not just a four letter word!

Ever since we were at the doors of adolescence we've kept falling in love.For some it started early with the class teacher,for a few others with the one pretty girl in the class and this would continue till almost half of our lives or to a few hours before we'd die.While some would have the cheek to express, others chicken out, but what stays consistent is that fact that our heart never gives in on this.No matter how much a person takes refuge in the I-will-never-fall-in-love-again rhetoric, he does fall for another girl.

Almost everyone under the sun would have written or said something about this 'love' concept and would have his/her own ideology regarding the same;people have written reams on this, painted miles,done a zillion things you would not even dream of.So,I would not want to go into the details of it.Rather what amazes me is the way it grows and how people adopt to its ways.

As kids or teenagers we were into heavy mush and cheese,flowers,chocolates and excitement over Valentines Day;dream dates,surprise gifts,stolen kisses,slurpy smses,long drives and lengthy phone calls.Our take on love was a mighty shift from what it might be now.We lived on expectations then,loads of it.Waiting post college,giving a call as soon as you are free,spending the weekends together,preferring your partner over your friends,come what may!

As time passes by we look for maturity in thoughts and relationships,look out for partners who might understand that even though you do not give that person a call or return it within that stipulated time-frame you love that person.Even though you could not take your partner out on a weekend because you had a prior appointment with your colleagues;even if you went out for a party without your partner for once;even if you do not think the way she does or do not have a similar take on things and life as that person,you can still be in love.

In this hustle we usually tend to ignore how big life is and that before you met him/her you grew up in a different society,sometimes different culture as well;friends were different and so were the people around.So the way you think or act or even react to anything might not comply with what your partner has on mind or as she would ideally do.Your partner's take on a few things might be poles apart from yours.But that does not imply that you would not or need not be together.What you are is what makes You and that is and will be your identity,so changing yourself to adopt,so much so that you lose yourself would be uncalled for.

So,I believe that loving your partner is not just about snuggling up while watching a supremely romantic flick or kissing them good night every night or not even just going out for those romantic dinners,it is also about having these,for a few of these are quintessential to telling that special someone how important she is,but not having just these alone.It is more about space and understanding.Understanding the dynamics of beautiful symbiotic romance and still loving the other person like crazy.But everyone to his/her own,please!

Celebrations

As we grow older cynicism tends to rhyme with philosophy and sometimes seems synonymous as well.There is no denying the fact that I'm no longer a teenager and hate to be called as one for the gyan bank I have developed all these years is through my experience and learnings and this is what adds the maturity angle to my thoughts and makes it all the more concupiscible. May be this is precisely why I fail at comprehending certain personality and character traits.Flaunting your principles seems to be the modern society's inexorable imperative.Having a set of byzantine ideals is one thing and tweaking them one at a time as you fancy is another.

As days progress we tend to get more and more shallow at heart..What seemed wrong a decade ago seems plausible now and worse yet,is termed as thrilling/adventurous.If you had noticed this major phase shift from the past you could as well wonder why we tend to stick to a few things just because we had been doing this for the past many years.Blindly trusting and following is one thing and not questioning or feeling for it is another.

Come 26th January,we all get decked up to 'celebrate' our Republic Day.Schools start practicing march past and an entire line up of drills and cultural programs; corporate offices call in for an ethnic wear day and some people visit various orphanages and donate stuff to the underprivileged.I wonder how many of us look at it as the day India was declared as a Republic rather than one extra holiday.Some crib about it being a dry-day.But how many of us know the true meaning of a Sovereign Republic.

It is not just the 'celebration' of our national holidays but applies to adapted 'days' like Mother's Day or Father's Day or the ever famous Valentine's Day.

How did this come into being?We don't care.

Why do we celebrate this?No idea.

How do you want to celebrate this?Just like everyone else does

Primarily we showcase a generation of youngsters who do things just for the heck of it.Leave the festivals which have a heavy nationalist sentiment attached to them,even those like Valentines Day,which attracts so much of attention,gung ho and protests tends to lose its significance and is limited to exchanging cards,gifts and flowers or worse yet,going on a proposing spree.Holi,our improvisation is using of water filled balloons and eggs.Ever paused to think,it is a puja?Deepavali,we see only the loud crackers.Ever wondered why your mother takes so much time for the puja and insists on cleaning the house,decorating it and lights those lamps(diyas).

