Inspection Times
It was inspection time at the school. We were asked to clean the entire class room after the regular school hours. The black board received a fresh black coat and we decorated the board with flowers and other stuff using colored chalks. Girls were busy drawing rangolis on the floors. We prepared ‘science’ charts and pasted them on the walls! I was given fresh badges for my ‘first rank’ and ‘class rep’ positions which I wore with great pride! I came up with a brilliant idea of ‘showering the DEO (District Educational Officer) with flowers as he entered the class’. We discussed about girls showering the flowers on him but decided against it as there was no ‘surprise’ element to it.
As usual S gave the innovative idea of hanging a cardboard box with flowers from the ceiling and open it using strings attached to the lids so that the flowers would be showered on DEO. We all accepted it and overnight we made the arrangements. There were two strings – one to lower the box to fill in with flowers and the other one to open up the lid. I didn’t take permission for this from our class teacher – to keep up the surprise! We made the arrangements and tested the system with paper balls and everything worked perfectly! K assumed the duty of pulling the strings at the right moment as I had to stand with the class teacher greeting the DEO! We were satisfied with our arrangements!
The next day, the DEO came in! Our plan was to pull up the string just before the DEO would leave the class. We were very well prepared, neatly dressed and we managed the usual Q & A session very well! DEO was extremely happy with our performance and openly voiced the same to the principal. The moment arrived; the DEO was standing up bidding ‘bye’. I hinted K to pull the string! He pulled the string and there was the moment we were waiting for! The cardboard box came down with full force and exactly landed at the center of the bald head of DEO – it opened up then and the flowers showered all over the place! K pulled the wrong string! The class could not control the laughter! But as class rep I had to act. I cleaned up everything and apologized.
I was terrified as this was an arrangement without permission and K managed to screw things up again for me! I could sense the fire on our principal’s and class teacher’s eyes! But to our surprise the DEO was also laughing and he said the idea was great but execution was wrong! He went away. The entire class was still laughing, I was furious over K! But he was never bothered! He was laughing with the class and claimed that he purposefully pulled the wrong string! In the next five minutes I was summoned to principals’ room! Suddenly the class also stopped laughing and gave me that pathetic look. K said ‘all the best’! Shivering with fear, I followed the attendant to the princi’s room.
DEO was sitting on the center with princi & vice prici next to him. My class teacher was standing in a corner and their sights were unbearable. DEO asked me ‘whose idea was that?’ ‘Mine’ I replied and I begged for his pardon again. He rose from his chair, came near to me. To my surprise, he started clapping! The others in the room also joined him! He congratulated me and awarded the ‘Best Class’ award to our class! He said the award was not for the execution screw up, but for the enthusiasm demonstrated, the way we behaved during the inspection and the sincerity we had shown in our chart preparations! I was on top of the world and so were my friends! That night we collected some money from the class and prepared a ‘Best Class’ Banner and hung it at the entrance of our class! This was again another thing which nobody had done before – the principal stopped by and congratulated the class the next day! And also warned about executing things on our own without permission. But who cared? K managed to give us another memory to laugh!
… to be continued …
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Aam Admi - Who?
As the congress pundits claim, the very basis of the existence of the current UPA government is to live for the ‘Common Man’ – Aam Admi. Closely watching all the happenings in the recent past, one wonders who form the part of this ‘Common Man’ group as defined by the UPA. In any business company that is geared towards growth everything is based on ‘ROI – Returns on Investment’. And as an employee if you fail to deliver to the ROI expected out of you, you would be chucked out. And the company would hail all those who perform and deliver the ROI.
Extrapolating the same concept to our country, I think those who pay the TAX are the persons who qualify to be hailed and nurtured by the government. Afterall, they are the very reason for the existence of the government. And what is happening today is the exact opposite! And ironically this happens under the helm of one of best economists in the world and one of the best known Finance brain in the country in the name of P Chidambaram!
For me, as per the above definition, the tax payers should form the ‘Common Man’ bastion for the government. But it looks like the definition of Aam Admi is mapped to the people who live below the ‘mystic’ poverty line and flourish under the Quota raj! All the government policies should be devised based on the welfare of the tax payers rather than the welfare of the ‘non-tax-payers’.
