EY 08-09 – Miscellaneous activities

 Though last post really didn't cover the entertainment part but please bear with that section because it really has a huge potential; however if you really want to write off then it's not an issue as those are more on a non-operating entertainment income side. Hence, let me get back to the operating part again. The second leg of what I left behind in the previous to previous post.

Well, wonder is what sets us apart from other life forms. No other species wonders about the meaning of existence or the complexity of the universe or themselves. And as my friends know that I wonder a lot; so while wondering I found that I was having a golden time at my hand during the break between the date of convocation and the date of joining. That was sort-of unique time which won't probably happen again precisely because it was the time when I had the job and all kind of securities associated to it but no responsibilities or stress associated to it because I haven't had joined by then.

So, I used that time for a lot many things, major part was dedicated to socializing. My friends during engineering used to say that I'm so fond of attending the marriages or functions in general that I'm just one invitation card or a call away from attending the namkaran ceremony of grandson of buaji of my friend's landlord. I lived up to my image and attended as many as 11 functions (I hope I've been to recall all of them) during that time.

Secondly, I devoted a huge chunk of my time in pursuing those interests which have been pending for a long time, like swimming and music. I swimmed a lot, around 3 hrs a day, which is incidentally more time spent than that on studies during my academic days. I honed my guitar skills as well and raised myself to at least bearable level on that front. Normally, people don't get bored when I'm around (explicitly testified by one of my brutally-honest friend in our IIM Yearbook and one female friend from school days) and that's primarily because I talk useless things a lot which keep them wondering what those talks could actually mean and meanwhile, they forget about getting bored. So, to add to my PJs {Peyush's jokes (look even the full-form is a PJ)}, I've got one more thing in form of guitar to make people suffer for all the menaces they have done so far in their lives.

Well, last few lines have been sort-of-boastful so excuse me for that. Anyways, coming ahead of the break; let's talk about Mumbai stint. Well, I tried a lot doing a lot of activities but failed miserably at all fronts. I was very intermittent with all the pursuals; whether it was guitar, singing (Himesh instilled this hope that if he can then lesser mortals like us can, as well) or swimming. Moreover, I joined gym to keep up with the physical routine in absence of sports club and swimming pool; however I hit the gym on just six occasions in the period of three months so you can understand the extent of my bulging bisceps. Thus, due to my sheer laziness, everything ended in either zilch or approximately zilch.

However there was one activity which I could follow to a certain satisfactory level and that was 'Teach India'. Though I was a bit irregular with it as well, but overall I rate my performance 'satisfactory' as I managed to achieve the targets set on institutional and individual basis. I'm now eagerly waiting for the next year's version so as to contribute with even higher efficiency. One more thing which made this activity more memorable than any single activity in last year was the entertainment associated with satisfaction. I mean it might sound a bit clichéd but it was definitely very satisfying and emotional time to be there. Thank you Times of India! And how can this lekha-jokha get away without the mention of my two flatmates- Nishant (the creater of "three awesomely pathetic lives" – a sort of biography of three people which resembles a bit to the people you might know) and Sandeep (who can make me run for the money in PJs). They have been a partner in lot of the above mentioned entertainment activities (strictly those activities which have been mentioned here, so don't let your grey cells go elsewhere).

Well, this was the account of activities for the EY 08-09. I hope to perform better next year, and wish you all very best for the same, too.

 
 

Happy Birthday to me :-)

EY 08-09 – News & Media

News & Media are not a surprise entrants in the entertainment year, for obvious reason. I bet that not even Bejaan Daruwala or Sunita Menon would have been able to predict say 10 years before, about this meteoric rise of 'news' in entertainment segment. A lot of credit for this goes to 'India TV' which brought-in the concept of news entertainment. This is quite similar on the lines of WWE (erstwhile WWF) which calls itself Sports Entertainment; now that's again pretty disputed as many people, that includes one of my flatmate, can't understand as how WWE can possibly be included in Sports category. Well, I don't want to get into this side as in this blogpost, 'entertainment' word is more important and it doesn't matter if it comes from sports or pseudo-sports or news as long as it has some value proposition to offer.

India TV was no doubt, a pioneer in the news entertainment but there is no denial to the fact that almost every news channel from NDTV to Aaj Tak to Star News to CNN-IBN is more than eager to follow the herd. In my opinion, it's directly dependent on the audience's taste. Today if the people want the news-channels to broadcast this, then they are catering to their demands. One or two channels like "Headlines Today" or "VOI" tried to create a niche for them but didn't succeed to that extent despite being really quick on news-coverage side.

Besides, if we look at the performance of news-channels then I can safely said that they mightn't have proven high on the expectations of intellectual society but they have delivered perfectly on the parameters they set for themselves. They were able to sensationalize "Ayushi Murder Case" to that extent that today somebody may get double thoughts while identifying Mrs. Pratibha Patil but won't stumble even once to identify Late Ms. Ayushi. This is the power of media and they have (mis)utilized to full extent this year.

However, there were some disappointing moments as well, like in the case of 26/11 coverage which once again raised a big debate on the issue of media-censorship. I think that media should be free of censorship barring some rated-r categories of coverage; but they should be matured enough to decide the limit which they won't breach in any circumstances, even not for TRPs. Again, this would gradually come with the viewers' wants and requirements.

Well, I've been trying real hard since the beginning of this post, to focus on just the entertainment part of news but I've not been able to resist the temptation to move into the other things. You may attribute it to my old-fashioned mentality of looking at news channels at the much-talked-about fourth pillar but can't help it.

 
 

P.S. – Tomorrow would be the last post of this series, do remember 1. to read the post 2. wish me "happy birthday to you" ;-)

 

EY 08-09 – Sports & Movies

Well, the year begins on a high note with most of the news channel being confused whether to put IPL in Sports section or in Entertainment section. I didn't want to go into that debate so named my blog-post on both of them. So, IPL was definitely a very big thing to happen for both Sports and Entertainment in this country. How for sports- Ask Swapnil Asnodkar(s) or Shawn Marsh(es) of this world how much they gained in both economic sense with this ultimate money-spinner and in professional sense with this unprecedented platform to showcase their talent. How for entertainment- Ask the cinema owners countrywide who suffered with an under-booked matinee shows or the TV channel owners (apart from Set Max of course) who suffered their worst TRPs in almost a decade. The biggest beneficiaries (not in economic sense) were definitely the people like me who had nothing better to do (in fact, there is nothing better to do, even now).

By June 1^st, this extravaganza was over and so was my can-be-called honeymoon period; and had to move to Mumbai on 8^th of the same month in search of daana-paani. This shift made me suffer on sports front as I had to download-and-watch the recorded Grand-Prix or Cricket Match or Wimbledon final or similar things. This is due to the lack of television, which is again a big story and can be covered in some other post. So, overall sports couldn't contribute much to the entertainment part except for the news/blogs at sites like cricinfo, espnstar, etc. However, the movie spree didn't suffer in fact new horizons were opened in front of me to watch even those movies (I didn't want to use any kind of abuses) which don't get released in Jodhpur.

