Being Indian – The sudden patriotic wave…

Few days before Independence day or Republic day, many people of this country suddenly become patriotic. They want to show that they care about country and so proud of calling themselves as a citizen of this country. And just after the Independence day or Republic day passes by they get back to your usual business and forget that there is a country called India and they are proud citizens of that country.

This year people have gotten even patriotic as they started keeping Indian Flag on their display pictures in Whatsapp, Viber and other social medias. Before I get into the details lets have three questions

1. Are we paying taxes properly if we are into working category? Making proper uses of scholarship / Benefits if we are in student category?

2. Are we respecting and protecting our women?

3. Do we stand against Injustice or even raise our Voice about the same?

I don’t even want to get into the legalities of using the National Flag as per our interest, without knowing that there are certain rules and respect that needs to be paid to a National Emblem.

Lets first understand one thing, that Being Indian is a state of mind.  You need to be in that around the clock and every day of the year. It doesn’t come and go off like seasons.

We should first do things the right way and not the easy way. It starts from things as simple as standing in queue in a railway reservation counter to buying an Indian product.

I personally made a vow not to eat in foreign food chain restaurants and not to have foreign company made soft drinks and been following it religiously for last 1.5 years. Even in cloths I prefer to buy Indian made brands instead of International brands.

How many of us do that? We see people saying proudly that they are Pizza in one of the major Pizza restaurant chain or had burger in another international food chain. How many of us would have seen the value of the food that we are getting for the money that we are paying for it? Not to mention the soft drinks whose manufacturing cost is less than 2 rupees whereas it is sold at five folds of its profit.

How many of us would do things in government offices the right way? without paying bribes? Those students who claim to be proud of being an Indian, they misuse the scholarships and reservations. We try to make most of the opportunity, when it comes to scholarships and reservation quotas instead of having them passed to the deserving people. We let the best of our country work in private sector serving other countries and have most of the second class and third class good for nothing people working for the government.

Not to mention the people in Government organizations working as though they are Demi-gods. People fail to understand that working in Government means serving the people and society.

Being an Indian means culturally matured and rich, but then that has been degrading fast in the last decade. In the name of development we are losing our identity and getting westernized. Our women whom we see as Goddess and tell that we call our land, tongue as mother tongue and mother land in honoring women. But then do we really respect Women as we say we do? Are we protecting her with all our might?

I remember reading someone someone saying that ” If my education doesn’t serve my society, I will shoot myself”. Are the educated people of this country living such a life? We look up to Che Guvera and Vladimir Lenin but not to Bhaghat Singh or Magakavi Bharathiyaar. What is that we are trying to prove to ourselves or to the world?

Are we raising our voice against Injustice, forget standing up and fighting it to Death. We wouldn’t care to stand up to help a fellow citizen facing injustice. We wouldn’t ask TTR to ask people without reservations to move out of reserved compartments. Somethings as simple as that is causing others to suffer. We wouldn’t ask a person selling more than MRP and tell him that it is against the law. But we will call ourselves that we are proud Indians?

Before calling yourself an Indian, ask yourself what have you done to the country to say you are a part of it. I bet we all wouldn’t have lived a single day without causing something bad to the country. Things can be as simple as throwing a garbage on the road, skipping a traffic signal and so many small small things which we think its OK to do.

We wouldn’t stand up against corruption forget great things we wouldn’t even vote but we will call ourselves Indian. And if people say that, they are doing it because they like doing it. Then the criminals, murderers and rapists too like what they do. We live in a land controlled by law, hence we can’t just do whatever we feel like doing.

If being an Indian means keeping the Indian flag on the display picture, remembering about the country only twice every year, not respecting the rules or working towards a better country and just saying it loud for the sake of saying it loud. Then I prefer to remain Anti Indian

Because I Treated You As Equal, Doesn’t Mean We Both Are At The Same Level…

Just Because I Treated You As Equal, Doesn’t Mean We Both Are At The Same Level…

We come across many people with attitude. Some people have an attitude in a wrong way and some have a wrong attitude all together.