So do I intend to say that we should ignore all those who don’t fall under the ‘tax payers’ category? – Absolutely not. Again mapping to a business company scenario, those who are not ‘sellable’ in the market place, or those who do not show up the ROI, the companies invest on them atleast once – in the form of rigorous trainings to get them into the ROI category. Similarly the government should invest heavily in making eligible the Non-tax-payers community to Tax-payer community – by ways of providing compulsory free education, Changing the current ‘bookish’ education system to something what Rajaji dreamt off – vocational courses forming basic part of schooling system. This would ensure that the next generations of students do not solely depend on their bookish degrees to earn – rather they are ‘skilled’ workers at the end of their schooling that would enable them to earn right away and to elevate themselves to the ‘Common Man’ (tax payers) cadre.
This is what our HRD, PMO & FM should work together. Such things are called ‘Visions’. But what is the current focus of the ‘renowned reformists’ at the helm? Our FM is busy trying to find out ways to impose more taxes, double & triple taxes on the already squeezed out salaried class, where as they should form the Aam Admi cadre and policies should give them benefits! One of worst curses on our nation after VP Singh is what today we have in the form of HR minister. When it is so evident that reservations would only divide the country and would ruin the progress – our HR minister is so adamant that our mother nation should die and he would prosper with the cheap visibility.
And it is better left unsaid about the plight of our beloved PM! I think even the lowest level of congress party man has more saying than PM. Every minister in his cabinet takes him for granted. Let it be the backdoor boys from TN, Anbumani & Dayanidhi or seniors like Pranab & Arjun singh – nobody cares for PM’s words. And another curse on our countries growth is in the form of the Left! Some of the recent incidents where I felt PM’s hands are tied down by his own party men and his coalition partners:
1. The recent oil price hike and the subsequent charge that UPA has failed to keep the prices of agricultural products. Normally the case should be that the PM calls for the CMs meet and advise them on how they should be controlling the prices in their respective states. But what happened in the recent CMs meet is the exact reverse! The Vishalrao Deshmuks and YSRs were advising the world’s best economist on how to keep the prices under control! Could there be a bigger embarrassment than this to PM?
2. Then the modernization of Delhi and Mumbai airport has been strongly resisted by the left. Airports form kind of ‘face’ of the nation to a lot. We all knew the popularity of airports of Singapore, Heathrow and other such countries. And the plight of the airports of our nation’s capital and the economic capital could not even be compared to the rest rooms of those international standards! The left are so engrossed to make sure to keep the first impression of our nation to that of a garbage container.
3. And the most recent one is on the cabinet approved Nalco & NLC divestment! Again PM is stranded alone in the middle of his own cabinet! The CM of Tamil Nadu first suggested selling the stocks of NLC to the employees! The PM said okay – when it is a known fact that the employees could never afford to buy 10% of stocks of a giant in ranks of NLC! Threatened by the mileage gained by former TN CM Jayalalithaa on this issue, M Karunanidhi again threatened to quit from the coalition if the divestment plan is not scrapped! And what do you expect our PM to do – agree for this as well!
The pressures created by reservation policies of HRD minister, by Anubumani ramadoss over the AIIMS row with Venugopal Rao’s sacking – in all these events our PM is left stranded to take all the criticism and the brunt of the major public. Is that what ‘Aam Admi’ all about? How long Mr. Singh could survive with all such embarrassments? It is time to step back and think!
Extrapolating the same concept to our country, I think those who pay the TAX are the persons who qualify to be hailed and nurtured by the government. Afterall, they are the very reason for the existence of the government. And what is happening today is the exact opposite! And ironically this happens under the helm of one of best economists in the world and one of the best known Finance brain in the country in the name of P Chidambaram!
For me, as per the above definition, the tax payers should form the ‘Common Man’ bastion for the government. But it looks like the definition of Aam Admi is mapped to the people who live below the ‘mystic’ poverty line and flourish under the Quota raj! All the government policies should be devised based on the welfare of the tax payers rather than the welfare of the ‘non-tax-payers’.
So do I intend to say that we should ignore all those who don’t fall under the ‘tax payers’ category? – Absolutely not. Again mapping to a business company scenario, those who are not ‘sellable’ in the market place, or those who do not show up the ROI, the companies invest on them atleast once – in the form of rigorous trainings to get them into the ROI category. Similarly the government should invest heavily in making eligible the Non-tax-payers community to Tax-payer community – by ways of providing compulsory free education, Changing the current ‘bookish’ education system to something what Rajaji dreamt off – vocational courses forming basic part of schooling system. This would ensure that the next generations of students do not solely depend on their bookish degrees to earn – rather they are ‘skilled’ workers at the end of their schooling that would enable them to earn right away and to elevate themselves to the ‘Common Man’ (tax payers) cadre.
