"The Invasion That Never Was" by Michel Danino should be the text book in every school and each and every individual must read this book.
From our school days we are being taught wrong history, a false history "created" by Britishers for their own interest. We were taught that there are two races in India ; an Aryan race and a Dravidian race. There is no archeological evidence or there is no cultural evidence to prove this. Michel Danino in his book , examines all the aspect of the subject and gives enough evidence to prove that there was no invasion in India.
-Parikshit Gohil
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
બેંગલોર માં બીજી નવરાત્રી
ગુજરાત છોડ્યા બાદ ગુજરાત ની સૌથી વધુ યાદ તો નવરાત્રી ના સમય માં જ આવે. નવે નવ દિવસ ગરબા ની રમઝટ ગુજરાત ના દરેક નાના મોટા ગામ તથા શહેરો મા જોવા મળે છે. તાળીઓ ના તાલ નું સ્થાન હવે ઓરકેસ્ટ્રા એ લઇ લીધું છે અને નાની નાની શેરીઓ અને ચોક મા થતી ગરબી હવે મોટા પાર્ટી પ્લોટ માં થવા માંડી છે પરંતુ લોકો નો જુસ્સો ઉમંગ અને ઇંતેજારી એવી ને એવી જ છે. હા, કેટલાક લોકો ને આ નવ દિવસ કદાચ ઘોંઘાટ જેવા લગતા હશે, પરંતુ બહુમતી થી ચાલતા ધર્મ નિર્પેક્ષ્ એવા આપણા આ દેશ માં એવું તો ચાલ્યા કરે. પરંતુ એક વાત તો નક્કી છે કે જયારે ગરબા ગાનાર ના સૂર ઓરકેસ્ટ્રા ના તાલ સાથે વાતાવરણ માં ગુંજે છે ત્યારે કોઈ પણ વ્યક્તિ એનામા તલ્લીન થયા વગર રહી સકતી નથી.
એવું નથી કે બેંગલોર માં ગરબા રમાતા જ નથી, એ વાત મા કોઈ બેમત નથી કે દુનિયામાં જ્યાં જ્યાં ગુજરાતી વસ્યા છે ત્યાં ત્યાં એવો એક પણ તહેવાર નહી હોય જે ઉજવાતો ના હોય, બંગલોર મા પણ ઘણી જગ્યા એ ગરબાઓ થાય છે અને અમુક જગ્યાએ નવે નવ દિવસ થાય છે પરંતુ મુશ્કેલી એ છે કે બેંગલોર માં બધુ ઘણું દૂર દૂર આવેલુ છે અને બીજે દિવસે ઓફીસ જવાના ચક્કર મા રોજ રોજ જવું ઘણું મુશ્કેલ બની રહે છે. પરંતુ દિલ હૈ કી સાલા માનતા હી નહી ! નોરતા આવે એટલે ગમેતેમ કરીને, નવ દિવસ નહી તો કઈ નહી ૧-૨ દિવસ તો, ગરબા રમવા જવા જોયે જ ને!
આ વખતે બેંગલોર મા થોડા વર્ષો થી રહેતા એક દૂર ના જૂના પડોશી એ :) તેમના એપાર્ટમેન્ટ ના પાર્કિંગ મા ગરબા નું આયોજન કરેલું હતું અને અમને આમંત્રિત કર્યા હતા. અમે લોકો પણ પુરા ઉત્સાહ થી મિત્ર મંડળ સહીત શોભા મા અભીવૃધી કરવા સમય અનુસાર જગ્યા એ પહુંચી ગયા ! આયોજકો એ આયોજન કરવા મા ખુબ મહેનત કરી હતી પણ વ્યક્તિ ના ઉત્સાહ ને જયારે કલ્પના ની પાંખો લાગેલી હોય અને કોઈ અચાનક એ પાંખો કાપી નાખે અને કેવી હાલત થાય ? એવી જ કૈક હાલત અમારી થઈ જયારે ત્યાં પહુંચી અમે જોયું કે ગરબા પાર્કિંગ ની બદલે કોઈ એપાર્ટમેન્ટ મા આવેલા ચિલ્ડ્રેન'સ પ્લે એરીયા મા છે અને ગાયક અને ઓર્કેસ્ટ્રા ની બદલે લેપટોપ પર વાગતા ગીતો પર ગરબા લેવાના છે. એમાં પણ લોકો જે ઉત્સાહ થી ગરબા લેતા હતા એ જોઈને મને ખરે ખર આનંદ થયો. (એ દ્રશ્ય જોઈ મને મારા કોલેજ ના દિવસો યાદ આવી ગયા જ્યાં અમે કમ્પ્યુટર લેબ માથી કમ્પ્યુટર લઇ ગરબા ની સી. ડી. ચળાવી અને ગીત કોઈ પણ ચાલતું હોય , ગરબા લેતા આવડતા હોય કે ના આવડતા હોય મેદાન વચ્ચે આમ-તેમ દોડા-દોડી કરતા હતા.). ટુંકમાં એવી કાઈ ખાસ મજા આવી નહી અને મને લાગવા માંડ્યું હતું કે આ વર્ષ ની નવરાત્રી સાવ ફિક્કી જવાની છે.
બીજે દિવસે અમે બેંગલોર મા આવેલા ઇન્દીરાનગર ગુજરાતી એસોસીએશન દ્વારા કોઈ મંદિર ના હોલ મા આયોજીત ગરબા મા જવા નું નક્કી કર્યું. આ વખતે કોઈ જાત ની અપેક્ષા રાખ્યા વગર જવું એમ વિચારી રાત્રે ૧૦ વાગ્યે નક્કી કરેલી જગ્યાએ પહોચ્યા. જેમ પોસ્ટ માસ્ટર ટીકીટ ચેક કરી એના પર પોસ્ટ ઓફીસ નો સિક્કો લગાડે એમ બહાર બેઠેલી બે બહેનો એ અમર હાથ પર શેનોક સિક્કો લગાડી આપ્યો. પોસ્ટ થયેલી ચિઠ્ઠી ની માફક અમે હોલ મા પ્રવેશ્યા. જગ્યા નાની હતી પણ નવરાત્રી નો માહોલ લાગતો હતો. લાઈવ ઓર્કેસ્ટ્રા હતું અને મોટા ભાગ ના લોકો ટ્રેડીશનલ ડ્રેસ મા હતા. મારે તો કઈ રમવાનું હોતું નથી એટલે હું આમતેમ ખાલી જગ્યા શોધવા લાગ્યો. થોડી વાર પછી કેટલાક લોકોએ હિંમત કરી ગરબા લેવાના ચાલુ કર્યાં. એમનું જોઈ ને બાકીના લોકો પણ જોડાઈ ગયા. જેમ હંસો ના ટોળા માં બગલા અલગ તારી આવે એમ અમુક લોકો અલગ જ તારી આવતા હતા. અમુક લોકો ને જોઈ ને મને પણ જુસ્સો આવ્યો અને લોકો શું વિચારશે એનો વિચાર કર્યાં વગર યા હોમ કહીને હું પણ કુદી પડયો. અને બગલા ના ટોળા માં શામેલ થઈ ગયો. કોઈ પણ જાત ના તાલ મેળ વગર હું પણ ગરબા લેવા માંડ્યો. લોકો જયારે ડાબી બાજુ તાળી પડે ત્યારે હું ચક્કર ફરતો અને જયરે લોકો ચક્કર ફરે ત્યારે હું તાળી પડતો ! મને ગરબા લેતો જોઈ ને ઘણા લોકો ને પ્રેરણા મળી હોય તેમ વધારે લોકો બગલા ના ટોળા માં શામેલ થઈ ગયા ! કદાચ પહેલી વાર હું ગરબા આટલા દિલ થી રમ્યો હઈસ. ખરેખર મજા આવી ગઈ.
એ દિવસે હું એટલું રમ્યો કે બીજા બે દિવસ સુધી પગ દુખવા લાગ્યા ! અને ત્યારે નવે નવ દિવસ ગરબે રમતા લોકો પ્રત્યે ખરેખર માન ની લાગણી થઈ આવી અને એ વાત નો અહેસાસ થયો કે આઇ.ટી. ઇન્ડસ્ટ્રી ની ભેટ સ્વરૂપ બેઠાડું જીવન થી ભવિષ્ય માં શું શું થઈ શકે છ.
-પરીક્ષિત ગોહિલ
નોંધ : ૧૨ સાયન્સ ની પરીક્ષા પછી આ પહેલીવાર આટલું બધુ ગુજરાતી માં લખ્યું છે એટલે ભૂલ-ચૂક સુધારી વાંચવા વિનંતી. :)
એવું નથી કે બેંગલોર માં ગરબા રમાતા જ નથી, એ વાત મા કોઈ બેમત નથી કે દુનિયામાં જ્યાં જ્યાં ગુજરાતી વસ્યા છે ત્યાં ત્યાં એવો એક પણ તહેવાર નહી હોય જે ઉજવાતો ના હોય, બંગલોર મા પણ ઘણી જગ્યા એ ગરબાઓ થાય છે અને અમુક જગ્યાએ નવે નવ દિવસ થાય છે પરંતુ મુશ્કેલી એ છે કે બેંગલોર માં બધુ ઘણું દૂર દૂર આવેલુ છે અને બીજે દિવસે ઓફીસ જવાના ચક્કર મા રોજ રોજ જવું ઘણું મુશ્કેલ બની રહે છે. પરંતુ દિલ હૈ કી સાલા માનતા હી નહી ! નોરતા આવે એટલે ગમેતેમ કરીને, નવ દિવસ નહી તો કઈ નહી ૧-૨ દિવસ તો, ગરબા રમવા જવા જોયે જ ને!
આ વખતે બેંગલોર મા થોડા વર્ષો થી રહેતા એક દૂર ના જૂના પડોશી એ :) તેમના એપાર્ટમેન્ટ ના પાર્કિંગ મા ગરબા નું આયોજન કરેલું હતું અને અમને આમંત્રિત કર્યા હતા. અમે લોકો પણ પુરા ઉત્સાહ થી મિત્ર મંડળ સહીત શોભા મા અભીવૃધી કરવા સમય અનુસાર જગ્યા એ પહુંચી ગયા ! આયોજકો એ આયોજન કરવા મા ખુબ મહેનત કરી હતી પણ વ્યક્તિ ના ઉત્સાહ ને જયારે કલ્પના ની પાંખો લાગેલી હોય અને કોઈ અચાનક એ પાંખો કાપી નાખે અને કેવી હાલત થાય ? એવી જ કૈક હાલત અમારી થઈ જયારે ત્યાં પહુંચી અમે જોયું કે ગરબા પાર્કિંગ ની બદલે કોઈ એપાર્ટમેન્ટ મા આવેલા ચિલ્ડ્રેન'સ પ્લે એરીયા મા છે અને ગાયક અને ઓર્કેસ્ટ્રા ની બદલે લેપટોપ પર વાગતા ગીતો પર ગરબા લેવાના છે. એમાં પણ લોકો જે ઉત્સાહ થી ગરબા લેતા હતા એ જોઈને મને ખરે ખર આનંદ થયો. (એ દ્રશ્ય જોઈ મને મારા કોલેજ ના દિવસો યાદ આવી ગયા જ્યાં અમે કમ્પ્યુટર લેબ માથી કમ્પ્યુટર લઇ ગરબા ની સી. ડી. ચળાવી અને ગીત કોઈ પણ ચાલતું હોય , ગરબા લેતા આવડતા હોય કે ના આવડતા હોય મેદાન વચ્ચે આમ-તેમ દોડા-દોડી કરતા હતા.). ટુંકમાં એવી કાઈ ખાસ મજા આવી નહી અને મને લાગવા માંડ્યું હતું કે આ વર્ષ ની નવરાત્રી સાવ ફિક્કી જવાની છે.