In EY 08-09, I watched Sarkar Raj (Decent movie however my friend didn't understand why they kept on singing "govinda, govinda" in the background when Govinda didn't even have a guest appearance), Jannat (Sonal Chauhan, will you marry me), Race (Watched with a big group of friends, and thus missed out on many moments of the picture due to being busy in the baqar all the time…overall, the time spent was worth it), Singh is King (This movie happened because my train was running late and well, I don't regret it), Bachna Ae Haseeno (Kaash meri life esi hoti), Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (No Aditi across the globe can be more thankful to any other single movie; and yeah, overall an entertaining watch though not a compelling one), Rock On (Prachi Desai, will you marry me), Kidnap (Offoh, what was that; I've never seen this before that people started chatting in the cinema hall because the movie bugged them big-time and neither could they simply run away because it was raining outside; Lord Indra and Sanjay Gadhvi literally 'kidnapped' us), Dark Knight (Wow, and I thought Batman movies were boring), Dostana (watched with two guys, should I say any more), Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (Anushka Sharma, will you marry me), Ghajini (Huh, splendid success but didn't impress me), Chandni Chowk to China (He he, critics have already slammed this movie beyond recognition so let me not make my hands dirty), Luck By Chance (Casting coup of the decade; found it watchable), Billu (Don't know what to say- didn't find it interesting, but neither was I bored), Delhi 6 (Sonam Kapoor, will you marry me), A Curious Case of Benjamin Button (This was really an out-of-the-box stuff), Street Kings (I wonder why was no dialogue in this movie free of the 'f' word; watchable on lappy, nothing more), Gulaal (Simply Superb; haven't seen anything like this before, barring Haasil).

This list was strictly about the movies I watched in cinema hall. Besides, I watched a lot many films on laptop (out of which I regret the most about not watching "A Wednesday" in theatres) and that summed up the movies part of EY 08-09. As you can see, I had a lot of fun despite being the non-availability of television for most of the time; and managed to propose as many as four girls (though, without any success) in the meantime. So, overall it was a comparable performance to EY 2007-08 in Sports & Movies section, if not better.


P.S. – Nav Varsh (Nav Sanvatsar), Gudi Padwa aur Chetichand ki sabko hardik shubhkamnayen; enjoy!!!

EY 08-09

So, I'm back yet again and coincidentally back with the coinage of new terms (for starters, read my post 'YAM').  Well, in other circumstances I would have loved to write on any of the two ongoing hot topics: the unexpected political drama woven around the IPL and the expected political drama woven around the IPL.  Here, IPL stands for Indian Premiere League and Indian Political League respectively. However, I'm sparing these topics for our politicians and cricket-politicians (who are already giving Advanis & Gandhis run for their money) though would definitely like to come back to them some other fine day.

Anyways, coming back to EY; let me not build the reality show-alike suspense around the full form of this term. So, ladies and gentleman, EY stands for 'Entertainment Year'. Just as we've FY (Financial Year) or AY (Academic Year) so do we have an EY! Well, this year surprisingly begins on 29^th March which is coincidentally my birthday as well, and ends on 28^th March. There have been two big reasons behind coming up with this post today. Firstly because by this mean, I might get an extra birthday wish this Sunday from some unexpected person who mayn't like me but may like my blog and thereby would drop in a wish through calling up/orkut/facebook/gtalk/sms/email/in-person or by any other mean. This way, I could be able to break my 2008 record of 89 wishes. On the record, this number represents only those people who have just wished me and not kicked me along with it. I celebrate 'March' as the salvation-month-for-birthday-bumps and don't kick anyone. This helps me in reducing the level of pain a bit after all my experience says that recently enraged people often hit very badly, ouch!

Moreover the second reason behind the timing of this post is that we are running in the last week of EY 08-09 and it's an old good habit of human beings to recall the happenings of the previous year and ponder over them. Most of the times, these recalls can be horrible like in the case of examination results or the financial results. Both results share a peculiarity- whenever we face a bad exam result or a bad financial result, we always act surprise, awestruck and blame the circumstances or the God or many other factors for it; though we know from inside, these results reflect nothing but our yearlong performance. I can't get more into this: one, because the current students might complain that I've passed out so have lost the right to comment on examinations in general and results in particular; and two, because one of my boss is CFO of the company and he won't like me to talk about the connection between performance and financial results for obvious reasons.

Therefore, I've planned to write a string of posts on the happenings of EY 08-09 in near future. Well, I won't disclose the exact number of posts and the reason is pretty obvious; this number heavily depends on the probability of 'procrastination' and 'enthusiasm' in the coming days. So, let' pray that enthusiasm prevails over procrastination or even vice-versa. I won't mind as long as you are praying something for me; look good/bad are pretty subjective so it's alright with me.

 
 

P.S. – I don't know why my posts have to conclude with some global or philosophical or baqar statement. Please spare me for this.

Love/Hate

I've heard somewhere that Naseeruddin Shah and Kevin Bacon never watch their own movies; similarly, Ian Botham never went to nets for practice or say, Neil Diamond never used to rehearse before any performance. However, I am incidentally not a genius of their stature; so I need to revisit every work of mine more than once so as to learn more about the things which I did and even those things which I didn't. That revisiting not only helps in improvisation but also provides me with a few topics, sometime. For example, while revisiting my last post, I stumbled across this love-hate thing and decided to think more about it and scribble something.

Well I consider love and hate to be very close to each other; particularly when they tend to become extreme. That may sounds pretty surprising to many people but I think it's just like head/tail or north/south or black/white relationship. If you've one of them, then other would also be there accompanying the first one. However, there is another facet of this relationship, stressed upon by the preachers of love; which is that 'If you find yourself hating someone you thought you loved, then I would have to question whether you really felt love at all.' It is very easy to mistake need for love. Real love just loves, freely, without expectation. If that love is rejected, you may feel sad, but if hate is your response to rejection it indicates a feeling of entitlement & expectations.

Many times hate is a covering emotion, it covers other hurt feelings that are just too painful to bear. It is interesting to note that our desire for exclusivity arises in romantic love but not in hate. On the contrary, in hate we want to see our negative attitude shared by others. It seems natural that we want to share our negative fortune with others while wanting to keep the positive part merely to ourselves. In positive emotions, when we are happy, we are more open to being attentive to other people, but we guard the source of our happiness more.

Many testimonies, as well as fictional works, describe situations in which people find themselves hating the person they love. This might initially appear to be contradiction, for how one can love and hate the same person at the same time. A discussion of this problem requires making a distinction between logical consistency and psychological compatibility. Hating the one you love may be a consistent experience, but it raises difficulties concerning its psychological compatibility.

Love and hate are often described to be diametrically opposed; in this case, it is impossible to speak about hating the one we love without engaging in a logical contradiction. Two major arguments can be raised against this description. First, love is broader in scope than is hate, as it refers to more features of the object. Thus, while in hate the object is considered to be basically a bad agent, in romantic love the object is perceived to be both good and attractive. Second, there are many varieties of each emotion (and there are more kinds of love than of hate), and each kind cannot be the exact opposite of all other kinds of the other emotion.

