Answers.....

We will hide bombs under your train seats and blow you off, what will you do?
We will blow up your market places while you shop, what will you do?
We will enter your houses and kill you all, what will you do?
We will walk out in the open and fire at you all, what will you do?
We will induce terror into your hearts, what will you do?

What are we doing after all? It began with the serial blasts, followed by the Hindu-Muslim riots. Then came a deluge of terror activities in our country.

Then came the Parliament attack. The prime accused was sentenced to death. Had he been in any other country except ours he would have been answering the Devil by now. But in our country we actually have people fighting to get him off the hook.

There was a train blast in Mumbai and people were back working the next day. We conveniently termed it as Mumbai's spirit. Whatever happens the Mumbai people are always back on tracks. But do they have a choice? It isn't the Mumbai spirit but it is the need for survival that makes them get back working.

We have been hit again and again. The boldest being this terror strike that is still going on as I write this post. Our country's weak response to terrorist has fuelled their audacity and look what is happening. A group of 10-20 terrorists are roaming in a busy city like mumbai and are shooting with AK-47s at anything that is moving.

I love my city and my country and it hurts to see it helpless in front of some cowards who call themselves jehadis. These sons of evil call themselves God's Army and are out to resurrect the world. All we need is our leaders should develop some balls of their own and muster courage to fight these people in their own land. We have fought enough on our side of the border. Its about time we uproot this tree of terror right from where it was sowed. Its time for our so called leaders to stop thinking about how to overflow their bank accounts and start working on how to finish the worst evil in the History of this Earth.

Unless this is done the only thing we would do is "Move on"

Later..........

Sometime ago......
Wow!! Nice goggles, whats the price??
Rs. 3500
Oh!! if i buy it now what will i do next month. How would I pay my rent?? How would I pay my phone bill?Lets forget it for now and buy it later.
Some years later....
Wow!! Nice bike!! oh 90000?? That would put my budget in deep trouble. I can buy it when I get my arrears. lets forget it for now and buy it later.
Somewhere else....
Nice dress!!! Oh whats the use?? I am getting married in 10 days. I cannot wear it after that. No point buying. Lets see if my husband is fine with it I will buy it later.
Year after year we keep having strong desires and we suppress them efficiently. All we do is satisfy ourselves by saying "lets buy it later" and eventually the "later" never comes.
I watched the movie Dasvidaniya today. It is about a guy who comes to know that he is going to die in 3 months and he sets out to fulfill all his wishes. Nice movie and I was deeply moved. I did identify with one thing that is killing our desires.
Life is so complicated. With so many things to do and so many people around us, we are always busy doing something or appeasing someone. Hardly anyone of us ever think what exactly do we want. Some fortunate souls do realise the things they want. But very few among them actually get their wishes fulfilled. Others usually put down their desires in big dustbin. People do come up with various but similar, reasons for not doing what they wish:
Its too costly......
Mom wont like it......
There is always time later in life....
What will people think.....
My girlfriend would get suspicious if i talk to you.....
etc etc.
We do fear lots of things and it is this fear that does not allow us to pursue our dreams. I have a friend. He was a great cricketer. A superb batsmen who could destroy any bowling attack in mumbai. His only weakness was that he was weak in studies. One day he got a call from an English county team to play for them. He asked his dad. Without considering for a minute his dad refused him. The reason given : If you don't succeed in it what will you do for a living. Stay here and study. I don't say his dad was wrong. He had full right to protect his child in case anything goes wrong. But what if, he had taken the risk. What if my friend would have become a great cricketer? Eventually my friend turned down the offer. He completed his 12th and is working somewhere but still loves to go and teach cricket to the young children.
What we don't realize is Life is unpredictable. You can get a supercomputer to plan out your life and still it wont be able to accurately predict the next second of your life. So if you have the capacity to fulfill your wishes, go ahead and do it. Worry about the consequences later. Actually you don't even need to worry about them. Nature has its own way of putting things in the right place in the end. The world follows such people because they are different. Such people are happy because by fulfilling their wishes they get rid of the frustrations of life. One word of caution though, what i intend to convey is fulfill your wishes and not do what you like. Doing what you like can turn u into a arrogant being. Fulfill those wishes that you have suppressed for some stupid reason. Don't wait till the end and say "I am dying and I haven't done anything I wanted to do".

A Journey called Wedding

I have Problems, so do you.
I have solutions, so do you.
I do things that irritate you,
I get mad at things done by you.
We fight and fight,till our throats go dry
Which ends up soon, after you cry
I wont say sorry, so wont you.
I wont talk and you don't too.
I cant imagine my life without you,
I know for sure,without me, so cant you.
I love you and always will be with you.

