Sawai Gandharva - 08

14/12 : Raj’s birthday; since he wasn’t in the city, I decided to celebrate the day visiting Sawai Gandharva – 2008, India’s premier classical Music Extravaganza held in Pune every year.

And what a celebration that was !

Magical performances, Excellent support band, Discerning and equally colorful audience, Comfortable seating, Typically fabulous Pune weather alongwith Puneri delicacies (served hot and crisp) made my day !

Stalwarts like Pt Jasraj, Shrinivas Joshi, Dr Prabha Atre, Pt Shivkumar Sharma, Pt Ronu Majumdar, Aruna Sairam played to jam-packed galleries and over-flowing aisles at Ramanbaug.

It was heartening to see all age groups coming over to watch the biggest classical music concert of the nation. You could see guys with camcorders, women wearing silk saaris – gajras(garlands specially made for women’s hairs), girls sporting their beautiful shawls ….. Fervor all over ! The crowd numbered more than 25 thousand and I felt as if there was no one around when an artiste was performing; such astute silence. On the other hand, whenever a performance finished, there were more than 50,000 hands busy applauding it. Music touches everyone and climax of Sawai Gandharva just highlighted it yet again.

Whether it was a raag, a taan or a harqat, chants of Marathi Bhajans or crescendo of flute, mridangam one thing was evident; it was something that soothes your heart, something that delights you every time you listen, and something that’s only one of its kinds. And then, its not difficult to guess why classical music artistes like to perform at Sawai Gandharva and especially in Pune. It wasn’t a game of cricket, it wasn’t a rock concert ….. and we witnessed an enormous crowd. Mind you, it wasn’t a wild crowd, people were peacefully helping themselves everywhere, no push and shove at all, elders and kids were escorted carefully ….. Truly a family fiesta !

Many thanks to Maharashtra police for tight security arrangements and organizers for managing to come up with such wonderful ambience. Next year, I expect even bigger crowd and little better arrangements and hospitality.


All and all, the day will go down as one of the best and the most pleasant gathering in my memory, Marathi classical saga at its best.



Let me make a wish that the tradition goes on forever and we get to listen to such Beautiful and mesmerising songs and Bhajans .....



लाभले आम्हास भाग्य बोलतो मराठी

जाहले खरेच धन्य ऐकतो मराठी

How 'Sexy' you are !

7/12 : I ran in Pune international marathon, the charity race’s theme was race against AIDS. The issue of AIDS and lack of sexual awareness kept me thinking for a major part of the last week. India has a terrible enemy AIDS.

The biggest victim of HIV stands helpless in the world today; the culture misinterpretation stands as one of the major causes for this; I have to say very sadly. This is India, king of closed-door mentality.

We don’t believe in open discussion on sex; sex is a taboo in our country. Vast Majority of the country still regards sexual activities as sins (less educated class) or mistakes (average socio-economic class) or a ‘dirty’ necessity (well-off youngsters). People here still don’t accept it as a critical necessity for life, as mutual pleasure for partners, as a very natural biological process. Parents don’t tell their children about puberty/youth/sexual growth and children start misinterpreting their sexual behaviors according to their sources of information. Adolescents are vehemently under-confident; puberty is not taken in a healthy way. We think Menstruation is grimy and Masturbation is mistake committed by the young.

India has never handled sex medically, it has always been something aberrant. We’re in a nation where a gentle kiss is still considered to be a ‘sexual activity’, people shy away from touching or holding their partners in public. Homosexuality here, is a matter of humor only. Our government thinks homosexuality is a prime cause for spreading of HIV in the country (huhh … stupid lack of medical research). Live-ins, homosexuals, one-night-stands have still not been taken well. Is there any other of the fastest-developing countries that’s more ill-informed about sexual existence ?

Now, still majority of India thinks they have the best and safest (?) sexual practices in the world. We rigidly label Westerners unfaithful, people here still don’t know that marriage systems in the USA, Europe are quite successful and long-lasting too. We often joke around their family systems while comfortably forgetting that we’ve equally bad practices carried out in India (urban as well as rural) too.

