Will History repeat itself?

It was year 1952 when one gentlemen and an eccentric Gandhian by name Potti Sriramulu started a fast unto death whipping up mass frenzy towards a demand for a separate 'Andhra' . Madras Presidency and the Central government procrastinated way too long and finally the whole issue erupted into a mass movement. Chaos and bedlam ensued. Still the centre paid no heed to the protesters. Finally, it directly affected the election results and Congress lost considerable ground in the general elections .
Now the Congress took notice and by the time Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru decided to act on the problem, Potti Sriramulu was dead and the region was in the grips of violence.
After Andhra Pradesh was created, the other regions soon followed suite demanding their own states carved on the basis of linguistic organizations.
The flood gates had been opened and Pandit had no choice but to initiate a committee to analyze these demands resulting in reorganization of regions and redrawing of Indian map as we now know it.
fifty years on, Andhra Pradesh is now witnessing a similar demand now based on no logic other than economics that is at best a theory! We are once again witnessing the central government ignoring the issue and muddling up decisions. Once again politicians are whipping up mass frenzy costing the exchequer and private establishments crores of rupees.
Where will this lead to? Even if the centre finally gives into the demand and creates a Telengana and the 'Rest of AP' as two states, it would set a precedent for other such demands. The politicans with no issue to cook up are only waiting in the wings for an excuse such as this.
After all what better way to win an election than by whipping up mass movements for a 'cause'.

A marriage proposal

This landed in my mailbox last night
" Sir, this is with reference to your advertisement in ... I'm seeking an alliance to my daughter. Sm.t... I have attached a photography of my daughter and her bio data along with the horoscope. Kindly check if you find the horoscopes matching and if we can proceed further.
Signed.
xxxxx"
Attachments: Pic of a young lady and other documents!
Initially, I was taken aback and verified the email addresses. Obviously they had gotten the mail id wrong! Soon, I was laughing at the context of someone trying to match 'me' with their daughter.
Soon, I realized the enormity of this mistake and its consequences if it were to land with some mischief monger. They would have access to the complete bio data of a young woman !
Imagine the kind of harassment one could be subjected to.

The more I thought of it, it dawned on me that it is a kind of mistakes most Indian fathers of earlier generation are very likely to commit. They are not internet savvy, at least a vast majority Indian fathers today's adult children are not!

I shudder to think the kind of risks they are taking on the internet without realizing the consequences of such errors!
On the other hand, the era of internet has made this marriage making process too disconnected. I have seen many of my associates do their own match making by creating accounts in the name of their parents!
Gullible fathers of daughters who seem to forever get into a mindset where they would do anything and even bend backwards to 'service' the prospective grooms, sending full details of their daughters with photographs and salary details without first ensuring whether the party they are addressing are genuine!
In an age even personal information is wealth, there are professionals who harvest personal details for money, I shiver at the thought of my personal detail being gleefully harvested by a fat and bald man with a stubble and a torn banian!
I can only think, 'God! protect the good souls'

Apathy towards human life

Is it a problem of plenty? I really do not know, but, that's the only answer am able to come up with regarding the Indian government's attitude towards public safety!

Just this morning, I saw a news item that wrung my heart in despair. A grand father died of massive heart attack on hearing that his grandson had fallen into an open man hole! The child is yet to be spotted in the drain even after twenty four hours! It will be a miracle if the child is still alive! God willing he will be!

What a needless loss of life! An average Indian immediately will pounce with a thousand questions.

Why should there be an open man hole in the first place?

Why did the corporation leave it open?

Why did the public (not including the questioner) not inform the corporation?

Why did the child's parents let the child play 'near' the manhole?

and so on and so forth.

None of the questions matter, a life has been lost and another one is hanging in balance of hope and faith!

It has become a general Indian attitude at all levels to think that a problem is never our problem unless it directly affects us!

I'm sure the average citizen would have seen the manhole open and probably it was open for even days on end. "Corporation would close it!" we would have told ourselves! or we would have even ranted it out at corrupt and inefficient corporation officials for their sloppy attitude towards work!

But its rare when an average citizen endeavors to close the manhole! Yuck! who would touch it! Even the supreme court has declared that human beings cannot be used to get into man holes! we would say pulling a ruling out of context to our defence.

The moment we are affected, the government is to blame!

Even enterprising individuals are cut down by the average Indian! The other day a truck was parked in the main road obstructing the view of the main road in such a way that the smaller street joining the main road would not have a clear view of the on coming traffic before it joined the main road. When I walked by and told the truck driver to move his truck he says

"How does it affect you? move on.. "!

When I was riding a bus one day, a pick pocket was picking the pocket of a foreigner who was on the same bus and I happened to see it. I tried warning the foreigner to move away , which he did. But the pick pocket showed a big knife and threatened to attack me should I raise alarm and I did not and he got away!