બીજે દિવસે અમે બેંગલોર મા આવેલા ઇન્દીરાનગર ગુજરાતી એસોસીએશન દ્વારા કોઈ મંદિર ના હોલ મા આયોજીત ગરબા મા જવા નું નક્કી કર્યું. આ વખતે કોઈ જાત ની અપેક્ષા રાખ્યા વગર જવું એમ વિચારી રાત્રે ૧૦ વાગ્યે નક્કી કરેલી જગ્યાએ પહોચ્યા. જેમ પોસ્ટ માસ્ટર ટીકીટ ચેક કરી એના પર પોસ્ટ ઓફીસ નો સિક્કો લગાડે એમ બહાર બેઠેલી બે બહેનો એ અમર હાથ પર શેનોક સિક્કો લગાડી આપ્યો. પોસ્ટ થયેલી ચિઠ્ઠી ની માફક અમે હોલ મા પ્રવેશ્યા. જગ્યા નાની હતી પણ નવરાત્રી નો માહોલ લાગતો હતો. લાઈવ ઓર્કેસ્ટ્રા હતું અને મોટા ભાગ ના લોકો ટ્રેડીશનલ ડ્રેસ મા હતા. મારે તો કઈ રમવાનું હોતું નથી એટલે હું આમતેમ ખાલી જગ્યા શોધવા લાગ્યો. થોડી વાર પછી કેટલાક લોકોએ હિંમત કરી ગરબા લેવાના ચાલુ કર્યાં. એમનું જોઈ ને બાકીના લોકો પણ જોડાઈ ગયા. જેમ હંસો ના ટોળા માં બગલા અલગ તારી આવે એમ અમુક લોકો અલગ જ તારી આવતા હતા. અમુક લોકો ને જોઈ ને મને પણ જુસ્સો આવ્યો અને લોકો શું વિચારશે એનો વિચાર કર્યાં વગર યા હોમ કહીને હું પણ કુદી પડયો. અને બગલા ના ટોળા માં શામેલ થઈ ગયો. કોઈ પણ જાત ના તાલ મેળ વગર હું પણ ગરબા લેવા માંડ્યો. લોકો જયારે ડાબી બાજુ તાળી પડે ત્યારે હું ચક્કર ફરતો અને જયરે લોકો ચક્કર ફરે ત્યારે હું તાળી પડતો ! મને ગરબા લેતો જોઈ ને ઘણા લોકો ને પ્રેરણા મળી હોય તેમ વધારે લોકો બગલા ના ટોળા માં શામેલ થઈ ગયા ! કદાચ પહેલી વાર હું ગરબા આટલા દિલ થી રમ્યો હઈસ. ખરેખર મજા આવી ગઈ.
એ દિવસે હું એટલું રમ્યો કે બીજા બે દિવસ સુધી પગ દુખવા લાગ્યા ! અને ત્યારે નવે નવ દિવસ ગરબે રમતા લોકો પ્રત્યે ખરેખર માન ની લાગણી થઈ આવી અને એ વાત નો અહેસાસ થયો કે આઇ.ટી. ઇન્ડસ્ટ્રી ની ભેટ સ્વરૂપ બેઠાડું જીવન થી ભવિષ્ય માં શું શું થઈ શકે છ.
-પરીક્ષિત ગોહિલ
નોંધ : ૧૨ સાયન્સ ની પરીક્ષા પછી આ પહેલીવાર આટલું બધુ ગુજરાતી માં લખ્યું છે એટલે ભૂલ-ચૂક સુધારી વાંચવા વિનંતી. :)
Monday, September 27, 2010
Media,Politics and Commonwealth Games
Some thoughts on commonwealth games;
Question: What is Commonwealth Games ?
Answer : Its an international, multi-sport event played among commonwealth of nations.
Question: What is commonwealth of nations ?
Answer: It is an association comprising the Britain, its dependencies (like Wales , Scotland etc) and former British colonies that are now sovereign states with a common allegiance to the British Crown.
I thought we got independence from British long back, then do we really need to show our allegiance to the British Crown ? Why do we even need to be a part of commonwealth of nations where the British monarch serves as a symbolic head ? Irony is we still wants to show our loyalty towards a nation who ruled,raped and looted us for several years. Why are we,still, so obsessed with British ? its a mockery of our hard earn independence. Anything British must be rejected.
These days it has become a tradition to link nation's pride with any damn thing happen in the country and media is playing a major role in it. Why should nation's pride be damaged because of a gaming event which we should have dumped long before?. Shouldn't we set targets like 100% electrification of our villages, achieving 100% literacy, giving social security to all the citizens or securing our boarders, and claim nation's pride ? but no, our so called free and independent media friends do not think so. They are only interested in masala which our politicians and babus provides very open heartedly.
I don't support our participation in commonwealth and I really don't care whether games will be a success or failure, how I see all this drama as; at least in the name of hosting commonwealth games, our athletes will get some world class training facilities and will be able to win some medals in international sporting events.
Whether we should be a part of commonwealth of nations or not is totally a different issue but talking about recent crisis in Delhi Commonwealth Games, It did not surprise me a bit that our corrupt babus and netas are once again failed to deliver on their promises, this time, made to the international audience. Suresh Kalmadi, organizing committee chief , openly declared, thinking that he is making a speech in his constituency, that the infrastructure he is going to build for commonwealth games will be better than that of Beijing Olympic !!! Kalmadi and his team had seven years in their hand to deliver but our politicians are not very used to work within a timeline. Instead of seven years if they would had fourteen years in their hands, the result would have been the same because they don't feel any sense of responsibility for their work and even though they are spending/wasting our tax money they are not accountable to anyone ! What do you think ? Will there be any actions taken against those who are responsible for this mess ? at max kalmadi will be replaced by another type of Kalmadi and things will come back to normalcy.
When I heard Organizing Committee's spokesperson Lalit Bhanot saying " For us and for you it is clean, but they have a different standard of cleanliness, It is a matter of difference in perception". I believed him because many times it happens that people over-expect when they go to someone else's place,but after seeing the pictures on news channels (paan stains on washbasin, dog's paw prints on bed, leaked toilets etc etc) one thing I can surely tell is that any human being, no matter what their perception about cleanliness is , can ever imagine that the place shown in the news channels was clean.
But now it is becoming too much. As always, media and international delegates are exaggerating the things, I used to follow the CWG stories on electronic and print media but couldn't found any single positive point since the foot over bridge collapsed due to the use of sub-standard material. (It is still not clear that the material used was really a sub-standard or there was some other reason ). Now come-on, I don't agree that after spending billions of rupees on infrastructure they have not build anything positive. I don't know whatever they have build is better than Beijing Olympic infrastructure or not but one thing is clear from the photographs put on the CWG website, everything is not dark in games village and training facility.
I fully support the media for their war against corruption in organizing the games but at the same time I feel very dejected when they keep on showcasing only the bad thing and completely ignore the efforts made by hundreds of people who worked towards making the event successful.
I hope, some day our media, politician and bureaucrats will understand their responsibility and use their power at the right place for the betterment of their fellow countrymen.
-Parikshit Gohil
Question: What is Commonwealth Games ?
Answer : Its an international, multi-sport event played among commonwealth of nations.
Question: What is commonwealth of nations ?
Answer: It is an association comprising the Britain, its dependencies (like Wales , Scotland etc) and former British colonies that are now sovereign states with a common allegiance to the British Crown.
I thought we got independence from British long back, then do we really need to show our allegiance to the British Crown ? Why do we even need to be a part of commonwealth of nations where the British monarch serves as a symbolic head ? Irony is we still wants to show our loyalty towards a nation who ruled,raped and looted us for several years. Why are we,still, so obsessed with British ? its a mockery of our hard earn independence. Anything British must be rejected.
These days it has become a tradition to link nation's pride with any damn thing happen in the country and media is playing a major role in it. Why should nation's pride be damaged because of a gaming event which we should have dumped long before?. Shouldn't we set targets like 100% electrification of our villages, achieving 100% literacy, giving social security to all the citizens or securing our boarders, and claim nation's pride ? but no, our so called free and independent media friends do not think so. They are only interested in masala which our politicians and babus provides very open heartedly.
I don't support our participation in commonwealth and I really don't care whether games will be a success or failure, how I see all this drama as; at least in the name of hosting commonwealth games, our athletes will get some world class training facilities and will be able to win some medals in international sporting events.
Whether we should be a part of commonwealth of nations or not is totally a different issue but talking about recent crisis in Delhi Commonwealth Games, It did not surprise me a bit that our corrupt babus and netas are once again failed to deliver on their promises, this time, made to the international audience. Suresh Kalmadi, organizing committee chief , openly declared, thinking that he is making a speech in his constituency, that the infrastructure he is going to build for commonwealth games will be better than that of Beijing Olympic !!! Kalmadi and his team had seven years in their hand to deliver but our politicians are not very used to work within a timeline. Instead of seven years if they would had fourteen years in their hands, the result would have been the same because they don't feel any sense of responsibility for their work and even though they are spending/wasting our tax money they are not accountable to anyone ! What do you think ? Will there be any actions taken against those who are responsible for this mess ? at max kalmadi will be replaced by another type of Kalmadi and things will come back to normalcy.
When I heard Organizing Committee's spokesperson Lalit Bhanot saying " For us and for you it is clean, but they have a different standard of cleanliness, It is a matter of difference in perception". I believed him because many times it happens that people over-expect when they go to someone else's place,but after seeing the pictures on news channels (paan stains on washbasin, dog's paw prints on bed, leaked toilets etc etc) one thing I can surely tell is that any human being, no matter what their perception about cleanliness is , can ever imagine that the place shown in the news channels was clean.
But now it is becoming too much. As always, media and international delegates are exaggerating the things, I used to follow the CWG stories on electronic and print media but couldn't found any single positive point since the foot over bridge collapsed due to the use of sub-standard material. (It is still not clear that the material used was really a sub-standard or there was some other reason ). Now come-on, I don't agree that after spending billions of rupees on infrastructure they have not build anything positive. I don't know whatever they have build is better than Beijing Olympic infrastructure or not but one thing is clear from the photographs put on the CWG website, everything is not dark in games village and training facility.
I fully support the media for their war against corruption in organizing the games but at the same time I feel very dejected when they keep on showcasing only the bad thing and completely ignore the efforts made by hundreds of people who worked towards making the event successful.
I hope, some day our media, politician and bureaucrats will understand their responsibility and use their power at the right place for the betterment of their fellow countrymen.
-Parikshit Gohil
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Experience with Bangalore Traffic Police - "Bhagvan Bachaye in se" !!!
Corruption in different departments of the government is not a new thing, giving/taking bribe has become so natural that many a time people do not even realise that they are doing something wrong/illegal. The whole corruption system is well organized, agents are placed at every stage and acts as a channel for money transfer from bottom (aam aadmi) to the top(politicians) .
Being at the bottom of this corruption pyramid, I have been exposed to corruption quite a few times (knowingly or unknowingly), but last Friday's experience with Bangalore Traffic police was very shocking, I couldn't believe that somebody can be so shameless.
