Grow up OLDIE and let us too!!

We often complain about progress in a lot of things in our life as citizens, as humans. We say the government has not done much for infrastructure, for education, for poverty, blah blah blah, yap yap yap, buk buk buk. Hold on!! Have we ever thought about ourselves? How far have we progressed in our thinking?

We are still the same old British ruled creatures who keep getting imposed up on. The only difference is, now the imposition is more to do with thought process and its outcome and not as much of slavery as during British rule. We haven’t progressed even a mile in terms of maturity in thinking, in thinking ahead, in adapting ourselves to the changing time and ways of living. We still take all the shit that people around us give, just because they think something is right, are we obliged to take it as they give it to us? Let’s stop taking it!! Who do they think they are? They aren’t doing any favor by sharing their wisdom or experience. They are, simply said, just dumping their own view on us by exhibiting it as a ritual or so. It’s a plain white ‘lie’, is how I see it.

Lets take a few examples of how things have changed in decades and how different things are perceived now vis a vis how they were being perceived in the past supposedly.

Disease – It’s easier to start with a topic that at least most of them would agree with me on. If someone would have uttered the word ‘cancer’ a few decades ago or for that matter even a few years ago, it would have meant only one thing to anyone whether literate or illiterate, the word would have only related to end of life, ‘death’ (whether soon or a little later). So generation over generation, people started believing in that and lost hope. Scientists around the world have been working hard to find a cure for it and thankfully to an extent there seems to be some relief and cure for some of them who caught this deadly disease.

But today if one utters the word ‘cancer’, ‘death’ is not the first thing that comes to ones mind, its dialysis, treatment, cure, hope or life that comes to our mind. To quote an example we can look at the story of Lisa Ray, we read and understand that she fought the battle and survives today trying to lead a better life. There are thousand such stories today and the numbers are just going to increase manifold in the coming days. I guess the older generation better start believing in the future and the youngsters who are working hard to make it a better one.

Cricket - Now coming to a sport that a large proportion of the country follows. If we would have spoken about cricket say 3 decades ago, we would have nothing more to talk about than test match, bouncers, West Indies, defensive batting and so on. No mention of the terms money, cheer leaders, doosra, sixers, 20 – 20, power play, day – night games (in fact soon we are gonna have day- night test matches!). It’s clear that with time, we have come a long way. A lot of things have changed and a lot more will change with time. But if we still keep talking about how a team batted for 3 days continuously in a test match and the match ended in a draw, people would laugh at that team and of course us; it’s not the way we play cricket now. So instead of complaining about how people/money have changed the game, lets take what’s more relevant today and how to make it better with how its working better today. The veterans have no other work, they have already retired, they are obviously expected to speak highly about the past, but how does it matter? They aren’t the ones who are gonna play the game now, are they? So it doesn’t matter as much as to what they felt like while playing the game then and what they miss now.

Communication – Our grandparents would tell us, we used to write letters and it used to take 2 weeks or so for it to deliver and so on. While our parents would tell us we used to make trunk calls and at times we had to wait all day before we got the line free and so on. Now with the launch of 3G technology, we can communicate live from anywhere at any time seeing each others face and for as long as we want. If an oldie still is against such stuff because he/she dint have access to it during their times, ask them to get a life now! We have it now, are we still supposed to listen to those people who don’t even have an idea about what we are doing, why and how?! Think of a scenario where instead of these oldies grumbling about the advancement and the way youngsters use it, start trying to understand it and use it for their own good. But no! They have to impose their thoughts (wisdom), don’t they?!

Marriage – Its one of the things that we are most backward in our thinking till date about. We to an extent have progressed in our approach with a lot of other things mentioned above, but when it comes to marriage we are still old wine in old bottle stuff. We have neither changed the wine, nor the bottle (if that sounds like a saying at all). Earlier it used to be 2 families getting together into a relationship through 1 person from each family and the affair would be concerned more with the families and not the bride and the groom whose lives were at stake ultimately, but the oldies wouldn’t care less.

Now marriages are more concerned with the 2 humans whose lives are going to be affected the most and we seem to think that’s the better way to approach this institute of love and life. But can we ever get rid of caste, khap, honor killing, sati, child marriage, female girl killing and so on? We have all these problems in abundance even today across the country. Can the thought leaders of such chauvinistic attitudes ever find a rational behind their acts? Where have we progressed in these issues yet? We are still many centuries behind with our approach to these issues of immense importance to every individual life on earth. It’s all just because of the thoughts of the older generation who are so myopic, that they don’t want to see progress; they can’t bear a better life for the younger generation, because they themselves haven’t lived one, how can they see their younger generations live happily after all? 

