After the U.S.A., we have the N.S.I. - the Numerous States of India

Aaargh!!! It has happened again!

I feel sad for the kids in school nowadays.

I remember my school days. Geography!!! One of my nightmare subjects... How many nights had I spent mugging up all those little nuggets of information about places and their names. How many bottles of "Shankhapushpi" (memory medicine :-P) my mother fed me so that my poor little brain would retain all that chunk of information - at least until the exams.
- Remember the 25 states of India.
- Remember their capitals.
- Don't relocate one capital to another state.
- Remember their locations on the Map...
It was too much for my little pea-brain...
I managed to scrape through somehow...

And as if 25 states were not enough, 3 new ones were added to the list!!! But by that time I had already passed out and cramming up about those new states was another kid's problem, not mine...

But wasn't 28 states enough? Today, we come to know that the state of U.P. (Uttar Pradesh) will soon be split up into 4 new states...

I feel sad for the kids who will appear for Geography exam in the coming future... 31 states, their 31 capitals and only 1 little brain to retain all that piece of information - "Badi na-insaafi hai re!" ("Big injustice, dude!")

And of course, who knows there might be even more mitotic or meiotic divisions of the existing states in the coming future (remember the ongoing telangana and vidarbha issues to name a few possible candidates)? And so, even more number of states may appear on the border-lines-riddled map of India...
And while remembering all the states and their capitals, the future Indian kids may possibly forget the age old adage "United we stand. Divided we fall"... ???

My Childhood Toy Shop

Today I happened to pass the Toy Store - the one I used to visit when I was a kid. And I suddenly remembered the old times.

The first thing I remember is my heart beat suddenly rising with anticipation as I would approach the shop. There would be scores of toys piled up inside as well as displayed at the entrance. It was a kid's toy-dream world... The shop-keeper would smile at me. I was a privileged customer. I am sure he did not miss the fact that my eyes had gone round like saucers as I drooled over the sight of all those G.I.Joes and their vehicles, the cool plastic toy guns, He-man and his mates, all displayed in there. And then the smiling devil would tempt me with all the most expensive toys (he knew I loved G.I.Joes, I was a regular with him) - much to the consternation of my parents.

Things have changed now. As I pass by the shop, my breath no longer catches and my heart no longer goes dhak-dhak... The smiling-devil shop-keeper is standing in there. He catches my eye, but he does not smile. Of course he would not recognize me any more. Its been too long and I have changed quite a lot (the price we all pay for growing up)... I try to spot my favourite G.IJoes. But they are no where to be seen... Neither are the awesome big toy-guns or he-man or the local board games like "Nava Vepari" (indian version of Monopoly) or the local-made cricket bats with no labels on them... Instead there are some standard board games, branded cricket gear, really funny looking toy figurines (BenTen? Transformers??) and lots and lots of Computer and PSP game CDs... Hmmm, things have changed quite a lot in the Toy-world...

Law(lessness) and (dis)Order

It was in the newspapers the other day. A horrible and sad story about a minor girl who was kidnapped, held hostage in Goa and later raped. But the most astounding fact was that, just a few days before the kidnapping, the girl had lodged a complaint of harassment against the perpetrators, with the police - and the police allegedly did not take any action at that time.

The story sound most outrageous because the police failed to act in time...
So what is the problem with our police force? Why are they not protecting us innocent citizens? Why do they just stand by while rising crime rate threatens to rip our society apart? Are they lazy? Are they incompetent? Don't they care?

Actually this is an extremely complex problem whose roots, as per my viewpoint, may go as deep as the fact that we, as a species on the whole, and as a society in particular, are loosing the attribute of moral strength under the stress of every day living - hence the rising crime rate...

But lets not get into such deep philosophy...

Instead, to dissect the problem at a very superficial level, lets start with one basic problem - our watch-dog lacks the necessary sharp fangs. And hence they can't bite down the criminals. If your watch-dog is not fierce enough, is it going to protect your home against thieves?

Now why would one have a watch-dog with not-sharp-enough fangs? To answer this, lets contemplate another question - If your dog has razor-sharp teeth and the first thing it bites is your tender back-side, how would you feel?

Here is a scenario. You are a cop. Your team manages to nab and bring in a few suspects.
But they are soon let out on bail by the court.
Or even more likely, you get a call from your reporting officer ordering you to let the suspects go ("Don't you know who they are? They are related to Mr Famous Politician or Ms Rich Industrialist..."). All your efforts and risks go down the drain as the criminals walk out having the last laugh.
Or the defense lawyers bash you out due to lack of enough evidence...

So, our law-enforcement has it's hands bound by the laws - the very same laws which are supposed to exist in order to protect us and give us justice.

I always wondered why our justice system is so complex, until I placed myself on the stand as a falsely-accused defendant. And then I realized that this so very complex judicial system was in place not just to punish the criminals but to ensure that no injustice is done to an innocent man...

So our system is complex; and our laws are all loop-hole-ridden. And apparently they are made that way with the best of intentions? But why is it that most of the times, the common man does not benefit from them? Instead the greedy and the unscrupulous land up exploiting the loop-holes in our system for their own petty gains...?

So our judiciary system is too complex and our law-enforcement watch-dog lacks the nasty bite... So what does that leave us with to protect ourselves and our near and dear ones?