Attitude is a nice and powerful weapon to have in your arsenal but if you don’t know how to use it, you will end up harming yourself.

There are people, who are so full of themselves, they think what they achieved is far greater than everyone else and think they are the Sun to the solar system. I have an attitude, which is far worse than anything you came across but I keep it down most of the times. It’s not because I don’t know how to use that weapon of mass destruction, it’s not because I harm myself trying to use it. It’s because if I use it, the person in front of me wouldn’t be able to handle it.

You think you are so high of yourself, well then think again. What are you?

You are someone took the safest path to success, first time you were heavily backed by finance and the moment you hit a tough road. You ran away, took cover, went underground and forced everyone to help you out of it. Even to put you on the safest path to success you needed help of others?

You buried your history behind and wear a mask, which hides your mess ups. Well given a second chance everyone will succeed. And a second chance a person usually chooses the easiest of the possible roads.

Well if you stayed at your own time and competed with your peers and proven yourself. You can be proud of what you have achieved; you ran a race with people who are younger than you both physically and mentally. Even in that you couldn’t finish first, you were beaten fair and square by youngsters. But you hide that on your cupboard? And still feel proud of what you achieved?

You look down upon someone, claiming them to be dumb and not loyal? You claim yourself to be honest and intelligent? Your scale of intelligence can you proved to negative Maximum, or positive minimum. If you are so intelligent then why did you ran way? You talk about loyalty and honestly, where were these honorable qualities when you were hiding and undercover?

Were you ever been honest to yourself? If you were, then you would have found that you are not even one tenth the man you talk about. Look into your own self, see your own flaws and try to achieve perfection before you think of even pointing fingers at others.

Well had you even thought of anyone else other than your own self, and then you would have known the value of living. You have lived all these years only for you and you alone. You haven’t even shown your real self to anyone else.

You show yourself as what would be acceptable by them, you don’t show them who you are behind your mask. What you project as yourself is not really who you are. You are what you are really, when you don’t have the guts to show your own self to the society, how can you be talking about honesty and all that stuff. First try to be honest to yourself.

Well if you think, what gives me the right to give you all this advice?

I am far better than what you are or what you will ever be?

Lets start a one to one comparison, Lets start from the childhood, you were a spoiled brat from the child, who stuck to ignorance and did what you wanted to do. I was far more spoiled brat than you, but then I listened to people and let them guide me. You want to know, I was far ignorant than you were but I was aware of my ignorance unlike you.

Right from my school days, I knew that I had a tough road ahead and never was afraid of taking a step forward. Even if the whole world declared a war against me I stood with my motto’s and I could tell them out loud too. I competed with people who are physically and mentally ahead of them all the time and I came out with shining colors. What about you?

Have you ever even tried of thinking outside your comfort zone? I wasn’t even given the luxury what you have and I still covered more ground than you isn’t it?

Also remember one thing, I am a certified Genius. I learned the art of understanding, reasoning and logical thinking from the best. And they certified me as one their best students. So I don’t claim who I am just by myself. What about you? You have certifications from geniuses??? Have you ever been called a genius even by mistake?

So tell me what are the scales you want me to be measured on?

Academic? I am damn good and far better than you are. My marks will speak for it. I left my name behind, in the board of honors displayed in my college. I passed out as the topper of my department, unchallenged and unopposed. And I don’t have any broken years in my Academic calendar. And you know what, all those who I studied with and competed with were at least one year elder to me. And that didn’t even give them an edge, that is how good am with my skills.

Co Curricular Excellence? I presented more papers and projects then you would have even imagined and I topped all that. The quality of my papers and projects will talk for itself. And my final year project was a real life solution, which was lauded for its thoughtfulness and future scope. Yours I remember didn’t even work to meets its original stated purpose.

Extra Curricular? I was a part of College Fine Arts Club; my blog will talk about my levels of writing and poetry. I was known for my articulation and communication excellence as well. I can talk about any topic with head start, and you know what I don’t need time to prepare.

