The politics of agitation.
I was thinking when was the last time a government in India passed a bill or made a resolution that was approved without opposition. Yesterday after the budget opposition members staged a walk out against the rise in petrol prices. I agree with people who say inflation has to be controlled. But my question is do you want the growth to be high? Do you want more FDI flowing into the country? If the answer is no then we can go back to pre 1990's when we basically destroyed our own economy. If the answer is yes then I think we have to draw the line somewhere and agree to some of the suggestions we should oppose otherwise democracy will be dead but not on all issues right now the political parties in India are like nagging partners who are mostly likely to find faults in everything and crib about them.

One of my friends made a statement the other day. He said he is not normal. This got me thinking as to who is normal and how can someone adjudge someone as being normal. I listen to rock and I have no problems admitting that I hate some other forms of music this makes me normal in some eyes while it makes me a full blown weirdo in the eyes of others. I have inked my arms this is considered to be a fad by some to be a statement by some but to me its just an extension of myself so am I mad or may I normal.

I thought about this for a while and I feel the only normal people in this world are the abnormal ones maybe its to do with conformance maybe its to do with being a part of the herd those who stand out are the abnormal one. To be honest I would rather stand out and be abnormal.

When do we learn to say NO?

We rarely ever say no directly unless we are angry or frustrated. The thinking men and women ought to have the courage to say it as it is. But we don't. We have politicians who on one hand say that they are the protectors of our city and they are the same people who also tend to destroy it at the slightest controversy. We have internal and external enemies who are creating ruckus and we cant tell them no we have had enough.

We cant say no to our friends when we don't want to do something. We think of excuses to make them feel that we are busy or we are up to something. Why cant we say no and why cant others respect the no.

The voice in my brain says don't the voice from somewhere else in me says do.
There are things that I see and cant figure out.
There are places I need to be but cant find a way to get to.
There are people I want to meet but can't.
There are ideas that I want to implement but don't know how.
Through this sprinkling of dreams I live a life that sometimes seems surreal.
Through the days and nights I have only more aspirations to fulfil.
Life as I live it seems distant from life as I want it.
The means to complete something sometimes seem so unreachable that I feel we live in a reality show.
A show where we are forced to make choices but the result is sometimes immaterial of the choices.
Till I solve my conundrums I bid adieu.

Standing by my window I look at the sun kissed earth through a curtain of smoke,
Admiring the beauty of what stands forth makes me think of other places I have been,
It makes me want to see how it feels to see the same sight at different places,
The earth in all its naked glory beckons all to come see her beauty as the sun wakes up and illuminates her being,
The blue waves crash against the rocks as my smoke curtain grows thinner,
Someday I will see a lot and that will make me smile just like she is smiling right now.

I don't get our obsession with marriage I mean as a society. Marriage is an institution they say I highly doubt it like many other things people say. Marriage is an understanding of sorts I feel it is like a compromise that I will have to undertake the question is why should I not think about myself. TO grow your family name you need to get married and have kids too. This whole concept though makes a little sense has also led to female genocide. The number of girl children being aborted due to the want of having a boy is very alarming. So that argument also fails according to me. Now there is another argument that says you will have a companion for life. Well I don't need to marry for that do I? I can have a companion without getting married. Oh I am scandalising a lot of people with this comment but then I don't think it is wrong. This is not our culture you say. Well so are a lot of things which we reintroduced to make our society highly conservative and constricted.
Not everyone needs to think like me I don't want to argue all I want is my voice be heard.

I see many amazing sights on my way to work or sometimes on my way back maybe I am too observant or maybe I have nothing better to do. But this is what I have started observing recently. The newer generation is not spoilt they have different tastes.
Hip hop culture I think that's what it is called has taken over suburbia and its influence can be seen every where. When I was that age we had different influences. I feel nothing is wrong as long as you don't overdo it.

A recent murder of a high profile lawyer is quite unnerving. One of the suspects is a techie who works in mumbai. Even in some of the heinous crimes the culprits are educated working professionals. I often wonder why an educated person would succumb to such ideologies.
Is it the world around them that they find to be cruel? Are they just doing it for money? It would be interesting if some physiologist actually studies this or maybe they have and I have not looked hard enough

Incredible India... My last post was about regionalism and it seems like our diversity is rotting. The recent bomb blasts in Pune does not seem to have an impact on people in AP. Amazing, isn't it?

I have a problem with broadsheets in Mumbai dedicating their front page to Adverts from various organisations mainly builders though. How can you have the front page of the newspaper given to a builder or for that matter any other organisation or group. The front page to me is a sacred page where the most prominent events are highlighted. It could be argued that they do this for the extra income that is so badly required in the print media specially since the advent of 24 hour news channels but why compromise on the first page?

I don't have a television at home which means the first thing I do in the morning is read the newspaper only to go through 2-3 pages of pictures of buildings. I guess the print media is answering the question will we survive; but I feel it should be how we survive.

Welcome to the new version of me.

I have written about things that I found interesting in the past but have never really written about current issues. However, this time around I intend to be current.

Lets start with the regionalism that has taken India by storm. Ask a small child on the road where he/she is from and rarely will you get the answer that I am from India. A majority of people thing that their first loyalty lies with their state and in some cases their city. I will not declare that I am a staunch Indian and whatever we do I agree with it. Sometimes there are instances when what we do does not make sense. Like opening a dialogue with Pakistan. Well more on that subject later.

First I want to debate on this topic of regionalism. We have people asking for their own state we have people stating that a particular part of the country belongs to certain people. Do we realise that we are dividing the country into small parts based on religion, language and customs. India boasts that we have unity in diversity at least that is what I was taught in school but I do not see any unity I see personal agendas and regional bias killing our growth story.

India is set to take on the so called economic powers in the world and on the brink of possible greatness we decide we do not care where we can reach let us fight among ourselves and destroy the chances of getting investment. Truly a united front, isn't it? We could well be the biggest economy in time to come like the golden era of India but then it depends on what the people do next.