Upside Down

A post after 6 months..... That’s too much...

but as my posting  history shows... long gaps generally means tough time...

And this time also its true :-)

When i left Thane for Virar in 2010 after Nabha's birth, I never thought one day i would be back in thane in just a couple of years.

But Alas, Here I am... back in Thane.

Wouldn't justify, but I just wanted to move out from Virar for both professional and personal reasons.

Office was more compelling reason.... better school for Nabha was another....family feud was another.... so many things....

now though financially straining, I am much more stable on mental / emotional front.

Its a brand new start... though rented home, everything is newly purchased  something that I had not done when I had earlier shifter to thane in 2008-09, that time I had a minimalistic approach with thoughts that eventually I am  going back to virar.

But this time no such thing is planned. Its difficult to manage everything at this point, for time being Deepa's father are staying with us to look after Nabha. We are looking for a Day care centre that will look after her during our odd office hours that make us reach home at around 10 pm.

I feel things will change for better hereafter. With this I will also get some free to time to put in action my small business plans. let’s see....

it has added a lot to travel trouble for Deepa. but i still feel that decision is overall good one. I at least get time to spend with Nabha. 

This is why kolaveri....

For quite a few months now its going on kolaveri.... kolaveri.... even though the hype is almost died now... in my opinion the song has definitely highlighted the power of Internet over conventional mediums. without any other effort, it ruled just because of Internet.

Also there are few things I like about the song,
Firstly it has an amateur touch, seniors like Javed Akhtar criticized it but I think this so called lack of quality became biggest plus point for the song.

This song reminds me of the "Bodhi tree " album songs like "Sutta " and "Danda ". If not for the language used, those songs would have got great following had you tube been present in those days.  I am sure many especially those who spent time in hostels would agree .

Next thing is that the singer is not like a professional one. And still it's a hit. This gives a lot of hope for many bathroom singers of course like me  :-) it proves that it need not be very professional to top the charts.

Another point I observed is that the song tops in the favorite list of my daughter too. She is just over 20 months old. Of course there are other songs like dhinka chika... Sheela and Chameli for she enjoys dancing.
But this kolaveri still remains her first choice.  I tried to understand why and realized that this is the only song around apart from her regular rhymes that she can sing along and dance at the same time :-)
Sooooooo simple lyrics.

So much for a single song!

Review of 2011.

2011, looking back has been a mixed experience ... but overall a wonderful year...
It started on a frustrating note with ever increasing work pressure at itz... with growing impact on personal and professional life, Soon it reached the point of no return and I put down my papers.
Even the separation process was a painful one.

After a small break I joined iGate Patni. It was still Patni and not iGate Patni officially.
At iGate Patni things began to work out slowly mainly due to lesser work pressure... even though travel time had increased... pressure and anxiety levels came down heavily. Work culture and workload wise it is far better...

Things began improving thereafter.
We celebrated Nabha's first birthday which was followed by a much needed vacation at Mahabaleshwar.
in around May Deepa too resumed her career. it was a big booster since by then we were almost cash strapped. Slowly we foreclosed couple of loans which again added to savings...

Now we were feeling stable and except for some troubles on home front things were fine.
Then we started looking for a flat in thane in view with my job location airoli and also many other options available for Deepa to switch.  After searching for around a month, we finalized and booked flat around ghodbandar road area.
That was again a landmark accomplishment on personal front.

To complete the toppings, near the end of the year another wonderful thing happened.
I started thinking about something I had never done before.  My own business.
one fine day it just came to my mind that i should start something of my own in the ecommerce space.
Since i work in web application development, i had complete idea about the technical part. so i decided to give it a shot. I liked the idea myself and all others i shared it with. Also i figured out that initial fixed cost also was something i could easily bear based on my earning. It was not long before the domain... logo... the hosting services etc were done and The Indian Crafts Market was ready with "Work in progress" page.

Though it is yet to become operational,  a lot of ground work has already been done in last couple of months. This can not be completed without mention of Vrushali, only friend apart from Deepa and Nitin with whom I initially discussed my ideas in fact the she was first audience while I analyzed and discarded all my stupid business ideas. She has since been great support and guide and has lot of influence on the way things are shaping up on this business front.

Somehow I was afraid that during initial phase any discouragement would kill my core idea of a having a business in infancy. So I was kept my thoughts within my absolute trusted circle.
So far so good and now I am actually looking forward to complete legal formalities and reach next milestone.

