Tryst with the Monsoons in Madras…

Yesterday would have been a just another had when I took off from office and went to my violin but for the rains in Madras.



It was pouring in the city and people had taken off from offices because they could not commute. I also happened to take off from office. In spite of people back home asking me not to go to my class (in Mylapore) I decided to go to my class in the morning. Dad had dropped me in Tenampet on his way to office. By the time I reached the class after going to temple at Alwarpet, I partly drenched. I had some work in the UTI Bank in RK Salai, before I could leave for home. Having done all work I decided to take a bus from the yellow pages stop in the RK Salai. As I started walking towards the bus stop, I was fully drenched in rain. I decided to stop near the bridge as I was not able to walk due to knee deep water. I stood there for more than half an hour, before I started looking out for an auto. I could not find an autowallah, I called up a private taxi service to enquire if I could get a taxi. I was told that the taxi would be sent on to a address and can not pick a person waiting on the road. I could not move from that place for the next one hour. I had no other go but to stand there patiently. By then I started to feel feverish and palm were paining due to standing in the water for more than hour. I finally I managed to move from that place and got into an auto. I suddenly decided go to my dentists place in KK Nagar before I go home. I meet a friend of my mine staying nearby. She gave a big chocolate (Mars). I finally managed to get a 11H, reach home enjoying that window seat got and munching that mars in the bus.

By the time I reached home I was down with light fever and aching feet & palms. Unable to take the pain, I had to take a few pills. As I was lying the bed, I was thinking if I really had to go to the class to day in this rain. Probably it was just this PASSION for the instrument that drove me to go to the class on the raining Saturday. This pain seemed so trivial in comparison to satisfaction that I got in playing this in instrument.

Tribute

Paying homage to more than 2,000 Sikhs, who were massacred in the roads of Delhi in a sponsored genocide against them, 25 years back…

MGREGA – A Stock Taking

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA is the mamoth job guarantee scheme which came into existence in 2005. The central government outlay for the scheme is Rs. 39,100 crores 2009-10.The scheme provides for a legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage of Rs.100 per day.



The act was indented to improve the purchasing power of the rural people, primarily semi or un-skilled work to people living in rural India, whether or not they are below the poverty line. Surprisingly, this programme was named after Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act on 2nd October, 2009 AND NOT AFTER INDIRA GANDHI OR RAJIV GANDHI!!!

It has been into existence for the past three years and has been expanded to various regions of India. It is this programme which is said to have helped the congress led coalition to retain power.

SOME CONCRENS

In recent months there have been massive delays in wage payments around the country, causing immense hardship to NREGS workers. Underlying this state of affairs is the breakdown of grievance redress systems. All the grievance redress provisions of the NREGA have been sidelined, including, for instance, the provisions for unemployment allowance, for penalties on errant officials, for compensation in the event of delayed wage payments or for framing of Grievance Redress Rules. The Central and State governments don’t seem to be interested in making themselves
accountable to the people.



There is a wide spread instance of exploitation of the workers especially the ones who are not literate. There have been numourous instance of “hoarding” of job cards by sarpanchs, panchayat secretaries. This shows a clear evidence of fudging of records and siphoning off NREGS funds.

NO CONSTRUCTIVE INFRASTRUCTURE

The NREGS has faced criticism that the kind of infrastructure it is building contributes nothing to the overall development of the country. It has been reduced to only have populist character without being truly constructive.
It is true that the technical standards of NREGS works are often quite low. Most of them are not productive. The attempt upto the wage payment stage itself takes so much effort that audit of the quality of work become very difficult and the politicians are least bothered about the infrastructure.

REVIVAL OF THE AGRARIAN ECONOMY



At most NREGA if implemented well can be used to provide a good form of social security in rural areas. The NREGS can also help revive the rural economy, by creating productive assets, generating purchasing power, strengthening institutions of local governance and promoting new standards of transparency.
NREGA is not a tool to implement solution or an alternative to the lack of public investment in rural/Agrarian infrastructure.

BENEFIT TO MARGINALISED COMMUNITIES

It’s the marginalized communities are the primary beneficiaries of the NREGS. Most of to benefit are the landless farmers belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe families. Similarly, the proportion of women among NREGS workers is close to 50 per cent, and rising year after year.
In this post I have mostly tried to analyze the negative aspects of NREGA’s implementation. In upcoming post, I would try to write to write about the various benefits of scheme and improvements that can done to ensure better productivity of the funds that is spent on it.

What it takes to be a Madrasi!!!

I write this post after a week’s trip to Delhi, couple of months back. This is the place where I was born brought up and spent close to first 17 years of my life. During this trip, I started to get a creepy feel, of being out of place. The place where I have spent most of life started to seem like a foreign land. All these four years, I probably have become a Madrasi… finally!!!



