Beyond obvious lies deserted dreams

Sometimes I wonder the allure of Indian economic progress is anything more than an attractive trailer of a poor comedy movie, where you are lured in the movie hoping it to be good only to find the only comic scene was in the trailer; rest is just stale old tale. 

Few things we must be proud of, even in this economic crisis we managed to pull above 8% GDP growth where rest of the world reeled under the massive economic crisis (only exception to China). While in coming future, Europe and US is supposed to face a severe economic uncertainty, we can safely say that India will still grow over 7%. Few more things which our PM or Government never forget to mention that India is becoming a superpower with major geopolitical influence. To be frank it fills my heart with pride, if these will not then what else would. Recession is only because India is growing and with economic growth it is inevitable. So recession is also a sign of growing Indian prosperity. There are always a few words in all speeches and plans which make you think Government has genuine concern for all of us; inclusive growth, equitable, social justice, poverty alleviation etc. 

If you liked the trailer, believe me you are not going to like the movie.  It never has been a happy ever after movie after the Indian independence. Things have changed and now the way we are taught and primed to think has fogged our eye sight where we are unable to see beyond the alluring trailer. 

Let us start with some blatant facts. India ranks 134 in Human Development Index (HDI) out of 187 countries (UN development council releases the statistics).  Just to give a prospective, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are better placed than us. Last year India was at 119th position. Pakistan, Bangladesh and Srilanka do better than us in gender equality. 

According to most conservative, pro government Tendulkar committees report, India has poor population of 37% (more than one third). Just to point out Tendulkar committee report was the basis for government to decide Rs. 32 and Rs. 25 for BPL which we all know shows how divorced our government is from reality. Even based on this report India has now more poor people than its total population at the time of independence. That says a great deal of great Indian dream.

However if we go by National Smaple Survey data (collected by Government), this percentage is 76% in rural areas and 68% in urban areas. This data is based on how many people can not afford to meet their basic nutritional requirement. One more interesting fact I would like to point out the aim of Tendulkar committee was to show that overall percentage of poverty has decreased, so basically they reduced the BPL to an absurd value to meet the desired. 

Recent death of more than 450 children (who also were found to be severely malnourished) this year in UP alone within 4 months due to encephalitis tells a grieving story of negligence. This is a recurring occurrence in state and still apathy towards it from either state or central government is deplorable.

Maharshtra which boasts highest GDP in the country (and Mukesh Ambani’s pride 600 room house) has topped in the farmer suicide chart by 15,964 deaths in last 15 year time. Staggering total of 256,913 farmers’ suicide in India in last 15 years. The data is from government agency. 

India has maximum number of people, nearly 57% of whole world’s population, who do not have proper sanitation facility and who defecate in open. Again this is UN data.

!3% of child population in urban area spends their childhood in slums. 

We can pile more data, but the point is the country where more than 70% people can not afford to reach their nutritional value how justified is our obsession with GDP. What does economic powerhouse and target growth of 9% in 12th plan, mean to those people who commit suicide? Isn’t inclusion of social equality, economic justice, parity and equity a mere farce? My ire is not against the condition but the negligence to take corrective action. 

Mary Parker Follet had said that, “Home of my soul is in the state”. This is one the most poetic line I have read in my life. This means I am so integrated in the state that state represents me and I represent the state. Can 70% population who can not feed themselves, farmers committing suicide and many more say the same thing for our Indian government? She says it is only possible in participative democracy. Just to give you feel how did you feel when Anna was agitating? Did you not feel that through Anna a part of you was heard and you were part of system? That same feeling do you feel on any other day? Do protesters at Kundankulam feel the same way? Does Iromila Sharma feel the same way? Why do we feel that psychological alienation from our own government? The answer lies in the fact that you will only feel that integration when soul of state also lies in you. 

In a line Burns had summarized it, “In representative democracy, liberty of individual vanishes in ballot box in 2 seconds, after which people consume others politics." We have been consuming others politics for long. Sadly our state’s heart lies in those billionaires dream that see death through poverty a natural cleaning process of social evolution. Policies are not made to equitable growth rather for enhancing capital market policy which naturally breeds disparity and where poverty is not natural a phenomenon.

I will start with neo-liberalism or so called our PM Manmohan Singh’s great economic reform. The fact is it was not a brainchild of Manmohan singh, it was simply a forced coercion of IMF which we had to follow due to some unavoidable reasons. NO, he did not have a great innovative dream. So our puppet should stop taking credit for the economic changes he had to introduce. From the day one we were made to believe that it is an economic reform while social agitation like Occupy Wall Street would beg to differ. Since the introduction of neo liberalism the disparity has increased many folds and will continue to widen. I am not against free competition but at least people should have a similar base to start with. Do you not feel that a farmer’s son had inherent disadvantage in competition as compared to a well to do family’s kin? Is it a fare competition at all? Without proper basic education, nutrition, health facility, drinking facility, electricity or even sanitation how he is supposed to compete in this world? The question is if government is promoting free competition then whose responsibility is to provide equal chance? And if government had failed in providing these due to any reason (say corruption) then whose accountability is it? Should not government be more accountable and stop playing interdepartmental or state-centre blame game and for once take some stringent action? Have you realized in only last 20 years all millionaires and billionaires have popped up?  Do you know India’s GDP is primarily driven by domestic consumption and NOT by export as envisioned earlier, otherwise we wouldn’t have such big current account deficit.  This is the only reason why we did not feel that much slowdown in economic recession.

