Burst Crackers on Diwali !

As Diwali is around the corner; we will start getting environment friendly messages asking people to stay away from bursting crackers citing various theories as how crackers and fireworks could destroy the world and humanity in the coming years. ITS UTTER CRAP ! This post is dedicated to all those who unknowingly panic due to the triggered propaganda and all those who crib with half-knowledge.

The entire world is now aware of global warming, greenhouse effect and generic air pollution that will affect generations to come. There are many factors (most of which we don't even realize) which contribute to these ill effects and we never care, but raise alarm over few hours of celebration that happens once in an year which has been a tradition for years (or decades .err centuries). Firecrackers and fireworks emit certain smoke, sound, debris and create some inconvenience temporarily but doesn't harm global environment, ozone layer etc.

Biggest sources of air pollution as established by all major standards including AP 43 compilation of air pollution emission factors include predictable sources like automobiles, nuclear reactors, electricity power plants, volcanoes, wild fires and not so predicable sources like waste disposal, garbage, agricultural waste, cigarette smoking, fumes emanating from nail polish, petrol and even surprisingly gases emitted by cattle during digestion. But pollution caused due to fireworks was never ever discussed or acknowledged due to its negligible effect on a broader level.

So those who want to arrest pollution should first reduce pollution caused by vehicles, electricity, agriculture and industry which accounts to more than 60% of the air pollution.

Now lets come to a bigger topic called global warming. Again there were international conferences like Copenhagen climate conference which were held to identify and reduce sources of global warming. The reason for global warming is generation of greenhouse gases predominantly by oxides, methane, ethane and other radioactive sources; again nothing to do with fireworks or crackers. I don't understand how did these self proclaimed anti-Diwali cracker protesters got this idea - may be from the paranoia of smoke emitted from phooljadis and patakhas !

And the funnier part is that only Diwali is targeted by these campaigners. Nobody speaks about global celebrations and fireworks during New years eve, Christmas or every weekend fireworks of Disney Land, Disney World, Niagara Falls etc done by the most developed and environment conscious countries of the world. Why this special attention against Diwali ?

Diwali or Deepavali has been the biggest festival for millions and Diwali without lighting diyas and bursting crackers is like any other weekend. Those who want to resist our centuries old traditions can always stay back but those who are interested need not worry about any stupid propaganda.

As mentioned earlier, firecrackers create some inconvenience which should be addressed by socially aware citizens. There is a safety concern, but there is one even when crossing a road or driving a vehicle. Just like we take precautions and safety measures there, bursting firecrackers need to be done amidst safety precautions so that nobody is put to any kind of inconvenience.

Fireworks emitting light are more beautiful and sparkling than those which emit sound. Hence prefer those. Also clear the debris once the celebration is over. With these simple actions, we can stop people who campaign against Diwali celebrations. Have a safe, wonderful, memorable Diwali !

Dowry Harassment vs False Allegations

When I was younger, I heard innumerable dowry harassment cases which led to physical and mental trauma of women; newspapers, movies and later news channels were on forefront on exposing such inhuman cases; the media tried its best to create awareness and bring about some common sense among the educated and exposed youth and families.

Exposure to such torture cases begot a kind of intense despise and contempt for those who even think about dowry. And a direct consequence being our family never brought the topic in both my sister's marriage and my marriage and I feel proud that my parents were pioneers of the trend among our extended families, though I don't see it as any great achievement enough to proclaim. We all believe that's a social and human way of thinking !

I always believe anti-dowry and domestic violence laws are boons against such mistreatment against married women because of their support to women and strict punishment against grooms / husbands and their families. Incidentally I didn't come across any dowry harassment cases among my known circles till date (to my delight), but in the last few years I have been witnessing different kind of situations; those of false allegations, misuse of laws. Unfortunately most of the victims happened to be my very close people and I've seen (been seeing) the trauma they are undergoing. While I'm completely in favor of stringent implementation of these laws, I wonder if there is any way to check abuse of the same. An account of few cases where the laws were abused:

Case 1: The simplest of cases was slapping an anti-dowry case on a guy when he asked girl's parents if they could treat their daughter equally with her male siblings in terms of rights and assets especially when all responsibilities and duties were shared equally among sons and daughter (sic). He failed to understand that the demand was called "dowry". He claimed he never demanded dowry but was just being logical by helping his wife avail her rights (:p). However after some "negotiations" with local police, he was let go and the couple lived happily thereafter (!!!)

