An open letter to Mr. Prime minister

Congratulations Sir! What you have done is truly amazing. To get a mandate such as this, is some thing which not many people has done. I know the amount of hard work and discipline put in to this and hats off to that sir. Hope and pray this mandate gets the work it deserves.

Sir, but to be frank I am a bit skeptical. I am as passionate about this country and its people as you are; And so I hope you will take us (all these skeptics) along, in this path of the so called development.

Sir, let us be honest first. This ministry of yours is not made up of saints. There may be good people. But for the first time in Indian history, 34% of the MPs who won yesterday have criminal records and that is sad. So the first job you have in your hand is to keep track on them. Remember, the previous prime minister was considered clean, yet his ministry was also considered the most corrupt in the post independence India. There are rats in every ship sir and hope you are aware of them. If you don't kill them quickly they will eat up your mandate soon.

Sir, When you said "India has won" after yesterday's victory lot of people said they had goose bumps! I am sorry sir. I din't. It smelled gracelessness. India has not won yet sir. Your party won. All those who voted against you also wanted India to win. And for that to happen, you have to work with an integrity and passion which is unmatched. Your own state which you had ruled for a decade now has yet to give even food to all its people. And if that is the plight of the so called most developed state, imagine the other states. And this sir, is only one of the works to be done for India to win!And there are many many more.

Sir, There are minorities in this country who don't trust you. And you know this better than I do. And they have reasons for it. If you want this country to win, minorities also have to be taken along. Sir, as you would have known now, your ministry is the one with the least number of minorities in independent history. And let this not hamper you in taking them along.

Sir, I hope you know there are your followers who abuse anybody who oppose you at the drop of a pen. I also hope sir, that you know it reflects on you badly. When taking the country forward teach them grace. Grace is the best way to reach people sir. Believe me, It is!

Sir, I know you used a lot of money from the capitalists. Sadly I agree, without them it is not possible to win elections in this country. But sir, If you go out of the way to give whatever you got, Life in this country for the common man will be,well-nigh impossible.

Sir, economic development in this country is sadly measured by stock markets and GDP. But this is not how it should be measured. Education, health and sanitation are important factors which are to be taken in to consideration. Without measuring them, any growth is a sham sir. There are good economists who can show you the way, if only you take them in consideration.

I know you have just won a huge election and it is time to celebrate. Celebrate sir! It is after all a huge victory. But then your honey moon period will be too small and if you don't start delivering on the promises, people won't forgive. If you want to know about that sir, ask your predecessors. They know it all too well!

All the best sir in your endeavour to make India win. God be with you.

Why I cannot not write on her!

There are people I admire and there are people I love! Yes, both are different. And when she called me today just to tell me a 'hi' I realized that she belongs to both the categories. I love her for what she is, a friend I can go to and a sister who has stood with me and I admire her for the personality she is and the life she lives.

Sudarshinika, is somebody who has been pretty close to me for years now. Ever since her young son Oby became my fan(Yes! my fan) as a toddler, we have been close. And she has been one of my best friends since then.

I love her for she has been my go to person for anything and everything. For the failures and disappointments, for the times of shock and disgust and to the days of immense joy hers has been the first go to number for years now. And she has been wonderful! 'Wonderful' is too small a word I think.

And did n't I tell you I respect her? Not for all the love she has poured out, but for the life she lives and the personality she is! The honesty and the integrity she brings to her workplace, the love she has shown on her inlaws, the ways she brings up her little children and to top it all the humility she is bestowed with, have all been lessons for life.

Akka, not many people know what you are to me! Life has thrown a lot of wonderful people at me, yet you are special. Thanks for everything you have given. Hope you remain the same incredible human being you are, and remain the special person you are to me in the years to come.

  

On elections and the political discourse!

So, the greatest(should it be the 'largest'?) event happening on the face of the earth, the Indian elections, is underway. The newspapers, the twitter, the FB, and the daily luncheon conversations have been all about this event. I wish elections have a more direct impact on the daily life of people than just be the topics of discussions around dinner tables. Sadly, It has always remained a wish.

So, what do we talk? I mean, what are the conversations all about? Is it the general rhetoric about which of the leader is more stupid? or have our chats become more deeper about policy making, capitalism, socialism and stuff's like that?

I have a sense that the common man just reflects the political discourse at the highest levels and sadly at the highest levels, it is a mess. An absolute mess!

What else can we expect when Baba Ramdev, Amit Shah, Subramaniam Swamy, Priyanka Vadra, Digvijay Singh, Madhukishwar, Vijayakanth,(and the list is endless)dominate proceedings? So we abuse, we yell, we crib and shout the very same non sense these people do from the podiums.

