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..