A Joke called India

See what a few hopeless politicians can reduce a country to - A Big Fucking joke. The joke, at which the whole world can have a hearty laugh, shed some pity and walk proudly comparing their nations to ours. A bunch of fidayeens none aged more than aged 25 and with only a year of military training wreak havoc in India's financial Capital, killing us like we are crop to be harvested whereas our guardians - the police, the army and the government are reduced to mere onlookers.

At this moment of shame for my country I'm not only angry (the word will never do justice to what I feel) but very very curious. Why does a country our size needs to have the worst police to population ratio in the world? Why should our police force be over aged and undertrained? Why don’t our "elite" forces have the right equipment? Why does the chief of ATS have to die wearing a cheap bullet proof jacket that might not have been capable of stopping a bullet after all? Why does it take half a day to bring our best anti-terror squad from Delhi to Mumbai when journalists were able to do a better job? Why does our intelligence mechanism stink in spite of its crucial role in a geography like ours? What is a moron like Shivraj Patil doing trying to pretend being the Union Home Minister? (Maybe Mrs. Gandhi would know).And who is responsible for the deaths of our young officers and jawans?

Sadly most of us know the answers to all these questions. Just see how many of the above have bureaucracy /red tape/politics as their answer. We may pride ourselves as an IT superpower, an emergent global powerhouse, home to the best cricket team in the world (?), but can we hide the fact that we are possibly the worst governed state in the world? All thanks to our politicians and politics. May be we can also pride ourselves as being the voters who got them into their places either by voting for them or simply by not voting at all.

We are all angry at the state of affairs but a few months in the future we will all forget what happened. A mention of the Taj will only remind us of the monument in Agra and our TVs will be tuned to the latest gossip from Bollywood or whatever. We may be angry now but we won’t even be concerned once the news channels get weary of the whole issue. As a country it’s a shame that the people in the largest democracy in the world don’t take their democracy responsibly. We can blame the politicians and bureaucrats as much as possible, but the fact remains that we put them there. We by our narrow view of the society in terms of caste, religion, region etc etc. And when we see them failing we train our guns against them only to choose the next best crook. Yes, we make up by indulging in petty symbolisms like a candle march or a signature campaign which God knows who really cares about.

Nothing will change in our country till we don’t become responsible for what’s happening in our country. The first step I guess would be to become a responsible voter. What would be the next step? I have no idea. But I’m looking for answers. I hope I will find out sooner than later. After all it’s not a joke living in a country which has become the joke of the entire planet.
P.S: Sorry to all those I offended. They just need to do their jobs better.

On Blogs and Other things..

Who According to me should be the next TIME Man of the Year? It should be The Blogger. Everyone I come across is writing a blog these days. Guys(and some gals too) are taking to blogging like an Indian kid takes to Cricket. Mr Humble Genius is back on the blogging scene, so is Mr Baddy, Mr Arsenal has announced his arrival with a bang and Mr Eggcentric is continuing with full vigour without any egging from anyone(I cant name everyone here - mostly due to insufficient memory and time constraint, read patience). I have had the great pleasure in reading about diverse topics ranging from movie reviews to some serious introspection. In short,I have had a great time just reading everyone's post without writing a word(apart from the comments, which are mostly ignored).But it has made me wonder about a single thing i.e. what makes people - Blog?Is it the craving for recognition? Is it just an outlet for the anger and frustration that we all feel in varying degrees everyday? or is it the need for "Intellectual Masturbation"- that men/women of reasonable intellect are ready to do at the drop of a hat(One has to be in Calcutta to feel this phenomenon.BTW I have borrowed this term from my dear friend Sadhan).May be, I will never know. But from the posts that I have read(since the day I first heard the word - Blog) it is clear(or I think it is) that it's never one of the above, but rather a combination of those.I have been missing from this parallel universe for close to a year now.
I was holding myself back from adding a dash of mediocrity to a place teeming with brillance from the thousand of bright stars that inhabit it.Today I finally gave in to the temptation, a day I will surely live to regret. There have been a number of things since the last time I wrote. A quick update:

