Mumbai...The resilient city

I am feeling anguished… for whatever has been happening in Mumbai for a past few days. It is not only about the series of blasts but the seies of the events for past few days…

I guess some terrorist organizations had played cleverly (I must admit) with the city and it’s people. Shiv Sena guys seem to have fallen prey to the plot. Those terrorist must have expected them to behave in a certain manner and they did. There is nothing new with shiv sena doing such acts but more sad part is that Bal Thakare publicly approved whatever those guys did.

Ok… it’s democracy… u have full right to protest… But one must remember that your right to move hand freely ends where other persons face starts….

Burning of busses and vehicles?? Tarnishing statues of other party leaders??

Why someone else should pay the price?

In my opinion this must have been the plan to divert the attention of the police so that others got a free hand to execute the plot for bombing.

We are not new to bombings now… bomb threats have become a matter of routine now… and Mumbai has now become a seasoned city thanks to all these disasters that we are conferred upon every now and then….

Everything has its own positive and negative traits… The local trains may be overcrowded but one must admit that they develop a tremendous sense of co-operation and patience into the people of Mumbai. The daily travels make you resilient enough to face such disasters with courage.

We have seen this courage many times before… last major show was a year ago when Mumbai was flooded….

The stupid people at the readers digest can now eat their words about the rudeness of Mumbai.

It’s amazing to see how people who would normally be acting indifferent to surrounding suddenly spring into action to help total strangers. You won’t hear of any looting or for that matter any incident of someone taking undue advantages of helplessness of people who are stranded. You can easily see people giving lifts to stranded commuters and them accepting it without any hesitation…. Something one would never do on a normal day.

Temporary shelters being arranges and local residents doing all they can to help those who are suffering…

I saw on TV a tea vendor who was distributing tea freely to everyone in an hospital premises… when asked how many tea cups he distributed till now, he answered “Maine gina nahi…. Seva ka koi mol nahi hota….” That’s the Spirit of Mumbai…

I am not willing to write anything about the dirty polotics that will soon follow….

One more thing amazes me... What is this significance of date 11? First New York (Sept 11) … then Madrid (March 11)… and now Mumbai …. All bombings happened on the date 11….

It less than 12 hours and city is back into business…. People are ready to travel as usual…

I believe this is where we are superior to cities like London and New York... a never say die spirit…

And I also believe that it is this resilient spirit of the people that is firing our economy ahead despite of so many hurdles.

The Priority Game...

Today’s Times of India has a nice “A thought for today”.

FIFA has 207 members; we have only 191.

– Kofi Annan.

This tells a lot about the popularity of the Football.

Even in country like ours this world cup fever has significant impact.

In a “Mad for cricket” country like ours, Since last so many days one rarely comes across a discussion about the recent test series between India and West Indies. I won’t even dare to comment about attention given to Azalan Shah Trophy where we were at third place.

The common discussion now a day is of course about Football... The priority game…

Last Friday… Evening…We had four sports events going on in parallel…two crickets matches Sri Lanka vs. England & India vs. West Indies, then Wimbledon and the World cup quarter final between England and Portugal.

Frankly speaking both the cricket matches were damn interesting, India wound up the Windies for 103... and Sri Lanka chased the target of 321 in just about 39 overs.

I don’t remember Wimbledon matches but even those beautiful gals playing out there could not distract our attention as usual….

We simply found ourselves selecting the England vs. Portugal match above all these distractions.

I found that it is an easy activity to watch these football world cup matches than cricket. Since India is not there, there is no tension about loosing so we can enjoy the match for sheer quality of the game.

But this also raises a serious question about the quality of sports in our country. When these poor African countries like Ghana can enter the knock out round; a so called developing country with a population of over a billion can not even quality for the world cup.

Current Ranking of Indian Football team is 117!!!!!!!

There are two main reasons for this I guess…. First one is that in our society Playing is not looked upon in a good prospect. If we look around then we find that children are discouraged from concentrating on sports.

The second reason I see is that cricket has acted as a predator for all other games in this country. Only the cricket players are admired… because of this only they get all the sponsorships… and everything. I won’t blame the sponsor companies because after all they are here for business.

Look at the number of well-known people in other sports… Few hockey players (Thanks to PHL….) and a few others like Vishavanathan Anand, Baichung Bhutia or Sania Mirza, Rajyavardhan Rathod… we don’t even have handful of players to name from other sports.