Professional life? You are yet to enter it, but when I was passing out of college. I had three multinational offers out of the 5 interviews I had attended. And I had beaten the competition by a huge margin and I had the respect of my interviewers.

Personal life? I had been useful to my family and friends. Even before someone asked for help I was there for them. I have at least a bunch of people who would count me in their list of Top 5 important persons of life? You have at least one? I made my time, skill and energy useful to every possible person around me without calculating what I would be getting in return. Have you made use of any of yours useful for anyone other than yourself?

My logical reasoning and deduction methodologies have been ranked the best by many. There are at least a handful of people who come to me for advice and opinion. What about you? Oh Ya, You need 100 people to put you on track. When you yourself are in need of help all the time, how on earth can you be of any help to others? I can work with lesser data and sometimes even work without even of a hint of data and succeed in meeting the desired outcome. You want to know why? Process and discipline is two sacred things. You on the other hand even with the entire platform set to perform, failed and just pointed fingers at others for your fault and inability.

Everyone has a reason to tell behind their failure. Even a terrorist will have a reason for their action. But is that what we want? To give reasons and point fingers at others, put the blame on others and remain perfect???

I created an Engineer with double my qualities and double my knowledge. Are you even eligible to call yourself an Engineer? At least a dozen of people would call me their role model. Do you even have an idea what are the qualities required to become one?

I was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award, across five batches of Engineers who are skilled and have set high standards for both themselves and others to follow. Not among my batch mates and solely on basis of theoretical records alone.

And also remember, I belong to an era where Engineering was for the skilled. The competition was tough and I didn’t had the luxury of lowered benchmarks or cheap competition like you had.

And I have never compromised my standards or stands for anything. Even if the whole world challenged me to change, I would have stood my ground and I never backed out of anything. I won respect not just from my comrades but also from my enemies. Though they hate me for what I am, they respect me for my skills and abilities.

And whatever I did I could tell it out loud. I never did anything under the dark shade. I never tried to maximize an opportunity or acted with selective amnesia. I never enjoyed a beer in another person’s expense and chose to forget it. I could never even think of even having a tea in another person’s money. What about you? Where are your morals when it comes to money? You park it aside or lock it deep within?

Let me be frank with you, if you want to talk in evolution basis, I am a human being and you are just a single-celled organism. You would need at least a couple of million years to come to my level provided you evolve. If you want to talk in terms of the life journey, mine has crossed many light years and yours put together are still to touch a complete a Planck Length.

Let me put it in simple words for you, whatever is the scale you used to measure. You are a lot less the base unit of any measurement system and I am lot more than the maximum measurable quantity in the same measurement system.

So get a hold of yourself and give yourself a tight slap and just mind your own business. Don’t even dream in your dreams about being better than anyone else. You are not only little less than the base unit of a measurement system but also at the bottom most level of being called a human being too.

The Dashing Diwali Part – Two…

               I know promises are always hard to keep… that too when it is time bound it’s really difficult. I wanted to finish off with this second post but it took more than what I thought this will take. Last post I wrote till I reached home. Nothing much that night or I should say morning as I reached at 2 A.M. Just dozed off and woke up for diwali has bath and was waiting for the whole family to reach home. Then we offered prayers to god and that was the time to wear new dress, I should say I had a surprise. Last two years I didn’t celebrate diwali and this year diwali didn’t want me to celebrate it. The pant which I bought for diwali, had the zip broken so I was unable to wear it. I thought at least I will wear the shirt but to my surprise it was too short. I thought I just wanted a short shirt but all I got was a shirt which was too short. Then I was left celebrating the diwali in old dress only. I had great time with my brothers and sisters. It was a nice family get-together. Then I returned to Erode on Sunday evening. I had to return since I had a get-together with my schoolmates that evening. Myself, Vijayan (SPL), Venkatesh Mani, Subash, Sokkumuthu, Gokula Krishnan and Murugaraj, this was the list of people who was there. Ragavendran missed out as he had to go to Karur.

