My Initiative

The elections for the Lok Sabha are happening on the 23 rd of this month. When I asked a few friends of mine about their awareness about the current elections, I found out that many people were ignorant or had turned a blind eye to the happenings around their area.

This being the case, I thought of creating a one-stop site that consisted of all the information about the candidates contesting the elections in Bangalore, the mapping of assembly and parliamentary constituencies and a few tips on "smart voting". Though this has taken so much of time, there is still lots of scope for improvement.

The link to the site is:

http://bangalore2009.co.cc/

Please check this out and let me know your valuable comments.

God is now here!

I walk to the temple near my place every Thursday whenever I am home early. It is my own private moment with God – a time of contemplation of the days gone by; of quiet observations and feeling of the present; and of acceptance of the future. Tired after a whole day and seeing close to half of the city with its vehicular traffic and pollution, I prefer to walk to the temple instead of driving the activa. Besides, walking also gives me time to observe the people and things around me very closely and trying to understand the delicate intricacies of the world.

Since it is a Raghavendra Swamy Mutt, the temple is crowded on a Thursday. Outside the gates, there is commotion most of the times because of two wheelers and four wheeler owners struggling to find parking space, flower vendors asking you to buy all their flowers for a good price, beggars engulfing almost the entire footpath and pestering everyone entering in and out for alms. Even after entering the corridor, the noises continue – the priests chanting shlokas loudly, housewives gossiping about the happenings of the whole world, old people singing chants of the lord loudly, people meeting up old friends and as always the ubiquitous mobile phones ringing here and there with a variety of ringtones.

I bow to the Lord and go for the regular pradakshinas observing everyone around closely. There would be people from all walks of life and age-groups over there – the students who come there with their tution bags and praying for success in exams, the busy working professionals who come down directly from their offices in their work attires to pray for nice appraisals, the young girls in their mid-twenties praying for a early marriage with a nice groom, the housewives who come to pray for their whole families, the young couple teaching their kids small chants in praise of the lord, the unemployed or the relatively poor people praying for success in life and so on…. Sometimes, there will be discourses by learned people going on with only the people over fifty years of age sitting and listening to it.

It is the kids that interest me the lot. Some are still not old enough to walk and are carried around by their parents. They keep observing other people with wide open cute eyes, occasionally smiling at someone who smiles at them. Some kids are old enough to run helter-skelter across the corridor and enjoy in their own world. Some kids are taught small chants by their parents and mumble the chants in their own sweet ways. Some are curious about the whole thing and keep asking questions - Who is God? Why is He all powerful? What will happen if I don’t pray to Him? – the kind of questions even the renowned philosophers find it tough to answer.

I then start to wonder what it is that I have come to the temple for. My mind goes back to the first here – during my third semester exams. I had done one exam very badly that day in spite of studying hard for it. It was the first shock where I came to know of the VTU standards. I had a feeling that I would fail in that subject. There were many more subjects coming in very few days and I was too scared. I could not concentrate on anything. I had come here by chance. I dint know what to do – I dint want to ask God for assurances that I would pass. I just sat there bowing my head and closed my eyes in meditation. I realized that there was nothing much I could do about it. If God had destined me to fail, I could not help it. I just prayed for the courage to accept whatever I got – it was a great feeling then. My heart felt so light and was filled with joy. I went back and gave the exams my best shot. The exams were done and I had passed with good marks. And Since then, I had decided that I would go there every week – not to ask God for favors but to thank him for whatever I got. I just would go there to pray for the well-being of everyone in this world – sarve janah sukhino bhavanthu!

I see many people in the temple full of worries. I just close my eyes for some time to meditate and think about people and life. Everyone has their own reason for being sad in life – some feel they are not good-looking. The good-looking feel they don’t have enough money. The ones who have money feel they are very dark and wish they were fair. The fair ones feel they are not intelligent. The intelligent ones feel no one loves them. And everyone prays for blessings to get all that they want. But the irony of life is such that the wants never end – once you have got the thing that you need the most you will want the next one or would have lost the first one. A poor, healthy worker slogs day in and day out to become rich- and when he finally gets the money, he would have lost his health. In that matter, we are all equal and the same before god – if God does not want to give you something at this point of time, it is only because he is giving it to the one who needs it more than you. No need to worry about that – you will ultimately get the best in life. This realization gives the ultimate happiness in life and leads to immediate satisfaction.

