Types of beggers...

At a traffic signal one can expect two kinds of beggars. Type-1 have nothing to wear and eat, Type-2 have government uniform. Type-1 runs around your vehicles while vehicles runs around Type-2. Type –1 deals in multiples of 50 Paise, Type-2 deals in multiples of 50 Rs.

Hats off to our traffic police wallas….Corruption at its best.

Please forgive me..

I love politicians. I just love them. More so, the politicians from Maharashtra although the thinking men from UP and Bihar are always in the fray, giving a neck-to-neck fight to Maharashtra guys for the top spot. This morning a news item in the newspaper captured my attention. Maharashtra government is contemplating the idea of putting a huge Shivaji statue in the middle of the sea. The whole drama will cost the exchequer a cool 100 crores. I want to meet the consultant of this government. I mean, I just want to know the brain behind such ideas.

This is nothing new from this government. One fine day, one Mr. R R Patil woke up from his sleep and decided to ban the dance bars and actually did it. Poor girls are still finding it difficult to cope with the situation. Then came the July flood and the poor polythene was made to suffer this time. Reason? As given by the CM of the state, polythene blocked sewer and hence prevented the water outflow. Consequently, the polythene was banned. Poor ‘P’, it cannot even appeal in any court like the bar girls! Between these, there was a suggestion from none other than the environment minister of the state to sell the open available spaces, like mahalaxmi racecourse, in the city’s heart to pay heavy debt of Maharashtra. As if the existing concrete jungle is not enough for him.

Now comes Shivaji. No offence intended but I fail to understand what is he supposed to do in the middle of the sea. In Mumbai, we already have Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Chatrapati Shivaji Park, Chatrapati Shivaji stadium, Chatrapati Shivaji Airport, Chatrapati Shivaji Vaastu Sangrahlaya and what not. The only man, living or dead, ahead of Shivaji is Mr. Ambedker (again, no offence intended) we can see the total collection of Ambedkar’s in Uttar Pradesh. He was in full vogue when Mayawati was chief minister there but still you can find places named after Ambedker right from schools to parks, colleges to bus stands, streets to stations and infact an entire district is named after him there in the form of Ambedker Nagar!

I don’t know when the day will come when these politicians will realize that there is more to do than naming a building and putting a statue! There are starving people dying of hunger, under nutritious children, uneducated population, non-existent health facilities, invisible roads and unemployed youth. When they will realize that for every 100 crores spent on a statue, there are millions of homeless people who are spending freezing nights under the open skies!

God! When they will realize that there are better ways to make Mumbai, next Shanghai, than putting Shivaji Maharaj in deep waters….

Random Post...

Its been a long time since I posted last. A gap of over a month. A month that saw me changing my job, two quick trips to Gurgaon and finally settling into the groove in this new company. It was a hectic month to say the least. I barely got the time to open even my blog and I must say I missed your posts and lovely comments. But I guess things are taking a settled look now. Although the days here are longer than my previous job but at least now I know what is expected out of me here and what I need to put in here.

It was a long sleepy day after a long time and that it was Sunday served as icing on the cake. I just came back after a long lazy walk. I started my stroll with a big glass of sugarcane juice. Then after piercing through the crowded streets with vegetable market on footpath and all kinds of jewellary and cloths shops around me I had another Mumbai delicacy, Samosa Pav, stepbrother of vada pav. Now this is one thing that I have noticed in Mumbai’s roadside restaurants. They have the habit of stuffing either pav or coconut chutney in your plate. I guess they believe that the dish is of no use without either one of the things in the plate. Samosa Pav was followed by a ‘cuttin’ chai. Now I must accept that tea is something that gives a strange kick to this teetotaler. In my list, it is far above the cappuccinos. After covering some more distance, I reached Shivaji Park. It is one of the many colorful places in Mumbai and this is one place where you don’t complain about the crowd in Mumbai. After all who will complain when there are Oo-La-La gals all around you! After spending some time around the couples (who were holding hands as if they have been glued together) I started my walk back to my flat.

This wayward post marks my return to blog world. Thanks to my new company I am a proud owner of a laptop and in a matter of two days I will be having net connection at my flat. I hope to post regularly after that and hope to have YM sessions with you all.

Closing this post while listening to a version of “Summer of 69” sung by a guy from Manipal and its just brilliant.

Take Care…

PS: This post was written on Sunday evening and posted today.

2 Years 43 Days!

Four more days and it will be the closure of first chapter of my professional career. On 4th Aug'03, my foray into professional life started & exactly after 2 years & 43 days, it will be curtains to my first job experience. Yes..I am joining another company on 20th of this month but i will remain in the city of dreams..Mumbai!

