Clean up

Although I am not a Modi Bhakt, but I think he is striking the right chord with his Clean India campaign. He is telling us what we all already knew but never wanted to accept, that India is dirty and our cities, towns and villages are filled with filth of which we have become habitual. I think we might be the only race in the world which is so clean, and yet so dirty. Most of us have extremely good hygiene habits, which includes taking bath every day, irrespective of the weather. We keep ourselves in good form by neatly combing hair and ensuring that our nails are clipped properly, a habit which is inculcated in us by our parents with love, or by our school teachers with force. We are a well bathed and neat nation as far as people are concerned, however it’s a different story as far as our streets, parks and public transports are concerned.  What happens to us when it comes to keeping our community clean?

We are governed by a principle as far as community cleanliness is concerned and that is, “Dustbin begins where my home ends” , we ensure that our houses are cleaned daily by the maids who are paid exactly for this purpose, but it doesn’t matter what happens to that garbage once it leaves our house. It doesn’t matter if it’s thrown in the dustbin or just lies in a corner of a street. We don’t care if the streets becomes filthy with the used bottles, soda cans or chips packet wrappers as long as the interiors of our car are clean, the concept of detachment from Bhagwad Gita have never been understood so well anywhere else around the world.

This make me very nervous about the success of the campaign launched with so much fanfare by our beloved PM, actually this and some other facts which are beyond the scope of this posting. I am sure we will succeed in cleaning up lots of nooks and corners of our country which may not have seen daylight since ages, but it should not follow the law of conservation of Garbage in India, that “the garbage can be created, but can’t be destroyed, it will just change its place from one corner to the other”, if this law gets applied in this whole campaign, then the only good which will come out of this will be some political mileage to few of our  nation loving netas who will not leave any photo op, to ensure that we know how dedicated they are to this task, to get votes and Mr. PM knows about it too, so that their political future may take a leap.

I want this to succeed from the bottom of my heart, because i want to live in a cleaner India, but to ensure that we need to make it very clear to everyone, clean India doesn’t only mean clean homes, it means clean streets, clean buses/trains, clean park, clean lakes and much more. I guess time for us to prove the law of conservation of garbage wrong, we will not get a noble prize for that, but will get much bigger prize, a better and cleaner country of which we can be proud of.

Do you Remember.......

Few days back we lost T20 world cup final to Sri lanka, and yuvraj singh was labelled as the villain because of his below par performance in that particular match. All hell broke loose for him and swords were drawn out immediately, social media was painted with spoofs and jokes about this “player of the series in world cup 2011”. Day before, one politician said that Kargil war was won by Muslims and not Hindus, and I am yet to see the anger of my learned and educated friends on facebook or twitter, I am pretty sure that I will see none of it. It’s fine to be a politician and say anything you like about anyone, but it’s a sin to perform poorly in one cricket match. Welcome to the India of 21^st century, which got freedom some 60 years back but still chooses its representatives in parliament based on caste & religion.

We Indians have a very short term and selective memory, remembering stuff which has happened in recent past, as recent as last month and only about certain people. We have easily forgotten the Rajas and Kalmadis, who scooped up billions of our hard earned money, but are more concerned about the non-payment of few thousand rupees as rent by a person who is even entitled to live that flat, theoretically speaking. How easily we forgot the pictures of Uttarakhand which suffered flash floods just because the government was greedy enough to allow illegal and unplanned construction, and do you remember the two fighting politicians, who wanted to take the people rescued by our selfless army-men on their planes back to Hyderabad just to get some publicity and credit. We have forgotten how in last 60 years, our money has been scooped up by the greedy politicians in the name of various schemes and projects which never got materialized. I am sure no one remembers how one leader did a drama of rath yatra some years back, leading to events which saw massive rioting and killings, but the moment someone sits on a dharna or comes out for roadshow, he is termed as draamebaz. Oh, and do you remember, one politician wanted to go and piss in a dam, because the people in that area were facing severe drought conditions, which experts believed were man-made.  Let me try to see how many of you young, liberal, independent and modern women out there remember the various comments made by our “respected” politicians on the way you dress up or behave, and I am sure you must be following the advice given to you by our senior lady politicians, regarding not roaming out in the night and wearing “decent” clothes, women empowerment is a big and important issue, one of the “young” leader used that phrase 120 times in an interview given by him, just to reiterate the importance of the same and its just a coincidence that the “rape capital” of india was being governed (ruled is a better word, if we are talking literally) by a lady from his party only. (As I am writing this one of our politicians is asking “why should a rapist be hanged, boys make mistakes”, so now a rapist can say sorry and move on)

