Reservation : Retake!

Let me start with saying that we do not need reservation at any point, not even at primary or secondary level.

Is there any school in the country which denies admission to kid because of caste (lower or upper)? Then what makes these kids from SC/ST require the need of extra support?

Fine, if you feel that people from SC/ST are generally poor too, so grant them this support at primary level or at most secondary level. Period.

At least in cities, I have seen equal opportunities for all. Any kid can get admission in to DPS, or into a government school. Similarly, all institutes if higher education, vocation - IIT, Amity, Delhi University, then WHY Manage Caste Diversity.
Why do we even think of caste at any academic place, leave alone IIT. Why can't caste ( since it will always stay in India), be a personal matter like religion. For example, students are favored or despised pretty less in the matters of admission because of their religion, barring the very few minority institutions (like AMU etc., ), similarly, we can treat the caste as immaterial.

Cleanliness is Godliness

Imagine yourself walking down a road, and you see a white piece of cloth on the way. What will be your first reaction? You will get cautious and try not to stomp on sheet. Why because that sheet is so clean and you wouldn’t want to spoil it.

Now imagine the same walk, the same road, but in place of clean white sheet, there’s a dirty rug. Your first reaction? There wouldn’t be any, you will perhaps not even notice.

That’s what I will try to advocate here : If an area is clean, people would like to keep it clean, if something is dirty, it will get dirtier. So keep the surroundings clean.

Let me try to support the cause with my personal examples too.
Consider Noida vegetable Market. One fine Tuesday, I was jogging back from noida stadium to office gym, listening to that title track of movie swades. And here goes the clash of my 2 senses. My ears were listening something and eyes were seeing something else or perhaps my nose too. Song goes – ‘the fragrance of your motherland soil, how will you forget this’ there was no fragrance in the first place! It was awfully pathetic smell of the spoiled vegetable and fruit remains of the previous night, which brought me almost close to puke. So I wouldn’t really want to remember the odor of the soil. And after that foul smell, I tend to at least spit out, if not puke, which makes the road even dirtier, there goes the point I started with. Hence we should keep the surroundings clean.

That also reminds me of a small kid I saw at the IGI airport when I was landed from Vienna . That kid was telling his mom, “mom I can smell the scent of India” of course in a positive tone.

Dogs keep their place clean before sitting. If we keep only our homes clean, there wouldn’t difference b/w us and dogs. So we should do more than that, keep the street clean, then neighborhood, then surrounding areas, cities, states and the entire country. First thing that someone notices when he comes to a city for the first time is the cleanliness. All other things – public transport, warmth of people are seen later. Anyways eyes start their action earlier than any other sense. So tourists from abroad and from other cities will be happy to visit Delhi again if they find it clean. I remember a young woman on ND railway station walking around 500m to a dustbin to throw her cigarette butt. Of course those were ramodass;s days when smoking in public was banned. But the point is, if she can care for cleanliness of a place, which is not even hers. Why can’t we care even more for our place?

I am talking of sanitation; because that’s the easiest way of contributing to society and country without spend the costly resource of time or money. We should simply stop throwing litter- which includes ice cream cups, groundnuts shell, wrappers of toffees, chocolates and other edibles., keep them in pocket or in hand, and throw them in dustbin on road if there’s any or in the trash bag at home. Simple.

Priests say god resides in hearts of pious people. Well I say, Ram resides in cleaner homes and societies. No wonder we clean our houses to please goddess Lakshmi on Diwali. I will suggest please please her 24*7*365, not just on Diwali. And goddess will come by road to your home. So please keep that road clean too. To sum up, Gandhiji’s mantra – “Cleanliness is godliness.”

Kids!!!

There is such a big variety of kids one can see in a kindergarten that the enormity of diversity of human race is quite understandable. When in the tender age of 3-4, these kids are so much different from each other; we can very well imagine the difference in every aspect of these kids when they grow up into adults. Today lazily I was observing the kids in my mom’s kindergarten. There is one boy who is lost in his own world. Perhaps that explains why some people are introvert and prefer solitude or are not bothered by what’s happenings around. Of course, as kids grow, lots of transitions takes place in their physical and mental behavior. This small kid might as well become a rock star at 18!
I also saw many kids who had formed a group. In the group, one would behave like a leader, will initiate talks, will explain things to group mates like some seasoned manager. Group members would sometime hit the leader, and sometimes some other kid will take up the leadership role. We can also see some kids sitting in pair and fighting with each other non-stop. There are some kids who sit observing others. They look like spellbound by what other kids are doing. Such fascination is clearly visible in their eyes which are wide open in fascination of what other kids are doing.

And yet, all these kids are so much different from one another. Each kid is unique in one way or the other.

The regular embarassment

There are few situations of awkwardness which I face every now and then. Problem is one can't get rid of them, you run into them almost everyday.

Firstly, if someone sings just casually and makes facial expression and looks or comes towards you or looks at you as if singing to you, although he might be in the mind emphasizing the meaning/feeling of song and least aware of me or the embarrassment within storming my mind. What the hell he/she is doing? Why can't he sing alone? I never do that torture to anyone. I sing only in elevator when there is no one else. I wonder if in those times, I should sing with them, or sing along them - both these actions will make me feel even more embarrassed. Or should I ignore them, like they don't exist. That might make them feel I am not attending them, or more busy in my work! What to do man.

Secondly, people cracking awfully pathetic jokes. How can someone do this to me? It's tough to laugh. I just smile to give them some respect lest they should feel ignored and consider me rude. But it becomes a torture, when I am the butt of joke. I don't mind laughing at myself, but the joke has to be funny by my humor. So now when I smile, people feel I am shying. Wht mother crap is that. I guess in future, I should smile or laugh only when I feel like doing the same, without giving shit to any social obligations. Like Sachin does. Yet everyone loves him.

Thirdly (and certainly not the last), grown ups asking me how much money I make. Do they not have least social manners? It's so embarrassing.

Delhi Governance

Delhi Government is perhaps the best government of all the state govermetns in India. Of course it too suffers freomn problems associated with govt. departments, but what Ms. Shiela Dikshit has done in Delhi duting her ternure so far is unparalleled by any of her predecessors.

I particularly like the simple advertisemsnts that they publish in newspapers and on bill boards. The advertisements are really simple to read with no fancy words and jazzy art. Somehow they take you to old word charm. And those ads are really informative, through them we learn what govt is doing, how can we access different services offered by govt free of cost, which most of the people are unaware of. Govt has so many grievances cells, and they would not know of problem unless we report them. We must make use of these services. The bhagidari scheme is another wonderful programme of Delhi Govt which is again no-nonsene kind of project. Citizens should participate in this to make things happen. I have used the grievance cell phone numbers to report a couple of problems, lets see if that works.

Talking of Delhi, I was recently impressed by visit of E Sreedharan’s visit to Delhi Metro. This guy asked for more soap boys in the premises of Metro Station for cleaning stone surfaces. When even in North and South Bloc, one can easily find gutkhas and paan spits, and bird nests, DMRC’s emphasis on cleanliness and maintenance is simply exemplary. They are also trying to make the look and feel of all stations uniform. That is what is perfection. I am so happy there some places in our country in govt sector, where this perfection is seeked.

Why am I pissed off?

Quite often I stay in unpleasant mood. Cranky. I decided to list down my problems.
Here they are:
One. I have huge tummy that refuses to disappear even after workin my ass up for getting rid of it. Winters are arriving , what I am gonna do? I woudn’t be able to dress up properly, so many of clothes will lie useless as they would look ugly with tummy. I can’t even think of updating my wardrobe for the new season.

Two. My hair are growing at a miserably slow rate after I got the ghagini hair cut. I doubt if they are really growing. And I look awfully pathetic in this. And holy crap! Those few white hairs look even more prominent when their length is less, I can’t even hide them in other hair. This gives more tension which in turn turns more hair white.

Three. I am growing darker by the day. Thanks to Delhi weather.