This is what our HRD, PMO & FM should work together. Such things are called ‘Visions’. But what is the current focus of the ‘renowned reformists’ at the helm? Our FM is busy trying to find out ways to impose more taxes, double & triple taxes on the already squeezed out salaried class, where as they should form the Aam Admi cadre and policies should give them benefits! One of worst curses on our nation after VP Singh is what today we have in the form of HR minister. When it is so evident that reservations would only divide the country and would ruin the progress – our HR minister is so adamant that our mother nation should die and he would prosper with the cheap visibility.
And it is better left unsaid about the plight of our beloved PM! I think even the lowest level of congress party man has more saying than PM. Every minister in his cabinet takes him for granted. Let it be the backdoor boys from TN, Anbumani & Dayanidhi or seniors like Pranab & Arjun singh – nobody cares for PM’s words. And another curse on our countries growth is in the form of the Left! Some of the recent incidents where I felt PM’s hands are tied down by his own party men and his coalition partners:
1. The recent oil price hike and the subsequent charge that UPA has failed to keep the prices of agricultural products. Normally the case should be that the PM calls for the CMs meet and advise them on how they should be controlling the prices in their respective states. But what happened in the recent CMs meet is the exact reverse! The Vishalrao Deshmuks and YSRs were advising the world’s best economist on how to keep the prices under control! Could there be a bigger embarrassment than this to PM?
2. Then the modernization of Delhi and Mumbai airport has been strongly resisted by the left. Airports form kind of ‘face’ of the nation to a lot. We all knew the popularity of airports of Singapore, Heathrow and other such countries. And the plight of the airports of our nation’s capital and the economic capital could not even be compared to the rest rooms of those international standards! The left are so engrossed to make sure to keep the first impression of our nation to that of a garbage container.
3. And the most recent one is on the cabinet approved Nalco & NLC divestment! Again PM is stranded alone in the middle of his own cabinet! The CM of Tamil Nadu first suggested selling the stocks of NLC to the employees! The PM said okay – when it is a known fact that the employees could never afford to buy 10% of stocks of a giant in ranks of NLC! Threatened by the mileage gained by former TN CM Jayalalithaa on this issue, M Karunanidhi again threatened to quit from the coalition if the divestment plan is not scrapped! And what do you expect our PM to do – agree for this as well!
The pressures created by reservation policies of HRD minister, by Anubumani ramadoss over the AIIMS row with Venugopal Rao’s sacking – in all these events our PM is left stranded to take all the criticism and the brunt of the major public. Is that what ‘Aam Admi’ all about? How long Mr. Singh could survive with all such embarrassments? It is time to step back and think!
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Those Nostalgic Years - Part 4
Schooling snippets
K, S and yours truly became pretty close friends – we were called ‘Mum Moorthigal’. We came from the same street, sat on the same last bench, went to the restroom at the same time, had our lunch together and everything together. K was an expert in all the games, I always managed to secure first rank and hence elected the class rep, and S was kind of a convener. S also gave me a tough fight in the academics but always managed to secure a close second. K was the most mischievous and used my class rep position to bail him out in many instances.
There was one girl R in our class on whom K had special affinity. Making her cry used to be his favorite pass time. We sat right behind the girls’ bench with about a foot long space dividing our desk and their bench. K would prepare a string with a knot at one end. During the class he would slowly insert the knot to her hair and tie the other end to a pencil box placed on our desk. As she would attempt to stand at the end of a period the pencil box will fall down or it would hang there from her hair! The class would burst into a laugh. She could not complain because the pencil box would be hers! K, being pretty short, would easily crawl under the benches and desks to reach anybody’s desk without being noticed by the teacher! This way he had access to many of the lunch boxes. R’s would be the primary target and it would be hidden some where and she would be pleading behind K to get her lunch box.