Women are being socially abused, molested in public transport and other such places and yet we do not have an uprising amongst women that says 'enough is enough'! They put up a stoic silence and delegate the problem to be foreign to their nuclear world until the day dawns when their own wards face a similar problem!

Even at work, when a worker sees a problem in the system, he does not act on it. When a water pipe is leaking in the faucet, it is the plumbers problem, its not my job to close the water supply to the faucet and inform the administration, let some one else do it.

There is a section of society that is constantly drawing attention to such problems who are being given a deaf year on most accounts. Let us take the simple case of making our country disabled friendly.

Very few places in the public infrastructure are disabled and elderly friendly! The central government has taken note of this and has slowly started incorporating this at basic level in their establishments. For instance the entrance to the chennai railway station has a ramp for wheel chair access or for the elderly to use! But beyond this, the trains and platforms themselves are not all that accessible for disabled!

If the government is taking small steps, the private establishments are nowhere in this. In a country that's bustling with development and a booming economy, hardly any private establishment today takes effort to make their place disabled friendly. Even the larger amongst these such as big malls or multiplexes have taken little effort to make their services disabled friendly. We can perhaps count with one hand such facilities in this part of the country!

There are many such places in Indian society that we seem to have this proverbial 'chalta hai' attitude or 'care a damn what happens to others' attitude that must change!

It is when this attitude of the public changes , it is when we look upon social problems as our own problems will this country improve.

Mahatma Gandhi said that "Be the change you wish to see in others.". I'm going to try sincerely. You should too!

A Gratifying experience

Shopping for books are not usually a gratifying experience unless you walk in without knowing what to buy and end up buying a treasure trove.

Mine was slightly different. I wanted to buy Srimad Bhagavatam by Kamala Subramaniam and found out that a copy was available in Pushtak Bharati (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai) at Mylapore.

I rang up the book store and a gentleman answered the call. He was courteous and said that a copy was indeed available. My lazy self was wishing for a way to get a copy without having to go to the store (I work about say 2kms from the store) and asked him if the only way to get a copy was to visit the store.

To this he answered back saying that he can courier it or he could even have it dropped off. He then proceeded to ask me where I live to assess which option would suit me. I replied and he said he would personally drop it off on the way home.

The unassuming way he put this across some how made me feel ashamed of myself. I could make out from his language and voice that he was an elderly gentleman and here he was offering to come to my residence that in all probability is not exactly on his way and yet here he was offering to do a task I was too lazy to do myself.

I was so ashamed of myself and I told him not to bother himself to that extent and I would visit him.

I was in his store the twentieth minute! (so much for my laziness!) and I found him to be a very soft spoken and smiling gent who heartily congratulated me on my choice of book and said it was perhaps the best condensed book of the huge epic!

He then very courteously introduced himself as V.V.S.Manian and he told us that he and his wife ran the shop purely out for the pleasure it gives them to be among books!

The lady, a typical tam -brahm lady was the authority who was helping us with the books with her insight. She asked of us the reader's age and appropriately selected different copies of the epics that would suit them and even in different languages.

While she was helping out my friend find his books, I was browsing casually and chanced across this wonderful manuscript that read roughly 'All the four Vedas and the Upanishads" in tamil. It spoke in simple Tamil the meanings of various mantras that are a part of a Brahm's life. I found it very attractive and approached the lady to check whether the book would suit half baked Brahm's like me.

She heartily recommended the book and was happy that we were even endeavoring to read such books.

Then I told Mr.Manian that it was his offer on the phone to bring the book over prompted me to kick myself out my seat and come over to the store. I told him that I was glad I came over and learnt about the treasure trove he had.

He then told us that he has many customers who are aged and do not have the resources to come down to their shops and they usually courier it at no extra cost or they deliver it themselves in person if the location is en route. What is another 10 minutes of commute time if it brings pleasure to a customer Mr.Manian said.

I was moved by their warmth and genuineness.At the end of the trip, It was gratifying to have met two humble and genuine human beings.May their breed grow.

Are these guys brave or are they...?

There is a bunch of folks who believe that medication of any sort is an abuse of nature's purity that is human body.

Here is a mild example. A guy I know has the flu.. no not the swine one, the common variety, yes, the common /mild flu or whatever one calls it.

He had been suffering and coughing like a dying man for the last several months. One day I took pity on him and asked why his medications are not working. To this he responds with this proud look on his face as though he had just climbed Mt.Everest without even as much a rope in his hands..

"I don't take medications.."

I don't know If he expected me to look at him in awe, but my reaction was

"wonderful.. folks, lets give this guy an award for not taking medications.. " I was furious

Not only was this guy torturing himself, well am not furious about that, but I was furious because he had been coughing his life out in office spitting out god knows what germs into the air for months putting everyone around at risk.