There are a few, which had better memory than others, and they came out opposing the current way of working, the rotten system and challenged the conventions. As expected, they were supported widely, but at the same time ridiculed and mocked at also. When these people formed a government and tried to pass an anti-corruption law, all hell broke loose. The political parties went against them and opposed the bill, leaving the government in minority, result a resignation and suddenly we all started feeling betrayed, as if a best friend of ours has stabbed us in the back. I am not sure why we became so emotional about it suddenly; this feeling of betrayal never crossed our mind in last 60 years, when we were betrayed, stabbed again and again by the same people. We have no shame in calling those people our leaders and representatives, although there might be hundreds of criminal cases pending against them (which as far as I believe will always remain pending). We garlanded the people who have pocketed public money easily and without shame, why we didn't feel betrayed at that time. Why no one put up derogatory messages against these ministers and politicians when their names appeared in CBI charge sheets? Why no one feels betrayed when ministers/MPs/MLAs do not vacate the flats allocated to them even after they have completed their tenure, but we were very quick to count the number of rooms this new CM had in the flat allocated to him, or the rent due on him, immaterial of the fact that the pending electricity bills of our beloved MPs runs in to millions of rupees much higher that the due rent. We were prompt in commenting on the vehicles used by ministers of this Delhi government, forgetting conveniently, multiple instances where MPs and MLAs used Air India planes as their private jets, without paying a single penny. I guess short term memory affected us badly here.

Now an important point is why we behave like this? My idea is that we don’t want to change, we are comfortable with this feudal way of working, with politicians as our lord and masters who are the privileged ones and its our duty to serve them and not other way round. We are fine with the idea that a leader is supposed to be surrounded by security guards and should be visible on a stage hundreds of meters away, because the moment someone comes forward to meet us, we slap him, because the moment a leader becomes accessible and approachable, he is no longer considered  a representative, he becomes one of us and its fine to kick and slap our peers, as we have been doing since last so many years, while others look and get all sorts of enjoyment from it, even proudly posting it on their FB status messages feeling that they have done their bit in spreading the truth. I am amused and surprised to see their dedication and sincerity in highlighting all the slaps/inks/misinformation about this group of people and wonder where this dedication was, when we were being looted and exploited by the current breed of conventional politicians.  I think it’s very simple, no one wants to be the whistle blower against the powerful and mighty “public servants”, but it’s fine to abuse someone who, you know will not use the powerful government machinery against you. No One in this world is without fault, and it’s not necessary that everyone believes and follows one man’s ideas and ideologies, I have met people who openly abuse Gandhiji and his ideas, that’s the beauty of democracy in India, you can abuse anyone as long as he is dead or not powerful enough to settle scores with you.

I think we are used to of the kind of politics which has been part and parcel of our life since last so many years; we don’t want to change it. We just want someone to do it for us, that too quickly and if he is not able to reach upto the high standards we have set for him, we start calling him names, make spoof and joke about him, but in all this we forget one thing, that person is just a symbol of us. It’s us who are being slapped and kicked by the political parties, the moment we ask difficult questions; it’s us who are being called dramebaaz and jokers by these parties to ensure that they keep looting us. Why our anger doesn't come out against these people who have betrayed us since last 60 years? Why don’t we question their expenses and the money spent on the luxuries and unnecessary foreign tours? (I am sure no one remembers, the Karnataka MLAs foreign trip or the star studded festival in UP while people died in muzaffarnagar camps).

One part of me believes, we don’t want to question or change, because as its natural, we all resist change. I am sure Yuvraj will perform well in some other match and may even win it for us, and we will treat him like a hero then, but i think time is running out for us and we need some brain tonic soon to remember a lot of things, which we conveniently forget.