Another common thing K used to do is to spread the chalk powder from the duster on the seats of R’s place. He would do this when the entire class would stand up to say ‘Good morning teacher’ as the teacher entered the class. Given that we had a white tops and blue bottoms as the uniform, as R would stand the next time, the entire class would laugh. Or he would spray the ink to the back of the bench so that it sticks on to R’s tops! Or he would place the pencil box just before R intended to sit. He would drop a small piece of paper from behind into R’s tops and would claim that he had just dropped in a spider. R would make sounds and attempt to clear her back. K would have fun with all such stuff! Sometimes I wondered even R liked K’s mischief. Because she never complained to the class teacher regarding any of these nor she preferred to change her seat!
One of our favorite pass times used to be hanging around the banks of river Sitraaru. The favorite game is the contest of making small flat stones ‘float’. We would carefully choose flat roof tiles and throw them flat over the water surface. The stone would bump and float. Who ever could reach the opposite bank of the river like this would win the game. We also used to play with the river weeds. You could make the bottom of the weed burst by pressing it hard. K used to carefully select small, fluffy weeds and save them in his school bag. He used to burst them in the class suddenly for fun.
Our Tamil teacher was a pretty jovial person. He taught his classes with lots of fun and we all would wait for his classes. K managed to irritate even him one fine day and he used his bamboo stick on him. K was furious and wanted to have revenge. That very day, K punctured the tyres of teacher’s cycle. The next day he placed four of the weeds under teacher’s chair before the Tamil period. To K’s surprise, on that day, the Tamil and Maths teachers exchanged their periods! The Maths teacher was a very tough and rude guy! As we saw him entering the class, K was surprised and terrified! He was asking for my help! I said I could do nothing about this. Maths teacher hardly used to sit during his classes as for most of his time he had to stand near the board! Every time the teacher approached the chair, our pulse rate would increase in anticipation of the eventuality. Fortunately for K, the maths teacher never sat on that day! We all released a sigh of relief at the end of the class. K removed those weeds from under the chair! Those forty five minutes were probably the worst tense moments we would have spent in our time together at the school! At the end fortune always favors the brave!
Being a class rep I had many a duties on my plate. I had to lead the class to the assembly that meant I had to be at the school before everyone. During intervals, I had to lead the class to the restroom. I would shout ‘first two rows, assemble to your right in twos’. Every one should fold their hands behind and walk towards the restroom in twos. And then come back in the same order! Then I would send the next batch and my turn would be the last! I had to memorize some of those prayer songs which on some days I would be requested to sing in the assembly.
Another important job was to control the class during the absence of a teacher. I had to stand in front of the class, and engage the entire class to repeat multiplication tables, or read English lessons. I would also note down the names of the students whom I observed to be talking in the class. The names would be submitted to the class teacher the next day and each would get a good beating with a bamboo stick from the teacher. Now this was an important weapon I had which K exploited to full extend. The entire class knew that we were best of friends and I would never report K or S to the class teacher. None of them dared to complain about K as his name would be reported by me to the class teacher the next day. I also needed to do the roll call and fill in the attendance register every period, update the board with the numbers, helping the teachers etc.
... to be continued ...
K, S and yours truly became pretty close friends – we were called ‘Mum Moorthigal’. We came from the same street, sat on the same last bench, went to the restroom at the same time, had our lunch together and everything together. K was an expert in all the games, I always managed to secure first rank and hence elected the class rep, and S was kind of a convener. S also gave me a tough fight in the academics but always managed to secure a close second. K was the most mischievous and used my class rep position to bail him out in many instances.
There was one girl R in our class on whom K had special affinity. Making her cry used to be his favorite pass time. We sat right behind the girls’ bench with about a foot long space dividing our desk and their bench. K would prepare a string with a knot at one end. During the class he would slowly insert the knot to her hair and tie the other end to a pencil box placed on our desk. As she would attempt to stand at the end of a period the pencil box will fall down or it would hang there from her hair! The class would burst into a laugh. She could not complain because the pencil box would be hers! K, being pretty short, would easily crawl under the benches and desks to reach anybody’s desk without being noticed by the teacher! This way he had access to many of the lunch boxes. R’s would be the primary target and it would be hidden some where and she would be pleading behind K to get her lunch box.
