As time flew by their bond grew ever so stronger, but deep down they both knew they were not destined to be together.  Of such a strong mutual love, hope was born. Hope, that they could be together forever, time would stop when they lay endlessly in each other’s embrace.

Hope also brought in assumptions, assumptions that he knew her, she knew him, as time passed the assumptions became belief that they knew each other too well, that the unspoken was understood, silence conveyed their thoughts.

Of this assumptions and beliefs expectations arose, expectations to be there when needed. Expectations those were hard to fulfill.  He never understood her endless silence and reluctances. He expected her to talk, even to fight if she was angry at him, but he never told her that and she never did it. She silently suffered and made him suffer. She never understood his aggression, she expected him to understand her silence, to read through eyes, to hold her hands but she never told him that and he never did it.

He was afraid, scared, scared to lose her. He knew he would. He knew there was no hope or light at the end of the tunnel. He knew that one fine day he will return home to loneliness and despair. The fear of losing her made him do crazy things. Crazy things that only one who is deeply in love and who is scared of losing someone he loves could do. Love makes one do such crazy things. But these crazy things pushed them apart. She never understood him and his weird acts. The distance between them grew so big that nothing could bridge it.

He still cared for her, loved her lot, but she started taking things for granted. He understood the aloofness but could not do anything. He wanted to fill the emptiness; the void that time had created in their relationship, but she had resigned. She no longer wanted it, as per her it was over.

His feelings were crushed; the love that seemed so beautiful years ago was now a synonym to pain. He cried, he cried even after the tears dried.

And then, fir kya “uske mohalle mai Aishwarya aaye.. ow o o.. oh o oww” ( courtesy Munna bhai MBBS song titled “kal raat apun 2 baje tak piya”.) (And then, Aishwarya came into the neighborhood) J

Everyone except for US Senate, and probably the bleeding music industry is against SOPA and PIPA, because everyone feels that it would curtail their freedom and right to express their views. Though the bills are supposed to be introduced in US senate, it would affect everyone across the globe, since internet cannot be confined to geographies.

I was not surprised to see that the blackening out happened in US and not in India. I do not think Indians can afford to or are even willing to black out.  We are concerned about our freedom of expression but deep down we know that come what may we can get around any bill, bypass any laws, have a workaround ready, juggad in place to tackle any such situation. We know no one can stop us bantering on politics, current affairs, cricket at a pan shop or at a ‘tapri’ while drinking tea.

These bills are just another reason for us to use our freedom of expression by talking about it on social networks. I wonder what the term “freedom of expression” means to us, us collectively as Indian citizens.

Many of my relatively young friends use the F word with such an ease in their talks, on their status updates on Facebook that it makes me think, is fuck synonym to freedom?

I had a subject called as ‘Civics’ in my school curriculum and it talked about our duties and our rights. I remember my school teacher beautifully put it into the words that, “We should exercise our rights only when we are performing all our duties properly.” Duties should come before rights. I wonder how many of us even know that with the 6 fundamentals rights that the constitution gives us it also includes a set of 10 duties that a citizen requires to perform in order to help his/her country to grow and prosper.

I feel that we talk, write, blabber, and complain a lot. Social media such as Facebook, twitter, orkut and blogs have helped many shy people come out of their shell and talk anonymously or even openly. We are tapping the full potential of social media to complain, but not to bring about a change. The action is missing. And now people are scared that SOPA, PIPA or any other such bill which helped them come out of shell may put them back.

It is time now to perform our duties, before exercising or even before complaining about our rights.

P.S: Even wordpress has blacked out:

Why I am even writing about him? Well he is in news, the hype is created, for whom, by whom and what for does not really matter. The point is he is news.  India is taking advantage of the fact that he is controversial and in news. Newspaper by filling in their columns, news channel by airing debates and talk shows, random people by appearing on these debates and bloggers like me blogging about it, him.

Our honorable Prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh recently talked about malnutrition, and then there is poverty, economic crisis, corruption, shelter, food, education, my own project deadlines, so many more important issues which needs to be tackled with utmost priority, but no, no, we are more concerned about a person of Indian origin who is an accomplished writer, not being allowed to enter India to attend a literary festival.  We are more concerned on how a book written by him 23 years ago can break the harmony; disrupt the country by enticing communal violence and maybe, probably affect the reservation card played by congress in the U.P assembly election.

I keep asking myself this question getting no answers from within, where are we heading as a country and what am I doing?

