Love in the times of Cholera!

Perhaps I am able to recall the facts correctly. I have not read this novel but perchance remember (probably correctly) seeing it being read by Kate Beckinsale in the flick 'Serendipity'. I know not what it means. But the movie seemed to be pretty romantic, albeit tragic in the end. John Cussac dies a very different kind of end. It seemed to be an end that one can only fantasise of in true love, with dreams as rich as stars broken by the vulgar realities.
The first million in terms of money is very lucrative and indeed it should be. But what do we say about a life full of millions of desires besides that of accumation of power and pelf? Indeed, we are sometimes left with a dry life because with the onset of maturity, hedonism apart, desires are not as livid as they are in the reckless youth. With urbanisation spreading its tentacles almost everywhere, the greying of youth happens much earlier.
The pleasures of youth can be felt only in our heydays and we do not rue the loss because life offers an alternative to it- ambition.
Become the best rat in the race because ultimately rat is the winner. And who cares about the loser. Justifiably so.
However, the heart still meanders sometimes and fantasises of a dream land where fairies abound and angels make love with them.
it dreams of a land where a breath of fresh air is the ambrosia and one is intoxicated with life(too bad for the tipplers!).
The dreams sometimes create a hallucination about an Elysian where people are full of smiles and genuinely hug each other at their achievements; a place that is free of any ego trip because harbouring an ego requires lot of dissipation of one's nervous energy. Who has the time for it when the prime mover is love? Yeah, someone rightly said that loving is the most difficult thing to do in life and almost all of us are escapists and shun doing that. The heart is not dry and the body not a zombie. The greatest wish of life can be that let this life have a complete life. We are not content with anything less.

liquid is solid beedu!!!

That is true when you talk of moolah nowadays. It is the age of commerce in which everything is commoditised. Everything means everything! For example, marriages have also become a novel examples of mergers wherein two smart alecks join forces to empower themselves financially so that they can flex their financial biceps later in life. The trend is not modern. It is rather a pragmatic way to live and is symbiotic too. In short, it is the only 'best' way to live after 30.
It has its antecedents in the ancient days. There was a corporate presentation in the B-school of IIT Delhi in which the ancient example of Draupadi in Mahabharata going for five husbands was taken to add a tinge of humour in the presentation. A classic example of tie-ups! However, we believe that it was taken as a good humoured joke and did not hurt the religious sentiments. And no working professional will love to trigger the debate of creative freedom not being bound by major constraints.
However, gone are the days of a 'kushal' grihani who is 'daksh in grih karya'. After all, what are the maids for? Nowadays, their KRA's extend far beyond the conventional tasks of cooking and baby-sitting. At best, sometimes they are also involved in the decision-making policies at homes. In the worst case scenario, if they are different they can act as concubines. But we have to perceive the glass to be half full. Lives are grey and we have to accept that.
In any case, rampant commercialisation bodes well for the 'maids' sector, which will flourish as India grows from strength to strength and establishes itself as an economic superpower in the decades to come.
Nursing is also an art and almost a gift of God. Munnabhai created a novel way of nursing and it created ripples in Bollywood. Robin Williams was also awesome in setting up an example through 'Patch Adams'. Ergo, it is high time we started giving due cognizance to any domestic help and tried to help ourselves more in our household chores if we got the time for it.

