Saturday, September 20, 2008

2 years Since .. another time another day ...another Blast

A couple of years ago, i was pretty much in a similar setup as I am today, away from home, alone, with nothing much to do. Then something had happened which made me write this -
Survival ... The Basic Instinct , that was an expression of angst i felt following the orchestrated blasts on the Mumbai locals, within a span of 11 minutes a series of explosions led to the death of 200 innocent fellow Indians along with 700 odd injured many of them probably disabled for life. I had talked about a kind of Inertia that i felt had set in, in our response to such acts of mindless terror and hoped our basic survival instincts will make us rise from that slumber and bring about a change.

More than 2 years and numerous similar incidents later i only find my angst being replaced by helplessness, it is amazing to look back and see myself react over every such incident whether be it Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi .... its almost become a routine, you hear about the incident, call up family and friends in that city, check if alls well, express your angst on this , talk, debate , discuss over and over again forget the incident in a weeks time ... maybe a fortnight and repeat the same when the next time terror strikes. This time it was Delhi ... my city but thankfully "My" people were all safe and sound who cares about the 22 others who lost their lives to another dastardly act of senseless violence.

The problem i see today is that we in India don't value human life as much as people across the world do, big deal if a few hundreds get killed out of a billion plus ... thats the attitude i see across the socio political spectrum in India , be it the common man , the politician or the government.

Today Human rights are more important than Human life. Teesta Setalvad is more important than Inspector M C Sharma, the home minister of our country says "action will be taken against the culprits as per the law" and tries to ensure there arent any laws in the first place. The prime minister of the country doesnt say anything and soniaji visits the hospitals and "condemns" the blast. Mr Rajdeep Sardesai (among the top journalists in India) says "laws are not detterents" and "laws not required, as crminals will still go ahead and commit crime" and conveniently forgets that inspite of convictions under the laws of the land the convicted is still being saved the gallows by our political and 'activist' class .. Our security agencies with 302 rifles and a khakhi half sleeve shirt are expected to ambush militants with AK47s and bullet proof jackets, And obviously arent given the luxury of being pro active in nabbing doubtful elements in the society as it might upset a few Human(Terrorists) Rights Activists

Is there hope ? i really dont have an answer , we are where we were 2 years ago, maybe in an even worse condition today .... that external force, probably hasn't been strong yet to get us out of our inertia ... but till when can things be the way they are ... when will we start valuing human life ... only time will tell ... as of now .. today ... i feel just a sense of helplessness !!

Friday, August 22, 2008

The Hindu Rate of growth

I remember the times as a small kid living in an upmarket 'Bombay' locality, where I shared my apartment block with the likes of Indrani mukherjee, Harmesh Malhotra (Nagina fame), Asha Parekh and my neighbourhood with Sunil Dutt/Nargis Dutt , Dilip Kumar and Saira Banu, had friends who were kids of the rich and famous, went to the school which had Aaamir Khan as its alumni and paid 5 /- a month as fees. Till the time my height became a bit too obstructive for my dad to ride comfortably and we could afford a second hand maruti ( for a whopping 50000/-), The mode of tranport for my family of 4 was an original Vespa (1958 Model) which ferried us for years from Pali Hill in Bandra to Vashi in New Bombay

This was the last decade of what I call the Nehruvian legacy, After 40 years of socialism , there still were the haves and the havenots, and then there were us, "something in the middle & something in between" , the lucky few whose dad's had jobs with those prestigious public sectors financial institutions which had assets in the most posh localities, but operationally were just in line with the Hindu rate of growth, and so were the salaries and growth opportunities.

I was surely among the lucky ones,for me, I have always believed, the standard of life then, when my dad supported his family on a meager salary of less than 10K as a manager was better than what most people can ever have today. In spite of the big bucks just out of college grads make , most will never afford living in the same apartment, I was brought up in.