I went to Kormangala (in Bangalore) for some work and parked my bike near side-walk where few other bikes were also parked. I checked for no-parking sign but couldn't found any so I thought this is the safe place for parking. After finishing work, when I came back after an hour, I couldn't found my bike. I immediatly understood that my bike has been towed away. I inquired with near by traffic police and he confirmed my fear and showed me the way to traffic police station from where I can retrieve my bike.
It was around one and half kilometer from the point where I left my bike and by the time we reached there it was very dark and I was hardly able to see anything clearly. We went to their self-declared parking space and found my bike there. One police officer (I doubt if I should give so much respect to this fellow) was standing near towing vehicle.
After seeing my licence, he asked for 300Rs. I thought it must be the penalty for parking a bike in non-parking zone and I was ready to pay the fine for my wrong-doing. I didn't had 300Rs in loose , so gave him 500Rs note and my wife asked for a receipt.
"We always gave receipt, aamaa" He told to my wife.
I was happy thinking that 'chalo this is an honest officer and there won't be any further problem'.
He asked us to follow him in front of his towing car to give us receipt and remaining change, he went inside and did something for 5-10 minutes. After that he gave me some receipt and asked me to sign. It was so dark there that I couldn't read anything,but it looked like a parking ticket so I just signed. (I still regret signing it without reading, though it was just a traffic challan )
After wasting few more minutes he gave back my licence and told me to take my bike.
I asked for remaining 200Rs.
"I already gave you" he told. I was shocked. But I thought, there must be some misunderstanding.
"No you didn't give me any money." I argued
" You check you purse saar, I am telling you I gave your money"
I showed him my purse and argued with him that he didn't give me any money back.
"200Rs mai hum koi bungala banayenga kya ? I told you mai ne aap ko de diya hai vahi pe" pointing towards my bike he told.
Now I was loosing my temper but was still showing politeness as I didn't wanted to create any scene so I again repeated the same thing with some more politeness. and as we were arguing, one of his aide came and interrupted our conversation and started his own.
"I saw saar gave you money therea , he gaves money therea only not herea"
This time my wife shouted at them "You did not give us any money, You asked us to come here to give the change and now you are saying you have already given??"
As we were having this heated argument with him, somebody came and asked for his bike. As soon as officer saw his innocent face he immidetly gave us our 200Rs (may be thinking that he will recover it from him), which were lying on the dashboard of his vehicle.
I took the money and when I was returning he told me "Bhagvan Dekh lega tumko" !!!
How can he be so shameless ??? Just imagine, If he had already returned 200Rs to me then is it possible that a cop will give money from his own pocket ? Can he be so innocent ? and moreover when I checked the receipt I found that he gave a receipt of only 200Rs not 300Rs which he took from me !!!
Bhagvan Bachaye in logo se !!!
Being at the bottom of this corruption pyramid, I have been exposed to corruption quite a few times (knowingly or unknowingly), but last Friday's experience with Bangalore Traffic police was very shocking, I couldn't believe that somebody can be so shameless.
I went to Kormangala (in Bangalore) for some work and parked my bike near side-walk where few other bikes were also parked. I checked for no-parking sign but couldn't found any so I thought this is the safe place for parking. After finishing work, when I came back after an hour, I couldn't found my bike. I immediatly understood that my bike has been towed away. I inquired with near by traffic police and he confirmed my fear and showed me the way to traffic police station from where I can retrieve my bike.
It was around one and half kilometer from the point where I left my bike and by the time we reached there it was very dark and I was hardly able to see anything clearly. We went to their self-declared parking space and found my bike there. One police officer (I doubt if I should give so much respect to this fellow) was standing near towing vehicle.
After seeing my licence, he asked for 300Rs. I thought it must be the penalty for parking a bike in non-parking zone and I was ready to pay the fine for my wrong-doing. I didn't had 300Rs in loose , so gave him 500Rs note and my wife asked for a receipt.
"We always gave receipt, aamaa" He told to my wife.
I was happy thinking that 'chalo this is an honest officer and there won't be any further problem'.
He asked us to follow him in front of his towing car to give us receipt and remaining change, he went inside and did something for 5-10 minutes. After that he gave me some receipt and asked me to sign. It was so dark there that I couldn't read anything,but it looked like a parking ticket so I just signed. (I still regret signing it without reading, though it was just a traffic challan )
After wasting few more minutes he gave back my licence and told me to take my bike.
I asked for remaining 200Rs.
"I already gave you" he told. I was shocked. But I thought, there must be some misunderstanding.
"No you didn't give me any money." I argued
" You check you purse saar, I am telling you I gave your money"
I showed him my purse and argued with him that he didn't give me any money back.
"200Rs mai hum koi bungala banayenga kya ? I told you mai ne aap ko de diya hai vahi pe" pointing towards my bike he told.
Now I was loosing my temper but was still showing politeness as I didn't wanted to create any scene so I again repeated the same thing with some more politeness. and as we were arguing, one of his aide came and interrupted our conversation and started his own.
"I saw saar gave you money therea , he gaves money therea only not herea"
This time my wife shouted at them "You did not give us any money, You asked us to come here to give the change and now you are saying you have already given??"
As we were having this heated argument with him, somebody came and asked for his bike. As soon as officer saw his innocent face he immidetly gave us our 200Rs (may be thinking that he will recover it from him), which were lying on the dashboard of his vehicle.
I took the money and when I was returning he told me "Bhagvan Dekh lega tumko" !!!
How can he be so shameless ??? Just imagine, If he had already returned 200Rs to me then is it possible that a cop will give money from his own pocket ? Can he be so innocent ? and moreover when I checked the receipt I found that he gave a receipt of only 200Rs not 300Rs which he took from me !!!
Bhagvan Bachaye in logo se !!!
Saturday, August 21, 2010
The first Dominos Pizza outlet in Jamnagar
After U.S. Pizza, Jamnagar has its first Dominos pizza outlet recently opened near Tarak Society.
I am not a big fan of Dominos Pizza since I first tried it 4-5 years back in NOIDA. The only reason why I would go to Dominos is either someone is giving treat or I am dying of starvation and nothing else is available near by.
This time the occasion was my friend's wife's birthday and I agreed to go to Dominos because I really wanted to see the public reactions on this newly opened outlet.
It was Sunday evening and as expected place was over crowded. It looked like they will break even in first month itself!!! The place was full of excited customers (though I had expected the staff to be excited), few of them were visiting such place for the first time and you can clearly see their anxious faces,the fear of doing something embarrassing was making them extra conscious, some people were acting like coming to Dominos and having dinner is their daily affair! few were baffled by the exorbitant price set by Dominos but it would be very embarrassing for them to go back so they were looking for the lowest price options.
I found the place very chaotic, nobody was there to manage the tables, you really have to fight for the place.The staff was not trained properly and they were even not fully aware of what they are offering. My wife read on the menu card that with one medium size pizza you will get a plate of cheese sticks free, but they were not aware of it! I asked them to confirm and their manager told us that you need to have some yellow coupon with you (and that was not mentioned in the offer). The arrangement was very frustrating - first you have to place an order at the cash counter then you have to register your name in the waiting list and then you have to wait, for your order as well as the place to get vacant. Finally after waiting for 5-10 minutes in queue we were able to place some order. We order two medium size and one regular size pizzas along with one cheese stick plate and 3 cakes. The final bill was over Rs 700.
Somehow we found a table for four people. After waiting for about half an hour my name was called and I raised my hand to indicate my location! A poorly dressed waiter came and put 4-5 boxes containing our order. I was surprised, they were serving us in their home-delivery boxes!!
There were no plates no knife no fork no spoon no water glasses no sauces... thank god they gave some oregano powder and some chilli flakes. I had to ask 2-3 times to get the tomato sauce and some spoons.
The over all experience was OK but it is not-value-for-money.I believe that they will improve over the period of time, they are in very initial stages and if they spend some time and money on training the employee they would get more satisfied customers.
I am not a big fan of Dominos Pizza since I first tried it 4-5 years back in NOIDA. The only reason why I would go to Dominos is either someone is giving treat or I am dying of starvation and nothing else is available near by.
This time the occasion was my friend's wife's birthday and I agreed to go to Dominos because I really wanted to see the public reactions on this newly opened outlet.
It was Sunday evening and as expected place was over crowded. It looked like they will break even in first month itself!!! The place was full of excited customers (though I had expected the staff to be excited), few of them were visiting such place for the first time and you can clearly see their anxious faces,the fear of doing something embarrassing was making them extra conscious, some people were acting like coming to Dominos and having dinner is their daily affair! few were baffled by the exorbitant price set by Dominos but it would be very embarrassing for them to go back so they were looking for the lowest price options.
I found the place very chaotic, nobody was there to manage the tables, you really have to fight for the place.The staff was not trained properly and they were even not fully aware of what they are offering. My wife read on the menu card that with one medium size pizza you will get a plate of cheese sticks free, but they were not aware of it! I asked them to confirm and their manager told us that you need to have some yellow coupon with you (and that was not mentioned in the offer). The arrangement was very frustrating - first you have to place an order at the cash counter then you have to register your name in the waiting list and then you have to wait, for your order as well as the place to get vacant. Finally after waiting for 5-10 minutes in queue we were able to place some order. We order two medium size and one regular size pizzas along with one cheese stick plate and 3 cakes. The final bill was over Rs 700.
Somehow we found a table for four people. After waiting for about half an hour my name was called and I raised my hand to indicate my location! A poorly dressed waiter came and put 4-5 boxes containing our order. I was surprised, they were serving us in their home-delivery boxes!!
There were no plates no knife no fork no spoon no water glasses no sauces... thank god they gave some oregano powder and some chilli flakes. I had to ask 2-3 times to get the tomato sauce and some spoons.
The over all experience was OK but it is not-value-for-money.I believe that they will improve over the period of time, they are in very initial stages and if they spend some time and money on training the employee they would get more satisfied customers.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
I'm Back
Its been close to 3 months since my last post "Deadline means a deadline!!!" and I really missed
I have been using parikshitgohil.blog.co.in as my primary blog but without any warning or reason, my blog on blog.co.in has been blocked and it is very frustrating that even after writing two-three times to the support team of blog.co.in they did not have a courtesy to reply back !!!
I have drafted two blog posts and my efforts are totally wasted. So, now , I have decided to use blogspot.com and dump the blog.co.in
Anyways, lots of things has happened in past three months. I finally got the appreciation for my work and got much awaited chance of going abroad without giving a threat of resignation to the company , just kidding :) . I have lots of good and few bad experiences during my short stay in USA , I am planning to write a blog post on these experiences.
Just wanted to say, I'm back and want to share lot more things with you people, keep coming back to my blog. :)
-Parikshit Gohil
I have been using parikshitgohil.blog.co.in as my primary blog but without any warning or reason, my blog on blog.co.in has been blocked and it is very frustrating that even after writing two-three times to the support team of blog.co.in they did not have a courtesy to reply back !!!
I have drafted two blog posts and my efforts are totally wasted. So, now , I have decided to use blogspot.com and dump the blog.co.in
Anyways, lots of things has happened in past three months. I finally got the appreciation for my work and got much awaited chance of going abroad without giving a threat of resignation to the company , just kidding :) . I have lots of good and few bad experiences during my short stay in USA , I am planning to write a blog post on these experiences.