We the living

We the living have to be a non-profit organization that serves other nonprofit organizations and information consumers worldwide. We should focus on serving non-religious organizations involved in Education, Environmentalism, Humanitarian Relief, Fighting Disease, Homeless Issues, Crime Control, Political Freedom, Government Reform, Consumer Protection, Youth Issues, Addiction, and other like-minded, non-legislative causes. By providing free services to charities we can help them save money and become more efficient all around. In turn, they can provide additional benefits to their constituents. Our opinions and ideas are not influenced by any corporate, political, or religious affiliations. We should also have nothing to sell and should not accept any advertising. On most organizations you can’t count on that level of objectivity. We should have no interest in being politically correct, only factually correct to the extent possible. When faced with no other options, we have to believe in aggressively promoting a solution, which is the “lesser of two evils”. We the living’s work is benefiting hungry, oppressed, uneducated, and other ailing people more and more each day. A central issue We the living seeks to address is education. We must believe that formal school education is the best route to educate the masses. However, informal education, such as reading reliable information in print or online, also greatly enhances ones ability to understand important issues facing society. Armed with knowledge, citizens can then take action to improve their lives and the world around them. Every ailment in the world can be lessened if educated people commit themselves to the task. If you want a government that is more responsive to the needs of common citizens you can read about civics and government reform initiatives. If we want to assist with humanitarian relief worldwide, we might want to study international economics and culture, so we can be of more use in the field or in the nonprofit office. If one needs a good job to pay for health insurance and housing they need to be able to read and write well enough to fill out a job application effectively, not to mention to manage their jobs. The point is that education is ultimately the only sure answer to reduce global suffering, whatever its cause. Humans face an increasing threat of extinction due to mismanagement of the environment. The pace of environmental harm is unlikely to take the lives of the current generation. But, if left unregulated, global corporate interests are certain to cause us additional harm and perilous risk. We must enact tougher environmental laws in the world, employ the best environmentally friendly technologies, and perpetually push the global community towards environmental preservation. Using more renewable resources, like solar energy, and fewer fossil fuels, like oil, is a good start. Moreover, we must further limit the harmful byproducts of industry. Enacting more financial advantages for good corporate citizens and additional financial disincentives to large polluters will further improve the environment. If the custodians of the Earth (us) were to sit on the sidelines during this critical struggle it would be negligent. Many invisible chemicals in the air can cause lung disease or possibly cancer. These poisons readily get in to our food and water supply and harm every form of life. And sewer overflow and runoff from farms and city streets threaten our waters, wildlife, and our health. You should promote strong federal laws and regulations to lessen polluted runoff, raw sewage discharges, and factory farm wastes. Electric power plants and automobiles are the largest source of the pollutants that cause acid rain, poisoning in our lakes and rivers, and global warming. Regulating their discharges and promoting newer and better technologies is the best bet to improve the quality of our air and water, and to lessen environmental harm from global warming. Please learn more about current and threatening environmental hazards and work for a cleaner, healthier Earth. Unfortunately, the lesser developed parts of our world are plagued by famine, malnutrition, poor water quality, and poor sanitation, as well as AIDS, TB, malaria, and other deadly diseases. These problems frequently overlap in the poorest regions of the world. In many cases, corrupt government leaders and civil war significantly contribute to this suffering, since it prevents third world economies from developing and therefore prevents the building of self-sufficient, healthy nations. Plus, corruption and war often keeps humanitarian workers away from many of the worlds neediest areas. And prospective aid donors will often shy away from regions with governments that are unwilling or unable to protect their humanitarian relief investments. Corrupt militants and government officials frequently steal aid destined for the poor to fund their own causes – even if their cause is plain greed. Also, extreme weather conditions greatly harm the global poor. A region with drought or flood conditions will be unable to effectively grow crops and oftentimes the starving citizens will even resort to eating their seed stocks – hurting the next year’s planting season, and reinforcing the cycle of poverty and suffering. Weak educational systems also greatly contribute to suffering. People who lack a basic education will generally remain poor and will be unable to contribute to the well being of their society at large, since they will likely have trouble merely feeding their own families. They may lack sexual education or nutritional education, which could be contributing factors in acquiring AIDS or becoming malnourished, for example. If they lack civic education, they are unlikely to be able to support the reform of their governments. If they lack math or language education their illiteracy will likely prevent them from gaining meaningful employment. Education for all is key to global survival, and its costs are vastly lower than the cost of ignorance. The Western world for the most part only reads about or sees these horrific humanitarian situations on TV – but they are everyday reality for many millions of our fellow humans. And these people suffer real pain, the same as all other humans. Therefore it is our responsibility to take assertive action in attempt to lessen this suffering. One can try to ignore the suffering but it will still exist. The world can not realize its positive potential unless we commit ourselves to working on behalf of the least fortunate among us. Humanitarian relief is an extraordinarily complex subject and therefore we can’t address it in great detail in this forum, but please decide how you can best help. However, if we lack time, we can all donate at least a small percentage of our earnings to some of the organizations below, who are in the field every day saving current or at-risk hungry people, diseased people, war victims, and/or the uneducated masses. Famine, malnutrition, poor water quality and sanitation plague many parts of our world. This often leads to terrible diseases such as TB, malaria, cholera and AIDS. New but deadly diseases such as SARS remain in the minds of people worldwide. We must remember, however, that diseases are not caused by a single factor but by many. These factors fuel each other and interact together in such a way that not one solution can possibly solve or eliminate a disease altogether. Nevertheless, as global citizens we need to take an active part in the fight to eradicate disease. The cost puts pressure on healthcare, social support, worker productivity and profit margins. Of course the most dreaded cost of disease is death which is why we should never give up in our fight. Overpopulation leads to overcrowding which also fuel disease. When there are too many people, basic necessities such as food, water and housing become scarce. These resources become expensive and unaffordable. Children are even more susceptible to disease where clean water and sanitation are serious issues. Due to poverty and the widening income gap, many poor families often choose paying utilities over spending money on basic necessities such as food, clothing and medical care. Air pollution contributes to disease causing asthma, bronchitis and lung cancer. Household cleaning agents contain pollutants such as solvents that can cause dizziness.
Abundant exposure to asbestos has been found to lead to lung cancer. These are everyday dangers that we take for granted or of which we may not be aware. We should let our voices be heard by writing to our elected representatives, urging them to work together with leaders worldwide to control pollution and educate global citizens of its dangers to health. The destruction caused by war also often results in disease. War brings damage to essential infrastructures that provide electricity, water, food and employment often plunging its victims into poverty and displacement. In crowded refugee camps, poor sanitation, lack of water, food, clothing and electricity make these camps breeding grounds for all kinds of diseases. In addition, medical supplies and medicine are often not easily attainable. War diseases such as TB, leprosy, malaria, cholera took the lives of many. Countries in war devote much of their monetary budget to the war efforts, depriving funding to areas such as healthcare, housing, disease prevention and education. In war, our volunteers brave the war fronts by delivering medicines and administering medical care to war victims. To those of us who can afford to, support such organizations through your donations. Healthcare access is an ongoing concern that affects our fight to eradicate disease. For those living with financial hardships, not having access to medicine and medical care makes them more prone to poor health. Quick treatment and strong prevention measures are important factors needed to stop disease and having easy access to healthcare facilitates this. Some cultural practices lead to disease. Many of the blood donors are not told of the health risks associated with selling their own blood. Antibiotics continue to be used in animal and plant farming in three ways: treatment, disease prevention and growth promotion. The concern is that if the use of antibiotics outside of treatment is prolonged, the drugs will lose their ability to fight disease as bacteria gains resistance to the medicine. Lobbying at the expense of people. This causes financial hardship for those living in poverty, many times denying them access to badly needed medicines. Consequently, diseases often go untreated and continue to spread and bring hardships to people all over the world. To repay loans borrowed from the IMF and World Bank, through structural adjustment programs, debtor countries are required to make a major shift in their spending budget. Cash-ready resources become the focus of spending instead of socio-economic programs such as healthcare, job creation or disease prevention. Countries spent more in repaying their foreign debt than on spending money on healthcare, disease prevention and education on their own people. When healthcare and disease prevention takes a back seat like this, disease will continue to flourish. Global warming continues to pose many problems to our environment, which contributes to disease.
Call for action
You can see how the interaction of critical factors contributes to disease and sickness. There is no one solution that we can undertake to eradicate disease but a collective global effort is needed to suppress it to the best of our abilities. For those of us who can afford to, funding is always needed for hospitals and medical laboratories across the world in order to continue research so that our medical doctors and researchers can find new cures to battle and defeat disease. Please donate, if you can, to foundations and relief agencies. Let your voice be heard, speak out and urge our elected representatives to give healthcare to the people that don’t have it. This will help in our fight to both prevent and eradicate disease. We need to take notice of the power and influence that lobbyists have over our elected representatives and understand how this affects our health and us. We need to let our representatives in congress know how we feel about this alarming trend. Remember that one person cannot do this alone. It needs to be a collective effort! Let us help promote the knowledge of disease. Many diseases such as STD’s, heart disease and flu can be prevented. By learning about the disease and its causes, we can refrain from activities that place us at greater risk of acquiring these diseases. This way, we are able to proactively prevent the disease from spreading and help the push towards its eradication. Homelessness can be caused by a variety of problems. The main cause is unaffordable housing for the poor. Secondary causes include mental illness, physical illnesses, substance abuse, lack of incentives to work, poor work ethics, and, like most social issues We the living seeks to address, lack of decent education. A missed paycheck, a health crisis, or an unpaid bill can easily push poor families over the edge into homelessness. It has been reported that the types of assistance homeless adults felt they needed most were help finding a job, help finding affordable housing, and help paying for housing. However, the main types of assistance they usually received were clothing, transportation and help with public benefits. Few homeless actually receive help finding housing, likely because caregivers know it’s unaffordable or otherwise unattainable for people of their social status. A minority of the homeless population is capable but unwilling to work – they may resent the minimal wages they would receive if they could find work. It would be irresponsible if we did not consider that a minority of the homeless may be inherently “lazy”, or substance abuse has made them so. In these cases the there is little help the system can offer that will bring about positive social results. In general, we recommend a “tough love” approach wherein able people must work in some capacity to receive the benefits they seek. There is often a gray line between those who are mentally ill, substance abusers, and other disabled homeless. Therefore it is not easy to classify them in to benefit categories or to understand their labor capabilities. Moreover, there is no one comprehensive system to manage the myriad of services for the homeless, their benefits, and their reintegration in to society. We recommend the states move towards a fully integrated computerized system, which would make delivering benefits and getting people off the streets more cost effective. Even though documenting people’s’ lives in detail verges on an invasion of privacy, we feel if the taxpayers need to foot the bill, which they ultimately do, there is no alternative but to build an efficient system with subjective inputs, in order to provide benefits and opportunities based on need. Most people, including the homeless, are not inherently lazy. But the economic system does not adequately support those at the lowest skill levels, even if they are willing to work – leading to unemployment and millions of “working poor”. For mayors, city councils, and even homeless providers it may seem that placing homeless people in shelters is the most inexpensive way of meeting basic needs. This is deceptive. The cost of homelessness can be quite high, particularly for those with chronic illnesses. Because they have no regular place to stay, people who are homeless use a variety of public systems in an inefficient and costly way. Preventing a homeless episode, or ensuring a speedy transition in to stable permanent housing can result in a significant overall cost savings. Hospitals, prisons, lost opportunity, and emergency shelter is all very inefficient. Crime is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law. Laws are designed to protect us and ensure our safety in all aspects of our lives: physical, financial, psychological and social.
Yet not a day does go by that we don’t hear of crimes taking place in our city or state. When a crime is committed, public safety becomes endangered and specific individuals or groups may feel violated. While we would like to avoid such events, they take place all too often. Corporate crime exists on both ends of the continuum, where the workers continue to be victimized and their rights violated. Another major type of crime is terrorism.
Social and Economic Problems Caused by Crime.
Our social and economic problems are often a direct result of crime. In a vicious circle, these problems can fuel crime even more. For example, those who commit theft and burglaries often do so because of their need for money. These individuals may be unemployed, incapable of finding work, homeless, sick or impoverished. These crimes become a tempting way to quickly acquire money. Unfortunately, when left unpunished, these individuals get the misconception that crime pays. It is this thinking that encourages some individuals to continue their criminal ways, discouraging them from finding other activities that would give them some normality and stability in their lives. This way of thinking reinforces crime. Another crime, prostitution, is frequently associated with drug addiction. Many prostitutes find it difficult to change their work because of their drug addiction. Drugs require significant cash and prostitution provides this, faster and easier than legitimate work.
Prostitution often will lead to other crimes such as people trafficking, sexual abuse, and rape. Those who exploit women often have no regard for people’s lives. This disregard often leads to physical abuse and even murder. In addition, prostitution can increase the spread of diseases such as AIDS, other STD’s and hepatitis. On a larger scale, drug addiction fuels the illicit drug industry. In organized crime, you will find other violations related to drug trafficking. These include money laundering, smuggling and illegal sale of weapons, credit card fraud and counterfeiting. Poverty often leads to the problem of homelessness. Those who live on the streets often experience hunger and disease making them more likely to resort to committing theft and burglary as a means to eat or to obtain medicine. Out on the streets the homeless are exposed more to the risks of drug addiction and other unwanted social behaviors. All of these factors fuel crime.
Solving the Root Causes of Crime
In order to eradicate crime, we need to address the root causes. These include, but are not limited to, greed, inadequate corporate oversight, poverty, lack of education, homelessness, drug addiction, racial hatred, and lax gun laws. Education is one of the biggest factors that play a role in what becomes of an individual in their adulthood. Those who have an education possess the training and skills needed to make them marketable to potential employers. Indeed, even for jobs that pay only a minimum wage, employers likely will prefer interviewing candidates with a decent education over those without. Thus, many of the uneducated may find themselves unemployed, living in sub-standard housing and in impoverished conditions. And as money becomes scarce, many of them might be tempted to engage in criminal activities. At We the living, we encourage everyone to pursue formal education and stress the importance of governments and universities helping make it accessible to all. We strongly believe that every citizen deserves an education and it’s especially important to make it more available to those families who are not able to readily afford it. Education can help eradicate poverty, which will in turn reduce the crime rate. Poverty often pushes children to drop out of school. Those children who do not attend school may end up roaming the streets, exposing themselves to criminal elements and activities. This is why it is imperative that communities provide safe places where children can gather inside, away from street life. These include school clubs, youth clubs, and sports and recreational centers where children and youth are given support and supervision through educational and developmental programs.
Without alternatives to schools, children can easily get involved in petty crimes such as shoplifting, residential break-ins, car theft and vandalism. After the petty crimes, these children may graduate into the more serious crimes of drug trafficking, sexual offences and gang violence. Crime can also be related to the probability of being caught and the extent of possible sentencing. On our Sexual Abuse Journals, we present information showing that most rapes and most acts of sexual abuse are committed by individuals with whom the victims are related or otherwise acquainted. Such relationships can discourage victims from reporting incidents to law enforcement agencies, thus failing to bring the culprits to justice. Part of the underreporting problem is the social stigma that is attached to these victims. Although they are victims, they are often blamed for the crime, labeled as being promiscuous and loose. This allows the real offenders to get away unpunished, leaving them free to offend again. As citizens, we need to adopt laws and reporting procedures that will give full physical and psychological protection to victims who report crime. Let us not allow offenders to get away with their crimes, giving them an opportunity to repeat. Corporate crime is becoming increasingly global and its consequences can be devastating. Consumers are defrauded. Our environment (soil, air and water) is often compromised. Our personal safety can be placed at risk by lobbyists who buy influence but do not have the interest of the greater majority at heart. We must also work to curtail corporate greed. The practice of “influence buying” needs to be stopped. We call for greater transparency as well so that irregularities in accounting practices can be detected early to mitigate any damages. The practice of corporate disclosure needs to be widened. This will allow consumers and shareholders to become fully aware of corporate records on the environment, human rights, worker safety and financial matters. It will also allow us to know about corporate criminal records and litigation records. Multiple functions within consulting firms need to be severed and made independent from each other to prevent conflicts of interest.
As law-abiding citizens, it is imperative that we live our lives according to the rules of our land. It is also our civic duty to report any crimes that we witness. The reasons are simple: our laws are meant to preserve the quiet and peaceful enjoyment of living in this great country. Anytime a law is broken, it can compromise the safety of our citizens. What makes our nation so great is the freedom given to us by our forefathers: our freedom of speech, of religion, of protest, to vote, to get an education, to go to work, to information and many more! These freedoms are valuable and precious to all of us.. Although the costs of these battles are plenty, the rewards are worth it.

Why superstars are special?

