aggravated my condition till the time i could not venture out alone.Then just continuing i thought why we all fear an exam?It is not the known that we fear but the unknown that we all fear from.It is when we start doubting ourselves to handle the unknown that the fear takes the centerstage.
As it is said "A person is brave since he had the courage to stand that one extra minute when all people ran away."This courage will come only with the confidence on oneself to handle any situation.

Importance of being Qualitative

A few days back i was discussing with my colleague about the civic problems and issues that marr the Indian society.We both put different points and always my dear friend made one statement and i quote him here "We need to change the system.We are like that ,nothing can be done."
During the after hours i thought about this statement "Changing the system."It is a cliche.Now why i would say this is since anyone and everyone can make this statement without understanding the gravity of this statement.You might what gravity or what weight this statement has?
So lets delve deeper into this statement.So the first question that arises is who created the system?
Who runs the system? The answer to this rather simple question is also simple.The society created the system and it is the society who runs the system.
Now what is this word society? And any person will say we the people constitute the society.
So changing the society means changing the people.And that is the difficult task.
Because when things come to us we have one more ready made statement that "We are like this,We cannot change."But why is this so?Why are we so stubborn we cannot change? And in fact not even make a try to change ourselves.
From birth we all are born with the same nature to get angry , to be moved by greed,to be moved by lust .
But is this human form given to us for being what we are born with or to improve upon ourselves.To change ourselves is it not the process of evolution.Is it necessary that what our grand fathers used to do the same things we do?
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has rightly remarked about traditions.He says that people , government and rulers all come and go into wilderness but traditions they stick .Traditions as such are good for the society since they bind us to our past.But we shall have to break when it prevents us from our forward march.
Here taking analogy of tradition to our behavior , is it not the same thing which applies to us humans as well?Our basic nature which has not changed in the past so many years which is preventing our forward march.March in the society where all the humans are equal,where man acts on basis of our rational thought.
I believe it is high time we break the shackles of our impotence to change our selves and try to improve upon self so that we do not need to change the system but the system gets changed.

The world has turned blind to the wide spread perpetration of crime and systematic extermination of revolutionary forces in various regions of the world.The crimes carried out against humanity has reached to extremely high levels.A clear example of this world antipathy are Dafur and Burma.Both countries have the similar political and social conditions though the reasons for the internal strife being different.Countries like these where there is extreme poverty are always a target of world antipathy even when we all are aware of the gravity of the problem but still we fail to take concrete steps.This is a direct question to the developed countries of the world.What is the use of they being developed when they fail to act in order to raise the level of these grief stricken people? It is a question to all the other countries who fight for a place in security council but fail to react appropriately when such questions arise.These same countries pose themselves as the benefactors of the poor countries at various international world trade councils so where is their leadership on such far reaching events happening in the world?Why should it not be labeled as hypocrisy on part of all the countries of the world irrespective of them being developed or developing?
Here people might tend to differ with me over each of the topic i will discuss below in that case all comments are very much welcomed.
US:- US has always championed them as the benefactor of the world acting the role of that of international policemen taking action on outrageous reports that tend to negate their own stand on issues like N-pro grammes or WMD.So why is this country keeping a mum on such questions?Or is it that lack of any major long term gains in such countries prevents it from speaking? Why is it that the presidential candidates of this country fail to raise these as one of the issues?What ever the reason may be but is it not that a candidates view towards foreign policies decide over its candidature ship?
China:- China is presenting a great example of socialist principles who do not have any kindness towards the plight of the people.There have been hundreds of reports about the trading relation of China with these countries.Should China not act so as to make these countries stable?Is global leadership only about being the the leader in economy ? Is it not about taking proactive actions?
India:- The biggest hypocrite of all is India.We being the largest democracy fail to use our growing international clout to mobilize ideologies of world leaders?We have been taking contradictory positions over Burma.At one point we have been praising Aung San Syu Ki while at the same time keeping mum when the junta is on a killing spree.This being the case when Pervez Musharraf came to power. The same person who hatched a conspiracy against us we went to him with arms wide open to come and embrace a peace with us; when the person cannot bring peace to its own people.How so outrageous our stand has been ?
There are also many lessons for other countries but coming down to the society i feel that even our newer generation can learn a few lessons which is taking its independence for granted,which fails to understand the number of sacrifices that our leaders had to make to win our independence.I think they should look back at the condition prevailing in our near neighbours all are facing some or the other problem and all of us won our freedom at the same time.Consider the simple fact the ease with which the army takes control over in these countries stamping over the rights of common people.The people failing to earn even 1$ a day where most of the population is put of sex trade by the govt , where diseases like malaria still take lakhs of lives ,where two third of the children born are malnourished.
Ending this i would like to divert the attention to the role of religious leaders.In burma the monks are veneered , monks act for higher morals of democracy , end of millitary rule , exploitation and higher economic issues.If i just glance at the track record of our religious leaders i only see blood shed caused by them they all have their robes tainted with the blood of common man , blood of our religious faiths which have been so easliy desecrated by these crony leaders.Is it not time for revolution in our country against such cronies who have stiffled the growth of our society , economy and our civilization ?
In the end i would like to quote a line " The world always fears the unknown even though we know that the uncertainty of the unknown is perpetual while we fail to act in order to correct what we know,that is time when we fail to act like rational beings or human beings."