* I tried cracking CAT. Almost got addicted to crack instead.(The 2nd statement is imaginary.But do you care?)
* At my office we tried to screw the onsite guy by delivering crap two projects in a row.But he was dumb and the client dumberer.And we failed gloriously.
* Discovered a lot of places in Calcutta,now called Kolkata by some.Mostly eateries where the food is cheap and the service compensates for the great food.
* Had been to Sikkim with friends.Sadly most of my time was spent snapping photographs and the trip was over before I ran out of battery.Next time I will be going alone(i.e. without my camera) even if it means less scraps on Orkut.
* Made plans as well as arrangements to leave Calcutta thanks to the great excuse called Higher Education(where nothing but the fee is higher).
* Have completed a few books in between. The bulkier ones being Losing My Virginity(Dint say how he lost it. Should be sued by all those people who thought it was a sex manual) and Shantaram(a nice book where Greg Roberts relapses in periods of introspection every second page).
* Watched a lot of Movies a few good , a few bad and a few crap. There were very thin lines separating them and at times no line at all. "Into The Wild" is one of the most inspirational movies I have seen in a long time. Russel Crowe was good in American Gangster, so was Washington in the same movie and Manoj Bajpai in 1971. The Oscar movies were "Good" but very sleepy.I regret watching the hindi ones barring a few like 1971,Dharm,Mithya etc.
* Roadies 5.0. Noting unites MRM(short for Maa Raan Mansion - the place where I stay) like it does.Inspite of the bizarre concept, dumb babes, smart ass judges and kindergarten politics its still the best reality show on TV and its FREE(no SMSing).

Is that my boss approaching???It's time to get back to (pretending to)work!!

I wanna watch it again....

What? you may ask. What else but a movie . For people who know me well , its no secret that I am a big movie fan. Don't mistake me for a hardcore bollywood buff, which I'm not. In fact I hardly find more than a handful bollywood movies worth my money in a year. Hollywood movies form the staple of my movie diet. The amount of creativity and talent in Hollywood never ceases to amaze me. There are some movies that I have watched over and over again and have discovered more about them each time.
Enough about my movie watching habit. The thing I am referring to in the title of the post is the movie Platoon. I had heard a lot about it from my friends and I finally got to watch it on TV. In spite of my friends insistence on watching Voice of India, I wrestled my way towards gaining control of the Remote. And boy, what a movie it was. The movie is about a young rich boy drafting himself for the Vietnam war in '69. Lands up in Vietnam to witness the real picture of the war, horribly different from what he had imagined while drafting for it. The movie is directed by Oliver Stone, a Vietnam veteran himself. He uses his experience of the war coupled with his brilliant directing skill to present a gripping, realistic(sometimes too realistic) account of the scene during the war. What I really loved about the movie it that it didn't take any sides. Although people may disagree with me about this, the movie left that decision to be taken by the viewer. The plot being extremely focused, doesn't burden the viewer with statistics and unnecessary details. In short its a brilliant movie, where we can witness some great stars in action before they became stars(try identifying Johny Depp in the film.Quite a challenge). Some memorable characters made even more so by their excellent portrayals . Hats off to Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen and Tom Berenger for their brilliant acts. I really look forward to watching the movie again as soon as possible. Hope to achieve that mission this weekend itself. And if you haven't seen Platoon just grab hold of a CD/DVD now.