Because of the above reasons I have stopped even glancing at mirror now. I realize that I haven’t bought a single piece of cloth or any footwear for me in ages now. What shall I do with them with this ever growing belly. It really depresses me to acknowledge that I am ageing. I wonder if I have so much negative thoughts, then perhaps people who are in 40’s should just kill themselves

Roadies

Have I grown old? The dreams for getting into roadies ended before starting. I could not even get into auditions. I don’t know why wish to sound like a loser as if I desire to garner some sympathy votes. But this sucked. All those years, I could not get into this because I was studying in a small town (town? Or was it village?)called guwahati where there were no auditions for roadies or for that matter any other show. But now it was in my own city, New Delhi. It was my first and perhaps last chance. Last chance like for so many other activities such as Indian Air force. I knew the place too, and yet I missed it.
The other day I was discussing about audition with someone, and his first reaction was, ’dude , you are old now for all this.. you have too many other things now which you can’t just leave get your old fat ass into roadies!’. I hate to admit, he turned out to be right. I did not take off today. Dunno what came on my head that I cancelled my leave and came to office. If hadn’t done that I would have been there at audition on time. But the thought that stopped me for heading for audition was a sense of duty for reporting test, for the greed of saving one day’s pay, these things have indeed rendered me old enough no to have courage to do something else. But I don’t want this to happen. I am all of 23 for Christ’s sake and I feel old and tied in duties and responsibilites? Then what should people of my dad’s age do?
Some people were suggesting that I should tell about this audition in office to my manager and other colleagues. But do I have to? Rather should it not be little awkward? It’s like a movie I go to on some night, and telling the same at work? No. and I am not doing anything wrong. I have not been dishonest with my work. I gave it extra hours whenever it demanded. It’s like if I am wedded to my work, then I don’t commit adultery if I attend some of my other interests too.

fun and work @ work place

There are two conflicting school of thoughts in my mind about balancing fun and work at work. One of my colleague reminded (because Siddharth had told me about the same sometime) me today of British or (generally) western style of working. Brits work only during office hours of 9-5 whatever is that time window of 8 hrs is. But during those 8 hours, all they do is work. They don't waste time or should I say, spend time on activities which are not related to work. But as their 8hrs are over, they rush to home or anywhere but office.

I also like that kind of working atmosphere and ideally I would have worked like that only. But if I work like that focusing only on my work, will I not be considered aloof? I am seeing people huddled in one cube, may be sharing some sweets or some joke. Should I not press Windows L and leave my desk , go and join them? If I do that I will be loosing time close to half an hour. Because after that entire party might move to terrace for sharing puff and coffe. Such occasions will occur several times in day. So everyday, I will lose considerable time, which if I had put in work, I would have wounded up my work early and left early and could find time for host of other activities. But if I come to office, work and leave, and continue this for long, will I not be considered aloof by my colleague. At any new work place, one would like to make new friends and make the friendship closer. But that would not be possible if all I do in office is work.

Where to draw line?

That colleague of mine told that it's all in mind. Ultimately, if one speaks politely to a colleague and asks for help, he will be helped, and what more one expects from a colleague.
I wasn't fully convinced with this to accept completely the new style of working. Even though I actually work in that style to a great extent unconsciously for some reason.

Yet after this discussion I fail to find where to draw line, which school of thought is good for me. Perhaps someone reading this might be able to suggest. I feel that it solely depends on person and his abilities. Sachin for example, can talk to all his friends/colleagues, afford to join in any number of puffs or TT games and still be able to finish work on/before deadlines. I on the other hand will have to compromise on one thing to achieve the other.

Little conversation with Sardar Ji auto wale

I was struggling hard to reach Noida for the first time through this new route (yes, I did cross check it pronunciation on wordweb just now. And it did not sound as absurd in the American voice of wordweb as it bleeds when people in my office make pronunciation ) to India Gate. Here we had this sardar ji who was driving auto-rickshaw next to me. I was pissed off with heat of the day and frustration and fatigue of biking, and already I had sun burn so far. I asked this auto guy the way to nizamuddin bridge. He was very considerate and explained me the way with great patience. There was huge traffic jam and we had enough time to for a small conversation. Sardar Ji too needed someone as much as I did to distract oneself away from the frustration of traffic, heat and driving. He said,”sardar ji uranium manga rahe hein desh ki bhalai ke liye”. I was amazed at his interest and knowledge about country’s problems and politics and his flair for technological-infrastructure projects. He told that coal will not be able to solve the country’s problem of power. He pointed to the thermal power plant near Pragati Maidan and asked how long and how many people that could serve. Another lovely thing of this little chat was his addressing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as ‘sardar ji’!

Affection for South Delhi

South Delhi

What the hell is the deal with ‘South’? South of India has always been considered as the literate India. And indeed the culture of Bangalore is quite different than any north Indian city.

Now I read this news that residents in South Delhi are planting saplings in the rainy season. I wonder why only in South Delhi. I guess in places like Sagar Pur (again, first word that comes to my mind while thinking of non-posh localities is Sagar Pur!, after all this is where I have been residing for ages). People are firstly not educated enough to realize the importance of greenery/plants. But I do believe that being humans, they like green clean areas as much as any South Delhite would do. But then in our part of Delhi, we don’t have open spaces enough for raising plants and trees. People do not find place to park their cars. Where will they plant? Also, so many people in New Friend’s colony and other colonies of posh south Delhi do planting as a part of their hobby and this hobby is as fashionable as reading Atlas Shrugged or giving baths to puppies in homes for dogs or sipping red wine on a brunch! In Uttam Nagar, Raghu Nagar, and in most of pur’s and nagar’s of Delhi, people will not have these fancy ideas/hobbies. Their world is different. They will rather gossip, watch soaps, or reality shows or 24-hr news channel and sit putside their homes in the evening. So it will take quite some time before these things catch up with my world. Yes, no matter how much I earn, which fancy hotel I dine at, which posh crowd I party with, I will still belong to Sagar Pur, this name will reside on my passport and ration card for a long time. It is this Sagar Pur where I grew up in. Mentally, I might not feel at times that I belong here, like many of NRI’s might not feeling like belonging to India. But practical fact is that I am Sagar Purite!

McDonaldisation!!

Ah! finally I got time to write! after ages.

India , one of the oldest civilizations, is slowly changing itself so much that cultural heritage will soon reduce to a word in history text books.
I had joined music classes some time back. Students who would learn music with me were of the age like 5 or 6 or sometimes perhaps 4 also! These kids learn Hindustani classical music in English. The teacher gives them notes as Sa Re Ga Ma. And this is true for students from any community, there were lots of Bengali and north Indian kids there. They all learn music in this way. People in so many states are fighting to get a 'classical status' for their language, but what is the use of that status if the language that gets that status is not considered 'cool' by the community that was expected to encourage its use. Already, so many languages of the world have become dead. But most of them became extinct because the people speaking that language became extinct. But in our country, number of people capable of speaking Indian languages is always on an ever increasing trend. Hence, it will be shameful if Indian languages become obsolete.

This also reminds me of another interesting trend in the 'upwardly mobile and progressive' society that is flourishing in satellite townships of Noida, Bangalore, Gurgaon etc..
Yesterday my mentor told that he bought an alphabet primer for his few months old kid. The book has alphabets as:
P for Pizza
C for computer
B for burger
and perhaps I for iPod!

I might be accused of acting like French (who, it is said, dislike anything American, like our very own Left) or some anti-progressive jerk, but what kind of nature loving and healthy kids we raise if they learn of Pizza before identifying a Parrot and they see Burger before getting excited to play with a Ball

जोधा अकबर

Finally I finished watching Jodha Akbar in 3 days! watching 15-20 mins for the first two days before I would get to sleep, but on second day the music impressed me a lot and I could not wait to watch the entire movie.

What can I say now? Movie is a brave attempt on part of director. But again lack of knowledge and research was evident, as is the case for most of bollywood movies. There were tribals.. typically from North East dancing in the show put up for Akbar. What the hell were north eastern Indians doing there? I thought director thought to include them in the dance show to make it look grand!

But no doubts, the music was really imposing, particularly the background score. It was indeed AR Rehman music. And it had the grandeur needed for the royal story. It did remind me of mughal-e-azam. Of course one falls short of wards to describe this music. It's really nice to see some film makers and musicians do not shy away from having classical music. Effective use of sitar. But the lyrics were not great in most of songs.. Manmohana could have more touching lyrics, it was really straight forward colloquial of current times.

Most of the movie had scenes in day light. Some scenes look good in night. The dance show could have been put up in lamps and candle lights rather than in bright sun... I mean there were so much of tents pitched up around in that dance show.. it looked as if we were watching the sets themselves. Compare that too 'Mohe panghat pe' from Mughal-e-azam.