We have extra-marital affairs, pre-marital stands, incest (sex with a person of blood relation) relationships, domestic violence and rapes, child molestation, prevalent sexual harassment of women (sometimes men too) at workplaces/social places. Just like the rest of the world, India too has 18-20% of the population as homosexuals ….. People not only from army/navy or fashion photography but from rural backgrounds and normal households also. We still do not know the difference between gays, transsexuals and eunuchs (hijras).

States like Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan belong to India only …. Thousands of girl fetuses are killed every month in these states. We still have child marriages, rituals like Sati and Devdasi in India. Girl child is never preferred, girls are suppressed, they are neglected and abused in urban areas equally. Females are always least important in India, sex ratio is declining very fast. Number of women suffering from AIDS due to transmission from their male partners is astonishingly high in India. We need to understand importance of women in overall healthy development of the country. We may be an economically developing country but we are definitely not developing socially.

I will tell you an incident : my grandma had rescued a wounded parrot from a park nearby her home, she took it home and fed it for some months. After recovery and some time, it was freed and to my astonishment, it just could not take off from the ground (I was around 6 years old then), it just fluttered its wings unusually and later was grabbed by a cat. When I asked my grandma about it, I still remember her words, she said “use aazad udane ki aadat nahin thi” (it wasn’t used to flying freely in open air) ….. that’s what I feel about India’s posh class. They are educated, they are well-off but they do not have the sense of utilizing that freedom. Talking about sexual freedom, India’s high class is one of the poorest categories. Relations with more than one partner, practicing sexual pleasures with glamorous prostitutes, strip shows does not mean sexual empowerment. There’s a very fine line between elegance and sleaze and we, generally tend to blunder !

India need to wake up to the fact that we have been badly gripped by HIV. Above examples, according to me, show worst affected general categories in India. We need to identify the enemy HIV correctly. AIDS is spreading fast across all categories. Sex should be taught and thought in a healthier way, we need to be informed and stay informed medically.

Prostitution must be regarded as a ‘profession’ and prostitutes need be educated about their health and usage of contraceptives. We also need to recognize and socially bring up prostitutes’ children, enough of negligence. The ‘so-called’ culture which does not preserve the dignity and pride of women needs to cleansed big time. Rituals like Sati and donating the girl child to the god (devdasi) need to be scrapped socially. British time Rules and laws against homosexuality (male and female both) must be reconsidered with the help of medical experts and research sans any inhibitions. In fact, Gay tourism can benefit the country long way. Very few countries in the world allow gay marriages, if India makes such marriages legal, lots of gays all over the world will travel to India for the purpose (Canada, despite being very expensive, attracts a huge tourist population for gay marriages are legal there).

There has been a slight improvement in India republic in the past few years with India making stringent laws against domestic violence and marital rapes (some activists are fighting for such laws against women too). Kudos to Maharashtra, front-running in awareness, holding live-ins legal and granting rights equal to marital ones to female participants in live-in.

The government has put a foot ahead, are we socially ready ? Are WE liberal and sensible enough to talk sex ?

Awakening

Week after the blasts, after hundreds of coverage and analysis shows, thousands of blogs I could not help but agree with all of those. Almost everyone/everything had a point of view towards the blasts. Indeed, a time of grief and mourning ...

Few are disappointed they have lost their acquaintances / family friends

Some are shattered by dilapidated Taj structure

Some want Manmohan Singh to step down at any cost

Few went to silly extents of challenging Raj Thackeray to fight the terrorists with a gun in his hand

All colors of a single protest, just that personal concerns tend to overshadow our protests, regularly !

I …..

I don’t belong any one of the above categories

I am not Hindu / Muslim / Jew / Christian

I am not a regular at Taj / Oberoi

I do not travel by local trains

I stay in Pune and visit Mumbai once every around two months

I have been to the Gateway of India 3-4 times in my life

None of my friends/relatives staying suffered directly from these blasts

Still an attack on Mumbai is an attack on my home, in all the ways ….