Well I believe that sums it all up when asked to describe the term "Wedding". When looked at it in a perfunctory way it appears to us as a ceremony which binds two individuals in a bond that should be only broken by death. But on a closer observation Wedding is so much more than that.
Wedding is a phase that starts right after you take the oath of living with your partner for the rest of your life and continues till one of you is on the doors of heaven. It is the phase when you learn so much everyday. It is the strenuous job of bullying your egos and aspirations to make the wedding work. It is the phase of adjustments and compromises never imagined before. The most important and difficult task is living with one person throughout your life.

Its impossible for a guy like me. I am not a commitment phobic, but what if I choose the wrong person. The thought of staying with a wrong person for the rest of my life is so overwhelming that it makes me very analytical and judgmental about people. That is why I was very scared of it until last Sunday 12th October 2008--My Parents Silver Jubilee Anniversary. I was in front of a gathering talking about my parents' journey of 25 years when it dawned upon me. They are two very different individuals. There is such a big crevasse between their personalities yet they managed 25 years together and are still going the same way. I have witnessed all of their ups and downs even though they have tried to keep us out of it all the time. They might be teasing and fighting with each other but whenever there is something wrong with either one of them, the other one transforms into an Angel from God and bolsters the needy one. Its amazing to see the speed at which this happens. It is said couples are made in heaven and I beg to differ. I say Heaven just makes normals human beings. It is they who make couples and work very hard in being couples and it is these couples who make happy families.

I know my parents are not unique. This is the case with every couple. This is the beauty of marriage. The couples are not bound by any outer compulsion to stay with each other but it is the hidden love among all the bantering that happens that makes them stick to each other always.

That's all for now guys. Sorry I am being irregular here. I am working hard to be regular. Till the next time.Bye bye

The Common tale of FRIENDSHIP

Disclaimer
The following story is a pure work of fiction and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. No similarity to any person either living or dead is intended or should be inferred.

This is story of two friends. I came across it a few days back. So thought of sharing with all of you. So here we go...

Once upon a time in a land far far away were two very good and close friends named Jack and Jill.
Jack was a happy-go-lucky guy who didn't have many good friends. He was never involved with anyone and was happy to be alone.Jill was a sweet girl who could be anybody's good friend. She was a dreamer. She always wanted to have some companion. They lived different lives but met once in a while and chatted for hours regarding various issues ranging from "some guy dating some girl" to "why God always tests our patience". Everything was going smoothly until.........

One fine day Jill met a guy Bob. He was a great guy and and perfect gentleman. He was quite an achiever in life and also belonged to a respectable family. He had everything that Jill wanted in her DREAM MAN. Bob and Jill got along very well. They spent lots of time together and when not together always thought of each other. In a matter of few days both were in deep love. A perfect made for each other couple. Bob even introduced Jill to his parents. All was going pretty well but.......

Somewhere in the story Jack was nowhere to be seen. As stated earlier he had no good friends and Jill was his only friend. He was there somewhere in the background happy because Jill's life was going great and sad because he was lonely. He tried to tell that to Jill many times but seeing how happy Jill was, all that came out of his mouth was a smile. He still met Jill but the topic of discussion was Bob. He hardly had those funny conversations with Jill. He was drifting apart and Jill was too involved in her life to notice anything. She always thought everything was going fine and nothing was wrong between Jack and herself. However she couldn't see the invisible gorge that was formed between them. She couldn't help the situation and neither could Jack. He simply remained there standing and staring at the sunset while Bob and Jill held hands and walked away never to return.

I came across this story and found it amazingly common in our day to day life. Jill is just a character but most of us become Jill when we find our Bob. Some of us are also Jack. This is for all the people who think they are Jack, please tell everything you have inside because its better to say it right when you can rather than waiting and letting those caustic thoughts burn your insides.

IAEA-- Whose pie is that?