Besides, there is an even more interesting point of view in which people claim that one hates because one loved. To illustrate, they mean that basically you hate someone whom you really wish to love, but whom you cannot love. Perhaps because you love him so much that you are unable to deject yourself even when the love is not been reciprocated, or maybe he himself prevents you or for some other reason. That way, hate is thus a disguised form of love.

What I feel is that if you bother to hate someone, you care enough about them to give them a great deal of "room" in your head. If you love them you do the same. I think indifference should be considered the opposite of love, in fact even of hate. Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless; love and hate don't stand a chance against it.

Delhi 6

So, here comes yet another blog post of mine related to Bollywood (Hindi film industry, for the people who hate this otherwise very popular term). Well, I have been an ardent follower of Bollywood and those who know me very well, can vouch for the fact. Besides, I've been a regular in the first-day movie-watcher list of cinema halls. Consider my apologies in advance for being too generic; but what I believe is, any guy who has not watched any Hindi Film or has not ever played cricket has actually not lived in India. I've deliberately used the term "guy" and not "person" precisely because it is well known fact that most of the girls simply HATE cricket J

Anyways, this post is supposed to be about Delhi-6 so let me come to the main point. I watched the film, as obvious, on Friday but waited for this post till today so as to give the chance to you all to watch the film on last weekend before any spoiler from my side at least. Now, it's quite some time and I think I can go on with expressing my opinion about the film. To state in one line: "I loved the film"

The whole plot revolves around proceedings in Delhi and has typical Indian day-to-day life as its backdrop and I should say that the filmmaker has done full justice with both the walled city and our lifestyle. Still, many people might not have liked the picture, as evident from one of my friend's status message which reads like "Ban Delhi 6 | The Director himself is Kala Bandar" but I liked it a lot; I liked it for its cinematography, for the art direction, for the amazing individual performances by powerhouse actors, for its screenplay, for its music, for its metaphors, and most importantly, for the soul of the film.

I don't know about others, but I could relate a lot to it. For those who have lived in Delhi, or Jodhpur, or many such cities could have easily related to things like jalebi-wallah or nukkad-talks or the tulsi plant or patangbazi or the Ramlila and the extent to which they are embedded in our lives. But all this was related to just content; I found the effort exemplary even in context of treatment. The metaphors like the person holding the mirror, the "dil gira dafatan" song, etc. run throughout the picture and made this clichéd story a worth-watching experience. Take for an example, the whole Ram Lila sequence where events like Sita Haran, or Shabri-ber, or Lanka Yuddh happening in accordance with the real-time happenings in the area. Metaphors have not been very common thing amongst Indian filmmakers unlike the western filmmaking style; there have been though a few exceptions in say Vijay Anand's or Guru Datt's works. These things definitely add a lot of beauty to the picture and like Rang De Basanti, this time also Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra hits a home run in this regard. I guess, now I've praised Delhi-6 more than required so I should shut up; but I would beg your pardon to praise just one more area and that is acting performances; everyone simply brilliant.

Let me sign off by highlighting one more aspect. The other day, I was reading Big B's blog and found him sort-of ridiculing critics for the huge difference in their reviews. Well, I would say that difference in two opinion is definitely possible; and somebody may like a work very much or just hate it big time (like recently in case of public opinion about dev-d; which I've personally witnessed). So, that should not concern or bother anybody. However, the sad part was the review by one of the famous critics. He gave delhi-6 a 1.5 star but that's ok; the problem is – he said that it tried to be another RDB but failed miserably in reaching those heights attained by its predecessor. Co-incidentally, the same reviewer gave 2 stars to RDB (check rediff archive for the same); now was he referring that "2-star performance" as "those heights"?? Well, I'm confused.

 

Congratulations and Celebrations

"Congratulations!!!"

I did not want to start this post with the clichéd statement of "I'm back yet again" (in the blogsphere, this must have been associated to me big time, by now). So, I chose more relevant word to begin with. Well, this congratulation is in the context of Oscars. Well, I am amongst those people who "don't" consider Slumdog Millionaire as an Indian film (quite unlike our media); we may call it a global film to be on safe side but definitely not an Indian film. And hence I'm rather happier for our A.R. Rehman (ARR) and Resul Pookutty than for Slumdog Millionaire or Smile Pinki.

It is true that somebody like ARR doesn't need an Oscar Award as a certification for being the great; however this recognition definitely matters on the global front. Despite all those allegations regarding various biases, there are no two opinions on the fact that Academy Awards provide the most celebrated and most recognized stage to stakeholders of entertainment industry. Though these awards are mostly confined to Hollywood, apart from a very few categories, still they have a big impact. This is for obvious reasons- Hollywood is the biggest film industry amongst them all. Hence, these awards would definitely boast the prospects of ARR worldwide.

However one thing which has fascinated me the most, during the course of this series of events, was another proof for the saying - 'Life is strange'. Actually, I tried asking my gtalk contacts yesterday (thanks to all those replied and sorry to whom I couldn't ask) as what has been their ARR's favorite song as of now. I know that it was a very small sample size but still I think that it would reflect a general Indian public trend. Roja was the hands-down winner and other responses ranged from Taal to Kannathil Mutthamittal to Dil Se to Jodha Akbar to Boys to Lagaan to Bombay to Rang De Basanti to Delhi 6; but interestingly and not-so-surprisingly, there was not even a single person speaking about 'Jai Ho' or Slumdog Millionaire. Most of us believe that the soundtrack and music was really good in this picture, but would not possibly feature even in all time top 5 of ARR. However, in context of achievements/popularity/recognition, this one proved to be The One and this really fascinates me.

Again a lot of Congratulations to all ARR fans, and wish you all a very Happy Mahashivratri!

Blogging

My first rendezvous with blogs happened during my engineering when the technical blogs proved very handy while preparing for seminar presentation and similar activities. Writing the blogs was though not on my mind that time, despite my profound interest in 'writing'. It was only during my summer internship between the two years of MBA that the idea of blogging struck my grey cells which germinated into my first blog (with the same profile I'm using right now).

That blog didn't last too longer and my routine problem of too-lazy-to-blog came into the picture. I tried revisiting but couldn't succeed. However, I tasted a little success in maintaining routine with this blog; and this time, it was less of a choice and more of a boredom which drove me across. There have been many pitfalls this time too, but more or less I've recovered back. The best thing this time has been my continuously reading blogs; I didn't take a break in that because I started loving this habit more than ever before. And this was the biggest driver in putting me back on track.

Experts have a lot of say, but for a common man like me blogging is a sort-of social interaction. I would say it's very similar to good old idea of people from different backgrounds coming together to discuss similar interests. Orkut and Gtalk beng the other two mediums widely used by me for this purpose. So, overall kudos google! :D

In the business networking context, thought sharing over social media is very similar to offline conferences organized for a specific target market. At the conference, people would meet unknown people, strike a conversation, exchange business cards and later on plan to capitalize on the contacts made during the conference for either business deal, or knowledge sharing sessions, or mentoring purpose and many more reasons. The human psyche hasn't changed; only, the means have evolved. These networking events now happen on the web. "Social media" works in the same manner. People choose to go to specific websites/forums/blogs/networking sites as they would go to conferences, Browse through user profiles, strike up conversations with other users and at the end of the day exchange contact details. And later on capitalize and the story continues.