Another common thing K used to do is to spread the chalk powder from the duster on the seats of R’s place. He would do this when the entire class would stand up to say ‘Good morning teacher’ as the teacher entered the class. Given that we had a white tops and blue bottoms as the uniform, as R would stand the next time, the entire class would laugh. Or he would spray the ink to the back of the bench so that it sticks on to R’s tops! Or he would place the pencil box just before R intended to sit. He would drop a small piece of paper from behind into R’s tops and would claim that he had just dropped in a spider. R would make sounds and attempt to clear her back. K would have fun with all such stuff! Sometimes I wondered even R liked K’s mischief. Because she never complained to the class teacher regarding any of these nor she preferred to change her seat!
One of our favorite pass times used to be hanging around the banks of river Sitraaru. The favorite game is the contest of making small flat stones ‘float’. We would carefully choose flat roof tiles and throw them flat over the water surface. The stone would bump and float. Who ever could reach the opposite bank of the river like this would win the game. We also used to play with the river weeds. You could make the bottom of the weed burst by pressing it hard. K used to carefully select small, fluffy weeds and save them in his school bag. He used to burst them in the class suddenly for fun.
Our Tamil teacher was a pretty jovial person. He taught his classes with lots of fun and we all would wait for his classes. K managed to irritate even him one fine day and he used his bamboo stick on him. K was furious and wanted to have revenge. That very day, K punctured the tyres of teacher’s cycle. The next day he placed four of the weeds under teacher’s chair before the Tamil period. To K’s surprise, on that day, the Tamil and Maths teachers exchanged their periods! The Maths teacher was a very tough and rude guy! As we saw him entering the class, K was surprised and terrified! He was asking for my help! I said I could do nothing about this. Maths teacher hardly used to sit during his classes as for most of his time he had to stand near the board! Every time the teacher approached the chair, our pulse rate would increase in anticipation of the eventuality. Fortunately for K, the maths teacher never sat on that day! We all released a sigh of relief at the end of the class. K removed those weeds from under the chair! Those forty five minutes were probably the worst tense moments we would have spent in our time together at the school! At the end fortune always favors the brave!
Being a class rep I had many a duties on my plate. I had to lead the class to the assembly that meant I had to be at the school before everyone. During intervals, I had to lead the class to the restroom. I would shout ‘first two rows, assemble to your right in twos’. Every one should fold their hands behind and walk towards the restroom in twos. And then come back in the same order! Then I would send the next batch and my turn would be the last! I had to memorize some of those prayer songs which on some days I would be requested to sing in the assembly.
Another important job was to control the class during the absence of a teacher. I had to stand in front of the class, and engage the entire class to repeat multiplication tables, or read English lessons. I would also note down the names of the students whom I observed to be talking in the class. The names would be submitted to the class teacher the next day and each would get a good beating with a bamboo stick from the teacher. Now this was an important weapon I had which K exploited to full extend. The entire class knew that we were best of friends and I would never report K or S to the class teacher. None of them dared to complain about K as his name would be reported by me to the class teacher the next day. I also needed to do the roll call and fill in the attendance register every period, update the board with the numbers, helping the teachers etc.
... to be continued ...
Monday, June 26, 2006
Torture - of a different kind...
In my early working days in Bombay (now Mumbai), five of us shared the same flat – including the toilet. We had to catch a bus to reach Thane station, take the train to Vikhroli and leg it down to work place – in between had to take care of our breakfast as well. We all liked each others company, well except for the morning toilet waits and the fights followed them.
One of my friends from Chennai came to Mumbai with a single goal – that he should go back to Chennai at the earliest. Some time back when he was struggling for his job, he met a numerologist. And he suggested a name change (add R and A to make it to 4 – your lucky number story). The numerologist also suggested that since my friend’s name would have been written lakhs & lakhs of times in the original ‘wrong’ way, the good effects would not be felt immediately. To right this wrong and to see good effects soon, he should write his ‘new’ name one lakh times and deposit it into a temple’s hundi. The sooner he did it the better for him! My friend without any job at that time, decided to go at the one lakh at one go! And he sat for 5 continuous days – to finish it up and deposited in the hundi! And guess what, the next Monday he received the appointment letter from our company! And can’t he count one plus one as two? He forgot all his 90+ scores he got in his exams all through his curriculum; he forgot his efforts to clear the entrance tests and the wonderful interview he had given the previous week; All that he believed was the change in his name & the repetitions!