Yet, I can’t help but confess that I was devastated mentally on 11/26, I feel numb and helpless just like many around me do

I don’t have a good leader around, someone who can protect me from terror attacks …. The politicians are too busy carving out election agendas out of terror attacks

I don’t have a coordinated security / well-equipped police to protect me …. they are themselves helpless

I don’t have a mature media to speak out through ….. they’re busy trying strategies for better TRPs or revealing out Indian forces’ ‘internal’ plots in open

And then, I don’t have sensible people around me ….. they are too busy with their work and personal growths or too busy to undergo security checks or to caste their votes or raise voices against terror / government

I felt embarrassing when my nation’s stock market was closed for an entire day

I felt insulted we had to lose billion of rupees and dollars due to attack on our own country

I felt dejected when best of Indian security forces could not fight 10 odd militants

It was personal when people (oops, another mistake …. They’re not people, they’re politicians) like Narendra Modi, K Achutanandan, R R Patil, Abbas Naqvi passed on their utterly silly comments

Well, I am not going to take things lying down ….. happily, this time, its not ‘I’ but ‘We’ …. There’s an awakening around ….. Congrats Mumbai !

We won’t let even outside areas for planning and commissioning terror on our soil, beware Pakistan

We won’t let anyone insult our martyrs

We will put all the make-up, lip-sticks and come out to protest, lets see who stops us

It will be OUR decision, if at all, not to vote for existing government, others need not advise us

If someone thinks these incidents are not very big, we’ll show them what price they have to pay for it

We are not going to be soft targets anymore and will start changing from ourselves, undergoing security checks and we’ll be casting our votes regularly

We will start practicing caution in crowded as well as lonely surroundings

We will be careful towards abandoned goods around us

We’ll carry our identity cards everywhere we go and fully cooperate in facilitating the security process

Keep looking on, we are moving forward !

Mumbai is ready to fight

Maharashtra is ready to fight

India is ready to fight

When I visit Mumbai next (very soon at that) I wanna go and visit Taj …. Oops sorry, I wanna visit ‘The Taj’, I wanna board train from CST next time …. I will walk Colaba streets for sure …. Let’s see who can stop me

Sorrows of a 'Growing' Nation

Indeed a problem -

The Lion has a very peculiar trait : male lion kills his female’s cubs which do not belong to him so that he does not end up wasting time and energy on protecting those cubs. Maharashtra’s security force has protected us for so many years ably, but it is no longer good enough, may be the time has come for home department, facing acute shortage of manpower, to adopt the lion’s strategy. Maharashtra’s 90 Million population is already too much for them [for that matter, it is too much considering the resources and infrastructure available …. But who thinks about that ?]

Poor cops, they kill down a man with a gun in his hand to protect a large number of people out there, as it stands now, the encounter is set to through ministerial investigation. Instead of giving then a pat on their back, Politicians are venting out their ‘regional’ anger on Mumbai Police and Maharashtra home minister.

That brings me to the point of the young Thackeray : the guy has caused some turbulence in Maharashtra to be in the limelight for the past few months. Some time or the other Raj has brought to the fore some issues which are absolutely valid and some, in fact, are necessary to be brought out. Sadly (or may be) the priority is confused and action heavily misdirected (definitely). Cause of limiting Migration is something I support but the methods used by one of the political parties is wrong and inhuman.

All need to be informed about Maharashtra over some critical faces which depict the state :-

1. Literacy rate in Maharashtra is 78% (much better than all major Hindi speaking states), interestingly, this rate is even more higher when it comes to people with their Mother tongue as Marathi.

Literacy rate in Hindi-speaking population is much lower, 55% in UP and 47% in Bihar contribute big time.

2. Maharashtra is best in India in terms of Foreign and industrial investment. Hardly any foreign investment in any of the northern states on India.

3. Most number of Internet users, highest percentage of post-graduates and doctorates in the total population, biggest emigration ratio for specialized services abroad.

4. The single most ‘Cosmo’ state; it’s very easy for any person speaking any language following any culture or with any faith to relocate to Maharashtra.

5. The Maharashtrian population is considered to be the most liberal society with best female security and best woman empowerment practices.

