My Big Fat Indian Wedding

My Big Fat Indian Wedding - yes that is what I call this circus! Introducing the joker relegated to one corner - me!!!!!
In this chaos, confusion, raging arguments, need to conformance to stupid traditions, rituals, sacrificing of human emotions on the alter of the need to show off, emotions running way overboard, everybody trying to get their 5 seconds of fame and importance I am uselessly trying to search for happiness and togetherness.
I tie the knot the day after and I already dread my life as a sandwitch between all the different "stakeholders"in my life.
Listening to "The Persecuted Will not Forget" by Testament!!

Are we to be blamed?

Its been a week since the dance of death was played out in Mumbai. Everyday there are outpourings of grief, anger, frustration and concern directed against our neighbours, politicians and others. I share all these emotions as apart from feeling concerns for my relatives in Mumbai I also had to deal with a personal tragedy during the same time.
In addition I also have questions -
- why is it that we are facing these tragedies again and again?
- why is it that we are such a weak state?
- is it only the case that we have an inefficient home minister?
- why is it that if the home minister was inefficient he was asked to go after 4 years in office and numerous previous terrorist incidents?
- why is it that within the initial 5 minutes of the attack the 3 officers who were leading the investigations into the right wing terrorism were killed?
- why is it that out of the 10-11 incidents of terror that day the focus was only on Taj and Oberoi?
- was our media responsible in showing live the positions of our security forces? Did it result in the terrorists getting updated information about from where they were getting the threats?
- what purpose is served by politicians resigning / or being forced to quit now? is this accountability? shouldn't accountability be accompanied by punishment?
And many more such queries for which I know I will not get answers.
However, I do believe that somewhere deep down we as people are also responsible for the problems we are facing. We are perceived as a weak state because our disregard to Law. We take Law for granted. We are corrupt to the core. Yes our politicians, police, the machinery is corrupt but doesn't the politician or the police come from us? How many times have we paid bribes to get small favors or work done? How many times we break the Law in our every day lives? If we cant be Law abiding how do we expect that the people we elect are going to be any better? I have not voted for over 10 years and then I question the quality of governance I get. When I never was part of the exercise of choosing the government how can I question the governance I get. We as people have personified the "chalta hai" attitude. Everything is negotiable including our value systems. And we are weak because we are corrupt. We only have a sense of Indianess when we as a nation are attacked and two days later we forget everything.
For us to have a better situation we need to be make sacrifices - sacrifice the urge to get work done faster by paying bribes, sacrifice the urge to show the fellow Indian down, sacrifice our personal liberties so that the system can be made stronger, sacrifice the urge to find easy solutions e.g. blaming neighbors for our own ills and sacrifice the easy laid back attitude we have. "Chalta hai"has to be replaced with "Nahin chalta hai".
For the situation to become better we as people need to do our bit. We cant depend on others to do this for us. In addition I have a small request - Can we pass a law that anybody who even has a court case / chargesheet pending against him/her is not allowed to contest elections? Should we file a PIL for this because I cant expect the present politicians would pass any such legislation. I also don't think asking ministers to quit after an attack is a solution. They need to be given warnings and given one more chance to fix the problems. If they fail again they should be tried for "dereliction of duty" as any other normal person and punished.

You bet its convenient!!!

Well to be frank, its not convenient .... its DAMN WELL AWESOME!!! Just awesome. I can do it anywhere, its always available, as soon as I step inside the door its all there connected and waiting for me, its at my beck and call 24/7 and the price is fixed once and for all - no negotiations ....its my WLAN connection which I finally was able to configure and get online today. It is for my 32mbps unlimited download / upload internet connection :D :D :D
I was successful at my 2nd attempt after blowing up one cable modem and being without telephone and internet for sometime. I tell you it was worth it. Previously I have been advised to have a good internet connection and get a WLAN router but I was just fine with my dial up but today I am much better than fine! I am very very fine! Yes I am a late entrant into the wired home concept but u bet I am gonna make up on lost time with a vengeance!
Media center or Airport?

Where is peace?

Sitting outside home I look at the news of tragedies and blasts in India with a different perspective. Somehow being faced with these kind of incidents everyday had made me immune to them. Now that I am detached and can only read about these incidents on online newspaper reports, these incidents touch me in a different way.
Since July this year almost every week or 10 days there have been incidents of serial blasts. Initially we used to associate terrorism with Punjab or Kashmir with sporadic incidents in the rest of the country but off late no part of the nation seems to safe or peaceful. We are being attacked with impunity anytime, anywhere.
This time we have a homegrown group to blame for these acts and no foreign powers. What despairs me is the absolute helplessness we are faced with with respect to these acts. The government seems absolute powerless in ensuring security and peace.
On the International Non Violence Day we are forced to accept that we are inherently a violent race.

