A heretic's confession...

What is CAT but a delusion of Indians with the perceived grandeur of their mental prowess!

What do the CAT 'bellers' gain but a few material assets, whose significance lies in their individual perceived notions of achievement, a delusive spiritual advantage over their brethrens, and a pretty bum for a girlfriend determined to be their wife! The last one is of course a gain whose danger doesn’t depend on individual perceived notions but is a fact as plain as the rising of sun in the east, democracy of the west and spitting of Indians on the roads!

Who does CAT appeal to but only masses that are an arrangement of bones and flesh driven by herd behavior and without something as a sense of want and want not!

Where does it lead them to but a land of fanatics for two years and forever!

What does it produce for an end product but the likes of the sub prime mortgage crisis!

Buddhha mil gaya...

“How long have you been doing it?” He asked me a week back on his first day.

“Four years now.” I said then.

“Have you done it in your young age uncle?” I asked him with appreciation today.

He had been coming to our gym from last one week and was more than 70 years old. Though he had a protruding belly now but for his age he had an amazing stamina. He did all sort of exercises. And that’s what told me he must have been a veteran in the field. Those old people who sometimes come to gym do the regular fitness exercises, not the butterfly for that middle and side cuts of chest, not the front and back pulley for wings, not abs in their 70’s.

“Young man, when I was your age I was an amateur boxer and a body builder.”

“Wow!” That’s exactly what I had hoped from him.

“So what have you done Uncle?”

My question was not that weird but he gave me a blank look for a moment. I couldn’t make it why. I don’t know what he thought of me.

“I am a civil engineer.”

“I retired as the chairman of CPWD. Many of the bridges that you see in India have been built under my supervision. I have been head of several committees to set syllabus of civil engineering courses in various universities. Till recently I was the project leader of Mayur Vihar extension of the DND flyway when I developed some health problems and had to quit active working. Now I am consultant to various government bodies.” He told me over the next few minutes in several breaks between our next exercises.

“My God.” “You are quite an achiever Uncle. Why do they keep you working even so many years after retirement.” I had stopped doing the Squats now.

“You know there is a dearth of experienced professionals in government projects.”

“Yeah.”

But something had started bugging me. This man is 70+ years old and is a civil engineer. How many universities in India gave a civil engineering degree back then.

“Where did you do your graduation from Uncle?”

The expressions on his face suddenly became nostalgic. You could see that sense of belonging of his to his alma mater when he thought of his moments of graduation after so long. Perhaps no body had asked him this question for a very long time. Perhaps a dust had accumulated over all those memories of his young years. Perhaps their place had been usurped by the realities of a practical world in all those years.

“I did it from the erstwhile University of Roorkee, now the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. 1964 batch.” said the voice brimming with proud, respect and pleasure at the recollection of old memories. A smile on his face. Eyes looking into the past.

Time is an endless phenomenon I tell you. Years pass by. People come and go. Young become old. Generations change. But some things stay. Some things see everything else going by. Some things make lives.

40 batches had graduated since then. What I was thinking of was the 41st batch. He went on saying many other things.

The paths would not be the same. But I was staring at my future in a way.

Mera US...err Bharat Mahan !!!

We shout that rhetoric about 'Great India', 'India Shining', 'Mera Bharat Mahan', 'The great Indian Culture', 'The great Indian Legacy', 'Argumentative Indian' (and while saying so projecting Indians as having an inherently logical bent of mind and basing the reason of sustained democracy on this) , etc., yet most of us today want to emulate Americans. Why?

Perhaps rightly so. For the most prized virtues of humans. A free life, a liberal and tolerant society, for the largely unpretentious way of life of theirs, innovative and independent thinking and what not. You name an area of human behaviour where Indian are doing better than them today.

One problem, then, is with the rhetoric about priding ourselves on our false sense of greatness and morality. Patting ourselves on the age old legacy which can do nothing for us today. It's failing to even inspire us today. The problem is in deluding ourselves. And then, when I tried to brush this off by saying that the younger generation was being more practical about it, came the independence day and I was perplexed to see all those colorful handwritten slogans of Great India, Mera Bharat Mahan, and proud to be an Indian on big charts pasted everywhere in our office. And the people writing them were our young generation...the more practical one. I wondered if any of them ever gave it a serious thought that what exactly is it today that is an evidence of India being great? True I am born an Indian and I do love my country. But that for emotional reasons. My family is here. My sweetest childhood memories are associated with this land, with all those pit covered roads, and rural dust. I learned what life is in this country and from its point of view. My love is precisely because of this. But otherwise, for a moment, disregarding the emotional attachments and on any logical grounds, I flounder to find even a handful of good reasons for considering India a great country in today's perspective.

