FREEDOM V/S SECURITY

IS MORAL POLICING JUSTIFIED?

                                  Recently a 15 year old girl was shot in the head for performing an IMMORAL  act that is attending school. Malala Yousufyai, a resident of Taliban occupied valley. The crux behind the matter ?  FORCED moral policing.

              So what actually is moral policing? EDUCATING a child about the right and wrong by the experienced people.

NO

                           “Forefathers’ teachings” is the veil for curbing somebody’s individualism and making him submissive to your self-righteous and dominating intentions and this is subtly named as “moral policing” today. That is an imposition of your or your forefathers’ experiences to the present generation. Then the question arises is do the same conditions and environment persist as they were with you or your forefathers? The answer obviously is a resounding NO.  We very well acknowledge the fact that we determine something called instantaneous acceleration or instantaneous velocity because we understand that at every moment the same set of conditions do not apply in space and time. Then why do we not accept this in the real world?

                        Moral policing in the past was displayed by the now extensively criticized acts of the Brahmins and pundits or the higher classes, wherein they decided everything for the whole community. It was them who decided what everybody would eat, how they would pray so on and so forth. That was done in the name of helping the individuals to gain ‘NIRVANA’ and hence people continued to accept everything that fell out of their mouths. But it has been irrevocably proved by historians that the sole aim behind this moral policing was their urge to keep the reins of the society in their hands, stay in control of the community and exercise immense power. Is moral policing justified?

                    

                    Today this “hidaayat” has taken various forms of either daily sermons by elders at home or more rigid forms of anger at certain acts of yours. Isn’t this done for your benefit? Protecting you from problems of society and safeguarding you? Have we forgotten the story of the little boy who nursed a butterfly’s egg for a quite a lot amount of time. Then one day he sees that the little one wants to come out and see the glory of the sun but is hindered by the egg shell, the boy in his attempt to HELP and SAFEGUARD it from the pain of the shell cuts open the shell so that it can come out. The consequence? The little butterfly can never ever fly because the very necessary initial pain caused by the shell was necessary for it to enable its wings for later flights. As the boy rescued the butterfly from that pain, he crippled it for life.

                

                  So what are we aiming for via moral policing? We are aiming to give our kids a golden spoon in mouth, fur coat on the shoulder and velvety roses under their feet for life? But if somebody is given a chance to live, he has got his fair chance of experimenting, striving, falling and rising up again in all glory. How many of us know about SWAT- Special Weapons and Tactics forces who use specialized tactics in high risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular uniformed police? They have a policy. They employ only those people who have seen at least one major failure in life and risen from it. Will a protected child befit that? NO, because he was never given a chance to experiment. Unfair and unjustified.

                

                                  I would like to conclude by stating the fact that if something as brainless as litmus indicator doesn’t show the same color in every environment so your educated self believes that a moral could in general apply to all irrespective of his conditions?

All I would like to say is LIVE AND LET LIVE and you would be amazed when people come and ask you to guide them J

WOMENHOOD

DISCLAIMER:-    This article does not aim to attack a particular gender or belittle anybody. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental and unintentional. It attacks only the male chauvinists. If it annoys you in any way then there is a slight possibility that you are a male chauvinist deep down inside. This topic was given as a debate in college and hence has quite an attacking approach! Moreover the recent “event” in Delhi provoked me to post this.

“There should be reservation for women in India”

Marianne Williamson says and I quote- “when a woman rises up in glory, her energy is magnetic and sense of possibility contagious”

I, an independent, self reliant woman of the 21^st century, stand here “without reservation” to inherently oppose the motion.

From childhood we all have heard the famous saying- “Educate a man, you educate an individual; educate a woman, you educate a whole generation.”

I would like to literally tickle the dozing, dominant, male chauvinists and bring to their kind notice that women today, are in no way subservient to men, neither are they dependent on your modest donation of reservations.

It is the 21^st century where a woman has been the President of your country, where Sunita Williams and Kalpana Chawla have walked the moon, wake up oh inferiority struck male society, the era of womanhood has begun. 

                 Gone are the days when the future of women was dependent on the whims of males, when women walked in half meter long “ghunghat”; today’s women rule companies walk in Armani jackets and are much more capable than men and hence need no reservation.

              Well groomed, well educated and fully capable of protecting herself, women no longer need to be restrained in meaningless shackles of society. The women today are in no way backward that they need crutches of reservation to rise to glory. They are as equipped and as capable as men to rise and excel.

