Act of Kindness

Interesting experience.

We stopped by a petrol bunk in the intersection of Ringroad (in Bangalore between Old Madras Road and Hebbal Road) and the road leading to the Sultanpalya. The gas station is in the southern corner of that intersection. As we stopped for filling up, I saw a A5 size photograph of "Manjunath" stuck on the glass enclosure with the bold "Employee of the Month". As usual the photo didn't match the actual individual and I asked the attendant who was filling up my car, pointing to another guy who resembled Manjunath, if that was indeed the guy in the photo. The current attendent nodded in affirmative; and immediately started to take extra care in filling up and was more courteous ! But thats the not the main point of this post...

Just before we left the pump, I sought Manjunath out and congratulated him. He was extremely happy and profusely "tanks-saar'ed" me. Then we had moved to fill air and 5m after we left and I could still see Manjunath in smiles.

As we left I told my co-occupant that Manjunath is still smiling and he'd probably feel good for the day. Then I realized, the very fact I found that its something that I can point out to someone else and the fact that I'm thinking about a day later, that "congratulations" has made me feel good too...

So, looks like any act of kindness that we do to others, helps us to get in touch with our own decent self, I guess. Is it an act of kindness on ourselves ?
__________________________________________
ps: The intent of giving such a graphical (!) explanation of the location of the petrol bunk is, if at all, you pass thataway, you could stop by and do yourself an act of kindness ! :)

Whats it all about ? Second year on...

Hmm... I missed the anniversary - not that of ours - but that of this blah'g. I completed two years of blogging on the 22nd Dec. I blissfully was asleep in Chennai on that day. So I guess, if the anniversary has been forgotten, then I suppose the marriage has gone stale :) or its moved on to the mature phase of "content" rather than the "niceties". I'd rather believe the latter !

Through the year, I changed the name of the blog to 'thegoodblahg', perhaps slowed down on posting, added cricket tag, moved to new Blogger from google and new look, started (and stopped) contributing to a "Media watch blog" with a fellow-bloggers (which is badly in need of more contributions, anyways) and opened up another private blog that is very very dear and close to us.

Anyways, on the first anniversary, I did a word-cloud (of what the blog was all about) using snapshirts.com - which crawls the site and picks out the oft used words - i'm sure they are doing this syntactically rather than semantically ! I did one again now... Here is what its picked out...


But disappointingly, still no Floyd and Asterix - I guess those live in my heart and in my quotes!!!

Resurrecting the Champ

This is not about the recent movie starring Josh Hartnett and Samuel Jackson, about a boxer, washed out, living out a lie and finding a person-in-a-hurry-to-fame as a conduit to spin a yarn... Infact, I should have named this as “Crucifying a Champ – A step-by-step instruction on how to take a perfectly cooked recipe, and screw it up into a distasteful and completely messed up mish-mash”.

In case, you have not caught on, this is about Dravid.

Here is the guy who has amazing technique, a great temperament for batting, perfect gentleman, a perfectionist and consummate team-man; take him, add some second-guessers to it, create a parallel structure and slowly watch him disintegrate; He has been now turned him into a perfect specimen for a case-study on psychological experiment. Freud would be rubbing his hands in glee and would call variety of people – Greg Chappell, Sharad Pawar, Zaheer Khan, Tendulkar and Mr. D himself – Dilip Vengasarkar to get their expert opinion, for his case-study.

In my belief, Dravid is a complex man – a perfectionist seeking excellence in whatever he chooses to do and driven more by intent rather than agenda. He is someone who would look at the goal and hope the team around him will look at the goal and align themselves to achieve it without the politicking and without their own agenda. If you had seen him bat in the last few innings, it is clear that he is going through a crisis of confidence. Just cannot believe someone who played so well in the final OD innings in England could decline so fast – I believe it has got to do more with mind than the technique.