Now, The problems (with descending order of severity) for Maharashtra :-

1. Infrastructure woes; unprecedented shortage of power and water alongwith with dilapidated urban structures all over the state

2. Increased crime rate; most of people currently being prosecuted for spreading / causing terror belong to Hindi speaking regions

3. Loss of jobs for un-skilled / less-skilled locals; let’s say if a Maharashtrian labor demands Rs 300 wage per day for a certain work, a outside labor does the same work for Rs 150 only. (the outsiders generally do not bring their families along and hence the average number of dependants is much less, to add to that, they can stay ‘anywhere’ and ‘in any condition’) {now, this is priority no. 1 for Raj}

4. Demographic imbalance / skewed sex ratio; the unskilled migration is heavily constituted by males (more than 90%). Maharashtra’s sex ratio today stands at just over 920.

5. Locals agitation and anger; being brought up in Hindi-Marathi Family, I have also seen north India very closely and I can safely conclude that Hindi-speaking people are utterly disrespectful, arrogant towards other cultures, this can be attributed to poor education standards and low average literate generations.

A few questions :

The most developed nation USA has got the most diverse population; Maharashtra could follow the suite in Indian context.

è USA has very strong and strict security ring, it has suffered only one terror attack (of course we cannot count the number of terror attacks but still a single state Maharashtra has suffered more than the entire nation of the US). Person is made to go through numerous checks before he could enter USA while poor, unskilled people (who may have criminal intents) and even Bangladeshis, Pakistanis (without visas) are making it to Maharashtra very easily.

è And mind you, Barak Obama is planning to levy taxes on outsourcing to safeguard American interests and most probably discourage Asians to enter the US from now on.

We may lose cheap labor

è Security should, no, MUST be given highest priority. Next on the list should be Infrastructure. Rather than protecting and pampering the businesses and their interests, time has come to look towards overall development and thorough progress.

è Let’s be happy to lose this cheap labor as it finally brings imbalanced progress, lack of water, load shedding, roads with potholes, dirty public places and the queen of it all, slums.

Moving on with the culprits -

And yes, Let me congratulate the biggest winners: 1. Politicians 2. Media

The politicians in Bihar managed to confer gallantry upon a guy with a gun in his hand and criminal intents in his mind. After Reservation bill, Amarnath land transfer, attacks on churches and Nano ouster from Bengal, this was a major win for the great Indian politicians. Let me re-iterate, even the MNS was not at its action-best when it acted violently against the innocent poor people. However, I agree the problem has worsened and MNS hit the nail bang on target though a little too late.

Media had its moments too; referring to criminals by their community names is a sin in journalism. In India, print and e-media irresponsibly refer to criminals as ‘Hindus attacking churches’, ‘Muslim youth protesting against Police’, ‘Marathis kill another north Indian guy’, reason enough to annoy people from those communities. After 1990, in the liberated e-world, modern media is perhaps the worst thing to have happened to India. The faster media have been misused for games of TRPs; attract money while safely ignoring long-term public interest. Television media has been so strong in sending (many times wrong) messages that politicians have used them to market and promote their personas, parties and agendas.

Why no one questioned Bihari leaders to why they failed to provide jobs in Bihar itself ?

Why every person born in UP or Bihar has to rely on Migration for jobs ?

Why is percentage of people in agriculture / agro-enabled businesses decreasing in states blessed with rivers like Ganges, Yamuna, Narmada, Indus, Sutlej ? (of course, the land under cultivation is on decline in Maharashtra, TN and K’taka too, the effects are less severe coz of less dependency on agri-businesses)

When Issue of demographic imbalance can affect Amarnath Region, why is it given less importance in Maharashtra ?

Some criminal gets killed righteously by the police or someone gets killed in fight over seats in a train, why do media have to blame MNS without any proof ? and how does the very honorable Railway minister of India dares to comment : “every train to and from Maharashtra will cease to serve the state” ? Mind you, Railway does not belong to ‘you’ or ‘your’ state, Mr Yadav.

Why is that every other city in UP/Bihar is connected to Mumbai through railways while there are comparatively very few trains from Mumbai to Chennai/Bangalore/Kerala/Tirupathi ?

Of course, MNS’ stance is not at all good, but why don’t we concentrate on the hazards of migration ? why are we ignoring that Mumbai is one of the Least secure, Dirtiest, Polluted financial capitals in the world ?

Who knows Mumbai ?

Mumbai belongs to India first then Maharashtra. When people call Mumbai cosmopolitan, why do they does not have to know that MUMBAI IS THE ONLY PLACE AND MAHARASHTRA IS THE ONLY STATE IN INDIA for which we witnessed a blood-bath in independent and republic India.