Hence addition of another reservation is not a good idea at all! J

P.S. we shouldn’t be preaching women to be safe. Rather make the society a better and safer place to live in. And for all males dont be the man who stares at some improperly dressed but rather be THE MAN who offers them a jacket to put on!

                                     R.I.P. Delhi. This killed you. 

college days!!

AM I READY?

         Amongst all the euphoria for college and all the rhapsodies that all my dear friends keep mumbling unendingly, I personally come back to one nagging question time and again- Am I ready? Ready to go to college? Ready for the freedom from school rules that we all have heard of from time immemorial? Ready for the madness of choosing a different dress to wear to college everyday and not the same well ironed school tunic? Ready for canteen interfering our urges to attend a lecture (esp. for we bhavanites who have not had an in campus canteen ever! )

                   I think it is a cocktail of mixed feelings- that of anxiety and fear, freedom and inferiority complex of being lost in a crowd, amazement and disappointments, surprises and setbacks.

                             The jump from a school to a college is quite huge. People who have attended college after 10^th itself have already passed that stage but many of the others like me have our own personalized and customized apprehensions of the doorstep we are going to walk into pretty soon. No rules about your dressing, neither you have to tie up pigtails every morning (ugh! How I hated that at school!), un granted yet snatched freedom of not attending a lecture, and the most importantly lost in a huge huge crowd of people like you and still fight for your identity. No everyday national anthem and prayers and no assemblies!

                               My mind has often grazed on the idea that unknowingly how safe we had been in school. A fixed timetable, a fixed dress, a restricted campus and a closely known and personally attached staff. But here in college, as I have heard, you have to run to your professor and dig out help from him unlike at school when your teacher, instead, used to compel you and make sure you study and do well. Will we be able to handle the change? Well, I guess, time will tell.

                                   From a set of rules at school to a free bird in college another point of concern is our academic performance. I agree all of us have done extremely well at school, but did we notice that it was a place where we were bound to do well? We were given a proper guidance and environment to study but here, at college, the saying I hear from every single person is-college is self study. Will we, then, be able to stay up to the mark taking into consideration the varied types of distractions available?

There are mixed feelings that drain me now and then. Those of excitement and fear. Excitement stems from the desire to see a brand new world and an opportunity to create a new identity for ourselves, leaving behind the good and the bad we saw at school. At the same time, fear, particularly for me, stems from the anxiety whether the new world that I will see soon would be good or bad.

                                        People from all walks of life have raised one seemingly frightening question at me- “why have you refused to leave Nagpur when you have been getting colleges like LSR Delhi and Christ Bangalore??” to all of them, I have just one answer-such a large leap in life would be constipating for me! And I would be unable to digest that. You may call it my comfort zone of staying in Nagpur, or my indifference to gain a new experience of staying alone but honestly, I am least interested in such “experiences”. I can, in no way, trade awful loneliness and even worse food facilities with so-called freedom that one gets on staying alone. I think, personally, my comfort zone is where I would like to stick to. And about the “exposure” that people quote you get only outside, to all of them-the college remains with you only for 4 years but your life is what is more important. Opportunities have to be grabbed not spoon fed and life is finally what YOU make of it and not your college professor.

                           Whatever might be the attractions in college life the things I am really really going to  miss about my school is-the fight for being the class monitor, the race that we had as to who finishes copying the stuff written on the blackboard first and then keeps on shouting mam rub the board!! , who induces something different in the same uniform in order to stand out of the class, who manages to purposefully come late to the class and manages to stand out (outstanding students!) and also who takes the quickest first supplement in tests and who takes the maximum, the sweet comparison of marks and taking each others’ answer sheets to ask for an explanation “why the hell have I not been given marks and he has for the same answer!”, the anxiety of what I have got for recess today to the fight over tasty food, distributing sweets on birthdays and so much more. The fight for the first bench in elementary school which now will change to the fight for the last bench! The awesome time at recess when we would either play in the corridor or rather dutifully spread our napkins and eat our tiffins together or trying to hide your tiffin fron that big foodie because of whom you return home empty stomach! The planning of asking baseless questions to teacher to waste a class or making small anonymous noises to distract the teacher, stuffing food in our mouths when the teacher faced the blackboard or purposely putting our heads down and acting asleep or our very own chalk fight. Today I am hit by strong gusty waves of nostalgia!