12th 5 year plan envisages a public private partnership (PPP). It promotes corporatization of lands. For many of us land today means an investment, capital and housing needs, but not for 70% population who still see it as source of livelihood, social justice, food security, sustenance and matter of dignity. By corporatization, marginal land owners will again be reduced to feeble daily wage workers while private corporate will mint money. It will simply increase the availability of daily wage workers who will be exploited at the will of private sector.  Was not this the reason in the first place why land reforms were introduced and jamindari was abolished? We all know how land accusation in UP has angered farmers due to inadequate, forcible accusations by state itself. Later all those property are sold to real estate agents who makes extravagant profit while farmers are paid marginally.  It would not be harsh to say that government forgot our farmers after 2nd 5 year plan. Farming still provides livelihood to 55% of people.

Let us talk about some government mindset. Government has failed to address critical issues of labors in organized and unorganized sector. Liberal, corporate oriented labor mindset has resulted in exploitation of people working in these sectors. To make market look lucrative Government has made weak laws which enables corporate (MNC) to exploit employees. How sad is it that MNC’s do not give holidays on Indian Independence Day but it gives holiday on American day. Unless a country respects its people, MNCs will keep treating Indian human resource as expendables. The comparison of safety standard followed by same MNC in India and in western country should be enough to validate my point. Weak nuclear liability bill is nothing but a simple manifestation of it.

Planned privatization of education and health sector will not realize in empowerment of people. This is simply because when goals at the heart of policy formulation lie in maximization of profit, it will never result in welfare. In most of the developed country health has been public (governmental) concern. If government is serious about providing health service then it should take serious substantial step to achieve it. Without the lack of political will, every policy will be a failure.

I will touch a bit on AFSPA (Armed force special power act) which is operational in J&K and North East. As many of us profess strong law is necessary but they must remember what is even more important is strong accountability. Our laws have weak accountability so in case of failure, we argue we require a strong law. If accountability is proper probably we will not require strong laws. To mask our failure we enact these draconian laws. Strong laws should go with strong safeguards too, otherwise nearly 1700 unidentified bodies in J&K would not have happened where army has authority to shoot at will without any consequence.

The question I would like to raise, can you see beyond the fog where people are in distress and any % of GDP means nothing to them, or bailout of Kingfisher Airlines (arrogant SOB) is our priority.  Government must remember it is simply an instrument to achieve people’s goal, it is not an end itself.

Losers will Smile

I used to be skinny in my childhood. Worst part of being skinny is that you can not afford to pick up a fight as no one but you will be on the receiving end. So, even if somebody used to hit me, I would never respond back. My best way of taking revenge was to take the matter to the higher courts. Teachers used to praise me, because they used to think I am practicing Gandhigiri.
After my 10th board examination, I started gaining weight. I was very happy. When I realized I was skinny no more, I intentionally picked up a fight with the skinniest guy in my class. What happened is history but I came to two conclusions, never pick up a fight with a skinny cricketer when he has cricket bat in his hand and humiliation is more when you get beaten up by a skinny friend.

Recently I realized that I have started to grow again and I can feel it. My clothes are tight and I feel bigger. For past ten months, I am in Australia and I believe it has something to do with my growth. In a month I am going back to India and I can’t go like this. I have to stop growing, but question is how? So, I did little research on Google. I believe after some years all the laboratories in IITs will be closed and all the researches will be conducted on Google. Result suggested that it has something to do with my eating habits and not living an active lifestyle. What non sense, I have been eating well, chicken wings in the breakfast, fish and chips for lunch, chips in the evening and six rotis with sabji in the dinner. Going little out of context, in Australia they sell awesome candy bars. You get so many different kinds of candy bars that even daily I eat 5 or 6 different types of candy bars; still I have not tested all of them. When I talked to gym instructor at work about it, he asked me “Do you cook or you do take away?” I told him off course I cook (I am pretty sure he was talking about dinner, though he never mentioned it). He seemed surprised and told me that people generally put weight on when they mostly do take away.
With one reason out, it only leaves my “not so active” lifestyle as the reason. I did some more research on “Google” on what is active lifestyle. It suggested that 1,000 steps a day is considered as an active lifestyle. I bought a pedometer next day and tied it to my shoes in the morning. In the evening the count was 2,173, so I am leading an active lifestyle. While I was putting pedometer back in the case, I saw 10,000 steps written on the case. Thinking, it must be for athletes, I searched in Google again. What the fu**, last time I missed a zero at the end, 10,000 steps for active lifestyle and my count was 2,173 only.

I still believe that I am not overweight; I am just “Healthy”. I need to tone down a bit so that I am considered healthy and not “Healthy”. From tomorrow onwards, I will do exercise, eat less, inhibit my temptation for chocolates and in the end will emerge as a “Loser”. Today is the last day of uninhibited quest, so let me test 10 chocolates today.