I hope this story would continue, in my case at least!

Hanging between 11th, 13th and 14th

So, today was yet another Monday. Yesterday was however an eventful day in the sense that few more things took place in addition to the routine Sunday activities like all-day chatting, mallgiri, and movie sessions on laptop. Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep in the afternoon yesterday thereby making me wait for another seven long days to have an afternoon nap.

Yeah, so I was talking about events; the first was – waking up early on a Sunday morning - a rarity since last two and a half years. I've not waked up without any reason since ages and yesterday was not an option. The incentive this time was paying a visit to holy places of Mumbai namely Mahalaxmi Temple and Piya Haji Ali. Then, I had to rush to bandra terminus railway station to collect a bag of goodies from the train. Sorry to make those people jealous who are outside their homes; the bag contained laddu of three kinds (makar sankranti effect), gajak, til papdi and four more home-made items. Thanks to my father working in Railways, I could manage to get it delivered safely to my place in mere 16 hours. Railways Rock!

However, the second half of Sunday was typical Sunday stuff; something which has become part of my life, rather our lives (including my flat mates without their permission). The eventful Sunday ended for me with a horrific thought of forthcoming week. Don't get misguided, I'm not speaking about my office (it is more boring than horrific); but I'm speaking about the proceedings back at our residential place. The whole society faced few problems on account of shared electricity bill of water pump/motor at the very beginning of this year. That problem has yet not been solved and the water supply to our flats would be stopped from 13th (this number is definitely unlucky) of this month i.e. from tomorrow. If the problem persists, then we would have to carry water to 15th floor for every day-to-day work. Now, you can very well imagine why I used the term "horrific".

Well, I would say that it's the law of averages coming in picture- I've to pay the price for eating ghar-ke-bane-laddoo by pulling off buckets on sankranti. Fine then, aaj ki sabha yahin samapt hoti hai, dhanyawad. Enjoy 14th jan with flying kites, til ke laddo, and khichdi. Wish you all a happy Uttarayan in advance!

 

P.S. – This post was published on 12^th, however due to some issues; it has appeared with a delay of one day. Kindly read it in that context. J

Hi

Hi folks, wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year. I’ve been quiet for quite a while, and this time with apparently no reason. Neither was there any dearth of topics nor was I occupied very much with my work. If I’ve to put it in Deewar way then I had time, I had both relevant and irrelevant topics, I had the registered blog, I wanted to post something; in nutshell I had almost everything. Now, “almost” is a very dicey word and I can vouch for this fact from my past experiences? Anyways, it was actually the presence (an unwanted one) of one more thing which interrupted my blogging life and that was “laziness”. But finally I’m back yet again and hope to stay long. Though, I would not like to promise anything about handling laziness as it is really very difficult. That is one of the reason I’ve not put it into my very doable this years’ resolutions list.

Oh yes! New Year resolutions; well I tried making a few this year. Experts (look there are experts even in this area) say that either you make only one resolution or you should try and prioritize in case of more than one. However, I didn’t find either of their ideas attractive and thus made more than one resolution and those also without any priority. I would be sharing them one by one but not until I would start doing something about them. Right now, I’ve two to share with everyone because I’ve started working on them and a sense of achievement has started blossoming for me. Now there is a difference between success and achievement. What I believe is that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. While, success, as I put, is one’s achievement being recognized by others on the basis of fruits/output/results. Undoubtedly, success's nice, too but not as important or as satisfying as the sense of achievement. So I always aim for achievement and some times find success accompanying it.

Anyways, coming back to the point; my first resolution was to keep track of my expenses- now this had nothing to do with cutting my expenses rather just keeping a track of everything. There is no big reason behind this resolution as my expenditure was never beyond the limit {of course, what a girlfriend-less guy with neither drinking (not even tea) nor smoking habit can spend on}. And it is neither like that I was thinking about ongoing downsizing and planning accordingly. Actually, I used to keep track of my expenses since school time and I was a living example of one of my professor’s statement- “There are people who would keep track of everything and can tell you the total expenses incurred during their two year stay at IIM”. But things changed once I entered into corporate life and since last 6 months, I didn’t bother even remembering any of my expenses. This time, with this resolution, my aim is to compare and conclude if which kind-of life is better suited to me.

After my first not-so-interesting resolution; here is the second one. I’ve decided to preserve the happy moments again, and this time with the help of Mr. Gates. It may sound very weird but I’ve started storing photos along with tags or my own comments regarding the day/event, also recording the day in Word and interestingly Excel is proving handy too, in this direction. Earlier, I used to maintain a diary and scribble everyday happenings. That habit lost sometime, I don’t remember when, but now I want to resume my journey. This year would mark a fresh beginning for me in that sense.

Sometimes we forget all small good things happen to us while we busy in running behind a big dream. But big dreams are like rainbow which gives you illusive view of happiness where all small good things are like rain which makes you feel happy and content instantly. I don't know how many of you will agree with my analogy but we all do same mistake again and again. How many of you can list out ‘every’ small good thing happen to you in your life so far. I think very few and now I want to be the part of “those very few” again.

Jis Lahore Nahin Dekhya…..

Today in the newspaper, I read that Rajkumar Santoshi is planning a film on the play, Jis Lahore Nahin Dekhya, Woh Jamiya Nahin. I've watched this play twice, once in the Jai Narain Vyas Auditorium (popularly known as Town Hall) in Jodhpur and then at IIM Indore. Both the times, I was very much carried away by the theme and the characters; not to take away any credit from the artists.

Jis Lahore Nahin Dekhya (placed in the times of partition) is both an emotional story as well as a strong comment on the then prevalent socio-political scene. It starts with a character named Sikandar Mirza who migrates to Pakistan, and is allotted a Haweli by the custodian. He and his family are shocked to find the old hindu landlady Ratan ki Maa – still in the house who didn't leave for India like many others did. A victim of hate, violence and tragedy, she had lost everything but not the ability to give love and affection. The story charts the relationship of Ratan ki Maa with the Mirza family at one level. At another level, the story shows us how goons try to use religion against Ratan ki Maa for ulterior motives and how priests are wood to get legitimacy for their intentions and actions. The story progresses on these lines and it is really difficult to capture the feel of the play in a blog post, and it becomes impossible when a mortal blogger like me attempts to put-through an immortal story. Anyways, to continue with the story, one day the old lady dies and this is when the narrative reaches its climax demonstrating the clash of greed and fundamentalism versus sanity and love for fellow human beings.