Probably Nehru had dreamed of an India where most would have been as lucky as i was, but unfortunately that did not or maybe could not have happened, those public sectors even after a good 40 years could be counted on your fingertips and therefore provide employment for maybe not even a % of the Indian populace, and that is where Nehru and later his successors failed to estimate growth rates which would have been required to provide equal opportunities to most. Our economy was growing at around 2 - 3 % whereas other Asian capatalist economies were booming led by japan and then followed by the south east asian economies , Korea and China.

And this, instead of bringing in equality and even distribution of wealth, in fact led to a widening of the Gap between the haves and the have nots, with the rich, who could "manage" the license raj getting richer, the priviledged educated elite who could land jobs in the public sector , Govt , administration or the bureaucracy a respectable lifestlye (though not much money to show) and the rest, the majority with almost nothing. Maybe the Green revolution of the late 60's / 70's was the only saviour for the large agricultural economy on which India survived those decades.

The key was to create millions of jobs, which never happened in the controlled License raj era and left a generation of unemployed undereducated Indians who form todays caste and class ridden Indian middle class who feel let down by the nation in not been given an equal opportunity to grow along with their few lucky countrymen.

I have been lucky and fortunate have been born in the era which witnessed the transition of India from the stifled growth decades of the 80's and early 90's to the era of the open markets today, its true, for me, i might never get to stay in apartment block on Nargis Dutt road in Pali Hill, but am happy for the millions of my countrymen who atleast have a job today and an opprtunity to change their and our country's fortune.

Only if we had started the process in the 50's along with the Japans of the world ...

Monday, August 18, 2008

वाह रे मेरा भारतवर्ष

cnn ibn reports -

.....................................
"Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Monday demanded the merger of Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan"

Addressing a mammoth gathering at the tourist reception centre here (Srinagar), Gillani said there was "no solution to the Kashmir issue other than merger with Pakistan".

"We are Pakistanis and Pakistan is us because we are tied with the country through Islam," he roared, as the crowd cheered him and chanted: "Hum Pakistani hain, Pakistan hamara hai" (We are Pakistanis, Pakistan is ours).

....................................

And our media is proud of it .... Syed Ali Shah Geelani is still a free man .... free to address as many such rallies as he wishes .... today it is kashmir ... tomorrow will be hyderabad ....and then amdabad ... after all we are a democracy ... you know Modi with a 2/3rds majority in the Vidhan Sabha is a bigger threat there (Source: Our very own ... Intellectual media )

we are proud to be a democracy .... proud to be an Indian ...

Just compare this with our neighbours ... 2 Brits deported from Beijing ... in front of full International media glare ... the same day they were found with a "free Tibet" bannner ....

a few votes in our democracy are more important than our territorial integrity ..... and for our media this is just another masala news item which should be displayed proudly on the home page .... who needs traitors here ...

वाह रे मेरा भारतवर्ष ...

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Kumble and the fab 4

If anyone has won more tests single handedly for India ... theres no doubt in my mind it has to be kumble ... for the last 18 odd years this guy who ... for the for the first half of his career fooled batsmen by claiming to be a leg break bowler and then after his shoulder injury actually started to spin the ball both ways when no one expected it would spin .... he has proved beyond doubt he will always be one of the all time greatest cricketers ever to have played for India.

If anyone deserved to be captain of India for the last decade and a half ... based on pure performance and dedication ... again undoubtedly it should have been kumble .... and when it was time to maybe hang his boots ... on a high .... he was crowned "The captain" and given the "fab 4" in his team .... what an irony ... these have been the very guys who over the years overshadowed whatever kumble did .... 1 sachin century in a tame draw was always hailed greater than a match winning 4 wickets by kumble in the final session to win a test .... and today these are the people who themselves will never retire gracefully (will have to be kicked out ) ... and not let the great that Kumble is to go the way he should .....

p.s1 lately if anyone has been winning tests for India is Sehwag without doubt ..... when will sachin , dravid , ganguly , laxman realize their time is over !!
p.s2 I am told that Sachin "refused" to take the responsibility and the Indian Board couldn't find anyone to take the Job after Dravid stepped down ... now was it actually an honor for Kumble or just convenience on the part of the Indian board ?