Just wanted to say, I'm back and want to share lot more things with you people, keep coming back to my blog. :)
-Parikshit Gohil
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Deadline means a deadline !!!!
It was 11:55 in the night and Rakesh was still at his desk, working. He has to complete the task, which was assigned to him that evening only, at any cost, because he remembers his boss' words " Rakesh, in this company, deadline means a deadline". He thought, what else deadline means if not a deadline !!!
He went to pantry, to get some black coffee. which, he thinks, takes the tiredness away from his body. He was thinking of something when his mobile started vibrating . It was his fiancée.
" Ohh Shit... , how can I forget to call her ??", he cursed himself for not calling her the entire day. They were getting married in next 10 days and it was their golden period, as some people say.
"You had promised me to call at 9:30, I was waiting for your call "
"Yes I know..., but I forgot, I have to complete some work and have to deliver it today itself." Rakesh told her apologetically.
"That's fine, I can understand. so how was your day today ?? Wait a minute, are you still in office ? " she asked shockingly because it was almost 12:15 in the morning and Rakesh had promised her, yesterday, that he will get himself some clothes and other accessories for their wedding and there were only few days left.
"Yes I am in office. I am coming home next week no... , so I have to finish off my work before I leave" Rakesh lied to her fiancée. But the fact was; He was working late because of his amazingly untalented team lead who commits anything and everything in the team meeting, she has with other teams, without knowing the actual efforts required to complete the task. And not only that the second and the best part of her untalentedness is that she never informs, particularly to Rakesh, what she has committed in the meeting, ignoring the fact that, at the end of the day , Rakesh is the person who has to do the job. And today Rakesh was working late just because of one such commitment she made in last week's weekly meeting and got time to inform Rakesh this evening.
"When will you buy your clothes and other stuff ? Its just 10 days to our wedding and you are still in Delhi and you don't have much time left, its just one week !!!. How will you manage ??!! "
"I will manage, don't worry .... so what I was thinking was, when I come to Ahmadabad we will together select the suit for our reception and will do other shopping as well, that way you can have a suit of your choice !!! in fact Ahmadabad offers more choices than Delhi and, you know, I am not very fond of shopping, I always think it is useless to spend so much money for just one day." The last sentence he did not mean to say but, he thought, caffeine was showing its effect.
"I know you are lying, and I know you are not getting enough time for shopping and that's why you are talking about shopping together, but that's not a bad idea at all. Shopping together, wow , it will be fun"
"So its decided now, I won't buy anything from here, we will shop together in Ahmadabad" Rakesh confirmed and felt relieved.
They talked about ten-fifteen minutes more and then Rakesh returned to his desk. The script he had run, before going to pantry, was still running. He was not sure whatever he has implemented, based on the inputs from his team lead, will work or not. Till date non of her solutions or suggestions had ever worked. and today evening when Rakesh pointed out some issue she said "no no, it can't be like that, I have done this in our previous two chips and it was done like this only. You implement in this way."
"But madam, why it was implemented like this in previous projects ? there may be some different reasons for such implementation. " Rakesh had asked sincerely.
"Its legacy, and we can't change it"
"Do we have any documentation saying it should be like this only? because I am not convinced why it should be done like this." Rakesh knew that if this implementation is not correct then everyone will be after his life.
"can't you make-out just by looking at the name what does this module do ? I myself have done this in previous chips so you implement as I said." She always gets irritated when somebody asks something which she doesn't know, and this is the case always.
To be on safer-side, Rakesh had dropped a mail asking her to send some document where it is written how to implement this particular thing. But as expected she did not reply.
Finally everything was done, he dropped a mail to the entire group saying that it's done and now they can use the database. He locked his computer and scanned the room expecting nobody, but there were few engineers still working or doing something with their computers. Rakesh always hated such work culture. These people are, like Rakesh, victims of bad project planning. It is totally acceptable that in an industry such as IT, where people gets paid somewhat higher than others, sometimes have to work under pressure and have to deal with some unexpected issues and have to work extra hours but such things should be a rare occurrence. If it is happening daily then there is something terribly wrong with project planning. Somebody have to take a call and fix such things otherwise in a long run this will spoil the company's culture.
'More time you spend in planning the less time you will need for execution' Rakesh remembers the words of his team lead-cum-friend in his previous organization. But here the situation was entirely different. Rakesh's team lead doesn't like to plan things or brainstorm the problem to carve out the plan of action, instead, she will ask Rakesh to try some random things and then will blame him for not delivering quality work !!!. Putting full stop on his thought Rakesh went home.
Next morning he went office on his usual time. In back of his mind, he was expecting some mail regarding his last nights implementation and he found one in his mailbox. And as he had feared, that mail said that whatever he has implemented is not correct. Now he knew the sequence of events that will follow.
"Rakesh, phir se whatever you implemented is wrong. Why don't you do your job sincerely ?" Rakesh's team lead came to him and spoke as if Rakesh is a servant in her house and did not clean the floor properly.
"But you told me to implement in this way, I had repeatedly asked you to send some documents related to this but you told me you had implemented this in previous two chips and I should implement it like that only. Its not my fault" Rakesh knew that there is no point to have any arguments with her, because she herself knows that it is her fault but she will never accept.
"No its your fault only. You should have studied it properly and then implemented it. But you never study and always do such mistakes and in the core meeting I am always at the receiving end, because of your ignorance."
"You never gave me time to study, and to this particular implementation you were sure that it will work because you had worked on it. I had pointed out issues with this implementation but never listened and forced me to work late night to implement this." This time Rakesh was in no mood to keep himself quiet.
"nahi nahi, its your fault and you should accept it. You already have missed the deadline and it is because I had kept a buffer you were able to deliver on time. Anyways I have talked to the verification manager and you have to give a patch on this release. today itself. and this time there should not be any mistakes."
Rakesh never understood the concept of buffer. When some task needs 10 days to finish, manager will ask team lead to finish it in 7 days keeping 3 days buffer and team lead will ask engineer to finish it in 5 days keeping 2 days buffer. so basically managers and team leads wants an engineer to complete 10 days task in 5 days and still expects quality output. !!! and then companies arrange seminars on work-life balance for their employee !!! but in reality when it comes to meeting a deadline (mostly unrealistic) there is no life, only work, because after all deadline means a deadline. :)
Rakesh started preparing for the patch release and had to stay late in night.
Two days later; it was the day Rakesh was going home and he got his wedding cards from his home and wanted to invite everybody, so he thought before leaving, he will distribute it to everyone.
It was 1:00 pm and he came to his desk after finishing lunch thinking of writing wedding invitation mail to his friends and he also wanted to scan his wedding card and attach with the mail.
"Rakesh, verification team needs an urgent release. Please complete it before you go" His team lead came and asked casually.
"I have a train at 8:00pm and I am going at 5:30pm. It is very difficult to do the release now."
"That's ok, It won't take much time. Just start working I will help you in this implementation. I had committed this delivery in last status meeting." she said.
She was not clear, as usual, what to implement and how to implement. at 5:00pm Rakesh finally told his boss. "Madam, now I am going, Its 5:00 pm and I have to meet one more deadline at 8:00pm and that will not wait for me."
"Rakesh, you are going on leave at the wrong time but its your wedding so I won't cancel it, but in any case you have to finish this today itself. before you go. It won't take much time now."
It was 6:30 and Rakesh was still working and now he was very much sure that he will miss the train. Finally he finished the job and did the release. Again, he was confident that there will be some issues with the release because of two reasons; one is, his boss had forced him to do some changes which he was not sure if it is correct and the second is, because of timing constraints his boss suggested not to follow all the checks.
Rakesh had just locked his computer and was packing his stuff when he heard his boss calling, "Rakesh, Can you please send me the details what have you done in last week ? and can you send me the pointers to the docs which you have created ?"
"I have already sent you the details two days back !!!"
"Actually, I accidently deleted that mail, can you send it again ? "
It was 7:00 pm, Without properly inviting everybody, for his marriage, Rakesh left the office and reached home to get his luggage. Luckily he got the auto rickshaw just outside his house. He looked at his wrist watch and it was showing 7:30 pm. His train was leaving in half an hour and it takes at least 45 minutes to reach station from his house.
Thanks to the Delhi traffic, he managed to reach the station only by 8:30 pm !!! There was no train on the platform, he got scared. He asked to one of the coolies, sitting on the platform, about the train and to his relief train was late by half an hour and it was about to come. He sensed some divine intervention, because this train originates from Delhi and rarely gets late.
He boarded the train but was not feeling relaxed. Office was still on his mind. His phone started vibrating, flashing the office number. He put the phone in silent mode and did not receive any call from the office.
The only thoughts that was going on his mind were; 'After marriage, will he be able to balance his personal and professional life ? Will he be able to do justice to his wife ? Will his marriage be successful ? '. Just to get rid of such thoughts he called his fiancée.
......
"Rakesh, Let's have a meeting " It was the first day in office, after his marriage, and Rakesh was very happy and bit relaxed.
"I had told you to finish certain tasks before you go on vacation but you went without doing it. You have not finished any of the tasks I had assigned to you. Finally I had to complete all your unfinished tasks"
"What tasks ? You didn't give me any task and I did the release before I left. There was no pending tasks"
"No no I had told you to prepare for the next release and had told you to write scripts and fix all the bugs, but you did nothing."
Rakesh was furious now. She had not given any task before he left for his marriage and he had informed, about his marriage plans, two months earlier and repeatedly asked her to prepare a plan so that his vacation does not affect the ongoing project schedule, but she did nothing. "Show me the e-mail where you had mentioned all such tasks and its deadlines." Rakesh asked controlling his anger, as usual. Because of her extreme un-professionalism, Rakesh had asked her, in front of their big boss, to assign all the task via e-mail only.
"I had come to your desk and assigned these tasks. Everything can not be assigned by e-mails." She told with low tone, sensing Rakesh's aggression. "and moreover If your attitude remains the same, then it is very difficult to survive in such competitive environment. You understand what I am saying. right ?. You should learn to take the initiative, look at your teammate he joined after you and he is having less experience compare to yours, but still he is doing better job than you and that's why we are planning to send him Israel for the next project. it could have been you, but looking at your performance we are sending him." She said in very insulting tone.
'It's enough now, I can't stand such insult. I am going to resign effective from this moment.' Rakesh though and making up his mind he left the meeting room.
He went straight to his desk and unlocked his computer to type his resignation letter when his mobile started vibrating. It was his wife.
"so..., you finished your lunch ? " she asked.
"No, I am bit busy, I call you later."
Rakesh felt like crying, he went to restroom washed his face and went out to take a walk. It was month of May and Delhi was burning, the temperature displayed on top of the IOC building was 41 degree centigrade. Rakesh walked about 3-4 km around his office building, not able to make any decision. He stood under the tree on entirely deserted road, thinking what should he do? Many thoughts were hovering over his mind, and finally he decided, considering his newly married status and the financial responsibility he is having, to continue with this torture until he finds some opportunity.
He went back to his desk, to work toward meeting the next deadline. After all deadline is more important than human emotion.
-Parikshit Gohil
Disclaimer :
The characters and events in this story are real, any resemblance to real people or facts is not coincidence its intentional.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Magic Seeds by V S Naipaul
Magic Seeds by V.S. Naipaul
This novel is about life of a person called Willie Chandran. He had spent eighteen years in Africa and then in Berlin and finally he returned to his motherland India to take part in a guerrilla revolutionary movement to liberate the village people. After spending seven years in revolution movement and many years in jail he feels that this movement is not at all about the liberation of the people, the idea of individual is more important than the people for which he thought they were fighting. Willie finds many magic seeds, in the form of social revolution, and always tries to find his true life.