Gyaan ki Baat

I asked him that can he keep a secret? He said, "Off course. Do not worry, my lips are sealed like BP Oil wells."

ज्ञान १: जहाँ तक मेरी समझ है, दी गयी गाली तभी सार्थक है जब जिसे दिया गया हो उसे लग जाये.  अगर गाली लगी नहीं तो बेकार गयी. इसलिए गाली हमेशा receiver कि मातृभाषा में देनी चाहिए.  मेरा दोस्त राहुल एक बार धोबी पर गरम हो गया. बात ही ऐसी थी, उसने राहुल कि नयी शर्ट गुमा दी थी. राहुल भाई थोड़े अंग्रेजी के जानकार आदमी हैं, और बात भी ज्यादातर अंग्रेजी में ही करना पसंद करते हैं. गुस्से में राहुल भाई अपनी मातृभाषा, अंग्रेजी में शुरू हो गए. एक से बढकर एक चुनिन्दा गलियाँ दी. कुछ तो मैंने अपनी diary में note कर लिया भविष्य में प्रयोग के लिए. जब राहुल भाई शांत हुए तो धोबी सहम कर बोला "भैया, वो मैं कह रहा था कि आपका शर्ट गुम हो गया है, शायद आप समझे नहीं."

ज्ञान २: एक बार मैं अपने दोस्त सतीश के घर गया. उसकी दीदी का बेटा कुणाल छुट्टियों में आया हुआ था. मैंने उसे छेड़ने के लिए पीछे से उसके बाल खींचे. पलट कर उसने मुझे गाली दे दी. मैंने उसे समझाते हुए बोला "बेटा गाली नहीं देते. अब देखो, तुम ने गाली दी और मैंने नहीं ली, गाली तो तुम्ही को वापस हो गयी ना. इसलिए गाली नहीं देते."
उसने कहा, " गाली वापस थोड़े ही ना होता है, एक बार जिसको दे दी उसी के पास रहती है. गाली आप ही के पास है."
इसलिए याद रखिये, दी गयी गाली वापस नहीं होती. अगर कोई आपको गाली दे रहा है और आप यह सोचकर ध्यान नहीं दे रहे हैं कि आप उसे ले नहीं रहे हैं, तो यह आपकी भूल है. गली आपको लग कर ही रहेगी.

यह चुटकुला real अनुभव पर आधारित है.
एक बार एक लड़के वाला मेरे पडोसी के घर उनकी बेटी का रिश्ता तय करने आया. बात चलते-चलते दहेज़ पर पहुँची. लड़के वाले बहुत ज्यादा दहेज़ मांग रहे थे. इसी बीच लड़के के पिताजी को जोर की लघुशंका आयी. उन्होंने पडोसी से एक लोटा पानी मँगवाने को कहा. मेरे पडोसी ने जोर से अपने बेटे को आवाज लगते हुए कहा, "जरा, एक बड़े से लोटे में पानी तो लेते आना, आज समधी जी आग मूत रहे हैं. बुझाने के लिए चाहिए होगा." पड़ोसी का दहेज़ पर यह व्यंग अभी भी मुझे हँसाता है.

"मेरे पिताजी इतने लम्बे हैं" वाला चुटकुला तो आपने सुना ही होगा.
तीन बच्चे आपस में discussion कर रहे थे कि किसके पिताजी सबसे ज्यादा काबिल हैं.
पहला बच्चा: मेरे पिताजी तो इतने लम्बे हैं की वो ताड़ के पेड़ से फल तोड़ लेते हैं.
दूसरा बच्चा: बस. मेरे पिताजी तो इतने लम्बे हैं की वो उड़ते हुए जहाज को आराम से छू लेते हैं.
तीसरा बच्चा: मेरे पिताजी भी लम्बे हैं, पर वो ऐसा चुरकुट वाला काम नहीं करते.

Bits & Pieces

It is freaking winter.

Do not think I am nuts. It is freaking cold here. Winter is at its peak. In my defense, I am in Australia. 

Today morning Andrew asked me what I was smiling about? I replied to him that I wasn't smiling. That was the expression from last night which had frozen in the freaking cold.

1 week to go.

I am going back to India for a month on holidays. I couldn't have picked up worse time. I have heard it is pretty hot in India. All the time I spent hiding from the Sun to become fair, will be tanned back to original in a week.
Still, I am looking forward to the trip for two reasons. One, my elder brother is getting married, and second, I will get to eat lots of mangoes. I missed mangoes in Australia. You do not get variety and quality over here.

सौ चूहे खा कर बिल्ली चली हज को.