An Ad shows the way.....

There is an ad running on TV now days for TATA AIG, which shows a man asking his son to thank their servant for serving him food on dinner table. It’s a very well made ad and definitely touches a chord while conveying the right message about the insurance company, however I think, it does much more than just promoting the product on TV to the right audience, it actually touches upon a very important social issue.



When we became independent in 1947, we got freedom from the British rule politically, but still remained enslaved to their ideologies and philosophies to certain extent and felt that it is good to follow the class based society, filling in the positions vacated by the “gora sahibs” in our minds and society, with politicians and affluent residents of India, giving birth to the modern VIPs. These earlier versions of VIPs were still closer to the “aam junta”, as they were a part of it till some time back; however over the next few decades, this species followed what Darwin called the Theory of Evolution and developed into a species which is different and totally alienated from the “aam junta”. Everyone of us wants to be that VIP, who must be given priority over other “lower mortals” and respected , irrespective of whether s/he has the merit for same or not. All these VIPs make sure, that not only they themselves, but all those related to them, even remotely, are treated like one. Their children become used to of being ferried in a government vehicle with a red light on top, always surrounded by servants or worse still their parent’s sycophant followers, feeling important and developing a mindset of being superior without having any merit at times, born to command and rule the people in their service. As if these VIPs were not enough we also developed a “superior” form of this species known as VVIPs, some of which are called so, because of the position they hold in society, while some by virtue of their in-laws’ positions.

At this point, someone may question, how does having VIPs in the society affects us adversely? I can cite hundreds of examples where the VIP status of a few privileged ones have caused discomfort and even bodily harm to many hundreds, but let me restrict myself here to only a few. One of the most recent one is the disarray caused by visit of Mamta Banerjee to the site of fire accident in Kolkata hospital. The authorities and officers, instead of tending to the victims focussed their energy in taking care of Didi. Those who have lived in Delhi know of the mess created by the VIP movement on the Delhi roads and its affect on traffic. Many flights have been delayed in the past, just because some VIPs could not board them in time. Now, having made my point, the question is what to do about it, and that is where the aforementioned ad comes in picture.

A very clear message, the father in the ad gives to his son, that his servant is also a human being who should be respected and thanked for his services, as he is doing his job. He also conveys to him that, being served on a table by another person doesn’t make him someone special or superior, making it clear in boy’s mind that he is not a “born VIP”. I look at it as a very good start in the right direction. We have bred and nurtured these VIPs over the last so many years, because of our colonial mindsets and practices, now the time has come that we start afresh and kill this concept of VIP. As it is always difficult to change the thinking and the existing mindsets, it will be a good idea that we try instilling this new concept of equality in our future generation’s mind, so that at least they can be independent from this age old mental slavery and bring the much needed change in the society. If we keep on passing the baton of our colonial mindset to future generation then we will never be able to eliminate this unnecessary social inequality, which is the root cause of many evils existing in our society today.

The Antisocial Bachelors..

“Sir, there is a party interested in your flat” spoke my estate agent in his phone, on the other side was the owner of flat, which I was interested in taking on rent. “Two bachelors sir, nice and decent people” said he, certifying our good character to the owner. “Should not be any problem sir, they both work in good companies” still trying hard to convince about our clean backgrounds. “Yes, sir we will take copies of their company Ids and also parent’s address with phone numbers” confirming that we have no place to hide or run if we commit some heinous crime in his flat or worse still, run away with his flat. I am sure, any bachelor who would have tried to rent a flat in Mumbai must have witnessed such a conversation. In my personal opinion a married terrorist can rent a flat much faster and easily than a well educated working bachelor. The story doesn’t end here, after getting the approval of still apprehensive flat owner, there are many others whose approval matters, and one of them is society’s secretary. Many societies in Mumbai do not allow bachelors as tenants in their buildings, for the reasons best known to the residents of the building.

Whenever I think about this, I feel both sad and amused. It’s a shame that we don’t know how to judge a person and try to measure everyone by same standard, it amuses me to think about the thought process these societies have behind making these rules. I am not sure whom they trust less, the bachelors or their own family members who can be “badly” influenced by the bachelors. More so I think all the people who support these rules must have done some things, which they may not be proud of, while they were bachelors and now fear that the single person coming in their building will behave like them only, creating nuisance. Whatever be the reason, it’s a shame that some people are denied an accommodation based on their marital status; thank god the court gave approval for live-in relationship.