                           Anyways, it depends on person to person and remains a debatable topic throughout. But  one thing is common and sure, all of us, each one of us has those little butterflies in our tummies while imagining the first day of college and at the same time the remembrances from school keep hitting us on and off! So to all my friends-have a great college life and stay safe! Also, don’t forget your school friends because

“When you make new friends,

Don’t forget the old.

Because if new is silver,

Old is GOLD!” J

 Have a happy college!!

P.S. – I am already getting sleepless nights!! The excitement is onnn!! J

HAPPY BIRThday!!

     “The obsession about birthdays stems from the intense fear of an individual that his or her existence might not matter to anyone else”

Ram Gopal Varma speaks and I quote.

                  Birthdays have always been special for every human being despite the age, gender, religion, caste and nationality barriers. Along with differences in rituals there are varied differences in celebrating a birthday too. Be it the 75^th or the 1^st birthday the pomp and show of a birthday has gained newer heights. As i step into my adulthood with this birthday, I was obsessed with writing about everybody's favourite day of the year.

                              As a kid, I distinctly remember literally counting days to my birthday even weeks before the day. The intense planning would follow like making some interesting games at school or planning the dress I would wear on MY day! But really nothing could beat the anxiety of the gifts that were to come in the evening and the dishes that my grandma would cook for all my friends. And of course the painful birthday bombs. Why do you hit the person on a happy day? Friends do get mean and drop you from a height that time.

                         The attraction of a birthday has been made by our own culture. In earlier times grand pujas and distribution of food and clothing would mark the birthday of an upper caste individual whereas a day off from work was the only birthday gift affordable by the so-called lower castes. As time moved forward and globalization and influence of western culture entered every sphere and strata of India, the culture of special birthday gifts, birthday dresses and birthday cakes made way into every birthday party. There were times people would scowl and comment “haw! she doesn’t have a birthday cake in her party! She might be poor!” Depending on the caste there are different rituals and ways of celebrating a birthday. On one side where Maharashtrians do a small arti of the birthday boy, Punjabis groove to high volume DJ and south Indians celebrate 2 birthdays. Whatever might be the way, all cultures have instilled in us the fact that birthdays are YOUR days. The day when YOU are the STAR of the day. Some schools have the policy of allowing the child to wear any civil dress on his/her birthday.

Birthday parties have transformed a great deal too. From small parties at home with home-cooked food, the parties have gradually shifted to movie treats or meals in restaurants, not forgetting the lounges. Is the change for good or bad? I do not know. Depends on the host, the guest and the place.

                                             If you are the type of a person who doesn’t get excited at such occasions, not to worry, each of us has one that type of friend who will call you in middle of the day and scream “abeeeee tera birthday aaraha pagal, kuch excitement hai ya nahi.” For me Purva Kale does that deed! J love you batty! <3

                          Be it your first birthday when your parents throw a great party for you, of which you remember nothing! Or your thirteenth birthday when you step into your teens and every one tells you about how you are at a new threshold in your life. I don’t know why is the sweet sixteen birthday so special but still, it is. Or be it your eighteenth birthday, when you are constitutionally an adult, irrespective of whether your elders consider you one or not! Or may be the twenty first for some. It’s the official drinking age.

Intense planning goes on for that day and from 12 midnight your phone refuses to keep quiet and your facebook wall is the most visited that day. People who you haven’t spoken to for years will suddenly come out of the mist and shower blessings and greetings on you and you suddenly feel so important.

             Some people take birthdays as an excuse to ask your parents for anything you want, after all its YOUR birthday, they cannot scold you. Can they?

                                Yes, birthdays do have a special importance and you do not want anything to go wrong that day, not even a strand out of place. Be it the 1re. chocolates you have to distribute at school or the shape of the cake you want to cut that evening, from the special return gifts at the party or the outfit you finally decided on to put on that evening. Or may be the way your friends turn malnourished and keep pestering you for a party.

                    Even as I step into a responsible adult, a part of me wants to be that careless, effortless kid. For me birthday is THE day I wait for the whole year through. Beginning from midnight calls, going through a small party with friends, one with the family and a visit to the temple, the only thing I hate is when my calendar shows 12^th july. Birthday over! Darn! Back to the normal life. Its amazing how I love the strike of 12 at 11^th july and how I hate the same on 12^th. But then there is that hope of a better birthday to look forward to. And it is my friends who make it a great day! Thankyou guys!

Hoping for a great 18^th birthday tomorrow!! 