Jis Lahore nahin dekhya is a poignant story of the dark time called partition; a partition that stood testimony to hatred, intolerance and fanaticism; thousands were attacked and killed, a generation was rendered homeless with a total loss of national identity. The story tried to define what is the pain of losing your place, losing your identity and what is the pain of falling prey to the dividing mentality of few people at the top. The story explains home as a place which has all your precious memories, a place where you feel at peace, and a place you would never want to give up for anything because you are so deeply connected to it that you can't probably imagine yourself without that place.

Well, I found the play a parallel (though not-so-brilliant) to the current sentiment against so called 'Non-Mumbaikars'. The other day I was talking to someone who born and brought up in Maharashtra. Not only this but according to him, whenever the flight arrives at the Mumbai airport and he inhales the air filled with smoke and dust he feel that he is finally at home. He has read not only about Shivaji but he is also a great fan of pula deshpande and for him, gateway is the world's best place to hang out with his girl friend. So when someone says that he is an outsider, he feels not only hurt but also confused. He is not sure why he is still considered a Madrasi when the language he is most comfortable with (after English) is Marathi. He doesn't understand how Mumbai is not his home despite the fact that his memories from school to college to job to his sister's marriage, all have been associated to this place. What I believe is, this is as much his home as theirs; his ancestors not living here doesn't dilute the fact that he has spent the most precious years of his life here and he feels as much for this land as any 'Marathi Manoos' does. In fact what I believe is, even if somebody has not spent his entire life in Mumbai deserves to call this place his home if he thinks so.

And most importantly he (and a lot many so-called-outsiders in mumbai) belongs to India and thus belongs to Maharashtra. Whichever part of the country I go to I never feel lost and actually I should not. The dirty roads, the narrow by-lanes, the beggars, the buses, people helping you out with directions, the chai/pan shops and even the lecherous men :) It's all the same. So how can someone stop me from living in any part of the country when the whole is mine!

This is a question which may not look very relevant today, in the presence of issues like terrorism and economic recession but its significance is growing with every passing day. This is important and equally alarming because it forms the basic foundation of a nation. If we can't allow a person from other state to earn his/her livelihood in ours, then we can't be a part of the same nation. The roots of this nation are shaking, this is the time to think and act.

Sachin Tendulkar - An Icon

"He has become susceptible to the short ball early in his innings"

"He is not a match-winner"

"He is uncomfortable in the second innings of a match"

"He can't play left arm pace with ease"

The list above is not exhaustive as there are a lot more points highlighted by his critics from time to time. Though, the best part is that these critics have been silenced all the time, some times by the words of his fans while most of the times by Sachin's willow. So, these all comments didn't restrict me from celebrating when I read during a live commentary on some site yesterday, that he has guided Siddle's delivery towards third man to surpass Brian Lara's record. Records are meant to be broken, no doubt about this but yesterday, it was perhaps the last time we saw a record getting broken by Sachin Tendulkar. So, this post of mine is dedicated to a person who has always been a sports icon for me, and will always be.

There is a saying, a great batsman can handle any delivery, but a genius can punish the great delivery. This saying can be true for many batsmen from Sir Donald Bradman to Sir Garfield Sobers to Sir Vivian Richards to many more; but for me, the word "genius" has always echoed only one name – Sachin Tendulkar. For me, even the word "cricket" has been resonating with the same name since the day I could connect myself to cricket consciously. There were times when I felt disheartened with the religion of cricket, whether during match fixing scandal or during the 1999 world cup performance or during our early world cup exit in 2007; but I never felt disillusioned with the Cricket God. Sometime in the last week, two people asked me same question, "Tell me any wildest (but censored) fantasy of yours" and my reply was the same, "To open an inning, with Sachin Tendulkar standing on the non-striker end." If that day ever happens, I won't mind even getting a first-ball duck (which I hate the most), though I would definitely love to spend more time on the pitch. Anyways, that is a very distant dream and for time being, I want to just see Sachin completing the story in 2011 (again I'm acting very optimistic) which he left incomplete in 2003 WC final.

I don't know about others; but to make me feel happy from saddest of the moods, all it takes is a century by Sachin. I can recall those times when at home, we made a deal/bet about our respective players. It was like- the person whose favorite player would hit a century; he/she shall treat others by preparing the breakfast of their choice on the next day. I took Tendulkar (pretty obvious), my sis's favorite has always been Dravid, and similarly mummy's favorite has always been Saurav. However, papa has been changing his players (because his favorite has been Tendulkar and when I'm there in the bet, he has to select someone else) from Azhar to Jadeja to Sehwag so as to remain in the deal. That was the year of 1998 and it doesn't require any mathematics to deduce that I won (or lost, I don't know) that deal the maximum number of times. This is just a very small sample of my life which I spent with Sachin's performances. And I am sure there are lacs, if not crores, of people like me who have spent a big part of their life watching Sachin hitting the balls across the ropes.


At times when our heroes struggle and when they need our support we are out to crucify them. Perhaps age is catching up on him; perhaps his body has taken a toll from 17 yrs of test cricket. But instead of uniting and supporting our team, we are all out to discredit everyone else but our heroes. The tragedy in doing that is we as individuals deprive ourselves of enjoying great players. Whether Sachin ever recovers his magic is not important anymore, what matters is that India keep doing well and Sachin play his role. His role has transformed a lot, and till date, he has not disappointed. I won't suggest him, unlike most of the critics, as how to play because you simply can't teach the best; and at least I'm not competent enough. Anyways, what I think is that a day will arrive soon when Sachin would walk away from the pitch forever and 20 yrs from now we will be complaining how India never got a great opener in ODI and #4 in Test to replace him, just as we are still trying to find a half decent all rounder to replace Kapil.


We have many demands from him; most of the times he has paid heed, but when he doesn't, we cry in anguish. Life has many experiences in store for us, but it leaves very few permanent imprints. Those exuberant celebrations after the final ball of the Hero Cup semi final or those feats amidst the Middle Eastern desert storm and violating the dreams of Shane Warne or that 6 of Shoaib Akhtar in the World Cup match were such imprints.


We grew up being fanatical about our little champion and I can't help it but just growing old in those memories. So, if they ever tell my story, let them say that I lived with legends, with icons. Men rise and fall like the winter wheat, but these names will never die. Let them say that I lived in the time of Michael Schumaker, Roger Federer, Michael Phelps. Let them say I lived in the time of Sachin Tendulkar.

YAM

YAM is the term recently been discovered, if not invented, by me. It stands for "Yet Another Monday". Now I know you must be feeling like killing me for these kinds of nonsensical things. However, I think if there can be TGIF (in our case, TGIS) then there must be YAM too.

Anyways, after one full day of legitimate sleep, there comes the cruel monday morning. And same old routine starts all over again, controlled by a mesmerizing term called "Corporate Life". Though, I was on the driver's seat just few months back. This is probably the most killing difference between college life and corporate life. Your life becomes packaged. Throughout the week you wait for the weekends. After every four weekends you wait for the day when your bank account becomes a bit healthier. And then whole month goes in the realization - "Nothing is immortal, not even your bank account". And this goes on and on and on........ Want some thrill in your life???? All the best.

