5 things the elections have taught

“Let me see how these people will go it alone this time. They will definitely need my help to survive!” thought Laloo.

“I am the king maker this time. No party can rule this nation without my support” thought Maya.

“I will take my revenge on the other party of my state by keeping them out of the next government” thought Jaya.

“With all the exercises going on to secure allies, who knows, I might end up being the prime minister once again” thought Gowda.

“The communist party is still strong and we can control the next prime minister like a puppet” thought Karat.

So there they were… the so-called leaders of the nation in the warmth of their bungalows, on the night of Friday the 15th of May 2009 hoping that the next day, as soon as the results were announced, the leaders of all the national parties would come begging for their support and that they could dictate terms for the next five years with some 10-50 seats under their control. They even had secret ambitions of leading the nation themselves. They would be the "king makers". They would be the power centers. They would be more important than the nation itself. They had every reason to feel like that with almost all the exit polls predicting a hung parliament for the country and the decisive roles these people would go on to play for the next few years. How wrong they had been!

Today, all those Paswans, the Yadavs, the Mayas, the Jayas, the Naidus, the Gowdas are alone in their homes, watching the TV with a sense of disbelief. Each one of them has been made to eat the humble pie. No one will turn to them now. Forget about dictating terms, they don’t even know if they will be presented with at least a ministerial berth if they decide to support the government. They don’t even know if they will be approached for support in the first place. They have realized that there is only one “king-maker” in this land – the common man. The Indian voter has spoken – "We don’t need a government that is run by one person and controlled by many others in the background according to their whims and fancies. We need a government that responds to what people want".

The elections of this year are really significant in the entire history of democratic India. Our country is now at such a phase where a strong leadership at the centre is absolutely essential for the dreams and aspirations of the nation to turn real. Also, the time has come to send out a strong message to the world that democracy would eventually be the best form of government for a nation as big as ours. For all this to happen, a clear and concise mandate by the Indian voter was absolutely crucial. And the voter has finally spoken… and in a manner that only an Indian voter can!

To me, the results of these elections mainly convey the following five important points:

1. Democracy Wins
Yes, no matter how skeptical you are about its advantages, democracy ultimately wins. This election was all about creating awareness among the young and upper middle-class voters by means of campaigns such as “Lead-India”, “Jaago-Re”, etc. It was about telling everyone how important it is to cast your vote and be counted in a democratic nation. Although this did not translate into an increased percentage of voters on the Election Day, it has proven to be success. More and more people from upper middle class and the younger generation have realized the power of voting. Many people could not vote this time as the campaigns to enroll their name in the voters’ list was started a little late. But I am sure; these elections have certainly created the urge in people to participate in the voting process. In the coming years, the number of people who vote will surely increase. And with the voter getting more and more intelligent, this is real good news for democracy.

2. Only development is the issue
One thing that has been decisively proved by the voter is that all the pseudo-issues do not matter. The voter votes for only that party which promises development. People just ignore the candidates who have a tarnished image. And the candidates have slowly started realizing that they cannot win an election with money alone. They need to be accountable. This is one of the greatest messages according to me. It has worked a great way in restoring the faith of the people in the institution of democracy. Also, the Election Commission being very strict about the spending of candidates has made it tough for the rogues and criminals to win. Caste, religion, money did not matter. Varun Gandhi’s hate speech did not help the party, neither did Shibhu Soren’s criminal record..

3. Performance matters
The clear message sent out by the voter this time around is “Perform or Perish”. Those leaders that enjoyed power but did nothing for the voters were rejected out rightly by the people. While those who showed improvement significantly were bestowed with more power. Veteran leaders who have shown improvement in their respective states like YSR, Sheila Dixit, Navin Patnaik, Nitish Kumar, etc were voted back to power while the ones who did not do much good to the people were defeated.

