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.

India Against Corruption – Human Chain …

Well lets just call this the beginning of a new revolution, the techies finally decided to show their support for the ongoing fight against corruption and there was a human chain planned to show that even the techies care about the country. The total length of the human chain was 17 km and it was planned throughout the outer ring road.

All those people who buys only Tommy Hilfiger, Peter England and other costly branded international brands and eat only @ Mc-Donald’s, KFC and Pizza hut so on. were finally out on roads showing their Patriotism 😀 and supporting the fight against corruption, rather than sitting at office, in air cooled cubicles and brag about how messy the system is and why it is a waste trying to change anything in this country.

Thanks to, at-least those people who came out and stood in scorching sun and showed their support. And a special thanks to all those techies, who provided their support indirectly [ who though didn’t stand in the human chain and showed their support were out in the roads and watching those people who were supporting from a genuine distance].

A special thanks to my Captain, who got the national flag [but without the stick], thanks to Priyank for helping me scoop stick from the office parking lot. I finally had a feel of what Tiruppur Kumaran, would have felt. Holding the tricolor flag in hand and shouting “Bharat Mata ki Jai“, “Vande Mataram “, “Inqhilab Zindabad” and “Down Down Corruption“, is something which I had never felt before in life., especially when there is quite some people [I don’t know if I can call that a crowd] following you.

But as it always happens, everyone was their own masters some people where marching around and there were many rallying on bikes and out of no nowhere one patriotic person comes and says “Have you all sung National Anthem ?, if not please stand in a line and sing it”, Boss there is a proverb which says “Curiosity killed the cat”. You should not get carried away with the feel and mislead others. National Anthem is not something which you sing on roads, Don’t disrespect it nor provide an opportunity to others to disrespect the same. I was glad that I was able to sound against the same, thanks again to Captain who again started this off, I just followed her.

Well the only thing which I thought I missed out was, I wanted to go for a ride around the ITPL locality and see how many people gathered but I couldn’t as We were there almost till the end and by the time We started, everyone were also walking back.

Some of the new slogans were also formed on the fly, Courtesy the unknown fellow who made such a revolutionary slogan..

“The Government is Rude… Anna is our Dude…”

This sure is turning into a bigger revolution and Government is slowly getting cornered and I believe they wont have any other option other than passing the Jan Lok Pal.

Day by Day, I feel more and more privileged living in this era of change… Feel the change, be a part of this great movement…

Freedom Park – India Against Corruption…

Anna Hazare has been the new found leader for this new era. Well I am not a Anna Hazare follower or someone who believes in Gandhian principles or to say frankly I don’t even believe in Gandhi. But something that Anna Fights for has attracted lot of people towards him. I went to Freedom Park today to show my support, not for an individual man but for the greater cause he has been fighting for. I was there to show in freedom park for two reasons
1. I love this country and want to make the same better in the years to come.
2. To show that I am one among the others who are fighting against corruption.

It was more ecstatic then how you feel when you watch Rang De Basanthi or Chak De India or When India wins the Would Cup. There were college Students huge in number and they were flowing in like bees returning back to the hive. Mount Carmel College, St Joseph and many more college students were there and it was nice to see them addressing the crowd and singing all patriotic songs that you can think off.

These Chak De India and Vande Mataram Songs when you hear on Tv or your Ipod you feel the shivers through your spines. But when you sing with a group and clap you feel that you are into a great thing. Rather than trying to understand such feeling from words, come and experience it yourself. When you shout from your heart Bharat Mata Ki Jai or Vande Mataram, you get the real feel that you are alive. Those goose bumps and from the heart passion you can experience only when you feel it yourself. Its  thousands times more than the Joy that you felt when India won the world cup.

I personally feel everyone of us should be there, forget if you don’t know about Jan Lokpal or who Anna is … This is a fight against corruption. If you want a corruption free India, then stop complaining about the system. Get out of the Elephant Mindset and lets at least try for a corruption free India. If you want a change then be the change, if think only a miracle can create corruption free India then lets create such miracle. Join hands and be the part of the people who is trying to change the country that we live in.

There was Thoraiswamy, freedom fighter aged 92 and he was there the whole day showing his fight against corruption. Its a fight for our own sake, we had enough with corruption, we let it grow this big and its time we cut it down. As the posters and banners say “If not now ? then When ? If not you ? Who? ”

Feel privileged that we live in era where we got to see India win two world cups T20 world cup and 2007 and 50 Over World cup in 2011 but more than that its the fight against corruption which might change the history of this country. Be a part of it and who knows you might have a better story to tell to your grand children.

