Oct 30

Final Frontier Meekly Surrendered

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The Final Frontier was meekly surrendered on Friday 29th October 2004 as the famed Indian batting lineup collapsed for 200. The thing that pissed me the most is the fact that these guys did not even play for their pride. The Aussies are able to win on a trot because they play with a lot of pride that explains why they are not tired of winning, neither do we seem to be tired of losing. I am thinking of participating in the National Novel Blogging Month competition - where in we have to blog a novel. It starts from November 1st let’s see if it works out. Do send in your ideas. Well not enough time to post a bigger blog. Blog more later. Take care and have fun.

Oct 26

What have we become….

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Been a long time since I posted here so I am back after a pretty long time. Sitting at home is so boring, life is just too boring when you have not much to do. But it did give me a long time to ponder upon many stuff and that explains the title of this blog.

I have always wondered why there is no patriotism that is prevalent in Indians. When I look at other cultures especially the Americans and the Japanese. As I mentioned in my previous post while coming back from Delhi, Mr. Amir had an interesting story to tell.

One of his friends went to Taiwan on a business visit. He was there to meet a certain Taiwanese businessman to talk about the deal. Let us say he was Mr. A. After Mr. A showed his facilities to his guest he took his guest to lunch and an another Taiwanese Businessman say Mr. B joined them and then Mr. B took A’s guest to visit his facility and this process of one Taiwanese businessman transferring the guest to another Taiwenese businessman continued, the guest was confused and he asked the Taiwenese guy as to why was he introduced to his competitors by him. Mr. A, the original Taiwanese businessman told the guest ” We don’t mind whom you buy it from, what matters is that you buy from Taiwan and Taiwan alone”.

When I heard this story I was amazed at how patriotic this was. The Toyota story is widely popular world over.

After our Independence, patriotism was at an ultimate high. Possibly the highest that ever was. The British had banned flying the Indian national flag yet everyone had one. After Independence, a law was passed in the parliament that prevented Indians from flying their national flag except on 15th August and 26th January at their homes or offices and the flags could only been hoisted in Government offices. How different was this move from the law that the British had enforced on us? The Supreme Court in 2001 gave a landmark judgement which allowed Indians to do so. It took someone 50 years since the law was passed in 1951. In contrast, the Americans literally worship their flags. Was this stupid rule a major contributor to this? It is a matter of debate.

Isn’t this amazing at how we ourselves have killed nationalism. The divisions on the basis of religion,region,cast and sub caste further killed nationalism. Everyone is first a hindu or a muslim or a christian or a Bihari, Rajasthani or Gujurathi or a brahmin, kshatriya or an iyer, iyengar, mudaliar, marwari, etc before being an Indian. Maybe this is the primary cause. Look at the number of water disputes that we have in India between different states of India, the division of states on a linguistic basis was the most stupidest decision ever, maybe it was taken by the politicians for furthering their own political interests. We will never know.

We have always equated politics with crime and criminals and hence the common man doesn’t involve himself in active politics. What we need is not an politically active middle class what we need is politically aware citizens cutting across the classes. That is when the politicians have to actually deliver their promises that they make by dozens during the election season.
I think it is time for Indians to wake up and realize that if they sit quietly then they can forget about living in a developed nation because India will not develop if you and me sit idle doing nothing. Ask yourself would you want to contribute to your nation becoming a developed nation. If your heart answers YES then go out and reach people and let them know. This is an effort on my part to reach out to so many Indians out there on the net. This is my bit. My question is






WILL WE????

Oct 21

Finally moving my blogs here

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Finally took the plunge and moved my blogs from rediff to here. Rediff used to take ages to update whatever changes I incorporated in my blogs. I tried to update the template and rediff is still showing me the same screen. Tried to make it easier for you people by trying to add a redirect script in my template worked for a day and after that rediff blocked it. So henceforth you will find my posts here only. I am sure you might have all got the mail I sent you informing you about the shifting of my blogs.

Oct 18

Finally back where I belong….

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October 18 2004, Mumbai

Finally I am back in Mumbai… Had a wonderful trip from Delhi. In this blog I will give a blow by blow account of my journey..

The Departure:-
I am really thankfull to all the hostelites at IMT for helping me out pack all my stuff namely my pc and my mattress. To name a few, Sankalp,Rohit,Varun,Pankaj,Tanmay,Utkarsh and Raghav. I would like to thank my batchmates at IMT for being such great batchmates and I have learnt a lot from all of them. After hugging and wishing them all the best for the future me and my roomie Varun pushed off.I was dropped at New Delhi’s Railway Station by my roomie Varun Guliani at 3.30 pm in the afternoon on 16th October 2004. And we bargained with the coolie there over the rate he would charge for my luggage and we finally settled for 60 bucks. Then came the announcement that the train was late by an hour and 15 minutes.. So I had to wait for a long time for my train to arrive and then I loaded my luggage and I kept my computer monitor on the space between the two seats and then I was getting calls from my friends so I got down onto the platform so that the range would be better and when I got back on the train I found out that a family of four ( mom,dad and two small kids ) had move my monitor right in the middle of the space between two berths and when I tried to move it back in they protested saying they could not stretch and despite me asking to keep their legs over it they were unwilling. Then I lifted the monitor and kept it on my seat. thkfully an upper berth where I could keep my stuff.

People I met on the train
I met very interesting people on the train. What makes a 17 hour train journey bearable is the different kinds of people you meet on the train. Of course since I was travelling in the Rajdhani I did not get to see those people you usually find on Indian trains. The crowd of course is usually more sophisticated than the ones you find on the normal trains, but each has its own pros and cons. And I met some interesting people namely Mr. Firoz Amir and Mr. Sukumar. The former is a businessman dealing in fashion accessories and the later is the best combo of Indian talent… IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta he is presently working at CareerLauncher and he looks after the Mumbai region. We were having a very good discussion on what all things are wrong in India. And it was very surprising about what all goes in the closed corridors of power. Got a lot of interesting insight into how businesses in India manipulate the system according to their needs. Time just flew as we had very stimulating discussions and before we knew it, it was time to sleep and Mr.Amir was constantly keeping a watch on me as I had to sleep in a very awkard position as the computer monitor took about 25-30% of the berth so had to sleep with my legs bent. He was insistent that I keep my monitor down but I didnot want to disturb the family of four as I felt that if they had to get up at night to go to the loo then it would be a problem so I refused.I woke up in the morning around 8.15 am and the train was late by 2 and half hours so we talked a bit more and in the need only conclusion that we could think of was that we Indians have lost the sense of nationalism, the sense of being Indians, and how we live by the motto

I,Me and Myself

I think if at all we want to become a developed nation we need to change the attitude but would we change that is the question I am sure was on everyone’s mind as we departed on our own ways and I would like to take this oppurtunity to thank Mr. Amir once again for helping me unload my luggage, he is a gem of a person. I would surely be in touch with him.

Closing comments

I guess the blog has gotten big but I hope it was entertaining. And yeah i have moved my blogs to blogger.com and added a redirect since many of you know the rediff blog address. If at all you want to come here directly the address is http://insidevenky.blogspot.com Take care and have fun and do keep posting your comments. Cheers!!!