Elitism, the new form of untouchability...

                             Hello to my limited reader friends, with so much to talk about Indians and the issues we face, why is this guy talking about a nonsense term that i do not even understand? Tell me how many of you think that way. Anyways what do you think is elitism? My view is that elitist is that person who thinks he is superior than his group and he therefore abandons them and searches for his own like minded people. This might not sound as a big issue but allow me first to illustrate.
                                              Let us take an example of a person X from a small village. The person X let us assume has got a good score and hence finds a cool college like SSN, so what he does is he studies more harder, enjoys a bit, dates occasionally and visits his native village rarely. Everything appears cool till now, but now is his first "are you an elite" test? How do you treat your own people after some fame and money. Mr X is sure to get a job, a cool one at that and his lifestyle is bound to change. New car, apple phone, a six digit salary and that is where the good part ends. Now Mr X's mentality will change, a posh bungalow at ECR and a foreign tour with his wife and family but the last time he visited his native was when he was in college. Another Indian would have lost his roots, sadly.
                                              Where do you think this problem arises from? I guess it is the way we treat Mr X, both before and after the transformation. The truth is that when Mr X was in college we were the elites but after his transformation he is showing off his elitism. The problem is in our mindset. We always want to associate with people who are cool. Walk in a gang of five, crack jokes at  those nerds, tease those village guys in college  etc  So subconsciously Mr X develops a silent hatred for his background because of which he had to face so much heckle in college.  IS THIS A SIN? If you ask me, "Yes is is" i would say.

                                             This guy Mr X should have been a role model for his village, he would have helped his village in some way. This mindset transfers to our other issues as well. Ex We allow politicians to beg for votes on the basis of caste and community and when they win , it is their turn to show off. We vote as though we do charity, very little and all for the wrong people. This mindset is a slow poison and i believe must be eradicated totally.
                                           
                                                  

BRICS, the new world order?

The recently ended BRICS council meet in New Delhi gathered much media attention, but basically what is BRICS? And what are the opportunities it presents to India? My thoughts on that.

                                 Basically BRICS is an acronym which denotes the economic bloc of five countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and the newly joined South Africa. The common point of all these countries is that they are on a new verge of economic development. Although we can win debates by placing Russia and China in the already developed category, their presence adds muscle to the bloc. Now let us do a SWOT analysis on BRICS and its benefits for India.

Strengths: If you remember India's foreign policy, the first point that must come to mind is non-alignment. But over the past few years we have indeed aligned ourselves with many Blocs . So to counter that we align us with every possible Bloc so as to gain the support and friendship of every possible country. Thus BRICS allows us to strengthen bonds with a forum that has over quarter of the world's land area and more than 40% of the world population. Russia our eternal ally has been left in the lurch for some time because of India's inclination towards the US, so this is an ideal forum through which we can strengthen trade ties with them. Moreover bringing our "bully" neighbor China to the talk table as an equal with more support on our side is a big plus. Creating an alternate trade forum which is free from the EU influence is fundamental.


Weaknesses: The BRICS is still in a nascent stage, to facilitate trade relations, any economic forum must have a common currency like the euro, we DO NOT have that. The BRICS nations do not have common ideologies. Russia and China voted in one side and the others voted against in the recent UN resolutions against Syria and Sri Lanka. Another talking point is that the US dollar is still used in the trade transaction. The South Africa with a population of 40 million is not in the same league as the rest. It brings less to the table.


Opportunities:  Foremost one is to develop trade relations with China and hence counter balance the Sino-pak threat. With Russia and China being the largest world economies , India now has a chance to interact with the biggies as equals. A possible UNSC seat is also on the cards. Setting up stock exchange is local currencies is a big boost. Increase in trade to 500 m$ as promised will also be a major bonus. An opportunity to counter the Israel-US influence. Rise of BRICS will ensure the rise in stature of Asia as a superpower after the devastation in japan.


Threats: Will increase Chinese influence in Indian markets. US might get alarmed at the possible inclination of India towards Russia and other countries. America is still every BRICS member's highest trade partner. Succumbing to BRICS politics might lead to India losing its individual say in regional and world issues.