1. Look at our farmers committing suicides and what everyone is doing about it? What the ancient great India can do about it today?

Our governments are setting up panels to propose remedies only to be ill implemented either in the lack of funds or the lack of will or because of rampant corruption. And what are we doing? You and I? Cursing the government? Why don't we join some NGO and try to do something about it the way Arvind Kejriwal did for RTI ? He was just like you and I, an IIT engineer, not a tailor cut-out by birth for social causes and politics.

Then the noninclusive growth. What great is he who is content to see one of its hands starving and paralyzing while the other hand grows stronger. How powerful such an asymmetric person can be in crucial times is any body's guess. Those who have studied the growth of Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the likes would most obviously see the differences between their and India's path.

2. Look at the state of education in our country? and then look at the way we are trying to make it better...the reservations instead of emphasizing on primary education.

3. Look at the booming IT industry of India. Now that's one area which makes every Indian proud today..right? But not the people who reject anything based on mass opinion until it's logical to them. I'll tell u a model of mine to facilitate seeing the kind of work we are bringing from all over the world to our IT companies in proper perspective.

US is a rich household whose members work in big and quality firms and do quality work. When I say quality I mean some work which appeals to the unique human capability, it's brain. And when this household goes about its daily chores, it produces some waste, some garbage, some dirty dishes to be cleaned, some dirty floors. Here's where India comes in. We go knocking their door and offering to clean-up their mess, washing their dishes, sweeping their floors for much smaller amount than the person in their own area would ask for. What else would they have wanted ! They are in. When they earn 35000 a month and buy their child a laptop, an N73, a Skoda, we take home Rs. 1000 and buy our child a balloon, a Nokia1100, and a second hand Maruti 800. And despite this we happen to be better off than most of those living in our colony who are using their old bicycles and who were not fortunate enough to beg a work in the US households. That's the quality of work we do and that's the comparative amount we get paid for this. And then slowly when traders everywhere begin to see us being able to buy all those second hand Maruti 800s and Nokia 1100, they begin to see our rising prosperity (??), they hike the prices of everything for us too (read inflation and currency appreciation) and then we can not even buy a Maruti 800 because our wage remains the same (Why? If we ask for a higher wage they would be happy to kick us out altogether and bring someone by the name of Okawa Hounsos, an African, to do the same).

4. Look at the way our intellectuals are hostages to their language and everything associated with them. Of course I agree it's good to try to pick up everything good but then first for God sake we must accept our own weaknesses. We must drop this rhetoric about our sacred relationships when we know in the corners of our minds that a DPS MMS scandel is going on in every college and every senior school these days in all cities, big or small. The difference is just that these children are sensible enough not to send that MMS to their friends. I repeatedly write in my posts the use of English language between even the spouses in as private places as one's bedroom. Now this is something that need not be emulated. Whereas English is a great language, it by no means is a better way of attaining a better standard of living, or an even higher intellectual level or whatever such people might think it capable of doing for them than our Hindi is.

5. And then look at the extent to which we go copying them in their language. Our version of christ is our own God. Right? but look at so many of us saying 'For Christ sake' whenever we get chance. For God sake pal, you worship a God every morning. Use your mind a bit. Another one in this category is the word 'Christened'. In various news columns and from many people I hear the sentence like 'XYZ was christened as ABC'. Now what the mindless thing to say for us Indians that is. Their ceremony to name a child involves inducing it to Christianity from that day on. In our case a child belongs to its dad's religion from the day it is born. As with Western society, in India too the same applies to non living objects too. Whereas a Robotic Arm Software might have been christened as RoboArm by students at MIT, it would be named as RoboArm at IIT, how can you christen it if it belongs to the religion of the majority of Indians. But that would have been thought by us, had we applied our 'Argumentative Indian' philosophy to this sentence too. But who does. The Americans use it. I watched it in the latest hollywood blockbuster. It sounds urbane. Hats off to ya pal ! I bow to us INDIANS. India is great.

I am young...till today becomes yesterday

To wayward minds like mine...act before it's too late..

