What I read in 2011
Fiction 1. Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro Kazuo Highly recommended if you are looking for a good thought provoking science fiction. A mushy story about the lives of clones who were raised to be ‘donors’ for human beings. Was shortlisted for Booker in 2005.
2. 1984 by George Orwell I read a couple of dystopian novels recently. This was surely one genre defining novel. Does not need any recommendation.
3. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Probably the most widely read novel by an African author. Loved this book, reading this book was a pleasure. Simple story, simple writing, great impact.
4. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevesky One of the greatest Russian novels. You will love the struggle of ‘the original’ protogonist with the materialistic society. The tragic love story of Prince and Nastasya adds a number of new dimensions to relationship and love.
5. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury The second dystopian novel that I read this year.
6. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain A very highly rated crime novel. Some people put this novel in top 100 novels of last century. Did not impress me that much, story seems too familiar.. probably I read too many adaptation or saw different versions of the story in some movies.
7. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King Somehow finished it. I am not a big fan of horror stories, Stephan King’s writing and story telling skills made me tolerate this one.
8. Along came a Spider by James Patterson Wanted to read some light fiction and picked the Alex Cross series for time pass. Nothing much to write about here. A time pass.
9. Max: Maximum Ride by James Patterson Juvenile fiction. Well just picked it out of curiosity and lack of other options.
- Siddhartha by Herman Hesse I read this 15 years ago, could not get much of this book at that time. Re-read it.
11. 2666 by Roberta Bolano A slow and very lengthy novel. Over 1000 pages. It was an ordeal in patience and test of my passion for reading as the story did not move much in first few hundred pages.
Non-Fiction 12.I hope they Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max Curiosity. Yes, that’s why I picked the book.
13. May I hebb Your Attention Pliss by Arnab Ray By One of my favorite bloggers who turned author. A great satire on our life in eighties and nineties.
Power to the People
No this is not the John Lennon’s famous song.. this is the title of the report which kept me busy for almost two years and the main reason why there were no updates on this blog. Finally the study is complete and the report is done, and the feedback and comments about the report made me feel that it was worth the effort.
If you are wondering what this report is all about… this report estimates the market potential for clean technology products and services for low income households in India and provides an overview of the sector to potential investors and other stakeholders. Yes, clean technology for low income households has been on theme I have been working for almost three years now. While the sector is still in very early stage I am happy to see the way it is growing. If you are interested in clean energy or base of the pyramid (BoP) market, I would suggest you to go through the report and comment.
Now, since I am relatively free I am going to read some books, visit a few places or just simply stay put at my home and watch some movies. Meanwhile, I already started working on my list of 100 most popular/recommended books of modern times. Will update about the list and my recent reads in my next post.
Night Train to Lisbon
Some stories gradually grow on you and some characters seem that they have been made from ingredients picked from your own life. And when this happens in a book, which is written lyrically and full of erudition, for readers like me, it is a something mesmerizing. A few weeks back I finished Pascal Mercier’s “Night Train to Lisbon”, a book originally written in German and later translated in several languages. The theme of book is delightful mix of philosophy and suspense. This concoction is very much expected as Pascal Mercier is pseudonym of philosophy professor Peter Bieri. The philosophy does not seem to take precedence, often case with most of the philosopher cum writers, it unfurls itself subtly with the story.
When I saw the blurb of the book, I was immediately tempted to grab a copy and I did just that. A middle aged teacher of Classics walks out of a class to explore life of an enigmatic Portugese doctor, a few pages from a book written by the doctor pushed him on an uncertain journey. The teacher, Gregorius middle aged, relatively well ensconced in his life, walking out on sheer impulse and on pull of an enigma, is in itself awe inspiring considering the way we cling to nugatory inane stuffs. Though the book intrigues you when Gregorius walks out but soon relegates Gregorius to a secondary role, he just becomes a prop in emergence of a larger than life character of Portugese doctor Prado. Prado is our typical larger than life hero who resides in almost everyone , struggling to come out but succumbs to cruelties of rational mind and selfish emotions. A hero, whose personality is carved with a mute conflict between a father and a son, a conflict which stemmed from deep love and unexpressed expectations, Prado is gifted in many ways. The life of Prado is portrayed in the book in many stories told by Prado’s friends and his sister to Gregorius. Marcier’s virtuoso story telling makes each of phase of Prado’s life and his struggle come alive in front of your eyes with exquisite stories told by different characters in the book. Gregorius goes on to discover Prado and his extraordinary life, punctuated by many events depicting superlative emotions, and this discovery for him becomes a self-discovery. This is surely one of the better books I have read in recent times, would recommend to anyone who savors intelligent well written fiction.
