Searching Life!

How important can it be to score grades in exams or to have a huge bank balance or number of visa stampings on your passport?Do these numbers count?Yeah they do and to what extent!Let us ignore the more mundane things like college admissions and price tag on the groom for a while,for these would be the most obvious benefits(I'd say implications) of it all.
We talk about the huge percentage of Indians being in NASA or surgeons in the US on one hand and at the same time can't ignore the fact that almost 30% of the nation is below the poverty line,deprived of basic amenities,education included.Only 61% of Indians are 'literate' and things look pretty planned up for a good percentage of these people.
So what do these lucky few do?Slog out for their percentages in the board examinations,choose a stream,which more often then not happens to be Engineering and most of these people choose an Electronics or a Computer Science all to do what?Take up a 'Software' job.Run after their managers for a good rating or a decent appraisal or a much sought after 'onsite' opportunity,which for dummies,is a company paid trip abroad.While there are many who have their feet on the ground there are still many who believe that they contribute to almost half of India's GDP.Pretty harmless so far, but things turn insipid when the former category of extremely 'successful' individuals starts believing that those who did not go cookie pushing in the last couple of years have nothing 'planned up'.
How many of these planned up souls dare say that they are doing what they have always wanted to.Don't tell me that you had always wanted to be one 'software engineer' , kowtowing to anyone who gives you a good deal or that you had always wanted to be that manager who doesn't have the liberty to take a day off for his family/friends or anyone else who can't think or act on his/her own or doesn't have the liberty to do so.Get a life guys! If you can't, then atleast let the people who live life on their own terms do so and not taunt them based on what you think is correct, judging these few sane souls on your own parameters.
I wonder sometimes if ever there were scores for say environmental awareness or a person's etiquette quotient or the frequently quoted but often misunderstood societal awareness.How much would these successful people score.If they would score less would they be looked down on,gibed at and be virtually vilified. Can't picture it,right? Because it might never even happen.
Stats?I have none.
Surveys to back it up?Nay.

Then how can you be sure of such a thing?
Why do we get so judgmental when it comes to numbers,scores in exams,ranks,points at workplace? 'Conceit',I feel, should be at the top on the Cardinal Sins classification.We Human Beings have got used to being so full of ourselves that somewhere down within we have forgotten the feeling of how it is Being Human!

Not Just Skin Deep!

One thing pretty consistent of we Indians is the White skin fetish. Fair girls are often called pretty, where as the darker ones are often ignored, to an extent that they find it difficult to get a match for wedding, many of my friends don't want a dark girl as a girlfriend, the blight doesn't end there. It's appalling to note that we need to import models for our advertisements and worse yet movies. While we in India have blends of every possible shade. What we ignore is the fact that it is not just an ad film it is we the people who are wrong and it's our perception which is prejudiced. Here in India fair means beautiful, when elderly ladies comment ladki doodh si gori hai ,that means that she's beautiful according to them. To them it hardly matters if another darker complexioned girl looks prettier than her doodh si gori.Even the matrimonial ads hunt for tall, ’fair’ and slim girl of blah-blah caste, Doesn’t matter even if the prospective groom is dark, stout and balding.

While world over tanned skin is considered aesthetic, here in India everyone from your mother to relatives to friends to even neighbors would be at your back and ready to comment on your skin and would be ready as ever to offer their two cents on how to get fair. The 'remedial' measures include home treatments and exotic creams and everything that had ever brought a fair patch on the skin of some lone inhabitant of a distant planet in some galaxy no one had yet ever heard of.

What is it with fairness that makes it a national obsession(read aspiration)?It is more of a neurosis now with color. The total size of the grooming products market in India was estimated to be worth Rs. 8.0 billion in 2007 and the total fairness cream market alone is worth around Rs 820Cr. Another interesting stat that I stumbled upon was that when Kolkata-based Emami Limited, had launched India’s first-ever fairness cream for men it had launched that exclusively in Andhra Pradesh and according to a report the male users account for 26 per cent of the state’s total fairness cream market worth Rs 80Cr. What's the truth? Can fairness creams, soaps and talc turn Black Beauties into Snowhites? Expert verdict is a clear no. The reality is not so cut and dry. Even though there is no scientific backing of the claims made by manufacturers, sales of fairness products continue to gallop.

