We, The Indians; India, Our country, not mine, not yours and not theirs, it is OUR COUNTRY

In our school days, we used to take pledge every day -
"India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters. I love my country…."

It's a long time when I left the school and I hardly remember it.

Am I following the pledge?
Only "Idiots" will ask this question and "Idiots" will answer it. So let us not even ask it, so answering is automatically kept aside.

 "India is no longer left a country to sacrifice something for"


"भारत देशासाठी काहीतरी करून दाखवावे असा देश राहिला नाही आता आता हिच गोष्ट बरोबर वाटू लागली आहे ... देश म्हणजे काय हो  ? इथले लोकच ना ? आणि लोकच असे असतील तर कोणाला ह्या देशासाठी काहीतरी करावेसे वाटेल ? .... "

These are extracts from some blogs that I read recently.
Are these statements correct?
I don't know. I don't want to find out whether these are correct or not.
And even if I ever want to find out answers of these, I admit (with all due respect to everyone, actors of the state, and writers of these statements)– what should I do with these correct statements or wrong statements? Do I know the remedy? I might know… do I have power/ authority to fix it? Is it possible to completely eradicate the devils which resides in "us"?

So, in short, the questions are unending. I am leaving them aside.

Some days back, when I read these statements, I was confused, What should be the reaction? Anger, pity or total agreement……!!!

It was a reaction, without any application of thought, conscience. Now, after a little thought, I am very happy with these statements.

These are clear indicators of awareness amongst us. If people are reading it and they are replying to these, it means, yes, there are people who are thinking about country, they are ready to spend some time of their busy schedules on this very important subject. And I thank all of you of raising the concern.

This subject will always lure creative minds, have a look at movies that depict shows common mans anger. A character says, "लोगों में घुस्सा बहोत है, उसे आजमाना बंद करो!!".
Kudos to the writer of this of catching the nerve of people in very correct words.

We will always have writers and film makers who will raise these concerns. (Or as some says, they will cash on popular subjects, knowing its guaranteed hit!!!)

OK fine.

We should thank all of them, but what next, don't we need to stand up and resolve the problem. This reminds me of sentence from management book, "Problems have a way of hanging around and growing larger if ignored". How we want to see ourselves? As passive, inactive, cribbing person? Or as proactive, reliable and with "Let's do it" attitude. The answer is with us.

Now, let us get little bit realistic and try to solve problem.

Being in software industry, I will use our parlance.

Everyone of us is able to find existing problems – Corruption,

Unemployment, Illiteracy, Nexus between politics and bureaucracy, terrorism, increasing crime, population….

The list is never ending.

Can I say that, we have identified the 'Problem Statement'? Yes, I can.

Is the scope very wide? Yes, it is.

What do I do, when my customer gives me unrealistic demands, I strip them down to a extent which is possible for us to deliver.

So can I strip our 'Problem Statement'? Yes, I can.

What should be followed up and what should not be? Let us take it one by one -

Corruption  - Do I have authority/ power to check on corruption? (In ideal case, everyone has authority as a citizen, but in ideal case, aren't we suppose to ensure zero critical bugs in releases? We are, right, so why do we have production supports? So, let us stick to real life scenario and not get too much idealistic)

Unemployment, terrorism, increasing crime and so on and so forth, it is not easy to find feasible way of 'Contributing to Solution'.

As we do in our work life, I am here trying to find out 'Commonly agreed most feasible solution'.

Illiteracy – Can something be done here, I think, yes. But, how?

Can we support Persistent Foundations effort -  Student Sponsorship Program?

Can this be a start-up towards achieving bigger goals?

Can we "Proactively" spend some time in making sure that the children are not dropping from school after they are being sponsored for a year or so?

Yes.

This can be first step.
This can be our first 'Module', The First 'Milestone'.

Let me go back to the 'Problem Statement' again. It is very huge responsibility, isn't it, if so, we need support from everyone to get it done. Right? (Do you remember management keywords, team efforts,
collective responsibility.) I think we apply these jargons only in our professional life and keep them locked in safe when it comes to social life.
If I am cribbing about the way, we are governed in this country, then, it is high time for me to 'Improve my performance in social life also'. There are no 'Performance Improvement Programs (PIPs)' here.

I leave this the discussion here, and will wait for second milestone to be discovered by the team.

An eventful day and encounters with anger

I am writing this in moonlight, with the small light that my cell phone screen is providing. It took almost 10 minutes to find out pen and paper. My mom is already shouting at me, asking why the hell I need pen –paper when there is no light in the house. But thank god, it was full moon yesterday, so there is little light and of course not to forget my Sony Ericsson, which is helping me the most here.