Of late, I had become skeptical of the iconic status being accorded to some hyperactive overacting superstars like SRK and Big B. However, I amused myself by saying that they are reaping a harvest from their glorious pasts. Yesterday, I got a glimpse of that when i was watching Amitabh Bacchan's flick. 'Namak Halaal'.
The artificial and overconscious Amitabh of taday with a made-up baritone voice is a far cry from the sponteaneous, jovial and natural genius that he used to be in his heydays. He is well past his prime insofar as his natural genius is concerned. He can find a kindred spirit in Sachin Tendulkar who is still in awesome touch but the world rues the loss of his reckless youth.
Talking of 'Namak Halaal', Amitabh was at his comical best. He made us realise how his presence overshadowed that of any stand-up comedian. It goes without saying that he made many comedians jobless because he was able to enact simply anything. The starting of the movie is in itself a different one in which a fantasising Amitabh is awaken from his slumber by his daddu and he reacts in a novel naive way, "Daddu tum?".
The genius reflected again when he almost recited a cricket commentary in front of the villain Ranjit. The flow was awesome, barring the made-up vernacular diction, and the problem was that there seemed to be no grammatical mistake in his commentary. This is how lives are in rural India where good speakers are not kept to the pedestal because they do not doff their uniforms.
Analyse this. The morphed Amitabh has become Big B and is now a commercial actor who probably overdoes everything from advertising to acting. His performances still remain forces to reckon with but in no way are they naturally driven. There seems a management-ish perspective lurking behind his acting nowadays. He is now a brand and that has killed his natural genius. His peformances in KKKG, Mohabbatein, Aks, Ek Ajnabee, Viruddh, Baghban, Lakshya etc were all godd but still not fitful for a person like Amitabh who could sway the audience earlier by his 'real' voice and liguistic skills, esp the command on 'Awadhi'in a market full of bhaiyas.
I reminisce the legend Dilip Kumar giving up to overacting is his later years.The sober Yousuf Khan from the former frontier estate of Peshawar created ripples in Bollywood with his most natural acting skills in various movies like Mela, Amar, Madhumati, Andaj, Devdas, mughal-e-ajam et al. He unfortunately met decadence in the later years with a developed propenisity for overacting in movies like Karma, Vidhaata, Suadagar and many others.
The living legend SRK is still painfully manifesting that. Who will forget the awesome protrayal of Mohan Bhargava in the movie Swades? It required a staid direction by Ashutosh Gowarikar that brought out the latent best in SRK. That is also the SRK we pine for. We got to see a tad of that magical touch in Chak De. Contrast them with his unnatural albeit commercially succesful performances in candyfloss tearjerkers like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Dil To Pagal Hai, Mohabatein etc.

my overall favourite books (assorted) and not formatted:)

Catalogue of some of my favorite assorted books:
Category
Book Author
Management
M1 Marketing Management Bowdy and Peter
M2 Financial Management
(i) Khan & Jain
(ii) T.M. Pandey
M3 Management of Information Systems Griffin
M4 Management
M5 Mathematics for Business Studies Dr. J.K.Thukral
M6 You Inc. Hedges
M7 Iacocca An Autobiography Lee Iacocca
M8 Straight from the Gut Jack Welch
M9 Knowledge Management Strategies Microsoft
M10 Business making skills Simon
M11 Architect of Quality Juran
M12 Management Peter Drucker

English Literature
E1 Atlas shrugged Ayn Rand
E2 Fountainhead Ayn Rand
E3 Eools Die Maria Puzo
E4 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
E5 Half a Life V.S. Naipaul
E6 Harry Potter
(a) and the order of phoenix
(b) and the chamber of secrets J.K. Rowling
(c) and the prisoner of Azbakan
E7 Five point Someone Chetan Bhagat
E8 Goddess of small things Arundhati Roy
E9 To Sir, with love E.H.Braithwaite
E10 David Copperfield
E11 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
E12 Oliver Twist
E13 Tale of Two Cities
E14 Lord of the flies William Golding
E15 Haiku for lovers Manu Bazzane
E15 The Canterbury Tales Chaucer
E16 The Beloved Anarchist by P.R Taikad
E17 She Rider Hoggard
E18 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
E19 For from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
E20 The Trumpet Major Thomas Hardy
E21 One Hundred Years of solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
E23 Sons and Lovers D.H. Lawrence
E24 Mother Maxim Gorky
E25 The Artamanovs Maxim Gorky
E26 Dead souls Maxim Gorky
E27 Anna Karenina Vol 1 & 2 Count Lev Tolstoy
E28 Notes from the Underground House Dostoyevski
E29 Short Stories Chekov
E30 Lady Windermere’s Fan Oscar Wilde
E31 Death of Dr. Faustus Christopher Marlowe
E32 Short Novels & Stories Anton Chekov
E33 Gone with the Wind Margeret Mitchelle
E34 Pygmalion G.B. Shaw
E36 Candida G.B. Shaw
E37 Decline and Fall of Roman Empire Gibbon
E38 Uneasy Money P.G. Woodehouse
E39 Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
E40 Silas Marner George Eliot
E41 A Circle in Time Jean Walton
E42 The Portrait of a Crack V. Finnel
E43 Poetry Thomas Gunn
E44 Selected Essays Steven Rawlinson
E45 The Great Remakes of Nature J.V.Michurina
E46 Life’s Handicap Rudyard Kipling
E47 Wings of Death Toyoll
E48 Stories Mikhail Sholokes
E49 The Devil’s Alternative Fredrick Forsyth
E50 Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne
E51 Zamindar V. Fitzegerald
E52 Father’s & Sons Ivan Turgenev
E53 A nest of the Gentry Ivan Turgenev
E54 Henry IV Part I William Shakespeare
E55 The lovely Bones Alice Sebold
E55 The American Leslie Walter
E56 Rising Tides Nora Roberts
E57 Middle March George Eliot
E58 The seventh secret Truing Wallace
E59 The Fire and Rain Girish Karnad
E60 The Fall Make Richard Gordon
E61 A stranger in the Mirror Sidney Sheldon
E62 The Prodigal Daughter Jeffery Archer
E63 The City of Joy Dominique Lapierre
E64 The Diary of a young Girl Anne Frank
E65 Adam Bede George Eliot
E66 When Eight Bells Toll Alistair Maclean
E67 The Idiot Fyoder Dostoyesky
E68 The Winters Tale William Shakespeare
Hindi Literature
H1 Rag Darbari Srilal Shukla
H2 Suhag ke Nupur Amrit Lal Nagar
H3 Godan Ek Vivechan
H4 Meri Priya Kahaniyan Rajendra Yadav
H5 Rekha Bhagwati Charan Verma
H6 Jhalak Shivani
H7 Viragbahu Sharat Chand
H8 Hindi Kahani Mela K.N. Shukla & Dr. B. Mishra
H9 Premashram Prem Chand
H10 Godfather Mario Puzo
H11 Abhinav Ekanki saptale Dr. Upendra & Pt. Sharma
H12 Tulsidas Jeevan Katha
H13 Hum Log Manohar Shyam Joshi
H14 Kurushetra-2 copies Dinkar
H15 Gainda Shivani
H16 Karmbhumi Premchand
H17 Sanskrit Bharti
H18 Apue-2 Ajnabi Agyeya
H19 Shekhar 1 & 2 Agyeya
H20 Andhere Me P.Kumar & N.K.Vaidya
H21 Kohra Shailesh Matiyani
H22 Saneha Satani Shanker Prasad Yadav
H23 Chairman Satyakam Vidyalankar
H24 Bharat Bharti Mathilisharan Gupt sahitya
H25 Kashinath Sharat Chand
H26 Kala Jal Shani
H27 Pratinidhi Kahaniyan Rajendra Yadav
H28 Kohra Rabindra Nath Tagore
H29 Lajja Taslima Nasreen
H30 Adina Rahul Sanskrityayana
H31 Nirmala Premchand
H32 Sur Rasayana Dr. Santa Singh & Dr. J.P. Srivastava
H33 Nagarjuna Bhumija
H34 Pratinidhi Kahaniya Premchand
H35 Hindi Sahitya Ka Itihas Dr. Jai Kishan Prasad Khandelwal

Polity and Sociology
PS1 The Poverty of Philosphy Karl Marx
PS2 Articles and Speeches
PS3 About Lenin Lenin
PS4 On Imperialism & Imperialists – 2
PS5 Selected works 1 & 2
PS6 Down Pages from a Life of Struggle Yuri Akestine
PS7 The British Cooperative Movement Jack Bailey
PS8 My Experiment with truth M.K. Gandhi
PS9 When freedom is menaced Lal Bahadur Shashtri
PS10 Champaran Movement Singh
PS11 Geopolitical Relations & Regional Cooperation Dr. K. Gopal
PS12 H.P.S. Menon A Tribute by (Edited) Menon
PS13 Sardar Patel
PS14 Bhikaj Cama
PS15 Six Essays in Cooperative Sociology Andre Beteille
PS16 The USSR and Developing Countries Progress Publishers
PS17 The Glowing legend of Sri Syed S. Ziaurahman
PS18 Society and the Environment of a Soviet
PS19 Nations Rise and Fall – Why.
PS20 A short History of the world H. G. Wells
PS20 Socialist Bulgaria
PS21 Selected Works 1 & 2 Marx & Engels
PS22 The Road to Communism
PS23 The Children who sleep by the River Debbie Taylor
PS24 The Making of India’s Foreign Policy J. Bandhhopadhaya
PS25 The International working class movement
PS26 Ireland and the Irish Question Marx and Engels
PS27 Maxim Gorky
PS28 Os ki Jhilmilati Bund
PS29 Antarastriya Communist Andolan Lenin
PS30 Rastriya Niti Lenin
PS31 The first Indian war of Independence Marx & Engels
PS32 Marshal of the Soviet Union G. Zhukov
PS33 Kala ke Vacharik aur Saundaryetamak Pahlu Abner Jees
PS34 Das Capital Karl Marx
PS35 Communist Manifest Karl Marx
PS36 Indian Constitution D.D. Basu
PS37 History Romilla Thaper
PS38 Bhartiya Sabhyata Evam Sanskriti Ka Itihas
PS39 Tulnatamak Shashan and Rajniti Dr. V.P. Singh
PS40 Sanyukt Rajya America ka Itihas
PS41 Anterastriya Vyapar Tatha Lokvitt Dr. S.N. Lal