So all in all it was an excellent end to an old year and a wonderful start for new year with some worthwhile target to  achieve.
All the very best to myself :-)

tv serials....

When I look back for memories related to tv serials...  mostly I see cartoons.  :-)

I was never interested in popular serials of time like Hamlog or later Ramayan
The ones I used to like were giant robot, HE-MAN, duck tales, Fireball XL5.among the cartoons and then chitrahaar,laurel & Hardy, surabhi  among others.
the options being so small in numbers, we could not afford to miss ;-)

So Sunday morning 9:00 I would be ready in front of tv for morning dose of Mickey,&HE-MAN and duck tales.
Then I would go out to play only to return at 12:00 for "Fun Time".

All these cartoons have played a big role in making me a big enthusiast in science and technology I believe. It all starts with the giant robot, but there were others too like the vehicle used by HE-MAN that had a unique sliding+ rotating mechanism to take it forward instead of wheels or the way fireball XL5 used to take off, in a horizontal direction rather than vertical take off by conventional rockets.

They seemed so logical within boundaries of their world.  This is one thing I generally don't like about today's cartoons, they just seem to exaggerate things just for sake of creating a funny scene. there is neither logic nor touch of real world.
Original episodes of Tom and Jerry are best example of this, watch "Yankee Doodle Mouse " episode.

Since the programs were few,  there was an excitement to watch....  I do not get that feeling anymore in channel surfing  :-(

A tv to remember

Few days back, around 1:00 night.
I had just come from office and was having dinner.
Parallelly channel surfing was on. All of a sudden i saw that one of the channel was showing that familier old screen of vertical stripes of various colours. An indicator that the channel is off the air.

I just could not believe it. I just stared at it for a couple of minutes in sheer amusement. In the age of 24x7 channels i never expected to see those stripes. Sure enough it was some regional Doordarshan.

Those stripes brought up so many childhood memories when TV used to be a prized posession.
Black and white tv's , tv's with wooden shutter doors and lock. Those knobs for changing channels and volume.
Days when number of channels used to be 12 or 16. Someone would proudly say that their tv has 20 channels. But in the end there were only 2 channels to watch.

Sometimes the picture would be disturbed and then someone would go and tweak a small knob at the backside of the tv. Or worst case scenario would be to go to the rooftop and rotate the antenna.

Another thing was related to colour tv's. With most of the tv's being black and white, a colour tv was an object of desire. And i remember one of my uncles putting up a coloured glass on black and white tv to make it a "colour tv"

Along with tv came all those fvourate programs that form an important part of my childhood memories.
But i think i will put up a separate post.

Rooting out corruption....beyond Anna Hajaare...

Anna Hajare's campaign for lokpal bill seem to have settled down a little. A few protests and lot of politics.
But is that all?
Will the lokpal will be able to curb all the corruption? I doubt.

It will be effective if at all against only one type of corruption where the official demands the bribe from unwilling citizen. But is that the only type of corruption that prevail in the country?
There is another scenario where corruption is mutual.
For example when a contractor pays bribe to an engineer to pass quality checks on his low quality work.
I believe that the common laws of demand and supply that govern other markets, govern this bribe market too.

Every coin has 2 sides.... they accept and demand more bribes because we pay them. But why we pay it?
Two - three major reasons.... we ourselves are doing something illegal or unethical...or we do not have patience for the normal course of system to complete.... or just to show our power and influence that we can bend the system.

This last point has become sort of fashion in society. Following rules has become a sign of lesser souls and since this has become a sort of social norm everybody tries to break the rule whenever possible.
We try to jump the signal , not to wear the helmet and then try to bribe the traffic police.
Many times we just want to short circuit the process. How many times we break the queue for bus or for railway ticket etc? Many times people just do it without feeling anything wrong about it.
As long as these things have social acceptance, we can never root out corruption.

I remember one add of tata tea which targeted corruption, it said, "woh khaate hain kyoki hum khilaate hain". How true!
No doubt sometimes we get trapped by these corrupt people who take advantage of we being in need and then we have no option but to heed. Like TC in long distance train or the cooking gas distribution agents etc.
But even there i feel it is our fault if we give in even without protesting or complaining to respective authorities.

Anna's campaign is just one side of the coin.
The way we behave and react forms the other side.

My digital problem

Just installed Ubuntu 11.4 shall test it for a few days and then move on from 10.4...

While burning the ISO to CD i thought how fast this technology changes. A new version every now and then. You have to keep upgrading or risk being obsolete.

