Political compass

Take this test and check which side of political spectrum you fall in ,looks like I am a left-Libertarian
http://politicalcompass.org/test

Great Indian Divide

The recent incidents in Mangalore, young girls being thrashed by goons for not following "Indian culture" has opened up the divide deeply rooted in Indian society. The talk about morality is just a smoke screen for actual issue that is gender inequality. For years Pubs and Bars have been a male bastion, till then there was no protest about this being against our culture. When women started visiting pubs and bars often with men, conservative India has disapproved this, revealing the gender inequality that exists. Women in urban India try to break out of the four walls and try to assert themselves where as conservative India desperately wants their girls to live within the well-defined wall of social norms

    The other divide is the two India's we live in one which enjoys the fruit of economic liberalization, which has been a factor in allowing people to shed the conservatism. Now compare this to the people in the rural Indian who have been untouched by the economic growth and are clinging on to their conservatism. Politician are also cashing in on this divide. Instead of condemning these ghastly acts politicians are siding with the goons and talking about stopping the growth of "Pub Culture" and "Mall culture". Politicians are just trying to please their rural vote bank.

    Times are changing and India is also transforming both economically and socially. The clash between the reactionaries and liberals will continue.

Slumdog Millionaire

I watched the movie, which was nominated for 10 Oscars and I asked myself .Was this the greatest Indian movie made? Well the answer is no. I am no film critic but I surely know there are movies (Bollywood movies) that are better than SM in many aspects, but yet they are not nominated for Oscars. Anil Kapoor says that every Indian should be proud that this "Indian" movie has made it to the Oscars. I beg to differ. We look at the west for appreciation for our movies and winning an Oscar seems to be ultimate goal. But the fact is the movies made in India cater to the sensibilities of Indian audiences. Our culture is different from the west and our filmmakers should not be looking at the west for appreciation.

    I remember a scene in the movie Munnabahi . Circuit asks a foreign tourist why don't you go visit Taj Mahal or other tourist attraction he says "I want to see poor people, hungry people". The fascination of Indian poverty/slum in the west is immense and because the USP of this film is poverty, no wonder the film is doing so well. Without the subject of poverty the film would have no recognition in the west. I accept India is plagued by poverty and significant number of people are living below the poverty line .I am not trying to be an escapist but glorifying poverty to make financial gains is also not right. This film tries to reinforce the stereotype about India, poverty, child labour, beggary, and prostitution. This film is like a check list about the stereotypes mentioned. Yes there is the aspect of, a rag to riches story, of hope but these are overshadowed by other aspects.

    So should we never make films about poverty? No, movies have to be made. People have to be aware of the problems we face in our country but we don't have to make movies to please the western audience. Movies have to be made with certain sensibilities towards the poor. I don't think we need to glamorize poverty.

Mind Games

Have you encountered some of your friends telling about this amazing scheme or training which will help you make lot of money or give you eternal happiness I nearly fell for it. I am talking about two such instances

1. GoldQuest International
   
2. Landmark Education Forum
   

The two may not be connected totally but they share the same aggressive marketing and mind manipulation techniques in recruiting people into it.

Gold Quest international

Rhythm (Raise yourself to help mankind) this is the slogan of the company called Quest net. By now most of us in Bangalore  (people in the IT sector at least) would have heard of once ,through some you
know very well and some people whom you never knew well but became very friendly  only to lure you into this maze called Quest.
       It all starts with a simple phone call. It may be a very close friend of yours or an acquaintance you had met a long time ago. "Let's met up over a cup of coffee", surprised you are bound to ask the reason for this sudden urge to meet. An explanation is given to cover the real motive of the meeting. Usually your acceptance depends on your mood, the person who calls. If it is  your close friend you have no
options (even though you know what it is going to be), if it's someone you have hardly met probably you will say a no (if its person from the meeting is usually held in coffee shop ( mine was held in the office itself !!).If you give a negative response, they don't let go of you that easily. Your pestered relentlessly, in the end you get you give up and attend the presentation. Once you come to attend the meeting the Quest representative (QR) would have done half his job. Then the mind manipulation starts.