P.S.- I will never forget the small birthday treats at checkers or joshi vada pav after tiring tuitions @all yukti people! J

The unknown story

THE UNKNOWN STORY

These are the lines that guide me throughout. I personally think that I need these lines not during defeat or failure but particularly during a success. These are my guiding words, neither a spirit nor an angel, this is what guides me all the way.

 If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

What maketh a man? A question still unanswered! If there was a single solid formula to success then CHATUR would have been the most successful person but alas! With the DNA the formulas for success also change from person to person.

In today’s times I think its more difficult to hold your head during a success than during a downfall because in these times of expectations the more you do the less it is and the more you are expected of! Alexander Graham Bell quotes- “a man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with-a man is what he makes himself”

My class 12 started as normal as anyone of us but I had no idea where it was aimed at. Never did I think of ranks and competition but a day changed my perspective. One of my respected teachers had challenged me that I could never get more marks than a particular student. That was the day my eyes gleamed with a dream, a dream to do what I could but had not till now, maybe it was my personal *pop* of the popcorn theory. I knew I would not aim at topping a mere unit test but something bigger than expected by anyone.

 I really don’t know how I did it but at the end that mattered was that I could do it and I believe it was never a one man show. Everyone had a role in it and by that I do not mean only the ones in my support, my well wishers, my friends, my parents…. I think, quite differently, that every that person who has even once thought ill of me without any flaw of mine and every that person who has, voluntarily or involuntarily, been jealous of me has accelerated me much more towards my aim. Yes, they are those people, for e.g. who have liked my writing but felt it against their ego to like it… this is just one of a kind.

There has been no SECRET SUCCESS MANTRA for me and if there has been I have no idea about it! Because many people are quoting their self made talks as my words but personally I don’t think there is any mantra. There’s just 1 thing I kept in mind always. I have loads to prove to many people, all those people who never trusted me, never gave me a chance, or rather thought I have been given too many chances already and din’t deserve more- to all of them I had to say “abhi toh bas udaan bhari hai saara akaash abhi baaki hai”

Interestingly, very less people know this, but there is a big big disadvantage to all this glory, all these achievements. People know you even before you have spoken to them or even known their names. Yes, it is a drawback because then they formulate a fixed idea about you that yeh toh aisi hee hai. Living example Srishti Roy. I love you babes but I think you should have fixed your idea about me after speaking to me. There are still many whose ideas I cannot go and change individually by personal interaction,to all those- I am not as people tell you, experience for yourself think for yourself. Another drawback is I am ear marked and tagged that she keeps studying. Who the hell will trust me if I tell them that a night before mathematics prelims I was at the DJ till 1am at my sister’s wedding. Yes, but I am a purely no-nonsense type.

So…. Leaving all that behind to all I would say is I am not what people told you, I am what I am. Know me and test me by your senses.

If anybody has ever noticed, if a 60 percenter says that look I will top this year hes marked as an OPTIMIST and sadly if a 90 percenter says the same thing he is marked as PROUD and ARROGANT. If a normal student chooses to keep quiet due to some reasons he is named as introvert and at the same time if a topper chooses to stay quiet ufff its his misbehavior. Cool na? na… not so cool. Many people no more think of you as living human beings, you are either made expectation fulfilling machines or emotionless competitors. And most of the times words are mumbled in self-respect, not in arrogance and then I am responsible for what I say, not for what people understand.

             As I step out of school into a new college life, I just wanted to clear the stuff with all of you. And if you all still refuse to believe in this so, respectfully, it doesn’t matter. All I can do is hope… hope that we could bond better, hope you could know me better. You will truly regret it one day! J

And to my near and dear ones-thanks for staying by me through thick and thin I really love you all…. And I bet you will never get a friend like me.

        Truly yours

Palak Marwah

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

To protest the central government's decision to import milk powder and other dairy products, some activists spilled thousands of liters of milk on the Satara-Pune highway.
The activists stopped a milk tanker on the highway and spilled the milk all over the road. The import of dairy products will hurt the interests of the local dairy farmers, they claimed. 
In a similar protest a week ago, other activists had stopped five tankers and wasted over 50,000 liters of milk in Satara claiming that the organization had decided to take the step as milk prices would reduce by Rs 5 per liter following the Centre's decision to import 30,000 tonnes of milk powder.