Education:- For Whom!!

Hi,
Education a word which had utmost importance in this flat world.This the same word which helped in making this round world flat.It facilitated people to use technology as it is and evolve it . But what does this word "Education" mean.As defined by dictionary.com

ed·u·ca·tion /ˌɛdʒʊˈkeɪʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ej-oo-key-shuhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun

1.	the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.

2.	the act or process of imparting or acquiring particular knowledge or skills, as for a profession.

3.	a degree, level, or kind of schooling: a university education.

4.	the result produced by instruction, training, or study: to show one's education.

5.	the science or art of teaching; pedagogics.

When I discuss about education how can i leave the all important word literacy.So again quoting dictionary.com

lit·er·a·cy ˈlɪtərəsi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[lit-er-uh-see] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

1.	the quality or state of being literate, esp. the ability to read and write.

2.	possession of education: to question someone's literacy.

3.	a person's knowledge of a particular subject or field: to acquire computer literacy

So taking the discussion forward what are we churning out in form of grads each year from our colleges and schools.Are they educated individuals or just literate individuals?
I believe certainly the second!!As the above definition stated education means imparting ability to reason and make judgment.Are the thousands of graduates we produce able to reason ? Are they intellectually strong enough to take sound decisions?
We are giving students who have read , learn things , vomit them out and then forgot but at no point the thing was understood.The concept , the reasoning , the philosophy behind is never understood.
It is not the student to be blamed since he is doing what he is asked to do!!How many times our teachers do teach the students why a thing was created ? Why we needed it ? What is the principle behind its development ? What we are taught and asked is history,dates as if these dates are dates of battle of plassey!!!
If i take an example of computer a word so extensively used in present world.In engineering we had subjects which are not related..One subject talked about proceesors while other taught us Operating system but the realtion between are two are left for u to find.I question here cannot we link these things? Why is it that one subject is to be taught in complete isolation to other ?
In life eveything is bound by a cause and effect relation and if we teach people this relation they understand better.
During our complete schooling we are taught history which everyone hates.But then as we grow old we take decisions on basis our experience which is an extension of the historical events that occurred.So if i delibrate over this in mind history become the most important subject of all the subjects taught in school.But can our teachers put this point for the students to understand.
What we are told is history is to be crammed.It is a subject of rote!!But all these myths can be easily shattered only if we have papers where students are made to apply their reasoning.Only if we had paper which questions students reasons for each event and their interpretation of such events.
When we have such a system in place we automatically filter those who are not suitable to move up the ladder.We do not need any more reservations.Since then it is a level playing field.
Having said this if i go back and look at the meaning of this word education i have this inkling that this word itself represents the problem we have in education.
Is education imparting vocational information or skills to think intellectually ? What is it education is trying in our country ?At present it is giving vocational information but not intellectual knowledge.

Technology or Labour!!!

