From my Dad to my Son - Part 2 : SMILE

Dear Son (now my Dear Prithviraj),

This series takes a lot of time to come up with emotions to write. In the meanwhile I wrote 1 more blog and some unsolicited advices on Facebook.

The world has suddenly changed in these past 2 years where we are struggling with a pandemic. This is an unprecedented situation we all are in. The nature is in no mood to spare anyone! We do not know when this will end.

You are 2 and a half years old already and have started speaking a lot of things. You understand what a human must understand at this age. We have observed at times you behave very well when it's least expected. You now know how your dadu looked, his name and some stories you make out of his photographs. 

I am recording some more of his essence in this letter for you to read when you are able to. He was a fearless man when he advised:

" THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF".

I always remember when he used to scold or motivate me when ever I was fearful as a child. He would push me without saying he's looking at me against anything I feared. The best way to not to be feared is to face the fear itself. I remember when he used to wake me early in the morning at around 5 to take me for swimming when I was around 7-8 years old. He and his friends would push me into water and encircle me and I had to swim towards each one of them when I didn't know how to swim. Out of fear I tried every excuse to not go for swimming but he made sure he takes me every morning. It took time but I learnt how to swim and the fear was gone. Fear eats us from inside. But then how not to be fearless? Smile! and read on...

He held high standards, chivalry, fine behaviour that won him enormous amount of respect. That's something you need to be really careful about.

"MANNERS REVEAL FAMILY, SPEECH REVEALS EDUCATION"

One can have great speech but it's the manners that count. Just imagine if there was no money, and everything depended on your moral standards, the way you behaved and the way you treated people, how you would be doing in life? 

He always made sure that the driver who has accompanied a guest is served first! His contagious smile won him a lot of friends and lot of respect from all.

You know, I never saw your dadu deep into religion. But I realise that it was most important to be available for humankind. After he physically went away from us, we got to know about a lot of people which said that he helped him in getting the treatment done in hospitals, he helped them with various other things which we didn't know until he was there and even at times when he himself was short of resources but never short of smile. Always remember:

" THE HANDS THAT GIVE ARE FAR BETTER THAN LIPS THAT PRAY"

That doesn't mean prayers don't count, that simply means a stitch in time saves nine. Some times our simplest of actions, prove very valuable for others. 

These virtues are easier said than practiced, but "NEVER MIND FAILURES AS THEY ARE QUITE NATURAL". 

Baby, from being my father you now know him as your dadu. These valuable lessons are for life. They are the virtues that will build you, they have built me. Difficult to live by each word, but definitely worth every effort living like him. 

And the best part:

"SMILE COSTS NOTHING BUT MEANS MUCH"

Lovingly yours'

* All sentences in capital are excerpts of my Dad's diary.

The rich are getting richer and poverty can be eliminated

I just came across an article saying that 82% of the total world’s wealth is controlled by 10% of the population and bottom 50% of the world’s population owns 1% of the world’s wealth. I am not going to write numbers here, that all of you can get on the internet.

Just this one study reveals so much about the ‘economies’ we are living in.

This simply means that its just money that now runs the globe completely. Money owns power, money owns resources, money owns governments and money owns religions. And its not that people do not know this, the only shocking thing is the rate with which rich people are accumulating more money and poor people are getting poorer. We now have companies having valuations of trillions of dollars. Consumerism is on its peak. We are buying products we do not need at all. Our needs have been created by the companies in such a way that we did not even come to know that there’s a lot of stuff in our houses which we never needed in the first place.

Capitalism, communism, socialism etc. have all have failed to curb the rise of money just from being a medium of exchange to ‘own everything papers. Poverty alleviation has actually not been on agenda at all especially in democracies across the world in last few decades. Yes, a few dictator driven countries have made some rapid progress in creating welfare models for their people but I see no major democracy making any such progress in last dew decades.

The question is what are rich people going to do with their wealth? This is hoarding of wealth must stop. There must be some limit to which one can accumulate wealth. On one hand we see poverty, unemployment, economic slowdowns, job layoffs and even countries going bankrupt and on the other hand we are seeing a clear trend of more and more wealth accumulation by the richest. The system is designed by purpose to suck money from masses and accumulation by the rich and poor are just accumulating loans. Where is this money going after all?

These rich men and corporations now own so much money that they are bigger than their countries in terms of controlling the resources and power. With companies breaking into trillion-dollar clubs, what they are upto? How can so much wealth be accumulated? How can at a point of time a single organization have cash reserve more that the cash reserve of the largest economy of the world?

The way the technology companies are growing, investing in new technologies and creating products without which we were living anyways, is creating a huge non-sensical ambition among the people to be able to consume their products and at hefty prices.

I belong to that generation which has seen fixed lines telephones, initial mobile phones with high call rates, cheap mobile call rates, mobile revolution, smart phones, data in the smart phones and now the super smart phones. I think the world could live happier with fixed line phones as well! Most of the people reading this will not agree with me on this today but in the following blogs, I will try to write more on this explaining my perspective of how. The thing I want to explain is we have created needs which never existed for humans to live happily and comfortably. And with organisations growing so big, they are now looking for ways and means to build more such ‘unwanted needs’ to suck more money out of the common people and keep getting richer with god knows what to do with so much hoarding of wealth. They are destroying the environment, they are destroying the cultures, they are destroying the traditions and pushing for more than ever which in turn is destroying our lives. We would not want to accept it ever, but we are under a system of modern slavery. Slavery of the rich.

Do you believe we can end poverty on this earth? Well, 100 richest people have so much wealth that they can end poverty across the globe 4 times! Yes, you heard that right. I am not saying take away wealth of these 100 (which nobody in the world can touch any way as these people are far more powerful than the governments, rather they are the ones who drive the governments across) and distribute to the poor. But with so many Nobel laureate economists around, can someone please find out how can this current pattern of distribution of wealth can change to develop everyone financially and not only the top 10% (they can’t or won’t do it either as they are controlled too). We may say that more and more people are coming out of poverty each year, but these classifications are again a function of corporatisation of governments and the way various governments are handling the poverty lines in their countries. And along with the basic definition of poverty and people crossing that, the way the consumerism is rising, we are further falling in the trap of consumerism induced slavery resulting into disguised poverty where a person has all that he needs to survive and live happily but thinks he is poor enough to not afford what he thinks he should afford and that keeps him working like slave all through his/her life.

The simple example is a few decades ago, income of one of the 2 (husband or wife) was sufficient to support the family and sustain and live happily, now one cannot survive without the income of both. What disaster this has done to the society is unimaginable. Very conveniently the rich world coined a term ‘middle class’ who are basically the white-collar slavery class and nothing more.

All of us who believe in democracy across the globe are fooling ourselves as your government is for the rich, by the rich and of the rich! Everything is so well systematized that we don’t even think on these lines ever and even these couple of pages to a lot would sound foolish.

I will keep writing on this subject. Keep articulating thoughts and keep accumulating data and also keep thinking how to get out of this mess where you are talking against the rich and the governments they control. The only way currently I can think of is knowing what you actually need than what you think you need to live happily.

Signing off!

Siddharth

From my Dad to my Son! Part - 1 : LOVE

Dear Son,

Its been more than 14 years now, God took away my dad as he was short of good people himself. I was 15 that time. It's almost half of my life he is physically away from me. Although I rarely felt him away from me emotionally, spiritually or mentally. He has been in everything which has brought his family where it is today.

I grew, I studied, I fell, I rose, I worked, I got married and now I have a son myself. In this journey he has been with me and whenever I felt alone, he would somehow make me feel he is around. He is my God and has been strengthening me all along. He has been with me all these years in form of my Mom and Sister.