Education – To my understanding, the older generations studied only for one reason – to secure a job. There was no other meaning to them when it came to education. It did not mean progress or innovation or growth or intelligence or wisdom and so on. All it meant to them was, ‘it’s going to secure me a government job’. A good proportion of people in the country have realized how important it is for them to enroll their kids to school, instead of using them for chores or working on farm or doing some kind of bonded labor. But there is still a majority of population spread across the country which doesn’t understand and realize the importance of education and how it can make or break lives in today’s context. Children are still used on farm or as bonded labor (agreed that in certain cases it is because they can’t afford it, but it’s not the same in all the cases, I guess we needn’t worry about it now though, RTE has just arrived). This requires a radical shift in thought and attitude towards the life of our beloved. Education would certainly lead to a better life no matter where one lives, what one earns or thinks like. Need I mention about the reservation system we have in our country that the older generation has believed in firmly for the last 6 decades and more, which is literally killing the country and its younger population in some way or the other. The more we dig deep into the reservation problem the lesser it is. It is such a big mistake the government has down in decades and more so lead by a lot of old generation power houses to seek votes of people whose lives they are working to not be better off ever, so that they keep getting their votes for ever by highlighting the reservation favor.

We need a huge thought revolution (like the green revolution), which puts sense into millions of people who are fooling and billions of them who are being fooled by a lot of bigoted people. We need to adopt progressive thinking, the world is changing a lot for the better and even more for the worse, but we need to still adapt to it for the better, by not staying regressive. If we stay regressive worrying about the world getting worse, we’ll get no where, we need to understand that first.

It’s a humble appeal from a novice to all the oldies out there (across classes, castes, generations, colors, genders, regions, professions, literacy levels) – Please kindly stop imposing yourself and your thoughts on the younger generation. They don’t need your wisdom; it is no more relevant in today’s context. So kindly get with them and acquaint yourselves with the current trends and try to work together for a better life both for you and them.

Today’s Favorite Line – The older I get, the younger I want to be and the younger I am, the older I want to be. That’s life!!

Today’s Favorite Song – Man in the mirror (Michael Jackson)

Why blame the IPL

If players don't perform to their potential in under pressure situation on tracks that don't go with their comfort zone, is IPL responsible?

Who is to blame when you play only 2 seamers and rest slows bowlers on tracks that suit pace men more. But for Suresh Raina and to an extent Rohit Sharma (for a lost cause) all other batsmen failed in the World Cup. What happened to our Pathans and Yuvrajs and the captain cool himself? All of them failed miserably. Most of them were disappointments even in the IPL except for a couple of knocks here and there in a dozen plus games played by each of them. So did IPL sway them to continue their poor form? Not at all, it gave them a much required chance to have some match practice in fact, that too against the best bowlers from across the world. The same Mallingas, Mathews and the Pollards are the ones whom they played with and against.

If IPL is responsible at all, then have a look at Mahela Jayewardane, no one in their wildest dreams could have ever thought this guy could adapt so well to this format and win games for his team almost every time with brilliant knocks. Now you should also say IPL is responsible for giving him such a nice platform and opportunity to let him tune himself according to the games needs. There are many other players who continued their form from IPL or bettered it in the world cup. If Indians couldn't do it, it’s not for the IPL to take the blame. In fact the top 5 batsmen in this world cup at this moment are all who played in the IPL as well - M Jayewardene, KP Pietersen, C Gayle, J Kallis and S Raina.

But was it not known even before the start that Indians are miserable against short pitch bowling? So why select people who are not time tested with short pitch bowling even if it was the shortest version of the game? The team selection was not to be made based on IPL like conditions for heavens sake, the world cup is being played at the Caribbean land!

The team failed in several departments including poor captaincy by Dhoni, picking wrong sides, choosing to bowl when anyone on earth would have chose to bat, selecting more slow/spin bowlers in the team when the conditions are tailor made for pace men. It couldn’t have got any more worse.

Indians performed miserably on the days when they needed to fire all guns. The crucial thing for a team playing any tournament is its fitness level and the performance of every individual player on the match days, which in India’s case was lackluster and so it lost and that it rightly deserved to say the least.

Let’s stop using the IPL, its money and the late night parties as an excuse for a blunder which the players did on the field.

Today’s Favorite Line – ‘Patience is not much about waiting; it is more about how one behaves while waiting’.

Today’s Favorite Song – Aye Khuda (Paathshaala)

What's Superior - Religion or Law

This is a very very tricky question; the answer more often than not would be different in different contexts. But it’s a really important question at this moment in India.

We all, in our lives as civilians are expected to follow or abide by two things as per our social setting, religion (am taking the discretion of treating caste also as a part or an equivalent of religion as it’s just another form of division) and law. There are two interesting cases that India at this moment is debating and arguing about, two completely different contexts but they both involve religion and law as the center piece of the argument and more importantly life of someone at stake as the backdrop.