Economy, Psychology, Philosophy and others
MISC1Macro Economics Dhingra
MISC2When you sell that counts Donald L. Cossidy
MISC3Making money on the stock market S.S.Graubl
MISC4A Manual of foreign exchange Pither
MISC5Indian Economy survey
MISC6The interpretation of dreams Sigmund Freud
MISC7I’m OK – You’re OK Thomas A. Harris M.D.
MISC8Over the Top Zig Ziglar
MISC9Get set go Swati-Shailesh Lodha
MISC10Nityakarma Priyaprakash
MISC11Sri Jatakam
MISC12Sri Ramcharitmanas
MISC13Srimad Bhagwat Gita
MISC14Science of self realization
MISC15Gyanyog
MISC16Sakshi Krishna and Raslila Osho
MISC17The secret of Janmyoga
MISC18Thus spoke Zarathustra Frederick Nietzsche
MISC19The way of Power Sohan Blifield
MISC20Purushottam Mahatamya
MISC21Rise of the modern West Minakshi Phukan
MISC22Workbook of History.
MISC23Itihas ke Bare Mein Lal Bahadur Verma
MISC24Bhartiya Vastukala Ka Itihas Krishn Dutt Bajpayee
MISC25Bhartiya Puratatva ke Pristh Dr. Shivswaroop Sahay
MISC26Ballia Mein Byalis ki Janakranti Durga Prasad Gupt
MISC27Vedic Mathematics Jagad Guru Swami Shree
MISC28Alochana
MISC29Prem Sandesh
MISC30Yugpurush Mahant Digvijay Nath
MISC31The Third Eye T. Lobsang Rampa
MISC32The Yoga of a Yogi T. Krishnamacharya
MISC33Science, Religion and Peace S.N. Prasad, Suman Shukla
MISC34India-Vietnam Relations Ganesh Sharma
MISC35Corporate laws and Social practice G. K. Kapoor
MISC36The Universal History of Numbers Georges Ifrah
MISC37The Evolution of Khasi Music Lakynshai Syiem
MISC38Let us Create a New India in the
21st century M. Ganeshan
MISC39Nationalist Movement in South India M.S.R. Anjaneyuvulu
MISC40Powerful Media Words K. Khaja Mohideen
MISC41J. Krishnamurthy demystified Kalidas Joshi
MISC42Stars speak Fortune in our hands K.S. Mangesh Kumar
MISC43The Everyday Politics of Labour Geert De Neve
MISC44Social Demkocracy in Practice
MISC45Socialist International Pradip Bose
MISC46Beyond Shirdi K. Venkataraman
MISC47Buddhist Centers of Orissa B. Bandhopadhyay
MISC48What happens to Gods and demons H. N. Verma
MISC49Cultural Tourism Management Vishwas Mehta
MISC50Walking the Tightrope Rehana Ahmed
MISC51The Great Mortality John Kelly
MISC52The lost dreams Mohd. Salim
MISC53Nobel Prize Winners in Pictures-
1901-2003
MISC54The Rama Saga P. K. Pandeya
MISC52Essentials of Buddhism and Jainism K. N. Neelkandan
MISC53Identity and Image Management Rajendra Ghuje
MISC54Promising Professions Mamta Ghuje
MISC55Brand-wise Leveraging People
MISC56To Build Powerful Brands Jyothi Menon
MISC57Advanced Accounting V. K. Saxena
MISC58Mahashwetha Sudha Murthy
MISC59Majority People's Right for
MISC60Preferential Participation Jawahar Nessan
MISC61Cancer Made me Kasthuri Sreenivasan
MISC62Forget Kathmandu- An
Entry for Democracy Manjushree Thapa
MISC63Folklore, Public Sphere and Civil Society M.D. Muthukumarswamy, Molly Kaushal
MISC64Energizing Rural Development
through Panchayats Bibek Debray, P.D. Kaushik
MISC65Without a Second Sheela Balaji
MISC66Dalits, Land and Dignity V. B. Rawat
MISC67Prevention of Blindness T. Selvaraju
MISC68I want my son back Uma Eyyunni
MISC69Understanding Islam Frithjof Schuon
MISC70A matter of taste Nilanjan S. Roy
MISC71Dreams and their interpretation made easy Dr. Francis Menezes
MISC72India and Japan- Blossoming a
new understanding Rajaram Panda, Yoo Fukuzawa
MISC73The 8th Habit: From effectiveness
to greatness Stephen R. Covey
MISC74The Marketing White Book 2003-2004 Businessworld
MISC75The Intelligent Investors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd

Science and Engineering
SE1 Unix Sumitabha Das
SE2 VHDL Navabi
SE3 Modern Control Systems Nagarath Gopal
SE4 A+ Complete David Broth
SE5 Internet Complete Sybex
SE6 C++ Robert Lafore
SE7 Modern Physics Resnick, Halliday and Walker
SE8 Quicker Mathematics M. Tyra
SE9 Advanced Engineering Mathematics Kreyszig
SE10 Test Book of Ear, Nose & Throat Chris Desouza
SE11 Meningitis Karen l Roos
SE12 Thermodynamics Ug. Brumer
SE13 Problems in General Chemistry N.L. Glinka
SE14 General Studies Thorpe
SE15 Maths, Physics, Chemistry All Books of Inter, B.Sc., M.Sc., B.E. and N.C.E.R.T.

Aao paden aur gaon chalen:)!!!

Let me seek recourse to the cliche that the real India lies in the villages. At best, this gives respite to the metro-phobic graduates me who love any vocation in in the agrarian counterparts. I forgot a big enterpreneur's name trying his hands in farming. It becomes news na!!!
We are not supposed to forget these tid-bits.

It is raining marriages these days!!!

Just the other day, I got the priviledge to attend a birthday party of a friend's daughter. It was a great culinary adventure for me.
I also served a bit for the friend. I remember something funny happened in the past when a friend of mine joked with us in a baraat dance, "Nancho be nahin to khana nahin milega." However, it is not because of any deja vu that I served a bit. It was spontaneous.
It was certainly an experience of a different kind. To stagemanage is difficult. To manage is even more difficult.
The biggest hurdle in managing everything was the presence of few senile elders who kept on poking noses in the midst of everything. They were not happy with everything being okay. I kept on reiterating that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. When they did not get the due reverence, they waited for any opportunity to say, "abhi to launde hain, musibat fansi to ayenge humare paas". hahaha
Jokes apart, the pair looked like it was made for each other. It was delightful and highly satisfying to see another match all set to journey the roads of life together in happiness and sorrow.

The Human Capital through education

Ten years down the line, India can be a different if not a happy or sad story. We may take a cue from Das Kapital when we research more about the human capital which is grossly deficient in India at the expense of a few good trainers. Analyze this. The government of India still fails to recognize the education sector as an industry. Even the best managed private training institutions shy away from being called a corporate. The working in quite a few is almost similar, albeit with a difference in comparative paypackets. The corporate chauvinists also label these as pesudo-corporate and do not love to flex muscles with them because they are not on an even keel as per them.
So much for the attitude. The bottomline still remains that if we keep on ignoring quality education, ultimately the graduates, post-gradiates or the phd's that we will churn out will not be employable. With all respect to the employed ones, then end up doing a shoddy job. Long term vision is forsaken at the altar of short-term profit.
Even insofar as prinamry education is concerned the situation is pathetic. The teachers are perpetually or habitually absent. There is a lot of brouhaha over the mid-day meal scheme but no emphasis on quality in primary education. Our roots are week and the stem seems to be prima facie strong at least as of now. The roots can hold sway and bring down the entire tree of our economy. if this happens we will not be able to branch out but will gradually phase out from the neo-cashrich sectors. Our cities are bursting at its seams. They are costlier and expatriates are finding it tougher to relocate to India. Almost all the metros and tier 2 cities have grown costlier as per a recent renowned agency survey. Cost apart, the infrastructure is creaking. Mr. Naik, CMD L&T, pointed out this issue by saying that IT is taking the sheen away from other sectors. His take was a good one and not biased. If you take away 8 out of 10 civil engineers, who will take care of the infrastructure? That same notion, I guess, applies to other sectors too. The flip side is that if you are not a part of a cashcow corpus, the 'grapes are sour' allegation bogs you down to critique on anything. Collectivism takes over and the individual gets damned. Ugly-goliath annihilates the real-life david with consummate ease.
However, the road less travelled can be a good one and it is optimism that is the prime mover in any perspective.
I wish that Indian economy looks up in the years to come and keeps on consistently clocking 10% approx GDP growth rate, below 3% inflation and what not. It should try to remove the greay areas as well so that nothing proves to be the nemesis.
By,
The Indian.

Is your CAT-meter ticking?

It was again a strange CAT again this time. This time many faces lost colours because of its changing colours. The biggest wonder was the absence of LR (reasoning). DS bounced back and DI was not given the shorter shrift. Quantum was a tad tough again because of high level of diffculty and more emphasis on algebra. Number systems, which does not require much reading, was not significantly there and thus did not give respite to those who hate reading in quantum. Language section was not a cakewalk as it comprised few easy and objective questions. The close call and subjectivity in RC passages played the spoilsport for a few good men. All said and done, it has been touted by the experts as a very tough one and small wonders CAT is considered to be the toughest examination in the world.
But the feeling still remained for few that the number questions was somewhat less to guage a wannabe manger's potential and did not give any leeway to the majority.
The test apart, what is the enthralling is the national euphoria over it nowadays.

my choice of good books (sorry for not formatting it)

Please forgive the lack of formatting:

Category
Book Author
Management
M1 Marketing Management Bowdy and Peter
M2 Financial Management
(i) Khan & Jain
(ii) T.M. Pandey
M3 Management of Information Systems Griffin
M4 Management
M5 Mathematics for Business Studies Dr. J.K.Thukral
M6 You Inc. Hedges
M7 Iacocca An Autobiography Lee Iacocca
M8 Straight from the Gut Jack Welch
M9 Knowledge Management Strategies Microsoft
M10 Business making skills Simon
M11 Architect of Quality Juran
M12 Management Peter Drucker

