a visit to greetings card shop

I recently went to a greetings shop with my parents to buy a card for some relatives wedding . As usual there were all those glittering items on display begging to be gifted to someone , also there were these huge cards more than half my height . There is so much that we can spend on just to show our affection towards someone we known for quite sometime or will like to know in future . in midst of it all seemed to be a misfit a rack of simple designed cards on nonglossy paper with no flowery words in it . On the top of the rack was written "CRY CARDS" . A note on the rack said that a part of the sales from these cards are given to CRY , which is an organisation taking care of children . On the wall nest to this rack i found a poster bringing to notice the helpage organisation , which takes care of elderly people isolated in this world .
This really stikes me a lot . Many times in various discussions I have heard a point being raised viz. India has a demographic advantage with more than 60% of the population being of international working age group i.e. above 16 and below 60 . however looking at the existance of oraganisations such as cry and helpage , I seriously doubt where we really have any such advantage . Its just incomprehensible that a 65% working population can not support a 35% dependent population .

Childrens day

hum bhi agar bacche hote,
naam hamaraa hota dabloo , babloo
khaane ko milte ladoo....

http://www.cry.org/resources/videos/cry_film2.wmv

today is 14 nov. , a day that meant a lot till about six years ago . it was great to have a few liberties in school with free periods and teachers getting involved in having fun . in fact I can even recall a couple of years when they staged some shows in the school about how we behaved in the class . we used to laugh and feel awkward on realizing how they knew about all our mischiefs . how much we used to wait for that one day full of fun . it was our day just like our birthdays . but today suddenly realized that it was children's day when i opened the paper today as there was an ad of some function that was being held . childhood is a great thing to celebrate . it is on of the longest occasion of our lives where we have fun and spread happiness to others .
I just wish that more children would actually be able to enjoy the pleasures of childhood . everyone who feels the same should try and make a conscious effort to see that the anti-child labour law reaches its goal .

an article complimenting my prev. post

DEVOID OF IDEAS AND HOPE

Malvika Singh

India has taken on the avatar of a dictatorial regime that sanctifies state power and gives it supremacy within the framework of a ‘democracy’. On critical national issues, particularly those that concern the future of our polity, all politicians, regardless of hue, caste or creed, make exploitative populism their mantra as they ruthlessly dismantle all discussion, all warnings about the repercussions of their short-term acts and endless re-enactments of national acts. They have reduced all intellectual debate to rubble as they override dissenting points of view, arbitrarily decide on what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ranging from which film we should be allowed to see to quotas and the handing over of national forests to individuals who happen to have been born ‘tribals’, all to garner their personal vote banks. Selfish beyond imagination. The utter misuse of democratic freedom by professional politicians has made a mockery of the tenets on which liberal and civilized societies rest. Stalin, Mao and their ilk must be in the seventh heaven. None of the measures this government is propagating has shown merit thus far. Most of India continues to wallow in poverty, remains patient and dignified despite rampant political exploitation and the leadership continues to flog failed ideas and supposed solutions. That is the scary vacuum that has invaded the political space. It can be described as being a void, a black hole where nothing grows except destructive weeds. When Pratap Bhanu Mehta resigns from the knowledge commission, one realizes that hope for an enlightened and dynamic future is bleak. He is so right when he divides the two-positions-on-most-issues business into two categories, one that has faith in the people and the other that has faith in the state. Alas, in India the track record of the state leaves virtually nothing to be desired, having reduced this great land into a cesspool of corruption, corruption of all caste, colour and type. Lessening respect The state has usurped much in this country, has corroded and corrupted institutions, has broken laws without remorse, has defied and punished ‘right’, has endorsed and protected ‘wrong’, has crossed the line over and over again, denying dignity to rich and poor alike. The rhetoric of both, the political masters and their loyal ‘servants’, has entangled this diverse country in a sticky, unpleasant and complicated web of contradictions and lies. People have begun to revolt against this flowering indignity, this horrible reality. They are starting to show that they too have a voice, an attitude, a concern for the less privileged amongst them, a belief in egalitarianism. A parasitic state eventually crumbles, and nothing can save it except a revolution. That ‘revolution’ has begun. The political class is not respected as it was in the early Fifties. People have learned well to give the impression of being subservient as they bribe their way through mad regulations. Indians have mastered the art of quietly finding ways of dealing with insane policies, as their ‘leaders’ work only for their own financial betterment. It is sad that leaders do not see the disrespect. That is how insular the class has become. That is their supreme failure. The tribal rights bill is being pushed through parliament in an unacceptable form, but who cares? Let it all go down the tubes. Let the tribal owner make some good money from the land mafias that are waiting to buy the allocated pattas. Let the water run out or be poisoned. Let the animals be killed, sold or eaten. Allow the growth, much like fungus, of new areas of corruption as more quotas are offered. Encourage, silently, young Brahmins and Kshatriyas to bribe the authority as they change their names to OBC ones in an attempt to get into college. Let’s go for it and destruct.