Its Different ..

I frequent the ibn live blogs , not exactly for the quality of posts there or even the insight they provide on a gamut of issues that our nation faces ... but probably more to guage the level to which the Hippocratic bias of front line Indian intellectual media (read ndtv/cnn-ibn and the likes) can get to ....and more to go through the comments section rather than the actual post :) ..

To my surprise today i came across a very subjective post ... which talks about actual governance on the ground and keeps itself away from the Hippocratic pseudo secular line that you will come across more often ...

Surely one of the few good reads you will find there -

cnnibn - different blog

and enclosing one of the typical ones "just to tell the difference" :)

cnnibn - typical blog

:)

My new address on the World Wide Web ...

Being consistent with changing times ... and evolving through time ... which has been the theme of my Blog since Monday Feb 20 2006, I have now migrated to Google .

Being one of the strongest proponents of Google , its technology and vision, I should have been doing this a long time back ... and well ... I indeed had .... its just that i have become a bit too lazy to actually do a "cut over" (As we say as per the standard migration process) , so here .. on the 16th Of August 2008 completely move from O3 at Indiatimes to here ...

My previous posts will remain available at - http://o3.indiatimes.com/someramblings , though i have not been a prolific writer in any sense of the word , but whatever little bit i write going forward will be here .... till evolution again demands change

Update : 10/05/2009

I found a way to Migrate my earlier posts to Blogger , so all my posts are available here also.

something has changed ....

There was a time (not that long ago) when i had lots of time ...and i had to find ways to make use of it ,and today looks like days have shortened ... do we still have the same 24 Hrs a day which i had 3 years back ? things have changed .... life has changed ..... maybe even priorities have .... , when i had started off my career in the technology space .... some 5 years back ... I always belived that i am the one whos working the most and making all the $s for my company .... today i feel i am the one whos slogging it out and these juniors just out of college just dnt want to work ..... now is this just a perspective or a different generation a different mindset .... i dont knw ... all i knw that when i thot i slogged a lot 5 yrs back i had a lot of time to forward junk to the world ... be 24X7 online ........ write blogs .... be active on the social network ... play cricket ... play TT .... go to gym (once in a while ie) ... get into a volleyball game ... roam around the chennai beaches ... . be involved with socio political groups ... be part of change ... try to influence change and what not ... if i look down ... just the last 5 years i can see what it is ....... is it just abt getting practical with all your experiences ... with time you get your priorities right (now who knws 5 yrs down the line i might think otherwise) .... u understand yourself and your environment ....what you can do and what is beyond urself .... it is something like a couple of years back in a similar setup i was away frm India and there were those ghastly bomb blasts in the mumbai subarban train network .... I was shocked angered and wanted to change the world ... today I am again somewhere far off and i hear of bombs going off at the same Bus stops in bangalore where I had waited for my bus to e-city 100's of times ...and I just dont get that same feeling i had 2 years back ... i know nothing can change and nothing will change ... that spark ...that exuberance.... that hope .. seems to be deserting me ....Today the only passion i see ... offcourse other than cricket :) ... is my job .. my work, why has so much changed in the last year or so .... maybe its just that i am getting married .... i know its not right ... but its imminent ..... what i always feared is coming true ... once u get married have a family you ... the selflessness starts diminishing and the selfishnes begins ... i know its coming .... i knw its happening ... and i know it happens to most .... but i always thought i am diffrent ... the question i need to ask myself is ... what makes me change ... why cant i be my real self as i was B4 .... why cant i still find time to do what i always did ... why cant i still play the games i loved ...why cant i keep thinking big .... why cant i spare time for firends .... why cant i just be online as used to be before !!