I guess image of one grand thing of past can just not be erased by any number of newer versions in the recent times. Like original ramananad sagar's ramayana is still fresh in our memories, and still looks much more real than all the clones made after that. Similarly, comparison of Jodha Akbar with K Asif's master piece is inevitable.
In terms of communal harmony, they could have shown more. In the end Amitabh bacchan says this was the story of Jodha Akbar. I am sure there could have been lot more to that. The movie in fact showed very few instances of their love.. most part was about war and politics. In the old movie.. we also saw Akbar celebrating Janmashtmi, can giving rides to bal gopal krishna.

But anyways , this was indeed different.

रामायण

I was watching रामायण after very long. I guess last time I watched it was when I was in class 8 or something. Here mummy is alone at home, so to give her company, I watch it. I found that even today, when so many hindi films have been released since Ramanand Sagar's रामायण , still this one carries so much emotional value. I feel moved to tears in many scenes. Unlike Mahabharat, रामायण is story of so much love and affection . One can notice the word 'sneh' umpteen number of times in one episode. One really feels like having cleaned his mind and heart of all vices. Every character in the story (ofcourse barring few - kakayi, manthura and those from Ravan's camp), have so much love for each other. Every one's fighting to give comfort to some one else. I feel that Ram's age must have been the most peaceful and stable times on earth.

Timing of my realization of these things is pretty apt. I mean very recently Karunanidhi questioned the existence of Ram. He was giving some arguments that he claimed were rational. Even I am myself a computer science graduate. But still I feel influenced by these mythological stories. At least they are putting in us some fear for god, some fear from doing fallacies. If he wanted to make bridge, then he should have gone ahead, but not by inciting people by attacking faith of people. I remember once I was complaining to an Austrian Professor that in India, some rivers get polluted a lot because people put dead bodies and other things in the reiver for religious reasons. Then even that chap, who was complete foriegn to hinduism and mythology replied,"But people have faith in that. It's the question of faith." And Karunananidhi is from south India, the land, where we can find most religious people in India. Even that bridge is ultimately for welfare of people, then it is actually service of God, people would not have complained if that new bridge is making the lives easier. But it is crap to say things about Ram sethu or for that matter Ram's existence per se, as this was all uncalled for. It's like if we can build a hospital for destitute by breaking some temple, then it should be fine. But we should not break the temple because we don't believe in the deity worshiped in that temple. May Ram give some sense to these morons.

double standard, glorified.

July 24, 2007

Some prominent media houses give following headlines :

NASDAQ : "Suspect Haneef's Clean Chit To Australian Federal Police "

The Times of India : "Diary notes are mine, not by cops: Haneef"

Times Now : "Haneef gives a clean chit to AFP "

Yahoo News / CNN-IBN : "Haneef says Oz cops did not doctor his diary"

July 30-31, 2007 : When Haneef is back in India, here's what we see :

The times of India : "Haneef wants Australia to apologise"

The Hindu : "Haneef: I am a victim of Australian conspiracy"

This sudden change in the Hanif's attitude is quite visible through headlines!

bangalore - glass house?

It's been more than a month since I moved to Bangalore. A lot has been said ans written about this so called silicon valley of India. Here's my contribution, my first hand experience. My office is on the Airport Road, right across Leela Palace. I thought this must be the most happening place in the city. Soon my illusions were over when I saw the map and discovered that actually we are far from the hip hop spots of Bangalore. Most of the services have their centres far from here. Near to this area, I once saw a mini La Defense. The place around that golf course had all the brands of IT one could think of Microsoft, Yahoo, HP Google and what not? In erecting these high rise posh buildings, people behind all of it, forgot that India has a weather different from that of countries where these glass houses are a norm for business houses. In my own office,




in spite of state of art air conditioning and climate control system, I feel sultry in the noon if i am sitting next to a glass wall exposed to weather outside. So, those feeling awestruck (as I felt when I DLF building for the first time while going by Gurgaon road) by the sight of glass buildings, do have a heart for how it feels behind those glasses!

India's Educational policy

India’s Education Policy

Ours is a land which was a centre of learning for centuries. But since independence to this day, we have been facing challenges in achieving the goal of making India an educated state. On one hand nature of such challenges has been the same. For instance even today our goal of making primary education accessible to one and all, is far from being achieved. At the same time, challenges have taken more complex form today. Rewriting of history books with every new government and lack of funds for making higher education available to the rapidly growing population (whose size has gone through enormous increase) need intelligent strategies to deal with. This paper is not going to present a dismal picture India’s educational policy by giving an array of statistics, which is any way known. Nor will it mention a positive interpretation of such statistics in the way websites of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and National Literacy Mission boast of their achievement. It will rather describe the handicaps, plaguing the policy makers in the matters pertaining to education, and some plausible solutions, and some threads opened in the paper will be kept open for the readers to close them, for the author failed to obtain one feasible way for the same.

Moving in the natural order of development of a human, primary education sows the seeds of growth. The desire of providing free and compulsory education for all nurtured in our constitution and in the minds of gentlemen who drafted it. Even today, 59 million children out-of-school and another 90 million in school learning very little^[1]. We have plenty of villages where there is no school nearby. Government of course has a big role to play there. It should figure out all such villages and start a rapid movement of sort to install one primary school in each such village. In fact there should be one primary school within 1km radius. This goal of government is yet to be completed. To begin with, we can arrange for only few teachers, who should be paid more than their counterparts serving in the towns and cities where there are more number of teachers to share the burden. This won’t need much infrastructure. Of course black board education of such kind is not as effective as with some visual aids, but the whole idea is to make the kids literate, to prepare them for further education, to avoid their exploitation at the hands of the rich and slightly literate people of village, so that they don’t suffer the same plight as their parents. And we should not expect all the latest technology to reach in every village of our country overnight. But nor can we wait for that to happen. We must understand that literacy is as important as food or cloth. Only if a person knows basic mathematics, reading and writing short simple statements, needed in every day life, in one language, can he expect to secure some kind of employment in a country of 1 billion crippled with unemployment. He needs this literacy to get onto the right bus, to read before signing on a paper and virtually in every circumstance which is going to affect his life.

Apart from the government initiatives, we need more people like Magsaysay award winner Sandeep Pandey, who gave up his job of teaching at IIT Kanpur and came to a dalit village of Lalpur in district Ballia of UP, where despite all odds , he opened a school and took concrete steps to alleviate poverty. This happened in a village where even candidates of State Assembly elections made no commitments. Government has to later on make reservations for these dalit children. Why does it not educate them at primary level itself as to make them natural competitors with students belonging to general category. Here when situation is so grim that whole village is not able access a school, then will the government make reservation for the entire village? Why should it rather not open a school or two there? Government can’t always be relied upon for two reasons. Firstly, sometimes (though it happens very rarely) to focus all all areas at one time or it suffers from lack of funds. Secondly, government servants don’t want to serve the areas where they won’t benefit much in terms of votes or money through corruption (and this one happens more frequently).

Primary education suffers not just because of their lack of availability in rural India, but also on other grounds as well. Quality of that primary education in one such issue. It can be measured by learning levels of those attending primary schools. It is found that 40.2% of class 5 kids could not read class 2 level paragraphs and 56.6% of them could not perform subtraction sums ^[2]. If something could be done here, then it is the change in teaching methodology. Kids should be taught in a natural way of learning. For example, the most natural method of learning basic arithmetic is counting. A mother can ask her child to count the number of potatoes left in a basket after she put some of them aside. There can be more effective methods. We need to constitute a committee of experts in pedagogy, urgently to make suggestions in this direction with in a time frame, so as to implement new methods of teaching by the next academic session. Idea is to start looking for a solution as soon as a problem is identified. We need our government to give up its lethargy at least in the education sector and start working towards quick and effective solution.

Another area where work needs to be done is decreasing the dropout rates and increasing the number of enrolments per se. Firstly, we should understand that at times we have parents themselves wanting their kids to work and at other times kids themselves find going to school a boring task and would rather prefer working. Many factors contribute to this, frequent absenteeism of teachers (who are in fact better paid as compared to their counterparts in private school), inferior methods of teaching, making learning a tedious task and lack of infrastructure. For this constant monitoring of working of schools is essential. For instance, 25% of teachers were absent from school, and only half were teaching, during unannounced visits to a nationally representative sample of government primary schools in India. ^[2] It is worth mentioning that midday meal program of government of India is doing really good job by pulling the kids to school, and parents also find a reason to feel convinced to send their ward to school. But in the cases of working children, first solution is banning any form of child labor. Non Formal Education is a good but still a temporal solution for imparting education to working children. But here bottom line is that all good measures should be continued with more zeal.