Over all its a good read. A good novel by a great writer.
This novel is about life of a person called Willie Chandran. He had spent eighteen years in Africa and then in Berlin and finally he returned to his motherland India to take part in a guerrilla revolutionary movement to liberate the village people. After spending seven years in revolution movement and many years in jail he feels that this movement is not at all about the liberation of the people, the idea of individual is more important than the people for which he thought they were fighting. Willie finds many magic seeds, in the form of social revolution, and always tries to find his true life.
Over all its a good read. A good novel by a great writer.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Finally, we have education for all
Long back, during my school days, I had taken part in one of the “Each One Teach One” campaign, where we went on roads urging people, such as shop keeper or truck drives or rickshaw driver or anybody whom we find on the road to send their child to school and if they themselves are educated then educate at least one person. We were not aware what we were doing or why we were doing, at that time but it was a great fun. But now I understand the importance of such campaigns.
Indian parliament had passed a landmark bill called “Right of children to free and compulsory education Act 2009″, on 4th August 2009 which became effective from 1st April 2010 (Its real, not April fool prank ). Little background on this; At the first post-Independence census of 1951, only 9 % of women and 27 % of men were literate and because of this inherited legacy of large scale illiteracy and lack of proper provision for education, it was resolved by the architects of the constitution that the new Indian state would endeavour to provide free and compulsory education to all children up to age of 14 by 1960 !!! anyways its better late than never
Well done !!! We joined the league of 135 countries who have constitutional provision for free and non-discriminatory education for all ( However out of 135 only 13 countries provide completely free eduction). And do you know who tops the list ?? Chile, a country in South America, it gives free and compulsory education to children in the age group of six to 21 years !!! There are other countries (such as Germany, Belgium, Norway and few more) that have provisions of free and compulsory education covering their entire schooling period !!! . All our neighbouring country, excluding Pakistan and Sri Lanka, also has such constitutional provision for free and compulsory education.
Coming back to our RTE (Right to Education) Act; according to this law “every child of the age of six to 14 years (from class 1 to class 8 ) shall have free and compulsory education in neighbourhood school till completion of elementary education.” (you can find more details of the law on internet)
To translate these words on paper into reality will be a real tough task for government, considering the fact that, in India there are approximately 8 million out-of-the school children (out-of-the school includes those who never attended any school and those who are school dropouts) in the age group specified in the RTE. Nowadays, there is a very small percentage of children who do not go to school at all, the major problem is with the school dropout rate. As per the education department’s report 96% of India’s children enroll in primary school, by the age of 10 about 40% have dropped out (And this has won us a title of ” A Nation of Dropouts” ).
Before bringing all such children to the school, for free education, there are some fundamental problems which needs immediate attention from government.
Infrastructure is one of the major roadblock in materializing such ambitious goal. Substantial proportions of the primary schools are functioning without the most basic essentials such as drinking water, toilets, furniture, teaching aids and books, and with this we can’t even talk about more advanced resources like fans, playgrounds, musical instruments, computers etc …
Second most important and ironically most ignored aspect of quality education is teachers. I don’t want to generalize my statement but still majority of the teachers who , after 6th pay commission, are getting good salaries are not fit for the job ( This is true even for many of the university teachers as well, as per my observation of past few years (since I joined college in 2000) majority of the lecturer who joins the college are those who failed to get the industry job or those who has some family constraints, non of them really interested in teaching but they had to take up this job) . Teacher absence rates are very high and as per one survey, in rural India, on any average day 25% of teachers in government primary school are absent. and secondly and most disturbingly, even among teachers who are present, only about half are engaged in teaching activity. and what do those inactive teaches do ?? they are usually engaged in variety of pastimes such as sipping tea, reading comics or eating peanuts and even knitting sweaters for winter . Generally speaking teaching activity has been reduced to minimum, in term of timing and effort. and this has become way of life in this profession.
Lets hope the government take some substantial steps in these two aspects as well and then the next step should be to amend this bill to cover the secondary and higher secondary education as well.
In India we have many laws and fundamental rights but rarely laws are obeyed and rights are allowed to be enjoyed but lets hope this bill becomes a huge success and over a period of time we achieve 100% literacy rate.
Indian parliament had passed a landmark bill called “Right of children to free and compulsory education Act 2009″, on 4th August 2009 which became effective from 1st April 2010 (Its real, not April fool prank ). Little background on this; At the first post-Independence census of 1951, only 9 % of women and 27 % of men were literate and because of this inherited legacy of large scale illiteracy and lack of proper provision for education, it was resolved by the architects of the constitution that the new Indian state would endeavour to provide free and compulsory education to all children up to age of 14 by 1960 !!! anyways its better late than never
Well done !!! We joined the league of 135 countries who have constitutional provision for free and non-discriminatory education for all ( However out of 135 only 13 countries provide completely free eduction). And do you know who tops the list ?? Chile, a country in South America, it gives free and compulsory education to children in the age group of six to 21 years !!! There are other countries (such as Germany, Belgium, Norway and few more) that have provisions of free and compulsory education covering their entire schooling period !!! . All our neighbouring country, excluding Pakistan and Sri Lanka, also has such constitutional provision for free and compulsory education.
Coming back to our RTE (Right to Education) Act; according to this law “every child of the age of six to 14 years (from class 1 to class 8 ) shall have free and compulsory education in neighbourhood school till completion of elementary education.” (you can find more details of the law on internet)
To translate these words on paper into reality will be a real tough task for government, considering the fact that, in India there are approximately 8 million out-of-the school children (out-of-the school includes those who never attended any school and those who are school dropouts) in the age group specified in the RTE. Nowadays, there is a very small percentage of children who do not go to school at all, the major problem is with the school dropout rate. As per the education department’s report 96% of India’s children enroll in primary school, by the age of 10 about 40% have dropped out (And this has won us a title of ” A Nation of Dropouts” ).
Before bringing all such children to the school, for free education, there are some fundamental problems which needs immediate attention from government.
Infrastructure is one of the major roadblock in materializing such ambitious goal. Substantial proportions of the primary schools are functioning without the most basic essentials such as drinking water, toilets, furniture, teaching aids and books, and with this we can’t even talk about more advanced resources like fans, playgrounds, musical instruments, computers etc …
Second most important and ironically most ignored aspect of quality education is teachers. I don’t want to generalize my statement but still majority of the teachers who , after 6th pay commission, are getting good salaries are not fit for the job ( This is true even for many of the university teachers as well, as per my observation of past few years (since I joined college in 2000) majority of the lecturer who joins the college are those who failed to get the industry job or those who has some family constraints, non of them really interested in teaching but they had to take up this job) . Teacher absence rates are very high and as per one survey, in rural India, on any average day 25% of teachers in government primary school are absent. and secondly and most disturbingly, even among teachers who are present, only about half are engaged in teaching activity. and what do those inactive teaches do ?? they are usually engaged in variety of pastimes such as sipping tea, reading comics or eating peanuts and even knitting sweaters for winter . Generally speaking teaching activity has been reduced to minimum, in term of timing and effort. and this has become way of life in this profession.
Lets hope the government take some substantial steps in these two aspects as well and then the next step should be to amend this bill to cover the secondary and higher secondary education as well.
In India we have many laws and fundamental rights but rarely laws are obeyed and rights are allowed to be enjoyed but lets hope this bill becomes a huge success and over a period of time we achieve 100% literacy rate.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Chronology Of Dr. Ambedkar’s Life
This can be considered as continuation of my last post on “Dr. Ambedkar and Dalits of India”. There were few requests from some of my readers (it really feels good to write *my readers* ) to give a very brief introduction on Dr Ambedkar’s life.
Here you go …
14th April 1891 - Born to Bhimabhai and Ramji Ambadvekar in the town of Mhow near Indor in Madya Pradesh.
1896 - His family moved to Satara in Bombay and he was enrolled in school in Satara.
1908 - Cleared his matriculation and got the opportunity to study at the Elphinstone College, affiliated with Bombay University. (Ambedkar also obtained a scholarship of twenty five rupees a month from the Gayakwad ruler of Baroda, Sahyaji Rao III)
1912 - Graduated with the economics and political science as major subjects from Bombay University and got a job in Baroda.
1913 to 1916 - Went to USA for further studies at Columbia University (Columbia University had awarded him the PhD for his thesis, which was later published in a book form under the title “The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India”)
1917-1919 - Taught at a College in Bombay and also brought out Marathi weekly whose title was ‘Mook Nayak’.
1920 to 1923 - Went to London and completed his thesis titled “The Problem of the Rupee” (for this thesis he was awarded the degree of DSc )
1923 - set up the ‘Bahishkrit Hitkarini Sabha’ (Out-castes Welfare Association), which was devoted to spreading education and culture amongst the downtrodden, improving the economic status and raising matters concerning their problems in the proper forums to focus attention on them and finding solutions to the same.
1927 - Led the Mahad March at the Chowdar Tank at Colaba, near Bombay, to give the untouchables the right to draw water from the public tank where he burnt copies of the ‘Manusmriti’ publicly.This marked the beginning of the anti-caste and ant-priest movement.
1930 - Launched The temple entry movement at Kalaram temple, Nasik. This is one more landmark in the struggle for human rights and social justice.
1932 - Signed Poona Pact. (some more info on poona pact; Ramsay McDonald announced the ‘Communal Award’ as a result of which in several communities including the ‘depressed classes’ were given the right to have separate electorates. This was a part of the overall design of the British to divide and rule. Gandhiji wanted to defeat this design and went on a fast unto death to oppose it. So Dr. Ambedkar and Gandhiji reached an understanding, which became the famous Poona Pact. According to this Pact, in addition to the agreement on electoral constituencies, reservations were provided for untouchables in Government jobs and legislative assemblies. The provision of separate electorate was dispensed with. The Pact carved out a clear and definite position for the downtrodden on the political scene of the country. It opened up opportunities of education and government service for them and also gave them a right to vote.)
1935 - Appointed principal of government law college and also once publicly proclaimed, his famous quote, “ I was born a Hindu because I had no control over this but I shall not die a Hindu” ( He was of the view that there was no future for untouchables in the Hindu religion and they should change their religion if need be.)
1936 - Founded “The Independent Labour Party”, participated in the provincial elections and was elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly.
Between 1941 - 1945 - Published number of books and pamphlets including his famous book Thoughts on Pakistan.
1947 - Joined the First Cabinet of independent India as a Law Minister. (Resigned because of the differences of opinion with the Government over the Hindu Code Bill)
1948 - Completed the draft of the Constitution and presented it in the Constituent Assembly
1949 - Draft adopted with very few amendments. ( Many provisions have been made in the Constitution to ensure social justice for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward classes).
1952 - Independently contested an election to the Lok Sabha but was defeated. He was appointed to the Rajya Sabha in March 1952 and would remain a member until his death.
14th 0ctober 1956 - Embraced Buddhism along with many of his followers. The same year he completed his last writing ‘Buddha and His Dharma’.
6th December 1956 - Baba Saheb Dr. B.R. Ambedkar died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Delhi.
1990 - Bestowed with Bharat Ratna
Here you go …
14th April 1891 - Born to Bhimabhai and Ramji Ambadvekar in the town of Mhow near Indor in Madya Pradesh.