Irony is that we Indians complain that others are racist while we are hardcore racists at heart and this segregation based on complexion is nothing but profiling.The ‘fairnesss’ products are doing no good to the cause either, no wonder India is one of the largest markets for these ‘fairness’ products that claim to make you upto a couple of tones fairer. Films demand a foreign looking Indian actress or an Indian looking foreign actress as one lady head of a top media group sighed on the award winning episode of We the People on NDTV. Some even suggested that the word ‘fairness’ be banned. But if we look at things we would understand that the folklore is deeper than the ads. Even the gods supposedly lament their dark complexion - Krishna sings plaintively, "Radha kyoon gori, main kyoon kala? (Why is Radha so fair when I'm dark?)" . Sociologically we prefer fairer skin. Media is just a mirror of the society. No offence meant to anybody,but the first thing that most north Indians exclaim when then fly down south is the dark complexion,not that south Indians per se don’t look good or that the north Indians do, but it is the skin complexion that features top on the eye scan list. We only see what we want to see. We might never change, but we can atleast dream of a society which is less foolishly vain and targets to go up a couple of tones on things other than the fairness-scale.

Bandh and Associated Telangana Fiasco

Bandh,an institution created by the Egyptians and immortalised by all sundry political parties in India,is an indispensable tool in the hands of a few goons who hold a complete state to ransom.The left calls it the fundamental right of every working class individual,but what about the rights of the aam aadmi.Why is it that this most important part of our democratic fabric feels neglected?
What about the rights of the daily wage laborer,who knows that there will be no food for his family on the day he returns empty handed or the shopkeeper whose shop got wrecked down by a bunch of hooligans.Or the patient,who has to reach the hospital in time or even the student who has to miss his day at the college or the employee who slogs day-in and day-out and contributes a considerable amount to the revenue of the state and not to forget pays up his taxes in time.Do they not have any rights?Why should the individual suffer?
What is ironical is the fact that most of these bat-wielding slogan-shouting ninnies have no clue what the bandh or hartal is about.The recent bandh called in by the Telangana Rastriya Samiti(TRS) to demand a separate state for Telangana,was no exception.Most of the people supporting this have no clue about the implications it might have,let alone the party chief KCR,who formed this party after some dispute with another party,of which he was a member,and had no serious Telangana sentiments as such.
The supporters believe that Telangana(a region in Andhra Pradesh,India) has always been neglected and a separate state would ensure an amelioration of the conditions,which is foolishly myopic.
Some of the major disadvantages for a small state(some of these are part of a discussion on the same topic at office bulletin board,don't remember the names) include,

Limited power for small states: Under the existing dispensation, the so-called States are toothless for all practical purposes with no powers to sanction either a small industrial or irrigation project. They cannot even rename a place without the central government’s approval. All minerals and underground resources squarely belong to the Centre. States cannot grant permission even to start a newspaper or journal. No resolution passed by a State becomes an Act without the President’s seal of approbation. All avenues of revenue were monopolized by the Centre long ago, leaving the States to fall back upon sales tax, octroi and registration fees only. Almost all subjects in the States’ list were gradually transferred to Concurrent list, thus enabling the Centre to poke a finger in all internal affairs of the States. Given this ground situation, what additional progress can one expect from the new (small) States, without fighting for true federalism in our constitutional framework ?