This is not much of a problem as far as upgrade of OS is concerned... but a serious problem when it comes to storage media :-(
Today I was able to write to a CD ... but will I be able to do it 10 years down the line? I may not be. Forget writing...will i be able to read my existing CDs?
Even that is doubtful with advent of blue ray technology.
A am already unable to read old floppy disks from my college days.

Analog stuff has got advantages here for its all open to see...understand and reconstruct.

If We can find 1000 year old book...we can still read it if we know the language. In case we are unable to understand then still we can keep it till discovery of some Rosetta stone that will help us understand the content. But the content itself is not gone.
Now imagine if a CD or DVD from today's age is somehow found a 1000 years later... will the content be there? I doubt. Now even if it is there, it is not in human readable format. So practically it is as good as lost. Only that knowledge will survive which someone bothered to transfer from one storage type to another as the older types become obsolete...
Another thing is the life of storage.
CD has its own lifespan due to its chemical composition. All the magnetic storages too have limited life for retaining content. I guess around 20-30 years... but that is too short of lifespan when compared to human history.

Another point is that all these magnetic storages are again vulnerable to electromagnetic pulse bombs...single bomb can make all the electronic devices in the area useless by coping out any instructions / data stored in magnetic storage
Internet seem to be one answer but again that is based on same electronic components...and so in my opinion subject to same risks...

My question is simple...will it be able to survive data for a thousand years...that too in a way that can be read and attempted to be interpreted by the inhabitants of this planet.....? :-)

End of chavanni....alias chaarane....alias 25 paise.

Effective 1st july... 25 paise coins officially went out of circulation.
of course they were out unofficially long ago with even beggers refusing to accept them.

To me it marks end of an era. of course this is not the first set of coins to go out... 5,10and 20 paise coin also went out of circulation since my birth... but they did not matter that much since they had already lost  their value by the time i got some currency in my tiny hands...

Most revered memory for 25 paise so far is the parle kisme chocolate... in red wrapper. other things include small packet of papermints... and sugar candies...5 for 25 paise :-)

For years I have been hearing from my father and many others from the grandpa generation about how a lot lot many things could be purchased in a single rupee... and entire household would run on mere 100 rupees and so on... now I also have something to say about 25 paise to my daughter :-)

One interesting thing is that still fractions of a rupee are recognised  with names of their colonial era equivalents. chavanni in hindi or charane in marathi both refer to "4 aana".
Back from the days when a rupee was made up of "16 aana". Its still common to say "16 aana sach"  meaning complete truth. or a movie " aamdani atthani kharcha rupiah" referring again to "8 aana".
or the referance to "chavanni kam hain" when indicating that someone is stupid.

Even when out of official circulation.... chavanni will definately remain part of our collective wisdom and memories in man ways.

From Patni to iGate-Patni

Somehow my fate seem to be tied up with take overs....
This is third time I find myself associated with an organisation where some merger/acquisition process is going on...

First time it was at ABN AMRO take over by RBS... I was onsite at ABN that time.

second time it was the Lehman brother's take over by Barkley's and Nomura for respective regions .... i was part of Lehman brothers at that time...

And this is third time now that I have become a part of Patni which has just been taken over by iGate.

This time it looked to be a lot more smooth transition. No major impact for employes apart from few policies and email address. No stress or anxiety especially.

Lehman brothers transition was full of stress and uncertanity. To an extent where everyone was asked to be ready with plan B just in case.
ABN was also smooth as such but I had observed a lot of uneasiness and anxiety among the employees regarding their future.

This Patni takeover also gives me a feeling of life coming to full cycle. Look at it this way,
N.R.Narayana Murthy was employee of Patni. He moves on from patni to start Infosys.
Phaneesh Murthy was employee of Infosys who moved on and later joined iGate as CEO.
Under his leadership iGate took over Patni where NRN had started off....
the cycle completes :-)

Something a little out of context but still....
I just read an interview of Mr. Phaneesh Murthy where he stressed on strategy of having small but cohesive teams.

This reminds me of the battle strategy used by Napoleon Bonaparte where he used to win battles by achieving local superiority (e.g. battle of Austerlitz ).
He would use small teams to hold the enemy forces and then send a strong and swift Calvary or other army unit to join those local forces and defeat the enemy forces by achieving local superiority...
then those units would move on and repeat same at next location...this way they could beat enemy forces significantly larger in size....
Being the latest entrant in the billion dollar club.... can we do the same and win over biggies already in there? Just a random thought...

Unsung heros...