Here are few snaps,

92 years Old Thoraisamy showing his support

One picture will explain things which even 1000 words fails to express I guess this is that one…

Whose spreading the Corruption disease ? – Part 2

Before you start reading this post, Please do read the Part1

I also had to quarrel with the railway catering service, a tea costs Rs 5 for 170ml which is marked on the cup itself but the guys who fill it fills only 3/4 and charges you for full cup. I end up fighting with these guys all the time. Once I even ended up with the catering manager who gave me a reason that the cup is of bigger size, the cup that he was referring to was IRCTC cup which has the level marking and he has no clues on what should be the amount of Tea or Soup to be served.

There is one more thing in Railways where the day trains have sleeper class, There is this Eranakulam express from Bangalore to Eranakulam which is a train which makes Journey only during the day time but has six boogies of Sleeper class? When the Government itself is corrupting what can you do?

And in the jewelery they have something called wastage charges, this is the amount of gold that was wasted while this ornament was made. You end up paying this wastage charges and they keep the wastage. Ideally when you pay wastage you should get the thing for which you paid money but you don’t get it. what will we call it other than corruption?

This country’s biggest sector where corruption happens and still goes unnoticed is the education sector. There are lot of variations in the fees that is paid with respect to the state in which you take up the course. Engineering fees per year in Bangalore for a merit seat is around 25 Thousand rupees, where are in Tamil Nadu it is 60 Thousand rupees, In Kerala it is less than 20 Thousand and in North it is even cheaper. The cost of education varies but there is no real difference in the quality of education. There is no proper breakup given to the parents for the fees that they pay also. The AICTE never really cares about the same. I payed Rs. 1000 (I think, not so sure if its Rs. 4000) per year as caution deposit which was refundable but even after three years of completion of the course that money was not given. What do you call this as other than corruption?

There are lot more in engineering college itself, making the students but the books written by the staffs working the college for a hefty sum. I have written about the same before elaborately and no NEWS paper has guts to print the same. Then there is something called No dues that a student needs to pay to get the hall ticket. The college management doesn’t provide any receipts for this money that they collect and for symposium also they collect money from students again for this money also there are no receipts. AICTE doesn’t even have a contact point for raising these concerns.

There is a Government school, which I know where the teachers waste all day and have compulsory tuition in the evening for all the students where they actually teach them. And those who skip that tuition are marked fail. What will be the students of that school be learning? What will he do when he himself becomes a teacher? This doesn’t happen in that particular school, the story is same in all the other Government schools around this country.

I remember reading somewhere that “India would have been a developed nation by now, if we were still under British rule.” The Freedom what ever we got was not only from the British people, It is also from the rules to stop Corruption. India is a free nation where there is FREEDOM to do Corruption.

If we don’t change our attitude and do something about this, our country will be doomed in no time. Lets join our hands and do our best to stop corruption in every possible level.

Whose spreading the Corruption disease ? – Part 1

Corruption is the most often word in Indian media and press these days, and this is also the most discussed topic by every Indian. It can be termed as a national disease. Now the Common Wealth Games 2010 is the latest hit where Corruption has been flashed.

Lets just think for a minute,

Where does this start?

Who is spreading this deadly disease ?

“Most of us think that corruption happens in government offices and government officials are the people who ask for bribe and we pay them the money that they demand we spread corruption”. If you think I am taking about that, No I am not talking about that. What I am talking is way before the same.

These are lot of other corruption that we agree with and we promote the same. These things happen in our day to day schemes and we are OK with it go ahead with the same. These are more than daylight robbery and we really don’t take any action to stop the same.

Lets get down to the point straight, The soft-drinks that are sold in India they are manufactured @ around less than 3 Rupees per bottle and sold at a price of around 9 – 10 Rupees, that is the MRP price and the vendor adds one more rupees to the MRP and sells it at that cost. No one have any concerns regarding the same isn’t this corruption and the government doesn’t really care about the same.

There are other instances also where we allowed others to rob us, the mobile operators who are offering STD @ Rs 0.5 per minute used to charge us for more than Rs 1. This sudden drop in STD Prices came after DOCOMO came out with a pay per second plan. That means these people who knew that they can offer STD @ Rs 0.5 were making more profit and the TRAI also kept quite. I don’t really think there was any technological advancement which lead to the slashing of the call tariffs.

