Hi, I am Salim

Suddenly a bus screeched past us.

Me: Driver seems to be in a hurry to go wish the wifey "Happy Valentine"

Rickwala: Yeah, nearing midnight aint it?

Me: Hmmm

Rickwala: So, you married?

Me: No man, I am merrily unmarried

Rickwala: Tell you what, when you get married, make it a love marriage. Nothing like marrying the one you love. I have been married 15 years and I have loved every minute of it.

Me: Hmmm

Rickwala: Know what, when I get home tonite, I will take a wonderful rose to my wife. Will go right now and get one for 5 bucks.

Me: Who sells roses for 5 bucks these days?

Rickwala: They do, to me. If you go there with a torn shirt and driving a rickshaw, I bet they will give you one for 5 bucks only.

Me: Hmmm (Cursing my damn luck for being educated, well dressed and having an IT job)

Rickwala: So, as I say, always marry the one you love. There is nothing like it in life. Trust me, you will live a very happy life.

Me: Hmmming

Rickwala: Here you are at your bus stand. Don't worry, buses for Gandhinagar start from here till 1 in the night. You will find one soon.

Me(Paying the money): Thanks, was nice talking to you Mr....

Rickwala: I am Salim and am happily married to a Miss Pandya.

Backdrop:

The incident happened in Ahmedabad, the place where the worst Godhra rioting happened. Gujarati Hindus do not look favourably at Hindu women marrying Muslim guys. The vice versa rarely happens and under both circumstances the couple are usually shunned by the people. There are reasons for and against the practice. But meeting a Muslim guy, happily married for 15 years to a Hindu woman, living in the Old City of Ahmedabad in Juhapura, which is where most extremists reside, where the residences are ghettoised into Hindu and Muslim quarters is a unique experience for someone like me who has been a keen observer of Hindu - Muslim relations in my country.

Chandrayaan - India's moon mission

India's much famed moon mission - Chandrayaan 1 is finally said to have been over. I have been searching on the internet and trying to find some concrete benefits that we as a nation have gained from this moon mission.

I have seen comments and posts that mention some specific benefits:

1. The information of indigenous minerals present in the moon. Going forward one might go for colonization of moon to extract the minerals.
2. To stay in competition and respected as a nation which has made advancement in the field of science and technology.
3. Relationship between different countries improves through R&D exchange among different countries.
4. We will be able to understand the start of life through moon. It is believed that all the planets and their satellites (natural ones of course) are created at the same time.

5. Its the cheapest mission to the moon.

6. We might be able to help other countries launch their satellites and hence earn revenue.

There might be more, but this is the gist of most of it. Inspite of it being a grand success, the Apollo mission was also much maligned in the American media.

Why did the politicians agree to the Chandrayaan moon mission then? For the simple reason that it costs just 400 crores which is pocket change for our corrupt politicians. looking at the sum I believe even Laluji can send his buffaloes to the moon. He will of course, but only when it is sponsored by the government.

I am proud of the achievement of ISRO and our Indian scientists - after having graduted through a similar education system I can actually empathise much better with them. But, just as I do not believe that we need to spend such a huge part of our GDP for defence, I do not see the need for the moon mission too.

Chandrayaan - the moon mission is finally over though and so is the pocket change that we lost for conducting it. I liked a comment on one of the blogs though which said that we should not be very proud about sending the cheapest mission on the moon as it just emphasizes how badly paid our scientists are. Food for thought.

Adieu....

Singh is King

So, the true Sardar is going to rule the country once again. We just hope that he is able to do so for the whole of the next five years. Given the sycophancy that exists in the Congress Party, it seems certain that sooner rather than later, Rahul Gandhi will be promoted to the Raj gaddi.

What sort of a democracy is this, where the default option is the winner, where DMK wins after it promises rice at 1 kg and free color TVs to all. Can we ever expect an Obama in India. I doubt it. Primarily because the Indian political system is a very closed circle. Being a part of this circle is tough and being able to make a difference after being a part of this circle is tougher.

