I used to think that different countries have different cultures different attitudes; but again and again I get proved wrong! (Lets excuse me broader meaning of culture here).
For example, today I visited the German Embassy in Washington DC to get my Business visa done. I can not help but notice the 'stereo typical' expressions of those people working there. Always stubborn, ridiculing and as much inhuman as possible! They Will make you feel (and believe me, they will make sure of that) neglected and 'at their mercy', while you are at there.
This an invariable experience; no matter where you go. I have been to US embassy in India and Canada, been to Canadian embassy in US and now the German embassy in US! You would think that these countries being from different parts of the world will exhibit differences; but you are nothing short of being proven wrong. You can not evade that Smugness, just like you cant evade those politicians during elections!
And this attitude is infectious! I had an appointment at 1.30PM today. In the confirmation letter, the embassy makes sure to note that 'You can not be more than 10 min late, or otherwise you appointment will be considered as canceled!'. Now after reading that, I left my hotel like 45 min before, considering that after taking a cab and considering noon traffic (if any) I will still reach there in time. Guess what!? I reach there well in time only to be greeted by the security guard who simply whisked my away telling me that I am too early! Its darn cold wintry weather outside and this fellow is making a wrong choice between 'too hyped' security concerns and basic human ethics! Believe me, I felt the apathy to be colder than the wind-chill, in my face!
Come what may, I am pretty sure it will take a long way for me to change my opinions about these government officials!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Jodha and shailabano.
Jodha-Akbar is a recent release from Bollywood. The story is about a 15th Century Muslim ruler of India who married a Hindu rajput princess. The marriage was a contrived relationship established for political harmony amongst different then existing kings; which later on grows to bloom as a inexpungiable exemplary love-story! The relation was, although intended to be a trendsetter, it was one of very few genuine attempts to establish friendly accord between Hindus and Muslims.
Bombay, another 1995 classics from Bollywood, whose story is set against the backdrop of riots those took place after Babri masjid demolition. Shailabano is a small town girl who gets attracted towards Shekhar a well educated wanna-be journalist from Bombay. The plot is same, a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl trying to stand their ground in the hot political arena.
It was really a co-incident that I ended up watching both the movies on the same weekend! It doesn't take a Real smart person to notice the congruence of the plot! Tying a nuptial knot across religions. Jodha, a Hindu girl gets married into a Muslim family and Shailabano, a Muslim girl gets married into a Hindu family. Jodha takes an idol of lord Krishna with her when she moves to Akbar's palace where as Shailabano takes her Koran with her when she elopes to Shekhar's apartment. Both families preserve their own religions in married life (,although Jodha later on got converted to Muslim religion there was no forceful proselytizing.)
As mentioned earlier, Jodha's story starts with political tinge and then evolves into a love story where as Shailabano's case is a love story in the beginning and then gets engulfed into the religeo-political war! Ultimatum is, both relations survives the turmoil. Back in 15th century Muslims were ruling India and in 20th century, although labeled secular, Hindus are leading the political arena.
Similarly there are differences in stories as well. Akbar is the King where as Shekhar is a middle class common man struggling at times! What Akbar did was an exemplary thing for religious harmony, where as Shekhar was reinstating social faith in love!
So is it like no matter when the storyline is set, India the oldest religion-melting pot, has been embracing cross religion harmony!?
Bombay, another 1995 classics from Bollywood, whose story is set against the backdrop of riots those took place after Babri masjid demolition. Shailabano is a small town girl who gets attracted towards Shekhar a well educated wanna-be journalist from Bombay. The plot is same, a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl trying to stand their ground in the hot political arena.
It was really a co-incident that I ended up watching both the movies on the same weekend! It doesn't take a Real smart person to notice the congruence of the plot! Tying a nuptial knot across religions. Jodha, a Hindu girl gets married into a Muslim family and Shailabano, a Muslim girl gets married into a Hindu family. Jodha takes an idol of lord Krishna with her when she moves to Akbar's palace where as Shailabano takes her Koran with her when she elopes to Shekhar's apartment. Both families preserve their own religions in married life (,although Jodha later on got converted to Muslim religion there was no forceful proselytizing.)