Since past few days there are constant news about the nuclear disaster at Fukushima power plant. They generally talk about a 50 member team that had stayed back and is trying to avert the complete meltdown of the refractors

I was overwhelmed by the story. It is something similar to the duty of a soldier... you know that you may not come out alive but still you go into the war... they too know that they may not come out alive and even if they do, they would be suffering for rest of their life.....

now, It is hardly any days.... world cup has taken over the news headlines.... all those heroes are already a history

It remind me of two movie dialogues.... one from Troy..... "history remember kings.... not soldiers....." very true in this case.... same like 26/11 heroes in Mumbai....

Another one is from movie Saving Private Ryan where Tom Hanks says something like 'for every soldier died in war there are at 10 or 100 countrymen saved....' this one also so much true....

What makes people think on these lines?
They will to fight till the very end... sometimes called esprit de corps...  may be from the cultural background...may be the same dedication has made Japan progress so much.
This again I feel would go cutting across geographies and civilisations....

Even Mahabharata says that if sacrifice of a member for family..... of a family for a village or of a village is required in interest of the state then it should be done....

but does that mean that just after they are needed.... they should be forgotten?
forget the rewards, they or their families may times are seen struggling even for basic necessities....

why would then a practical man risk his own life for sake of people whom he may not even know and who may not not even recognise his efforts....
but still it happens.... still we see so many social activists who take up the causes of society and fight for them....it has happened throughout the history and will continue to happen...

because no king can win even a battle single handed without his soldiers. ultimately it is because of these silent soldiers that the wars are ultimately won and societies flourish... and advance...

call to soul

My grandmother expired on 7th november. A lot of rituals took place as per hindu religious tradition.

I was observing those closely and trying to understand and make sense of whatever the prist was doing.

One particular ritual got my attention,
The prist requested the soul of my grandmother to come and rest inside a small knot made of 'darbha'; a special grass used in such rituals (i m yet to find y it is so special) .

He then offered her some darbha to sit upon, then she was given a bath , was offered gifts, was offered sacred meal (i don't know exact english word for 'Naivedyaa' ) and so on. Of course the gifts were later donated to the prist.

when I realised all this sequence, I was little shocked. this whole process had uncanny resemblance with the process of planchet.

In both the processes a soul is requested upon to come.

In planchet we request them to answer few questions whereas here the soul was honoured.
Planchet is considered something dark whereas these were religious rituals.

The core theme I think is same. That is acceptance or belief that there is something called a soul, that continue to exist even after this earthly body is burned to ashes. And that it can still have it's own existence in a form unk own to us. It still has an ability to communicate and hence perhaps it's own personality.

All said and done about the scientific attitude and all, still I don't think those who have experienced the presence of a soul through planchet will ever forget that experience.

Just like me.

My curious angel...

Sometimes I just let my 7 months old daughter freely stroll around the room letting her handle any thing along the way ,the way she want... Hold...climb...push... I just ensure safety and observe whatever she does.
It is always amazing to see the curiosity...excitement...enthusiasm with which children at this age approach absolutely everything... Every activity.
The spark in the eyes and smile on the face. May it be simple rattle or watching the image in mirror.
Any activity we do is observed carefully and of course an attempt is made in that direction. The way we eat in plate... The way the remote or mobile buttons are used... Or the way a laptop is used... Nothing is out of reach. She would see me using laptop and immediately she would want to try banging on keyboard.
I simply open a text pad so that she can see the cause-effect between keyboard and screen.

A lot many such activities. I know the experience is common but it is yet so unique to everyone. as we grow up we loose this excitement to explore,learn .

May be we start thinking we know all. Or just because we no longer have the liberty to explore the things 'the way we want'. There is always some restriction, some rule, some law,some tradition that dictate 'the way' things should be done.

In later life the same ability to explore things without any prejudices become rarity and
I think those manage to retain a little of this ability, manage to have some thing called 'out of the box thinking'.

I wish I could borrow some from my little angel... But for the time being I an trying to learn this fresh approach to life without any prejudice.

Losing the spirit of competition.

Some recent news that made me a little uncomfortable. First one was the latest decision of “best of five” subjects in SSC and second one of the decision about not to fail any student till 8th standard.

Somehow I disagree.
When I think of the educational process that I went through.... and the current one being modified through which may be my daughter will go through, I feel a lot of difference and also feel that the system will remain for the namesake. Onus of developing the competitive spirit will be more of a parental responsibility than a educational process.

