Media - Mafia

Few days back, I happened to stumble upon a New Delhi based news channel which was covering a fatal train accident scene. The news was heart-breaking but what was more conspicuous was the reporter's continual rant about his channel being the first news channel to reach the spot and cover the story.

The newsreader sitting in the office asks: "If you believe the accident was due to the human error, sms "A", if you think the accident was due to technical failure, sms "B" to so and so number".

The media is called a fourth estate and is given unquestionable rights for bringing the news to the masses and keeping them abreast of the events and happenings. But what the intelligentsia, who wrote the constitution, didn't realize was that the very MEDIA could one day become a MAFIA.

Recounting the deadly attack on Mumbai by Kasab and co, their bosses hiding somewhere planned the whole massacre meticulously considering media's role and quite expectedly for them, media played an unpaid accomplice to their evil acts. When the security and Mumbai police tried to scatter the journalists, then started a debate on national television as whether those journalists have "rights" to cover the "event" or not. Sick.

I remember another funny incident when Arthi Agarwal got married in Hyderabad, jokers from TV9 barged into their private celebrations and when stopped by the actress' dad and brother, they were slammed an FIR and dragged behind the bars (oh yeah, on the very memorable day) and later got released on "humanitarian grounds"; and that was boasted on the TV as breaking news for the next few days.

News agencies which, during their inception, garnered popularity through their "hidden camera sting operations" started publishing the news selectively because not all sting-victims could offer lucrative packages to the big bosses of media houses, rather interesting, huh.

National, regional or vernacular print or electronic media house; politicians have friends everywhere. In some cases, owned by them too. Come election season, we can't really distinguish between a newspaper or a political party manifesto. Hawala cases, sting operations, horse trading videos would be published by one channel and the other channel vehemently tries to refute or defend the accused.

In the whole circus, viewers and readers are taken for a ride, and an optimistic lot will derive entertainment out of the nastiest, crudest and most biased news presentations too :)

Moving out the political affiliations and twisted reports, the other section of news media which is even worse is the gossip tabloid kind of sources. The only end objective would be bagging as many eye-balls as possible, even at the cost of the most insane and ambiguous headlines and the most senseless stories. For any such crude and down-market news, "great andhra", "mid day" are always there.

Movie reviewers fascinate me. Its a white secret that every well-known reviewer has his/her own set of "favorite" stars or directors and here favorite can be creatively or financially :)

There are some exclusive tv channels which take pride in being "gossip" channels. The more intelligent news channels broadcast obscene mms clips and scandals of people in compromising positions with an intent of "social welfare". And everything is strictly to present "news" to the viewers. TRPs, huh !!!!

Stupid debates, frivolous shows and stories instead of news - Thats a new era mafia, err....media. Those who watched "Rann" and "Peepli Live" would not take long to agree with me.

My brush with media:

I was professionally involved in some media related activities when I was working as a marketing face of my respective companies back home in India and here in Canada too.

Before my stint with press releases, press conferences for my companies, I assumed that the way to get into news is through excellence or success in the field. But later realized its not per sē. Excellence is good for us, not the media - This is the basic tenet I failed to grasp initially.

An industry defining alliance, debut of a new generation product, multi-million deal - nothing is a better news than a silly plagiarized and unimpressive press note which can rake in the moolah for the publication in form of cash or kind.

More diplomatic publications ask for donations or advertisements to publish our press release or arrange a press conference. If we don't oblige and if they need stories, they will publish our story and edit it to the core to make sure the gist is lost or the person who didn't succumb to their demands is eclipsed. After-all its their call :)

So next time when you watch a news channel or read a news paper, have a pinch of salt in your hands and if you want your own story to be broadcasted or published, have a fat paycheck in your hands. Know that you are dealing with MAFIA.

Indo-Pak Enmity - Who is responsible ?

The second bloodiest dispute and the most volatile issue on Planet Earth - Kashmir tussle; and as usual everybody has an opinion about it and no prizes for guessing that I have an opinion too.

Common man of India and Pakistan fume at the name of his neighboring country and their patriotism is directly proportionate to the hatred towards their betenoire nation, thanks to the structural programming of historians, politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats and media on both sides of the border. But there are a lot of things which are conveniently forgotten and deliberately avoided.

A conflict doesn't arise by bad moves by only one side and Indo-Pak issue is a perfect example which resulted in decades of mistrust, animosity and hatred despite common culture, tastes, social issues and thought process. The fact that simmering Kashmir dispute is a residue of Partitioning British India doesn't need any mention. Looking back at the facts:

Pakistan has been divided from India on the pretext of Muslim sovereignty to balance Hindu domination on the minority. But the history says otherwise. Islam's advent in India dates back to 10th century AD and for a millennium, muslims became a part of India, Indian culture, tradition, contributed to the heritage, ruled the country; Yet there was not an iota of religious discrimination against Muslims.

Muslims were as much responsible for attaining freedom as Hindus were. Iqbal penned the omnipresent "Sara Jahan Se Acha, Hindustan Hamara" in the very 20th century and Md.Jinnah himself was a vocal freedom fighter which shows the religious unity amongst all Indians irrespective of their faith. Then where did this religious intolerance against Muslims come in all of a sudden in a span of few months ?

Yes, the answers are personal ambitions, egos and mutual mistrust and of course British's divide and rule policy. MK Gandhi in an attempt to pacify one side, became a victim of another side; provocative speeches, negative instigation played its part and rest is the history. Nehru and Jinnah are the culprits and anybody with some grey matter in their mind would agree to this.

A newborn country was torn into pieces just on the basis of religion. But ironically the number of Muslims in India are almost equal (or maybe more) as those in Pakistan and the proportion of land and resources which got divided too refuted all laws of proportion. India got a raw deal. Partition saw the bloodiest massacres of human history and the mutual hatred was nothing but imminent.

Darkest era of South Asian history was only at its dawn yet. the worst was yet to come.

Race among annexing states started and Pakistan got the raw deal here. Hyderabad, Junagadh were forcedly annexed into India though police action because the population were largely Hindus, though the rulers resisted. But Kashmir's decision was left to the Hindu ruler and not Muslim majority population. This again refuted all principles of justice. This is a scar on Pakistan's self respect, identity which denies to fade away for decades. Further India's beloved PM Indira Gandhi interfered into Pakistan's internal politics to break Bangladesh away which was a catalyst to the already bruised situation.

Today for Indians, Pakistan is a country which was broken away from their motherland for people following a foreign faith, a country which is now trying to usurp Kashmir from them, sending infiltrators, terrorists to their country. For Pakistanis, India is a country which tried to inflict insults and wounds before partition through domination and then forcefully wrested Hyderabad, Junagadh, broke Bangladesh from Pakistan and now committing atrocities on Muslim majority Kashmir which should belong to Pakistan.

Can we blame anybody? No !!! Both sides have been demonstrating their evil face and the result is before our eyes.

Now anything that happens in India is squarely blamed on ISI and anything that happens in Pakistan is blamed on RAW (and most of the times, true). Pakistani military, Jaish-e-Mohd, Lashkar-e-Toiba are villains for India whereas Indian Military is so for Pakistan (and most of the times, true).

A coin has two sides !