It that all it is to run a country? Should not we, the blog readers, people on FB and twitter, the educated and having access to computers be atleast debating the deeper stuff? Like the Food security bill, the pakistani foreign policy or the right to education etc? Should not atleast the educated media debate meaningful stuff rather than throwing muck on each other?

Daily discourse on who is more stupid of the lot will lead us nowhere? I mean, how do you mark stupidity on a scale? and some of our so called leaders stupidity is almost immeasurable!

Let us change our daily conversations. Make it more meaningful, more worthy, using more of our intellect than our hearts. May be in the process, we will make the political discourse from the podiums better.

In moments like these.....

I really don't know why I had to do this. Sitting in my room, alone, hundred kilometres away from my sick mom, a person who had loved me more than anybody else can even dream of and typing randomly in a page I don't like reading again.

I don't know why anybody had to go through so much pain. Mentally, physically, emotionally it had been draining her the last three weeks. Of course, the 'why' question had to come here? Why should it be her? One of the best human beings that this planet could ever see! Why so much pain? Why so early? I mean, she is all of 53!

I don't know what is going through her mind. Is she thinking about her children not getting settled yet? Or is she thinking about the hospital and the patients for whom she had lived for almost thirty years now? Or is she thinking about the man she had loved like crazy all these years? Or is she thinking about her brothers and sisters and their families whom she loved so much? 

I don't know, rather I don't understand most of what the docs say. Indeed I have decided not to even try to understand. I know I cannot do anything about it; I know the docs know better and they mean good for her. I believe pain is a part of life and the design. And I don't know the reason for it.

Sorry for the emotional rant, without any meaning. I don't know what to do.....

In moments like these....

A life the world was not worthy of!

I wish she had been here to read this. I could see her get excited at the very thought of some body writing on her. Sadly, she is not here. The world is not worthy of such a life. And truly, she does n't deserve such a world.

Her mother had tried suicide twice when she was in her womb. Once when she was a kid! Father ran away, never to come again. She was taken to an orphanage when she was in her pre school years. Clearly, her childhood was in tatters. But the orphanage took care of her well enough to keep her happy. Never during the my six months of acquaintance with her, she has spoken badly about her childhood. She studied hard. Hard enough to top the school. Yet, the mother did not have enough money to send her to college. Neither were the orphanage willing to take her.

She joined as a STD booth operator. Learnt DTP by seeing how her colleague works. Then learnt some computers and some spoken English on her own. Slowly, she got a job as a trainer in an IT firm. All on her own. She travelled far and wide, across the country. The money was slowly coming in and life looked set to turn for good until that day.

It was a regular medical check up in her office. And the results showed some abnormality. After a wrong diagnosis of tuberculosis, it was confirmed as Cancer. She was all of 25! Has just started living life. The world broke down before her. She did not have the money for treatment neither had any body to take care off. But there were friends, friend's of friends and some good hearts who indeed took care of her. And after seven long years of chemo, Cancer recurrence, a lot of pain, the loss of hair and a whole lot of humiliation, she passed away yesterday. Dare I say thankfully, there is no more pain.

I was there in the hospital the whole day. She had died the previous night. Yet, the hospital did not declare death. They asked for 10 units of blood, which we frantically arranged. Then they said, there is a 10% chances of her survival if we do an operation; But there she was, no pulse, on ventilator. What was the hospital trying to tell us? That they will bring back a dead? Or was she still alive? Was the hospital cheating us? Not many questions had answers. After a lot of struggle, the hospital discharged her. And we confirmed death (Dead for a long time) in the government hospital.

I know her for 6 months. Saw her smiling away her worries in a TV programme and contacted her. The day she spoke in our bible study nobody had dry eyes. Yet she was smiling! She called me many times to tell what to do for my sick mom! Went all the way to another hospital to help a friend three days after her chemo. When she had no money, called another orphan who had no where to go to be with her. And boy, she made that girl live life.

Yesterday when I was there in the hospital reflecting on a life, that was bruised and battered all along, the thing that stood up was that, "she was happy"! She lived a normal life, helped people, amidst all the chaos the world around was.

On her death bed a friend joked, that she will have to give us a treat before she dies! She was all game. She lived her life. May be, she is happy out there now. And dare I say thankfully, she died. The big bad world is not worthy of her.

RIP ka! We will catch up at the other end of the world. Treat Pending!!!

Forgiveness the way forward?

For once I had to pity Rahul Gandhi. For all his theatrics and stupidity, he came across today as some one who was genuinely sad. He had seen his dad blasted off at a pretty young age. And today when somebody unrelated to him decides to forgive his dad's murderers to get the votes which spills out of this, I can understand his sadness.