4. Nation comes first
Our country has adopted a multi-party system where anyone can form a party, win a few seats and hope to have a say in the national level. But over the years, this has been misused by selfish local leaders for short term gains. The recent example of the election commission’s worries when it had to register yet another symbol for Chiranjeevi’s new party shows how confusing and trouble-some multi party system can be. But the voter has become smart enough to distinguish between national parties and local parties. Giving the grand old party a clear mandate is a step in this direction. This means that the time is up for any local leaders who think that they can dictate the terms of the nations having a few seats with them. This means end of days for veterans like DeveGowda, etc.

5. Exit polls are an utter waste of time
This has been proved time and again. After every election, the media, especially the television channels, conduct too many exit polls and keep screaming at the top of their voices that their exit poll results are the most accurate. They even start discussing the post poll alliance that the parties should look for and the potential future prime ministers even before the results are actually announced. This election has clearly proved the futility of such polls and it is high time that these are banned. If the exit polls were really such accurate, why did we need to conduct an election in the first place?

These are exciting days for the nation. We have a new set of leaders at the centre and a party with clear mandate. There will be no pressure on the party from its allies like last few years and it is free to act on its own. But the leaders also know that they cannot take this mandate lightly and become complacent. They have to take up progressive measures for the all-round development of the nation. How these people eventually fare will be known to us only in the days to come. But for now, there is only one king – the Singh. Let us all wish him all the best and hope to see our nation progress in the coming days. Jai Hind!

In the Driver's seat

“Sir, when you know you are in control of things, you will not feel as afraid”

This was what my cab driver said when asked why he drove so recklessly so as to cause a fear to every passenger in the cab each time he was behind the steering wheel. Driving in the city with traffic in its full glory requires guts. It can suck every bit of patience out of you leaving you irritated and exhausted. As drivers are presented this tough challenge every day, they adapt to the extreme conditions in their own way, depending upon their character. I have been observing the drivers in city for some time now and have been able to come up with the following four different categories of city-drivers:

1. The “I rule the road; I don’t care a damn” types:
The signal is turning from green to red. And the vehicle is a good 300 meters away from the post. The chances of making it through are very slim… and yet, you find these types accelerating the vehicles in such a fury only to get it to sudden, grinding halt at the signal.

These are the ones who belong to the first type. They always drive recklessly, honk endlessly, overtake dangerously, yell mercilessly and most of the times, get injured fatally. They always stay on the right most lane of the road and try to squeeze their big cabs/buses in the smallest of spaces. Traffic rules, one-ways, peak hour traffic – they don’t care a damn about all these. They are forced to follow the traffic only because of the cops or the rest of the traffic. Most of the IT office cab drivers, the auto wallahs and the impulsive youth with flashy sport bikes fall under this category. If you are a passenger in one of such cabs, all you can do is close your eyes and listen to prayers on your music device (Vodafone ZooZoo ishtyle!). You can count yourself lucky each time you get down from these cabs after a journey full of AJMs and unbearable honking and third degree yelling.

Most of these drivers hail from the poor or lower middle class. They would have experienced too many failures in life and always have a frustrated look on their faces. Hence they tend to take out their frustration on the fellow road users. In most cases, the vehicle will not be their own and the pain of damaging the vehicle is not felt by them. If you are at the crossroads with such vehicles approaching from other side, you definitely give way to them.

2. The “Salpa adjust madi; ellaru win madi” types:
This is how most of the aam aadmis drive in Bangalore. Most of us would belong to this category. They understand the road situation and drive accordingly. If the traffic demands that they need to drive slow and follow the right lane, they do so. And when the roads are free, they freely test the maximum speeds of their vehicles. They follow the traffic rules most of the times but ignore the traffic signals when it does not make sense. For example, jumping a red during late night when you can clearly see the roads are empty. They don’t need cops to control them. And unlike the category one drivers, they dont drive rash even when full control is given to them. They are their own decision makers in life. If you find yourself in a vehicle driven by these people, relax and have a nice chat with them. You will end up having a nice time.

This category is the educated and/or well-to-do ones and usually drives its own vehicles. Life has treated them fairly and they expect and exhibit the same on roads. They hate the first category drivers and sometimes help the ones in lower categories.