Some things that can make a complete Madrasi!!!
1) When you complete a near 'perfect' executive chinese meal in a nice indian chinese restaurant and CRAVE for curd to end the meal!!!
2) When you talk about how "punjus" will be punjus...and "gujjus" will be gujjus and how south indians are less complicated!!!
3) When you take the book/newspaper to the loo, after all its knowledge gaining thats Important, how does it matter WHERE?
4) When pickle is the “sidedish” with everything – rice or roti!!!
5) When you discuss rajini kanth for timepass.. his life, his movies, his marriage, his school, his daughter, his son in law!!!
6) When you ENJOY sardar jokes and then talk about how we shud not make fun of sardarjis the way we all do.
7) When you HATE these Hindi speaking fellows make fun of the tamilified/goltified/kanadafied hindi we speak...like they speak good tamil/telegu/kannada themselves...hmpf!



Probably... I have just started loving being a Madrasi!!!

Just another Bye!!!

The Characters

1) Ram – A Filthy rich guy. He is arrogant and it shows in his attitude. Probably, his arrogance is justified, for the kind of wealth he has.
2) Santoo – He thinks he is way to cunning and shrewd, but he is not. Often makes a clown of him self. Great at communication, a big time flirt and can be really good & Helpful if he wants to be!
3) Mahesh – Just another guy… nothing really special about him worth mentioning…he is reserved and only talks to these two people in college
4) Ami – good looking girl of an enticing nature

The Episode

This story revolves around three people (Ram, Santoo and Mahesh) in the second year of their college days. They have been real good friends since the start of college. Ram and Santoo do have a lot of quarrels in between them. They don’t have any thing against each other, it is just about their personal egos clashing. Mahesh is the one who also remain subdued and shy. Neither is Mahesh rich nor does have the communication skills, so he usually ends up playing the second fiddle in any argument.

Things are great till start of second year, till Ami comes into the picture. Santoo meets Ami in Spanish class and has a big crush on her. He gets obsessed about her and starts discussing about her frequently in class. Ram starts to develop an inferiority complex towards him and wants Santoo to stop talking about Ami in the class. Mahesh finds him self in a very difficult position when Ram and Santoo want him to take their own sides. Things go worse when Ram and Santoo stop talking to each other.

Santoo tries to justify Mahesh about his position. To Mahesh, its a near impossible thing to go against his conviction. Mahesh disagrees… Santoo say he wont talk to him any more… Mahesh asks for Santoo’s mobile and to Santoo’s surprise he decides to delete his contact from Santoo’s mobile. He offer his mobile to Santoo and asks him to do the same… Santoo’s shoked and leaves that place… they stop talking to each other after this incident… this is just one of the many instances where Mahesh loses his friends just because he can deviate a little from his own values and belief… By now he is used to parting with good friend... For Mahesh it was just another GOOD BYE!

First Blog Anniversary!

There is special day in every bloggers life, when one starts with posting some content on it. Today marks the first anniversary of that day. The blog started with a very loyal reader, thats Me, Myself. Then after some time, the blog started to receive some hits, as I passed on the links to some people around me. Its been a great time blogging. Posted a lot of views, my own beliefs and opinion on a variety of issues... and more importantly received a lot of comments… the hit counter has recorded more than 4000 visits… have 32 people as fans (out of this 32, I compelled 2 of my friends to follow…lol).



Hope to post some sensible content in future… thanks a lot fans and readers!!!

My Experiments with Frankness

It there is one trait of mine that establishes my uniqueness, that’s Frankness…, bluntness…, outspokenness. Often I have felt, being a veteran (when I comes to being outspoken), I am one of those very few, who has the right to write or comment about this. This has tendency of mine influenced a lot of things in my life… both good and bad… Its this attributes of mine that makes people think I am egotistical, overconfident, at times stupid, selfish, heartless, merciless, an asshole... Blah... Blah… Blah...

I sincerely don’t understand when things can put in simple and succinct manner, why people have to be use lengthy and boring. If you want to call some friend to your place, “COME HERE” is any day better than writing some application letter requesting him or her to come… This by no measure means any disrespect or disregard to that person.

Another big thing, when you are bold enough to tell a person, that he is wrong, its always taken I the wrong sense. I have always believed there only one trait that connects all Indians, that’s SYCOPHANCY. We Indian are used only to hear sweet things about themselves. People don’t understand, it is always better to be receptive while going wrong than wait for a disaster to happen. It hurts the most when comments are not received well even by near and dear ones. Especially when they think this is dome to de-motivate them or to hurt them. The intend is only with tell the fault to them rather than some one anonymous guy telling.

Well… I have mostly faced the wrath of people around me due to trait… have lost good friends…Probably, telling that I have screwed up whole of my social life, wont be an understatement either... When I ponder over the question of whether I regret over this trait of mine… I probably I don’t find a conclusive answer to this question… And whether I plan to reduce my levels of frankness… I remain to be the same with lots of optimism to have many friends and lot of people around me who are mature enough to understand that what is said is only for there good.(might not sound great to ears but certainly good for them).