Just to remind, 60 people lost lives in protests for Mumbai to be included in Maharashtra. Thousands came on the streets to save Mumbai from becoming a union territory like Delhi. Which other state/city can boast of a similar example ? Maharashtra is connected to Mumbai through hearts and not only geography. It is the Maharashtrian face of Mumbai which has made it such a liberal city to stay in.

Migration blues : Blasts in Assam

Politicians/ruling party has allowed more than a million Bangladeshi migrants to caste vote in Assam, Tripura and other North-east states, which has turned a nightmare. Prima facie evidences say that these migrants alongwith their Pakistani accomplice have carried out blasts so easily in Assam.

Vote-bank politics desires many more Hindi-speaking people in Maharashtra, helping politicians from UP/Bihar to enter the state and may be rule it in future.

Myths pointing to declining culture in Maharashtra :

1. People knowing Marathi speak in Hindi with each other

è I feel sorry for such misinterpretation. It is their courtesy that they converse in Hindi so that the crowd (Maharashtra’s Cosmo crowd) around them understands their conversation and actively participate.

2. No one cares for Marathi, a regional language

è Marathi language and culture has never ever been confined to boundaries and regions. Marathis are still the most intellectual community in India, most number of daily newspaper readers alongwith greatest and largest collections of literature in the language.

è Marathi saahitya sammelan will be hosted in San Francisco, USA this year. This is to mark the celebration of more than 1000 Marathi saahitya communities outside India.

è Marathi people’s generosity has been misunderstood to be their weakness, which is not so. You were, are and will be happily able to stay in Maharashtra without knowing Marathi.

One culture of humanity and love :

We have never forced anyone to speak in Marathi, Maharashtra has always loved its guests and people coming for jobs/money. We have never referred to people as ‘outsiders’ ….. We always say ‘navin aalet’ (they are new to our place)

MNS does not represent Maharashtra !

But we want jobs for our Marathi brothers, we want peace for all of us. We want facilities for everyone. We are burdened with ever increasing migration and population.

Stop and start changing :

1. Jobs to locals a must ! Offer those jobs to outsiders only if they have been rejected.

2. Can we have something similar to passport ? So we can check person’s intentions when he/she enters the state. No-risk policy.

3. Let’s tell industrialists/builders : “If you want cheap labor, go to cheap places and recruit from there and bring them here on your responsibility only”.

4. Ask employers to provide for their employees’ stay and food till they are in ‘migrating’ stage.

5. Let’s put a full stop on Mumbai/Pune/Nagpur and other big cities in our state. Enough of population, enough of problems !

6. We need to take measures to stop migration towards Metros overall. Let’s try to build good facilities and structures in villages only and encourage youths to stay native.

7. Let’s stop trusting such media blindly, let’s put a control on our emotions. Protests/Agitations should be controlled and well-directed.

8. Someone’s killing/encounter in such conditions needs to be investigated deeply. People take advantage of political/regional/communal situations to promote their selfish causes.

9. Politics and media can take rest till then !

Deep down in Indian hearts :

Our nation has always pampered ‘the poor’, ‘the affected’, ‘the backwards’ …… Sadly, criteria and methods used to classify them have been age-old.

Supposedly poor people/regions/states can boast of their poverty or backwardness (ignoring causes they themselves are responsible for). Rich entities cannot claim so.

Being well-off and rich is a crime here; you can’t say you’re a Brahmin, you can’t boast of your successes/achievements.

Do we overtly care for the ‘poor’ ? Have we been able to improve their condition using these techniques ?

We claim that we are still a poor nation, that makes successful people in our country feel separated but we don’t care for them.

We won’t care when migrants from UP/Bihar (even people from Bangladesh and Pakistan are so similar that you cannot recognize or differentiate) play gang-wars, cause bomb-blasts and kill down thousands of people in Mumbai/Maharashtra. Maharashtra is always on terror-hit list. Our security has to be always vigilant and on their feet, even in smaller towns like Malegaon/Jalna/Latur.

And when there’s talk of controlling this insurgency (yeah, that’s the right word) from outside, people start blame games.