Flash back to recent events: He won a series in West Indies and then in England. In England, as a captain, he decides that he would not enforce follow-on – hue and cry were raised by people who cannot hold a candle to what he has achieved; forget the fact that Vaughn himself admitted that had he been in Dravid’s place he’d done the exact same. Then when Dravid talked about having his tiring bowlers have a rest, Zaheer Khan (who was earlier docked in the Chappell-Dravid regime) came out and says he wasn’t tired. Add to it a constant by-play with the newfound we-are-close-friends-now – Tendulkar/Ganguly combine. Then we hear stories about how Vengsarkar wanted the batting order to be changed. And you would think that Selectors select players and then shut the eff up; and the rest is upto the captain. But you know, this is Vengsarkar – the man who wrote in Hindu 15 years ago that the only time India cricket does well is when it has Mumbai players in it. No wonder, Dravid talked about shelf-life of a captain. He returns and lets Sharad Pawar know that he no longer wants to be the captain. Mr. Vengsarkar, hurt that he was not being told first, does everything in his power to get Tendulkar as the captain. Fortunately, good sense prevailed in Tendulkar. The worse is yet to come – someone who played a blinder of an innings in England is “rested” from the team after one poor series at home. If he was rested, then he should have brought back to the later part of the series; but no.

Now touring Australia, inspite of two specialist openers in the 16 – Karthik and Sehwag, Dravid has been asked to open to accommodate Yuvraj in the final 11. I wonder if someone could ask the same of Tendulkar or Ganguly – could be natural choices as both have opened for dogs years in the ODs. Dravid, I’m sure, agreed to open, although he may have had other opinions... I've actually now become a proponent of euthanasia, after hearing about Dravid's T1, innings 1 labour.

This could be pop-psychology – but Dravid I believe is a person who strives for perfection; and that too with great intensity. When you do that, then most times even a simple thing could become complicated. Not saying opening is a simple thing – but Dravid would have built a lot of what-if-scenarios around it and would have made it more complex than it ought to be. He had already talked about the change-over between innings as one of the what-if scenarios. He also comes across as a person who can get quickly get into a siege mentality and sink deeper into crisis of confidence; and the more he gets deeper into, the more he gets into point of no return. Case in point is his stagnation as a run-scoring opener in the warm-up game and in the first-innings. We see a completely different and tentative batsman – the guy who is intent on battling it out in keeping his wicket intact rather than scoring runs.

This had happened once, earlier to Dravid – when he was dropped from the OD team for his ability to rotate the strike and score briskly. At that time, two things happened – one, he reinvented himself and more importantly, he had a strong support from the leadership – Ganguly as the captain, had insisted that Dravid to be in the team in the lower order and also got him to keep wickets. That kind of unconditional support and faith was required to get Dravid into the mind-set of a champion. The rest is history – his OD confidence carrying into stupendous test forms, setting up a host of hundreds and double hundreds, leading to famous test wins for India abroad.

I believe Dravid is more needed in the test team and in the middle-order to provide the solidity that others can build around it and he has still 2-3 years in him. He certainly needs that kind of leadership support now – if not from Kumble (who is not much dissimilar to Dravid in mental make-up), from his team-mates, like Tendulkars and Gangulys. Dravid being, perhaps, the most self-less in that group, would definitely make the others look good too.

However, not very evident what would such kind of unstinted support for Dravid would come from. One place where we do NOT have to look is, for sure, from the office of Chairman of Selectors!!

Ps: On a different note, can anyone find a logic in screwing up three positions within the batting order to get Yuvraj in – The opener slot, the #3 and #6 and sacrifice an opener, Dravid and Laxman ? Why cant we just drop one of the middle-order rather than screwing up the set-order!

Same Difference !

Flying to an alien land,
At 30kft, I peep down
The ice-scape,
The dry brown,
Cloud’s feathery-cape,
The Blue Sea,
The green trees,
All that I see
Look the same,
In whichever lat-long I am.

In the distant land,
I look up.
The blue skies,
The Bright sun,
The twinkling-stars,
The silent moon,
The crisp cool,
Makes me feel,
I’m at home;
Heavens the same,
Even in the land afar.

Then I look level,
into the eyes of another.
Averted, looking away,
In unspoken judgment.
Questions unasked
of each others intent.
And questions asked
of my existence,
in his land.

Ah, for the sameness
of His creation
And the differences
in ours!!!

Test of Temptations - Ramba, Menaka, Urvashi and Yana !

I had written (if I may add, very proudly) about how I quit smoking elsewhere in the blog (you should read that before you read this one)… Again during this travel, I passed by that gas station and I “one number kumbidu pottaen” to that monument.

