Stop AND (Not OR) I'll Shoot..

Talk about irony. The NOIDA (UP) police has just come up with a novel way of combatting high jacking of cars on the NOIDA-Greater NOIDA Expressway. Their answer is to FINE people who OFFER lifts. Yes, that is right. If you offer someone a lift on the Expressway, the cops will thoko you with a heavy challan. Doesnt matter whether or not your passenger was really in distress.

If you cant catch the crooks, punish the people who get robbed. 'Yes Mr.Gupta, it is your fault that you didnt take stricter protection measures.' Lol.. As per the press release, in case you see an old person stranded, or a woman in distress or even an accident victim, you are suppposed to keep your eyes on the road and floor the accelerator. And once you come to the end of the expressway, you can go to the police station and tell the kind cops there that there was a life and death situation 15 kms and 20 mins back which they can go investigate.

Come to think of it, it seems like a radical idea. So by extension, people should get fined for the following:

1. Getting run over by Delhi's Blue Line buses - 'who told you to go 50 metres within a bus stand?'
2. Helping someone cross the road - 'Did you know how many people get knocked down every day on the road?'
3. Sending your new neighbours food & water - 'We live in dangerous times. Dont trust anyone. The food might be drugged'
4. Bringing someone else's child home along with yours - 'You might want to kidnap this child coz he's better at studies than your duffer son'

And then people accuse Indians of becoming callous and uncaring...

Pay Me to Fly

Today's headline in the Hindustantimes brought a BIG smile to my face. The Delhi Consumer Court has asked Go Airlines to pay people 15k for a delay/cancellation in Feb this year. Too cool. Since I've been busting up a lot of money flying around the countryside the last couple of months, I know firsthand how frustrating it is to receive an SMS saying, 'We regret that your flight will be delayed by XX hours because of the late arrival of the incoming aircraft'. Sweet mother of a holy man. Thats like saying, 'The patient died because he stopped living'. I am all for free markets and open trade, but the state of consumer rights in this country really needs improvement. For years now, airlines have been giving us 5th world service and we've had no choice but to lump it.

I remember when I left ISB in April '07 and went to Bombay (yes, Bombay not Mumbai) via a SpiceJet flight. It was supposed to leave at 2150, but got delayed to 0015. Thats a delay of 2 hours and 25 minutes. Now as anyone who has flown will tell you, the only food worse than airLINE food is airPORT food. Naturally, yours truly was more than keen to avoid spending his last meal in Hyderabad consuming some stale fare. And since the delay in the flight would mean I would reach Bombay around 0200 in the morning, I thought that we would be given something to eat by SpiceJet. I thought wrong. The smiling lady at the counter told me that it was a SpiceJet policy to serve meals only if the flight was delayed by 3 hours!!!

Yes that is right. Even if you reach your home at a godforsaken hour of 2-3 AM, when no sober soul is awake, you will not be given anything to eat. $%^&*(*^%$%^&*... that was my reaction. So to all the SpiceJets, BlandJets, Air Deccans, Air Himalayas, Go Airs, Come Airs.. serves you right!!! Wooooo hoooo.... High time I say. Make em pay.

Thinking strategically, how about getting other industries to pay us for unexceptable services? A list that might make sense is:

1. Phone companies for all the dropped calls or miss call alerts when your phone was within range
2. Neo Sports and DD Sports for eating up the last ball of every over and the first one of the subsequent over
3. Internet Service Providers who bill you for overshooting your download limit but dont answer your complaints when the net is down/slow.
4. Credit card companies who call you up when you are busy with office/sleep/food/driving/sex/tv and ask if you would like some stupid life insurance or medical insurance.
5. Private cabs who charge you for being 10 minutes late, but dont care a hoot if they come an hour late
6. Bloggers who ramble all kinds of nonsense (dont know any myself) and expect you to read their posts.

Rang De Basanti

Saw Rang De Basanti again. For the nth time. And it always leaves me a little dry-throated and misty-eyed. Is this the India that people like Mahatma Gandhi (yeah, I admire him. So f**k yourself if you don't agree with me), Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and countless unknowns gave their lives for? So that we could remember them, briefly, on certain days and then head to the closest mall for a movie? Haven't we lost the plot when after 60 years of independence 300 million of our people live below the 'poverty line', where state governments run coordinated pogroms and millions of peoples are displaced just to satisfy the needs of a few. Is this what our soldiers lay down their lives for even today? Is this what independence has come to mean?

No. Not to me. I find it very hard to digest the fact that I am part of an elite class that does not seem to think that freedom applies to everyone. How many of us have stopped to think while bursting diwali crackers about the child labourers in Sivakasi? Does it even register in our consciousness when we buy designer clothes that the equisite stitches are in fact done by small children who will never have the chance to wear normal clothes, forget these designer labels? Our sheer callousness doesnt stop with our fellow humans only. Oh no, we have to include the entire animal & plant kingdoms in our greed & apathy. So we lop of trees when they come in the way of our hoardings, shoot dogs on the street when they become too numerous, pollute our holy rivers, strangle gangetic dolphins. All in the name of development. Come again? Dev-what? In whose name?

