Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Chennai to Goa

After a long time, my quest for travel, came true, me along with my colleagues and with their friends, planned a trip to Goa, a beach paradise in north western part of India, we called day off early on Thursday and headed to Goa. We had our first pit stop in less than a kilometer, yeah! You got it correct, as we forgot to take our alcoholic goodies. We called one of our friend back in office, asked him to bring our goodies safely to the pit stop, with the goodies in the cab, we continued our journey, we picked three more on the way and headed towards the National highways, and before we could take a nap I just learned that the driver is getting ready too for the nap, best part is with wheels, it got the shit out of me, thanks to Ravi V one of our travel mate who started a conversation to keep the driver awake and us safe, just like 1001 nights tale 

Roads are pretty good it was like a slide after a bumpy ride, however toll stops are sickest things, I’m exactly not sure for how many kilometers we had such toll stops, but it seems to be more often then the highway motels, after several toll stops we reached Bangalore. By then it started drizzling we started enjoying pleasantness of the weather and headed towards our next destination Tumkur, by this time it started raining, but it was not our concern at this time, as the roads are becoming little bumpy now, for the ongoing highways project, roads are digged every where, suddenly we halted on high way traffic, it’s an accident, I don’t think it is fatal, but sandwiched with huge iron rods.

We started snailing from there, with haunting accident scene, really bad roads ahead, that was roller-coaster ride for next 10 hrs or so, heading towards Mangalore with the hope that the roads will get better soon after, but things are not getting better at all, after couple of pit stops for lunch and dinner, it is still a bumpy ride, and it was raining cats and dogs, with the hopes that things wont get more worse, I took a small nap, in couple of hours van halted, and we learned from the driver, that there was a landslide ahead, and things wont get better until tomorrow, things are getting worse now, its raining cats and dogs, and the language barrier(no one knows Kannda in our van) worsening the situation more.

We quickly had a informal meeting within ourselves, and decided to figure out if there is any alternate route to Goa from there, and if not we will go to Hubli wait till dawn and ahead to Kollore, Udipi, Dharamasala and Saravana, a jolly trip now almost become a pilgrimage if we don’t find the alternate route, “lets see” I said to myself. We figured out there is an alternate route in about 70 kms on the way to Hubli, which is good news, because if that alternative route fails, our second plan is still executable, in few minutes we reached the alternate route junction, and we enquired about the route details with the truck driver near by, he said earlier this route too was blocked the bridge overflowed with water about 10 feet, and two vehicles returned, and few hours back two other vehicle went the same way and it didn’t came back, so assumed the route was clear, it some how sounded sarcastic to us, to be on the safer side, we decided to ahead towards Hubli, driver was feeling sleepy by this time, we decided to halt for few hours, facilitating him for a nap, and we reached Hubli by dawn next day.

We lodged, for few hours to refresh our self, post lunch we vacated and headed towards udipi, roads are still bumpy I think except Bangalore and out skirts of the same, rest of the state yet to be infrastructured, we reached Udipi next day 2 AM, we lodged in a hotel and had a quick nap for few hours, got refreshed headed to Shri Krishna Temple, as many temples in Kerala, in this temple too, shirts are need to be removed, with shirt tucked into my pants exposing my torso, I’m standing in the queue to get the glimpse of Lord Krishna, I thought this is barbaric and uncivilized I mean removing shirts and all, as I was nearing the Karbagraha, I felt so light my so called commonsense started disappearing, I started feeling commonsense itself a burden to man, I started feeling I was nothing, and I owe nothing, and that very feeling was so good, with that emptiness in my soul I had the first glimpse of Lord Krishna, I forgot myself for that moment, I was completely lost, until someone dragged me away, that moment I regained myself, my commonsense recaptured me, I realized I didn’t wished anything to lord, I went back into the queue to wish few things, this time I was not light, this time I was fully occupied, just planning what to ask the Lord, just preparing the list mentally, but the early one was extempore, that feeling was really good, I felt the enjoyment in myself, but this time it was mechanical, conditional, I was not happy with this darshan, I revisited the queue again, and again and again for few more times, to resurrect my first experience, all in vain, with that unknown feeling of pleasure, and wanted to know what the pleasure is I left the premises with astonishment and we reached hotel for a break.