I was also talking about it to someone this travel. The funny thing was the there is a huge (well, small anyway) untold story about what followed immediately after that event… In the earlier blog, it was like the nostalgia – I had given the good details and left out the ugly ones !

Here is the account of the other side of the story – the sultry temptress that came in all forms including a fat friend of mine, (who would take umbrage in calling him fat, but anyways, he isn’t reading this blog – so I can even get away by calling him intelligent), Mr.Purported-Devarajan and host of others that came in stunning sequence out of the Mumbai airport’s concrete-work. All sent by the creator for one sole reason – go forth and screw up this guy’s penance of denying himself the pleasure of smoking !

So here is the untold story that has been told/read never before in the public forum; now open to the whole wide-world audience of nine regular readers (ok, sue me, I’m reporting higher numbers in this blog’s TRP rating)…

As I walked out of the gas station as “proud quitter”, I needed to travel from Fort Collins to another small city in the US – Roseville – its near Sacramento and more importantly (to none who reads this blog), had a site where our company operates. Me, with a great amount of confidence and faith in my own ability to stick to my decision of quitting, checked myself into the hotel and into a “smoking room”. I knew, like all my romances, this is going to be short lived. I check in, and then the sun sets on the American empire – so I go walking in search of food places to eat- I find a Denny’s, but it is very conveniently situated adjacent to the gas station. So I walk across the Gas station and… and walk straight into Denny’s, had some food and turn my head away from the gas station and walk out. Ramba has been denied.

Cool, I thought to myself and when I returned back to Ft.Collins, I proudly checked myself into a “non-smoking” room. I was quite sure that I had kicked the habit, although it was only 3 days into abstinence, not really believing that this abstinence is going to be any different from every other resolutions that occurred on 1^st of every January… The only material difference was, this wasn’t winter, but Fall, if that makes a lot of sense to the nine of you !!

Like jet-lag, sometimes the absence of nicotine in the blood-stream can hit you much later; atleast, so I theorize ! After all the phoren work, I return back to our country. Those days, there were no direct flights to Bangalore, but one has to come through one of the other cities and in the middle of the night with a 5-6 hour wait. So I wait in the airport. Second theory: Once you quit smoking, the other thing you want to avoid is to wait aimlessly (the first one you want to avoid is the fat friends that smoke). So, since I waited aimlessly, I saw the sultrier Menaka dance in front of my eyes; so those roved. Found Mr.Devarajan smoking; and I built a story in my own mind – I would go tap him on the back and say hello Deva – he could be even Thiyagarajan or Govindarajan or some other Rajan – but I decided he would be Devarajan. Ofcourse, he would be some other (what are the chances that he really could be Devarajan ?); he would naturally, look at me puzzled but its an opportunity to strike up a conversation – what you up to, are you also waiting for the Bangalore flight blah, blah and finally let go, “can I bum a fag ?” (yep, for all the smoker fag does mean just that) and lo behold, I’d have my smoke. I made my move; unfortunately, he also made his move – he walked away… Shoot, I sat back down. I thought, was it a message from the providence… As I wrestled bumming when he returned, it was 4.30AM and the PA called for the check-ins and Deva had moved with extreme speed… Menaka faded into black !

Ok, got through the 2^nd celestial dancer, by the quirk of bad-timing of the PA system. The ultimate test was waiting to happen… As I checked in and was wandering around – guess who turns up – the fat smart guy who I begun to smoke with in college. Great!! And he offers me a fag – I’ve to hold my ground, I proudly tell him, I quit (without telling it has been only 3 days). He respects that, and doesn’t offer me any more. Are we done? No – the ultimate Urvasi is lurking around the corner – ignoring Prabhu Deva, she isn’t taking it easy! Another guy turns up from the same college – but this is the weird twist – he was not a smoker in the college, but had started after he had gotten a job in a remote and culturally strange-to-him town – the ennui had gotten to him and he had started smoking! So he says, hey G, you used to be smoker, here’s one!! Ok, Oorvasi, I’m on the penance thing – although it was very tempting watching her do the Helen dance (or Yana Gupta of these days, which is more sexier, I’m told – I wouldn’t know, anyways) and although I slyly open one eye to catch a part of it, I shut it out ! I say a firm NO… Oorvasi has been ignored too…

…and have stayed unscathed since! Although Koshy’s still offers temptations, but I think now I’m through all these dances, even if its Yana (doing Baboojeee... :)); maybe it’s the middle age catching up… We are still talking about “Quit-smoking”, by the way !!