Instead of upgrading the system to reduce the gap between toppers and average performers, the system is being degraded to bring everyone to equal in a wrong way.
But again, given the undue importance that was being put on marks and percentages, this was to happen.
Only point is that it should have been a relaxation instead of total elimination of stress. A little stress is always beneficial and required for performance. It could have been introduction of grade system where candidates are classified into broad categories till 8th standard. But total elimination of competition is wrong in my opinion.
Many people say that we never use in future life what we learn in school. But that is only partially true in my opinion. Those things invariably leave an impact on our character, and imbibe a lot of morals and ethics through stories,lessons, history. Add an eye for facts and figures through maths and science.
We may not use those exact texts in future but the values they add to our persona's can not be denied. To some they add 80% to some it may be only 20-30 % depending on individual learnability but this fact can not be denied.
As in my case I fully believe that whatever confidence I have to succeed in any field I choose to enter with proper preparation, is due to the competition I faced in my school and college days. A healthy competition is always welcome. It improves the quality of every party involved.

Now when there is competition, someone is ought to win and someone loose. But that is again a lesson in life. You may not win every time. It is all about trying your best.
In current situation the reason that being put forth about increasing suicide rate among children,
I guess it is more to do about parents attitude towards the whole process. The same process is being followed for so many generations. Only in recent years these suicides have began. I put entire blamer on parents.
All around I see parents, one may not even go gar, just have a look at people around you, everyone want their child to score more and more marks, with total disregard to the ability, likes and dislikes of the child. Parents are under more pressure than the children and the pressure then is transmitted through various ways. The child may not necessarily have the ability. It then become a frustrating experience for the child , the parent and everyone around.
One my relatives had started telling to everyone that their son will surely rank in merit list in 10th exam. Poor child was put under so much of emotional pressure that the boy who had consistently scored 94-95% throughout school life, scored 85% in 10th. His father was so much shocked that, instead of the child, who was in need of support, it was the father who needed more support to recover.

Anyway, the who;e pint is that, it the aim is to relieve the pressure from children, it need to be done in a diffenrne manner.
If there is no pressure to pass in exam, then there is no pressure to study.. there is no knowledge gained and in the end it is the child who is on the loosing side. Schools may welcome this because they need not bother about anything, just collect the fees, let the child sit in the classroom for whole day, no worry about the quality of teachers, no worry of teaching anything, just move the child from one standard to another year after year. It is a really horrible scenario. I can see the quality of education drastically going down, so much that it may even happen that children will reach 8th standard and may not even know how to read and write.
Then they will start failing in the 9th and 10th. May be then govt will do away with those exams also.
But how far one can go on doing this?
This can be done at the most till the child graduates. We may even give degrees to children without any exam and then we may even have graduates who may not be able to read and write. But will anyone will employ a graduate at such a level? May be govt institutions... but what about others?
Will India as a country then will survive in the global competition?

You can not eliminate the competition from life altogether.
At some point of time in their lives these children will have to face the competition. And they will not at all be prepared for it. Failure is the only outcome if you enter a competition without preparation.
So if we can not eliminate the competition altogether than the only way out is to prepare the children to face the competition head on, Struggle and ultimately come out triumphant.

I need to figure out a way to imbibe these qualities into my daughter in case this stupid drama goes on for next 4-5 years. Let's see how I succeed as a parent.

On the verge of parenthood...

It's ninth month now..... it may happen any time.....
a new phase... a new role... a new relation.... a new responsibility...
tension... excitement....happiness... worry.... all at once...
The new face of the family. Someone we had been dreaming about....talking about....
even though just 8 months...it seems like a long wait.... an roller coaster ride though....
but each time there was a down.... it added even more to the excitement....attachment...

We have been doing so many things for the yet to be born so that it would attain a good growth as well as a good personality....
From the Manashakti kendra courses and Cd's to the James Nicholas Cd's to various Garbha Sanskaar Books.... as well as reading biographies of great personalities...
in short, what all we could do for the so called pre-natal education.... we did and of course are still doing.

One more regular lookout for Deepa would be babycenter.in website. She regularly studied all the information there week by week and that definitely helped in understanding the changes that happened.. both physical and emotional.

it may be that everyone goes through same experience.... but again it is unique for everyone...
may be because the personality that that enters the world is always unique....
we talk to the baby.... it may not speak.... but it responds through it's movements. We are already Recognizing it as an individual personality. Even though it is not “officially” born, it has already become part of the family. it even has a name...a gender neutral nick name...

