Noteworthy

People usually curse Laloo for the jungle raj in Bihar for 15 years of unopposed rule. True, under him Bihar was retrograded to one of the least developed states in India. There was nothing called governance. The law and order situation was pathetic. Murder, dacioti, rape, corruption….you name it, they were all there in Bihar. He single handedly transformed the fate of then Janta party which later broke in Rashtriya Janta Dal, led by Laloo, and the other faction led by Ram Vilas Paswan. Laloo Prasad Yadav was involved in many scams and he didn’t even leave the fodder of poor animals. Bihar became a place to make money by few elitist. The economic gap widened.There was no investment in the area because of demands from the local mafia. There was turmoil all around. People were looking at opportunities to leave the state and settle down in elsewhere. There was exodus of students after school for better education. States like Karnataka and Maharashtra played host to them and that’s the reason you find Bihrai students in myriad in many localities of Delhi like Mukherjee Nagar. A ‘”student from outside” state became synonymous with a “Bihari student”. So who were the beneficiaries? The private colleges in Karnataka and our good old Bokaro (oops Dhanbad) Alleppy express (Well if you are unaware of this train then you better brush up your GK. This is the only train that connects many places in Bihar, and now Jharkhand, to southern India. It crosses 5 states and the total run time is 60 hours! This express train stops at every damn place which has a railway platform or no platform). This exodus of students led to brain drain and also lost of huge revenue that could have been generated if they would have stayed back. But there is a dearth of professional colleges in the state and all the existing ones are overburdened with children and grandchildren of Bihari Babus. BIT Mesra, Ranchi (perhaps the only engineering college of repute) has the dubious image of having progenies of ministers, political leaders and people with influence. I dare not narrate those stories where such students were involved because by doing that I will put the life of my family members in danger, well if those babus are already exposed to the world of blogging .

There is absolutely no professionalism in those colleges with late semesters being a regular feature. This revenue loss further aggravated the sick economy already slackened under the pressure of corruption and lack of revenue generation. This is an article published in The Hindu by Professor Shreesh Chaudhary, IITM. He talks about the mind-set of people that has set-in and no change in governance can rectify that.

Coming to issue of Laloo Prasad Yadav. He has been the architect of the mayhem that existed in Bihar few years ago (situation has improved a lot after Nitish Kumar took over) but have you even wondered how a man with a rural background can rise to such high level on his own. He had no patrons when he started his political career. The answer lies in his shrewdness. He successfully exploited caste politics in Bihar to his advantage but in the process he also worsened the existing situation of social divisions, the upper caste and the lower caste ( he empowered the lower caste with arms and thus opening new vistas for a bloody conflict). When he was being tried for the scams he intelligently nominated his wife as the CM. Rabri devi was ignorant of the dirty world of politics but that’s not the only thing she was ignorant of! She was also ignorant of the fact that world has made overwhelming progress in the art of language and now people don’t use symbols to convey but the 26 English alphabets. In short she was illiterate. But its was not her fault, c’mon she wouldn’t have even imagined in her wildest of imagination than one day she will become the CM of a state. Laloo didn’t trust someone else with the job because he must have feared that his hold on the party might decline if someone else becomes the leader. Even though he was involved in multi-crore scams, he was active in politics and eventually became the Railways minister of India. And again here he transformed the fate of loss-making operation to a public sector unit that stunned everyone by earning a profit of Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion) in 2005-06. I will quote few lines from a Rediff.com article.

On September 18 this year, Prasad, who is also the Rashtriya Janata Dal president, will deliver a lecture to the management students and the faculty at IIM-A, explaining how he turned around the Indian Railways from a loss-making operation to a public sector unit that stunned everyone by earning a profit of Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion) in 2005-06.

The invitation to deliver a lecture came after IIM-A’s Prof G Raghuram conducted a detailed study on the Indian Railways ‘turnaround’ and decided to introduce the case study as a part of the curriculum.

Ever since Prasad took over as India’s Railway Minister, the Railways have become the second-largest PSU profit-earner after the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. Lalu has surprised many by emerging as one of the top-performing ministers in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet.

So what has Prasad done to the Indian Railways which his predecessors could not? The answer lies in his own down-to-earth attitude and rustic wisdom.

Prasad puts it in his inimitable style: “My mother always told me not to handle a buffalo by its tail, but always catch it by its horns. And I have used that lesson in everything in my life, including the Railways.”