Economic Environment Index
Last week we launched our Economic Environment Index (earlier it was called Economic Governance Index) and like any other index it got its fair (okey more than fair share of criticism and controversy). You can check the ranking and details on www.economicgovernance.com.
Economic Environment Index, being first of its kind ranking of districts, got a lot of media coverage and the pre launch coverage in TOI created a lot of unwarranted controversy, though it got us on the front page of Times of India. This index was primarily aimed at capturing variation within the state and focus attention on the gaps and it incorporates data from both the households and the business units.
Here are some of the links to get more on the Index.
Www.economicgovernance.com http://www.moneycontrol.com Times of India The Economic Times
Birthday, Bihar Trip, Books and Deadlines
A blog post after almost two months does not indicate my diminishing passion for blogging but highlights the hectic professional life I had in last 2-3 months. A marathon writing session, boring sessions of number crunching and perusing some serious statistical concepts.. These things took so much control of my free time that I did not even manage a 'happy birthday post' on my birthday. Yes, I celebrated my birthday last month and this was supposed to be 'a very simple birthday celebration' and guess what.. I had to treat my friends in a five star hotel :( In between I had an eventful trip to my home state Bihar. Spent almost 48 hours in car and travelled more than 900 kms. I was accompanied by an intern, a british girl of Indian origin who was having her first trip to Bihar. Bihar was facing a drought like situation when I started for Bihar but the rain welcomed us as soon as we moved out of Patna and it poured heavily for next two days. The result: we were driving on water clogged Bihar roads, and it was a tough task for the driver to negotiate the water filled potholes suddenly appearing under the wheels. Fortunately the new Bihar government has made tremendous change to road conditions in Bihar and we could still manage to reach our destination. Though it was itneresting the see expression on my co-traveller's face while the driver negotiated the rough weather and bumpy roads. The highlight of the trip was our car breaking down around 11 pm on a deserted road and rain pouring down heavily. Imagine someone having the first trip to the 'notorious' Bihar and being in this situation. I must say that my co-traveller was really a courageous girl to take that trip considering the image she construed from the different books and media clips.
Meanwhile I finished the second book in Millenium trilogy ( a best-selling series translated from Swedish), The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson. I must say Lisbeth Salander rocks. She is the most intriguing, sensuous and engrossing charachter I have came across in recent times. :)
Back to books
Finally after all the madness in las few weeks I am relaxed and completely free from any professional commitment for a week. It really feels good to be free to decide what you want to do next .. read books, listen to music or just gaze at the random things in front of my eyes and get lost in thoughts.
Though the primary reason to take a week off and to be at home, is to take some rest and read some of the many unfinished books I have on my desk. Yes, I just want to read and read. There are many books which are half read, some I just started and did not get time to go back after the first couple of hours.
I have seen just one movie in last 3-4 months and the one I saw was ‘The Public Enemy’. I could not manage to get time for day or evening shows so I went for late night show. After all it was Johnny Depp and Christian Bale movie, unfortunately the movie turned out to be a disappointment. I had a lot of expectations from a Johnny Depp movie and it never reached to that level. So with diminishing interest in movies and not much time available at my hand, I am back to my first love reading books.
3-4 months back I had decided to read some of the best Hindi works and I picked up Raag Darbaari by Sri Lal Shukla, an amazing thought-provoking book filled with chuckle inducing humor. I wan to finish this first and then go on to finish The Rebel by Camus. Recently I have been reading some hindi poems thanks to online hindi websites which are doing a great job in promoting great hindi works. I remember just 2-3 years back, while I had a lot of resources to read English Classics, there were absolute no websites which provided similar content for lovers of Hindi Literature. For poems, now we have quite a number of websites which one can access, if you have not been to them and are interested in hindi literature you can check the following:
http://manaskriti.com/kaavyaalaya/ http://www.hindinest.com/ http://hindipoetry.wordpress.com/
Just explore the bloglinks given on these sites, there are some great blogs and sites listed there.