My lovely wife delivered a beautiful 'you' a few weeks back and I felt dad around you. I do not know how happy he would have been holding you in his arms. He was a very emotional person.  But I still cannot imagine how much he would have loved his grandson. He would certainly feel like:

" TO LOOK AT YOU;
TO LOOK  INTO YOU;
TO  LOOK UPTO YOU;
SHALL FOREVER BE THE JOY OF MY LIFE"

My child, this is from one of the first pages of my Dad's dairy for you.

Kid, when you will be big enough to read this, I want to gift you your grand dad, bring him back from his diaries, from his anecdotes, from the time we spent with him, from his aura, from the love he spread around him to you. I want you to be like him, love like him, be grand like him, have a big heart like him.

He was a friend of friends, a lover, a philosopher, a thinker, person with open arms, an optimist, a believer, a strong man who loved his family.
He writes in his diary from 1973:

"YOU ARE NOBODY TILL SOMEBODY LOVES YOU".

That's the first lesson he would teach you. You are born out of love. Love is the very basis of your existence. He loved his family, all of us more than anything. He would have tears in his eyes if we were leaving him for vacations, he would cry if I cried when I fell ill. He would love us like no other. This is what his life was made of. Little joys in our eyes and he would enjoy them.
Son, my father imbibed in me this feeling of love. I want people around me to love me as this is existence to me. He lived this love. I saw people loving him, people still love him. Just when I thought about posting his diary lessons for you, a lot of people showered their love on him. He was loved by too many people, more than I would ever know!

Son, love fearlessly and be someone whom the world loves. That is what I believe he believed in. Love was Godly to him. He further writes on being close to people

"TO BE CLOSER TO GOD, BE CLOSE TO PEOPLE"

That is the essence of existence.

This series I am writing for you my Son as my dad said:

"A WISE SON  MAKETH A GLAD FATHER". I hope my dad is glad for me and I will be glad for you.

Lovingly yours'


* All sentences in capital are excerpts of my Dad's diary (which dates back to 1973).

Religion

Dear All,

Watching cricket alone in a hotel's restaurant, having some chips and after hectic 3 days of travel, a lot of thoughts cross mind. Though this has happened a few times with me, but these days my writing self is pushing a bit from inside.
I just finished writing a blog on current macro political scenario a few days back. Got good hits!
I lack the knack of building a background and then subtly going on the topic which great writers so naturally possess!
Last 2 days I was in a land where politics and religion crossed paths and then devil unleashed. Now the state is back by 100 years. Punjab.
Religion has been the biggest weakness of public that politics has used. The intersection of both has killed hundreds and thousands. These two things are like petrol and fire, you bring them closer and there will be a blast!
This intersection is neither new nor unintentional. This petrol and fire combination is being used very regularly since ages and in very planned manner.
But the conman man is too emotional about both, religion being top in the order. I fail to understand the relevance.
Religion is something very personal. To me religion is a belief in an almighty who takes care of my world. That can be God or even any person whom I have immense faith in. Someone whom I can look up to with closed eyes and a sulking or a joyous heart. For me my God are my parents! Period! I don't believe in any other God!
Further all religions are way to lead a happy and healthy life. Pure science discovered 100s and 1000s years by our ancestors (and not science discovered by westerners). So far I am yet to come across a religion or a way of life that teaches violence. Consistently all religions as far as I have understood in my 30 years of life (yes I am disclosing I am 30 now, and worried too!) have taught love, peace and togetherness. That's it. That's how religions is relevant. It's purely personal and to be kept at home, mind and heart not on streets.
We as common citizens need to understand that no one can disrespect any one else's religion if we don't bring religion to streets.
Politicians pay to create disturbance and only way they can do is by instigating the point of religion.
If we believe in our Gods so strongly and know that he is so great then how can anyone insult that almighty!
So where's the point of disrespect? So where's the fight?
It's important as a society we keep our religions at our home and use it as a tool to stay healthy and happy rather than fight over it and get ourselves killed through hands of politicians (here I am referring to all those who manipulate religion in some way or another as politicians).
To me my religion may be important but I am least bothered about your views on that! SIMPLE!
And if I am actually bothered, then I am a weak follower of my parents; my God!
So decide whether you want to follow your religion blindly or just take it as a way to live your life healthy and happy.

Signing off!

Siddharth

Trump and the World

Hi

Long time no see!! Yes, I was too occupied with the system of the world which had decided my course of life before I was even born.
But today is a day that compelled me to write as Donald Trump had become the President elect of United States. He was least expected to win the elections against Hillary Clinton in an epic battle of lack of choices for the American people. They would have felt how it feels to choose between a better evil (which we have been doing for years now)!
These elections are a historical mandate and right from the time DTrump was announced as President candidate against HClinton I was sure that he will become POTUS. I do not understand why the world had doubts? Why the financial world was or is worried? There is no chance HClinton would have been a better choice.
After the general elections in India where Modi was elected with thumping majority the voting pattern of my generation started showing its effect. I strongly believe that these days you must learn to take a stand with full understanding. Either you like me or you hate me, there is no in between.
Both the elections polarised the voters, the candidates did not polarise but the opposition did.
One needs to have a point of view on things, either you are friends or enemies, either you are good or bad but now a days you cant be in between, you cant be a diplomat. The voters wont like that at all. The stand has to be strong and must catch the sentiment of voters. The stand can be polarising, non - inclusive, divisive but that's what the common man wants and that's how they vote.
Both Indian and American elections have shown that.
You cannot love fire and have an affair with ice at the same time. And then the actions must follow.


It will be interesting to see now how Trump deals with international issues like India & Pakistan. Till now the US has been supporting India and funding Pakistan and trying to have better relations with China as well. Sounds strange. But Trump might not like it that way. If he will be friends with any one he will be enemy with their enemy. I hope that happens, that's what he has shown in the campaign. He has clearly spoken his mind on many international issues.
He will have either s strong following (In India they are known as Bhakts) or people strongly hating him (In India they are known 'the all knowing intellectuals & liberals'). But that is how it is going to be.


Now, the world stands with 3 leaders with clear minds about what they want to do. Trump joining Modi & Putin.
We must expect a huge change in the power shifts with these 3 men at the helm. They all are strong, clear minded and operating big countries.

I feel the Americans have made a good choice among the 2.

Signing off

Siddharth!

Switch off news and India is safe!!

Dear All,

India is going through quite an interesting time right now. So many things happening, media busy 24x7 showing opposition parties, howsoever small they may be, barking non stop, thinking they are roaring; college students getting hyper, getting anti national; crimes of over enthusiastic (guy humari mata hai) majority increasing over abundant beef eating minorities; Parliament not functioning properly over family matters of leaders of parties not in power; the man who never spoke for 10 years, speaking on the government now; the man who does not know what to speak is still speaking rubbish and killing the Grand Old Party even more; minority super star's wives feeling scared in this intolerant India whereas the Baby and Drishyam stars enjoying super hit movies; Awards being returned on increasing intolerance (against whom is still a question) but the Afzals of the world being glorified in the heart of the country and among all this the normal man is still living a normal life hoping for development in his own motherland.

The moment you switch off the news channels, you get the feeling that you are back in India. Everything around you, your neighbourhood, friends, job etc are all same and we are all working hard to make India grow.

Right from the time when the nation had decided to vote out INC and get in BJP, the media started playing the 'polarisation' tape. And as soon as this government came into power with the kind of majority it came with and the way INC and other regional parties were cleaned up, obviously things were painful for those who have been in power for so long. 