What is that which makes us distrust a bachelor and keep him or her away from the “mainstream society“? I think the answer lies in the insecurities all these people live with or in the simple fact that by meeting a bachelor everyday and see him enjoy life, a married man/woman may feel more and more miserable, hence its better to keep them away and live in a fool’s paradise. Whatever may be the reason, I know for sure that if I have to get a flat in Mumbai, either I need to get married or fake it, both of these possibilities are rare in near future, till then let me keep tormenting the married souls by making them remember the good old days of bachelorhood struggle which all of them have conveniently forgotten.

The Unreserved Indian..

This year many people will not be able to go home and be with their near and dear ones for Diwali, it’s not that they don’t want to go, they just can’t because there are no seats available in almost all the trains running, the airline tickets are selling at triple the normal price and even buses are running full. What is so special or unique about this situation? it’s a normal scenario, which happens every year during the festive season. I think there is more to it then what meets the eye.

We all are used to of crowded trains or the festive season rush, when the train seats are waitlisted and the Indian railways website refuses to open up. This happens during summer vacations, Diwali season and winter vacations. The Indian railways fails to meet the demand on each of these 3 occasions, which results in many heartbreaks. But, it will be unfair to blame Indian railways totally for this as they have there own constraints, and also the huge, ever rising population of India is not helping the cause at all. The airlines try to maximize their earnings during these peak seasons because they know that railways can’t meet the demand and people are ready to shell out extra to be at home for festivals, so make hay while the sun shines. We all know the reason for this situation and have learnt to live with it, but have we ever thought why we reached this stage, or what is the possible solution to this problem?

I have always felt that we as a country has a habit of not focussing on the real issues which affect us daily and makes our life difficult, whenever faced by such scenarios we simply adapt and hail the Indian resilience, be it travelling next to toilet sitting on a news paper whole night. No one thinks of pushing the government for fast tracking the development of the railroad systems so that high capacity trains can run on them at faster pace, we never take out protest marches to push for this cause. However, if some B-grade movie hits theatre in which some c-grade heroine decides to kiss another girl, all hell breaks lose. We don’t want our children to be exposed to these immoral scenes, but are totally comfortable if they travel near the toilet or worse on the roof of trains. What is the use of being a moral person when you can’t even live like a human being? People who have travelled in the Mumbai locals will know what I am talking about here. Thousands of people cramp in the bogey designed to carry hundreds, feeling proud that they are the mumbaikars, the torch bearers of so called Mumbai spirit. Government tried taking some action to make things better, to provide more and better trains, cleaner trains, but by the time these actions are implemented, the population increases and the increased capacity actually fails to cater even to the normal demand. But, we never try pushing government or railways to implement these changes faster; however a controversial book or movie is banned in matter of hours because of public pressure.

We have always hated westerners for their liberal culture and mindset, we don’t want our culture to be polluted by the so called immoralities of the western culture, however we never think twice before imitating these so called immoral people in our dressing and language. I will be a very happy person, if we also start imitating western world in developing the basics in our country and try to push authorities for reforms which will enable thousands of us to meet our families and celebrate festivals together. By the way, even I didn’t get the ticket this year :(

Life at Random....

Just recall all the movies you have ever watched, there is one similarity, all the events depicted in the movie are related, if they are not then there is no story. Now, for a moment think of this, in reality is everything really co-related. I can imagine many of us answering this question with a Yes, reason is that we all are made to believe that.

I believe that we live our life in frames or phases, totally unrelated to each other, but because there are some people who are present in most of these phases we start believing that everything is related. We believe, because one event took place, it triggered the other one, like the Butterfly effect, but then don’t we all are just enjoying the benefit of hindsight. Let me put another thought here, how many of us actually think about the events that will be caused by our actions before acting, and I am not talking about some business decisions here (although some of the business decisions are also not that “well thought of”, yet they create impact either positive or negative). Let me put it in more simple terms and explain with an example, suppose you at random visit a restaurant for a cup of coffee and meet an old friend, you two catch up, things move further and you meet again, this time planned, things work out positively and both of you end up falling in love. Nice story, but if you look at it, these were some unplanned events, you never actually planned to visit that restaurant or expected to meet that girl/guy, even after first meeting you may not have thought of falling in love with her/him, but when you will tell “How I met my GF/BF” story to your friends, it will flow out as a romance novel.