                        This is the scenario in India where 47% of the children exhibit a degree of malnutrition. 2.1 million Indian children die before reaching the age of 5 every year – four every minute – mostly from preventable illnesses like malnutrition, diarrhea, fever etc. If a protest had to be staged it could have been done in a more sensible manner. The protest could have been carried out by hijacking milk tankers and redistributing milk free of cost among poor people in that area. Surprisingly in a country whit revolution had to be launched in order to raise milk production to meet the demands of the growing population, there itself a whooping 50,000 litres of milk was drained out on the streets! Shocking but true! Its all the matter of sense and sensibility.

                        Was there really no way to sort out the differences with the government peacefully? I guess probably we Indians, belonging to a country of Gandhi have taken the Gandhian ideal of  Satyagraha far too seriously yet misinterpreted the process way too much. The activists projected the aim of their protest as guarding the interests of local dairy farmers who would be financially crippled due to import of milk powder but in the way they forgot that those 50,000 liters of milk must also have been the output of some other farmers’ hardwork which they ruthlessly wasted which could have filled the empty growling stomachs of many rather than washing the streets!

                            This is not a single instance of (non)sense. Rich farmers in Delhi and western U.P. poured milk in a drain in New Delhi on 21^st April 2012 in a protest against the decision of milk products producing companies to reduce the purchase price of milk by 37%. No words!

                                    The wastage story doesn’t end here. There’s more to it. In India about % of the population that is about million people sleep empty stomach every day. At the same time the other side of the coin is this- As on August 1, 2010, the total food stocks with the FCI were 55 million tonnes (mt) as compared to the buffer requirements of 27 mt. Of this, 15 mt of wheat was lying in the open in Punjab and Haryana alone. As per estimates, 50,000 tonnes of food stocks have already deteriorated beyond human consumption as a result of long, improper storage. Reason? Black marketing, illegal stocking and hoarding of grains and then reselling the hoarded grains, obtained at a low price from the government under the PDS, in the open market when the price increases due to low availability of grains. No doubt the government has implemented many schemes for the welfare of the poor but there is no proper implementation at any level. From the grass root level of villages to big cities the poor barely obtain any advantage out of it and die of malnutrition and hunger. have farmers toiled so hard to feed their grains to rodents and rats? Apart from loss of grains how can we neglect the loss of resources gone into producing that amount of grain? The people in the BPL have been there for years and years and still there seems to be no scope of their upliftment. On both sides we Indians are at loss. People in Orissa  and other poor states die of hunger and at the same time rich farmers in Punjab and Haryana face losses due to over production.

Hence at this point, with no dearth of facilities, the only thing India needs is implementation of policies and schemes because we can surely not ignore the current situation.

    

Wake up Nagpur!

Summers are here and nobody amongst us can live even a moment without electricity! But are most of us aware that our orange city pays the highest for per unit of electricity? Yes, higher than the metropolitan city of Mumbai too. We pay Rs.6.30 per unit of electricity. The highest in the state, followed by Vashi at Rs.6.2 per unit despite out of the top six power distributions in Maharashtra, five being in Vidarbha region alone! Ya you guessed it right. Power from Vidarbha lights Mumbai parties and we bear load shedding. There are villages in Vidarbha where there is electricity only for 5 to 6 hours in a day or even less.

                        This is just the beginning. Not just electricity but even for petrol we Nagpurians pay the highest cost! Even higher than metropolitan cities of Delhi and Mumbai! In a concise manner the petroleum costs per litre at some places in India are as follows-

Delhi	Rs.65.64/litre
Mumbai	Rs.70.66/litre
Goa	Rs.54.96/litre
Rajasthan	Rs.54.56/litre
Bengaluru	Rs.73.51/litre
Kolkata	Rs.70.03/litre
Chennai	Rs.69.75/litre
Pune	Rs.70.98/litre

       AND OUR DEAR NAGPUR PAYS Rs.73.11/Litre!!!  The central government quotes that states of Rajasthan and Goa are suffering the ache of price hike. Aren’t we?? Do we have literal “money plants” growing on orange trees?

I do not think this is a matter of pride at which we can exclaim that look how rich all of us are. This, in fact is a matter of shame that we are being ill treated and prejudiced against and still we choose to keep quiet.                                                        

                           Remember the last time you went to a hotel and enjoyed a cold drink with your meal? But do you remember checking the bill? Nagpur is the only city in India where customers pay from Rs.5 to Rs.11 extra per bottle of cold drink and bottled water as “cooling charges”. The MAXIMUM RETAIL PRICE is truly inclusive of all taxes and it is clearly mentioned on the bottle- “serve chilled” which implies the shopkeeper has to serve it chilled to you AT the MRP. But neither do we care to check that and even if some of us do notice seldom do we question the seller. Why? I do not, at all, say that I am too miserly to spend a5 or 7 Rs. extra but what is wrong is wrong. It is not a question of  large heartedness, it is a question of unethical methods spreading their wings all around us. The discussion shifts from the miserliness or large heartedness to the ethical and the unethical.