What is IAEA?
The IAEA is the world´s center of cooperation in the nuclear field. It was set up as the world´s "Atoms for Peace" organization in 1957 within the United Nations family. This post is not regarding this organisation so I wont go much into it. For complete details you could click on to the following link

IAEA

INDIA and IAEA
Until now India was denied nuclear cooperation by the advanced countries because we were considered to be a country which could not handle nuclear energy. Now why did that happen? To begin with, the nuclear tests in the Indira Gandhi government shook the world. No one expected India to have nuclear weapons. As an old saying goes, "Crush the snake's head before it strikes", the developed countries saw a major threat to their dominance. They didn't want a Third World country to be at par with them. Thus sanctions were imposed on India so that no nuclear trade takes place with any country. The deal is important to us as using it we can develop our nuclear power capacity and obtain materials like uranium from the nuclear suppliers group. If we have to be called a developed country we had to develop our power sector which is in pretty bad shape. We have been trying for long for getting rid of these sanctions but every time we were told to sign the NPT (Non-proliferation Treaty) and the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty). The former does not allow us to use nuclear weapons and the latter does not allow us to test.
But now, thanks to some good United States of America's support we became the first country in the world to sign IAEA without signing the aforementioned two treaties.

This is MINE
My aim of writing this post is to comment on the turbulent political game that took place in our country due to this deal. The game consisted of three players

1. Congress (The present government)
2. The Left parties (Communists ally to the government)
3. Bhartiya Janta Party( The opposition party)

The Congress:-

As the party that formed the government, congress has not done anything to improve anything in the country. All of their decisions have put the people in a tight spot. Reservations are their worst gift to the country. Its a curse that has impaired the very essence of merit. I am not against reservations. But people should be given reservations on basis of their economical background and not caste. Congress has made this cheap political move to improve their vote banks and put the future of any deserving student in danger. Secondly the various financial decisions like waiving off the farmer loans has led to increased burden on the taxpayer. Definitely all the farmers who sincerely paid their loans would think twice before doing it again. This has put the Congress in bad light and this deal was their only chance to save their sinking ship. However there was a problem. The LEFT allies.

The Left Allies:-
Sealing the deal means India would get closer to USA. This was an obvious danger to China which was never a friend of India and always a sworn enemy of USA. The communist parties are an offshoot of the Chinese government and hence are controlled and manipulated by China. Thus they offered a serious obstacle to Congress in sealing the deal.

The Opposition Parties:-
The opposition parties knew this deal would be a big benefit for the country. Actually it was them who had initiated the proceedings. Hence they wanted the credit for it. Now that the deal is being signed by Congress, they have lost their share of glory. Thus they are sulking and crying out unnecessarily.

So the game is on, and I am enjoying watching the players in it. Sometimes the opposition is winning and sometimes the government. I don't think any of these parties are least interested in what the deal would do to the country. Every one want their share of the pie and wish to bask in the glory. When will they realize that if they work together it wouldn't be difficult to make a country like ours, with a population of over a billion, a SUPERPOWER

Blast From The Past

Background
I used to have a close friend. Call that person X. We were very good friends. Let me rephrase that. I supposed we were quite good friends. Most of the time I went out of my way to help X. But then one fine day I realized that it was only me who thought we were great friends. X never considered me as a friend but always showed great care and respect (only in my presence). Without me around X criticized and ridiculed every move of mine. You would ask how I got to know all this, well to say the least, I got good sources. So after my final year I cut out X completely from my life. I think X was fine with that because there was no attempt from that side to know what happened.
The Encounter
Yesterday I was waiting in a long and boring queue for submission of a form for my voter's ID. It was raining pretty heavily. Thankfully we had a roof over us but the number of people there was way too much. Suddenly in the crowd I spotted X. I turned my gaze to avoid that person.
I was drowned in the sound of rain and the frustration of standing in the queue when suddenly a person asked for some help to a girl standing right in front of my. Out of sheer habit of helping people I turned around to help the needy person and to my surprise it was X standing there.
BANG!!! A boom went inside my head. That feeling of awkwardness was terrible. I wanted to blurt out all the horrible feelings I had right in front of X's face. But you know what I did? I helped X by giving the directions to get the work done. Obviously X didn't thank me. It was as if I didn't exist there. Only my voice came from somewhere into X's head and gave to solution to the problem. X spoke to that girl for some more seconds and disappeared again in the crowd leaving me feeling stupid. Why did I have to turn around? And even if I did why did I have to open my silly mouth when I knew no one was talking to me? Stupid me. I went back home disgusted.
I always wonder some things in life like, Why do I have to always hide my anguish? Why do I have to be disturbed because of people who hurt me in the past? Why is it difficult to find friends who aren't back stabbers?
I believe things done in your past always haunts you, especially the bad ones, no matter how much you try to get rid of it but I believe this is something called Life.

August--A month of events

Apology
To start with I would like to apologize for not writing for so long. I offer no excuses except that I had become pretty lazy. This laziness can be attributed to the fact that I am on a break between two phases of my life and do not have much to do these days. For my penance I would write about all the things I did in this month. So here we go.