3. The “Better late than never; play it safe” types:
This category is the exact opposite of the category one types. These people get into a fierce fight with the category one drivers almost each time they get into the streets. They carve for ideal situations and hate it when the rash ones upset their driving day. They drive slow most of the times, follow the traffic signals always and keep complaining about everyone. They get frustrated very soon as they are impatient. If you are a young person reading this post, in most cases you can picture your uncles/aunts in this category. If you are stuck with these people in a vehicle, please be on your guard – you never know when they lose their calm and start yelling at you. Just keep calming them down with soft music on radio or sweet talk of the good ol’ days.

These people are usually the older generation ones who drive because of compulsion and not for the love of it. Probably they would have driven most of their lives in those good old days of traffic free, tree lined, cool roads of Bangalore lament the loss of every good thing that our city once had. Hence, when they come out on the roads, all their emotions come gushing out.

4. The “Oh, I don’t know how to drive; I am confused” types:
These category is a minority in today’s roads but nevertheless more significant. In a way, even the category one people don’t know how to drive but they make up for it with their aggression. But these people are so confused in life and serve the purpose of providing the much needed comic relief on roads. Sometimes, they are stuck in a busy road with heavy traffic not knowing what to do and panic by waving hands; sometimes they are on a slope and their vehicle refuses to move forward causing a pain to others; and most of the times they are struggling in the parking lots struggling to fit in their vehicle in that elusive parking space.

Most of these kinds are learners and are always at the receiving end of the category one drivers’ wrath. But eventually they mature either into category two or category three drivers. They are helped most of the times by good Samaritans of category two. If you are stuck in the crossroads with these kinds of drivers, don’t wait for them to make judgment- they always make the wrong one. Just speed away and you will be all right.

So these were the four categories of drivers as perceived by me. If you feel there are more categories or have something more to add to these, feel free to leave a comment. I wish that more and more people start to follow the category two drivers so that the city roads become a pleasure to drive. I will come back with more interesting categories of occupations next time. Till then, happy driving! :)

Notes:
1. Salpa Adjust madi - famous Bangalore slang used when you want other people to let you have your way
2. AJM – another famous kannada slang for describing “near-misses”

Fortune favors the brave

In my last article I talked about how luck favors some people more than the others. Some people came back to me after reading it saying that mere luck would not take people anywhere. It should definitely be supplemented by hard work and immense talent. In fact, people could be too foolish to be just sitting and loitering around when the elusive lady of luck kept smiling at them.

I could not agree more with them. That was exactly what I was trying to say. All said and done, it is always hard work and talent that ultimately pays off. But the purpose of that post was not emphasizing that luck is everything you need to succeed. It was just to shed light on the fact that even after being extremely talented and having worked very hard in life, that extra bit of luck is always needed to achieve the kind of success we dream about all the time. One should keep looking for opportunities and grab it when it comes along. It is all about being at the right place at the right time.

There is one more dimension in this. When things seem to be going your way, there is that confidence factor that keeps growing. It feels as though you could do nothing wrong. Everything you touch turns to gold and no one in the world is as happy as you are. On the flipside, even bad times are no exception to this “pouring down all at a time” phenomenon. When things go bad, there seems to be hardly anything that works in our favor. Even the things that we are most comfortable at handling seem to be difficult to do then. I would like to illustrate these cases with a few real examples that I have witnessed recently, some of which are common knowledge.

A classic example is the case of Bangalore’s very own IPL team – the royal challengers. Last year, they were at the receiving end in the very first match of the league that too in front of their home crowd. The scars caused from that huge defeat dented them so badly that they were never able to come back in the tournament. It was imperative then that they finished in the penultimate position. A year passed and in they flew to South Africa to the current edition of the league – the scars still remained. Even though they managed to win the first match, it seemed that they had lost the belief that they can win. In the match against Delhi, all that they had to do was to stay cool and bowl at the right places. But they managed to lose the match. Their body language in the field said it all – they firmly believed they cannot win and waited for the inevitable to happen. They also had many close decisions go against them - Luck had not favored them either. How would it? Fortune always favors the brave right?