No real development for small states: Secondly, did all small States progress ? If they did, what could be the reason ? Orissa, a small State of approx. 1,55,000 sq.k.m. (half the size of Maharashtra), was formed way back in 1936 and is still rated as a backward State. Centrally sponsored irrigation projects and inflows of foreign exchange as also their proximity to the national capital. From a global perspective too, not all small countries can be credited with progress. Well in our neighborhood, we have under-developed small countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
Resources utilized for administrative machinery and not for development: New laws and systems are to be devised on a continuous basis. Thus, small States too are constrained to keep as many as departments as big ones. Can they financially afford it ? What surplus funds are they left with for development, if revenues are exhausted on the administrative machinery itself ? Uttaranchal State is a case in point whose revenue receipts are well below Rs.350 crores, but whose annual expenditure exceeds Rs.1,500 crores. It is for this reason that it was recently accorded status of the Special category State, which means more grants and fewer loans. The plight of Chhattisgarh is no different too. Thus the concept of small States subjects the States to incremental dependence on the Centre and leads to regional jealousies, charges of favoritism and ultimate loss of faith in national integration.

Possibility of more disputes with no real resolution: The inter-State boundary and river water disputes between a number of States are still unresolved with many of them remaining perpetually sub-judice. For Instance, Karnataka alone has been in conflict with a couple of States over disputed territories (Kasargode and Belgaum) and with another couple of States on water-sharing (the Krishna and Cauvery). The disputes are so emotive that they turned not only governments against governments, but also the people of one State against those of another and sporadic trading of violence is not uncommon. Given this record, more States means more disputes which will ultimately threaten to erode the very spirit of Indian nationalism.

Impetus to secessionist movements: This dangerous doctrine of small States gives a fillip to the secessionist outfits like the LTTE, ULFA. JKLF, and Khalistanis who might find in it a cloaked and implicit endorsement of their balkanization programme. “If small States are OK, why not small countries ?”they might ask. We have no answer.

Problems of determining optimum smallness: The parameters to determine the ‘optimum smallness’ are vague. We can reorganize India into 88 Keralas, or 120 Nagalands or 250 Sikkims. This number could be endless. They will serve no loftier purpose than solving the political unemployment of a few. The argument that big States have grown unwieldy by virtue of their vastness and population is untenable and anachronistic for the simple fact that we live in the age of internet, video-conferences, cell phones, express haighways, jet planes and superfast railways. Will these ‘small advocates’ agree to divide Andhra Pradesh into 2 more free and independent states because her population tripled since independence ?
So,do we still need a separate state?Do we go about splitting India based on the interests of particular groups.Does it end anywhere?

'CAT'astrophic Opening!

Come November and we can see an agog feverish anticipation in the eyes of the students all over India for something they call CAT(Common Admission Test).The discussion forums,newspapers,television news channels and even the music channels do their bit, lest we forget.Lakhs of students in India hinge their future on this one exam,locking themselves up in their homes, neglecting their regular college exams, writing mock examinations; working professionals pray that nothing important comes up during these two months and some even apply for a long leave.
So,why is CAT such an important exam in India?