Pure Hindi - New Age Sanskrit ?

विदेश में रहने का सबसे बड़ी हानि यह है की हमें हिंदी में बातचीत करने का अवसर बहुत ही कम मिलता है (विशेष रूप में अगर आपका मातृभाषा हिंदी ना हो थो ). और शायद ये दिन भी देखना पड़े जब हिंदी के कुछ शब्द बोलने केलिए तड़पना पड़ें (जैसे की मैं इन दिनों कई गतियों में अपने आप को पा रहा हु :) )


कहाँ जाता है की जो हैदराबाद में पला बड़ा होता है, उसको हिंदी भाषा से एक तरह की लगाव रहता है और मैं भी इसी धारा का हिस्सा हु. इसी लगाव, माँ की प्रोथ्साहन से दक्षिण भारत हिंदी प्रचार सभा के द्वारा आयोजित परीक्षावो में भी रुची दिखा कर सहनीय औसत से उतीर्ण भी हुआ था. अगर मेरी याद्दाश टीक है थो मैं शायद प्रथामिका, मध्यमा, राष्ट्रभाषा और प्रवेशिका नामक परीक्षावो केलिए बहुत कतिनायी के साथ तैयार हुआ था और अगर चार और परीक्षावो में उतीर्ण होता थो आधिकारिक रूप से हिंदी पंडित माना जाता था.

मगर उस से दृष्टी छूट गयी और हिंदी ज्ञान और व्याकरण भी कुछ हद थक बिगड़ने लगा. और व्यावहारिक रूप में शुद्ध हिंदी की प्रयोग भी कुछ सीमा के बाद कटिन होता है और विशेष रूप से हैदराबाद जैसे शहर में जहाँ हिंदी, उर्दू, दक्किनी एवं हिन्दुस्तानी बोलियों को मिश्रण करके उपयोग किया जाता है. और यह दक्षिण भारत के कई प्रदेशो में लागू है जहा हिंदी प्राथमिक थौर पे बोला नहीं जाता.


इसके पश्चात यदि हिंदी भाषा की विकास और प्रसार देश के चारो ओर है, तो इसका श्रेय हिंदी चलचित्र परिश्रम और हिंदी टेलीविज़न माध्यम को मिलता है. बीते कुछ दशक के कई हिंदी भाषिक चित्र और कार्यक्रम के द्वारा भाषा ज्ञान प्राप्त करने और सुधारने वोलों की संख्या बहुत है.


मगर चिंता की बात यह ही की इन माध्यमो द्वारा प्रस्थुथ हिंदी में भी अन्य भाषाओ (जैसे की उर्दू, पंजाबी, मराठी) का अधिक प्रयोग करने की कारण हिंदी की विनीत भाव पर प्रभाव पड़ना निश्चित है और अगले पीड़ी को व्याकरण बध शुद्ध हिंदी बहुत ही अव्यवहारिक और अनुचित भी लगने लगता है.


संस्कृत जो अनेक हिन्दुस्तानी और संसार के कई भाषाओ का मूल है, आज शिथिल और निष्क्रिय है और कई अन्य भाषाओ को भी यही परिणाम सहना पड़ेगा. आशा करते है की भारत का राष्ट्रिय भाषा एवं संसार का चौथा सबसे अधिक बोली भाषा को योग्य सम्मान मिले.


PS: यह लेख मेरी हिंदी ज्ञान को सुधरने, दिलचस्पी को वर्णन करने और चिंता व्यक्त करने केलिए लिख रहा हु. क्योंकि मेरी मथ्रुभाषा हिंदी नहीं है और नाही मैं हिंदी साहित्य का जानकारी रखता हु, मेरे लेख में कई दोष होंगे. अपने लीकित और मौखिक हिंदी का सुधार करने की प्रयास करूंगा :)

Software Bonded Labor in India

I've recently spoken to my friends working in software companies in Hyderabad and immediately got nostalgic about my stint with IT industry there. Trends haven't changed much and so haven't work habits.

As known to the world, white collared professionals especially in IT field in India slog for their companies and that has become a part of their lifestyle. Working 12 hours per day is very common and is stamped as professionalism. 10 am -6 pm would be the official working hours but only the start time is fixed. Its an unwritten rule that the time to call it a day should be extended to 3-4 more hours after the "official day" ends.

Quite often HR teams also identify that the resources (employees) need to religiously follow the punctuality..and again as mentioned, time to leave for the day is never considered under this "punctuality".

In one of my earlier experiences, the top management identified the need to increase the working hours and they changed the morning reporting time from 10 am to 9 am. I never understood why they did not change the leaving time instead, from 6:30 am to 7:30 pm. Oh, may be because they are anyways stealing evening time from the employees by moral policing.

If somebody leaves at 6:30 pm, they are looked with contempt or it would be decided that he/she will not last long in that company :) Keeping expectations aside, the employees themselves feel the need to work more to find themselves in the good books of bosses, some by addiction and some to avoid people back home and some of those motivated people who feel they are being paid much more than what they deserve.

But very few realize that they are the victims of bonded labor. This is how it works:

A low profile software company if working on an outsourced project (mostly from US or UK) will be paid $25 per hour. This is a win-win situation for both the parties involved because the outsourcing company needs to pay anything between $40 or $70 per hour if the same project is executed in US.

Now the company which receives $25 per hour will not invest more than $7 - $10 per hour for the project executing (including salaries, resources, amenities, administration etc). So a table profit of $15 per hour to the company is assured whereas $7 as salary to the resource (optimistically assuming an employee gets Rs 50,000 per month as their net take home). So putting down just the figures.

$45 (if project executed in US)

$25 (if project outsourced to India)

$7 (salary paid to the employee)

Who is the winner ? Clearly not the employee ! I'm not recommending equity to employees but the management of those companies should not exploit their human resources in the name of professionalism and productivity.

But an average employee never ceases to get motivated enough to work 12-14 hours per day. And HR team and top management always try their best to optimize employee's "professionalism" by expecting them to work for more than what they are paid for.

And oh yeah ! the very word "overtime payment" is taboo as an offer letter mentions all terms and conditions clearly. By the way, if I remember properly, the offer letter states CTC (cost to company) instead of gross salary. CTC also includes the amount equivalent to provision of free coffee, infrastructure and also washroom facilities, I guess. The net take home after all deductions would be a rude bouncer :)

I never knew and will never know the difference between this kind of white collared bonded labor and agricultural or construction bonded labor. Just that the IT bonded labor are provided plush amenities.

This is a seriously disturbing trend and pure exploitation of talent and knowledge.

Dealing with Negativity

Anger, frustration, disappointment, hatred - very strong and disturbing negative emotions which eat away one's mind and heart. Everybody has a choice of venting out these emotions: blurting out or forgiving.

Blurting out never repairs things and might occasionally backfire and will only prove that you value others' convictions and thoughts. Forgiving is possible only for people like Mahatma Gandhi or super-matured humans. This article is for those who want a third way out.

The way is to stop respecting or acknowledging the very existence of the source of these negativity. Be it people, things or situations. One goes through trauma only till he/she reacts to circumstances and values them.