The search has began.... for all the new things … cradle... nappies...all the infant care items....
past one month has been little tough though. Especially for Deepa... but like they say in Hindi, “Sabar Ka Fal Meetha Hota Hain...."

Just waiting for the happy moment to arrive....
eager to welcome a new member in the family...

someone has said, Parenthood, its not a job. It's an adventure!
We are just embarking....

A Mouse in My House

Last weekend.
I was in kitchen. Suddenly I saw a small mouse running around.
I knew that he roamed around freely in our house. But since he was not doing any harm apart from collecting all garbage into spaces behind cupboard, my parents did not have much objection to his stay in our house.

But now that I saw him running into a corner, I thought why not get hold of him at once and throw him out. So I moved towards the corner where I expected him to get cornered with a broom in my hand but now I was not able to find him anywhere. Where did it go? He must be there. He had not run away. There was no way out. But still it vanished somewhere.

I looked around carefully. It has already made an escape route ready. I saw a small hole dub between the door frame of kitchen trolley and the wall. He had carefully removed some white cement put in there to fill up small gap in the corner between the floor, the frame and the wall. Through that he went inside the kitchen trolley where I was very difficult for me to tackle him. When I opened all trolleys, the small pieces of paper collected there indicated that he was staying there since long.

That night, my wife woke me up at around 2 am. There was some noise in the room. I woke up and switched on light and started looking around. To my surprise I saw a mouse. It must be the same mouse because...... he was trying to make small hole for his free movement in and out of our room. I looked carefully to see exactly what he was doing.
He was cleverly trying to make a hole by using the same trick; he was trying to exploit the weak section where door frame touches the wall. He had already removed some small amount of cement.
I was amazed to see his effort.... he ran away behind cupboard. We slept... after some time there was the noise again. This time without switching lights, I got hold of my camera on table and tried to click by aiming it towards the door. I wanted to take a photo. But I missed the aim and he ran away. I opened the door so that he could move freely and I could sleep.

I remembered the definition of the term “Learnability” I learned in Infosys, it was something like “ability to draw generic knowledge from specific experiences and use it in unknown situation.”. Here this animal was doing exactly the same thing. It learned it in kitchen and was applying the knowledge in other rooms.

I have always had a fascination for the mice. This creature is always treated as a clever and intelligent character.
I am an ardent fan for Tom and Jerry and especially Jerry. Also look at Mickey Mouse....
If you are a movie fan and have seen movies like Mouse hunt you will definitely agree in the literature like “Panchatantra” also a mouse is a portrayed as an intelligent character.
The height above all is the “Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy”.... there it says that entire earth is system created by mice to solve the problem of origin of the universe and they monitor we humans like guinea pigs in an experiment. It cannot get bigger than this :-)

Everywhere, a mouse is always treated as a clever character. This was the first time I experienced it myself...

3 Incidents

3 incidents,
Easy to forget... Yet memorable.

Incident 1.
Location, Vaishali Nagar bus depot, Mulund... Morning time... I was
Waiting for bus 402. No Q. A big mob was waiting for the bus. The bus arrived and even before it stopped, people started rushing into the bus.
Chaos was the order of the moment.
I was quietly standing aside and watching plus waiting for it to get over.
There was a man standing next to me. From overall aapearance he looked like a villagers who probably for the first time had come to Mumbai. He too was watching this whole eposode.
He looked at me, smiled and said "nusatyaa jagesathi avadhi hanaamari... Thode paise asate tar hyaa lokaani ekmekaanche gale kaapaayla kami kele nasate" (so much of fight just for a seat... no wonder these people would not hesiatte to cut throats if there was even a little money involved)
I had nothing to say. He had just uttered simple truth of our life in Mumbai.

Incident 2.
Churchgate Local from Virar...
Morning rush hour.... second class compartment...
One gentleman looked around the compartment. there were many small stickers of advertisements all around the compartment. many of types of "Baba Bangali" and likes.
he looked around for a while....cursed a little to those unknown people.... and then... then he started removing those stickers. he removed as many as he could and threw out of the window.
taking a clue... I too removed a few....
One simple act... but a good start....

Incident 3.
Kalyan fast local from Dadar
A young man standing beside me talking on fone.
He was talking to a friend whose grandmother had expired.
"what is use of that big package if you can't even take a leave for your dadi's funeral?"
he thundered into the phone. "look at us, we have a simple shop but when my dadi died, the shop was shut for 10-12 days.... what is use of all that money if we can not spare some time for our family?"
he made me think.... once again eternal truth.....