Then the way media has became judgemental and over analytical rather than just being informative, the whole country had to be in a mess. But what option do these 24x7 media houses have. They are run by corporates, they have bottomlines to take care of, they face competition every hour, they have political Godfathers and have to keep them satisfied, they have to pay salaries and thus they have to maintain their revenues. And as they say everything is fair in love and war, so when the question of survival comes, you have to get news and if there is no news then you have to create news, failing to understand the repercussions. Then one fine day a journalist shows the news on a black out TV saying some stuff that is again not relevant as the news (now, I am being judgemental).

Now a days everything catches media attention even from a mosquito to an elephant, from aalu to beef and from 0 seat party to the party in majority. Media is creating divides in every possible way they can and off late people have started losing interest in switching on a news channel because its the same story with different role players each night, same panelists, same arguments, same tones, same fights, same blame games, same non-sensible talks or rather shouts!

I still believe and hope that majority (not by religion I mean) of people in this country are sensible and ignore these media created hue and cry each night and are busy developing this country and themselves.
The time is not far when the sensible class of this country will completely stop watching and getting affected by this media terrorism and as rightly said by some one (though a little rash) these enlightened, all knowledgeable 'presstitutes' will learn their lessons the hard way. The way they have abused the freedom of speech under this government and before is condemnable and still the government and we the people are tolerating these people, shows that India is still the most tolerant country of the world.

Jai Hind

Signing off

Siddharth


PS: I started writing this blog against reservation, but the prelude itself is so long that it will take 3-4 more blogs for me to reach till reservation until I reserve one of my blog space to write against reservation ;)

Image Credit: Rohnit Shore (taken from Google search)

The over-rated start up generation!! (Part 2)

Dear All
So here I am tonight trying to finish what I started last month! The part 2 of the blog which some of my friends told they are eagerly waiting for just to keep me happy and enthusiastic enough to not stop blogging!
Yes, so now comes the third generation or the start up generation or as my blog's title says 'over-rated' start up generation.
First of all as I mentioned in the part 1, I believe that the 2nd generation was the one which created the manufacturing base in this country and the distribution channels. They were the real start up kings!
Ours is more of a bubble generation, no doubt with a lot of substance but the advent of high communication has blown things out of proportions. We are living in a world of valuations rather than asset base. Today, like of a flipkart is valued 4 -5 times that of a Tata Steel! Are these valuations justified?
Recently I observed that in last month or so a The Economic Times has questioned these valuations thrice on its front page. I have been discussing the same over past 6 months with various people.
So our generation, instead of creating wealth, is creating valuation. Instead of creating manufacturing, organising the services through internet. Instead of creating assets, creating brands. Instead of creating a long term robust business, creating a bubble!
Well, the above paragraph sounds like I am a big pessimist about these internet businesses, but I am not! These businesses are here to stay, only issue is the valuations these are garnering. If the valuations are justified by fundamentals like revenue, profits, asset base, free cash flow, well and good but the same is far from happening in many cases.
There is a lot of money in the world wanting to be invested and somewhere some good sales man is selling a 15 year story today and that desperate money waiting to get invested is getting invested. I hope that it sustains those 15 years and finally the investment is justified.
Anyway currently every purchase I make online comes with money from the investor sitting somewhere in Japan or the US or China or India!
Fortunately currently only rich are investing their money in such businesses who can afford taking a beating.
I hope our generation creates wealth like the earlier one and all the big names remain intact after 15 years, in green with their fundamentals supporting their valuations.
I hope that this is not another .com bubble waiting to get burst...

Signing off

Siddharth!

The over-rated start up generation!! (Part 1)

Dear All,

I have been having discussions with a lot of people these days about the number of starts-ups this current generation is taking up. It's indeed delighting to see so many young brains taking risks, creating business models, getting investments, growing well. In fact some where in my heart I am also a wannabe start up guy but I think I have crossed the age to be young enough to attract eyeballs and guys of my age are already multi millionaires! (I am 27 by the way)
But as they say those who can't do, preach (and write blogs in deep slumbers of nights). That's one of the reasons this one is coming.
So we are 68 years independent. My grandfather was one who was born before independence, then came the generation of my dad who was born after independence but into a very under developed, controlled India and then I am born in a generation that has seen the transformation of India from an old school economy to a rising super power, a communication less society to and over communicated society.
So I think I will not be wrong to say that we are broadly into 3rd generation India. Yes the next generation is in process but the they are too young to make a difference except to their nappies.
Yes, so my grandfather was the one who struggled his way to an independent India and struggled hard to keep up a family, do some business (yes a start up in the time when nothing existed by the name of organised business) and some how the country started settling down.
Then came my dad's generation which I think are the people who are the real entrepreneurial generation. These are the men who developed the huge manufacturing base in this huge country. These are the men who started factories, plants, units, infrastructure companies, designed business, went to consumers, opened showrooms, opened shops and practically without much (rather any) backing. At that time opening a kirana or a cloth shop in the market was also a start up which these people did without any investors or any business consultants, on their very own.
These were the people who grew business in this country, mobilised agriculture. Created a huge manufacturing base and laid foundation to the service industry.
How big start ups they created which took the value of our economy to this scale.
They created products, they explored mines and minerals, they produced cloth, stone, oil, engineering equipments, agriculture equipments, FMCG items, chemicals, fibres etc etc...to support every thing they created infrastructure, transportation, service industry.
So I believe that first of all these great men who brought us till this stage deserve a huge round of appreciation and in real sense deserve to be called the start up kings who, with very limited resources and funding are into every nook and corner of this country. They created wealth!
Now the third generation has come and is doing fantastically well. But we are just a little over rated I feel..
How and why do I feel so will require me to continue this long blog with (another) part two!!
Wait for a few days until I post the second part...

I hope I will make some sense with this one too like the previous 2 part reservation blog.

Happy reading.

Signing off

Siddharth

PS: your thoughts and comments are most welcome! 

Reservation - The biggest threat to emerging superpower (part 2)

Dear All,
So here I am to finish writing the second part on reservation!
After writing the first one and then having views shared with others on this topic, I think more or less people believe that reservation is a bigger peril than anything else.
So yes, the last one I finished with the thought that we were slaves and will remain slaves, that's how our minds are engineered.
We lack patriotism like Japanese or passion to be and remain number one like the Americans. We are more of a selfish breed and thus we cannot let the power to from our hands once it comes. Therefore our politicians have no guts to decide and prepare a framework to end this menace of reservation.
Like all the parties come together on matter of MPs pay hikes and unanimously vote for it in the parliament, these people do not have guts to unanimously end reservation.
So the question comes why do we, those who are against reservation get into the system and clean it? Because there is no national party who has this kind of an ideology.
The basic ideology of any national party is how to remain in power and for that reservation plays an important role. If this continues we will have a proper caste based bifurcation of everything.
Let's have a quota based on caste for everything then. Marriages, private jobs, agriculture, land, ownership of companies, President's post, trade, pilots, restaurants, pictures etc etc whatever we can think of. Is this the method we are going to proceed in this country?
No! We have to have a drive to drive out reservation from this country. I, for that matter, cannot see the next generations struggling for their deserving rights. We cannot have the people who run this country with this ideology. It's high time we start thinking for the country rather than 'party first' and we first.
Remember the dialogue from Shahrukh Khan's movie Chak de India where he says "play for your country first, then if you have energy left play for your team mates, then still if you have life, play for yourself".
Some would say that these thins sound good in films only but only this is how we can make the difference.
Have a thought and write about it, tell others and if possible act on it.
I keep trying.
Hope some day we will make a difference and help eliminate this curse of reservation which our forefathers have forced upon us and we are helplessly and hopelessly following it.