So you see how Laloo handles thing. He has achieved something which few politicians in India can boast of. He has proved the prowess of a Bihari when it comes to intellectual and governance skill. No doubt Biharis excel in many competitive exams across the country. It’s our blessing in disguise

Laloo is an able leader but the only problem is that he is more concerned for his family than his country. If he would have cared for Bihar then it would have surpassed many states in the country.

This has to my nightmare come true, well not just mine but any man who gives fidelity the utmost importance in a relationship. I don’t plan to be an uxorious but who ever she might be, she would be the ONLY girl in my life.

If you find ‘love’ with someone who is not your spouse, would you sacrifice that love for the sake of your family? “I was married to my childhood sweetheart — a wonderful, loving man — for barely a year when I met Mehraj at work,� recounts 53-year-old Garima Mallik. That was 27 years ago, when she worked in a Mumbai bank, where Mehraj was also employed. “Mehraj made me feel so good about myself. He treated me like a cool, intelligent and beautiful person,� she reminisces. Her husband, for all his qualities, she says, had perhaps become too used to having her around after all those years. He was thus unable to give her that extra-special treatment she felt she needed. “And six months down the line, I decided to chuck it all — the life I had known forever — and follow my heart,� she says. It wasn’t that simple though. “Everybody was shocked. My parents, my three sisters and all my friends disowned me. No one was there for my marriage with Mehraj,� she laments.

Her consequent life didn’t prove to be a bed of roses either. “I used to feel terribly guilty being happy with Mehraj. Thoughts of what I had done to that sweet and gentle man I was once married to, kept haunting me. It started affecting my relationship with Mehraj.� It also took a long time for Mehraj’s parents to accept her.

The big question — Why did she break her marriage when there was nothing wrong with it? “The only answer I had to give was—‘For the sake of love’. But that wasn’t enough to convince them,� she sighs. Nearly three decades down the line, Mallik, now settled in Delhi and has a 20something daughter, admits that the guilt pangs still come sometimes. “But I feel I made the right decision,� she says. Is it wrong if I don’t feel guilty about having an affair?

Well the shameless display of promiscuity on the part of Garima eventually caused the marriage to break. Her poor husband whom she calls “I was married to my childhood sweetheart — a wonderful, loving man ” was reduced to the status of a cipher for her! and all that for someone she met at work. All that love and ‘childhood sweetheart’ evaporated in no time. Women are such a fickle. I wonder how her husband would have reacted about the whole issue.

Here is one more but this time the darker sex in involved.

Twenty-five-year old Gaurav K was living his idea of a good life. His job as a call centre trainer paid well. When he met Aalia, (26) through a mutual friend, there was no inclination to rock the boat with a fulltime girlfriend. “She was not looking for a serious relationship either so it was really a relief to get together just for the sex,� Gaurav says. The relationship of convenience lasted nearly 17 months, with neither wanting to meet the other’s friends or go to the movies together. “It was so simple. We’d just booty-call each other when we had the time and energy. And because neither of us was a ‘cheated victim’, we had extra respect for each other,� says Aalia.

India is changing and so are Indians but if this is to become rampant in future then our moral and ethics need a drastic change. ‘Everything appealing and sexy’ is good and ‘anything as a hindrance to progress and openmindedness’ is bad.

That’s the reason I am avoiding a relationship. People often ask me about my girlfriend and are more than surprised to know that I am still a single. I try to convince them by citing reasons that I am still to find my ‘Miss Perfect’ but the truth of matter remains that I am really in no mood for a setback later. FineI get a so called girlfriend. We hang out for sometime and feel like being on the seventh heaven because of the illusion that there is someone in this world who cares for me more that anyone else and that she is going to be my support even if everyone ditches me. You invest everything into the relationship in terms of hope, expectations, love, time, money and above all emotions! And if you are finally ditched by your sweetheart then what? You feel cheated, apoplectic and perplexed about future. You wonder how would someone else replace him/her. You are hurt emotionally and once your sweatheart is now your most hated person. You look for opportunities to take your revenge and pray furtively that he/she has a gloomy future ahead. The ambivalence of emotions between hatred and love leave you languished. You find it hard to concentrate on the job at hand and in the end up ruining your career, if you are not emotionally stable. And in extreme cases even suicide. So I have decided to go with arranged marriage. But still these evils are a possibility but trust me a family girl would think n times before taking the extreme step of falling into an illicit relationship. Because family for her hold importance. She realises the importance of a family. Compare this to girls who want to be independent. For her a family is a liability with her career goal fix on being independent. First her individualistic approach might piss you off and second her non-committance to family could be detrimental. Imagine the fate of this daughter of Garima Mallik (read the story above). What moral values would she have imbibed? Maa aise to beti kaise nikle gi

Technorati Tags: society, india, relationship, infidelity

Haddi and I decided to finally take matters in our hands and visit the Regional Passport Office. We had a letter of recommendation from our registrar, an IAS officers. We had to haggle with a member of a community which could have been subjected to Hitler’s holocaust, only if Hitler would have been a Tamilian. In short an auto wala.