We actually planned to visit Kollur Mookambika temple, same day after that break, but the plan again changed after reaching the hotel, making it true that there is nothing constant except change, and decided to go to Malpu beach near Udipi and to Manipal. As decided we went to beach, had couple of ice creams and headed to Manipal, there is nothing much in there except the university, it is rightly called as university town, we spent few hours discussing what to do there, we didn’t come up with any fruitful ideas, we headed back to hotel, on the way we brought few bottles of beers, to chill out that night, we came to know that we need to vacate the hotel by 2:30 AM tomorrow, to avoid another day rent, as planned we vacated by 3:30 AM next day, and ready to reach Dharmasala, I bought a Dhoti this time, in the process of getting myself prepared to revisit the enjoyment I felt in Udipi, but in vain, I was little bit depressed, the emptiness with I felt in Udipi, which I thought is spiritual and trying to recreate in Dharmasala, but I failed, as I read in many books, it is true, if you are preoccupied, when you are already filled with your opinions/thoughts, this gives no accommodation for the new thoughts, In Dharamasala and in Udipi (except the first time) I was experimenting with my preoccupied theories, however if I would have experimented by true conscious which I did accidently in Udipi, I probably would have reached that stage of emptiness, I read this in many books written by great scholars like Osho, K.V Kamath and all which I failed to recollect. With that amount of satisfaction in myself, I rejoined the team and headed to Bangalore, on a bumpy ghat road, our tire got flat, it took 30 mins or so for the driver to change the tire, and another couple of hours in a near by town to fix the tire. Which delayed our progress, it’s the fifth day of our trip and we reached Bangalore by 9 PM or so, pit stopped for tea and snacks, and then in Hosur for dinner, and started our journey to Chennai, our destination, I was awake for couple of hours, and requested Krishna Das to give company to driver, and I stepped back to have a nap as I need to reach office next day and I slept off, Rajeev woke me up, it was already 5:30 AM and we are in Koyembedu bus stop, greeted everyone and I got down near the bus stop, hired a auto reached home, and I slept like dead for hours.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A Big Fight

As I was surfing through channels, in search of some thing interesting to watch, I was stunned to see this title in NDTV Big Fight program, and it is “Are Naxals terrorists or bandits ? “, doesn’t it dopey? It sounded to me anyways, in either case they are anti-socials, and need to be uprooted. Anyways I was keen to know what there argument is all about and what they are trying to prove here, and so decided to watch this program.

The team which says that Naxals are terrorists wants a military action against them for a bloody massacre, where as the other, who says they are bandits wants them to be arrested and punished as per law, which is hang till death. So in a nut shell one says directly, to kill them and the other says indirectly, to kill them. I’m getting really frustrated, as the people discussing on this insane topic are not novices they are scholars from politics, journalism and couple of human activists and a bunch of spectators, and they are going on blabbering on this, all discussing on this insanity.

At one moment one of the spectator, raised this concern “Has anybody visited the Naxals affected area? Which lacks basic amenities, which is still in the dark ages, which is still under the clutches of capitalists/land lords? People who are suppressed were not able to take anymore, they rebelled to form Naxals” This zipped everyone’s lip for a moment.

This concern tested my patience to the core, I switched to AXN, however the argument was lingering in my mind, I started a debate with myself, what will I do in such conditions? I will rebel, I said. Then are Naxals rebels? May be even terrorists are rebels in one way or the other What made these rebels to be known as terrorists/bandits? To answer this we need to penetrate little under the skin.

Naxalites/Naxals as commonly called, started there ideology in Naxalbari a small village in west Bengal led by Charu Majumdur and Kanu Sanyal, as a revolutionary opposition to the CPI(Marxist), Majumdur greatly admired Mao Zedong, and gathered people in Naxalbari to follow his footsteps, he also inspired the lower class people with his writings (Ref : wiki ). So basically Naxal movements are for the welfare of lower class people, but how? Mujumdar failed to answer that question, because he don’t have the answer and is superiority conscious made him not to accept the same, rather saying no to the peasants who were blindly following him, he redirected the inability and wrathness of the peasants towards the upper class people or rich people. Mujumdar preached that there living conditions are due to these rich class people, which kindled and fueled peasant’s wrath on the upper section. From there Naxals started to destroy the rich class assuming that they are constructing the lower segment, and the war started.