A qualified QR who has proven marketing credentials in Quest gives you a presentation . You are a sceptic at first analyzing each elements .Then slowly you get sucked in hypnotized .You think about this utopian world, where everyone becomes rich ,people spring in your mind of whom you can add into your network. So called proof is given about the credentials of the company, there wide range of  products .They persuade you to believe that a coin which is worth around ten thousand in the market is actually worth around thirty grand . A watch worth few thousand rupees will cost you around twenty times more than that. You are so overwhelmed by the future prospects that you don't think about the cost. If you are not able to afford the cost of product, no problem , take three credit card juggle around with your credit limit and use the time to make more people join. So you recover your money in three months, that's the funda in theory at least. In the end the QR says you need to take your decision as soon as possible and not to consult this with any of your contacts.  If you take the decision there itself probably it will be a positive one. If you consult do some research, then 90% of the time you would reject it. Once you join this system your personal life is totally screwed, your only motto becomes to recruit people, the relationships you share with your friends are thrown out of the window.

I searched in the internet and found this, the gold quest is modelled like a pyramid scheme (or something similar) . A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, often without any product or service being delivered. Here there was a product worth <10,000 sold at 30,000.Pyramid schemes are illegal in many countries. Pyramid schemes exploit greed and gullibility. A successful pyramid scheme combines a fake yet seemingly credible business with a simple-to-understand yet sophisticated-sounding money-making formula. The essential idea is that the mark, Mr. X, makes only one payment. To start earning, Mr. X has to recruit others like him who will also make one payment each. Mr. X gets paid out of receipts from those new recruits. They then go on to recruit others. As each new recruit makes a payment, Mr. X gets a cut. He is thus promised exponential benefits as the ''business'' expands.

Such ''businesses'' seldom involve sales of real products or services to which a money value might be easily attached. However, sometimes the ''payment'' itself may be a non-cash valuable. To enhance credibility, most such scams are well equipped with fake referrals, testimonials, and information. Clearly, the flaw is that there is no end benefit. The money simply travels up the chain. Only the originator (sometimes called the "pharaoh") and a very few at the top levels of the pyramid make significant amounts of money. The amounts dwindle steeply down the pyramid slopes. Of course, the worst off are at the bottom of the pyramid: those who subscribed to the plan, but were not able to recruit any followers themselves. This was the case in India ,once the network started increasing people in the bottom of the pyramid never got the money, a staggering 35,000 complains were received and all the people in the top of the pyramid were arrested and put behind bars for cheating. There assets often ran into several crore's of Rupees from the commission they received .Sadly many of my friends have lost a lot of money .

 

Landmark Education Forum

Now let's come to Landmark ,Landmark education is a global "personal development" company it has seminars in more than 100 countries and is worth millions. There is serious concerns over its unsettling techniques. There is intense pressure in handing over 7000 rupees and taking you into a mental journey you may not be equipped to handle. I watched a controversial television-documentary "Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus", presented an investigation of the activities of Landmark Education. The documentary has resulted in various legal repercussions in France, the Netherlands, Australia and the United States. The video shows a very direct sort of attack fairly abusive ,participants have said that it is emotionally very distressing .A women is shown in tears broken down by a self development course, this is all part of a land mark education ,participants are kept in a windowless room throughout the day for about 14 hours, consisting of a meal break and minimal bath room visits.It involves people one after the other are called up on stage and systematically broken down and later put back together and built up again. Sounds harrowing but this is a big business,with 160000 participating every year. Internationally Landmark international turns up 91 million every year. Testimonials of people include ,people with inflated confidence and insisting people to pay up the money and experience it themselves. One of the parents of student who attended said that her daughter's character changed and she totally drifted away from her.

After students have attended the course they are encouraged to bring in the close and near ones to a recruitment process. Then the hard sell begins. People are given a three hour session and are told that they would be doing an injustice if they don't sign up and doing their family an injustice too .They go one to say the money is insignificant, you are told to get your priorities straight ,and your selfish if you don't join. Once you end up in the recruitment session ,it is a beginning of a quiet sophisticated psychological process to change the way you believe about yourself , your family and world around you. Psychologists have commented that landmark uses a certain hypnosis technique. It's an intensive process to stop you from critically evaluating about the things that is being said and just accept and change your belief. There is a big emphasis on recruiting new people; it's almost made condition during the course to recruit new people to join. One of the participant who was forced to attend because of his wife's involvement in landmark was asked how he felt about recruiting new people by landmark, he said he felt guilty about doing it .Consequently his relationship with his wife was also strained. Relationship counsellors have got cases where one person does it and other doesn't and the relationship becomes sometimes untenable. The people running these courses are not mental help professionals they don't have the expertise to deal with peoples emotional aspects. What is even more of concern is land mark holds courses for children as young as eight years old. During the recruitment process land mark urges parents to involve their children. In one case a child was taken into a room alone with a landmark volunteer a total stranger to the child.        