As mentioned earlier, Jodha's story starts with political tinge and then evolves into a love story where as Shailabano's case is a love story in the beginning and then gets engulfed into the religeo-political war! Ultimatum is, both relations survives the turmoil. Back in 15th century Muslims were ruling India and in 20th century, although labeled secular, Hindus are leading the political arena.
Similarly there are differences in stories as well. Akbar is the King where as Shekhar is a middle class common man struggling at times! What Akbar did was an exemplary thing for religious harmony, where as Shekhar was reinstating social faith in love!
So is it like no matter when the storyline is set, India the oldest religion-melting pot, has been embracing cross religion harmony!?
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Smoking the smokeys!
Traveling is not so rare a hobby and it becomes quite exciting depending upon how the journey is (company matter critically but in that case life in itself is a journey!) One of my friends is one such travel crazy person, but before calling him travel crazy his much well known obsession is driving (and) cars! He recently achieved a mile-stone in this, when he bought himself a brand new BMW. Owing to the reputation of BMW lesser I say about it better it is. I was one of the privileged invited 'accomplice' to bring his BMW back from Spartanburg, South Carolina. The trip was fun and it ended as quickly as it all started.
We started on Thursday evening by taking a flight to Raleigh, NC from Philadelphia. The flight was reminiscent of ST travel in Maharashtra in all respect; right from finding you a best seat to getting to the destination unexpectedly early! The flight was smooth though. Driving Pontiac GP from Raleigh to Spartanburg was not too bad. It’s very interesting the way GM has designed dash-boards in this car. They have made every effort to make the passenger feel that he is the neglected 'Object' in that car. The complete dash-board is pointing towards driving seat. Thankfully it was not a long journey and a stop over in Charlet, SC for dinner helped us a lot. We tried Mexican restaurant that day and believe me I was completely wrong in guessing how hot Tabasco sauce is. I had to pay my wrong guess by loosing all my senses for the rest of the dinner. I can now confidently assert that cartoons are not out of the world drawings... you can see people almost exactly like that if you are at the right place at right time. The desserts for the day were served as a stay in an excellent hotel arranged by BMW for their esteems customers.
Next day started pretty early morning (although I am sure my friend may not have noticed it, owing to his excitement!). BMW offers their customers test ride in testing cars, making them experience the power of the car they are buying. We had a slalom drive, ABS testing, DTC testing and x-5 off-road drive. Driving slalom on 335 was fun, you don’t get to turn and twist the car otherwise. ABS, Antilock Breaking System was a challenge for me. You are asked to drive the car at the speed of 45mlh to 55mph (drivers didn’t follow the speed limits even there) and when you reach at certain predefined point, apply the breaks as hard as you could. The screeching noise assured me of the speeding violations! Third ride was REAL fun; it was the Dynamic Traction Control. You drive the car on the skid pad and you get to test the DTC capability of BMW and stunning they were.
One interesting thing was, before this all ball-game started, we were taken into the room and the expert drivers of BMW educated us on how to drive. At one point, Marvin was explaining us how you can take a sharp corner turn. While explaining the speed-limits; he made this interesting remark - 'If you enter a sharp corner turn where prescribed speed limit is 35mph at the speed of 100mph, all we can say is 'Then Physics takes over''. I wonder how thoughtful that remark is. It exactly tries to capture what human endeavors are all trying to do. It was the most less words anyone could have used to express what our race is trying to achieve. The day ended with an off-road drive of x-5 preceding the actual delivery of black-beauty.
Because we were in the vicinity of Smokey Mountains, we also drove there and stayed there for a day. It was not the best season to travel there but we had our fun, after all hiking on frost trails is not something that you can plan on. It was 3 mile long trail and both of us were pretty exhausted by the time we were done with it. Next stop was Gatlinburg, TN. It’s a nice small little tourist town where we enjoyed 'Brownie Obsession' at TGIF. Enjoying chocolate fudge with ice-cream in dead cold whether really speaks for your addiction to chocolate. After that we drove to Virginia and stayed near the National Mnt. Roger recreation area. Although we were planning on visiting that park, early morning blues helped us to conveniently skip on that plan. The big gawking thing next was driving back to Delaware, a 10 hour long drive, eased by driving pleasure of one of the best cars I have ever been into.