Moving to middle and secondary school education, it also faces problems similar to those enlisted above for primary schools. There is an urgent need for a state-private partnership. Where there are government schools, education is very much subsidized. A monthly fee is on an average Rs.70 from class VI to VIII. In spite of that number of enrolled is far less than the expected. In such situation, we need huge awareness amongst the parents about value of education so that they can send their ward to school. But as we notice every year that it is the private schools that outperform the government schools not just in terms of results of public examinations but in the competitions pertaining to co-curricular activities also. So private schools should now realize their social responsibility and allow poor children to be part of their so called elite club. Or else rich children won’t have the experience of studying together with the kids from economically poor background, of sharing the joy of learning together. A sense of equality will then never be ensured in the growing minds.

Also in schools, student should not compulsorily taught Hindi. Two languages – their mother tongue and English should be enough. It’s important students enjoy reading and writing in their mother tongue also, that will help in the development of regional languages and literature and cinema.

Another concern about school education is changing of textbooks , particularly history textbooks, according to the whims of current political power at centre. NCERT and related organizations such as Indian Council for Historical Research should be given autonomy. Religion should also be kept strictly separate from education. In this wake, all RSS schools and madrasas should be closed, but then each community has been given constitutionally, the right to preach and propagate its religious beliefs. Some solution has to be thought to balance the two.

Higher education sector is the one that finally fuels the economic growth. America has more proportion of population going to higher education than any other country. No wonder it is the biggest economic power today. Moving focus away from higher education to work on primary education is something impractical. In Professor C.N. R. Rao’s words,” I don’t think that we should wait for all people to become literate before we improve our universities”.

The biggest problem we are facing today in the area of higher of education is the greater role of state in it. Either state should provide educate funds or otherwise let the colleges charge the fees that is some where near the actual cost of education, rather than heavily subsidizing it. In IIT’s, hostel rent per semester is Rs.500. At no place in the world can one find a room for Rs.500 for four months. Medical Fees per semester is Rs.100. This despite the fact that one time consultation fees of doctors these days itself is Rs.100. These were just a few examples to present an idea higher education is subsidized in our country. But in these colleges of higher education, children of industrialists and IAS officers also study. There are in fact plenty of students who can at least 2 times what they are paying now. So such students should be charged more. In fact, we can have a federal fee structure, like income tax rather than fix it for all (of course except students from SC, ST and OBC). The idea is to charge fees proportionately. This way, the dilemma of excellence versus access and quality versus quantity can also be solved. Because if government lacks funds, then in order to cater to the needs of growing for higher education, government will create more institutions or increase more seats in the existing institutions. In either case, it will result in decrease in over all quality and excellence, for the total funding is still the same.

We must also learn from the education system in developed countries. Private universities have been a great success in United States. Top 5 universities of the world include 3 private American universities. Of course, that success can be attributed to America’s economy being capitalist in nature, and we can’t have complete privatization of higher education, but still considering the high cost incurred in the education of a single graduate, and growing demand for higher education, government can just not hope to do it all by itself with the current total spending on education being 4% of GDP. Emergence of world class private institutes is inevitable. Indian Institute of Science and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research were also visions of industrialists and scientists. And these institutes have produced some of the nation’s finest researchers and scientists. Recent establishment and good performance of private institutes like Dhiru Bhai Ambani Institute of Information Technology and Jaypee Institute of Information Technology are also positive signs. Other business houses should also take lead in this direction.

The public sector institutes of learning like IIT’s, NIT’s , AIIMS and IIM’s should also depend lesser and lesser on government. Rather, they should generate their endowments through research and consultancies. These institutes should change their image from lethargic universities to that of profit making and fiercely competing companies. Competition always leads to good quality. For this very reason, we should allow FDI in education. If MIT opens its campus here, people would consider that also as a good option. This would reduce the pressure on several hundred thousand students, appearing each year for admission tests of various elite institutes, only a small percentage of which constitutes the finally selected students. But a constant vigil on all universities and colleges , particularly those in private sector is needed. Because we have private universities like Amity whose directors have been issued warrants against them. Even the Delhi Government’s Indraprastha university has so many small colleges affiliated to it which hardly have infrastructure for the courses they are conducting. In places like Bangalore, Noida, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, and Gurgaon , one can find plenty of teaching shops claiming to be colleges affiliated to several private or government universities. The elite institutes like IIT’s are catering to the needs of very small percentage of students. Thousands of other students clamor for admission to these lowly colleges. All such colleges charge hefty amount of fees. Such institutes need to be checked.

While discussing higher education, mention of much talked about reservation is indispensable. The simple argument against such idiocy is that if some method failed to achieve its purpose in spite of having used it for 60 years or so, then how can the same method be strengthened further an used to achieve that purpose? On the top of everything else, no school or college in India denies admission to someone because of his/her caste.

Conclusion

The goal of universal education can be achieved by opening primary schools in every possible place where they find utility. No kid should be denied primary education for the reason of non availability in the neighborhood. Quality of education is also equally important and can be ensured through reforms in teaching methodology and more accountability and transparency in schools. Dream of having high standard higher education for all can be a reality with the help of private hands, and with increased funding , more emphasis on research than just conducting examination.

TOI bashing.... again

This is the text of a news article on the front page of The Times of India paper dated few weeks back.

Sanjay Dutt was busy speaking to someone on his phone. He looked into us as though the glass wall that separated the bar from his living room never existed. After a few minutes, he walked out of his bar and strode into his living room to greet us. He stood besides us donning a white floral short kurta that gracefully gave way to show his twin layer of white and golden beads, a chain with golden coin of Lord Balaji of Tirupati inscribed, on his neck. He was a wearing a pale blue gunshot jeans that would have made John Travolta think a thousand times 20 years back. A huge golden Rolex with a green dial and a black bezel kept time on his left wrist while his left hand clutched a pack of cigarettes. He radiated the combined grace and elegance of his parents, Nargis and Sanjay Dutt, as he firmly shook hands with warmth.

He sat in the corner of a black and soft-grey leather sofa with prominent black cross-stitches on its edges. Majestic, at ease, his right leg at right angle to his left and his right hand on the arm of the sofa, his left hand sliding over his pointed black and brown triangle-patterned leather shoes, he fielded questions with outright honesty and without a whiff of pretension. “No I have not read Gandhiji’s My Experiments with Truth” he said during the interview.

Well, what brilliantly important details on the front page!

Final year.. i am sporty!

All Work No Play, Makes Jack a Dull boy.. In IIT(G.. it happens Guwahati at least!), this thought descends upon the minds of students in the last lap of their race called 'IIT life'. Yes, final year fills in the students, particularly B.techs, an unprecedented enthusiasm for sports. Not being a part of at least one sport becomes so ‘not cool’ suddenly. But the first three year find a significant section of people not busy with sports. And this trend has been observed invariably year after year. So an intriguing question is "Why now? Why not earlier?" Let’s explore…

Generally, one gets a standard reply to such question, that “we had other tasks earlier. ”, but considering an IITian style of living, it is quite reasonable to agree that the ‘other tasks’ were mainly different types of recreation, since students in IIT are not nerds. So one cannot buy any sort of argument that would imply that earlier students did not get time for sports. They did, but for other kinds of leisure activities which are different for different chaps. There is one breed of people who sleep and wake with computer games. They talk of it even during meals in the mess, if at all they remember to have food during mess hours! Similarly, we have the movie maniacs. Members of this tribe are crazy about watching movies and soaps.

But film studios haven’t stopped releasing movies. New seasons and episodes of various soaps are also available even now. There is no dearth of computer games or of excitement for new arenas of old computer games. So why the other wise really exciting passions of students fail to please them now? Why are those passions put on backburner now? People who never held a ball in their hands are now hitting courts regularly. A basket ball team consisting of final year students has not five but as many as seven (or even eight sometimes!) players. Even some good second year inter-IIT students are at times displaced from the fields and are told to play somewhere else to make room for their seniors. Oh yeah, they are seniors, at least, in terms of years spent in IIT if not in their experience in sports. Students can be seen trying their hands at everything under the sun as if tasting all the food stuff in their meal! Lawn tennis seems to be the easiest option to start with. No wonder tennis court is found so much congested these days. Some boys have gone as far as purchasing new tennis rackets. It’s true that it’s never late to learn anything in life, but why this learning thought strikes in eighth semester!! Is it because your next door neighbor is playing, so you should also go for it (so that you would not be appearing left out)? ….. If reader finds a suitable answer to these questions, author would be more than pleased to see it, as he could not find one.