They forgot that constructing the lower segment means reaching the upper section if you start destroying the rich class it means you are going to destroy yourself in the future, and this will be a never ending war, a war of self destruction, it’s a kind of suicidal homicide. Naxals are no more rebels, they were when they started with there ideology they become terrorists and to support there ideology they do banditism.
Naxalism which should have been a cooperative society/movement, rather it took lot of detours and today it finally reached to terrorism, you call it as banditism its still the same, killing innocent civilians, looting their money destroying both public and private properties, cannot be encouraged and should not be tolerated. If civilian action is not enough then impose military action, its not human rights violation, people butchered by them do have rights to LIVE is that not a human rights violation? Common people who are scared of travelling in trains and buses because of these bandits, don’t they have rights to live peacefully? Naxals do have rights to LIVE, but they have to put down their weapons of destruction, there is no concession in it, as long as they question thru ammunitions there answers will also be ammunitions, its rightly said, what you sow is what you reap.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Fatalistic or Unrealistic

On a Saturday morning, after a rhubarb cricket match, I was heading back home along with my friends Sripall, Rajan and Vijay. We took a train to beach station, as we pass by several pit stops, we all noticed one thing, entraining commuters don’t even care for detraining passengers, they didn’t give enough room to detrain and every one were taking this barbaric action for granted, including my friends, when I outrageously said why they are behaving like cattle’s, all my friends unanimously shouted at me to stop jiving at them. One thing I don’t understand when the car is already full, you push and crush yourself, in that jam packed car like cattle, by intruding into others space for which you don’t even excuse, you don’t even feel bad, and you call this as adjustment, but actually you are compromising, you are compromising on your pride, your self respect your liberty last but not the least your dignity.

Why you want to compromise on your private space, as per the Human rights commission of India and Indian Law, your liberty stops where others starts, it also includes your private space, you don’t share the public restrooms with your neighbor just because he is about to blast his bladder, either you wait or make him wait, but for sure you don’t share the space. Though these rules don’t apply in train, however logic does. When the train that you are about travel, gets delayed don’t you gather all buddy passengers and block the other train which is on time, forcing it to get delayed as well, sharing the pain and un-comfortableness instead of joy and happiness to your fellow commuters, redefining socialism.

Now let’s see the arguments that you come up to support your compromising act, inadequate trains, delayed frequencies, procrastinative authorities and deprecative ministries, you blame them all as if you are perfect and promptitude , how many times you raised your concerns to the respective authorities about the sanitary conditions in the trains/buses you travel? How many times you raised your concern to the authorities to increase the frequency of the bus/trains that you travel? Have you ever taken time to notice that in a bus that there are only 25 passengers are allowed to travel as standees? If you have noticed that and till wish to travel as the 26th standee passenger, what you expect me to call you as human or cattle? Cattle cant read, so there are NGO’s to regulate there transport, but you are a human being, you took the pride of being the superior of all creations, you claim to have the sixth sense, however you lack that basic common sense that you should not travel as 26th standee passenger where only 25 standees are allowed.

I know you can come up with several lame excuses, you might be running out of time to office, is that not a lack of time management? There might not be sufficient services after that service? As mentioned earlier, have you raised that concern to the respective authorities? Have you discussed about this with your co-passengers and enlightened them? It is not illogical or unrealistic, what I’m suggesting is practical, and I’m practicing. When Karl Marx suggested the theory of communism, the theory is for 80% needy who were getting crushed by 20% of privileged however his communist theory was called impractical and illogical by those needy, and it was called as unrealistic by the privileged group, however now 20% of that communist country threatens the 80% of the democratic, secularist and capitalistic theories. When Raja Ram MohanRoy was preaching against Sati, he was ridiculed by the society, saying that the reformation is impossible however now you can’t even find the meaning for the word Sati in the dictionary. When society was filled with Theist and theology myths, there was only one spark that rose into fire to burn out the myths, the spark of Atheism is later known as Periyar. When the world was following the foot steps of violence, there was one pair which detour and walked towards non-violence, MohanDas Karamchand Ghandi, later known as Mahatma, superior of all souls.

They all were pooh-poohed by their friends, relatives and family members for theories, claimed them as impractical, however, these theories later become renowned theories. It is true that they suffered a lot to reach this stage, they reincarnated from there dead fish life, yes we are leading a dead fish life, which stinks for those who don’t know how to cook (Enemies) and it’s an appetizer for those who knows to cook (Friends). It’s true that we are leaving for others we are just like that dead fish, only others determine whether we stink or not. The day we start leaving for our own, we will learn from the world and we preach world.