    The documentary shows confidential document from Land mark. The document is pretty shocking, obviously kept secret by Landmark Education, from a presentation of the Landmark Forum , because right from page 1, for example, it says that the introduction doesn't last more than two minutes.  On page 2 it says that you have to write key words on the board.  On page 16, it says you have to move the chair to the right.  On page 22 you have to move the chair to the left.  There are even possible answers from participants so the facilitator knows exactly what to say. 

The Cult Awareness and Information Centre has listed the Landmark Forum among psychotherapy cults, in a collection of "cults and isms".The contention that the Forum is "cult-like" has been aired in at least half a dozen newspaper articles over the last decade. Landmark vehemently rejects the cult label and "freely threatens or pursues lawsuits against those who call it one."

After this report has been aired, Landmark has been kicked out of France for violating certain laws.

 

PS: I have not attended any session from landmark; my views are based on research on the net: YouTube and Wikipedia.

On Gold quest my views are a firsthand account.

    

"If you think there is something to good to be true, there must be something fishy!"

26/11 ..Looking beyond

Shock and awe that was feeling I felt during the terror attack in Mumbai. The sheer audacity with which these terrorist operated was hard to believe. Mumbai a city of dream for those three days was a horror story. The sense of anger and frustration about the political apathy is running across the entire country. Why do we have such poor security apparatus? Why are we using guns which are fit to be displayed in the museum? What is the IB and RAW doing? . It's very easy to put the blame on the "foreign hand" and divert the issue. People need answers.

    All said and done, we the middle class of this country also share the blame. For decades we have ignored the political system and taken democracy for granted. It is all great to bash up the politician and lay the blame entirely upon them. Tell me how many of us vote, hardly 50%.Some people ask why I should vote, one vote doesn't matter, I just think it's a waste of time. In democracy each vote matters .We are the educated masses, which are in a better position to find out what is good or bad. We need to get over the cynicism towards our politicians .There may be some bad apples but not all them are bad. We cannot let our democracy fail us. We are the custodians of our democracy and we need it to work for us.

    Finally I salute the martyrs who gave up their lives for this country. I salute the brave police officers and NSG for their bravery and perseverance to get the Job done. I hope young people in the country are inspired to join the army and police force.

Yes we can !

A Black man president of the US Wow!! I still cannot believe it. Forty years ago if anyone would have suggested that a black man will occupy the highest position in the US if not in the world, he would have been laughed at or ridiculed. Times have changed from the days of segregation and apartheid. Obama’s story is unique and when he says his story is not possible in any other country, I can’t disagree. Martin Luther’s dream of white America and black America walking hand in hand may finally come true.
I am a big fan of Barrack Obama ,read all his books heard all his speeches .I feel he represents hope for America if not the whole world. Hope that the world becomes a more peaceful place. Will he be able to convert talk to action is the big question. Will he be able to implement his Idea into action in these troubled times. The expectations are too high and probably incapable of fulfillment by any president. Time will be the ultimate judge.
After following the election in the US,I hope one day we will have leader in India who evokes the same kind of passion that Obama does. A person who doesn’t speak about religion ,caste , status. Who doesn’t win election by dividing a country but rather by unifying it. A person who says everybody in India are created equal be it Muslim ,Hindu ,Christian ,SC/ST ,OBC ,rich or poor everybody has an equal opportunity to put in their hard work and succeed.
I Hope.....