Rajeev Gupta

(A final year student himself and a struggling player since first year!)

“Problems are meant to be solved …. not grumbled about"

This is one of the many good lessons I have learned from my friend Sachin. The deplorable state of various amenities in our hostels is something we constantly whine about. I had an interesting experience recently in this regard. There is a cistern above the urinals in our washrooms. I am not sure if people are aware of that because I have never seen them working here in any hostel in over three years. Perhaps no one complained to the concerned person for this, though lots of people come out of and go into washrooms with their hands on their noses. Cisterns are supposed to constantly let some drops of water fall on the urinal so that urine is flushed out regularly which otherwise smells like shit. Naphthalene balls are a cheaper solution but I was impressed to see cisterns in their place. So, I thought that when we are given this costly facility, why not it be put to use. I used the electronic complaint system launched last semester. Its response was far more than I expected. The plumber knocked at my door the very next day! I was truly taken by surprise. I showed him the situation, he did something. The cistern worked for a day. After that, rather than sprinkling water, it was like a running tap! It was closed in few days. This semester, I complained again. Again they came to me on the first working day itself. I was this time not too impressed because I expected that like last time, he will do some quick service to show officially that he has fixed the problem and gain money- typical ‘sarkari’ method. So I talked to him this time in a very firm manner. He explored the cistern very patiently and told that some thing was blocked for not having been used for ages. I was appalled to see that such costly things are kept idle to become useless in long time (by the way, the expensive Sony music system in the gym is another such example). It was truly useless now, as he had to change it. Two days later, I got a new cistern in out washroom. It is not the branded Parryware or Hindware like the previous one, but it does work! And ours is perhaps the only washroom at least in Manas that has a cistern up and running. By the way, I also noticed in admin building recently, a urinal with automatic cistern, it had a sensor! I really felt that I was Indian Institute of TECHNOLOGY.

Moral of the story? Rather than bitching about “JUST TEN SPOONS IN MESS” or “FED UP WITH ONLY ‘Panther’ PRESCRIBED IN DISPENSARY?” or “WHY ARE HOSTEL TOILETS STINKING”, get up and talk politely but firmly to the person responsible for the situation. Remove this misconception from the minds of admin that ours is just another ‘sarkari’ office. This is IIT, where they have got to deal with educated and young dynamos called IITians who know well how to fight for their right.

Work hard dude..

We have always despised government departments and offices for being inefficient and corrupt. We view them as a store house of lazy babus. Have we ever given a thought as to why year after year, babus keep on getting born in these offices? When one babu departs (retires.. because they are never fired!) to make room for a new candidate for his job, all that we get is another incompetent employee. Why?

We might get an answer if observe our technical and cultural fests. We organize Techniche and Alcheringa every year, which are indeed splendid festivals in terms of scale , organizational responsibilities, events and what not. We notice one thing in most of the events: they are delayed. They are not on time most of the times. In the inauguration of every edition of Techniche and Alcheriga, Dr. Gautam Barua , our director, urges us to start an event scheduled at 5 , at 5 and not at 5:30! But this doesn’t happen. I am not blaming anyone for this. I am myself a part of the same system for four years now. My event was also delayed. But is the inability to do things on time inherent in Indians? Is it impossible to respect punctuality? I am bewildered with these questions and observations because today when we go to , say, reservation counter of a railway station, we feel annoyed to see clerks sitting on counter taking ages to make the ticket or to find him not in his seat during office hours. But ultimately it is the people of a country that constitutes that nation. All of us will join the work force in a matter of few months. If we can’t organize things here in IIT with punctuality, how shall we do it in the offices we will join?

A similar and intriguing trait I observed during placements. I found many students more than willing to join NTPC or other PSU’s like IOCL and ONGC. They presented the simple logic that they would not need to work much in those companies. Well, these are the people who are called young IITians, graduates from elite institutions. If they are so much averse to work, what can one expect from the babu sitting in some municipality office or at a railway station for that matter?

When rain rains

It is raining here at a time when winters were supposed to have arrived. This might be a welcome gesture of Mother Nature to receive winters in this part of the country. Clouds are intensely dark. They have enveloped the entire sky above our campus. Looking above gives a feeling that the world is going to end.



It now begins raining so hard, that I feel like going out and get soaked. But tomorrow is Diwali, and there is a fair chance of me catching cold. But these rainy winds are truly seducing, I feel as if they are calling me at the loudest pitch. And how unfortunate I am, I have to close the windows of my room today for the first time in this semester, that too when rain , my most beautiful gal friend is knocking my door. But as human, I also have erected walls to insulate myself from nature. The window when kept opened allows the rains to enter my room sousing my belongings. But I want to somehow capture these intense moments of the rage of Mother Nature. I try to capture it on the lens of the camera of my mobile, but rain doesn’t want anyone else to come between me and her, she souses the lens as well. God, I also want to be with her, but the price might be too high to pay, I am perhaps too weak for that. Perhaps that is why rain is so angry that her dearest lover proved to be so weak. I won’t say sorry for that will bring even bigger disgrace to our love. Only way I can capture this beautiful time is by writing.

About me : Part I : The person

I have been writing about others, about society, about happenings in the world, about movies, about culture about music… but this thought of writing myself descended upon me pretty late. Of course, this is not my age to write an autobiography, ‘coz I am just 22. Nor have I achieved any significant thing in life and I don’t have much experience of life either. But sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the hustle and bustle of life and think of one self. I want to think of what I want from life. What are my aspirations? And to add more to this philosophical air, I was recently asked by a friend of mine, what the purpose of life was.

It is always nice to think about oneself. Though for me thinking has always been something I spend my most time into. But the urge of seriously thinking about myself comes on me when I face interviews. The first thing they ask is to tell about myself. We all know that we are the best judge of ourselves. That we know ourselves the best. But we know a lot about us. At least I can speak about myself at length. But knowledge about oneself is so huge that I don’t understand where to begin from. What are most important things to say? The whole story boils down to thinking in an organized manner. After cogitatinf on self , I have kinda divided my description in three broad heads -- Rajeev the person, then his two major loves of life : Music and nature.




Let me begin with food, I love home made food, because I never had much food outside. At home, I am not typical mumma’s boy who would eat ‘anything prepared by mom. I love chhole, rajma, chane, and any daal and aloo sabzi that is sour with heavy doses of tomatoes and spicy enough. I devour aloo pranthas, but I can’t have them much because of a growing tummy!! Then I love rice, dosas. I have a small hate list also. I don’t like tinde, tori, gheeya, idli . I guess that’s it. Otherwise I am quite comfortable with most food stuffs. I forgot to mention sweets. I love gulabjumans, rajbhog, gajar halwa, daal halwa, sohn papdi and I am sure many more that I can’t remember now. And yes, I relish the fancy stuffs too like chaat papdi, golgappe, raj kachori. The fried ones are kind of no for me these days for the fear of becoming a fatso.

Ok next comes clothes and grooming. Well this is one area where I can show huge innovation. I know how to wear even unusable clothes with grace. I don’t do expensive shopping much, but I do smart shopping. I purchase things that look like an original brand but actually it might not be, ‘coz it comes at a cheap price. Of course, when one has to purchase things which are to last long, for instance jeans, shoes and watch, then s/he should not mind investing in good brands and quality. In fact it’s not the brand, but the look of that stuff that appeases me. And as for quality, I don’t think I am qualified enough to distinguish between things on the basis o f quality. I love to design clothes myself also, because it makes them distinct. I have this natural urge to be different. I don’t feel satisfied when I look too much similar to rest all. My favorite color has always been blue, might be for my love for water. I like sober and elegant clothes and am quite comfortable with cool dude kinda stuff also. For ties, I feel the simpler the better. There are some issues that I disapprove in dressing up. Not tucking the shirt in when worn over a trouser is a big NO for me. Similarly wearing sport shoes over pants is something I find odd. I am quite uncomfortable in seeing nails grown even a bit, be it with me or anyone else. I don’t like very shiny belts. I am not much into using hair gels for the fear of losing my hair which have already started showing the signs falling.