One of my friends was complaining about his boring and monotonous corporate life. These days he is enjoying (???) a thrilling life and exploring new ventures. Actually he has fallen prey to another horrifying corporate buzzword "Right-Sizing" which further came into play due to the recent debacle of people having green as their favorite color, popularly known as "investment bankers". Anyways, leave aside my pain of being a wanna-be banker, let's talk about my dear friend who aspired for thrill and managed to get it. Now, he is meeting new job consultants every day. Once in a while, consultants arrange an interview for him to keep things interesting. And interviewers make sure he does not get back to same old boring life. Someone has rightly said "But be careful what you wish for. You might actually get it."

Whenever one gets fed up with this boring life, memory goes back to college days. I do not agree that life at college is extremely thrilling. But it's not monotonous and you know it has a definite end (you can extend it, but that needs real talent). College life is like 'ek chidiya anek chidiya' video....sweet, short and always memorable. Corporate life is like Subhash Ghai's recent flicks especially 'Kisna' – while watching this, I spent more time looking at my watch then looking at the screen. Corporate life is like Glen McGrath is bowling to you. You know where he is going to pitch, what line he is going to bowl although there may be an occasional bouncer or yorker. Everything is so predictable yet it's extremely difficult to score off. And to worsen this, McGrath can bowl in loooooong spells. College life is like Shoaib Akhtar bowling to you. It's going to be fast but with a bit of courage and luck, you can definitely score. It can be wayward most of the times, occasionally unplayable but the best thing is you would love to play against him even after being clean bowled and better than the best thing- Shoaib does not bowl in long spells.

What crap?? It's human nature, think about your past, dream about your future and do not give a damn to your present. So, let me not follow that and come back to present; it's already getting late for my Teach India class.

Happiness & Success – A Chicken-Egg Phenomenon?

Often a question arises in my mind about the relationship between success and happiness. Whether success leads to happiness in life or it's the other way round, means, happiness gives success in one's life. It's a debatable issue and one can have views on either side.

First, let's see what success means in one's life. Most of us would certainly agree that success doesn't mean just to earn lot of money. What I feel success means to obtain things that society values, it can be wealth, good job, happy married life, close and well knit family, sincere friends or longevity or/and may be 'peace' in day to day life. It can be different combination according to one's ambitions or desires to achieve in his or her life.

One the other hand happiness is the sum total of one's well-being or feel-good factor at given point of time. Happiness also depends on general atmosphere about one's family or organization where he or she works/lives, or even city/nation where one resides. There are many prescriptions for happiness as being advocated. However, I feel that 3 things are very important for leading a happy and purposeful life. First, one must live and enjoy present moments of life by de-inking oneself from past memories specially the negative ones and to minimize future's anxieties. Second, involve passions in whatever one does even during day to day activities and also try to engage oneself with doing something when one feels happy and passionate. Lastly, maintain good physical and mental health.

If we see on international front, Indians are the fourth happiest race in the world, as claimed by The Economist. The reason behind such a high of happiness level has been that India, despite all the advances, remains a deeply philosophical society, as commented by noted sociologist Prateek Das. Rather than material goods, Indians have deep faith in time-held traditions and they have less desire for material goods. This is the reason that in developed nations, most people's desires for material and luxury goods are fully saturated so now look for alternate avenues for happiness.

Coming back to the relationship between success and happiness, according to the latest findings, happiness is the key to one's success in life. The reason is that happy and cheerful people are more likely to try new things and challenge themselves, which reinforces positive emotion and leads to success in work, good relationships and better health. The findings further claim that happiness extend across an entire nation with people in 'happy' nations being more likely to have pro-democratic attitudes and keenness to help others. One other study corroborates that happiness leads people to be more sociable and generous, more productive at work, to make more money and to have stronger immune systems. So, we can say that happiness is the key to many treasures, including the one which is carrying 'success'.

Being Busy

I am not so sure if I m really brilliant and finish off my work earlier than expected or my bosses/lecturers have been shrewd enough to realize my true potential. Because "being busy" is the state of life I have always wished for and it has always eluded me. Be it my days in school or engineering, be it IIM or RIL, be it under Head, Treasury or under CFO, I have always had more free time than most of my other friends. I wanted to use all, but used 'most' because there is one friend of mine who has just left the job on account of not having anything to do- can you just imagine this??? Some of my friends claim to be so busy that they find it difficult to even reply mails or IMs. And here I am getting sick with boredom and hoping that someone is kind enough to drop a mail to me or a IM will popup but all in vain. When I started writing blogs, I thought I had found out a very good tool to utilize my time. But I've been so much without work that I am even running short of topics (suggestions invited, I desperately need some).

Well, one cannot be getting intelligent and brilliant bosses and lecturers so consistently, so it must be my own skill and talent which has blessed me consistently with so much of free time. One day, all my friends who have been or claim that they have been very busy will reach the level my bosses have been. If first sentence is true, they are not that much skilled and talented. And this proves the point that one cannot be getting intelligent and brilliant bosses so consistently. And this proves that I am exceptionally brilliant. And there starts a cycle which will again and again prove that I have been intellectually better than my bosses. But this is a fact and you do not need to prove a fact. After all, do you need to prove that sun gives us heat? Or do you need to prove that color of our blood is red? Answer is simple…No.

It's not because facts do not need any proof or no proof could be provided for them. It's because they are too obvious to be proved. And………..forget it….someone has been kind enough to drop me a mail and save you all from the wrath of my boredom. Now I am going to bug her till she realizes that it was probably the biggest mistake of her life to do so….Haa Haa.

Anniversary of T20 WorldCup

I know that it is coming a bit late because the anniversary was on 24^th September but as they say, "Better late than never". Actually, today morning I was discussing about all this with my friend so thought of scribbling something on it.

To start with, for all its shortcomings, team India is exceptionally consistent in one thing, proving the expectations wrong. When you expect the team loaded with most formidable middle order to murder a rookie spinner who had just sent tremors in the Gen-Next to follow, they fall flat to him. Few months back when you expected the same team to surrender meekly in the most deadly track against two lightening fast quickies in Perth, they came out winning. Be it 2007 world cup debacle or charismatic come back in 2003 world cup, they have always flourished when very few expected them and floundered when very few did not expect them to do so.

Hence, when a year back when Dhoni was handed over the captaincy for the T20 world cup, team India was written off even before the members got their security checks done at the airport. The experienced spearheads of batting line up opted out of the tournament – one because the format was almost alien hence not taken very seriously and two because they considered themselves too old to play a bang-bang game. It was taken as just a platform to test the new generation players. For any tournament which consisted of teams other than minnows, a team without Sachin, Dravid or Ganguly could not be imagined in last 8-10 years. If there was a team like this, it was a second string side like that sent in commonwealth games (remember? the schedule-clash with Sahara cup). However, this time the reason given behind choosing the young team was that it's the fastest version of the game which has no place for people over 30. While on contrary, critics' view was even more interesting, they said that what the team will do by saving runs as no one in the side is capable of scoring them. Anyways, they did leave for South Africa.