I have a firm belief, reactions are always 'Reactions' and most of the time - momentary. So at this moment, when I have lost my temper, I thought it's better to capture the 'Reaction'!!

It's been a frustrating day. In morning when I was getting ready for the office, I realized that there is no ironed dress and by the time I found dress to iron the light was gone. (In Pune, we call light instead of electricity) and then came the news, my younger brother was reading out news "There will be power cut from 8 to 6 in our area". So I had no option but to go with whatever clothes I had. So there I was rushing towards the office.
Office was as usual routine, nothing good, nothing bad, same bug fixing, builds and mails.

At 7, I dropped status mail and left for the day, not knowing what is waiting for me. Had a lazy walk towards bus stop as I knew the bus comes at 7.30. (By the way, MSEB GODs have bestowed us with the light,
so I am switching on light and fan). No matter how slow I walk, bus stop is not more than 15 minutes walk. So there I was, at bus stop at 7.20. I am travelling in PMT for almost 6 years now, so it was nothing special for me to wait at bus stop for ten minutes. I was waiting for bus, looking here and there, watching the hopeless guys rushing as if they are shooting for Dhoom-3. Law college road is really a small road compared to traffic it carries. It's connecting road for Kothrud and Chaturshungi. There was usual (I mean heavy) traffic on the road. As we are proud of our undisciplined drivers and riders, thanks to them, there was deadlock at SNDT signal. Due to this deadlock, two way law college road suddenly became one way. It wasn't possible for anyone to come from Kothrud side. So our proud riders and drivers took the opportunity and started using the other side also. The result was - no wonder, mess!!! With this mess, the chances of my bus coming from Karve Road were diminishing. Then it seems, cops had their say, I the signal started clearing slowly. As the signal cleared, I saw red PMT slowly approaching towards bus stop. We were, at least 10 people
waiving hands for the bus. The bus came, driver saw us, but it seems he forgot to apply the brakes. Bus did not stop. Few tried running behind it. But I was experienced traveler, I knew, "जो एक बार छुट जाती है, वो वापस नहीं मिलेगी".

It was first sight of anger.

I decided, now I will straight away reach the bus depot by catching next bus and will complain against driver. How the hell he could just ditch us? (So insane of me!!) After some time, private bus came, he stopped and asked "Chinchwad ka?", I jumped into the bus. There was no question of crowd, standing journey – bus was empty. Some radio channel was playing chartbusters. I sat happily. By the time, I reached half way, the music had its effect. I left idea of complain, thinking "जो होता है, अच्छे के किये होता है". If I would have got into PMT, it was for sure standing journey. Compared to it, this one is better with some good numbers running in background J

But day wasn't over yet. I reached home, power cut, which was supposed to be from 8 to 6, wasn't over yet, although it was already 8.30. As there was no light, there was no water. And mom decided not to cook, so there was no food. So we had no option, but to eat outside. We went to nearby restaurant, had dinner. Thank god no surprises there!!

When we came back, dark house was welcoming us. It was 10, and light wasn't still there. Before I parked my scooter, I called MSEB. By the way, I have special affair with MSEB, I don't need address book for its number, it's by heart – 27275163. As usual, it was busy. I had no patience to deal with now.

Second instance of anger.

Now, I am going to complain. So I was riding my small scooter through dark, bumpy road towards the MSEB office. I reached office – To see that locked shutter was waiting for me there. What the hell? If the damn office is locked, how come its phone is busy? It should ring, but the staff was much smarter than me. The notice board was displaying number of head office. So I called there. After 10 tries and at least 200 rings the person picked up. Thank god!!
I was almost about to explode now.  I asked,

"Where is your office in Tathwade?"

"Near Pandit pertolpump, so and so chambers"

"I am standing there, it is locked."

The person on the other side of phone was little surprised after this. He says

"Can you try its phone -  its 27275163"

I shouted, "I have been trying it for ages now, and hence here I am coming here to visit it"

"Give me number of your RTI officer"

Now suddenly he was more polite, "Sir, I don't have it. You can get it in our head-office. "

Waw, head-office of head-office!!!

"Give me its phone number"

"27271402, but sir no one will be there now. It closes at 6."

"Ok"

I dialed the head-office number, and the cassette started "Please check the number you have dialed"

I was bursting with anger. There was nothing I could do, So here I am writing it down. Capturing the "Reaction"!!