Is that not true, that you feel agitated when some one crushes you in the bus/train, and you still stay like dead fish killing your emotions, you surely want to warn that person, but in that jam packed bus, you fear that your voice may not be heard. You keep yourself mum, if you are in pleasant mood you call this as adjustment/compromise, and if you are disturbed you call this as fatalistic. However once your start knowing this as your irresponsibility you start seeing changes. It doesn’t mean you have to be emotionally jugular but responsible.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

A Wednesday on Sunday

On a Sunday noon, getting increasingly bored by regular TV programmes and movies, thought of taking a break and watch this movie “A Wednesday”, which raised my eye brows, is this an Indian movie? Is the first question which rose in my mind. The movie was meticulously screen played, astronomically photographed the Aam Adami’s (A stupid common man) feelings and emotions.

For a naked eye movie seems to be a bunch of insane techniques, fortunately for such insane eye’s movie does provide enough logic, its true that world wide web teaches how to build all 007 gadgets to common man, if and only if he want explore and learn, that too free of cost. If this web would have exploded much earlier, Bhagat Singh wouldn’t have blasted the courtyard, anyways I wanna steal this opportunity to share Bhagat Singh’s intention, and he is the first Aam Adami, (to my knowledge) who exploded within and carefully utilized media to share and publish his thoughts, Nasuruddin Shah (Aam Adami) followed the same foot steps.

It is an undeniable truth that today common man’s life is not secured, thou leaders rant about the common’s security, frequent bomb blasts pooh-poohs that. Is that not true that common man’s wife call him at least 10 times a day to check if he is ok, the call may be disguised each time as it is a regular call to check, whether he had lunch and all, is that not true that common’s mother worries about his travel in train after a series of train blast. Is that not a common man’s attitude, if the train that he missed was blasted none but everyone killed, for which he thanks god for saving his life and there goes offering for saving him from tomorrow. Take an example of recent Mumbhai blast, even after several months, there are no verdicts, no punishments and there are no proper evidence.

Are our race effeted? What happened to our so called culture and civilization, which used to care for other, is that morbided? Where is our sixth sense? We are living like animals disguising as homo-sapiens.

A Wednesday raised all these questions, this is Aam Adami, and we are falling prey to congress Aam Adami, it is Aam Adami’s tax money and task force life, the politicians are playing with, what is the point in capturing a terrorist when he will be set free down the line, are we making a joke of our self? I pooh-pooh those who call this against human rights, human rights are for humans not for terrorists, and don’t loose your brains by calling them as humans when they have no sign of humanity.

As rightly said in the movie, don’t wait for your family members or relations or friends to be the victim of such blasts, I don’t even suggest to have a steel balls like Nasuruddin Shah in the movie, at least condemn the wrong and report the same to authorities in charge, how many of us do this? How many of us report a rash driving to traffic police? How many of us report a public nuisance to the cop? We always tend to safe guard our home, when our neighbors are in fire, forgetting that the fire will catch us soon. It’s true in all cases. Its time to evolve for the revolution and this time, it’s the revolution for humanity and not for power.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Budget 2009-10

It seems to be a bilateral agreement between the rich and power, thou Pranab started the budget with congress tantric word “Aam Adami”, Pranab pooh-poohed the common man’s interest, increasing the income tax slab Aam Adami can say only say a max of INR 8.22 which is a huge money for Aam Adami to buy a car with 2000cc capacity and LCD TV, probably now it’s the state government turn to distribute free LCD TV’s as they become lower in price.

At the birds eye view, the budget has no radical impressions, but filled with rational decisions on poor and needy, overall budget has only increase and decrease in the margins rather benefits and action plans. There were no plans to bring the faulted money from foreign banks, and we are sure that India is not a corrupt free country.

There are no steps for taken to fund foreign banks from poor Indian’s taxes, no proper regulation has been imposed on SEBI to invest or disinvest foreign exchange in Indian markets. There is not even eyesight on money laundry, forget about the steps to control, especially at this recession stage, money laundry plays a vital role in controlling a country’s economy. Never forget poverty leads to terrorism and other anti-social activities.

First the railway budget which was joke, followed by the general budget, Indians had become puppets to congress and congress to foreign elements, days are not so far where Quttorichi can become the Defense minister, as after bofers with 600 crore INR corruption, his next deal is to buy fighter jets for IAF for 1000 + Cr INR.