India had just played one T20 match before the tournament and there was not much in the domestic cricket as well. The batting was relying on the shoulders of Sehwag who was making a comeback after a consistent inconsistency in ODIs, Yuvraj Singh who was struggling with his form since world cup, Dhoni who was considered to be more of a pinch hitter, Gautam Gambhir who had a habit of pulling a short ball to boundary and getting out on very next short ball, Robin Uthappa who was hardly an year old in international cricket, Rohit Sharma who was, well just a name. Bowling department did not have a Zaheer Khan making it look completely inexperienced. Although, it did have RP Singh who bowled exceptionally well in England and a promising Shree Santh but they also had an ever inexplicably selected Ajit Agarkar (sorry, I meant Sir Aggi) and Irfan Pathan who was restarting after his journey of next Kapil to nobody.

Australia was the most favorite contender for the cup for the reasons well known. Apart from South Africa and New Zealand, England was another favorite and seen as dark horse because they did play a lot of T20 games in their domestic cricket. India was considered good enough to get the title of "also ran". What followed in next 13 days was something which was going to be a miracle.

First match against Scotland should have been taken as more of a formality to reach the Super eight. But team India has recently had a casualty in form of a formality in WC2007. The match was washed off meaning India was almost certain for the next round. "So what, reaching super 8 was not a big deal by any means in this format" was a typical remark. Though the same format cost a great deal to West Indies cricket board's revenue just 4 months back.

If team batting first set a target of 142 in IPL, the match was considered to be lost for them. But IPL was not invented yet. No one knew how to approach a target in these games plus wet conditions, good tight bowling and exceptional energy shown by Indians on the field made it look like a real tough one. After a lot of twists and turns, when 1 run was needed of last 2 balls, match ended in a tie which India won in a bowl-out (most of players on either side didn't even know that there is something like ball-out coming their way) Most of Indian supporters, as the tradition has been, considered it as the world cup win. When they did not know was that their team had not only won the match but also a very good friend in Misbah-Ul-Haq.

When India lost next match to New Zealand, it looked as if the team had run out of fuel after the last match. As always, every match in the cup became crucial for them. Yuvraj Singh's six 6s won India the next match against England. Yuvraj Singh created history but since then he has been living in the memory of that one over. Very next day India played against the hosts South Africa which not only had firepower in bowling line up but was also an exceptional fielding side. India needed to win this match to stay alive in the competition. South Africa could do even without a win but the margin of defeat needed to be small. Just before the start of the match, India lost Yuvraj Singh to an injury. "Ah, same old bad luck and it's the end of tournament for India" was a typical reaction looking for an excuse in a perceived defeat. After a decent start, India slumped to 61/4 with Yuvraj Singh's replacement Dinesh Karthik scoring a first ball duck. Dhoni and Rohit Sharma took the score to 153 and India had defended a score lesser than this before. Well, South Africa clearly showed why Steve Waugh allegedly called them Chokers. Brilliant bowling and superb fielding suffocated their batting. Dinesh Karthik might have scored a duck but he did take a splendid catch to dismiss Graeme Smith.

India was into the semi finals. But it was to be till semi finals because they were meeting Australia there. Circa 2003 WC? Someone needed to do something spectacular in all the departments of the game to beat Australia. Yuvraj Singh scored 70 off 30 balls and India set a mammoth target of 189. Sreesanth gave away only 12 runs in 4 overs and clean bowled both the Australian openers with his pitch-thumping celebrations at peak. Team fielded brilliantly. A team which was not given any chance by most of its supporters had beaten the mighty Australians to reach the finals.

The Finals – India V Pakistan. Organizers of at least 6 world cups would have prayed day in-day out for this but God did not listen to them. South African organizers must have prayed really hard this time. Like the first match between these two sides, the final too went all the way to the wire. When the middle order failed, Gambhir's 75 took India to 157. When Pakistan was reeling at 77/6, their friend of the first match Misbah took the center stage and looked like winning the match alone. When 13 were needed of 6 balls, Dhoni gave Sir Jogi (second knight of the team) the last over – I know, people would not have stopped cursing Dhoni for this decision at that time. May be Chetan Sharma was to be reincarnated after 1986. But just then Misbah failed second time in a row when he must not have and his dreaded scoop landed in Sreesanth's hands.

India had won the inaugural T20 world cup. The miracle had happened. But no doubt, the team deserved this miracle.

Taxes

Economics can tell you things which you never really imagined. If you talk to most middle class people in India (yes my and your families) then they will always crib about how the tax in India is very high, how at one point tax rates were as high as 90-95% and a lot of stuff. If you talk to an employed person today then he will say that Government is taxing him so much and others are getting away with black money quite easily (even I used to think that way). But the picture above shows a completely different scenario.

1. The Direct Tax's contribution to GDP has almost been constant since independence (around 2.5%) and only since 2000 has it increased slightly (to around 5%)
   
2. The Indirect Tax has been moving up and is a very major contribution to Government earnings. It contributed around 4% in 1950s and is now at around 12%.
   

What does this imply?  Simply put you and me are not paying much because of tax but each and every citizen of India is paying extra through indirect taxes, this includes the people below poverty line as even when they purchase some food it will a share of indirect tax.

It is expected that the taxation system will take more money from the rich and less from the poor, right? In India that is not really happening to a big extent. Everyone is paying a lot because people avoid direct tax by black money methods; the result is when Government needs extra money, it simply adds another indirect tax.

Just a thought which made me think a lot and deserves a spot on my blog.

…….

It is the first day of Navratri, today and hence many people were gathered in the revered temple of Chamunda Mata in Jodhpur fort. Stampedes are not very unusual things at the crowded holy places across the world, and had been happening in the past almost regularly. There have been numerous attempts to tighten the system and avoid such incidents but that has not been of much help, till date.

Anyways, the stampede at Jodhpur which took place today is a bit different in nature or as it looks like, from the early media reports and local public opinions. It is believed that everything just started with the fall of a small wall in the fort (which is not so unusual phenomenon in an old fort). The important thing is that the wall didn't injure even a single person though that triggered the rumors of a possible bomb explosion. And this word spread like the fire in a jungle and everybody got nervous, which ultimately resulted in this stampede.

For non-jodhpur people, I want to share an incidence or at least a belief which is widely prevalent in the city. This Chamunda Mata mandir is of immense significance in the life of a common Jodhpur person and almost the whole city instills a lot of faith in it. During the war of '71, there were multiple air strikes over the city of Jodhpur and some 60 odd bombs were been dropped. However, there was not even a single casualty and people attribute it to the grace of Chamunda Mata and the akhand jyoti in the temple which acted as an unintentional deviation for Pakistan bombers.

However, now I see that faith is crumbling, and people have started believing more in terrorists than in Mata. Well, this is pretty obvious (because negative things attract attention more easily) but alarming as this is basically the much-feared-aftermath of the series of blasts which are happening these days, more frequent than ever before. And I consider this as a victory of the terrorists. I think, today's day is of much significance in their mission of terrorism than any other day because today, they have struck their first victory on the psychological ground. The terrorists have succeeded in filling the terror and fear in the minds of a common Indian to an extent that it has over-ruled even the faith and confidence.