1896 - His family moved to Satara in Bombay and he was enrolled in school in Satara.
1908 - Cleared his matriculation and got the opportunity to study at the Elphinstone College, affiliated with Bombay University. (Ambedkar also obtained a scholarship of twenty five rupees a month from the Gayakwad ruler of Baroda, Sahyaji Rao III)
1912 - Graduated with the economics and political science as major subjects from Bombay University and got a job in Baroda.
1913 to 1916 - Went to USA for further studies at Columbia University (Columbia University had awarded him the PhD for his thesis, which was later published in a book form under the title “The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India”)
1917-1919 - Taught at a College in Bombay and also brought out Marathi weekly whose title was ‘Mook Nayak’.
1920 to 1923 - Went to London and completed his thesis titled “The Problem of the Rupee” (for this thesis he was awarded the degree of DSc )
1923 - set up the ‘Bahishkrit Hitkarini Sabha’ (Out-castes Welfare Association), which was devoted to spreading education and culture amongst the downtrodden, improving the economic status and raising matters concerning their problems in the proper forums to focus attention on them and finding solutions to the same.
1927 - Led the Mahad March at the Chowdar Tank at Colaba, near Bombay, to give the untouchables the right to draw water from the public tank where he burnt copies of the ‘Manusmriti’ publicly.This marked the beginning of the anti-caste and ant-priest movement.
1930 - Launched The temple entry movement at Kalaram temple, Nasik. This is one more landmark in the struggle for human rights and social justice.
1932 - Signed Poona Pact. (some more info on poona pact; Ramsay McDonald announced the ‘Communal Award’ as a result of which in several communities including the ‘depressed classes’ were given the right to have separate electorates. This was a part of the overall design of the British to divide and rule. Gandhiji wanted to defeat this design and went on a fast unto death to oppose it. So Dr. Ambedkar and Gandhiji reached an understanding, which became the famous Poona Pact. According to this Pact, in addition to the agreement on electoral constituencies, reservations were provided for untouchables in Government jobs and legislative assemblies. The provision of separate electorate was dispensed with. The Pact carved out a clear and definite position for the downtrodden on the political scene of the country. It opened up opportunities of education and government service for them and also gave them a right to vote.)
1935 - Appointed principal of government law college and also once publicly proclaimed, his famous quote, “ I was born a Hindu because I had no control over this but I shall not die a Hindu” ( He was of the view that there was no future for untouchables in the Hindu religion and they should change their religion if need be.)
1936 - Founded “The Independent Labour Party”, participated in the provincial elections and was elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly.
Between 1941 - 1945 - Published number of books and pamphlets including his famous book Thoughts on Pakistan.
1947 - Joined the First Cabinet of independent India as a Law Minister. (Resigned because of the differences of opinion with the Government over the Hindu Code Bill)
1948 - Completed the draft of the Constitution and presented it in the Constituent Assembly
1949 - Draft adopted with very few amendments. ( Many provisions have been made in the Constitution to ensure social justice for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward classes).
1952 - Independently contested an election to the Lok Sabha but was defeated. He was appointed to the Rajya Sabha in March 1952 and would remain a member until his death.
14th 0ctober 1956 - Embraced Buddhism along with many of his followers. The same year he completed his last writing ‘Buddha and His Dharma’.
6th December 1956 - Baba Saheb Dr. B.R. Ambedkar died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Delhi.
1990 - Bestowed with Bharat Ratna
Friday, March 19, 2010
Dr. Ambedkar and Dalits of India
I was reading a Gujarati book on some of the great men of India and read some excerpts taken from the biography of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar . So thought to write something on this, Volumes can be written on the work done by him but this is just my thoughts on the subject.
I have heard a lot about this grate man, like he was the chief architect of our constitution, he had worked hard for upliftment of dalits in India….. But I was never sure what and how exactly he did all these (this may be because of my not being mentally present state in history and social studies class during my school days . I even don’t remember studying anything about him at all) . The only thing I knew for sure, before reading about him, was that he was responsible for introducing the caste based reservation in our society, which I always thought as bottleneck to our growth.
Dr. Ambedkar has fought whole of his life against the untouchablility, indignity and social injustice done to the people belonging to castes which are at the very bottom of ancient Indian caste hierarchy ( This is, again, a misinterpretation of Hindu scripture where the caste (varna) system had altogether different meaning). The journey of a boy from untouchable mahar caste to the Bharat Ratna was full of despise, ignominy and insult at the hand of caste establishment. Even after more than six decades of our independence we are unable to abolish untouchability completely, though the situation ,today, is slightly better than pre or early independence days.
The great dalit thinkers choose two ways to improve their situation in India. The first thing they thought of was to gain political power and play an important role in the decision making at the highest level and the other thing they did, and are doing, is to bypass the caste hierarchy completely.
Political power has not helped dalits in a way that it should have been. Dr. Ambedkar had provided few provisions in constitution to uplift the dalits, but like most of such provisions gets misused, by political parties for vote bank politics or by some people with vested interest, this provision also got exploited and as a result; instead of improving the life of dalits, by providing equal social status and protecting their basic human rights, people are fighting to label themselves as dalit !!! and dalit population is increasing year on year. Dalit politician, winning election, on dalit votes, and becoming rich (The latest example is, Kumari Mayawati , UP chief minster, felicitated with a gigantic garland made up of 1000 Rs. currency notes. That garland contained 21lakh rupee only ) without doing anything for dalits.
Moreover, millions of dalits, in India over the period of more than a century, have attempted to escape caste system by converting to Christianity or Buddhism (Dr. Ambedkar himself converted to Buddhism at the end of his life) but it has not helped, to majority of them, either. Earlier they were Hindu dalits and now they are Christan dalits or Buddhist dalits. No change in their basic standard of living.
But everything is not so gloomy for dalits in India. The caste based reservation introduced by Dr. Ambedkar and the government’s efforts to bring dalits in mainstream are paying off. We have number of examples where dalits are at the top positions; ex-president K.R.Narayanan was dalit, current Chief justice of India Balakrishnan is dalit, First woman speaker Ms Meira Kumar is dalit and it is very likely that we may have our first dalit prime minister as well, in the form of Kumari Mayawati . These are the examples of people who have made it to the top but there are thousands of people who are beneficiary of the collective efforts done by different governments and NGOs and have done much better in life, as a dalit, compare to their ancestors.
I have heard a lot about this grate man, like he was the chief architect of our constitution, he had worked hard for upliftment of dalits in India….. But I was never sure what and how exactly he did all these (this may be because of my not being mentally present state in history and social studies class during my school days . I even don’t remember studying anything about him at all) . The only thing I knew for sure, before reading about him, was that he was responsible for introducing the caste based reservation in our society, which I always thought as bottleneck to our growth.
Dr. Ambedkar has fought whole of his life against the untouchablility, indignity and social injustice done to the people belonging to castes which are at the very bottom of ancient Indian caste hierarchy ( This is, again, a misinterpretation of Hindu scripture where the caste (varna) system had altogether different meaning). The journey of a boy from untouchable mahar caste to the Bharat Ratna was full of despise, ignominy and insult at the hand of caste establishment. Even after more than six decades of our independence we are unable to abolish untouchability completely, though the situation ,today, is slightly better than pre or early independence days.
The great dalit thinkers choose two ways to improve their situation in India. The first thing they thought of was to gain political power and play an important role in the decision making at the highest level and the other thing they did, and are doing, is to bypass the caste hierarchy completely.
Political power has not helped dalits in a way that it should have been. Dr. Ambedkar had provided few provisions in constitution to uplift the dalits, but like most of such provisions gets misused, by political parties for vote bank politics or by some people with vested interest, this provision also got exploited and as a result; instead of improving the life of dalits, by providing equal social status and protecting their basic human rights, people are fighting to label themselves as dalit !!! and dalit population is increasing year on year. Dalit politician, winning election, on dalit votes, and becoming rich (The latest example is, Kumari Mayawati , UP chief minster, felicitated with a gigantic garland made up of 1000 Rs. currency notes. That garland contained 21lakh rupee only ) without doing anything for dalits.
Moreover, millions of dalits, in India over the period of more than a century, have attempted to escape caste system by converting to Christianity or Buddhism (Dr. Ambedkar himself converted to Buddhism at the end of his life) but it has not helped, to majority of them, either. Earlier they were Hindu dalits and now they are Christan dalits or Buddhist dalits. No change in their basic standard of living.
But everything is not so gloomy for dalits in India. The caste based reservation introduced by Dr. Ambedkar and the government’s efforts to bring dalits in mainstream are paying off. We have number of examples where dalits are at the top positions; ex-president K.R.Narayanan was dalit, current Chief justice of India Balakrishnan is dalit, First woman speaker Ms Meira Kumar is dalit and it is very likely that we may have our first dalit prime minister as well, in the form of Kumari Mayawati . These are the examples of people who have made it to the top but there are thousands of people who are beneficiary of the collective efforts done by different governments and NGOs and have done much better in life, as a dalit, compare to their ancestors.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Success - an illusion ??
I’m 27 years old, initial 4-5 years, don’t know what I did, spent around 17 years studying and since last 5 years I am earning and spending my own money.
I am thinking of buying a house, a house of my own !!! My father and mother saved money all through their life and managed to build a house, of their own, only after they got retired from their work. And look at me, I am planning to buy a house at such a young age. I am in hurry !!!
Why am I running ?? well, I am running because everybody is running.
Why everybody is running ??? because everybody wants to be successful.
successful !!! what does success means ? A billion dollar question !!! right ?
The concept of success I had, during my school/college days, was entirely different, what I believed was that, ‘you have to do your karma and whatever result comes is your success.’ for example, if you get 80% marks in your exam, that mean you are succeeded 80% and there is nothing to get excited. you still don’t know 20% of the things. But then I learned; success is not absolute, its relative.You are successful as long as you are better than other, no matter how bad, you think, you are. This is true in our personal as well as professional life also. Like, you will get more increment if you outperform your colleague. Your opinion will count more if you are a well-to-do member of family.
Going by this rational ,I can say, I may be successful in one company but not in some other, I may be respected by my family but not by neighbor. So what should I consider of myself ? am I successful in life or not ? well, the problem is, we are not allowed to be the judge of our own success or failure, its the society who judges us, and society has only one scale to measure the success and its; the material possession we are having. And if that is the case then nobody can really be successful in one way or the other. then what is success ?
Success is software not hardware, you can feel it but can not touch. The day you start looking at yourself from others eyes, its over. You will lose your individuality and will try to fine tune yourself to meet others expectation and the day you think you have or you are very near meeting their expectation they (the society )will have some more expectations and the cycle will continue and its very difficult to come out of it.
I remember one of the Miya Fuski stories, I have read during my school days. Story goes like this
“Miya Fuski, a very wise man, was having a donkey, it was very lazy. One fine day miya decides to visit one of his relatives, living in some far place. He took his donkey and started his journey. After covering some distance, donkey refused to go any further. Miya Fuski was intelligent and he quickly thought of a solution. He knew that his donkey likes carrot very much so he took one long stick, hung a carrot on one end with long thread and sat on the donkey with other end, of the stick, in his hand, holding it in front of donkey. then asked his donkey to get the carrot and free himself . that’s it, donkey started moving forward to get that carrot but he couldn’t get it and eventually miya reached his destination.”