We Indians have an age old habit of overdoing things.Deifying people and exam toppers is just another facet of it.As soon as a child is born most of the middle class parents would want him to become a doctor or an engineer, and if he has to become an engineer he has to graduate from nothing less than an IIT.So, they start insinuating this prejudice into their minds that all other colleges are mere buildings.During his undergraduate days this kid is told that a technical degree alone is not sufficient to make dough,you need to have a post graduation degree in management as well and from an institute no less than an an IIM,India's premier business school.Lucky if he makes it on the first count,but just in case he is not successful,which is usually the case with millions across the country,he is made to believe that those who make it to these top institutes are first rate citizens and others are mere ordinary individuals.And so every year they put their heart and soul to prepare for this One exam,CAT.
Among the people who apply, there are some serious aspirants as well,who have a set plan in mind and look at MBA not just as a mere money making educational qualification but as an extension to to their profile.But,the percentage of such people is pretty low.The majority doesn't even know why it wants to do an MBA.
Early this year the Indian Institutes of Management made an announcement that from this year onwards the entrance exam is going to be computer based giving rise to a series of debates,discussions,speculations and arguments.And Prometric,was given the job of conducting this.For starters,Prometric,an American company,is one of the leading providers of computer based testing and assessment tools,which also includes exams like GMAT,GRE and Microsoft Certification exams,to name a few.So, the possibility of a goof up was 'expected' to be pretty low.Prometric also did its part in ensuring that there are no surprises for the students on the day of the exam by releasing videos and sending frequent mailers to the applicants.
But,Murphy had the last laugh.The exams opened to a catastrophic start,various technical issues arose, including the computers failing to boot, biometric devices not responding to some as severe as servers crashing at some centres,preventing approximately 2000 exams from being delivered across 50 labs.The authorities though continued to downplay the total incident attributing it to some silly reasons.
I got some pretty interesting responses on my Facebook page on this issue.Praveen felt that the management people needed a refresher course in technology,he also observed that such a fiasco could have been avoided had they taken care of some basic practices or even run it in a beta phase and had tested on a select group of people.Bharath, an ex-IIM graduate, on the other hand felt these were just some teething errors.

Some of the more serious questions remain unanswered though,couldn't something as simple as hardware to software incompatibility be avoided?Couldn't the invigilators at the test venues be given a small briefing on how to handle what or troubleshoot?Shouldn't they have been prepared for something as obvious and as imminent as a server crash or slow delink?These things are taken care of even at a scale as small as college technical fest, this was still CAT,one of the biggest exams in India.
Whatever the reason,one of the toughest and most anticipated management entrance exams painted a very sorry and not so perfect image of the current state of affairs in India; with two of the best in their league(IIMs and Prometric) coming together and yet failing to deliver when everyone was watching,when it was required and when they definitely had to.

Kurbaan:Dissection

One of the most awaited movies of the season,not just because of the lead couple or the banner producing this or the print promotion or the humungous scale of publicity with Saifeena on almost every television channel you switch to but also because it makes an attempt to touch upon the lesser discussed subject of Islam and terrorism.
The story starts off really well without wasting much time on the courtship of Ehsaan (Saif) and Avantika (Kareena) , professors at a college in Delhi.After convincing the girl's father Ehsaan and his girl move to the United States.Avantika was teaching in the US prior to her stint in India and had to return to her college,Ehsaan also follows her in the hope of finding a new job there.After some house hunting they finally move to an Indian suburb.It is there that Avantika discovers to her horror that her husband Ehsaan is part of an Islamic terrorist sleeper cell.She gets the help of a journalist Riyaz(Vivek) whose girlfriend Rihanna(Dia) is killed in a flight accident,by a suicide bombing attack,which was apparently planned by Ehsaan's group.Riyaz,with an aim to investigate this situation himself,infiltrates into this group and tips off the FBI on the day when they were planning to bomb all the major subways.

The Let Downs:
A major let down of the movie would be the amateurish way in which this subject is handled,showing fundamentalist terrorist sleeper cells as nothing more than the real life versions of kids' spy games.Especially the scenes in which Ehsaan invites Riyaz for dinner and there Bhaijaan(Om Puri) throws a spot offer to come and join their team,believing in whatever story Riyaz cooks up,without even bothering to run a background check on him, makes you laugh at how ignorant the director is about the way these people operate.You don't need to be a secret agent to know all these,switch to any news channel and they'd tell you better.Not just this but the whole planning and execution of terrorist attack scenes were ineptly shot.
The love scenes between Avantika and Ehsaan were aesthetically dealt with but the director could not resist treading the clichéd bollywood path wherein one of the characters is seduced to get important leads and information.
Or scenes where the audience is told that the FBI has clear pictures of Ehsaan yet he roams free on the streets on NY and worse yet teaches Islamic influence on the west at a university.
FBI is shown as nothing more than a weak police department who still rely on the age old method of spot and shoot to catch dreaded terrorists; or goes by the information some caller gives them over phone,without identifying himself.The FBI was portrayed as nothing more than how Indian police was shown in old bollywood flicks.The person who played the cop would do good in a b-grade Indian movie.Per se all these scenes made a mockery of the anti terrorist cells world over.
The movie could have also avoided the blood and gore,especially in the scene in which Avantika had to pull out a bullet and stitch Ehsaan's famous bullet wound.

