The first scam of Independent India.

Today corruption is probably the most debated topic in India. It has its roots so deep, it seems impossible to imagine a nation which would be corruption free, an honest state working for the betterment of its people, a paradise where rulers may seek power, but do not seek wealth. A government that is uninterested in profit.

I always believed in goodness of our folks, it always intrigued me, how a country which was united against the British just 50 years back, overthrowing one of the greatest powers of history by practicing non-violence, degrade to such lowly state, where people who are supposed to be our brothers and sisters, exhort bribes from their own countrymen, steal the money for medicines of poor, sell-out their motherland's security for the love of Gandhi (printed on notes).

In the beginning of the great adventure of building a new country from the numerous identities of diverse princely states, linguistic identities, tribes and religions, the people involved were those who were real nationalists, who has loved this country more that their lives, people who had sacrificed their youth for freedom, people who had been lathicharged, assaulted, abused and massacred everyday, for centuries oppressed and enslaved, this soul of India had finally found utterance. For a decade everyone evolved in governance had been a freedom fighter, though now very good in administration, economics, management or statistics, they were guided by the love for their nation. Pandit Jawarhar Lal Nehru, guided us through the troubled waters of partition, the Kashmir issue, the tribal trouble, the communists, the right wing opportunists and other divisors. But after a decade there finally arrived peace.

But as they rightly say, with greater peace, comes greater prosperity. A country ruled for a decade by a single party which was virtually unopposed, meant that the entire government was running with full accelerator and no-brakes. No opposition brings great evils. And short-sighted communal opposition brings greater evils. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Hindu Mahasabha and similar parties had just one agenda, Hindutva, such communal forces had to be thwarted at all costs, but a progressive modern opposition was the need of the hour, sadly though our country still doesn't have one.

The World of Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien's monogram.

As I watched The Hobbit today, I was intrigued by the level of grandeur and the expansive of the plot. It was quite different from what I had read in the book by Tolkien. I started googling stuff that I thought wasn't sure was a part of the original story, like the sequence about Thorin Oakenshield & Azog is depicted, it was not in the book. I didn't think that these padding could have been invented by Peter Jackson, just to stretch the movie series into a trilogy. On further research I found the there more to the children's tale of the Hobbit than what meets the eye.

Those who have seen the The Lord of the Rings trilogy must have been impressed with imagination of the parallel world created in the movies. The adaptation of the books has been done quite intelligently in contrast to what is usually seen when movies are based on novels, they usually leave the fans begging for more. But with this particular trilogy it is like watching imagination come to life. (I experienced this in reverse though, watched the movies and then read the books.) It is still a mystery to me though, that why didn't the fantasy fiction of Tolkien get the popularity and hype that it deserved. I presume that it is just because he never wrote for the sake of writing novels. Most of his books and literature has been salvaged from his letters to friends, and his notes, by his son Christopher. The father of modern fantasy fiction only published the Hobbit and TLOTR. But in fact he had created a whole new universe. The Middle Earth.

When everyone's a super, no one is.

Nowadays you could just throw a rock, and you're bound to hit a Software Engineer. I myself am one of them. So this is some kind of a confession as I am completing my graduation.

Today, a majority of Computer Engineers in our country don't even have a clue about what is happening inside a computer. The toughest computer problem that they know how to solve successfully is, finding the factorial of a number, or checking whether a number is prime or not. I could do them when I was at school, so I threw away all my college time, thinking I was way ahead of others, but now I realize, though its a bit late, that I never was even a peeling of a real Bachelor of Technology.

Memorable slogans of Indian politics

Even in times when the Bollywood has been accused of getting 'inspired' from foreign works quite frequently, there has been a plenty of room for authentic creativity in the Indian political sphere. The nameless poets of these witty, simple and memorable slogans popularized their causes using these catchy lines.
I've listed some quite famous and witty ones that I've come across.




Any story about Indian Democracy would be incomplete without these.