It's at times like this when I wish that there was an easy solution. But like one of the characters says in Rang De Basanti, 'how many of them are we going to shoot? These corrupt politicians & bureaucrats haven't fallen from the skies. They've come from us'. And hence it is up to us to change things. So do we join the police, the military and the IAS as Rang De Basanti would like us to? Well, yes. Some of the change has to come from within the system. But I think that unless there the system is forced to change, things will never really improve. At least not fast enough. And this is exactly where I think that individual citizens & corporates must take a stand. We cannot use this country like its resources are meant for consumption in only our livetimes. No sir, as cliched as it sounds, unless we think about what country we will leave behind our generation will be remembered as one which had the power and the chance to change things. But instead stood back & waited until it was too late.

The following snap is from Greenpeace India's website. I think it says it all....

The choice is ours. Everyday one reads newspaper reports of how the Earth is getting into an ecological debt. And as anyone who has any sense will know, there comes a time when a debt must be repayed. The question is this..... are we going to help repay this debt or are we going to pass it on to our children, with accrued interest of course?

Visit to ISB

Last night a couple of friends and I went to ISB. It was late and there was a nip in the air. But we had this warm, fuzzy feeling coz for us it was like going home. :-)

Luckily, it was a term break so there weren't too many people from the new batch around. And so the 3 of us sauntered around like we still (?) owned the place. For a while it really did seem like it was last year and we would bump into someone from our batch. We even saw a guy who looked like Rohan Nag!! Saying that we were nostalgic would be an understatement. Seeing the quads/studios of people we knew brought back so many memories. I went to the mail room to see if any of my letters were lying there and there was a bunch of them!! 6 letters addressed to me. How cool is that?

Sareen's place where we had the rock party, Vaze's terrace where countless cigarettes were smoked and theories debated, Vishesh's quad where we celebrated holi - indoors, Rujuta's studio where I drank tea till 5 AM (and did nothing else) and countless others. We even went to the LRC and checked our mail there, for old time's sake.


Aah... ISB. That sheltered, first world ivory tower. Where all the problems of the world can be solved on an Excel sheet and deciding what to do is as simple as drawing a 2x2 matrix. The profs who 'work' (creative use of the word) sure are lucky. :P

Wonder if I'll be here for Solistic this year. I want to, but the dates seem screwed up. What with Gas the Ass choosing this date from all the other 364 days in the year to get hitched. What an ass!! Oh well, time will tell.

So Long Farewell

Every once in a while, not often mind you, but every now and then there comes a fork in the road. And its time to bid adieu to a friend. I came to this fork-in-the-road a couple of months ago. I knew what route I had to choose for it was very clear. But just because it the initial steps down the right path are different, I procrastinated and retraced my steps. Then a (repeated) series of events would guide me to the same fork-in-the-road and once again I would find myself pondering what to do.

Well finally, something happened that caused me to walk down the correct path. It was an event that I did not control, and frankly niether did I welcome. But in a way I was relieved for I always knew that it would happen sooner or later. So from now on, there will be no looking over my shoulder or wistful thinking. I am who I am. Though I sometimes forget. And who I am is a natural winger'.. to use a football terminology. I value my independence and like to operate on my own.

I like to talk to trusted friends before making any decision. And a very wise and learned man told me that I had made the right choice. That the best way to move on was to move on without looking back. And someone who is good enough to help Nelson Mandela solve his problem should be good enough to advise me. :-)

So long OG. Say hi to Whitney & Johnnie Black. I'll see you 25 years from now.

About Turn..

There's this friend of mine. Female. Studious. Sober. Ever since I've known her she has been like this. More inclined to academic pursuits rather than playing sports. She's the kind you would find in the library and not in the swimming pool. All until now. The last couple of months, she's taken to a physical fitness regime with a vengeance. Almost as if she wants to make up for lost time. She's on a strict health food diet, gyms everyday, spends her weekends either trekking, rock climbing or kick boxing. Talk about an image makeover!!

Makes you wonder what causes these (positive) changes in people. I mean, I've been more or less the way I am for a long long time. Lazy, content and happy-go-lucky. And for the life of me, I cant seem to figure out what would make me want to change my unhealthy lifestyle. Yeah yeah, I know I should change the way I live. But being a procrastinator of the highest order, I always find excuses to push things back. Bad back, bad throat, bad ankle. Sure, they are all pretty valid. But come on. Surely they cant account for each and every day. Lol..

I guess its high time I took a leaf from this admirable lady's book and burnt some blubber. Office gym. Here I come.

Manesar Trip

Howdy!!
The PP went on an offsite team visit to a resort in Manesar (near Gurgaon) called Surjivan. Nice place that is run by this couple and styled on the 'back to roots' theme. It was supposed to be eco-friendly and stuff. But I did notice a tethered doe and All Out mosquito repellants in the rooms. So I guess it wasnt all that eco-friendly. Hmmm.

Really had a nice time. Unlike some of the other offsite trips I had gone on, this one had just 2 hours of 'gyaan sessions' and the rest of the 2 days were spent parasailing, rappeling (is that how one spells it?) , zorbing and of course - boozing!! We had quite a mixed crowd but nevertheless it was fun. Especially since the agenda was set right from the top - HAVE FUN. Now thats what I call team building.

Will post a couple of snaps soon. Till then... cheerio.