English Literature
E1 Atlas shrugged Ayn Rand
E2 Fountainhead Ayn Rand
E3 Eools Die Maria Puzo
E4 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
E5 Half a Life V.S. Naipaul
E6 Harry Potter
(a) and the order of phoenix
(b) and the chamber of secrets J.K. Rowling
(c) and the prisoner of Azbakan
E7 Five point Someone Chetan Bhagat
E8 Goddess of small things Arundhati Roy
E9 To Sir, with love E.H.Braithwaite
E10 David Copperfield
E11 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
E12 Oliver Twist
E13 Tale of Two Cities
E14 Lord of the flies William Golding
E15 Haiku for lovers Manu Bazzane
E15 The Canterbury Tales Chaucer
E16 The Beloved Anarchist by P.R Taikad
E17 She Rider Hoggard
E18 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
E19 For from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
E20 The Trumpet Major Thomas Hardy
E21 One Hundred Years of solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
E23 Sons and Lovers D.H. Lawrence
E24 Mother Maxim Gorky
E25 The Artamanovs Maxim Gorky
E26 Dead souls Maxim Gorky
E27 Anna Karenina Vol 1 & 2 Count Lev Tolstoy
E28 Notes from the Underground House Dostoyevski
E29 Short Stories Chekov
E30 Lady Windermere’s Fan Oscar Wilde
E31 Death of Dr. Faustus Christopher Marlowe
E32 Short Novels & Stories Anton Chekov
E33 Gone with the Wind Margeret Mitchelle
E34 Pygmalion G.B. Shaw
E36 Candida G.B. Shaw
E37 Decline and Fall of Roman Empire Gibbon
E38 Uneasy Money P.G. Woodehouse
E39 Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
E40 Silas Marner George Eliot
E41 A Circle in Time Jean Walton
E42 The Portrait of a Crack V. Finnel
E43 Poetry Thomas Gunn
E44 Selected Essays Steven Rawlinson
E45 The Great Remakes of Nature J.V.Michurina
E46 Life’s Handicap Rudyard Kipling
E47 Wings of Death Toyoll
E48 Stories Mikhail Sholokes
E49 The Devil’s Alternative Fredrick Forsyth
E50 Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne
E51 Zamindar V. Fitzegerald
E52 Father’s & Sons Ivan Turgenev
E53 A nest of the Gentry Ivan Turgenev
E54 Henry IV Part I William Shakespeare
E55 The lovely Bones Alice Sebold
E55 The American Leslie Walter
E56 Rising Tides Nora Roberts
E57 Middle March George Eliot
E58 The seventh secret Truing Wallace
E59 The Fire and Rain Girish Karnad
E60 The Fall Make Richard Gordon
E61 A stranger in the Mirror Sidney Sheldon
E62 The Prodigal Daughter Jeffery Archer
E63 The City of Joy Dominique Lapierre
E64 The Diary of a young Girl Anne Frank
E65 Adam Bede George Eliot
E66 When Eight Bells Toll Alistair Maclean
E67 The Idiot Fyoder Dostoyesky
E68 The Winters Tale William Shakespeare

Polity and Sociology
PS1 The Poverty of Philosphy Karl Marx
PS2 Articles and Speeches
PS3 About Lenin Lenin
PS4 On Imperialism & Imperialists – 2
PS5 Selected works 1 & 2
PS6 Down Pages from a Life of Struggle Yuri Akestine
PS7 The British Cooperative Movement Jack Bailey
PS8 My Experiment with truth M.K. Gandhi
PS9 When freedom is menaced Lal Bahadur Shashtri
PS11 Geopolitical Relations & Regional Cooperation Dr. K. Gopal
PS12 H.P.S. Menon A Tribute by (Edited) Menon
PS15 Six Essays in Cooperative Sociology Andre Beteille
PS16 The USSR and Developing Countries Progress Publishers
PS17 The Glowing legend of Sri Syed S. Ziaurahman
PS18 Society and the Environment of a Soviet
PS19 Nations Rise and Fall – Why.
PS20 A short History of the world H. G. Wells
PS20 Socialist Bulgaria
PS21 Selected Works 1 & 2 Marx & Engels
PS22 The Road to Communism
PS23 The Children who sleep by the River Debbie Taylor
PS24 The Making of India’s Foreign Policy J. Bandhhopadhaya
PS25 The International working class movement
PS26 Ireland and the Irish Question Marx and Engels
PS27 Maxim Gorky
PS31 The first Indian war of Independence Marx & Engels
PS32 Marshal of the Soviet Union G. Zhukov
PS34 Das Capital Karl Marx
PS35 Communist Manifest Karl Marx
PS36 Indian Constitution D.D. Basu
PS37 History Romilla Thaper

Economy, Psychology, Philosophy and others
MISC1Macro Economics Dhingra
MISC2When you sell that counts Donald L. Cossidy
MISC3Making money on the stock market S.S.Graubl
MISC4A Manual of foreign exchange Pither
MISC5Indian Economy survey
MISC6The interpretation of dreams Sigmund Freud
MISC7I’m OK – You’re OK Thomas A. Harris M.D.
MISC8Over the Top Zig Ziglar
MISC9Get set go Swati-Shailesh Lodha
MISC14Science of self realization
MISC17The secret of Janmyoga
MISC18Thus spoke Zarathustra Frederick Nietzsche
MISC19The way of Power Sohan Blifield
MISC21Rise of the modern West Minakshi Phukan
MISC22Workbook of History.
MISC31The Third Eye T. Lobsang Rampa
MISC32The Yoga of a Yogi T. Krishnamacharya
MISC33Science, Religion and Peace S.N. Prasad, Suman Shukla
MISC34India-Vietnam Relations Ganesh Sharma
MISC35Corporate laws and Social practice G. K. Kapoor
MISC36The Universal History of Numbers Georges Ifrah
MISC37The Evolution of Khasi Music Lakynshai Syiem
MISC38Let us Create a New India in the
21st century M. Ganeshan
MISC39Nationalist Movement in South India M.S.R. Anjaneyuvulu
MISC40Powerful Media Words K. Khaja Mohideen
MISC41J. Krishnamurthy demystified Kalidas Joshi
MISC42Stars speak Fortune in our hands K.S. Mangesh Kumar
MISC43The Everyday Politics of Labour Geert De Neve
MISC44Social Democracy in Practice
MISC45Socialist International Pradip Bose
MISC46Beyond Shirdi K. Venkataraman
MISC47Buddhist Centers of Orissa B. Bandhopadhyay
MISC48What happens to Gods and demons H. N. Verma
MISC49Cultural Tourism Management Vishwas Mehta
MISC50Walking the Tightrope Rehana Ahmed
MISC51The Great Mortality John Kelly
MISC52The lost dreams Mohd. Salim
MISC53Nobel Prize Winners in Pictures-
1901-2003
MISC54The Rama Saga P. K. Pandeya
MISC52Essentials of Buddhism and Jainism K. N. Neelkandan
MISC53Identity and Image Management Rajendra Ghuje
MISC54Promising Professions Mamta Ghuje
MISC55Brand-wise Leveraging People
MISC56To Build Powerful Brands Jyothi Menon
MISC57Advanced Accounting V. K. Saxena
MISC58Mahashwetha Sudha Murthy
MISC59Majority People's Right for
MISC60Preferential Participation Jawahar Nessan
MISC61Cancer Made me Kasthuri Sreenivasan
MISC62Forget Kathmandu- An
Entry for Democracy Manjushree Thapa
MISC63Folklore, Public Sphere and Civil Society M.D. Muthukumarswamy, Molly Kaushal
MISC64Energizing Rural Development
through Panchayats Bibek Debray, P.D. Kaushik
MISC65Without a Second Sheela Balaji
MISC66Dalits, Land and Dignity V. B. Rawat
MISC67Prevention of Blindness T. Selvaraju
MISC68I want my son back Uma Eyyunni
MISC69Understanding Islam Frithjof Schuon
MISC70A matter of taste Nilanjan S. Roy
MISC71Dreams and their interpretation made easy Dr. Francis Menezes
MISC72India and Japan- Blossoming a
new understanding Rajaram Panda, Yoo Fukuzawa
MISC73The 8th Habit: From effectiveness
to greatness Stephen R. Covey
MISC74The Marketing White Book 2003-2004 Businessworld
MISC75The Intelligent Investors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd

The trainer's dilemma

Just the other day, I came across an article that read the survey of Indian Labour Agency. (I guess this is it only:))It was about the plight of Indian industry grappling with the shortage of skilled manpower. It said that 90% of Indian graduates are unemployable and out of those that are, more than half earn a pittance. The problem is rather grave-lack of training. The roots of the problem have dug deeper into the malice of the parochial perception of the Indian society- the stigma associated with something that is sublime in deeds. The concept of training unfortunately still remains western. The traditional respectable 'guru' has finally become a jobless man devoid any good opportunity and forced to live the life of a teacher. That is the perception and the society cannot be blamed fully for it. That is the way practicality speaks. It is a rarity to find a technical or that matter even a graduate taking up the vocation of training for the love of it. Art for art's sake funda does not apply here.

But the gap between skilled and unskilled workforce can be bridged with the help of training. We surely never expect the conventional University or school model to work properly in India. The are not to be blamed fully as they earn a pittance vis-a-vis their other equally cometent counterpart and live a life of anonymity or sometimes call it quits in frustratuion and try to seek greener pastures.

But the paradox is stark. It is a catch-22 situation. The industry will eventually lose out to the competition because of lack of trainers and the industry will never recognise the trainer. The government spends only 5.2% of its GDP to education. Despite all of this, we need a few good men who can rise beyond the hype and hoopla and become proactive to bring certain grassroot level changes. The training pedagogy demands a sea change. The primary education has to be targeted and any effort to improve it must be properly recognised, if not incentivised. There disappears the truant, serious, dull professor devoid of even the working knowledge of his subject. And here pitches in the new-age professional who knows how to corporatize the unorganized industry. The real trainer has to set the extra mile in his life's marathon. He can inspire only by leading from the front and not just by feeling victimised and underperforming at the cost of the students. We need an army of trainers. Even training industry is undergoing metamorphosis. The signs of changes have started showing themselves and the trainer has started realising that his bootcamp has begun. Only thereafter can he can initiate a bootcamp for the protege. I will love to post more later.

How far is too far?

Sometimes there are certain happenings in life when you pause to shudder at what worse could have happened if you proceeded the wild way you live your life. It is a wild fear that you might do some harm to your near and dear ones because you cannot quit something.
It is high time all the spoilt-brats did something serious about rehab.:)
The subtle inferences are because of certain happenings that disturb you so much and you cannot even substantiate why that happened because of the stigma involved. Destiny conspires in such a way and you are left with plain regrets and keep on living in the fear that you cannot mend your ways as you have gone too far to return back.

Mukesh Ambani is the richest man in the world because his DAD was an ATM!!!

Welcome to the new-age rich man's son. Unlike Prince Harry, the new-age rich man's son believes in multiplying dad's moolah and not in dividing it. Gone are the days when it was fashion to have the satire emblazoned on your t-shirts, "My dad is an ATM." No longer does the riches of dad remain a legacy meant to be inherited and not to be utilized. Money attracts money. That is the bottomline. Rest is well nigh hogwash. Barring a few, majority live in the fool's paradise of becoming a succesful enterpreneur by starting a business from the scratch.
However, it is heartening to see that people are born with a silver spoon but want to die with a golden spoon. Mukesh Ambani, Shishir Bajaj, Aditya Mittal, Anil Ambani, Hritik Roshan, Amir Khan, Shahid Kapur, Kajol, Rani Mukherji et al.