We had foot in our mouth when we saw the line oozing out of the main building. I exclaimed, “If this is the line i need to stand to get my passport, then forget it. I would be happy never to leave this country. And further i am too scary to fly these days”. Thankfully that line was for enquiry and passport form submission so we moved ahead passing all the security checks, proudly flashing our letter of recommendation from an IAS officer. We were early so had to wait. Damn there were people inside in myriad. I am kind of an introvert who cannot be classified as a misanthrope but not social either. I hate parties, marriages and public gatherings. I feel lost. I need by breathing space and i am kind of European in this regard (having an imaginary ring round me and if someone tries to intrude i feel as if my chastity is being jeopardized). Anyways things moved ahead…took an appointment from her PA and had to wait in the queue again. She came on time. (Thats why i love this place… people know the value of time). We gave our letters to the guard, who was standing outside her room. He was fobbing people away who were scrambling because of their perplexity. Ha ha we had a letter from an IAS officer. I was observing people around. Kind of eavesdropping but i was loving it. I love to analyse people around me. Sometimes i wish i have the power to know what’s going on in someones mind. The clock ticked past 12 and we were still in the line, considering the fact we had a letter from an IAS officer..we were expecting more and plus the furtive pride still lingering in us..IITians! Haddi had this idea, which wasn’t funny for me but it was for everyone i narrated this incident to.

“Abe is guard ko bol jaake ki hamare paas IAS officer ka letter hai. Iski madam sirf eek IPS officer hai..IPS IAS ke neeche aata hai to iska matlab hamare paas bade madam ka letter hai aur agar is guard to tarakki chahiye to bade madam se acha option nahi hai…to hame jaldi andar ghusne de”

Well i couldn’t have said that! But i approached him
“Saar..madam ina? letter saar IAS officer registrar IIT” Thats the best i could manage..argh! i am so bad at communication…i make a mockery of all grammar and linguistic rules when i have to talk to someone who doesn’t understands my language and i make fool of myself.
“Ukkaranga” i think thats what he told. I quietly came back to my seat. There was a lady who was having tough time convincing the PA. She had to write the letter thrice before he accepted it. I thought of asking her “Do you blog?”

That guard kept his mobile beneath his shirt, close to his belly. I thought for a moment of getting friendly by cautioning him regarding the ill-effects of doing so. You run the risk of have stomach ulcer due to the waves so better keep it somewhere else!! i couldn’t think of a better desease. But i then realised that keeping a mobile in your shirt pocket is dangerous for heart and now, according to me, its the same case when kept close to belly. So you see the organ- proximity theory..where do i keep my mobile? ‘In my pant pocket damn it!!’ I am in a more perilous situation.

Finally we got were promised passports within a week. After all we had the recommendation letter of an IAS officer. Then we returned back home, thanks to the member of that esteemed community. Hitler where are you?

1.) A girl refused me when i was in school because she though i am not studious and was frittering time with friends (btw she couldn’t make it to IIT). After joining IIT when i approached a girl, it was no again. This time is was due to me being over studious! Read more here

2.) The only foreign university i knew before joining IIT was MIT. Now when i need to apply, my knowledge has increased to just one more..Waterloo

3.) ‘Dumsheras’ used to be my favourite in school. Only recently, while browsing a blog, i came across ‘dumb charades’. I was bewildered…inspite of knowing those 2 words individually i never thought they mean my version of ‘dumsheras’.

4.) My english was pathetic in school. Not just english but literature as a whole. But still i was the all India topper in Urdu in class 10th boards! I never could imagine myself writing long articles but now its my passion.

5.) Before joining IIT i thought engineering is all about Physics…perhaps the only complexity would come when one needs to apply Newton’s laws of motion, Electromagnetic laws and few optics together and design a car. Well my project is about mass transfer in a fuel cell, neglecting the electrical and chemistry aspect of it!! I never could have imagined that science could so complex that you can get a Phd just working only on one aspect of it.

6.) I was obsessed with spects in class 9th. I deliberately read lying down on a bed so that i could get my eye sight defective. And now i am thinking of contact lenses

7.) My mother still doesn’t know that i own a laptop and a 18K mobile!

8.) I wanna app because i want an Apple laptop in my room! Yes thats the primary reason!! (they are cheap in US)