Hi
Just a few days back i had discussion with a friend of mine over who drives whom?Whether is it Technology driving the labor or is the labor driving of technology?To make it simple was iPod a result of technology or labor.Now this is a topic which has been raised since time of industrial revolution.People saw upon technology as the one which will take their jobs away and will cause unprecedented levels of unemployment.There can be many arguments in favor of each side.
The proponents of technology will always put the point that technology is the one which is driving the world towards evolution,making way for more technological revolution,making life of humans easier etc.On the business side they can raise multiple arguments like technology has driven business.It is the technology that drives companies towards success and the ones which continuously improve on technology are the most successful.There might be a dearth of arguments in favor of technology in this passage since i am putting the ones which my feeble mind can collate at this time.So there is scope of many more such arguments.
I might sound a proponent of labor driving market rather than technology driving market.So there is always going to be some level of inclination towards the first point in this blog.
Kicking off the discussion i will like to take up the business perspective.I strongly believe it is the labor who drives the market and market which drives technology.Though technology has blurred the boundaries and made the world flat but how was this possible? Was this a case where we just came up with some technology and then we place that technology and it finds its consumers ? Or is it that one highly intelligent person came up with a desire to make this postal department run for money?This dude found severe bottleneck in transmitting his information to his friends so he thought of something like a telephone by which he can send his messages to all his people instantly.But then this telephone was also badly impaired and he wanted to remove this telephone and thought something else and then something else and like this the things kept on growing.What i am reflecting on at this point is that there was a need a customer for the technology who created that technology.Though the technology found its customer since many people wanted the same technology only they were not clear what they wanted but once this thing came up they had this light of enlightenment which struck them and they found it is very important for them.
I can also infer at this point that in the above example that here the consumer was the labor.The same person who used it was its creator so this is a cycle.
Like a farmer who grows wheat sells it to the market and again buys flour from the market . The farmer is the consumer and the producer.Only there are a few middle man who are smarter than this farmer who take his thing from him add value (or may not add value ) to his product and sell it back to him.These are the capitalists/industrialists.
So at every moment it is the labor who drove the market and if the labor does not need it the technology fails.Citing couple of examples like the pager in India.This product never clicked in India.There are many reasons for this mobile phones made them obsolete , no service which could facilitate pagers to develop etc.But i also feel that the need for pager was never felt in the Indian market.When the pager was launched in India it was targeted to the niche class segment,but subsequent to its launch we had the mobiles too which entered the market.The people started flirting with the idea of having a mobile than a pager while in US still a pager has its market . Now mobiles could capture the market since it met the requirements of the people more comprehensively than a pager.Here one more point we can infer is that the labor is not directly involved in creation of the mobile but indirectly,since he is the one who works in other industries and it was he who helped in rise of the mobile market.So every moment labor should be satisfied for a industrialist to make money ; though this is what i feel.Second example is from Dell where in they developed a product "Olympic" which could make immense impact to market but sadly they had to scrap the product as Micheal Dell states in "Direct From Dell".This certainly gave a lesson that you never build a technology and the sell it but first see its requirement and then sell it.
Many a times this case is being put that iPod is a technology that has created a market of its own.I would disagree here since iPod targets one major requirement of people their need to listen to music on the move.And in that perspective we can see that the Sony Walkman was also a instant hit since it provided people with the option to listen as they move.And for the same reason we have these hundreds of mobile phones with inbuilt mp3 player , fm etc flooding in the market do find customer.I regard the reason for iPods success was its first mover advantage .
May be i might not be correct.But it is my perspective that it is always the user( read as labor) who drives the technology and not the vice versa.

Hi
Recently an article came in the economic times(28th Jan).The article was conveying to the reader that there is no difference between a stock market and a horse race.I think why horse race i think we can compare it to pure simple gambling also.A game of chance!!
I wonder what makes people make such resemblances , such comparisons. Why ?
Is it because they loose the money in the recent crash and money tons of money!!
But what is reason for that loss? Do we ever try to discover ? Did they ever try to find what was wrong in them that they lost ? No!! Since we have other important works to do than this!!Like asking the BSE people to shift a bull sculpture from one place to another as if being facing the entrance will make it run into the market and change our fortunes overnight.
I think we all remember the simple adages.1)The quicker the rise the faster the decline.2)No one keeps on moving on higher altitude..There is nothing like perpetual upturn or downturn..the gist of it being the golden words of Newton 3rd law"EVERY ACTION HAS AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE REACTION"
The things i mentioned above are used so often in our d2d bantering that they are a cliche.Even a child of 1st class knows it by heart but what does it imply very few understand and follow.
Just trying to apply such parameters to the recent happenings in last 4 years.We rose like a mad bull and when every small barrier was broken we grew more sceptical , more suspicious of the market.Then there were people who would say that everything is good but they also warned that yes we will fall and fall big time.Only we kept on missing the point.
And then when we started to be a bit complacent and felt that things are fine no more corrections we will scale new highs , we had hundereds of theories on decoupling ,strong growth , recession which all made one point we are not vulnerable; we are stuck by a bolt of lightening and we lost all our airs.
Now the real game begins find the scape goat who must die since others have to live.It must be slaughtered since the government has to work.And to add to it our venerable politicians give comments that stop futures trading , stop this , stop that !!!
May be these laws might not be true in overall market but won't our commonsense help us stave off such miseries.
But this is what an ideal world should do but this world is far from ideal ; it is real driven real laws...Laws of greed , lust , power ...
There fore any learning of any sort is far from coming....So till then we will continue play the same game and make same mistakes only the players might change...That i hope does happen...
Till then make money by fooling the fools!!!!
But never blame anyone since when u got rich u too made someone poorer..
After all it is a horse race !!