कभी "अपने पाँव पर कुल्हाड़ी मरना" मुहावरे का इससे बढ़िया प्रयोग मैंने नहीं देखा. जोश में आकर मैंने BARC का form दो महीने पहले भर दिया. मैंने तो बस यूँ ही application डाल दी थी. तब से बस घर वाले पीछे ही पड़ गए की तैयारी कैसी चल रही है. Exam अगले Sunday है. पिछले चार दिन से पढाई शुरू की है. ४ साल का course अगले ४ दिनों में निबटाना है. कहते हैं ना कि पिछले जनम का पाप २ दिन में थोड़े ही धुलता है. ऐसे धुलाई जरी है. बस आपके सहयोग की आवश्यकता है. जम कर शुभाशीष दीजिये. पास कर गया तो एक-एक के घर मिठाई भेजूँगा, वर्ना आशीष आपने मन से नहीं दिया या फिर आपके आशीष में दम नहीं है, मान कर संतोष कर लूँगा.

See you all in India in a week time.

How to stop loving your work

Once I posted below statement on my Facebook wall and following is the conversation that followed.

“Sometimes you just want to stab someone, but you can’t do it because it is against company’s policy.”

Comment: It is against the policy of every society, even then people do it. You just need to have enough courage to perform HATKE.
Me: May be I need little encouragement & motivation :)
Comment: I think...may be u need a bit more of torture. :P

And I could not stop laughing.

Are you one of those dumb guys who love their work?

Let me get few things straight: It does not matter how much I said I love to work hard or how much I want to work for your company or how much my tailored resume gave you impression that I will be a perfect fit; I DO NOT LOVE WORK. And yes I lied when I told you in the interview that I was born to work for your company as I had said the same thing to another company who had interviewed me 5 minutes before you. I will not stay a minute after 4 PM in the evening and will take minimum 2 sick leaves every month.

One of the departments I hate most in a firm is HR (human resource). They are like muffins, tastes so nice but if you had too much of it, you will have type-2 diabetes. With their pretty face at first it might seem that chick is digging you, but as soon as you are hired they will treat you like an ex- and you do not know whether it was you or her. Next time you see them around is when it is time to fire you.

I often hear people saying how much they love their work. I think either they do not understand the meaning of pleasure or they do not understand work. Do you know why company pays you salary – because you are miserable at work. Think about it, last time when did you do something fun and you did not have to pay for it? And, do you think if company knows that you are having fun at work, they will pay you? They are there to make money for themselves and not for a sucker like you. Only reason you are there because at this point in time no machine or human is available to do that work more efficiently or cheaper than you. To them you are not an individual, you are simple a human RESOURCE. One thing I am pretty sure is, if you are having fun at work then you are miserable at home. So never love your work.

Once you establish that you hate your job, the question is how to survive it? It pays for your requirements and hence you can not completely stop working. These guidelines will help you survive your job:

1. Be competitive: You can survive by just knowing that there is always someone out there who has a worse job than you. His life sucks more than yours.
2. Be positive: There is light at the end of the tunnel and it is your salary. No matter what happens, they have to pay you until they fire you.
3. Be productive: If you are interested in shares then you can utilize office time to do online trading. Managing your Ebay account is also a good way of saving on bargains.
4. Expand your skill set: Learn how to play online games. Sudoku, mind puzzles or other online games are good way to waste time.
5. Ramp up your networking: Facebook is banned at most of the workplace, but it should not stop you from being social. Spend time around coffee machine, and know your colleagues better.
6. Planning for who you want to be in 5 years time: Day dreams are good way to see your career progression. Good thing about day dreaming is there is no required skill set for any job you want to dream about and sky is the limit.
7. Be inclusive about your work: Working environment becomes less boring if you are having an affair with someone but it might create problem if your wife learns about it. So only get into affairs with someone who has high regard for confidentiality.

Every morning when I wake up, I do a mental calculation to decide whether I can take sick leave today or not. Then on my way to work I try to convince myself that I love my work which lasts till I enter my office. Once I sit on my chair only thing gets me through the day is the fact that everyday has 4P.M. and every week a Friday. Ohh shit, it is already 4:02P.M., see you later.

Mount Kosciuszko – a trip to the highest mountain in Australia

 Dedicated to Mr. X

Disclaimer:  Well things might seem funny now, but weren’t funny at that time :). Even though Mr. X is real, but we can not reveal his identity due to confidentiality agreement. See Abhishek, I had told you I will never reveal your identity if you do not want to.

It rarely happens that weekend is longer than weekdays (a wise old man said last time it happened when Australia won The Ashes) and 5 day Easter break was perfect time for me to come out of my shell. So, four exIITians Mr. X, Lokesh, Bhassi and I decided to camp on the highest mountain in Australia, Mount Kosciuszko. In nutshell, we completed demanding 27 Km walk on medium to hard terrain, in minus zero condition, 20+ Kg on our back and camped one night on Mount Kosciuszko. While pain still has to recede, hopefully story will go on.