India divided

A decision taken by the government just leaves my country didvided on the basis of caste . In this country from time unknown there has existed the system of castes , thus a certain section of people in the rural India still are considered to be inferior to others right from the time of birth , they dont have the liberty to do what they want to , and seldom they dont get to go to school as they are not supposed to sit with others of a higher caste . then there are children from tribes who dont have a school to access to . thus it is very well understood that under what circumstances they come up to reach their graduation levels and thus for all this trouble they took at a tender they are awarded with an easy entry to professional courses in good colleges , but how much beneficial is it to them . during their grooming period when they recieve their primary , secondary and higher secondary education they are not well looked after thus they are not as smart as their urban counterparts , so even if they are getting into colleges and universities they can not grasp things as well as others . thus where are they gonna get placements and how efficient can they be at the jobsa at hand . courtsey the quota provided to them by the government , even after dcoring 50% they are given preference over students who have worked harder to score 80% . hey what is their fault that they have to see less learned people being preffered above them . then these mediocre students have to cope up with the studies for which they are not well prepared and somehow are able to clear the graduation level and end up as low efficiency professionals. moreover they get preferences in the urban side where the extent of orthodox thinking is just a small fraction of what it is in rural side . thus by bringing in this quota they are just bringing in the differences of caste into the young students of urban india . instead it must be brought about in rural india where the so called upper castes must realise that even these people have right to education and steps must be taken to build more number of schools so that students from such places dont stand at a disadvantsge to their urban counterparts. thus instead of just sutting the fruit bearing branches to save them from infection , the govt must uproot the plant that is spreading the pests .

no developing country in the world would officially accept that people are divided in terms of caste and creed (not even the orthodox islamic countries would do so) , but here we have the indian government that has acknowledged the system and instead of removing it from the mentality , is spreading to the people who have till now nvr considered these differences had any importance. (unbdoubtedly students who are not able to get admissions even after getting good marks are going to be wary of the OBCs through out their life) . well who better than britishers at politics and indian politicians still follow their same old policy of divide and rule which the britishers had used during their colonial rule .
but i as an Indian am heart-broken to see my countryt being divided like this...

is there a bhagat today?

well i really feel irritated at times when i see people saying that India today needs a Bhagat Singh . the truth is that there have been loads of Bhagat singh who have been born in independent India too but seldom has anybody recognised them .bhagat singh was born from the supression from the british government and was recognised by all because they shared the goal that he had and that was freedom for India . but today we dont know about him because we dont share the same feeling with him . today the government of india has neglected many a parts of the country , where they live a life of misery , something not suitable for a country which calls itself an emerging economic power . villagers in many parts have opted for suicide instead of living at the mercy of the inhumane government . in this darkness the only light seems to be a revolt but in the process they just find themselves being termed as a naxalites or dacoits or terrorists and we all sitting in our urban rooms just are ready to accept what is told to us by the government and the media. there are many a bhagat singh who sacrifice their lives for a cause , viz. a more respectable life for their future generations. they have realised a truth which we havent that the situation today that this government isnt going to bother to listen unless someone goes violent . and the pityful thing is that we who condemn the government in general are with them when it come to call these people as enemies of the nation. if only we all cud understand them and their condition and their motives behind their actions then may be we could give some weightage to the sacrifices of the bhagat singhs of the independent india ....