Signing off,

With high hopes,

Siddharth 

Reservation - The biggest threat to emerging superpower! (Part 1)

Hi all,

Thanks for appreciating the last blog!!
I am thrilled that I am able to think and get into my writing zone so quickly which I have been missing from a long time!!
Some minds do not have a single line of thoughts. Like the other day I was technologically tired and today my mind seems to be entangled in entirely different thought!
Yes, as evident from the title of the blog, I am writing on reservation in India, on which humongous number of people have umpteen number of opinions, and so do I!
If you have been reading my blogs or have read my thoughts on social media, you would know that rather than statistics, I believe in writing based on experiences and gut feel more. I write my heart out rather than critical statistical analysis. So tonight also I would not put out numbers to what I am writing but I hope I will make sense.
India, our dear India is a well known emerging super power. The world acknowledges, the world speaks about us. But a promising kid also has his/her own share of challenges.
To me, one of the biggest challenge that India faces today is caste based Reservation. Not only the problem, but the consequential effects are scary and give me goosebumps.
Some years ago, I gave CAT exam and scored 96 percentile and obviously did not get call from any of the IIMs. The same year a reserved category candidate scored 74 percentile and got calls from 3-4 of them! That was when the word reservation, which I had known since childhood, actually hit me. It still pains!
Yes as a country we decided that we need yo uplift the backward but for how many years and at what cost?? With each passing day the cost of every single reserved seat is increasing not only for the individuals but for the country. We have been paying a huge cost for reservation through brain drain. One of the major reasons for brain drain has been the caste based reservation system. I do not know what will be the results if we compare the brain drain opportunity cost against what good we have achieved from reservation! And not only brain drain, we have wasted huge opportunities by not giving the post to the deserving.
Huge percentage of people who lead the country are product of reservation. A place like udaipur has to be led by a reserved caste because this is a reserved seat! So how will the development come?
Those who do not qualify the merit do not deserve to be in pilot's seat just because of their caste.
Further, the bigger fear is that the country is getting divided once again and our habit of being slaves does not go!
We have been servants. That's what our history has been. First to the kings, then to the Englishman and then to democracy, all because of our selfish interests.
Had we ever in the history of this 'great' nation, had national interest, the history and the future would have been different.
The caste based reservation must end now. It will have major consequences if not eliminated at the earliest.............

Signing off!!

Siddharth


PS: next part to this blog will follow.

Technological Fatigue

Hello All!!
Well I have been trying to write about it since long but was not getting enough words to express!! Tonight I think there is possible flow again from my nodes in the brain (or heart) to write on this subject!
Interestingly, the topic I am writing on is what I am currently using to reach to all of you, technology!!
Mine has been a generation that has seen this transformation from writing letters to writing blogs, playing in sun to playing play station, roaming with friends to adding them, getting slapped from parents to not adding them on Facebook, calling from landlines to viber calls, seeing movie in a VCR to having it in a per drive and a lot many things have transformed rapidly!!
If I talk about the next generation which has changed very fast does not even realise how this transformation has happened. They all grow up having smart phones to tablets, Facebook accounts to what's app and all the technology at their disposal right from the day they are born!
But lately I have started realising that I have started feeling fatigued by so much of technology around. Technology, no doubt has made many things easy but everything in limits is good. Every thing we want in our tablets and phones now. This has added a lot more responsibility and has added tremendous amount of work pressure and social pressure for that matter.
You must check your Facebook account atleast 4-5 times a day and if you do not have a friends request or likes/comments of your status you start getting restless.
Your are under enormous pressure to keep updating your pictures for others to see rather than you yourself enjoying the place. 'I got married', 'I am going xxx place for honeymoon', 'now having kids', 'late for work today', 'you are the best dad in the world', 'constipated today'!!!! Well, this is how our lives have gone public and getting response on these kinds of daily activities has become a dreaded phenomenon!
This is a very narrow part of the over all story, we are so much into technology that a guy like me is getting tired using it. Emails, social network, smses, what's app, viber, numerous online marketplaces, app for everything, smart phones, tablets, laptops, desk tops, fablets, pen drives etc etc...
We have started detaching ourselves from the actual society and are on the verge of becoming technological slaves. The creativity of human mind is only thinking of how to make another app!
We are getting dumber day by day and so dependant on technology that if we do not have our cell phone for one day, we feel claustrophobic, we feel deprived, we feel dead!!
We are starting to forget that relations are not made on social media but by being social and meeting people, not seeing their pics.
We need to remember that technology is a tool to make our lives easy and not our life itself!
So what I want to put up is that soon a time will come that all of us will be so fatigued by this whole technological ecosystem that we will go back to being natural, go back to older ways to doing things because I do not think that the human mind has the capacity to be a slave and keep absorbing all pieces of technological crap coming its way.
Our natural ability to think is dying. When I meet people and talk to the younger ones, they have just gone crazy and dumb to the extent one cannot imagine!!
This technological shift that has happened in last 2 decades will make a tectonic shift once again due the human mind fatigue syndrome and we will, for getting peace will head to normal human ways of getting things done.
The 'real social networking' will come into place once again and the Facebook fatigue syndrome will come into play very soon, that's when we will see the decline of such websites and apps and other pieces of technology.
As I mentioned here before, that technology will exist only till it supports our lives to get easy, all the excess technology that has become our life, will slowly(or may be very fast) diminish as human beings have to realize that they are human beings and not virtual beings!!

I hope I made some sense and if you do not agree with the views, would like to hear from you at length.
Thanks for your time by logging in another piece of technology!!
Signing off

Siddharth

Can't put title to your soul!!

Dear All
Long time no see again!!!
Well it's been a quarter I have written anything worthwhile reading except some scribbling on my Facebook account!!
Have been dying to write but still struggling to get words!!
Off late I think I am facing a mid-life writing crisis where neither thoughts flow nor the words come out!
I wrote in one of my blog that the brain stops thinking but now I am feeling that you need heart more than brain to write some good stuff.
So, the other day I was talking to my wife and my mother that what excites me in life?
I don't enjoy partying much, no drinking, no smoking, not a night life person either! So this just made me think what the hell in my life do I enjoy?
And then I started writing once again! Yes, so this is the thing I enjoy doing to my core. But since I am not a commercial writer (yet) I can't force my brain/heart/fingers to write whenever!!
(Still not getting what I am up to in this blog)
So basically what I get to understand is that there are certain things you think you would enjoy because most people around you see, enjoy that, but you don't!!
For a person like me, I would enjoy evening tea at a close friend's house, late night chat with my in laws at their place, talking about my dreams to my mom, seeing my wife doing her routine work innocently and talking to her, working hard with freedom at my office, trying being dad to my sister(s), sleeping, thinking with peace, being trusted, taking responsibility, having fun with my family, hearing from my grandparents their life stories, reading about global leaders, listening to great orators,  talking to a lot of people about a lot of things and writing of course!!
So this doesn't include a single thing that a 27 yr old lad would have in his to do list except I think sleeping!!
Well, I am still to figure out the objective of this blog but yes something has itched me to write this tonight.
I hope I start getting a little fluid with my writing skills once again.
Thank you for bearing with my writing one more time or if you are reading for the first time then best of luck!!

Signing off!!

Siddharth

Empowerment

Long time no see!

Dear All

How fast the times passes, I have tried hard but failed to keep pace with time! It runs, briskly!!

