Gujarati Holidays

I had a chance to visit a very small town in Gujarat called Mehsana. The first observation I made in Gujarat was that people still drink excessively chlorinated water. Not that its bad, its an indication that water treatment plants are working enthusiastically but I had made the same observation precisely ten years back when I came to Gujarat for the first time, as a result, selling filtered water is a sprawling business. Two cans of filtered water, 10 litres each, are home delivered at house at a monthly cost of Rs 200 and people prefer this to water purifiers because tap-water is so excessively chlorinated that these purifiers require servicing every month.
Even though the town was small yet I did not miss the so-called metropolitan life – the place was clean, I could get everything I wanted including high speed internet connection. In fact, the internet connection was faster than what I usually get at Delhi cyber-cafés.
Gujaratis, it is said, are a rather avaricious type of community – though I think it is quite good because they do not allow themselves to be fleeced by auto-rickshaw drivers – very unlike Delhi. The auto-drivers in order to reduce costs use kerosene instead of petrol and Mehsana commuters, knowing this fact very well, bargain and bargain excellently. The result is that intra-city travel from end-to-end costs no more than Rs. 10! The drivers keep cribbing about the frugality of people and the imminent starvation of their children but still do not dare increase the fare from 10 to 11!
Another striking feature of Mehsana in particular and Gujarat in general is that temples are built in a very aesthetic manner. They merge with the overall ambience and add to the tranquillity of the city. Temples are seen more as a place to socialize than as a place to worship. Unlike many temples that I have seen in south and north India, most of the local temples in Gujarat (by local I mean those built in residential areas and not having any historical or religious significance not like Somnath or Nageshwar) have benches where people can sit and interact. I haven’t come across any such temple in entire North India and maybe even South India. Gujaratis may be misers when it comes to auto fares but they spend a good amount in building temples – the smallest temple I came across was built in an area of half-acre.
Another shock awaited me in the railways, while travelling to Lucknow and Gorakhpur I am used to seeing coaches filled up to twice their capacity even in A/C class (second class coaches are filled up to four times their capacity) here, even in peak season not a single extra person was present, I awed at the attitude of people and the honesty of ticket collectors.
At home an invitation awaited me for a trip to Gorakhpur, I thought of the jam-packed trains, people travelling without reservation, TT accepting bribes openly and then thought of the journey I had just made – I put up a fake excuse and refused politely.

Quota Raj and Indian Railways

It is strange that people get most brilliant of ideas in strangest of places and then having got the idea people do strangest of things lest the idea should slip off their mind just like it came. A gentleman, it is said, hence ran on streets of Greece naked so that the brilliant idea he got in his bathtub should not skip him; to the best of my knowledge he shouted ‘Eureka’.
I too got an idea while standing in queue and simultaneously getting frustrated by the length of the queue to get my ticket to Ahemadabad. The idea must not have been as great as the abovementioned person got, because I did not feel the urge to strip down and leave my queue to run on streets of Delhi, or possibly the idea of starting from the last point of queue all over again, which was some two kilometres away from where I was standing, must have preserved my sanity.
The idea is very simple but needs some background. Government, having shown its incompetence to improve socially and economically backward classes has gone for a quick and dirty solution to the problem by means of reserving 50% quota for SC/ST/OBC. If government has not been able to elevate the social status of backward classes and emancipate them from the clutches of poverty then it is utter failure of not only the education system but also of complete administration. Educationist and bureaucrats should practice what they preach. There are places in India where primary school teachers do not accept water or food from the so-called shudra. Same is the case with bureaucrats and police of those areas where Harijans are treated with complete disrespect. However, since the government is incapable of handling its own machinery they set up quotas to hide their ineptitude. But here again, the people who really deserve the benefits of quota get neglected and those sections of backward classes who are rich and influential get further boost.
Mr. Arjun Singh’s role after becoming HRD minister has been to use government services to improve his health and to get votes for Madam. In the process, he has completely forgotten the role which an HRD minister should play i.e. of improving human resources capabilities in a resource-rich country like India. Many youngsters go to countries such as USA, Australia and UK because our HRD ministry has completely neglected importance of encouraging researches at post graduate level, there is just one institute in India which is dedicated to researches of pure sciences. After completing the schooling and graduation many students leave for abroad simply because there aren’t enough number of seats and out of those which are available, ministry ensures that those too are not filled by deserving candidates but by those who have reservations for them in the name of backward classes.
And the best part remains how the ministry offsets the number of seats which are reserved for quota, it does so by increasing the number of seats. So, they are leaving no stone unturned to bring down the quality of education in India. First, they admit non-deserving students and then they also ensure that the existing standards also come down by straining the teachers to the last degree by increasing the number of students.
Now let us come to the idea which I got while standing in the queue, since we have imposed the quota on education then why not have a quota in the railways as well? Say 50% of the seats reserved for backward classes because upper classes can always resort to other means such as airplanes and cars. Better still; why not reserve the 50% of booking counters as well for the backward classes, just for social uplift!