The commentary on TV is saying that the people of India have voted for stability and that they are far more intelligent than what we presume. Its just another example of the intellectual paucity that we face as a nation. The gaurds of our culture, tradition and the so called mouthpiece of the nation - our media is going gung ho because what they wished to happen, did happen. I fail to understand how the Indian junta is responsible for this verdict and how they voted for "Stability".

Personally, I wished well for Gujarat and Modi's comprehensive victory has proved that nothing works as well as development does. All credit to the smart Gujjus who know where their money is. Moving a little further with that, it is really sad albiet a bit expected to see that MNS did have an impact on the votes in Maharashtra. With the kind of tactics that they have resorted to gain votes and attention, it would have had been nicer if the Maharashtrains would have thrown them out too.

Am in Gandhinagar these days and this time too, there have been a lot of changes in my city. It is surprising to note that every time I come here, I see a lot of new things happening and the proactive Gujarat government seems to be working really well nowadays. Mr. Modi rocks. And Gujarat seems like heaven compared to Mumbai and Pune now. Hope this continues.

India : A failed democracy

The elections are here again and the same old tamasha is set to begin. But after looking at the US presidential race and watching the rise of Obama, there is that desire in our hearts, as Indians to see something like that happen in this country too.

Everywhere around is the cacophony of noises, urging us to go and vote. The youth must vote they say. Aamir Khan is going to come all the way from US to vote. He isn't the youth though. :-) In a democracy like ours, how effective do you think, our votes can be? How much impact will the young, educated and understanding youth's vote will have on who is going to win the election? The Sardar who let down all Sardars, or the one who likes to equate himself with India's Sardar, or the messiah of the poor, who it seems will reserve everything for the poor only, or the one who is himself paralysed but wants to work the whole country.

We know they are a bunch of fools, nay a bunch of conniving cheats, who let alone be the prime minister, aren't even worth letting inside our houses. Yet they exhort us to vote. For whom???
Why??? To aid and abet more terrorism in this country? To aid an abet more corruption, more politics, more reservations for the undeserving???

Please don't vote.

The truth is that we are a failed democracy, a country that has a democratic system that spurns meritocracy and exalts all kinds of reservations, a country with a system that will not ever let a true, honest, upright, willing, young man rule itself. We are a nation of the satan and he is the one who rules.

Don't vote for the satan.
Please don't vote.

The Stable Life Syndrome

I just shifted to the PMI office of Satyam at Pune. The IT crowd in general is a very young crowd, with most of us under the age of 30, just passing out of college. But the demographics at PMI aka Manikchand Ikon building at Pune are a bit different. Just like STC - Hyderabad, a lot of the staff working here is settled in Pune. They have families and they bring tiffins from home to the office here. Coming to this office I have made a few observations. I have no idea of the veracity of my theories, but I can propound them nevertheless.

I believe that the average salary earning, 9 to 6 tiffin holding worker, be it from IT or from some other industry is one of the reasons behind inactive society that we see at large. The reason being that having a family implies added responsibility on an individual leaving him with that much lesser time to spare for the the society. His life and his world which is small in the first place becomes even smaller after having a family. Even more poignant is the fact that the higher the income in such families, the higher is the insulation from ground realities.

This is also true because an average middle class individual, post marriage, with a high salary tends to be in a comfort zone, such as never experienced before in life. A life which started as a struggle through school, scoring highly throughout college and finally landing a cushy job as the prize for all the hardwork. Such an individual is far more interested in enjoying the fruits of his labours rather than being proactive to the issues that face our country.

In the end, I will pin down the importance for a "Stable Life" as being one of the chief resons for the usual insensitivity that surrounds. This "Stable Life" does receive a rude shock when there are bombings in hotels that we visit and railway stations that we leave from. But it hardly matters to the same people if our soldiers are fighting for their lives in the cold in Kashmir, if the North East is plagued by Maoism or the naxals. One of the reasons that nations like the United States do get to elect someone like Obama as president is because of the proactivity of its citizens who believe and desire change - something that most "Stable Life" living Indian don't want.

How to rid of this? Encourage the young to marry old. The older they get married at, the more proactive they stay for the state - I believe. The more such proactive denizens, the better off we all are.