hum the woh thi aur samaa rangeen samajh gaye na

well a couple of days back , i was travelling in the metro and as usual the same journey is always so boring . as it goes underground so there is nothing of the outside world to see. just keep looking at the crowd rushing in and out of the train , at every station. well somtimes i am lucky enough to have a book with me , to read for those 20 minutes of the journey. a couple days back as i was just trying to get comfortable at my seat , i saw this lady sitting in front of me . she was not the most beautiful that i had seen , nor did she do something as such. she was just sitting relaxed , maybe thinking about something, unarguably she is elder to me. i was staring at her and at times she was staring at me . ofcourse not many faces were ther in the compartmen tto look at. maybe we cud have had a long chat but there was somthing that was not allowing us to talk . but we didnt have one. now why is there a "but" here ? what is the rational behinfd it ?
all of a sudden a thought struck my mind , that i dunno y i just wanted to talk to her. and then started a big argument in my mind that , why cant we just go on to talk ith strangers , specially of opposite sex and generally why does the term opposite sex come between two people. it just kept coming to me everytime i had nothing to do in the past 2 days. i thought that well may be the opp. sex thing comes from the fact that the way guys and gals grow up is quite different and thus one always considers that the other sex is not gonna talk take thing the same way as i do . well pondering over it again i think that this a bigger problem in Indian society. as a child in india a small kid is always reminded about their gender and thus the fact that they should act accordingly in public.
a boy is said that there are certain things that are girlie and thus shud not be done by him. and then ther is this usual talking between his mother and her friends, neighbourhood housewives, and they too are talking about the customes and taboos that are lumped on the Indian women in the society. and thus this is the picture that sets in a boys mind . he is always made tro be felt superior to girls and thus gradually starts to have an inferriority feeling towards females. they are taught that they are the main member of the family as they have to bear the burden of running the household in the future . they are never allowed to do household work while their female siblings do so.
as for girls well they do live a life subdued by their male siblings . I needn't hesitate even a little to say how much India hates their girl child . i suppose that the number of female foeticide case must be the largest in India . (way to go India , i just hope that the generation of today gets out of this sick practice.) . they are taught to do household work and , are seldom to excel in studies or rather in anything that generally men do(atleast are traditionally done by males in India) . so this is how it all starts and that too dosent seem to have a rartional behind them.

now quite often do i hear my mother and my elder sister talking about people they meet and observing them and trying to interpret evry small action or words sais. their funda is that girls have to be more observant in all the places. i usually give a damn to all this talks and generally keep myself busy with something else , but what i read in quite a few blogs associated with the The Blank Noise Project blogathon -- issue on eveteasing has given me a new light into this matter. like there are quite a few female bloggers that have written a about there experiences in public and thus it really comes as a surprise to me that how can some men be so shameless , or how dumb do they expect women to be that they would not understand what is going around. or else how confidant they are that they will get away with it coz the lady wudnt dare to make a noise. during the course i also realised that how a lady wud feel when guys stare at her for no reason , like when i am with my groups of friends , well most of them i seeare staring at girls passing by. i always thought that what a wierd timepass they have , but now i realise that maybe it is not just wierd , but it cud be something more disgusting that might be going through their minds.
eve teasing is an issue and not just an issue but a big question mark over what men want. like common let me tell you something . i joined this yahoo group a few days back and they were discussing the possibility that prostitution be legalised in India on the basis that this wud help people satisfy their sexual need and wud reduce extra-maritial affairs and also rape cases in India . well my reaction to it is simple that if a noation with the second highest population in the world is feeling sexually deprived then there is certainly some soul searching to be done.

case study:

The actions of a few...


This incident happened a couple of months ago to a young German friend of mine.