Our journey started from Great Victoria. In Victoria everything is “Great”; river, roads, swamps, forests and even their dry creeks. After 9 hour long drive, we arrived at Jindabyne (the base camp for Mount Kosciuszko) at 3A.M. in the middle of the night. Apparently expected time to reach there was 11P.M., so we weren’t too late, only trouble was everything was closed and temperature was around zero. So we decided to sleep in the car itself. We closed all the windows and slipped in our sleeping bags. Within few minutes of good night exchange I realized a couple of things (1) Bhassi is oxygen munching monster. He was consuming more than 75% of our oxygen (limited amount available in the car). He was taking really long inhales in such quick succession that it almost felt like Kapal Bhathi except he was inhaling instead of exhaling. I was afraid that I will die due to lack of oxygen, so we made gap in our windows for oxygen inflow. (2) Mr. X snores at a pitch which you can clearly hear even in Metallica concerts, and I will tell you one thing, I couldn’t sleep in Metallica concert. So Lokesh and I were awake for the whole night watching him sleep like a child. At least someone slept well that night :(.

Enjoying tranquility at Jindabyne lake after full night of snoring from Mr. X

In the morning we all went to see Jindabyne Lake. View was quite scenic and atmosphere was quite quiet. We had light breakfast and we did final checking of our backpacks. Before I could close my rucksack, I heard Mr. X shouting, apparently something was missing. He had brought 8 liters of water for 1.5 day tracking (:O) out of which 1 liter was missing.  After little convincing he settled for 7 liters but made it clear that he is not going to share his water in any case. I realized, everyone has to look after themselves. I only had 2 liters of water on me and I had no doubt in my mind that I might have to kill Mr. X before I can get a sip out of his lot.

Snowy River, well that is what river looks like in Australia

We started tracking around 10A.M. Within few minutes we all realized it is going to quite demanding. First came Snowy River, then a series of peaks and saddle. Once you know the difference, you will never confuse a river with creek. Creeks are creeks while river is a creek with bucket of water flowing through it.

 Weather was perfect for tracking, but at the end of the day we were dog tired. We set up our tent in the dark under torch light. Finally we had shelter from freezing outside and this was time to discuss the day. Facts were, rucksacks were very heavy due to consumable goods (water, bread, jam etc) and so far no one had drank more than 100 ml of water. There were few laughs about 8 liter of water. At dinner time everybody was keen to share their share of water and food so that they can loose some weight, but no one showed interest in others stock. We ate and drink as much as we can so that next day we had to carry less, well that is how I got my name, Museli Mishra :). After few rounds of card games we all went for bed. Even before we finished good night exchange, we knew Mr. X was asleep as we could hear loud snores coming out of his sleeping bag. We all knew we were up for another big night. Bhassi, Lokesh and I had light conversation for another half an hour around snoring and few laughs at Mr. X’s misfired snores. We all managed to get some rest.
Second day track was much easier due to sloping terrain and our lighter backpack (due to last nights overeating).
All together it was quite fun and enjoyable experience. We had laughs and that is all that counts.

P.S: Bits of story are exaggerated. All in good faith.
Abhishek: Thanks for driving us safely in long stretch.
Bhassi: Thanks for packed lunch.
Lokesh: Thanks for carrying the heaviest rucksack :P

Teesri Kassam: Pahli Kassam

If you love someone let him go. If he comes back then he is yours forever and if he doesn't then you STALK.

I impatiently looked at the watch; 1:25 P.M.; 5 more minutes if train starts on time. I missed India a lot in last six months. 

“Bhaiya, Saharsa jane mein kitna samay lagega?” I asked a chai wala next to my window.

“Jyada der lagega to udd kar jaoge kya?” I was tired from 11 hour flight and his sense of humor was irritating me, but I smiled back as he and his customers were laughing at his comment.

“4 ghanta lagta hai, arram se khate peete jao.”

“Excuse me, that’s my seat.”

“Oh, sorry.”

She was beautiful and I was thunderstruck. Though I was sure that was my seat, I moved to the empty seat next to it. I thought, may be journey won’t be boring after all. Chai wala was cruelly smiling at me and singing “Yun hi kat jayega safar saath ….” when train started creeping on the platform.

By the time I decided what would be my conversation starter; she was already busy reading Fountainhead. I had seen it under “Best booksellers Category" in book agency at Melbourne airport. I always find these book agencies at airport handy, as I can pass hours just flicking through books and updating myself to new releases without spending any money.

“Good book.”

“Have you read it?”

“I am planning to read it on my flight back to Melbourne.” I emphasized on Melbourne.

“Which is your favorite book?”

“Umm.., Harry Potter.” I grinned.

“So, not much of a reader, I guess.” She was smiling. “Do not say that J. K. Rowling is your favorite author.” She closed her book. “So, what is new in Australia? I could not ignore the force you put behind Melbourne.”

She was laughing and I was grinning shamelessly. It was not the first impression I wanted but at least she was talking. 

“I just wanted to talk to you and I was not sure how to start. I hope you did not mind. So, where are you going?”

“Do not worry, I understand. I am going to Madhepura. What about you?”

“Me too.”
That is the stop after Saharsa. An extra hour won’t hurt. I will catch a taxi at Madhepura station to my place. I can definitely say, she was screwing with my thought process.

Later she told me that she was studying commerce from Patna University. She liked reading books and listening music. She was enjoying her studies at university. She also asked me a lot of question about life style in Australia and my college life at IIT Kanpur. Saharsa came and went. For the first time, I wished somebody could pull the chain and delay the train. I needed to ask her number, but how was haunting me.