I didn’t understand the moral of the story at that time and laughed at the foolishness of the donkey. But now, when I think of this story again I see a great meaning in it. With little exception, we all are running, throughout our life, to get the carrot called success and the carrot is being held, in front of us, by someone else.
I am thinking of buying a house, a house of my own !!! My father and mother saved money all through their life and managed to build a house, of their own, only after they got retired from their work. And look at me, I am planning to buy a house at such a young age. I am in hurry !!!
Why am I running ?? well, I am running because everybody is running.
Why everybody is running ??? because everybody wants to be successful.
successful !!! what does success means ? A billion dollar question !!! right ?
The concept of success I had, during my school/college days, was entirely different, what I believed was that, ‘you have to do your karma and whatever result comes is your success.’ for example, if you get 80% marks in your exam, that mean you are succeeded 80% and there is nothing to get excited. you still don’t know 20% of the things. But then I learned; success is not absolute, its relative.You are successful as long as you are better than other, no matter how bad, you think, you are. This is true in our personal as well as professional life also. Like, you will get more increment if you outperform your colleague. Your opinion will count more if you are a well-to-do member of family.
Going by this rational ,I can say, I may be successful in one company but not in some other, I may be respected by my family but not by neighbor. So what should I consider of myself ? am I successful in life or not ? well, the problem is, we are not allowed to be the judge of our own success or failure, its the society who judges us, and society has only one scale to measure the success and its; the material possession we are having. And if that is the case then nobody can really be successful in one way or the other. then what is success ?
Success is software not hardware, you can feel it but can not touch. The day you start looking at yourself from others eyes, its over. You will lose your individuality and will try to fine tune yourself to meet others expectation and the day you think you have or you are very near meeting their expectation they (the society )will have some more expectations and the cycle will continue and its very difficult to come out of it.
I remember one of the Miya Fuski stories, I have read during my school days. Story goes like this
“Miya Fuski, a very wise man, was having a donkey, it was very lazy. One fine day miya decides to visit one of his relatives, living in some far place. He took his donkey and started his journey. After covering some distance, donkey refused to go any further. Miya Fuski was intelligent and he quickly thought of a solution. He knew that his donkey likes carrot very much so he took one long stick, hung a carrot on one end with long thread and sat on the donkey with other end, of the stick, in his hand, holding it in front of donkey. then asked his donkey to get the carrot and free himself . that’s it, donkey started moving forward to get that carrot but he couldn’t get it and eventually miya reached his destination.”
I didn’t understand the moral of the story at that time and laughed at the foolishness of the donkey. But now, when I think of this story again I see a great meaning in it. With little exception, we all are running, throughout our life, to get the carrot called success and the carrot is being held, in front of us, by someone else.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Running Away From Problem
Today I would like to tell you a story, enjoy….
It was usual warm April morning in Delhi. Rakshit was preparing to-do list before going office. He had developed this habit from the start of his career when he was working as junior faculty in one of the training institute in his home town. He continued to follow this habit even though he did not like his job in his current organization. Daily he go to office thinking that things will improve and he will start liking his job but that never happened. Thinking of the list of tasks he wanted, or rather his team lead Aalekha wanted him, to finish he went to office.
Rakshit was serene person and was always doing his job sincerely whether he likes it or not. Today also he started working as usual but he was not able to concentrate, he was feeling some uneasiness within himself and was suddenly feeling very sad without any known reason. He got up from his chair and looked around, but everything looked very normal. Some people were working and listing music on their headphone, some were browsing Internet keeping track of their investment in share market on BSE , NEC web sites and some were busy in gossiping, everything was normal but Rakshit was not at peace he finally decided to wash his face with cold water and have some hot coffee. After drinking whole cup of coffee he felt better and started doing his work.
“Rakshit, can you come with me for a second ?” asked Ranjan Saini, Rakshit’s boss. It was 5:15 in the evening and Rakshit had just came from pantry with a cup of coffee when Ranjan summoned him. Rakshit’s stomach churned hearing his manager’s call at this moment. The uneasiness he was feeling in the morning returned back. Ranjan usually does not talk directly to him but always ask Aalekha to communicate. But since last few days he comes directly to him and talks about the work and deteriorating condition of the organization.
Rakshit followed his boss thinking that it shall be a project discussion. but looking at the serious expression on Ranjan’s face, Rakshit finally asked, with great difficulty, “Sir, Is this my last day in the office ?”
Ranjan didn’t reply.
When they reached near “Agastya” conference room Ranjan told Rakshit “Anjuman wants to talk to you” .
that’s it Rakshit thought.
Anjuman and Meghna, Finance manager and his assistant, were waiting for Rakshit in conference room. They greeted Rakshit and asked him, pointing to a chair opposite to them, to take a seat. Ranjan took a seat near Anjuman. There was absolute silence for some time.
“As you know Rakshit, since last one year our company is not in a good shape. To survive in this tough time company is forced to take some difficult decisions. We are very sorry to say that our company is not able to retain all of its talent. Today will be your last working day in this organization.” Ranjan broke the silence with his Indo-American accent which Rakshit always find very irritating . “Anjuman will explain you all the formalities and the severance details. Please feel free to question anything if you think is not appropriate.” Ranjan continued.
Rakshit smiled and nodded obediently. It was recession time and every now and then people were fired from their jobs and in his case he was sure that this will happen to him as well.
“Ours is highly ethical company and we will not issue a termination letter, which may affect you in finding another job, instead you have to resign and we will issue you the proper reliving letter.” Anjuman interrupted Rakshit’s thought and continued “but before that let me give you the severance details. As you might be knowing that as per the appointment letter that we had given you at the time of joining we only have to pay you the amount of the notice period if we chose to terminate you but as I said ours is very ethical company and you have been a good employee we don’t want to do any injustice to you, so as a gesture, along with one month’s salary we are giving you three more months salary. Here are the details”. Anjuman handed over a sheet of paper with some numbers.
Rakshit was not able to comprehend what was written in that sheet, his mind was somewhere else. He wrote the resignation letter as dictated by Anjuman and he signed where ever Anjuman told him to. Ironically, two months back on the same day he had drafted his resignation letter and it was still laying there in the draft folder of his mail box but he did not had courage to leave the job without having second option in hand. It was not that he had not tired for other job but it was a recession time and companies were reducing their head count so he wasn’t able to find any other suitable job. But now he was feeling very relieved and very happy because he was forced to take a decision which he was avoiding for so long. He was not thinking of his future or his career at all, instead he thanked god for saving him from mental breakdown, because if he had to continue to work with Aalekha, he would defiantly have fell victim of depression.
“Are you OK ? ” Ranjan asked looking at a smile on Rakshit’s face.
“Yes I’m fine”
“You have to submit your American Express card along with your ID and access card before you leave.” Anjuman told Rakshit. “Do you come by your own vehicle or come by company transport ? If you want, We can provide you Cab to drop you to your house.”
“thanks, but I come by my scooter, no need for Cab” Rakshit replied.
“You can collect all your stuff, housekeeping will give you parcel-box if you need one.”
“No need for parcel-box, I don’t keep many things in office but I have some personal data in my computer, and I want to take those” asked Rakshit.
“See, first of all you should not keep your personal data on office computer, non of us does that, office computer is for official use only. At present your computer log-in ID is blocked and you can not access anything, your access card is also deactivated. But if you have something really important then Ranjan and one IT guy will come with you and if they approve then only you can take your data otherwise, you know, for security reasons we can not allow you to take anything.” Anjuman replied and feeling internally very happy at his authority.
Rakshit wanted to finish up all these as soon as possible so he said “nothing important, I don’t want it, just forget it”.
“Ok Rakshit, this is your reliving letter and this is your demand draft, you can en cash this at any time you want. Is there anything else we can do for you? Feel free to contact any of us at any time for any help you want from us.” after a long silence Anjuman stood up to indicate that its over now and you can go.
Rakshit went to his seat, for the last time, on 5th floor, with Ranjan, to collect few things he had in his drawer. The coffee cup, which he had left just half an hour ago, was laying on his desk, still unfinished and looked like it was waiting for him to come and finish it. Rakshit didn’t know how to react in such situation and his heart was swinging between two totally contradicting feelings, on one hand he was feeling very happy that he no longer has to face his completely hopeless team lead Aalekha who has made his life hell, now he will no longer be her scapegoat, now he will no longer be held responsible for her blunders. but on other hand he was feeling very sad as well. He has spent 23 months of his life, almost 10 hours a day, in this office, working sincerely and with full dedication putting work ahead of his person life. every corner of this office seemed to be knowing him, he was feeling emotional and tried to think of something else. He tried to talk to Ranjan but Ranjan was looking more serious than him. So he packed his things quietly and took a glance over his cubicle to see if Aalekha was there. but as he had guessed she was not there. silently, in his heart he was cursing her for this day.
“I am done Ranjan” Rakshit told Ranjan after packing his little stuff.
They went silently to the elevator and waited for it to come up when Nirav join them.
“Hey Rakshit, Where are you going at this time? Leaving early today ? ” Nirav asked, unaware of Rakshit’s lay off. Nirav was one of very few person Rakshit usually talked to. Though he was much senior to him but they talked freely and he was aware of Rakshit’s issues with Aalekha.
“Nirav, your mouse is slipping.” pointing to Nirav’s laptop, Ranjan tried to avoid him.
“Rakshit, if you need any kind of help please let me know. And I’m sure you will soon get even better job” Ranjan told Rakshit in consoling tone.
Without uttering a word Rakshit went to the scooter parking and sat on his scooter for a moment and asked himself, Was this avoidable ? The straight answer, from his heart, came; NO. Rakshit had tried enough to settle down things with Aalekha. He had, many times, directly talked with Aalekha to resolve the differences between them, for the differences which he was actually not aware of. But Aalekha was a kind of person who always feels very insecure about everything and this insecurity came from her incapability of handling the pressure and actually not knowing the work she was getting paid for. So whenever any problem comes, the first thing she does is to find some one,in her team or in other team, to put blame on and tries to save her ass. Rakshit was not good at playing such blame game and always took all blames on him, though, he was not the only victim of Aalekha’s torture . Rakshit had also tried to talked to his boss to change his group or his work so that he do not have to report Aalekha but as most of the bosses does he also did the same thing, listened to Rakshit and gave him philosophical answer which practically meant ‘No I won’t do that’. Rakshit remember one of his talk with Ranjan,”Rakshit, I can understand you but you know these are the problem we can find in our personal life also and you have to come out of this strongly. Changing a group won’t solve your problem, why are you running away from the problem ? ” There was a reason why his boss didn’t support him though he knew that Rakshit was right.
Today was his happiest moment, in this company, since he joined 23 months back. The only thing worrying him was, two days later it was his first wedding anniversary and he had called his family, staying 1000km away from Delhi, to celebrate it with them. he didn’t know how they will react.
Finally he started his scooter, looked at the company building for the last time and literally, drew away from the problem !!!
It was usual warm April morning in Delhi. Rakshit was preparing to-do list before going office. He had developed this habit from the start of his career when he was working as junior faculty in one of the training institute in his home town. He continued to follow this habit even though he did not like his job in his current organization. Daily he go to office thinking that things will improve and he will start liking his job but that never happened. Thinking of the list of tasks he wanted, or rather his team lead Aalekha wanted him, to finish he went to office.