Oh, it is perfectly possible; all of the above could be wild delusions of a nicotine-denied brain!!

Land of the Brave!

Nana was living in fear – not fear of death or fear of something major; there was a stretch of train travel in the (infamous) Mumbai suburban train that he loathed – he loathed himself for being afraid. Nana (alias Narayan Iyer s/o Shri. Sivasankaran Iyer, the late priest at the Guruvayoor temple) had been a sheltered son of a very orthodox family down south. He had finished his B.Sc. and after trying for work in and around his native town without much success he landed in the big bad world of Mumbai in search of job – that was in January, nearly 6 months ago. He got one, as a technician in one of the Pharma factories at the suburbs, that paid for his living in a one-room shanty with shared toilet and bath room – more importantly, it helped him to save some money and send it back home to his widowed mother and younger sister.

Nana was scared about Mumbai – he had heard stories about how cold the city could be and how mirthless it is – where people go about doing what they do without bothering about someone’s plight. Coming from a villagish-town it was a huge culture shock for Nana. However, around after the 3^rd month he had learned to cope with Mumbai. It certainly did not win him over, but he found ways to co-exist with it – it was symbiotic, he thought remembering his 12^th standard biology – he needed Mumbai for the survival of his family and Mumbai needed people like him to remain aloof, cold and ruthless. He was insignificant; but by end of first month it had stopped bothering him to an extent and he knew he was becoming one among them. Even in the local train that took him to and from his job, he found people doing their own thing or on the opposite end of the spectrum sticking to the same group. He tried smiling at someone who seemed regular but couldn’t strike up a conversation due to his limited knowledge of Hindi. He then decided it was better to shut-up and not let people know that he was an outsider without the knowledge of Hindi or Marathi.

But then disaster struck. Someone seemed to take attention of him – in a way that Nana did not foresee or ever want. There was this tough looking man wearing a pyjama-kurta and his two cronies who seemed to find Nana’s nervous quietness funny. Initially, indirectly and then directly – they had started bullying him in one way or the other; more so after they found he was an outsider. Nana tried to switch compartments and avoid them. It worked for a week, but then they found him; the same about missing the train – did work for a while, but then it always came back to the same thing. Once they found him waiting for the train to go, got down and told him in no uncertain terms that he needs to take the train that they are in…

Since then, Nana lived in fear. He talked to someone at work, but didn’t help. He thought of changing his residence so that he doesn’t have to take that suburban train, but just couldn’t afford a place anywhere in the city. He was ashamed of his cowardice and lack of courage to stand up to those bullies; He also hoped that someone would come in his aid and help him out. But none did – its Mumbai and more importantly, it was not a movie.

Today he was returning from work – the July weather, matched his mood – seemed morose and threatened the evening with rain. He did not see the goons yet. He chose a place to sit that had his back turned towards the door with a hope that he would escape notice. The train had stopped in Borivli – out of the corner of his eye he saw the main-goon with his usual smirk and unlit beedi climb on to the train. Nana’s heart sank…

Nana further shrunk in his seat and waited for the inevitable tap on the head and the wicked grin. He didn’t get any – maybe the train was crowded enough for the goon to wade his way back to him, maybe goon had a change of heart, Nana hoped. As Nana waited, he felt a blow to his body, much more than what he had expected – he was stunned for a moment; then he lost his consciousness. When he regained it, he was completely disoriented, there was thick smoke and the compartment was in ruins. They were body lying all around; he heard screaming all around and people scrambling out. He quickly understood that a bomb had gone off and ripped through the compartment; along with the crowd and in the chaos he rushed out. Now outside, Nana’s instinct told him to run for safety, since there were screams that there could be more bombs inside. He found himself unhurt, by God’s grace and he thanked God (“Guruvayoorappa”) quickly and started to walk away – he wanted to be as much far away as possible when the next bomb went off.