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering
experience…I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you
imagine. Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing everyday that scares you Sing Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with
people who are reckless with yours. Floss Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes
you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with
yourself. Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you
succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements. Stretch Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your
life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don’t. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone. Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe
you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t
congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your
choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body,
use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people
think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever
own.. Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for
good. Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the
people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you
should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and
lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you
knew when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live
in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will
philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize
that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were
noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one
might run out. Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will
look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who
supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of
fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the
ugly parts and recycling it for more than
it’s worth. But trust me on the sunscreen…

-- From Baz Luhrmann Lyrics - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Predicaments of a loser

'Sir tomorrow onwards I would give you a missed call 5 minutes before I am about to reach here. If you are coming then it's okay else you give me a missed call back' Said Guddu, the driver of my office cab as I got into the cab, late by 5 minutes. Mine was the first pick-up.
'Yeah. Sure' I said and grunted to myself. 'How would he know' I convinced myself.

'Arre yaar, your pick-up is before mine. Please give me a missed call when you are about to reach here'
'Yeah sure Anjali' Anything for you. I didn't say the second line as I watched her with admiration get into the cab. That she was expected to know this didn't occur to me mesmerized by her rare-engineer-beauty which had permanently reserved my dreams for itself.

'And yeah Sunita, give me a missed call when you go for lunch. I'll come with you' I overheard the receptionist with bob-cut hair say to her friend over the company phone as I passed the reception desk on my way to my shared cubicle meant for one, occupied by two. Cost cutting you see. Rupee is appreciating.

But the receptionist was supposed to know. It’s her job to speak. And by the way everything of her tells me that she is going to take part in next year's Ms. India contest. These are the basics.

'Hi dada' A chat window was flashing in the status bar of my desktop showing a message from my sweetheart of one year who was with me in my previous project. No ideas you dirty mind! I am still single and looking. His name is Ravi. Ravi Agarwal.
'Hi dada. Kaise ho' I replied.
'Wah dada. Late again'
'Yeah. So many mummies in our cab. Got delayed'
'Hehehe dada. When you are free, just missed call me. I have to discuss something with you'
'Yeah dada' Tum bhi !

'Hi Bhai. Why did you pick up the phone. I don't have balance. YOU are expected to call me. I was just giving you a missed call'
'Ao okay. You put it down. I would call you' I apologized to my sister as I looked at my phone in desperation. Yeh Bhi !

That's 'Missed Call'
a noun
a verb
and who on earth says it's an adjective phrase!

Loser!
I wrote under my name on a paper pinned to my cubicle wall.

Rogue uncertainties...Thou perishes; Remains thee

Eternity of the universe stretches far beyond the human contemplation. The light that we just received from that faraway star began from it about a million years ago. It was for the dinosaurs. Unfortunately they couldn't last to receive it. So we received it today on their behalf. But wait! If we could communicate with our sender by, may be a mobile phone, it would have perplexed our sender that this streak of light is not the same color as he sent for us. Why? Ah yes. The sender is receding from us. Distances are increasing. Wavelengths are changing. Things are going away from things. Universe is expanding.

Expanding! But where?

Volume encloses volume. Did we just say that its volume is increasing? But what's volume is it occupying? Is there a space outside the universe? Where is it expanding into? What's outside it? And what’s outside the volume that’s outside it. Where does the hierarchy end? You thought you knew the definition of space? So tell me what is the nature of space this whole thing occupies?

And did it appear suddenly out of something? Who created elements that constitute it? Nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon? Did God? Out of what? What did he have with him to create all the elements? And who supplied him with those things. He conjured these? Also who created God to enable creation of elements? There must have been something behind God. Such a mystic power that could conjure material out of immaterial must have been thought of well in its design phase before its actual manufacture. What?? he appeared out of nowhere? Hmm. So he appeared suddenly. And he appeared into some enclosing space. And that space was here before the God. Then what is that space? What's its nature?

Everything is material in this world. Money, comfort, luxury, everything. And so is a Stone. Clay. Water. Stars. All are material. One day this game will finish. we would die. Everybody would die. God will kill himself. Everything would come to an end. Will the universe remain? will it? We won't be there. God won't be there. But a deserted universe. The ever expanding. What into? And what for? Whom for? Does life have another dimension? Human life has vanished. God's life has ceased existing. But he once created a universe. THAT is living. Fattening. What is a stone then? Some thing that outlived us and God! So it lived? Is it up higher in the hierarchy than the God then? because God has died. But the stones remain. Receding away from each other.