Just understand that our life is way too important for us and we make a circle of loved ones only to make our life more beautiful. Once we start loosing our peace of mind, dignity due to anybody (including those supposedly loved ones), obviously they should cease to be loved ones and should be like any of those billions of people in the world who just "exist" for us.

Nobody is perfect and hence everybody has people who love or hate them. Just realize who love you and take them into your fold and everybody else would end up being some "living organisms" and nothing more than that.

If you feel bad as somebody doesn't think good about you, doesn't care for you, takes your love for granted - its only because you still feel they deserve your reaction to their acts. And realize that the person who backbites you is in the most convenient position to KISS YOUR A**

Congress Party - Boon or Bane ?

Indian National Congress is reportedly the largest and oldest democratic political party of the world with a very memorable history and leadership for more than a century.

In 63 years after independence, Congress party was/is in power for 55 years. So it implies without saying that whatever India is today, good or bad, the credit squarely goes to the grand old party. But what did they do to earn this power and what did they do with the power is altogether a different question. Looking back:

JL Nehru was more known for being an elite member and the most visible face among the political fraternity rather than his personal sacrifices for independence struggle. His affair with Edwina Mountbatten as a legendary folklore is more popular than his diplomatic achievements. His association with Gandhi, personal charisma and monetary status conferred him the prime minister-ship without any hurdle.

I won't mince a word before declaring my opinion that Nehru was the worst prime minister, India ever had. The kind of potential and fire in the newly independent country could have done wonders but bad decision making and mismanagement turned the tables for the whole country which inflicted a bad bruise on the face of Indian commoner.

Partition and subsequent riots that left a scar on both communities was very much avoidable if Nehru -Jinnah ego clash subsided. The scar developed into an unresolvable pit in the name of Kashmir conflict, thanks to his poor crisis management skills.

Current bitterness against China, present Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim border issues, unnecessary intervention in Chinese internal affairs by providing asylum to Dalai Lama, defeat in the Indo-China war are all certificates earned by Nehru.

Bad choice of getting closer to USSR and snubbing US (despite non-alignment policy), implementing socialism which brought in license raj resulting in todays corruption (read my previous article about India: History of corruption) remain the black spots in Indian history.

On the flip side, he established premier education system and presented a young India to the world, but damage done was much more.

LB Shastri had a very short but able stint but had to succumb to heart attack (or poisoning ???).

Indira who became the next PM had no other eligibility or qualification except being Nehru's daughter and having (Feroze) Gandhi's last name.

With the sobriquet Iron lady, she took issues like Kashmir and Khalistan by horns. India won war against Pakistan, shook Khalistani (separatist punjabi) movement, began nuclear program. Defense became stronger in her era.

But hers was a golden era for corruption. The whole system got infested with corrupt executives, bureaucrats, police. She openly encouraged nepotism by conferring unlawful powers to unqualified rowdies like Sanjay Gandhi.

The worst phase of democracy anybody ever saw in world history occurred in the form of "Emergency". When the whole country was against her and when she was about to loose her position and power, she called for emergency claiming that the country was in trouble ($%/?&?&%?*&). 2 years of dictatorship, tyranny and authoritarianism plunged India two decades back in terms of development and human rights.

Her decision of unnecessary involvement in Pakistan's internal affairs and creating Bangladesh gave a reason and motivation for Kashmiri militants and Pakistani intelligence to split Kashmir from India and the quagmire is getting deeper by day. Desecrating Golden temple gave a chance to expat punjabi families to scream ugly slogans about Indian democracy even to this day.

Rajiv Gandhi again had a unquestionable privilege to become the prime minister of the country just because he was a son of her ex-PM mommy. A guy who didn't know the demographic and political coordinates of India became the prime minister out of nowhere and the gang of sycophants crooned his glory since then and its going on even today by naming every airport, road, sports village, government scheme on his name.

Behind suave and handsome looks was an immature mind which created a new passive enemy called Sri Lanka. Again, like his mom and grandpa, he meddled with internal affairs of an alien land and thanks to his decision, both the Sri Lankan govt and the LTTE started looking India as their enemy and hence the provision for China and Pakistan to setup a naval and army base in Sri Lanka. His assassination by LTTE was another outcome of his regime.

Mr.Clean as he was initially referred to, smeared his face with Bofors scandal (mother of all political scandals), Bhopal gas tragedy and subsequent escape of its Firang boss.

Anti sikh riots that took place after Indira's assassination was passively supported by Rajiv but he gave a new meaning to "secularism" when he dismissed supreme court judgement about equal rights to muslim divorcée women just to corner muslim votes through appeasement. Uniform civil code (equal treatment of citizens of all religions) was never upheld just to make sure secularism is applicable only for non-minorities. Religious divide and hatred took a new turn

PV Narasimha Rao came as a breath of fresh air in the dynastic politics and nepotism infected congress party. He started abolishing the license raj, imposing new economic reforms, bolstering liberalization and globalization and earning the title of "Father of Indian Economic Reforms". He brought in an official like Manmohan Singh into limelight who in-turn implemented PVN's vision. India took steps towards being a nuclear nation under his era. Crisis management was PVN's forte despite running a minority government.

Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue and scandals like Lakkubhai Pathak case, St.Kitts' forgery case tarnished his image heavily (but as usual with every politician, he got acquitted from all corruption related cases).

But the sad part was after his death when his body was not allowed into AICC headquarters or teen murti bhavan and neither did the incumbent chief of congress, Sonia Gandhi pay minimal courtesy visit to his funeral. His legacy was demolished and sadly hijacked by wicked dynastic worshippers.

Sonia Gandhi, by far the luckiest woman the world history has ever seen, became the chief of congress after a brief stunt from manipulative Sitaram Kesri. Sonia, an italian by birth, a novice by political experience, an ineligible by knowledge about India skyrocketed to chair the most important position by becoming a non-ruling and unofficial PM by installing a puppet govt under Manmohan Singh. Sonia has apparently emerged as an unconstitutional power who takes undue credit of the development that happens, but never takes accountability or responsibility for any failures. Smart Move !

Manmohan Singh is the most educated, best informed, most humble and honest prime minister, India has seen as yet. He is more a working leader than a managing leader and has been doing exceptionally well under the given circumstances. Nuclear agreement with US, improving the economy, stabilizing volatile situations, breaking the shackles of corruption are few of his notable achievements. With a bit more authority over cabinet and bit more transparency, and bit more pro-activity, he can eventually become the best PM of India so far.

So the bottom line is that if India is backward in development, living standards, infrastructure, honesty, Congress is responsible for that and if India is a powerful, self sufficient nation, Congress is responsible for that too.

The Most Powerful Nation ?

US National Intelligence Council released the latest list of most powerful nations of the World. Quite expectedly USA topped the list followed by China, India as second and third most powerful nations well ahead of other UN security council permanent members like UK, Russia, France, Germany etc.

Any survey, any opinion, any debate, there can't be more powerful nation than US. US has attained this position with sheer hard-work, optimal utilization of resources, sustaining freedom and liberty, improving standard of living, augmenting defense might and of course a very intelligent image building mechanism.

Million Dollar Question: Then why US lost a war against minnows like Vietnam and now is on the verge of loosing another war against a non-entity like Al Qaeda ?