From that day he got into the good habit of writing impositions! If he wanted that something should happen he would buy a note, start repeating the same word some 1008 times and then deposit it into a hundi! Since his latest wish was to go back to Chennai at the earliest, he started writing ‘K wants to go to Chennai’. Unlike before he was not jobless now and so he found it difficult to set aside time for this. One fine day, he got a fabulous idea! The ten to fifteen minutes he spent on the toilet pot was the time he had been wasting – and atleast he could finish some 108 repetitions in that time! Then started our problems!
He was allocated to an assignment that would atleast run for the next one year and myself & another were allocated to an assignment that would end the very next month and we would go back to Chennai! He became furious on hearing this and decided that the normal 1008 repetition was not good enough for this problem and he would go at 10008! He started spending more time on the pot! Slowly he became a nuisance. He would wake up early and lock himself in the toilet. We the poor souls outside were given the life time experience on the art of ‘controlling’ our natural thrust in the mornings! And you need to live it through those hours to understand the torturous nature of it! We tried all measures – hit the door, threatened to break his shades – nothing worked. He started spending more and more time in the toilet!
One day, I was in great urgency and our man was inside. I consistently knocked the door! My situation was becoming unbearable – from frustration, I was just pleading! He took his own time - As he came out I took him to the height measuring scale – I told sarcastically ‘Bugger! You have grown two inches taller since you went inside this morning’. ‘Thank you for your wonderful finding my friend. This one inch is what has been a problem between me and my girlfriend. Now she would be happy!’ – came the reply. We had no other choice but to adjust to his routine with little sacrifice to sleep!
And my assignment got over; I came back to Chennai and had to go with a different customer for the next six months. After another four months, again I was sent to Mumbai. I searched for my old friends. Three of them replied they were no longer in Mumbai! I called up K – ‘Buddy where are you?’ ‘Right there in the same flat, with three other guys! We are short of one more guy – want to join?’ came the reply. I packed up my bags and went! I saw a drastic improvement – K had pasted charts and reusable whiteboards all around his room! And he was still writing – ‘K wants to go back to Chennai’ methodically!
And it has been six years now. K is married (to the same girl friend), has a kid and settled down in Mumbai! And his wife complains that he takes too much time in the toilet!
One of my friends from Chennai came to Mumbai with a single goal – that he should go back to Chennai at the earliest. Some time back when he was struggling for his job, he met a numerologist. And he suggested a name change (add R and A to make it to 4 – your lucky number story). The numerologist also suggested that since my friend’s name would have been written lakhs & lakhs of times in the original ‘wrong’ way, the good effects would not be felt immediately. To right this wrong and to see good effects soon, he should write his ‘new’ name one lakh times and deposit it into a temple’s hundi. The sooner he did it the better for him! My friend without any job at that time, decided to go at the one lakh at one go! And he sat for 5 continuous days – to finish it up and deposited in the hundi! And guess what, the next Monday he received the appointment letter from our company! And can’t he count one plus one as two? He forgot all his 90+ scores he got in his exams all through his curriculum; he forgot his efforts to clear the entrance tests and the wonderful interview he had given the previous week; All that he believed was the change in his name & the repetitions!
From that day he got into the good habit of writing impositions! If he wanted that something should happen he would buy a note, start repeating the same word some 1008 times and then deposit it into a hundi! Since his latest wish was to go back to Chennai at the earliest, he started writing ‘K wants to go to Chennai’. Unlike before he was not jobless now and so he found it difficult to set aside time for this. One fine day, he got a fabulous idea! The ten to fifteen minutes he spent on the toilet pot was the time he had been wasting – and atleast he could finish some 108 repetitions in that time! Then started our problems!
He was allocated to an assignment that would atleast run for the next one year and myself & another were allocated to an assignment that would end the very next month and we would go back to Chennai! He became furious on hearing this and decided that the normal 1008 repetition was not good enough for this problem and he would go at 10008! He started spending more time on the pot! Slowly he became a nuisance. He would wake up early and lock himself in the toilet. We the poor souls outside were given the life time experience on the art of ‘controlling’ our natural thrust in the mornings! And you need to live it through those hours to understand the torturous nature of it! We tried all measures – hit the door, threatened to break his shades – nothing worked. He started spending more and more time in the toilet!
One day, I was in great urgency and our man was inside. I consistently knocked the door! My situation was becoming unbearable – from frustration, I was just pleading! He took his own time - As he came out I took him to the height measuring scale – I told sarcastically ‘Bugger! You have grown two inches taller since you went inside this morning’. ‘Thank you for your wonderful finding my friend. This one inch is what has been a problem between me and my girlfriend. Now she would be happy!’ – came the reply. We had no other choice but to adjust to his routine with little sacrifice to sleep!