Ranchi Trip
Last month, I visited Ranchi for a couple of days almost after 23 years. I was so excited to visit that place, to see my school and go to those places which were slowly getting eroded from my memory. But the menace of ‘Naxalism’ completely ruined my enthusiasm. We could not go to remote villages and surely not in a 'car or jeep' as they garnered extra attention, and one local naxalite expert told me that in election time Naxals do not think before bashing up any outside face. Their policy.. first bash them up.. we will see the other issues later.
Though Ranchi city seemed quite peaceful, I ventured out on bike to find my childhood school and all I knew about that school was that there used to be a small hillock near the school and at top of that hillock there was a water tank. I called my mother to get more info. She told that the school was near a Hanuman temple in Harmu. We drove in and around Harmu and were able to locate almost 4-5 temples but the hillock was nowhere. That means there was no way to get to my school. New constructions and other developments made this place completely unrecognisable from the image of this place I had in mind.
So I came back to the guesthouse, disappointed. I was ruminating on a number of things ..Naxalism, Development, Urbanization etc.. My plan to take a road trip to Daltonganj, Garhwa and Ranka stood canceled. I wanted to use this weekend for that. It would have been an experience to visit these places but the fear of Naxalites and poor connectivity to these places left me with no options. Probably I will dare again, after the elections when the Naxal activities subside.
Next day I was busy in my official chores and I had given up on finding my old school in the concrete jungle, but a local resident and employee of the host organization here in Ranchi, blessed me with his local knowledge. He knew the location of the hillock which has a water tank on top. I realized I can still see my school and I ventured out. He took me near the hillock, in front of a very big nice looking school, St. Francis High School. He was sure that this was my school, but I knew I was not that lucky to have studied in schools like these. But I could still see the hillock and the water tank on top, our favorite place for having lunch around 23 years ago.
I wanted to go there again on the hilltop and somehow I found a way to go there and on the way, I found what I was looking for. That’s my school, I shouted. Rajkiya Krit Madhya Vidyalaya, Harmu – 12. Suddenly those faint memories became vivid. I could remember the place I used to stand for morning prayers and the school gate and numerous related incidents. School gate was a common factor in most of the incidents. I jumped the wall to go inside the campus (once inside I realized there were numerous ways, and surely not intended ones, to get inside the campus, the surrounding wall was broken at many places) and saw the menu of the food served under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan painted on the wall.
I pulled out my camera, wanted to capture these moments of relived, realised nostalgia. 
Great feeling to be there. If I look back on my school days, the biggest complaint (apart from not being able to study in any ‘decent’ schools) is my father's job forcing frequent school changes for me, that means I have no trace of those childhood friends. All gone.
Life of a wanderer
Last few weeks gave me a snapshot of a wanderer’s life. Moving one town to another, meeting all kind of people, doing all kind of stuff right from proving my self dumb to get some bits of information to handling drunken villagers.. it has really been an experience, and more or less a pleasant one. After all, I was doing the things I enjoy doing, I got a chance to visit my home state, read books while waiting for the next plane/train, and to see some exciting aspects of rural India. I do not want to mention the list of unpleasant things (the list is damn long..) as they form the integral part of this package (think about reading some utterly boring documents, writing some long reports, answering some ‘intelligent’ questions.
The abovementioned has surely had some serious impact on the time available for activities like blogging and other online commitments and as I am writing this post I am looking at the heap of clothes that need to be cleaned and packed for the next part of the field trip and wondering whether I should finish writing this or start doing something about the clothes. The other thought (though in stark contrast to my recent resolution ..) is coming to my mind that do not waste time on cleaning these clothes for travel, give them to dry cleaners here and buy some new clothes as and when needed on the tour itself. It is very difficult to be a minimalist.. :((, you have to negate the impact of countless beauties inviting you to be worthy of their attention by acquiring item x..y…or z. Never worked for me. Though a decision to do some shopping might have been good in recession..yup it can trigger multiplier effect. But the decision to not indulge in this immediate shopping is more rooted in my recent drooling over the three things… Fiat Linea , MacBook and iPhone/Sony Ericsson Experia. I want to save money.