Case 1 - A boy and a girl from certain rural parts of the country love and marry without approval of their families and society. As they married with in their family (they are siblings), it was out of question for them to seek approval of any of the above before their wedlock. The khap panchayat sees it as dishonor to it and ordered killing of the couple for this misdemeanor wholly supported and backed by the family of the guy/girl. When the doors of justice were knocked at some court, the honorable court condemned the ruling and act of the panchayat. (For complete story here)

Case 2 - A 20+ guy from across the border infiltrates into our country and mercilessly massacres dozens of lives with his companions and unfortunately (for him) survives while all his partners in crime die in the process of this mini war. After playing hide and seek in his response to the Special Court trying his case for almost a year and half, he finally is found to be guilty of the crimes he did which the entire world saw bits and pieces of every now and then on different forms of media. He manages to get a death sentence on several counts, bringing some sort of closure to the kith and kin of the victims. Majority population of the country is praying for his execution immediately without any delay for him to play any other games with the friendly law of the country (he was given the food he liked in jail, he got a lawyer for free to prove he was innocent, though all of us knew he wasn't innocent, more over he got such a royal treatment, on day of the verdict he appeared in the court in a nice white kurta pajama. Human rights people got him nice treatment from the cops & what not).

Both these cases deal with death as the verdict, in one it’s given by a caste based outfit and in another it’s given by the body of law in the nation. As far as I've known and learnt, no religion teaches to kill, none of them teach 'an eye for an eye' behavior. But still the khap panchayat managed to kill young guys and girls for loving and marrying in the name of honor, in multiple cases. Whose honor? For whose sake?  They only loved, they only got married, and it’s in order with the civil society's code of conduct. Why worry so much about caste? Is death the only way out? Will they get back their honor by killing those innocent, loving humans? All this was done and the law of the land couldn't do much, instead the khap panchayat advised the judicial body to not interfere, such a shame. This is a total disregard and ignominious behavior towards the legal system of the country. How do we punish them?

In the second case, though majority of the population wants kasab to be hanged ASAP, there are a lot of people who are actively lobbying towards banning or revoking capital punishment in the country. They say, our religion and leaders (spiritual) have not taught us to kill. We have always been taught to be merciful, to transform people from being wrong doers to being good humans. The judge while giving his judgment mentioned that reforming kasab is out of question, he is a killing machine and deserves only to die. In this case death has been awarded for killing, contrasting to the first case where death was given for loving. But now law sees killing as the only option while religion says reform is still a way that could be tried. We shouldn't start this game of tit for tat or tooth for tooth.

I am very confused as to what my opinion on the second case is, while am very clear to my mind that in the first case killing the young couple was the most brutal acts of crime post Hitler era. While the killing spree that kasab and his team went on for was as atrocious as it could have got, for which reason my mind says kill kasab, hang him, hang him now, don't give him any more time, he has already got 18 months of extra life, he should have been shot at site the day he was caught (not that we have got any extra ordinary links or clues while having him in our custody, he has been taught well enough to hide and die rather than speaking the truth). But heart says did your religion and gurus teach you to be supportive of violent acts? Agreed that this violence is to kill a killing machine and is also endorsed by law but don't we think so much even before hurting an ant in our daily life? Now we are talking about killing an adult. Will this do any good to further terrorist acts or will it deter them from pursuing such inhumane crimes?

The side affects of executing or not executing him could be any of the following as far as my mind can think.

1. If he is not hanged, his handlers would use this as an example to enroll many more kasab's into their gang by assuring them their lives even if they were caught (just like kasab).
2. If he is not hanged, they could do a kandhar type hijacking they did few years back to get him free and then we'd lose both justice and may be lives of our loved ones as a few paid their lives during kandhar.
3. If he's not hanged, we'd have to take care of another terrorist in our already overcrowded jails, we'd be spending money on his life for several decades, that money could be used for some developmental activity in the country to stop terrorism. We have already spent a lot doing a fair trail while keeping him alive and in the pink of his health.

1. If he's hanged, may be LeT may plan another attack to show retaliation and revenge(his hanging is a non incident for them to cut down their terrorism, they sent him with a plan for him to die after the attack, unfortunately for them their plan failed in his case causing some distress)
2. If he's hanged the confidence level of the Indian citizen in the law of the land would increase manifold (it already has to a great extent as we tried kasab very fairly and are giving him what he deserved best - death)
3. If he's hanged may be many other criminal outfits will take a lesson out of it and slow down on their delinquencies.

There can be many more arguments for and against the life of this animal in the form of a human. But I am not really able to decide what’s superior to me, Religion or Law; head says the killer doesn’t deserve to live but heart asks, is that the only way out? This is a real life test and let law take its own course and religion do its own thing. After all law says – Satyamave Jayete and religion says – Live and Let Live. Neither is worth ignoring, so let’s just be truthful and accommodate nice things in our life, as truth has won its battle and justice has been done, now it’s a test to our religious beliefs, is this man worth to let live? I don’t have an answer, do you?