The Great India Dream

Harilal was your local panwala ,who ran his little pan shop in Mumbai next to the Bombay stock exchange .Ten years back he was in deep financial troubles, he was hardly able to make ends meet .He decided to put his life's savings of Rupees 10,000 into the stock market ,against peoples advices .After ten years he was financially stable ,was able to purchase a bike married off his two sisters ,all because of the returns he got from his investments.His dream of leaving a comfortable life became true.His story is what I call the Great Indian dream.A dream where a vibrant India shares its success with the common man.Where economic growth is not for the classes but for the masses.Where the signs of poverty are never seen or felt.I have a dream...
Fifteen years back when India opened its economy to the world ,few would have imagined the impact it would have on the Indian economy.We have built a solid foundation for our economy, the future beckons.I hear a lot about "The Indian growth story",I hear foreign countries investing millions of dollars.Its left upon us on how we make best use of this opportunity.We have proved that we can ,companies like Infosys ,Wipro,TATA have proven that we are global players.If we have to become economic super power we need to build more industries ,the hunger for growth should never subside.We should break out from our shell ,come out from our comfort zone ,we have to be more entrepreneurial.We need more Narayan Murthys and Dhirubhai Ambanis.We need people to build world class industries.We need to generate employment .We need to give people opportunity to participate and contribute toward this growth story
More than half of the population is working in the farm lands. For them to realize "The Great India Dream" we need to work with them.Help them by providing better technology ,better machinery.It is shocking to see one side of the country enjoying the fruits of economy while the other side not having one square meal .People are committing suicide shocking to say the least.To have vibrant economy we need to support agriculture in what ever way we can.
We need politicians to come together ,work in synergy.Leave there ideologies behind .We need the left and right to support issues which would help in the growth of this nation.We need political leaders who can think past "vote bank politics".

I have a dream.... "The Great India Dream"....

Onam Sadhya

Onam Sadhya (All dishes prepared by mum)
Originally uploaded by Λzur℮™

Amazing dishes prepared by mum on Onam

Onam is an annual harvest festival, celebrated mainly in the south Indian state of Kerala. It is a popular festival among the cultural repertoire of Malayalees, and falls during the month of Chingam (August-September as per the Gregorian calendar), the first month of the Malayalam calendar and lasts for ten days. Traditionally celebrated as a harvest festival, mythologically it is linked to Malayalee-Hindu folktales.But Onam is celebrated by people of all religions .

Onam sadhya is usually a feast served during this festival on banana leaves and serves rice along with at least an array of 4 dishes. Traditional pickles and papadam are also served . Dessert - is usually 'payasam ' a sweet dish made of milk, sugar and other traditional Indian savories.

See Wikipedia, Onam, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onam

123....Nuclear energy

After rigorous rounds of negotiation India finally signed the nuclear agreement with USA . Our energy requirement would have been met for the next few decades. Scientist applauded even I was thrilled ,finally no power cuts and no candle lit homes, they all would have been a thing of the past. Our neighbors Pakistan looked at the deal with envy (after the nuclear proliferation ,nuclear agreement with any nation was ruled out) China who acted as big brother in south Asia was afraid that it would tilt the military and economic balance towards India. Finally when the agreement was made public in India the reaction of the left and right wing BJP was really bad .The left in particular are opposing the deal and giving such ambiguous reasons and they say that India would loose its sovereignty .I have followed the 123 agreement and the Hyde act and have concluded that the contentious issue is that the deal can be terminated if India conducts a nuclear test , we will any way face international sanctions if we conduct a nuclear test with treaty or no treaty .Then why is the left so hell bent on scrapping this deal. The reasons can be found in the lefts outdated ideology .They have hard coded notion in there brains that the US is bad and India will never prosper if we have any association with .It is ironical that the left talk about sovereignty ,it is the same party who openly supported the Chinese during the sixties war with china .Some of the walls on the streets of Calcutta where painted “Chinese chairman is our chairman”.The left leaders are in constant touch with the Chinese comrades on the other side of china. So it is very much possible that left is heavily influenced by the Chinese government in opposing the deal. Its hard to believe the BJP is also opposing this deal because they where the ones who sarted it all when they where in power. The role of the opposition is not to oppose each and every thing the government does but constructively criticize and support the government if it s doing good for the country .I don't think the BJP should bring down just because they want to have mid term polls and get back in power
I am no supporter of the Congress but I praise PM Manmohan Singh for his stand on this issue .He says that history will judge his action ,I am sure it will be a turning point in India if this deal is passed .Just as in the early nineties when Manmohan singh changed the path of India with economic reforms this deal has the potential to make India an economic powerhouse

Friends....

I always believed you make friendship for a life time but it doesn't always work that way does it !!! We keep meeting new people every day but very few touch you or get close to you in such a way that they change your lives.Fortunately I have met handful of such people.They became really close ,closer than family.I have shared joys,sorrows,pain,anger ,practically my whole life revolved around them.I never thought I would loose any one.Everything in this world is dynamic nothing is constant.I have lost many friends some may come back some may never...
May be its all my fault ...some I took for granted ,I fought with some...some just vanished with out a trace.May be friendship is not meant to last a life time.As I it in front of the comp and pen this down I remember the days when I had unadulterated fun with my 'friends' sharing our dreams ,looking into the future ...I hope one day I will meet them all and never loose them again.....