Yes. I saw Fiat Linea at Bangalore airport and as advertised (Admiration Guaranteed); this is a mind blowing beauty. We were stuck in front of it, ogling at its curvaceous body (yeah.. this beauty on four wheels made us oblivious of Vijay Malaya’s handpicked beauties roving around.). There was only one thought in my mind ‘ I want to ride this beauty.' You know the first thing I did after reaching the hotel was to google Fiat Linea. And the features and gizmos made me go more crazy about this car. :)
The other two drool items have always been on my list. But now my Sony Ericsson P1i is giving me some trouble and I need another laptop. So they became too prominent in my things to acquire list. The new MacBook with multi-touch track-pad is really cool. And iPhone is iPhone. Period. Though one of my friend (seem to be diehard Nokia phones) enlightened me that iPhone is for iDiots. Hmm. No comments. Lets see when I am able to get these drool maals.
Meanwhile, I finished a few books and am halfway through another 2-3. Here is a summary of my readings this year so far.
- Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Brafman
- Outliers by Gladwell
- Gang Leader For A Day by S. Venkatesh
- Games Indian Play by V Reghunathan
What I read in 2008
Fiction
- Sacred Games By Viikram Chandra
- Bandicoots in moonlight by Avijit Ghosh
- The Girl with Dragon Tatoo by Steig Larsson
- Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Non-Fiction
- Egonomics by David Marcum and Steven Smith
- The Cult of Amateurs by Andrew Keen
- A Perfect Mess by David Freedman
- Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres
- Wikinomics by Tapscott and Wiliams
- How to change the world by David Bornstein
- Stick to drawing comics, monkey brain! by Scot Adams
- Getting things done by David Allen
- The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
- The Stuff of Thoughts by Steven Pinker
- Madness and Civilization by Foucault
Half Read / Unfinished Books
- Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani
- The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
- Hot Flat and Crowded by T. Friedman
- Dreaming of Jupiter by Ted Simon (Thanks Srey for the gift.)
- India: The Emerging Giant by Arvind Panagariya
- Phantoms in the brain by Blakeslee and Ramachandran
- Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Tribe by Bruce Parry
Surely I could not read a lot of fiction this year and spent a lot of time on non-fiction/ pop-economics. Though I wanted to read some good fiction titles. I bought many books last year and I think I need to speed up my reading to consume them this year.
Starting afresh
There were so many things happening around me or with me that nothing was happening on my blog. No time to blog. Finally things seem to get normalized and I am back on my blog.
Last quarter of the gone year was a really chaotic one, both on personal as well on professional front. I tried my best to grab attention on professional front and more than my best to avoid 'unwanted' attention on personal front. I seem to be successful to some extent on both fronts. :).
A few months (and around 15 kgs) back, I used to wonder how people gain weight so fast.. why these people are not doing anything about the visible paunch... I got the answer. At the beginning of 2008, I started to get conscious when I was getting clicked. The reason, visibility of my incipient paunch from certain angles and in certain type of attires. By the end of 2008, the incipient paunch was no longer 'incipient' and now it was proudly registering it presence in all camera angles and in almost all kind of attires.
Book reading continues to take back seat with every passing months though every now and then a typical bibliophilic guilt results in some intense (but often transient) activity on this front. The frequent visit to different shopping malls and unabated desire to possess books is causing my anti-library to grow. I am yet to count the number of books I have read this year (many books are still unfinished with colorful bookmarks stuck in ...waiting for their turn..); I am sure the number is nowhere near the usual number. Most of the reading this year happened either on airports waiting for the connecting flights or on the upper birth of railway bogie coping with intruding requests ranging from 'Garam Chai/Coffee' to 'hero /chikne jaldi nikaal....' from ilk of Bobby Darlings. Since I am traveling for entire first quarter of this year, I hope to utilize these train/air travel time to the max. I would love to read some good Hindi modern classics this year. (I already started Raag Darbaari by Sri Laal Shukla).
There were no new year celebrations, I had promised my friends to join them but somehow I could not do it and decided to enter into new year sleeping peacefully. No visits to temple on the first day of the year. No new year resolutions. No big plans for this year. Just go with the flow.
In search of Insights on Energy Access
What I read in 2007
Though I could not read as much as I did last year and left many books half finished, or just untouched on the shelf. These are books I did manage to finish, apart from the compulsory reading required by my job.
Fiction
- Alchemy of Desire by Tarun Tejpal
- Wild Fire by Nelson DeMille
- The Righteous Men by Sam Bourne
- Snow by Orhan Pamuk
- The Innocent Men by John Grisham
- The Broker by John Grisham
- The Last Song of Dusk by Sidhart D. Sanghvi
Non-Fiction
- Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner
- The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
- The Fortune at the Bottom of Pyramid by C K Prahalad
- The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
- The New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
- The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
- The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
- The way of the Sufi by Idries Shah
I bought several books last year and many of them are still waiting to be finished. I read a few pages and somehow could not finish them. Hope to finish them soon this year.
