Connecting through bizare incidents

In a cool and bright summer morning, I was enjoying my morning walk. The street had very few people but lot of parked cars that gave a feeling of chillness with the moisture deposit on them. It was a business trip, as usual, that trip demanded 96 hours of work per week. It was somewhere in London suburb. I watched a pigeon flying fast towards a shop, dashed in a glass window and fell down. It was just two or three seconds. The pigeon was dead. Another lonely stranger on the street watched the same. We both could not contain our feelings caused by this and almost instantaneously started, "see, what happend?".

It was an evening walk in Sai Baba colony's Bharathy park, a posh area in Coimbatore. It has very big beautiful bungalows. A well fed, but stray dog was flexing its muscles. A cyclist selling tit bits was standing about 12 feet away. He must have been a friend of that dog. He took something like biscuit from his merchandise and showed it to the dog. It was still lazily flexing its muscles. He called the dog couple of times. It decided to walk finally. It moved slowly and smelled what he showed and turned its face slightly. The cyclist had to say, "take it, take it, why are you not taking it" - almost in the tone of a father asking a sleepy kid to eat something kid usually enjoys. The dog finally decided to take it and walked away - lazily, with that biscuit in its mouth. And then, when the cyclist disappeared, the dog put that biscuit on the ground. It felt like the dog did not want to hurt his friend!! A passer by lady and myself saw this incident and we could not contain our amusement. What a "bandha" this dog shows!? - This was exactly we both expressed at the same time.

Philosophical...

Life is perishable. Well known, proven truth. The bitterest one though. A person who was smiling, sorrowing, helping, troubling, thinking was gone and the body mingles with the mother earth. The "memories" & "actions" of a person may stay on depending on the impact they have made while living. I guess this "memories" & "actions" are referred as life-after-death by sages. Human minds probably twisted that into mythics.

Living life without worries is a beautiful thing. Worries may fall under two broad categories - physical based & purely psychological. Some people on earth may be lucky not to have any physical (money, health, etc.) worries. Is there any common man (excluding the people who go spiritual way) on earth who has no psychological (fear, guilt, frustrations, depression, etc.) worries? I doubt it. Is it possible to get rid of psychological worries? Logically, looks like it is possible and easier to get rid of psychological worries than getting rid of the physical worries. Because, psyche is within a person's mind. No external help is required to change your own thoughts. The formation of a worry within a mind can be solved by not letting the mind to form it. Yet, it is elusive to get that freedom from worries!

Life is perishable and unless life is lived to the fullest without worries, life feels a waste. Whatever may be the achievements or failures.

India's infrastructure

India's infrastructure could be frustrating and amazing at the same time.

I think we have great fundamental infrastructure. The post offices, hospitals, rural schools, the ability to take electoral votes from every nook and corner, the railways, the ration shops, police stations, agricultural offices - are all pretty impressive.

All it requires is little more effort to make the government staff work more. If Postal department has effectively run courier service, so much of the private couriers' revenue will be Government's now.

I think, India can become 60% better just by making Government staff work as they would work in a private company. Even if the corruption stays at its current level, just by making people work will bring a great difference. Making Government Staff accountable for errors itself will help us to go to a better state.

US security & the controversies

Ex-President Abdul Kalam was security checked by an US airlines in India. The well known Bollywood actor Sharukh Khan went through secondary security check in Newark airport in US... The latest controversies.

It is understandable that US has every reason to impose security procedures. However, US seems to be either provoking or not so amiable in treating Indians.

Quite often I have seen Indian security officials thoroughly checking foreigners. It is quite a wrong perception that Indian security personnel are liberal with westerners. Westeners are treated amiably by Indian security personnel though. However, western political & business leaders also get more respect from us than given to us.

Being Indians, we go through somewhat not so amiable procedure in some airports. There is "Channel B" in Singapore airport for Chennai bound planes. We need to go through extra security check. A caucacian fellow passenger from Belgium next to us may easily pass through Boston airport immigration, whereas, we, with Indian identity will need to answer lot of questions.

Treating Abdul Kalam same as ordinary citizens is not certainly right. If US wants to impose their security procedure on India's high profile leaders, ofcourse they can do it, but with protocol specific respect. India should ensure that the US provides the right protocol specific treatment for India's leaders.

Sharukh Khan not being a political leader, he need not get any security exemption compared to ordinary citizens. However, his security clearances could have been made easier and not so frustrating for him considering the fact that he is a well known artist from India.

huh.... the weight of a nation outweighs the virtue of individuals... Huh...

Good old times

Every now and then we come across people who say the older times were good. The view of the world through past events looks indeed good in all angles.

The dinner in the wedding ceremonies are quite different from the "good" old days. Now, you get to experience noodles, salad, curd rice on banana leaf. Sounds international. In "good" old days, it was biriyani, fried side dish, halwa & payasam - more authentic and well known to taste buds.

Think of traffic. Good old days had lesser cars and lesser two wheelers. People who had two wheelers and cars were really proud. Traffic was manageable and there was pride. Cars and two wheelers are the items of necessity now. The very thought of traffic makes you feel tired and sleepy.

Then, the facts of being an IT professional. Good old times provided air tickets and accommodation in 5 star hotels, $200 per day for meals and drinks ! Now, it is train tickets or bus for the worst, stay in bed & breakfast like guest house accommodations on shared basis and Rs. 200 per meal. To top it all, travel is permitted only on weekends. Weekday,week mornings, week evenings are all for the company.

After all, there is truth that good old times are better as one gets older. I just notice that young people (less than 14..) are not very nostalgic... How nicely they just enjoy the new toys and not worry about the broken toys of past?

Srinlankan Tamils

It is heartbreaking to see people are on the streets. It is even more heart breaking to see people confined in camps.

As human beings, we claim that we are civilized more than ever and we are technologically advanced in unprecedented way.

Why aren't we able to solve such problems especially when everything is controllable by collaborative brains !!

Nano

Nano - the cute little car. Everybody who have seen it, praised it.

This is somebody's experience on booking Nano through ICICI bank's web site.

The ICICI bank's web site says the following ( http://www.icicibank.com/pfsuser/webnews/nano/benefits.html )

- Simple online application procedure.
- Fast Processing.
- Almost zero paperwork.
- No long queues.
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You know what, after doing your clicks and a confirmation screen, you may think everything is done so easily as promised. Then, an e-mail arrives from ICICI asking you to fill few forms and go in person with the originals to prove your identity, residence, and so on. Read the above again. It says "Almost" zero paperwork. Except this "Almost", no other warnings were given while you were happily doing the clicks.

When you have booked online on 25-Apr-2009, and the e-mail arrives with instructions to submit all the documents "in person" before 24-Apr-2009, you realize the truth !! You have lost your precious time and money!

There are other usual problems of the internet links. In the e-mail sent, ICICI bank said the following link can be used to find out the list of ICICI bank branches in which the documents can be submitted in person. But, that link returned error message. [ http://www.icicibank.com/pfsuser/webnews/nano/index.html/ICICI_Bank_Branch_List.html ]

My question now is who benefits from this non-refundable amount? Is it Tata or ICICI bank?

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I'm editing this blog on 16-Aug-2009. There were lot of communications later from Tata giving options to respond.

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