"Chini hamla hote hain, Menon sahab sote hain Sona hai to sone do, Kriplani ji to aane do."	चीनी हमला होते हैं , मेनन साहब सोते हैं  सोना है तो सोने दो  कृपलानी जी तो आने दो !
Against Defence Minister  V. K. Menon for complacency during the War in 1962
"Jana Sangh ko vote do, Bidi peena chhod do, Bidi me tambaaku hai, Congress waale daaku hain."	जन संघ को वोट दो, बीडी पीना छोर दो, बीडी में तम्बाकू है, कांग्रेस वाले डाकू हैं!
By Jana Sangh in the General Elections of 1967
"Janata ka dil bol raha hai, Indira ka singhasan dol raha hai"	जनता का दिल बोल रहा है  इंदिरा का सिंघासन दोल रहा है !
In JP's Revolution of 1975

India & Indians

Every morning, he comes to our home, rings the bell and calls out, "auntie koodaaa, auntie koodaaa de dijiye...". Someone comes out, still sleepy, "Arey chhotu jhaadu to laga de, gobar saaf kar de sadak ka, theek se kar sab ganda pada hai".

The kids gets just Rs. 30 from every home for a month. How can people be so apathetic?

Aren't we hypocrites? In restaurants, in shops, everywhere around us, childhood is being murdered, and all we have to say is how the f*cking government  is a big failure. It failed to implement the Right to Education, the Midday meal, ban child labor... stop playing the blame game friends, we are the reason of our collective failure.

Prologue

I'm a new to this blogging business. I've read a few, but writing one myself was never my plan. I wondered how people could waste their time writing such stuff as blogs, and yet there was an even more unimaginable class of men - those who'd waste even greater reading them. Yet here I am, with a blog of my own. This blog is in fact only to put in my ideas, before I forget them (I generally do), and also to straighten up my ideology, which is quite shaky (imagine a bin pendi ka lota xD). I get inspired too easily, sometimes a bit carried away, I have this feeling, that I always tend to have strong feelings; I feel too strongly about something or else, I don't feel about it at all.

Now you'd be wondering why does it matter what I feel about, there are a hell lot people, feeling strongly about a hell lot of things. Why should I be of such importance? Buddy, because I'm a professional inspirer (wonder if such word even exists) but I ain't boasting. When I feel strongly about something, I make sure that every around also shares my views, anyone within the reach of my tiny influence zone, has to bear with me about arguments, ideas and stuff until they agree (my friends would surely say aye to that). So you see its quite important that I be an unwavering, stoic, robust, remorseless... whatever, who clearly knows what his stand is about something. But this isn't the case I shift so much, take U turns, and then contradict anybody who'd point out to my previous ideologies as something that I could never ever have imagined. (This is the reason why I started writing this blog, because you desperately need some proofs against me :P)

I love debates, I can debate about anything, take either of the sides and still win.

You and I know its not true, but if someone would say it to you confidently and coolly, I'm sure most of us will believe him, and maybe shy away from a potential discussion, this is one of the first lessons that I learned in college, and that's the trick of this decade, especially in India, you can achieve so much with this trick believe me.

Oh well, we are getting offtrack and well guess you're starting to get influenced by me. lol. Anyways as I was saying that I tend to have strong feelings about stuff and I love taking stands but the problem my North and South poles keep swapping so frequently that, even I get frustrated. You'd be wondering what is the stimulus of the sudden change of hearts? Well, even a professional inspirer like me has a few inspirers. I read. By that I mean I read a lot. Yes, keep scrolling my mobile, browsing BBC, TOI, Telegraph, CNN, WaPo, PC World whole whole day (bless the Opera Mini 4.4) So when I read about the heads more, I stand up for the heads, make sure every one knows that I'm from one of the die-hard supporter of heads, but then gradually I   start getting curious about who the hell is Tails, why does he oppose Heads? Then I read all about the Tails, and yeah sure, in ninety percent cases, Mr. Tails gets a new die-hard man! 8)

Lets have an example about I then, shall we? because I love explaining with examples.

When I was a kid, about 15, I had no access to computers, well really, so one fine day, some how I managed to fool my dad into buying me a new Laptop. I get this machine and I'm excited, but I've nothing much to do with it, I could already watch DVDs and play games, what to do with it? (I had no internet connection :|, for those who're raising their brows about why I didn't explore the pword :P)

So I started reading the help files of Windows, I read it all about Windows Vista Home Basic help, I Vista met with its strongest fan ever. I couldn't believe how people could criticize Vista? Vista was the ultimate operating system. I could defend Vista against a dozen XP supporters, withstand their siege for months. And then this bright day dawns, I get the internet, I read about XP, and I'm one of the most ardent ally of XP. No issues eh, not really, I'm made half of those dozen Xp'ian install Vista :P When I took the U-Turn, I vehemently denied ever siding up with Vista, the most useless piece of software ever released by MS. Though there were several many obvious reasons why Vista was once my favorite, take Windows Aero for instance, but as I've already mentioned I forgot most of them.