Wednesday, July 12, 2006

India's 7/11

The US took September 11 as their wake up call to terrorism, will we take the tragedy that occured in Mumabi on July 11 as ours ? All the progress or acheivement that I was hoping India would achieve in the previous post would come to nought if we do not value the life of an Indian.

Let us take the tragedy as a clarion wake up call on terrorism and what we must.

Indians in general are pacifists but that does not mean we have to put up with atrocities like these. Give the terrorists and their supporters a strong reply and let them know we value our brethren more alive than dead.

It is not enough if we say we will win the war on terror. Action must sound louder than words and the government must play its role as a leader..

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Mera Bharat Mahan..

I was just reading an article "The Myth of India" in the NY times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/06/opinion/06mishra.html?ex=1309838400&en=63b065e1403c4316&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss) and it really got me thinking.

The article talks about how the majority of India is still poor and about the differences between the haves and have not's. The comments make interesting read and gives an interesting perspective on how people think.

I personally think the article is another instance of people in the US using a high pedestal approach to judge people in other countries. We have different values and different goals. People should realize that money is not everything and that there are things (family, friends, and morals) that some people value more.

I agree some of the policies might be wrong or not achieving the intended purpose, but we learn from mistakes and we are really learning fast. To be considered one of the fastest growing economies within the last 60 years of independence (given our bureaucracy/red tape and growing population) is no small feat. In fact, we achieved this growth in the last 16 years. We have the smartest and most educated officials in the whole world (president-scientist, prime minister-economist) and most important of all, we now have the urge to do well and be successful in the world arena.

I am not saying we must rest on our achievements; one must keep moving ahead and learn from our mistakes. India is doing that, we are investing in infrastructure, implementing and revising policies and the government is becoming more an arbitrator and an implementer of social good which is the right direction.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Where is the winter!!!!!!!!

Coming from a typical subtropical clime, I was really looking forward to my first winter. It has been a big disappointment so far. Damn the global warming.. looks like very soon it might start snowing in Chennai.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

The Travelling Ticket Examinee

Indian Railways , the lifeline of millions of Indians, connecting the whole length and breadth of the country for over 150 years seems to be treading on a new path of professionalism and service, something which is bound to earn it more kudos than what it is receiving just now.

I was traveling from Chennai to Bangalore the other day (I had a reserved ticket) and found a TTE very different from the usual ones we meet on the train. A very professional man- he was pleasant in his attitude and very helpful to the passengers. At the start of the journey he wished everyone a very pleasant journey. (The very first time I have heard a TTE say that) and when he went around examining the tickets he made it a point to wish us goodnight. I was very surprised to see a TTE being so courteous. The TTE was also multi-lingual talking to people in their respective mother tongues with elan. When the time came for the allotment of extra tickets he strictly followed rules and allotted tickets to the right person instead of following the usual practice TTE's follow of giving the ticket to the highest bidder. When some people tried to grease his palms he was curt with them and told them to just wait their turn.

I have traveled quite a lot and this was about the first time I actually found a TTE so professional and service-oriented. It is about time Indian Railways get more people like this TTE, for it to grow and for us to have a pleasant journey.
As an afterthought, some female hostess like the ones in airplanes might also serve the cause..

Friday, March 11, 2005

The Ring

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them.

And one ring that landed me here- Ranganathan Street in the middle of T.Nagar at a time when the God Ra was in full glory. Now am sure those who have been in Chennai and T.Nagar especially would understand what I am talking about. The heat was killing me and the crowd combined with that sweaty feeling that is so typical of Chennai weather was taking its toll on me.

Before I go on let me fill you in on how I got there in the first place. I have a ring presented to me by my late grandmother. The ring had grown loose due to endless wear and tear and was refusing to stick to my fingers. After losing and finding the ring for as many times as there are stars in the sky I finally had to cave in to my mother's pressure of getting it tightened. Now, I did not want to get it tightened in the first place because that would mean a visit to GRT at T.Nagar and I was sure that if I landed at T.Nagar I would be forced to go out shopping with her!!

Now for the non-chennaiites, T.Nagar is like the middle class shopping hub where you supposedly get all things that are needed for your "Family". There are quite a few shops here which have carved their commercial successes here- Nalli,Kumaran, GRT... the list goes on....essentially a place where a middle class wife would find everything she needed.

Anyway I was hence forced to take my mother to GRT to fix the ring. GRT was crowded to the core. GRT has 3 floors and all the floors were so crowded that I could only just manage to stand. The lust for the yellow metal will never be lost, I guess. Luckily my job took only half an hour and I was out of GRT in half an hour. I was hoping that my mother would hear my stomach rumbling and let us head back to home. Wishful thinking!!!!

Ranganathan Street is synonymous with T.Nagar, a narrow street- filled with shops and more shops and more shops. Bangle shops, Grocery stores, Utensil Stores, toy stores and shops which sell edible items( and believe there are lots of these) etc..All these shops sell goods in the range of cheap to moderately affordable, and that is what makes them so popular. There are so many shops for each item with almost similar names (kumaran Sons Stores, Kumaran Stores) that finding out which shop is the best for the item you want is in itself an achievement.
Now all this is fine. Though I am not a shopping buff, I don’t entirely hate shopping. But Ranganathan street is different, for one it is way crowded.. there are lots of shoppers at any given point of the day, peddlers hawking their goods- basically too many people in one narrow street. Wading through that many people is in itself one herculean task, combine that with chennai's hot and humid climate you have a cocktail you would rather do without.

Here I was in the middle of the afternoon, making my way through Ranganathan Street just because my mother wanted to buy some Applams!!!!!111 The shop that my mother had decried contained the best applams were at the end of the street. Since there was a bangle shop in the middle of the street, we went in and bought my sister some bangles(I never knew why girls liked bangles anyway) .Then of course enroute there were some other shops that were selling some provisions which my mother felt were better and cheaper than the ones sold near my home. By the time we reached the applam store, my stomach was making noises that were hard to ignore, so we stopped to have something to eat(Thankfully). Finally we got the applams and started our back stopping at a few more shops to get some more odd things that only a mother can think of.

By the time we reached the end of Ranganathan Street I was sapped of my energy and so had to refill at a Juice Junction that was aptly placed at the end(These guys are strategy gods)

While sipping on my icy sugarcane juice, I thought

All because of that one Ring~





Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Alea Jacta est

I have finally set it rolling. Here I am writing my first Blog. Thanks to an inspirational friend whom we will call S~ and an ardent desire to express my feelings to like minded people I find myself typing my first blog entry.

Barring the quintessential essays and letters which I had to write to score in the dreaded exams, leave letters and love letters, I dont think I have written much. But then there seems to be something about Blogging. A sort of adrenalin rush, an urge to write down almost everything. There seems to be 1001 ideas creeping up inside my brain... feels good..:)

I have promised myself that I will blog till the Sky falls on my head. So until my next post or the latter -Let live and prosper!



website hit counter