On our way back home we decided to take the Blue-ridge Parkway, the part of Appalachian Mountain trails but unfortunately that road was closed. So we had to take a d-tour, which did not disappoint us at all. The d-tour was as good as a racing track with banking to it. It would only take a fool not to take all the (undue) advantages of that road; and my friend wasn't ready to be called as fool.
Reaching back home after that long journey was not as exhausting as it was to think about the next working day! Another thing that I came to know on this trip was you can still go to sleep with a 300hp twin turbo engine vrooming in your ears and a dark blue sky with frost trails on your mind and a busy next day at your hand!
Photo-album link -
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/562442968IoOHQp?vhost=good-times
We started on Thursday evening by taking a flight to Raleigh, NC from Philadelphia. The flight was reminiscent of ST travel in Maharashtra in all respect; right from finding you a best seat to getting to the destination unexpectedly early! The flight was smooth though. Driving Pontiac GP from Raleigh to Spartanburg was not too bad. It’s very interesting the way GM has designed dash-boards in this car. They have made every effort to make the passenger feel that he is the neglected 'Object' in that car. The complete dash-board is pointing towards driving seat. Thankfully it was not a long journey and a stop over in Charlet, SC for dinner helped us a lot. We tried Mexican restaurant that day and believe me I was completely wrong in guessing how hot Tabasco sauce is. I had to pay my wrong guess by loosing all my senses for the rest of the dinner. I can now confidently assert that cartoons are not out of the world drawings... you can see people almost exactly like that if you are at the right place at right time. The desserts for the day were served as a stay in an excellent hotel arranged by BMW for their esteems customers.
Next day started pretty early morning (although I am sure my friend may not have noticed it, owing to his excitement!). BMW offers their customers test ride in testing cars, making them experience the power of the car they are buying. We had a slalom drive, ABS testing, DTC testing and x-5 off-road drive. Driving slalom on 335 was fun, you don’t get to turn and twist the car otherwise. ABS, Antilock Breaking System was a challenge for me. You are asked to drive the car at the speed of 45mlh to 55mph (drivers didn’t follow the speed limits even there) and when you reach at certain predefined point, apply the breaks as hard as you could. The screeching noise assured me of the speeding violations! Third ride was REAL fun; it was the Dynamic Traction Control. You drive the car on the skid pad and you get to test the DTC capability of BMW and stunning they were.
One interesting thing was, before this all ball-game started, we were taken into the room and the expert drivers of BMW educated us on how to drive. At one point, Marvin was explaining us how you can take a sharp corner turn. While explaining the speed-limits; he made this interesting remark - 'If you enter a sharp corner turn where prescribed speed limit is 35mph at the speed of 100mph, all we can say is 'Then Physics takes over''. I wonder how thoughtful that remark is. It exactly tries to capture what human endeavors are all trying to do. It was the most less words anyone could have used to express what our race is trying to achieve. The day ended with an off-road drive of x-5 preceding the actual delivery of black-beauty.
Because we were in the vicinity of Smokey Mountains, we also drove there and stayed there for a day. It was not the best season to travel there but we had our fun, after all hiking on frost trails is not something that you can plan on. It was 3 mile long trail and both of us were pretty exhausted by the time we were done with it. Next stop was Gatlinburg, TN. It’s a nice small little tourist town where we enjoyed 'Brownie Obsession' at TGIF. Enjoying chocolate fudge with ice-cream in dead cold whether really speaks for your addiction to chocolate. After that we drove to Virginia and stayed near the National Mnt. Roger recreation area. Although we were planning on visiting that park, early morning blues helped us to conveniently skip on that plan. The big gawking thing next was driving back to Delaware, a 10 hour long drive, eased by driving pleasure of one of the best cars I have ever been into.
