India A land of compromises…

Every single day our motherland gives us 100’s of reasons to fall in love with and her sons’ give 1000s of reasons to hate it. Today for a change I thought I won’t observe individuals but I will observe this cohesive chaotic social gathering named Indians.

An Indian morning begins with almost a new problem everyday. It can be anything as small as no water in tap, no electricity, auto rickshaw strike or it could be anything as serious as not finding your car in your porch, a communal clash in city or even a terrorist attack. For a westerner anything like this is surely a momentarily preview of Armageddon however for us Indians it’s a normal bright sunny day.

Our newspapers give us hard time every single day as we need to find a real headline out of masala printed on pulp. E.g. Today’s newspaper:

“Dhoni’s annual income exceeds 48 crores”
just below this headline next story says
“Kargil martyrs wife struggling to survive, No pension received till date”

Surely after reading this no one will ever prefer a battlefield over cricket field for nation’s pride.

Second page says:
“Center asks states to pull up the security and share intelligence, terrorist attack suspected”
Just right to this article
“Center is to be blamed for recent terrorist attacks: Chief Minister”
A blame game that will continue till next blast makes the headline.
Next Page:

“Diwali next week, a festival of lights and sweets”
“40 tonnes of adulterated khoya seized”

I don’t know why people selling adulterated stuff aren’t booked under attempt to murder? When they are actually playing with thousands of innocent lives.

Let’s leave the newspaper let’s hit the road…

I wonder except India which country will have alteast one statue or picture of God in each and every car? I think none (exception south east Asian countries). And that’s because we really need divinely powers to bring us safely back home because Everytime you hold steering you enter the live RoadRash arena and the stage you are playing is decided by others on the road.

You might be wondering that why I called India as country of compromises?

That’s because no matter which luxury sport saloon (BMWs/Mercs/Audis) you have or no matter how world class flyovers we build we will always be late to office. Reason can be anything e.g. a bull-cart turned over a expressway, an illegally car parked on road or road blocked by some protesters but you can’t do anything about it except compromise.

We have thousands of patients everyday but only 100 beds, 10s medical equipments and only 1 doctor. 100s patients die unattended. Reason can be anything like patient doesn’t have enough money for private treatment; a cup of coffee more important over a patient’s life or in fact treating Americans/Europeans earns you more money. But you can’t do anything about it except compromise.

A pregnant female labor working on construction site full day directly under sun earns 150 Rs/day whereas the contractor hands over a bag full of money to govt auditor in AC room. But that lady can’t do anything about it except compromise.

Pakistan trained terrorist come to India and attack innocent citizens we just layback and watch them die and do nothing about it except compromise.
Our political parties support government from outside but they don’t support on anything that govt decides. So they amend decisions according to the wish of their allies and little can government do about it except compromise.

We preach Goddesses but abort female child, beat wife, tease girls and burn brides. But Indian girls can’t do much about it except compromise.

These are few points that I can think of at a blink of an eye and I bet there are thousands more. In the end I just wanna convey that we should not compromise for being thankful to our soldiers who are ready to die for us, not cricketers. We should be thankful to laborers not contractors. We should be thankful to bunch of doctors who preferred serving our nation not money. We should be thankful to commandos who went to save Mumbai hostages not politicians and Indian women those compromised till date to be a sister, wife, friend and mother over their individuality.

Sita - An Ideal Indian women

I have been following Ramayana on NDTV-Imagine for a week or so. TV serial is based on Ramayana a Hindu manuscript about life of Lord Rama, an incarnation of God Vishnu.

Various characters are woven meticulously e.g
Sita – beloved wife of Rama
Laxmana – Younger brother of Rama
Hanuman – Loyal friend
Ravana – Stong, powerful, Intelligent but arrogant villain
Kaushalya – Loving Mother
and many others…

This holy manuscript portrays ideal characters like ideal son, ideal wife, ideal brother and ideal king. As Hindus we always look up to these characters and try to bring few attributes in our personal lives. Sita – an avatar of Lakshmi is considered to be a benchmark for all Hindu women and similarly Rama is epitome of virtue and justice. I believe all holds true about Sita however Rama failed on both fronts of being righteous king and ideal husband when it came to give verdicts against Sita.