                     I distinctly remember a recent family lunch I had at one of the best restaurants of Amravati where we ordered about 4 bottles of cold drink and 3 bottles of Bisleri. The manager charged Rs.7 extra per bottle of cold drink and Rs.5 extra per bottle of Bisleri. I wanted to stand up against it but my dad RIGHTLY warned me against doing so. Yeah he was RIGHT because he did not want me, or for that matter even himself, to mess with the uneducated waiter because the extra bucks did not go into his pocket neither did he have any idea about what the manager was doing!

            But I want all of us to stand up and speak out. I don’t mean mess with the waiter because a complaint at that level makes no sense. Speak to the manager. Every place has a complaint book for the customers. Use your right! Nobody can deny giving you the complaint book. It has to be presented on demand of the customer any time every time whoever the customer might be. Now many of you might be thinking what change will that bring in the completely corrupt Indian system where corruption has seeped deep into the roots….

 Yes. It will bring a change and the change has to start from the grass root level itself. I would not talk in the air and advice you to shout at the petrol pump and protest about the high rate of petrol in Nagpur but at least we can speak against the illicit excess charge on cold drinks and bottled water. Now many of us would wonder whether those dusty complaint books are ever even opened? I would say, ya maybe or maybe not. But just because you think the complaint would never be read that hinders you from registering your grievance? No, that’s a lame excuse for your indifference. How much time does it take to write a few lines? And what consequences does that have? Even if an inch of a change, I say that matters a lot! All of us just practice procrastination and expect that some other person will bring the change and we will just sit and bake in the glory.

    Many of you might have seen the warning on boxes of sweets of a leading sweet maker of the city - consume within 48 hours of purchase or refrigerate etc?

Now I don’t know how many of you will believe the story behind that. Here it goes. Not so long back a man sent an office boy to buy a box of  rasmalai from one of the outlet of this chain, in the evening. The next morning, despite refrigerating the box whole night, there were signs of  decomposed sweet. The man sent the office boy back to ask the manager for an exchange of the box. The pompous manager flatly refused and rather abused the office boy saying “jo karte banta hai kar lo, hum exchange nai karenge.” The man then went to speak to the manager himself, politely telling him the whole story and when the manager refused to budge the man warned him of a report in the FDA. To that the manager quipped “aap jaise bahut aaye aur gaye, kuch bigaad nahi paye”. Then you know the true Nagpurian. He went to the FDA with the box. Lodged a complaint and the FDA officers took the man with them in their own car to this famous outlet, took samples of everything and checked every edible item. Later the owner had to himself call and requested the man to withdraw his complaint but now the man refused to budge and then the owner had to face the music and incur a loss of lakhs of rupees & a dent on his reputation too. One complaint can cause such damage so just give it a thought what would happen if more of us rise for a change?

     All I want to say is nothing will change if we don’t work for it. What if that man had decided to keep quiet? May be one of your acquaintances would have eaten a rotten sweet some time and got ill?

Nothing, just nothing will change unless we have the courage to bring it on! So WAKE UP NAGPUR!!!

ISHAQZAADE- not a “happy ending type bolly movie”!

         Mai pareshaan- the song was an all time hit even before the movie hit the screens! And pareshaan you will be if you, like me, are a true bollywood buff, a person of “and they lived happily ever after” clan!

           The story basically is a slap on the face of those Indians who are still against inter-caste marriages and for whom their RULES and IZZAT are much more important than human emotions and happiness of their children. It is also a reminder to the women that no matter they are educated and empowered today but still there are spheres where they are rendered helpless and alone.

        The story starts from the political rivalry between two different religious clans in a small town in U.P. and explores gun shots within which,is a beautifully woven rustic love story with the main actress firing at the drop of a hat. Generally the suspense and shock in a movie comes at the end but here it’s a little different. The turning point is the interval itself. The story, if I spill out here, will be disheartening!

