Mummy... I want a state!!! Plz can I have one too?

The post was written on the day Govt declared creation of the Telangana state. The delay in posting was caused by lack of access to Internet.

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This is the third consecutive day when I am posting on my blog. Understandably the amount of time on my hands is worrying for both me and the Saptarishis. Infact in relation to my previous post, I confided to a close friend that becoming a writer is a serious career option. But then that was yesterday.
 Today, of course, India and the world woke up to one of the boldest blackmail heists in the history. As if right out of a Calvin & Hobbes strip, an unruly kid foregoes his meals to get a better Christmas gift and the hapless parents agree. And, of course, that carving out Telangana will motivate other such power-hungry ruffians to go on a fast and demand smaller states from the existing ones, is none of the Central Government's business. 
 I guess given the current state of 'bovine excrement' the Centre has landed itself into, is the perfect impetus for all the separatist movements. An the potential outcomes of their 'humble' requests can be quite interesting, coming primarily from some of the most productive lunch table group discussions. Lets have a look at some of them:

• Possibly, we'll end up 545 states, where each constituency is a state in itself. We'll hv a small matter of 500+ state governments, potentially be renamed "The United States of India". Sounds cool, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's hardwork done to dust!!!
  
• How about a spate of Union Territories, acting as regional headquarters and you can form whatever number states you want. So Mumbai is separate from Maharashtra, Hyderabad is separate from AP (Telangana..go figure this one!!), Bangalore is separate from Karnataka. I am sure the kids in school will hate it.. Imagine the enormous amount of gyan they'll have to memorise because of our politicians, some of whom actually never bothered going to school anyways.
• Third, and this I find to be the most plausible, is the case for dual citizenship. I am sure this gives one Mr. Thackeray a smile on his face. People moving between states will have visa interviews and will have to clear exams with fanciful names like Test in Tamil Speech (who's acronym can't be written here!! Imagine if you had a guidebook to the exam saying "Ace your T&^*") or Test of Marathi as Professional Language.
• What if the motivation for creating states changes? Currently states are formed according linguistic, cultural and of course, political considerations!! Imagine what happens if professional considerations are taken into account. What if the huge mass of software engineers strewn across country goes on a hunger strike demanding creation of niche states only for IT professionals? What will be the name of this state ... Soochna Pradesh will be unacceptable to the Madrasi anna while IT Nadu will be indigestible to the bhaiyaji!!! Some problem there. One thing is for sure Mark Zuckerberg will be proud!!!

Probably we could also pack up all these useless separatists into one state and build huge fences around it so that no one ever escapes from there to more conundrum in India. In the meanwhile I am planning to go on a hunger strike demanding creation of a state for all Priyanka Chopra fans!! Can anybody tell me if this wish will be granted?? Plz Mr. Prime Minister!!!!

Welcome to Second year of MBA education

Hi Junta

Despite my prolific presence on Twitter, I had a lingering feeling of neglect towards my primary passion of blogging here. So here I am at the doorstep of second year of management education in a stifling, congested hostel room ( which btw doesnt belong to either of the occupants) and all I want is to write something silly to appease my blogging appettite.
We had our Finance Continuum today and we will be having the Marketing Continuum tomorow to round off a packed weekend and give the junior batch a taste of things to come. The list of speakers was, as usual, illustrious and the experience was enriching. Though I have somewhat become tired of people cribbing about the recession and how everyone's backside is aching because of it, a couple of fresh perspectives did emerge from the day's proceedings.
One was that everyone talked about inclusive growth, something the policy makers have talked about since Independence and I have come to appreciate since my internship days. Secondly, a specific thrust on the SME space by the banking industry was also visible throughout the day. Glad to feel that I have worked and learnt some aspects of both these issues during my internship.
There was also a huge hue and cry about the budget and to put in my 2 cents to the pandemonium, I guess the FM missed a trick or two by letting the deficit balloon, taking the excuse of the recessionary period. It would have been a good idea to set things rolling on Public-Private partnership, specially in sectors like infrastructure. I think an oppotunity for implementing infrastructure partnerships on the build-operate-transfer model and enhancing the environment for such partnerships to prosper, has been offered and it should not be passed up in favor of the tried and tested, albeit risky proposition of public spending.
Thus, the government could have simulated demand and allowed private sector to participate in this effort to bring the country out of this hole.
Finally, it was heartening to hear our junior batch asking enthusiastic questions to the speakers. Some of the questions were really wonderful and I am hopeful that it'll be a great experience for us during the next year.