Case 2: Another situation was one of my friends who was not clearly happy right from the next day of his marriage; he shared his grief with few of his friends (including me) that the girl had a bad break-up before marriage and could not come to terms and hence had been aloof from this guy since their marriage.

I came to Canada and kinda lost touch with him. When I pinged him online one fine day to ask how was his married life, he told me he just came out of 12 month police remand and under-trial. I was shocked to know from him that his newly wed wife committed suicide because her parents forced her into the marriage; broken and depressed, she took the extreme step and her parents wasted no time to slap a dowry harassment case on this guy and his family. Reportedly, all of them had to be in jail, suffer atrocities which are usually reserved for murderers.

I was so moved by the whole narration that I could hardly speak to him. Eventually he was acquitted by court for lack of evidence but he still faces the social stigma, lost his livelihood, forced to relocate to a different and alien place to hide himself from the society. Again, if he had really harassed his wife to death, he deserved this treatment, but what if he didn't ? Who can compensate the physical, mental trauma he and his family faced ?

Case 3: My friend got married few years back and the couple were happy [sic]. But eventually the couple underwent some minor domestic arguments like any other couple and the girl moved into her parents' place. Her parents immediately filed an anti dowry case on this guy and his family (despite their living away from parents and no chance of his family to interact much with his wife).

The whole household underwent depression, but somehow implored the girl to get back to the family with a promise that no one will ever dare question her again. Fortunately, everything went on well after that incident and now they are a happy couple, thankfully !

Case 4: A distant relative got married recently but after marriage the couple faced severe incompatibilities and realized they couldn't live together. They made it a point not to get physically, mentally, emotionally involved. Practically they lived in different cities. Soon both families got involved, conducted many counseling sessions and unanimously decided to annul the marriage through legal means (which means the marriage was never considered to be happened).

Out of the blue, the bride's family demanded groom's family to pay a hefty sum worth 5 years of groom's household income, failing which they had to face anti dowry, domestic violence and many other cases which could have put the family behind bars for a long time. The poor family had to mortgage their only residence in addition to shelling out their lifelong savings.The girl is now happy; bought a nice car, sponsored her brother's foreign education et al.

Case 5: The case which I got conversant with recently. My friend of over 8 years married a long standing girlfriend some 6 years back through a registered marriage in Europe (against her family's wish). 3 years later when they returned to India to seek elders' blessings, the girl's parents house arrested her and filed dowry harassment and domestic violence case against him who has been fighting till now. He lost his peace of mind, senses, career, family, life and is also facing a threat to his life (sic).

Bottom Line: Now among all these cases, if boys were lying to garner sympathy and if they had really troubled their respective spouses, then they very much deserve all the trauma they were suffering. But the million dollar question is what if they are innocent ?

A police case can be filed by anybody on anybody due to different reasons. Genuine suffering could only be one of those reasons, but there can be hidden agenda, blackmail and arm twisting tactics, paranoia, schizophrenia, attitude issues, mental imbalance or innumerable other reasons. Its common sense that accusation can't be tantamount to conviction. But fake allegations and abuse of such laws can cost livelihood, peace of mind for many youth.

Agonizing factor in such cases is that public sympathy, police, laws, society always take girls' side, regardless. Good or bad, naive or conspirative, honest or fake - these qualities are not exclusive to any gender. If dowry abuse is a sin, so is fake victimization of anti-dowry laws. No two ways about it.

According to stats, its revealed that less than 10% of cases were genuine. It could only means two things:

• Most of the women who still face dowry harassment, domestic violence are not resorting to police and law due to fear of society and family. So the social evil is still there.
• Most of the women who file cases are fake. Thus creating another social evil called false victimization.

PS: Earlier when I wrote an article about female (in)equality in society (Read: Do women deserve special attention ?), some male chauvinists ridiculed me for having feminist views. I didn't care ! Now if ultra feminists get hurt reading this post, I don't care either !

My Misadventures Part - 4: Aimless at Amalapuram

Here is the fourth part of my misadventure series after previous posts

My Misadventures Part 1: Mumbai Masala
My Misadventures Part 2,3: Homeless at Anantapur, Kitchener

My Misadventures Part - 4: Aimless at Amalapuram

This happened in the first year of my working career (2004-2005). The incident was not as traumatic or painful as misadventures narrated in previous posts but if anybody asks me what could be the most aimless or worthless day of my life for which I have taken disproportionate efforts, this incident wins hands down.

I was in in my initial days of corporate career with a software company in Hyderabad. Soon I realized how important it was to keep my boss and senior members of the team in good spirits and be in their good books. One senior member of the team who was my virtual boss was getting married in a hamlet near Amalapuram, a small coastal Andhra town.