And my assignment got over; I came back to Chennai and had to go with a different customer for the next six months. After another four months, again I was sent to Mumbai. I searched for my old friends. Three of them replied they were no longer in Mumbai! I called up K – ‘Buddy where are you?’ ‘Right there in the same flat, with three other guys! We are short of one more guy – want to join?’ came the reply. I packed up my bags and went! I saw a drastic improvement – K had pasted charts and reusable whiteboards all around his room! And he was still writing – ‘K wants to go back to Chennai’ methodically!
And it has been six years now. K is married (to the same girl friend), has a kid and settled down in Mumbai! And his wife complains that he takes too much time in the toilet!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
For How long?
I happened to read this article and the truth in it pains me. One of the most cruel punishments in the human history is the 'solitary prison' - most of us could not imagine the plight of such prisoners. In my opinion being & treated as a refugee in your own country is no better than the treatment in a solitary prison! It has been fifteen long years, but still no leader in this country could dare to touch this issue. And the only reason is - minority vote bank!
Our PM Manmohan Singh sends a special convoy to meet TN's CM just as we hear about the clash between LTTE (Terrorists) and a Srilankan Army. Our local TN leaders like Vaiko & MK shed tears of blood for the Srilankan Tamils! And in the names of refugees LTTE have started their intrusion into TN. I have personally seen the amount of vigilance and security being practiced in the 'Mandapam' refugee camp. It is a free for all camp! Anybody can come in, go out - not to come back again. So many such refugees are staying outside in rented and owned houses. All said and done Jayalalithaa administered better security policies for TN. Right from the street urchins till Veerappan (including Vaiko/Nedumaaran) stopped supporting any kind of terrorism/rowdism! It looks like that the LTTE were just waiting for a change in government in TN; They started the war as soon as MK sworn in as CM in TN - they are so sure about the assistance they would receive from this land now!
Our PM & super PM are busy flagging off buses across the border defying the whole purpose of the laying a fence along LoC! Cold blooded attacks on Hindus and Hindu shrines during Hindu festivals seem to be the agenda of the Islamic terrorists nowadays. Recent Delhi market blast during Diwali, Blasts at Varanasi etc., perfectly fall into this category. But still nobody in the country has the guts to object this cross border transportation!
For every community, clan, subsect, caste, or sections of workers there is a political back up! They come to the street, burn/damage public properties, and kill innocent people to demand justice! But no one could raise a genuine concern about the majority (minority!) Hindus in this country. The moment someone talks about Hindus, he would be labeled as anti secular by the media and the Congress! It is a shame on our nation.
For how long we would survive like this?
Our PM Manmohan Singh sends a special convoy to meet TN's CM just as we hear about the clash between LTTE (Terrorists) and a Srilankan Army. Our local TN leaders like Vaiko & MK shed tears of blood for the Srilankan Tamils! And in the names of refugees LTTE have started their intrusion into TN. I have personally seen the amount of vigilance and security being practiced in the 'Mandapam' refugee camp. It is a free for all camp! Anybody can come in, go out - not to come back again. So many such refugees are staying outside in rented and owned houses. All said and done Jayalalithaa administered better security policies for TN. Right from the street urchins till Veerappan (including Vaiko/Nedumaaran) stopped supporting any kind of terrorism/rowdism! It looks like that the LTTE were just waiting for a change in government in TN; They started the war as soon as MK sworn in as CM in TN - they are so sure about the assistance they would receive from this land now!
Our PM & super PM are busy flagging off buses across the border defying the whole purpose of the laying a fence along LoC! Cold blooded attacks on Hindus and Hindu shrines during Hindu festivals seem to be the agenda of the Islamic terrorists nowadays. Recent Delhi market blast during Diwali, Blasts at Varanasi etc., perfectly fall into this category. But still nobody in the country has the guts to object this cross border transportation!
For every community, clan, subsect, caste, or sections of workers there is a political back up! They come to the street, burn/damage public properties, and kill innocent people to demand justice! But no one could raise a genuine concern about the majority (minority!) Hindus in this country. The moment someone talks about Hindus, he would be labeled as anti secular by the media and the Congress! It is a shame on our nation.
For how long we would survive like this?
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