I remember watching the movie Gangajal (It was supposed to be based on some real life incident). The movie did convince me that taking the law in our own hands is not necessarily a good thing. But somewhere in the middle of the film, when the citizens turn vigilante, it does look like the criminal-minded would think twice before indulging in unlawful activities.

If your watch-dog does not know how to bite, then should you be doing the biting instead?
If your home and your family are in danger, then won't you??

Engineer Blunder - Part 2

This is a continuation of my yesterday's post Engineer Blunder

Today, it happened again.

The same man from 6th floor gets into the lift along with me.

As usual, the slow but steady pace of the lift is rudely interrupted at the 4th floor.

The elevator door takes its own sweet time to open up. And then it stands open patiently waiting for someone to get in or get out...

This time, unlike yesterday, there are two people standing outside the lift. And they are busy talking to each other - so much so that they don't even give a glance at the openly inviting belly of the elevator... An elevator door can be an exasperatingly patient piece of machinery, but even that looses its patience at the uncaring duo standing outside and begins to slowly crawl shut...

And then one of the guys suddenly snaps out of their chat-world... He cries out "Arre wait wait..." and shoves his hand against the oh-so-slowly closing elevator door... How I wish the elevator door had shunned its hard-wired obedience just this once and clammed shut on the idiot's hand... But the damned obedient door heeds to his command and begins to open up again... as slow as ever :-(

And as we impatiently wait for the elevator door to fully open up, wait out it's halt-span, sluggishly crawl shut and finally continue it journey further, I point out to the man outside that its headed up, not down. The enlightened fellow smiles and says "Oh? its going up? Sorry..." And with that little pathetic apology he turns his back to an irritated and fuming group of passengers.

As the door finally crawls shut, the 6th floor fellow blurts out... "What sorry...!?? This is their everyday drama... These engineers...! Can't even understand - if you want to go down, press the 'down' button, not the 'up' one... They are engineers. Can't they even understand such a simple thing???"

As I step out on the 5th floor, I wonder with amusement what this guy dislikes more - engineers or unnecessary lift stoppages at Floor #4?

Engineer Blunder

It was afternoon. Lunch time. 4 people got into the lift at ground floor. One of them was me (big surprise, there :-P). Two others were my colleagues. We work in a software company located on the 5th floor of the building. The fourth person who got in, was headed for the 6th floor

The lift ascended and ascended, until it jarred to a gentle halt at the 4th floor. The door opened. We peered out. No one got out, of course. But then, no one got in either. No one was even standing outside the door of the lift. Then why had the lift halted at the 4th floor? Obviously, because some idiot had pressed the button for the lift and had then conveniently disappeared into thin air. This is a very usual happening on this floor. It is not really scary or disconcerting or anything. But it sure as hell is irritating (because - one is always eager and in a hurry to reach that god-forsaken hell-hole of a place we all so hate and try to avoid, a.k.a "the office").

As the lift door begins to close, the communal irritation erupts.

Colleague #1: "This always happens at this floor. Almost every day, they press the elevator button..."

Colleague #2: "Yes... even if the don't want to get in... What the heck, they enjoy it or something?"

Me: "Yes... they like pressing..." (double meaning definitely intended)

The 4th guy pitches in and says: "They are engineers..."

We all stop speaking... What does he mean by that?

"They are engineers (referring to the fact that the company on the 4th floor is a Technology firm). And yet they don't understand!?? How many times to tell them... the motor will eat up more energy every time you make it stop unnecessarily during the ascent or the descent... They just know how to press the button..."

By this time the lift had reached the 5th floor and the three of us tumbled out smiling to ourselves...

This guy definitely had a thing against engineers... So he vented out his vexation, hardly aware that he was doing so, standing in the midst of 3 engineers... :-P

India's hidden tourism potential

This happened yesterday.

After a short post-lunch stroll, I was waiting for the lift to take me to my office located on the 5th floor. As the lift arrived, 4 Japanese guys got on into the lift along with me. They were probably on their way to this Japanese company located on the 6th floor. While I contemplated my upcoming fight against post-lunch stupor, I noticed that the Japanese Quartet were a pretty silent lot - at least until the lift reached the 4th floor.

The lift stopped, the door opened and we peered out into the reception area of the company on that floor. The panoramic view that greeted us consisted of a receptionist, a pot-bellied guy waiting for the lift to come back down and an ATM machine.

Yes, an ATM machine, the same one that spits out money if you feed it your bank card...

The first time I had seen the ATM machine in the reception area of that company, I was so surprised, I thought - "What an awesome company, man! They have installed an ATM for their employees right in their own reception!?"

It was only later that I came to know that this company is actually well-known for providing ATM technology and services - and that the ATM machine was probably an Advertisement prop. I will not directly name the company - suffice it to say that it's name sounds somewhat like the name of some Bond movie or a Bruce Willis action flick.

Anyways, as the door of the lift began to close, the four Japs who had been peering out wide-eyed suddenly started chatting animatedly in Japanese to each other. I was almost sure they were talking about the presence of the ATM machine. But then one of the guys gestured with his hands in front of his stomach and that was when I realized that it was not the ATM machine that had so attracted the attention of our 4 japanese protagonists. Neither was it the secretary. It was the pot-belly of the waiting man...

That's when I realized that India has such a great tourism potential - walking-talking huge-numbered potential tourist attractions!!! We should utilize this potential! Indian Tourism should promote it! Now that's what I call - Incredible India!!