On our way back home we decided to take the Blue-ridge Parkway, the part of Appalachian Mountain trails but unfortunately that road was closed. So we had to take a d-tour, which did not disappoint us at all. The d-tour was as good as a racing track with banking to it. It would only take a fool not to take all the (undue) advantages of that road; and my friend wasn't ready to be called as fool.
Reaching back home after that long journey was not as exhausting as it was to think about the next working day! Another thing that I came to know on this trip was you can still go to sleep with a 300hp twin turbo engine vrooming in your ears and a dark blue sky with frost trails on your mind and a busy next day at your hand!
Photo-album link -
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/562442968IoOHQp?vhost=good-times
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Raj ka Raj.
Raj Thakare, is certainly not a new name anymore! But all for the wrong reasons. In todays post I dont really want to go into the debate of Outside Vs. Insiders but yes I certainly abhore the manner in which Raj is handling his business right now.
He apologised for a death of a Maharashtrian and it was quoted that he made sure his apologies are restrained only for that person. He is NOT SORRY for all the mayhem HE is causing. Rajdeep Sardesai is not wrong when he expressed his opinion -
http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/rajdeepsardesai/1/50119/the-legacy-of--goonda-raj.html
Yes; no matter what you say, you will always find followers and so will Raj; but I do beleive in todays generation and expect them to show their maturity (and you bet they are).
I close with wishing good health to Mharashtra and happy valentine's day to Raj Thakarey!
He apologised for a death of a Maharashtrian and it was quoted that he made sure his apologies are restrained only for that person. He is NOT SORRY for all the mayhem HE is causing. Rajdeep Sardesai is not wrong when he expressed his opinion -
http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/rajdeepsardesai/1/50119/the-legacy-of--goonda-raj.html
Yes; no matter what you say, you will always find followers and so will Raj; but I do beleive in todays generation and expect them to show their maturity (and you bet they are).
I close with wishing good health to Mharashtra and happy valentine's day to Raj Thakarey!
Friday, February 1, 2008
Appreciating diversity in India.
As mentioned before I beleive India is thriving on almost every aspect, and many of us want to gauge the measure of this development. To quench that thirst we have all sorts of quotients, main one being GDP (9% GDP growth rate for successively 5th or 6th year, can you imagine!?). But for few people, they want more; and so we come up with different statistical figures of total educated woemen, Child labour etc etc.
But are we really understanding these figures? Indian society strata is REAL diverse. There are people who make it into the Forbes world's rich list and still India's face known to many people abroad is the face of old poor street-hosted family looking for some food! And thats REAL! (if you dont beleive it, visit Mumbai.. the facts are there on the streets.) It's not out of the world for any nation to have such a diverse society stratas, but by far India hosts one of the most healthiest of them.
Accepting this, does it really make any sense to come up with one figure representing any damn thing across nation? Well may be coming up is fine for some purpose, but to beleive it and be proud of it or be ashamed of it does not make any sense. Few years back when Mani shankar Iyar was Minister of Commerce & Industry, he mentioned this exact point. He said (and I paraphrase), "Dont just say that GDP is 9%, concentrate that its 9% just because of one [IT] sector. May be we need GDP's per sector."
But are we really understanding these figures? Indian society strata is REAL diverse. There are people who make it into the Forbes world's rich list and still India's face known to many people abroad is the face of old poor street-hosted family looking for some food! And thats REAL! (if you dont beleive it, visit Mumbai.. the facts are there on the streets.) It's not out of the world for any nation to have such a diverse society stratas, but by far India hosts one of the most healthiest of them.
Accepting this, does it really make any sense to come up with one figure representing any damn thing across nation? Well may be coming up is fine for some purpose, but to beleive it and be proud of it or be ashamed of it does not make any sense. Few years back when Mani shankar Iyar was Minister of Commerce & Industry, he mentioned this exact point. He said (and I paraphrase), "Dont just say that GDP is 9%, concentrate that its 9% just because of one [IT] sector. May be we need GDP's per sector."
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