The routine makes us so mechanical that the brain after some time, starts clogging and then whole area of the creative thinking and writing goes in to a deep slumber. There are thoughts but the feeling to express dies. One has opinions on many things but the will to express depletes and then one day you think that how lucid your thoughts were and they are now dead.

Well this does not happen only with men who work hard day in and night out to support their families, who very quietly replace their dreams without even expressing them, with family priorities, with work pressures, with expectations of family members, society, office etc.etc., who, without complaining compromise on a whole lot of things that they ever wanted to do in their lives, but also happens with many a girls who also compromise with their dreams, ambitions, goals to first satisfy their family and then after marriage new family. The thing I want to put into perspective is that both the genders are equally responsible for the existence of mankind on this earth.
Then comes the PR exercise of WOMAN EMPOWERMENT! The social media gives it a whole new momentum. Every tom dick and harry starts a campaign supporting woman empowerment and starts blaming men for being "chauvinist". Giving umpteen examples of how the society has been carved out by men from years back in time to suit their needs, writing about how men have defamed the other gender and have made them weak single-handedly, how men are responsible for miserable state of women in many societies, religions and geographies, how men have objectified women, how men have ridiculed women over history and how men have not provided equal opportunities to women to grow.

So the so called weaker section blames men for them being weaker which I think is extremely untrue.

While writing this blog, I went through wikipedia to understand what empowerment means. Wiki says "Empowerment refers to increasing the economic, political, social, educational, gender, or spiritual strength of an entity or entities" further to explain the process it says "Empowerment is the process of obtaining basic opportunities for marginalized people, either directly by those people, or through the help of non-marginalized others who share their own access to these opportunities. It also includes actively thwarting attempts to deny those opportunities".
Now, first of all 50% of the world population cannot blame the other 50% for remaining un-empowered. Next the above line says that empowerment is process of obtaining basic opportunities, which I dont think the Constitution of India denies or for that matter any law derived out of the constitution denies. The most important thing that the above line says is that "either directly by those people, or through the help of non-marginalized others who share their own access to these opportunities" and if we still say that women - a gender as a whole or in this country are not empowered because of the men then I strongly register my protest to this argument. Because I dont think that not even a single woman in this country has not had access to any opportunity.

By this blog I just want to explain to all that men are not to be blamed for every thing bad happens to women and same way women are not to be blamed if some thing bad happens to a man. The world 'Male Chauvinism" is a myth in this modern world. Rather its the weakness of woman who have accepted this way of being in the society. Without the consent of 50% of the population the other 50% cannot dominate.
And it is not the case either. In this country and the whole world it is the powerful that dominates. If a man is powerful he dominates and if a woman is, she dominates. The world has seen the Indira Gandhis and Angela Merkels, the Mother Teresas and Malala Yousafzais, the Arundhati Bhattacharyas and Indira Nooyis, the Marilyn Monroes and Lady Gagas and the Kalpana Chawlas and Valentina Tereshkovas, the Sonia Gandhis and Sheikh Hasinas of the world.

These are the women who have dominated the world for decades under which the men did not cry for male empowerment!
I know the revert to it would be that these have been exceptions but the ground reality is different. Females are really in bad shape in Indian villages and small cities.

We say that the society is responsible for that. But does not the society include women also?

Boss, every body in the world is troubled and one cannot say under a general flag that the whole section of society is un-empowered. Men also live under a lot of stresses and problems. They are also trafficked, they are also murdered, they are also beaten, they are also killed, they also go through difficulties, they also feel weak, they also face huge difficulties living life but they dont blame females for their miseries.
The point to conclude that I want to make that we live in a society where there are males and females who make and run the society. Then there are weak and strong, both the adjectives are available in both the genders. So firstly all the weaks need to be empowered not only women. Secondly this blame game should stop that the society is male chauvinist. I know of many dominating males who have full support of their mothers/wives because of which they dominate and I also know of many females who dominate because of the support of their father/husband.
80% of the rape cases reported are fake in India, majority of crimes reported in India are against men and not women, cases of domestic violence against men are not reported only, petty violence against men are also not reported!

It is high time we understand that together it is important for us to support the weak in the society whoever it is. Both men and women are vulnerable and both men and women are strong. The strengths and weaknesses cannot be divided on basis of gender and thus gender equality (for both men and women) should be debated rather than women empowerment.

Its too long a topic to write, but I hope I have been able to spark a thought in your mind that the humanity needs to be empowered!

Signing Off

Siddharth

Let me put it this way...

Let me put it this way... When we head for a long journey by car, there are times when we are enjoying, there are times when we are feeling irritated and also there are times when we do not feel anything.. there is a numbness in the nerves..We feel nothing is moving, the journey is stalled you don't have option to retract nor you feel like moving ahead. Sometimes we actually feel this is life also..Things look so unlike they are. Feels as if there is no one around, that sense of insecurity of losing things/people starts playing on mind and suddenly the journey you were enjoying becomes a dull, uneasy sort of a going. And this feeling gets quite complex when there are many other things going around as well. Some important works, some important decisions to be made, something you daily see/read/hear and all this makes it really tough to concentrate on exactly what do you want and that in turn drifts you away from what you thought you would do. You don't even get to know that you have been drifted as if you are in center of an ocean and the undercurrent has taken you somewhere. This somewhere is very annoying if at all you realise it. And you realise it only when after sometime you don't see yourself heading towards where you planned to. So now the bigger question comes 'should you even try planning the future? Well, as human beings we all do, but ideally we shouldn't. If human beings can't do what ideally should be done then who is ideal? Anyway we tend to plan future and if it does not go the way you planned it (which generally it doesn't) then you should ideally have courage to accept that which is easier said than done. So if you cannot or do not want to accept it then what is the way out? A long holiday? Isolation? mental conditioning? getting away from the people whom you thought were yours but now realising they are not? Or just such a thought just for the time being? I mean its quite complicated sometimes when you do not exactly understand what the problem is and you are not liking your journey as well. I often feel like some people whom I think are close to me, are they actually so close? Or I want them to be close and push them a bit and when they do not respond the way I want I feel bad because they are not so close to me as I want them to be. This is critical because a lot of decisions depend on the way they respond. Further life gets complicated when you think a little too much. When you see a negative macro atmosphere around you. See, in past 1 year when ever I have turned on news, I am just seeing how bad India is struggling with corruption, there are new scams unfolding everyday, we are seeing the politicians/corporates whom we idolised until recently are the most corrupt people around, we see the judiciary corrupt and when we actually enter the working area, we see a lot of things around us that leaves us shattered to the core, because in the transition from a boy to man you get to see a lot of activities at macro level that you never imagined could happen and then you do not trust anything. Boss growing up is a serious trouble. But still we all grow up (no other option) but there are certain phases in this journey which we do not like and wish thwy never existed! Signing off Siddharth