“So, any special reason to come to India?”

I knew what she meant [:)]. “No, just to catch up with family and friends.”

“Good. You know I got engaged last week. He is a doctor. He proposed me…” I had already stopped listening. How much she talks. Can’t I have little peace for a while? Great, now she was showing me his pictures.

“So, what do you think?”

“He seems good. Can you tell me how long will it take to reach Madhepura from now?”

“20 mins.”

She opened her book again as I kept gazing the fields. I should have alighted at Saharsa, I thought.

She started packing her belongings as train entered the terminal. I just felt bad for my unreasonable behavior.

“I am sorry.” I said.

“That is OK. I am sorry too. I should not have told you about my fiancee after you missed your stop for me.” She was smiling again. “I heard you talking to chai wala. Didn’t you wanted to go Saharsa? Taxi for Saharsa leaves from just outside station exit.”

She handed Fountainhead to me and said, “I have already read it. It is a good book. I hope you will enjoy it and have a good trip.”

I walked towards exit thinking what just happened.

“Bhaiya, Saharsa jana hai. Kitna loge?”

He was playing “Ham to hue barbad kisi se hai…”.

I requested him to turn off the music as I pledged it is not going to happen ever again.

Tie a Rocket to Me

It would be very arrogant of us to think that in all the worlds, galaxies and universes we are the only intelligent or even viable life or life form in existence. It would be such a waste of space.

My name is Anand and today I want to share an extraordinary personal experience with all of you. It all happened last night after Kris’s birthday party.  Around 9 O’clock party started and went nearly for 4 hours. All of us were hammered and high on weeds when we left his place.  I was walking alone towards home when I hit a street light and that’s when opportunistic aliens abducted me. 

Light was bright (yellow) and I could hardly see what was above me. I can swear, it was a UFO, just like my dad had told me about his encounter. I felt liberated and a cold sensation ran through my west below. After that everything went dark as I had hard time opening my eyes. I think they drugged me.  They laid me on a rough bed and occasionally will sprinkle water on my face and then smell it. Some of them were scratching my body for tissue sample (I think). One of them started pulling my clothes (pants) and that’s when I got scared.  I had heard very bad things about aliens using probes. In previous encounters humans have complained aliens probing them in private areas in very bad manner. I thanked God when the alien failed to remove my pants, though, later I felt sorry for them as my sample might have given then necessary understanding of humans. After a while, drug kicked in and I lost all my senses. 

I came to senses around 5 O’clock in the morning. Aliens had left on the same street near the lamp post with my clothes torn and shoes missing. Damn aliens, I had to walk bare foot to the house, at least they could have given me lift to the home.

Video footage presented by channel Aaj Tak has well established existence of aliens and UFO visits. While ignorant people might argue that with such advance cameras and recording systems available why we are not able to take clear pictures or recordings of UFOs? The answer is, UFO's have anti-camera technology which can cause the photographer to take crap photos, not that they don't exist. They are slowly easing us into the fact that they are here rather than landing and causing mass hysteria. Few more years till we all get to meet them. Till then they will handpick lonely people, walking on the street to probe and gather facts about humans.

I am proud to be the first human who is neither a drug junkie nor a nut-job, being abducted by aliens (according to a poll 4 million Americans believe they have been abducted). I hope specimens taken from me will give aliens better understanding of normal, intellectual human species. Unlike many people who would make up such stories just to get publicity, I am telling you the truth. So, next time somebody doubts extra terrestrial life form, just tell him my story.

A Tale of two Brothers

Prologue: Big “B” Vs small “b”

It is movies who made Amitabh Bachchan a God. His portrayals of the “ones” who fight against injustice, a dare devil who fears no one and stands for truth almost lured us to believe that he is “the one” himself. I wonder how delusional we are to believe what ever is portrayed on celluloid is the truth. After all he is simply an actor and a really good one who in real life is far fetched from his portrayals.
His pleaded apology to MNS on Jaya’s remark about speaking in Hindi does not come as a shock to me. I never expected anyone from movie industry to have real guts, but what shocked me was the urgency he showed in apologizing to MNS. I used to think he is a man of beliefs and he will certainly stand for what is right, but the way whole family stooped low showed me I was certainly deluded. His recent praise for Shiv Sena chief just after Shah Rukh incident affirms his low character. He is a man of weak conscience who is simply wiggling his tail to show his loyalty to his mean master. Next time he portrays a man, who stands up for what he believes in, my respect for him as an actor will grow infinitely.
Actors should not be confused with real life heroes. They are on screen because they can elude us in believing what they are portraying. So it is wrong to have high expectations from the actors, but the thing is, people believe in them and they affect our thinking. Unless we can distinguish between their personal characters from screen character, we may always be in for shock.