Rang De Basanti – The Youth Awakens…on the wrong side of bed

This movie Rang De Basanti, or RDB as it is being called by the youth who have awakened after watching the movie should be categorized under comedy and should be given a rating 60+ (fit of anyone above 60 years of age) universally.
The tagline of the movie is ‘The Youth Awakens’ – I awoke when the movie was over, so the tagline is one thing which seems correct other than that its just a gibberish with a few 40 year old youths stripping down and waving their clothes at Mig-21. What exactly is the point of waving your shirt at passing-by Mig-21 still remains to be answered as do a lot many questions which crept up my mind. I am sure that not even the director (don’t remember and don’t want to remember his/her name) knows.
Let us try and analyse what it is exactly which made them claim that this cinema will enable the youth to awaken. Firstly, like in a typical Hindi cinema, the hero is shown as a lifeline of his friend circle; he likes to drink beer and jump in pool when he gets drunk and oh, he also likes to slap his own butt while dancing around British female. They also are a bunch of losers and often look down upon those who want to do something meaningful in their life.
So far so good, it does seem that the youth of India is sleeping – at this point it should be fair to assume that four or five losers of a college, unlike thousands who study and do well, can be taken as representatives of Indian youths.
One fine morning, they decide that they have really awakened and hence decide to kill the defence minister. Though the cinema tries to justify the murdering of defence minister by showing that their friend’s fiancé died while piloting mig-21 and defence minister put the blame on pilot. But the awakened youth has not realized the power of elections in democracy like India, may be they woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Killing ministers is spreading terror and terrorism is bad Mr. Khan, do you know that? Uncle Sam will not like it at all.
Proceeding with the story, the youth of India having decided to kill the minister go on and kill him and miraculously, don’t get caught. They have an easy-to-follow five step plan to kill the minister:
1. acquire a pistol
2. acquire a bike – don’t bother to put a fake number plate
3. study the daily routine of defence minister of India (somehow they manage to do that and in this case find out that he goes out for morning walks)
4. kill him while he goes for morning walk
5. run away
All this can be done; ministers do go out on morning walks. But to my disappointment I noticed that ministers live in high security zone of Lutyen’s Delhi. Even if you manage to shoot at minister there are ambulances on standby, there are police jeeps which can catch you in no time at all – for heaven's sake, you are planning to attack the defence minister himself, that too in the safest corridors of Delhi.
Then, after escaping successfully, they feel they didn’t get enough ‘kick’ to awaken properly. Another idea pops up; they decide to confess their crime on a no lesser medium than All India Radio. They enter the building of All India Radio and surprisingly, metal detectors do not detect their guns – after entering they announce happily that they killed the minister. Having got the morning jolt their faces turn happy, now the youth is ready to go to work!
But you see, terrorists should not be allowed to go to work. Anti-Terrorist forces see to it that the awakened youth is put to sleep again. Sigh! I love happy endings!

Raina - The Hero… Give him a break

For the last three days the sports page of any newspaper Hindi or English has been carrying an expert opinion about Raina. It seems that newspapers don’t have anything else to cover; as if the sporting world has come to a standstill after Raina’s performance so that sports correspondents do not get bothered by any other petty events and can fully concentrate on analysing the performance of Raina from every possible angle (including the encouragement he got from his neighbours ten years back for playing cricket).
Raina today was being portrayed as a substitute to Tendulkar, while Tendulkar may be having a bad phase in his life and retirement may be imminent for him, we still can’t compare likes of Tendulkar to Raina. For heaven’s sake he is just a kid who did a wonderful job in one inning. If he continues to do so for coming year or two then we may think of comparing him with legends but as of now the idea is ridiculous not because he is not good but because he is too new for this.
The media tends to over-hype a single performance to an extent that the person simply buckles down under pressure of performing well (because media expects him to perform) and this is what is happening to Raina. The pressure on him has grown manifolds simply because of media, this is the punishment for playing good cricket. God forbid, if the same person performs badly in the next match then media will make sure that his career in cricketing is over even before he gets out of the stadium.
The need is to go easy on him and let the time decide his fate, not the media!

Look at the Broad Picture...then see your Problems

I quote opening paragraphs of "Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy" written by Douglas Adams…so satirical but yet so true…

For out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper there were unhappy.
And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.