Idiotism Passion Thoughts Wonder

Dear All Missed the June blog. This year I had planned to write 1 blog each month atleast. But you know the honest writers cant write the way they plan to..it depends on mood; words do not flow all the time! This time its not politics but something I am unable to express from a long time. I am still perplexed about what I am feeling! I dont know why people live? What I understand is that there is a supreme reason why we live and that is we are given life. But then the question come how do we live? As they say everything is illusion and I often feel so. Everything is illusion except your thoughts. Ability to think is probably the most crucial ability that God has bestowed upon us. Lets take what I am writing, I am thinking this way this time but tomorrow I may not..But the fact still remains that what one thinks is the most important thing and rest all dies. Those who still live are those whose thoughts were profound and the way they implemented their thoughts was the amazing part. For example Hitler. One man's passion to rule the world changed the course of hitory forever. I am not discussing what he did was right or wrong, but the reason I like that man is his passion. How passionate you can be to achieve somthing. Gandhi & his way of ahimsa is known to all. That old man with stick, again, had that fire in him to do something and he did. There are lot of people who are what they are just because they had thoughts and passionately implemented them. Yes, everybody faces troubles, but if you have heart in what you are doing, no trouble is too big. My friends brother is a passionate cricket (SRK - KKR) lover and I love his passion.. I live in this world not because I am born, but to live after I die. Give this world so much that whole of it is proud that you were born. By world here I mean your world which can be limited to your family or your surroundings or your nation or actually the whole world. And all along never forget the contribution of those who sacrificed a lot of things for you. Yes a lot of sacrifices goes into making of a passionate idiot. I believe I am a passionate idiot. There are a lot of thoughts waiting to get implemented. There is a itch that somehow never dies thanks to my dad who carried the same itch to so something for the world. He is no more physically, but yes his thoughts, they exist. They exist through me. Those thoughts keep burning in me and keep me awake all the time. And something which I have never written before, my mother is the fuel who keeps the fire burning always. She is the power behind everything I do. Take a bow you two people!! And my sister who is an idiot herself. A brighter idiot that I am..That keeps me happy! Seems this blog is going like an award acceptance speech. Well it's not so! I just wanted to explain the importance of your family/people around play the most important part in your being able to think freely and passionately. Therefore it's very important for some people who have that tinch of idiotness to come forward and take the lead. If there are thoughts and passion to implement them, impossible is nothing!!! As the say: "Eventually we all will die, but do something that won't" Signing off Siddharth

President!

The President of India is the head of state of the Republic of India. The President is the formal head of the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary branches of Indian Democracy and is the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. The Powers to pardon and clemency vests with the President of India. Just these words make me feel that it is suppose to be the most respected and in all senses a sacred post. The current debate about who is going to be the next President of India is breaking all the dignity and standards of the post. Well, what is the reason for that? What I can understand is that that the post of the President is being politicized. And politicized from the time Sh. APJ Abdul Kalam ended his tenure as the President. That was the time I realized that how important is that post because I was too young when Sh. Kalam was being elected. I just had read President in my civics book. But now when I started understanding the political system of the country, I realized how bad was Congress and for that sake some other parties in politicizing everything. Congress and some other political parties have the power to politicize everything, from a poor kid’s death from mal nutrition to a starving farmers’ suicide; from a riot control activity to ‘minority interest’; from brave police officers death in Mumbai attack to Batla house encounter. And from last 5 years they are busy politicizing the most respected office of the Republic of India ‘President’. Yes they do say it’s a rubber stamp position, but Head of the Country should be held by a person of high repute, respect and who is not just another person who has been picked by some foreign national (acting as the head of government). So in last 5 years India have seen a Rubber Stamp Prime Minister and a President and for me the last 5 years have been the most shameful 5 years as the citizen of this country. Let’s have a look at who all were the Presidents from the time I was born. 1. Sh. Ramaswamy Venkatraman (1987-1992): Supreme Court Lawyer, a freedom fighter and an alumni of Loyola College Madras. 2. Sh. Shanker Dayal Sharma (1992-1997): Gradute from St. John’s college, Agra, Punjab University and Lucknow University. Gold Meadlist from Cambridge University and taught there as well. 3. Sh. KR Narayanan (1997-2002): This is what Wikipedia says about him: “Born in Perumthanam, Uzhavoor village, in the princely state of Travancore and after a brief stint with journalism and then studying political science at the London School of Economics with the assistance of a scholarship, Narayanan began his career in India as a member of the Indian Foreign Service under the Nehru administration. He served as ambassador to Japan, United Kingdom, Thailand, Turkey, China and United States of America and was referred by Nehru as "the best diplomat of the country". He entered politics at Indira Gandhi's request and won three successive general elections to the Lok Sabha and served as a Minister of State in the Union Cabinet under former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Narayanan is regarded as an independent and assertive President who set several precedents and enlarged the scope of the highest constitutional office. He described himself as a "working President" who worked "within the four corners of the Constitution"; something midway between an "executive President" who has direct power and a "rubber-stamp President" who endorses government decisions without question or deliberation. He used his discretionary powers as a President and deviated from convention and precedent in many situations, including - but not limited to — the appointment of the Prime Minister in a hung Parliament, in dismissing a state government and imposing President's rule there at the suggestion of the Union Cabinet, and during the Kargil conflict. In the country's general election of 1998 became the first Indian President to vote when in office, setting another new precedent.” 4. Sh. APJ Abdul Kalam: The name says it all! Now I am not going to describe the current President of this country as I already feel ashamed of having such a President heading the country. It seems like she was the only person left. She started her career as a politician. Let me put up some words what Wikipedia says for her: “On 14 June 2007, United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the ruling alliance of political parties in India headed by the Indian National Congress, and the Indian left nominated her as their candidate for the Presidential Election to be held in July that year. She emerged as a compromise candidate after the Left parties would not agree to the nomination of former Home Minister Shivraj Patil. UPA chairwoman Sonia Gandhi proposed her: (No Indian is now capable enough even to propose a President for themselves, pity on all big names like PM Manmohan Singh, Kapil Sibbal, Pranab Mukherjee, P. Chidambaram and the whole idiot fleet) her loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family was widely perceived to be a major factor in her nomination (It was a President to be selected not the National Dog; loyalty). With the possibility that she might become the first female President of India, Sonia Gandhi described her nomination as a "historic occasion" (Coz never in the History of India we had such a President who was being elected because of ‘loyalty’ to some family)”. {Words in bracket are additions and not from wiki}. So what is happening is that this country has now a battalion of heads who are there because they are ‘loyal’ to a family and not the country. This is one of the worst phases in the history of this country. At least spare the President! We do not need one more rubber stamp; our PM is being that for a while now. We need a President who is dynamic, reputed and not loyal to the country. The President represents India to the world and not a family. It’s about 121 cr people of this country. There are hugely reputed people in this country who are not politicians. May it be Sh. APJ Abdul Kalam or the CEC or Sh. Harish Salve etc. But please spare us from a politician. Because if again a Compromise President is elected or a politician or some body loyal to ‘THE FAMILY’, then believe me, this country is going to be in huge unrest. Signing off Siddharth

Don't test us more!