When Reliance came out with their CDMA phones in early 2000 just for Rs.501 and announced Incoming calls are free, The other networks who were charging for the Incoming calls announced that they will make Incoming calls free and also they will also give SMS free of cost. Then also the cost slashing was because of the competition and it was not because of the technological advancement. This was nothing but Corruption and no one even cared about the same.

Take the other things for example, why do all the malls in the city charge more for tickets on weekends than on weekdays? Just because there is a demand they are hiking the prices? Is that fair? what do you call that a business strategy? Nope. It is just Corruption tell me what else can we call the same?

Then we have the big chain restaurants like Mc Donalds, KFC etcetera why do they charge like hell when the manufacturing cost of the same is not even one fourth of what the selling price is. Then we have the Pizza chain restaurants where the story is the same, why the hell do they charge 4 times the money which is required to create that food ?

Last but not the least we have these so called branded Showrooms Peter England, Allan solly etcetera. Lets talk about this a little, why is a full sleeve shirt Rs. 2999? what does that have extra or worthy of that money? If you call it the brand, let me tell you one thing all these so called brands are all manufactured in INDIA and exported to the countries. The whole US doesn’t have a single dying factory and all these cloths that are sold in the showroom outlets in India are all export rejected qualities but the price way they are still sold like more than four times the actual price.

Let me tell you one more example, this time I will tell you something which you wouldn’t have noted on your own. In Mantri Square basement, we have the Spar outlet where PEPSI can costs Rs. 25. The same Manthri Square on the Top floor there is a PEPSI retail outlet where the same can costs Rs. 50. The worst thing is that the MRP itself reads Rs. 50. The same can and same quantity labeled with 2 different prices and sold in the same place. Then if it is not corruption, Is there a quality difference in the same? Is it legal to sell same quantity stuff of same quality in two different prices or Is it legal to sell two different qualities?

Then I heard every Bangalorean crib about the auto rickshaw drivers asking for more money, did anyone even spoke about the conductors in the BMTC taking changes and skipping tickets. This happens more frequently and that is a big loss to the BMTC. The conductor takes Rs 2 -5, if you are going to travel less than 3 stops whereas the ticket will cost you only Rs 3 -7. Sometimes they take Rs 10 whereas the ticket will cost you Rs 13. This transport system is one of the worst I have ever traveled in.

I never seen any ticket collector checking a BMTC bus for tickets. Lets make a small calculation, lets assume that per trip a conductor skips tickets for ten people charging Rs 2 each, so its Rs 20 per trip (2*10), if that bus makes 25 trips in average per day that means Rs 500 (20 * 25) per bus per day. Lets assume that there are 250 BMTC buses in the city so the loss to BMTC per day is Rs 1,25,000. This is all done with minimal figures taken into account. If the minimum loss per day itself is Rs 1,25,000 that corresponds Rs 37,50,000 per month.

These BMTC conductors doesn’t have a name tag nor there are other means to file complaint about these guys. We all crib about the auto driver who asks Rs 50 more, these conductors are robbing close to 500 per day that means Rs 15,000 per month and they get paid from our tax money. They forget that they are public servants and throw harsh words at you sometimes.

I myself had run into one such incident back there in my native, I gave the conductor Rs. 10 for a ticket of Rs.6. He told to me like ” Every time you guys will get in without change eh?”. I told him “If I had change I would have given you the same”, He had change and he was reluctant to give the same. ” He added ” Ya you guys will never come with change and I am always supposed to give change to you people”, “I said that is what you get paid for, if you have change give the same. If you don’t have change get the same from the bus stand and give it to me. And if you don’t like to give change to people then resign your job and sit at home”

He was furious and was throwing lot of anger on me, “He came like who the hell do you think you are to talk like that?” I replied “See you are a public servant, behave properly with public. if you don’t want to give me change it is fine with me. Give me your name and which depot you are from, I will file a complaint through right to know act”. Then that guy subsided and started saying “See five people have got it and all have given Rs 10, 20, 50 only for the tickets of Rs 6 how can I give change to everyone. You people should also understand.”

This is how these people think, They think like they are taking you for a free ride in their dad’s car. They treat all the commuters like some pests and we don’t really have guts to face them off.

Continue reading this post in Part 2 .