Few days before the groom-guy took off from work, I had a small misunderstanding with him which was blown out of proportion and I was in damage control mode; hence missing his wedding would be tantamount to inviting his ire which I could not afford at that point. I planned well in advance to join my other team members to travel to Amalapuram the day before his D day. But due to some last minute obligations, I ran out of time and as a result, missed the train. It was some 7 pm and his wedding would be at 8 pm the following day.

The first thing I did from the railway station that night (after missing the train) was to call my friend to locate where exactly Amalapuram was in the map of AP. My first mistake was to depend on that person to guide me because (1) she doesn't know a.b.c of AP as she was a northie, (2) she was realllllly bad at maps.

After some on-call support from me, I could elicit information that Amalapuram was near a town called Rajahmundry (which I heard a lot in Telugu movies and literature- thats my only connection). I asked the station enquiry desk as how I could go to Rajahmundry with a noble intention of traveling all night. He disappointed me with a news that the earliest train I could catch would be next morning at 6 am and I would reach Rajahmundry at 4'ish pm the same evening.

Nothing else to do, I reached home, asked my friend to pick me up next morning at 5 am and drop me at Secunderabad station which he did, thankfully ! The train was east coast express which was going Calcutta bound. I didn't know why I always happen to be in in such situations (refer to my Mumbai masala misadventure); I had to find some place in the general compartment. I ran like PT Usha to find the general compartment, but all that I could see were some desperate (more than me) souls hurling abuses at each other to reserve a slot to stand in the compartment; and it was a long 10 hour journey !

I, as an embodiment of foolish optimism, tried to find some place in reserved compartments (again with my Mumbai travel experience), but was literally thrashed out by ticket collector who didn't pay a heed or heck to my puppy face. Then I had to go back to the general compartment. Good news: All those who were on the platform fighting to get in, got into the general compartment; Bad news: I had no place except on the foot-board and heck it was a superfast inter-city express. I almost lost hopes and decided to go back home. But again the wilful laugh of the groom appeared before my face and I took no time to stand on the foot-board of that express.

Though foot-boarding in buses was OK, the same on train was a heck of an experience !!! The only solace was that train never encountered speed-bumps or sudden brakes. The foot-boarding experience was more tricky because I was feeling sleepy in that breeze (remember it was 6 am). This whole drama went on for almost 2 hours till the train reached Warangal (yayyy, my place) !

The toughest and most important goal of my lifetime at that moment was to get promoted from foot-board to the walking aisle of the compartment. I applied all my senses and concentration to barge in as soon as the last passenger got off at Warangal and hurray, this time, I had a luxury of standing near the wash basin (which was at its worst situation, smell, look and feel) in the compartment. But suddenly I remembered the saying "beggars can't be choosers" and in that situation I literally felt like a beggar.

The next notable station was Vijayawada, some 4-5 hours from Warangal. I spent that time sleeping while standing (and snoring - as was complained by co-passenger. I felt so thrilled because till then I never got that "compliment"). Whenever I opened my eyes, there was a guy who was narrating stories of his enemies, rayalaseema faction stories, his account of escapades from people chasing with sickles and swords. I thought snoring was a better alternative to hearing his bravado.

Vijayawada arrived. I disembarked myself hunting for some edible food. Finally found some chips packet as a consolation as I could not afford to go to another platform in pursuit of happyness. Hunger was better than missing train again. Otherwise my story would have been worse than Kareena's of Jab We Met, I happily got into the train and found a good samaritan who generously allowed me to sit on his suitcase (with its locks, chains, handles). Sitting on that was a pain in the ass..yup, literally ! But again the proverb "something is better than nothing" appeared before me in bold letters; But what appeared in bolder letters was the railway station board of the next station which screamed "Guntur". Before I could realize, the samaritan enlightened me that at Vijayawada , the train's compartments gets divided into two different routes, one towards Rajahmundry and another towards Guntur and as usual I was on the wrong side.

Cursing myself and everybody who came my came, I caught another passenger train from Guntur to Rajahmundry which took its sweet own time, stopping at every house, lane and villa. By the time I reached the destination, it was some 6 pm. I had only 2 hours to reach the wedding venue whereas the travel time from Rajahmundry to Amalapuram was roughly some 2 hours. And then I had to go to that small hamlet from Analapuram. But since its only a social event, I could afford to go late.