Rama relinquished his right to throne and went into exile as commanded by his father. Sita willingly renounced all comforts of the palace to company her husband during travails of his exile. An example for all Hindu women to standby their husband at all phases of his life. She endured a painful life and was later abducted by evil King of Lanka – Ravana. Rama waged a furious war against belligerent army of evil men and finally rescued Sita. However to prove her chastity to the world she had to walk through fire. She passed the test in front of Rama, Laxmana and Hanuman and was gracefully accepted Rama. After returning to Ayodhaya (Rama’s Kingdome) some people raised voice against Sita’s long captivity by Ravana and such slanderous statements led to second exile for Sita when she was pregnant. But this time Sita went into exile all alone. This raises a question in my mind isn’t it a responsibility of a Hindu men to standby their wives in arduous times? Secondly if Sita has already proved her purity in front of three member of Rama’s council including King Rama himself then why she was forced into exile again? Well in my opinion Lord Rama has set a wrong example for men as a righteous King and Husband.
Later Sita gave birth to two sons Luv and Kush. Here Sita again proves strength of Indian women by raising her sons to be as intelligent, educated and talented as they would have been in taught in Rama’s palace. Circumstances lead to meeting of Sita and her two sons in front of Rama’s council and where she was asked to testify and prove that Luv and Kush were Rama’s son. This was an end to patience Sita, who pleas for release from a barely happy life of a queen and a wife of a God himself. She surrenders her life and enters into split open earth from where she came from.
An exemplary life by Sita teaches all girls to adhere to these sacred womanly virtues however I don’t think Lord Rama leaves a positive impression for boys (especially in light of being an ideal husband). My personal feeling is that every boy would love to have a wife like Sita but I really doubt girls would ever want a husband like Rama.

Well then this is all my personal opinion ...as it’s always difficult to understand what girls want ;)

And lastly this thought doesn’t hold true only for Hindu religion but for all religions where men are considered superior to women.

Top Management

In present scenario when dark clouds of economic crisis still loom over multinational corporations, companies are fighting hard for their survival. Once czars of their domains and nations pride; names like GM, AIG and Citibank are on the verge of bankruptcy. Strategists are burning midnight oil to keep these big names afloat. Governments are providing massive bailout packages and buying stakes in these companies to save thousands of jobs. Leaders from these corporations are setting examples for their comrades by working harder and giving away big slices of their packages and bonuses. Citigroup CEO said he will take salary $1 a year and that too without any bonuses till banking major returns to profitability. This example clearly shows western corporations are pushing for top to bottom approach i.e. slicing off big expenditure so the shock is felt least at the bottom layer. However back in India companies have totally opposite approach i.e. bottom to top. Think tanks here are showing doors to number of employees, imposing salary cuts, interdicting promotions salary hikes and even cooling down hot coffee vending machines. However in this time of global meltdown when tissue papers are disappearing from shelves in these institutions, Top management is enhancing pay packages of their TOP personnel and board members. Hopefully these intellectuals will understand blocking supplies of coffee powder, tissue papers and stationary doesn’t even amount to 1% of monthly pay packages of our Leaders Top Managers. They should really understand an institution can outperform when the leaders lead from front. Leaders are meant to set examples to look up to and be a guiding torch in dark times. Talking big, and calling an organization as a BIG united family sounds less meaningful when parents eats child’s hard earned share.

Time to move on ...

The wheel is churning and most of us are becoming engineers, doctors, managers and consultants etc. Nowadays most middle class fellas are well educated and belong to decent modern families. From start of our lives our parents teach us that all human beings are equal and we shouldn’t prejudge a person. They teach us to respect our elders, our teachers, our friends and even our servants. We are given full liberty to take our own decisions from very basic like choosing brand of your chocolates, bicycle, clothes, shoes and even choosing our career. Sometimes even when your dad was unwilling to buy you something e.g. when you chose a bike that your dad thought was not economical; even then he surrendered to your wishes, because he knew he will be the happiest person when he will see you showing off your bike to your friends.

Now here comes the tricky part: What happens when you choose a life partner? It’s the same parents, same you and just another wish (even this choice is not economical, everybody knows that ;-) Rather this time this wish is closest to your heart. Then why our parents take a U-turn. Why they turn their faces against you? Are they at fault or are we at fault. This question pops up in everybody’s mind that goes through this situation.

I have tried (just tried) to understand this and found that neither our parents nor we are at fault rather it is our religion (its illicit practices to be more specific) and our society is to be blamed for. The caste system that we follow has a basic precept - All men are created unequal. That is totally opposite to what our parents have taught us till now. So should we listen to what they have taught us till date or what they are telling us today?