R.I.P fun@school

Im blogging after a very long time. Although I can blame my schedule and dozen other things for this the only plausible explanation is my mental lethargy.Now that I have finally shrugged it off and sat down to write something, i feel that times have indeed changed from my childhood and now. This change as i see it pertains to the attitude of todays parents towards the education of their child.
Last month the Class X boards results were announced. One of my cousins had appeared for it and scored nearly 96% and topped his school.This is a score i would have really been proud of, but what i saw in him was not pride or elation. But relief followed by anxiety.Relief, i guess,
for having lived upto the expectation of his parents, family and many others.Anxiety about what lies ahead: new goals(IIT?90+ in Class XII? etc) ,fresh preparations and return to the strict regime that ensured the previous success.
And he isnt an isolated incident.He is part an epidemic which has the whole country under its grip and the end is no where in sight.This is a new competitive nation and there competition in the classroom as well.And how are the winners decided? On the basis of the marks they have scored.The guy who topped the school with 99.8% marks is the winner.The guy who came second with 99.6% is only second best.It doesnot matter if the winner lacks social skills, has had no physical activity for the past one year(since he was busy preparing for his exam),
has mugged up most of his lesson and doesnt know how to use his lesson in his life. In the eyes of the school, family and friends he is a champion. Someone who scores 90% inspite of his extra-curricular activities is derided saying he never had the focus to succeed.
This is what score/percentage/marks has done to the students and most importantly their parents today.
Im not saying that focusing on academics is bad,what im saying is there is a difference between learning and learning by rote.Have the parents who spent sleepless nights devising strategies for their child's exam ever thought what would the grades or percentages mean in the long run?Would the marks really matter when the students grows up and faces a practical competitive world where his/her ability to score high grades are not the only ability required.What will he think when he grows up and finds that he didnot enjoy the formative years of his life just because he was busy chasing marks in the board exams?It is indeed sad that young people are forced to pick up hobbies so that they can use the extra marks awarded from these hobbies to gain a competitive advantage.Why would a boy try to be a good player in his sports team when he knows that him being part of the team is good enough to get him 20 points.
It would be a great effort on the part of parents to do a little homework of their own.Why not list out a few eminent personalities in different fields and find out what made them successful. Im sure they will find many other things other than academics.Why not try and instill these qualities in their children? Rather than forcing them to memorise sample answers and solve the zillions of maths problems. They would be doing a great service to the future of their child.Not to mention the great service to the nation at this stage of her development.
What our nation needs at this juncture is workers who are creative, talented, confident and versatile.What it does not need is factory produced robot who do as they are instructed.

It would indeed be heartening to see kids (that i have/will come across) doing well in school, learning new things , discovering their talents, channelising their curiosity, dreaming and developing passions. What would be tragic is seeing them as prisoners of their parents spineless ambitions.

Another Day at Office

What a boring day it has been? At least till now. Coming early to office I hoped to find some worked assigned to me so that I don’t suffer from guilt and bore pangs along with other hazards like dozing off on my chair or being caught by my boss watching videos on YouTube. I haven’t been caught yet but this morning has been nothing but boring. To prevent feeling guilty for not doing anything while my teammates are busy doing their analysis, I had this great idea of reading the Approach Docs and the Functional Specification Docs. At the time of writing I have gone through them twice without adding much to my knowledge repository. But the most tragic part is that it hardly took an hour, leaving me with an eternity to spend. Next ? I sought refuge to some epaper sites, hoping to catch up with the latest news (Bob Woolmer’s murder?, Sri Lanka’s Victory, some Mexican having fun on a plane and landing in jail for it etc ). Since I had read the TOI this morning (why?), I couldn’t send much time here too.

That set the stage for a virtual rampage ….The Cog video on YouTube , its making video, mailing both to all the contacts in my mailbox, watching the 1984 apple ad spoof featuring Hillary Clinton, the original, some research on Mahjong(it’s a Chinese game similar to cards but like all things Chinese much more complicated), Tangram(again a Chinese puzzle), water torture etc. I’m done with all that and its time for lunch now. Since I cant leave office before 6.30 (against my principles(sic)) I will have more than 4 hrs to spend at my seat in a very sleepy state, doing something so that my boss thinks I’m working. I have no idea what I will be doing next but I’m sure I will find something. If anyone thinks I get paid for doing nothing, just go through this post again and tell me what you think now. Add to it thinking about innovative ways of pretending. Isn’t that tough work?? Comments welcome.

Outsourcing "War"