               We met at Sokkumuthu’s house, and then decided to go to a restaurant. We went to Padmam, one of the good restaurants in the town. It was good look wise and I felt the atmosphere like it was candle light dinner effect. The lighting was dim and was good. Then we went on ordering and chatting about the good old times and the old stories. The lighting had a small impact on food. Venkatesh who mistook salt instead of pepper added more and more and his soup tasted like hot sea water… thanks to the lighting. Then came the climax when we finished our dinner and the bill came. Venkatesh who wanted to pay it by card and the waiter said “No Sir. We don’t accept cards…” Now people looked at me as though I am Nostradamus since I said “Let’s check whether they accept cards” just at the time we were entering the restaurant. Luckily we had some cash left and also the bill was not much we paid and went out to our homes. Then Tuesday I took left and boarded the train in the evening and came back to Bangalore at 8 P.M. It was a nice journey and I had lot of time to spend with friends and people whom I was waiting to see.

 I have also attached the few snaps that we took during the get-together. I feel great for finishing this post… I feel like as though I wrote an epic, every day, every minute and every second was thinking of writing and finishing it off but couldn’t find time to do the same. Finally I have done it… So cheers, hope there are lot more to come like this in my life.

The Dashing Diwali Part – One…

I know I am writing this after so many days. I really wanted to write it on the very day I came back to Bangalore and Even I thought of writing it back in my Lappy and just post it as soon as I come back to my desk on Wednesday 21st of October. But as usual, I am just another lazy guy on this universe so this took me this long. So what’s so special about this diwali, when go back down the memory lane… this is the first diwali for me that I am celebrating after I joined my dream job. Last two years I didn’t go home so no celebrations that’s one important reason but that’s not the only reason I had a get together with my schoolmates though not will all of them but with few guys who were also around the same time and again that’s not just the reason they way I started home for diwali that itself was special. Because I was traveling with Vijayan and Ragavendran, my schoolmates so the journey was guaranteed to have fun.

Let me start it from the beginning, as we already planned we started on 16th October 2009 afternoon. Nagavara was our meeting spot, where we decided to get along. I and Ragavendran have agreed to come along with luggage to office so that we can leave from office directly. Vijayan had to come to Nagavara then we will join and go to Silk board then will board a Salem bus that was the plan. To tell about Vijayan, he is our SPL (School People Leader but actually School Poriki leader fits him most) and Ragavendran was our Budjet padmanaban…. Vijayan reached at the exact time and Ragaven too joined him on time but I was late (As usual J )… then on phone we decided that they will go to Ram Moorthy Nagar signal, where Ragavan will change to slippers from shoes… I had to agree since I had no other choice. Reason one I can get some more time to start from office and the main reason was I cant’ bear the dead rat’s smell or hydrogen sulphide odur from Ragavan’s socks. I started exactly after one hour from my exact time. They were there waiting for me I got many calls from Ragavan. He was sick of waiting for me and was in a verge to leave to silk board but when I spoke to Vijayan he struck a deal with me he said he will wait if I promise him two cigars I liked the deal and agreed to the same.

When I reached Ram Moorthy Nagar Signal where the other two were waiting I had another great laugh after hearing the story. Ragavan had packed his slippers at morning five so he had two different combinations which he kept along in the early morning. So he had to go to his room to find the exact pair of slippers. Then there was a dilemma between us whether to go to silk board or to majestic to catch a bus, we ran towards each bus stop for five minutes and there was another deal which ever has a Volvo we will board it. Ragavan proposed it and I agreed to the same. We found a Volvo coming our way in the outer ring road towards silk board, we boarded the same. Finally we reached silk board around 2.30 P.M. All the buses were crowded like hell so we decided to go to majestic to get a seat for ourselves, without wasting time we ate boiled corn in silk board. Got to the other side of the road, Vijiyan gave an awesome idea… or so he said that we will get into a salem bus and to satellite bus stand then from there to salem again so that we get seats for sure. But the conductors of the buses which came were dumb and they didn’t really appreciate our idea so boarded a ksrtc bus to satellite bus stand. We reached majestic at 4 P.M. My dad called me and asked where I was I said him that am going to Majestic. We started at 12 P.M and even after four hours we were still inside Bangalore. After Majestic there was a diversion route so the bus had to go half the way around Bangalore to reach satellite bus stand. We reached Satellite bus stand at 4.30 P.M. Then we had lunch and boarded a Salem bus at 5 P.M. To my surprise the bus stand was empty and there was no sign of crowd.