We all know Hinduism is the oldest religion and how can such a religion survive for so long? However, if we give a deep thought, it has something that it’s still surviving (science can’t be wrong, survival of the fittest). What is that? It’s the fact that Hinduism changes with time. I think it’s the only religion that is so open towards accepting changes.

e.g. ‘Sati pratha’ - Burning alive without any reason? It’s gone! Now nobody talks about it but earlier it was an integral part of Hinduism.
‘Untouchables’- Not allowing a person to enter a temple, even not allowing a person to touch others. It’s gone now.
‘Four Karmas’ strictly following pre-defined karmas e.g. Grahasta karma, sanyasi karma etc. are just few that I can recall in this slice of an hour …

So our religion/society adapts and adapts for good.
So now I think this is age for discarding the caste system. Our parents should open up and understand that one day these dissolute practices are going to be eradicated and they should support this change. They should think that, if today Sati Pratha was there, then our mothers, sisters, wives and daughters would have been burnt alive, some of us wouldn’t have been allowed to enter temples and most of our dads would be in jungle as “Sanyasis” ;-) If we are not in above mentioned situations, it’s all because of few people who took stand and worked for the better of society. Not just holding back and listening to others.
They should understand that people who are in habit of talking rubbish about others will talk rubbish. However they should understand that what matters is their children, their happiness for life time not the happiness of those people who will come to enjoy food for two hours on their marriage.

Indian Politics League

Is Indian cricket more important than India?

"Yes off course! " This is what Lalit Modi and his bunch obsequious supporters think.

Modi and the opposition party says if a govt that can't hold IPL cricket matches safely it is not capable of governing the country.

What a pity if a well educated person thinks this. He should know that govt not only thinks about security of the players, a bunch of bollywood celebrities and business tycoons but also about millions of innocent citizen's. As majority of security forces will be consumed by elections so incase of any eventuality the minimal security cover will be only for players. So what about the hundreds of thousands sitting unprotected? Modi says he will provide bullet proof cars to all players but is he gonna provide bullet proof cars to all spectators also? The answer is simply NO!

We have seen in recent past how Pakistan Cricket Board has suffered by ignoring security threats. Any such incident in India will be a grave for not only Indian Cricket but for whole sub-continent. It’s a shame that our so called INDIAN premier league is shifted to South Africa because IPL organizers can't wait to get the harvest of their seeds sown one year back.

For us cricket may be a religion but the fact is, for these guys it’s just an event for making money!

Why all govt institutions are closed on Election Day? Just to make Indian citizens vote. And look what our advt cricket models are setting an example for us i.e. going abroad at the time of voting :) this shows this cricket team is actually not representing the true Indian team. It’s just a team of sponsored men in blue...

For me it’s a big NO to IPL forever and I think it should be a NO by everyone who believes that nothing is more important than our country!

Better Man !!

Recently i recieved Marriage Invitation from a close friend. While i was going through the schedule, Few pages from my past rolled in front of my eyes....

I still remember that pretty cold n foggy nite when one of my friends called me up and said I m coming to your place to see you ... Meanwhile he comes up i planned to kill time by scrolling through the TV channels and within mins i slept.... :-)

Ting Tong !
Ting Tong !! Bell rang and there he was.

He sounded low and edged out. I asked him "Wat happened man?"

With a long pause he replied "We broke up"....

Waaatttt!!!!!!, It cant be possible. You love her like anything and she simply can't live without you... Hmmmmm.. Let me have a word with her, Don’t worry everything will be fine.

He said "Its useless man, she won’t talk to you either. Its all my mistake, My mistake and only my mistake....."

and his feelings came out in the form of tears....

I realized that something terribly wrong has happened and now how to control him? I asked him to sit down and tell me wat went wrong?

He said " I always lied to her about my family status, my job, my feelings and everything and today i m paying the damn price for it"

He stood up and started to leave... I tried to stop him. He said "Let me go home ....and Avi if you can do something pls do that!! I want her back and I promise I will never lie to her again “
and he left..

It was a long night.. i kept looking at the roof just thinking bout the relation they used to share... and One line struck my mind "if my friend wud have been a Better Man" and there i got the title of my next poem... titled Better Man.

That nite I made a rough draft of the poem and slept at around 3 A.M.

Next day I modified the poem to sound it better. Later that day, I called him and asked to send this poem to his lost love and see if something positive comes out ?

For next few days , I didn’t heard anything from him and on Wednesday i was lying on sofa and scrolling through TV channels..

Ting Tong !
Ting Tong !!
Ting Tong !!!
Someone was in real hurry, I rushed to open the door and there He was standing with her with a big smile on those two lovely faces (which i still remember)

He smiled, hugged me and said Your peom did it!!!!

And today i am holding their marriage invitation in my hand...

So I am sharing the poem which did the trick on that day.. And it goes like this:

Now that all the beautiful days are gone,
You think you are better alone.

I know I promised you stars,
And was not able to keep those marks.

Even now I feel ocean in your eyes,
I want to be with you in green fields and beneath blue skies.

I know I hid my weakness at that time,
And that was the biggest fault of all times.

I should have been true to you,
Please understand I lied because I always loved you.

Bad time comes and passes by,
So stay here lets make another try.

Lets sit and solve the problems that we can,
I promise if not the best, I will be a BETTER MAN.

: By Avneesh