I had this post in mind for so many days and finally was able to post it on a very auspicious day. Today is RaamNavami – the birthday of Lord Rama - probably the most controversial of Indian gods and the one who touches the emotional chords of every Hindu. The politicians have used his name in selfish ways but have completely forgotten the values for which He stood. The perfect adherence to Dharma, the tag of “Maryada Puroshotama”, the governance like “Rama Raajya” is nowhere to be seen these days. These are just some of the examples that we could derive from this divine figure and start practicing in our lives immediately – regardless of whether we believe in his very existence or not. I wish each one of you a very happy festival and nice, bright days for the rest of your lives.

Of exciting drinks, irritating mouse and switching gears between legs!

When I was at kindergarten, the teachers used to make all the children recite the names of months, counting numbers, maths tables, rhymes, colours and days of the week. The entire class of small, cute kids dressed in pretty uniforms and small shoes with long blue socks used to shout out whatever was taught at the top of their voices – it was kind of fun. Particularly, when reciting the days of the week, the expression on almost every child would be the same – “Sunday” would be told with so much of excitement and the tone would immediately turn sober for “Monday”. “Tuesday”, “Wednesday” and “Thursday” would be expressionless while “Friday” would have some cheerfulness. The day which would get the maximum voice and happiness would always be the last – “Saturday”. Every one of us would scream it on the top of our voice with a smile on the face.

Now, even after almost twenty years, I find that this feeling about weekend has not changed at all. Working at the IT industry makes the five day work week seem so boring, dull and routine. It is the same everyday – work, deadlines, meetings, etc. The excitement in life comes only on weekends. It is that time when we rediscover our lives. Sometimes I feel the whole industry just slogs and dies the five weekdays making money so that they can “live” for the two days that follow.

I spend most weekends relaxing at the cool comforts of my home and spending time with my loved ones. There would be so many other things planned for the week but the ones that finally executed would be the ones which excite me the most – reading that long-pending novel, watching the much- awaited movie, buying stuff waiting to be bought from a long time, and so on.

Last weekend was really fun. On Saturday, our gang of office friends met up at a colleague’s place for a small get together. Though his house was very far from my place, the exciting time spent along with a cool, icy apple drink on the way made it a memorable experience. The gang arrived late but we did manage to have a lot of fun. The lunch that we had at a nearby Andhra restaurant was spicy, economical and very filling – all of us hit the bed at our friend’s place and tried to catch a small nap as soon as we got back.

I had plans of buying a new desktop system for use at home, particularly for Ultra’s use for a long while now. In fact, most of the official time during the last week was spent surveying the probable and economical configurations which could be bought. Finally, I had narrowed it down to a particular configuration and planned to buy the same on Saturday. However, the delay in returning from the morning trip added with the Saturday night traffic at the heart of the city denied me a chance to make it to the computer store on time, leaving me disappointed and frustrated. But nevertheless, the exciting moments earlier in the day far outweighed the disappointment of not buying the computer. There was always a Sunday to do that. That’s the best part about weekends – if something you plan doesn’t happen on a Saturday, there’s always a Sunday to finish it :)

So, we (Ultra and me) headed to the city center very early on Sunday to buy the computer. It is interesting to note here that Ultra woke up early on a Sunday which he would never have done even if he had exams the next day. I guess, that’s the difference between passion and compulsion – the same reason which makes most of us shudder about a Monday morning. So, we headed to a nice shop and finally bought a very high end computer home – a long pending task was done. The only thing that remained was setting it all up.

We both finished our lunch in no time and headed staright for the computer setup. We thought we would finish in no time and play some games or test the huge monitor with some nice videos. But that was not to be. Some basic issue with the mouse and display hampered our speed. Finally with the help of our cousins, who too paid a surprise visit in the afternoon, we managed to boot up the brand new system.

I thought I would relax the whole evening after so much activity. But a sudden invitation came from school buddy Kulla for a dinner party which I would not miss at any cost – I would get a nice dinner for free and a chance to spend time with my close friends.

Soon, In found myself at Oie’s place doing what I love to do the most – drinking the trademark masala tea his mom prepares. There were six of us – Kulla, VSB, Oie, Tosi, gunda and me for the treat. It looked like it was going to rain so we took Gunda’s Maruti Esteem Car. Gunda drove and I sat in navigator’s seat. I really don’t know how the rest of the four managed to sqeeze in the back seats. But we had a nice time chatting while Gunda drove. We took the Uttarahalli road to reach Kanakpura Road and there were a lot of speed breakers. We had planned to visit “Holiday Village” a resort kind of restaurant off Kanakpura Road.