For some reason, he turned back one more time – he saw the goon down on the floor, very much bleeding, very much conscious and very much in pain, with a piece of twisted metal over him. For the first time, in the Nana saw there was no bravado in Goon’s eyes, but a pleading and panic. Nana hesitated for a minute, flash of thought around God’s ways ran through his mind; “God’s ways”, it struck him – he climbed back in. He quickly inspected the goon’s condition – he seemed ok – there has been big injury to his arm and it was ripped away, but his legs seemed in good condition; and there was bleeding from the stomach, with a big ugly open wound. Nana told the goon to lie still (not sure if he was heard), tried to wrench the twisted metal away – he couldn’t and muttered aloud about being a vegetarian! He, also assessed that he cannot carry the weight of the goon; he decided to drag the goon under the metal to the door-way by his legs. He told the goon what he was going to do in broken Hindi; At the door-way, he let the goon’s legs dangled out, he pulled the goon to sit-up tilted him on his back and carried him out 20 meters away and dropped him on the ground, as yet another tiny blast went off inside.

Nana looked down at the goon. There was gratitude in those eyes; Not sure if those eyes saw fear in Nana’s eyes. Not today, as Nana turned to see if there was someone else he could help with…

Empowerment Vs Delegation Vs...

A lot of times at work, we get told and tell our colleagues that we need to “empower” our folks. I was explaining to someone as to what is the difference between empowerment, delegation and abdication…

…and decided to state that thus:

	The employee has		Then its,	heading for	Long term, manager does	Short term, manager does
	Capability	Potential
When the work gets pushed to one level below	Yes	Yes	Empowerment	success at a “raised bar” level	New objectives, higher bar, mentoring outside of hierarchy	Allow to set objectives, make decisions, "promote" to next level (of hierarchy, complexity etc)
	No	Yes	Delegation	Success	Reviews, coaching, hints on what-if scenarios, asking questions (but no answers)	set context, "gate" decisions with y/n
	No	No	Abdication	Failure	Change the employee out of current role	Operate at "activity/task" level

Makes sense ?

Toilet Humor

Heard in the toilet at our work place...

Middle Aged Guy: So , since it was raining so heavily yesterday, how did you get from the bus stop to your house ?

Young guy: My wife had come to the bus-stand with the umbrella

MAG: Oh... so you have been married only for 3 months right ?

YG: Yep...

MAG: My wife just told me to wait in some shelter until the rain stops

Thats just not it.

A bunch of folks in the toilet nodded in sympathetic been-there-experience-that kind of nod.

A good good Movie

Over the past weekend had watched a Tamil movie - Mozhi. It was a great great surprise - although I had read the review in the Vikatan, didn't really expect the movie to be great shakes. But was pleasantly, pleasantly surprised. During the movie and after the movie, I could clearly feel myself enjoying the story-telling - the movie was extremely well directed and well acted. The visuals were simple and good (with the whole family watching, identifying some of the locales in the foreign land :) ), pleasing, the backgrounds and the other supporting cast blending in nicely.

Essentially I saw the title "Mozhi" (Language) indicating that the two main protoganists relate to two different languages - one the music that he plays and the other the silence, she always hears. The hero, Karthik is a musician by craft and Archana is deaf-mute. Karthik who sees Archana and falls for her show of guts even before he knows of her disablity. When his resolve becomes stronger once he discovers her disability, one doesn't feel, its 'that tamil movie thing'. For, in essence, Karthik comes across a very decent human being, who is sensitive to people who really need that touch. The interactions between the professor (who is stuck in the 1984 due to his son's accidental death) and Karthik have been very sensitively woven into the story. The sorrow that laces the interaction is poignantly poetic. At one scene, when Karthik tries to reason with angry Archana, the professor intrudes with a 1984 non-sequitor. Karthik, for a fleeting nanosecond shows his annoyance as Archana walks away, but then stays with the professor to hear his story. Very beautifully done by the director, Radhamohan.

There are several such moments in the movie. Even Prakash Raj's comedy is not out of line. His comic inter-play with the association secreatary and off-the-cuff-oh-btw one-liners are very enjoyable and do not jar the story line like the regular comedy-track we see in other movies. PR should do more of this - comedy and production ;). Swarnamalya's role as Sheela is underplayed; inspite of my bias, I did believe she too did a decent job, particularly when she talks about her life to Karthik.