Rationality God and Beyond...

Life would have been so uncomplicated if we were rational. All the conflicts in the world would have never taken place, no fights, and no misunderstandings. As I see the picture of sectarian violence in Punjab for a reason which seems so trifling, I wonder why cant humans just sit around a table and have a discussion . When the human ego is hurt, reason and level-headedness seems to be thrown out of the window. The yearning for revenge takes over. I thought that even I was a very rational person but I soon found out that I did act irrationally .May be humans are designed in such a way. If all of us always trusted being logical no one would have fallen in love. According to me love is the most crazy thing to do. We tend to do things which some times can never be explained, like people giving up there lives for love.
As I grew up my relation with god grew weaker. One main reason was that the questions that I asked about religion were never answered .Questions like how the earth was created, who created man. Science seems to answer all my questions .I have recognized that people want to consider that there exist a power greater than them which can be in charge of thing around us. I consider myself a agnostic but deep within myself there exist a feeling that I wish there was God who I can count on when things take the turn for the worse.
If we do believe in god ,why cant we understand that all religions or religious sects are equal. I fail to understand the religious discrimination and stereotyping .I have heard people say a certain religion is dead set against Indians, that is so not true how can we classify people merely on there religion. I have heard stories how people are discriminated based on caste. Some of them actually rub the backs of new comers of an association to find out that if a thread is around him. People are judged by there caste but not on content of there character. In the recently concluded UP elections I heard a new term "social engineering" a way in which castes based politics is played out. People use religion to polarize section of society to win votes .When will people realize that development issues are much more important than caste.
People have to blend in religion and rationality, take the good from these and move forward in a progressive manner.

Organized chaos

For most of us life is just one organized chaos, though we plan meticulously to the finest detail, it never goes according to plan though we get the desired result. India is one fine example of organized chaos (OC), the worlds largest democracy we have the most corrupt system but life goes on unlike our neighbors we enjoy relative stability .One more example is the traffic in Bangalore we have some of the most awful road and traffic jams but most of us can calculate the time we need to reach our destination, its really captivating. Some from the west comes here he would go totally nutty but we Indian’s know how to handle this chaos in a very organized way.
I have been always fascinated by these management books how people achieve by planning,forecasting and stuff like that but what happens actually is quiet different .Its better to understand who we are what suits us better and use this to our advantage. I had a friend who was the finest example of OC he used to study only the night before the exam and pass ,after getting lot of advice from parents and teachers he started to put in effort from the beginning of the course ,he did this but hi grades hardly improved .So what he learnt was it was better to do a crash course at the end than slog out the whole year. I know I will be getting lot of flak parents reading this blog (heheh)

What do we want from life ???

When I ask myself this question...frankly speaking I really dont know.Making money is that what we want to do or going after ure dreams ...??As I sit in front of the comp day in and day out undestanding a piece of code I ask myself is this want I want to do for rest of myself.At first I thought being a techie is in the in thing to be now I wonder wether it was a rite choice...may be making money first comes as the first priority over your dreams...When I see around me every one is interested in mostly money or are they ???
I dream one day of breaking out of ths system(hopefully) and chase my dreams.May be one day I will become a Photographer and visit different places meet new people and once for all break away from the SYSTEM.......

Another weekend ......

Another weekend comes and as usual I am sitting in front of the TV and the computer...pretty boring..untill I came accross this website called www.paritrana.org it is party formed by five IIT graduates.What impressed me most was that they had left there high paying jobs and joined politics...how much they will succede is left be seen...or will they even last or just fade way seeing the daunting scene.

My first Blog

I am very excited cos I am blogging for the first time in my life....so start on this day january the 26th republic of my great country INDIA...republic day I wonder how many of us know its significance....according to me this was the day the constitution was drafted.I wonder any one really cares about the country ,ppl think abt the country on only 2 days republic day and independence,why dont ppl tink abt the country for rest of the 363 days.I blame myself also,I get these patriotic feelings on these days and forget abt it..I remeber wat Jhon F Kennedy "Ask not wat ure country can do for u ask wat u can do for ure country"....
I was just watching on tv abt tis blind girl who overcame all odds and became a HR excecutive of the company that makes me feel so small..inspite of having evrything I am cribbing of things I dont have....may be most of us are or arent we....???