Half Read / Unfinished Books
- Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- The Cuckold by K Nagarkar
- The Moral Mind by Marc Hauser
- Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Let see how much time I get this year to satiate my desire to read. Getting Thinds Done by David Allen and The Perfect Mess by E Abrahamson and D Freedman are the two books which I am finishing this month. Two books advocating completely contrasting approach to manage your work-life.
Finaliy the setup for IFMR Centre for Development Finance, Lucknow Project office is done.
Seven Children Magazines that I loved
- Chandamama - We were waiting more eagerly to get this magazine from newspaper wala then our results. Beautiful stories of Kings, stories from ancient epics with written with clear motive of promoting values and culture in children made this magazine immensely popular among kids.
Recently, Chandamama’s last 60 years issues have been digitized, so those who want to gift their children a good read, devoid of gory action and violent fantasy, this is a great option.
- Champak - Loved it. Cheekku (the rabbit), Meeku (the mice) and their adventures were superb, since 1968 this magazine has established itself as the number one Children’s Magazine of India. A part of Delhi Press Group, they followed their group policy of not promoting any superstitious or bhoot-prate stories, but clean healthy entertainment for kids. Even today, I get my hands on any issue of Champak, I make sure to find Cheeku’s column and read it.
3.Lotpot - Full of laughter and great comic strips. The stories were invariably successful in bringing laughter and making you go ’lotpot’ . No advertisement and reading material from cover to cover at price of Rs. 2 (At present it is being sold at Rs.5). Though the paper was not great but stories were. Motu, Patlu and Ghasita’s always used to find themselves in trouble in whatever they did. Though Ghasita was not the main hero of the Motu Patlu strip but his hair style and Haryanwai accent made him my favorite character.
- Nandan - Unlike many children’s magazine of that time, this one has backing of a one of the leading media house of country Hindustan Times Group and has some of the biggest name as its contributor. Edited by Jayprakash Bharti (one of the biggest name in Children’s literature), it had/has strong focus on indian mythology and presented stories from Puranas and Upnishads. It was more structured and well presented compared to its competitors in 80’s, there you had Crosswords, Find the Difference (Kaun Kitna Buddhiman), a very popular Tenaliraman. The Pari Katha Visheshank was its eagerly waited special issue by its readers. Vishwa Prasidha Kahania provided its reader the best of childrens literature from world over translated in hindi.
At the moment, it has gone numerous changes and is being edited by Mrinal Pandey, I just recently checked one issue from my brother, and found that the new avataar is no longer as fascinating. Earlier Nandan used to be full of stories and stories only. Now, they have started putting articles (probably following other mags), interviews and other pieces but somehow it doesnt reminds one of the old Nandan we were fond of.
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Madhu Muskan- If anyone of you have read it, you would vividly remember, Daddy jee, Chustram Sushtram.. Great comic and great mag. I dont know whether it is being published today or not but it was really one mags I wanted to read again and again. I even had a collection of around 5-6 years of Madhu Mushkaan, but some of dear friends loyal to borrowed reading, betrayed me.
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Suman Saurabh - Aimed at teens and probably only magazine in Hindi in late 80s and in 90s which went beyond storytelling and provided useful articles. Again from the stable of Delhi Press Group, I loved its Jasoosi Katha Visheshank (Detective Stroy Specials) and Vigyan Katha Visheshank (Sci-fi Specials). It is still going strong.
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Balhansh - Though this was quite new compared to Champak, Chandamama and Nandan, but it can be categorized as more balanced reading experience for kids. Published by Rajasthan Government, it kept the allround growth of its reader in mind. While Kavi Aahat made people go hither and thither fearing his poems, Havaldaar Tholaram was no less then a mixture of Sherlock Holmes and James Bond with grey matters borrowed from the likes of Kaanti Shah and Raakhi Sawant, taking care of goons and evildoers as well as problems of common man. It has some great informative articles which were not very common at that time in children’s magazine as most of the mags provided only stories and comic strips, the focus was not there on interesting or informative articles.
Now let me know, which were your favorites …..
Technorati tags: Nandan, Champak, Lotpot, Childrens Magazine, Books, Magazine
No mercy
I always wondered why people turn violent, why they want to kill somebody, knowing very well that it is going to ruin their life as well. Life gave me a first hand experience to explore the answer or should I say that enlightened me with answer.