Maharashtra loses its people in mishaps/riots every day and you call the police partial and over-reacting when they gun down a youth spreading terror in Mumbai’s BEST bus with gun in his hand.

A person can say proudly if he’s a beggar, belongs to lower caste, is poor (irrespective of his own commissions) but rich successful people cant be happy with their achievements (even if he happens to have earned it)

The problem, the issue, the pain-pin has been politically used and misused too.

In our Great nation, it’s a problem to be well-off. Your richness is misunderstood generally to be your naïve superiority over the affected and your being educated is considered your plain luck, your talent, your intellect is a gift to you and nothing else.

That’s just not fair with the better and successful citizens !

Wait before you criticize the society and the culture, there’s another face to it …… even the educated/talented/well-off people out here want to stay quite and inert. They wanna discuss US elections while enjoying holiday on poll-day. They feel Visa to Massachusetts is more important than miscreants entering Mumbai. They always curse the government while driving their luxurious cars on Indian roads. They think it would diminish their pride if they fight over local issues. They have inverters at their homes, load-shedding does not affect them. They have ACs at home and workplaces, depreciating number of trees are too humble to bother them. They buy mineral water, water supply problems appear tiny to them. They visit Government hospitals or schools only at the time of some felicitation or inauguration, pathetic management at such public places is something to be heard in the news and to find an option to switch the channel on TV or turn the page in the newspaper, only poor are meant to caste their votes coz they have so much time to stand in a queue (in fact they have the guts to stand behind a labor or a beggar or a poor person). Yeah, we are not America, we are ashamed of our face, we feel insulted if we have to stand in a queue behind someone, we are ignorant of native problems. We are still a less confident nation, not proud of our existence (of course except those two golden days in a year).

We love the poor so much that we wanna see them poor for their lifetime, we wanna let the under-developed part of the country as it is, our metros are dirtiest in the world and our most developed state is the most insecure too.

That’s India, a nation of beggars and snakes !

Celebrating Ganeshotsav

‘Ganpati Bappa Morya’ – the one chant you shall hear out of every corner in Maharashtra these days of the year! As we celebrate the biggest public festival of India, there’s this great happy feeling all over the state of Maharashtra …. Maharashtra which loves festivals and their magnanimous celebrations! [For people outside India, Maharashtra is a western state in India with Mumbai as the capital city]

From school-going children to their busy parents, from young pulse to the nostalgic generations ….. Every one participates in the celebration of happiness and humanity. The gala of Ganpati, who’s the deity of arts and beauty, brings the best out of artistes all through the celebration which lasts a good part of ten days.

As usual the threat of extremists looms large over the festival. Maharashtra, as the most liberal, rich and industrialized state, sits at the center spot of the terrorists. India’s weak response to earlier attacks, shameful lack of political will, consistently misguided and misguiding media alongwith extra accommodating policies as an overtly ‘proudly democratic’ nation have made India as a single combined softest and biggest victim of terrorism.

The political party which has ruled the nation for longest duration focuses majorly on vote bank politics. Hard stances are a strict no-no for Indian republic which has always been concerned about Minorities in the short run. That has made the nation weak and fragile. Compounding the worries is the increasing deficit in police-civilian ratio.

That Maharashtra has its own law against organized crime alongwith better expertise in handling the terrorism has made it a little better for its residents. We trust the able,never-sleeping security department of ours. Let’s keep the joyous mood alive and beating !

‘Ganpati Bappa Morya’

Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni (Welcome To Beijing)

8/8/8 – the day when the dragon opened its wings and welcomed the world!

The spectacular opening ceremony took away the breath of the entire world at what was a fabulous showcasing of Chinese culture. The magnanimous stage and even more graceful performers rocked the evening in front of a crowd comprising guests from more than 200 countries.

If that was not enough, China followed the grand opening by powerhouse performances by its athletes, sweeping the medals across all categories. For a nation who won its first ever Olympic medal in as late as 1984, topping the medals tally after mere 5 games is no mean an achievement! But who else other than China would have managed this mega accomplishment!