Nat, as I call her, was pursuing a course in Management in Europe and as part of her course stipulations was required to work on a Live project with some corporate. Thats what bought to her India and my company and that was how we met.

Now during her stay in Mumbai, she was put up at the company guesthouse - a flat in South Mumbai - and that was where this ridiculous incident happened.

One morning someone rang her doorbell and left a note behind.

Scrawled on the note was the following proposition -

"Would you like to have sex with me?"

The note was thrown was promptly crumpled and thrown away...but only to replaced the next morning by another.

"Would you like to have Oral sex?"

The second note found itself consigned to the same fate as the first but the pervert was not one to be easily dissuaded and the next morning...

"Just write YES or NO and leave the note outside"

The culprit turned out to be a young 18 or 19 year old guy living next door and was caught red handed as he rang the bell the next morning to deliver yet another note.

White skin must be easy...perhaps thats what the guy thought.


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This is not a collection of X-rated stories and nor will any portion of it titillate you.

Why am I writing this...even I have no clue......these are just things that happened to me.

Perhaps the title is a gimmick or maybe it is not......read this entry and you could decide for yourself.




The City of Angels



It was a boring Monday morning and I was making my way to office.

There was a light drizzle and since I did not particularly relish the thought of getting to office soaking wet, I was forced to take the sheltered route of the shaded promenade that abutted the road.

The whole path was lined with vendors and hawkers peddling everything from postcards to high-end electronics. In fact I had even heard rumors that if you knew the right place you could even find such exotic products as a "libido enhancing chewing gum" or even the Spanish Fly. Now since I did not feel a particularly pressing need for any of these I continued to dodge my way through the crowds.

As I walked on, I noticed these young men standing at the sidelines, eyes keenly watching each and every person passing by. One of them caught my glance and for a moment our eyes locked. A twinkle appeared in his eyes.

"Shit!", I told myself, "Big mistake!"

The guy sidled up to me, even as I walked on ignoring his presence, and began to throw a flurry of words at me

"Sir.....CDs....Sex.....Blue film.....triple X...."

I turned around and looked at him with an expression of disgust that said "Hey you just desecrated my carefully preserved piety", and walked away.

A little distance away I found another peddler with a customer. A nervous middle-aged man nervously inspecting the stack of cds presented to him, his eyes constantly shifting to see if someone was watching his shady transaction.

I remembered something I had seen on a news channel recently. The issue being discussed was the free availability of porn and the police's attempts at controlling it. The presenter raved and ranted about how porn was destroying the Indian culture and corrupting the youth.

“It was strange”, I thought to myself as I watched the peddler and his customer...... “if people did not want to see this kind of stuff how come there were so many people selling them in the first place.”

Maybe before we look at issues of “immorality” and “corruption of society” we need to accept the fact that we are a sex-starved nation, repressed by the taboo associated with the word "sex".



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The Man inside the cage



I was perhaps in my 6th or seventh grade when this incident happened.

My skills in math had always been a matter of concern to my parents and perhaps the reason, why each afternoon I would find myself grumpily trudging for extra tuitions.

On one such afternoon as I was walking down the road, I heard someone beckoning to me. It was hot and the street was empty. I looked around and saw a man waving to me from the balcony of ground floor apartment.

I thought the man needed some help....perhaps something that he needed to fetch. So like the helpful young boy I went up to him. I could not see the man clearly as the room seemed dark from outside and besides he stood behind iron grills. I came close and asked him how I could help him.

But the next thing I knew, my hand was being pulled inside the grill and stroked against something (yuck!). And as he did so he asked me to come inside his place. His dirty disgusting voice still rings clear in my head.

I was terrified.....and pulled my hand free and ran out of his disgusting presence….



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What they did not know



He was quite a known figure at school and also I guess in the local community.

Frequently he was found outside the school doing some odd job or the other. Most mornings he would place himself on the school road regulating traffic and ensuring that the kids got themselves around safely.

But few knew that the man had a penchant for young boys.

And one of his faves was a good friend of mine.

He tried every trick in the book to lure him...