There are more odds than evens. Going deeper:

America is projected as an invincible, unbeatable superpower by (1) Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings (2) Foreign Relation Diplomacy (3) Economy (4) Media (5) Hollywood

World War -2 and subsequent atom bombing of Japanese cities as a retaliation to pearl harbor kamikaze attacks stamped US as a military giant. Before or after that, history didn't see any remarkable power display by US, except an illogical gulf war. Remember any ?

Thanks to its military giant image and cold war with then USSR, US was/is considered the most intervening nation of the world. Vietnam War was a blow on US' image of a super-power and world police. The setback against Vietnamese guerrillas was unexpected and unprepared for.

Two of the most bloody conflicts in the world history: Israel-Palestine and India-Pakistan were fanned to its current gravity by American vested interests and military support to one or both the parties involved. US direct intervention in Korean crisis, Iraq-Kuwait conflict received much criticism as US didn't hold any direct interest in the areas in conflict.

United Nations (UNO), an organization supposedly established to maintain international peace was eventually dwarfed and silenced into an American accomplice. NATO and Commonwealth jokers like UK, Canada, France, Australia were dumb American puppets as ever.

Icing on the cake is the ongoing "War on Terror" where ironically the so called terror is the brainchild of US itself. Al Qaeda and Taliban were supported in their inception by US to counter USSR influence over South Asia and now waging a loosing war against the same forces. Its almost been a decade of search for Osama Bin Laden and the results are known to the whole world. A serious dent on "Most powerful Nation's" military, exchequer and brand image.

The frustration was vented on Iraq with a lamest possible excuse that Saddam Hussain has weapons of mass destruction (more destructive than nuclear warheads ?@#$) and after not finding any such weapons, captured and executed Saddam Hussain for abusing human rights (not in US but in his own Iraq). Nobody else could question US' rights of hanging a Country's president to death for mishandling his own subjects (though the white secret is to plunder Iraqi oil resources). Incidentally US supported Iraq's weapons program during Iran-Iraq war.

Waging a decade old battle on terror on one side and selling weapons to Pakistan, an aide of terror is a hallmark of American supreme foreign policy and diplomacy. Again nobody could question them. Reasons ?

The single most acceptable reason for this American hegemony is "US Economy". the richest economy, the most traded currency and the richest treasury. Money power which results in muscle power is the reason and this is remarkably similar to the unquestioned and feared power of villains / gangsters in movies or real life.

With economy came the power to buy or control anything, everything in the world. US was shrewd enough to invest the rampant money in development in various areas and it worked out spectacularly well. This resulted in ubiquitous "number one" image of US.

Media played a beautiful role in projecting Numero Uno status. News articles, documentaries, projection of life standards mostly in English language which is most followed and accepted language of the world, made US a dreamland of opportunities for millions. None of these American crazy masses know the kind of development in France, Germany, Russia or China due to the language barrier. So it worked out rather well for USA.

Hollywood catalyzed a heroic image of US. Movies precipitated patriotism among American masses and movies of various genres like war, action have put US in a superior league. NYPD, LAPD, SWAT are always depicted as supernatural heroes (without delving in the facts that five crime families of NYC control the mafia and crime that affects half of the planet). The whole world along with Americans themselves patronizes these movies and idolizes American heroism.

Having said all these, I acknowledge that US is successful in creating, managing the image which is enviable and almost impossible for any other nation of this world.

Be an Entrepreneur !

There is an unwritten notion among the masses in general that starting a business or being an entrepreneur is a risky job and that there are more failures than successes and that it consumes a LOT to start a venture. 95% of youth strive, aim to land in a dream job in Infosys, Reliance or a well-known company, earn a handsome salary and "settle" in life.

The apprehensions are due to the discouragement from elder generations and seniors in the family, possibility of loosing money and time, lack of expertise, lure of safe jobs and early settlement, prevalent education system and many more.

But it has to be understood that the world we live in now is totally different from what it was a couple of decades ago. The very idea of venturing into a business is different in current times. The scope of doing something with nominal monies is remarkable. The government policies towards business have changed, economy has changed, obstacles have disappeared, venture capitalists and project financiers came into the scene. FDI is gushing in. You just need to identify the area of your passion and expertise and just add a bit of commitment to that. BINGO

Business ideas are born out of either necessity or opportunity and most of the times you don't need to invest a fortune and hence there is no stigma attached either.

There are highly charged guys who developed an online grocery software and distributed it to grocery stores which help its customers to buy anything from home. Developing the product didn't need anything more than software programming knowledge. To tap the market, they started distributing the product free of cost, initially, to build relationships. The business later evolved into a big software company.

There are youngsters who could write well who wrote freelance articles and started tapping the vernacular newspaper publications and then graduated to become a PR agency; pack of youngsters who started a staffing agency recruited employees for big corporations for free to get into their good books; people who created online learning software and started webinars; hordes of examples who have made their mark with no money, no office setup, no infrastructure involved.

Somebody's such initiative gave us Facebook and Twitter today and see how they changed the world with no big investments. Its pure commitment and clarity of thought!

The magic lies in understanding what you are good at and what your interest lies in. It need not necessarily be technology, anything would do. Planet Earth has population enough to generate demand for anything you are good at. Try to sharpen your knowledge in your area of concentration and give it a punching shot. If money is not involved in the trial, what else are you going to loose? Nothing ! Its worth trying.

There are people who have the entrepreneurial spirit but lack direction and right expertise. But this is not a blockade either. You don't need an MBA from a Harvard or an IIM. You have internet at your disposal. Stanford, Harvard, Wharton and all business forums publish innumerable articles in internet in addition to their Youtube channels. Google and Wikipedia are the best teachers. You can self-learn technology, management, business through research on internet and interact with captains of industry and subject matter experts too. Again, no cost involved.

So the age old myths about loosing something doesn't arise as long as you don't loose spirit and faith in whatever you believe in and faith in yourself. Strong mind, ability to overcome discouragement, adapting to changes, thwarting fears of failures will make a lot of difference.

The only thing needed is a passion to start something, be your own boss, create wealth for yourself and the society, create employment and stand out in the crowd. I repeat "The magic lies in understanding what you are good at and what your interest lies in. Try to sharpen your knowledge in the area and give a shot."

Yes, you can be a businessperson and an entrepreneur !

Invincible Heroes

Few days back, I've posted a comment on my Facebook wondering why do I see circulated jokes only about Balakrishna (one of the tollywood actors) and why not about others though everybody does the same kind of insane acts.

I didn't get a lot of response there but there were scores of people who told me offline that they got offended as I "dared" to compare Balayya with their Gods. Though I care a shit if they took me in wrong sense, I tried to understand what made them feel so strong about a person whom they have seen just on-screen.

I agree that movie is a great medium of entertainment and we like the piece of art if it moves us in any way and we definitely appreciate the person who performed to make us feel happy, sad or experience a kinda adrenalin rush or whatever. But how can an intelligent person drag the same image off-screen and start adulating him/her. Or am I too naive or an idiot to understand the underlying Gyaan behind the phenomena.