Not to forget an absolute peaceful organization, China went all the way to ensure the safest possible playing host to the games. Nothing’s perfect ….. a Beijing citizen would agree to that ! It’s Beijing which has suffered the most to make the games a success that it was. Beijing has suffered near non-human restrictions while the games were on. Next on the list are travelers from all over the world who were denied visas to China for more reasons than one to ensure more security. Last but not the least, the athletes suffering from the pollution and the omnipresent thick fog in Beijing. Did someone talk about global warming effects?

Even such critical issues failed to take the glory away from China. If the opening ceremony was fabulous, the closing ceremony put an icing on the cake. The panorama of Chinese culture enthralled the audience world over. Let’s not commit the mistake of comparing China with India for these two countries are more different than similar.

The world got to know China better. The nation which has long been behind the curtains has come upfront and how !

China has arrived !

When he takes to the water

Take your seat, hold your breath, disconnect yourself from the entire world, only to have a snapshot of those ‘golden’ moments …. Yes, you guessed it right ….. Moments of watching the legend swim!

Take a bow, Michael Phelps, The greatest ever Olympian who might even beat the water while swimming. Winning 8 gold’s is no joke after all …. Phelps it was who made it look ridiculously easy. It takes hell lot of efforts to make the performance look effortless. The guy from Baltimore has toiled all those endless clocks to beat them eventually.

The legendary performance makes not only America but the entire world proud of him! His next destination, the London games might become yet another stage for this humble superstar to shine and take the sports to another level.

Let’s wait for 2012 to watch that golden splash of water again!

Happy growing, India

How do you identify the independence day approaching ?

1. You see children selling the tricolor on the signals

2. You undergo tardy ‘full-proof’ security checks at almost all public places in India, airports being the most ‘looked after’ places

3. You witness ‘independence day special’ on television, be it a news channel item, talent show or even a sitcom

4. You receive smses, read in newspapers about i-day special sales going on in the mall nearest to you

5. Entire roads, city skylines filled with tricolor commemorating political party-specific patriotism

6. People around you discussing, planning their holidays, scheduling sickness

Six of the most common scenes, perhaps and six is the number of decades we have completed as a free and independent nation !

India, the emblem of progress, the yet much undiscovered prowess, the habitat of energy turns 61 this midnight. As a nation, we are very young, better nascent. The growth and the potential developed have reached the height, with such wide and varied presence that may not be spanned with 2.4 billion Indian eyes. We are dealing with the most powerful nations in the world, we have made them think and introspect with our riches and reaches.

Young nation of young people is today, on the brink of another evolution, we are metamorphosing:

1. We are pragmatic when we deal with the nuclear deal, no non-sense principles

2. We don’t think we are third world, we very much belong to the first world, we now use cold war in the history books only

3. We are no more ashamed of our color or culture

4. We are global and perhaps, the most diversified nation and guess what, we are now flaunting our speckled face

5. The world is following us against terrorism

6. We are the greatest reservoir and supplier of talent to the world

There may be a few grey areas, but if someone can improve, it’s got to be India !

For that, I and you, shall make a few resolutions today:

1. I will make it a point to cast my vote every time, in any of the public body elections

2. I will work towards true women and youth empowerment through education, beginning from my home

3. I will not just watch or plan, I will act or execute the plan

4. I will be a more caring member of the society in cleanliness, discipline

5. I will be using the energy, any sort of it made available to me, frugally

6. Last but not the least, I will keep faith in my constitution, my government and the court

Let us all join together as a single identity and spread this singleness all over … Vande Mataram

Blasts : A routine in India

Blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad ! We are bleeding, we are suffering !

Twice in as many days and all the states / metros in India were under surveillance, security put on high alert. We have been unfortunate to face this echelon of brutality and extremity of cowardice coming out through inhuman attacks on hospitals.

The things that annoy the most, are the predictability of patterns of these incidents as well as their smooth execution following well-thought out planning. Blasts happen, people die, ministers condemn, Police / Intelligence trace the suspects – come out with possible motives behind blasts and possible reasons behind intelligence faux pas (which is simply lethargy in reacting to alerts, caution) and acronyms like HUJI, SIMI or whatever, neighboring areas’ security gets beefed up, one week passes on while we add a page to the history books which nobody is going to afterwards ….. by the way, there are a few variables in this storyline – names of ‘Casualties’, names of ‘injured’, names of cities ….. Who cares ?