Dear All
Today morning Ketan called me up to inform that another scam (Coal Mining Scam, from 2004-2009) has been unveiled by the CAG and the loss to exchequer has been (as estimated) Rs. 10+ lakh crore! Whooping number!!
I am sure we will get to hear very soon that there is actually ZERO revenue loss or there is RSS working behind it or both.
But let us introspect as citizens: Why all these scams are coming up now? Was CAG not aware of these before? If these scams are coming up why some are made scapegoats and then the whole issue goes into the cold bag? I mean these scams cannot be done without the connivance of whole of the system. I do not believe the fact that we have a bunch of stupid people running the government; I do not believe that they do not know anything of this sort and magnitude going on under their noses; I do not believe that the opposition does not get to know it.
We have supposedly the best brains running the government for us. Needless to say that PM, home minister, finance minister, commerce minister etc are few of the best brains not only in India but the world. But the sad part is that they are proving this wrong time and again. And I cannot believe that scams worth 1.76 lakh crore, 10+ lakh crore can happen and these top shots remain ignorant about them. probably there is lack of political will or I must say a hell of a lot of political pressure to ignore these things when they happen and when they are exposed, there are set guidelines to be followed by the government. There is a set standard that if something wrong is exposed, all the mechanism in government (and also outside the government) will try and divulge the media attention from the issue, will try and harass the people who exposed.
The recent example is that of Lokpal agitation. When the government found it hard to counter it with words, they fell to extreme levels. Thrown Baba first, beat Mr. Bhushan, framed Income Tax charges against Kejriwal and did not even leave India’s one of the best Cop Mrs. Bedi.
So this is the very nature of the government that they cannot do things right and cannot see other people finding faults against them, else they will be ruined.
So what do we do as citizens? Not everybody can join politics, not everybody can go on streets to start an agitation, not everyone can shout slogans against the corrupt but what we can do best is VOTE and vote for the candidate who is young, clean and educated. We do not need to vote for a specific party but for a person. Yes the people of this country have time and again shown that they do change the trends but we need to do that radically in the elections of 2014 and show to these inefficient people that stop testing the patience of a commoner. A Wednesday (the film) was a message to the common man as well as the government and the system that if common man’s patience is put to test time and again, he can go to any extent. Somebody asked what a common man can do? The simple answer to this is ‘Revolution’. May it be the Russian Revolution of 18th century or the revolutions in gulf countries recently, the common man if unites, can change the course of history. We will have to do that if the system does not improve in time. Our patience is being tested and this government has done everything to stretch our patience to the extreme levels. We are running a system of a week administrator and a week opposition. Here the king maker is strong and the king is just like the king on the chess board, moves the way the player wants.
The time is close when we will say ‘Boss, enough’ and mind me the day the youth says this, the new chapter rather a whole new book on Indian History will be created.

Signing off
Siddharth

Budget Proposal

Dear Mr. Mukherjee
The budget date is closing in and today itself I read in a newspaper that government is busy preparing the budget, which they should be at this time. Preparing a national budget for a country like ours is far more a tough job than I can imagine. You have to have skills of a politician, diplomat, miser, visionary, party men and last but by no way least an economist. There has to be an element of propriety, thought of a king and feeling of a poor. There has to be the lavishness of a lion and cunningness of a jackal. We are fortunate that we have a finance minister of your caliber.
In this some bit of experience I can understand that it’s not only the finance ministry that on its own can make a budget. There are a lot of agencies and people involved in working for that all important briefcase of the year that’s generally opened and read on the last day of February, but this year due to the historic elections, it has been decided to open that magical briefcase in March. There are a lot of agencies, committees and people who are asked to provide valuable inputs and suggestions and also there are some unsolicited advices like this one. As a young citizen of this country, in consultation with my friend Ketan, I propose that the word ‘TAX’ be replaced by term/phrase ‘CONTRIBUTION TO CORRUPTION (CTC)’ in all the tax laws (pardon me, CTC laws). This has a purpose. All of the Indians, right from the former PM of this country to the proposed PM of this country know and accept the fact that if the government sends Re.1 from the center, only 10 odd paisa reach the intended receiver, rest 90 paisa is what we call corruption. So if I pay 25000 bucks as what right now is called as tax, I am contributing 22500 to the rampant corruption. And if I am salaried, my contribution to corruption is fair and square, because my tax is deducted at source (TDS) itself, which can be renamed as CTCDS.
We Indians somehow have this habit of living in denial and we have a long history to prove this. Right from Mahabharata when Duryodhan lived in denial that all the kingdom belongs to him to all the elections in which all the parties live in denial that they are going to win the election which can be very well verified in the current UP elections where there are 3-4 parties whose spokesperson are daily discussing what they will do when they win!
The whole public was confident after India trashed Sri Lanka in Australia by chasing 321 in less than 37 overs that we are through to the finals. The ministry of external affairs always believed (and still does) that Hindi-Chini bhai bhai! The home ministry still lives in denial that problem of Kashmir can be solved by ‘High Level Diplomatic Talks’ and exchanging dossiers! Congress party still lives in denial that but for them every party follows ‘dynasty politics’. Mr. Anna Hazare and his team lives in denial that government will pass their Lokpal Bill (I mean that’s funny now)! Mr. Singh, a famous politician still believes that it was not Hitler but RSS responsible for World War II. MP’s still believe that calling Parliament a place where there are many criminals is hurting the ‘Garima’ of the Parliament!
So there are many (or almost all) social, local, regional, personal, national & international issues for which we Indians live in denial.
Sir, I would propose that you set a precedent of bringing us out of this era of denial and replace the word Tax by CTC. Because this is a fact and we must accept that even if ethically incorrect, this is a fact. In past 65 years, we have not been able to curb corruption, so now is the time we accept it and do that in style. Please have a look at some of the changes that the change will bring:
1. Indian Income Tax Act will be replaced by Indian Income CTC Act.
2. Excise, Custom & Service tax will be renamed Excise, Custom & Service CTC.
3. The demand notice u/s 156 will be titled ‘Demand for Contribution to Corruption u/s 156’.
4. A return for CTC will be filed every year.
5. The income tax refund will be known as Refund of Contribution to Corruption.
6. The search & surveys will be conducted to find out how much a businessman/individual has not contributed to corruption.
Some of the advantages will be:
1. There will be no need for DTC as already tax (CTC) laws will become very easy to understand, even an engineer/MBA will be able to understand them.
2. Payment of bribes will officially be treated as Advance Tax.
3. The government will not have to worry about daily questions raised by people like Mr. Hazare
4. The people will actually know for the first time the correct answer to where their money is being spent.
5. All the money parked outside India will be automatically brought back, as no one will be afraid of keeping black money & if they fall in trouble, they can pay a bribe and use that as advance tax credit!
6. The government will be able to regulate the flow of money.
7. The RBI will understand why the inflation is not coming down despite ever rising interest rates.
8. India will rank among most friendly tax (CTC) nations.
9. The netas will not be called as ‘chor’.
10. Our reputation in the international level will increase as the successors of Raja Harish Chandra.
11. We will be known to be the people who have concurrence of what they do and what they say.
This is just an inclusive list and the advantages are many more.
Therefore it is a serious request that we must stop living in denial that we collect tax and spend the money for development of the country. We as the hard working people, the professionals, the businessman of this country work our day and night so that we can contribute to corruption. In fact we have a better underlying principle; we believe that it is development of an individual/cast that is necessary. And of course, when the individual grows, nation must grow (though debatable)!
Sir, my proposal be accepted (until accepted, I am living in denial that it will be accepted)!

Sigining off..

I am sad!