Adios!!!

P.S: Am working a organisation structure for firms based on technology platforms.. haven't been able to finalise it. Once its done that would be my next post. so keep waiting... Meanwhile started re-reading the book "Arab and Jew" while at home and am going good with it. Lets see if I actually manage to finish it this time.

India: The Hindu Nation

There has been a sincere effort from my side to keep this blog apolitical and hence, before you read any further, you would be well advised to take the following paragraphs as a comment on the social philosophies prevalent in our times and not link them to any political ideologies.... Thanks in anticipation

This weekend really began well for me with a good, albeit long, walk around the fairytale landscape of South Bombay. While my romance with the place might form part of some other post, I was at loss when I quizzed myself on one of the people, after whom a landmark was named in the area. Then interesting enough I encountered the same name in an article I read today. It was then settled that I had to find out more about Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, and subsequently, Veer Sawarkar.
It was intriguing for me read about these people, who had sown the seeds of Hindu nationalism and in the context of the article I had read, I could understand why these people appear to be, or are made out to be, hardline fundamentalists. Of course, these leaders form convenient ideological benchmarks to classify people in to secular and communal citizens of India but viewed without the lens of political manipulations and hippocracy, they also represent a truth that we are unwilling to accept.
To say that India is a secular country, will be a gross contortion of ground realities. For a country that is the cradle of 2 major international religions and has a huge following of 2 others, which were brought to it by the rulers of the times, we can not be serious when we say that India doesn't identify itself with any religion or we, as Indians, are ambivalent to all religions. Given the fact that so much of religion is intertwined with our social fabric, it is impossible to keep religion out of daily life, the way we eat, the way we greet each other, the way we celebrate birth, enjoy weddings, mourn deaths or almost anything we think. This obviously goes on to affect our interactions with other members of our society, depending on whether their habits are same or different, or if their actions are guided by the same principles as ours. This eventually gives birth to affiliations to some groups while giving rise to discomfort about certain others.

Now that the whole "secularism" rhetoric is out of the picture, let me talk about the Hindu nation. Mind you, a Hindu nation is not a country of Hindus or one practicing Hinduism alone, it'll be completely unethical, and most importantly unHindu, to deny other sects a rightful place to prosper and rightfully propagate but what it also must, and does, emphasise is that India consists of 80.5% people following Hinduism as a religion and a recognition for this fact is long overdue. As promised at the beginning at the post, this is a completely unpolitical post but the social scenarios that have resulted because of the political hubris, has left many Hindus bruised and disaffected with the whole concept of Hindustan.
The concept of a Hindu nation doesn't mean painting the whole country saffron, as has been routinely promoted, nor is it acceptable. A Hindu nation just reinforces the belief of the majority of people of the country that they haven't been converted into eternal sacrificial lambs at the altar of socio-political appeasement in the country. Too long have we been hearing our "secular" social beacons talking of the rise of Hindu nationalism, much in the same vein as the rise of an epidemic and have been warned of religious genocides, that will ensue should the nationalism take hold.
I wish to ask these great luminaries, what good has been their pessimistic acknowledgement of Hindu nationalism? If nothing, it has deepened the gulf between the majority and the minorities and the resultant chasm has been taken up by pea-brained "idealogues", willing to exploit every situation for their petty gains. The Hindu nationalism plank has till now only been used to paint a bleak picture for the minorities and present a "you are atleast better off now than in a Hindu state" excuse to cover up the spineless administrative shortcomings. Any possible constructive implications of a Hindu state have never been examined neither advocated and when such voices do rise, they are invariably branded as marauding fascists, whose sole aim is to create another holocaust and "cleanse" the land.
My closing statement, if at all there is one to this debate, dwells on the "how" and not on "whether". It has been oft said that Hindutva is a way of life. Thats as good as teaching my mom to operate the Hubble telescope. Its time that the advocates of Hindutva operationalise it, put down every inch of its components in tangible form and freely express the intangible ones. Only by practicing it, can we propagate it and remove apprehensions regarding it, among other members of the society. Lets keep in mind that no model or philosophy of life can sustain itself, if its intolerant and rigid in the face of change and amalgamation, thus Hindutva will evolve, should evolve and accomodate other parallel philosophies.
The success of any great nation always hinges on its people... and people means ALL people, not majorities neither minorities alone!!!