Well, you might ask, what big of a risk, flu is.

But, my question is, however mild an infection or disease might be, why risk someone with it? Why?

Call for capital punishment in retrospect

I was aghast when I read this news item this morning in the local newspapers. It spoke about a case for euthanasia being filed before the Supreme court of India.
The court has since then admitted the plea.
Here are a few highlights of the article.
i. Shanbaug was a nurse before she was attacked by a hospital sweeper who then tried to strangle her to death
ii. Permanent injuries to her nervous system has left her vegetative since then. This happened in 1973!
iii. It has been thirty six years since she lived by herself and has always been on life support and been force fed
iv. Her bones are brittle, her teeth have decayed and she is living a sub human life!
v. Her parents are dead and none of her siblings care to visit her any more.
vi. The most shocking thing is that the rapist sweeper served a sentence of Seven Pithy years for rape, attempted murder and robbery all combined.


I was enraged to read that the rapist got off so easily. How can this be, especially considering the consequences of his act. Did it not then matter to the courts of law that the victim was in a permanent vegetative state?

I'm still seething and am unable to coherently communicate my spite for this character. May he rot in hell!
But I say lets track him down and hang him. Why is he still alive?

South Indians and Dressing

I'm a South Indian and am not exactly proud of my dressing sense along with that of most of my fellow South Indians, men and women alike.

Dressing sense is a very subjective topic and most of what I say here can be countered on the grounds that fashion is not formulaic and need not be bound to convention and rules.Nevertheless, I have observed quite a few quirks in our dressing patterns.

I have noticed that our forefathers have devoted utmost care to their dressing and have always appeared with picture perfect dresses and postures in those old jaded black and white pictures. Unfortunately, our generation seems to be confused by their habitual affinity to traditional wear and new found attraction in western wear.

Here I list a few things I have found to be queer in our dressing senses.

- Men wearing trunks and seated cross legged on a high platform takes the cake.

- Men wearing coolers inside a building

- Men sneakers with western formal attire

- Men wearing sandals with formal attire

- Men wearing sneakers with ethnic attire!

- Men wearing tie with checked shirts

- Women wearing western clothes with traditional indian Gold Jewellery !

- Women wearing western clothes and a Bindi (This is subjective..)

- Women wearing western clothes and a flower donning their tresses

- Women wearing high heels and a saree with the high heels showing !!

- Women wearing platform flats with a saree!!!

- Women wearing a Salwar-kurta on top of a denim trousers!

I'm not a fashion judge nor an expert on the subject. These are purely things I have observed and found to be distasteful to my senses and not everyone may agree and this is not meant to offend anyone, so please do excuse if you find anything offensive.

India needs a credible referendum platform

The MPs in Hyderabad are now clamoring to get Hyderabad to be granted a Union Territory status in the Indian Union. They are gathering political votes to push this idea through urging the central government to accede to the wishes of the people.

This is where it gets sticky. Wishes of the people? how do they make that one up? Did they go to all parts of Hyderabad and ask every one of its citizens if thats what they want?

Obviously not, politicians being politicians are pushing their personal agenda in the name of people's wishes.

If the government wishes to truly take key decisions based on the wishes of Indians, we need to seriously consider building a reusable and foolproof referendum platform that helps governments to quickly gather public opinion on all matters of the state.

Now, having said that, I must admit that building a referendum platform in a mostly illiterate country like India is nothing short of impossible, fraught with challenges on making it fool proof and accessible to all citizenry of this vast country and most importantly to make it cheap!

I have come to believe that the best way this can be implemented with least margin of error is by taking a combination of votes from the general population and the political bosses of this country.

For instance

lets simply consider the people of India and the bosses to be a part of any decision making board that is seeking the referendum with a 49:51 split with government being the 51% stakeholder.

75% vote is required to pass a judgement failing which the government pushes for prime minister's veto card.

How will the people of India vote? Send an SMS to 8989 + password + with a YES or NO!

or something like that. I know this is not the best or fool proof way of executing things. But this should work. We can ensure that all voters register first by providing their IDs such as Passport Number or PAN number or EPF number or other such numbers and a telephone.

This will ensure we can tie-in the telephone number with the voter and provide the citizen with a password.

The central db will register PAN#+Tel#+IMEI# as the unique citizen referendum account. This will even allow same cell phone to be used for multiple individuals should the cell phone be shared.

This is not only cheap, but can reach even the remotest of villages since cell phones have become the most pervasive of technologies since sliced bread!

This system is not without its flaws, it can be secured with little effort by the telecom companies but will provide and stringent measures would have to be taken to prevent any SMS frauds and other such activities by fraudsters.

But, imagine the power that will be bestowed with the citizens of this country should we build such a platform!

The whole nation would become truly self governed! and Bharathi's dream would have been fulfilled

"Ellorum innaattu mannar..." everyone is king in this holy land!