Rakshit was serene person and was always doing his job sincerely whether he likes it or not. Today also he started working as usual but he was not able to concentrate, he was feeling some uneasiness within himself and was suddenly feeling very sad without any known reason. He got up from his chair and looked around, but everything looked very normal. Some people were working and listing music on their headphone, some were browsing Internet keeping track of their investment in share market on BSE , NEC web sites and some were busy in gossiping, everything was normal but Rakshit was not at peace he finally decided to wash his face with cold water and have some hot coffee. After drinking whole cup of coffee he felt better and started doing his work.
“Rakshit, can you come with me for a second ?” asked Ranjan Saini, Rakshit’s boss. It was 5:15 in the evening and Rakshit had just came from pantry with a cup of coffee when Ranjan summoned him. Rakshit’s stomach churned hearing his manager’s call at this moment. The uneasiness he was feeling in the morning returned back. Ranjan usually does not talk directly to him but always ask Aalekha to communicate. But since last few days he comes directly to him and talks about the work and deteriorating condition of the organization.
Rakshit followed his boss thinking that it shall be a project discussion. but looking at the serious expression on Ranjan’s face, Rakshit finally asked, with great difficulty, “Sir, Is this my last day in the office ?”
Ranjan didn’t reply.
When they reached near “Agastya” conference room Ranjan told Rakshit “Anjuman wants to talk to you” .
that’s it Rakshit thought.
Anjuman and Meghna, Finance manager and his assistant, were waiting for Rakshit in conference room. They greeted Rakshit and asked him, pointing to a chair opposite to them, to take a seat. Ranjan took a seat near Anjuman. There was absolute silence for some time.
“As you know Rakshit, since last one year our company is not in a good shape. To survive in this tough time company is forced to take some difficult decisions. We are very sorry to say that our company is not able to retain all of its talent. Today will be your last working day in this organization.” Ranjan broke the silence with his Indo-American accent which Rakshit always find very irritating . “Anjuman will explain you all the formalities and the severance details. Please feel free to question anything if you think is not appropriate.” Ranjan continued.
Rakshit smiled and nodded obediently. It was recession time and every now and then people were fired from their jobs and in his case he was sure that this will happen to him as well.
“Ours is highly ethical company and we will not issue a termination letter, which may affect you in finding another job, instead you have to resign and we will issue you the proper reliving letter.” Anjuman interrupted Rakshit’s thought and continued “but before that let me give you the severance details. As you might be knowing that as per the appointment letter that we had given you at the time of joining we only have to pay you the amount of the notice period if we chose to terminate you but as I said ours is very ethical company and you have been a good employee we don’t want to do any injustice to you, so as a gesture, along with one month’s salary we are giving you three more months salary. Here are the details”. Anjuman handed over a sheet of paper with some numbers.
Rakshit was not able to comprehend what was written in that sheet, his mind was somewhere else. He wrote the resignation letter as dictated by Anjuman and he signed where ever Anjuman told him to. Ironically, two months back on the same day he had drafted his resignation letter and it was still laying there in the draft folder of his mail box but he did not had courage to leave the job without having second option in hand. It was not that he had not tired for other job but it was a recession time and companies were reducing their head count so he wasn’t able to find any other suitable job. But now he was feeling very relieved and very happy because he was forced to take a decision which he was avoiding for so long. He was not thinking of his future or his career at all, instead he thanked god for saving him from mental breakdown, because if he had to continue to work with Aalekha, he would defiantly have fell victim of depression.
“Are you OK ? ” Ranjan asked looking at a smile on Rakshit’s face.
“Yes I’m fine”
“You have to submit your American Express card along with your ID and access card before you leave.” Anjuman told Rakshit. “Do you come by your own vehicle or come by company transport ? If you want, We can provide you Cab to drop you to your house.”
“thanks, but I come by my scooter, no need for Cab” Rakshit replied.
“You can collect all your stuff, housekeeping will give you parcel-box if you need one.”
“No need for parcel-box, I don’t keep many things in office but I have some personal data in my computer, and I want to take those” asked Rakshit.
“See, first of all you should not keep your personal data on office computer, non of us does that, office computer is for official use only. At present your computer log-in ID is blocked and you can not access anything, your access card is also deactivated. But if you have something really important then Ranjan and one IT guy will come with you and if they approve then only you can take your data otherwise, you know, for security reasons we can not allow you to take anything.” Anjuman replied and feeling internally very happy at his authority.
Rakshit wanted to finish up all these as soon as possible so he said “nothing important, I don’t want it, just forget it”.
“Ok Rakshit, this is your reliving letter and this is your demand draft, you can en cash this at any time you want. Is there anything else we can do for you? Feel free to contact any of us at any time for any help you want from us.” after a long silence Anjuman stood up to indicate that its over now and you can go.
Rakshit went to his seat, for the last time, on 5th floor, with Ranjan, to collect few things he had in his drawer. The coffee cup, which he had left just half an hour ago, was laying on his desk, still unfinished and looked like it was waiting for him to come and finish it. Rakshit didn’t know how to react in such situation and his heart was swinging between two totally contradicting feelings, on one hand he was feeling very happy that he no longer has to face his completely hopeless team lead Aalekha who has made his life hell, now he will no longer be her scapegoat, now he will no longer be held responsible for her blunders. but on other hand he was feeling very sad as well. He has spent 23 months of his life, almost 10 hours a day, in this office, working sincerely and with full dedication putting work ahead of his person life. every corner of this office seemed to be knowing him, he was feeling emotional and tried to think of something else. He tried to talk to Ranjan but Ranjan was looking more serious than him. So he packed his things quietly and took a glance over his cubicle to see if Aalekha was there. but as he had guessed she was not there. silently, in his heart he was cursing her for this day.
“I am done Ranjan” Rakshit told Ranjan after packing his little stuff.
They went silently to the elevator and waited for it to come up when Nirav join them.
“Hey Rakshit, Where are you going at this time? Leaving early today ? ” Nirav asked, unaware of Rakshit’s lay off. Nirav was one of very few person Rakshit usually talked to. Though he was much senior to him but they talked freely and he was aware of Rakshit’s issues with Aalekha.
“Nirav, your mouse is slipping.” pointing to Nirav’s laptop, Ranjan tried to avoid him.
“Rakshit, if you need any kind of help please let me know. And I’m sure you will soon get even better job” Ranjan told Rakshit in consoling tone.
Without uttering a word Rakshit went to the scooter parking and sat on his scooter for a moment and asked himself, Was this avoidable ? The straight answer, from his heart, came; NO. Rakshit had tried enough to settle down things with Aalekha. He had, many times, directly talked with Aalekha to resolve the differences between them, for the differences which he was actually not aware of. But Aalekha was a kind of person who always feels very insecure about everything and this insecurity came from her incapability of handling the pressure and actually not knowing the work she was getting paid for. So whenever any problem comes, the first thing she does is to find some one,in her team or in other team, to put blame on and tries to save her ass. Rakshit was not good at playing such blame game and always took all blames on him, though, he was not the only victim of Aalekha’s torture . Rakshit had also tried to talked to his boss to change his group or his work so that he do not have to report Aalekha but as most of the bosses does he also did the same thing, listened to Rakshit and gave him philosophical answer which practically meant ‘No I won’t do that’. Rakshit remember one of his talk with Ranjan,”Rakshit, I can understand you but you know these are the problem we can find in our personal life also and you have to come out of this strongly. Changing a group won’t solve your problem, why are you running away from the problem ? ” There was a reason why his boss didn’t support him though he knew that Rakshit was right.
Today was his happiest moment, in this company, since he joined 23 months back. The only thing worrying him was, two days later it was his first wedding anniversary and he had called his family, staying 1000km away from Delhi, to celebrate it with them. he didn’t know how they will react.
Finally he started his scooter, looked at the company building for the last time and literally, drew away from the problem !!!
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Only Innocent Phase of Life
Today while returning from gym, early in the morning, I saw school going tots waiting for their school bus to come. Groomed in half sleeve white shirt and chocolaty colored chaddi fully loaded with heavy school bag on their back and king size lunch box in one hand with 600ml Thumps up bottle used as water-bag in other hand, they looked like warriors going to conquer the world, full of energy full of confidence they were ready to face any challenges world put in front of them.
Childhood is the only innocent phase of our life, during rest of the life we just pretend to be innocent. We can not be ourselves once we grow up. We have to wear different masks at different time and at different places.
I remember one indecent from my early childhood, when I was in class 4th or 5th, I came 4th in internal examination while I had expected myself to be in top 3. I was furious about not getting place in top 3 I stood up and in front of whole class I accused my teacher of giving more numbers to her son, studying with me in the same class, and helping him to occupy the 2nd position!!! that was the truth and we all believed, including class teachers of other classes, that only because of her, her son always makes it to top 3. Can I tell, with the same innocence, to my boss that he is promoting the other guy, who is not at all deserving, just because he is relative of someone in top management or he always butters him up ? No absolutely not I just can’t do that… We all are wearing a mask of good son good brother good husband good father good grandson etc etc… when we are at home with our family.
To hide the guilt of not being able to express ourselves, we have invented a very good word called professionalism. Your colleague has done some big blunder but you can’t express your anger freely you have to maintain professionalism you have to act professionally. But just look at the children, if you are playing with them in their team and make a slightest mistake they will blast you like anything. Of course we do express ourselves against someone whom we do not know or who is not directly affecting us in any ways like criticizing articles and blogs on internet or shouting at watchmen or abusing beggar etc ..
Let child enjoy its childhood fully, let’s not be too ambitious with child and burden it with too many things. Its ok if it did not get the gold medal in gymnastics its ok if not selected for quiz competition or got only 80% not 95%. Because one day they will grow up and they will loose this innocence they will loose their freedom of expressing themselves freely and they have to enter the so called real, practical world where they will have to live a life based on terms and conditions dictated by society, their actions and thoughts will be affected by many unknown factors.
Childhood is the only innocent phase of our life, during rest of the life we just pretend to be innocent. We can not be ourselves once we grow up. We have to wear different masks at different time and at different places.
I remember one indecent from my early childhood, when I was in class 4th or 5th, I came 4th in internal examination while I had expected myself to be in top 3. I was furious about not getting place in top 3 I stood up and in front of whole class I accused my teacher of giving more numbers to her son, studying with me in the same class, and helping him to occupy the 2nd position!!! that was the truth and we all believed, including class teachers of other classes, that only because of her, her son always makes it to top 3. Can I tell, with the same innocence, to my boss that he is promoting the other guy, who is not at all deserving, just because he is relative of someone in top management or he always butters him up ? No absolutely not I just can’t do that… We all are wearing a mask of good son good brother good husband good father good grandson etc etc… when we are at home with our family.
To hide the guilt of not being able to express ourselves, we have invented a very good word called professionalism. Your colleague has done some big blunder but you can’t express your anger freely you have to maintain professionalism you have to act professionally. But just look at the children, if you are playing with them in their team and make a slightest mistake they will blast you like anything. Of course we do express ourselves against someone whom we do not know or who is not directly affecting us in any ways like criticizing articles and blogs on internet or shouting at watchmen or abusing beggar etc ..
Let child enjoy its childhood fully, let’s not be too ambitious with child and burden it with too many things. Its ok if it did not get the gold medal in gymnastics its ok if not selected for quiz competition or got only 80% not 95%. Because one day they will grow up and they will loose this innocence they will loose their freedom of expressing themselves freely and they have to enter the so called real, practical world where they will have to live a life based on terms and conditions dictated by society, their actions and thoughts will be affected by many unknown factors.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)