                          All I would say is PARINEETI CHOPRA is the star of the movie. Arjun Kapoor is good too but parineeti steals the show. The extremely appropriate locations, dialogues and background music adds to the glamour of the film. At some points the dialogues are pretty funny too. Gauhar Khan is good at her small act. “Pareshaan” is the song you hum while leaving the theatre and other songs are just average.

            Go enjoy the action packed political drama!

                     A must watch but a one time watch!

And the best of all is “hum haramzaade nai isaqzaade hain!!”

P.S. I personally couldn’t digest the “not a happy end”!

"GOOD" OLD DAYS....?                         

                           This has been one of the most debatable topics ever- 'Are we happier than are forefathers?'

                          It is a common sight nowadays and I am sure most of you must have had a first had a firsthand experience of it at least once, people grumbling about how different (rather 'in'different) modern children are today than they were during their childhood. The GEN Y is ever busy in computers (now i pads!) , they prefer angry birds to street games and much more lands up in the List Of Laments!

                               I would like to raise just one question. A seemingly simple one though. Whenever you invest in any kind of a developmental scheme always what you get is mere profit? The answer, of course is a rebounding NO!! Just because that is virtually impossible. Nature has not made things in a way that the consequences are strictly profitable always! Then I would like to ask the “lamenting people” how do you expect everything goody goody when you have already marched your children to the path of development? A mere (yes, now a mere) 80-85% in school was considered too great a performance in the “good old days” and today the highest marks go up to 98.6%!! People with 99.9 percentile in CAT get into top most IIMs with difficulty, over 12lakh children compete for 28,000 seats in AIEEE and I remember Sapan Parekh an all India rank 6 in CLAT (entrance exam for Law) that “Bangalore Law school milna mushkil hai”(it is difficult to get into Bangalore law school). With so much of cut throat competition people still expect to see children whiling away their time in gilli danda and lagori? I do not, dare not say that these games were useless but, I do strongly agree that the aptness of a thing lies in the time! Buying books were meaningful at an earlier time and not now because now a reader can download any book he wants at the click of a button!

          

                            

                                    Loads and loads of people complain about their killer jobs and how peaceful life was at an earlier time. To such people all I would say is you can conveniently go back to a peaceful village. But wait. Will they? Will I? NO! Why? Because all of us have been so accustomed to the technological comfort of the cities that the mere idea of shifting to a village itself is revolting! People in villages are happy no doubt, more satisfied than us because they have been just there forever. They are not running behind development like us all. We complain about the same advances to which on one side we are thankful for the comforts it has provided. We humans cannot have it both ways because for everything there is a price to pay.                                   

                                       Many of you might remember that not so long ago Sunday mornings were booked for vegetable market trips spending a few hours searching for fresh vegetables among the immobile cows and stuffy by lanes and returning home all drenched and exhausted. If those were the good old days then what about the comfort of fully air conditioned Reliance Fresh outlets you visit today where you get every exotic fruit and vegetable? Now I know advocates of “we are not happier than our forefathers”  will spring up and quote the earlier ‘regard’ of vendors’ livelihood and getting fresher vegetables but haven’t they heard of a much older theory by Charles Darwin “survival of the fittest”. Dominoes saw the upcoming class of techno freak, lazy brats who wouldn’t ever want to deal with a messy kitchen after chasing targets all day long in the office and hence came up the ‘dial a number order a pizza’ trend which made the owner a multi millionaire! Everything changes, only a change is constant and those who do not change cripple and fall!                         

                    I do not refuse to accept that modernization has its own drawbacks but then name the things which have absolutely no drawbacks? Not even a simple sand glass! One part of it has to empty itself in order to fill the other! I agree there has been a rise in murders, thefts, molestation and rape cases, bribes etc. but hasen’t there been a rise in GDP. literacy rate, turnover per annum and most importantly your income.

                  A grocery shop owner had a regular customer in an 80 year old man who, every time he came to buy ghee complained about its cost quoting “hamare pitaji ke zamane mein 1 sikke ka 1 kilo ghee mil jaata tha” (In my dad’s time I could buy I kilogram of ghee in 1 coin). The patient shopkeeper after a long time  respectfully told the old man- “baba. mujhe us zamane ka 1 sikka la dijiye mai apko 2 kilo ghee dunga”. (Sir, get me a coin of that time I will give you 2 kilograms of ghee) Surprised? Don’t be. The old man and the shopkeeper both knew that the coins of that time were made of silver which today costs Rs.56,210 per kg!!