Chapter One: A Tale of two Brothers
Under the guidance of Balasaheb Thackeray, both brothers (cousins) Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray learnt hooliganism. Unluckily nephew Raj learned it better than son Uddhav. To fill the void of thrown both brothers started a feud whose heat common men in Maharashtra is feeling now.
It was or is never a fight for Marathi Manus well being. It has always been a fight for identity. After Raj separated from Sena (formed MNS), brought and executed the ideology of Sena, better than Sena. He was more aggressive in creating hatred for north Indians, posing as only well wisher of Marathi Manus and resorting to street violence for publicity. These were the ideology of Sena and now Sena does not know how to win hearts of hardcore Marathi Manus (who thinks Maharashtra is for Marathi’s only). If you dig deep into politics, you will find these regional parties usually do not have a genuine political agenda. Due to such restricted presence in country these parties do not have a national issue to fight election with and so they have to resort to small state issues or create issues out of nothing. Without any prominent issue in sight MNS and Sena has created a boogie issue of Marathi Manus. Both parties know that they can not win the election but if they can prove their loyalty to Maharashtra, probably they would be able to capture a small section of vote with certainty. To overshadow each others loyalty to Marathi Manus both party have indulge in various stupid acts; beating north Indians, violence against news channel, bad mouthing about Sachin,  Anil Ambani, Sahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, slapping legislate for taking oath in Hindi and many more. Whole idea of creating a difference between north Indians and Marathi hurts the basic sentiments of being Indian, which provides you freedom to move and live freely inside India. The loss of Sena in election has fuelled this hooliganism that was dormant before election. How long this will go, no body knows especially with such rubbish political system.

Chapter Two: The Sena way
No party in Maharashtra can say that they are not practicing “Sena Way”. MNS only enriched the legacy of Sena while BJP is equally guilty of keeping a blind eye on the whole issue. Though never actively supporting the hooliganism, BJP always participated as a bystander. Only after defeat in recent election, BJP for the first time is speaking against its15 year old ally.
Congress always known for serving hot & cold at the same time, (Telangana issue; first proposing and then backing off) never showed real initiative to curb the problem. Always assuring to take action when matter is hot and then coldly shelving the issue, has so far worked for the Congress. In recent times creating buzz by giving taxi permits only to Marathi’s, it stooped the level of Sena. Earlier before election, Congress suddenly felt the dire need to erect statue of Shivaji at the cost of dying farmers in Vidrbha to prove its Marathi loyalty.
Everyone in Thackeray family is Marathi first and then Indian, my fault; everyone in Thackeray family is neither Marathi nor Indians.

Epilogue: Never ending story
It is shocking to see how long it takes our Prime minister or President to acknowledge the problem and do something about it. When somebody will say, it is enough and stops this nonsense. When somebody will bring these hooligans to their sense or we will keep quite and hope that these people will get tired and finally stop themselves.

Bihar Flood Work # Final Part

One thing that impressed me most during the flood period was the selfless volunteer work localities were doing to help flood victims. For initial 10 days when Government and NGO support was still far away, flood victims only survived because local residents came forward to help them in every way possible. Relief work started the same day water breached its boundary, the same day when every empty space in our island town was getting filled and it was spontaneous. Help came in mere form of asking victims their story, local women reaching camps with cooked food and feeding one or two families at a time, simple act of drawing electric lines to these camps from their home so that victims do not loose their sight in those dark days, medical representatives visiting camps until proper medical facility was established or donating generously towards relief. They helped because they felt it was right thing to do and they knew with little extra water it could have been their fate too. Do not think negative of me but in the world where I see people using others as stepping stone and cranking up iPod sound on beggars plea, it was too beautiful to see abundance of humanity.

Evening of 1st Day:
Our group was pumped up after 1st day of work. All the support of community and satisfaction of doing something worth doing was encouraging us to continue further (we worked almost for 40 days). In the evening meeting we decided our work will be more inclined towards infants.
That night my mother asked me how was my day and in reply I smiled but she sensed worry in that. She asked why I was worried and I told her that, there were lots of things to do and I do not know how we were going to do it. Fund was scarce too. She told me that I can not help everyone and I can do only my part. I should not worry too much and take one day at a time. And I repeated her in my mind, one day at a time.

2nd Day:
Aid was scarce so we could not afford to loose the opportunity of collecting 3 boxes of biscuits. I had made clear to the group that any kind of help should be appreciated and this was the time to set example. House of food inspector was 10 Km away. Early morning I and 2 other guys from the group rode to his house to collect the boxes. He was little surprised and impressed to see our promptness and enthusiasm. He gave us 4 boxes instead and carried one box on his bike. That is how we found our 9th member :).
That was not all surprise that morning, when we came back with 4 boxes of biscuits, 3 new friends were waiting to join our group. And so list kept on increasing till day 4 when we had our final 16th member. That day some of us went for collecting aids again in the colony while some of us started distributing biscuits and milk (made from milk powder) among children in the camps.

Our financial worries were over once I contacted Gour to arrange help from IIT. Gour and his colleagues did an excellent work in collecting funds and sending it to us as required. I am extremely grateful to IIT community for their trust and generous contribution. After publication in BBC some people from other countries also approached me for aid but I channeled them to aid me through IIT. Thank you all for contributing.   