Bunker crashing a golf course

Yep, you read it right. I bunker crashed a golf course today - crashed through a bush and right onto the biggest golf course in this part of the world - how and why is another story but what was surprising was that the course was empty, carts were empty, the club house was empty; everything was so dead and forelorn. Then it stuck me - the world economy is on the precipice.
It took its time coming but the storm has finally hit us big time. I mean I just do not understand how could bad debts be doled out to the tune which we are talking about - actually nobody seems to know the extent of the problem. The US Congress is squabbling over 700 billion dollars Wall Street bailout deal but what the "learned" congressmen do not understand is that it is not a Wall Street bailout package but a world economy support package. Not surprising when probably a chunk of them do not even know where Iraq is. However coming back to the problem at hand I am dumb founded to believe that the highly paid investment bankers of the world gave loans to people without any collateral or knowing that the person taking the loan would not be able to repay them. Ok, I can understand one or two such loans but the magnitude that it not just bankrupts an individual but threatens the whole world economy is beyond comprehension.
World is flat and this crisis proves that. Probably it also proves that lot more insights are required than pure capitalism to run a good business.

Whats with the fahrt?

Every morning, I reach the parking lot and I enter through "Ëinfahrt".
Every evening I leave office and I am wished "Gute Fahrt".
I exit the parking lot through "Ausfahrt".
If this continue like this fahrt would become a fixation and the whole environment would stink..if you know what I mean.
This whole country is fahrting you know!
In the office the most common discussion topics are "who is fahrting what" or whether "i fahrt better than you" or whether "women are better fahrters than men" or "which navigation device allows one to fahrt better".
Today morning while coming to work I got lost while fahrting and I tell you it was not funny.

Professional - to my surprise

I had a very pleasant experience with a local car dealer in Bangalore - Classic Automobiles. I sold my 2005 Honda City VTEC to them this month and they not only gave me a decent deal but also allowed me to keep the car for a week after the agreement was signed with them.
Payment was also promptly made and they were very proactive in pursuing the legal paperwork etc.
I would heartily recommend them to all.

Intertial Displacement

Have you ever wondered why is it so difficult for most of the people to relocate? I have a reasoning around it and that is that humans being social animals are very good in growing "roots". The longer an individual stays in a location the stronger the roots become. Stronger the roots more difficult it is to uproot them and move on. In scientific terminology an object having more inertia would require more force to change its state.
I know any lame duck would understand where I am going with this. Well, yes I relocated lock, stock and barrel after spending 8 odd years in Bangalore. Over the past couple of days I am settling down in my new location and checking the soil to see how soon the new roots will grow.
Over the last weekend I spent time at the new apartment which will be my home for the next few years. It is so very beautiful. It is located quite close to the town center but is in a nice, quiet burrough. The place is comfortably large but not monstrous, has a covered parking, has nice ventilation and cheerful sunlight, warm colors, a green balcony and a private garden. Behind the apartment complex are huge expanses of wineyards where one can go running and mountain biking as there are small hills and rough terrain. It is quite a big change from the previous apartment I had and needless to say I love it.
By the way, I am celebrating "Indian summer" in the beginning of "European winter" as all my warm clothes are in the shipment which is somewhere in air and somewhere in sea. Waiting for bank account and credit cards to be available to make some purchases. Maybe its the start of new roots, eh?

Right to life or Right to choice

In the past few days the question about Right to Life or Right to Choice has come up.
In Mumbai a couple's foetus has been diagnozied with a heart condition and they moved the court to allow aborting the same. The parent's plea was that knowing that the baby if born will face a life of constant struggle they want to spare themselves and the new born the pain. The court rejected the plea on the basis of medical reports which couldnt categorically state whether the child would be born with a defect or not and an archaic law which was drafted over 30 years ago.
If we really talk about Right to life my contention is whether it is the foetus' choice to be born even though when born it might not have a fruitful life. At what point of time does the child get the Right of Choice - when he/she is conceived, when he/she is born, when he/she is 5 years old, when he/she is older...when? If we disregard the moral dilemma and just concentrate on the facts then I find it weird that the decision was based on a law which was drafted 30 years ago. Since that time medical science has advanced so much that the basis on which the regulations were drafted would be defunct. Would it not make sense then to relook at the statutes of the Indian Penal Code instead of debating only the moral grounds of this question?

