Self Sufficiency Sucks

 

 

Self sufficiency is an old Nehruvian model which died much before Nehru. It is not smart that one tries to find solutions to problems all by himself. As Amitabh Bachchan would have said, "It is not necessary for every one to be an artist. There is a need for art lovers too." Really, a leader is no good without followers. Each and every follower is equally as important as the leader.

For the last two days or more, we have been listening to the news of Arvind Kejriwal forming a party. This has shocked me. Why? Is he falling into the trap that he will present the Lokpal Bill in the parliament? This is no way.

The fight is more important than the result. Anna Hazare has brought about a revolution in thinking in this digital age. He is a true leader and must be obeyed without dissent.

If at all Arvind Kejriwal wants to enter politics, he must try to become a Rajya Sabha member. Not Lok Sabha. Because the Lokpal Bill has been passed by Lok Sabha. It is stuck up in Rajya Sabha. 

 



Newspaper vendors

The other day I was wondering why the newspaper reach homes late.
I occasionally go for a walk very early in the mornings and reach the central market at about 5 am. The market is bustling with activity. The newspapers have been delivered and all the boys are busy arranging the newspapers according to the buying pattern of their clients in their area. All these start at 5 in the morning. But then by 7:30 the newspapers do not arrive at home.
I was wondering what could be the reason behind it.

I guess it is the stuff that lies between pages in a newspaper. No, not the printed article of the newspaper. But the pamphlets that are put inside the folded pages of the newspaper. The pamphlets on local restaurant, cloth dealers, music schools etc. Some local goon must be late with his bunch of material for disbursement and he must have given a dhamki to the boys that newspaper will not leave the place without his arrival.

Local ads are important. No doubt. But newspapers are not the only way for transport. How about radio for local ads? Or community notice boards? So much wastage of paper can be avoided.

A danda and a seetee is what is required. The seetee shall remind these goons of the danda that they had and will stop this dadagiri.

Fits like hand in glove

Microsoft's evolution of .NET has been magical. Everything seems so good. There was web. There was PC. And now we have .NET.
But Microsoft has made loss this year. First time in 26 years.
Where does Google stand, now? Use their search technology in XML, throw in some artificial intelligence and identify meaning of data. This is what I think Google can do.
It might be a stupid idea, considering XML files might be encrypted. And sort of illegal too. Also they might need clearance from ECMA so that OOPS fundamentals are not violated.
India needs a government policy for a lot of things. Nandan Nilekani's UID program is getting a lot of bad publicity over internet. How internet routing is done? What is our stand on Internet? These are crucial questions that need to be answered urgently than a military economy. Level 5 leaders will ask who rather than what (as Jim Collins has written).
You cannot say a government chaprasi is against Kirtivasan getting an important position in government IT.

FM Radios

I listen to FM radio when travelling. On Sundays, I would listen to Amin Sayani's Sangeet ke Sitare at 12 noon in Radio City.
Now, Big FM is my default radio station. They play older songs. If an ad or RJ comment is being broadcast, then I switch channels. I then change to Red FM. The only new songs. I change to Radio City, Mirchi too depending on songs, ads, RJ etc.
Newer songs have become more routine like. Punjabi mix, desi pop songs. There seems to be no variety. Older music was about adaptation of Indian classical and folk for cinema. The new trend seem to running out of steam.
Surender Sharma the haasir jawab is a true genius. Absolutely good. He answers questions from audience and is able to give a humorous reply. Almost everytime he manages to make me laugh.
Some of the other comedians are pajama naada types.
Radio will never die. It is a fantastic invention and promotes imagination unlike the TV. After all imagination is the key to variety in life.

Just another loadshedding

The northern grid went down. Twice. Seven states were affected.
To me and crores of others, it was just the normal loadshedding. I wonder what the fault in grid meant to the rulers of our country. What is their thought process? Hum ne garibi dekhi hai. Roti ke liye tarse hain hum. Streetlight mein pade hain hum. And now. What? Hum aaj bhi aam vyakti hain. Is this their thought?
Shinde was transferred to another ministry. Not removed. Fear of loosing votes, perhaps.
To me, politicians only job is to promote unity among themselves and among people. The work people will do. It pains when this clear cut guideline is not met.

Crowd management

Crowds, traffic jams, queues are a common phenomenon for an Indian living in a city.
The other day the traffic signals at an important junction went off at peak time. It was a cross-section of roads and did not have traffic police nearby. Such occurences do happen in cities, though most of the cross-sections do have traffic policeman nearby.
The chaos was tremendous. Everybody wanted to get out of the jam quickly and thought he was doing the right thing by moving ahead at a specific time and others were not cooperating.
I thought about this problem and tried to find a solution. The solution or the law (Ha !! Ha !!) I thought was " If the distance between you and the car in front of you is equal to or more than 1 meter;
or the distance beween you and the car in the road perpendicular to you is equal to or more than 1 meter then move forward. Otherwise stay still." If this law is followed by everyone meticulously then the traffic clearance will be faster. And the people will have peace of mind till the traffic policeman arrives back from the tea shop !!
Another thing is the queues in important govt. organisations. I had to face this problem once. At that place there was separate queues for general, ladies and govt. officials. I stood in the govt. officials queue though I am a PSU (semi-government organisation) employee. I was able to get my job done without anybody asking questions.
For other queues, passing the time by reading papers, browsing net over mobile may be the best option.
The best solution is of course is to start early. Considering that we follow IST (Indian Stretchable Time !) and general public mostly join in at stipulated time, this is the best way out.

Pirated audio CDs.

I run errands for my house almost everyday to buy some thing or the other. Most of the daily needs are met in a shopping complex near our flats. Somedays I go to the main Central market.
About three days back I went to the Central market. The market has shops for supplying all the needs of a modern consumer. In the pavements there are pirated audio,video CDs sellers.
I normally look out for audio CDs. And I do not hesitate in buying the latest dump of Hindi film songs combined in one CD and priced for 50 odd rupees.
I had been buying this audio CDs for quite some time. I then copy these songs in my PC. And then from these songs, I move selected ones to another directory.
For the last two years I was looking out for Jatin Lalit collection. I could not get them. I got Shahrukh Khan hits, Aamir Khan hits (which had a good collection of Jatin Lalit songs) but not specific Jatin Lalit songs.
Three days back I managed to get specific Jatin Lalit songs, with the title Jatin Lalit hits. It had songs from about 20 movies of them.
What made me think is that till two years back the pirates of audio did not have the guts to bring a Jatin Lalit CD. But today they have. This definitely gives an indication that music before 2000 is a history. And the pirates have managed to break into the empire of the last Sultans(Jatin Lalit) of 20th century.
A fine collection of songs which I can now hear whenever I please. Thanks to the piracy !!