No wonder we are no where in the Olympics either…

On Demand Politeness

The forthcoming issue of the Readers Digest has some survey of politeness in various cities and the news is already out that it puts Mumbai in the last slot… that is the rudest city. Somehow news spread… (I wonder why RD felt need for this film style publicity?) Already Sunday times had articles discussing it… so much of fuss…

You read any book on body language… the very first lesson they teach is that every culture… country... region has its own traits...ethics & social norms to be followed. One must understand and respect those norms.

In India we consider it a bad habit to enter home wearing footwear… so if some Indian magazine conducts the survey and call western cities ill mannered… will it be ok?

On the scale of those three useless tests Mumbai may be rude… but it is far ahead when it come to real time action.

A person in Mumbai will help you immediately if he senses the need for help. If you drop your books down and if you are capable of gathering the stuff your self, no one in Mumbai will stop and help you…

but try this…let the stuff scatter a bit and someone passing by will lift some of the stuff… and give it to you... again… he won’t stop and collect everything, only what he can within his own limited timeframe... without obstructing his own activity…

This is what I call On Demand Politeness…

You look around city and you will find numerous examples… Local trains and Bus are best places to watch this on demand politeness in action…

One simple example… A year ago… Mumbai faced floods… and so did New Orleans… Everyone knows what happened where… the so called polite cultured city went on rampage and looting whereas this so called rude city held it’s nerve and people supported each other…

This reminds me of one story…
Once Narada went to Lord Vishnu and asked him who his most favorite devote is. Vishnu points towards the earth to a farmer.

Narada who was expecting himself to be favorite asks why the farmer who hardly chants the lord’s name 8-10 times a day is favorite and even after chanting the name of god whole day, he is not his favorite devotee.

The lord gives him a vessel full of water till the edge and asks Narada to make a full trip of earth while ensuring that not a single drop of water is spilled. Narada does so. When he comes back the lord asks him, how many times did u chant my name? Narada says I was too busy taking care of water I did not chant even once.

The lord says, this small vessel of water made you forget me. And that farmer daily completes his all duties towards his family... society and still chants the Lord’s name 8-10 times….

I guess same analogy hold true for this scenario also…

Imagine if suddenly all those people in those polite cities find that they no more have the social security… and they are following the same lifestyle of people in Mumbai where one has to struggle daily for bread and butter…. Will they remain at same index of politeness?

One stroke of nature makes these Western Polite people forget that politeness and start looting… and these poor people in Mumbai while suffering throughout the day show as much politeness as they can….

Who is better?

A nice email and its reply...

Today while sorting all images on pc, I came across this old attachment. This was sent to me by Nishant for my comments. This is almost 9-10 month old story. but I just checked with him if he still had the reply I had sent to him. Fortunately it was available.

I am putting up both the original attachment and the reply since they are very interesting...the original article was published in Times of India on 29 July 2005
the entire scanned image was not visible correctly in main window when uploaded one piece so I cut it into parts and uploaded in serial. Read column wise. or click here to open entire image in new window
Here it goes,

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From: Nishant_Vartak
Sent: Tue 8/23/2005 10:23 AM
To: Niket_Raut; niket_raut@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: (When Self comes b4 Spirit of sacrifice):recommended reading .

Panta aple vichar kaloo dya.
Me jevayla chaloo ahe atta.
This article is applicable to me @ first place.














--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Niket_Raut
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 3:11 PM
To: Nishant_Vartak
Subject: RE: (When Self comes b4 Spirit of sacrifice):recommended reading .



i don't know from where the author picked up the story of monkey...

but since childhood i have always read this story... as Birbal's practical demonstration to Akbar in story "Sabse pyaara koun"

but there the story was used for a totally different perspective... only to show the principle of self survival....

this article is too pessimistic.... u try following it... and u will find that ur life has become too miserable and troublesome....

this thing is good for all those saints who has severed all ties with material world....

in my opinion trust is the one of the basic of society....

the article undermines the basic concept of trust.... and replaces with "business"

of course thete is a risk involved in trust... the risk of being betrayed.... but if u look from that perspective then there is risk involved in absolutely everything.... there is risk involved of death in being born..... :-)

this is the reason we have laws... our society is based on trust..... ppl trust you for what you are.... and expect you not to breach that trust.

but as i said there is risk.... so there should be a safeguard.... the laws of society provide this safeguard... but this absolutely does not mean that we should stop trusting ppl entirely.

so.. as per this this articles'... aligning the interest.... do u expect ur mother to make u sign a bond....when u r a child before she feeds u? she does not know whether u will support her when u grow up....? where will u be then?

is it not her trust in u?