"I got a stack of porn magazines at home.....why don’t you come home and I could show them to you"

"....there is this spot on my terrace from where you can see a woman bathing...."

Fortunately for my friend....better sense prevailed.



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The Boy upstairs



The flat above my house was an empty one and the owners would perpetually give the flat out for rent to some family or the other.

And every time a new family would arrive I would watch with great interest to see if there was some cute girl around.

But alas most of the times this exercise ended in disappointment.

Anyways so once the flat came to be occupied by a family of three including their son who was about a year or two younger to me.

The boy and me kind of became friends.

His family belonged to a religious community that was known for its rigorous practices and code of conduct. The killing of any living being even an insect was considered a sin. So much so that the boy would never step into my kitchen because we cooked meat. In fact this was his first time hanging out with someone who was outside his religion. And his parents encouraged him to spend time with me because they felt it would help improve his broken English.

Anyways one morning while he was hanging around my place he came across a pic of a rather skimpily dressed model in a magazine. Immediately he began to complain about how disgusted he was about what he just saw.

I found his attitude rather strange and a little too prudish for his age, but I shrugged it off.

But in the days that came I would actually find him almost searching out pics and telling me how skimpily dressed the models or females were.

At first the tone was lamenting but soon enough there was a tinge of unabashed appreciation. And then before I knew it.....it seemed his only purpose in life was to very gleefully find sexy pics to show me and talk about them.

In fact once I remember him calling out to me from the window of his house. I went to my balcony and looked up with disbelief as he flashed some pic he had been "lucky" enough to find in one of the newspapers that came to his place.

Was he a pervert......I guess not.....perhaps it was just the craze of the fact that he could actually express himself on something that was completely taboo in his community.

The boy and his family moved on as did most of the tenants who came by.

The last I heard of him.....his parents were planning to change his name by adding an extra "e" or an "i" to better his fortunes in life.

Who knows…..


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the above are all extracts from the blog of alex . alas he is not blogging for a monthe now or else i wud have liked to read his take on this subject.

clearly as a guy when i write on this issue it boggles my mind that how so many men (ofcourse there are so many of them , which is why so many case can be seen written in the blog-o-sphere) thinkand behave in such a manner . eve-teasing is just a prelude to greiver crimes like rape and molestation. how can man be so inhumane to destroy a girls whole life(especially in India with si many social taboos) just for satisfying his lusty desires . what does he get , just a few momnets of fantasy and for that he is ready to completely ruin a life , someone who is more potent of delivering for the society(ofcousre with such sheap thoughts a guys can be called mentally stable).

now when i think of the fact that i was staring at that lady in the train it just makes me feel sick that how cud i do such a thing and how much uncomfortable i cud have made her feel...

now i would take the oppertunity to wish each and every women a proud international womens day , and would like to tell them how much i admire them for how they live with dignity even when such practices carry on around them. i really feel sorry for whatever happens around and pledge to take evasive action against whosoever I find misbehaving with women.(finally i find myself understanding enough to decide what should be done when).


blog-a-thon 2006

Just a thought for the National Anthem!

How well do u know about it?
I have always wondered who is the "adhinayak"
and "bharat bhagya vidhata", whose praise we are
singing.I thought may be God! Our current National Anthem "Jana Gana Mana"
is sung throughout the country.Did you know the following about our national

anthem,i didn't.
To begin with, India's national anthem, Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka, was
written by Rabindranath Tagore
in honor of King George V and the Queen of England
when they visited India in 1919. To honor their visit Pundit Motilal Nehru
had the five stanzas included,which are in praise of the King and Queen.
And most of us think it is in the praise of our great motherland!!!
In the original Bengali verses only those provinces that were under British
rule, i.e. Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat,Maratha .. etc. were mentioned.
None of the princely states were recognized which are integral parts of
India now - Kashmir,Rajasthan, Andhra, Mysore or Kerala. Neither the Indian
ocean nor the Arabian Sea were included, since they were directly under
Portuguese rule at that time. The Jana Gana Mana adhinayaka implies that
King George V is the lord of the masses and Bharata Bhagya Vidhata is "the
bestower of good fortune".
Following is a translation of the five stanzas which glorify the King:

1st stanza (Indian)People wake up remembering your good name and ask for
your blessings and they sing your glories.