As usual, I went to my home town on weekends and after spending weekend I was returning by Gwalior Mail (From Barauni to Gwalior). The train was already 10 hours late when I boarded it. But since I had reservation in it and could not manage to get reservations in other trains, I was helpless and had to board this delayed train. Though most of the trains were running full, this train was empty (at least the AC coaches). Probably due to its history of late running for me it was always an option when I dont have any pre-reservation made and have to go home, as I easily get place in this train.
So we were only three persons in whole AC three tier coach. We reached a small station called Bhatparrani, a station near Gorakhapur. Though the train was not scheduled to stop there, it stopped and seemed stopped for eternity. Hours went by but the train did not move. I asked my coach attendant, what's wrong?
He replied " There is some problem at the next station, so train will go once the problem is cleared. Actually, people are burning train at Gorakhpur Station in protest of arrest of Jogi jee."
My heart sank. How can people do this?
I asked “What happened to the passengers?"
"They were asked to vacate."
My conversation with attendant was going on and we heard loud voices near by which were coming to us filtered by closed doors of coach. We looked out of window. A crowd of around 40 people was coming armed with sticks, swords and what not. Mostly in the age group of 12-30 years, but the biggest section was of 12-20 years old. They were shouting something, which we could not figure out. Hurriedly I put the curtains on the window and even before I could finish putting on the curtains a big stone crashed on the other window of our coach. Then come another.
We three just made ourself safe from these stones by moving away from window. We looked at each other. Me, a student of Scindia School who was going to attend his school at Gwalior after vacation, and a person accompanying him. They started knocking the doors. Luckily the attendant has locked the doors. They tried unsuccessfully. We gathered our luggage and decided to move to AC 2 tier coach, where we had around 6 more passengers. We moved to AC 2 tier. A six-eight month old baby was crying endlessly, probably sensing his mothers uncomfort and panic.
The mob went on crashing windows of the standing train. It went on for around 30 minutes. After that there was a pause, for ten minutes. But we could not muster the strength to come out of train and look for something for drink or eat (the train was standing there for more than 4 hours and it didnot have any pantry car.)
Then again the noise began. Same people returned and starting banging our doors again. Probably passengers traveling in AC coaches were easy meat as our windows had no protection only glasses and that too were broken, shattered by them. We were standing in one of the corners. All together. Praying. Suddenly a sword came through the window. Looking for something. Now voices were coming clearly to us after the glasses were gone.
"Arre phunk dente hain salon ko.. darwaja nahi kholte hain to.." (Lets burn them, if they dont open the door.) Somehow I managed to get a glimpse of this brave man who wanted to burn us alive. A boy of 13-14 years old. With a big stone in one hand and a flag in another. His opinion was supported by many.
I badly wanted to have a gun, one shot and you are dead. To make tomorrow morning headline. An innocent kid shot by an irritated passenger. Innocent!! I was becoming restless. No future, no ideology, no compassion everything was taken over by this pang of hatred. Suddenly I saw a person (around 30 years old, dressed in Khadi, I wondered if Gandhi could see his Khadi being donned by these maniacs). Here in the coach, the baby was crying endlessly. And his parents could do just nothing. Probably he needed some milk or water.
While the person was talking to the mob, stones were coming to the train.. suddenly some men in Khaki appeared and crowd started to move hither and thither. Shouting slogans. We got some relief.
After 30 minutes, the people were no where to seen. I looked at a tea seller on platform. Invited him in the coach, as we were too afraid to step out of the train. He came in and we got some tea for us and lots of question for them. We came to know that the idea to burn the train was dropped as some politician ask them not to burn the train.
I was shocked, so they were being controlled!! Controlled by some politician. The guy who wanted to bomb our parliament, should have been successful.
Now look at the picture published in Dainik Jagaran, one of the leading dailies of India. The caption given is “ People protesting ….” Look who are the people. We should be proud how our kids have become mature, the have developed strong sense of political and social scenario and now actively participating. If you look carefully, you can figure out who are the people at front and equipped with stick and stones. Invariable in mobs the theory of “Leading from the back” applies.
Consider if police tries to control the crowd and in order to control them if they have to resort to laathi charge (they have to, if not to control the crowd then to protect themselves). What could be the morning headline is anyone’s guess.
2007- Is this the magical year I was waiting for?