Karthik played by Prithviraj is aptly done. If you can pardon his accent, he has beautifully played his role to the T. No overt and overacted emotions, no wasted motions in his actions - very nicely done. Jyotika is very good in most places depicting the character that believes 'what one does not know will hurt you'; and just when Karthik draws her out, she retreats back behind the iron-curtain. She could have used her eyes better, given that she had no dialogue to fall back on.

Although the story ends predictably, you don't begrudge the ending as cinematic. At the end of it, you'd actually think it would be injustice if they don't get together.

The music, by Vidyasagar melts into the story. The editing is sharp with no extraneous scenes and keeping the storyline going. Even the bulb/bell thing that can appear quirky, gives you a touch of humor. In all, a great viewing that touched me in a way that I didn't expect. The taste still lingers on.

Infact, last week I was telling one of my friends that one way to get his young teen-age kids understand "values" is to get them to relate to a cause that is greater then themselves. That way they would realize how fortunate are we. I've told him that he should see this movie as a first step!

Sound bites

The state Governor who had earlier in the evening, when elicited for his views on four young children of the K.R.Halli slums being badly mauled by stray dogs, retorted pointing to the need that we Human Beings, as a more evolved species need to be compassionate to animals, now slept soundly in his fifteen acre mansion far away from and completely immune and oblivious to the cacophonous din created by those pack of dogs in the slums of K.R.Halli in the middle of the night...

It is a singular sentence inhabitants of K.R.Halli go through all their lives.

Humour at its Subtlest best !

Although this blog is for original (!) creations (!?!), there is this recent joke that I heard that deserves a mention; of course, attributing it to the oft quoted author - A.N.Onymous:

Q: What do you get if you roll an atheist, dyslexic insomniac into one ?
A: You get a person who stays awake all night wondering if there is dog !

:)

The Reel justice !

I’m sure most of you would have followed either in great or peripheral interest regarding Sanjay Dutt story on the papers; if you were in the periphery, then you would have been brought into the maelstrom by yesterday’s and today’s coverage. Thankfully, I had meetings uptil late last night (31^st) and hence was fortunate not to turn on the TV. But then, one can run, but cant escape – the news was on the first page – "Sanjay Dutt gets 6 year-prison-term"

My sympathies do not lie with Sanjay Dutt – He may not be a terrorist; but he is guilty on several counts – he broke the law, and he tried to un-make by trying to diabolically conceal the first breach. And he should have been incredibly stupid to do it. Or even incredibly drunk with celebrity psychology of “I can do anything and get away with it”.

However, what is laughable is the content story in the Hindu, on Sanjay Dutt’s arrest.

Since Sanjay Dutt is from the stable of the above - it is not surprising he was obtuse; looks like the whole film industry seem to believe that one could break the law and s/he can get away with it on perfectly legitimate grounds stupidity ! What does the film industry think? Or want ? That they could script a perfect court-room scene, where Munnabhai after the crime, would ask for leniency on grounds of "Jaadu ki pappi" and one last call to his beloved and the judge would break down, pound the gravel and let him go, with one year suspended prison term; then the hero, hand in hand with his dear wife and lovely kids, would walk out and break into a song as the credits roll?!

Look at the roll-of-honour in the news item – Each one of them is Nani Palkhiwala in their own right and understand the law better than the care-takers of Indian Justice and legal system. Victim of Conspiracy ? Hello ???!! Anyone home? What next, Monica Bedi would start expounding as to why faking passports is a perfect normal thing to do in this country?

I wish the Justice Kode hauls all their collective asses wholesale into couple of days into the prison on the charges of contempt of court, off their wonderland and get them into the real world !!!!

Fractured !

I had some interesting discussions in the past 2-3 weeks. I’ll classify those as:

Lack of Dignity of Labour:
In reacting to a comment on the blog about Apathy, I had talked about the “dignity of labour” or general lack of, in a booming city like Bangalore. Everywhere you go, we get to see a predominance of this mentality, where we believe what we are doing is somehow much bigger or important than what others do. This is manifest so starkly in the swank offices and how the generation of IT folks treat non-IT people, even in their own company. I’ve seen many a times, that people swish past the security at the reception, looking elsewhere but showing their badge with so much “nonchalance” at the security. Its very hard to understand this – I don’t believe it takes much for us to look at the security, smile at hir and then show the badge. The minimum respect that we could give the security for the job s/he is doing is to look into hir eyes before flashing the badge. The same happens to other “helpers” – the coffee boys, the helpers etc. It may make no difference to us if we know their name; but simple thanks with their names would go a big way for them to feel proud about their work. They are part of the eco-system that we have created.