I came out of the railway station and saw a little bustling area where people were talking, yelling in an accent which I heard time and again in movies. I felt like Gulliver (except the size) traveling to alien land. People were courteous and I didn't find any challenge in boarding Amalapuram bound RTC bus. I must admit that the travel route between Rajahmundry and Amalapuram was breathtaking with Godavari canals, lush greenery, plethora of coconut trees. I then realized why coastal Andhra was called granary of AP. Rich canvas and scenery drove away all my frustration and disgust.

The bus reached Amalapuram town at 8 pm. Now my next destination was to reach the marriage venue some 20 kms from there. So I inserted my hand into my bagpack to dig out the wedding card and EUREKA....I forgot to bring the wedding card. What a timing, it was !!!

Then I shrewdly tried to call all my team mates who would have been at the venue by then. Bad news: The area was out of cellular network. Some bygoner said I was too ambitious trying to call cellphones in an hamlet where roads and school was a luxury. Immediate thought: Why the hell was that guy getting married in a place where normal person could't reach; anyways, time was not enough for analysis and introspection. I moved on.

Then I called my mom and asked her to ransack my cupboard, find that wedding card and tell me the address. She asked me to call 5 mins later. I called her 5 mins later, 10 mins later and 15 mins later. Finally caught hold of her and she said, "ok write down". I sincerely borrowed a pen from some guy around, took a piece of paper to write down when my phone battery got discharged. Wow !!!!

I kept calling her from a public phone and finally caught her after some 20 mins and took the address. I showed the address to the bus depot manager who said I had to wait for 2 more hours for the next bus to that area. It was already 9 pm. Then I beckoned a sharing-auto (shared driver's seat along with three more guys) and finally reached the venue (bride's house) at 9:45 pm and was surprised to see a somewhat deserted look :-s

After pleading some 5-6 guys, I was fortunate enough to find a guy who presented me before "alludu garu". Yayyy, finally I saw that guy, wished him, presented him the gift I brought. My common sense told me that dinner was wrapped up long ago. He gently asked me if I had my dinner. I said yes, so as not to embarrass him and myself. He enlightened me that in villages there, its a custom to have dinner at around 6 pm and hence dinner preceded the event. Immediately he asked me if I would join my team mates who just left for Hyderabad in an SUV. OMG !!! How could I miss that luxury.

I bid him bye with a promise to catch those guys but it was too late till I realized that my battery discharged cellphone was just a play-toy in that remote area which could as well be used as an experimenting ground for aliens and Mars !

By then I was strong enough to accept the fact that my team mates would have already left and I was left to my adventure again. I took a sharing-bullock cart (some good samaritan again) to Amalapuram only to know that last bus to Rajahmundry already left. Then took a lorry ride till Rajahmundry, sharing-cab till Vijayawada and private bus till Hyderabad and by the time I reached Hyd, it was 6 am. The exact time when the misadventure started the previous day. So out of 24 hours, I was traveling for 23.5 hours (except that 10 mins with the groom) in express train, local passenger train, RTC bus, auto, bullock-cart, lorry, cab and a private bus.

Highlight: After a month, the groom came to work fresh from his honeymoon and asked me "dude, why didn't you come to my wedding. I think except you, everybody in the team made it, (showing me his group photo with team mates at his wedding) !"

Never Underestimate Facebook !

I read this news headline few days back "Wife assaulted Husband who didn't 'like' her Facebook status". Reading that, I laughed out loud and I'm sure many would.

Now read these:

"An IIM student committed suicide because her boyfriend announced breaking up with her on Facebook"
"A 35 year old who lured a minor girl on Facebook got arrested"
"Youth robbed by his Facebook friend"
"Man arrested for Facebook status message"
"Woman arrested for 'poking' Facebook user" and many more. Even London riots that happened a couple of months back, Egypt uprising were fueled by Facebook.

At the outset, many think why and how a silly website can affect anybody's life so much; afterall its a virtual website and not a "real world". Those who are not active on Facebook will never understand the phenomenon of Facebook which affects (both in good and bad ways) mental, emotional, professional, psychological and social lives of thousands..err..millions across the world.

Life before online social networking

Before online social networking (eMail, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Orkut, Twitter and Facebook) came into picture, life was simple, straight forward and limited to known contacts who met us regularly in person. Social life was all about talking to relatives, cousins, friends, classmates, colleagues. We knew who liked us, who didn't, who cared about our day to day life and who did not. We knew how to deal if somebody had any problem with us because there was no way we could bypass them. With the advent of social networking, dynamics changed and obviously the "friends list" expanded beyond our managing capabilities.