I wonder if the code of conduct can actually be implemented, and is restricted to just the statues, because according to the same logic they should also order for covering up of all the live elephants in U.P, after all they are the symbol of BSP. I guess the same stands true for Mayawati as well, if you want her statues to be covered, shouldn’t she be covered as well. I know she dresses appropriately, but by covering I meant the same way as they would be covering her statue. And in any case she is far more pursuing in actual than the statues.

What about other parties? The electoral symbol of the Congress party is the palm. Who is going to cover all the palms? What about bicycle of Samajwadi party? Should none in UP be allowed to ride or use a bicycle?

I wonder how all the political parties agree to the standard without questioning. And will there be a time when the code of conduct and model during the elections is more realistic, intellectual and upright.

This article is in line with and use reference from the editorial published in Deccan Chronicle yesterday.

My weird mind started working and an idea for my next blog post started to take shape. How, to a crisis which majorly affects women in the house, all men had gathered. There was no representation from the women cadre. It did not surprise me at all. I had seen this umpteen times before in my life. It was nothing new. But still I wanted to write about it.

And then I learnt another lesson in my life, 10 minutes later 2 ladies walked into the meeting. My idea got crushed before it could have really taken any shape.

This post is homage, a tribute to the idea.

Out of 9 that died, 4 died in single incident when five teenagers who were travelling on a single bike met with an accident. 4 died on the spot and the fifth was seriously injured. Other incidents were also due to multiple pillion riders on 2 wheelers. The traffic police booked around 500 cases of drunk driving and 32 for 2 pillion or more. Numbers speak for themselves.

I firmly believe that though the sad/negative/gory incidents must be reported they should at least be refrained from publishing on the front page. Of million people who read newspaper first thing in the morning, let us give them some hope, some positive to start the day with.

I was also shocked to see a full page debate on the topic “Do girl’s clothes tempt rapists?” and was even more shocked to see that there were equal number of people saying yes girl’s clothes do tempt rapist.  More shocking was the number of girls supporting the statement.  The debate was initiated by AP DGP V.Dinesh Reddy’s remark on cause for rise in rape cases.  Rape is a horrendous crime and a girl’s clothing or the lack of it is by no means an invitation to rape.  How to dress should be completely an individual’s prerogative, but having said that and when one lives in a society where there are people of all sorts, one should also dress for the occasion and place. There is no harm in being a little cautious. Being cautious does not mean loss of your freedom or snatching away of your rights to dress as you want. Rape can never be justified and associating a cause like dressing provocatively just makes the important issue at hand trivial. The focus should be on creating a better place; a better society to live in where in one can live without fear and dress without fear.

I also saw and read Anna Hazare recuperating from chest infection, doctors advising him not to fast in near future. I wish the aging crusader gets well soon, but his illness has come at the wrong time, it must be a jolt to all who thought that a Jan Lokpal would mean no corruption. I am wondering does anyone else in Team Anna have the mass appeal and courage to even fast for a day. God save India from corruption. I hope each one of us resolve to fight corruption on our own and feel shame that a 74 year old has to fast and led an anti-corruption moment to wake us from slumber.

It was also saddening to read about revelers molesting a girl as passerby looked on in the capital on New Year’s Eve. It just shows how back in time we are. The incident is not a onetime occurrence, it almost occur every New Year or I guess every day, reported in media or not. It is a shame!!

It is also a shame to learn about the diktat that non-Hindus may not enter the Jagannath temple at Puri. The name of the deity presiding the temple “Jagannath” means god of the world. Who are we to discriminate? And I am curious to know how one distinguishes a Hindu from a non-Hindu. Any answers? How misguided we are, when it comes to religion.

All I hope for this New Year is world peace, education for lesser privileged, and an award for me where I can deliver these words. Err…

A cure to all disease, a remedy to all your problems has finally arrived. No it is not “Sandhi Sudha” as claimed by a leading (really?) Bollywood actor it is called Jan Lokpal.

Want true democracy? Just support the Jan Lokpal movement!!

True democracy has finally arrived in the form of Jan Lokpal; of the people, by the people and for the people (not in any particular order). The people may be a small group who like to be called as an activist/protestant (not by religion but by nature) and by chance or luck are also the Time, People of the year. A word of advice to Egyptians, Syrians and many mores, don’t just gather on squares and make them famous, sit on a fast, an indefinite one is best choice, because it is definite that it would be broken. You can even fast on a Wall Street.