Today’s Favorite Line – There is anger or sadness behind every smile (mostly)

Today’s Favorite Song – So Sick (Ne-Yo)

What about now

I was the topper in high school…

You were such a nice guy when you were a kid…

I will be a billionaire some day…

You are spoiling your future…

To all these statements I have one question - What about now?

What are you today? What do you think today?

Are you happy, successful, well mannered, responsible, etc today? Now?

I basically subscribe to a school of thought that doesn't believe in past, doesn't listen to or agree with what the ancestors or earlier generations did or thought. It doesn't matter what and how they thought about certain things and how they dealt with issues or circumstances.

They did what they liked, the way they liked! They must not have necessarily followed or agreed with their own ancestors. None of us actually ever bothered to check that, not that we could check it actually. So why are we being forced to follow them or their thoughts/views?

They had their reasons for doing the things they did the way they did.

• They got back home before sunset because there wasn't light in their times, so it was best getting back home safe early.
• They dint go to disco cos there wasn't one.
• They woke up early in the morning because they had nothing to do till late in the night so they fell asleep early and weren't feeling sleepy anymore in the morning and of course since there was light only in the day they better did what ever they wanted to in the day. They walked miles cos there wasn't a vehicle back then or they couldn’t afford it, if at all there was one.
• They used to talk only for a short while on phone because it either wouldn’t get connected for long or it was costlier than robbing a bank.
• They ate more natural stuff because they hadn't invented the stuff used to make these junk/fast food which got invented much later.
• Who said they dint have ailment like sugar, bp and so on? There wasn't a lab out there for them to checkout so they never knew and just lived with it in denial.

It’s all rubbish when people use past instances and future predictions to dump their views on you.

• We get home late cos we are busy meeting friends or doing our own thing as evening is the only time we get after office/college, why not use that time?
• We get up late cos we hardly slept for a couple of hours by the time they woke up, don't we need some rest? What’s wrong if that's our lifestyle in the changing times?
• We have the convenience of transportation so why not use it?? What’s the point in comparing by saying ‘in my young days I used to walk so many miles', who cares?
• We talk on phone for long cos it costs just a handful of peanuts worth money to talk for a while.
• We consume more of junk food cos we have improved taste buds than they probably did, is that our fault really?
• Disease was not uncommon during any period in humanity and neither will it be in the future, so why always crap about it?

Talking about the future, no one knows what’s there in store for us tomorrow. We could be anything, anywhere, we just never know. No amount of experience can predict tomorrow in these times when change happens like the speed of lightning. So no amount of gyan on future is of any use, its better they rather shut it.

I firmly believe, the younger generation is a victim of false information and self opinionated guidance which doesn't necessarily have a empirical evidence from past and even if it does it is most likely going to not work in the future, cos with time situations and a lot of other things have also changed. Experience is the most irrelevant thing in today’s context. What you do or be now decides your now, not someone else's experience from past is gonna do any trick. In fact the use of past examples is a trick to fool you, to get your actions and thoughts under someone else's control. The older generations are just adamant and dictating which is neither good for them nor for the younger generations.

Respect for all is the call of the hour. So stop getting fooled by useless wisdom from the creators of history at their own will and handle your situation your own way. All you need to be asking yourselves when ever in doubt is - what about now?

Rest will following automatically!!

P.S – This is just my take on living, probably it feels harsh and rude but don’t forget that’s how life is. If humans are not easy on change they either will be left back or will keep fighting their ego and get no where. I guess older generations should get a little easy on the younger ones so that we could live in a better world where the thought divide is not as large as it is today. This is just an attempt to bring to fore a certain common examples that everyone could relate to, can come up with many more examples though, but this probably is not the right way or forum, one sided affair. Just wanted to emphasize on the importance on now and progressive thinking.

Today's favorite line – Past is a cheat and future is a liar.

Today's favorite song - What about now (Westlife)

Summer of '09

 Date: 10 – 04 – 2009, Time: 22.00 hrs

This day and time, a year ago I boarded a train for a quick trip to my native and to see a lot of saints, relatives and of course temples. Wondering why I am recalling this particular journey? Because the reason why this journey was undertaken never got off the mark, though the journey happened and happened quite satisfactorily. I did all the things that I was set out to do. Just dint do what I was supposed to do after this journey, what I prayed for and met people for during this journey. I was supposedly set out for Finland after this journey but who was to know a journey right after the end of the start of a summer at one of the best places I've spent 2 years of my life got over. I was supposed to fly and not just fly; it was supposed to be a Finnish start for all that I hyped it. I thought it was going be a start of scaling new heights, how about a flying start to an upcoming career and a life time opportunity?!

So, as planned the trip to native and north India for other purposes happened and so did I join my Finnish company, but not quite yet, I had just joined the Indian office of the Finnish Company and awaited my visa and other documents to be ready for me to leave for my Scandinavian endeavor. I was supposed to wait just for a week as told initially, week turned to a month then to 2 and not too late to 3 and some more and then came a day when I stopped fighting!!