                     Thus, BRICS we see has a lot of promise but to make it a reality a lot of hard work is necessary. Goldman-sauchs predicted that the BRICS will overpower the G7 economically by 2050, now that's a goal worth working for.  

My conversation with God…

You spit me from the sky into this sea, to see if I swim across this flame?

You gave me no wings, you want me to fly but I am lame,

You gave me everything, to show that I got nothing,

You made me love, I cried, I smiled, sometimes together, but most times separately,

Just to show me that I can cry in joy and smile in a sorrow?

You gave me words and set me no path,

My heart knows no grammar and my eyes don’t see you,

I searched for you outside; I found stone and sand,

I search for you in me, I found lust,

I found love and I found sorrow,

My eyes are blurred, my heart is heavy,

I have failed you, I cry but do you cry when I do?

They say you have loving arms,

Caress my wounds and make no scars,

Give me the strength to fail, give me the wings to fly,

Give me peace to write and the eyes to see thee,

Give me the ears to hear you, the mind to know when,

The hunger to starve and the passion to write,

Keep my heart burning, my eyes wet and my lips wide,

Make my soul free flowing, guide me to your destination but

Let the path be mine!!

Cow dung is BullShi#, so is Love!

                                                                    When two people are in love, they talk to each other all the time, they give that one person all the chocolates and affection in the whole world, shower them with flowers, care and more. Actually they meditate and devote on their object of desire and passion, their spouse. But what happens when the love turns sour? Reactions and repercussions vary accordingly. The average woman with the social boundaries has a very little side to explore post break-up, so what she does is that she focuses on her family and career. This is why our exes always get more marks than us brother and the same reason why we always report to them for work. Meanwhile, the masculine gender has developed a few unwritten protocols for post break-up which is Drink, smoke, grow beard (nice and long, nothing fancy here) and repeat the same until you either get cancer, skin disease or someone else to break up with.

                                                                    When we men are in love, our thoughts are channelized to that one girl we dream about and when the girl is gone, the channel gets lost with her. So with no one around to monitor the alcohol and smoke levels, we merrily get into wrong ways. With cheap beer and bad company always around we get addicted to it and flash forward a few years, the best part of our life is pissed off. Brothers, unlike us, there are a few men who have passed this tough time without c2h5oh , co etc. What they manage to do is that they channelize the same love and passion to another object of interest (NO,not another girl) but still manage to never forget their love, Saw Rockstar movie? Saada haq! Notice the passion and pain that explodes because of that failed relationship. That’s love. I bloody know that she’s gone but nothing else in the world is like her, a real lover will say and I rather agree. You know why? It is because the magic will be less with every second time you fall in love. The sooner we realize, the better it is.   

                                                              

                                   Ask any painter about his favorite piece of art and more often than not you will chance upon the portrait of a girl walking down a flower filled street with a bleeding heart in her hand. Art is like that, like the first love, like the first kiss, vulnerable yet intense. That vulnerability is what that separates a good piece of art from a masterpiece. We men are vulnerable only when we are with our women. The guy who said “Behind every successful man, there is a woman” did not get that too much wrongly.

Thanks for reading....

A sea of hope

Based on a real story.