A general Aastha day:
Someone in the group suggested we should give our group a name and so we became “Aastha”. A general Aastha day would start early 6:30 AM in the morning. Everybody knew what they were supposed to do. Some would go for marketing, some would go for collection of aid and rest of us will go to the camps distributing aids. We started with one camp but later with growing strength we started covering 5 nearby camps. Apart from biscuits and milk, we started distributing chuda - gud, medicines, tooth paste, plastic sheets, mosquito coil, candles and later on soaps. We would talk to local doctors to come and visit camps. Doctors would give us bleaching powder to spread in the habitat area to keep it healthy. Apart from IIT, we would contact other NGO to come and help us at the camp.

Government and NGO help started around 10th day. After that it was a lot easier for volunteers like us as they did very good job. You could see “Roaming medical vehicle” from Gujarat everywhere. NGO and Government managed camps everywhere. Military personnel rescued people from interior regions.  Later we would also deep in the flooded regions with our help on military boats. It was scary and satisfying at the same time. Guys from IIT also came during their vacation and did a very good job in deep interiors of flooded region.

A day would end with evening meeting around 8 PM. We would review our progress and decide what to do next. After hard days work, we would share some laughter and develop friendship which still connects us.

I had to stop as I had to join Rio Tinto. But in the end I was satisfied like a donkey in the grass field and tanned like umbrella in Rihana’s music video.

The feeling of helping others is a bliss in its own league. For me it turned out to be more than satisfaction of helping others. I made new friends, whom I had seen many time walking on colony streets but never bothered to talk. I was mere one among thousands who helped voluntarily and did not care for name or praise. Each one of them deserves the same praise and recognition I got. I have to thank many as without their help I could not have done even a small fraction of what I managed to do. Thank you all: my Aastha members, everyone who helped in generating fund at IIT, everyone who helped us with aids, everyone who encouraged us and Praveen's mother who will make us tea everyday in the evening.

It is our society and everybody needs to chip in. Humanity does not need to rise only at the brink of devastation; it should be more common than it is.

Bihar Flood Work # Part 1

Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. - Nelson Mandela

It was summer of 2008 and I was waiting for my visa approval after graduation. If you can remember, that year it rained heavily in north India and Kosi barrage failed to save life of many thousand and all together nearly 2.3 million people became homeless. Worst affected districts in Bihar were Supaul, Araria, Saharsa, Madhepura and Purnea. Everything submerged in water, people were left with no option but to leave everything behind and save themselves and walk a road to nowhere. The water which only took 3 days to fill these districts, later took nearly 6 months to recede and for those 6 months, fortunate ones who were able to save their life had no shelter and no food.

I was in Saharsa (my hometown) at that time and all of it was happening in front of me. Saharsa district was fully submerged except few patches of lands and Saharsa town was luckily one of those islands.  We did not need to see television for what was happening, it was happening right in front of us. Thousand of people from submerged areas very quickly populated every bit of available space in the town. Every school, railway station, parks, hospitals and roadside was occupied with people who had either lost their family of property to the flood.

It was second day of the flood and NGOs & Government help was still far away. The plight of flood victims were unthinkable, they did not have anything to sleep on or anything to eat as most of them were empty handed. In the late evening I was waking with my friend Praveen in one of these parks, and we could only hear were cries of babies and tears running down the cheeks of those who understood how bad their luck was. I went back home and told my mother tomorrow I want to go door to door in the colony and collect whatever I can to help the people living in nearby park. My father was skeptical that people would help me in my cause but my mother was more than encouraging but warned me not to stress too much as I was still recovering from my appendix operation. Next day I called Praveen, who arrived with few bags and that’s how it all started.

First Day:
I asked my mother to be the first one to donate. She gave me nearly 2 kg of rice, half kg of daal and made my father donate Rs 100. I and Praveen went to every door in our colony and requested to donate anything from old clothes to money. I was surprised and overwhelmed with the kindness people were showing. We collected everything old clothes, bora, plastic sheets, grains, cooked food, money, medicines, candles and even mosquito coils. In the mean time some of Praveen’s friend also joined the cause and now we were almost group of 6 people. Few people started cooking whatever we had collected. Two of us started distributing plastic sheets and bora for families with small kids so that they do not have to sleep on the floor. We collected nearly Rs 2000 and we were not sure what to do with the money. There were lots of things to do and so we wanted to spend it wisely. While serving food a lady came to me in tears and asked me that could we arrange some milk for her 6 months old daughter as she can not eat the food? I abruptly asked her why can not she give mothers milk to baby. She started crying and told me that she can not produce milk. I was feeling so humiliated and ashamed of my question. I asked Praveen if can arrange some milk for her daughter.
Few people from colony came by to encourage us. Few told us to come next day to collect some more items. Some just came by to talk to people. One of them was food inspector and he was really impressed with us. He told us he can give us 3 big biscuit cartoon box only if we can collect.
That evening all six of us sat together and decided we need to do something for baby food. Adults could go to Government stall (total 4 at that time in the city) and eat khichdi but nobody was thinking about infants at that time. We needed lots of milk powder and biscuits. We knew it was not going to be one day job.

I would write second part very soon. A lot happened in coming days and I have to thank a lot of people for their support.
Anand