Let me confess…I am sad!
My personal issues are too meager to be sad for. I am sad for the fate of this nation, worried for its future along with mine and those lacs and crores of young people who live and grow up with a sparkling dream in their eyes. I am educated (that’s what I am often referred to as!), working, earning doing reasonably good at this age, but the thought that scares me is what will I be able to do from now? My countrymen are scaring me now because until I was I kid, I knew nothing, but now I am seeing things and the worst thought is that this is just the beginning!
A country that was formed on the bed of partition (with some men responsible for it), run on the wheels of democracy and exploited and developed at a rapid pace is now at a juncture where we are in a risk of pace of exploitation overtaking the pace of development. With all this development around, the exploitation has also developed. The one who wants to work sincerely and honestly has no or very little value, whether it is business or service. If I take up a job, I will have a routine life, with routine increments according to my degree and a routine dead end. If I want to start a business and do that honestly, what?? Business, Honestly!?? Business can be either run successfully or honestly in this country. Then what do I do?
If I start a business there are 14 odd government agencies who directly or indirectly get involved in it, if I take up a job, my progress may get restricted after a point and I am expected to pay my taxes honestly, I can’t use social media to my comfort (some minister will object to it), I cannot fearlessly commute in trains or shop in crowded markets, as I am not sure which moment I will be fired or bombed, I cannot enter into politics because I will have to make a huge investment there to keep senior leaders happy and with no guarantee of returns, I face the challenge of reservation almost everywhere demeaning my capabilities and thoughts, I cannot enter into good colleges because either donations are too high or my contacts are too low and there are many more things that force me to think this way!
I mean it’s been 65 since independence, after numerous elections, number of prime ministers, number of chief minister, hundreds of ultra intelligent people sitting and planning for me, I fail to understand what I must do and how I must proceed.
If anything has grown in this country at rapid pace, it’s been corruption. Along with corruption, ugly politics and transfer of funds to Swiss bank have increased the pace of exploitation. The number of scams I get to see daily make me feel cheated at every moment. Let me list a few of them:
1. Commonwealth Scam
2. 2G scam
3. Mining scam
4. Rice export scam
5. Tax evasion scam
6. Stamp paper scam
7. Taj corridor scam
It’s a never ending list and believe me this is just the tip of the iceberg. You put up ‘list of scams in India since independence’ on Google and it results in 57000 pages in .27 seconds!!
So how do I survive? Somebody please help me. I am not a loser for sure, but I need not be forced to fight for what belongs to me. When fight for independence against Britishers was being fought, look at the way those people fought, with all their heart and body and resources because they were fighting for themselves against outsiders. Now, I am being forced to fight with myself against my own men. I stand here as Arjun, with whole of his family against him, and he was reluctant to fight. He knew he can fight, he knew he will win, but for what and against whom? Own people?
It was unacceptable to him that time and to me now. But when time will demand, I will have to start firing arrows against my own men. Be aware, my own people, the moment I gain unity with myself and let my flood gates go loose, the history will change forever and for better. I am positive, I want to grow along with everyone and become recognizable and I am confident that I possess the power to rewrite history.
I am the Youth!

Signing Off
Siddharth!

Confused!

Dear All
Its been long I am writing. Was to busy in all the wordly affairs (if I must say so!)all these days which has made me a wee bit wiser.
Anyway, I can write only when I have a calm brain and some time has passed since I was last busy. I got up today morning from an eight hour sleep, after which I was a bit tired (you know when u do the same thing continuously for 8 hrs, you are bound to get tired). Relaxed a bit and now almost in a mood to write (you must already be finding the title apt!).
So, let me come to what I want to write. Its been a while since a good news has struck the country until we all heard that India has not reported a single polio case in last 1 year!
Well, these days all the Indians are so exposed to corrupt practices, that for me, its hard to believe the above fact. India has not reported even a single polio case because not even a single person was hit by it or its a fabricated number?
You know, being of this age group (23!) one is very positive about life and country's systems, but on a consistent basis since the UPA has formed the government the 2nd time, things for a layman and youth have not been very rosy!
We are so much exposed to corruption that a brain that is developing in this age gets corrupt automatically. In Mahabharata, Anhimanyu learnt the art of getting in a 'Chakraviewh' in the womb of his mother when she was just listening to it. We all are listening to the corrupt practices of government on a daily rather hourly basis, what are we learning?
May it be the 2G scam (where there was as per a learned Cabinet Miniter of the government there was 'ZERO' revenue loss) or the Aadarsh scam, for which a CM had to give up his chair, or the Lavasa project, or the Commonwealth scam (because organisers actually thought it was common wealth they are managing) or Mining scams around the country, or defence scams or whatever, everywhere the government miserably failed to show any exemplary decision.
Other than these scams, we badly failed in our defence (internal and external), railways, infrastructure development, economic development and pity on Moral Policing by the great Minister!!
Let us discuss some of them in brief:
1. Defence (Internal & External): I have used defence as a broad term here to include foreign as well as home affairs. Thanks to one of our Ministers, we have faced a lot of humiliation by some of his very irresponsible 'readings' or may I say due to him being very over aged for the position, he has lost his great sense of understanding. The internal conditions are not worth even discussing! After the change in Home Minister, we had some hopes, but all we got were some sick dossiers!
I think the government missed a political trick and defamed 2 of its senior leaders where as they could have done it without defaming the other. I don't know why the previous HM resigned, because he was also not doing anything and getting a bad name for it, the new one also did nothing and got defamed. Government could have avoided humiliation of one of its ministers at least! The naxals are still operating the way they were, rather expanded, Kasab is more confident that he will see his grandchildren at least, Afzal has now started shaving, first he had lost hope! There is still great corruption in police, rather tremendous. So the PC has caught a lot of viruses and failing miserably to reboot, needs to be turned off!
2.Railways: Hats off to Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav (i miss you as the railway minister), who in actual sense of the word, changed Railways for good. But again, politics takes its toll and we have seen some of the most furious accidents, compromising security, and above all, losses again!
We have again turned to red, both on tracks (due to accidents) and in books!
3. Infrastructure (no) development: I live in a state that proudly boasts only 2 -3 hours of power cut a day in cities! Thank you Mr. CM. I wish I was born in Gujarat or Mr. Modi in Rajasthan! Not only electricity, but the infra spending has slowed down like anything. Government, I guess is scared that better infrastructure facilities will allow more people to come out in rallies of people like Mr. Hazare and create problems for the government!
4. Economic development: Is it? I have been losing money in stock market from a long long time! And I know, government cannot do much about it because the concerned minister is too busy resolving intra - coalition disputes and pleasing 'didi' in WB! The head, being a super economist, is don't know busy where, and another good economist is looking after home (wrong job may be)!!
5. Moral Policing: This is humorous now!! Human resource development!! I laugh my stomach out when I hear HRD!! Kindly concentrate on the grass root level, Sir. Look at the quality of teachers this country has in villages, cities and even private schools. Pls make teaching a respected profession in this country, where when people like me delivers a lecture to CA final students or some other professionals, people call 'Master ji'!! Pls improve the quality of miserable teachers and condition of government and private schools. Pls give youth the direction they need or create youth leaders in every city who can guide the youth. Take young professionals in your team, pay them well, and see wonders happening!
On one side we have almost obscene Parliament, morally corrupt politicians (some interesting cases in state of Rajasthan itself, which involves a former minister and a few MLA's involved in a sensational murder), our censor board passes films like 'the dirty picture' and on the other side we are talking about legal action against social networking coz they freely allow people like us to openly talk about your 2G (Madam G and Bhaiya G, who was also awarded the title of 'Rashtriya Nasamajh' by some social media). This is height of hypocrisy, sir!
And in any case, the telecom ministry should have gone to the person whom everybody calls and tells the secret every time. So that he could ban outgoing on team Anna's phone network as well as outgoing on Ramdev Baba's phone network. Actually he got a phone call from some body who told him that baba is a 'thug' and disclosed it to the media!!
So we are in funny state of affairs which is miserable too!!
I am too confused to understand why the PM is silent (well not even the experts have been able to answer this in last 8 years)? Why is issue of moral policing is important in a country which witnesses a murder every 30 seconds? Why is fb, twitter etc are being threatened in a country which still has highest number of Mal nourished kids? Why is prices rising like hell in a country where there a highest number of poor people? Why is money siphoned out of the country where people in the country don't have it? Why cant we even touch the naxals and maoists and Kasab/Afzal when we can throw a baba and a peaceful crowd in a few hours?
There are a lot of questions and now I am hell confused!!

I hope I am able to find answers in my generation at least!

Signing off

Cheers!

Siddharth