Next entertainment. I like sensible cinema. I like movies whether Hindi or English that show some logical story close to reality and not sticking themselves to fantasy. Of course I love films that also treat me with wonderful music. My kind of movies would also include those that show plenty of nature, visual effects, real lives and places and dialogues that I can connect with. So I liked the movies Kya kehna, A Beautiful Mind , Life is beautiful , Umrao Jaan, DDLJ, Sholey, Lakshya, Pardes, Mixed Doubles infact all Konkana Sen stuffs (No, I am not art film type guy), Dil To pagal hai, , Matrix I (hate to admit that I haven’t seen the rest two), LOTR. Sound of Music, October Sky , most of Yash Raj films, and many more. And ofcourse all the comedy stuff .. not to forget the Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s storehouse. As for TV shows , I am crazy about FRIENDS. I was passionate about Hip Hip Hurray when it used to be aired on Zee. I also loved Hum Paanch, Khichdi , Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, Tu Tu Main Main, Shriman Shrimati.


Books and reading: I haven’t read much though I always wanted to read more and more. So I don’t have as such any particular taste. But I like comic stuffs. I love to read real stories and news analysis. I particularly loved Bapsi Sidhwa’s ‘An American Brat’, RK Narayan’s Swami and his friends. Sunday Magazine of The Hindu has been my favourite because of the gamut of knowledge and information it gives on variety of issues – dance , music, wildlife, health, personalities , events, history and a plethora of other topics.

Sports : I like basketball from my school days or may be from the time when Kuch Kuch Hota hai was released. But I remember I attended the coaching even before that!! I have been trying hard to learn the game for a very long now, but could not learn it properly, sometimes I feel that I should give up, dunno till when I can continue with something I constantly fail to achieve. I find athletics also very enjoyable. I have been involved in high jumps, long jumps, but one thing that really gets my adrenaline pumping is footrace. There’s nothing more exciting than the challenge of race.

Next people. This is a serious area. I like people who love laughing and smiling and who can bring good cheer on the faces of others. Because I am myself that kinda guy. I enjoy chatting with my lovely friends and making them laugh and smile. I strongly believe that smile makes even the ugliest face beautiful. I hate when I find people serious and unable to share the reason for the same with me. Similarly I am quite uncomfortable with people who stay silent. Seeing smiles on the faces of the people who I care for gives me immense pleasure. As usual, I love innocent people. I can tolerate some attitude, but arrogance is just not compatible with me. If some one tries to show attitude to me, then s/he should be ready to know the height of my nose. I love simple, down to earth and hardworking people. I respect successful persons. Intellect is the first thing I notice in any person I get in touch with. Of course, from a distance, it’s the looks and cleanliness that attracts me. People talented in anything attract me like magnet. I am a bit crazy in the sense that if I find someone not compatible with me, I snap the ties off permanently. OK this could be a weakness of mine. Finally, I like the company of people who share the interests I have, who can appreciate and understand things I like.

I am myself …. . ok I will have to be a bit narcissist here, slightly complicated person in the sense that it’s not easy to understand me. Of course I am not proud of this fact and in fact I am my self trying hard to understand what I want in life, where to draw a line between my desires and my aims. Ok now to make things simple, I am, I feel, emotional (but I won’t be any more very soon, I am gonna be very strong), shy (ironically, I have never been scared of stage, I enjoy performing more than applauding in the audience) , caring… that’s it.. I can’t write more than this. This it self took my nerves to admit in public!!! And apart from this I am a hardworking guy, who is not scared of labor. I always believe in being straightforward without formalities, in having courage to call a spade a spade and in appreciating people for their good deeds. Thouhg I am quite with individuals, but like Tughlaq, my weaknesses include difficulty to deal with a group.

About me : part II : the mother nature

My love for nature has been here since very long. The morning and evening sun fills my heart with divine thoughts. Morning sun brings with it the hopes. That nothing hasn’t changed in the big scheme of things. Nothing is lost. And bathing in the orange of dawn has its own pleasure. Also, after days of rains or after lots of dark winter days, a bright sunny day is a blessing. It brings shine on my face and positive energy in my soul.

Another thing that I love about nature is water. Mere sight of water brings to my senses, the sounds of santoor and sitar. In fact for me, music and water ( you can read rains ) have always been inseparable. Sight of one brings the thoughts of other. The music of santoor feels like tinkling with water. Be it waterfalls or rains causing ripples on water or a silent river or mighty water of a furious river gushing out ferociously, they all bring plenty of joys for me. My heart swells with joy on seeing rains. The fragrance of excited soil of earth just before the rains pleases my senses. The sounds of thunder and lightning send sweet bells ringing in my ears. In fact water of all sorts particularly, the large water bodies are very mysterious and thought provoking figures. I have spent 4 yrs of my life near the mighty Brahmputra, though it is silent here near IIT.

Now when I am counting the elements of nature, I must not miss sky. I like mainly dark sky full with black and scary clouds. That could be attributed to my love for rains. A cloud less sky looks like barren that has nothing to offer. Sky also looks majestic and classy when it takes pride in showing off its star studded clothes in the night. On a summer night, it’s a great thing to just lie down under a starry sky and observe it or talk to friends or siblings.

I feel completely spellbound to see snow covered alps that I saw in reality in Austria. I get the same feeling to see hills capped with clouds which are a regular phenomena here in Assam during rains.

Next, I love flowers and greeneries. Flowers I feel are next the best creation of god after kids. Flowers carry with them so much of feel good factor. And best thing about them is that they all have their unique place in our senses. Though I haven’t known and seen many varieties of flowers myself, but I feel delighted to see even a wild but beautiful flower. Because it’s not the name of flower that matters, but the beauty it reflects that pleases. Sunflowers are one of my favorites. They look so beautiful and hopeful when they look at sun.

I also feel very relieved and happy to see greenery. Dense green forests and trees, lush green foothills and countryside – they all look beautiful. I love to see them early in the morning, particularly in the winters when fog is in the backdrop and their leaves are having small water droplets. A carpet like green grass is also soothing to my eyes.

One would notice one common feature in most of my interests above. They all have elements of innocence in suitable proportion. I like anything that is innocent. For this reason, I like goats and cows. I haven’t seen much rabbits though. Goats are so cute; they just don’t raise their eyes. Even if they do it, they do it so coyly with sheepish smiles in their eyes. Sometimes some dogs also do it. I don’t like many animals. Partly because of the fear of being hurt. And also, some of them are very untidy. But for me innocence is the top priority. At times my heart goes out for even an unclean kid if s/he is innocent enough.

Finally to complete the list, against all norms of being a man, I do love kids. I feel they are the most beautiful things in this world. They are so innocent, like clay. They don’t have any country, language, caste or religion, or any such bias. These things might sound cliché but these are the things that make them so unique and so lovable. They don’t give a damn to any one in the world. They won’t be frightened even if Hitler stands before them. Sometimes I fell so small and insignificant when I am ignored by kids!!

Lakshya

Watchin lakshya makes my heart goin out again for Indian Airforce. The places they operate in are simply awesome. The film has just started, they are showing so beautiful and towering mountains. But for the first time this thought came into my mind that I can see those beautiful places even if I am not in Force. I can go to those places during vacations! Really I can go there with my family and friends anytime. So I should start loving and respecting a civilian's life as well.



Movie is pretty nice. The valleys and mountains and b'ful rivers that were shwown were scintillating. Acting of Amitabh Bachhan , I found , was gerat after a long time. I really wanna have the discipline of Defence Forces in myself. I really liked the elegance and grace they carry with themselves. Their gait is also awe-inspiring. They are so much full of etiquettes.



The song 'main aisa kyun hoon' is done with so much iof innovations. The contrast of black and white went really well. Hrithik's dance is as usual very good.

But the acting quite nice. So was not that of Preity Zinta. She moves her body a lot. Hrithik always looks like that autistic child he played in the other movie. Even non-serious roles can be done normally rather than behaving like a child.

The second half of the movie where hritik and zinta take their own paths of lives
was quite matured. They really acted sensibly. Best part was the less use of words and judicious use of backgroud music. They worked more through silence and through their body language and facial expressions , rather than just delivering dialogues
as in most of hindi movies. The visuals were beyond my expectations. It was like I was watching LOTR. So high mountains . I wonder if in reality they climb such mountains. And how would they be doing in dark. The movie did not have one hero. Like RDB, every character was the hero in itself. This was one of the fewest war movies I loved. It was not just a love story. Not just the transformation of a confused soul into a responsible guy, not just about courage and passion of Defence
personnels. It was a perfect blend of all. The transition from one of these forms to the other was very smooth. Really gud cinema.