After losing four matches in the league, they had their encounter against a pretty weak team – their nemesis from the last edition – the knight riders. Suddenly the team started to believe that they had a chance. And they won. Even though it was a nail-biting finish, they managed to get one under their belt. This was enough to turn things around. Every match they played from then, they grew from strength to strength. The clinical victory over one of the strongest teams, Mumbai was a testimony to this new found confidence. Although, time will only tell how long this confidence will last and the winning streak will continue, the point I am trying to make by citing this example is simple – when things start going against your way, the confidence you gain and that little stroke of luck will help you overcome many obstacles in life.

One more case that comes to mind when I think of this game of fortunes is that of a project at office. There was a big team of people who worked on a really big project sometime back. It was really hectic and the whole team used to work long hours and weekends. The schedule was really impracticable. I really don’t understand who came up with such a ridiculous schedule in the first place. Anyway, the deadline was already there and the team had already reached saturation limits doing whatever best they could. It seemed that the entire team had gone crazy. They were frustrated with the project and its incredulous deadlines. Their personal lives went for a toss. It seemed as though nothing went right for them and there was always a new issue to be tackled every day. Somehow they managed to finish it off with the “bare-minimum” deliverables in place.

Sanity had finally been restored. There was applause all over from top management commending the work done. The team enjoyed nice perks and had great appraisals. They earned promotions at work and saw their career reach new heights. Being in that tough project seemed not so bad after all – they had finally found confidence to tackle issues on their own and had acquired leadership qualities. Slowly, all the missing components were added into the deliverables with such zeal and efficiency that it now boasts of being one among the most stable projects delivered in the company.

When you are at the right place at the right moment, the world around you seems like utopia – the kind of ideal place which you always dream about. Be it writing 1000 lines of quality code, chasing a very high target in a cricket match, facing the toughest job interview or scaling the highest peak – all seem to be a piece of cake. But when the tide turns, life seems one big mistake. I have had both experiences in my work life. Sometimes fixing a small bug in the documentation part of the code has led to so many critical reviews resulting in frustration and anger. Other times, even the toughest of bugs have been finished in no time at all. In the latter, I just happened to be at the right place at the right moment to get it done.

No matter what the game of fortune is, one thing that we should always have is confidence in our abilities. It is this self confidence that will carry us through the tough times of life. In everything that we do, let us give our best and hope that the best will happen. If we are earnest in our efforts, fortune will definitely favor us helping us in our journey to success. I wish everyone of you all the best in realizing your dreams and pray that fortune befriends you in all your endeavors.

Luck by Chance

Though the movie is pretty old, I finally found time to watch this very recently. As I was watching it, so many thoughts flew past my mind which I thought I would share here along with the story itself:

‘Luck by Chance’ is the story of an aspiring actor Vikram (Farhan Akhtar) who wishes to make it big in Bollywood like many other people. He has friends who think that he does not even know the basics of acting, let alone playing the lead role. But his girlfriend Sona (Konkona) believes in his abilities and supports him all the time. At around the same time, the biggest production house in bollywood, the Romy Rolly productions is having a movie made with to launch the daughter Nikki (Isha Shravani) of a yesteryear’s superstar Neena Walia (Dimple Kapadia). It so happens that the original hero of the movie, a famous Bollywood name, Zaffar Khan (Hrithik) refuses to do the movie halfway through the shoot and the production house is looking out for new faces for the lead role.

By a master stroke of lady luck, and of course some help from his girlfriend, Vikram finds himself doing the lead role of the movie. And once he acquires the celebrity status, his life-style changes drastically – he cheats on his girlfriend with beautiful women of the movie land, he belittles his friends as if they dint mean anything, and all the stuff that we usually associate movie people with. During the end of the movie, the lead protagonist realizes how self-centered he has become with his new found status and tries to patch up with his old buddies.

I felt good after having watched the movie and was thankful that someone had the guts to make such a movie. It was a movie about what actually happens in the movie land and someone had taken the pains to show to the outside world its harsh realities. People with real talent struggle for years together to get a role in the movies. After that they have to prove themselves in the industry. The struggle for such people somehow never ends. The lucky ones however manage to make it big overnight and stay at the top for years.