Sauce Wars, Embarassing Typos and my ruminations on Democracy!!!!!

I have nothing else to do today so i am clearing up my backlog of posts and now i have settled on writing this too. Interesting things have happened in the last 24 hours.
When I went to Pizza Hut last night, fighting with a bottle of tomato sauce was not on my agenda however i landed up doing just that. For about 2-3 minutes I struggled to get a single drop of sauce out of the bottle while my whole body jerked up and down to the rythmic movements of my hand. The sauce finally yielded to my repeated attempts and finally, out came from the bottle some fresh, tasty looking tomato sauce to go with my Garlic Bread Exotica... yummy.. which brings me back to the question... is there is no standard viscosity for tomato sauce ??? shouldn't somebody look into this matter!!!!
Standardisation also involves weeding out the errors to maintain conformity. I was never a fan of proof reading, blame it on my impatience, but this stance has changed over the last couple of hours. If you have been patient enough to read through my story "Coffee Machine" i have used the word "pantry" a number of times and a crazy typo, in JUST one place, left one of my friends moist eyed, flushed and out of breath, because she (yeah SHE!!!! can you believe it !!!)couldn't stop laughing... If you have understood the whole situation I expect you to be in a similar state as she was and I am now the newest member of the "Proof Reading is Essential" fan club !!!
Tragedies apart, there is an eerie air of political activism in my surroundings for the past few days. Suddenly the most insignificant members of the group are becoming the most-soughtafter souls and words like agenda, responsibility, voting, lobbying and parleying have become common day parlance. Welcome to the world of elections and democracy!!!
The strength of democracy rises from the representative nature of power in the system, "Of the people, by the people, for the people" as it is often referred. It, of course, goes on with the assumption that all people have equal access to the power and the utmost willingness to exercise the same. What this idealism discounts is the inherent self-centred nature of the people and the various "facilitators" that thrive in the system, acting as if on behalf on the masses while in fact serving their own agenda. These "facilitators" are whom we call the politicians and should not be confused with the great leaders of yore, instrumental in envisioning the system. The great leaders of previous era have been replaced by this self-serving polity because the next generation of kurta clad, dreamy-eyed, ideological evangelists could never graduate to leading from following and were promptly replaced by a breed of sycophants, weak on idealogy and unyielding on ambition.
Thus, the failure of democracy lies in a short-sighted bourgeoisie, a legion of self-serving, power hungry polity and most of all, the inability to create a stream of leaders, who are ideologically lofty yet grounded hard in political reality.
It might intrigue people as to my ranking of the three major causes of democratic failure. It has been debated quite frequently, and none less in management circles, as to the procedure that will ensure a steady stream of leaders. Leadership has been mystified over the times and worse still, deformed. However, in its original form, it is the primary responsibility of leaders to envision long term goals and help the bourgeoisie understand the same while marginalising the self-seeking political class. With the advent of leaders, a dramatic power struggle is imminent. The bourgeoisie has to play its part in this drama, no doubt, and so will the incumbents, the current holders of political power but as of now, the stagnation in democracy is resulting from a major crunch in leaders and huge influx of politicians!!!!
Hope the times throw up some good leaders. Amen!!!!


PS: Article has proof read. If you still find typos, please feel free to slaughter me!!!