When Indian scientists are sweating like hell to complete TEJAS, and all they running short is few hundred crores, for which congress government has no funds but can afford to spend 1000 CR on foreign jets. What a patriotic move.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Racial Attacks

Recent racial attacks against Indian in Australia/USA, has created repercussion across country, when there are world renowned prestigious institutions like IIM’s, IIT’s and REC’s across the country, however Indian students importune foreign universities for admission.

Its not that you don’t have good educational institutions in India, it is for the pride, and falsely adulation they expect to receive for their graduation in foreign university/college. Every foreign university are targeting Indian student to lure them, no doubt that they have a better facilities than Indian institutions, however with the money that every Indian student spends in abroad education, building that world class facilities in Indian institutions should be an overnight job. It is not an exaggeration, according to the recent statistical report US earns $500 Million annually from India, through this educational business, welcome to the open market. And the worst part is students who go there for education they don’t want to come back to India, they are ready to change the last drop of their blood to get the citizenship in that country, this is alarming the local residents one way or the other it is stealing there bread, which gives raise to such alarms and attacks.

India has faced recent Racial/Ethical attacks as well, and there were no such anguish activates except in couple of states, when Biharies and other north state people were brutally attacked in Maharashtra. The reasons are same, and this kind of alarms and communal attacks are spread across the country, tamilians ill-treated in Karnataka, Andharawals ill-treated in TamilNadu, the list is endless across the globe.

I was not surprised by the exclusive stunt by Bachan, by dishonoring the Australian varsity award, it will definitely help him for his political carrier, he didn’t dishonored the State when UP people where brutally attacked in Maharashtra, except for his condemn, after all old fox needs no training. Slogans of “Bharath Mata ki Jay” in Melbourne by importuned students is a joke, there ostracism towards India was well known.

It is true that my fellow brother (Indian) was attacked on racial grounds I condemn it, at the same time don’t impute the attacker, I’m not encouraging the attacking, I’m asking don’t give the opportunity for such attacking. Rather ostracizing Indian institutions, help in guiding the government in improving the facilities. I’m not asking to forbid the abroad universities, study there for knowledge and not for Pride and falsely adulation, which you expect to receive.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Tolerant vs Enlightment

Once Paul and his friends were travelling through woods to distant town, Paul found a dead Hare with 3 legs, and said to his friends its strange with 3 legs Hare’s are so swift, one of his friend giggled and said “No, Paul Hare’s have 4 legs”, which agitated Paul and said “don’t you see Hare has got only 3 legs, I’ve it right in my Hand”. Paul’s friend said, may be this Hare is handicapped or lost one in an accident, Hare’s have 4 legs, check with our friends if you want, without any doubt every one said “yes, Hare’s have 4 legs”.

Paul was not able to accept it, he got a hare in his hands with 3 legs, said to his friends “just because you all chorus it doesn’t mean it has got 4 legs, I’ve one in my hand as proof with 3 legs, so all Hare’s should have 3 legs, if you all say it has got 4 legs, show me the proof with at least one hare with 4 legs” now all the friends are in trouble, find a live hare in woods is not an easy task, more over they have to capture it so that they can show to there friend Paul.

Friends started hunting for a hare, they spent hours after hours, all in vain, and returned empty handed to Paul, and said they cant find one, Paul said you cant find one because there is none, just by side passed a hunter with a hunted hare in his hand, that was relief to all the friends, and showed the hare to Paul, unfortunately has shot the hare on one of its leg, which has chopped its leg, and it has got only 3 legs, which strengthen the Paul’s claim, friends want to get out of the argument and leave Paul to live in his belief, but at the same they don’t want Paul to live in something which is not correct.

They decided to hunt for the hare again, and this time after several hours they manage to hunt one, and showed the same to Paul, to there astonishment, Paul said “may be your hare has got one extra limb, just like you claimed mine as handicapped, as I have two hares with just 3 legs, and you got only one with 4, to consider this I need more evidences”. Now all the friends were stunned, and were about to give up, as it become more difficult to prove hare’s have 4 legs, however they don’t want their friend to be an ignorant. They went in search of hares again and they came out with couple of hare’s fortunately all with 4 legs.

Paul verifying all the hares leg said “you all took whole day to find hares with four legs, where only me found hares with 3 legs in few hours, so it seems to find hares with four legs are rare and with 3 legs are common, as per my knowledge I infer that hares with 3 legs are more than the hares with 4 legs, I accept that hares have 4 legs, however it seems that hares with 3 legs are common, what you all say?

This dumbed all the friends.