Want to get married? Just support the Jan Lokpal movement!!

All the mothers wanting  their kid(who is now a full grown adult) to get married, happy news for you, Jan Lokpal is now the new marriage bureau, why not, the chief protagonist has urged the youth to get married, produce children (have babies a better choice of words?) and make them revolutionaries, so probably 20 years down the line, India in school essays can finally be referred as a land of revolutionist, “India is a land of festivals” can finally go on a vacation.

Want to get slim? Just support the Jan Lokpal movement!!

Jan Lokpal is also the new fab diet course, they call on for fasts more quickly than you can imagine. The government currently in power seems in no mood to heed to the Jan Lokpal so you can be pretty sure that you would be fasting for a long time.  The next government which hopefully would not be the same as the current one would require some time, first to gather themselves and then to make amendments in the version of previous governments. So there you got a strict diet plan for next couple of years.

Want to become famous? Just support the Jan Lokpal movement!!

Sure shot way to become famous in jiffy, Jan Lokpal is “the” word.  With all the news channels, newspapers, magazines, media houses devoting so much time on Jan Lokpal, it has surely become easy to get famous, you can do any one of the following:

• Write a blog about Jan Lokpal
• Spam your friends timelines on Facebook and twitter with Jan Lokpal messages
• Wear a Gandhi cap and announce you are not you but someone else.  People think it’s hot
• Organize a candlelight vigil, rally, fast in your society campus for showing your support to the Jan Lokpal movement

Want to slam ministers? Just support the Jan Lokpal movement!!

If you are tired of this government, if you do not like any of the ministers for whatever reason, if you want to hurl abuses at ministers (including the prime minister), you can do so under the banner of Jan Lokpal, the government is so afraid of Jan Lokpal movement that it will not take any action against you. Yes even if you call them chor(thieves), puppets, remote control or the famous “kaan katega”. You are untouchable (in the right sense, not meant to hurt any caste based sentiments).  No need to get worried or angry about the proposition of bill to curtain your freedom of speech. Say anything, even hurting, derogatory comments under the Jan Lokpal banner and get away with it.

Want to earn money? Just support the Jan Lokpal movement!!

Apparently it cost around Rupees 1000 per head for the recent Anti-Corruption movement in Bengaluru.

The event’s expenses as mentioned in Deccan Chronicle are as:

1. Rupees 6 Lakhs: cost to Team A ( I wonder what cost it is)
2. Rupees 1.7 Lakhs: for publicity ( I didn’t knew they pay news channel money to air it)
3. Rupees 1.65 Lakhs: for sound system ( system is too sound)
4. Rupees 1.12 Lakhs: for stage and tent

I always wonder how the cost is always a round figure, and what happens to money that is lost or gained in rounding of the figures? You see how all costs are conveniently in Lakhs, you can earn some money probably by travelling in economy class and claiming for business class.

Where does this money come from? It is all in the form of donations.  Just ask for some money for the Jan Lokpal movement and you will get it. No questions asked.  And yes probably form a NGO that is not funded by the government and you would be out of purview of even the Jan Lokpal.

Money, Marriage, Children, Fame, freedom of speech, democracy, is there any other problem left out, let me know and we will find a cure for it using Jan Lokpal.

P.S: The Jan Lokpal magic potion is patented to me. Any illegal use, copyright infringement will be prosecuted.

Here are some key findings from the report

1. In 2010, only 12% of those who qualified in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) were women.
2. This was a mere 6% just 5 years ago in 2005.
3. In 2010, only 25% of those who appeared for JEE were women (this was 15% in 2005).
4. The success rate in JEE is 3% for men, it is only 1% for women.

So the measures that will encourage women to seek entry into IITs considered essential and the recommendation made by the committee are

• When there is a tie in total marks in JEE, the rank is decided by marks in individual subjects. It is recommended that whenever there is a tie in total marks, women may be ranked higher than men. Individual subject marks may then be used to rank within men and women as before. This will help women get better choices of branch. Also, some more women at the bottom of the merit list may benefit from such a system.
• Women, who get admitted and are required to pay a fee, may be reimbursed 50% of the fee amount by the Government.