     The strong sea breeze is blowing on the left side of my face; the waves try to interfere in my path. My heart pounds every time I cross this stretch at the marina, I am sweating now, jogging to be precise, I am tired and about to fall down but I want to leave this place soon. Earlier I was never able to see this place even on television but now after a rigorous counselling and a renewed will to succeed, I am chasing my demons out of my life. As I gather enough courage to recall what happened on that eventful morning, I am holding my knees and panting heavily. I was a software engineer, working ten hours a day, rigorous work, tension, coffee -breaks, night and day shifts swapped every week but one thing never changed those beautiful Sundays. What can make a weekend beautiful when you don’t have your family of friends here? Love indeed, she worked in a call centre near my office; she was simple, sweet and special. Special in a way that she didn’t have a leg, she lost everything below her right knee in an accident before we got acquainted but I never felt that she was disabled in any way. No one would raise an objection if I carried her in the marina sand; even the cops don’t stare, never did anybody stop me from carrying her to the top of anna tower. Like any couple, we kiss, we fight, we go for movies etc. Similarly like all parents mine too didn’t approve of my relationship but for a different reason, no one in my family saw that she had a heart, everybody saw only her cripple. We split for a brief while but she couldn’t be kept away from me for long. I decided to propose marriage to her. I wanted to make it a special moment for her. One fine Sunday morning, like always I carried her to the edge of the beach, blindfolded her with her black duppatta and I went on my knees. I took the ring out and said a small prayer. As I had my eyes closed, everybody was shouting, I thought that we have made a scene here. Soon I realised that there was commotion. A huge wave hit us hard, I hugged her and held on to a catamaran. I thought that the danger was over but then came the actual fatality. The wave began to retreat, people with able bodies itself found it tough to survive the calamity but my Durga stood with the help of my support. She checked if I was okay , I got hurt in my head but importantly she was fine, I regained consciousness and held to her tightly. I saw women, children and a few men getting dragged into the sea. We wept for a few seconds, I found that my ring was missing, it was no time to be romantic I lifted her and tried to see if the wave had retreated ; another huge wave , more than double my size hit us from behind, Durga was robbed from me, I was not able to hold on to her. While the wave retreated I clinched on to a pole with my legs, Durga didn’t have one. Had she not been so special we would’ve survived, I survived but we didn’t. She never knew that I was courageous enough to stand for her and was ready to live a life with her. We had crossed all barriers possible to live together but mother- nature didn’t want us to. I tried to die but couldn’t. With some medical help and support from my colleagues I am here. My therapist, I prefer to kill the psycho, wanted me to spend time here so that I can overcome the sorrow that occurred here. But never will I overcome it, I am learning to live that nothing in life is permanent. I will live.  

Thanks for reading .

Hypocrisy and us, synonymous…

By “us” I represent my fellow brothers and “their” sisters (I skip that part in the pledge, always), yes, we Indians, What does patriotism mean to an average Indian sports fan? Let’s face it, cheering the cricketing Team India and never bother if the hockey team India reached the Olympics or not? Not to forget, hockey is our National sport. We sympathised with Yuvi for his lung cancer, the Government and the BCCI offered help but who cares if the Bengaluru footballer Venkatesh dies in the football field, not even an ambulance was at standby in the ground, well, worse, it didn’t even make breaking news. We complain of racism everyday abroad but we abuse our fellow North eastern-Indian brothers, don’t we? Like “hey chinese”, how many times have we teased them, the Chinese across the border would’ve been saying “ high 5, that’s what we said, give arunachal Pradesh to us now”. We take pride in our natural resources, our rivers especially (vindhya himachala Yamuna ganga, our anthem) but still will not share the same with our fellow countrymen. The only place where natural resources and unity appear synonymous is in our national anthem “jana gana mana” not  ”why this kolaveri?”, I recite again, Why this Kolaveri?, why can’t we sort out the mullai-periyar issue peacefully?  Now “why this Kolaveri?” really sounds more like an anthem, just imagine, someone getting fisted in this fight and the patriotic protagonist sings “why this kolaveri, kolaveri di?” and the antagonist changes heart and drops the weapon in slush of mud. Wow, funny . We can never tolerate a fellow Indian in our state. Can we? I guess no, remind yourself about the Bihari immigrant problem in Maharashtra. The local politicians claim that Maharashtra is for them, I mean Maharashtrians but still they want NSG troops from Delhi to fight Kasab and co, hypocrisy, taxi drivers not allowed to work inside Maharashtra but NSG is. Another hypocrite. Let’s say hello to Kasab, because we pressurise Pakistan to act on terror and what do we do? Treat our “guest” Kasab to the safest food. Well, isn’t he supposed to be in the gallows?  And coming to the diversity in religions, for so long, different communities want to play “age of empires” in Ayodhya but why? can’t hindus and muslims co-exist? I bet we can. We are not the only ones but we do this more often than others, mocking our national leaders, remember Jawaharlal Nehru’s photo dancing with Lady Mountbatten which went viral. He gave us a beautiful message, no ,not with the lady but with making our asoka chakra and our four(or three?) lions emblem as a national symbol. Ever wondered why? because that signified emperor Asoka’s message that all religions are equal and all human beings are the same. That never went viral, sadly. Still having difficulty remembering Asoka? Remember the SRK starrer in 2001, he played a king, who has a change of heart after a brutal war, yes that one. Ours is a very rich culture, sometimes we tend to go behind “babas” who say that government is suppressing their rights and still manage to give TV interviews about it, biggest hypocrite, ‘cause freedom of speech is the basic fundamental right. I hope you agree that patriotism is in an all-time low, (telecom cos. never charged for sms on this republic day) to revive that the cricketing team India must win more matches or AR Rahman must compose another vande Matram or at least release a remix of the old version. And let’s end it, in the usual way, Jai Hind! I am the biggest hypocrite.            