All of you who are now deriding the government/security, lamenting the lack of political will and fragile security measures – tell me honestly, Haven’t you been one of those involved in complaining about long security check queues at the airports/railway stations or even at your own offices/colleges ? Don’t you ever get irritated when security persons ask you to display your identities ? Aren’t you one of those who talk at length about custom check that takes multiple hours at the JFK while lambasting the ‘lazy and tardy’ security process at Chhatrapati Shivaji international airport ? Don’t you ever pass through cantonments or toll-booths without paying the toll ? Don’t you ever take advantage of your relatives/friends at the helm of security ?

Now, sample this – many of the waarkaris (devotees) to Pandharpur had to stand in queues for more than 24 hours, many of them had undergone security checks that lasted for nothing less than half an hour ….. all of this, after some 15 days walk barefoot and to put cherry on the cake, I would not be exaggerating if I say that all these activities were carried out with a smile, with a gratitude …. Wow, devotion is great !

Spare me for waywardness of my thoughts but I would take another focus liberty out here (I really hope it’s not diversion by any means). I have started asking myself a few questions ….. Are we degree holders really educated ? [Disclaimer : this conclusion has been drawn over possession of widespread knowledge that citizens of India staying in metros are more ‘educated’ compared to their small-town counterparts]. Do Indian degrees (I am not much aware of educational standards outside India, though I know you must consider yourself lucky to have an Indian degree) impart the education and culture they are supposed to ? We metro residents, being the most educated society in this country, are supposed to be most aware of the lot that understands we don’t have a technologically superior system in place, we don’t have good ground level laws out here for we are still a young nation. We are soft targets. Can we hereon ask ourselves and our children to care for the society and be more tolerant ?

Coming back to the original discussion, there are a few positives that have come from these blasts which show that we are learning, we are growing, albeit a bit slow ! I would like you all to know them :- 1. This fight has been unanimously identified as our fight, India’s fight against the terror 2. As usual, there has been a flow of sympathy and help towards the affected. It is heartening to see people, even the most disgruntled ones providing helping hands to the victims, volunteering in hospitals 3. People have taken initiatives and come out to lend resources towards rehabilitation of those affected (all this, without much help from governments) …. I really wonder when shall these people outnumber those who regard Independence day or Poll day as a mere holiday .....

In Celebration

26^th June, one of the most important days of my life !

My brother’s, my best buddy’s Birthday today ! Join me in wishing him a fabulous life ahead …. :-)

Expressing the pleasure …. Isn’t that very difficult ? Specially for a guy ? …. We men behave so secretively that even the closest person doesn’t understand what has happened to us. We are supposedly the stronger species, but we seem so weak when it comes to expressing …… we just can’t.

It’s good not to fake anything, but we can’t even say what we feel …. Shame !

Being a man in India is all the more difficult; you are not allowed to cry, you are not supposed to discuss what do you feel ….. your dads don’t tell you how much they love you, your mothers take pride in telling to neighbors bravery tales of you not crying even after series of injuries, your grandparents like your ‘war’ skills, your uncles advise you to give back bad treatment.

But then, why only India ? We keep hearing about men, who supposedly have stronger hearts, suffer more from heart diseases, men taking to addictions to forget their problems. Almost all over the world, male fraternity remains the same, rather, they love staying the same rigid phenomenon.

Emotions are not tied to any gender, they are god’s gift to humans, all of us, they are very natural. I object strongly, to be termed ‘metrosexuals’ for behaving so naturally ?

Look at women : ohh, they are so natural, they are so free ….. they can cry, they can say thanks, they can express love, why can’t we be the same ? At least in some possibly better ways …..

It’s so good and comfortable to just ‘speak it out’ ….. I feel so comfortable after scribbling all this.

I hate emotions; they make me fall in love with them, every time.

After all, it’s a Man’s world …. Let’s not be chauvinists, let’s not be the traditional ‘macho’ guys …. It’s never a crime putting forth what’s on mind, what’s in the heart …… let’s say ‘I care’ to those we care for, let’s say ‘I love you’ to those we love, let’s share, let’s cry our hearts out for all those reasons we have hidden from all others for all our lives