A lot of good people are around... just need to keep the eyes open....

Why the tiger became cat...

Just read editorial in Saamna…
So painful….

Not only the words but more importantly for the person who wrote them…
The article itself was telling the root causes for failure of Sena…

It says… “Marathi people betrayed ShivSena”

More important than the sentence is the mindset that exposes…

It means that the Sena always took marathi people for granted…..

Yes… ShivSena did a lot for marathi people especially in Mumbai…

But does not mean that it can take people for granted…

Existence of ShivSena is because of Marathi people and not vice versa….

This is time for introspection and not for blame game… and certainly not time to blame the voters…
Voters “Donate” their vote…and the candidates being recipient are at a lower level….
A recipient can not blame a donor for not donating to him.
He needs to think why the donor found him not worthy of donation.

The article also says that people elected some new candidates for ShivSena….

This clearly indicates that people are not fool and they voted for the candidates they found suitable for their constituency.

So the question is why the old candidates’ failed and fresh candidates got elected?

ShivSena is definitely not the same old one…. The article talks about what Sena did in past 44 years…. But unfortunately what matters is what it does today…

In fact why there is need to refer to the past? Is it because there is no present achievement to refer to? If past was only the reason for vote then the congress would have perpetually remained in power because the party did so much for the independence in the past.

It is not that Marathi people who betrayed the Sena… but in all probability it is that the Sena failed to meet the expectations of the people. When in power… there was no difference felt in the way Sena ruled and in the way congress ruled… the system moved ahead on it’s own inertia….

I remember a story here… not sure how relevant….

The one from Aesop…

A Fox after crossing a river got its tail entangled in a bush,
and could not move. A number of Mosquitoes seeing its plight
settled upon it and enjoyed a good meal undisturbed by its tail.

A hedgehog strolling by took pity upon the Fox and went up to him:
"You are in a bad way, neighbor," said the hedgehog; "shall I
relieve you by driving off those Mosquitoes who are sucking your
blood?"

"Thank you, Master Hedgehog," said the Fox, "but I would rather not."
"Why, how is that?" asked the hedgehog.
"Well, you see," was the answer, "these Mosquitoes have had their fill;
if you drive these away, others will come with fresh
appetite and bleed me to death."

May be that’s what people thought….

Entering the world of drivers….

Finally on 14th February, I got hold of the keys for my first car…. Chevy Spark.
It was more than 2 months after I got my driving license. It was hardly one month into driving school and that meant always with a trainer. Now I had to try on my own.
Staying a densely populated area of Thane near Mulund check post, everyone was thinking that I should drive with someone experienced alongside at least for a few weeks.

But there was no one around who could take up this job. This was the only second time that a four wheeler was bought first one being that of my sister’s. It was not possible to spent time and that apart from her and her husband I was the only person in family to get a four wheeler license.

So finally I decided to venture out on my own or rather I had to.

On the day of collecting vehicle from dealer, I had my brother in law Yogesh with me to guide me to take it safely (for me as well as for others :-)) home. And later we went out for a dinner when I drove it alone thus gaining confidence.

The very next day I drove it out to the petrol pump. It was an “end to end first gear” journey. It took me whole 10 minutes just to position the vehicle correctly at the pump. Also I did something which I had read so far in jokes about women driving a car…. I drove for sometime before realizing that I had not released the handbrake.

Then again in the evening I and Deepa went out roaming around the city. We entered into heavy traffic. I “managed” to brush against a biker who trying to squeeze between cars and make way. Thankfully traffic police there took my side. So that was first day out alone. The next day also we went out in the evening… this time it was something bigger I “managed”. Again in heavy traffic I hit an auto from behind when it suddenly stopped I could not. Although it was at less than 5 km speed and neither the auto nor the car had even a scratch, it was a start of dealing with the special class of drivers called “Rikshaw-wallah”.

Since then it has been a smooth ride so far… only once I did a mess up after that when I stopped in the middle of a fast moving traffic. I ended up getting too much curses and advices at the same time from all directions :-)

All this has taught me to look at the surrounding from a driver point of view. Earlier as a pedestrian I used to cross the road in anticipation that that approaching vehicle will somehow manage to stop or all of a sudden getting into the way of a vehicle when it is slow traffic in market etc.

Now after getting behind the wheel I realize how much pressure it gives to the driver.So at least one thing has changed for me… the way I look at the world… it ias a new perspective now, a “Drivers perspective”

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap … From Pakistan to Talibanistaan…

Recently read a news in Times of India... that Taliban controlled areas are now closer to Indian border than Mumbai to Goa…
The accompanying image was too bad….