Love marriages VS Retail marriages

Love is the most precious feeling in the world because you can never buy it, you never know when love comes to you and you certainly don’t know when love will leave you.  It gives you the greatest happiness and the worst sorrow. Sometimes when love leaves people they tend to move on or rather move apart from each other. Some people find this tough while a few lucky people find it easy, it doesn’t mean that they are not gentlemen or honourable women; they are just more practical than their ex-lovers. In love, opposites attract each other quite nicely but they don’t repel easily unless one of the poles change.  In a few lucky cases, both the poles change which means they are opposite again and get back together. This happens when they eventually realise their love for each other(separation sometimes can work magic)that they cannot live without each other at least for the purpose of quarrelling. But most people are not that lucky with relationships, no point in worrying about lost love; cigarettes, beer and the worst culprit sad songs will never help but only increase the pain exponentially. So to prolong the love and to avoid the inevitable, civilisation introduced terms like commitment, marriage, vows etc. Most people even though they realise that they do not love each other anymore, they tend to stay together due to the other relationships they develop with each other with the course of time like for example they can be best friends before or even after their courtship, they can be parents to kids etc. Still they must be happy because love always gives memories and for the sake of the good memories we celebrate anniversaries and other “first time we did that” occasions. This is usually the job of the husband in the relationship to remember these days, men are meant to surprise and women to be wowed; It’s my dreaded  gender’s duty to propose marriage, to slip in the ring or tie the knot; comes with the fun a few added responsibilities. Take care of the children, be a good father because oxytocin makes the women naturally good mothers. The tough part is that when lovers tend to fall apart after their marriage, after they realise that love is lost between them and they want to move away from each other. I know what you are thinking now; I certainly did not mean Miss Kim Kardashian. There are more meaningful celebrity splits. Classic example is Imran and Jemima Khan. He left her in England and split from her when he decided to pursue his political ambitions in Pakistan. He tried bringing her to Pakistan but his political opponents did not spare her, so they decided to move away. He’s still a good father, spends time with them when they’re on leave, helps Jemima’s brother establish himself etc. Now this is a good-ex. That doesn’t mean that they would not have had bitter memories, in the course of time the bad memories would’ve died slowly, bad memories will become one-off instances and one-off instances would eventually be forgotten. Now this is the natural progression; fall in love-be together-get along well-be faithful-propose marriage-be more faithful-hopefully happily ever after. Now the problem comes when people skip steps; no point proposing marriage when you’re not in love with a person. So, what is the concept of arranging marriages? People tend to abide themselves by self-imposed regulations. Why fool ourselves in the name of culture and tradition? Fearing rejection, our ancestors imposed a caste-based marriage system by which a girl is doomed to be sent to another family as bride if the families happened to be of the same caste. Eventually with the passage of time, this habit became a tradition, slowly social evils like dowry crept inside our system. More horrifying human right violations like honour killings entered our society. At least if you don’t approve of my views on love marriages, please do not encourage dowry.         

Love advice brother! care to listen?