I find the recommendation unfair and unjust. I have been suffering from this unjust system since my childhood. In school, girls used to get more marks for presentation than the actual content, for conduct in school rather than actual performance in exam. In college by getting more sessional marks just because they never took part in GTs, were always on time and submitted assignments(though the assignment lacked everything) and that the fact that they were girls use to get them more marks in sessional.  How ridiculous. Even in one of the campus interviews 7 selections were made out of which all 7 were girls from a group of 20 people which got enlisted for final interviews( 7 girls in 20, all get selected). When I questioned the decision, the answer was to maintain a diversity and gender ratio at workplace, oh common, why shortlist boys then??

I am totally against these recommendations; in fact why not use the following or similar recommendations:

1. Create more awareness among girls about JEE
2. Let them have incentives for writing the exam, but when it comes to scoring and ranking it should be totally based on performance and not gender.
3. Loan them money but do not reimburse the amount

Fire safety is one of the most ignored factors in today’s blooming real estate. You may seem new high rise, multistory apartments, and posh ready to occupy office building suits but does one even bother to check if appropriate fire safety precautions have been taken or not?

Indians are the most optimist people in the world, they are also the most courageous, and to top all of it, we have this amazing quality of “moving on with the life”, be it a break up with your girlfriend, you losing your job, hundreds of people getting killed in terror attacks or 93 and counting people blazed and dying because of sheer negligence.  We just move on. We make mistakes, but the problem is we never learn from them. We do not even try.

Of all the people in the world, I thought and believed that people in IT industry who have all the information at a key stroke to them would be more sincere towards fire safety, but watching a fire safety DRILLL in a neighboring office through my office window was another shocker.

People were walking as if they were taking a stroll in a garden; few people were even carrying coffee cups in their hands. Even in my previous organization the approach to the fire safety drill were so lethargic. People thought of it as a time off from work; some thought it was distraction; some even tried to hide in the washroom, how stupid…

The organizations announce beforehand that it is a drill because they do not want employees to panic. But what would happen in case real fire broke out? How many of us really know how to operate a fire extinguisher?  Many of my friends think it is simple and there are always the instruction written on it. But my friends, when the fire breaks out, would you even get the time to read the instructions?

It is easy to blame the administration in case of a hazard, it is right as well, they are responsible, they should be punished, condemned, but at a very minute level, we have some responsibility as well. We should ask questions, but we don’t. How many of us know the fire exits in our favorite shopping malls? Have we ever checked or glanced at the instructions, expiry date mentioned on the red colored cylinder placed at some remote corner of our offices?

After knowing my tweets and Facebook statuses are prescreened, I thought I would probably publish a post before my blog gets on the radar and is prescreened as well.

I am also baffled by the word “Prescreen”, my English is extremely poor and I am still unsure about the exact meaning of “prescreening”. Would it mean that someone would read my mind and stop me from saying, writing, expressing my views?

How good it would be if we could have prescreened crime and corruption.

So the government is introducing the “Prescreening” bill and Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have already announced hunger strikes against it.

BJP and the left are stalling the parliament procedure as usual, but the government is pretty confident that they will get the bill passed.

Mr. Kapil Sibal has announced in a press conference that it will generate at least 2 million jobs since all the tweets, every Facebook status update, all blogs, websites, emails needs to be prescreened. A proposal for FDI in this regards is also being discussed.

Two years down the line the government is planning to rope in a Mr. Nandan Nilekani likes, give him a cabinet rank and make him automate the process. Since it would involve a lot of IT, the people in IT fields are happy. Everybody is expecting a 140% hike in their salary. The top 4 IT companies will soon include a “Prescreening” service in their portfolio.

Microsoft has announced a new version on Windows OS; it is named “Windows Prescreened”, or windows with a screen.

Google has come up with new “Prescreened search” which will display only prescreened search results and web pages.

Mark Zuckerberg is coming up with a new “Prescreened Social Network” idea and the website should be up and running before the bill gets introduced in the parliament.

The telecom companies have been asked to prescreen the sms and phone conversations.  The government has assured that there would be no losses to the exchequer this time round. The likes of Tatas, Radias, BDutts, and VSinghvis are not too happy about phone conversations being prescreened.

You might hear about a “Prescreening scam (ghotala)” some five years down the line.

Airport authorities are confused, whether they need to screen or “prescreen” travelers and their luggage.  Also Mr.  Robert Vadera is exempted from being prescreened at the airports.

Now I have this weird feeling that someone has already logged onto my system and wordpress would not allow me to post this. Funnily instead of “working” or “updating” the status on the site now reads as “Prescreening….please wait and do not close this window”.

P.S: There were few lines about Sonia Gandhi in the post, but unfortunately the lines got removed in the prescreening  process.