(Image taken from Indiatimes website... for original Click here)

I felt sorry for the people in the region….
But then they are facing the consequences of their own actions. For many years now Pakistan has been using this terrorism As a means of proxy war against India whom they cannot defeat in the conventional warfare…

They also allowed a lot of terrorist organizations to flourish… gave shelter to Indian gangsters like Dawood Ibrahim…. And so on…

There is a saying something like one rotten fruit in the basket soon affects all others…
Here Pakistan has collected too many rotten potato’s into it’s basket….
It was just a matter of time before other fruits were spoiled…
Now all the rotten fruits are stinking and Pakistan is on it’s way towards becoming a terrorist shit….

There is story in Hindu Mythology about a devil called “Bhasmasur”
Story goes that the Bhasmasur was a devotee of lord Shiva… he performed great penance to get a boon from Lord Shiva…

When pleased lord asked him for his wish… he asked for a boon that whenever he put hi hand on someone’s head, that person should turn into ashes…
Without thinking.. the lord granted his wish…. And Bhasmasur started troubling everyone….

When people asked lord Shiva to intervene…. The Bhasmasur threatened to put his hand over the head of the lord himself.

the terrorist Bhasmasur created by Pakistan… is now threatening to put his hand over its creator….

But in the original story lord Shiva was saved by Lord Vishnu who took the form of Mohini .. A beautiful woman and lured Bhasmasur to put his hand over his own head….

There does not seem to be anyone who could save Pakistan….
The transformation of Pakistan into Talibanistaan now looks imminent….
The country that created and used terrorism as a state policy…. Is falling victim to its own creation….

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap - Bible, Galatians vi. 7.

I think soon there will be no trace of Pakistan that once used to be enemy of India…
There will be a country full of terrorists… who will treat entire world as their enemy….

India will suffer most just because it happen to be the next door neighborhood …. And not because of old rivalry…

When I think of this…. A picture of a place full of worms….
Similar to the one seen in the end of the Movie The Mummy Returns…into which Imhotep finally falls….

Or the one seen in the movie Aliens where all the alien creatures breed….

Disgusting……!!!!!
I really feel sorry for all those peace loving souls in Pakistan (No matter how small in number they are…)

A Truly Eventful Year...

Hmmm… so 2008 is over and we are already into 2009.

Looking back… 2008 has been a turning point in my life… the previous ones could be

2003 – I passed out as BE and Joined Infosys…,

1999 – I completed DME and joined L &T,

1995 – I passed SSC and walked into the new world called college…,

1994 – another eventful year ,

1990 – I completed primary school and entered 5th standard… ,

1985 – I enrolled into first standard…. Start of school life…

And of course 1980… the year when I arrived on this planet…

To be very brief…

It was a year of roller coaster ride. Not only on the global perspective but on the personal front also.

I had already put down my papers in Infosys in Nov 07… so this year started with one major career move where I left my 4.5 year old job… my first job… and entered the Lehman Brothers on 11th Feb 08. Got a huge hike in the salary.

It was just the right time for salary rise since I was about to get married. A lot of shopping… a lot of fun…

Finally the D day arrived on 20th April 08 and I lost my bachelorhood… entered a totally new word of Married life….

We started living at Virar, but soon after that we found that it was too difficult for Deepa to travel to her office from Virar

So we shifted to Thane in a rented accommodation… now it was like 4-5 days in Thane and 2 days in Virar routine…

After Ganapati we started off with construction activity for our new venture… A garden hall in partnership with my cousin Amit…

It was to take a lot of tolls on my finances later….

A few months high into it and there was another twist in the tale…

Lehman brothers declared bankruptcy….

So called Global meltdown was at my doorstep… A whole month of uncertainty and frustration…

Finally Nomura took over the Indian operation… but I have had enough of investment banking and decided to quit.

Here comes another new job… At Intrex India ltd.

I had a 4 and a half year straightforward career at Infosys… and after that within a span of 8 – months I was entering my third job.

A moth into that and A lot of trouble started starring at me…. This time on family front with my aunts starting property dispute…responsibility of solving that again rested on my shoulders… a lot of twists and turns there too which I would rather not mention here

But as Shakespeare said... All is well that ends well….

I signed off the year on a high note when I Booked my first car… Chevrolet Spark in the last week of December….

I am expecting to get it in next week now…