2nd stanza Around your throne people of all religions come and give their
love and anxiously wait to hear your kind words.

3rd stanza Praise to the King for being the charioteer, for leading the
ancient travelers beyond misery.

4th stanza Drowned in the deep ignorance and suffering,poverty
stricken,unconscious country? waiting for the wink of your eye and your
mother's (the Queen's) true protection.

5th stanza In your compassionate plans, the sleeping Bharat (India) will
wake up. We bow down to your feet O' Queen, and glory to rajeshwara (the
King).

This whole poem does not indicate any love for the Motherland but depicts a
bleak picture.
When you sing Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka, whom are you glorifying? Certainly
not the Motherland. Is it God?

The poem does not indicate that. It is time now to understand the original
purpose and the implication of this, rather than blindly sing as has been
done the past fifty years. Nehru chose the present national anthem as
opposed to Vande Mataram because he thought that it would be easier for the
band to play. It was an absurd reason but Today for that matter bands have
advanced and they can very well play any music. So they can as well play
Vande Mataram, which is a far better composition in praise of our dear
Motherland -India. Wake up, it's high time! Vande Mataram should be our
National Anthem.


The following is Tagore's English rendering of the anthem: Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people, dispenser of India's destiny. Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sind, Gujarat and Maratha, of the Dravida and Orissa and Bengal; It echoes in the hills of the Vindyas and Himalayas, mingles in the music of Jamuna and Ganges and is chanted by the waves of the Indian Sea. They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise. The saving of all people waits in thy hand, thou dispenser of India's destiny. Victory, victory, victory to thee.

this is wat meaning i get from the site of central government .
to have ur say on it plz click on the comment link below..

oh my god

i just can't believe that i am already into the third month of 2005
the time is really racing at the best of its speed
well i cant stop it from running so what to do .
just run along with it.
really god has not armed me with more power than that.
as i talk of god whenever i am in trouble and i tell someone about it then they say that
its all your fault that you are doing what you are
but then why shud i really depend upon god to help me . like i made a mess so i shud take the responsibility of it. and when i say take responsibility then i mean that the mistake should not happen again. i shud stop others from making that mistake too.
atleast when i have been told that i am makin a mistake then i should have a conscious of stopping me from doing it again and again.
i hope that everyone agrees with me till now.
then why the hell is everyone on a spree to commit crimes that he can not rectify.
why is so many human beings destroying this world .
even with there being so MANY campaigns all over the world there is increase in global warming.
why are there so many of the species that get extinct each year.
is this what their creator had destined for them
well i think not
whoever says that whatever happens is in accordance to god 's will.
he is wrong
god never wud have thought that what he created will one day be destroyed by one of his own creations
many wud argue that we dont have the power to rectify the mistakes that we have made ,
but you idots when god gave you such a big power . your such a powerful brain
and you misused it then how can you expect to get more power
man today thinks of the future and is afraid that someday the robots will control this and is horrified by the image then just think what does god about his creation called human
just like human tries to develop more abilities in a robots similarly god took pleasure in developing a human being
but to his dismay the trust that god had shown in man was not worth it
man has betrayed god
but one thing that man has forgotten is that god has one thing that he dosen't have ----------
POWER
yes and it has unleashed the nature of all the bindings that it had ever put on it.
man has lived all this years on the tolerance of nature
but now even god is ashamed of his mistake.
he too thinks why did i make a man
how cud i not think that my biggest creation cud turn out to be my biggest failure .
so now the time has come that god has decided that man no longer deserves to live and he has now set the nature free to take its revenge.
but the nature to will go the way the humans went.
it is going to seek revenge slowly in installments.
so keep waiting for it you idiots.
huh why shud you wait ,infact time is running out of our hands.

you do what you do in the name of commerce but do you really think that you can justify ur acts
i think not
your conscious is dead and soon you will be too.