Interpreter of Maladies

Is a novel by a Pulitzer winner author of Indian origin by name Jhumpa Lahiri, did i get that spelling right?.. hope so.
I have been wanting to read her book for quite some years and managed to do so over the weekend and I must say I'm impressed.
Hers is unlike any of the other books I have read for they are nine short stories with not much of a story in them and yet I like them.
There are nine stories that place its protagonists either in India or in Boston, US. The stories are about people, their characters their pains and pleasures, their mould, their outlook, their deepest desires, their flawed outlook and their rather delicate and intricate relations with one other .

The characters are very realistic and layered with such unique features you almost tend to believe that they are real life persons living their life quietly someplace. So much so that you start believing that this book is just a compilation of lifted portions from real life diaries of many individuals.

The book swings from moody, dark and up lifting lives of different characters. Each reader has their favourite and mine are the last two stories. The one of Bibi Haldar and the one of the third continent.
I will not delve into the plots or the lack of it, but suffice it to say that dexterity with which Jhumpa spins her layers around the characters gives them life in manner I have never seen before. You must be Indian and should have a little bit of been away experience to appreciate her work of art. Yes this is a work of art that needs to appreciated and not a cup of ice cream that can be enjoyed with gay abandon. It requires careful look and study to appreciate the texture of this book.
While I love this book, I cannot read such moody books all the time. Its good to sanitize one's self with such lovely prose every now and then.

Plight of women

I came across a wonderful blog written by a lady that goes by the name heartcrossings highlighting the plight of women in India. Mind you this is not about domestic abuse . This is about social abuse women endure in this part of the world.

Needless to say there were loud voices of men who said many things and soon it became an all out debate which am sure is not going anywhere.

However, that set me thinking. It is a known fact that women in India are being abused in public transport system and are being ogled at by countless men of all ages in all places outside their home, inappropriate comments and untoward moves by men in power on subordinates and the list goes on and on.

My solitary question is , why do women have to put up with this systemic abuse quietly?

I'm sure there will be a dozen ladies who would jump at me and scream what would you know, you are a man.

Yes, I agree i cannot possibly even imagine to the smallest levels the kind of mental agony a woman goes through when she is physically or even verbally molested.

What I cannot understand and what am sure ladies will give a thousand reasons for is that why must ladies put up with this.

Why cannot they fight back and slap the guy who abuses them? Why must women be cowed down?

Without sounding overtly dramatic, I wonder, if there was to be a quiet forum of ladies who form an online portal that recruits women who formulate a guideline on how different forms of abuse can be effectively responded to in such a systemic manner.

For instance take a picture of the abuser and distribute it in the local circles so that people know when they see one. Just the picture with something like the skull mark so people know this guy is an el-cheapo?

too childish? But what is the way this scourge can be rooted out from this country?

The interpreter of maladies

I recently brought this book by Jhumpa Lahiri, misses and father in law called it first and took the first reading opportunities. They were quite turned off by the book. The book is meandering about with no plot they said.
I started reading it yesterday night and I have just finished the first story. I must say that the narrative is intriguing.
The first story had no plot, no beginning, no ending. Its just a glimpse at the life of a couple at one of the difficult junctures of their life and how each reacts to it.
Jhumpa seems to relish detailing human emotions. You can almost feel the script playing out in front of you, characters coming alive and enacting the scenes in front of you. Thats what makes a successful book doesn't it?
The book is a piece of art, it has to be appreciated for its beauty. Its not an ice cream treat that tastes the way you expect it to.

Two states - the story of my marriage

Chetan Bhagat's new book is a hoot to read. Story-wise its a plot thats been done to death everywhere from movies to serials since the days of DDLJ. Guy falls in love with a girl, parents don't agree, children ensure they win over the parents and finally all ends well.

However, what makes the book an interesting read are the characters, the classic conservative Tamil Brahmin family with its flaws to the core and the stereotyped boisterous Punjabi family and their beliefs make up all the fun in the book.

'... on the wall was a picture of her family... .they were all standing so stiff and sober that one could almost hear the national anthem playing in the background..' chetan writes.

Chetan's natural wit and humour more than makes for a lackluster storyline invariably evoking quite a few laughs along the way.

Its a pure masala and don't expect a literary genius from Chetan. However Chetan has kept the script tight and ensured that its fun as long as it lasts.

Chetan's leading ladies are always liberal thinking even if the plot were to place the characters in the remotest village of India. Even the characterization is all too predictable for he has repeated this in all his books and should look to vary his leading ladies a bit.

Being a masala writer, one cannot fault him for his tendency to throw logic to the winds and inserting cinematic miralces in his books!

Otherwise this book is a good change for readers and 95 bucks a copy makes it one of the cheapest on the book shelf. It is even cheaper than some monthly magazines!

Go and get your copy