Dharma Yudh

A couple of days back one of my old team members quit the company. The person was one of the oldest members of the team as well as one of those with whom I enjoyed working a lot. Infact over the past few weeks lots of people from my old team have left.
Since I keep on mentioning "old" its pretty obvious that I am not part of that team anymore. The point as to why I call it a "dharma yudh" is because most of the people have sought my advice and guidance before quitting and somewhere the thought comes up whether I can influence them to stay back. The latest colleague also was facing a dilemma and was unsure about the final decision. I thus had detailed discussion and helped in the decision making process.
My take on this is clear though. I believe if a person has decided to move on he or she will move on either today or a little later. One should not try to hold the individual back but should try to give the fellow team member a perspective which helps in the decision making. I do not think that one is loyal to the organization if one tries to hold a moving colleague. I also believe if I am contributing unbiased opinions and offering a sounding board to the people who have worked with me and trust me I am doing the right thing. The decision is theirs but probably the sounding board helps them to decide. If the decision is to leave am I being less loyal to my company? I strongly dont believe so...

"I voted according to my beliefs"

So finally we have the nuke deal on track. For months a lot of esteemed and not so esteemed people have been debating about the deal which was struck in 2005 between Dr. Manmohan Singh and George Bush to no definite conclusion one way or the other.
I purposely use the names of the personalities here and do not mention the countries because I am not sure whether the countries really signed on the dotted line, metaphorically, ofcourse a country is not a living being so she cant sign anywhere. A country is represented by the leaders and it is they who put their initials whenever and wherever it is required in place of the country. Hence it should be the moral duty of these leaders to do something which is good for the nation as they are not initializing as individuals but as representatives of the nation.
However with this new deal I am not so sure whether India was represented. Please do not get me wrong - I am strongly for nuclear energy and whatever is required to make it a feasible and sustainable source of energy. But like most of the fellow Indians I am in dark about the details of the pact. Being fortunate enough to be an educated individual I do appreciate the fact that renewable sources of energy are crucial for India and anything which ensures constant supply of fuel for our reactors as well as latest technology to upgrade the facilities should be welcomed. Inspite of this an option to understand the pact in detail would have been appreciated not just by me but also by all.
So I went by common sense in supporting the deal however after watching the proceedings of the trust vote being streamed live from the Parliament I did realize common sense is not so common. It seems 275 individuals voted to keep the government in power and 250 odd individuals to keep the government out of power and I thought the vote was about whether we should go ahead with the deal or not. Less said about the people voting the better. All voting for the government and all voting against, went from TV camera to TV camera ( pillar to post eh?) claiming that their vote is based on their conscience and their strong beliefs - it was just incidental that they are getting to become ministers, chief ministers, getting cash in suitcases, airports in their names and so on.
To summarize it in word the whole "tamasha" was shameful with the players being as shameless as ever. Our MPs again made a laughing stock of our country. Where was their common sense? I am not expecting them to know the details of the agreement but is it so difficult to understand that our energy needs are rising and fossil fuels cannot sustain them for long? In metros if the monsoon fails there are power cuts for 6-7 hours then what can be said about the interiors? If they had decided to vote on common sense then maybe this whole "tamasha" would have been avoided.
The question which comes up though is that who sends these people to Parliament - is it not us - are we also voting according to everything but common sense?

Why dont we feel passionate about our work?

Yeah I know its a controversial question. After all it got you interested, didnt it? But honestly for the past couple of days this thought has been coming to my mind continously - we as Indians are we really passionate about the work we do? Let me narate a few incidents which have triggered this thinking.
I have a new apartment. The electric meter had to be transferred to my name. I and some other fellow residents got together and hired an agent to do the running around of the BESCOM office and get this work done. We all pooled in Rs.750 each and paid to this fellow. We gave all the required documents and thought with the money we have paid we would get the meter transferred without us running around. Sadly money cant buy everything - it cant buy the person doing his job well. After numerous running around, the very thing which I wanted to avoid, I got my meter transferred. The latest electricity bill was received this month and lo behold the name on it was Chandra Reddy and not yours sincerely. So I again run around to find this person and talk to him to be told that his job was to get the transfer done but if the transfer was not recorded in the BESCOM system its not his problem. Finally I went to the office and spent 3 hours to get Chandra Reddy erased and my name entered in the system.
The other day I went to get a photocopy done of a document. The person refused to make a copy since I had Rs. 10 with me and he wanted precise Re. 1. I returned with the required change and again requested for the service to be delivered since I was ready to pay. The machine operator was kind of enough to oblige me. I had 2 documents stapled together. He made the copy of the first one and without removing the staple started to make the copy of the second one. Now this was obviously not working out. I asked him to separate the documents and try. According to him it was a waste of time but he was coming out with bad copies one after another. I got exasperated, removed the staple and handed him the documents. This hurt his ego which he satisfied by charging me another Re.1 for the wasted staple for which he asked me to get another coin as change.
I got a new passport and since the police verification was not done I decided to go myself to the Police station. Early morning I was at the local station and mentioned that I was there for the verification so that they dont have to worry about it. I was told to wait since the policemen were having breakfast in the room where the relevant file was kept. So I waited and waited and waited. After 30 mins. I decided to check again and got to know that the concerned official had gone for his morning coffee. Can you believe it? I was asked to wait again which ofcourse I didnt.
People, I am not complaining. The point is that we always view our politicians as incompetent, our officials as incompetent, the system as incompetent but didnt somebody mention that a person gets what a person deserves. Somewhere I get the feeling that the "chalta hai" atttitude which we have as a country pervades in everything we do or dont do. Maybe our general lives have been so difficult and jobs are at such a premium we just look at work as the means to get roti, daal and not as something which we can be passionate about. There is this minority who believe work is worship and believe me they are a frustrated lot.