Ah. Maybe stones are not above God after all. So God destroyed stones and the universe before he killed himself. The universe suddenly disappeared. God remained for a while. But what into? What is the thing that enclosed God for that while. And then God killed himself. For as long as he remained he needed that space to contain him. And when he killed himself, of course he wasn't there to destroy that thing which contained him. So something outlived God then? In that case its above God in the hierarchy! So what’s this thing then? That’s what is more important. And what encloses this thing? Wait. This thing that contains God might be vacuum. Vacuum? Vacuum existed before God suddenly appeared. And vacuum remained after God died.

But if at first it was vacuum and suddenly God appeared. Did it happen by magic? Magic? But magic is a mysterious power possessed by some thing that exists. What existed to do that magic of sudden appearance of God? There wasn't a single thing there in vacuum. What lobbied with what to create God.

And then what’s a vacuum? Isn't vacuum contained in a space? A space with nothing inside?

Where is your undergarment...?!!

So you read the previous post of mine below this one..eh. And you think you have a pretty good idea of what a sample I should be. Right you may be. But come on man. The displays of my gems were at least not as dazzling as those our physics teacher, the much revered (???) Mr. Gera, flashed that day in the midst of our Maths class! Yeah...the same Mr. Gera whom we all were so jealous of, for he had that distinguished luck of having two additional sister-in-laws in his home over and above a personal wife of his.

"Wow! Such a lucky man" remarked Gautam, who joined with me new in class 12th in the DPS.

I always write DPS for Deewan Public School. That gives me some pseudo satisfaction of having studied at a DPS at some point in my school life. And then, recently due to the much envied MMS scandal, DPS has acquired that cult image among all us youngsters. By the way Gautam and I were seat mates for the entire last year of our school. A dashing dude he was. Crush of girls. Envy of mine. He had all those junior cukoos of our school in his colony whose profile I still sometimes visit on orkut. He was after all from a military family. All those military people have such pretty daughters. I sometimes think I would be able to ask someone out, someday. Gautam knew all those bad things I considered would spoil your future career. Coz you know bad guys do badly in studies. And as my mother sang to me when I was even smaller 'Padhoge likhoge banoge nawab, gandi baatein karoge to hoge kharab.' So I was a good guy. Though what I have become today is a different matter altogether. And that I was largely and more importantly correctly perceived as a moron was far from my awareness.

And when Kargil war happened the fund collection effort picked up in our DPS too. Vinod sir started calling people by roll numbers and the people would come and pull a hundred rupee or fifty rupee note, all of them.

"Whoops...what do all their dads do! They all sure make good dough." I said.

Their khoon pasina must be very efficiently convertible to currency notes.
I brainwashed Gautam throughout the 41 roll numbers that came before us that since our dads had already given a day's salary to Kargil effort we would give only 5 rupees.

"You see, we don't even earn yet!" I explained. Gautam's eyes glistened with admiration.

"Roll number 42" called Vinod IAS.

Yeah he was an IAS, for he was practically Invisible After Sunset. And we all feared the black. But that was much before the Pulsar 180 hit the streets. May be one of my classmates' dad later switched over to Bajaj Auto Ltd.

And so Gautam marched to the front of the class to the class teacher's desk and offered a 5 rupee note for contribution.

Potato curry to someone expecting chicken for dinner.

I admired him now for more than his looks.

"Katora le ke bahar sadak pe khada ho ja!" growled Vinod IAS with an unbelievable saturnine face.

The class burst into a laughter. Yeah I too giggled, for his face was flushed blood red and the idiot was looking at me accusingly. I had just suggested pal. It was all your decision. My eyes conveyed. He immediately pulled out a fifty rupee note and put that on the table. And my heart sank. What the hell. Now I would also have to give a fifty.

"Roll number 43" came the roar.

So here tottered the comrade with sunken spirits, for his dad was the 'Ek akela insaan jo subah se shaam tak..khoon pasina ek karke ghar mein kuch kama ke laata hai aur tum....', as my mother used to tell me whenever I did some loss because of my stupidities, and here I was going to throw away another of a fifty out of the family bowl when that 'Ek akela insaan jo khoon pasina ek karke kama ke laata hai' had already paid a day's salary for the effort. No. I can't do that to my dad. All that khoon and pasina, that somehow mixed daily and got stored somewhere to convert into green colored thick currency notes at the end of every month, flashed before my eyes in that short journey from my seat to the class teacher's desk. Sometimes that Khoon Pasina mixture did not convert itself into currency notes on time and we would have to be extra frugal until it got converted which sometimes would not be until the end of next month and in very rare cases until the end of next to next month. No. I can't do this. My embarrassment would be my contribution to the family earnings. And with my new found confidence I offered a 20 rupee note to Vinod IAS.