We reached the place at around 7 and settled down in our seats. It was a nice ambience covered with coconut leaves and there was swimming pool nearby. It seems they had a few games like TT, carrom which we could play for free and also snooker if we paid some money. But we dint have time for all that. We just got started with the food and juice. The food was good ans the service was ok. They took a lot of time to get the items but we dint mind it as we had a lot of stories to share. There was a professional who sang songs over there and to cater to a large hindi crowd, all he sang were some old bollywood songs. We wanted him to sing some nice kannada songs too and Tosi even went to him and requested for one. But he disappointed us.

Going back home was the best part of the day. Courtesy of some “big shots”, I got to drive Gunda’s Esteem car for the first time. I have driven only a few cars till now like the Omni, WagonR and Alto. So I felt this was the nicest that I have ever driven. The low suspension and the smart engine make driving this car a pleasure. This time, only three people sat at the back owing to full tummies and both Oie and Gunda managed to squeeze in the front of the car. We thought we will avoid the bumpy Uttarahalli road and instead took the NICE road – it was the ultimate drive ever. I was in fifth gear in no time at all and managed to touch an overwhelming speed of 140 kmph. I enjoyed every moment of it. And even at such high speed, there was not even a little bit of vibration which made the drive a pleasure. We were tempted to go on and on. Some of us even suggested we drive till Ramanagar and have coffee at midnight and come back. But since we had to go back to office the next day, we decided against it. Nevertheless, the drive was so much fun and a great experience. The funniest part of it was that Gunda was sitting with his legs around the gear and whenever I had to shift gears, I had to awkwardly place my hands in between :)

I reached home late night after a lot of chatting with them and hit the bed right away. One more exciting weekend had come to an end. I was now prepared for a hectic work week ahead knowing that I had lived my life fully during the weekend. The next morning, it was the same old Monday morning blues and the mundane office work but the joys and memories of the exciting weekend kept flashing in my mind all the while – like they have been doing all these years.

Women

I have had this post in mind for quite a long time now. I thought I would publish this atleast in time for “International Women’s Day” which happened last week. Even that did not happen. Finally, comforting myself that it is always better late than never, I am posting this piece:

A girl from my office is also my travel mate in cab. The other day we were having this discussion about salary in relation to tax and investments. I was telling her that in spite of both of us having the same base pay, she would get more salary at the end of the month because the government favored the fairer sex. Her immediate reaction was defense. She said that there were hardly a few number of female employees in the organization and the government was giving extra sops only to encourage more women in this field.

I nodded in agreement with this. It was indeed a good thing that the government gave a higher tax rebate for women. After all the sufferings the entire womankind has gone through for so many years, their efforts, dedication and hardwork were finally bearing results. They have endured so much pain, insult and wicked advances by lechers in this male-dominated society to finally establish themselves. I have seen so many women who have struggled and put up with so much of hardship just for the comfort and well being of their loved ones – Ma being one of them. They sacrifice their happiness to ensure that we are happy. No wonder then that behind every successful man, is a woman. I really admire them for their gentle, yet hardworking; caring, yet ambitious attitude.

But there was one another thing that the girl said that set me thinking – the number of females in the organisation is less and that’s one reason the taxes are reduced for them. This set me thinking. Do numbers really matter? To an extent, I felt yes. This is just to make all the ladies in office comfortable that their ratio is not too less. But apart from that, it really does not matter. In fact, after much thought, I felt that being less in number was actually good for the girls. You ask me why? Read on...

The lesser the number of girls, the more attention each one gets. Each girl is observed closely by many colleagues – the way they talk, their dressing style, their attitude – eveything. Seeking attention is one of the basic requirement of any human being – especially woman. So being less in number actually helps them – the teams look forward to having them in their projects; the guys look forward to get a chance to talk to them, probably ask them out; the ocassional mistakes that they make are not noticed as much as the others’ and they are always given first preference when requests are serviced. Their concerns and thoughts get voiced more easily than the bulk of the male colleagues. Aren’t all these things good ? Besides they get lots of choices as compared to their male counterparts. Add to this, the tax rebate that they get, the poor guy in office ends up feeling that girls have an unfair advantage over the guys.

Even after all these advantages the woman at workplace enjoys, and rightly so, I still feel that womankind as a whole are not given their true share. Nature has bestowed the power of creation to them. But the ever insecure male clan has always subjected women to harassment and pain. There are so many cases of crime against women these days, even in the so-called cultured and educated households. Atleast, this is slowly changing. I wish the change happens faster and we get to see a better world where women are treated with respect and care. I take this opportunity to thank all the women who have helped me be what I am today. Belated women’s day wishes