Fashionably dissing the Doing Urge:
Few days ago, we had an interesting discussion at Lunch. Apparently someone was run-over in the Hosur road. This had enraged the people of that area and they had blocked the traffic for 2hrs and delayed the office goers for 2-3 hours. The "blockers" were dissed by one and all and to me it was a bit disturbing. My point to them was this: “Who is better - those guys who were incensed and wanted to do something about it and did (although that was inappropriate) or us folks, who just sit in our car for the traffic to clear"? From a societal level, I'd pick the former; Atleast they try to be the agents of change in a convoluted way... Convoluted, since its most likely their means is more a manifestation of anger rather than a thought out need to change. Of course, like someone said, there is option not to pick both, but the ones who actually took the people to the hospital. Yes. thats the best option. But at an unemotional level, for the injured, it makes a difference, but to that locality none; since accidents will continue to happen at that spot.

So there are three kind of people

1) One who seeks to change the system (the protestors)

2) One who seeks to help the victims of the system (the medical helpers)

3) The ones who do nothing (in the car waiting for protestors to go away)

#1 above may not have thought out well to initiate the change - but its disturbing to me that people who do nothing tend insult and to pick holes at people who are trying to do something.

I wonder if a combination of both above - i.e., disrespecting people for what they do, specifically by the prosperous few and those prosperous few doing nothing for removing the ills that ails us in this city, resulted in the chaotic scenes when Rajkumar passed away. The divide seems to be getting bigger and deeper. A little less of back to basics in politeness and respect and most importantly some introspection, would help this city, I would guess.

The Great Indian Apathy !

Of all the writing that Soliloquist does, so eloquently, I may add, this one stood out for me. The article was about the Indian apathy, and how it was tough to get someone in a crowd, that too a crowd claiming some commonality of purpose (like belonging to the same company), to come out helping out in a tight situation. The blog had concluded this is endemic and named it as a Great Indian Apathy.

I do believe there is apathy that prevails in our society and there is also an implicit acceptance of “fate” and “destiny” for even simpler failures; or attributing somebody else’s discomfort or misfortune to it; and hence no pointing in to getting into the situation or helping out. In spite of all that, I do think people have in them the innate need to help someone else out, when someone is in trouble. Yes, most of them would not put themselves in a situation when it threatens themselves or their loved ones security. Otherwise, I believe they tend to.

As there is an example in that article, here is another – an apt illustration of both ends of the spectrum. For passengers transiting between the international airport to the domestic airport, a bus facility is available to take them, with an hourly frequency or so. Prior to the departure, the passengers wait in a hall, with minimal facilities – but, of all the incongruities, a facility to charge their mobile phones – mirroring the explosive growth of that specific industry. A month ago, I was in one such bus. As the bus was leaving, one old gentleman hurried out asking the driver to wait. As we were waiting, we were treated to two gentlemen (gentlemen is really anomaly), who were loud, irritating and really irreverent to both the situation (middle of the night) and to the people around. The kind of topics they chose to talk to went on the lines of how they could make money of their jobs, how to outwit their management and how things in Mumbai were so bad etc, but safely taking refuge in speaking in their local language. As one of my relatives had said, they were the outstanding example of how IT industry in India has encouraged and nurtured mediocrity. Then the old man returned a bit harried – a person next to him queried as to what happened – apparently the old man had left his phone to charge and forgot about it – by the time he had gone back in for it, that was gone. His neighbour, immediately offered his mobile phone for the old man to call in his number – the old man was a bit tentative, since it was a long distance call, since his phone number was that of Bangalore’s. As this was going, the two idiots went on their view of how futile the whole exercise was. That did not deter the neighbour – he did get the number, called it himself; and gave it again to the old man to keep trying his number, with a hope that someone would answer the call. Unfortunately, nothing came of it.

Somehow I believe, the good neighbour’s name could be Avinash. Or Avinash Pathy. I’d have loved to say “Sol, Meet Avinash or the normal Indian, A. Pathy :-) ”.