 Like many of the jealous men around, I too have wondered sometimes why do these stupid women fall for Shane Warne despite knowing that he might dump them someday, maybe they really don’t mind that or a few slip-ups. He is my perfect Cat-type lover, wondering what makes a cat-type lover, well simple, just like the cat, the cat-lover never stays home (mostly), he (hurts)scratches you, meows, shows PDA, looks cute with  you , charismatic and comes home only when he needs food for his stomach and body. He feeds elsewhere too but always looks starved when you meet him, never forgets your birthday or your anniversary. He knows when to hold your hand and when to stroke your hair. He buys you gifts that you adore; he can control your emotions girls. Virgins beware. And there is our second type of lover, the dog-type lover, example Edward Cullen . Like the dog he is most faithful to you, stays around you always, kisses you only if you permit, protects you(might even take a bullet for you) and will never ever leave you. The problem is that the dog-type guy sometimes gets boring, what fun it is being true always, the real  bindaas and masti is when you bend the rules a little bit, women sometimes tend to think that the dog-type guy has grown over possessive or even slightly suspicious. Women always need their space , their own small group of friends whom they don’t want you to know , their inbox which they don’t want you to see; they never want their partners to interfere with that space , the cat-type guy never asks about that personal stuff ‘cause he has some garbage too(“that personal stuff”-the other guys with whom you chat online , their relationship status etc) while the dog- type guy needs to know everything , so here comes the first problem; the cat-type guy never sets you rules nor does he follow any, while the dog-type guy never disobeys and he sometimes expects the same, which to me is fair. Then comes the ‘don’t do this, do that’ conflict. There is a popular saying that after every fight, the love increases, this one is true only for the cat-type, because the dog-type is never expected to refuse commands let alone fight back. There is a certain tolerance level for the cat-type guy which only the woman knows and the poor writer cannot fathom to know. Being with the dog-type is safe and secure but he’s not that much fun to be with; the cat-type guy is the ultimate personification of charisma ; more often women like to say ‘ hey you naughty’, rather than ‘ you’re sooo sweet’. It’s not tough to find what type of guy you are, just express your love to her and let the world know that you love ( no vice versa here).  More often than not, the one who cries more (in a relationship) is the dog-type lover. Be faithful, be happy. Take care of yourself and each other. Fall deeply and stay madly in love.     

The Great Indian political circus

        Ever wondered why there is a minimum age for becoming an M.L.A? I guess i know the answer.It must be because if you become one then you got to attend the assembly. That's silly, you might think. But actually, there is also a minimum age for watching porn, legally of course. So i guess the guy who framed that minimum age rule had a lot of hindsight. Applauds. Is there a rule that prohibits MLA's from watching porn and don't you guys ever do it in your home?, asked an ex CM of karnataka . This shows just one thing. Make that three. Our politicians have become insensitive, shameless and fear no repercussion, in that order. a) Insensitive is because they were discussing a rape incident of a teen aged girl. b) shameless because they are no more in college, sharing a porn video with another 400000 + votes winner is nonsense, add to that the charm of the white clothes. c) no female vote will he get now from his constituency, would he have done that in assembly had this thought struck him? Moving Northward, in U.P and i am not talking about you ,Mayawati ji. Akhilesh Yadav, promised a lot, looks like a good leader, has charisma but is that enough? if so, let me chant "Dhoni for Pm". hooliganism and Sp have been cousins always, people expected that to change, but Raja Bhaiya as Jail minister sounds ridiculous. okay let me answer for Akhilesh, the best explanation would be that he has the maximum experience in Jail, so he's automatic choice. Forget it, a 9 th pass for an education minister, what now? only a guy who was deprived of education will understand its merit? that's crazy people. Akhilesh promised change, i don't know why he's changing so soon. state politics aside, let's head to Delhi. A gentleman presented a railway budget that promised to take the railways out of the ICU, okay he hiked fares. To me that's fair, you want safety for West Bengal trains and you will not let increase the fare, this is hypocrisy. So the guy is embarrassed in what must be his proudest moment. And speaking of hypocrisy, Didi who is a chief minister and a former rail minister herself must know that the rail budget is a confidential document. It would be against his oath if Mr trivedi informed his party leader about the impending hike in the budget, why on earth must she feel betrayed? Aam Aadmi is us, and it is we who have to care and stand for us and the people who wants us to do so.