Thud! Went the final nail into the coffin. Hammered by roll number 43. His expressions were like those of an Indian soldier who had fired at a Pakistani soldier in the Siachen glacier only to find the rifle empty because a class 12th student in DPS had not paid a full fifty rupees towards the Kargil effort. But the impact was lighter this time. Gautam had taken the initial and stronger blow. The Soldier was already half expecting an empty gun. Besides his favorite student I was, for I got a 95 in the first term exam just 5 days after joining the school. Gautam, Mayank and all other cursed me for what I had done. They all had to bear all that flak from Vinod IAS before their mothers in the PTM after the exams. No excuses worked for them this time. They could not explain how I 'Garib' (As Vinod IAS would refer to me who had been deprived of his blessings so far) who had not got Vinod IAS's guidance at all had still scored a 95 even as they all had had his full guidance throughout. The reason we all soon found out though. My score never crossed an 80 in Maths after his valuable guidance bore its fruits on me for the next two terms.

"Tu bhi!" was all he said.

But I had taken off for my seat in that brief moment while the nail was going into the coffin and the soldier was gazing at his empty rifle.

"Whoa...mumma...I saved a whole 30 rupees today."

And this exercise had barely finished when Mr. Gera, that lucky man with two sisters-in-law in his home and with a personal wife, and with a threatening face with a funny mustache on it, and whose home all my class mates visited, strode into the class room. Fat man he was. Built for comfort than for speed. A sly smile on his face. As that I had on my face when I pulled the stool off from below my mumma when she was washing dishes on the kitchen floor. I was 11 years old and very narrowly escaped that slipper thrashing afterwards, thanks to my Nani's intervention. I got only a sweet homily. So Mr. Gera, with two sisters-in-law at home and a personal wife, a saturnine face and a sly smile below his funny mustache, asked loudly

"Which girl has lost her undergarment in the assembly ground this morning?"

Eeeeeerie silence. You could hear the sound as a pin traveled through the air during its fall from your hand to the ground. The noise it made after it fell on the floor would be deafening. Yeah my vocab was pathetic. But still. How could a girl have lost her undergarment in the assembly ground in the morning! I understood the meaning of all the words in this sentence and was not confusing a blazer with a brassier this time. And I was correct, for the entire class looked as if a news of another post of Siachen having been occupied by Pakistan had broken despite all our 50 rupee notes and a 20 rupee note of mine having been sent to the border so that our troops could get all our posts back.

Pakistan fired one more grenade. Mr. Gera repeated his question with that confident and sly smile. I still wonder if all the girls did check their undergarments if they had not been lost in the assembly ground that morning, Mr. Gera's visage was so calm and composed that I would definitely have checked mine had the question been for boys rather than Girls. But they must have checked, for no girl came up even after a few seconds of funereal silence..the pin travel silence. Or else how would they all have been so confident! Vinod IAS had long forgotten the 5 rupee and 20 rupee shock by now.

Finally the fog cleared over the Siachen border. The Pakistani general showed up from behind the newly occupied post of Siachen. Mr. Gera now with his sly smile slightly annoyed beneth his funny mustache, flashed a gold chain dangling tentatively from the end of his middle finger.

"This chain has been found in the assembly ground a few minutes back"

wurr woo.. uhoo uhoo.. uhhhhooo...!! Mayank, who had been eating his tiffin from last few minutes with his head bowed down on the back seat of mine, spat in shock the food in his mouth on the floor.

...a chain for an undergarment !

'...isey laga daala.. to life jhingalaala' !! The TATA sky campaign had not been conceived by then and I am sure as hell, the ad company would have sold this punch line to this undergarment manufacturing company had there been a contract between the two.

But my knowledge of human anatomy must be real weak man! Some one tell me now which girl wears a gold chain for an undergarment!

But before I could pose my question to the have-answers-for-everything-bad Gautam whose face had now become white from an earlier flushed blood red, an exasperated Vinod IAS with a wry face told Mr. Gera

"Gera Sir...isse Ornament kehte hain...Undergarment nahin!"