Likes and comments

I believe Facebook is such a roaring success because of its features like 'Like' and 'Comments'. If these options are removed, I don't think many would write anything on FB, they would rather go blogging or write diaries for themselves :)

Now, talking about the example I gave in the first line of this post, the woman assaulted her hubby for not liking her status because that status message was in memory of her dead mother which was acknowledged by many of her close ones except her husband who was active on FB liking and commenting on all other stories and deliberately snubbing her status (sic). So the issue was not about liking a FB status, but was much intense, that of neglecting her mother's memory deliberately, which'd hurt her more. If there was no FB, obviously she would not have known even if he was having a gala time behind her :p

Those who are not active on FB are exempt from this kind of judgement for obvious reasons, but those who enjoy liking and commenting must be aware of such repercussions. Acknowledging and commenting on most of your friends, but consciously ignoring one among them is like entering a room full of guests, handshaking with everyone but conveniently snubbing one among them; they obviously feel hurt. Only that in FB, you can't read their expressions or any ill-feeling they nurture against you (unless and until you do that to deliberately hurt them :))

Making Relationships

Another reason for the success of online social world is the facility to make new friends, relationships which you could never have made in real life. Thanks to FB, the world abruptly exploded and you are thrown among hundreds of people who you may like or relate yourself with.

A reason for my addiction to Facebook or other online social forms is its wide canvas which allowed me to select my loved ones, choose those I want to be close with. Again there are pros and cons to this facility because all FB users present their best behavior and looks on FB, which can be quite deceptive. Steering across all such deceptions and finding right ones is a challenge in itself, but if you find one, you can have real fun.

Public Image

If we write any status message, that will be viewed by hundreds of people in our list who we may know well, know formally, don't know at all. Each person will have certain impression about us and anything we write may go well or against them, but the bad part is we never know how many of them judge us unless and until they present their views in terms of "comments" and "likes". So our public image is at stake (for those who care, of course, and even for those who don't :p).

If you write something utterly stupid, the whole world will immediately know how stupid you are, which is not the case in real world, because you never say anything before a crowd of 300 odd people. But the greener side is that if you are intelligent enough, the same entire world knows that regardless of whether they like it, comment it, acknowledge it or not. So you have to understand if you are really intelligent or not, before you post anything on FB while you don't have this risk in the real world :)

You can be an object of judgement based on groups you join, pages you like, articles you share, what you write in info about you, words you use (certain people suddenly stopped talking to me when they saw me using F word in some status message :p).

Invasion of Privacy


Your privacy can be invaded based on photos you upload, friends you tag (or you get tagged in). FB is a wonderful tool for voyeurs, peeping toms and if they are smart, they can pull out your entire janam kundali. Identifying who are close to you, who are not is not a big deal, thanks to your FB activity.

As mentioned earlier in this post, people are arrested for what they have written as their Facebook status message. So those who write inflammatory or provocative statuses are always subject to scrutiny. Some tech savvy thieves are always on prowl to see if anybody has posted a status message like "Hawaii, here I come", "Vacation to Europe" etc. These messages can be keys to your getting plundered :). So before writing anything, just imagine who can get mileage of your message.

Really Virtual - Virtually Real

Facebook can't be taken easy as just any social website or a tool for passing time. Its a world in itself. Whatever you say in real world will be multiplied in intensity if you say on Facebook. if you are good, it gets better, but if you are not so good at managing people and your words or behavior, God bless you !

You might have rubbed a lot of people in a wrong way, yet you don't know who they are. You don't know who all got paranoid that you don't like them despite no such intentions from your side. You don't know who all propagate negative things against you based on how you present yourself on FB.

Somebody is always watching and judging you !

Dealing with DEATH - Steve Jobs way !

Steve Jobs' death shook the entire world with a rude jolt. 10,000 mourning messages per second in twitter explains how much he is adored by digirati, gadget freaks, movie buffs, music lovers, mactards and residents of virtual world. Despite countless articles about his innovation, gadgets, his contribution to the world is still under-rated, because he was a freaking brain behind a concept called GUI computer (computer with monitor and mouse) without which our lives would have been diagonally, ruthlessly and helplessly different. 

As somebody said innovating atleast one among Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad would have made anybody a legend. This man created all and hence can't be considered anything lesser than God ! A man behind alltime hit animation movies like Toystory, Finding Nemo, Cars has contributed immensely to the entertainment industry. Can you remember anybody else like him who single handedly influenced, indulged, changed lives of millions (er..billions), may be just Thomas Alva Edison or Albert Einstein. But this blog-post is not about his technological advancements, business acumen or marketing genius.