Things have changed a lot in these two years and from this experience behind me, I can say that doing a job is a different ball game altogether than scoring marks in school and college! In these two years I haven't applied a single thing learnt/grasped/understood during four years of my engg.! Spending 21 years in school/college preparing yourself for the job and then actually doing the job are two entirely different things. As different as theory classes and the practicals; as different as mugging up the formulae and then actually cracking the numericals in IIT-JEE exam; as different as your girlfriend and wife! ;-)

So, once in job, what are the things you actually achieve? Experience? Learn new things? become a mature person? sense of responsibility? Yes, Yes..you do gain experience, you actually learn new things, you become mature ( this can be argued..some tends to go the other way!) and you actually shoulder some responsibilities but apart from all this crap, you achieve financial independence. Now you can go to a REEBOK showroom with a fair probability that you will come out with a pair of t-shirts, now you can go to a decent restaurant and can order without looking at the right hand side column and now you can actually go for back to back movies...that too in a multiplex with popcorn and pepsi in the intervals on both the days! ;-) Now compare this with the engg. days when there used to be a dog-fight on who will pay the bill, all of Rs 16 for 8 'cuttin'...Compare this with the days when we used to go to the petrol pump after pushing empty tanked old two wheeler for half a kilometer and get a refill of Rs 15! Still..those days were better...

With this post i complete one year in the blog world and in this past one year I have met/interacted with many wonderful souls. I would like to thank all those who commented and all those who didnt comment for various reasons or various degrees of laziness but appreciated my posts.

As far as statistics are concerned, this one is my 79th post in one year which makes 1 post every 4.6 days! Not bad..

The counter is showing 13122, which indicates 36 visitors per day..Not bad at all considering that there were 300 odd visitors in the first 3 months!

Thanx all of you..

Cheers...

The Cycle...

A series with Zimbabwe/Bangladesh/Uganda/ Tongo/Papua New Guinea and he will blast the opposition scoring countless runs maintaining his average in early forties.

He will play the next on the basis of his performance in the last series and a series of low scores will follow.

He will still play the next one on the basis of his records and past performances. Another string of low scores will follow.

Then again he will be the automatic choice for the next as he is the captain of the team. He will do all kind of acrobatics on the field facing the short pitch stuff from anybody ranging from genuine pace of Bond and Lee to military medium of Styris!

Then he will sit out of some games serving some ban for slow over rate or Excessive appealing or not cleaning his clothes or not brushing his teeth and what not.

He will make a comeback after the ban and another series of low scores!

Then…..A series with Zimbabwe/Bangladesh/Uganda/ Congo/Papua New Guinea…..
And the cycle continues….

And they are shining brightly...

Away from all the glitter of cttthroat advertising & expensive coaching institutes, two men are doing their bit for the society, for the country. The men, whose actual jobs are as distince as nabbing the criminals & educating the students!

I first read about them in an article published in 'India Today' last year. It really touched me. The news appeared in front of my eyes again in June this year in TOI. They were doing their dury, quietly, and the results were there to see.

Three years back, Abhayanand, Bihar's Additional Director-General of Police (Special wing) envisioned a dream; a dream to prepare the hidden gems from Bihar to clear arguably the toughest exam in this country, IIT-JEE. He joined hands with another teacher of Mathematics, Anand Kumar. Later, Neeraj Pratap Singh (Chemistry) joined in and the faculty was complete as the cop himself took the task of teaching Physics.

Now have a look at the students: Son of a rickshaw puller, Son of a brick kiln worker, Son of a vegetable vendor and so on.

The strategy is simple. They handpick 30 students from the govt. schools of Bihar after a screening test and bring them to patna. Not a single penny is charged to the students. Even the food and shelter is provided by these mentors, out of their own pockets. And the results? In the first year itself 18 out of 30 students cracked IIT. In the second year the figure was 22 and this year 26 out of 30 students made it to IIT. The boys who were struggling to gather the bare minimum amenities for life are now a part of one of the most prestigious institutes of the country.

My salute to the vision and to the three men.

Read the full story

1.www.rediff.com/news/2005/jun/20iit.htm

2. http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=76655

Classical Dilemma!!

It was yet another rakhi for me away from my family. Its been a little more than 6 years now since i left my hometown. The distance which was approx. 550 kms for the first 4 years during my engg. days streatched to more than 1100 kms in the last two years. Out of the last three years, i could make it to Gwalior only once on rakhi. Coming out of the statistics, I received my rakhi well on time. To be precise, i got it on 17th, good two days before the festival and as an ideal brother, i dispatched my sister's gift on the same day.

After receiving it, everything boiled down to finding someone to do the honors on the D-day. For this purpose, female species were kept out of the question for all the obvious reasons. The only two targets in my mind were my two flat mates. As soon as i came out of the bed on 19th, i realised that i will have to wait till late in the evening as both of my flat mates were already off to their offices! The first of them, 'A' came back at 8 PM and i pounced on him to get the rakhi tied.

Now here is the scenerio that has prevailed!

1. He is officially my sister and i will have to protect him.

2. Going by the customs and traditions, I am also his sister as i tied the rakhi sent by his sister.

3. Two males are now sister to each other.

Now have a look at this..

4. My wife will have the option of calling him either 'Jeth' or 'Nanad'.

5. I can be his wife's 'devar' or 'Nanad'.

6. My children will have the liberty of calling him either 'Tauji' or 'Buaji'.

7. And I can play the dual role of 'Chacha' or 'Bua' at the same time for his children.

And i thought its just a matter of tying a thread on wrist!!