First of all my delayed new year wishes to all who visited the blog, commented, mailed me and inspired me to keep on blogging. Wishing you all Happy New Year.
Though I am not a staunch believer in numerology, astrology or such other sciences, but some incident have tempted me to believe somethings. So numerologically me being a number 9 person, this year 2+0+0+7 = 9 , is a very significant year for me.
Anyway, even you take out the numerological factor, this is going to be crucial and eventful year.
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Probably this is going to be the last year of my golden bachelorhood. Even thought of losing this makes me feel uneasy.
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This year will decide, where I am heading to in my professional life. Professionally the most crucial year of my life. This year will decide whether I am going to be somebody or nobody.
3. After 4 years, I would be visiting my native village this year, It would be a nice experience to spend some time where I was born. I still have very fond memories of the school which I attended for 5-6 months. The school which had no desk, no benches and no proper place to study in the rainy season. The teachers who wielded stick better than pen.
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Some friends are bound to be lost in this concrete jungle, riding on the unruly behemoth of personal ambitions and professional compulsions (or professional ambitions and personal compulsions), probably scraps on Orkut would be the only thing to remind us of golden days. It has already started with everyone stepping into professional life.
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In all probability, after using Windows XP for so long, I am going to chuck this out and try new Vista or Mac OS X.
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By the end of the year, I would no longer be able to flaunt my back kick or side kick. No desire to practice and no need to show off.
7. Karmic balance is going to be tilted negatively as I am bound to gather loads of bad karma.
- The list of unfinished poems and stories would increase this year, as I am assuming that this year the weekends would be at my disposal.
Some ideas, some plans and some compulsions
Another Sunday morning and as usual my time to take a look on whats going on and where I am heading. Now its a habit to sit aside and take a note of happenings of my life and future path. Nope I am not making a statement or declaring that I am en route to something big or intend to make something big. It is just the fact that I love to think whenever I have time. Since my student days, I have been toying with some ideas and ’the time’ decided at that time to go for implementation of those ideas has arrived. But nothing concrete so far. Reasons, I believe in giving sufficiently long gestation period for any idea (though sometime it is dangerous and while you are thinking over the idea, somebody has started implementing / executing), but I am quite aware of the fact that any idea in beginning looks like ’the brilliant once a life time spark which is capable of catapulting the world’, start thinking over it and you will find that idea is just a myopic thought or impractical imagination or already implemented / existing stuff. I am still having those ideas alive, giving them ample time, discussing with people, reading their face while discussing (just to guess that their comments are genuine or not as I discuss most of the time with my close friends or people supposed to be closed friends and I have all the risk of getting biased opinions). So what are those ideas or what were those ideas and plans
- Being a social entrepreneur or development entrepreneur is surely very high on my list and there are two-three ideas that can provide the launchpad. Somehow whenever I think of success, it is always related with making unexpected (as per the perception of people) happen and these ideas are no exceptions.
- Becoming an author - my childhood dream and the one thing is bound to happen sooner or later. I am not claiming that I would be a successful bestselling author but I would be an author for sure. Both of the above are very much possible. And at the moment I am just looking for enough background work that guarantees that the ideas do not fail due to poor execution, which has been the major cause of failure for brilliant ideas. Secondly, I need people who have similar dreams.
But all these will take some time, and right now the focus is time management, so I can optimize my output on professional (being a consultant/researcher surely not an easy job as it seems) as well on personal front.
Bye bye Ivory Coast
Time to say bye bye to Ivory Coast.. Short but memorable stay that help me understand my priorities and interests better. A lot of learning to take forward.
Midway
Exploring Ivory Coast for a few more days. a very very good guy.. always worried about ‘Patron’. I am finally done with Olam and now going back to India. My driver is aware of this and he is disappointed. He has very high opinion about me and spoke nicely to his colleagues about my kindness.
Am I stupid?
Every day, when my car stops at the red light, 3-4 small children start hovering around my car, spreading their little palms, and invariably I give them 100 CFA (African Currency) to each of them. It has become a routine for me. Yesterday I asked my driver to get change for a 1000 Cfa bill, and he gave me an all-knowing smile and a look which was clearly indicating that I am stupid. Wasting my money on these kids. Am I? Noway, I enjoy the look on the face of children, when they see my car. They know that they are going to get something. I don’t want to disappoint them. I just pray to God that don’t make me disappoint them any day. Amen.