I think Steve was a bigger philosopher than anything else. He understood and explained life and death with incredible ease by setting an example. Born out of wedlock, adopted by somebody else, he slept on floor, walked miles to have a free meal - his life has been a long fight and he always won, except for the last time. A college dropout turning from rags to riches could only be a good fictional story, but for Steve. By 30, he was a head of a company which made him a multi-millionaire, something very few people can ever imagine, forget achieving.

But the real fighter in him emerged when he was fired from the very company he built. How many of us could get back from ashes to build another company and achieve a status and success to make same people who fired him begging him to come back. That needs real kickass conviction, belief, talent, guts and attitude. Not that he was always successful, but he knew how to come out of those failures unscathed to achieve bigger heights. Only REAL HEROES can do that. That's lesson of life, he taught the world by example.

Rejoining Apple was only the best thing to happen to the techie world. Still he lived, worked by his own terms which only Rajanikant could do in his films. He never dressed in a typical corporate style (atleast I never saw him in suits, blazers, tie, clean shaven look - which is being followed by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg too). His focus was concentrated only on innovation and excellence, success just followed that making Apple richer than US Government (it's not a joke :p). He implemented what our favorite 3 Idiots proclaimed. That's some real heroism !

Now the tougher part: Death; When he was diagnosed with Cancer in 2004, he was given a deadline of 3-6 months before death. A billionaire, an icon for millions, "the" most successful innovator of the generation, a real life fighter-winner, a hero, a conquerer - became vulnerable to a disease at 50. How would we react if we were in his position ?

At Stanford's commencement speech at 2005 (an youtube video gone viral), he expressed satisfaction that his cancer was cured and confessed that he wanted to live more, atleast for few more decades (today, it was so difficult for me to stop dropping a tear or two when I saw this part of the video). He spoke at length about death, utilizing time sensibly before we see the deathbed. He didn't sound like a technocrat or a celeb innovator. He was just human, hellbent on turning everything in his favor, even death !

Most of his quotes are being forwarded, presented on web for the last 2 days, but my most favorite one was when he asked if we would continue doing the same work if it was the last day in our life ? It knocked me off my feet. As a person who witnessed death from such close quarters, he subtly but effectively presented the importance of time and life, which we take for granted. He didn't take life for granted both before or after his diagnosis. 

Eventually he had to come to terms that countdown to his death has begun; he famously said that he felt everyday was his last day as if he was waiting for his death. He also happened to read his own obituary accidentally published by some over-enthusiastic publisher when Steve was still alive. He planned his farewell dinners (:O). How strong should one's heart be to handle the looming death, languishing health, obituary messages, succession plans and invitations for farewell dinners? But even then, he chose what to do, whom to meet, how to spend his last few days (!) Mind-blowing. I saw this temperament in Gitanjali movie, nowhere else.

His birth, life, success, failure, death - none was ordinary. But he managed everything extraordinarily. Though we are talking about him because of his success stories, his life and death are motivational stories in itself, notwithstanding his professional success. I repeat, he is the best philosopher and a story-teller I've known who showed the world how to live and how to die - with an example that only legends can set.

May be, I should not get so melodramatic or sentimental about a public figure, but I genuinely feel the loss of this enigmatic, charismatic epic called STEVEN PAUL JOBS !

“I want to put a dent in the universe.” – Steve Jobs

A Tale of Five Cities

Warangal, Hyderabad, Kurnool, Bangalore & Toronto - for me, these names bring in a wave of memories, emotions, associations, love, nostalgia and a sense of belonging. These cities complete "Me". My association with these places in a nutshell:

Warangal: A person can go anywhere in the world but can't disown his birthplace. Warangal is intertwined with my life in a big way. That's the place where my roots lie; my parents were born and brought up there; I was born there; every anecdote I hear from my family since my childhood is invariably linked to the city. whenever I see my passport, it reminds me where I belong to; whenever news channels report anything about Warangal, a reflex action occurs regardless of how stupid or useless that news bite is; whenever anybody says good words about the city, an amusing happiness seeps in.

Ironically, I can literally count the number of days I lived in Warangal because I was just born there but was completely brought up in Hyderabad. In my childhood, 8 out of 10 families (5 paternal, 5 maternal) among my extended family lived in Warangal thus making it the only holiday spot or a getaway for me and my sister.

