Still we ask why?

Last weekend i went to Delhi. I was on my way to Deer park to be a part of drum circle. Drum circle is one of the best things that has happened to me in the past two months as part of my life@IWSB. But this article is not about drum circle nor it is about my life at IWSB. Its about Delhi and the commonwealth games. You might say not again, another article to bash our government. But here i want to push it a bit further. I went to Cannaught Place and all i could witness was digged up road, mud and puzzled people. All the glam and beauty of CP was nowhere to be find, or perhaps it was overshadowed by the so called preparations for the Commonwealth Games. I find it really hard to believe that we a nation of more than one billion people can't prepare one city to host an international event. But then where does the problem lies? Oh i know politics, bureaucracy, corruption, greed etc etc. But does that mean we should leave hopes that one day our country will be ahead of the likes of US, UK or China. One day our cities will compete with the likes of New york, Tokyo or Beijing. Should we stop saying we will be a super power. I ask, was it necessary to beautify Delhi on the pretext of games, when all they managed to do is uglify Delhi. It would have been a lot better if we just would have just considered making the stadiums and necessary arrangements for the games. Was it so necessary to dig up CP and all those other places? What effect will this have on the morale of Indian athletes who are participating in the games. Now whatever we do, the world has seen what India is and what is going on. Its a sham what these people are doing in the name of development. They are just accumulating wealth for themselves. Its high time we stand up and say its enough. We as common people do so much of hard work which gets reflected when people say INDIA SHINNING and these people just undo all that. We as a nation had a big opportunity to tell the world who we are and what we are capable of. But now as more and more time passes, i feel it would have been a lot better if that opportunity could have been avoided so that the world doesn't come to know what we really are. I did not write this just to criticise. I think enough criticism has been done. I wrote this so that some people really feel that the need of the hour is not criticism but to rise up to the occasion and take the control of our nation. Its our job to make it a super power, nobody else will do it. No neta or affsar will do it unless we do it or make them do it.
Sometime ago we have a small chat in our class regarding why even small countries are beating my India when it comes to medals in international competitions. I guess the answer lies infront of us and STILL WE ASK WHY?

Genesis

Moving through the woods, I came across it.
They told me not to see it, not to touch it.
But I just could’t resist, for I a mere mortal
Broken down by my own manifestation of it,
Drenched in the pain of losing it, I hide it.
But i still abide by it, hold it
Knowing but not believing, one day i will lose it.

Satisfied are you?

Last weekend i was sitting with some of my friends at barista having a casual discussion. Suddenly the word cropped up “Satisfaction”. One of my friend was arguing that one should be satisfied or atleast look for satisfaction. But honestly i don't believe in being satisfied, or to put it i don't want to be satisfied. Think about it, all the things we enjoy, all the world we know is because somewhere somebody was not satisfied with what he had. Starting from the two of the most important inventions mankind did, fire and wheel. Why did they came? Somebody was not satisfied by living in dark or having to walk always. The biggest invention which i consider and what changed everything and made way for many more was electricity. Again micheal faraday wanted something more. Thomas alva edison wanted more than just light. He wanted to create a legacy by giving light to all. Henry ford changed his design so many times until he got to model T. Even today the most enjoyed luxuries and the small things we enjoy are there because someone was not satisfied. He did not adhere to the line “be satisfied with what you have”. We got independence simple because some people were not satisfied with the british rule. It is very easy to say one should be satisfied and i have hearing this thing for the last 21 years of my life. You should be content with what you have. Just once think about a world where everyone is satisfied. Sachin is not breaking records everyday, nokia is not releasing new cellphones here and there and you don't want to do anything because you are satisfied. Life would become so dull and boring that eventually the end of creating anything new will lead to just one thing. So think about it guys do you want to be satisfied?

Friend

I have always had a lot of friends. I have been through a lot of institutions. There have been a lot of good friends. But because i changed so many institutions, i could never take a person's name and say we grew up together, are from the same street or have been to same school. So when any one would ask who is your best friend? I would simply say there are a lot of people who are my friends and would never take a single name. Some might argue i was being politically correct, but that really was the case with me. But then it happened. I was sitting in the class not alone but in a bunch of friends and suddenly you came to my mind. A flood of memories came to my mind of all the time we spent together, our laughs, our hangouts. I was engulfed in a sea of emotions. I still can't figure out why that happened. I couldn't stop my emotions, could hide my tears as they came out. I was wondering why it was happening. I haven't missed my home, my parents, my city so much so. But at that moments i was completely cut off from reality. I forgot i was sitting in a class with people all around me. I guess you once told me cancerians are very emotional finally came out in the open. We have been together for only 4 years but from those 4 years, the time we spent together was most memorable. You were not only a friend for me, you were like a brother, many a times a mentor. I learned so much from you. We argued, we debated, we clashed at many points but we always inseparable. It is a big truth and i learned it today “Sometimes you learn the value of something when that thing is away from you”. At that moment i was thinking if there is one thing i could change would you sitting beside me.

Thrift and thriving 1

2007 was a very important year for everyone's finances. It told us why we need to have solid financial plannings and gave us ample reasons to fall back to a policy which many of the new generation considered outdated, that is being thrifty. That year and thereafter we saw unprecedented number of bankruptciesand many people losing their jobs and with that many other things which they owned on credit. In the midst of all one thing stood pretty clear Indian banks and Indians somehow and for some reasons still thrived. People were perplexed and were asking how and why.

But the answer was simple Indians have thriftiness deeply rooted into them. Right from the big corporate banks to my father everyone believes in the phrase

“A penny saved is a penny earned” or “A bird in hand is better than two in the bush”

While many in the western world were being affected with affluenza, we on the other hand still upholded virtues like frugality. No wonder RBI has one of the stringent guidelines when it comes to operations relating to credit for the banks. We have one of the highest Cash reserve ratios and Statutory liquidity ratios. We can see it this way, being thrifty was a big reason why indian business and banks did survive and continue to do better than just surviving despite behemoths like Bank of America and Morgan Stanley feeling the pinch. But the real understanding of the concept of thrift and thriving comes when we look at average Indian and an average American. While many Americans during the subprime mortgage crises came to streets, Indians mostly survived and some managed to do well as most of them had their own homes, had savings in the bank and still had other assets like gold to fall to.

If we look closely we can find that word “thrift” is cognate to the verb “thrive”. In the view of Theodore Roosevelt malloch chairman and CEO of The Rooservelt group "Thrift if if properly understood should be joined with constellation of other characteristics that make society more just and ultimately more prosperous". Infact being thrifty does not make a person a miser, but opposite to that by not being thrift one becomes a person who wastes. Mahatma Gandhi's one of the strongest beliefs were to refrain oneself from wasting. It is for that very reason that thrift inevitably leads to thriving.