An excerpt from an interview with S. Shandilya, Chairman Eicher Group:

Despite my dislike for the corporate, I have a fancy for corporate honchos’ take on so many things- good vs bad, private vs public, employer vs employee, India vs the US of A, retention vs attrition, Monday blues vs Friday revelry, application side vs the non-application one, demand vs supply, number churning vs useability, urban vs rural governance, rupee vs dollar, employee vs entrepreneur, stress vs professionalism and so and so forth. In short, I love their views on anything and everything under the sun. Not to mention, this exclusive interview by Mr. Shandilya on a channel was a delight to watch and listen to.
He opines that demand has far overtaken the supply and the graduates that are being churned out by the current education system are not employable in the strictest of sense. However, low cost jobs have to be outsourced and end-to-end solutions have to be provided. Which is why, corporate has no choice but to recruit and boast of recruiting in hordes. The solution that the corporate has taken recourse to in order to counter lack of competence in any definitive skill-set is to train the unemployable employee at the outset. This results in a huge drain of time, money, resources and the other intangible assets too. The worst facet of all this is that the trainee more often than not utilizes the training expertise somewhere else and if not, then the trainee does not utilize it anywhere at all. Ultimately, it becomes a zero sum game for the training company.
The discussion veered to the attrition monster, which is the corporate bugbear. Mr. Shandilya’s take on attrition is not a critical one. He analyzes the pros and cons of it. It is wrong to decry attrition outrightingly without realizing that normal attrition per se is okay. It is when attrition reaches the height in sectors like IT/ITES where growth rate is one among the best the alarm bells start ringing. But then the reason can be manifold. Many of the times higher growth does that (people switch over at the drop of the hat for a measly salasy hike of Rs. 1000 per month), on other times the missing role clarity does the harm (people are confused as to what exactly is their profile and change because they spot the disconnect between the initial offer and the actual project work being done) and sometimes higher stress level is the bane (You ask, “Oh my god, even the Senior Project manager is working like hell. Is there any respite even few years down the line?). There are many other reasons. But the demand outstrips supply and not-so-effective remedial measures can be benching, temping or going for legal contracts that are many a times not legally enforceable and not recognized by law.
The root problem still remains that the grass-root educational level still remains an impregnable fortress for the corporate because it requires a massive effort and where is the time for it? ITC’s e-chaupal initiative can be a one-off case in the point. The public-private-partnership is still in its infancy in India. Ultimately it results in unskilled manpower being churned out the educational factories. The Ram Gopal Verma’s Factory is doing the same in movies because it believes that audience wants a large number of movies no matter if they are devoid of quality. That is analogous and metaphorical as it almost a similar scenario in the education sector. The industry-academia interface is not proper and CII is upping the ante against the same. Then again ‘Train the trainer’ module can be effective provided the trainer is paid well and the cliché that is associated with it that training is a part-time career has to be discouraged.
I will love to post more on this later.

Dusshehra in Gorakhpur

The festival season has just begun. It has been a mandate for me for so many years to visit durga badi in Gorakhpur, U.P., India at least once during dusshehra festival. It has been almost sacrosanct for me not because I am a devout Durga ma bhakt but because of a few good teenage memories. As usual after waking up, I was there. The ground was buzzing with festivity as usual. Soon I found myself among the multitude vying for the coveted thali of ‘prasad’. The traffic irked the distributors of the ‘prasad’ umpteen number of times but still with smiling faces they chose to ignore many who ran away with the thali more than once. The motley crowd seemed to be relaxed. Each seemed to have different reasons for that. There could be seen various faces: bong beauties, bespectacled Software Engineers chilling out after a back-breaking sojourn abroad, veterans who have developed a near six sigma expertise in event management, truly reverent ‘sadhaks’ hoping for a good future, busy and business-like sindhi’s overlooking a food stall, dandies and darlings seeking a partner and what not. It was a nice gathering. In particular, the housie game kept the majority engaged. The big fish normally won and the small fry went back vanquished. A section boasted and hooted a lot when anyone reported bogus claims. The funny anchor was at his best in giving names to numbers. I, for one, found my description in the ‘ Seekiya pehelwan’ number 1.
However, it was a tad surprising to find so many Bengalis and it was as if a ‘mini-assansol’ had been created over there. It was a nice cross-cultural exchange. Few typical localites resented this overwhelming presence of a particular community by trying to mock at the jamboree. Few were regretting that nowadays celebrations are not as good as they used to be earlier. A regret that never ends and has almost become clichéd! All said and done, it is nice sometimes to be an ‘up-country’ mofussil boy.

a good script to daydream!!!

Just the other day, a friend of mine came up with a 'pandulipi' or a manuscript. The plot was in line with something that i had written before as a teenage fancy and smacked of 'deja vu'. It was a generic fiction about an engineer who fails terribly in life and career because of several trappings. The engineer was in the quest for the ever eluding solace in life and falls in but not out of a love affair that proves to be a nemesis for his career but not for life. In the end, optimism wins and the failed engineer does not die but continues to live on happily. He probably learns to live on happily as a failure.a nice script but with an intellectual critique sans arm-chair criticism, this might be like be like selling apples when oranges sell in the market or vice-versa!!!

simple pleasures of life

i enjoyed every tiny-miny (beware the hyphens as 16000 of them have been removed from the english lexicon!) bit of the simple pleasures of life and it was a tad exhilirating, albeit with a sense of smugness...
that was just a flash in the pan!!!
Becz we do not want to become a fly-by-night operator...
This is no mean business but can we forget the simple pleasures of life!!!
ergo, let us max our mirth as this is the month of festivals which we must enjoy in the fullest. let us resolve to forget the mundane heebie-jeebies (beware the hyphens as 16000 of them have been removed from the english lexicon!) and ensconce ourselves in the carnival couch and drape or insipid lives with roseate hues!!!
kaisa tha? suggest something for improvement!!!
hehehe
Happy blogging!!!

Here's the the never-say-die Tendulkar fans!!!

People have short memories and forget the goods as the evil is not oft interred with the bones!!! It is wrongly associated in the present and the past futures...
The sharjah knock of 141 from Sachin was scintillating and can be likened to maradona's goal of the millenium in 86 soccer world cup...
It is for those who have forgotten that in the late 80s this young lad showed what is aggro when he smacked Abdul qadir for three sixes and fought tooth and nail for victory agianst pakistan in an exhibition match. Before that Pak was invincible for India. It was unfortunate that others did not follow suit and his fighting knock was to no avail as India missed the mark by whiskers.
He is the first in so many other things. Besides Dhyanchand, Vishy and few others we could have never boasted of a cricketing legend. Try playing top class international cricket for extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely tiring years and you will see the GOD in him. For the ordinary mortal it will be the curse of Sisyphus. For the rare legend it is the delight of his own genius. Imagine Einstein enjoying in the woods and coming up with E=mc^2 and Kekule seeing the benzene ring in his dreams. That is precisely how even the majestic aussies discovered the precocious teenage cricket sensation in the ealry 90's. He was an icon even then. It is sad that the world revers except the few rare ordinary cricketers, selectors and commentators.:) but Indians forget the son-of-the-soil talent. He is blessed with divinity and never took his cricket as just a commercial rampart and got rich by his gift of God and not just by gift of the gab. Small wonders many petty mortals derive pleasure by criticing him by a pet line that he is not a match winner. Unfortunately for so many years we lost because tendulkar could not fire. This is for all die-hard tendulkar fans!!!
Please post more on the legend...

typo and grammatical errors

Please do not mind the typo and grammatical errors as they are posted in a hurry...

These are the best of the times and the worst of the times

Times have changed and we need to be extra cautious of global militancy and must not give any leverage to anyone. Despite the fact that terrorism is not the handiwork of anyone specific we must beware of any particular insurgency group and in no way take recourse to the policy of appeasement at the cost of so many lives.
It is destination south india for the terrorists nowadays or so it seems. The cyber city has already been attacked and sporadic cases of terrorist attackes have been witnessed in the siolicon city of india. Whither India? How effcient are our intelligence agencies? We need to take a cue from US, UK or Australia who do not care a bit in going in extremes irrespective of whatever criticism it gets from all across the globe!!!
Achtung!
Let us pull up our socks and still save so many lives...

How fanatic was regressive India in 90s!!!

I ponder at times whither are we going? I take a cue from what i had written in those days.