It was at that time I realized that this argument holds true for almost every field where the competition is stiff. There are some lucky ones who always manage to get the same success with a level of preparation that is less than most of the others. And even after too much of preparation and inherent talent, some people never seem to achieve success.

As an example, let us consider the case of one of the toughest entrance exams in the country. This exam is conducted by the premier management institutes in the country for entry into their MBA courses. Close to 3 lakh students take up this examination in the hope of gaining an entry and finally, only 1500 people make it. Thus, the pressure to perform on the day of the exam is immense on every test taker and it is only the performance in that 2.5 hours that decide whether you get to the next stage or not. Students spend years and years preparing for that most important 2.5 hours of their lives in the hope of cracking the test. But due to immense competition, it is only quite a few of them who finally get to go the next stage.

These days, whenever I speak to a friend of mine, the conversation is always about a co-worker of hers who has acquired celebrity status of late by cracking this tough test. I have heard this colleague’s name so many times in the past few months that the name keeps echoing in my ears all the time. Thankfully for me, it is a God’s name :) Till a few days ago, he was just a normal person like any other in the industry – a bachelor who stayed with his friends close to office, working as much as the job demanded, sometimes even on weekends, and seemingly satisfied with his job. But a few days ago, he just sent a mail to his teammates at work saying that he was selected for not one but four of the premier management institutes of the country for a MBA course which made him a celebrity almost instantaneously. His usually quiet desk at office suddenly had turned into a hotspot where people from all over the workplace flocked and asking him all sorts of questions. They asked him how he had managed to crack such a tough exam with such less preparation, how he had managed to keep his cool under pressure in such grilling interviews, asked for tips from him so that even they could crack the exam next time by following his lead and so on… he had become a hero.

I find it quite funny when people give so much importance to what successful people say or do. They feel that if they imitate whatever the successful people do, they will also become successful in life. In college, there are people who borrow books from only those seniors who would have got high marks. There might be a student who might have made the best possible notes. But those are not important. What matters is how celebrities behave. Consider a student who has prepared for an examination for years and years and has adopted the best possible study methods. All those are irrelevant if the student does not do well in the exam. On the other hand, people flock to get that invaluable, ever so precious piece of "preparation-tip" from a successful student even if that student has done it merely by luck.

This guy had no plans of giving the test in the first place. He was happy with his work. But he stayed in a PG room where his friends prepared for the test day in and day out. It was just because of them, he took up the test. Out of three sections in the test, he never used to score in one of them and had given up hope. During the final days of preparation, when many people in office take holidays to prepare for the test, this fellow had worked even on weekends as the job demanded him to do so. He had given up preparation completely and as admitted by him, he had written the test “just for time pass”. He did the two sections by himself and in the third section; he had marked the answers randomly. It was a risk and it had paid off. It was his day. His friends had written other entrance exams and could not manage to get into any of them. But he, who had taken up the exam just for the sake of them, had made it to the top most institutes in the country making everyone envious of him. Besides, there were far more deserving persons who had given their best shot and he had snatched the initiative from one of those people.

What saddened everyone the most was the way that he acted after getting through. Even he was aware it was purely luck that had got him there. But the taste of success had made him so much self-centered and proud. He would no longer work the same way he did earlier, he would crib about the work that he did making the others at work uncomfortable; he would not help others if they were stuck and he even did shrewd calculations about leaving the work on a favorable lucky day.

Not all people are like this guy though. There are ones who really work hard to make it big in life. And when these people make it big in life we feel happy. One of my batchmates at work has also cracked this test this year and has made it to his dream institute. His story is one of hard-work and determination. As compared to the other person’s story, this one is far more motivating and inspiring. Luck was necessary in both cases – but the way in which the latter behaved was totally commendable.

We need to have luck and complete faith to achieve what we aspire for in our lives. Some people are helped by lady Luck more than the others. But assuming that this luck will always be with us till the end of our life and acting smart will serve no purpose. Also, if luck does not favor you even after all the hard-work you did, there is no need to lose hope. It is important to have complete faith in yourself. Ultimately, life will give you what you rightly deserve - not by chance; but for certainty.