No it wasn't a fight with my colleagues or anyone; it was a fight with myself. Every single day was a challenge, during the day the challenge was to kill time, to keep away boredom and to avoid stress, stress of not having much to do in fact anything to do. Each of those 109 days took a toll on the tiny little brain that I have to think and better myself on ways to while away time and feel normal because, if that didn’t happen I would feel unproductive and useless and so I did, did all sorts of stupid things to while away time, always sad and upset. That was supposedly a flying start to a dream career!!

The moment the digital clock on my office pc turned to 18.35, I hardly took any time to leave the lavish premises of my work where I seldom worked to go to my home sweet home which I was gonna supposedly miss for the next year or more and there I was at home close to 7 with a dull stupid day at the back of my mind, with a mild head ache and of course the war that I was having within my brain which asked me a single question in different ways and contexts repeatedly all through the day and night :- Am I going to Finland? Should I? Does my mom want me to? Will my dad be ok if I go? Is this the career start I even thought of/wanted? What if I don't want to go? How do I make things at home easy if I really am going? What's good/right for me? For my family? When will I come back? Or will I? The head felt like a complete army is shooting at me from all possible directions and all at the same time continuously and neither was I a Jackie Chan or a Rajnikant to be able to save myself from even a single bullet of these questions that were shooting my head.

Pressure kept mounting day after day as did my preparation and the delay in the process of obtaining the required documents. One not so fine morning I was late to office, (not that I was on time any other day) as my boss and team had arrived before I did and to my surprise(was a shock actually) the process of obtaining the documents for my travel were almost done (something that hadn't even moved for almost 100 days) and this news was given to me by my boss himself waiting for me near my desk for me to arrive for the days work(he kinda thought I was working) and congratulated me and asked me to be set to leave anytime in the coming week! Instead of cheer there was fear kinda expression on my face with a made up smile which did look fake though it got over looked because of the summer heat that I was entering the office with already some sweat. The fear was of the unanswered questions I had in my mind that got triggered every now and then and now it was almost time for me to answer them and zero in on something else I was up for a big disaster with in. I was about to explode any time soon, it was time I took a decision, the biggest ever decision of my life till that day.

The days following that shocking news got even tougher, pressure built on as at the one end I was just getting set to leave and was shopping and packing and meeting and what not, all the things for me to leave for Helsinki and at the other end my mind kept fighting the same old questions and thoughts and it sort of found an answer which was a very daring and bold one. Not many were going to back it except a few who have been vouching for that answer for quite a while and many others who shifted from support to retaliation and vice versa making things worse for me mentally. But I knew I had to take my own call, no matter who thought or said what, it was my heart and mind that had to decide and so I did.

I decided to give a pass to a career start that lot of like minded and/or like aged would envy. For me my family came first. As I thought if I can help things remain normal at family level I could figure out something for my career and concentrate on it better than worrying about both(which I was literally doing for the 3 months that had passed) and being bad at both. It was a Sunday that I had decided to be the last day to take a call and on Monday morning I would go ahead and communicate my decision to everyone concerned, whether they knew about such thoughts earlier or not. It was going to be the toughest day and meeting of my life. I had to tell my boss that the faith he had in me and the resources that he had spent on me were all going to be a waste as I was not in a condition to take an abroad assignment due to family concerns.

I wouldn't have been embarrassed with myself any more ever than that day, I could hardly manage to see anyone in eye and neither could my voice go beyond a certain level. I was feeling that low and embarrassed, but my boss treated this whole thing extremely well, he dint speak a single word in anger or disappointment which was a bigger shock for me than the shock that I was already in by doing something which I never imagined I would do so early in my professional career. He in fact asked me to stay back in the company at Chennai itself and take up some other profile, but I had other plans in mind long before I took this decision. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't imagine working at that place any longer. Not only because I wanted to do something on my own but also because I never again in my life wanted to go through the same kind of embarrassment.

So I called it a day for my professional working career that day. I knew this was going to be my first and last employer, I never wanted to work for too long and especially for someone else whom I am not sure how comfortable I would be with. So with a really heavy heart and mind I walked out of the office finishing formalities generally that take quite some time in a matter of few hours because I wanted to be saved of those questions and gossips and self respect issues and boy I guess I did well, the fear and worry that I was carrying in my mind for the last 100+ days had gone once for all in  a matter of few hours and you bet that I was relieved, though I dint know what I was gonna do the next day, I was sure I had nothing to worry about, the guilt pangs remained for quite sometime but I at least could catch up some sleep after having not slept like for ages, worrying every night about what was in store for me in the near future and how was I going to handle it and that night I slept, I slept like a baby. No worries about the next morning/ day at least. A break from a lot of tensions and the everyday mental agony, that lasted indeed for more than just a summer. That was my summer of 2009!!