                           This escapist attitude will really take us nowhere. We should learn to adjust with the drawbacks if we are so greedy about development. All I would say is if we want to develop, we have to bear the consequences too. So lets muster courage to stand up and fight back.

“Always pray for a stronger back. Not a lighter load!”                                                                           

                                                                                   Signing off.....

                                                                                       palak :)

FUNjabis,,,!!

           Khushwant Singh writes about an incident a friend narrated to him...

"During vacations some college boys from South India came to Delhi and rented a taxi for sightseeing.The taxi driver was an old sardarji and boys being boys began cracking Sardarji jokes just to tease him.To their surprise he remained unperturbed. At the end of the sightseeing they paid the cab hire charges.The Sardar returned the change and he gave each one of them a ten rupee note extra and said- Sons since morning you have been telling Sardarji jokes.I listened to them all and let me tell you,some of them were in bad taste.Still,I dont mind.But I have one request.I am giving you ten rupees each.Give it to the first Sardar beggar you come across in this or any other city.The friend continued-The ten rupee note is still lying with me.I COULD NOT FIND A SINGLE SARDAR BEGGING ANYWHERE!"

Sikh contribute

• 33% of total income tax
• 67% of total charities 
• 45% of Indian Army
• 59,000+ Gurudwaras serve 'langar' free of charge to over 60 lac people everyday

and all this when they are only 1.4% of the total Indian population!! surprising but true....!

                             

                                    The Punjabi culture is spreading all across the globe spanning all spheres be it food, dress,lifestyle or for that matter even marriage rituals!!  An executive in a multinational firm in Mumbai,Ankita Mehadiya,a marwadi married to a bengali, proudly shows off her "chuda".According to her its "cool" to wear at office making people know that you are newly married! The big fat Punjabi wedding (read ad FUNJABI!) is gaining popularity among people of all strata of society irrespective of their cultures.People are ready to spend heavily on weddings on the condition that they have a great time and what other than a Punjabi wedding could be a better guarantee. The movie 'Band Baaja Baarat' appropriately displays the wide range of applause a DHINCHAK JANAKPURI style wedding gets even in the aristocratic class.

                                           

                                    One easily notices that all the DJ parties are virtually incomplete without a Punjabi songs hour! All the popular party tracks have at least a line of Punjabi in them! Be it the mouth watering dishes or the immensely energetic rituals punjabi style weddings are so in! You have all the right to eat to your hearts content, dance till you can stand no more and the best part is you can actually give a smile wider than the socially acceptable only half an inch one!How can we forget Kareena Kapoor's famous Jab We Met harrom pants.? On a closer observation one notices that they are actually a typical Punjabi patiala salwar!

                                       

                               On a personal note,i vividly remember the night before my board exams, it was my neighbor's wedding and there were two huge "dhols" pumping up the spirit. you wonder whats surprising? Its this-my neighbor is a konkanasth brahmin,a maharashtrian!! I also remember my friend Afreen telling me that in the morning when she came to school it was the quietest around the Kamptee Road Gurudwara! Many of my friends keep asking me to take them yo a Punjabi wedding in my family! Its kind of a small joke among our non Punjabi acquaintances.When any one of them visits us they actually request us to serve coffee or tea or meals of the non Punjabi size! Nobody is unaware of the benevolence and large heartedness of the Punjabis.

                               

                                 Punjabis are famous for their great dressing and even greater eating and are the only ''species'' in my view who have the heart to crack and enjoy jokes on themselves. I have been to a church, a mosque, a buddhist temple, a hindu temple and a gurudwara but a gurudwara is the only religious place where you would never find a beggar because Punjabis believe in living off what they earn out of their hard work but at the same time are miser in no way! Also despite being a place with a great number of visitors the Golden Temple,Amritsar is a religious place where nobody pushes you or persuades you to hurry and move forward.Life is a race for people but it is a party for the Punjabis. 

                                                A Bollywood song rightly describes us-

                                                           "yaari hai jaan ainadi,

                                                         vakhri hai shaan ainadi,

                                         hasna pehchan ainadi,taiyyon ae duniya kehndi

                                                        SINGH IS KING!!!"

                                         LIVE LIFE KING SIZE WITH THE KINGS!

here's a cheer to all the Punjabis! We make the world a better place to live in! 

"SOME PEOPLE SPEND ALL THEIR LIVES TRYING TO BE PERFECT AND THE OTHERS................................................

ARE JUST BORN PUNJABIS!!" 

SINGH IS KING!!!"