We live life randomly, at least most of us, its just that we have benefit of hindsight at certain points in our life, we use that to create stories, and believe that whatever is happening to us is all co-related. I understand that at times our actions affect the outcome of certain events in our life, but those actions are also mostly random. If we plan and think twice before acting on everything, the charm in our life will be lost. We can only hope that whatever we are doing today will somehow make our future fall in place, there are is no screenplay in real life, everything happens randomly and we just write the screenplay after it has already been enacted, and a buttefly fluttering its wings to cause a typhoon is just a story we all would like to hear and believe in.

"Inaamdaar" Indians

Yesterday my mother told me that our new landline phone is active and she has paid Rs. 200 to the lineman. On asking why, I was told that the lineman was asking for some “Inaam” for the new number we have got. This whole episode got me thinking, that we Indians are one of the most creative race on planet earth. We have even created unique ways of being corrupt.

What will you call the “Inaam” this lineman took from my mother? Was it a bribe? My answer will be “no” if I strictly follow the definition of a bribe (as per dictionary.com), which will be “Persuade (someone) to act in one's favour, typically illegally or dishonestly, by a gift of money or other inducement”, she paid him after the line was activated, he never told her that the line will not be installed until she pays him, there was nothing illegal which he was doing nor we were getting the phone installed out of turn. But, at the same time I am sure all of us will agree that this is some sort of corruption. Let me try solving this puzzle, I will call this something similar to extortion. Let’s examine the scenario, if my mother have not paid him, we would have been subjected to frequent disconnection of phone line, noisy lines, faulty instruments, late redressal of complaints etc. etc. anyone who have dealt with our public owned phone companies will know what kind of harassment I am talking about. Please keep in mind, I am not justifying my mother’s action here, she acted in a way, whatever felt right to her based on past experiences. But, this whole incident surely points in a direction which we have very conveniently ignored amidst our so called fight against corruption. The point being, that corruption has become so much part and parcel of our culture that at times we don’t even realize, what we are doing is something illegal or unethical.

If I ask any average Indian, “Have the levels and instances of bribery gone down since Anna Hazare started fasting?” I am sure many will answer “no”. But how is that possible, if we all are against corruption and support Anna Hazare? I am sure the traffic policeman who asks for Rs. 100 as bribe is also supporting Anna, in same way as the person paying him. I am very sure that all the government officers who ask for bribe are also supporting Anna in same way as we all do. This means we all are against corruption, then why still we are ranked amongst the most corrupt nations? Maybe because all our politicians and high ranking officers are corrupt and a lokpal bill is required to take care of them and that’s what Anna hazare and all of us are fighting against, correct? I don’t think so.
The politicians are mere symbols of our society and the corrupt ones represent exactly what is wrong with us. We all are corrupt in our own ways, but we don’t want to accept that. Will the lineman ever accept that he took a bribe from my mother or the traffic cop will think that because there is an old man fighting against corruption let me not take bribe from now on, or for that matter will anyone of us choose to pay Rs. 1000 fine instead of bribing policeman with Rs. 100 and get away with it. I am sure most of us will answer these questions in negative (if we be honest). But even before asking these questions if I ask who is corrupt in our society, I am sure many will point fingers towards politicians and high ranking officers.

People are comparing Anna hazare with Mahatma Gandhi because he is fighting for the people of India. I do not agree with this comparison, MKG fought and won a battle against British along with the people of India. All Indians fighting with him had their objectives clear and were ready to sacrifice their own interests for the larger cause, whereas Anna is fighting a battle against corruption along with people who are equally corrupt as the people they are fighting against, I am sorry to say, but I don’t give him much of a chance in this battle, unless we follow what MKG said “Be the change you want to see in the society”.