The bus started to move and it was crawling I should say, we reached silk board at 7 P.M the place which we left at 3 P.M. Finally when we crossed Bangalore border it was 7.30 P.M. The whole Hosur road was jammed like hell. After 12 hours journey, we finally reached Salem at 12 A.M of 17th October 2009 which was Diwali. We celebrated there together then had to split up. I had to go to Rasipuram and those two had to go to Erode. I boarded a bus at 12.10 A.M which started after one hour and I reached home at 2 A.M. The whole journey we had fun watched movie in my laptop, then had the old stories… the days were before our eyes the day when we planned to burn school, the day when we were caught for copying, the day when our tenth results came without all our numbers on the news papers and many more. We didn’t realize the 12 hours passed just like that. Thanks for the wise cracks by Vijayan and timely help from Ragavan.
Thanks for the wise cracks by Vijayan and timely help from Ragavan. Thanks to you guys for the company and fun. The diwali begun with a dash and it had it through out. Will tell the rest of the story in the next post…

After a long wait… I am going to relax…

I know it has been quite a long gap after which am writing… First and foremost I like to say sorry. I have been occupied by work and was quite busy. Didn’t had time to look into by comments even. I was eagerly waiting for writing in my blog again and also to the long weekend. Today am leaving Bangalore and will be back in the city only on 28th. May be this is the longest span, that I will be out of the city in the past two years.

The whole eleven days ahead from 18th September to 28th September are filled with vacuum and I may not have access to internet, that’s why am writing now. My sincere thanks to Phani Kiran, he was the guy who gave me the idea to blog. Morning while having breakfast I was blabbering that I don’t know how I am going to kill the time till afternoon and he said why don’t you blog that’s why I am writing this post.

I am being called to My Department Symposium as a jury on 18th September, so am looking forward to that. I had gone through the abstracts and am ready with the questions for the session. I did my home work, but I know it will be a hard time for those people who are presenting their papers in their session.

This symposium is a special thing for me, because three years back on the day of the symposium only I had my Tata Elxsi Interview. I guess I am called for the thing which I missed three years back. That time I was a Student now a Jury but nothing changes that. Even in those days I was the guy who popped up lot of questions, now this time I am officially invited for doing same which I was doing in the past. Other things are unplanned as of now hope I have interesting and relaxing weekend ahead.

The Great Outing to Aasanur

I went for an outing to Aasanur,which is in Sathyamangalam – Mysore Highway with my friends last weekend on 04th and 5th July. The trip was organized by my friend Ashik, there were totally ten people. We left Erode around 7 PM and reached Aasanur around 11 PM. We got a bus from Erode to Sathyamangalam. We reached Satyamangalam around 9 PM. There was no bus to Mysore there at that point of time so we decided to wait for some more time. After some 15 mins a KSRTC bus, but the conductor asked us not to board the bus as though there are thousand people waiting to get into the bus and travel till Mysore.

We boarded the bus and took tickets neither Ashik nor the Conductor knew the stop. It was a nice journey there were some 27 hair pin bends and it was exciting since it was a night journey through the mountain. Finally I went and asked the Driver about the stop and he said the bus will stop there in Aasanur for dinner. Thanks to my Kannada knowledge. Without which it would have been a little difficult. We got down at Aasanur check post around 10.50 PM. Ashik had already arranged accommodation so we went straight to our house. We settled down had dinner and watched Evil Dead – Part One and doze off.

