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.