Dilema of democracy: A wirter's agony

Democracy:- A very hallowed word and being an Indian I am supposed to be proud of it.But of what should be I proud of?Should I be proud of the fact that our democracy is not a voice of the masses ? Or should I take excessive pride in the fact the our democracy fails to safeguard the very pillars on which is was founded?
Here we have example of a writer like Taslima Nasreen who is placed in a house arrest in some place away from world.A place where we deny her rights that are awarded to every human who is born;the right to mingle in the society.Is she so dangerous a creature that she has to be kept out of public sight? And who decided over that?Is saying what is ones belief such a crime that we should incarcerate a person?(And then we expect Md Haneef to get a fair trial.Thanks Allah he was targeted in a foreign land and not in India.)
I believe we are no better than the Junta in Mayamar the generals who on some whims of their house arrested a champion of democracy.
Here we have a person who championed against the grave injustice existing in the world,only she could not sit closed eye to the plight of people.Every rational thought points to the fact that this is curbing the rights of an individual and the biggest paradoxity is that it is prevalent in "World's Biggest Democracy".This is a hypocrisy when we ask our neighbors to enact democracy while we march upon the basic rights of people.
But wait the laws are always for some individuals to benefit. Aren't they ? And the next paradoxic case is that we still follow them!!!!
I am perplexed what has Taslima done wrongly for which we have waged such an acrimonious attack against her.Are we not aquianted of that fact that women are still targeted in our society? Are not children put though such perils that they ought to loose their interest in the sanity of so called educated people?
We all accept all these "misdemeanors" in our closets.I say misdemeanors since they have become minor crimes for us.They do not shock our nerves we have learnt to ignore these and those who cannot ignore and raise their voices we have learnt to ostracize them.
See how simple life has become!!!!

Devoted to all those who come and go out of my life

Life and River
Today I understand the point Herman Hesse raises when he says we learn a lot from a river.A river is in constant turmoil. The upheavals, the quite moments, the raging waves and many more emotions all quite distinctly connected to life. But inside all these emotions the basic character of a river never changes; its basic tenet that of helping civilizations to grow and flourish. I think you got the point I am raising here. Life also brings all these emotions to fore every day. Some people choose to live with them while some stay away from them. There are so many similarities between these two that any conscious attempt of mine to elaborate will result in a chapter and I will loose the point behind this passage. I know this is not a passage since it spans across various lines but my limited knowledge of literature fails me in giving a meaning full definition to it.
Imagine you are sitting by the river side and seeing the river flow. Forget all that is happening in your life. Forget about the wind, birds, sun everything; just look at the river. I see the water , rocks , plants and many things flowing with the river. If the river is fast they just pass away while if the river is calm they stay there , they may stay there for centuries altogether but they are not permanent. And now if you could sit there by this riverside for ages without you yourself aging then you start to see that it was never persistent. It is always changing though blind to human eye. But since we have a restriction of aging and the duration of change is large we see these things constant and when we see these things constant we start associating them with emotions. I might sound clichéd, you may say that what new I am saying but then it is your decision to continue or just move out.
Now what I see in this river is everything I see people swimming in the river some sit with me for some time share some time with me and then leave while some just come for the sake of coming to make my sitting more complex. But if all these were to go and I could stay here on this river all alone talking to the river; which always was speaking something but I could not listen to it and I choose to listen to the creatures who came to make my life complex to divert my attention from the river; I understand the point that all will pass what remains is we with our rivers. And I was foolish to associate emotions with these people who had to fade away since that is there inborn tenet. They are the ones who trigger change by not being the same and the thing which is the same is this river. This is all just a game played by us set up very neatly by us. I might question how can this be set by us and played by us. So the answere to this lies in one more tenet which we have that is of action. All these emotions, reactions and associations to these sightings in the river are a result of our own actions. If all of us choose not to act then the riverside is a boring place to be but even one person choose to act then this chain of actions are triggered and we fall like the stock market.I base this on the simple law of action and reaction.
So I just ask this question who started this first action? Since for this action to happen also there must have been a motive. Someone would have thought and acted. So who is that person and upon deeper deliberation I found the culprit. It was none of the people sitting by the riverside but a bigger player. He in fact rolled the dice first and all just started playing like the Jumanji. When he rolled the dice the consequence was that we were all given a very remarkable feature of existence and for existence what was required was the nag to eat. This nagging desire of human made him to react. This very feeling made the man to take action and what I see is that rest is all history. And the game that God was playing with us is to come out of this plug and play game of action and reaction. Here I donot mean that we should stop eating/acting altogether; no; no way this is our feature but to see the life in broader perspective, the perspective which Buddha, Mahaveer, Jesus, Krishna and all the great saints of the world adopted.
The idea that nothing changed. When I say this I mean the basic tenet of the river has not changed it is still the same but only our association made it so complex and caused this despair and pain .