The Highs:
The movie had its moments.Both Kareena, and Saif pulled it off really well.We have seen Saif grow as an actor and he plays the role of a cold Islamic fundamentalist who falls in love with a girl whom he just wants to use as a tool,extremely well.
The classroom discussion between Riyaz and other students over the image that the west has of Islam and the few dialogues between Kulbhushan Karbanda's character and Riyaz over the Iraq issue or even the dialogues between Aapa(Kirron Kher) and Avantika were well written and extremely thought provoking.
Kareena looked her gorgeous self and has orchestrated the role of a woman torn between love and betrayal brilliantly.
Even the steamy scenes between Kareena and Saif, that have been blown out of proportion and demurred by some fringe group, have nothing to cringe about,they have been done pretty beautifully.
But it is the weak characterization,incoherent storyline and poor direction that are the real terrorists in Kurbaan and start to painfully pall the audience towards the end and also make movies like New York seem like Sholay.
Nonetheless it was a decent attempt at projecting the voice of Islam and moderate fundamentalism in a religion and taking a neutral stance.
I would give it a 2/5

"Happy Weekend!" ;"Oh What? Come again!"

Say the magic word "Weekend!" and it immediately conjures up images of late night parties,shopping,movies,lazy mornings,long drives,getways and all sorts of pleasant things in your head.But having said that, I still don't get what is up with the 'Happy Weekend' syndrome,esp. the techies seem to be the major victims of this blight!

Come Friday and your office bulletin board is all full with 'Bon Weekend' and 'Happy Weekend' messages,not sure how many of them actually mean this. Incidentally, Friday also happens to be the day when the whole office campus dons a festive look,people taking out the best dresses from their wardrobes,the campus is all vibrant and psychedelic giving you the vibes of an imminent festival.You can actually smell a pervasive bonhomie in the environment around.

You finish your work early,skip your gym that day,shut your workstation down,scream a ''Happy Weekend,have fun!'' to every single living entity you come across, grab your bag and rush out of the office campus,flashing your thirty two as if it were your last day at work.Even your boss and other 'serious' colleagues ignore this connivance of yours.
So,your are out of office,better yet you are home,with nothing important to do you log on to your FB/GTalk/Orkut/Wave and post a weekend-is-here-ish message(with god-knows-how-many smilies)!
You go for a movie.Party as if it was your raison d'etre.Get up late,just in time for a late lunch and an early evening snack,it is then that your friend calls you up.So, you get ready and meet her/him at the mall,squander half of your salary buying stuff which even the shopkeeper had given up on.
Now,with Saturday gone and Sunday poisoned, you are down with a widespread weltzmertz; whiling your way through the last few hours of what was your weekend,doing not-previously-on-my-list menial yet inevitable tasks such as laundry.
And before you could say "Weekend!",your weekend just vanished into thin air and before late you would give a serious wtfy look to anyone you jumps around with a puerile 'weekend' excitement.

Confusion Rules Large!

How often in ur life are you faced with a situation where you notice that the roads ahead are winding at an unconscionable pace,when everything you see looks like one giant jigsaw puzzle and you have no clue on how to get across.Not because your hands are tied,not because you have to contrive something out of ordinary to come around it but because you just don't feel like it.The situation in itself is not insoluble as such,but sitting idle and whigning over things doesn't make it any better either.Every single entity around you importunes you to act but nothing can shake you out of this comatose sleep.You choose to be blind,choose to protract things to suicidal limits.Why?You don't have an answer for that!