It is not a crime to not know the history behind anything but not even trying to understand the spirit behind it,definitely is.Everything we celebrate got to have a soul to it.So this Republic Day atleast wake up in time for the flag hoisting and spend some time watching the effort our defense and school children put in to showcase our nation to the world.Before you switch that telecast to the next music channel,pause and appreciate what we are and celebrate being part of something; let us start with the nation.

Cliché Nazis

We are a bunch of cliche nazis! We love to see people from our own perspective, from our own looking glass, filter them through our sieve and if someone does not comply, we brand them 'not good' or worse yet 'sick'. What a few people would never understand or do not want to understand would be the fact that a person is defined by the society he grew up in and the friends he keeps.Even pretty mundane things like what or how you would judge right from wrong or otherwise. This situational and circumstantial prudence could be regarding anything or everything.It is how you see things and people around.

I understand that overt forms of bigotry are strictly proscribed fortified by culture and ensconced in the conscious but if you are ruling a person out or looking down at way he looks at things or understands his world or choose to vilify that individual for this reason,then please understand that this act of yours is insanely foolish.

Exempli Gratia, most of the people in and around the southern part of India would believe that you have no ambition in your life if you are not doing your Engineering or got done with it and are not planning to do your masters in Management.You are a person of flexible morals and gullible principles if you had been into more than one relationship in your past;for them you have,if you do, to have been into only one relationship in your past and should get married to that person else in all probability you would be looked down at as a person who fools around and philanders or as they would put it,'no one might take you seriously'.I am yet to figure out why people around would not take you seriously because of what you were to or with some person or some other person was to you,sometime in your past.Life is big,it's bigger than anyone of us,sometimes things happen,and you have no say in that,most of the times.What happened or how you reacted to certain things or how you perceive your environment now depends on an equation that has a heavy weighted variable for uncertainty.

For the Love of God!

Well after a break of what felt like ages, am back to blogging. It feels great to realize that you are alive and blogging. This is not just a block-breaker but something that has been doing rounds in my brain for years now.

I was never sure of my spiritual inclinations, neither am I now. Being in such a position could be pretty dicey, esp. when you are from a place where people kill and get killed for the love of God, well, not exactly God but their own renditions and names of him. Being a Hindu by birth, I was exposed to a million and half gods by the time I had reached my early teens, let alone the number of daemons and the negative forces that could possibly harm you.
Children world over are taught to get up in the mornings, remember the name of God, almighty as many times in a day as possible and pray before you go back to bed. Sounds pretty harmless but what we are actually doing is forcefully insinuating our thoughts and ideas into their heads. Worse yet, we teach the philosophy of God in schools. This has become so inherent of our cultures that we seldom see anyone question anything. Any person who dare raise his voice against this is termed an infidel and the idea or proposal is rubbished as blasphemy. No matter how forward we go or however civilized we say we are, we never were or are open to a debate on this. For us this has always been something that has to be blindly believed in and worshipped.
These remind me of an episode from Boston Legal where Alan Shore asks Denny Crane, "Denny, why do you believe in God". To which Denny replies, "If there is no God, then am safe, for we lose nothing by believing in Him. But if God happens to exist then we are all screwed!" Our stand on this is no different; just that most of us would never say such a thing, even though deep down somewhere inside many of the believers would choose to worship and be safe.
By now you would have started frowning at my post, but believe me; I have nothing against any of the existing religions and absolutely nothing against God. But, I believe that believing in some unnamed super power above and choosing to worship that should be a personal choice and not rubbed upon people, unlike what we do today. Instead what we can do is give children a holistic view of things and leave the choice to them, just like you would do for a career option.
I personally have nothing against the 'God created the universe’,’ offer him some form of sacrifice'[intangible, that is],'pray daily' concepts. Do those if you feel you reach some psychological or spiritual high ground by doing so, but again having said that I can never understand why kilos of ghee, milk, musk and honey are poured on an idol while millions go starving? I can never understand why you would shoo off a person begging for alms but drop a gold chain in the hundi or get a 3Cr rupees crown made for an idol. I better not discuss why you would kill or beat a person up for not worshipping 'your' GOD!
You needn’t visit some distant temple or go far off places or flog yourself or trek mountains to find God. Do that only if it is your way of worship not because others do so. But first love the person beside you, you would find God.

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?