It didnot take much provocation for US and it allies to launch a full scale war on its perceived enemies.The provocation came in the form of the WTC attack which resulted in the death of a few thousand american residents.Although this not a small figure by any comparision, many other countries around the world have been facing terrorism
since decades with casualtie far outnumbering those of 9/11 by many times.But no country apart from Israel (to a limited extent )has gone on a "crusade" to eliminate its enemies and to establish its own world order. The most glaring examples are too recent to ignore : Afghanistan and Iraq. Although Afghanistan is slowly limping towards a semblance of normalcy ,a long road is still ahead of them, Iraq can at beast be called,by even the most sympathetic american supporter, a disaster.
And imagine who is paying for this? if you guessed George W Bush in the next elections...think again 'cos he cant be elected for another term in office according to american law.If u thought the american taxpayer...you are partly right as he is paying his taxes and part of it is being used to fund the war on terror .But dint the american public call for a "war" in the first place ? So whats wrong if they are paying for it?....even after receiving tax cuts from the bush Government. The people bearing most of the brunt are the soldiers and Im not talking about american soldiers alone. Its soldiers from all over the world fighting a war for america...young and dreamy
men from different regions of the world - nepal , india , many countries in africa and hold your breath FIJI. Yes these are some the places where the US gets its soldiers from. I happened to read this article on the BBC's website which detailed the process , pros and cons of recruitment happening in Fiji. Hundreds of men are the fatigues for america for money as little as $60 per month , the amount a typical "middle class fat ass american" spends on BigMacs a month. After BPO and Animation this is a new form of american outsourcing. But contrary to the former ones
the goings not so rosy for the workers here. Come to think of it....a soldier recruited by a private company supplying men to american army goes to Iraq to fight a war(having no idea about the intent) and dies doing his duty. His family gets a compensation of about $5000 if they are lucky enough. The news goes unnoticed in the american media. No one even gets to know some soldier was killed fighting for a foriegn cause in a foriegn land. The company which recruited him doesnt inform many about the incident as it hampers the recruitment scenario in its region. the greiving parents are paid and told to shut up. Ocasionally the national media picks up the news and even then it is seen as a sacrifice by many. As if we are born with an obligation to serve Uncle Sam. George W Bush is spared of criticism americans do know and dont care about anything happening outside their own land.
Who paid for the great vision of Don Rumsfield and Mr. Bush? Only the poor soldier and his family.

But the risk doesnt deter other aspirants from queing up .After all the lure of the greenback is hard to gloss over.Hopefully this outsourcing trend will not gain momentum as its other cousins have.If world peace is too much to wish for at present let me pray for Americans fight their wars themselves.Amen

The BBC Story

The Great Indian IT Professional

Feb 25 2005: Got placed in an IT Company
Jun 05 2006: Joined the company


Two significants dates in my life. The former being responsible in many ways for making my life boring and dull by making me an IT pro( not really).Let me take the pain of painting a rosy picture of a typical indian IT worker....

• is clueless about his/her job.Not only in the beginning but daily.The same can be said of his immediate senior and his senior and so on.
• is a pampered person. Gets a high-end machine to work upon.Unlimited free coffee tea and water(considering the price of bottled water i consider that a gr8 incentive).A cab to drop home incase he is slightly late.(Slightly = 4-5 hrs in managerSpeak).
• indulges in luxuries like having a 5 hour sleep. The less fortunate ones try 2 have a nap lasting around 10 mins after the lunch hour.
• his idea of heaven is "an unending weekend". Idea of hell?.....need I tell?
• devours office food ,during lunch and when he is working late ,for two reasons: 1.The food is subsidized(along with the service,quality and quantity) 2.The nearest eatery is a kilometre off and he never has the time for anything else than the simple act of eating.
• is a highly social animal. Drinks socially(only if it is free) ,smokes socially(theres a special smoking zone designated for this activity), parties hard(the party is usually hosted by the account/comp/or some poor soul(s) returning from onsite or getting a 1% pay hike). Is too focused on his job to indulge in anything else.Although some are married and lead a family life...thats only a part-time occupation.
• loves to listen to rumours about pay hike and promotions. Lots of chain mails and chain of puffs result from such rumours. As is the case with most rumors these remain as rumours only.
• is a distinguished member of the soceity. Can be readily distinguished from people of other creed just by his cheap looking expensive clothes,tired face, dark circles and that "dont mess with me " look on his face. No one messes with him .....but every1 milks him like a holy cow ....even if he is not wearing his company tag.
• likes to keep himself entertained . Has an mp3 player, dvd player, laptop(if he is high enough up the ladder) and other luxuries.But is highly cautious ,hence uses these sparingly(read has no time to use them).
• loves to write about his co-workers ,work place and his other imaginations .....just like im doing now.

Hope that would inpire you to join the Great Indian IT Bandwagon. And if you are in it already.....may the force be with you.