About me : part III : music meri jaan

There are quite a few things that I derive pleasure from, but in those things I find immense joy. So may be total measure of pleasure remains a constant!! My heart really swells with joy when I listen to very good piece of music, particularly Indian Classical music. Even closest people in my life don’t believe in my penchant for music, my brother himself teases me by telling that he can give me competition in singing!! My love for classical music goes back my childhood. I don’t now why but even as a child, I would be attracted to classical dance and music. I remember one incident when I was probably in class 8, and a show of Indian classical dance was aired on Zee TV for the new year bash, and my sister switched the channel to Star plus because that was showing performances by film stars. And I got upset and left the room. In the morning, I told my sister,”apni sanskriti bhi nahin samajhte”!! Today, when I think of this incident , I can only laugh and smile. This think was indeed unfathomable with regard to a 12 year old boy. I hardly knew the difference between Bharatnatyam and Kuchhi pudi or for that matter between sitar and sarod!!

But things have changed today, over the years I have been listening to variety of music. Now I can identify people like Pt. Ravi Shankar and Ustad Bismilah khan by names and by faces too. Even though I have never touched a sitar, veena or santoor, but still I can distinguish between them when I listen to them. I can almost always identify the singer if it is Lata Mangeshkar or Asha Bhonsle or any known voice or the one that I have been listening to and I like. I love singing as well. I may resemble Sweety of Hum Paanch serial in the sense, that the way she would open the door of her home always with a song, I also take bath with variety of songs, which invariably include Vandematram and Mile sur mera tumhara. So people staying around my room get this feeling that they are having a distorted version of DoorDarshan around them!!!!

If all this is not my love for music, what else is it then? I also like non classical stuff, including Bryan Adams, pop music, and film music as well. In fact, most of the times, I like to listen to sitar that plays the tune of some good song that I have heard , may be in some film or elsewhere.

I like dancing as well as is reflected from above, but I have seen very less of classical dance or any dance for that matter because such things are not kept much on our LAN of our IITG, as these things aren't quite cred. But still when I listen to good dance music , again particularly classical, then I feel the vibration of my feet, I start dancing with steps that I feel are good. I at times feel that I am more of a performer than an audience. Whenever I see a good performance, then this thought in my mind of appreciating the performer is as intense as the feeling of going to the stage and doing the same performance myself.

Mixed doubles and School

The 2 good movies i watched today. Well good is a relative term. Even for one person, the same movie feels good in one frame and sucks in another. But both the films were good time pass, reason being they are not the regular hindi movies with the same old crap of cheap humor or skin show or some stupid tune of emotions and related crap. Mixed Doubles had very earthen feeling, 'coz acting of all the characters was very natural. I could very well find similar dialogues in our daily lives during my stay in Delhi, particularly those of Naseer and his wife!! I hardly felt I was watching movie. It was enjoying seeing the arguments between the parents of Konkana sen. Though Konkana sen and his husband formed an urban couple, but I guess I have similar ones , I could relate to them. Their son was again very much like I would find in my uncles' homes. All in all nice movie.

School. God it tried to take me back to school days, or to my future. The scholl was an Airforce School. Again here the acting was pretty good. Don't remember the name of the principal, but it seems he does very nice work, and has really refined himself as an actor over the time.

I guess now I can generalize that low budget movies are the ones that are liked. Atleast for me, this generalization does hold true.

India in the western veil

These days ,Indian companies make it a point that they have pics of non-Indians in their advertisements,billboards, posters etc.. One can only speculate their intentions behind this non sense. They may be doin this to attract people, thinking that Indians have always been attracted to fair skin or to foreigners (coz some of them are Africans or American blacks as well), so this will make their ads eye catching. But they often say that that they want to show off some kinda diversity in their employees and clients, that they are serving people from all over the globe , that a substantial percentage of people working in their company are non-Indians. But those guys forget that majority of them are Indians. The Times of India and the Economic Times always ensure that their articles somehow contain a pic of non Indian thing even if that thing has got almost zero relevance to that article. I am not chauvinism or xenophobic, but I am Indian. Globlalisation is indeed the order of the day , but forceful globalisation and blind aping and appeasement is not.

Quote Unquote

Refelections of my thought process.

"har kisi ko chahiye hamari zindagi ke hisse, per hum banna chahe junke woh na samajh paye ye kisse"


"Kisi ko itna bhi naa apnaayiye ki fir tanhai bhi apni na rahe"










"Sensing a sense of satisfcation after a war is senseless"










"'And they lived happily ever after' is a fact of fiction only"










"If an for an eye will leave everyone blind, then two eyes for an eye will save your other eye"








"Humanity is religion"






---- Rajeev D Gupta

Does India remember it's a sovereign country?

The Indian constitution declares India to be a sovereign state. But every time Pakistan fiddles with India, India turns its poor face to west(read America) craving for a certificate certifying that what Pakistan did was incorrect. Then Indian 'national dailies' give headlines- 'America condemns acts of terror and shows solidarity with India'. I have rather started hating the word 'condemnation'. Just 'SPEAKING' against the terrorism will not end it. We've gotta 'ACT' against it. Did not US give an answer to Iraq after 9/11? Did he ask for anyone's opinion in that? If President Bush says that Pakistan should stop terrorism, will that bring back the lives of people killed in the Mumbai blasts. Why is The Times of India celebrating PM manmohan singh's 'success' at G8 summit? All those countries have paid a lip service to PM Singh. What is so big to be happy for? It's only natural to say we hate terrorism. Even Pakistan will also say that they blasts were heinous crime and they are also sending condolence message. But what good is all this for ? For how long should we continue to suffer because of weak government international policies. India is investing millions of dollars in defense. Can not that defense power be used to save our countrymen from the terror of blasts? How long should India exchange dialogues with Pakistan. Can we not give a befitting reply to that country once n for all. If an eye for an eye leaves every one blind, then two eyes for an eye can save our other eye. It's high time that India should shed off it's softness and show some symbol of strength rather than showing impotency when faced with terror strikes.

Now security is being beefed up in Maharashtra and other places in India. The cry will be silent in few days. The main page news will slowly fade away in darkness. Case against suspected criminals will be kept pending in the wonderful courts of India. And again another series of blasts can injure another city then. Why the hell this beefed up security not the normal level of security in India? Why we take actions (that too weaker ones) only after casualties?

Natalie Raps

A day in the life of Natalie Portman. This rap just rocks : Natalie your are a crazy chic Shut the f*** up and suck my d***!! Natalie we all love you, Shut the f***up I will f***u too!! Natalie what you want natalie to drink and fight wht u need natalie to f***all nite

The lost temples of India

Another excellent documentary I found is :




After watching this, I realized that India had and India has more resources than many developed countries. All we need is honest people to utilize the resource.

The statements worth noting are :

"India had golden age, when Europe was languishing in dark age.".

"Excavations for temples were stopped when the British architect found erotic statues on the walls of few temples he found. Hindu religion was then assumed to be immoral and corrupt and Christianity was pure."

"Mughal rulers devasted the Hindu temples and structures to erect their monuments and erase signs of Hindu culture"

"The Mughal Arhictecture presented the image what Britishers or the western people had thought of the eastern or Indian world - pure , moral, with no more erotica or sadhus half naked"

Indira Gandhi and Operation BlueStar

I loved this documentary. I was born around the same time she was assasinated. And did suffer because of the riots that broke out afterwards, though I was a only a kid, few months old.

Times of India

Believe it or not. The Times Group in general and The Times of India newspaper in particular is a big piece of crap. They have nothing original in them. They know how to copy west. And that also results in an inferior imitation. The Mumbai attacks are being referred to as 7/11. These assholes are trying to create 9/11 effect. But these guys don't undersand that 9/11 on being googled gives plenty of results and their 7/11 does not. In India, date syatem is dd/mm/yy. But the times group consists of several useless people. They are copying the western (may be American)style of mm/dd. Why did they not call Gujarat Earthquake of January 26, 2001, as "1/26"? Coz they did not know of such style. All this paper knows is to hype things out of proportion.