Epilogue – The next morning after I quit my job, I woke up a little late than usual, it was a phone call that woke me up. To make things even weirder it was one of my uncles who I respect a lot who called and said ‘Now that you are not going to Finland and you say that you want to do your own business, I have an opportunity for you right away!! Why don’t you go to South Africa for some export business??’ Its but obvious that I shot his request down at once!! After a struggle of almost 6 months on going abroad or not, after rejecting a hi fi opportunity to make things comfortable at home, I got another abroad opportunity right away.. bah!! I was not even over the guilt pangs of the previous days happenings and here I was with another chance to fly, a flying start again may be. That’s how life gives you what you don’t want the most when you don’t want it at all..!!

P.S – Just got the courage to put all this down in writing, it took almost a year! Keep watching this space for more on the last few months as a continuation to this, post summer ’09 & the big fat entrepreneurship dream – in the making, coming soon!!

Today’s Favorite Line – Silence speaks volumes, if you can comprehend!!

Today’s Favorite Song – Catch my breathe (West Life)

I feel numb

You think that I don’t care,

But that thought isn’t fair.

Its not tat I’ve forgotten,

It’s just that my feelings have rotten.

You think that I am not hurt,

But believe me I am a hiding expert.

I said that I’ll always be there,

Whether you give me happiness or despair.

I’ve always tried to be funny,

To bring a smile above your chin(ny).

And I miss that smile,

Cos I haven’t seen it for a while.

You never had to lie,

For I was never going to be a spy.

For believing in u was so dumb,

That’s why today I feel numb.

P.S – Sometimes its fun to write such sadist lines, doesn’t necessarily have to relate to the writer. Work of fiction.

Today’s Favorite Line – Maafi talaafi kar li, minnat bhi kaafi kar leee, kho dia phir bhi.. tujhhe…!

Today’s Favorite Song – Fool Again (West Life)

What’s your BET?!

It’s been a while, since I am upset

Cos I look for freedom, which I don’t get

These are the days I don’t wanna regret

The worlds watching, with both eyes set

I’ve already wasted a lot of time, but I don’t fret

I’ve not earned enough, to wear a bracelet

One day ill be a big shot and I’ll own a jet

It’s up to you what you wanna interpret

I need to work hard and focus on my target

And I’ll soon start, what’s your bet?

Today’s Favorite Line –Khushiyan aur gham sehti hai, phir bhi yeh chup rehti hai.. ab tak kisi ne na jaana.. Zindagi kyaa kehti hai..

Today’s Favorite Song – When you love someone (Bryan Adams)

Head I win, tail you lose!!! Huh?!

Ever thought or felt being treated in a way which otherwise is claimed to be taboo by others? Fortunately or unfortunately we are living in an era (not that things were different earlier) where there is bias and prejudice every now and then. Be it in the outside world, or at home or at office, every damn place ill treats! At times it gets really annoying to make things simple and straight, to correct the people who ill treat, but it sort of seems useless at other times and we just move on.

People take advantage of your silence and you still wouldn’t care much about fighting them, it’s not worth it you think and move on. I guess that’s how it is, I’ve been taking it and guess will keep taking it as long as I don’t loose my cool (fingers crossed, am getting impatient very easily lately though). Just thought of venting out certain instances where I’ve faced or seen double standard treatment.

You must have heard this saying ‘a crowd in a train/bus feels sick but the same thing in a club feels happening’, this one is a really common thing the elder generation keeps saying. But what about this, when elders play divine/religious songs at home on full volume that’s a real good thing, but if you do the same thing with the music you like, you get a million things to hear and you end up being called a nonsense person. Tell me one thing – Both are one or the other forms of music, you like one and I like the other, you like to play your favorite at peak volume but if I do the same I am called manner less and many better adjectives! Why?! 

Ever missed your friend(s)? Ever felt them missing you? Ever stayed out of contact for sometime? Guess what?! What ever the case may be, just because you were not in contact and you intentionally or otherwise dint get in touch with the other person. Just because you are polite and you agree to your mistake and apologize for the same, does that mean you cant/wont ask the other person why did he/she dint bother to do the same? It takes 2 hands to clap. If the other person is so bothered and concerned why dint they get in touch instead of just waiting to put the blame on you one fine day. It works both ways my friend!!

Ever got a dose for having spent that paper thing with a bespectacled old man looking beyond the purview of the glasses? It’s sort of a human tendency to always think that one is right in doing what he does but when a second does it, the second is wrong!! To put it simply if they spend, its necessity and if you do the same its extravagance. Only if someone could define and correlate ones necessity to someone else’s extravagance. It’s all in the thought!!

It’s a Double Standard World!!!!

P.S – Just a couple of instants for now, have a few other in mind.. will post them too soon.