A Prime minister and some policemen with him were killed. The killers were given capital punishment and after the supreme court's intervention the punishment was reduced to life imprisonment and suddenly they were freed.They were forgiven. Forgiven of the murder charges. Forgiven of the death penalty. Forgiven of the reduced life imprisonment.

As one part of the world celebrated the decision, another part felt sad. Betrayed! Why forgive? they ask. They have actually murdered the prime minister of the country. Then why not forgive Kasab? and Afzal guru? Why selective forgiveness? And why forgiveness in the first place?

Alright, they were forgiven as they have spent enough time of their lives in prison. Then, how long is too long? I mean, why not forgive after 5 years and not 25 years? How many murders will be forgiven? I mean, if I kill one person and I am forgiven, what if I kill 7?

Ha! the question marks are becoming too many and too complicated for comfort.

Because it became complicated I shut my mind off and decided to listen to the heart. And the heart says forgive. Forgive 7 murders. Forgive 77 murders.Forgive after 5 years. Forgive after 15 years. If the judicial system intends to be reformative instead of being retributive, it has to forgive.

I'm not in anyway against punishment. But just saying, forgiveness has to come at some point after punishment.

I'm sorry Rahul. I can feel your pain. I know it is easier for me to say 'forgive'. But forgiveness alone promotes the humanising belief that even the offenders can be saved and not just be punished.

Of weekends and a best friend's wedding!

So what happens when one your best friend decides to get married? And it happens on a weekend with a choral performance on the morning of the weekend? Fun! is the best word i can put in here. And what fun it was!

'J' Decided to get married two months ago. No! He decided loooooong back......The bride searching went on for some time.I surely know how long it takes. Believe me, I am going through it. After the usual 'yeses' and 'Nos' he finally settled down on this girl 'P'. It took a long time coming though. And so in the last two months of his pre marital life, we had 6 treats, innumerable discussions on the wedding plans including the gifting, the travelling etc etc.

All of a sudden the day came. We friends had arranged a car to take the long 500 Km, 7-8 hour drive. 'J' as usual joined us, without informing his parents and 'P' of course. I mean, he was supposed to take a train and that is all the parents and 'P' knew. So we started around 3 PM, and had to pick up my cousin on the way. The car was packed to its brim. Indian style! When we took our first break we realized we had a punctured tyre. After all we are IT professionals; Changing tyres should not be an issue. But, IT professionals do not change tyres, do they? It was an incredibly difficult job and we had absolutely no clue how we did it. After changing tyres we realized the spare tyre also is out of air. I again don't know why we did not find that out before replacing the tyres.I told you, we are stupid. I mean, we are IT professionals after all. So, both the tyres were repaired and we reached the place were my cousin is 2 hours late. And it was already dark!

Thanks to my aunt we had some poori's for dinner, though I still doubt its veracity. Some said it was 'appalam'. I'm confused! As soon as we started 'P' called 'J'. Remember, he is in the train? So all of us had to do a train journey impersonations. 'P' believed. She is naive after all. Girls are,usually before marriage! After a good, (Ok!) decent dinner we reached home at around 1:30 AM. When i entered another cousin of mine who had come for a choir programme the next day was wide awake. So the chatting started! and the laughing! and it was 4:30 AM. Time to go to bed!. I had to get up at 7:00 AM for the choir programme and it was worth every bit of effort to get up. Listening to Handel's classics and Theodore's modern Tamil numbers were just out of  this world. At least 'Out of this world' is the phrase the choir had asked me to use here.

So, After the mandatory sunday afternoon biriyani, we were up and running again. In the mean time the car had another puncture and so another hour of running around with the tyre. We had a 2 hour drive after the tyres got repaired and were in time for the engagement ceremony. After the engagement ceremony, we realized the best friend had not booked rooms for us to stay and we have to move to your uncle's place. I understand him! He is after all my best friend. There is always the time to reciprocate:)

Then again a night of chatting and laughter in the uncle's place. Another early morning getting up after having a few hours of sleep means severe headache. But, can't rest! after all our best friend is the groom. The marriage ceremony went on really well!  It can't go wrong! We were there. And then the reception happened. Of course we had our gifts ready by then. Hell no! I can't reveal the gift here. Immediately after the gifting is done we started back. Did not even wait to eat the biriyani. Of course we had a sumptuous lunch on the way, whose bill will be as usual claimed from 'J'.

The drive again was 10 hours! The car had a sensor malfunction which made the engine switch off once it cross 80 Kms per hour. All this we bore in the name of our best friend 'J' and his wife 'P'. And we reached home at 1 AM again.

 Now we are all geared up for the first treat after he settles down. This is the wedding treat! Don't ask me what the others were.

Life those two days! It was what life was meant to be. Fun!