But one thing is worth noting. Wikipedia does mention Mumbai Blasts when u search for July 11. Though it doesn't talk about London blasts (July 11, 2005).

Learning history........ any purpose?

When I was a kid, I used to wonder why the hell do we learn history? What has happened has happened. Why do we look back? Will seeing old historical monuments and other historically rich things fill the belly of several millions starving to death every day? Will reading about world wars bring some shed on the heads of millions of destitutes suffering from chilly winter nights ? As I grew up.I understood that reading history, learning about the factual information of past helps us to understand what went wrong? What were the blunders that were commited by mankind which inflicted irreparable loss to human beings whose nuber is uncountable? All this , so that such mistakes are not repeated in ordrer to ensure peace for the future generation. Fair enough.

But are we really learning lessons from history? It was racial hatred against Jews and others that caused millions of them to be annihilated in concentration camps. Similarly the racial discrimination was the root of apartheid. India paid heavy price for religious intolerance between hindus and muslims in the form of partition. But have things changed today? Are we still not continuing to repeat our old habits? What Materazzi did to Zidane in the worldcup final was a fine example of racial hatred still nurtured in the hearts of Italians and may be several others. The communal riots in India every year also give fair idea of how much we have learnt from our past mistakes.

typing English .....on German keyboards!!

Ofcourse, the one big problem here is the frequent change of keyboards. First we got German keyboards. They were replaced by English keyboards after some 20 days, when we were getting accustomed to the German ones!!!. Now, after very long say after one month, they gave us laptop, that have once again German keyboards. I was thinking of improving my tyoing speed in the summers. That's why I was blogging quite a lot. But shuffling between 2 different keyboards will hardly allow me to do that. In the day, I work on English ones. In the night after dinner, when I get down to pour my thoughts on blogspot, I use German keyboard of the laptop. Earlier I had to make the transition atleast in 15-20 days during the replacement, but now I have to do it daily!!!

Life is beautiful

This is a story. A story of happiness. But not an easy one to tell.
That’s how it begins. Yes, I watched the movie yesterday. It’s as beautiful as the director is claiming life to be. I had seen it earlier also, but in pieces. Could not get to sit and watch it properly. This time I did. First half was candy floss. An air of mirth all around. The music was really lovely, particularly that of Venice version opera. Humor was really sharp and intelligent. It seems that in the English version, they have made the same Italian actors to speak, as their English was perfectly European or rather Italian, as we observed in Rome.

Second part begins with a whimper, though Guido tries his best to cover that, with extra ordinary capabilities, and he does succeed. Their child was like an innocent lamb, about to be butchered. He was speaking American English. After watching the movie, I was even more drawn towards the history of Germany, concentration camps, Jews etc.. And few days back I watched Sound of Music. So my state of mind was already oriented in this direction. On the top of that, I am reading this book Fire from the sun, which is about (at least from the chapters I have read ) cruelties inflicted by Maoists. So the whole air around me these days is full of the political history, wars , crimes and I am diving more and more to gain further insight in what actually happened. Moreover, I am staying in Austria which seems to me, a clone of Deutschland. The German I heard in the movie is quite familiar. After watching that movie, I could not resist myself from exploring the history further on Wikipedia . I learnt how the Jews and people of some other some other races and kinds were exterminated in the concentration camps.





Kids and old people were told that would be given shower and they were thrown into gas chambers. That was shameful.

While going to Milan, I met a French lady, who told that even France was also quite involved in such heinous crimes but they don’t accept this.

But what is nice is that people have today moved on in their lives, and not carrying the burden of history even now.

But I was surprised to learn that America wasn’t involved in such crimes against humanity. It along with Britain and Soviet, rather liberated people from the camps. Of course, it dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that brought us into nuclear age. But that was war and every country was it’s best to win over the other. And indeed America went too far in that attempt. But what Germans did was not war against a country , but a madness giving vent to their hatred for their hatred against people of different race.

Reservation : my take

The reservation bomb re-exploded sometime in april, if I remember correctly. Since then I have been a mute spectator of the happenings. Kept on reading and watching activities associated with it. The cry is a bit silent now, but yet not over. This is probably the silence before the storm. As lot of things are beeing planned for August 15th. I feel now it's my time also to take some stand on this issue.

Reservation has been there for the past 50 years in our country. If even after so many years of its implementation, we find the need for more of it, then it has. by all logical senses, failed to prove to be a good solution to uplift the socially backward elements.

Yesterday, I read the minister of social empowerment and justice making a statament that, socially deprived kids don't get proper opportunities for education. To the best of my knowledge , no where in India, one can be denied admission in school or college because of his/her caste. Rather, one has more chances of getting admission in reputed colleges like IIT's if he or she's from SC/ST or Other BAckward Clas, even if he doesn't doesn't deserve that on the basis of merit.

Secondly, a friend of mine, who supports reservation, feels that scheduled caste people suffer from discrimination as they face name calling. They being addressed as 'chooda' or 'chamar' etc. For those sharing such beliefs, well, atleast I haven't witnessed one instance of such discrimination right in front of my eyes. I did read about one case in Delhi University long time back. In my hostel, in my own lobby, we have people belonging to sc/st. They are good friends of mine. Such feeling never came amonst us. We eat together and attend classes together. Infact several important posts in our gymkhana are being held by sc/st. And then again , in 50 years if this tool of quota could not eliminate the evil of the name calling and all that dirty stuff, then how do they expect it do miracles now, by increasing the quota?

Only after this reservation issue was raised up, and we used to discuss things in the hostel, we realized tht in any department of our college, the under performers are mainly from sc/st. They are the ones who are amongst the rich guys . In our country, already corruption has roots strong enough to give benefits to undeserving , but rich and powerful people , will not this propsed quota hike further aggravate the situation? Ofcourse even rich people also don't deserve discrimination. But ours is materialistic society. It was observed in shlokas also, that a rich person will always be respected, no matter whether he is learned one or not. So chances of rich being at the recieving end seem to be less. Nevertheless favoritism of any form shudn't be tolerated, but will it be fair to ask reservations for that? Is tht the only solution?

Recently I saw one documentary on 60 minutes show of CBS. There they showed the plight of untouchables, the people of lowere castes. I learnt that in the rural areas of UP and AP, untouchables remove their shoes and bow their heads while passing by some upper caste. The job of cleaning in our society is still entrusted in the hands of lower castes. They clean laterine with bare hands.


Manual scavengers


A dalit family

Upper caste people often rape the girls of lowere caste and dalits are economically exploited by the upper caste people. The peasants of lower castes working on the lands of upper caste people are given very less or no wage. All this is indeed inhuman. My support and sympathy is with them . But can someone explain how is quota system going to improve this ? Why do we rather not have good judicial and law and order system that can severly the punish the upper class perpetrators of crime, rather than supporting them when a dalit goes to police station for filing a complain? Probably the work of cleaning is in the hands of untouchables because they don't have any other work to earn from, because of their poor literacy level. No where they can be denied job because they are from lowere strata of society. For this some other important measures should be taken up :

http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/sasia/india.htm

Also, in our nation, we have discrimination , not just based on caste, but also on so many other factors. I have myself seen in Assam, assamese are often favored, atleast by less educated people. And what about sexual minority? They are suprressesd not just in India but everywhere . So soon, different segemnts of our society and country will in its own right ask for reservation. So we will have social reservation, regional reservation (formation of new states is a already a consequence of that), sexual reservation and many other which I can't imagine now.

More Indian experience

I met this Indian lady today again in Hofer. She quite warm in talking last time also. I learnt that she does the work of cleaning. She told that she gets up at around 5 in the morn (And so do the people who throw newspaper in the morning, they rather begin their day here at 2). She works for 2hrs in the morning and two hrs in the evening. But it's nice to know that these people don't consider any work big or small. In India, such people would have been called by names like 'chooda' or 'bhangi' or 'chamar' and what not. Since I am also brought in an Indian society, so for a moment I was indeed shocked to learn that she does the job of cleaner. As she appeared to be from a well to do family. But that's ok. And when I told her that I would leave after 1 month, she asked if I will come back. On listening no, she suggested that I can marry a girl from here. Man what was she telling me. I was meeting her only twice. I did not know what to say. And it is to early to even think of marriage. But she is the only lady I have seen here with so long here and with long plait. Her two kids speak german. And after some time , I don't know what to speak to her. I am any way shy, and talking to old people or should I say people elder to me, really makes me amiss.