All my childhood summer vacation memories, bonding with cousins, train journeys, first hand experience of a rural milieu (my paternal grandparents lived in a village near Warangal city), witnessing my grandfather addressing village conflicts in his daily darbar, experiencing out-of-the-world respect from the entire village, being addressed "chinna panthulu" - these memories are injected deeply in blood and soul -to remain for life :)

Though my extended family moved to Hyderabad, there are many more relatives in Warangal. My parents and close relatives say there is our relatives' house in every street of the city at an average. When I visited Warangal to distribute wedding invitation cards, we visited around 40 households in a day; a Facebook group solely for my cousins (and a chain of their cousins) most of who belong to Warangal is 700+ strong :) This explains my social ties with the city :)

Hyderabad: If you ask my wife as what am I passionate and obsessive about, she replies "Hyderabad" without any hesitation. As said, once a Hyderabadi, always a Hyderabadi ! I'm a Hyderabadi by choice, chance and conviction. I think, behave, live like a pakka Hyderabadi so much that my orkut profile name says "Chandu Hyderabadi". Yes, I can replace my last name with Hyderabad. May be that's called IDENTITY.

The environment during childhood shapes a person but Hyderabad has been shaping up my attitude, behavior since the time I could remember (and earlier too). If I have to write about my love, experiences and association with Hyderabad, I should simply start writing my autobiography ;)

I wear my Hyderabadiness on my sleeves and the city runs in my blood. Enough said !

Kurnool: It often happens that we learn more about life when we are out of our comfort zone. Kurnool happened to me like a training center for life. 17 years of indulgence, whims and fancies were abruptly put to a pause when I moved to this city for my engineering (b'cos 4600 was too big a rank in EAMCET 1997 to bag admission in a good engineering college in Hyd). So initial few months were a unique blend of unlimited and unchecked freedom and emotional roller-coaster ride.

Being away from family was much more difficult than I was prepared for; I was missing friends, Hyderabad, love and affection while the entire world turned upside down to me. For the first time, I realized the need to take care of myself and build an attitude. There was nobody to guide, console, rectify. This environment gave me a golden opportunity of self realization which helped me get rid of my kiddish ways to give way to a more extrovert, practical and aggressive approach.

I don't know how my life would have been if I did my B.Tech in Hyderabad, but my stint in Kurnool has helped me mature in a big way. I slowly fell in love with the city, relished the exposure to a different milieu, culture, slang, attitude, ways of life. Four years in a place will automatically create some soft corner in the heart and I'm no exception. Now I take pride in my association with Kurnool and as in the case of Warangal, my reflex action works here too :) (Read: Remembering College Days)

Bangalore: Never in my life did I think, Bangalore would be one of the important places in my life. That was one of many other cities till I was 25, when my life swayed uncontrollably with advent of my girlfriend (now wife) in my life. When I proposed to her for the first time, she was working in Seoul, Korea and for the next 2 years she traveled between Bangalore and Seoul for every three months. So I had a chance to meet her once in three months. In those breaks, we made sure she traveled to Hyderabad and I went to Bangalore to spend as much time with each other as possible.

That phase is associated with so many sweet memories when Bangalore (and Hyderabad) witnessed our sweet nothings, blossoming love and romance. Bangalore was (is) so much like Hyderabad in terms of lifestyle and it didn't take time for me to relate myself with the city.

I got engaged, married in Bangalore and that made the city even more special :)

Toronto: If Warangal is my janmabhoomi, Hyderabad is my karmabhoomi, Toronto happens to be my dharmabhoomi (if this suits the rhyme :$). Toronto made an unimaginable, unfathomable difference to my life standards, lifestyle, career, image and what not.

Toronto is my first destination out of India. After studying, working and fooling around in India for 27 years, I got my first opportunity to expand my horizons in terms of career, knowledge and exposure. While I haven't done significantly more than what I did in India, returns were manifold. I'm blessed with opportunities, success, luck, good wishes, respect in such a way that today I feel I'm living a dream.

Toronto has bestowed me confidence and attitude that will drive my life in a different gear till the very end !

These five cities make my tale and hence I wrote this Tale of five cities !

Turning Point in Telangana Movement

This drama of separate Telangana or United AP has been a topic of intense and vitriolic debate for past many years in general and last 2 years in particular. But there is a stark difference in agitation before and after 2009.

Before 2009, there were some vocal Telangana separatists who went hammers and tongs, but at the same time there were equal number of people in Telangana (if not more) who were pro-united who didn't endorse separate statehood despite acknowledging and realizing problems Telangana has been facing. The very reason was they thought separate statehood would only benefit politicians and scamsters but will not serve common man in any way. And its 100% right.