Today’s Favorite Line – At times the equation of life is so weird ‘Give, give give and then? Forgive!! ’ 

Today’s Favorite Song – Tu Salamat Rahe (Adnan Sami)

Worst time to live in this world

We seem to live at the worst of times in the world. I’ve heard people saying ‘you couldn’t have lived at a better time, these are the best times for the kind of opportunities and growth India in particular and the world in general is witnessing’.

I feel its one of the worst times we are living in, decades later when we shall look back and talk to our next generation, we’ll have to put our head down in front of them for the kind of things that are happening during our lifetime (specially during our youth). The country is building various foundations or examples at this point in time which may not only spoil our future but also the future of the generations to come.

This state (its capital specially) in the country attracts the most money from across the world for various sectors which majorly imply finance and entertainment. But there are few anti social elements (according to me they are anti social!) in this state that is against even their own brothers from the other states of the country to live and work peacefully. How does this country grow? They don’t let a person call the capital city by a name he likes to, they don’t let a person release his movie just cos he feels in a certain manner about certain things, and they don’t let the god of cricket claim that his country is first for him and not his city. What the hell to do they aspire? What do they think of themselves and their own people? They mustn’t forget that their state today is what it is not because of its own people; it is more because of people who have got together on their land from across the country and the world. If they decide to call it quits, not even a dog will pee in their state.

Last week the CM of this state came up with a disastrous proposal of creating reservation in education for students of their own state, and students who were either not born in this state or whose parents haven’t been living in this state for at least 15 years will have to fight for a place in the limited space available after the reserved seats irrespective of how good or bad they are vis a vis the other students. I just for the sake of it hate the word reservation at the first place! How the hell in this world are we supposed to breathe freely? There will supposedly one day be reservation even to breathe. What are those students going to do whose parents get shifted to this state for work by their respective organizations? Their capital attracts the maximum number of people from outside, what do they do? Is it just to ill treat outsiders and make them suffer and spoil their future like this? What about being fair in this globalized, competitive world? There was another proposal a few weeks back that said; to obtain a public driving license a person must be fluent in terms of reading and writing the local language of the state. How fair is this? Think about the hundreds of Indians who are taxi drivers abroad! What if those foreign countries ill treat our citizens like that when we ourselves are treating our citizens this way?

This was just about one state, now lets get to another state, this being the largest state of the country on various counts, attracting the largest number of members in the parliament. The CM of this state has been throwing away money like it grows on trees. Making a history, for herself and her party by building statues and what not of her own late leaders and herself by wasting crores of rupees that could have been used for various developmental activities to help bridge a lot of gaps in the state. Why isn’t she adhering to any constitutional body? Why no fear? Why can we as citizens do nothing but just watch such extravaganza? If this kind of waste of money was not worse enough, her party members have been garlanding her with crores worth of cash just for nothing. Why do we just read about this, talk about this for a couple of days and forget? How long will the judiciary and other powerful elements of our country remain corrupt and silent? Even after seeing such instances how come people still vote for such hypocrites? Our children will laugh on us because all this is happening during our lifetime! How will we face that moment, that day?

Talk about terrorism, we during our life time so far have seen almost a dozen blasts across the country, we have hardly been able to get hold of even a few of those masterminds, they keep repeating their acts time and again and even we forget the act over time (except for the friends and family of those who lost their lives). Some day it could be to one of us, none of us are prepared to face that day and neither do we want to prepare ourselves for such a day. 26/11 happened and one of the terrorist was caught red handed, but its been more than a year now since that fellow is being treated with respect and grace in our own prisons, he changes his statement every now and then and our courts tend to believe him every time. Don’t we trust the evidences available and our own officers who caught him red handed for us to be able to pronounce a judgment to punish him? His own country disowned him for once. He is playing around with the law of our country, his bosses must be making merry and encouraging more fellows into such crimes giving an example of this fellow saying ‘see nothing has happened to him, he is having the best life, good food, good protection and lots of amenities. Could there be a better life?’ why is a criminal of such big notoriety enjoying a damn respectful life? Such elements should be given the worst kind of punishments which act as an example for others to think a million times even before setting out for such inhumane acts! And I seem to have heard this inhumane soul has been getting amenities inside the prison in terms of human rights and so on, there can’t be a bigger joke in this country in our life times.

There are lots of other such gruesome things happening around us in the world, these were just the top of mind recall ones on which we almost have lost hope and sight. So I firmly believe we are living in the worst era possible in this part of the world. Where will money and opportunity get you while such freighting things keep you worried all day and night!! I’ve lost hope of a good life in this world at least as of now..

Today’s Favorite Line – Music is the best soother, through weakness and strength, happiness and sorrow, for better or for worse it will always be there for you.