How many heroes who kick 20 goons at a time swirling in the air in movies are fit enough to face one average built 20 year old guy off-screen ? More entertaining than these stupid stunts are the interviews with those stars who claim that no graphics or body-doubles have been used in their stunts :)

Thanks to these kind of blind hero-worship, the actors started taking themselves rather too seriously and began their new innings in politics and few also enjoyed power. MGR, NTR (and family), Jayalalitha, Chiranjeevi, Vijaykanth, Jaya Bachchan, Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Sanjay Dutt, Govinda are the jokers of the same pack. Its not limited to India. Americans are equally crazy (read Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood). What did these guys do to earn the power or votes is still a mystery to me ?

During my engineering days in Kurnool, I saw two guys who fought bitterly on roads and came to blows because they couldn't agree on who is better among Chiranjeevi or Balakrishna. I heard about such fan wars which turned into ugly caste wars in coastal Andhra Pradesh. Heights of insanity and idiosyncrasy !

In the day to day parlance, the word "Hero" lost its meaning and is synonymously used for actors and fans can go really crazy about their favorite stars and can also wage a war against anybody who reportedly "belittles" their demigods. Yeah baby, "Heroes" are invincible, both on-screen and off-screen.

India: History of Corruption

[Preface: This article is for mature and thinking readers. All those who seek entertainment or fun can skip this.]

I was going through Corruption Percentage Index (CPI) published by Transparency International and as ever found all the five Nordic countries in the top 10 countries with least corruption. But where is India? My pursuit of finding India's rank in honesty again faced a setback when India ended up at 84th place. The only solace is that it is out of 182 countries :-)

The wise APJ Abdul Kalam's famous speech suggests that India is corrupt because general public don't do anything about it. 100% right. But what can an average Indian do ?

When a goon troubles a common man, he will go to police for protection. But most of the times cops abet goons. If the cop is honest, he will get pressure from a local politician who patronizes the goon. And as everybody knows politicians are invincible. If the person lodges a case on the goon or the cop or the politician, he has to deal with the judiciary which is equally corrupt. No outlaw will be behind the bars for more than few hours. So there ends the matter. Hence its so easy to get rid of one goon by going to a more powerful law breaker than following the books.

When a person wants to officially get things done by a Govt officer, he is expected to pay bribe in cash or kind. If he doesn't, he faces world of hurdles and positively never gets his job done. If he escalates to higher authority, he learns that officers in the whole hierarchy are partners in crime. What else can he do ? If he goes to media, he finds himself in a state of shock as he learns that media-house owner is a accomplice in the trap he finds himself in.

When a person wants to honestly start a business, he is never given licenses by Govt. If anybody wants to be an entrepreneur, he has to be a relative or partner of the licensing authority who in-turn is affiliated to some political party which is funded by some corporate house. So everything is already fixed.

Criminals have support of police who have support of officers who have support of politicians who have support of judiciary, media and/or powerful businessmen. It is a powerful criminal network or a mafia with a long 50 years of history.

If a cop is honest, politician transfers him. If a politician is honest, criminals murder him, judiciary victimizes him with a fabricated case or self indulgent media maligns him with propaganda. If the political party is honest, businessmen don't fund them. If the media reporter is honest, the chief editor stops him.

To avoid all these issues, an average and common India condescends to bribing. Hence I would be the last person to agree that a country gets corrupt because of the general public who resort to bribing. If the authorities and the system is impregnated with corruption, the public is left with no alternative.

Flashback: Lets make a quick analysis as how did the corruption take its birth in India.

After independence, the great Pandit Nehru, in a bid to emulate Soviet Russia formulated a socialist policy which supported License Raj. It means no ordinary citizen can do business without Government's license and Govt is the only capitalist and the general public faces communism. Indira Gandhi revolutionized this with nationalization of financial institutions.

But sadly Govt failed to increase the economic growth, per capita income and mean standard of living with all the infallible plans on paper. Figures speak that economic growth was 1.5% from 1950 to 1990. A phenomenal shame and failure.Poverty began to rise its hood and so did desperation which is a natural mother of crime. The famous gap between haves and have-nots developed into an abysmal gorge.

Talented businessmen started lobbying with Govt for "licenses" and favors. Those who are close to bureaucrats and politicians started getting licenses, contracts for businesses and hence established firms. Now the omnipresent Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis enjoyed a "very good" relationship with all politicians across political parties and more remarkably the great Nehru-Gandhi family who were in power for 95% of the time during license raj.

This politician-businessmen nexus raised the curtain for bending the rules, corporates started competing among themselves with their money power which gave birth to muscle power, nepotism, corruption among all levels of supreme powers of the country namely legislature, executive and judiciary. Corporate world's currency, bureaucrats' greed, politicians' privileges, have-not's desperation proved to be an flammable combo. Struggle for the fittest was the mantra of the day and everybody raped the system to be the fittest and nobody was made accountable. This is the system which turned into quagmire and a breeding ground for corruption.

Things started improving, thanks to economic liberalization and breakthrough reforms upheld by PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. Corporate-politician nexus eased a bit and rate of corruption decreased significantly. India became the 3rd largest economy in the world after US and Japan. With better economy came better standard of living, awareness, consciousness. But thats not sufficient.

The Roadmap:

The common man should be made aware of the "right to information act" to arrest the corruption. Ombudsmen, whistleblowers are working hard to improve the situation further but should be accessible to the common man. Anti-corruption bureaus should be unadulterated, public servants should be made accountable and answerable to public through transparent media. Putting this to implementation is not impractical but results don't appear overnight. Awareness and knowledge among the masses is the key.

May be in years to come, we see India cruising up in the index by Transparency International. Country has come a long way but has to go a longer way to heal the bruise inflicted by 50 years of mismanagement and bad direction.

Gandhi vs Gandhigiri

Albert Einstein famously quoted about Gandhi that "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth". Back home in India, Gandhi is revered as a demigod if not God. Nobody needs an introduction to the person himself or the kind of value and respect he has been commanding for a century. Gandhian principles (or the more massy Gandhigiri, thanks to Lage Raho Munnabhai) have created a kind of sect with people devoted to those values.

But there is no dearth of people who fume at the very name of MK Gandhi and they have their own reasons. It can't be denied that Gandhi's contribution to Indian independence struggle was overrated and over marketed by vested historians and post independent regimes to push their own envelopes and surnames further. There were countless martyrs who forsook their personal lives for the cause and who suffered or sacrificed much more than him like Bhagat Singh or SC Bose who were systematically pushed into oblivion.

Like every mortal, Gandhi too was vulnerable to some follies and eccentricities. His passiveness in saving martyrs like Bhagat Singh received widespread flak. His political decisions were confusing to his own disciples and his minority appeasement, in a way, catalyzed a fundamentalism in Hindus, which gave a way to "Godsegiri" and muslims always treated him as anti-muslim congressman. Nathuram Godse and Md Jinnah are considered more patriotic by most Gandhi haters. Gandhi was not clearly the shrewdest politician.

Bypassing the political discussions about Gandhi, there is much more. But the younger generation quickly takes their stance without analyzing the difference between Gandhi the politician and Gandhi the inspiration / philosophy.