But the day Chidambaram made the statement that Telangana statehood process will be initiated, the entire dynamics changed and the change was due to the flagrant expression of resentment by Seemandhra masses towards Telangana movement. Seemandhra agitation which started after that announcement openly questioned the rationale behind Telangana movement and started a campaign claiming Hyderabad was developed by them and hence can't yield the city to Telangana (the movement was actually for control over Hyderabad but ironically called Samaikhyandhra - though nobody from seemandhra wants to be united with Telangana districts (except Hyd)).

Though Telangana and Seemandhra protestors criticized each other after that announcement, there was a fundamental difference. Telangana protestors were abused only because they were fighting for separation of a state, nothing else. But Telangana protestors had more reasons

1. Seemandhra protestors were against their main objective of achieving Telangana statehood.
2. They have been facing issues with seemandhra people in terms of culture, economy, development, imbalances. 
3. Govt of India almost granted them their state but was wrested by a counter-movement by Seemandhra protestors thus arm-twisting the government
4. They had to bear new claims from Seemandhra protestors that they have developed Hyderabad and without their contribution, Telangana would be an under-developed, dark-age place.
5. They were dubbed as mindless thugs who were playing in the hands of politicians and nobody knows why they needed Telangana

These reasons obviously didn't go well with Telangana separatists, but also posed a grave identity and cultural threat to even those moderate Telanganites who resisted separate statehood movement. No Telanganite (regardless of his/her support to the separatist movement) could take a comment that their existence is solely because of somebody else. This was a major turning point for the entire Telangana movement which catapulted huge number of masses behind the movement and this difference can be easily measured with the kind of protests, strikes, bandhs going on today.

Till 2009 the issue was only development and exploitation, but since then it has become a true sentimental, emotional, egoistic and identity crisis related situation.

Contrary to the popular notion that Telangana protesters don't know the rationale behind their protests, a lot of them do know and yes, there are a hell lot of reasons. I have mentioned the most notable reasons in my previous blogpost in early 2010 (Read:My Take on Telangana Issue) in which I tried to present views of both Telangana protestors and Telangana pro-united people.

But there are still protesters and agitators who don't really know these developmental reasons for what they are protesting. They simply can't get along with Andhra people. That's because everyone of them has faced some kind of discrimination from Andhra people in their own Telangana land. This is something which a lot of people who live in Andhra and Rayalaseema don't know or can't relate with. Though Telangana people don't like Andhra slang, they never went to Andhra area and ridiculed them. While we can't generalize, that happened a lot in Telangana.

Whenever any Telangana slang or terms were used, their Andhra counterparts either laughed or "corrected" implying theirs is a correct way of speech. That happened with me too. My telugu teacher referred to Telanganites as "Telangana Vedavalu" with a pinch of agony that those "vedavalu" were adulterating the language. That might be correct but that's what these "vedavalu" were brought up around and they have been using in their own area. Their way of speech has been ridiculed in movies, literature and that's the baggage they have been carrying throughout their lives. Every person who is on streets today protesting for Telangana has faced this sometime. So they don't just need any economic, social, political reasons. Their identity has been subject to ridicule and discrimination in their own land and that's enough. Period !

The most important reason for the huge influx of Telangana protesters post 2009 is due to the claims that Hyderabad or even worse Telangana flourished only because of favors done by their Seemandhra cousins. A city with 400 years of history which was made a combined capital of AP only because of its rich infrastructure, wealth and resources and Telangana which is blessed with resources providing electricity, coal reserves for entire south India, which is blessed with affluent resources like almost 70% of Godavari, Krishna waters, an area which was the richest area in India before merging with Andhra - needed no "contribution" from any one region. (Read: Who Developed Hyderabad ?)

Telangana and Andhra were never together in the history, but were unified with a rider that they can part ways if they can't get along (Gentlemen's agreement) - which is now unfortunately not discussed. Ironically fore-fathers of same "united AP" protesters once protested for a separate state from Madras state because of the very identity crisis but cry foul if others implement the same logic.

Yes, politicians were reasons for this mess going on to an extent. But politicians can't drag students, housewives, trade unions, government employees to come to streets, commit suicides (600 since 2009 as claimed), lose their salaries, disrupt their own life, risk the brand of their city if they don't have that angst and distress in their belly.

I know that separate Telangana will not cure all issues faced by the region, but even independence from British didn't cure all issues India is facing now !