Xchange Anybody?

The other day I saw this interesting ad in the paper "Anything for Anything" offer from one of the leading kitchen appliances' manufacturer. I jumped at seeing it. Now I didnt jump because I saw anything red in the ad but because I found the opportunity to get rid of the junk I called utensils. So immediately I got my big bag out and put the "pressure cooker" which I got handed down to me from three other flatmates centuries ago, a "kadai" benefit another friend who didnt want to see his newly wed wife see what he cooked in, couple of "chai pots" which looked worse than the ones vendors have and a "tava" which was from before when java was discovered and trooped to the shop. Three hours later I came a proud owner of a brand new iodized cooker, non stick "kadai", non stick "tava", non stick oven compliant "chai pot" and a host of wooden ladels and spoons. Wow! didnt even notice the 3000 bucks it had burnt into my credit card - I had overcome the urge to store something.
Well, its not remarkable that I got new utensils but the point I am trying to make is that barter system is back big time these days. It is one of the mechanisms the marketeers have come up with to keep the engine of our economy running.
The fact is that I have this issue with me - I just cant let go. I still have the miniature cars which I collected when I was a kid, still have my old cricket bat, still have all my old books, still have a host of things which I dont even remember about in a host of old boxes. Is there anybody out there who can relate to it? If yes you know exactly what I am talking about.
Thus the exchange schemes have come as a boon for me. I strongly believe some intelligent folks in the Whartons, Harvards, IIMs of the world did a study and realized that if they can get all hoarders like me to get rid of their hoarded junk they can make money and presto exchange schemes were born. Now I want to find out which was the first exchange scheme of the modern times. In the meantime the local gadget store has offered me another offer - give me your 29" CRT TV and take a brand new LCD HD crystal panel - hmmmmm...interesting!

Stability or pipedream?

Yesterday spent the entire Sunday morning being a couch potato watching BJP proclaim that the victory in Karnataka is a significant milestone towards its march to be the largest political party in India. I have no problems with their claim but was wondering what it means for commom man on the street.
A stable government in Karnataka was definitely the need of the hour. The state had seen Bismarckian politics for the past 4 years and that had almost brought it to the edge of collapse. Hopefully with the help of some rebels, independents etc. all those who are "others" BJP will form the government which would last the term but the expectations from this government would be sky high.
I can talk about the infratstructure in Bglore and it is apalling. Let alone the dream to make it the next Shanghai or the next Singapore I believe making it the next Lucknow or the next Surat or the next Bhopal might itself be a big achievement. Connectivity issues need to be addressed immediately - the city has an airport to reach it takes longer than the flight time between Bglore and Chennai or Bglore and Hyderabad, to travel 5 kms one needs to budget in 1 hour during the peak traffic hours, though Metro is supposed to be answer to all the woes it wouldnt be in place for the next 5-6 years, the only city probably in the world where crossroads are planned on top of flyovers - the list goes on. Water woes are going to become chronic due to the climate patterns changing and increasing population. I have been living in a locality where for the past 4 yrs everyday we buy 30-35 tankers of water. Water table is decreasing every month with all plans for renewal of water sources are on paper. Power situation though slightly better than some of the other cities in the country is still critical. Transmission lines are old and lacking maintenance, one strong rain and entire areas slip into darkness for hours on end. Water logging during monsoons, water scarcity during summers, jammed roads all the times, uprooted trees, cut trees - guess all get the picture.
So getting a stable government is not the crux of the matter, I think getting a government which works is more important. I hope BJP can give us this kind of government and not prove a skeptic correct - each and every party has made money. Lets give BJP a chance now to make some of their own. After all they have been asking for it for a long time.