The Ayodhya imapasse: Whoever thought himself very smart that a majority of population- obviously that of the Hindus- can be flared up by fiery speeches and petty political maneuverings, was indeed very smart. For until now the demagogue has been able to do that and will keep on doing so in future. It may sound a bit impulsive and outlandish too, but whatever has happened in Ayodhya until now has forced me to believe that if a particular community was wrong, on which pretext VHP's propaganda gains ground so often, the other might just be toeing similar lines. They who talk of theology, why do they shrug off philosophy? And philosophy, which is so inextricably mingled with theology, will always say that it is useless to fight over a portion of land. In fact, I too have a confession to make. Just a decade back I was a die-hard Hindu fanatic and had intended then to join the Karsewa, which fortunately I never did. Today after maturing myself ten years ahead, when I reflect on my past status, I feel like smiling at my childishness then. Then it makes me wonder those leaders so much senior to me are stage-managing the whole conflagrations. So probably even age has not much to do with reason. Or else the senior politicians of the country would have tried their level best to hold the country united and spearhead an economic revolution, instead of a religious one. Granted that VHP is right that a mosque was created over a temple centuries back, why to dig the graves of the past then? As for Muslim militancy, as they often point out, there can be other ways to counter it, than to indulge in rioting even at the very outset. One has to be prepared for the defense, if there is any need of it. And any offense in this context will only push the country back another twenty years and while other countries would be cruising easily along the 'advancement' ship, we will again find ourselves in the Neanderthal age. I am not a secular man to give comments like that. Actually, I am still as fanatic as the nearest Kar Sewak. But my religious predisposition as of late have merged themselves with the economic ones too. And there can be no doubt that the nation suffered huge economic losses in the riots that ensued the Ayodhya tangle. It is again on the verge of it, thanks to organizations like VHP, who cannot contribute significantly to the earthquake victims or the cyclone victims for that matter, but are forever eager to roll their sleeves on the mention of the word 'Babri Masjid'. Strange as it seems, probably the VHP will never erect the Ram Temple at the disputed site. Because then it will lose its raison'd etre. Its entity is only till the time when the temple gets erected. So watch out for future and see for yourself what lies in its store. Hundreds of lives might again be laid and the disputed site will remain just the same, that is my presentiment. And isn't it too much to be taken as coincidences that the BJP flares up the Ayodhya issue whenever the election is near and forgets completely about it thereafter. Any sensible person can see that and it is a wonder people in India are mostly fools not to catch the ulterior motives. A majority of those who are sensible become tongue-tied over it because of the fear of being branded 'pseudo-secularists'. My idea is that we must come up against the numberless and pointless Ayodhya or the recent Gorakhpur agitations, not only to maintain secularism, but also to inculcate some sense in the masses, foremost being the sense of being manipulated by the politicians time and again. I was musing over the post-Godhra incidents. In fact, they held a bit more sense, being in reaction to whatever happened to innocent victims of that ill-fated train, although I still sympathize with the victims of the post-Godhra riots. But still those riots in Gujarat held a bit more sense. And the Ayodhya tangle as of now? Earlier times were backwards, unethical, irrational and cashstrapped. Are the times now better or can we simply shrug off saying these are the best of times and these are the worst of times. I wish to laugh at any fanatic misdemeanor of the past, just as I wish to laugh at the modern counterparts. The black Sunday of 6th December nearly more than a decade ago has been pointed out by a famous editor. And today it is not just a Sunday. The equations are changing so fast that every day appears to be similar to the black Sunday aforesaid. Ask those in Ahmedabad. Even while the city is limping back to normalcy, the morbid cloud of fanaticism lurks in the background, adding to the general pathos. And instead of alleviating his or her fears, somebody has sit on a hunger strike, exposing himself to chronic illness. Come to think about it and a definite impression of backwardness emerges in the forefront. These are cybertimes as we project to others, even to the US, make no mistakes about it (God save me from the Dubyaman syndrome). But as Jug Saraiya makes no bones about his open contempt for terrorism or counterterrorism for that matter, I also feel that things must be taken more in lighter veins and then we will find out most problems, including this recent unusually usual Ayodhya hype. I was offering my usual morning prayers a day after the Ahmedabad carnage came in light to me. my Pooja room has a big portrait of Lord Rama too. Risking the ire of the lords, I will write that I did not feel like praying then. The picture of Lord Rama had suddenly become phantasmal to me and despair followed that this is the essence of religion nowadays and just see how far from the religion itself these religious misdemeanors take away an average worshipper. To those who are blinded by fanaticism I will like to ask a decade after. As of now they will hold me a Communist, which I intend to become if theology treats its followers this way. A decade after they only, if they do not become politicians, will say, "Come on, it was just a frenzy in March, 2K2." However if these fanatics shun their wrong ways and follow an upward going economically strong life, they will simply reminisce the 2K2, it being the genesis of a wonderful life in the making. The bottomline is: Remove illiteracy, superstitions, and idleness of purpose and above all poverty and then you will not need religious riots at all.

alas the pride of slavery

Welcome to the great Indian dream of becoming the next economic superpower!!!
Just the other day, I overheard a converation between my mom and someone else's mom. Someone else's mom was proclaiming the selection of her girl in a great multinational and my mom was happy in her happiness. Then the discussion veered towards other mundane affairs and then again came back to the corporate. Someone else's mom was damant that her girl should do an MBA, which was not a wrong thought after all.
Surely, Indian market is flush with funds and the juggernaut is rolling on...
And we can also hope that this will create certain truly free spirits who can break free off the fetters of the white-collared slavery. Only then India will attain the true progress. Why India, only then will humans attain true independence- the much desired break from the herd instinct of collectivism; a coincept propounded by Ayn Rand but to little avail...

Vocab is interesting

Hi,

The million-dollar question emerges: Do we need a glamour quotient to make it more interactive?
According to me the answer is yes and no.
A student is a student at the end of the day looking for fireworks and brainstorming. But then a student also looks for value addition.
Therein lies the challenge, as it becomes a tight ropewalk for the mentor to balance both.
I have tried to come up with a small script. I will be candid enough to confess that the script has become incoherent at places but I am surely expecting that valuable contributions for all sides and incorporating excerpts from all mentors will enable the plan to become more systematic. Here’s my lowdown on it.

We do find the need to make the vocabulary sessions as interesting and interactive as possible. It is a challenge that any mentor has to face as long as he/she is alive. We are in search for the alchemist who will unearth the vocab goldmine and emerge as the ultimate winner. The search has begun and we are positively sure of our success. Needless to say that a goldmine cannot be explored unless and until we have the requisite roadmap in place. To prepare a roadmap we need to take cues from resources in hand and not forgetting that they have to be the means and not the end.
In case of vocabulary we have selected a few important cues that will facilitate us in unearthing the final act.
First things first.
Vocab cannot do away with the traditional pedagogy of “roots and cells” to help decode words. Them again we have the other methods comprising Fill-in-the-Blanks, Definition Match, Synonym & Antonym Encounters, Crosswords, Word Finds, True/False and Word Stories. This can be taught by rote. New Theme related crosswords can be added.
These years we are seeing a shift in the focus of language areas in the CAT. CAT can spring up with surprises that come as a shocker for many and a pleasant surprise for few. We can take an example of the poem in the CAT paper. The words that were used were taken largely from mythologies. Mythology is everywhere! There are literally THOUSANDS of words and expressions that derive from ancient myths. Ever wondered about words like Cyclops, Pegasus, Jason’s fleece, Noah’s ark, Achilles, Trojan horse, Achilles' heel, Stentorian roar, Myrmidons, Scylla and Charybdis , Siren voices , A Cassandra (always wrongly used to mean prophet of doom; never actually used of somebody who is right) , A mentor, An odyssey , epic proportions, working like a Trojan (why?) , Greeks bearing gifts, to hector, lotus eating, a Nestor , a faithful Penelope, to pile Pelion on Ossa, mercurial disposition, saturnine character, titanic strength, hermetic seal, venereal disease, jovial countenance, martial music, Dionysian licence, Apollonian control, Olympian detachment , Junoesque proportions (of a woman = huge), Bacchanalian orgies, panic button, Parnassian figure,stoic endurance, epicurean delights, platonic friendship, cynical indifference, academic pretensions, Socratic argument, peripatetic teachers (never of Aristotle!), Lucullan feast , draconian measures , fabian tactics, ostracism, philippic , crossing the Rubicon,.Caesar's wife, Gordian knot , pyrrhic victory, Augustan elegance, Spartan conditions, rich as Croesus, hoi polloi (normally the hoi polloi, of course!), Sisyphean task, Promethean cunning, Protean versatility, Pandora's Box, Procrustes' bed, tantalizing offer, Morpheus (arms of), Midas touch, a harpy, stygian gloom, Gorgon stare, Hell hath no Fury ..., a Chimaera, halcyon days, Herculean labours, Augean filth, Hydra's heads, a sop to Cerberus, oedipal desires, Cloudcuckooland, Aristophanic humour , Thespian talents , sapphic practices, priapic condition, Delphic obscurity, Sibylline obfuscation, colossal impertinence, calliope etc etc……..
That is indeed interesting. Yesterday I was going through a novel Death of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. I was surprised to see characters like Mephistopheles, Faust and Lucifer being mentioned by Marlowe and many other writers. Then it struck me that we must have an extra session based on these characters as over a period of time they have become anthropomorphic in nature and somewhat irresistible per se.

Cheers,
Raktabh

CAT Fever

It is raining CAT now. CAT is round the corner. CAT is saying (CAT)ch me if you can. Welcome to the (CAT)aphoria. Are you ready for the (CAT)athon? Do you have the (CAT)titude? Can you (CAT)apult yourself?

lost in the nether parts

okay, like any other day in any typical office, big or small, I am confused. Now, my confusion is that i hate 9-5 system and the world majorly loves it. I am being constantly reminded that this is one decent way of sustenance for the kayastha community. In my family the dictum is that " Lala ka ladka pada bhala ya mara bhala". I do not buy this logic and feel more oriented towards entrepreneurship. But, being born in an educated community I feel that maybe that I am suffering from a DNA defect. just the other day, I was reading an article on schizophrenia and was surprised to know that 1% of the global population is afflicted by it and 58% of the writers have it. Being from a writing background, I feel the fear of being a schizophrenic also. That remains undetected though, if at all it is there. If that is the case, then I might be having an excuse why the I get pissed off by the corporate. But then, this will detrimentally affect my life simply anywhere and not just the corporate. I may be acting like an escapist hypochondraic or a malingerer. whatever, the confusion reigns large.
as of now, i a living in an obscure place trying to find what suits right to me and my life...
And what is good and what is not good, do we need anyone to tell us that?

India lost the World Cup

Yesterday India lost the World Cup 2007. I don't know. i was drying up these days becz of joblessness. However, kal ek peg mar hi li gam me:)
feeling guilty now...
peene walon ko peene ka bahana chahiye...
ab ek hi tamanna hai ki itna paisa kamaoon ki roti, kapda, makaan, telecom aur daroo chalti rahe...
sab moderate amount me lekin hehehe...
whaddayasuggest!!!

Entrepreneurship in Eastern U.P.

Hi,

This is to say that I am an engineer who was working with NIIT-Tech Studio, New Delhi. I wish to bring forth to everyone's notice that we have a vast talent pool in Eastern and Central U.P. that is still untapped because of ignorance and proper education. They are poorly utilized and this is something that I wish to bring to the notice of NASSCOM as well as FICCI.
The problem is at the grass-root level and we have to rise beyond the hype and hoopla of India Poised kind of campaigns. We need to analyze the situation at the ground zero level.
Even in IIMs we talk of entrepreneurship but I seriously doubt that we in India can really go beyond the 9-9 corporate humdrum and do anything substantial to change the country at the grass-root level so that farmers stop committing suicide in hitech states, what to say of BIMARU. Our honorary president talks of better teaching pedagogies but who is willing to take the lead, barring the mushrooming of low grade coaching institutes who act as 'Mudra-Rakshas".
India can certainly attest importance to the demographic advantage of Eastern U.P. and Bihar and utilize fully the economies of scale even in the field of education. This will certainly help in the long run and will not be a myopic perception per se.
I know that like the umpteen numbers of mails this might also go unnoticed but that will not be a good reason to quit. If we quit as individuals, India Poised might become India Pissed. We need to strengthen our base and not just see the superficial analysis. Ergo, I propose a platform from where we can start focusing on basic and higher education in the backwaters too. I wish to start with Eastern U.P. Please help if you can.

left for my mofussil hometown perhaps permanantly

Hi,

I am so relieved as i m free from the intellectual prison and in my oh-not-so-modern hometown. As of now, at least till the time there is no liquidity crunch for the coming few months, i am enjoying the pastoral life. Letz c if i can permanently enjoy the orgasm of my hometown, which is utopian becz everyone knows that orgasm is ephemeral for the not-so-enlightened types and almost all fall in that bracket.