Agree or not, Gandhi is the best leader the world has ever produced till now and more likely forever. No other man born on this planet could shake the whole nation as much as he did. In the era of limited media and communications, the entire country swayed to the words of the single frail man. He created ripples in the empire where its said that sun never sets. The demigod status or mass hysteria he created among masses is unparalleled and I'm not sure if that kind of aura can be enjoyed by anybody in the future too.

While his leadership and winning the unconditional love and confidence of his subjects is one aspect, another being the philosophy and way of life he introduced; that philosophy surrounding extremities of truth, courage, simplicity and non-violence.

It takes a lion heart to face the anger and aggression of the mighty with non-cooperation and non-violence. It takes a hero to stand by determination and not get bogged over by threat, might, power, hunger and still not retaliate. It takes a legend to influence the nation to follow his ideals and it takes an icon to be remembered for his lifestyle and philosophy for centuries to come.

Simply put Gandhi is an embodiment of simplicity, self-restraint, humility, truth, determination, selflessness, will-power that only a sage of his wisdom can attain. Gandhism was/is a way of life that can never go wrong.

We can never become Gandhi, but we can definitely show some respect to the person who spent the whole life pleading the world, not to hate. Gandhi the politician may or may not be perfect, but Gandhigiri is !

Oh My God !

A question which I frequently encounter "Why are you so arrogant that you don't believe in God?"

Thats false. I never ever said I don't believe in God. I always believed in the existence of God, the things I don't believe are miracles of God, mythology, rituals and tantrums humans have devised in an attempt to influence the God.

As I've mentioned in one of my previous posts, I believe that there is a supreme power or an unknown power or a force which sustains and balances the whole universe and life on the universe. For me "Nature" is God. Thats something which is not apprehended or controlled by science or human intellect as yet. Nobody knows about that God and hence its perfectly OK to respect and revere that power as thats something which is bolstering our life.

But what I don't see eye to eye is when people assume that God is somebody who decides and controls the past, present, future of billions of people individually and we can influence God's decisions by performing rituals.

For me, religion is a way of life and performing rituals is an individual choice. The customs and rituals have been started by humans some centuries ago because they felt thats the way to appease the God or show their gratitude to that power and if they have done that, that doesn't mean they are always correct. Just that I don't see any meaning in following the same traditions and rites and if that means I'm haughty enough to override the almighty, I don't really mind it.

And if I'm doing a vratham at home or going to temple, its for the family and definitely not to influence the God to take my side.

Confused Desis

Few months ago I met a young man who recently came to Toronto from India in pursuit of a new career and a new life. He had that anxiety in eyes which reminded me of my own arrival here. He'z hard working, down to earth and was clear about what to accomplish in his new phase of life.

That was his first overseas trip and soon started to feel left out or a kinda inferior to the local Caucasians and local born and brought up desi diaspora in dress, behavior, cuisine, english accent and other ways of life and started to desperately own the local attributes soon. Nothing wrong in getting used to local ways of life, but in a bid to get completely into it, started ridiculing desi attitude or as he calls it "brown attitude".

And there came a day when he loathed a very sight of "desi crowd" or "desi neighborhoods" without realizing that desi crowds are formed by people like him. He feels shy to be a part of get togethers and cultural programmes which even remotely talk about Indian-ness. He calls Toyota Camry as a desi car and associates the word "desi" to every possible caricature describing Indian. And he is not the only case.

There are many such people for whom Indian movies, Indian groceries, Indian restaurants are a big no-no. Few kids start avoiding lunch boxes from homes as they might feel inferior to their firang friends while eating "brown food".

While I'm not a jingoist who vehemently believes in chanting 'Mera Bharat Mahaan' at every given opportunity, I'm quite amused at this kind of 'disowning' behavior of certain class of NRIs. I agree India is not the greatest country in this world and neither are our accent, cuisines, movies, etiquette, tastes the best, but does that mean you start hating that ?

Its OK to avoid if one genuinely doesn't like these Indian flavors, but despising just to be a part of mainstream is a symptom of confused and sheep mentality. Changing our identity and personality to appease somebody else is pathetic and ludicrous.

Though we change everything about our lifestyle, though we forgo Diwali, Dusshera and start celebrating only Halloween and Thanksgiving; we can't change our skin, our lineage and our ancestry. Whatever we are, we have our roots and origin. Irrespective of the fact if it is great or not, we are products of that origin. And we don't need to be the best or greatest to feel proud of that or own that.

I'm brown, I look and talk like a brown guy, my tastes and attitude reflect my upbringing and the environment I'm brought up in and I never felt sorry about my background or never felt a need to justify my stance or appease anybody...and I'm successful in this alien land.

PS: Also read my other post in this blog by the subject line "Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani" where I presented my opinion on other extreme :)

Sooperstitious, huh !!!

FIFA World Cup 2010 ended. But this tournament will be known more for "Octopus Paul" than the talent and hardwork of all those 32 teams. News sources throughout the world went gaga over the eight legged creature and so did tabloids, grapevine, bar-tables, facebook, twitter etc. Predictions of Paul notwithstanding, millions across continents started to believe the forecast, countries started proposing state security et al and funnily none of these people agree they are superstitious..lolll.

When a creature selects one among the two given options and it happens to be correct, why can't that be a coincidence ? Isn't it rational. Agree that the series of "predictions" went correct but does that provide a proof for the psyche of an octopus ? How about the movements of 22 people of 2 teams, their passes, dives, cards, goals..will none of these affect the match outcome ? Will the octopus display restraint if a non playing team is given as one of the choices or both ? There are people who win for 20 succeeding hands in Poker, can they predict anything ?

Thinking on a broader spectrum, am always amused to see the astrology / tarot card predictions given in newspapers everyday. They sometimes say Taureans will be successful in whatever they take up that day. Does that mean all millions of Taureans across the world can do anything and find success that day ? Linda Goodman wrote books on compatibility and behavior of people belonging to various zodiac signs, does that mean all Taureans get along with all Taureans and go against all Geminians ?

Nostradamus and our very own Veerabrahmendra Swamy predicted a lot of generic things which are anyways bound to happen. And people started at looking them as guiding forces. Didn't their predictions too, go wrong?

Did anybody ever wonder why predictors of various degrees, right from astrologers to palmists, match makers, numerologists, clairvoyants, fengshui experts, psychics, magician swamijis who claim to be knowing and predicting everything leading a not so successful life ?

Future is something which happens due to various activities and decisions taken by a lot of people and forces involved. Future is not a definite thing to predict, that may be changed with any change in the action committed by anyone. So NOBODY can claim what future can be unless and until all these forces resulting in something can be controlled.

Future can neither be predicted and nor can it be influenced by any other super natural powers except the forces in our control and reach. Stars, planets their positions and orbits can balance the Universe and thats astronomy. But they can't decide the outcome of somebody's destiny based on the time of their birth and time of marriage. Stars and galaxies don't have time to do that for billions of creatures on the earth !

Now am going to write something which might not go into the good books of most people who have been programmed by the family, society and community as a whole.

I don't deny or debate the existence of a supernatural-power (GOD) which is behind the existence, balancing and continuous support of this mighty universe and life on it; but am the last to agree if anybody says that we can influence this mighty One by praying, performing rituals, vratams, requesting for favors, thanking for results etc.