Please don't hesitate to post comments and tell me why this seems a hare brained scheme to you. :-)

Reality Sinks In

The job is boring. The company is breaking. And the worries are mounting.

The first time I heard the news of Raju's confession, I was shocked and excited. I was happy that finally there is something that is happening in Satyam. No, that wasn't a wisecrack.

But now, the adrenaline has drained, the excitement has gone and reality is sinking in. Just as graduating from the best college in Gujarat puts you in a different league altogether, getting thrown out of Satyam also puts you in a completely different league. More so when you have spent the one year in Satyam on bench. Freelancing does provide the dough to last but it is not easy to freelance forever. Making plans of becoming an enterpreneur are easy, but finding a single project idea worth the money is tough.

It seems the tiger that Raju was riding is now slowly closing its jaws, inch by inch, over our necks. The economy is bad and is going to become worse. Our bosses have advised us to start looking for a new job.

There is despondancy creeping in for sure, but it is also with a lot of desperation. Options abound, but which oen to go for is still an issue. Lets pray for the best.

When Satyam Falls

I live in an area called Aundh in Pune. The USP of the area is that it lies in the vicinity of Pune University and on the way to the Hinjewadi IT Park. Hinjewadi houses an IT park and a Biotech park and it is at a distance of 16 kms from Aundh. Nearly 1 lakh people work in office buildings of Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Tech Mahindra, Satyam, Barclays and other companies in the IT park.

I travel to my office by a 45 minutes bus ride. All through the ride on both sides of the road I see hoarding of Flats for Sales. There are hoardings marketing 3BHKD and also 3BHKDG (3 Bedroom Hall Kitchen, Dining and Garden) flats available with "ravishing amenities". The rate of infrastructure growth in Pune is amazing. The basic amenities unfortunately aren't keeping up as I believe that this Maharashtra government is just as good for nothing as others. The CYG - Commonwealth Youth Games did bring in some development, but it was too less, too late.

Getting back to the point, the exponential development that I have seen in Pune and the Pimpri area puts even Mumbai to shame. Pune is a beautiful city, with superb natural cover, great weekend getaways - for travel lovers like myself and a soothing climate all the year around. Most of these things didn't bring much development for all these years. What brought this spate of infrastructure investment was the blooming IT industry. In 10 years' time Aundh Gaon was replaced by Aundh Annexe. Young IT professionals with loads of money to spend caused the boom that broke college students from all over India couldn't.

Hyderabad, is a similar jewel of Southern India. Bangalore might have overtaken it in terms of investment because of its more pleasant climate, but Hyderabad also houses many multinational IT giants like Microsoft, Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant and Satyam. Satyam is definitely the jewel of Hyderabad.

I remember we used to get a 10% Satyam discount in a lot of stores in Hyderabad. The Satyam brand name was revered and for the local Hyderabadi it was a dream come true. A lot of it has changes in the past fortnight. But Hyderabad's dependence on Satyam hasn't. A huge number of people still depend on this company. The reason being, that the 500 crore salary that is paid each month, doesn't just fill the pockets of Satyamites and the companies like transport, housekeeping etc. that support us, but percolates down to all the maid servants and rickshaw drivers who charge exorbibant amount of money from Satyamites.

Saving Satyam is akin to saving a lot of Hyderabad. I love the city and I love my job too. Hope they both keep safe.

Contribute to the Save Satyamites Fund

It has been a long time since I last blogged. With Satyam's impending doom, I have gotten into contingency planning mode. :-) I have been busy trying to learn how to earn money through blogging. I recently created a new blog at http://www.satyam-news.blogspot.com/ and I have been updating it quite regularly with news about Satyam. After setting up adsense etc. there I have realised that old blogs are best. I still get much more hits here as compared to there. I thought that the attractive URL might help. Apparently, it didn't. Though as an afterthought, I'd say "satyam-scam" would have helped.

Some tongue in cheek laughter notwithstanding, times are bad. More so for us Satyamites. So those of you who are eager and willing to contribute a few seconds of your time can contribute to the adsense ads hanging around the blog. (Directions - one on the left, one at the footer) For the more indulgent of my friends, please comment on my blog and I will give you my account number.

Please contribute generously to the Save Satyamites Fund.