Ran away from the hustle-bustle of the city

Oh,

I am feeling so happy. I am going back to my hometown for the Holi vacation. I cannot decipher why I love my familiar surroundings so much that i am willing to sacrifice the salary that I get over here in Delhi. Okay, letz not complicate this matter. This disease is of homesickness, worsened by service phobia. i am looking forward to my short innings in my hometown. It might become larger and larger in future depending on my boiling point. As of now, my spirit is to say no to forced migration. The greener pastures are always going to be there. But, I am longing to fight the inner demons and I feel that even money will not empower me to do that. Reason enough to take a sabbatical or maybe become a full-time monker. Never thought of it in my childhood, but I seriouly seems to be in the grip of mid-life crisis. Just wanted to spread the message that the effort to be outstanding always made to me stand out in the class in the school days. Now, I want to explore the heights of mediocrity. I want to be the last in terms of any achievement. My idol has changed. Earlier, there were many like Maradona, Tendulkar, Hitler, Martina Navratilova, Lendl, Mahtma Gandhi, Christina Aguilera, Vir sanghvi and many many more. Now, I idolise Rip Van Winkle. With due apologies to all and sundry.
Talking about the upcoming Holi, it is different the ones played in metros. We can play with cowdungs and the clothes are meant to be torn. You will be excused if you lie in a 'Nali' deaddrunk or overpowered by bhangs. Take care if someone offers tou a laddu provided you youself are game for it. Being an upcoming town, it is a great pleasure to play colours with girls. It provides a freedom to interact with more intimacy. Mind you, it has limitations though:)
In our area, Holi is enjoyed more by the economically weaker sections vis-v-vis Diwali. Maybe, because colours are cheaper than crackers. Maybe, also because there is an excuse or practice of going for bhang, instead of the mandate of expensive liquor in Diwali. Whatever, in our areas you enjoy Holi the most if you lower the bar.:)
There is a section that hates colours and stays away. And the elite ones who come on vacation sometimes find it irritating.
My dear friends,I will write later.

Jesus for you

heard somewhere:
A child asked Jesus how much you love me. Jesus raised his hand and died on the cross.
Let us all spread loveof Jesus all across the world.

Aur Batao syndrome

got on a mail:

Guess we all r suffering frm it at times..

Conversation between 2 Friends:

Sw1---hello
SW2---hi

Sw1---hey h r u???
SW2---m fine!!! Wht abt u???

SW1---m fine too
SW2---cool

SW1---so howz life???
SW2--gud

SW1--hmmmm

SW1--aur batao? ( passing the ball to the other side)
SW2--hmmm everything as usual

SW2--so wht else???
SW1--nothing much

SW2--ok
SW2--aur batao? ( passing the ball to the other side)

And it goes on like this until they give up

Are u also having such conversation with ur frnds, then I guess u r
also suffering from aur batao syndrome It means ur life is all screwed up
following the usual monotonous routine.

Probably u need a change in ur life something which is
exciting,something which is adventurous, something which really makes u
feel gud.

Correct????




yeh sab to thik hai

AUR BATAO

Lessons of Life

taught by a very respected teacher:


Lessons of Life...






I feared being alone
until I learned to like
myself.

I feared failure
until I realized that I only
fail when I don't try.

I feared unhappiness
until I realized
that I had to try
in order to be happy
myself.


I feared people's opinions
until I learned that
people would have opinions
about me anyway.


I feared rejection
until I learned to
have faith in myself.


I feared pain
until I learned that
it's necessary
for growth.

I feared the truth
until I saw the
ugliness in lies.


I feared life
until I experienced
its beauty.


I feared death
until I realized that it's
not an end, but a beginning.



I feared my destiny,
until I realized that
I had the power to change
my life.



I feared hate
until I saw that it
was nothing more than
ignorance.



I feared love
until it touched my heart,
making the darkness fade
into endless sunny days.


I feared ridicule

until I learned how
to laugh at myself.


I feared growing old
until I realized that
I gained wisdom every day.



I feared the future
until I realized that
life just kept getting
better.



I feared the past
until I realized that
it could no longer hurt me



I feared the dark
until I saw the beauty
of the stars.



I feared the light
until I learned that the
truth would give me
strength.



I feared change,
until I saw that
even the most beautiful butterfly
had to undergo a metamorphosis
before it could fly.

Arthur Ashe on Aids

got it on a mail:

ONE PARAGRAPH THAT EXPLAINS LIFE!

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got
due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From
world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why
does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?

To this Arthur Ashe replied: The world over -- 5 crore children start
playing tennis, 50 lakhs learn to play tennis, 5 lakhs learn professional
tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach
Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, When I was holding a cup I
never asked GOD "Why me?". And today in pain I should not be asking GOD
"Why me?"

Happiness keeps u Sweet, Trials keep u Strong, Sorrow keeps u Human,
Failure Keeps u Humble and Success keeps u glowing, but only Faith Keeps u
Going.....

George Michael out of the closet

Time can never mend the careless whispers of a good friend
To the heart and mind, ignorance is kind
there's no comfort in the truth
pain is all you'll find

Should've known better

I feel so unsure
as I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor
as the music dies, something in your eyes
calls to mind the silver screen
and all its sad good-byes

I'm never gonna dance again
guilty feet have got no rhythm
though it's easy to pretend
I know you're not a fool

Should've known better than to cheat a friend
and waste the chance that I've been given
so I'm never gonna dance again
the way I danced with you

Time can never mend
the careless whispers of a good friend
to the heart and mind
ignorance is kind
there's no comfort in the truth
pain is all you'll find

I'm never gonna dance again
guilty feet have got no rhythm
though it's easy to pretend
I know you're not a fool

Should've known better than to cheat a friend
and waste this chance that I've been given
so I'm never gonna dance again
the way I danced with you

Is marriage an institution?

I get very confused on this. Whether it is a necessary evil or not is the same question to me as whether God exists or not. Both are confusing. You cannot have a definitive stance over it if you are open to subjectivity. For those who are married, it is amost sacreligious to even question the necessity of marriage. I have heard that after an age you tend to seek a partner. I am approaching thirty and societal pressures are abounding. But, I am clueless what to say. Without a rocking job or the mentality to do it, without a healthy lifestyle meant to be compatible for the spouse, without the excessive urge or rather obsession of sexuality, without the longing for a partner and finally without any ambition, I get very confused whether i should go for it and spoil two or more lives in future. With the nature I possess, I would like to die in hunger alone. To initiate a family might become hazardous. A DNA defect again perchance.
When I declare that I do not have the urge to have any materialistic pleasure barring booze and I feel detached, my father comes up that maybe sunbconsciously you need marriage. I get confused on how my subconscious does not reveal like this to me with this kind of certitude. Maybe my dad is correct. But if he is not, few lives will be doomed forever for sure. With due apologies to all the married ones and also to those who strongly believe in the institution of marriage...

Virtues of moderate drinking

I am a self-confessed alcoholic. That should not have been a problem had i also been a workaholic. That keeps the money flow in check at least unless you work on a non-profit basis. Now, why do they say that alcohol is a depressant and not an anti-depressant is something I do not understand? Moderate drinking always keeps me otherwise sagging spirit on a high. I never was high on drugs and do not plan to in future. But, a lil bit of madhushaala is a virtue that I do not just love to write about but also love to implement it religiously in the nights. I will like to tell why i love moderate boozing. even when I am feeling a culture shock in delhi, when i get drunk i start loving the city. When i am in a village i feel so much in sync with nature under the influence of liquor. A pauper that i am, i feel like a prince when i am drunk. i have so many phobias but they vanish with wine. I am not ambitious but tend to behave like a visionary when i m drunk. An otherwise detached man that i am, wine makes me even burst in tears while watching candyfloss or a tear-jerker cinema. i m extremely slim, but wine makes me believe in front of the mirror that I am the lean machine and the chosen one. A wine always promises me a revolution in the offing and a break from the mediocrity. As I am getting older, i am getting flashes of childhood memories too. the way we used to live in a congested 2 room rented place and had to watch TV along with brother from a window on the top as dad was against that. I start remembering the night when I helped my eldest brother in Moral Science. There are numerous such activities that remain in the subconscious only to remain there forever and never to be called forth in life. It is me only who has lost touchbase with my siblings since months. And I think better when I am drunk. I have lost touch with technology, maths and science. but gimme a maths question when i m drunk, i ll show u why i was a topper in my school days. this is not possible in sobriety as i fail to get past the phobia only. you tend to rememer things a lot when you are drunk and you become more charitable. the flip side again is that one must chech the splurging spree and never drink in a bar or go to shopping or become a socialite.
Well, there is another flip side. I can at times shout at someone and bear the brunt later.:)
Which is why, I like to have it in the dead of the nights when I can only shout at myself because I stay alone.:)
and yeah, with wine i suppz i will be equally at ease in manhattan or my mofussil town. That is the real leveller. i think that is when i achieve the "Sakshi Bhav".
When it comes to reading, it is enlightening to read tolstoy, premchand, dostoyovesky, rajendra yadav, fritzof capra, kamleshwar, mannu bhandari, Robert m. Pirsig, Yashpal, Agyeya, Dharamveer Bharti, Thomas friedman, stephen Hawking or simply anybody,. Moderate drinking allows you to transcend space and time.
However, lemme tell you that i never drink to excess. That is a statutory warning not to drink in excess. 1 or 2 pegs should be enough to give you the kick and one should stop at that. Beyond that, this article can be decared null and void. And the disclaimer can be that these are only my personal views and for me alone. read somewhere that excessive alcohol usage damages the cerebral cortex in the long run. So drink moderately. Will write again later. With due apologies to all and sundry.