The belief and faith of God has been introduced to us by our previous generations in order to promote virtue and overcome vice. Any superstition is good only until it affects our psyche, behavior, thought and personality in a negative way. Period !

PS: I understand that these are sensitive issues and if I hurt anybody through this article, its absolutely unintentional. Its my personal opinion.

My Dad is Great – Happy Father’s Day, Nanna !

Few years back, I saw an email forward, which I fortunately didn’t move to trash folder. It says

What a person thinks:

At 4 years, “My Dad is great”

At 6 years “My Dad knows everything”

At 10 years “My Dad is good, but I know as much as he knows”

At 16 years “MY Dad is not in line with the current times”

At 20 years “My Dad doesn’t know as much as I know”

At 25 years “My Dad is behaving unreasonably. Why can’t he understand my thoughts?”

At 35 years “I can’t manage my son and family. Don’t know how my Dad used to handle things at my age”

At 40 years “My dad brought me up with so much discipline and values. Whatever I’m today is because of him”

At 50 years “My Dad went through so many hardships to bring us up. I never realized that before”

At 55 years “My Dad spent his whole life for us. At this age too, he still does that”

At 60 years “My Dad’s great”

Don’t take so many years. Realize it in time

Isn’t this touching enough?

The most precious or the only unconditional thing in the universe is the Parents – Children relationship and any specific day is not needed to show our love towards Mom or Dad. But we definitely need a day to acknowledge, celebrate and express the love we have towards them and make them feel happy as we don’t really do that everyday.

Nanna, You are the Best ! Love You. Happy Fathers Day !

Also wish my grand father, mamas, pedanannas, babais, dad-in-law, cousins, friends a very Happy Father's Day !

Love to all Fathers ! Hail Fatherhood !

Un"social" Networking

Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, MySpace, Blogs, Instant Messengers, eMails, SMSes....life is tough without these huh :)

A decade ago, when I was in my third year of engineering, the very concept of internet or email was so revolutionary and anybody who has an email id was treated like a techie whizkid. Owning a laptop was an extravagant luxury. Pager was fad and cellphones unknown. Computers were only used by software developers or high end white collar professionals. Otherwise the devices were only for playing video games.

But..people used to meet each other, talk to each other, greet each other, which was in that epoch called social networking - b'cos thats all about being in and with society.

Perhaps the biggest change in lifestyle occurred during these 10 years. The very meaning of social networking changed and now 'being in touch' unless mentioned otherwise is understood as through "online" sources. Emotions are being expressed through emoticon smileys like :) :( :D, the language changed into lingo and people reach all over the world through their finger tips with a click of their mice. But I don't complain because I too belong to the community patronizing the new age "progress" and am addicted to that too.

Times do change and we have to change accordingly. These channels of communication have abridged geographical distances between people and made this world, a very small village. Good for us. But I'm afraid the very channels may someday diminish emotional bond between those we love. Sending an e-greeting sometimes doesn't replace a handshake or a hug, text doesn't always replace our voice of concern. There will be people who long for our human touch.

I'm sure a lot of you would relate to yourselves when I say I'm so addicted to these social networking channels that I seldom feel the need of being social to anybody anymore. My day starts and ends on a lappy. I work on emails and MS Office, read online newspapers, bank through iPhone or web, get updates about others on facebook, orkut, myspace, express my thoughts in blogs like this or twitter for microblogging, communicate through sms-es, listen to more voicemails than direct calls....and so on and I call this "social" networking. How funny !!

Sometimes I take pride in seeing 3000 contacts in my gmail address book and 250 odd friends in my orkut friends list..without realizing that I don't even open my mouth to talk to 20 people in a month. Alarming !

My relationship with technically challenged people started waning and am getting more acquainted to like cultured tech-obsessed unsocial elements notwithstanding my rapport or liking towards them. I'm changing and that concerns me.

Am I living in a virtual world ? Is it a fake world which I created around myself ? Am I slowly turning myself from a human into a gizmo ?

Spread Love !

Qn: Whats the secret of happiness ?

Ans: Loving without condition, talking without intention, giving without reason, caring without expectation - That’s the real secret of success and happiness; Dare to disagree ?

Sounds impractical, bookish, foolishly romantic and like a hallmark greeting card ? It does :) but it works.

Try following these for a month starting today

Overcome your short temper. People have this wrong notion of assuming short temper as “attitude”. This very quality is a source of most of the woes in a human life.

I sometimes wonder the connotation of the word “Attitude” which in the urban dictionary, is forced to mean arrogance and rudeness. Attitude is not about being rude and arrogant. It’s all about influencing others with your words, actions, gestures. Bring in that “attitude”.

If you are short tempered, there is something wrong with you, your attitude and your upbringing. Just understand that you are as normal as others and nobody deserves to bear the brunt of your ill behaviour, whatever mood you may be in, period !

Kill your conceit. For this, first of all understand the words ego, conceit, self indulgence, excessive self pride.

Understand that whatever you are is not because of what you think of yourself, but because of what World thinks about you. So stop thinking too high about yourself. Let the World do that for you.

Never get judgemental. Never ever try to judge anybody based on what you see / hear. Circumstances, situations, contexts differ from day to day and person to person. The way everybody reacts or responds is different. Accept everybody on their face value.

Censor negative suggestions. Well-wishers, friends, family, loved ones guide / suggest you throughout your life. Know what to accept and what not to. Never take negative suggestions too seriously.

If you are asked to avoid somebody, keep a tab on somebody, trouble somebody, play dirty politics, indulge in hatred – think twice. Notwithstanding the love or positive vibes you enjoy with the person, please take everything with a pinch of salt.

Learn to forgive. As many popular quotes say forgiving is the virtue of stronger breed. Revenge doesn’t help anybody. You might afflict the other party by hitting back, but that doesn’t heal your bruises. Forgive and shower love on everybody around.

Enough of Gyaan on what not to do. Something on what to do here:

Love: Parents, spouse, family, siblings, in-laws, cousins, friends, colleagues – These are the people who define you. Like them. Respect them. Love them. Its infectious !

Care: Show your loved ones that that you care for them. Help them, go to their rescue. Celebrate their happiness, feel their pain, lend a shoulder if they wanna cry. Make them feel comfortable and make them realize that you are always around the corner for them.

Express: Do you belong to the clan of people who don’t believing in expressing love? Do you feel expression is dramatic, melodramatic and filmy?

If you feel so, you are used to taking people around you for granted ! You assume that they understand your love and care. May be, they do. But are you not loosing anything gestures. Definitely not !

If you are not used to that, it’s never late. Try it once and see how better you feel ! Its addictive !

Be patient, stop complaining, halt scheming, avoid negative flow, go against the negative system. Be Human !

Try to observe a deeksha for 1 month or 15 days or atleast a week and see remarkable difference in your life ! Even if you don’t, you are not loosing anything either.

Contribute in making the world a better place to live. Spread Love !

PS: I know I can’t change the world by writing a few words here and I don’t expect the readers to follow all these immediately and change the World either. But if you read this looooong post and reached here, that means you gave a thought about this. Thanks for that.

And hope you have noted the change in the blog URL. Its not vibrant-serenity.blogspot anymore. Its being-chandu.blogpost.com

Love, Health and Power to all :)

Change !