Rishi Raj
The month started with the visit of a very dear friend of mine Rishi. A sub lieutenant in the Indian Navy he is my schoolmate from Dehradun. He belongs to Sikar, Rajasthan. He had returned after a 4-month long trip around half the countries of the world and was proceeding for his vacations. Luckily he missed his train from mumbai due to which he spent 3 days at my place. We had one of the best times ever. Everyday we were wide awake till 2 or 3 am chatting about old times and new. It was like speaking to your own soul because we knew each other so well. He told me all about his exploits in different countries. I must say I was really amazed at the pics of some of the wonderful scenic places in the world. He is very lucky to visit all those places. We also had a small get-together of schoolmates posted in mumbai. It was real fun to be amongst so many brothers. Rishi left mumbai on 1st of August for his hometown. The following days were filled with sad boredom.

Results
My final semester results were out on 29th of last month. But as I was with Rishi I could not go and see them. So I went to college on 2nd. I was pretty happy at my result but I could see my teachers were happier. It felt really great to see how interested they were to see my result. The care and affection they had showered upon me had put me on top of the world. Sometimes I wonder do I actually deserve all that. Everyone wanted sweets so I promised to treat them on 4th.
As promised, I went back on 4th and distributed sweets to all my teachers and some of my friends(Didn't have enough to give all my friends). The day ended with some fond memories of college coming back to me. Did some packing in the evening because I was leaving for my native place the next day.

My 10-day sabbatical to end my 14-year VANVAS
I needed a break. After all the efforts and stress I had been through in the past 4 engineering years, I definitely needed some time off from the concrete world. So I set out to the best place in the world--MANGALORE my native place. I was setting foot on my ancestral soil after 14 years. When I told this to my friends they joked by comparing my 14 years to Lord Ram's 14 year vanvas. But it felt the same. My cousins were on their vacations so it was an ideal time for me to go. The feel of that place is completely different from mumbai. Life is pretty easy. No hurries at all. Everyone had all the time in the world to do their stuff. So did I. I behaved like a tourist at all places. That was one problem because whenever I had to speak out a secret I couldn't as everyone knew the language. But it was an experience in itself to find so many people using the language unlike mumbai where every language is used without discrimination.
The buses were one big attraction. Every driver was an Indian version of Michael Schumacher. They competed against one another to reach the next bus stop so that they can get more customers. The screeches, the turns and the halts were similar to an F1 track. The drivers didn't mind if the people in the bus are all flung here and there. I got a video of the conductors. Will be putting it shortly online.
The very first day I saw a ritual of Nag Panchami. I usually keep away from temples and rituals but on the insistence of my aunt I went to the ritual. I was nice seeing people praying to what looked like a slab of concrete. I told this to my aunt who shot back at me with a look that said "Shut up or you are Dead". I do respect faith in God but when it crosses over to blind faith I get irked. Anyway that was one small incident. The prasad was wonderful. It was a mixture of coconut water, honey and I think some curd. I drank two glasses much to the amusement of my cousins.
I visited my ancestral home one day. It has been like that for so many years. I simply love that place. Its by the beach and back in 1994, when I had last gone with my family, we had a greatest time ever. Too bad I missed out on so many opportunities of visiting that place earlier. That place brings in calmness and clarity to my soul. It rejuvenates every cell of my body. Its simply the best place in the world.
The best thing about the trip was FOOD. My relatives left no stones unturned in serving me with the best seafood ever. There were fishes, prawns, crabs and chicken. Everything was prepared every time I had a meal. Considering how big a foodie I am, this was heaven. The best of them all was crabs. I hadn't ever had any and here I had almost gorged in 5 or 6 in one meal. Sorry my vegetarian friends I had to put this experience. Trust me if you havent eaten crab by the time you die then surely you would lose out on the most delicious of all sea food.
The trip ended on 15th but I will have the memories forever. Especially of the crab. I came back to mumbai on Independence Day but was hardly cheerful about it.

Back Home
I got back to my tuition and some workouts. I had put on at least 2-3 kilograms on the trip. All I did there was eat a lot and just loiter around. Got in touch with few friends and watched a boring movie "Bachna Ae Haseeno". Well the movie should have been titled "Bachna Everybody". Yash Raj, the movie producer, should be jailed for torturing innocent lives by luring them to watch that movie. I am still sulking for those precious bucks I spent on it. I could have done something worthwhile. That was all till now.