I consider this incident to be an important learning milestone for us. If we claim to be the biggest democracy, then it's our duty to first provide everyone with a fear-free environment to live in. To achieve this, I think we need not to work only for instilling the devastated hope in the day-to-day life of our countrymen but also should try to develop the fear and a sense of insecurity among these terrorists. In my opinion, this physical as well as psychological warfare is not going to end the way we are approaching for it. We need to rebuild the fear amongst terrorists that even they can be killed and most importantly, can be hanged for their doing. Incidents like Afzal has somehow made our law and order look helpless in front of dirty politics; and these terrorists are doing nothing but exploiting this weakness and helplessness. We need to show a will, a desire to end this.

If we don't wake up now, it might be too late; one of my friend who called me up to know about the well being asked a good question, "What is happening yaar; everytime I open a news site or news channel, I am finding a new case - be it those blasts in malegaon or riots in Thane or this stampede and so on." We may call it just being a sad co-incidence but the number of these co-incidences is increasing and that's alarming. Some measures needs to be brought-in to counter this; may be POTA or may be something else in case the ruling party doesn't want to lose the "vote advantage". The other party is also not concentrating on the problems and relevant issues; rather they are indulged in self-massaging exercise and blame-game.

To heck with these political parties and their respective political games, we want to see these terrorists hanged by neck till death and we want our minds to be free, free from at least the fear of bombs and terror. That's it.

Fate

Few people like the idea of fate. Fixed, immutable, implacable, with no option for choice or chance or challenge: just fate, and nothing else. Some people, perhaps, would seem to accept this bleak 'fatalistic' view of the world - perhaps because they see so many others try to combat the fates, and fail in futility instead. But most of us will fight against what we see as the unfairness of fate - whether it works or not - so as to at least have the sense that we're doing something. At first sight it seems we have only three choices about fate: we can abandon ourselves to it - which leaves us with no choice at all, and hence no power either; we can try to fight against it - which we can't, and hence tends to be an interesting waste of energy in support of an illusion; or we can try, very, very hard, to pretend that it doesn't exist really and it's all a load of superstitious hogwash and we don't believe it and we are not going to believe it.

But there is another choice - understand what fate is, and how it works, in order to help it work with us. However, the most loaded question in this context is how to determine the working of fate. This is a bit tricky, because many-a-times, it's not we who are controlling the fate. Look at it this way, few men sat together and played with the LIBOR rates in the wake of the US funds crisis and this has allowed in artificial interest rates into the world economy which could have serious ramifications very soon. LIBOR rates are used as benchmark for over 300 trillion USD worth of transactions worldwide!

Few men sit together at the OPEC and decide how much you and I will pay for our petrol or diesel. They decide the production limits of its constituent countries and this gives them large control over the prices of crude. Regarding the impact of crude on day-to-day life; well this has been discussed more than Shahrukh Khan on the public forums in India. In addition, there is another group of people who meet regularly to discuss global developments (as they put it). I am not talking about 'Freemasons' (or actually, they might belong to Freemasons, who knows!); rather they are "Trilateral Commission" and "Bilderberg Group". The former allegedly controls 60% of world's private wealth and the latter controls 33% of the pie. I know that you won't believe this blog, so better you just google up and search for the same.

Anyways, my point is while most of the 6 billion people in the world assume a world that is run by their combined choices, the reality seems to be otherwise. Things are more shrouded than they appear and ironically much simpler than we all thought.

So, do we have a conclusion for this blog post, obviously not- there can never be. Despite knowing that there is something which is beyond your control, you never ever stop caring about it and you never ever stop trying to gain a control over it. And this is where the biggest irony begins- you are trying to control something which you've assumed to be 'beyond anyone's control'. And so does the history say that whoever has tried to control fate or has possibly appeared to control fate has fallen in a bigger way than what has ever been thought. Ceaser, Hannibel, Xerses, Aurangzeb and recently, Investment Bankers are the examples of "The Great Fall of Apparent Fate-Controllers"

Ripples, we need

Recently, I watched "Welcome to Sajjanpur" and found it a worth-watching flick. Curiosity drove me to look at the reviews by critics as well as users. Critics, well they all were unanimous about the performance of the film's cast and crew. They all held positive opinions just like me so I decided to stop reading any more of them. However, in context of user reviews, I found a very strange phenomenon. They all were divided into two groups with very different opinions. According to one viewer-class, this movie is very realistic and almost correctly pointed out the issues in villages. The other viewer-class was however saying that it was an unbearable movie, with obsolete issues (of 70s). The reasons behind the nature of second review, as I see, are rooted in the environment around us. Most of us don't realize that progress of metros has not been replicated in villages to complete extent and this is not just about progress, but also about the lifestyle and beliefs. Issues like widow remarriage, casteism, etc. may appear obsolete to us but they are still relevant in the context of villages.

The big problem with today's youth is that they are not bothered about things which indirectly affect them. It's not about the motive of going to cinema hall (entertainment) rather the real reason is that most of us want to receive only those messages which fit into our thought process. Rang De Basanti struck a chord with us, because modern youth can relate with these issues; however we can't feel similar empathy for other issues which don't concern us directly. Doesn't this indicate about our conditional morality! We ignore things which don't concern us directly bur fail to realize their impact on not only us but also on the whole society, whether in direct or indirect sense. This basic thinking is leading us nowhere but deeper in the well of immorality. This is also the basic reason why the society-divide is increasing day-by-day.

What seems is that if we are not careful, our society will rip itself from the inside out. We are definitely under attack every day as our morals and ways of life are being challenged. The most important reason for this is the lack of good moral leadership.  If the leaders and influencers of the upcoming generation can teach and live a good example, we can provide a good life for future generations. Who are these leaders? Who are these influencers? Who can be the champions? Of course the leaders of nations, the popular icons (music, sports, film etc), parents and teachers, and then last, every individual. Though I would like the highlight and dwell on roles needed to be played by parents, I will talk about the last and most important champion of moral reform, the "individuals" themselves. 

It's important to not to just cultivate our own gardens, and live in a comfortable family life, but also to participate in shaping the courses that govern our collective thought: and to have a say in the 'collective destiny' of humankind.  People need to be good and to be the cause of something that will better society as a whole. To put it this way, it's not just being simply good, it's about being good for something.

To have enough influence to create a moral change, we need the individuals themselves to have the drive.  This drive is something that cannot be forced or impressed upon any individual.  Moral reform of the country is a big movement.  If the individual is not deeply committed to the cause, it will not last, nor will it have to drive to push the much needed moral change. It takes conviction brought upon by the individual's free will.

Possibly these agents of moral change, these champions, maybe a minority when they begin but history testifies about the influence and end results of minority movements. Most freedom struggles, be it Indian or American, were a minority movements, and a minority movement is all it takes to make a nation aware of a problem.  It can be likened to the ripple in the pond.  All it needs is one starting ripple, and it will spread much farther than it started. And as Robert Kennedy once said,

"Each time a man (or woman) stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."