Today’s Favorite Song – Waiting on the world to change (John Mayer)

Journey on Indian Rail – Fun on the run!! (Day 2)

The next day started quiet differently with beggars and hawkers of all kinds that you would (not) like to see, from people who would sing, clean the place, show their physical disability (& later appear normal on their return, tats once their collection time is over), to people who were absolutely fit and fine but lazy enough to work (tats what easy money makes u – lazy!!). The most annoying amongst all these people was a group of errrr transgenders. I was completely annoyed by them, not for the fact that they were doing the vasooli kind of stuff but it was more cos of the method they adopted to forcefully make us pay them. The 3 of us (friends) were sitting doing our own things (listening to music, eating, reading) when this human came to our berth and demanded money, we remained ignorant, not in the mood to give even a single penny, when really insisted up on, one of the friend picked up a nice piece of apple and said ‘wont give money, take this if u want to fill ur tummy’, which got refused instantly and to not waste the time and energy anymore that moron of a human being, raised the bottom of her sari till knee high ( obviously indicating to us that, if u don’t give money in a jiffy, this level could go even higher!! Grrrrrr). Totally frustrated by the act, we wanted to get rid of her (for the sake of convenience and for the fact that she was wearing a sari, no offence meant), so I quickly took out my valet and gave a Rs.5 note, which she dint like, but I some how managed to communicate to her that, that’s what is all the change that I have, she thankfully obliged and moved on.. Jeeeeeezz!!

As this session of stupid drama started to fade, came the most interesting part of the journey, u enter Maharashtra and u get to drink this special brand of tea called ‘chaudhry ki chai’. Man!! if u could find a person selling tea any better I’d give u all the wealth I have. These set of people start someway like this at the other end of the coach ‘Chaudhry ki chai peeeo, chaudhryyyyy ki chai peeeeelo’, ‘achi lage toh paise dena, nahi toh paise mat dena’ and the best one amonsnt many other 2 liners, which hits u hard, real hard!! ‘achi lage toh peeo, nahi lage toh khidki khula hai bahar phek do’. Ever heard a marketer/seller be so tough to u, he’s sure u wont dare him by saying u dint like it, remember u r in Maharashtra!! This friend actually wanted to have a cup of tea, so he stopped the chai wala ( I was seriously in the mood to mock at him, just by buying a cup of tea and telling him I dint like it and then throwing it out in front of him, but sense still prevailed so I managed to stop myself from getting into useless trouble! :D ) and got a cup of tea, when asked how it was, he managed to say that it was really nice. (am not sure if he really liked it or did he sense what kind of crazy ideas were going in my mind and so avoided telling the truth ;) )

The chai wala left and then came a young guy (10-12 yrs old) with a hell lot of key chains and other kid’s games; he had an accent and attitude of his own to sell those beautiful key chains for rs.10 each. My friends did buy a few key chains from him; both cos they wanted to help the innocent lil kid plus they really liked a few key chains from a huge variety that he managed to carry on his small shoulders. One friend also bought a couple of JLo ( just a few ppl know here wat it means, so pls ignore wat JLo is, I just couldn’t resist myself from using the term though ;) ) kind of mobile pouches, but I was wondering why he would buy 2 pouches? He told us, he was buying them for his wife! But why 2? Won’t 1 do?? Oh then we figured he bought 2 of 2 different colors, ah married he is now, obviously understands that women like to match things to their clothes (sorry dude I doubted u unnecessarily ;)). Do I need to mention he bought a purple and a pink one.. God!!!!! I thought it was just girls, see what marriage does to men…! And then since we had bought enough from about a 100 rupees or so, we started doing time pass with that guy, seeing key chains just like that to kill time, for which that small lil kid gave a fitting comment ‘lena hai toh lo saab, kahli pili time pass mat karo, aur bhi dhanda karna hai abhi’, my o my, 12 yrs old he was I thought!!

Last thing I’d like to mention about the journey is again about this same friend, we would have laughed at least for 15 mins non stop at this particular incident. There were these set of ladies selling a floor mat kind of thing which we use for sitting on floor at home. It was made out of some different material and did look really nice; it at least looked costlier than what this friend bought it for. He bought it for Rs.10 each and asked us what we thought it was worth, to which we unanimously said, must be about Rs.20 each (conservatively) and he was glad that he had bought something nice for home and tat too cheaper than what it looks worth. Once his purchase was over, just a minute later the next lady selling the same stuff entered and started shouting ‘2 for 15’ ‘2 for 15’, one must have looked at this friends face, he already felt cheated :D. this wasn’t the end, a few minutes later the next lady entered the coach and yes u have guessed it right, she shouted ‘2 for 10’ ‘2 for 10’. There couldn’t have been a better expression on some ones face to make us laugh anymore that day: D hilarious!!

Tats what Indian railways makes ur journey – Hilarious!!

P.S - Quiet a lengthy post, guess i need to work on making my posts shorter!! thank god I got the idea of splitting this post into 2 parts :P

Today’s Favorite Line – Honest people have a value, corrupt people have a price.

Today’s Favorite Song – Anyone else but you (The Moldy Peaches)