Change is the only thing thats constant and here I'm with a change. A change in the blog URL.

Retaining the theme of vibrant serenity, I took the liberty of changing the blog title as http://being-chandu.blogspot.com . All those who are following my blog, please take note !

Love and Peace

Three Years of Marital Bliss

Three years back, when I chanted the mantras "dharmecha, ardhecha, kamecha, mokshecha…nathi charami" little did I know the meaning of those words. Like most of the grooms, I just repeated what Pandit told me.

For me wedding was just a celebration of marrying my girl friend of two years. I thought marriage was a happy climax of the "Love Story" and the concept of marriage as an institution always confused me.

It took me time to realize that marriage is not just about living with your beloved. Its caring, sharing, feeling, expressing, understanding, respecting and loving each other for the life time. Its all about holding to each other through thick and thin - Thats the gist of the holy hymn nathi charami and it took me 3 years to apprehend that in reality and now I'm in the process of enjoying our "Real Love Story". It is said that a happy guy marries the girl he loves; a happier guy loves the girl he marries. I'm the happiest guy :)

Loving and being loved are the best things in life, marrying and being with the loved one for life is eternal !

Spread love, express love, celebrate love - Secret of successful marriage :)

Most Memorable Birthday

Officially, technically.. and finally I've completed three decades of existence on this planet.I heard wise people saying that first 10 years pass off without our own knowledge, 10-20 in education, 20-30 in career and life starts after 30. But my pursuit of knowledge is still going on and career is not established in a right sense. Am i going slow ?

Notwithstanding I believe my life has just started and there is lot more to happen from now or may be thats the way ageing optimists look at life :)

Coming to the topic of discussion, my recent birthday (April 30, 2010) was a day to remember at least till my last day. I don't really enjoy celebrating my birthdays but ironically almost every time end up having a blast, thanks to people who love me and their gestures. But this time, am simply zipped, zapped, zoomed, overwhelmed left right and center.

While the routine exercise of cutting cake amidst balloons, music and screams was arranged as expected, my wifey handed me over a folded piece of paper wrapped in a satin ribbon and announced "Your time starts now".

I was taken aback and cursed stupid reality shows she watches day in and day out for inspiring her in conducting this treasure-hunt. The task was all about reaching the final place in the house after a series of papers containing clues placed at various spots. I had to run around pillar to post for another few minutes and finally ended up at projector in the family theater room. "Whats next" was my expression.

She simply switched on the projector and screen to show me a video of my 6 month old niece Tanya holding a placard which reads "Happy Birthday Mama, Love you Lots". That was such a pleasant moment indeed ! I was about to retire after that video, when the shocker came.

There were 20 odd videos sent by cousins and friends. Overwhelming ! Each video was played and I had no words. Everybody was so sweet and was talking so embarrassingly nice things about me. I didn't know how to react, how to express my happiness. That was a moment to experience !

I paused the video and curiously and anxiously asked my wife, whats going on and how did that happen. She spilled the beans that she contacted my cousins, friends, loved ones and acquaintances and out of them many were technically challenged and few faced resource constraints but have made it a point to show their love towards me in this way.

I would take this forum to thank each of them for their gesture to each one of them involved

I was so happy to see my cousins Arvind, Priya, Bharani, Prasad, Rajani, Prasad and their kids Srija, Sriya wishing me though they are not mouse potatoes like me.

Karthik along with his brother Deepak and sister Deepika played a skit acting like reporter, cameraman and newsreader respectively. Till date I haven't cared to stop by and talk to Deepak or Deepika but those kids were so sweet and caring enough. These gestures bring out some humility in me. Thanks and Love you buddies.

Cousins Santhosh and Bhargava were so innovative in their expression. Thoroughly enjoyed their acts / skits. Dear Cousin Sandhya too sent her message despite busy with her kid. I know how difficult it was to record and send across those files. I still donno how can anybody take so much pain and put so much effort to wish on somebody's birthday.

Look at this, Shravya and Abhishek dedicated their beautiful renditions and conveyed birthday wishes in their messages. Guys, am not talented as you and I can never reciprocate to your gestures except saying "Thanks for making me feel special" :)

My best friend Soumya sent her video message wishing me. Buddy, you've always been so sweet and to me and your message is something I can cherish forever. Lotsa love !

Ramakanth, my roomie during initial days in Canada and a sheet anchor during my transition from India to Canada managed to squeeze in some time on the day of arrival from India after his wedding to send me his video wishes. Ramakanth, am not surprised with your being so nice anymore as I'm used to that :) Thanks dude !

Friends cum students Amruta, Rajanya, Sindhoora pleasantly surprised me with their video. Real treat to watch. Thanks friends :)

Now the time to feel embarrassed and sorry !

Hema got in touch with those people who mean /meant a lot for me with whom I spent a lot of time and learnt about life, but sadly was not in touch with them lately with a very lame excuse of being busy.

My engineering best friends Shyam, Pavan, Ranjeeth, Kishore. The people themselves sent their messages after my ignoring them for long time. They scolded me and abused me in their videos, but I felt their love. Mama, if you see my orkut profile - about me section, I have written "I'm a bad friend" because I was thinking about you guys at that point. Without making it more melodramatic, just wanna convey you that am not myself without you guys. Will call you soon for the earful :)

MBA buddy Vaishnavee sent her video message along with her daughter Satvika. Vaishnavee you are always beautiful, but sorry to tell you that Satvika is much more beautiful than you. Thanks a lot for the wishes. Treasured :)

Another surprise, my secondary school mates Harsha and Darani and ex-colleague Angshumala sent their messages. Thanks guys for your messages and am really surprised to see that you guys still remember me. Recording a video for someone who hasn't been in touch from ages is really special and thanks again for that :)

And...coming to my own family,

Suma, my darling sis-in-law sent her dancing video dedicated to me. OMG. I never saw her dance and hence felt all the more thrilled. She's so graceful and gorgeous and it was very difficult to resist myself from playing it a dozen times immediately. I never felt so proud of my loved ones in the recent past. Love you Summy !

My dad-in-law recited a self written poetry blessing me and mom-in-law spoke very very nice things about me. Such gestures from in-laws always boost us kada :)

Li'l Tanya, and her parents, incidentally my sister and Jiju sent me individual videos wishing me and also made her half a dozen friends to wish me.

My wifey gifted me an iPhone which is a huge leap from a Nokia 6070 I've been using for the last three years. She somehow has this larger than life image of me and treats me with best available gifts. Remember last year, it was Mercedes Benz. But getting these video messages after communicating and coordinating with so many people for days together, consolidating them, hiding them from me, packing and presenting in style - remains the best ever gift from her.

Mom, Dad were happier than me seeing so many people wishing, singing, dancing, acting, reciting, performing for their son. And how can they get away without surprising me. They presented me Rayban shades as they saw me loosing my earlier sunglasses. Don't know how they managed to buy such expensive gift but didn't think much, they are parents after all, they can do anything for me. And coincidentally this is my first birthday I spent with parents and wife together.

So many people took so many pains in making me happy and smile for a minute. Do I need anything else, I wonder ! They just wanted to show how much they love and its a humble experience for me.

I treasure, cherish and relish those moments !