Next day morning we all got ready by 6 AM and the person who is our guide also came at 6 O’clock itself to take us inside forest. Our guide’s name was CAPTAIN. He was an elderly man in his 50’s I believe. He took us through the road then we started climbing the mountain. He was fast moving in the mountains and we guys were tired, just in five minutes of time. We took some rest then started climbing again. I should say the climate was damn good. Aasanur is a part of the Western Ghats, it was cloudy throughout the day and there was little drizzling too. Captain said there are Elephants, Leopards, Porcupines and Wild Boars in this forest. We saw some porcupine thorns and Ashik took them with him. We roamed around in that forest area for sometime then decided to get down from the mountain and have breakfast.

We moved down the hill this time we took the road. We walked into a hotel down the hill in the village. We had good breakfast the food was good and cheap at the same time. Then we went back into the room around 11 O’clock. We decided to have bath, pack things and leave Aasanur by 2 O’clock so that we can all return to Erode around 5 O’clock. We watched the remaining two parts of Evil Dead and took bath. As planned we left Aasanur around 2.15 PM. This time we were all at the bus steps, hanging around and enjoyed the whole 27 hair pin bends. It was really entertaining and at the same time was dangerous as the curves were really sharp. We reached Sathyamangalam around 3 O’clock had lunch then got a bus to Erode. We reached Erode around 5.15 PM. That was an amazing trip. Thanks to Ashik, who organized such a lovely trip, I should say we all thought that it won’t be such a nice place but he proved we are all wrong.

That’s our Gang with our Guide Captain. [From Left
Front Row: Siva Subramani, Kisore(Kishori), Abdulla and Muhseen
Middle row: Baskar, Captain (Our Guide), Myself and Siva Kumar
Last row: Yuvraj and Hari Gowri Shankar]

That’s our Gang with our Guide Captain. [From Left
Front Row: Kisore(Kishori) and Ashik (Tour Organiser)
Middle row: Captain (Our Guide), Baskar, Abdulla, Myself, Siva Kumar and Muhseen
Last row: Yuvraj and Hari Gowri Shankar]

The Rail Journey

I was coming back to Bangalore from my native Erode on 23rd February 2009, in Intercity Express. That’s after a four day vacation, it was my usual routine but this time the journey was bit special. There were around some seven to eight kids in my compartment and it was their games and childish things which attracted everyone.

I almost slept after getting into the train till Salem. Then I realized there were kids running here and there, and woke up to see their activities. Mine was the window seat and I was enjoying the nature outside and kids inside. They were so adorable and cute. There were lot of cries and smiles, but it was all attractive. The whole compartment was eying these kids and no one really knew how much of time passed. When the train reached Bangalore everyone wondered why the journey ended so soon.

Most unforgettable journey.

I was traveling to Erode my native (Turmeric city), I guess some two weeks back. The week before I had been there to Majestic to send off a few friends who were here for vacation and there were buses to Tamil Nadu there in majestic itself. so keeping that in mind I left late to majestic say around 9.30 PM. I could have easily gone by a train but thought of going by bus as the night journey may be comfortable and I will get chance to watch movies. To my surprise there were no Tamil Nadu buses in majestic and they were changed to Satellite bus stand. Stunning I felt and decided to catch a bus to Satellite bus stand and found one bus where people where hanging outside the bus with a luggage in hand I cant just hang outside a bus and was feeling sleepy too. Then was in search of Hosur bus so that I can get a bus from hosur. I was lucky,I should say. I got a bus to hosur immediately and got a seat too. Slept for sometime…. I reached hosur around eleven O clock and just to my surprise the whole bus stand was empty… Good heavens I was like standing in a deserted place with few hundreds of passengers felling lost…. then waited there for an hour and got a Dharmapuri bus reached Dharmapuri @ 3 O clock and the same story there too waited there for another one hour and then got a salem bus and then when I reached Salem I was relieved since I get frequent buses to Erode from there and got one such and reached home…. Finally the Journey was a lengthy one with Intervals of One hour in between. This nonsense was because Stalin was having a meeting in Krishnagiri and all Tamil Nadu government buses were sent there curse Stalin and the Government. These people never think of people… Those who were in an urgency to reach native or whatever these people never really care about these things…. I decided no more bus journeys and its only train…..