or say... the judge in the court....why should u trust him for justice? u don't have any common alignment of interests.... is it not ur trust in the ability of the judge to be impartial?

there r things that go beyond business....all these "pramanik" social workers... what they do it for? or say the RED CROSS...

ekade tikae natural calamities yetaat... ppl from all over the world... go for help... what for?

it is the trust as a human being...... a sense that makes u see beyond loss and profit.....

my friend... if everyone literally start following this article... the world will be no less than jungle.... instead of going into police... everyone will start fighting his own battle... since he do not trust the authority....

just think... from a animal wondering arpund the jungle.... when human beings first formed the concept of society... or say family.... what would have been the basic motive?

u trust a leader... for his abilities... skills to take you the right way....and obey him..... a concept that that evolved into concept of "King".... and now a days democracy..... what is it? u trust the MLA for his abilities and skills and so elect him to represent ur constituency.... so if the first founders of the society had read this article.....

we would be wondering in the jungle still.....

let me tell u another story.... may be u understand it....

ekada.. ek saap.... eka sadhu che pravachan aikaaylaa jato.....

to sadhu sangat asato.... hinsaa karne paap aahe.... hinsaa karu naka etc... etc....

so the snake stops all "hinsaa"

so he is starved since he can not get his food....all the animals come and tease him....

he does not say anything....

one day the sadhu saw him.... he asked what happened?

the snake said i m following ur advice.....

the sadhu said.... i said unnecessarily hinsa nako.... i did not say u stop feeding urself....

nor did i say that u do not "hisssss" to scare ur enemies away... follow the advice but with a practical mind...

hope u understood what i wanted to say.......

Right Place Right Time

Last weekend I spent traveling around the Nilgiri’s in Ooty and Coonoor…
It was raining heavily along the entire western coast. And till a few days ago we had news of heavy rains in Ooty. So while planning the trip we had totally different expectations. But on the way as we were closing in on Ooty we realized the fallacy of our assumptions. No encounters with rain.

It was early morning 3 00 when we reached Ooty. The temperature was very low and after a journey of 8 hours, we were just willing to get into the cottage and sleep.

The Rain had its effect on the city…. It was remarkably fresh… when we come to Ooty in summer… even though the city has pleasant whether, it is not fresh… everything is dusty. This time everything was real fresh and it had obvious impact on the overall mood… a feeling of being full of energy…

Even though this was a short duration trip, we were behaving as if we had come for a long duration. Usual scenes of getting up late and no enthusiasm for exploring the new place. First thing that we did was to play cricket rather than roaming around the city.

Coonoor was breathtaking as usual… every time u go…. Every angle you see those gardens give a equally stunning view… and then combine this with the clouds of a rainy season. And I have no words for the view…

From Coonoor we traveled back to Ooty by the toy train. Again it was a fascinating experience.

We returned back to Ooty by around 6 30 pm and after that all we did was shoping for vegetables and then Mission Cooking…. From 7 15 till 11 00 we were after cooking only. We struggled for 4 hours just to prepare one vegetable, some rice, few roti’s and some pakode. I really wonder what if someone’s mother was present with us… she would have prepared food for all within an hour that too single handedly….

The next day morning we visited DoddaBetta… the highest peak in the Nilgiri’s…
The travel towards the peak was more interesting than the peak itself…. I will never forget that travel through the forest literally “filled up” with clouds.

From doddabetta after spending some time in the Botanical garden, we were on our way back to home. This time we took a different route to Mysore through the jungles of Mudumalai and Badipur… with hope of spotting some wild animals…

Here we came across a classic example of how we are intruding into the lives of these animals. We spotted a place where a few vehicles had stopped along the road. Expecting some wild animal, we too joined them. It was an Elephant. It watched us for some time and after it was so irritated with all the vehicles that it simply attacked us. All the vehicles had no option but to run for safety. It was a big elephant easily capable of turning a car upside down…

This was not my first trip to Ooty… I had visited this place three times before but still I like to come here again and again. I just love that smell of the Eucalyptus trees that fills up the entire valley and those tea gardens of Coonoor

As compared to all previous trips this was a more stereotype typical family kind of picnic. Thanks to all families we had in the group. We typically did all the things that we encounter on such occasions.

Right from the delay’s in getting up early and the time pass after that to the great ceremony of cooking food. On the first of picnic instead of getting ready fast, we spent time playing cricket. Same thing next day also…along with the cooking episode where we wasted precious time that we could have utilized for exploring the city…

Overall it was being at Right place… Right Time… But not in so right company….